Transcript for:
Insights on Modern Entrepreneurship and Generational Change

Today's 2022 year old is actually very different from his father. And the father is copying him. I used to ride a tricycle at 400 feet.

That too with a helmet. My dad used to ride a motorcycle with a helmet. I don't want to wear a helmet.

So I felt like that was my DNA. And I feel like if you make a good product, the three parts that aspiration, value, delight. If you buy a foam for Rs. 200, I get complaints that the phone is not getting over. Is there something wrong with this? You know, modern trade, most of the products are a combination of maida, palm oil, sugar, and potatoes.

These are the 4-5 things. Potatoes. They are one of the most under spoken about trade of founders of survival. They can go through shit, but they'll survive.

And if you survive, you will thrive. Podcast is one big part, what else? That is one, the second is getting deals for my marketing company.

Okay. We have a marketing company called MarketUp. In which we help companies with YouTube.

I've seen so many companies burn ads, burn money in ads. So I wanted to show them that there is another way that you can grow if you genuinely create viral content. I had read a book by CMO of Xigo which is called Fast.

cheap and viral. So that book gave me the idea that I should genuinely create viral content. If I make it good, people will automatically share it.

So a content piece which has no selling is the best sales content. Correct. People don't realise that by the way. Yeah, exactly.

People think, especially brand managers and all, they think, where is my low, where is this, where is that. They don't realise that the consumer has so much fatigue to advertising. The moment they see advertising content, they'll be like, you don't run ads.

We have to run it but our marketing is now non branded stuff. A lot of our ads are non branded. What does non branded mean?

It means we will not put a logo or selling a product a lot. We are doing things around Gen Z, around behaviour, vox pops, barbershop. We have a lot of content like this.

Why do you live here in Delhi? Our office is now Gudgaon. Earlier we started very close to Saket Unli.

Our office was next to Select Study Park. Okay, DLF Avenue. DLF, what was its name?

Square one wall. The one next to the Selectivity was a commercial building. Actually, there are two or three things. The manufacturing ecosystem in North India is very good for personal care. For Himachal, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, that's in the belt.

We have very good factories for our kind of products. So you have done the entire vertical integration. We wanted access to contract manufacturing. I didn't want to spend a lot of money making it in Himachal and then transporting it to Bombay or Pune or Bangalore.

At least initially. Delhi was a good place and Delhi's outbound logistics was also cheaper. Also, Delhi was, compared to Mumbai, very cheap on rent.

And third thing was talent was very amply available. It's still very amply available. I think Delhi is the best country to start a company today.

So if you look at that... There is no Bangalore? According to me, there is absolutely no Bangalore. So you think Delhi is better than Bangalore?

1000%. Why is that? I think Delhi has less froth, more substance. mindset.

Fraud means all funding, no revenue type companies. Not no revenue but people go after shiny new objects. Like Bangalore is very similar to Silicon Valley. So there's a much higher chance of very disruptive business coming out of Bangalore compared to Delhi.

But the average high quality business, more chance of it coming out of Delhi than Bangalore. I think two, three reasons. In Delhi, at least when I started, I had a lot of access to great talent.

So Zomato at that time was one of them. time Snapdeal, Delivery, Rivigo, Jabong, Paytm, I can count off the top of my head but there were at least 20 more very good quality, Foodpanda, very good quality businesses from an OYO, from an execution standpoint. They had tremendous execution muscle.

They still do, a lot of these companies. So talent from there was very good. And second is I think Delivery Delhi has a very strong business culture. Like you see the average SME owner or the average business person in Delhi. It's a very strong business community.

Bangalore and Pune are more service oriented kind of communities. Like after the big IT boom of Infosys and Wipro. The kind of companies that have come out of Bangalore versus come out of Delhi are very different.

Delhi, Bombay have created a lot more industrial outcomes compared to Bangalore. I observed that. I wrote a book last year called Unlocking Unicorn Secret.

What was it? It was basically like my and my friend's project. So he's a CA. He had worked in the investing arm of Ayatya Birla Group.

So he had some idea of startups and all. So he was interested into that. We met in 2022. We thought, let's do something together.

He had this idea that when we write a book, it will be good. We'll get to meet founders. I said, let's do that.

And that turned into this one and a half year long project in which we went to offices of billion dollar companies in India and we interviewed the founders for one and a half hour long. Didn't make it for YouTube. We recorded the interview and then we actually turned that into a book.

And then we published that last year by Penguin. What's the top 2-3 insights that you remember which were very counterintuitive? See, that's the thing. The whole book is a big paradox in itself.

Because we realized that the name of the book is Unicorn Secret. So people would expect something secret at the end. Something bad would happen. But the biggest secret is that there is no secret. And I think that is the thing we wanted to break.

People think that you can only be successful if you do this. If you are not a co-founder, you cannot do that. If you are not in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, then you cannot do that.

If you don't have a lot of funding, you can't do it. So all these people have such beliefs. So we wanted to break because we have seen these stories up close.

Because especially Kushal had seen those up close. So he had this idea. Kushal is your CA friend.

Kushal is the CA friend. Kushal Lodha, he's a creator on, I think you know him. He was like a CA top ranker.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, I dropped a message on LinkedIn. I had written him a message that we will work together. I told him today that I'm going to meet you. He was super excited.

So he asked that guy, I said. He knows, he knows. He's like, I'm looking forward to meeting him Monday as well. I really wanted to meet him.

He's in Mumbai. Mumbai based. Yeah.

Very impressive guy. He used to write very good. I don't know whether he still does, but I remember reading a lot of very cool things he wrote on LinkedIn.

He's a master at writing. So his communication, his writing ability, his storytelling, he has learned a lot. And I've learned a lot from him.

How do you have friends from school? He reached out to me. when he wanted to interview me on his channel. I was just a very weird TG for him because he's a content C, CA and I'm anyone, I'm very far away from CA. I was an engineer back then, trying to be an engineer and then dropped out the next year.

But then he became a client of my company and then we just used to help him with his content. Then he just became a friend. So I used to visit Mumbai often. So we used to meet, hang out.

Then we... took this whole project. So we observed this thing like you were talking about it. So we would, the first podcast we ever did, the interview, was with Ashish Mopatra of business. So exceptional execution guy.

I met him, like the best thing about him was that there was no like hierarchy that we had to pass through. He just replied and he said, cool, I'll see you there. We reached to the reception and he comes to like receive us.

And that was all very weird, very new to us. because normally what happens is there is some person and they will drop you to some person and then you will get to meet the founder. But that was actually unconventional. Ashish and Ruchi have been like this since the very beginning. Very non-hierarchical.

Even now, they're amongst the top most successful young age entrepreneurs in India today. But when you talk to them, you'll never... feel like that's like that's who you're talking to it always feels like a regular person why do you think that there are very few like say couples building a big company like we've only seen mama earth and and now it's hard man it's hard i think two to three reasons one is i think um It's a very involved thing to build a company. It sucks your emotions and mind space completely to do something which a lot of people think is irrational, which has got a high risk element to it.

which has got very back loaded financial rewards to it if at all in a very low probabilistic scenario right so all these things give stress to the person and you typically look at family to take that stress away and you want to like switch off because otherwise you will never do that so the reason why like husband wife doing it means that you never switch off the chances that you will actually switch off is extremely low and i think that's the fundamental reason why i think it's it's a very brave decision to do it together but to see varun and gazal uh to do it the way they do it is amazing like they have so like i've hung out with them socially they don't talk about about mom earth socially at all they're always talking about their kids or they're talking about Varun seems like the brain of it all and like Gazil seems like the heart oh no No, I don't think so. No, I don't. I used to think that way for a long time. Okay. And then?

Maybe it was a very gender stereotype thing because you think that, you know, the woman is like the face and the pretty one and the man is the brain. But no man, I think she's the engine. Oh wow.

I think she's the one who like really sits next to the consumers. She is the one who really understands what will differentiate a product. I think she's also the one that understands the pulse of people very well inside the organization. My respect for that couple has actually gone through the roof over the last 2-3 years. Like maybe from a year or two before they went public.

For a long time, and I told this to them, for a long time I thought they were just very lucky. They were just lucky to get Shilpa Shetty. They were lucky to be in a large market. They were just lucky to kind of find a couple of good manufacturers.

But no man, I think they are very, very purposeful. And I think she drives a lot of that ethos. I think Varun is a fantastic operator.

detail oriented strategic thinker i think he'll put the jigsaw pieces in place beautifully but i think gazelle's the one drawing on it no you know i think that's how i would describe that couple i think they're fantastic together so if you have that career kaushik and vinita sugar for example yeah very very complimentary i know both of them individually but again very complimentary so i think if you have that kind of chemistry you have that kind of vibe you have that ability to take risk appetites then you i think they both are parents so they come back home to kids and parents and you know so I think that's there and I think for example Gazal and Varun take a lot of vacations together you know if you follow them on social they're always they seem to be having a lot more fun I know they do all these friends and I'm like who are they they seem to have a lot more fun than they should but I think that's where they get there you know they have their fun and I think that's okay so if you have that it's good otherwise I think it's a very difficult call yeah but what we've seen in the last couple of years is that creators wanting to be executed and founders and founders wanting to be creators and you're a prime example of that but but but why does this happen exactly there in my case it was very particular because my brand like i have two brands bombay shaving company and bombay uh and i'll talk about bombay shaving company because it's the older brand bombay's are women's brand which is only two two and a half years old uh bombay shaving company ishan actually has very little word of mouth because my product My user individually uses it in the bathroom. Like he's privately using it and he never talks about it. It's a category that people don't talk about. Unlike for example, Bombay or Mama Earth or sugar. Two girlfriends or two sisters or mother daughter.

Immediate conversation, I love your lip color. Where did you get it from? I got it from sugar.

It's on sale on Nike. Try out this shade, it's really pretty. Who's gonna ask you, nice shave bro.

Nice shave bro. Or like for example, if you and I are bald men, only then will you say, I love the shine on your head, dude. How do you get this done?

Because it's a very special. Otherwise, men don't talk. So if men don't talk, then the brand has to talk. And the brand cannot talk by selling. We never match the budget of our competitors.

So like how do we become center to culture without investing the media money? So how do we be organic? So then how do we do what you do so well, which is create amazing content?

And we're like, who are we? We're a young challenger brand. brand.

So we are entrepreneurial in nature. We are rebellious, we are outlaws. So who are we if you were to personify BSE? We are an entrepreneur. We are actually entrepreneurs.

We are challengers and we break status quo. So then let's make entrepreneurship our thing. So how do we do that? Let's have conversations around entrepreneurship. Who can do that?

Shantanu does that pretty well on LinkedIn. Let's see whether he can do it on a podcast. So 2022, that's how the idea started. Bombay shaving company to be known. We can't do it through advertising it.

So let's create something. That's how it started. There's not much more science to it.

And it kind of grew. And now we drive a lot of our organic funnels through barbershop, which works very well. But what do you think about this whole trend, right? Like we've seen Nikhil Kamat doing WTF. We've seen plenty of other founders as well.

Even I met Akash of Zip Electric, and he's starting his podcast as well. He interviewed Sanjeev Bikchandani sir, which was insane. So why is this happening?

happening so much now and why do then creators want to be founders? There are two things right? So let me answer the first question why founders are doing it.

I think there is a lot of clutter in life. If you want your brand to be known, I think people are realizing that younger consumers especially are asking who's behind the brand. They want to know who's the founder, they want to know what's the ethos, office kaha pe hai, glass door pen, unka review kya hai, etc.

That's how they attach themselves to a brand, not just the ads. 35 year old consumer would attach herself to Cadbury dairy milk through one or two ads in 1990s. But today she wants to know is it a sustainable brand?

What's the sugar content in it? What is the global CEO saying about it? Why does Shashank at Whole Truth? do what he does so well. Because he really is telling the story because he knows his conjugals are reading everything on the back.

Food farmer has kind of gone and told the world that you have to read the whole back. He has flipped everything. Ingredients inside and kept it outside.

So I think founders have realized that telling stories is a powerful way to build. Second is if a founder builds strong social following, he or she builds a media channel for their company. So I think that's why founders are doing it. I think founders need to do it with a purpose.

It should not be to become popular or famous. That's a good outcome of it, but it does not solve for your brand's growth or your company's growth. If you're doing it. just for that. But I think any founder like Akash, I don't know Akash well but I'm assuming if he comes and talks about Zip Electric or takes on mobility or Nikhil for example, talks so much about financial independence and his Ranbir Kapoor conversation was just phenomenal.

He went so deep in a lot of areas which people don't know. Founders are that way intelligent articulate people for the most part. If they're able to break open topics like entrepreneurship for you and me, I think that's... that's a powerful thing to do. I think more of it should happen.

Whether it achieves what they wanted to achieve is I think secondary. Viewers like us have always ended up having a lot of fun. So that's good. I think on the second part which is creators becoming founders, like I think, see creators are realizing entrepreneurship is a very interesting space from a content standpoint.

Everyone's interested in it. But it has never worked in its full capacity yet in the Indian landscape. Yeah. We've always seen people launch like merch brand or the best.

best example is Shlokh, Techburner launching the overlays skins for phones and all. But we haven't seen like a proper brand come out from YouTube. Obviously, there's an academy from Gaurav Manjal and all.

But that was like a different concept from a long time ago. Good question. I think Baiju's was a good example.

Baiju's was a teacher who took content and built out a whole company out of it. No more. No more. I think the thesis was still very powerful, which is if you If you can make and he made up, I don't know whether you know Baiju's story by the way.

Baiju Ravindran was famous in Bangalore for getting 100 percentile every year in CAT year on year on year. So, when he used to take sessions, he would fill up stadiums. He was a tuition class teacher for CAT.

But in his class, there were thousands, means 10,000 kids would sit in one class. He would fill up a stadium. That was his genesis.

And then he converted that into content and started building out Baiju's which became like, he's like 10,000 people. So content creation to business monetization is not a new thing. But creator to business is I think a newer thing.

I think Tanmay does a fantastic job. People like you have huge opportunity because you will actually be very efficient at getting the top of funnel cacks right. You will get sampling done very quickly. I think Tanmay does a fantastic job.

He does not build out a brand, but I think he's built out amazing businesses through his content. Thank you. He has sold out the whole funnel for himself. I feel like top of the funnel, all those roasts, bottom of the funnel is like those Solana content, which he creates and everything.

And they're like, what is this guy making? I don't know where he came from. But creators, companies take time to build, right, Nishant? I think content creation is still like a four, five year old phenomenon at scale, broadly in India. I think businesses take eight, nine, 10 years to build out.

So some of the businesses that, let's say Raj is doing with House of X, Shlok you're saying is doing that Skins brand. I think Parul Gulati is doing something very cool. I think Nish Hair. I think some of this content to commerce and enterprise build will happen over some time. I think people will figure it out.

Frankly, they'll solve for a large moat, which is awareness of the brand. So that's a good thing. Have you read the Paul Graham? founder mode article i saw some excerpts about it which is founder mode and you should like kind of always hustle and that's why founders are different from managers i read some of that but i did not read it in detail to have a very strong point to you no no i just had that it came to my mind when i was telling you that i saw the pop-up store in the mumbai airport of bombay shaving club a company and then uh you said that it's expensive but it makes this much money that is crazy you Like you have that awareness.

about every single minute place where something is actually being sold. And that is the best example of founder mode, that you're so involved in the operations of it. So that's a good point.

I think I'm actually, compared to the average entrepreneur, I'm actually a little more distanced from my business than one might imagine. I know the three most important... important things that are important for the business to achieve over the next three to six months.

Within those, I know certain anecdotal slash data-driven points, but I don't know the business like the back of my hand on every element of the business. business. And I think one of my skills is prioritization. So I know how to identify the three most important things for any team within the company or any senior leader within the company.

And I think that's my hack, which actually means that because I know those three, I probably don't know seven other things in the company. And that's okay. Once those other seven become important, they'll kind of bubble up to the top of my priority list also. But because EBOs, which is exclusive brand outlets like the one you saw at the airport they're a very big part of our growth story oh wow we believe that if we take a wall in an airport and really show our trimmers and fragrances and perfumes and razors that from let's say 50 meters 30 meters to 30 meters so the 60 meter range of vision and the person is walking he will always look and we have a full shelf to show and this is like thousands of people every day it's clean marketing plus sampling plus free touch and fail sensory so then if we can do this in 100 airports and here's the real outcome and that's what we are pushing the team on because in 5 years we want to be in 100 airports doing this much revenue per month because Bombay could do this much how do you prioritize for what is important in decreasing order of profit and then decreasing order of revenue so find the largest profit pool by initiative and go after the largest ones simple then if profit profit pools are smaller, but revenue pools are larger, go after that.

And if both are not there, not a priority. Or if both are not there, but there, but it'll take four years, not a priority right now. So profit pool, revenue pool. What's fascinating to me about like the B2C business in India is that I've always been cautioned by people that I know who've built companies. They were like, Rishan, make B2B, make B2B, don't make B2C.

It'll be very difficult. And so, that is why what I built, the marketing agency, has always catered to businesses and not to creators or individuals per se all the time but uh what do you think are the challenges that come when you build like a b2c company the one that you are building sort of in your space in india which has the discretionary spending is lesser let's just say that compared to compared to us i was in us for 45 days a week and i just saw a whole different world compared to india And wanted to know your thought on that. Yeah, so my dad built out a B2B business end to end. So my dad was in IT industry for many, many years in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Then he was CEO at TechMindra.

Then he started his own company called Mojo Networks, which sold Wi-Fi security software. to companies in 2003 onwards so when wi-fi was very new like almost nascent i don't think i don't know whether you were you born into 2001 2001 okay but 2003 he uh built that out and he sold it in 2019 so he I had like 700-800 corporate clients. And when I started Bombay Shaving Company, he said, Kiyar, I don't understand how you do this B2C thing.

Like how do you sell to so many customers? Who do you talk to? How do you get feedback? I think it's a DNA thing.

Some people really enjoy, and I don't know if you've seen this, that you have to always, you always have to figure out what business is most comfortable to you. Do you want to sell a billion, like $1 of revenue to a billion customers? $10 of revenue to 100 million customers?

$100 of revenue to 10 million customers and so on. That's how you can build a billion dollar revenue business. Or 1 billion revenue from one customer, which also is possible like in the defense space. And $1 to a billion customers is possible like in the software space. You have to find out what you like.

And I always felt like I loved retail. I loved retail. I loved building brands.

My favorite subjects in business. school was marketing and sales so I felt like my DNA and I feel like if you make a good product the three parts right aspiration value delight built a brand that creates aspiration doesn't mean it has to be premium it is aspirational consumers have to feel like they want to associate They identify with it. You communicate in a way that makes them feel that this is my brand.

That's what I mean by aspiration. Then value. That I bought that brand's product, so I thought that it has value. I bought a foam of Rs. 200, it's been going on for 6 months.

So my forms don't end. I get complaints. A form is not ending.

Is there something wrong with it? It's been 9 months, I'm shaving every day, but it's not ending. So I told the product team, what nonsense is this?

It's not good for me either. It's not ending. But give value.

The customer should feel that there is value, a beautiful smell and then delight. After usage, the consumer feels that this was amazing. In hair removal, we are giving delightful experience. So if you are able to give aspirational brand a value, a creative product which creates delight for the consumer on usage, then you don't need to do a lot for the consumer to come back over and over again and buy. So if you make this, then your business will be cash.

generating machine manjata hai. B2B mein cash generation is not a given. You know you have to always cultivate clients, deliver on the way.

Like we are a marketing agency. Aap kitna hustle marke, aap clients ko la rahe honge, unko deliver kar rahe honge, unke complaints honge rahe honge. Like it's stressful.

I find that stressful. I don't know about you. Yeah, it makes sense. For me I feel ki aap badiya sa razor banao, badiya sa trimmer banao, badiya foam banao, badiya banao.

Ache price pe. Usne bohot mahanat karo ki uska cost chakam ho, uska quality high quality ho, brand ka communication zahi ho. After that, put it in the shops. Put it on Blinkit, Amazon, D2C, Demart.

After that, if you have done all this, then the customer will come. Why does FMCG get such multiples in the Sensex, in the public markets? It's because analysts know that once a Dabur has built out Vatika and Dabur and Chavanprash and all of these brands and toothpaste, it's going to just generate cash. Their biggest issue for Colgate or Dabur or any other company is that or actual, he has excess cash. What can he do?

There's cash generating machines. So why would you not do it? So that's what attracted me.

B2B is not like that. B2B is like that, but it is more stressful and it happens at a different scale. At least, I don't understand that instinctively. And what did your father say when you actually started working on this idea? He's a very, he's a very, very positive human being and very generous.

And I think one of the issues right now my mom and I were discussing is that Shantanu, you need to, tell your dad to be a little less proud. Everyone goes to the neighborhood, goes to the company of Ishan. I was like, it's a very cute thing actually.

You know, like my father goes to like events and all. He goes to like as a little lecturer and people recognize him saying that you are Ishan's father. And that is the best feeling for him.

That just makes his day. And then he tells me, I met him and then he said that you know Ishan, you can talk to Ishan and all that. Where are you from Ishan?

Where are you from? I am from Khandwa. Khandwa is a small town.

I was in Indore yesterday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I was in Indore. For Tycon. So I never grew up there.

My parents grew up. My mom grew up in a combination of Khandva, Badava and Kargaon. Wow.

And Indore she studied. Already sounding so homely. Yeah. And Indore.

Like I was there eating dal kachori and garado and poha. The likes. Why do you think I'm wearing a loose shirt today? That after going to Indore, this happens.

I came last night from Indore. But wow, you're from Khandwa. Yeah, no, I was born in Khandwa.

I lived in Indore for a couple of years, but I never stayed in Indore for long. So my father always had this growth mindset in his career. He was like, I'll grow, I'll switch companies, I'll grow, whatever it happens.

So he is in the pharmaceutical industry for the last 28 years. So he's worked in all of the biggest companies that you've heard of, right? So GSK, Dr. Eddy's, all of them, MQR. Right now he's working at HCG.

So his mantra was two years work in a company, first year get a promotion, next year, next company. So as a result of that, I changed 10 cities in 12 years of my schooling in 14 different schools. So I really had the whole...

experience of India every year new uniform yes and the downside was no friends did you like did that did that affect you a little bit like I was like that till 5th standard yeah because we were in US, Pune US again and you know finally then Trivandrum Bangalore then Pune and finally in 5th or 6th standard I told my parents that I don't want to change uniforms now that whatever you do do it from here they agreed I think see this was 97 and I think my mom also told my dad that my elder son is also getting older. He is 10 years old. Now he will need to make friends. So if you want to do it, you can go around. But let's put the base in Pune.

I think that is a very smart thing to do. But I keep like, you are my Much younger, so your dad will be much younger. All of my friends'dads are like retired for last 10 years. I always ask them, what did your dad or what did your mom used to do? I forget how young you are.

And then you went to Bits Pilani. Yes, I went to Bits Pilani. I've lived in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bhopal, all the places. Saranpur, all the areas.

My mom is from Lucknow. And my father is from Mathura. Okay.

So, there are UP people who have settled down. UP people. who were like here in Khandwa because my grandma's school was there.

So she used to run this school. She passed away because of which my mom had to take over that school. We realized that my grandma was overly liberal. So she just had this mission to educate as many people as possible regardless of their capacity to pay the fees, which was already very minimal considering it's Khandwa. you know khandva but then people would just not pay when my mom came back and we had bills to pay so we had to shut that down but it was like her mission that she struggled and built from all her hard work and sweat.

fan yeah that generation was truly something else yeah truly something else I could go to Khandwai and say ki ma Suman ka pota hoon and they'd know wow that's true impact right we talk about you know all of us unicorn and this and that I think real impact happens when people like your grandmother do what they do. Yeah. It doesn't happen.

I don't think it happens in boardrooms. At least frankly, I don't think it happened in government offices also. I think it happens with people who are passionate like your grandmother, who are able to teach so many people and not take fees for it. Imagine like even if one or two students from her school would have kind of gone on to do disproportionately better than they would have otherwise.

It all made up for it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Very good. We have so much in common.

My dad is a Bitspilani alumnus. We are both from, at least families are from that belt of India. Yeah, I chose to drop out but I realized that once you enter Bits, you're going to be a Bitsian. Anyways, so...

Was that hard for you to drop out? It was not hard because I had been so out of touch to the college life. because two years in pune was just me struggling uh not struggling just just working hard on my work after bits so no no so basically pune was the place where my parents were living okay while i was in bits okay this is 2020 start okay like january and all and that's when you enter bits i entered bits in uh july of 2019 2019 okay yeah so i was 2019 23 batch okay the covid thing happened and then january is no march january is when we January, March is when we went back.

I think March was the time when the thing happened. So March we go back to, I was living in Mumbai back then. And then we packed our bags and we went to, all the way to Pune. And then I set up my work, I was recording videos, doing all the hard work. While doing college remotely?

Yeah, I was doing college remotely. There's no problem of attendance. So I could just miss classes and just focus on doing what really interested me.

And then I was just so... engrossed in like making videos learning how to edit storytelling i said build that company the agency hired people had my co-founder which was my roommate from college so no no he did not quit he didn't have a youtube channel so so then when i came back to college in 2022 march i just couldn't relate with anyone around me because in the back of my head was always about you know how can i improve my sales pitch how can i become a better communicator how can i make better videos and even around me had just different motion like you know motivations in life placement internship professor so this had different things going on which was not wrong for for their perspective but i just realized that i need a better surrounding around around me i know i i talk to everyone so i talk to raj i talk to viraj i talk to all the alumni as well and they all had these conflicting things like alumni were like and all that you can cherish for the rest of your life and then all of these people like people who were creators were like so but I was like this is I had built the channel for the last two years and how big was the channel when you left? it was 340k subscribers on YouTube and I was like Yeah, and it was 27th of March 2022 when I dropped out. And that day I came back home.

My father came to help me pack my bag. and my like studio lights and cameras and everything which I had carried to the to the college so you had all this in your I had everything I had two studio lights like these like two of these like two proper cameras mics and everything which I had bought for recording videos 21 days in college I'm done my father comes to pack my bags and we go to Pune And then the next day he goes to work. Where in Pune were you guys? So I was in Hinjavadi.

Hinjavadi phase 3. I live in Banner dude. Like my parents live in Banner. Yeah.

It's too much. Too much commonality. Nice.

But then the next day I just called him and said you know I'm going to to go to bangalore and i'm packing my bags and uh that same day he comes back i just wanted to experience bangalore i've just heard about bangalore so much from people uh creators and founders and likewise so they were just like you know bangalore is where you have to be this is where everything is happening so you have to be in that circle to to you know like have that mindset that that you want to like build something so i was like i want to be there so my father came that day 28 march and he's like uh guess what i've left my job So he left M.Cure Really? And he joined He said I'm gonna come with you to Bangalore Okay And then he did And what would you guys do? He found a new job In Bangalore? In Bangalore That is so cute man So 28th March We decided to 22 Yeah 2022 1st April I'm in Bangalore With my parents They are looking for a house I'm here in events Meeting founders and creators And then finally 1st July We finally move in So now they are also based in Bangalore with you? Yeah, so they live in South Bangalore and I live in North Bangalore.

Oh you guys live separately? I just moved out because my co-founder graduated last year. So he was like, what do I do now? Where do I go? He is from Gujarat, so from Gandhinagar.

I was like, what do you want to do? Go home. so then I found a place near to the airport because I travel so much and now I visit my parents every weekend so I live and work out of there well done that's the story so far I like Bangalore but like all of that that you know enthusiasm for like like traveling to events and all sort of died down like in the in the next like one and a half year because i realized that at the end it's just about you and your skills and what you want to build in your laptop that's true it's a very lonely thing and the more you're going to events it's good that you will meet people in the event and networking will happen but there will be some point in networking until you have something to build correct you have something to sell to show so i was like this is happening a lot like i had an angel investor friend of mine he was like I'll take you. You should start like investing in like companies as an angel. Let me teach you how it works.

Okay. It's a new thing for me. I'll learn. I'll, I'll go for it. So he would take me for these events and all in all these hotels.

And I would meet founders and interesting people. I was like, I'm not going to sit here and judge what some company might do. And then.

I'd rather bet money on my own thing. So I just said that this is something that I might do later, but I want to work on my own thing. Founders make poor investors because if they're doing it part time, because their mind is always on on their thing uh and hence either you're not you're never going to be fully involved in but then how is the biggest angel investor i don't think see kunal shah i think from at least the companies that I have seen him invest in which I invest in also.

Kunal just looks at a founder, sees if the market is big, likes the founder and puts the check. I don't know how much and how involved Kunal actually is. I don't know what his success ratios are. I think Kunal is one of those guys who is just an ecosystem builder.

He must have said that whatever I got from startups, I will give back to the ecosystem. So any founder which he feels is operating in a large market and the founder is decent, I think he puts in a check. he'll have the time to really see how to help, go deep, be a part of board meeting.

He won't do anything. It's not necessary. He has written thousands of cheques.

There's no need for him to do it. I think for him it's like a license to learn. He will probably see like a thousand companies and see what's happening, what's growing.

I think it's a good way for him to like, it's an education for him. He's just buying a course. I think he's creating goodwill. I think he's being goodwill-bound. is compounds like crazy.

So I think this is a smart move. Yeah. Smart move.

Let's go back to building in B2C, right? So can you give me like a rundown of your unit economics? Like what's your most selling article and what are the costs like and what is the margin like and what affects each of those elements? Today? Yeah.

Okay. So... So typically I'll give you like I'll divide this into two parts. One part is we call it personal cash.

Software products, that is possibly hardware products, right? Software products, anything that is made in water or gas and comes in a jar or a bottle or like a soap or a body wash or a shaving foam. Typically, they are higher gross margin products because the... product itself is mostly water, right?

And water doesn't cost much. Or gas, and gas also doesn't cost much. So shaving foam typically would, if let's say the price is 200 rupees, we make a gross margin of around 70%.

which means the cost of the product and the first mile logistics is roughly 30% right so we have 140 left then we do a lot of promotions discounts marketing all of that stuff right delivery everything like so that comes down to something called CM2 which is contribution margin for and now that gets aggregated at a company level right so typically Typically at a company level today, we roughly operated around 20 to 25% CM2, which means 20% of any product that I've sold comes back to the company to pay off salaries, rents, anything that's a fixed cost. So that's how the economics of a software product work, which is our foams, gels, deodorants, fragrances, all of that. And what percentage of that is compared to the hardware product?

Today at a value level, we are roughly 60% software. 40% hardware revenue level revenue level and of the 40% which is hardware which is razors and trimmers it's also growing a lot faster because of the trimmer business but typically instead of 70% margin we are operating at roughly a 55% margin A because this is like plastic stuff which is which costs money and B because a lot of it is imported so there is also an import cost that happens so 55% of let's say if the trimmer average is sold for 1000 so we have 500 rupees left that might also come out marketing or discounts or what's up karne ke liye. Aur uske baad, uska bhi CM2 roughly 20% ye hai. So we spend only 35% of that product sales on marketing and all of this stuff.

So 20% CM2 bachata hai. And then that we use to pay off our salaries and so on. How do you figure out the manufacturing? Like do you have like a vendor that you work with or like did you yourself went to China or to figure out some way? There's a process, right?

I think and we have become better and better over time. So good part is on the software part. India has a very good manufacturing ecosystem. ecosystem. So companies like HUL, Procter, Colgate, Reckitt, ITC have built out very good personal care manufacturers, like large facilities, making lots of shampoos and soaps and so on, because India is 140 crore people, they all use this stuff.

So on day one, we knew like the 20 biggest manufacturers, packaging and finished goods. And we went and spoke to them and figured out who will give us, you know, the right quality. So they do B2B as well? They are only B2B.

These are all people who are practicing. They have 10 brands and they make it for them. There is no B2C.

Many of them have tried to build brands but it doesn't happen. And they will do it for anyone who would want to have some decent size of… So they will give you a minimum order quantity. If you want to make shaving cream, you will have to make at least 10,000 tubes. Which on day zero felt like a lot.

I thought, will I make 10,000 shaving cream? I need 50. I won't make 50, friends. We make a ton of shaving cream. So they started that but today… Like for example, we are now doing almost 3-4 lakh shaving foams a month. Oh wow.

So you get to that scale. And then when it comes to import. And how long has it been?

Like how many? 8-9 years. We started in 2016. Damn.

It took 8 years to do this. Then we went to China, South Korea. It was a little difficult there.

This is for the hardware thing. For the hardware. Because in India, trimmers and razors both are difficult to make in India.

Why is that? Because there is precision manufacturing in this. In India, we have very good manufacturing and automotive space. now in phones and you know i'm sure even in our space it'll happen but yeah you're taking sharp metal to someone's face so microns may have tolerances technology in india is not there technology is not there i think that dna for The DNA of Bariki is not available in India.

We get big stuff right, but we don't get small stuff right. For that, China, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand... So what do you do? You land in Shenzhen or... So we see good part is Alibaba etc online ecosystem say you at least get a sense of the universe.

Then we will talk to a few like you know dealers or brokers in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and tell them that this is our requirement and find the 10 best manufacturer. Then they will go they have a good ecosystem. You pay them some money and then they will go and show you everyone they will do factory. Boss China means when you enter a factory where you are meeting for the first time you will see India's flag, China's flag, welcome.

Bombay Shaving Company, 4 people there, greeting you. They are all Chinese. This country has figured out how to make people feel special so that they can maximize exports.

They know, they manufacture for the world. And when Apple comes in a manufacturing company, in Karnataka or somewhere, then it doesn't happen. It happens for Apple, but not for Bombay Shaving Company.

See, China will do it for Apple, India will do it for Apple. But China will also do it for Bombay Shaving Company. They'll do it for...

even a small company, they know that if we do it well, we will build out with them. So we learned all that there. We tied up with a lot of industrial design, chemical engineering. We did a lot of the work ourselves in terms of building, formulations, designs, etc.

But when it came to at scale manufacturing, we always felt like factory should be owned by factory owners. We are owners of the brand. So we used to go to them and do it. step forward two steps back.

But yeah, I've been already there and you know, key, like the biggest commentaries Gillette, right? So you're building against them. What how, why did you have this drive ketchup?

I want to like build in this space, which is like massively. It was a huge opportunity. Now, see when someone is, how do you get a huge opportunity?

I think the dollar shape club that year got sold for a billion dollars. The dollar shape club in the US had reached 300 million. million revenue that year.

So if they had disrupted Gillette in the US, there was an opportunity to disrupt Gillette in India. And I also realized that Indian consumers, like India roughly has 25 to 30 crore male shavers, another 30 to 40 crore female hair removers. So market is deep from a number standpoint. Gillette revenue is much smaller because a large part of their business is very small, like one rupee, two rupee blades or the disposable razors. They have not been able to, and India has not evolved to a larger market.

market which it will over a period of time we also realize so mark 3 people don't use it here very few people use it there are 140 crore people in india i think 1 to 2 crore mark 3 users will be there max that is still like that is like alpha one what india yes but still it is a 200 rupees thing it's not very expensive people will buy a 20 rupees presto or a 99 rupees nc smart 3 and be happy mark 3 is an outstanding product a mark 3 shave is an aspirational shave for a company like like us it's a beautiful product but what about it is beautiful everything because i i've used it so it's outstanding you also have lesser hair on your face you're a young kid yeah so you don't need mark three is like a bazooka to kill a mosquito you will get a great shave with most razors but someone like me i have a very tough skin i shave my head all of that right so mark three i think super safe ergonomics are beautiful it's got a great look um Something is going on, what is happening? Like you are shaving at the end of the day. I think it's the crown jewel in Procter & Gamble or Gillette's global brand portfolio.

Mark 3 is up there but in India, we are still kind of getting there. So I felt that one is that the opportunity is big. There is one successful company and every other category has at least 3 or 4 companies. Like look at face wash, soap, deodorant.

At least 3-4 companies are there in any food business. Very few categories are single company, right? Duopoly is very big. like you'll see a lot of these things like i said but like in consumer pepsi coke but now people have gotten people love mango people love uh orange in that space but you're right in our case because it was single you company second is i think consumers are changing like someone like your bridge planning cohort would definitely like many of them would want to use a trimmer also yeah i had a friend he shaved his leg because you want to see your muscles you want to see your calves build you want to see your quads you want to see everything thing. People are getting sexually active.

So intimate area shaving becomes very important. People go on vacations, they want to take off their shirts on a beach. They don't want hair on their chest and their backs. Indians are hairy people on the average, right?

So it is necessary. People are ready to buy. We felt that we can do it.

So that was the thesis. If you want to remove unwanted hair from your body, we can make it a very delightful experience. It doesn't have to be a quick finish type of thing.

That was the thesis. Now I've seen this a lot like companies, Creating that branding of like rule breakers, we are different, we are going against the status quo a lot. Like Comet is a great example of a sneaker brand going against the Nike AF1s.

And we see this in a lot of other companies that are coming in India, competing with all of them. And it's looked like it's working. See, also you're Gen Z, you know. You guys are amazing consumers because you guys want brands that you identify with.

You don't want a brand that your father tells you. That papa use. I copied everything my dad did. I used to ride a tricycle at the age of 4 years. That too with a helmet.

Papa rides a motorcycle with a helmet. I don't want to wear a helmet. He wears a full shirt.

I want a full shirt. I want an analog watch. I don't want a digital watch. At the age of 4 years. Because papa wears it.

But today's 20-22 year old is actually very different from his father. And the father is copying him. The father is asking which deodorant are you using?

Father is, like my dad will ask me. Okay. Hey, what's the, what's the, like this brand of chappals.

It's called Birkenstock. Birkenstock. What are these cool jute-like things? This is comfortable. I never felt it's comfortable.

It's comfortable. After a month, month and a half, it becomes very comfortable. I'm also flat-footed. I don't know whether you can see. I'm also flat-footed.

Dude, you'll love it. You'll love it. But I got him on Birkenstock.

McKinsey, when he used to make partner in McKinsey. So when I joined McKinsey, I became a partner. As soon as I became a partner, I think McKinsey used to give like a to-me backpack and a to-me one-nighter.

Yeah. So suddenly I would see. three partners, two things would change when they become partners. One was a suit, like a coat, and the other was a 2Me.

And I became very inspired. I wanted to buy a 2Me once in my life. So I left before I became a partner.

But then when I kind of started the company and so on, at some point, maybe like 3-4 years back, I went and bought myself a 2Me backpack. Extremely overpriced. I'll never buy one again.

But I wanted to buy one. How much was it? I don't know, 35,000?

Obnoxious for a backpack. 35,000 rupees? obnoxious like see you know i i just went to uh i went to coach new york i was in new york so we went there and he was like he made me buy a 25 000 rupee coach car bag like proper bag which is like worse than this mokobara that i have because it's a small space and he told me that this is of 75,000 in india so he's like here it is 25,000 so you buy here but then you use it in india wow then my dad saw it and he's like wow so on his birthday i gifted it to him now he gets a lot of compliments from his friends very nice backpack so i think that nowadays parents they are copying the younger more aware generation.

So I think that's the thing with Gen Z consumption. I think that you know it's very, they identify with rebellious brands. They identify with something like Comet. Like it's for me. It's made for me. or Birkenstock or Bombay Shaving Company hopefully or Whole Truth.

You know, 5 o'clock in the evening, I want some protein. I will not go and I'll have myself a protein bar. Yeah.

Stuff like that. So that works. But when you started, as I said, 10,000 tubes that you have to place in order of. How did you save money for that? I saved it.

I saved it. I put in around 45-50 lakh rupees, which I had worked for 5 years in McKinsey. It was a high-paying job. and I had a I continued to live a family so how did you leave such a comfortable life? were you a partner in McKinsey?

I wasn't a partner, I was an EM it would take 3-4 years to become a partner but I would have become but for me I had seen my dad become an entrepreneur and I felt that you know If I fail, I will come back and work at McKinsey. I had done very well at McKinsey, McKinsey would have taken me back. Like no questions, I had very good standing with the firm, I was a big fan of the firm. I always felt like being an employee at McKinsey was a very very, I was very proud. I am proud of it.

My parents were very proud of it. What do consultants do? There is this clip of Steve Jobs dissing consultants.

I don't think you can be a consultant to Steve Jobs. But Steve Jobs would have had a lot of middle management. that would have been confused or struggling with problems to solve mckinsey works very well with management consulting i i'll tell you my projects i worked with a power plant in jharsuguda i was 23 years old maybe your age today yeah i worked at a power plant in in orissa uh they used to make aluminium so they used to generate power to feed an aluminium making plant and they would procure 150 to 200 crores of coal per month even if I were to create 5-10% efficiency, I save 50-60 crores a year for them. That was my first job.

And we did a very good job with that. Because we really kind of crunched the numbers on which mines... Which GCV is coming? How to do it? Which truck can bring it from there?

All these things, like a young analytical mind can really help a team which actually understands coal well but might struggle with how do you bid in an auction. My second project was helping a cement company sell cement in Punjab. Again, we created a quick model that this plant is coming from this logistic cost, so this area should have its own GME, so we should do this kind of demand planning.

So, targets will be made like this. Till then, they were being made on gut or judgment. We put data on it.

And again, we kind of found. So, when you give McKinsey or any good consulting firm or team a sharp problem, and you throw really smart people at that problem who are motivated to solve it, you'll see good results. But they don't have domain expertise. You don't need domain expertise. You'll build it.

Like, even today at Bombay Shaving Company, I don't hire shaving experts. I hire people with tremendous sensibility. common sense and enthusiasm.

You hire smart people who are enthusiastic, boss, they will solve anything. They'll build a domain expertise, they have to. Most problems are generic in nature.

Problem solving is a critical skill. How do you prioritize? How do you look at a certain thing? How do you build out the numbers? How do you have hypothesis?

How do you do scenario planning? All this is like raw problem solving. It requires brains.

Conceptual understanding of the space is not required. McKinsey doesn't even get into that. McKinsey will never do actuarial work for an insurance company.

McKinsey will never go to Apple and tell them how to code. McKinsey will never go to Pepsi and consult them on what's the best flavors for your next drink. Never.

But McKinsey will absolutely tell Pepsi Where are the five next factories to put in So that you are able to get the best return For your shareholders For sure Because they've done it 50 times before So many people have this thing Consultants What will you tell me after coming here 80% of McKinsey's revenue is repeat When someone has such high repeat NPS That means board members And people make fun of me That you're a big fan of McKinsey That you do this a lot But I genuinely took a lot of pride in my work I genuinely felt we had a lot of good impact. I think McKinsey also makes a lot of mistakes. And consultants will make mistakes. You will recommend something wrong because 5 years strategy or 10 years strategy, you can't, you can't humanly kind of view it. I think we have done more positive work for our clients by distance than mistake work.

Yeah, I know my friend recently joined Bain. And he sees all the bills, the invoices that go. He is like, I don't know why he is billing 8 crores.

I don't know why he is billing. I don't know about the billing of Bain, Bain is an equally good firm. See it from a Rossi standpoint, you cannot say this is my salary, how much of the billing am I getting?

No man, Bain will charge what value they create for the client. So if you are saving 50 crores a year on profit for a client. The client shareholder value, the client is trading at let's say 40 times EBITDA multiple.

So 40 times 50, you have added the value of 2000 crores. So 8 crores per month is nothing. Charge 100 crores and get 2000 crores for the shareholder. So that's the math. Right.

Out of that how much do you get in consequence? Mr. Bale is also an entrepreneur. He will say, I will pay you what market is paying.

I will charge the client what market is charging the client. And I will see whether it's worth it. I don't want to. I can't charge 100 crores per year.

If I'm creating 2000 crores of value for you and your shareholders, I can charge 100 crores. It's 5% commission, very fair take rate. Makes sense. I think end of the day market equilibriums are beautiful.

Whether it's consulting or shaving or content, market equilibriums are beautiful. What is that exactly? The market will tell you what to do. For creators who are building brands, market will tell creators how to build brands, where to build them, which categories to build. will they be built in etc it'll happen yeah markets are beautiful like i think as an entrepreneur it might sound like slightly uh you know self-aggrandizing but i think capitalist models of markets just are so good if you are able to listen to feedback you will always be successful do you think people struggle with that like I think so.

I think people don't listen to the market as much as they should. Markets are the most rich source of insights for entrepreneurs, business operators, CEOs, anyone, even for you guys. You tell me, you must be watching your analytics on YouTube. The way you sent your, my customer base is here, it's at this age.

You're also doing the same thing. That's the market giving you feedback. This is who likes your stuff.

This is who's listening. This is how long they're listening for. This is the kind of stuff they actually like. Now you know what to give them more and more. If you stop listening.

market. Very likely you'll start seeing unfollow rates go up and so on. Like you got an idea that this is a huge opportunity to build in this space. How can someone find these insights? How should they find them?

What is the first? Starting point. I think the founder should be a market fit. What do I like?

For example, you like content. You will naturally find some gravitation towards content first businesses. I had natural gravitation towards brand and retail first businesses because I just had felt like I liked them. And you should always do something that you like.

So one thing is that you do what you like. Today I can't go and build an AI or a blockchain business. I can't do it. No matter how big the market is, how attractive it is, how much funding it will give.

I can't do it. So one is anyone who has like for example someone who's telling you about B2B it's probably someone who's done a B2B business. This reminds me of Adam Neumann in the VeeCast series terming the WeWork company as in as a tech company right before the IPO and then pitching to Masayoshi-san.

That's there. But do things that you think you will enjoy. Second is I think look for needs that will become large. That may not be large today but will become large.

I remember Darshan bhai, the founder of Fogg. There's legendary stories about him standing in panwadis and retail stores for months, for months. This is a guy who built out Paras Pharma and sold it, by the way.

So you know. very successful consumer entrepreneur already but still used to go to panwadi and see how people are buying deodorant why are they buying it how are they using it whether they like it or not we feel that without gas deodorant how straightforward insight no man if you do not know that this non gas deodorant will sell you change the product you change the whole product line from aerosol based deodorant he made it a water based deodorant and immediately started selling perfume perfumes in cans. It fucking worked. It's the biggest deodorant company in the world today.

Fog is going on. Yes, it's going on. Marketing genius is a different story. But I think founders have to one, find out what they love and then be very close to the market for months, weeks, whatever time it takes to build conviction and an idea that whose time has come.

And then stay at it for a while. Shashank, for example, built out those bars and went into chocolates and cocoa prices went up. Now boss, his business is booming because of whey protein.

again but he's built it's taken 5-6 years to build a brand that people trust on ingredients that boss whatever they say their name is whole truth whatever they say they put that there is no adulteration there is nothing right see I saw this brand in US who does this exact same thing so their brand name is small written below their whole thing is the ingredient like 2 eggs this this this there is inspiration for whole truth yeah inspiration for whole truth yeah But I think that's the thing in India, I think there is now this wave with food farmer wanting to become health minister. That people are reading what's on map. If you go down an island, you know, modern trade.

Most of the products are a combination of maida, palm oil, sugar, aloo. These are the 4-5 things. In everything.

Aloo. Right? These are the chips. Chocolate. These are the snacks.

Bhujiya. These are the whole things. Fried.

So, in that world, if you... very healthy thing there. So, take it. I think, the other three things one should do.

Yeah, no, aloo being the main thing because for the entirety of my childhood, I used to eat aloo kachalu. And paneer was a thing which was made in a special occasion. Something like that. It was made on Diwali or something like that. And, people don't know how healthy paneer actually is.

It's a delicacy, but paneer is also just like roasted in ghee, have it with a few vegetables. Paneer is so healthy. Yeah. Yeah.

But going back to that point, right? If someone, okay, they observed. Now they have an idea.

But then the execution part is which where most people struggle with, right? So what do you think they should be doing in terms of that? Executing on an idea which is in the B2C space. Yeah, put a product, put products under the market quickly.

Put it under the market and keep it trading. Don't like... Put a stock somewhere. You're calling Ali Baba somewhere.

Put a stock and build... Build out the ecosystem but don't put emphasis on the product. The product should be good.

Put it quickly into the market. How to define good? Quality. Quality of product is efficacious.

Efficacious at value. If you are saying that your foam is 2X creamy, then it should be good. The fragrance should be good. The shave should be good. We are all users of...

You wake up in the morning and brush your teeth. You know that the flavor of toothpaste is good or not. It's good.

freshness is going after 3-4 hours, 10-12 hours, how long will it last? So it's very important to define quality, achieve it, put the product in market and start seeing feedback from the customers. After that channel strategy, marketing, all that comes later.

But I think initially, one mistake which I made was, one of the issues with D2C brands is your first 100 customers could be from Coimbatore to Kolkata to Bangalore to... They are all distributed. So you won't get feedback. Everyone is different.

My push, I think Licious did this very well. Which is start in a very tight community. I am saying if you are on Golf course road in Gurgaon. There will be 10 apartment complexes of 5-5 apartments.

There will be 5-5 houses. Sell in 5-5 houses only. By putting a radio or by putting a pamphlet with a newspaper.

That works? I think that will work. I tell a lot of the consumer companies I invest in.

now especially Delhi Gurgaon based that you have to localize Facebook ads like just put a pamphlet in newspaper Facebook is very expensive nowadays according to me just do localized stuff through content make content like you and on golf course road be quiet be ready write that on Saturday Sunday you yourself go and become a founder but that is a slow process but because the community is so close knit and so physically close you will be able to iterate much faster and So that is what I think is a smarter way to build out. But execution, you know, So when you launched, you launched in like on Amazon or how? Those are only D2C, then Amazon Flipkart.

So you basically opened your site, anyone could order, and you would collaborate with like a delivery or some other partner to distribute. We had a bunch of, at that time delivery, Revigo, Ecom Express. There were a lot of them, still a lot. So warehouse logistics, my view is that the one that is not your core, outsource it.

The one that is not your core, outsource it. Doesn't that add to the cost of the product and everything? Outsourcing? Yeah. No, reduce it.

Because they also get margins in that. Give them the margin. That's worth 10 rupees.

That's worth 1 rupee. They're earning in 9 rupees, you're earning in 1 rupee. You'll have to do it yourself for 25 rupees.

Get the expert to do it in 10 rupees. What's my expertise? Making a brand, making a product.

My expertise is not logistics, my expertise is not warehousing, my expertise is not manufacturing, my expertise is not beyond the point tech. Story is the USP. My brand is my moat, my product is my moat, my distribution is my moat.

Relationships, product, brand. This is it. Beyond this, other people should do it. And FMCG companies in India figured this out very well.

They're all management firms that own the brand. Everything else, even their distribution is outside. They put goods to the distributor in advance.

You send money, then you get goods, and then they will just manage outflow and market share. And if market share comes, then they will question that area salesman. manager or whatever.

So they're fantastic at managing businesses. But when you're building them, you'll have to build it on by keeping your core very close. You just mentioned that you should find areas which have potential to grow, right?

What have you observed at these spaces in India which have potential to grow? Outside of FMCG? FMCG or outside?

Yeah, FMCG, if I look at food and beverages, I think health is a huge one. Health is a huge one. I think over the next 20-25 years. There will be a huge movement of consumers towards healthy products.

I noticed this in the US too. Everything here is protein. Protein chips.

Protein pancakes. So that is there. That awareness has been given that you need your body weight in grams of protein.

But I think even more. I think people will go into calorie measurement. People will go into sugars. People don't know how much grams of carbs they need on a daily basis.

They don't know. They know. carbs should be less but if they say okay I'll have a cup of coffee how much sugar is there and hence how much carbs is there let's have one more samosa chaat yes so let's have one more samosa so what's in it so they don't get it right so I think that awareness is coming because of you know content creators plus generally health awareness thankfully India is a very unhealthy place otherwise so health is a big one I think there is a lot of opportunity in personal care I think aspirational luxury brands will be made in India Zara is that thing Here we are more into premium things.

But outside India, you go, it's just like a fast fashion brand. Just like H&M. But here they have a different brand. But in India, I think luxury, premiumization.

will happen in personal care especially in beauty. Beauty has a lot of opportunities. People want to get into natural beauty, clean beauty, all that.

I think sustainability is a big theme. If you are able to make something which is environment conscious, I think the younger folks are a lot more conscious of environment. Like we are moving towards wooden razors, for example, away from plastic. Our packaging is now getting a lot more recyclable. And that is cheaper, more expensive.

Initially, it will be more expensive, but at scale, it becomes cost neutral and over a period of time, it becomes... cheaper also. So, these are 3-4 things.

If you look at the outside consumer, I think FinTech has a lot of opportunity today. There's a huge liquidity boom that's happening because of COVID. I think everyone printed a lot of money.

People have tried to control inflation by making borrowing expensive but nothing has happened. So, all things have become expensive. Your camera was cheap 4 years ago. education become more expensive, your US tip would have been more expensive, my Birkenstocks are more expensive. So everything is more expensive, which is why people want to invest more and spend less, hopefully.

And hence I think we have what, 4-5 crore demat accounts? I think there's a headroom for at least 8-10 crore more of demat accounts to come in. And when those demat accounts come in, what will we do with them?

So penetration of just stock broking businesses to a mutual fund, mutual fund distribution businesses to you know using dormant assets like gold and making them come to life just like the way you make currency come to life these are a lot of businesses i think in fintech lending is becoming like i sell trimmer on emi these days my trimmer sells on emi okay emi 1000 rupees thing 150 rupees 6 emi for six months why do people take it why do they money I want to pay my debts, I don't want to pay 1000s at once. See, you have people who are able to fund you for it. Why won't you do it?

And what is their benefit? For the people who are actually financing that. They get interest.

They get interest or they get data. Or they get a lending book to raise funding. They get something at least.

I think they get excess money on default. In India people are kind of bad debts are... are lesser, I don't know what the status of NPS will be.

But generally people pay back. In India people... But this is a bad habit. There was a start saying that 7 out of 10 iPhones bought in India are on EMIs.

Because EMIs are easy. It's not because people need the money. I don't think it's because people borrowed because they didn't have it. Some of them did.

But most of them did because EMIs are just convenient. Why would you not? Why would you push out payment later? But that's the thing, you're right. You're right, it could be dangerous.

It could be dangerous, but I think from a business standpoint, I think it's a big opportunity. Yeah. Big opportunity.

And you knew that beforehand that if I'm launching a trimmer, I should... 99% of things that I say right now, Ishan, to sound smart, I found out later. None of them I predicted. None of them.

I'm telling you this because it's happening. I might sound like I knew it. I didn't know at all. You should listen to the market.

Where do you observe all these trends? Like you read Twitter, Twitter or... Maybe I'll... If there is no trimmer, I can see the data.

Varun is our analytical chief growth officer. If I have a 10-minute conversation with him, I get 4 insights. He sees so much data.

How did you hire him? Varun was actually ex-HUL, Pepsi, RPSG group. And then he came to us. He was recommended by a good friend of mine. They used to be colleagues.

We were looking for this role. He's a good guy. Absolutely bang on.

And you just judged him on the basis of how smart he is, like you just mentioned. So two, three references. One is references work for me a lot. Interviews don't work.

Conversations work. And references work. If two or three people whose work ethic slash smartness I respect a lot, if they say that someone is very fast, or very hardworking, or will do a very good job in this thing, then for me that's 90% of the decision.

Then I have to just convince that person to join. then it's a more commercial attractiveness of the offer than an evaluation. But in Varun's case I think we actually tried to recruit him once we failed because he didn't want to leave and then once we had a little more financial flex then Varun was able to come on board. But one of the, he's built out a lot of good stuff at the company. A lot of people, a lot of senior people, even the folks who joined as interns who kind of grew into the company.

performance grade impacted in what did Did they have that help them do that? I think they are, they are, they don't leave any stone unturned. They are the no stone unturned people, I call them that. If they want to do something, they will fight fast. They will throw a hundred ideas at the wall.

They will not let failure come in the way. They will create energy for people around them. They, they are very like, they exhaust all options to get something done.

So they're very like, Arjun Ka Bohe na, eye of the parrot. They're very focused that way. Do you think like good interns like these make for great founders?

Yes. I think it's the best skill to have. I think founders who also have no stone unturned philosophy will find their way to value. And they also will end up showing people who work for them how to do it.

So it's like that. People who give up don't... They just don't survive long enough to be good founders.

I think one of the most... Underspoken about trait of founders is survival. They can go through shit, but they'll survive. And if you survive, you will thrive.

I think most companies who have been exceptionally successful have done that. because they just waited and waited for the time to come. And when growth paradox, that growth always takes much longer to happen than you assume.

But when it happens, it happens much faster than you assume. So you don't have to wait. hit for your time to come but not stupidly like if you're hitting your head against the wall and the wall is never going to break then you have to walk away at some point but for the most part don't give up prematurely and that that that inherent no stone unturned mindset allows people to but when to know that you're banging the head against the wall or there's actually something interesting i have thought about this a lot at what point do you give up yeah it's clear answer frankly i think gut feeling what I think if your core well-wishers, strong core well-wishers are telling you over and over again over a sustained period of time that this is not going to work and your ego is telling you that it will but your logic is not, then you have to step back and reflect.

But if your logic is telling you it will but logic of 10 other smart people is telling you it's not, then you have to see whose logic is stronger. And sometimes founders logic is just stronger. Like Zomato is a classic example. Blink it is a classic.

classic example. Everyone said, where will money be made in quick commerce? Where will money be made?

There is an order of 400 rupees in retail, where will money be made? Who said that a gift case will be made that your average cart order will go from 400 to 900? That your delivery time will be, that people will buy iPhones on this? iPhone 16 is available and Blinkit in 10 minutes. Blinkit is up to all these guys.

So they have turned the business model on its head. So every modern trade and retail. and FMCG CEO in March of 22 when I think Zomato was buying Blinkit had written it off. Boss, he won't make money. He is the one who is buying such a big loss making entity.

Look at what's happened today. Because they didn't foresee. So kudos to Dipinder and Albinder for kind of foreseeing what a lot of people would have rubbished.

Had they given up because of Naysayers. But at that time they would have evaluated what is my logic saying, what is the logic of these. It must be amazingly difficult to look at 10 such crazy experts who think that it won't work.

Demand also doesn't earn 10% margin. If you make 440 rupees out of 400, that's the fuel cost of 70 rupees. Where will the money come from?

Valid question. Very valid question. But when the business turns upside down and the fuel cost becomes electric vehicle cost. And cart size goes up by 3x.

Suddenly you have wiggle room which you didn't have before. I think sometimes you have to back logic. But I don't know.

I don't know the answer. When do you stop? I think you have to back logic. Objective.

Stay objective and keep ego out of the room, I guess. Yeah. Only answer. What's one question that Shantanu would ask?

He was in my shoes. Ask me? If you were in the shoes of Vishal Sharm, what question would you ask yourself?

Ask myself? Good question. The last question.

Last time I asked this question to Ashneer, he said, he would have asked me to eat. He is asking me five questions. You can expect Ashneer to say that. I think a lot of people ask me how I am able to do so many things, right? Which is I play an advisor role at a private equity fund, Advent.

I love that. They are such wonderful people. Their companies are wonderful. I play an advisor role. McKinsey whenever they want me to come and advise on consulting consumer clients.

Within my company, I run four companies. So I run Bombay Shaving Company, which is the main brand, Bombay, which is our newer brand for women. I run 100 Day, which is our digital agency for... for bringing brands online and I run the barbershop which is a full content effort right and I am an ambassador Olympic gold quest and I do angel investing through the barbershop syndicate which is 30 crores of angel money.

So I do these 7-8 things. So people think that how do I find time to do it? And that's the question I would ask. You do all of these things. What is the answer?

But frankly, I get energy from plurality. I don't get energy from singularity these days. Singularity means doing one thing. Doing one thing exhausts my energy.

Earlier I used to get it a lot. You get bored. I don't get bored, I get exhausted. I think it's an age thing. Hmm.

I think as people get older, they prefer breadth over depth. I think. Maybe I prefer.

So I feel like, you know, I feel like I can add. I feel like after this, someone else can do this work. Like my time is now not getting ROI.

I can hire someone to do the job. And then let me move on to something more. Maybe it's a McKinsey DNA.

McKinsey DNA, every four months you change projects, you learn something new. So maybe it's that. I don't know.

But today I think. I derive max energy and I am able to create max outcomes because I have created plurality in my life. I am now getting involved in government in some ways. I cannot discuss it here but there are two, three things I want to do with the government of India as an advisor. I want to get involved with my father.

He does a lot of work on Thai in ThaiCon with entrepreneurs. So that's what I have to do. From all these things, the learnings I get, I am able to dissipate them back into either my podcast or to my...

How do you keep all your learnings and insights? I... Do you write? I don't write. Voice notes?

No. I am not a documenter of insights. I am a regurgitator of insights.

No sorry. Ruminator of insights. For example, I've spoken to you.

This conversation will stay in my mind for a while. Then I will see it whenever you release it. Then I will think about it. For example, I'll tell you what has stayed with me.

The fact that your father and mother decided to come with you to Bangalore. And you did not make a human cry about a decision as big as dropping out of a college as prestigious as Birj Pilani. And the fact that he was such a growth-minded human being.

Still is. is what will stay with me. So I'm thinking, okay, this is what Gen Z parents, especially such high-flying people like you, parents of Gen Z kids also have to enable them in interesting ways. I think my case is very particular because my parents actually saw me working with obsession.

If you open my room at midnight hour in 2020 middle, you'll see me either editing a video or learning something. the other also like for example i see uh rohit kapoor he's the ceo of instamart a phenomenally successful executive in his own right but a large part of his life today is being the caddy for his golfer daughter her name is naina and she's one of the most upcoming uh you know talented golfers in her age bracket uh in women in India and he like takes her for tournaments and this and that. I think for me, I started seeing like, you know, what, what, what parents of teenagers or young people like you, what they're doing to enable their children. So that's one thing I'll take away from this conversation.

The second thing I learned from you today is about how you and a co-founder of yours decided to just write a book and reach out as 19 year olds to like CEOs and go and take interviews. I cannot, I have not been able to do that. Like 90% of people who I invited on the barbershop just don't respond to my message. I don't know how you ended up going to their office.

It's very commendable. So I have to think, he must be doing something that I don't know. Either I give up or I take it on ego.

I feel that if he hasn't said it now, then he won't be interested. He will be like a leech. He will be like a leech. He will be like a leech.

He will be like a leech. If he wants to do it, he has to do it. It's a very endearing call.

So these two, three things I will... will stay with me i'll ruminate over them i'll think yeah this is my casick and then i'll come back to you and maybe this is i am hoping this is not the first of many conversations i would love to kind of go deeper with you on a lot of other things and so on so yeah For me, I invest a lot in relationships. People who I'm close to, I stay close to.

I easily pick up people's phones. I'm not unreachable. I don't know if you noticed, but our WhatsApp chats are very...

Yeah, that was actually unconventional. Yeah, very, very. Very quick, like very quick.

So, today morning one of my bosses from McKinsey from 2014 was messaging me. I called him directly. What are you doing? He said I am in Delhi.

I said meet me then. He said yes, this is good. I said it's 7.30, no one is doing anything. toilet or paper butter or tea.

What are they doing? I say yes, I am meeting them for dinner. So I just make sure that I spend time with good people all the time. Incredible. Shantanu, thank you so much for taking all the time.

Thank you. This has been valuable for me. I hope people learned a thing or two from this conversation. I wish I was a little more articulate because I have been tired all day.

I was talking throughout. I have talking fatigue right now. I am hoping your mics have... captured what I said.

Yeah, absolutely. But I hope your listeners enjoy and I hope they continue to cheerlead you. You're doing amazing work.

I will reach out to you offline for marketing, working together on our content and our brands also. But young people like you are truly, you know, your hustle, your hard work. You're such a nice human being. You came down to pick me up and I was not able to find the studio.

Smiling, you've been waiting for me for an hour. truly you epitomize what is what is entrepreneurial and good about about about being a professional you're too kind but thank you so much my pleasure thank you so much thank you for people who are listening this for I think last one and a half hour we're short for a while yeah awesome thank you so much for watching we will see you in the next one share this with your friends socials are in the description and we'll see you again thank you bye