whenever a young 21-year-old boy or girl wants to know what makes startup Founders people like yourself successful they get generic we don't want to know what you've said already so intent here was to ask you non-usual [Music] questions okay guys welcome uh all three of you thank you guys for coming pleasure the very first thing we do when we call people is we try to get to know them in a manner that even they haven't spoken online or it's not available so we don't want to know any of the stuff you're all popular people you've done interviews uh we don't want to know what You' have said already so we'll try and nudge it in a direction uh which will help us learn a bit more about you and uh for the point of this show uh there's no drama there's no like uh you know trying to get a reaction out of anyone it's very much focused on a 20-year-old boy or girl and when they are starting off uh what can they learn from the learnings you've had without any filters uh we did a venture capital episode and we came to the conclusion that 90 95% of startups fail you three have succeeded and you must have done something differently and today is about finding out what that could be and how other people can learn from it so maybe we can start with kzle tell us about your life from the very beginning from childhood all of that and take as much time and what others don't know yet yes what others don't know I I think others don't know a lot about um how confused and how um I would say I was still figuring it out for the longest period of time until eventually of course people started believing that this is the definition of success and that's for others right um so I come from a humble middle class family I was born and brought up in chandigar uh up till my marriage chandigar was the only place that I had stayed in because the background that my parents come from or I have come from uh they're not they were not very Pro sending women out for jobs or working so that's that's the uh you know the childhood that I've experienced I was probably the first women in my family to go out and work uh but the only difference between the rest of my family and my parents was um the conviction that both my parents had to ensure that our kids are going to be independent in life was this in chandigar in chandigar itself so like I said up till my marriage chandigar was my geographical a very pretty geography beautiful it's called the city beautiful right I love that place I think till today that's my favorite City uh but while I was growing up that wasn't the case because I I saw potential outside the city but was not sort of allowed to explore it I was told that within this 5 kilomet of radius whatever you want to do feel free to do it feel free to pick it up um so that's how my um you know what did your parents do so my father um continues to be a businessman um very interesting story I think first lessons in entrepreneurship is um I learned from him when I was in standard 8th um so big joint family uh my father is three brothers and Five Sisters so eight kids in total uh grew up with a lot of love um but eventually realized that a business that was being run by Brothers when the parents were no long their parents my grandparents were no longer there um there was certain friction that started coming in and there was a unfair distribution of wealth that happens everywhere no all the time I I it does there are a lot of stories I experienced it for the first time and with my own father M uh I think even at that point of time I couldn't imagine how can your own real you know blood do this to you it was it was very complicated and my father I've seen him trust his brother like like elder brother he used to consider him his father because he wasn't there and uh that trust getting broken was like an eye opener for me my first experience into any kind of relation ship and how uh it has such a strong impact on who you are or your own ability or or the like you being able to trust anyone else after that what age were you when uh your father and his brothers thing happen I was in standard 8 so I think 12 13 13 14 years whatever that is yeah I have a theory okay I feel like great entrepreneurs such as yourself when are asked the question why you successful often give the very generic rehearse thing that is common to everybody but I feel like it's not because somebody's trying to lie but we don't realize ourselves what insecurities we have deep inside which pushed us to do a certain thing yes hence a little unusual background absolutely so for that matter over the years and this is very recent last two to three years what I've realized is the reason for my success is not because of anything that I've done in the last 5 to seven years of building the business it actually goes back to my childhood and the way my attitude got shaped because of different events that happened and the perspective towards looking at some of those beat problems beat circumstances beat the attitude of how do you take a decision has shaped because of certain incidents which have happened which I might not have liked back then when I was going through them but truly have shaped me to be the person that I am so what changed in you guzzled the person were you a good student age 12 I was always a very good student for that matter till grade 10 I was amongst the top five in my class I was the sports captain and I was also the best artist in the entire school okay so the overachieving allrounder overachieving guzzle at age 12 young girl going to a school in chandigar watches her father father and her brothers his brothers go through a difficult time what changed in you pre and post that event I think one thing that I realized for the first time in my life was the helplessness that I had in that situation helplessness around money right helplessness around comforting my father money didn't come into the picture then because it took a while for me to realized that okay now money is also a problem did your lifestyle change yes it did because um what he got was under a lot of debt and we had to sort of as a family take care of that um and when suddenly because it was an unexpected event in his life right he he broke down and I saw him breaking down for the first time a very confident funloving person that he was I saw him getting very quiet not talking to people not going out and I I I could feel that he's going into depression right what I also saw saw at that point of time was the power that my mother had to correct the situations and she had been a housewife all through her life um it was beautiful um she pulled out all her gold saving sold it brought in some money helped Papa put inventory back into the shot into the shop what was business so he was into accessories of all of these cars and trucks like that entire business I still don't know how to call it out yeah yeah all of that right I still don't know how to how to accurately describe the business um but that's what my brother still continues to do by the way uh but he was into that but um the division happened in a way that the shop that he got was under a lot of debt there were a lot of like uh receivables that had to be recovered from the market and we knew that was like a dead money already he knew that it was a dead money it was not going to come and how much debt to attribute a number to it I think it would be anywhere between 40 to 50 lakhs back then that was a big amount like it it crumbled the versus income of four five LHS a year I don't think you'll be able to versus an income of around a lakh a month right yeah so that was the kind of debt that we were looking at and he could clearly see for the next 4 or five years this is not going to come in and for me to put an inventory I don't have anything left so what do I do and with a little bit of money that like the fact that a housewife can actually stand up and contribute to situations like this was again a first for me because mama is always sitting at home she's the caretaker so my um you know the belief that you you as a woman do have the ability to change things around because I hadn't seen anything like that in my family ever before came from her that source of inspiration came from her and I think that incident of course of course after that things started getting better slowly and steadily it took us almost 5 years to come out of that uh debt to start making money um but the conversations that I had with my father during those five years were beautiful I think the first lesson that he told me was B Money only comes home when the business makes profit that was my first lesson ever that if any business if it's not making profit the money doesn't come home it it might be gener Revenue but that keeps getting you know there's a cycle that is that exists in the business and it keeps rotating um I also saw uh my mom step up by taking tutions for smaller kids trying to help the family and I saw how they both beautifully came together and that was another lesson that I learned in relationship building of how to be more like your mother or your father H very interesting I think I want to be more like my mother uh the courage that the that she showed in that situation uh when when Papa was breaking down um and the will that she had that this is not going to define the rest of our lives and we are going to turn it around is the confidence that I still hold in myself I always refer back to that incident and I whenever things are tough I'm like we will turn it around this doesn't Define okay uh who we are going to be and then after 30 yeah so after that continue to grow I think um value of money is what we realized then importance of money and how do you spend it and how do you so there was a fixed budget in which you had to manage the house all of all of those learning started coming in during that time um as a student I was doing well in school um plus one plus two so good in maths good in science doing well Mama had this dream that because it was a trend back then to be an engineer right take up engineering and do that so good in Ms and science you're going to become an engineer and like you're like okay you don't know what's in store and is that when you left chandigar I didn't leave chandigar even then okay it goes on with me for the longest period of My Life um I took uh non-medical as subjects um and I was also under this impression that you know everybody used to say that 10th then you have some time free to yourselves and I took it very seriously see that's a lie that everybody's told for Life 10 12th for undergrad it's a never ending thing R get your first job get the promotion get married have children get your first house so after the 10th you were still like grade a student till 10th after that then life changed for me completely I took that after that you can relax but seriously did you come to terms with the fact that you're good-looking after 10th oh no no that's another story life changed how good looking to I picture like where where's that old why I say that's a completely different story because again for the longest period of time I thought I was the most horrible looking girl that could exist especially wow till grade 12 okay um reason being you had bad self-image till great well uh just on the beauty side of it on how I physicality of on on the physicality of it um I had a dark complexion compared to the other girls that I was studying um with I was very tall and for the longest period of time I thought this was something which is odd because last one in the in the RO and like the the smallest one and all the girls used to F in the early in the morning you know you're great your last to stand oh yeah all the girls used to fit in like the first five rows and I used to be in the 12th 13th row back with the boys right when did that change um that changed after uh grade 12 when I when the boy at the attention from the boys started coming in and I started getting compliments again chandigar MCM DAV which is a girls in chandigar everybody's good-looking so differentiating is hard right yeah Stu not every I take that as a compliment again but yeah chandigar um I don't know them for me the definition of good-look has changed considerably from there um so I always used to think that I am not this person all all good-look people say that like you know good-looking is relative and all that let me let me redefine it for you yeah did you get if your class had did you get more attention than majority of the class from men or boys till grade 10 no post grade 12 yeah post grade 10 yes okay okay so grade 12 you that actually worked well for me by the way because it it did help me realize that I'm not probably as bad I it's it's okay I think but even there it was my mother who changed it around what does that do for a girl like I I will never never know this cuz I can't resonate with how a girl would feel but when a girl gets male attention and is appreciated or is wanted from a very like emotional lens is wanted by many people desirable what does it do to you like how do you feel is it validation of something is it an insecurity going away how do you feel so for me it was an insecurity going away and me becoming more confident in my appearance for example you have farewells right in schools fairwell parties Etc and you have to dress up and you have these events which are happening ramps Etc all the kids participate I never used to participate in that I never had the confidence to go up the stage I never had the confidence that if I dress up and style my hair I will end up looking good so that that emotion was so strong that I used to avoid events like these my mother realized that I was trying to avoid some of these events because I had I was image conscious and I felt I wasn't beautiful is when she brought in a lot of magazines at home and she started talking to me about a few models and I was not interested in in that space at all and just for me to feel a little more confident on how I looked she started complimenting me at home for anything like any weird thing that I what year was this around 20 this was in grade 12 I clearly remember 2004 2005 yeah around that time yes okay so guzzle got good-looking great 12th boys I get good look I was still looking the same boys started running behind guzzle went to college in chandigar and what next yeah I wouldn't say boy started running behind me nothing of that but yeah a little bit of attention work what is he I don't know okay now this is my analogy no no this not therapy asking questions some of these years are so so like yes so much happens on so many different levels be it your family side be it the person that you're becoming be it your attitude towards things be friends and all of that it forms you as a person and I mean 12th again was a very very difficult year for me because I realized that engineering was not something that I wanted to do I also realized that my parents didn't have money and they figured from somewhere and they spent so much on the coachings that you have to take to prepare for the entrance exams Etc and I was wasting that money I was becoming more confident on how I looked so on the image side of it I was realizing the importance of different relationships and how it's very important to have few people in life but have them really close to you I also experienced a lot of friends moving away and the pain that it causes because somebody can be your best friend today and tomorrow because the school changes the college changes um you know the the they've picked up you've picked up computers they've picked up something else that relationship changes and they move on in life and that was are you like that now did you become a person who really gives importance to loyalty when you watched what happened between your father and his brothers when you were 1213 and and has that continued at Mama Earth today is loyalty a big thing so to till today loyalty is the most important thing for me in any relationship be it with my employees be it with my family be it with my any kind of relationships or friends I if it gets broken once it's very difficult for me to be that same person with that uh person unforgiving not unforgiving but I don't forget it there's a difference I will forgive the person but I will not forget what happened and that feeling stays with me because of which I'm not able to be that same person again do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing I think it's a very bad thing it does more harm to me than anybody else and I want to let it go I've tried really hard that this should move away I should be that person who doesn't care Etc it's been all like so many years now but I haven't been able to change it a bit that's why actually I I forget but I don't forgive so and and I forget like this I don't remember anything this is better that's a blessing I just don't remember that person forting is the same as forgiving that's it's a blessing if you can do that trust me and it's only because that work pulls me so hard that I I kind of forget everything which is around me okay just finish on guzzle okay you went to college then yeah so College I was like a very aggressive because of what had happened uh with my dad and all of that time one thing that my mother told me was you know how you have these parties like I talked about the fawell parties or you want to go out with your friends for a for a movie or for a lunch Etc everybody pulls in money right and when I had when you have to pull in money at that age you're asking your parents to give you some money or a pocket money right um and one day um like I saw some crazy discussion but I saw my mom telling me I don't have the money to give you so I can't go and this happened two three times uh I don't know what the reason was behind that but either she actually did not have money or she wanted me to learn something out of it or value money more whatever that was um there's this one line that she said when I said that you know what you're not giving me money like how do I do everybody gets it I will make my own money so she said Till the time time you're taking money from anybody else whoever you are taking it from will make decisions for you the day you start earning your own money is the day you get to choose where to spend it on and that is what I took with me all through these years and when I entered College I so College is very liberating right unlike school where you have a fixed routine College you also have some time and you know you're I have no idea never went to college it's it's it's Liber it's liberating in the sense that you have more time to yourself than you had while you were in school you also have a little more freedom because you have your own vehicle you have to go to college you have to take classes then you're taking coaching Etc um I actually used that opportunity and I tried to find a job for myself because I said College I have to have my own money if I want to spend it my way how do I make money I started taking tutions um figure out what were you teaching maths and science two students who were like pre 10th till 10th I would say little guzzles yeah little little guzzles like um but I was teaching everything because my objective was not I was not focused on what I'm teaching I was focused on what's the money that's coming in and how much am I able to make right so tutions College on the side College tution on the side and that's the time when I also picked up my passion for computer TS because I had experienced it as an elective subject in grade 10 grade 11 12th it got taken away from me and I was missing it like crazy so I realized that that's my passion so when I went to my parents saying you know engineering is not something that I want to do and I didn't sit for the entrance exams with a fear that what if I get through then I'll be pushed towards pursuing this as a career so didn't do that uh and instead said regular College highi college regular college that has minimal fee MCM DAV it's all girls college and on the side while I'll take tutions I'll also figure out what is it that I want to do and I picked up computers I joined niit there was this course 2 and a half year course called gni it which basically gave you exposure towards multiple different languages and softwares so that's something that I picked up and I thoroughly enjoyed it I loved it so much that I went to my principal in college I said this is something that I'm doing I'm working really hard I want you to give me some time off college hours because attendance used to be a concern there and you had to have like a minimum uh I think she understood my passion or I don't know what happened she gave me that permission that okay you're taking this another course you're doing really well there every 6 months you used to get a score card that I had to submit at college but continue to do that um but when I picked that up I had to leave the tuition so the money that was coming in the comfort of of having your own U you know little what that 2 3,000 at that point of time it was right but it was a lot it was my I could choose to spend it on a dress that I want or go out with my friend how old 18 18 17 178 1718 that money went away but the hunger for money still stayed so when I was taking this why is that I've heard this from a lot of people I think rates will resonate if you make if one were to equate money with power yeah power corrupts above all else right right the more power you have the more you want there is no concept of being Satisfied by virtue of power mhm why do you think most people when they get it might be a bad analogy but the taste of money early wants so much more in a very precocious manner where they want it so quickly what is it about money I think ear early on absolutely that's one of the things early on in your journey when you taste money and you're able to and that's only my view I don't know uh you're able to experience the Comforts that it brings right Comfort could be a mental comfort that I have this cushion it could be the things that I'm able to buy it could be experiences that I'm able to take is it that or is it when your father split he was depressed lifestyle changed that's so ingrained in your subconscious that when you made money your subconscious was thinking that you're solving what happened to you as a 12-year-old cuz the Comfort is irrelevant everybody gets happy when they get things so I I would phrase it that I I went through the discomfort that happens when you don't have money at 12:13 right yeah the biggest trigger there yes and I also saw my dad break down so subconsciously in my mind money was a very very important tool for you to be happy so when you started earning it was not the shoe or bag you bought but oh no deep down it was that problem that you didn't want to go back and address in your own mind even slightly mind I was taking pressure off my parents by not asking them for money and that was my way to help them which I was not able to do when I was you know but I believe n once you've truly been and you know again poor is a relative term but I think once you've really been through trouble right like when you basically to put food on the table is uh a challenge you never want to go back to it I think that feeling of remembering back um uh that specific period is it's such a stark feeling I think that's a very obvious thing though someone someone who is hungry knows the someone who was hungry correct knows the advantage of not being hungry today yeah I'm trying to get it what is the emotion that got ingrained in your brain when you were hungry makes sense makes sense like now that you've asked that question and I'm thinking about it I haven't thought about it earlier right um for me that emotion still it stayed even when we started Mama Earth out because I did not have any experience in beauty or personal care I had no intention of building a business I I'm an artist as well I was selling my Works nationally internationally back then doing really well can I ask you a question yeah who are your favorite artists my favorite they say that kind of artti you like tells you a lot about a person is it so my favorite artist is SEMA Ki followed by paresh Mei both of these are Indian artists I know I've met them I've I've seen their work I've taken a lot of tell some International dead ones I love Wang off and I love Picasso which painting if you say Picasso do you like his red face his blue face do you like cubism I like cubism the most you will also see it a bit of it in my work why um there is so much depth I think cubism was not him originally saan started it he got inspired right I think it was the first time when some artist did not depict something as it is but took a derivative of it and that appealed to me but my favorite works of Picasso have been on the lines of cubism I just feel that when you put those lines to form certain shapes um and I don't know how true that is but there is so much inter interpretation or there is so much depth to it that you can pull out um every time I look at these paintings I feel a different emotion and it goes back to how I am feeling at that point of time when I'm looking at the painting um I I just and that's something that I wish I'm able to bring out through my work and how how long after college did mam start just out of curiosity so I spent uh almost 3 and 1 half years with an it then I was an artist for 2 and a half years and uh after that 2 years I was working in India and after that M happened so almost uh almost 7 years not long 7 7even and a half years uh when I had my son is when M happened really so which year did you start mama so Mama started because of my son when I became a mama wow yeah is that why you called it mama uh the mama word did come from there but there were a lot of other reasons as well right now the mama story has been told already so I don't I won't go into that too much but uh niit then what did you say yeah so studied at niit while studying at niit took up my first job with an IIT which was a corporate trainer uh no experience just because High Mama suit went gave an interview got cleared next day they asked us to give whatever documents we had because they had to finalize it is when they realize that I don't my age is not El eligible I don't have any prior experience and I'm a student of niit so I can't take the role up convinced them in some way that give me one if it doesn't work out I won't charge for it like I was doing it for money right there was no other reason um uh but but they were kind enough to give me that one opportunity learned on the job had no idea how to train people like this was a training that I was taking for um people who were in their 40s to 50 50 years of age bracket who had been working with their company for almost you know 10 to 15 years and I was the one who was taking a software that niit had built to them saying I will teach you how you can do your work better that was also the first time I experienced that confidence can be faked because I was I I had my legs were shivering when I entered that room I was a student and I was supposed to become their teacher and tell them how can you use this software that I had also learned just 7 10 days back and sort of you know it's learning on the job but this is the number one competency in entrepreneurship that you have to be confident no matter what but really you have no idea what's going to happen next I know but again I think on the flip side uh I always think what can go wrong worst case I'll be thrown out of it any which don't have it so like I will eventually like once I complete the course yeah so that's okay the downside was so low like the risk of failing was so low that then confidently and you pitch it and you take those trainings how did you come like I know there's a onion oil yeah which has played a big part in this the story I want to know a bit more about that how did you go from niit to being an artist I'm guessing you sold a reasonable amount of art did fairly well yeah how did what kind of art did you make so I'm also into semi abstraction inspired by these guys okay so you were doing decently as an artist you were married by this time yeah yeah so so niit did that eventually ended up taking that as my main job did that about for for about 3 and a half years met Varun we got married where did you meet him arranged marriage his bua used to be my neighbor in chandigar she's the one who arranged it between us of course Baron and I were chatting on social media before that because you used to come visit bua often uh but we were like yes this is an arranged marriage the way you're saying got married first boyfriend no I I had a couple of boyfriends before that first husband um um met Varun the first question that he asked me when we met right not exactly the first question but during that first conversation was what is it that you want to do and of course you say a lot of things etc etc my mother had prepared me what did Von do when you guys got married Von was working with h okay as fmcg yeah fmcg Maron has a pure fmcg experience he was working with h very good job uh we got married within 5 months of meeting each other I moved to Delhi uh and within 2 months of marriage U why don't had to move to Philippines for his job and because we were in this new relationship still trying to figure each other out and the relationship out and you don't want to be I I took a call that I will leave my job and I'll move to Philippines with him so when I moved to Philippines is where I had a lot of ample time I picked up this passion for painting uh I think one day I just pulled out some paints and canvases and I painted and I didn't realize I was painting the entire night till morning about 6:37 and by the time vun woke up I had like four five works ready to be hung on the wall and he was super surprised so without telling me he actually submitted my Works to a couple of colleges internationally because earlier he had asked you know what's your passion I said painting is my passion whenever I get time I'll pick it up he asked that would you like he didn't know it's that Series yeah he was very surprised so he asked me that question that back then when we were getting married right that if given a chance would you want to pursue it professionally and I had said yes so yeah without telling me sent the works to the academy couple of colleges I got a call from New York Academy of Arts to come there and pursue uh artist with them uh you know the course with them it was a 9mon uh course and what year this was right right into our marriage we got married in 2011 so this was 2012 uh we spent about 6 months in Philippines while I was doing all of this um so 2011 2012 is when this happened and um before even when the call came he did not tell me the call has come he figured out that if I have to go to that place where do I stay how do I manage because he knew that this girl has never been out of chandigar let alone going to New York and pursuing this he figured all the nitty-gritty is out how will she manage etc etc and when everything was sorted that's when he said that if I tell you you can go to New York Academy of Arts would you go I said of course I would love to go with an assumption that he'll go with me um he said uh that's when he said that a call has come uh but you'll have to go alone uh because he was also new into his uh journey of uh you know handling southeast Asia markets but um I said no and then he convinced me to take the risk go there alone figure it out yes good husband yes touchwood I'm blessed you guys over to you us over to us we have to make sure that we sound good for our wives yeah so when there then first year old but gone no no I really wish that g also say the same things about me but I have no idea we I'll only find out but please go on you would know you need start that first together right yeah of course but look we we've dated each other now for what 11 years so ever since high school so there's probably a longer context but we'll come to it later enjoyed my time there um went for a very different course which was realism where you paint photo like real pictures old school impressionist yes and hated it still life was learning that I signed up for that course I got invited for and I hated it uh and then I I still remember like one of these Side Opportunities came in which was a call for artists and you can submit your artworks and I created something that I felt like in in I think 3 hours and I submitted that work and it got selected to be exhibited at New York Academy of Arts it was up in their Gallery until about 2 years back that is what gave me me confidence that again it's not about what you know or what you are learning something entirely different caught the attention of my teachers and it got selected so then that's where I started my journey around Painting came back to India started exhibiting Works started getting sold was doing really well I thought that was something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life how how Mama I'm still wonder yeah so Mama Earth happened after this while I was an artist we went on our family rout I was expecting austa happened um what year this is 2014 okay and uh first 6 months were okay you're still figuring out right we used to have a lot of like our doctor used to call us Google parents because we were Googling each and everything around baby you're so worried as a new parent that you would end up breaking the baby that I mean we were like hell lot of paranoid set of parents not just me set of parents our japa made which helps you with the baby for the first months left in 15 days she said you guys don't let me do anything why have you signed me up she left in 15 days the child like this and you have to see it when she does this and you can't do that right so we were we didn't allow her to feed the baby we didn't allow her to sleep with the baby we didn't allow her to Bath the baby everything we were doing ourselves so she left and a doctor also was saying the same things Google parents Etc I think it was after that where um Augusta started having some skin reactions because of which I realized that the products that we were using on him were not good enough we started ordering from outside of India and those products were suiting him really well so that is how um you know as a cribbing wife I went to vun why is why inia why don't we have regulations we not have any regulations were you ordering from outside so there's this brand called Baby ganx okay and there is this brand called honest yeah J yes I was ordering products from these two Brands and holding it like crazy cupboard full of cupo they were all like organic natural organic very low you know food gr preservatives Etc and we did not have anything like that in India India was even the products that were calling themselves out as the world whatever was existing that was my I shouldn't that was my trigger that was my trigger because whenever anybody has a new baby maximum number of gift sets come from the brand that you said right Johnson's and Johnson's I see yeah my first achievement was it's not Indian brand so say more so that was my trigger right that was I was like this is just not acceptable outside of India and because I had lived in New York I knew back in New York there was this whole movement around J&J going on where their tal had some cancer causing ingredients in them and they were being taken off the shelves so I knew that there's something off with the brand because I used to use that tal back then when I came to India and I was getting all of those gift sets and then internationally those controversies are happening and India also started getting those cases is when it it was it was like a very strong trigger that how can this come close to any of our babies is there regulation now which makes it harder for stuff like that to come in I don't think there's any regulation per se but that's what we sold for through India I don't think there is there is so for example aush would have brought in certain rules um on the ingredient usage Etc and how do they certify products to be uh I certified but back then there wasn't so you you figured India banana so what is the how do you go from there to making a product yeah so like like a very brief conversation between me and Von where I'm saying ordering products is so crazy you're you're like tracking friends and family who's going right was so much pain and I just went as a cribbing wife I said why this problem needs to be solved and he just made one statement he said if nobody else is doing it why don't you give it a try and that statement stuck I think all through my life i' I'm just realizing now that there have been certain statements which have been like uh life-changing for me and this was one of those statements where he said figure it out can it be done or not it might be a possibility ingredients are only available outside and hence it's not happening so I got like a lever to I like I wore that research hat and I went mad around figuring out what's happening in the baby care industry in Personal Care can someone do this if I were a 20 old girl yeah and I want to start like a organic Indian maybe ayurva inspired something like that brand can I create a oil or a shampoo or a soap or something like absolutely and it's not even difficult and it doesn't have to be very expensive I think all you need to do is so for example what is the kind of product that I'm trying to create what are the kind of ingredients that I want the product to have where are those ingredients available and at what cost tell me I want I'm a 21y old girl yeah I want to start a shampoo which is very good for me yeah don't laugh at me being a 21y old girl where do I go about finding out laughing at him what goes into a shampoo what goes into a shampoo yeah how do I get those ingredients and how do I put them together you have to have a product that you believe in that this is something truly differentiated and is not available in the market or is providing convenience or is extremely superior but how do I do that shampoo how do I make it okay so what we if I I'm a 21y old one you Google formulation of shampoo very easily available what are the ingredients that go into it you Google I want to make a shampoo at home you understand that okay there is a suant system which causes forming these are the ingredients this is what I want to put the difficult part is to understand what are the ingredients that you want to replace it with and how do you go about creating those formulations that is where Google might not be able to help you as much if you don't know what do you want to replace it with so my journey on creating that product and that was a baby shampoo back then started by reading the labels of these brands that I was sourcing from us um that's a good hack right if there's something nice out there absolutely which is expensive if you have a reference point why for cheap yes and study the in and out of that product and you're trying to say you make that assessment and make your own derived formula like a no no no no no no for the for the moment like this could be swapped in so now you go to an expert to get that validation that's of course there but you could do all this within yourself in the same I just did paperwork I was just on the paper studying and trying to understand understand what is it that I want to build what is it what should a shampoo have which will make it milder yet effective and be very different from what's available in India which was more harmful ingredients outside of India those ingredients were banned in a few countries to be used on a baby skin which were being widely used in India right so one for example studying I just studied us regulation because that's where the products were being lifted off on what are the us regulation where do you find it online fre absolutely freely available freely available you stud you can study us you can study Europe I did all of that Google was my best friend and studying these products for example going to an honest company's website and seeing what are the ingredients that they're putting in their product comp what is the source you take the name of that ingredient you put it on Google it tells you what that ingredient does why is it used for what is the ideal percentage etc etc so the only thing that I understood out of all of that study was the fact that one coconut based cleansers exist which can make the shampoo far more milder and nonirritant in nature beat for the eyes beat for the skin and I wanted to replace the harsh surfectants which were banned in countries outside of India but were being used in the baby products here with the coconut based surfectants and then after that I had to reach out out to people who could help me build formulations and when you're starting out how do you find these people yeah so like again cool calling cool mailing so you can find if I go on Google and say I I'm a 21y old girl yeah I think my shampoo is horrible yeah I find a shampoo a really expensive Honest Company shampoo which I really like yeah I look at the difference in ingredients of that and what is available here yes and then I need to find people who will make this for me yeah who do I call what do I Google so here is where LinkedIn helped because on LinkedIn you can specifically put search people out who are into research and development for personal care products H interesting right so that's where LinkedIn came handy and we uh of course we like pulled out at least at least 30 35 40 people that we wanted to reach out to we sent we figured their email IDs from LinkedIn itself I sent cold mails to these people probably out of those 353 rted and one out of them and what timeline months or no no no that I think that ways our system is good even today if you write a cold email to somebody I think you most mostly get a reply um might be different now because the definition of Entrepreneurship has changed it's not that easy in real estate back then there was this again you know you have to find people who are able to understand what you're trying to say we were a set of parents trying to solve a problem that a lot of our friend parents were also facing how do you establish that connect so we wrote a parent couple trying to solve a problem as the subject of the mail that we had sent out and I think that really helped us be it finding the right manufacturing partner or finding this scientist couple who help us build uh formulations but that was also true right because I did not have I couldn't say anything about myself apart from being just a mom uh so they reverted they um helped us like put basic formulations together of course they did not have any manufacturing units so we had to find another partner who could manufacture the product for us they are the ones who actually gave us access to their R&D lab because we did not have any and that's the beauty of startup ecosystem in India right the shared infrastructure that exist actually eases out building a business had it been 10 years back you would you would not even be able to think about something like this because if you had to build a formulation you have to have your own lab and then have your own manufacturing unit otherwise that sharing system didn't exist and they'll be okay to do five 10 pieces if I were to reach out so they give us access to their labs labs may you can have hand handmade batches not the commerci this is not expensive like access access to a lab so nobody gives you access to their lab or their resources the only reason why we were able to get that was because we went crazy like he's still our largest manufacturing partner by the way we went crazy following up as a 21y old I can reach out today and get access to a lab yes I mean you have to have a vision and you have to be able to show that Vision to others your biggest manufacturing partner yeah yeah so Capco uh Varun Kapoor and binita again a set of parents who had kids similar age as uh us um who they said that this is something that we had also been thinking about for the last couple of years a lot of people have actually come to us tried to figure this out but nobody has been able to formulate or do something about it so are you sure you want to put in time and effort because nobody has cracked it till now but can you imagine that I'm but now I'm getting the point where he's going and and since he started from your earlier Journey do you think today you have manufacturers or these lab heads who are that welcoming to attend a call of a 20-y old and says okay or they have somebody meet this so and so person is there a welcoming system in this segment of labs andely you think it's still there I mean look at the number of startups that have come up in the beauty and personal care space in the last 5 years I would say there'll be more today than there were back then AB for sure because there more there are Labs the young one calling up you know I don't know like young people call me all the time I engage with so many of them not in I don't have a lab but in other domain especially uh last 3 years this has really changed because a lot of people have also experienced success and they also understand that if you like the idea you should pursue it with the person I have come to terms with that right first three years I used us to absolutely ignore whoever was writing such we were nothing back then uh nobody used to write as well but today if if young people and I'll I'll I'll tell you a small story a 14-year-old who comes to me and says this is the ayura brand that I want to create and sits with me for a couple of hours brainstorms understands how to build a business um and is working on it as we speak this a real story yeah yeah yeah 14y old 14y old 14 year old and I like super surprised at the kind of ideas that they have yes they are so sure that they will be able to figure it out it is beautiful okay so you formulated it you met the Capco guys who are your friends I'm sure some people are going to hit them up after this a lot of people have already hit them up so you made a baby shampoo which worked better we made four products we made a baby lotion we made a baby shampoo we made a 100% natural mosquito repellent and we made a sunscreen so these were the four products that we made we were very clear and each of them had a purpose how much did it cost you to get to this point nothing this business getting your prototypes for example what we were working towards was having five pieces of each we which we could show to people let them experience it sort of figure out and give us feedback hand bch like working in your kitchen it's like beers and you're whipping it and you you made hand it's not as fine as the commercial batch but you know if the formula is okay if the feel and texture is okay the commercial batch will come out fine right again because we were digital first we did not have the pressure of number of units that need to to be created right because we were not Distributing it in one Warehouse you can produce as low as 5,000 units of per product 3,000 units of Peru thatare so it cost it to set up the warehous no again we didn't own the warehouse shared ecosystem you use people who have uh you know amas and all of those of the world who have that infrastructure and you sign up with them no cost no fixed cost so it depends on the amount of space that you sign up for is you're using and then it it starts from there for the first 6 months of our business we did not have an office a matter took one seat up I think you can transfer the question sush she this hot food he knows that I ate before I came what year was this we started we launched Mama Earth in December of 2016 so 2015 um end of 2015 and early 2016 is when we were figuring it out July is when we incorporated the company we then worked with Partners finding the right kind of people who could actually make it for us December 5th December 2016 is when we we launched it with Amazon Launchpad with uh what is Amazon Launchpad amaz Amazon launch pad okay so that was also the first year that Amazon had come up with this property called Launchpad where they were helping startups or newer businesses get launched on their platform it was separate from Amazon so they were also trying to optimize for example these brands should come up and search or try to give them more visibility or get them um you know visibility to the right kind of people within the ecosystem of Amazon Etc so we launched with them you you would owe a lot of success to that pad that they created according to you now that was a starting point so you made a few products they worked what happened next you had a warehouse all of this costed in between also how how do you know the product worked or not worked was also something that was really important and like completely changed the way we pitched the brand to our consumers or we talked about it um so we made those set of five products um because we were living in Delhi South Delhi really premium toy shop and we stood outside that toy shop because that guy did not let us in we wanted to do some consumer work to understand if people you went to a toy shop yeah he didn't let you in so you did s stood outside and did the survey and anybody can do that anybody can do that it it's basically a walkway outside the shops right anybody can stand there so we stood there we knew our relevant consumer set is going to come and parents are the only ones who will come to a toy shop or probably one who's trying to take a gift for kids but they will be exposed to that segment of kids right so we stood there um andly approached people who were working in made them try our products for feedback gave them candies in return that was the only thing that we could afford back then um and started filling our survey form for us to be able to take feedback because when you're making natural products back then we did not know that the performance can be at par with some of these other products now we know far better but we also thought that performance might not be as good or the texture might not be as good it's a handmade batch Etc we wanted to take a lot of feedback on the way the product looked we had created labels so you were doing it with the packaging as well yeah and we had created the labels and everything at home B waren and I came up with the brand name those labels still continue all our baby products are with the same label that we had designed back then uh and you got this far with no money very little money yeah so we had raised a friends and family around because we thought we would need a lot of money MH uh we we did need money so for example the entire first 30 days it was just me and waren when we launched ourselves on Amazon Launchpad and a few orders started coming in we were the ones who were packing the orders ourselves as well for us to be able to to dispatch it I still remember December is when we got this order of uh 20 sets of four different products from Bombay this mother wanted to give those products as return gifts on a birthday party and we were like super happy very excited but so nervous Beast product per you working with five per product how would we make it how would the production happen who will make it how will it get reach them in time etc etc but figured figured that piece out worked on crunch timelines and everything um January the first time you get that check for the first transaction it's like is the most special the first purchase the first consumer the first bulk order BR it's the most special it is it was really special and that's when that's what gave us confidence that we feel we need somebody in the team the first check framed at our office the first check of like bulk booking of 10 room nights so you pitched each vendor individually to get orders yes and how do you find out who the vendor should be for Cosmetics or baby products no back then I didn't have an option there was only one guy who said yes okay I'll work with you how did you find who to pitch to so okay the way you find manufacturing there are so many personal care products available in the market every personal care product has the manufacturer's address written on it right so you pick up like the to yeah you pick up top 10 you reach out to them for them to give you some time for you to be able to go to them and Pitch nobody gave us time these were the only people that we were able to get through we had a conversation with them um we loved the fact that they were parents themselves and that gave us a lot of confidence that they will put an extra effort to figure this out with us which they did uh so they came in as a blessing to us um so started working all the products were being manufactured at the same place as a consumer it's actually the most misunderstood thing is it yeah yeah one of the biggest pain points that I'm facing today uh is this perception that people have that if you're manufacturing if you don't have your own manufacturing the quality of the product can't be as good who is it because you don't have they subcontract everything right so technically they do but it's not really but isn't that the case with most large not manufactured by Mama right it's it's uh sold and marketed by m and then manufactur that true for most large cpg companies they see what I think consumers will say for the long and this comes from history right for the longest period of time for example H Etc all of these larger Partners have had their own manufacturing for that matter 10 years back that was the only way to get into business you can produce a product if you have a manufacturing unit and that was the capex that was required to set it up to get started I'm so glad that that entire process got disrupted and with very minimal Capital you can now use this Shar infrastructure and start a business of your own otherwise like 90% of the ideas would have still stayed an idea because you didn't have the money now from the consumer side because this comes to me a lot personally that you don't have your own manufacturing and hence what they don't understand is manufacturing is different R&D is different the IP is developing Personal Care there's no IP there's no IP right because you are you're disclosing 100% of the ingredients ingredients with the percentages so not with the percentages but you're disclosing the name when R&D is yours which is and a product has so much to it the the sensorial the texture the efficacy the feel that just knowing the knowing the ingredients you might be able to come closer to the product but you cannot crack exactly what the other person has cracked right uh or you reverse engineer that's also a possibility but a company can have it her own R&D her own expertise we have our team members sitting at manufacturers plant you know to to to for Quality checks to ensure that everything that we have set out as a process is being followed and what we are using is the capex that that person has invested into putting those machines and setting up that manufacturing unit if I have to set it up today it actually becomes a limitation for my business because I'll be limited with the space that I have the number of machines that I can put and hence Innovation which for the longest period of time has been super slow in India formulations get developed outside of India and then they are imported within India and then they're adjusted for India which dilutes the performance of the product that is something which Mama challenged that is something that we figured and we played on and Innovation is an edge now that everybody talks about about and all of the larger players have also started talking about it okay coming back to it so as a 21 year-old uh what I have learned today if I'm able to look at a great Korean brand I know the formulation I can hit people up on LinkedIn who will make it for me I can find a lab which will be willing to do five to 10 pieces to try if I convince them enough yeah at a negligible cost I don't really need to spend the money required to set up a manufacturing facility yes I can use a co-packer and it'll just be be just as good probably better because if one guy is not doing good I can make him compete with another and get a better product now I've gotten to the point where I can manufacture how do I get distribution how do I sell what worked for Mama there so when we were doing the consumer study sting standing outside that toy shop we realized we got a lot of feedback on how to communicate what to communicate what was what were they understanding what were they not understanding so one of the examples a pack said sulfate free and this one mother came to us and said sulfate free free so that was the understanding that the consumer had and we realized that just communicating this free that ingredients this is free of these harmful ingredients is how we've got to put it we can't say sulfate free paraben free communication got sorted from there what we also realized was that for a new brand purchasing from directly from the website takes some time for them to have trust on the product or the brand and hence platforms which have which these guys already trust which were like Amazon Amazon flip cart Etc it's better to list yourself there and be available there because the Trust on the platform has an equity rub off on your brand that if this brand is available on the platform that I trust yes I would want to give it a try what works in terms of like you said not sulfate free or paraben free but different things that was your hack what could be a hack in the ecosystem today 21 yearold starting a Cosmetic Company what can I what can I use as a means of selling my product which would be differentiation today it depends on different propositions for example mama was one brand we now have six Brands and each brand has a very different communication and a very different proposition Beauty and personal care in India is still evolving right um there and people now have Global aspirations they know what's happening in a Korea they know what's happening in a China and how the beauty system there is can I bring what's happening in Korea to India and replicate it well and it's an opportunity right now you can bring what's happening in Korea to India one way is you Source the products from there and make it available in India at affordable prices and you'll have to figure people are already doing that well right yeah but it ends up being expensive second is you create your own brand on the proposition that's working there because you've checked enough that even Indian consumers really very strongly relate with it so I'll give you an example can we match Korean quality here you can do better nice I've done that with my third brand good to hear I have a brand called aqualog which is a brand based on deep hydration for your skin Korea skincare trend is deep hydration for your skin they've been using multiple ingredients to figure those formulations out we said what can we do for India see the problem is for the longest period of Time beauty Personal Care industry it was like says it beautifully charmies right people haven't been able to come out of it and say that Indian skin is different Indian weather is different and hence the product efficacy or the product texture Etc needs to be different um so aqualog is that brand which is based on basically this Korean Trend around deep hydration for your skin um a bestselling product there is sunscreen it has taken the market by storm it is the best selling sunen with hydration sunscreen with hydration no white hydration G I like I know what a moisturizer is but how does it like I'm actually curious about a lot of what you're saying and H I'm like what determines how much hydration you get from what cream so one like if I'm paying a bomb like if I'm paying one lak rupees for a fancy cream let's say laam mer or something and let's say I'm paying 200 rupees or 50 rupees for a cheap cream let me not name them yeah what is the difference so one the way your skin feels after 2 to 3 hours of application or even after 6 to 8 hours of application should one tell you the difference second we have figured so simple hack Amazon has this instrument called moisture meter I think it's available anywhere between 3 to 400 bucks that's it right apply any cream test the moisture in your skin compare whatever creams you want to compare and it'll tell you which cream is the most hydrating one over the years I've realized nothing should be left to gut based or subjective interpretation of things if you put in can buy this on Amazon yes yes but what's the meter we should look for that it is correct so it has two uh metrics moisture content and oil content oil content needs to be lesser moisture content needs to be higher the more moisturizing it is the more moisture content the more hydrating the product is if the oil content also ends up being higher you will feel stickiness on your skin and that's how you can judge the I won't get into distribution too much CU we did a episode with Kishore Raj and anant and we did distribution for two hours how to sell on Amazon how to be ranked higher in their algorithm growth hack stuff like that but incredible story uh some of the Nuance I don't know like now will be resonate with it when you were 12 13 years old the split in your family built some kind of insecurity in you that many of the other things loyalty Financial Freedom Early slightly aggressive slightly unforgiving uh forget but don't truly forget forgiving but don't doesn't forget forgive I've forgiven a lot of people in my life could you say that if you forgive and you don't forget is slightly unforgiving true no true forgiveness for you're putting yourself at ease you're taking that burden or that pressure off your otherwise it keeps moving in your mind that you're still upset by certain things so you've forgiven it's no longer bothering you and it's no longer bothering the other person but would I trust that person again with the amount of trust that I had before would I trust that person again probably yes but with my share with my fair share of doubts yeah uh mom stepping up big event yes it it's very evident how that has uh also when you said Mom or Dad favorite or who you would like to be like you said Mom I think it has defined your personality to a certain extent uh when you got confident about how you look beyond the 12th grade I think retesh came in between and added there but being confident about anything uh how you are conf confident about how you look is a big part of being confident about anything yes and I think to any young entrepreneur it makes a big difference also uh creativity by virtue of being an artist big part of I'm drawing a guzzle word cloud M at the end of the day I will compare word clouds because you are anomalies all three of you one in 99 who have failed at building a successful startup so I'll see what are the similarities and then we will try and fig out if this is the right answer to the question what makes a startup successful creativity again I think extremely important in a world where everything has become so mechanized uh differentiation comes from creativity uh and this is a little bit of a digression but how good your partner is yes how you how supportive the man or woman you choose to to uh cohabitate with or marry or have children with absolutely is a game changer absolutely would you think this would have been your word cloud starting off what is guzzle the entrepreneur very interesting I'm also hearing this for the first time I've never created yeah I've never created a word cloud around me but um I would truly say these are the words that have i I can't add anything more to it these are the largest defining pillars of your professional success yes and not the typical hardworking generic that everybody gives right those are by products that everybody needs to have yeah like over the time I also figured that everything is f figureoutable is the word that I use but I mean there's nothing that you can't figure if you if you put in the right amount of effort everything in the world is figureoutable it's it doesn't matter like you've learned it you've done a course around it You' you've picked this up or not just to be curious enough and that works really well but thank you for being so vulnerable and honest about it I think uh in this pursuit of being more public we all become so rehearsed with time that we become boring and I think people are able to gauge that today I'm sure yeah I'm sure yeah okay moving on I think we'll come to rates last because his story is most popular and has been told so many times so Manish is this rare like you know we talk so much in the media about unicorns and all that right I don't know what animal is rarer than unicorns I would call him like I don't know a dinosaur dinosaur I was going to say dinosaur because that one is rarer yeah so you made my cloud already yeah the one word is enough so I've seen rare rabbit uh there's a store in the mall right next to my house uh in UB City and I've seen it like here and there many times in the past so we were investing or we're in the process of investing in rare rabbit and when we started researching the company a bit more it just didn't make sense it was stupidly incredible like a Indian H grown Western cloth manufacturer a company built in the era that we live live in making a profit after tax with no investors he it's his house so I'm hearing him fully bootstrap he's up uplifting it too much with no investors no dilution nobody and our man has built it when I when first generation you built it incredible how many years ago 7 years 7 years ago just 7 years ago so we start congratulations 2017 16 17 and nowhere to be found in the media no interviews no like if you you like our team was trying to do like a bio of him yeah someone asked bio I said he said he doesn't so then they started looking up online you didn't put words to it I am from Bombay originally born and brought up in Bombay uh lived in h a small uh place called kalba Dei which is a very hustle bule textile Market you can call it the B Bazar of Kolkata or the the bazars of chi chalk and chick bait of Bangalore so grew up there uh had a lot of challenges dad was a hardworking man uh separated from his brother and he was trying to make his big life he dad separated from his brother brothers similar story yeah and Happy separation sad s separation separation never Brothers can he moved out not that I could I have no memory of how he did and all that I was but you didn't pick it up like this mhm okay but I think uh India 95% 98% normal this is like so we used to live there uh not had too much of access of great things from a color TV or whatever could go to neighbor's house to see movies uh they would be on sofa I would be on floor but that was life and uh there are a couple of things that strung me that when I moov from that place to Cuff parade which is the let's say the skyscraper part of Bombay because how old were you when your parents your dad and brother separated I would be what 3 four 5 years old 3 four month I mean not even the conscious of mind too young to understand no we were in Bombay always actually that age they say between 3 to 78 all psychology states that even though your memories might not be Vivid those are the most impactful those are very formative my memories go very grasp the most as like something I remember for some but I'm not sure this kind of stuff would they be able to understand yeah absolutely you would not understand what happened but now you can relate to it you can understand the noises you can understand that you're packing a bag and leaving and just going somewhere but yeah it happens in everyone's life but I think uh we are sitting also here because today from whatever success we've got the message is also to those 20 year olds that you may be in that same hustle buzle Madness wrongs and rights of life but there's always an outcome there's always a shine out that's why you can hear us or believe us or it can happen to any of you so moved uh it was tough uh small things were difficult I always had the eye for design color especially uh I can uh I can pick color very fast some eyes are trained for that my God gift is that and uh I used to love shoes like these in those days and it was not accessible we'll put a picture of R's shoe on his way out okay h on this podcast you should because really cool he's shying my red ones as well my sh my red ones are shying actually so for me it was a lot of everything was less available and I had to do a lot not too much in advance uh right I mean everything in life I've done it I think almost 6 seven years earlier five six seven earlier from lighting a first cigarette to stealing Chiller money from home uh stealing a car from the house doing anything in life and then one fine day when you're growing you just say uh I the other big influencer of my life is movies uh Indian and uh the western movies I think uh people may realize or not realize maybe some part you would realize that in movies some some lady has also affected some personality there as well because Indian India is somewhat we are enveloped and surrounded with this this culture of movie around us actually I do I do and if you are now busy that's a different thing but it has a very big impact other than Parents movie and the role play has always I think the way diamonds and cigarettes got sold by Hollywood is test ment to yeah yeah how soft power is in the movies absolutely but let's hear it from your childhood my childhood of course been uh unlike your parents uh my mother was very hard on me I was uh quite brutally handled because I was I also never gave get better reasons in life to her for doing everything in life and uh so I was talking about movies because uh with movies for me there was nothing Beyond methun chakra and Aman there was nothing there was one guy who could move dance and look Glamour and gold and this is this man who's got all this Charisma of looking how dashing he was and the first time when the jacket came with a so we are talking about bomber jackets now when amaban got his first jacket to put his hands inside we were like how do you put a hand here you know that's that's a big thing there's a pocket here and that was a big thing to have to ourselves that you could wear something I can have a pocket here so from dad's business would pick up some Fabrics here and there and uh from his office steal some T of Kaa and go to the tailor get it stitched sit there and as as and while this was happening uh uh education was nowhere just trying to uh kind of scrape through by 70% coping in exams and finding a way through just do this Duty and uh finally when 12th came I was done with the struggle of copying there just took a car back and I said Mom I don't want to study and I had this sag of becoming a businessman so in school people carry bags you know and I would carry a VI VIP suitcase of my dad and yeah to school and open my books from that and people would laugh at me because I just wanted to feel businessman you know businessman suitcase office I think fifth standard I carried the first time a VIP suitcase like basically businessman would carry cash in a suitcase so that equivalent was you carrying books yeah and I wanted to carry that was my bag also files yeah I did it for five six years I mean the class you're going in the cash [Music] Direction so uh dad used to be uh tell us a bit more about your dad my dad uh he's uh he's a great businessman a great Hustler he could he's there's one story I want to tell you from where it starts actually my dad when he split from his brother and uh it was over a simple issue that his brother wanted my uncle wanted to make 50 p a meter used to be in textile business textile business and he was the monopolis my uncle was a monopolis of few NTC Mills of Bombay for certain so NTC Mills would have uh National textile Corporation because everything was nationalized uh there were some what era are you talking about we talking about 80s '70s and ' 80s uh till ' 90s also they were Mills NTC Mills was a he was a supplier to ntcs no he was a buyer of the Mills uh the fabrics and they used to make 10 20 qualities each quality used to be handhold by certain cartel of business businessman so my dad would have certain sorts and my dad was very he was a very quick Rotator in business and unlike his brother who was 15 years older to him who would want to make more money but he would say you're making 25 PES you so on that tussle he says no you don't know business and he knows business better and things like that they split but he still went there to take that 20,000 m to the mill and and at that time um he entered that office uh so he was not an English speaking guy he would actually go and he didn't know what excuse me he was just a straight man so he would enter the Chairman's office where he would have two guards and no one can get out of so Mr s when he would leave the textile mill who Mr s Mr shushil sen is also one of the reason uh one of the the key man who made even Kish Ban's life and he also was instrumented making my Dad's life uh from very very early days what did he do uh uh Mr he was a director and chairman of all the mills in Bombay by the government in the ' 80s so when he would leave his house 42 Mills air conditions used to go on that and textile was the predominant large business of the 8S yeah India Yan textile uh and that's it Reliance also started that yeah Reliance bomb dying bomb dying all you name it and everyone P Bombay wealth creation effectively started pyramids are also from textile so um Mr suil s was like entering his chamber and he wanted to get crash in and he my father because he said and he was fighting outside with the managers that I want this deal on my name and which was not happening because they said this is your brothers and why have you've come he heard all this nonsense he said come inside I said my brother doesn't know the deal I want to take this and uh he says and how will you pay says that I don't know and when will you pay says after I sell and I recover and I say or so I said and he was like are you serious this is almost like was seen through Sho differently but and uh he just saw it in him and that's how get that in those days trust and eye contact and those things had a very different value than these 30 pages contracts today so he was just like that's my father and my name so and I'll just formate the company and come back and he did that and he never stopped he was uh he was called the textile Mafia When I joined I was 17 years old was called the texti my dad because he would really break in uh he was very he's a big he was a big hustler in textile he could break there are many things he knew that his objectives are very clear that my objectives is first the rest is L so he would like literally know that my contract is closed my income is very important so when I joined the business everyone he also became very popular with uh even the pamel house the biggest Trader foreign trips given to him and things like that the ' 80s this was late 80s late ' 80s he he and my uncle thought my other Uncle actually they were still together that let's start exporting Fabrics to Bangladesh uh a export exporter you know that dollar income and finally mohamm group and what group mohammadi group mohammadi Bangladesh is all Muslims right so everybody the names are but one of the companies in Daka companies in Daka they just saw that group and they said let's get into entry here bu could sample rample and they took the first order so they so as a family we just go we are we are a family we kind of respect and really bow down to those those people who have actually given us that first lift in life so suil s Anisha who who would have become the the leader of the country today or a very important leader of the country he left I mean he passed away uh almost a decade back maybe plus minus so that man it never stopped we became the founder of muhammadi group Mr anak Bangladesh Bangladeshi person he's my mentor uh because um in 96 when we had another split between my father and another brother that's when uh I had to pack a bag and I had to go out for business at the age of 18 18 19 years old and uh where did you go to school in all in Bombay which school I went to G suani and followed by jind college which uh I didn't pursue study what uh Commerce Maris have no other option and art I did Home Science though in school cross stitching cooking I was the only guy in the in the girl segment uh so took uh when the other split happened uh I I I had to take over the business of Dad's and uh I had already started working at the Agee of 16 17 with that in the Mills uh all the Mills I would design textile create my own color boards and I was the first one to actually create mood boards which today in your business would be themes or the whole campaign board around and things like that I used to make those in these uh people would carry bags of swatches and hangers and I would carry boards unreal for even factories and uh self for Bangladesh uh not to even how old were you at this time 17 18 and not so when was the first paycheck you got on your own like a marvar family did you get paid by your family for a bit and then I so there's a very uh different and I hope the generation especially I don't know wherever it's relevant nowadays kids think you know ke dad has put me to education and uh one day I will pay back my dad for whatever he spent on my education and I tell my kids I said don't make it too cheap and shallow here you start from the birth from the cereal that you ate had even compounding B baj of Maris all the holidays and if you can also firstly calculate all that so don't take this short fouryear payout I thought that was a good thing I said I initially thought that you said you meant to say that don't be so shallow it's you don't need to do it and then you revers it and said Baba that starts all the way no I said no you do this because what's this this this fat because I have boys right and all of them are young and my friends have kids and they all have this one paycheck to the parent in the end like you know one exit clause I said look I've employed people I've created a system and ecosystem you're born in this family not to give me my forc back and what do I do with that money you owe much more no and what do I do and then did you study just for that you try to commit me that you'll add more value you'll do this you'll do that I want to dream this I want to go that's what you're supposed to do eventually would you want your would they work at rare rabbit eventually uh I don't know this I so I work I think very differently my wife and I think very differently they have their own life they can do what they want uh there is no ready seat at all they'll never get that readily why not because it's a business which has its own Dynamics it has its own plus minus 2 plus 2 is never five four it's sometimes it's five sometimes it's minus for whatever reason because nothing works and you have to learn the the the sa CID kale you know you go up to 99 and suddenly like that last snake brings you down and you don't come up straight to 100 because B Dial Dial R can I ask you a question nurture versus nature who is is are kids predisposed to do well at a certain business is there a is there such a thing as Talent inherent talent in people or is it upbringing Evolution experience which defines who does well I think a small part of but it's a very small part to according to me that they they have it in them uh for whatever DNA reason is just to be that you can have your uh somewhat a bit uh values of the family right that's it baky I think kids only see and become and behave uh only from whatever they see around their home uh dad's working hard he's coming late he's he's he's not he's still got a smile on him and all of that so that upbringing the upbringing is not the upbringing you know holidays and take them out do some Trampoline Jumping and was that the case with your father he worked hard came home with a smile or no uh I never got to see my dad for the longest time he would come and I would be sleeping and uh Sunday was the only time and I would watch with him back to back four or five black and white movies for me when I was in textile uh I used to I was very fortunate then uh at the age of 98 I was B 2021 and uh Dal of century Mills which is owned by Mr BK Babu BK Bera wait what happened between 18 to 21 that's where I am uh I got a chance to uh so at 18 you split your brother your father and the other Uncle who had not split split you left and started what no no uh it was my dad who split with my uncle and I helped him that and that's why I was arbit I was an arbitrator act actually at that time I was doing the my dad didn't want to he didn't understand what was going on and what's with the books and all of that and I had to dig in a lot so learned a lot actually from that I have no regrets with that and I'm uh super super close to my family yet again and uh so we when we when we split I had to start all over again took up Bangladesh export business and uh what came my way because I got a little popular with the textile mills of morari Mills of pams why uh because I used to be forever in their uh 60° furnace uh areas and inspecting fabrics and boiler rooms and no lunch I got hospitalized for acidic attack no water intake that's my biggest habit wrong habit even today water is missing in my body when you talk about hydrants water itself has been it's been it's it's it's it's the the only bad habit I have I can't sip water even now I don't feel the urge of it but anyways uh moving from there got popularized and somehow Dal and panar in those days was this with your dad or outside with my dad uh yeah that's why I said I got my kids along because when you said is it your money and you separated or what is it I said dad had got this amount of uh uh three and a half four crores and big money back then yeah 99 uh I would not so big I think it was good money it's not the bigs of today is like how you would imagine big is what and uh so on and so forth so if you put that money in that frame then you realize you're already one only left and then we finally said okay let me do this uh Mr Dalia of century Mills denim they put a plant in satti indor and they saw that they put the big large Mill and they didn't know how to make more than 69 qualities there and I I could we and construct and so many other textures and beaves and I could take it to almost 450 uh 465 sort numbers they were sort numbers created like that they were each quality batches and I would take about 30 25 35% of the production to Bangladesh and sell it at a at a margin uh is that how Bangladesh's textile industry started so Bangladesh is a very it's a Jud country and uh so why would why would why did they have need or demand for the textile you were taking from India to them so in 1986 there is which is called the father of the nation Mr nul kader he actually took 16 men at his expense it's a very poor country was and back then though it was terrible now it's booming that those numbers are the per capita income of Bangladesh is probably the highest in South Asia at least in textiles they've killed it right yeah yeah but uh biggest employer in Bangladesh the lar indust largest in the world and uh as a country and I think 56 or 60% almost the GDP the economy is on garments to export manufactur garments they employ the largest human force in uh in uh Manufacturing in one industry alone so this gentleman Nal kin back in those days took 16 men and uh took them to Korea on his expense to understand how to do Line Manufacturing system not do one piece you was the Prime Minister of no uh he was just a businessman uh but a very renowned person those 16 people from Korea when they trained and came back it's like how the Toyota car manufacturing is Parts come from all sides and you're just assembling it so that's the mechanism of production which uh he adapted to on his expense he put up a large Factory huh and in 89 uh the entire Factory was underwater of 34 M so everyone had to leave he just took a promisory note in those days that you all will stick to two garments so those 16 people became 5,900 factories plus minus today in dhha and I think daa itself is the highest than it is Chong it's huge I mean they do the best of garment manufacturing globally today um so we I did very good business out of Bangladesh of textile export uh continuing whatever dad started in 88 and from the age of 18 to to almost 23 24 I got married at 24 and uh I was also doing South African textile export business and that's when I realized that's a smaller country I could ask or convince the brands like uh camel the cigarettes brand they had a manufacturing that bong and all of them that if I could manufacture garments and send you so took the initial orders of 6 800 pieces back in those days and uh was doing well so what happened in 2005 uh sorry yeah 20045 uh I just was in Europe and I realized this brand called Zara and I was looking at the store and how old were you then 24 25 and I said uh looks good looked at some shirts and I said it's possible I can make it and everything was seeing made in Spain made in Spain so I thought Spain brand over G Apple Cola I mean mus the desktop Googled index and made a phone call and uh I want to speak to the shirt buyer and he said yes so there's one thing which uh that's why I asked you about manufacturers are they welcoming here to just say huh so we have this policy which is there in my life in my company which I got it from index so inditex uh cannot refuse an appointment you can call right now I'll give you the number you can just call him and I said I'm n kamut and I'm a manufacturer of t-shirts I make sleep well even today they can't refuse no it's it's monitored uh it's a very simple logic you're sitting here in a village it's a village Laruna Northwest of Spain nobody goes there the flights operate for that company from Madrid and Barcelona and uh because Mr Ora doesn't leave and he's a fine man lives in a small house still doesn't move from that house 18 00t marri there so you telling me if I'm 21 boy making t-shirts and I want to sell to Zara if I called index today they have to give me an appointment they will tell you yes you can come in now it may take you four more calls uh but the operator system there is that they don't ask who you are you just ask for a sleepware buyer they just push the call and everybody in in their office has the office phone in their pocket M it's a desk phone but it's in the pocket clip and you can't leave it you have to have it with you by chance you've left it you're announced on The Voice in the entire office which is almost 2 million square fet of office that and it's a very very slow decel sound Mr Mr perak call for you extension all he has to do is go to the next phone anywhere on the world and pick it while he's talking to me in a meeting room and they have 200 meeting rooms uh each table is as big as this and 600 ft each room 200 meeting rooms and you have Korea China but tell me what are the odds if I like I'm making t-shirt there's my t-shirt I call Zara and say will you buy my t-shirt what are the odds of them buying it so if I look at this particular t-shirt because you've written the word Bangalore boy and if the designer there or the chief designer there or someone just catches is an eye and a story behind it that I'm taking a city which they'll not take a city uh no sorry they will take it they'll not take uh scripts of different language because it could mean an abuse there here and all that so if they can build City Tokyo New York Bangalore if they create a table of t-shirts if that's the theme they would have they would place an order to you uh back in those days even now now they will just maximum tell you is that we like your product everything is good can we keep it or please can you contact our uh Delhi office for compliance just to check that you're fine in those days I worked for 12 years exclusively for them I designed collections for them I was the only men's manufacturer for them for uh Zara man and uh when you say you were the only men's manufacturer you're talking about all of and designing so it used I used to sell my own design I'm not a factory who would who would manufacture given designs which most of the exporters do in India so Zara gives them a design and says make this for us yeah that's it you would design and take it to Zara and say show a collection sell the collection and and get my hit ratio there so of course coming back it's still about that marble no and uh I always did business for only profit I never understood business which had no margin similar what your dad said that I don't know because I only knew 2 plus 2 has to be four or 2 plus 2 make me my six because I need that balance too so I didn't know any other formula and that similar thing happened with Ray rabbit as well when my dad came once to see the collection and he said this boy is getting frustrated doing exports so in that whole process of my life because 25 you went to Zara 12 years you made t-shirts for Zara you were 37 by then yeah and then what happened and became the largest for the kids where started mango what is the scale of this how much money did you make from Zara at that point I'll tell you about my first money then what you're talking about my first Money Was Bangladesh uh which was uh on calculation it was about 25 lakhs and I I placed the order in I got an order from Bangladesh you're talking about one order one order and when I took that order I had to go to salm to place it and uh I stayed back in salm because I found that I could not I should not buy from traders in Bombay and when I went to Salem I could find it at least 15 10 Rupees cheaper because he was keeping that margin so I stayed back there and I opened an office there and only I did come back to Bombay and uh a lot of mosquitoes so I would sleep with a wet towel on me because the the building that I bought now rent has started but it was a bad choice today if you ask me because I didn't know what sound I was sleeping with with mosquitoes of what size and it was bad and uh so that my first real income was 25 lakhs and to that same customer within 3 months I paid 50 lakhs as claim because that quality which was shipped from there was not of good standard and I was crying uh from the hotel there and I called up Dad and the only thing he explained me was that my dad never knew which class I am in all his life and I said I'm sure WhatsApp it's impossible entrepreneur created his product I go to my office and they have this internal Mage with pictures yeah yeah WhatsApp Journey so in fact meage talking about message with pictures so I had to do learn styling I was not a designer officially I stole 5,000 rupees from my mother's cupboard I applied to some lady in worly CFS who could get me brochures of colleges to go abroad abroad no one asked TIG racing did you steal money from your mother's cupboard yes very good child huh I'm talking like 50 rupees I was I was 3 years old when I first told 25 I have I have we'll come into that why V3 have and you haven't it's interesting question fair enough so after that uh this 10 where was I um 25 lakhs Bangladesh 50 lakhs claim dad a claim and uh they never looked I never did that mistake again and uh made sure everything was in was right my biggest support uh and to anyone is I think at least man now I have a lot of friends of my age and everyone and we all miss that fact that that one support now it's okay it's fine uh just to say that to confirm that it's fine otherwise now who else do we go to and ask it's fine someone has to assure that I'm going the right way and I'm very uh the way I walked up to you I do that and ask if I if I find that I can get some answer from him I'll take him in the corner and ask him that what would you call that that trait in you up front no ego no ego absolutely know my my lower back is very flexible good way better way to put it because I asked somebody yeah you are showing that you are ready to bend your ego is low and uh yeah so that's textile for me and garments was did so well that I didn't even know how to cost garment so if you're in Zara and I had so my first collection I did is I took some Fabrics from hind ma theater ladies all these chicken Fabrics in bomb Bombay just picked up anything filled a car went to Davi did some some block printing on it for Zara made some shirts no I just first made it then I called them up and I went and showed them they were like stun I said it's a temple That Jag it's a mad place you know they have a very simple philosophy in the company someone's coming from China it takes him 24 hours to come here someone from India takes 18 hours 16 hours to come come here because there's no direct flight to span a so everybody's ready to come here and show them this F with that work on it right you designers cannot dream that okay we've got the papis to release whatever is shot in Milan and all of that because now the phones are your freedom of speech earlier they had to be like those kind of thing and those are paid guys who give the images out and uh so they cannot refuse somebody and why do you think is that because he's coming he's taking the trouble to come and show you a bag of 4,500 garments I'll relate it to you if someone is coming in from Korea to show you design of bottles every week five times five new guys are coming and showing you bottles of designs why would you even dream of saying no why would you even create a a great great C why would you create a wall in your office saying exactly that's the then why what else is to learn from um index one learning you mentioned is uh no meetings can be refused I take unregistered numbers I take it because I just think someday a vendor is calling me and they said I said their logic is very simple okay U this has got a skewed tailored pocket it's done by hand this can't be stitched the designer has to find this and he has has to listen that the Japanese guy is saying something and he has to take it back and you do what you want to do behind so my shirts would go like they made they have a 100,000 ft showroom in the office blank white like a clinic like a lab and they're building the collection for the next season which is 9 months later so they come and they say okay we thinking about these city name boys and Graphics someone has thought we've built a board and luckily he comes with this t-shirt and I go with this t-shirt I go down to the it's a closed private area oh it fits well come back and while they're walking up only they re Russia okay Europe fine us done 40,000 pieces one color done no PO you pack your bag you leave you start production while while you sit in the car you've already started taking the Yar booking closing I'm I'm loving this and and they're very fast and that's why probably they are the most Innovative and they are able to turn things around and bring the best spe their speed is simple that we are not creating bombs there's no mistake here that red and red wire got connected to the yellowed will explode whereas you talk about the American businesses of Brands and everything their Sops and their methodology their books their Bible they give you to read Zara never inspected my factory for 12 years they never even visited where I am and when they give you a order and I asked them once that what if you don't get your shipment on time so that's your loss you lost business from index so trust is also another very key part of their you lost index and your blue didn't come now we've already bought three times more because we already know some shipment gets cancelled some flood happens some political crisis ship has not come over our time and we have a wall to create of all these pieces on your wall that you see has to come at one time in the store that's and when they give you an order for 40,000 pieces do they pay up from FR nothing nothing and 90 days so the credit line in our business is 90 days so if you fail it's on but you can discount it uh from the Swiss bank which is their credit line at 1% per anom I only worked with Europe all my life and from 2004 I had a beautiful chance uh 2005 actually to start uh two brands in Italy uh Miss 604 man and because these Spanish designers go here and there so they try to explain them that he's the vendor he can come and do it I created 60 man I created garini everyone knows Miss 60 the Italian brand for women bread very successful why Miss 60 so diesel was coming up and uh which was with Renzo and replay was always there like replay is like tataa of fashion M yeah it's there it doesn't move it doesn't try to be over smart it stays classic it has the truest jeans the best jeans in the world till today the classic Italian jeans and was this the first time you got like real Financial Independence 25 to 37 with Zara good money my My independence of Finance is much earlier Zara and Italian for me the the the two to four cres was also very serious money I would so with Zara it was like I would walk off uh and I love calculating my profit at least 10 times I have to do that how much would you make per year during the Zara era when you were 25 till you were 37 15 15 10 15 crores a year 10 15 crores a year yeah that's serious money so and we're talking 20 years ago account for inflation it's probably yeah but now probably few million it was always a 30 35% business for me take home and uh it it came by mistakes like I don't know how to cost this garment I've just come from textile to appar and I would just say $13 garment cost $4 $5 M and they would bargain and say 12 so at that time I would that Trend got set and it was Euro the currency had just come in they moved after five seven years to Dollars that's when you started losing a bit then Global competition primar coming in when primar came to Spain they all became tough because they own Pand bear berska lefties primar uh Zara oo Zara home and they're told about nine Brands star varas what's your learning from this time that someone who is 21 today can use looking to start a fashion brand I think this if you want to start a fashion brand ever uh first the Pinnacle of course is creativity you have to have a nag you cannot say that if I'm successful go and make a fashion brand tomorrow which every most of the guys are trying to do it knack for you have to have creativity you have to you have to look fashionable before even thinking what is creativity you both said this how do I Define creativity give me a wall and ask someone for example when he's saying I'll rearrange your furniture right now in a different manner will be creative and and it's it's about actually giving the presence of mind to that subject someone like you will say why am I doing this why was even given that task my mind is somewhere else I'm a number guy is it your ability to move away from Conformity that you saying is creativity I would leave the furniture this way because yes because confirmity is yes I would Define it as the ability of letting things evolve in your mind differently from convention different from convention something that's evolving in your mind you're able to Envision it and then possibly create something out of it at least paintings even the products that I create that's that's yeah but in the mind people like him maybe I'm sorry I'm just judging you over and over again because I just feel that you're the math side of the man so in the brain you have a creative side and you have a multiplier side sometime you leave multiplying because you love the creative side so that's what I do my business from then to now my office is white because I paint it three times a [Music] year staircase because I have to see colors and I people have to understand colors in my office and people have to believe in colors in my office we can't have any other color as such so it has to be white high maintenance but yes also learned from my dad he would paint the house every year so you it would come from him but tell me something for example do you have to look at colors to get a design out of it or can you visualize them and just by thinking create something out of it and then put it to practice both but that's creativity right how do you bring a certain emotion to life that makes the other person who's experiencing it one more time uh get some nostalgic feeling right something that they have experienced in the past and they able to remember that and bringing I think I think I would Define creativity like that no creativity is such a it's such a common word but a hard word to Define okay 37 index Journey finishes why does it the entire Europe experience for me uh kind of dies at 36 37 38 it was like a because the margins are going down the European crisis currency dollar is they want to trade in dollars though they in Europe they want to hedge and make money out of that transition uh France was doing very good for me Denmark I was the uh very large vendor for Jack and Jones uh that was a very same time I was uh I just went to Copenhagen and I saw another brand on the wall again Jack and Jones so with Jack and Jones also same thing Yellow Pages diary found Jack and Jones called them up from Copenhagen went to B it's another Village uh 30 acres of land two single single floor Huts made which are all brand offices LC there shipping [Music] Department outstanding design manmade from India slept on Kolkata streets found a Chinese wallet which say Jack and Jones so he labeled his brand called wait wait who Mr truce Paulson he's the richest Danish man the guy who created Jack and Jones from Kata because he is Danish but he would come to Kolkata make G and carried in a suitcase to Denmark and sell really yeah and that's his story and we have a fairly large Dan business incredible the connections between India and Denmark Sweden and he's the richest uh Danish man and uh of course he owns he has four 2,000 wouldn't the founders of Lego be the noest people there no it's him in apparels and he started like that and he started like that young days coming in Kata making G East India Company banana he was selling it without a label he would fly down and keep doing this and finally someone told him there was a Chinese wallet jackes he would sleep in the factories in Kata he was very emotionally attached to the Chinese wallet Jack and Jones China Chinese have a big fair skin yeah fatuation really you are an actor who comes in it's in meetings because you're white you get paid to come there so you're not a board member you don't speak nothing just to make the meetings look good interesting like being white is a job in China being white is a job go so that's how it uh so he he was a great man and in that time he wanted to take the Indian tram he want to inher it he runs a lot of schools in Rajasthan uh in uh he's the largest founder of the largest fund for tsunami in Tamil Nadu still he operates that so did a great great business again they have a department called express the missing part of the buyers which they didn't buy and the season is running so who can give you 45 days delivery so our lead time in our business is generally uh 100 to 140 days from order placing to Shipp shipment on the vessel and uh we I learned the nag of uh things from index kind of a process that you can ship anything within even 45 days and how do you do that uh firstly don't interact too much with the buyers is it okay it's it not okay so when I first took their order and I took a an order of a shirt with that embroidery and they said we bought it 30,000 pieces I'm supposed to send them and this for approval the button for approval the quality for approval the thread approval and they called me up I said you think we have people here to sit and approve all these things we liked your shirt we gave that shirt back to you you just have to make 30,000 shirts I said but these are the processes I said I don't know we have nobody to even file this what all you've sent to us and every other brand in the world will sit and do that filing job test here test with that chemical test with this I said it's a garment here do you think that would have interfered with the quality of products that they were delivering it's a okay I was a I was luck by charm kind of a situation that I had a small Factory in Bangalore I moved from Bangalore I moved to Bangalore because of the factory that I put up here uh there was another thing in between I took the largest loan of our family of 37 cres and uh put up a factory in Bangalore first land to buy uh would you be the first garment manufactured having a factory in Bangalore no no no no there K moans and shahis of the world but you invested money in buying the land to set up your own everything here when file to file vidhan s vikas s all the K uh 2004 and five how important do you think this is ability to leverage risk taking ability very important for an entrepreneur absolutely I mean uh let me put it in a in a better way that I have a set of family and mentality right it it's it's a way of of thinking a risk taking and there are always an outlier I am an outlier and I said I want to take a loan and I didn't badly sell it to my dad but I just gave him a very different equation that is that part I didn't understand or I didn't correlate with that and I kept putting this can you explain it for the audience the concept of depe ation when you start a business like that one or this one both both oh that one was very simple I was putting 100 bucks and I thought someone explained me my loan was 8 and a half% minus 5% for tough scheme textile upgradation scheme and which was resulted at 4% subsidy after subsidy so and then so the way you I looked at that was like you know some God gift check is coming here in the middle for depreciation and dad didn't this was too much for him to he just trusted me blindly I said and how much money did you have when you borrowed 37 crw I had uh so my my part was money in your net money to your name in this world oh uh just one apartment uh of three crores which also I borrowed from my dad that one I I literally told him I want to borrow this after marriage I wanted to move out to an apartment at Bly seaface and I said I'll pay you this back in three years but I did it in one year and uh that was in when I was 25 first year two years after marriage and uh and after five years of that I went and put this Factory and uh so maybe five 10 Crow what you had to your name 10 10ish I feel like this is the biggest whenever I talk to people who are very successful like you guys often it comes down to risk taking ability who is willing to put it all on the line yeah otherwise it doesn't happen Okay we were at 37 CR loan when you had 10 CR to your name I was I was devastated and screwed that time of this loan uh I thought I could make a cheaper Factory buying my own steel getting it converted making a PB structure that factory design was designed by me because I was stranded in Hamburg airport and I L that airport so I said I landed up making an airport there m so it's a 200 ft M ceiling and and uh six curve handers hangers with carts moving inside everything automated put the works there someone should make a movie on your life I know fascinating I made all the s machines which came from Italy I said they make it in blue color and I have a i a setback with blue so uh you change the color of so I said you should be all Ferrari red so you are from Italy so you have to do that other I don't pay you technical problems or I want to go see your factory they made red machines and uh and uh we did that the entire building is uh is a submission of design what replay Factory is because I manufactured for replay as well and it's basically a coal Factory all brick building it still has the tracks for moving the trolleys in metal the war time in the reception going to the office and things like that so I said I want a brick building and that's when I saw the Builder vangog total environment Mr Kamal Sagar who's no less in creativity uses only Indian materials to build his homes for consu customers apart yeah so I saw his project there took a picture uh got caught by security because so drew the whole thing but the factory the way I expected it at the same I buil my house here and then suddenly the water was stopped dad said to hell with you if nothing is nothing is moving after this what's happening here so that three years was stress crying weeping early morning 6:00 in the factory getting it up building it myself because I took I didn't want to waste money on contractors I would have saved maybe 3 5 months earlier which today I don't today I just be finish it fast let my turnover start so that factory created a huge impression in Bangalore this is coming so often in your story no ego Shameless Relentless is a super power I came to your house also like that about you guys I to just quickly see I said uh take we'll do that and then uh comes away uh I went to say almost a one and a half year two years down one and a half year of depression kind of a thing because why going to give my designs there 16 years living almost 8 years uh 6 to 8 months in Europe Hotels beds flights I almost landed up being at 19 to 22 flights a month so I just gave up all that Milan sounding quite nice to me going to Milan Madrid being on flight it was it was not exciting at all not at all I mean come on you have seen any of the very exciting so to save money in like earlier days I used to sleep in the railway station under the heater lamp like this uh put my bag for $2 in the but you were making 10 15 CR a year2 smoking was my problem not the drinking bar and straight train next country but for I I have a question when you were setting this Factory up and that seems to be like a very important project that you picked up right all through your journey 2005 yeah it it was a brilliant project of my life so was it because you wanted your own manufacturing or was it that the no so I had a small Factory I wanted it large so there are ancillaries like in your manufacturing right I had everybody has a garment manufacturing Factory I said I do garment dying I have to send it outside I want G dying inside I do printing like this I send this panel outside I want to print inside I do embroidery outside I want to do this inside so I put all these ancillaries inside the factory a very large black Temple what does stylish mean like if you were to say if you can uh coordinate your attire uh is it the colors that go with each other is it the fabric I'll give you a simple thing if I'm if I was in black today and if I had any small piece of black cloth with these uh uh dandelion on them I would probably have it inside here showing a bit here and so I've styled myself today I've kind of embraced basically you pay more time and attention mother is a stylist leftover food or whatever ingredients she'll style something and cook something out of it whatever is available basically how do you put how do you put stuff together is style yes fash wearing clothes as well fashion is today okay straight jeans tone jeans Broad jeans fine it's today it's not tomorrow but there are guys who wear those same broad leg jeans they've never left it since ' 80s but they'll also go to the skinny today they'll also wear a bell because their style ction says today I want to be like this okay let's go to 372 rare rabbit I'll tell you the appetite for rare rabbit in the market right now okay I was at a event I I actually even didn't tell you this I was at a event with some investors One Sovereign fund Southeast Stan country uh their India CE or something like that was there he comes up to me and he says why don't you reduce your allocation to rare rabbit so we can do more I obviously said you [Music] know for me to reciprocate but there is that much so that you invest in there's that much happen so that he can invest more in you I didn't want to even raise that much I didn't want to raise at all that comes as a different thing but for the guys who are 20 and uh when when you're getting depressed out of not getting charm of Designing going there and they're trying to take the same garments out of Cambodia and then China and Bangladesh and you're getting just defeated how much you're not going to catch the callers and I was not getting the juice and I always had that that there has to be juice in the game I'm I can't be that startup blood I'm not I am kakur I'm not all these uh that that breed of uh or that or the breed of mine is very different and my backgrounds came differently to me and their backgrounds came switch how can you take so long to find a switch you know so they cannot someone who doesn't cannot make 2 plus two make money I think it's for me I don't know how to swallow that yeah and one day I was standing at Forum mall and I was like I've created Brands and why men don't look good here yeah style wise and what are these Brands doing actually when I was then also to come out of this European business I told all these European guys please give me your Indian Office business I'll change everything for you I don't want to travel and all of that I did all of that it created good lines for all the fashion brands here and and I was expensive for them they could not afford me or things like that and I said gidea let's create a brand and here I come after 2 years of depression almost that uh I'm not happy with my working and nothing I was quite suddenly out of the picture and I said I want to create a brand and what should it be and it said I came up with rare rabbit and only because uh rabbit is a sexual mammal it multiplies the fastest in the world and uh did you like the sexual cont connotation or the multip part as well as the multiplication because I multiplied Thrice for my my own legacy so and uh but men in India should be rare and respect the sexuality and be rare in that you are a rabbit but be rare and the the least you can do is to dress so that you can address the your opposite that's the whole funa behind it is like I'm doing it already bro and you had Mr vidanta once saying that of vidanta Mr agal that to address you have to dress it was in his fores Magazine first he actually dresses well do you think styling in India can be a big business opportunity it is that's why it's uh probably so we curate uh men's fashion in a very different we do it for India the way you said that hydration cannot come from Korean recipe because I know it's very cold there and they need less absorbency and we drive faster we equatorial belt similarly our tummy is 2 Ines higher and uh than any average person so our last button is to be relaxing on that it's horizontal not vertical and when I started the brand I I just put in a line and uh I went I created that line I invested money in that nothing one and a half CR 25,000 pieces just made it color blocked it because if you go to our store you'll see color block walking in us if he's what he I'm only Navy always mostly so I will not go to a particular section of my store have I styled myself well yeah you can say that he's just being kind if you want tips then I can like for example and I would like to say it because he said not to be kind to him for me gr and navy don't go together it's just what goes best monoton does monotone mean monotone is monotone is only luxury we call it high and low mhm so um monotone is you high and low is not the right way of dressing I'm glad you didn't ask about me the beige and the black and the light gray and the black or something so no hos it has to be mon we were in the Inception story of rare rabbit styling I said this is a lot of loss because I've seen all the fashion houses of India and all they do is or I thought that we we create a structure of buying we create clothes and we have an actor or a face to the brand and we try to sell garments and it's been done repeatedly in the country and neither I have the money or I'm going to or or the nag actually after maybe the factory investment that I can go and get a celebrity phase and then do you think that works for someone Young starting a brand paying a influencer actor never no no why is that for me uh you'll think differently because it's a women category on influencer I think differently influencers different even influencer in fashion I would think different yeah but I my office believes in it I don't why uh for me it's uh shortlived the way I engage myself on Instagram I'm also a consumer uh I'm too fast and I need new new new new new so so it's I don't know how much does it resonate to convert and understand the brand um I follow among all the actors maybe uh Mr bangas diari and amitab ban for two different one is Legacy in my life and uh one is uh the new I think the new man of substance who speaks great so uh PTI some people on social media tell me I look like you if you act but is exceptional depth but yeah I think you could pull off very well in mirzapur I can I can I take it as aent he he will 100% compliment someone should cast him no but director can move things and they need a first cut and that up style look it can pull it very well you can then you have to change a lot have you tried so what worked for air rabbit there's a thousand people trying rigidity it's very important uh explain rigidity rigidity for me is that I'm the only we the only brand which has no logo on the chest because I never wor a brand on my chest all my life whatever wealth I would have earned in my life I never wore a brand which someone can recognize what I'm wearing and that's what probably Italians taught me or that's what Spanish fashion taught me they are never on the face I had a choice of doing jeans wear or formal brand this is the only two fashion concept existing in India there's nothing called smartware and and uh which exists in Europe it doesn't exist in uh in the rest of the world there is no so there's jeans uh there's business they call formal in India and there's a smart the smart dressing doesn't exist in India and I said I can't do formal because I have to compete with such legacies here and I can't do genes because it it caters to youth youth that I've been cig bike I can burn and uh to my equation of mind because I knew how that two and two works is that if I don't have a multiplier I if I don't get that GP I'm not going to sustain to sell what is GP gross margin gross profit and to do that GP everything around it has to be perfect so my store has to be designed the way I imagine the Europeans see it and there's another underling message for all designers or creative people who want to do anything in India is that do it from what you have seen or perceived from the West because you're trying to breave a culture here you're not bre if you're making a JY of chandigar or you're making a chi of Rajasthan then bring that culture here then make your store look atalon sandone because that that Essence comes from as a juice but if you're trying to say the word Western World then you have to be resonating it to a story relling communication of design holistic approach and the difference that you're trying to First create like oversized t-shirts is selling very well today what you're wearing the boxy fits but it's already a clutter now now if someone has to come with this he has to be very adaptive that I'll make the same boxy but I'm going to come with city names today tomorrow can I use the word just Buton because it's not registered the k something like that how does find G like what you're seeing how do I find it's intution it's your it comes out of desperate mistakes most of the business I think are created by your own realization that I miss it in my life uh I think most of them in product at least uh unless I don't know what the backgrounds of the uh fmcg companies otherwise have been commercial ones but the new ones anything I would say it comes from that this is what my style was it became brand the blue orange became a brand MH I respect them the j walking because that's the cult that's the way work the design I think these guys would have probably been somewhere in the world or got hold of that one piece and they said That's My Style that style became so popular among the friends do you think because the clothing Market is so penetrated today in terms of access you have to hit a niche and play that so rightly said in your lines only we are a clothing manufacturing country we're not a fashion business country we don't create fashion we don't buy design sell fashion other than the designers that we have who are doing I think the best in the world also they're world ranking we have Dior making their uh their entire marriage gowns in Bombay that's also embroidered in India I mean I have seen back in those day Armani sending the suits lafel just the silk from Italy to lakau to do one embroidery of chicken work and goes flying back there to stitch it with a suit there so that's how they and they go that mile to and they in those days when there's no Instagram and all of that they were doing it from an archived book and a designer there is as eager bird who's taking that trouble to go to the the the Instagram which is the library then picking up something and trying to throw that knowledge in the Armani's office that I want to do this it's available in India it's in lakau and they said okay talk to Global office Hong Kong they'll connect you to your buying office in Delhi we'll send it to them they'll get this embroidery [Music] done EMB what was the Breakthrough point for R rabbit I would say the breaking point to answer is that uh when we were stuck on our business uh so the biggest challenge we faced is getting real estate that's why I was asking her again again in your industry do they pick up that call and uh I proposed this once when I didn't have one store also with one of the largest Builders and developers that you'll have such millions of square fets give 3,000 square F feet in a corner of a mall for young guys to come and demonstrate their talent without signing those Loi big big Pages just give him so much table one hanger is that how malls work do they care which brand is coming so much or is it about the rate per square feet I'm trying to sign or get no they have to create a ecosystem they cannot have five rows of chocolate and ice cream and coffee shops it's an ecosystem which I've learn and it's a very hard business they are also cracking they so how do if I start they trusted rare rabbit they give a store and imagine nobody comes in there so I kind of bring down their footfall and if they do 20 mistakes on a floor that floor is dead the 21st store will not get rented because that person said foot there are some malls who do Man Woman mix they're not dissecting properly so if I'm a brand what can I do to be more attractive to a mall like I'm 21 I start a brand I want store space impossible is there no hack I would not say the word impossible just forget it maybe in tier one mall can't I go to a tier two Mall forget it really so you're telling me if a mall has empty store space and I'm willing to pay the rent they won't give me they yeah see and they're not wrong who are you you're a kid who started with a garment someone paying them the rent yeah but your store will open but he's running a ecosystem so what you seem to be telling me is you have to do this only only as a suggestion or advice whatever I have learned from is go to a High Street pull up your sleeves go open a store High Street on the roads I mean like indan nagar is a High Street and there you will get Space okay last two points from you hack for somebody trying to start a clothing Brand This is actually personal interest to me the hack for someone young find a difference give us some examples of differences you think might work today today khadi khadi we are the only country in the world mix this fiber and this Yan you think going back to India using bandani that Kara khadi putting these together so that's women's side of the kadi you know uh which is very highly embellished still with a lot of work which is very women MH the true true kadi in India it's a textile Gandhi kadi the Gandhi kadi it is the best cotton you can touch there's K's cotton kadi is nothing but uh raw cotton which has got seeds still in it not removed the seed uh kins are not removed from a minut it's a little rough to touch it's rough uh the organic if this was an organic this would be if recycled then it is going to be rough uh you Dy it with only vegetable dieses and everything you spin it this way by hand like Gandhi g you on the chakra yeah and so you're very uneven yarn and then you weave it by hand it's the softest fabric it's the most organic fa fabric that you want to be in and there are Villages living on that today uh they're desperate to get even money today raw mango is doing a brilliant job the sis are expensive and today the advice to a 20- year is go and try to touch khadi because it's the only Fabric in the world which only exists in India there's no other every other fabric is global this is only Indian interesting idea we should we should try t-shirts in Khali t-shirts t-shirt you'll have shorts leave it by hand shorts It's a rigid fabric you can make this I'm so intrigued because I think apart from beauty if there's anything else that I ever think I would want to build or try my hands on would be fashion and not that I've thought about it much but everything that you're saying is sort of building a story in my mind so when you say kadi I'm already thinking can kadi be built a brand out of kadi can it be built at scale would it be at also it can be built at a scale yeah 100% in India and I think before I retire it would be done the cloth is would the pricing would be premium right yeah it's econom be Sol and patriotism is in right now patriotism is in right now uh so we all wear denims blue denims we all think denim is Western right the denim comes from indigo blue denim is basically the NES it's the NES which is France because the twi we was first woven there the blue added in that was by the Americans who took the blue Leaf from Tamil Nadu so our Leaf is when it dries it it becomes blue that green leaf becomes blue and we make we are the only country who grows organic denim so advise to them they should find these kind of and fashion designing is not cut paste pieces here and there it's about creating a complete right look and to get the margin do a good storytelling alongside with it m you have to sell the story with it you just sold your story being a a financial wizard Guy saying that 6 hours charity City recyclable organic you have to speak something story most important very important that's where IP sits that story comes story is IP story is the biggest St the emotional connect with your consumer today's IP which goes beyond products like even for you like that yeah story sells absolutely absolutely I think I was able to establish that connect first the story started selling before the product started selling so in our store you will get fragrance in all 120 stores the same our office smells the same uh we get complaints uh when our Omni Channel goes that youve sent us used garments because our clothes smell off so you have a lot of perspiration when you sue right there are 69 110 people who handle one garment and it's their perspiration which is coming from what they've eaten and if they wedge or non wed is a different smell from your skin as well pay attention to detail yeah so you have to neutralize your fragrance of your each garment when you wear your TT do that your store has to smell so if the store is smelling then the Garment will smell less yeah no it takes that but how do you do it online when you're selling it online so when it goes Omni order and it goes from store people think we have sent them wor garments so they Lodge a complaint for that so we are busy always explaining that it's been our so these are some rigidity of your business plan you should never deviate with give me another word for rigidity I think ad be be be core be stuck to your core concept particular no I think you I see I designed the brand saying the rare rabbit will be written here on the belly because Italians if they wear a blazer their name generally is here you're willing to take a different and then you don't even deviate yes you you take a contrarian View and back it fully so fellow friend of mine in this business he said Manish we to messed it up we you manag to keep keep that noise away I so uh because you said I'm rare or I never listened to them we are the only brand in the country we don't do Road shows we don't show our collection and take bookings from the entire trade of 700 people who we 700 points we sell today we don't show our collection and take orders from them we just send what we think is right for them for their Market because our AI uh our research our understanding would you say would you like phrase it in a manner saying client doesn't know what he truly wants in India for sure and at the same time India is according to me the most hungry country to to ask for give me more and give me new just don't give me the same and what's the cycle of innovation so in uh I'll give you a I'll give you a better understanding in Zara Innovation is everyday our office is every day in India fashion is two season divided you buy once and you buy twice second fall winter spring we buy every day it doesn't stop if I've seen this I can go back and I'll say so for example let's say you've designed this shirt and you've listed it on online in your stores etc for how long do you think it'll stay relevant till you have to change not more than 2 and a half 3 months 2 and a half 3 months that's very quick more than that that's very quick and we are the largest online in the country not metaphorically but in genuine terms also because this also so all our businesses are by accident and people of 20 should not vary of that and scared of that I didn't get stores I have 25,000 pieces in my house I had to start a website I started the website 2016 I think I was the only one as a website there to design that I'm very particular about my font so my font doesn't change on our website Our Deck letters anything you write will be the same font you use this word a lot particular is the attention to detail yeah yeah we don't I mean it's so but you get these kind of hindrances and you should not move because that's how you stand a bit do you think chains are in similar not bad quite je obious so yeah this this chain actually is made by one friend of mine called shti her husband is one of the fittest men who will ever meet his name is Manish you know he's my table yeah so he would just be in the gym like if between the time of 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. he would be in the gym wow hours I would go in between from 600 to 6:45 Manish is there you go at 8:00 Manish is there you go at 5 Manish is there he is something else yeah but she makes some interesting jewelry outstanding jewelry yeah and she only makes one one one thing and she gave me the Ser the best so she customizes it for you she only makes one one thing is her name if you want diamond jewelry that's the woman according to me yeah she it's not for all this I had this looks really good yeah I had somebody I lost recently made it yeah she told me that yeah what's your channel of choice now is it digital is it retail we are 50 store store because country Dynamics roads are getting built malls are getting up uh what great Builders are building today as terms of mou it's crazy it's where all they are doing what all they're doing is like he loves the stores right like I you can see it can see but I have a very different statistic going on in my mind and I was reading we play our playlist music for all 6 160 stores from our office really you control the music of your store centrally is it centrally okay so what I'm getting takeway is quite complicated the you're a complicated man easy be straightforward you'll be you'll make everything easy you're a avoidant attachment type do you worry about being vulnerable or showing your insecurities no I don't no I I'm the most open person you can ever get to know about anything that's why he said he has the most flexible back about anything again creative parallel with you I think I think attention to detail is something that came across while you were speaking many many times from the perfume in all your stores to the music to where the buttons are Indian waste is 2 in higher so whoever is attempting this needs to pay that much attention to detail to build in the space that young 21y old and also keep looking around your own Society story most important also IP your story is as important as as the product if not more yeah absolutely another big thing that came across from Manish no ego Shameless Relentless is a superp power ability or willingness to bend your back very very important can't have shame when you're asking for business and and not to forget India is a very colorful country so don't hide from color and I think in a world can be your superpower say again in a world full of ego that can actually become your superpower the world full of ego yeah not having one yeah yeah moving on to rates I shouldn't have come interjected it was doing all right I loved being a spectator I came to you last because you're very popular thank you I read in some magazine that you're the most eligible bachelor in India I thought that was you before before so you get crashed his house PR I I should have I haven't yet when I go to Delhi next I'll get please please I'd love to host you so rsh is a very unassuming sweet amicable person basically he doesn't show his real self to anyone somebody so nice can't be so successful fundamental belief in life I agree so the mask that he puts on is so strong and it's always on which must be so much work that he must be tired so he has too many masks no no no I think n first gives you so much love he say sweet unassuming very amicable and then goes for the kill like okay tell us about your personality I think you told some of it so I'll borrow mhm I think uh calm I try to make sure that there's just a sense of calm as in myself and then around me if possible but if I can't keep it around me at least inside of me um why I like it that way you never get angry no I do get angry sometimes but do you emote when you get angry do you show it yes yes but uh I think um it is not as volatile I think uh I'll try to put it in words uh I try to put it in words more than in actions I think when was the last time you cried when was the last time I cried I think I cried when uh I had the I had I had my baby in my hands yeah I think think um it's it was hard not to cry then uh but yeah I think before that before that I cry probably every U few months sometimes out of no reason sometimes out of happiness I think um one thing that actually I know I I cried I cry a lot so I deeply because of my upbringing family and so on um believe in existence of God so whenever I'm in U uh you know a place of worship or even at my own home at at the place I worship I think sometimes I end up crying probably for no reason can I extrapolate and ask you why you believe in God I think it's a fun to put in words but I think uh there have been multiple I genuinely personally believe that uh I did not deserve all I have gotten all my life so I'm just genuinely thankful and I feel like there's probably a greater power which has just given me this opportunity uh so I think that's probably and again I'm just trying to play it back but that's probably the reason can I tell you something that is slightly similar between me and you is we've been on this train of youngest a youngest B youngest C because I think even though I'm significantly older than you I think in our own times we were young at doing something uh a very natural parallel to that something I face deeply right is I have imposer complex in so many different facets of my life deep down I believe I have gotten something I have not worked enough for uh I also believe I'm not the smartest I'm not the most hardworking because there is a lot of tangible evidence for this I can find you 10,000 people who are smarter than me and more hardworking than me absolutely uh we happen to be in that position in a very circumstantial manner yeah uh belief in something that you have never touched or felt like God I'll probably get trolled for this trolled as but belief in something that you haven't touched is also a byproduct of our circumstance when you say God what is the concept of God to you what do you mean by God uh in my view just a greater power than humans I think that's uh my concept of God are you taking the religious connotation I think um I know there is a fine line between these but I would say spiritual not religious so organized religion no spirituality yes is that what you're saying no I'm not like for me personally I think um the belief in the power of spirituality is higher but what is spirituality I often ask people to Define spirituality each one tells me a different answer what is R's and that is what it is supposed to be I think for me it is uh like I mentioned to you I think you may have heard about uh in a lot of books people write uh this person is God-fearing um and I think uh what it basically means to me is that there is somebody who's keeping a sense of a check a check or an oversight on us and is a greater power than us and has the abilities to do things which humans cannot do themselves you mean in terms of punishment because your derivative word Was Fear I wouldn't say uh fear but uh I think more a Guiding Light sort of a way to make sure that you can reach your purpose uh for whatever you are around I mean uh I I lik what you mentioned I was when I was coming by I was watching your recent video in which you mentioned about uh we take ourselves too seriously and um you know that fundamentally you know you're around for a certain point of time you do the best you can but the the concept conceptt of legacy is flawed uh inherently I think I I fully agree with that so I think the whole point is um for all the time you're around you try to do the best you can uh despite like you mentioned I agree with your point that you mentioned earlier which is the conscious mind tries to do all the right things but subconsciously You're Still Human so that so so it's like a constant battle right that you want to make sure that you're consciously doing as much to pursue your purpose as possible so I think that's how I would put spirituality a question I did you fear God or submit to God much later in life or it was always your it was actually due to upbringing yeah I think it upbring it kind of changed for me in the last 10 years so I grew up in a place in southa place called Raa it's um I think 60% of the population is adasi which is tribals right um there is a temple near a house uh it's called majaran Temple but she's the tribal goddesses who effectively protects our town it's said and there's history behind it and so on so for examplea you would have heard about Cyclones very often so so people say that the reason why there's been no floods in our town ever is because she's protected us now many people may have different opinions about it but I think as I grew up uh around there um it just sort of became a sense of Bel um uh that that got captured now it may it may be rational or not uh is a separate story but it's just my personal belief as as an outcome so for example uh many people uh used to notice this I used to uh at work uh take off my shoes and go inside for the longest time and I at some point of time I changed it I think 3 4 years back but it's for the longest time uh people used to sort of there used to be a joke that you know he's at work by just noticing that the shoes are outside so um so that so but that's I think that's deeply personal to me I think it's probably the first time I'm talking about it at all but uh it's deeply personal to me I don't think I impose it on anyone it's everybody's own choice frankly but it's just something I personally believe in but the clarity in in the manner that you're articulating is very refreshing cuz you're not being defens Ive or aggressive in your stance but you're still being very concise and clear I think at the end of the day that's all one can hope for it but start from childhood so let's get to know you like we got to know them you're not convicted no but look I'm I'm really enjoying this format right I think it's just so refreshing to not just go through what nikil said is a rehearsed part and just sort of quote through the uh like just get to know individually and and so on so I I I really enjoyed listening to both of you and your stories so I grew up um I was born in a place called bisam Kat most people wouldn't have heard about it it's a uh Village in the Rara District where I lived after uh we have four siblings and the youngest of the lot uh I.E the most loved um uh among the siblings uh the eldest is almost 8 years older than me so eldest is a sister um so there's quite a bit of age Gap um so uh you know and uh typically um uh parents or especially mom but both of them used to encourage better education as a way of being able to graduate out of the town we grew up in because in some way education is sort of uh Brahman family no agal so Mar family but um grew up with a very um odia kind of uh attributes because multiple generations of both Papa and Mom had grown up in odisa my mom came from a village called itam Marti near buar uh but but you know I think there when I when I used to speak to other people saying how long has this family been here they say that for as long as we can remember right like even the oldest of people so I don't know how but it just so happened that they were there and and so I think and the town is small so everybody sort of knows each other right like almost every family every individual will know each other not there's no concept of like somebody lives in the place and you don't know who that person is so is an alien who's alien National not alien in the sense of an alien like you know us forms are you an alien so I think that so I think um uh Elder three siblings are like Asian parents dream engineering business school good job all the other ticks right like marriage children and and and all the tick marks um and I was quite inspired by my elder sister what did your parents do so Mom was a homemaker Papa had a small shop initially uh where he would sell like uh grocery products and so on uh but later he uh joined U road construction company as a manager uh in in that company so anyway I think um growing up I was more the rebel relative to the uh other three kids because of so much love one son oldest sister middle so eldest is a sister second is also a sister third is a brother who's three and a half years older than me and I'm the fourth so do you work with any of them no so the eldest sister works for one of uh the subsidiar of S&P mhm second sister standard in po yes uh the rating agency the rating agencies one of their U you companies required what are they doing giving India such bad rating look I think uh it's a big problem we are also rated by moodies and fit same and what is it now Double B minus I think we are b-rated now but no no I think we're BB minus as India oh sorry I was telling the oo rating so you know I'll tell you it's such big problem we don't talk about it enough every country's cost of borrowing is dependent on how we are rated by these three arbitrary agencies criteria of rting six are quantitative in nature like uh GDP rate fiscal deficit inflation past track record of servicing debt the other 10 or 11 parameters are arbitrary in nature it's more coming around perception and stuff like that and at Triple B minus correct me if I'm wrong later but I think it's Triple B minus now our cost of borrowing is higher than countries which are oneth our size let's say kazakistan has the same rating as us or slightly lower or whatever slightly better rating let's assume kazakistan has better than us I don't think they do I think they're slightly below us in the table if they're able to borrow money at 5% for infra projects building roads train Airport whatever we land up borrowing at 62% a 20year term loan if you're borrowing 10,000 cror in reality that these numbers are significantly larger than 10,000 when we are paying back at the end of 20 years with the dollar this 10,000 we are paying back maybe 25,000 they are paying back 17 18,000 that tiny difference in rating changes a cost of infra significantly and it is not just for the country right it's also for corporations who whose source of income is India so if you are an Indian Corporation you may be like any big company you don't get a a rating because your Sovereign itself is not rated enough but this is something we all need to make noise about like U I think what these three agencies together are doing is extremely unfair and bad very detrimental to the long-term growth of India going back I think the eldest sister has sort of been a s so I was coming to everyone the second one uh is now between jobs uh she's left uh cognizant and because she's not joined I'll not share but she's gone to a moved to a consulting company uh elder brother works for M tree uh and I'm the uh fourth one how have the equations between the siblings changed because you are such an outlier today equation among siblings how are you guys growing up and how are you now look I I think growing up essentially the there was a unique uh perspective where the eldest sister was like a little mom of sorts right because the age difference was so high and she was sort of in our family the first women who uh you know she was among uh the top rankers in her school when she graduated out of 10th like the overachiever uh gazel right so she was the first one who went to engineering school uh she got a job uh at TCS so like our dreams at least my dreams where this kind of villages you explain you are coming from or District or taluk I don't know how do you how do your parents even think to educate all of you with such high pedigree I mean is one basic flying out all four no so and I think a large part of it I think is driven by as much as my parents I would give credit to the eldest sister also so because she pursued that path and everyone followed then every like it basically became like a little bit of and every Elder and younger sibling will relate with this if your Elder sibling got through good grades in your class and graduated and if the same class teachers there they'll say look at your elder sister or brother they did so well and like what are you doing so it sort of becomes a little bit of a pure pressure right so I think she for the first time I think um I think I was still in my junior or middle school between somewhere between third and fifth grade and she had just gotten into her um engineering school first year and she had what was the entrepreneurship Fest so she went to bampur which is a place in urisa it's a bigger town uh for her engineering schooling so she came back during her break and she comes and says uh we had an entrepreneurship Fest M I had no idea what that word meant M so that was the first time I figured that that there is this new word being eldest sister like mother figure the other two yeah so I think the younger sister second sister was little bit like the um person you create trouble with right like you know uh were you naughty I I was quite naughty I know I know of some of the naughty things You' have done as an adult but think dig a Little Deeper as a child I have no idea what you're talking about I would want to know what's that take deeper as a child and the brother brother um it was a mix of uh I would say um learning and also that one sibling that you fight a lot with that's a combination right so I think so for example uh my uh love for sports started with him uh because he and his friends would play sports and I wanted to be a part of the group this again is something I hear from a lot of successful entrepreneurs some affiliation to sports I've never been able to figure out what the connection is but actually even when we recruit people uh we uh try and recruit um people who have been good in sports especially why is that do they do better at they do very well with us there two three reasons why I have deciphered the outcome the first is especially we P we'd like to get people from team sports so we believe that their ability to work with other people in make sure that the team wins rather than individual is better pursuit of Excellence because in sports you are competitive you want to win uh you don't want to um sort of be average as as an outcome would you say Clarity of thought important for an entrepreneur I think CL like I call myself in a company Chief Clarity officer I think fundamentally one of the biggest challenges I think that's probably the similar word of rigid that you were saying I think having a clear answer versus saying that um I don't know like I don't know how it's going to come and let's derive it out of 20 other things and or whatever people are saying let's do it I think that fundamentally is different I would say this proof for any leaders you can be an entrepreneur I think he had that to a certain he had that and even she to some extent right like she said this is the kind of product I want to BU so I think that um so you say that some of or most or whatever some of your decisions also come by your gut and just without being a very derived formula let's sit and get a calculation done or you just feel I'm very clear it will happen and let's look I I think uh probably given today I've been hearing a lot of depth in conversation I'll try and sort of go a little bit deeper in in that construct right so I feel that most of my decisions are uh genuinely actually a derivation uh of many things but uh what comes out at the end is the gut feeling um so uh I think how would you define gut gut the word so so in my view the gut feeling is a summation of experiences I have had um um uh good or bad uh but I have gone through some experiences where I have learned that well this works for me and this doesn't work for me and sometimes what works for me may not work for anyone else and what works for others may not work for me and I'm very comfortable with that I have no uh formo of saying that well it works for someone else I'm I have a interest to learn why it worked for others but uh I don't have um the the so that's that's what I sort of Define gut as uh from my perspective um and I think being cont like it's sort of it means that you have to be contrarian uh I feel being contrarian is the other thing that as an entrepreneur is very valuable right like you have to be able to sort of have an opinion which maybe the average people around you do not um and basically mass is generally wrong relative basically what everybody else believes you don't have to believe maybe that's that means the same thing that is a startup right yeah yeah absolutely I think the startup is fundamentally saying that what everybody so fundamentally you have to build something which is against convention if it is convention the incumbent will likely do it better by virtue of experience and time yeah yeah and the M of capital yeah yeah absolutely absolutely so I think going back right I think uh uh my trist with entrepreneurship or the first word came there before that my elder sister used to say that she wanted to be a pilot so when people would ask me what do you want to be I used to say I want to be a pilot even I used to say that as a kid right yeah stupid astronaut I I had no [Laughter] idea if she's saying it confusion I tried to figure out from the dictionary what it meant I started saying I want to be an entrepreneur so my rebellious nature was this that I tried to sort of be different contrarian this is again something which is common to a lot of successful entrepreneurs Rebel often Without a Cause yeah often without a c I think isn't it it's more a lot of startups nature only this all coming coming down to the same thing Rebel contrarian against convention anti-incumbent right same thought absolutely absolutely and I think where does the rebelliousness come from was it rebelling against your parents in the early days or what they wanted you to do no I think um quite the contrary actually my parents um relatively they felt that the Elder three children had done so all right that they in some way um also motivated to become me to become slightly more rebellious like they were generally more comfortable with me doing things which they were absolutely not comfortable with the Elder three children which is probably also the reason I never stole right like where basically if I asked for it often they would give me uh which was not the case for my Elder Elder siblings so uh and and I think I'm truly thankful to that extent like I feel like if I was probably just born as a third child i' would not be who I am i' I I'd be who I am only because I'm the youngest of the lot I generally middle kids are more rebellious cuz they have to set themselves apart makes sense the top and bottom organically get attention as long as they know the last one in their surpris like for example even then the middle ones are still the rebellious at one point of time principal said because he jumped the fence and came late da d da for 7 days he can't come to school like if any of my Elder siblings had got that uh decision from the principal I think uh they were up for like lot of P Dart uh there was no coming back from it like for me it was like you know Mom sat me down she said you shouldn't do this Dad said he's a young kid happens so I felt you know I'm I'm I should take full advantage of it and and be as rebellious as I can so great communication with your parents good communication with parents I think more with Papa uh but uh because Dad was more the person who said do whatever you want to be um uh he uh but Mom was the one who would possibly sort of be the more uh like you have to study well like if you don't do that you'll like be in Rara and run like a pant shop uh right like so Mom would paint the contradictions much more uh actively um communication skills continue in companies like in OU yes I think uh that's a very critical one let me let me rephrase that question if your management is doing something that is annoying you to on a scale of 1 to 10 I might bring it up when it's 5 out of 10 do you bring it up at 5 out of 10 2 out of 10 8 out of 10 how how quickly do you communicate I think the feedback loop is or the communication Loop is quite quick um I would now annoying the magnitude is quite small yeah I'll just uh yeah I'll just uh basically sort of uh swing it to say allowing me may not be like there the magnitude may be very high but anything that I believe that is wrong for the company or wrong for the um role or the purpose they're pursuing I think I feel very comfortable to have a one-on-one conversation bring it up but along with calling myself Chief Clarity officer I consider myself also a solution officer so I bring up the problem but I often couple that with a solution uh but I feel very comfortable in bringing up a a conversation I feel while in my family that was very valuable I think there was one person who changed it for me I think uh the person is beul Somaya at light speed yeah so be invested in us like they invest very fast H yeah like they take no time at all they took a long time that was different story back there was one company we were reviewing recently not name the company so we were negotiating with the founder and he had come to the office in the afternoon he went to light speed at night he came back to us in the next evening and he said light speed signed the term sheet light speed yeah no light speed has they call themselves as a high conviction investor so they say that we invest very little like they would invest in a year like four five companies or three four companies but in the ones they believe in they would move very very quickly but with us they took longer I don't know why maybe they took took longer to believe but um I had so they invested your self-deprecating nature is very attractive do you think that also holds Good in the work ecosystem cuz we are so used to looking at people who are embellishing thems constantly that that one startup which comes to you and self deprecates becomes a novelty do you think that works contan mindset in a different manner yeah I think in some way but I I have learned that you know that the only way especially um if you have a highly talented management right who you want to retain for a long period of time there is no other way uh you can work with them rather than being absolutely um absolutely straightforward honest vulnerable uh with them and then because you spend most of the time most people don't recognize it but they spend more time with their colleagues than with their own families also so due to which you basically become an average of the people around you that's my favorite line in the office I said I know you more than your wife you spend 11 hours here 10 hours here so to that extent but I think um I feel personally that also comes when you become truly comfortable in your skin I think the reason why the self embellishing character gets built is because you genuinely have a sense of insecurity where you feel like self-deprecating nature of you know what will it mean can ask you another question I'm sorry I'm digressing as much retes and oo dissect the two apart from each other Rees the kid rates the teenager rates the young adult ratesh at 30 what do you think are your personality flaws and it's very core I've come back to this because we stole money from our mother's purses you did not so there must be something else that we need to know the rebel in some way FL no no I'll conclude that the rebel in some way I think came out of a personality flaw uh of trying uh new things and the flaw in it is potentially um lesser attention span um or lesser Span in I give less time to something to fully um uh Bake open right like um I feel I tried to do too many things in the early days of our company and I feel when I fully decided that I'm I'll ask you another question which might help with this answer yeah think of a kid I keep coming back to kids I don't yes think of a no I agree with that 3 to S I think that's when your um you know your your formation or Foundation is individual is BU yeah think of a kid okay uh I'm in a room with a kid I put a marshmallow in front of the kid I say I'm going to go out of the room make a phone call and come back into the room M if the marshmallow in front of you I tell the kid is still there when I come back I will give you two marshmallows then you'll have two instead of one when people tested kids actually they figured that 80% of kids are not able to delay gratification until the person goes out of the room and comes back and they eat the marshmallow 80% yeah and when they track the 20% of kids over a 15 20 30 40 year period they figured there's tangible evidence to prove that the kids who were able to delay gratification turned out to be the most successful when they grew up M do you think not being able to delay gratification could be a flaw in you personally don't bias it on what I have to say I'll tell you the two personality traits which is confusing me about this question I have very high ability of delaying gratification in terms of wealth creation for instance um on the other hand I have very low ability to delay gratification in terms of beginning the pursu that I wanted and I'll give examples of both in a tangible way so it'll explain this to you better I genuinely fell in love with this idea that you know I will go digitize small hotels and I thought the time is now and I said I'll do it now this is right after 12th grade first Papa got to know and he tried to reason with me saying that you know get your college done and then do this and I said you know I like I genuinely believe the time is now and of course Papa having better communication he both of us then came up with what the communication to Mom will be which basically became all the kids in our 12th grade are taking a gap year consider this the Gap year and if it doesn't work I'll move back so this is where I did not deal a gratification On The Other Extreme I think uh probably just Soo is this year completing 10 years so we are a we've been around for some time probably until three or four years back uh I had a few liks in my bank account M right you never did secondary I never did secondaries because uh the purpose and the enthusiasm was so exciting that nothing else mattered um in terms of context so I think um there is a conformity in me also I have I a unique combination of rebellious and Conformity so for example can I can I take away from your last statement you're able to delay gratification when it comes to money paid out to you without complicating how that sounds secondary round but you find it harder to delay gratification when it comes to growth or when it comes to public perception I think I think money paid out to me I'm willing to delay gratification I'm unable to delay gratification when it comes to um intellectual stimulation which comes why I think uh you know solving problems right I think finding same problem new problems cuz once a problem is solved it becomes less intellectually stimulating right yeah no which means new problems I think which is which is the whole point I was going back to right that uh for me I last five years I had to change myself fundamentally to try and make sure that every day I reviewed the same thing because businesses are inherently boring at some level right so you have to make sure that there's the 30% excitement which is solving a new problem uh creating a product feature or one of those things but 70% of it is just Ops right like doing the same job little bit better every day um and that did not come naturally to me I think I had to train myself to become the that person who do you emulate rates the person who we all pick someone and do it consciously and subconsciously I think as a business person somebody who at least over the last five years when I said that I tried to transform myself especially with the onset of covid or around the four years maybe I think that is UD kotak I think I feel like he's one of those people again first generation entrepreneur most people don't recognize built a bank first generation he king of delaying gratification yeah and you you sit with him in the room there's a sense of like and every time he begins inti saying so he like there's just a sense of when you begin the discussions with him there's a sense of um like the world may be burning and he will represent that in words but he would not emote it in actions right I agree with you 100% but if you have to derive something from this for a 21y old we talking to today what do you think people like UD kotak his generation had that the 21y old today is lacking which is relevant to the world of today I would say three things the first one is being absolutely comfortable to make sure that when your friends are sharing beautiful Instagram stories of going to pubs restaurants or very exciting places um you are pursuing things which are not exciting and you sort of tend to believe that it is because of your circumstances would you say that's delaying gratification that's delaying gratification but I'm just trying to put it going to going to a pub is instant pleasure Center yes right yes there's there's a psychologist who said a very interesting thing what is the difference between pleasure and enjoyment pleasure is having that piece of chocolate which has sugar in it pleasure is having a beer maybe pleasure becomes enjoyment when there is a gap between two pleasurable events and you add memory to it memory happens by virtue of adding a group around it yeah no I think this um the other way to put it is if you look at there's this Netflix documentary which is I think it's called the Blue lines or blue zones BL zones blue zones right which talks about longetivity and longetivity has something similar which talks about a sense of community happiness but at the same time making sure that your food habits Etc are sort of not designed for short-term pleasure but long-term enjoyment rather okay delaying ratification not not succumbing to the short-term Pleasures absolutely and also not having to conform to average people like average um uh pure pressure around you right like I think don't you think this generation has that in check compared to UDOT in that generation they were more conformist than the 21 year olds of today I think uh the 21 year olds uh have if I were to uh reverse the word of uh Conformity pure pressure to look the best on social media to make sure they dress the best to make sure that they have the best number of posts to make sure they have the most number of likes so you would say social pressure social social pressure that's probably a better word to it um but I think to avoid it to significant extent is a very critical thing because that pressure is so high and so noisy today that it can end up pushing you towards doing things with no patience no patience underline if that is there at least they can handle all that because and I grew up in like similar generation now I think 10 years back is already a generation apart but I think 10 years back when I was growing up uh people around me would look at me and say that guy's a dock right like absolutely dock studying all the time doing business who does this when they are 19 and if you uh get bothered by it you will lose in my view the number one thing that it takes to get an entrepreneurial success or any success which is perseverance like being at it for long periods of time because there there are so many reasons to give up no right should not get one one layer under your skin so for example like I told one of my friends is Metro station in Delhi bti is like um a thatched roof uh room at the top of a house so that's where I used to live when I first moved like most people who mov to Delhi live there so but I had never told him it's ATI because you don't tell a normal I just said right like a usual kit this was a wealthy kid there were some kids I was friend not when I was starting my business in Delhi a usual kid would have gotten so bothered that they would have stopped calling people to meet themselves but for me it was very comfortable I was very okay with saying that people will say this to me and if I do well in life it'll be all right if not then this is the means I have so being okay to let go of social pressure is what I would encourage and I also got bothered by it a lot of times was when I was 19 19 but I also got bothered by it but I recognized what can be [Music] wor they were similar Rebels Without a Cause so UD kotak you said so first is delay gratification delay gratification second is not social no social PR as indifference is the new cool indifference is the new cool absolutely and the third one is I think a sense of humility and humility in decisions which uh can be very large so for example now is when I meet young entrepr you think humility is counterintuitive to self-confidence which we established is a prerequisite for someone looking to start up no I think they they are independent uh strong characteristics I think you can can you be self-confident and humble yes you can be self-confident give me a for instance so uh self-confident would mean that I can build oo into a incredible success humble is um it's the first time I'm building a hotel business so um I don't know what will go in this journey but I will figure it out so I think that's at least that's my view but to the third point will you add to the end of that line can you help me his point of no ego willing to bend your back absolutely absolutely and I and I'll explain an example with UD kotak's example right he built a fantastic franchise um in his previous AAR before the bank M and he was so he started a um Bild discounting business if I remember it right he was okay to add the Mahindra name to the bank mhm right he had built a big business he didn't need to do it yeah but he was okay to do it nowadays when I meet entrepreneurs who have just started the business not all like 90% of them like I'm surprised young entrepreneurs can be so bright and they have all these characteristics but there's some people who have this sense of saying that a sense of um superiority that I have done so much already ready M I think um for people in that generation like him like Naran morti and various others they built incredible businesses but we're still able to accept that but in comparison I'm still around rounding error and I have to do a lot more and I think that was that humility that allowed them to become you know a bigger version of themselves uh consistently they say people who made a lot of money very quickly often hate themselves and the world so subconsciously do you often hate themselves and the world try you find yourself or somewhere yeah like deep down do don't yeah I think uh I I interes question though I'm in absolute I I I like myself and you know I try to uh do more to like myself humility also allows you allows a lot of common people to accept you on a very easy approachable manner otherwise hum honest in my be so surrounded with your own self and your XYZ humility but you should at the same time be able to accept that their things you other people who have done better than you I want to understand that that people who have made a lot of money very quickly deep down hid themselves it's there's a certain Pathway to arrive at the conclusion I think it passes through imposter complex imposter syndrome yeah I I could relate it to that yeah but I think the Imposter complex serious one right like I genuinely believe that I had I have no business sitting here right likea town would have gotten lus if I had gotten infosis uh assistant technical engineer well that is the starting job called in which you get three lakh salary like if I had gotten that our town would have celebrated I would have been super happy my mom for the longest time thought that I have gotten into friendship with wrong people who have gotten me to this entrepreneurship Buzz so I [Music] think like there was by mistake I got into a classroom and it has happened many times in life I'll give you an example which is very close story and I've never talked about it but very close to my heart so after 12th grade what changed my life was a theal fellowship so Peter the is a founder of PayPal early invest in Facebook how does a 12th grader know about who Peter thel is Rebel Without a Cause $50,000 $100,000 $1,000 right to big deal right now how does the 12th grader get to know even about Peter so Rebel Without AA ship social network mov in that there is this person called Peter who gives the first $100,000 check so next time I go to a cyber how does that work just for people who are watching and interested not just teal Fellowship but anything similar that they'd like to apply for how does one find out where these scholarships are and apply for them look I found it through Serendipity but I will give a few examples that I'm aware of and some of the things that I'm also doing as an outcome so theal Fellowship is one which is a program started by Peter theel where he gives $100,000 to 20 people earlier it used to be age limitation under the age of 20 acceptance rates are lower than IV leaks but there's one condition you have to stop out of college right if you're in college if you're in college I was not in college so it was easier and the thesis behind it the contract's first line says we never let University interfere with education so education is everywhere including the WTF podcast um but you don't have to go to university for it but University is one of the sources of it you can also pursue education there so um I was a theal fellow but there are other theal fellows like the founder of ethereum is a theal fellow which is a cryptocurrency founder of figma figma is a design tool very popular over the years so a bunch of these people who are exceptionally successful came to the fellowship and everybody has very similar backgrounds right young people they were Rebel Without a Cause wanted to make a positive difference but coming back the fellowship is one in India there's something called the Young India found uh young India Fellowship very popular Yi Fellowship I think it's called it's very popular great uh Sim not similar it's very different uh but again something that allows young people to be able to pursue their aspirations but this one I think only invites graduates post uh undergrad so basically after that if you want to sort of be a part of the fellowship I think something very different is teach for India I think that's another way of making sure basically what are the communities where you can find people who are slightly rebellious who are trying to do something new in life who are creative who want to do something new it may have been art for you it may have been um being in um you know uh the company of inditex and and their uh you know ecosystem so I think fundamentally just finding people around you that's education actually huh that's education right you learn from them and it also allows you to get it in any University you don't get it in any University so I think that's the third one I'm doing something with something that's called The naropa Fellowship it's started by the drpa of ladak again of course uh the person who's involved between Ashoka University naropa haraa is all the same so Ashish and this other person Prat sa is the person who's involved and I think similar fellowship and what I have done with them is started a naropa rites Fellowship where we basically these are mostly hilly terrain kids kids gotten out of college want to do something new so I give them Equity free debt free grants because the theal fellowship changed my life so I thought can I help make difference same with the zepto kids they got a 40 lakh Grand they built zepto in the back of that really yeah was that the game changer after 12 theal theal Fellowship was a game changer I think that changed my life were you like a great student up until that point like first rank types not first rank I think third fourth second to Fourth rank in my until 10th grade same thing yeah uh but 11th 12th grade not so much no why uh because um so I think until 10th grade I was in Raa post 10th grade most kids go outside for Education right uh so my Elder three siblings one went to um I think other towns in udisa only bigger towns um because in our town the only way to get that was one college and that wasn't like most preferred route but parents had some savings because Elder three siblings most of them got one of their degrees through uh what is called scholarship so parents had some savings so I said Rebel to I want to go to Kota Rajasthan Kota is much more expensive to send a child to than that of somewhere in odisa right because you have to send uh three-day trains both sides so you are the Kota Factory I'm I'm a part of the Kota factory production so during those two years I used to sort of um uh you know intern in small companies and so on while of course education education I was not the first second ranker but still reasonably good ranker so I was not like I was terrible uh in terms of impact so parents were generally comfortable so I was not the kaga top kids I was medium so I did all right so 12th grade beach around right after 12th grade that is when I applied for the the fellowship and became a theal fellow um the first time I got a call so I applied uh because I heard about Peter the apply this I'm not where is this the you apply online online you apply online and it's just online class digital application no class submit when you make the application just a bunch of questions bunch of about what business Do you want to build what did you say oo I didn't call it oo then but I but effectively the idea was the oo idea which I proposed accommodation with some standardization that we can provide um I think fundamentally post those questions there was no other Asian resident who had become a fellow before me so I gave myself 0% chance to become a fellow but I enjoyed the questions I answered them then interview started so there telephone interviews so the product head of Twitter will get on an interview with you for a 12th grader to be on an interview with people like those was a big deal and I would do it like on a feature phone of one of the friends basati friends who was staying next to me one day I get this call which is you among the top 40 candidates selected and will'll fly you to the US and you can pitch and 20 would get selected post the pitch I was like so excited about it the reason was not because I thought I'll become a theal fellow I still give myself 0% chance it was my first flight and international flight trip I would ever get for free somebody else was paying for it so life is made right so but again coming back to how parents are helpful I got like a few days in that period mom got the passport made I didn't have a passport for US Visa I didn't know was so hard and and yeah this is an example of why I believe that genuinely I'm lucky so I was told biometric they send a letter you give the letter you get the visa and you have to go to Delhi or Bombay or no I was in Delhi only so it was even easier so I got when biometric done next day was the interview now interview I thought that letter so I basically was wearing shorts had my hair all over and I reached the US Embassy and I see people are wearing jackets ties have big books interviewing each other so I thought maybe they have come here for some job interview some different work my work is different that's the level of coming to self-confidence very self-confident I reached the interview lady and right like as as I get closer line us so I thought different but reaching the counter we were all in the same counter path so I'm starting to feel that something different but I was still convincing myself that they start making your hair Peter theel has given me a letter in my mind I thought that you know he must like the Visa will be given immediately so the lady asked what's your purpose of visit to the US so I say I want to drop out by becoming a theal fellow she listens Dropout and in her mind goes this guy is going to go to the gas station next that's his plan and weirdly he's being honest about it also I only learned this later because then she says uh do you have uh like if that's a purpose of visit is there an education also you want to pursue I say yes theal Fellowship can be considered as education so she said do you have any documentation for it I said there's this letter so she said uh unfortunately it doesn't seem like we can give you the Visa but we can't also return you the passport so typically if they reject the Visa they give you back the passport so I said you can't reject the Visa first off and second my flight is day after tomorrow so you return the passport to me anyway she says unfortunately that's not how it works and shuts down the window I came back home I cried like crazy because I thought that us and before that I had cold emailed so many people I had cold emailed like 100 people saying that I want to come see like your office or so on like I cold emailed God bless him ton sh of Zap and so on say so anyway long story short um you know I wrote to the the fellowship as well saying that they didn't give me the Visa can you write a letter to them so that there's some credibility they wrote a letter and the embassy was nice to later give me the Visa I got to the flight next day even the flight was a weird thing I had a lansa flight the lansa flight got cancelled the fellowship was nice to book a British Airway right after so I think just fundamentally for me I feel like this long story is just to say that anything could have gone wrong in this the Visa could not have come the flight would not have uh uh you know happened something could have gone wrong so in life we forget when we reached to this point there were probably 200 things that had to go right and if that one thing did not go right You' probably be in a very different place you say Serendipity a little bit more than usual yes true true belief in that I have true belief I have true belief in um if you work hard um uh opportunities will come your way um which otherwise would not have what have been the most serendipitious events that you can remember if you were to name just two just two the US Embassy I'm guessing is one yes so that's one I'll try the second one I think the second one is actually I'll say two uh two more one is um possibly how I met Anuj most people don't know Anuj Anuj and I started oo together so before oo I was running oravel for 6 months and then I flipped to oo he joined me in oravel and then we together pivoted to make it too he still with you he's still with me so um at that when I was running arrival it was me and one intern both of us to run the company sahil was the intern sahil of course had told me when he was interviewing that after 2 to 3 years once he makes enough money he will set up a restaurant and he'll leave me so two to the fact 3 years later he left and now runs fantastic couple of restaurants in Bombay um so Anu calls he wherever he figures about arrival he calls the call center sahil picks up he thinks it's a big says can I can you connect me to the Chairman's office says he hands over the every all of us have gone through the stories right we have I get the phone and I keep and I'm telling on the but any and an speaks and you know he's is opposite of me right like he went to itbu built his business during school sold it uh went to uiu for some internship but then had come and joined a consulting company and was hitting it so he wanted to leave it and build something so we speak for 50 minutes and he said I have explored Airbnb in the US this is my view so I I made as much copious notes as I could and at the end I said that those it's been great talking to you but I can't afford you but I learned so much the day I can afford you we'll chat again then he says but I'm I'm happy to meet you I said if you want to meet after hearing what you have heard be my guest please come so he came again we spent an hour I learned more at the end I again said but can't uh afford you so he said there is this thing called ESOP I don't need salary I'm going to offer no salary I'll in fact put some money if required but you give me esops so I said this is a great thing without salary you will work so I said perfect done esops so he said I want whatever I think I don't remember 3 and a half or 4% es I said perfect so that was my concept of learning of ESOP in the first time like the appreciation well like depreciation of yours correct correct so I thought this is fantastic later I recognized that you know this is probably one of the best dishs at but for me it was a because for the first time I saw what working with somebody who was who understood process who understood systems who could document what did that look like was before that I only worked with interns I didn't have appreciation of anybody else outside of that second is beel right like I was in the during the the fellowship in the US um he beel was also in the US because light speed has a uh like the main office in the US I met him uh uh and at the end of it we said that it's been great meeting each other we'll reconnect sometime they kept doing the work in India we had one oo Hotel then we then opened another so they visited those hotels they visited other hotels they met the property owners then one day called us saying that we want to try and do something with you um I think beel also I think other than the fellowship Peter the beel changed my life I think he was uh I think the other person who I tried to emulate a lot is I think beel I think he has a sense of calm he like this uh I I I I think so uh and and I think uh he he's uh genuinely like feedbacks for example communication I'll give you an interesting example of an uncomfortable conversation I brought it up right so we had a call center like most companies and I used to be the call center person who would pick up calls customer call I make the booking and I used to love it because you speak to customer directly such an amazing job right so even after they invested I kept doing that job so he would invite me every month for lunch I'd go to that lunch so he feed me very well at the end he says sures I hear your loving your call center job I say it's great I listen to customers and so on so he says in his like at the end that so that's great we found the call center head of Oo we should now start finding the CEO should we start a process I said look I get it I get it that what I'm doing is not my job and we will recruit someone but I think ability to say something in such a nice kind way that at that room you feel like you know it's a objective feedback but when you walk out you feel that that was a pretty intense feedback uh is something I've learned from him I guess and Beyond 12th what happened the's Fellowship yeah $1,000 came back to India so I was there in the US for four five months uh lived in a hacker house with other the fellows um but came back to India in 2013 mid m M uh we uh that was we was me Anuj and couple of interns at that point of time and then sort of uh at the similar time light speed chose to invest a few months later light speed invested I think 3.5 crores at a 8 CR valuation U Back Then it's a huge deal for us I think uh I had never seen a COR together in a bank account in my life um uh before that so it put just a sense of accountability that now you have to like make good that there's somebody else who's willing to commit so much Capital behind you and I think uh this since 2013 um end roughly or 2014 early is when we really started growing the business and um uh you know we've we've continued in that path we've gone through our highs and lows as you uh may have observed you read uh that there were orbitar there was K like I feel what helped you deal with the lows what personality trade look I think um two things right um fundamentally one we got more love than we deserved so if you remember that we were getting too much appreciation sometimes but sometimes we also got beaten down a lot more I think the trait off for a 20year old um for them to have that one day at College when they become the Superstar and next week they are considered like an outcast I think um I think the trait is um always being an optimist about the future and knowing that things will change uh either positively or negatively I think I would say optimism and coming to terms with the cyclical nature of yes and and coming to awareness of cyclicality yeah I would say that one needs to just be um aware and comfortable that uh if an amitab bachan was in Crazy debt and everybody wrote him off he can come back to become one of the wealthiest stars in less than 20 years most bankable stars one of the most bankable stars and that doesn't happen as an exception that's pretty much the norm for anybody who can stick their neck out and continue so I think if you are a 20-year-old and I have gone through this many times where everybody around you thought that you are a done deal the seven days when I was kept out of school um and I was a prefect at that point of time so being a prefect and being told that out you're uh suspended from school for some time so that that is my unique um contrarian perspective that I've always had that I would be a prefect but I'd also be slightly rebellious uh which is sort of what you also mentioned earlier in the perspective of saying that you have this contrarian side to yourself so I think in those times I think it's very easy to give up and I was told that I'll not give you the certificate of the prefect because of this a tough time is like a messy room you have to tidy it up again because you want to live back in this space so you have to be absolutely comfortable that you know there will be good days in the future and there will be bad days and there will be good days and if you're having great days you should know that the bad days are coming and whatever you can do to prepare for it is better to do it are you guys also optimistic guzzle are you unreasonably optimistic not unreasonably optimistic I am optimistic because what I believe in it is if it's good it won't last if it's bad it won't last similar yeah you I'm very optimistic actually it's also your life's own behavior which gives you this this builtup Factor on this I me you take a loan and you think you will pay back or not instead of 15 years you pay back in four years it's all every expression of your journey and everything that you've achieved and and gone through gets you more and more clear sight for the next uh episode that you want to attack but I think that's a fundamental difference I think all entrepreneurs are optimistic and risk risk taking and risk taking but I feel that the persevering Optimist types are the ones who create long-term success I think the most people I have found around myself um like I feel and to your Point N I also believe that not believe I I know that I'm not the uh U you know uh best engineer best salesperson best Finance person any of those things right but I feel in our industry all the competitors we had whenever the tough times came they gave up the only thing different about us funnily this is the first thing I wrote about you when she was speaking Relentless have you ever read any Makia Val no the Eur European chanaka in a in a way no no I've heard about them of course you seem to embody a lot of what he says you know if you all have watched the movie 12 fail no not yet but I've heard some incredible you should absolutely watch it it is amazing so if you watch that movie you will hear that you will see that that kid comes from chumble and he had that complex saying that nobody else from chumble becomes an IPS officer without cheating with cheating cheating School IP off but as Leaders I believe personally that big heart trumps big brains have you ever read towm anything on it again everything you're seeing European Soul okay how did you deal with your father passing away it was look I think it was I I think I messaged you that day but I read in the news and it you it sounded like a life changing I think uh I think um look I think I I don't think I have fully processed it even today so I'm still sort of there's a Spanish book it takes three years to recover for a son so I think nothing prepares you for a loss of um somebody as close as that okay so you started uh with the teal Fellowship money with your friend Anuj oravel converted to oo when did the scaling happen first year was very small like I think 2014 We Grew From two hotels to maybe 10 15 hotels still a lot but not like massive I think the real growth happened from 2014 all the way to 2017 which is where we went from a few hotels in one City to becoming one of the most prominent Hotel brands in India in the economy and uh economy plus kind of segment um 2019 is when the scaling then happened globally we went from being an India brand to becoming a globally prominent brand so for example just in Europe we manage 150,000 Holiday Homes so we have a fairly large business in Denmark Netherlands Germany and and few of these geographies so I can relate with getting to the cities out of the flight to your Hotel do your job and come back so you don't have me and GLE would switch places with you guys any day they're talking Milan Madrid now I can get to do that for my work my back in the time I would have like loved to switch I'm here only in terms of discipline there's one discipline that I maintain is a holiday every month every month every month every month amazing that one I can last 6 seven years how long is the holiday weekend no 3 days 2 days 5 days whatever comes every month every month that's amazing like you go out somewhere of the city go to JW golfshire and stay in the hotel yeah it's a nice idea you were describing post getting funded post getting yeah so I think 2019 was a big Global growth how much money did you guys end up raising a lot right yeah we raised uh close to a billion and a half dollars overall overall little over that M right so already I think in 2019 when we grew This Global expansion and we also made an couple of acquisition I think we were starting to see Pains of growth Pains of growth meaning how many hotels did you have by then India you said internationally you mentioned but India similar as we have today I think total already came down now we are bouncing back so uh we're fairly sizable business uh and if I add China it was more at that point of time right so then uh so what did Growing Pains mean Growing Pains mean that natural economics were bad right um and that was bad in a very unique way 90% of our hotels were Revenue share hotels 10% were minimum guarantee those 10% hotels drove most of the losses and 90% of them were highly margin accretive always um I think the management bandwidth to a business of that spread um and you never in reflection I can say that we grew more than we should have but at that point of time it's hard to know when you GRE too much because there's no Playbook like opening 30 stores is good your 10 stores good 20 stores is good there's no arithmetic to it and it was never written by us also that this year we'll do that many correct so uh so how did you handle that stress of having a billion dollar plus money into the system someone's money right and aaral Mar you know it for the 20y old guy what's that weight on that shoulder I mean I can't even hold that up look I think uh and uh plus accountability because once people invest the capital then they require the monthly update the regular reviews you have any questions that can come up I think fundamentally for me uh in the early days especially the capital was not a choice because I had no resources to initi I think India leadership sort of happened organically Global expansion that was in my view driven by my own personal belief in Impact like like what drives me every day AK complex problems how many people's lives I'm touching that fundamentally I believe that that makes a positive difference and good news is that also commercially has a positive impact because the more number of people you are basically impacted in allows you to be able to hopefully make some additional outcome but it came with challenges and there were mistakes made I have no qualms about saying it so I started fixing and consolidating 2020 early you think admitting mistakes early sorry admitting mistakes early big part of being successful I think so I think admitting mistakes and saying Mia kalpa is critical because a lot of times early early yes uh the reason is you know when you're having a you know you effectively as a business leader or an entrepreneur you have to be able to make decisions to make decisions it's critical to have conversations which are authentic and not pretentious the only way you can have a non-pretentious conversation is if the elephant is uh uh out of the room if people don't talk about elephant then you can have many but if you're able to say that these are the mistakes that were made and you have to be honest about it because it is very um easy to understand because difference you can see it right like because you can just come out of this like you can go to indran nagar see a oo hotel and say like see traces of what I have said there and the other way around in some context right or it's true for all of our businesses that if mistakes are made it will be visible at our this is also very true for all successful businesses because I see a lot of Founders Not Having the courage to admit that they've made a mistake and what happens is they try and continue to conceal it because they've pitched it in a certain way they feel that the word is so strong it becomes an ego problem and they don't want to one admit it and because of that they fall into that Loop where you're not correcting the only way to figure more lonely as an outcome because more and more people sort of desert you so I believe that admitting mistake early is crucial and it is also crucial to make sure that you are close to your roots I think if you're uh when you try to run away from mistakes it's a very easy way of running away from reality and then you sort of build a world around yourself which is just entire but anyway I think long story short I think mistakes are made I was consolidating by the time I could fix it Mr Co knocked in the door on the doors and said well uh you know we'll do it faster right I'll make it harder for you so imagine I had forward invested that we will we will the year before c we grew 300% right covid hits so you had forward invested for growth you're starting to consolidate but you're able to fund it partly through the margins you're generating from the current revenues right and partly through external financing with Cod 65% of your Revenue overnight evaporate right so in effect you have to fund 100% or majority through external financing there is a limit to the capital available there's not infinite Capital available with anyone especially for a business that is shrinking a business that is growing higher slower you can debate but a business was shrunk during Co so it was hard on us most digital lead Brands right e-commerce gaming industry they they all saw massive ramp up during covid now travel here I am notel where my revenue is shrink 65% M and people were basically calling right all the entire deck right from my cxus to the last person recruiters calling saying stock here's two or 3x salary jump and these were other travel companies no no our people are not Specialists right our people are technology people so you basically can recruit them across mostly generalists right in terms of construct so the fungibility of talent is very high with other tech companies so salary stock lifestyle be better you know things will be much better an outcome so I think fundamentally at that point of time I feel like that one year was probably one of the toughest ones as an operator to drive but I think at the same time I feel like that one year really transformed our company as well as as the way we think and operate I think now we become very comfortable being a 30% Growth Company we are happy about it I think we have a sense of semblance on what we believe is our cash flow margins and for us I think we have a consumer rating expectation below which we will not grow we have a merchant Revenue expectation below which will not grow and we have a margin expectation at the Eid and cash flow level want to grow as quickly as we can we will not I think a lot of these perspectives I think would have come anywhere over time but I think Co accelerated that significantly without giving a choice I think I think what you're also saying is a big determinant of success is the ability to get punched not necessarily punched yeah and be sanguin about it and go about yeah life yeah big precursor to success right but I think any startup Journey you got to like be okay to get beat up yeah yeah you will definitely get beaten up how fast are you able to bounce back I think that's that's and you don't kind of like react or yeah yeah like you would have uh I've never seen you like speak back on social media or defend yourself in a weird manner in a defense ensive manner right no I think personally I think I have uh learned to take criticism in a very like and I believe it will be very valuable for other young people listening also like if if I read some of the Business Leaders some people say that I don't read news about us actually I'm quite the contrary I read everything I have no problem reading everything but I can read everything and feel comfortable that so I think fundamentally criticism can be constructive or it can be just noise noise never sticks because Noise by design that I'm reading about myself that I don't know about right like there'd be some news of saying that AA uh oo is buying some business in Southeast Asia or some business in Middle East I know there's no such to it to some people speculate it's done or something will come about well U you knowes is going to do something new very soon so I feel like it's some noise it will not stick what is your relationship with masayoshi son how did it get inculcated has it [Music] SED look I think uh you asked who I you know I often call him sonan given in Japan you typically add a son at the end um out of respect so I think sonan um is first generation entrepreneur um invested in Alibaba quite early but his own Telecom business which is now probably the most profitable business in Japan and one of the most profitable Telecom business in the world uh in terms of construct uh and then invested in alib Baba which did very well and then set up multiple software Eng Vision funds and arm and few others I think so that's the context behind who he is I think um I would basically correlate it as soft bank's relationship and within that of course talk about sunsan I think I got introduced to soft bank first time in 2015 or 2016 right when we were in that growth phase we in three cities then just starting to take off so uh I think Nikes introduced us and Nikes did the work he's now the CEO of PA Alto networks the deal was more or less agreed between Nik and the broader soft Bank team there was a broader soft bank and soft Bank team uh at that time they used to invest from the balance sheet so that's how we uh got introduced to each other in the first place so before the fin investment decision is made is you have to go and present to sonan and he approves finally so I went to Japan I was again very excited to go to a new country I'm so I'm generally the person who's always very happy and excited about new places and new things right like you know now the Shar Tang episodes are airing so there's some trolls saying that you know why are you smiling all the time I'm just generally happy being there you're smiling even today that's that's who you are so I'm generally like you know whenever I'm in new places I'm happy I'm excited so sonan comes I make a quick presentation so he explains two or three things which is quite fascinating to me I think first thing he mentions is that if I were you I would go as full stack as possible rather than being more and more Marketplace which is that I do more to control the experience um do you mean own the hotel no not own the hotel but basically sort of can you potenti actually like delivery companies have a service provider goes and delivers can the front office manager be yours right so that uh you can have slightly greater control over the experience of course the economics of it which can be complicated the second uh or or beneficial depends second thing he says is you're very early uh but I think um you know if you are in this growth path making sure that you continuously track the consumer satisfaction Loop closure M will be crucial before you ramp up or down there will be times when the consumer feedbacks will continue to be positive and he said it will most definitely happen and did happen to us that the feedbacks will be great all all through when you're growing and then suddenly one day you'll see that you've grown greater than usual the consumer feedback is not showing that great outcomes he said that will necessarily happen when it does happen you should consider pausing and the third he said is that you are the CEO so you make the decisions um you'll receive great ideas from all our uh advisers but eventually if your company does well or not You' be responsible all three made complete sense but you only appreciate like he said tution fees you only appreciate when you made enough mistakes you don't listen or appreciate those just purely by words very wise words though so that's how the investment happened with soft Bank um and then of course the very quickly nikesh moved on and I think ever since after that Rajiv munish and that sort of cohort uh became our primary Partners from uh from soft Bank over the years and our relationship was very much you know we meet in a quarter review the business go through and once in a year uh you know you also get invited to go present to sonan and I think the one unique takeaway that I have personally about sonan that I think most of the people have not talked about is people see sonan primarily as an investor right Financial investor and so on I think he's at his heart an entrepreneur first and an investor second M and the depth and the attention to detail that he has his creativity and his sense of sort of um coming up with new ideas are in my view what makes him special in the first place insane insane curiously curious ability curious without an ego that's a good way to put it you've given me so much I'm I'll tell you from my side I learned so much from you guys right uh in so many different facets some that are evident some that are non-evident like the father thing my father passed away like just now 30 days 35 days ago so sorry to hear no but your journey 1 month 3 months 6 months I was asking you six years very interesting okay so I'm going to put down success parameters add to the previous two and say admitting mistakes early very important curiosity extremely extremely important probably something I resonate with the most contrarian very nature of a startup I think a company begins with something contrarian especially if you're starting young Clarity of thought rigid particular all three of you said that with you Nuance I I would add in a very toist way likability and niceness is so underrated in the world right now like a lot of people I choose to work with I choose to partner with I think today I have the privilege and it's also such an important metric to me that I need to like hanging out with them at the core they need to be nice people so I think people undermine the importance of how likable and nice you are as a person I think it's incredibly valuable as a business all of you said again you with standing outside guzzle stood outside a toy store Manish was willing to bend his back and go ask somebody something that other people might not have no ego which also came from you again incredible always be selling even when they were answering their questions you were selling and plugging oo rooms I think that again is incredibly important uh delaying ratification indifference is cool both of these again on top of the list so what we're trying to like arrive at today is whenever a young 21y old boy or girl wants to know what makes startup Founders people like yourself successful they get generic they get hardw workk they get sell in this particular manner use the sales strategy all of it which is taking away from the core emotion of what is actually working for you guys so intent here was to ask you non-usual questions get non-usual answers and hopefully help that 21y old I'll run through all three of your main things starting with yours optimism aware of cyclicality continuing from where we left off Serendipity is again a very interesting one right impostor complex is good a lot of us seem to have it insecurity is good as long as neither of these lead to inaction but they lead to action right yeah it can't that's very important it's called good sense of insecurity yeah yeah creativity this is again something that is often overlooked you defined creativity in a very nice manner rewarding loyalty reprimanding disloyalty very important true forgiving but not forgetting yeah confidence in how you look post 12 this could come via playing a sport yoga sleeping for 8 hours extremely important cuz you confident about how you look and how you feel about yourself you're likely more easily confident about what you're selling Fair sleep holiday all of this comes into the same thing avoidant attachment type good for startups bad for relationships overall but good for starting a company I think I'm like that like I have a tendency I I fear sympathy in others eyes for me I fear being vulnerable so much that if I am going through something I will hide it like something bad happening in my life some bad event I would rarely mention it yeah but that's yeah it's bad but bad bad in relationships very unhealthy but for a company maybe it's to start a company I don't know how that's translating but that seems to be common to a lot of people even even uh even with your company is that is that that good it's healthy if you're not emotionally attached to the company no but when when times get tough and I feel that I have that emotional connect with my company where I still I'll be like I will figure this out but if I am and for which I also end up being vulnerable in front of my leadership team being open about what's happening and trying to figure it out all together because I can't do it alone if I don't have that I feel that how how do you look at it actually very interesting Nuance I feel like I get stoic about things that are not working cuz I feel like in life 10 things are not working at the same time so I take that thing which is not working and my avoidant type puts it in a compartment and I come back to it after I fix three four of the 10 things but for that second what works for me is compartmentalizing it's very like uh stoic nihilistic in its origin that seems to be a common trait as well and what made it even more interesting is one is bootstrapped one is a public company and one is a largely funded company so we covered broad spectrum what we think are the prerequisites to be successful in a startup I think Manish had something else story very very important almost as important as a product we your story even if it is embellished in the very beginning in a manner that is most appealing to the audience you're try trying to cater to Fair pay attention to detail every little detail perfume music what else did you say the tiny details the horizontal creative of the perfume how it's going to come to life not having the logo on the Indian V sizes are 2 in higher than be rigid on that as well yeah people are here to change you yeah another big big commonality between everybody who's a successful entrepreneur is take risk risk taking ability seems to be one par higher In This Crowd of successful ones versus everybody else having 10 Crowes and taking a 37 cow loan leaving home uh and doing uh art which is the most counterintuitive thing that anybody would do Beyond a course in nit learning to be a computer programming teacher yeah multiple times uh going to New York in your first year of marriage all by myself all by yourself moved out of chandigar the only other city was Delhi yeah for Rees I can't even begin there's so much like so much in terms of taking risk outside of what a conformist conventional normal 20-year-old boy of your age would have done what this paper misses out is once you incorporate or try to inculcate some of this the underlying differentiator between a and b and c and d is luck at the very core of it I think you have to come to term every single entrepreneur has to come to terms with that but you know what I feel is the bigger challenge than going from 0er to one is finding the gumption in you to reinvent yourself after the ecosystem around you has built up your ego into a bubble to come to terms with the fact that you have become complacent faster than the market tells you yeah yeah I and that's how the incumbents lead right yeah like Facebook's greatest example is ditching the metav and then flipping back and making Instagram the heart of their business which is of course now become into com back to creativity look last one week like if you look at the Facebook stock price Facebook looks like nav bat and should we should we add that surrounding yourself by people who are able to say Outsiders often who are able to say to your face you're screwing up yeah I think that's very very important I think that's extremely important at the end of every episode we do this one we doing after a long time we've not put anything out for two months at the end of every episode uh we pay forward a little bit of the good luck we have gotten and we fund uh someone young someone we were talking to through this episode uh a 21 22 year old boy or girl so we'll all uh commit a certain amount of money we'll have a process where we open it up like you got your teal Fellowship we'll try to create our own Fellowship that's nice and we'll get applications we'll share all the applications with everyone here and we arrive at who should get the fellowship or the investment from all four of us together perfect this process will take a little bit of time like 15 20 days but we'll run it what if we call it WTF Founders Fellowship yeah it's a nice name have you done this before WTF fund yeah yeah we do it at the end of each episode we do something or the other we did one for influencers we did one we did we paid a couple of Charities EV sector so how about we four of us yeah we all give something small like 10 lakhs each or 20 lakhs each to four Founders at the end of it uh as a grant yeah do you think works perfect you guys are okay with that absolutely should we do 20 lakhs each 20 lakhs each charging and we'll we'll put like a like a Draft application that they can put out and we'll all four of us review it however we can find time and we can all pick one each perfect yeah very nice done super thank you guys hopefully one of them will be a guest in your podcast like zepto guys absolutely teal Fellowship it could even be you could be anyone of us yeah uh which we will help support so I'll be very happy thank you guys so much for coming and spending so much time thank you for having us thank you thank you thank you so much Nik we have to do one the longest podcast that I would ever show in my life I think do you guys realize in in our attempt to define the prerequisites of a successful entrepreneur that a 21y old can emulate we've been speaking for 8 hours without a real break really 8 yeah it's 4:00 a.m. what yeah I have to leave then I my flight is at 5:15 oh god seriously saying really really okay we definitely not getting the H you're not getting the