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The investor who built a 250 Cr skincare brand | Romita Mazumdar @ Foxtale
1.5k Plays10 months ago
"Every skin has its own story."
Romita Mazumdar's profound statement encapsulates the core philosophy of Foxtale, a skincare brand built not just on efficacy, but on deeply understanding the individual narratives behind every customer's skincare journey. It's a rejection of a one-size-fits-all approach, embracing the diversity of needs and experiences.
Romita Mazumdar is the Founder & CEO of Foxtale, a rapidly growing D2C skincare brand in India. From leaving a career in venture capital, Romita built Foxtale which in a short span of time has achieved a revenue run rate of ₹250 crore. She's a powerful example of an "investor turned entrepreneur," demonstrating that deep market understanding and user empathy can be powerful drivers of startup success.
Key Insights from the Conversation:
- Efficacy-First Approach: Foxtale prioritizes solving specific skin problems with clinically-backed formulations, rather than chasing ingredient trends.
- Data-Driven Optimization: A combination of consumer insights and data is used to deliver a 6%+ website conversion rate.
- Hybrid Growth Model: Foxtale balances its strong online presence (50% website revenue, with 40% organic) with strategic marketplace and offline expansion.
- Building an Institution: Romita emphasizes the importance of creating sustainable processes and a strong organizational culture, not just short-term startup growth.
- Power User Advantage: Building a brand in a category which you are a power user of, creates a significant headstart.
Chapters:
[00:00] Intro: Investor Turned Entrepreneur
[09:55] The Growth Equity Opportunity in India
[19:59] VC vs Growth vs PE: Valuations & Bets
[28:42] The "Thousand Crore, 20% EBITDA" Vision
[39:23] India Wants Efficacy & Quick Results
[48:37] Designing the First Four Hero Products
[58:39] Foxtale: Every Skin Has Its Own Story
[1:08:17] The Single Founder Bet & The Power of Honesty
[1:18:20] The Secret to Foxtale's 6% Conversion Rate
[1:28:10] Hiring Philosophy: Bias Against Pedigree
Hashtags:
#Foxtale #RomitaMazumdar #SkincareIndia #D2C #Entrepreneurship #StartupIndia #VentureCapital #GrowthHacking #BrandBuilding #ConsumerInsights #DataAnalytics #Efficacy #SkinCareRoutine #IndianStartups #FounderJourney #BusinessStrategy #MarketingStrategy #FemaleFounder #BeautyTech #PersonalCare #Podcast #FounderThesis #IndianPodcast
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Transcript
Introduction and Founder's Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone, I'm Ramada. I'm the founder and CEO of Voxdale, a D2C skincare brand in India.
00:00:18
Speaker
There are two ways in which founders discover the product they want to build. Either they face a personal challenge that leads them to solve it by becoming a founder or they decide to be a founder and then take a very analytical approach towards deciding what to build. And Romita Mazumdar is a perfect example of the second approach.
00:00:35
Speaker
Roberta is an investor-turned-founder. She was working as an analyst with a VC fund when she started hustling on weekends to build what would become Foxtail, which is an amazing D2C success story. It's another very few brands to hit a 200 crore ARR within two years of
Romita's Background and Vision
00:00:51
Speaker
launch. And in this canon and freewheeling conversation with your host, Akshay Tat, she talks about how her experience as an investor contributed to her journey as a founder and the grand vision she is chasing.
00:01:11
Speaker
So let's begin. You are an investor turned entrepreneur. Just take me through that investor part of your journey once, you know, just to help understand how that shaped your decision to be an entrepreneur.
00:01:28
Speaker
I think I'll just take a couple of minutes extra because I think, yeah, I was an investor only for two years and the decision to become an entrepreneur has been something that I have moved towards over a period of, you know, 10, 12 years. I'm from Rachi. It's a small city in India and grew up there, went to UCLA for my undergrad. So that was the first time when my horizons expanded and I saw very different worlds and it got to experience 18 years of one side of the world.
00:01:57
Speaker
grow up fundamentally in the formative years 18 to 24 in rework. When I went there, I think, I didn't know how much I learned, but what I definitely knew, immediately realized what my parents had done for me.
00:02:13
Speaker
I come from a decent development family but not so much that they could afford what they had at that time given me and I realised that the moment I landed there by myself and to me the first thing was I'm going to give back the rewards in addition to the homesickness that was there and so I knew that I needed a job that can pay you that much in that one year and that became the goal of my life.
00:02:35
Speaker
So I began with super into a first year kid going into all these career fairs, meeting all of these people. And that's the first time I met a banker. He was a senior investment banker from Mullen family. And I heard all about banking from him and what life is like. So not only did the ROAS sit there, it made sense because there was something about this person that was very aspirational to the 18 year old me. And I said, I'm going to pursue my career in investment banking at the age of 18. And I started doing a lot of internships. Yeah.
00:03:06
Speaker
Sorry, I just want to clarify for our listeners, you are coming from the D2C mindset and using the word ROAS again and again, which some people may not understand, but you're essentially saying the return on what your parents invested that you wanted to... Whatever they're putting to educate me for four years, I was like, I'm going to earn it back in one year. That's primarily what I wanted to do.
00:03:29
Speaker
After that, I did a few banking internships, got into Bank of America, made a link to tech banking in the third year as a summer intern and then got a full time there and started my career there.
Consumer Tech Insights and Market Differences
00:03:39
Speaker
So that's where my journey to consumer tech started.
00:03:43
Speaker
While we were doing semiconductors and softwares, I did spend a lot of time with consumer tech, which included your fans of the world, which is Facebook, Apple, Netflix of the world. But it also had a lot of series D and E companies of the time, like Airbnb, Pinterest. Uber was a little more advanced. We were doing BRH. We worked for them. Shep, Tran, the Renway, Pash, Nova, et cetera. So these were all series D, E companies that we would spend a lot of time because those are the deals that we wanted to foster and build as part of that.
00:04:13
Speaker
And to me, I found love here because this was a sector that I used to understand as a user. So when it came to the decks, it was not as simple as taking insights from here and there and putting. There was something that I was mindfully able to apply myself to. And of course, these were brands that I was using on my day to day life. So there was a lot of conversation I could do outside work as well when it came to working with these brands. So I think
00:04:36
Speaker
For me, consumer tech became a very holistic experience as a 22-year-old professional. And I knew I wanted to build this further. In between all of this, 2018, I came to India. I came within Bank of America, and I was doing tech banking here as well. My first senior year was different. My second year was Zoom card. So I continued the consumer tech journey in India. But having said that, there were a lot more companies that I got a chance to speak to within a period of six months.
00:05:05
Speaker
I really learned Akshay Ki. India, with UmarTech and US consumer tech are not the same, right? India, Poyo and Airbnb are not the same models. You know, Uber, India, Uber, US are not the same models at all. And to me, that realization didn't come from a cynical point of view. It came from a very appreciative point of view because India, we talk about Omi channel, online, offline.
00:05:31
Speaker
regional disparities is so wide in India. When you look at why a certain business model works in a certain state versus another, the reasons are completely different. So even if you take a very high level word like TAM that bankers love using, right, total addressable market, it's very easy to figure it out. It's very application-based. It's not a simple Max and it's not a simple Excel. You have to really apply and try and understand the user.
00:05:57
Speaker
So to me, I knew that I wanted to make that move. I was, of course, in six months in India. We are not debating that we are in the golden decade of India in terms of the economy. And I could see it. I could feel it that, you know, that there is a lot for me to do in India from a career perspective.
00:06:14
Speaker
But I had to learn. I was the Silicon Valley bread, fancy, unit economics, CM2, and all of those languages. All of them are relevant in there. Linguos are very, very different in terms of this. So I had to unlearn and learn. And I said, I'm going to move closer to an organization where I can learn and unlearn all of these things.
00:06:33
Speaker
And that's when E91 partners came through. They were just getting formed. It was a new part. Some of ex-CoA partners were moving out to start E91. I knew one of them briefly from before. And when I congratulated him, I still remember I sent him a message saying, congratulations, you sent me a message. Do you want to interview with us? We were looking for analysts. Do you want to join in?
Investment Strategies and Valuation Insights
00:06:57
Speaker
And that's how I started interviewing with them. All of them came from the team.
00:07:01
Speaker
E91 is venture capital or private equity? So they are positioned as a growth partners, growth equity, someone that comes after VCs but prior to private equities. But at least when I had joined them, they used to do very early stage companies. So series A and B. Now, fundamentally, they're doing series B and C. But at that time, the check sizes were smaller.
00:07:26
Speaker
I joined the first part. When I had joined them, I still remember, obviously, whenever I see my office being built, it is not the first 0 to 1 journey in a way I had taken. I had not taken that journey. I was observing that journey a lot more. But there was a 0 to 1 there as well. But E91 partners happened that way.
00:07:48
Speaker
Tell me a little bit about A91 founders and their background and what they started. I believe that's a pretty fascinating journey in itself.
00:07:58
Speaker
A91, the primary partners, they are five partners actually. Three of them come from, you know, three of them were all partners at Sequoia. So there's Abhay Party, there's Gautam Margot, there's B.T. Bharadwaj. And they have two more partners, Prasoon and Kaushik, who joined them, you know, eventually in this journey. And the three
00:08:22
Speaker
All of their bank loans, actually all five of them are Ex-Ecoia, but the Ex-Ecoia had different roles and different positions. I'll talk about Abhay Gautam and Viti come from, I think, very rich experience in investing in India. Gautam has done a lot of financial services and tech. Abhay and Viti have been primarily focused on consumer, healthcare, consumer tech as a space.
00:08:45
Speaker
want to build in A91. I mean, they left Sequoia. They would have had some sort of a thesis of what Sequoia is not doing. I think they wanted to have a very linear focused approach. So they were very clear that each fund will have 10 to 12 investment. So they wanted a lot more purpose on exposure. And at the same time, for them, the white space in India was that a lot of people were writing 5 to 10 miljects. A lot of people were writing 50 miljects.
00:09:13
Speaker
But no one was writing this 10 to 15 mil checks, right? So series B, it's fine. But series C, series B, unless you're doing these large transactions, it's not working out. So I'll give you an example. Like Matrix came in when I was early on, and Matrix and TRD, we spent just average funds. But if you talk about private equities now, any big names, they will not come until I'm raising 70, 80 mil. But I will need money in between that, in between this 10 to 15 mil journey.
00:09:42
Speaker
So, they really said that that's the wide gap in India, where unit economics is proven. So, we are not a VC, we are not taking wet on unit economics. The business has shown ability to not only unit economics scale and profitability, like the company is 100 crore, around 100 crore in its P&L and to some extent profitable.
00:10:05
Speaker
But now it's about hyperscaling it up, keeping the profitability in mind. So that's why it's called growth investing. You're only investing in growth. You're not taking a bet. So the risk is lesser than we see to that extent. And then I lower returns than we see.
00:10:24
Speaker
All of these are like the sub 10 million like the right checks of 10 million most of the funds that we would have heard of are there and then there are funds which do 50 million plus like a soft bank or so on so that in between spaces where
00:10:38
Speaker
is what they want to capture. And actually, outside India, there are a lot of growth equity partners. In India, surprisingly, there have been less, but now a lot of people have come about. When I think five years back, it was just a few of them on the finger, but now there are so many growth equity partners in India, and all of them have done fairly well for themselves. Who are the other names in this space, growth equity space?
00:11:06
Speaker
So, we did a round with Pantharang Road Partners, series B. So, they are one of them who come in this space. Adil Wiles is playing this space quite a bit, this 10 to 30-minute SWC, which is where capital is doing quite a bit. When CPG growth will write bigger checks, they can still write, I guess, from what I know, 30-40 mil, taken a little early. So, there are a lot of growth equity partners in India.
00:11:34
Speaker
Like the biggest difference if I have to tell the audience is that usually a VC, when they invest in you, if they put in 10 mil, they expect that to become 7, 8X at least. A growth partner underwrites a 4X because they are like they'll put 30, 40 mil, 4X is also 120 mil, right? And a private equity will underwrite 2, 3X. Like they're okay with that kind of a base case assumption.
00:12:02
Speaker
That's how all of that, because the bigger the check size is, you are able to underwrite the little less written because the risk is lower than rewarded.
00:12:12
Speaker
I want to kind of understand the job of an analyst in this kind of a fund. You know, typically if you are managing investments in let's say public market, then you will do like a discounted cash flow where you have like you are able to project incomes.
00:12:33
Speaker
But when you are doing private equity and VC funding, the projection of incomes, does that really come into play? Or how do you decide what is the valuation that you want to invest at? How is the valuation decided at different stages of investing? Like, you know, how is it decided in a series A or a seed level versus how is it decided at B and C level? Just help me understand that a little bit, like the way an investor values a company.
00:13:02
Speaker
So I think my series B, the company's P&L is a lot more mature. It's easier to tell you about how, but I'll actually go chronologically. In stage and pre-series A, series A, stage the company really has not had so much history, right? And the company might have existed for seven or eight years, but if you're not doing substantial revenue,
00:13:23
Speaker
It's very, I can tell you will grow X, I can tell you will grow Y. So, everything becomes assumption based and unit economics have not played out. So, you are not even able to play, because there's no stability in the unit economics, right? So, at that time, your view on the market becomes extremely critical and what you do in terms of peer analysis becomes very, very critical.
00:13:49
Speaker
When I see market analysis, it is the total addressable market, and it's not simply getting to a number. It's understanding things like bottoms up analysis, who are the players in this. If this is a 100 floor market or let's say 100,000 floor market,
00:14:06
Speaker
Market means it's not big, addressable market means not our view on how big the market is. So basically you break that 100,000 to all the players who are contributing to it. And then be able to take a view, like for example, in Skincare, if I had to take a view, I know that Himalayas is doing this, Per and W is doing this, and the market is 20-30,000.
00:14:32
Speaker
But I'm not going to displace Himalaya or Neen, Himalaya or Fair and Lovely. I'm going to displace the long tail first. Then you go a deeper dive into what are those smaller brands, what has the scale been, how fast have they been going. Of course you will have some winners, of course you will have some losers. So that gives you the best case, the worst case.
00:14:52
Speaker
then taking a view that how much of this market do you need to capture to get the returns that you are looking for. So today you are investing in a company at a 5x, right? But the company is 1 crore, taking let's say 5 crores. For you to make 10x on this, at what scale will the company be able to give you 10x?
00:15:09
Speaker
because the multiples in different categories contract or expand. Consumer is beautiful as you grow multiples expand. There are some categories where you give higher multiples in the beginning but as you go up, the multiple arbitrage goes away. So growth has to take over the arbitrage in valuation, the upside in valuation development.
00:15:27
Speaker
all of those things. So depending on the category, then you take a view on whom do you need to displace? What does that mean? How much market share do you need to take? And at what market share and at what this, do you think that you will make that index that you are looking for? And that's where we see insight, right? A lot of these partners you will meet, I'll tell you about one, right? Avneesh, right, from Matrix. I have seen him just look at numbers and have a very strong sense of whether it will work or not.
00:15:55
Speaker
And that sense is not gut. That's pure intelligence that he's built through the experiences that he's had over the years. And that intelligence is so ingrained in great VC partners that it is almost gut after a point of time. So they'll see something, and they can tell you to work or not. But there's a lot going on in the head. They connect the right dots. So everything that I've told you, they will be able to connect in their dots and do it in a fraction of a second.
00:16:23
Speaker
and basis that then you take a bet that you know that the biggest value date then is on the team and the founder that okay this is a market share you will be able to execute this the product have what it takes to be able to get there what are the risks that ends up coming in so then you take a you know
00:16:43
Speaker
upside versus downside view on this, and then you invest in it. So very honestly, series A that taking a P&L view is relatively more, you actually build the right P&L. Abhisi will give you the ideal P&L to the founders, saying that now we're investing, this is what you have to build, because this is how we will get to the numbers that we all want to get to the founders. It's almost like that. But founders are delusional. And in the right way, they're delusional. So they will take much higher numbers than that.
00:17:12
Speaker
And a lot of them deliver on those higher numbers, but that's how a series A and C works, right? So series B plus, what ends up happening is that series B plus ends up happening after 100 crore. In fact, even a little larger, right? I'm giving 100 crore as a lower benchmark. You really start at 150, 200 crore.
00:17:34
Speaker
But by the time the company has had at least four, five years of history, and 100 crore is a lot of money to have. So you will have a decent set of customers. Ideally, by 100 crore, you should be in a path to profitability, if not profitable. You have a view on for every additional crore, how much more cash per month do you have to do, not do. What is the unit economics like? At 100 crore, unit economics will stabilize. So you exactly know for every dollar you spend, what do you get?
00:18:01
Speaker
and what is the operating efficiency that the business has seen from a 10 pro to a 100 pro journey. So a lot of numbers in the business are very very well developed by the time you hit your CDSP. So at that time it is about taking those numbers but you still take a view on the tap. You might not need to be the best in the industry to take the insight on the time because
00:18:25
Speaker
You can still be a little more vanilla about it than what you need to be in VCs. VCs are extremely smart about understanding the market sizing. You can be a little more vanilla about it. But there's so much history in the company by that time and decent amount of history that it makes it easy to project it out. So then you take a view of the market here in this amount of time they've taken so much market share, which has resulted in this.
00:18:51
Speaker
So, they are on a growth path. So, you have the current growth rate. You will even see, I have seen analysts like, analysts will do, there are lazy jobs, they are great jobs. So, some lazy job is simply grow at the same rate next year and then, you know, keep decelerating it. Models can be made in many ways.
00:19:08
Speaker
Great jobs are understanding the market and taking a beauty, you know, this is an election year, it might go faster, this will be X number of years etc. So, there are all of those things that you can build in and that leads to, you know, and then you also have a view on profitability and cash bond because the company has had that history.
00:19:25
Speaker
And you take that and expand that. Like today, if I'm spending $1 to get $100 in revenue, for example, you are able to see the same. So companies improving market efficiency by this date. So will it continue to do it or not? And basis that you make assumptions.
00:19:44
Speaker
So series B plus is a lot more, what do I say, technical and a lot more mathematical in its approach of creating a model. And the other side too, it is that you still take a founder back because see all the numbers eventually are idealism, right? It's like model is always about
00:20:09
Speaker
So, even in series B, you need the founder to deliver, you need the team to deliver. So, they might have done a great job for the last four, five years, two years, but can they continue to deliver? And a lot of time founders who are 0 to 1, 1 to 10 and not 10 plus, or vice versa, right? I've seen great companies at 10, but they might not have been the best founders of 0 to 1, but their co-founder might have been the best 0 to 1.
00:20:34
Speaker
So it's a journey and you still continue to have to take a bet on the founder and the team and yeah that is how series B is done, public market is there I think even more mathematically and this but yeah I don't want to say scientific because I actually think people don't realize BCS are quite scientific is this that
00:20:58
Speaker
because great VC partners come with experience. It's not academic, you can't take a book and you can learn it. It's experience because you need to know cycles, you need to know what works, what doesn't work.
00:21:17
Speaker
then you need to have a very strong business sense. So I think for me, that level of intelligence comes with years of experience and hence it's not scientific, it's very scientific, but it's a very different form of intelligence than mathematics.
00:21:37
Speaker
What do VCs do to find those blockbuster deals?
Building a Skincare Brand
00:21:41
Speaker
Every VC who invested in Mama Earth would have written on their LinkedIn profile that they are an investor. One big blockbuster which every VC who's invested is proud of. And I'm guessing every VC is hunting for the next Mama Earth. So what are the things they do to find these great deals?
00:21:59
Speaker
First of all, what a story, Mama. I think so much respect and, you know, love for what they have built. I don't personally know them, but outstanding. I think to anyone standing in any category, they're an inspiration. And what they build, they go with what they have built. And of course, for people in the category, it's great to know that they've created something so special and it's possible. But on this, right, I think
00:22:29
Speaker
There's a word that VCs will use and a lot of VC analysts use called sourcing. Basically, you know, going and meeting everyone possible on planet earth, whether it is other VCs, whether it is all the founders and, you know,
00:22:49
Speaker
evaluating and that's how. So the word sourcing is like very largely used. But I actually believe and I have seen it, this is my thesis, that a mama or this kind of deal doesn't come out of sourcing, it comes out of relationships.
00:23:08
Speaker
and a keen eye to know what relationship to build and what not relationship to build. And I was actually having this discussion with someone a few weeks back that has come out of cold sourcing and that's been like the next 28, the mammoth for any fund. It's because, you know,
00:23:28
Speaker
the focus that you need. I think to me what ends up happening when you do this sourcing as a spray and play that we call investing. What is cold sourcing? Cold sourcing means you send out cold emails to companies which are launching
00:23:46
Speaker
I will talk to everyone, I will talk to whoever, I will talk to everyone on planet Earth, I will do it. I remember when we were analysts, we said that I was told in different parts, you take a target, I will do so many calls a day, I will do both. See, as an analyst, it's great because honestly you learn a lot.
00:24:05
Speaker
because the more you talk to people, the more you imbibe. So I think the intent is also to make them learn, but really the deeds in most VCs don't happen. Very few happen when the analyst is bringing in the deal, the partners bring in the deal, the partners do the deal. Why does that happen? Because it's a relationship. One relationship I will talk about here.
00:24:29
Speaker
I mean, with the Mama founders, you're saying that some VCs had relationships with those founders previously because of which it came to them? No, no, no, no, no. By relationships, I don't mean that we know each other or we necessarily hang out with each other or there is a family, none of those things. But I'll tell you, like for me, also what had happened, correct?
00:24:51
Speaker
you talk to someone like let's say even if you're talking to an angel you know that angel well then angel knows someone so there's something called referral right when you meet each other through referral there's a network of trust you create right and very honestly this network that we create network is not
00:25:08
Speaker
people who just meet once or twice. Network is people that you may talk to twice or twice a year, but you probably will see some commonality. So finding a network where there's a thread of commonality helps you always stay in the DNA that you want to invest in. So the relationship doesn't mean that Akshay and I know each other. The relationship means that somehow we know people, which means there's some value system that we end up sharing. Right.
00:25:34
Speaker
who introduce us, some values of symptoms, when you and I will first of all hit it off, a lot of times. So I'm very sure that when the first, I'm sure a lot of investors would have met Bhamad for the first time when they first invested, but they would have heard, Vaya, Vaya, okay, Varun and Ghazalang will take a great thing, you should meet them. And when they meet them, I can also most likely tell certainly that it would not take them
00:25:59
Speaker
months to get convinced because the DNA matches somewhere. And what I mean by that is not seeing that there's one style of investing that works. I think you have to be honest to your style of investing. I think investors are very honest to this because again, it's intelligence you build in a category.
00:26:18
Speaker
You can't build intelligence in automation also, AI also, consumer also, not when you're starting off, not when you are building, I'm sure that once you reach a certain stage, you build one subject matter expertise, then the other, then the other.
00:26:34
Speaker
But I also think very few people are lifted like that, right? Like your brain has to be trained in a certain way and that can connect dots without you having to consciously think about it. And for it to get trained, you have to have more and more and more conversations and more and more and more people in that.
00:26:50
Speaker
thing in that window in that definition that you end up establishing for yourself and that's when what ends up happening is that then you find people who fall into that bucket for example fireside right it's one investor that i think understands bpc outstandingly well i don't think mama is an accidental success for them i'm seeing from an outside perspective i neither know mama as well nor fireside well but
00:27:14
Speaker
I don't think it's an accidental success. I think they would have always very, with a strong conviction, know that it will be a success because their DNA and BPC is outstandingly strong. The view, the depth, the focus, and the view is not a one-year view. They've been studying this market for the last 10, 15, 20 years, primarily, probably.
00:27:34
Speaker
and being able to reiterate again and again what is working, what is not working, etc. They've made those bets that have not been this tenor success in an hour, but they have the learnings. Just think of it, if you are a mountaineer, all of us are mountaineers, but it doesn't mean that all of us can climb
00:27:56
Speaker
Mount Everest, right? You take, and the mountaineers also take pride in that, I mean, and some other ones, because you make that your focus leader, you need to understand that terrain, you need to understand that weather, you need to understand the hardship that you go, and you will fail, but you'll keep doing it till you get that. So I think it's that focus of understanding the terrain of your category, and hence then you build a network there, and hence there is direct indirect relationships that happen. So I think to do a mama hut, and I,
00:28:26
Speaker
We have some outstanding VCs in India, but to do a mama-art and see that kind of success, I think you need to have lived that, breathed that categorically and have it very well-intended. So a mama-art to know VC would have been an accidental success, it would have been a
00:28:44
Speaker
like Sequoia, like Sequoia has been in BPC forever. We need cosmetics, et cetera. Like, you know, like they've not really been, they're not new. Walmart was not their first investment in BPC and they've done our thesis, Canada. BPC is beauty and personal. Beauty and personal. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what was your thesis? You were at A91 when you decided to start Foxtail. What was the thesis you started with?
00:29:14
Speaker
that, you know, since you are an investor first, so you would have done that, you know, time and figuring out what is the white space and, you know, so help me understand that.
00:29:28
Speaker
I was not and I think till today I'm trying to entrepreneur in especially now means a lot of things to a lot of people to me it simply means to build right and it started like that and I think I'll discover my own meaning for it with time but I think to me it's gonna stay the constant I've been doing it for now three four years
00:29:48
Speaker
But when I, for me, when I was doing VC, right, so banking, you know, understood, I love the consumer tech space. VC was part of an early journey. So spend a lot of time with portfolio companies, what a front seat, go to a lot of conversations.
00:30:04
Speaker
And as much as I enjoyed it and learned from it, I realized that I want to get a little closer, right? A little closer didn't necessarily mean Jaffee Putka's that color, right? So what that little closer meant, I took six months to realize it. And that's when I started calling all my ex-employees and I'm like, you know,
00:30:20
Speaker
what should I do next? You know, MBA of course is an option, but I really feel like, you know, I really feel I want to build something and build, co-build and be part of some story. And they were like, oh, you, you said start, we always thought you're going to start, right? And add people from the, who were my employers in the US, they're like, oh, you haven't started yet. We always thought that, you know, you're going to start something around. So to me, very honestly, this happened, and a lot of these things were happening similarly.
00:30:48
Speaker
A bear had taken us out for drinks. We used to go out for drinks at four seasons here and used to ask these questions at times. And I remember this one time, we'd asked us this question that, if not what you are today, what would your idly be? Or what will you be in 10 years, right? Or what is it idle image you have of yourself? And I remember going in circles till it came to me, and I was sitting on this side. And I said, I want to be the CEO of P&G.
00:31:18
Speaker
And I can't tell the impact. Maybe I was two drinks, so I was thinking a lot more, you know, vulnerable than I tend to give myself a chance to. So I really perished and I was reading a lot of PNG at the time. And of course, I had realized that I want to go to the upside.
00:31:35
Speaker
But to me, this idea of PNG, and the idea of getting to not only build it, but be a part, create an impact, was something that I felt very strongly. So all of these together took over six months. And very honestly, I've said it wasn't an easy overnight decision because it moved between, OK, now I want to build. Let's figure out a company that I want to go and build. So I spoke to a few founders. I knew a lot of them. I was friends with them.
00:32:02
Speaker
So, you know, all of this was happening and then, but this is a conviction, right? This is A. And I had to define what building means. Building is as simple as I can build a house, right? Like building is anything. Building is creating. You can create anything. But what does my building mean?
00:32:18
Speaker
And I remember this day so clearly, so clearly, because I remember the smell of the day. You know, there are days in life that you remember everything of that day. And I woke up and I said, you know, I want to build a 1,000 crore company with 20% EBITDA. And that became my building, right? That became my definition of building. I said that to me, building means building a consumer brand.
00:32:46
Speaker
And the second thing was that whether it takes me two years, three years, five years, ten years to build this, I'm going to build it. I'm not going to stop. And given that I'm saying I can go through these multiple rounds of reiterations, and I come from a generation that believes in mental health, I always say it. So I will never let it go home. I will always keep it at work because this is something I was doing for myself.
00:33:11
Speaker
But I will do it. It wasn't a stint for me. It wasn't something I was going for the experience. I wanted to build 1,000 crores 20% in Iqbalam. Experience being in Iqbalam, you know, life thing to me would be, you know, I will learn all oppression. It will be so much fun. So that is what I wanted to build.
00:33:32
Speaker
And that's where the journey started. Now to build a thousand floor 20% invader, I think that made my life fairly easy in hindsight because the problem statement was clear. I wasn't searching for a problem statement. Everything I did after that was to solve that. So I.
00:33:48
Speaker
I needed a category that has high revenue pool and profit pool. Like you said, given I'm from a VC, I know what categories fit the high revenue profit pool. And I knew BPC skincare fits perfectly into that. Second, as a founder, you can really have two arbitrages. One is you come from oppression experience that does a Unilever guy coming and starting something in his category have an arbitrage? Of course he has, right? I don't have that arbitrage.
00:34:12
Speaker
But the second arbitrage that founders have is being power users of the category. When you really are a power user of a certain category and understand, then you build something that is extremely, you ace the product. When you ace the product for the loyalist in the category, then automatically scaling that products in terms of word of mouth, everything becomes much easier. So I knew I'm a power user of Skincare as a category. And third was some
00:34:39
Speaker
very basic PMF up in hindsight all PMF was because now I realize how much work goes into building but whatever was you know like it's like life right whatever you are seeing you see my daughter you see me and when you zoom out things change in life but to me in that time I had spent spoken to 108 skincare brands
00:34:59
Speaker
all across India and I had understood that you know that for me there was a very clear like you know and I was meeting all of these brands at different scales and all of them were growing very very fast so that means market is growing if everyone's growing markets growing right but none of them were profitable and if I double down it almost looked like that if you
00:35:23
Speaker
If today, coffee becomes popular, everyone's launching coffee. If tomorrow, meme becomes popular, everyone's launching meme too.
00:35:31
Speaker
One SKU is growing, then it stops growing, and another SKU takes over the growth completely. And then there's a third SKU that takes over the growth completely. So it was growth that was coming in the course of marketing and efficiency. Because today you're putting all your marketing money to say I am X and tomorrow you're saying I'm Y. So there's no efficiency and there is no long-term ROAS that you are able to squeeze out of the money that you are spending.
00:35:56
Speaker
And worst is, at that time I had Unilever's number. I had a Himalayan mean paste washes number, by Unilever, I mean Perrin lovely. And they were still growing double digit, but they were also profitable. And the best thing was they were one hero product, you know, Perrin lovely is built around one SPU, right? Himalay has a lot, but Himalayan name paste wash is their hero product, is the product that gets the maximum. And they were market winners in the category.
00:36:21
Speaker
So to me, what was very clear that to address both tan and profitability, you need to create limited SKUs, and you need to create high LTV around each SKU. What do I mean by LTV? Lifetime values. If I'm acquiring you for one product, I want you to stick to the product for at least the next few years of your life, right? And hence, I can only launch limited SKU and get revenue, rather than today sell you one, tomorrow sell you something else, because then that's commoditized.
00:36:48
Speaker
I have to build a brand and brand for brand stickiness is critical. So each product you have to be, you might not use all my 15 products. I'm okay with you using one product, but you stick to it now for the next few years. So that's what we wanted. We said that is the problem statement. So, um, but again, one thing that we see doesn't do, and I strongly believe that at least for me, it was a limited.
00:37:11
Speaker
You earn a certain amount of money. You live in a bubble. Your lifestyle is very different. You are situated south of Bombay. And while we all like to believe that we are going out and meeting so many founders and we are really living a life is very different from
00:37:33
Speaker
inspirational conversations we end up having. And I had learned that, that we see is a bubble. And that time only someone had told me, what is the average salary of top 1% of India on a monthly?
00:37:51
Speaker
India's 1% earns 25,000 rupees a month. So imagine 99% earns less than 20. Imagine how we are, right? We are like another spectrum altogether when we were at VC. We are 1% of 1%. Yeah. So it's a whole different world. So I knew that I can have all these numbers and I have a thesis, but I don't know if I go and speak to the user.
00:38:14
Speaker
Unfortunately, this is 2020, so COVID was there, so I waited. But COVID first made a difference. So I said I'm going to go and interview women. And I interviewed 1,000 women. I still remember the number, 937 women across 10 cities in India. That's a whole different day. I used to go and talk in front of airports. And I learned that you should never go to airport for research because people are either in a hurry to enter or in a hurry to exit and go home.
00:38:42
Speaker
There's no leisure time. So that's when I started going to malls and I started going to other places. In two cities, there are no malls. So I had to set, in two of the cities, I set base camps. I still remember 10 Swagaki, you know.
00:39:00
Speaker
But I would get some more stars and I would say let's just come and spend time in a certain neighborhood, right? But honestly, was a different world, different experience altogether that time and learned a lot. You quit and started this research?
00:39:19
Speaker
So this research I was doing while I was still at A91 because A91 was a Monday to Friday thing. So Saturday, Sunday, I was doing this. I was traveling and some days I would either take her off or I will go Friday evening. So I'm working as VC, you get a very good working as anyone who's looking for a VC job.
00:39:36
Speaker
Most series I'm good working as, unlike startup like us. So I would be home by seven. So it was good working as in general. But it is because at that time, I knew what I wanted to build. I thousand to twenty percent with that, right. But make how to solve it was in a
00:39:55
Speaker
question and that's when I started doing all of these things and I learned like to me the I learned so it's a 40 page deck you know like that I summarize my primary reason etc but I'll just tell you a couple of things the number one thing that I took away that in India people when it comes to skin can they solve for efficacy so we have preconceived notion of what is there on our skin and we pick up a product to solve that and second I always get it India is a two-minute noodle market so sub coincident efficacy
00:40:25
Speaker
three in one wants to wait for three, four weeks. So if you're able to look beyond the 10th, 10th. You're saying we solve for efficacy in skincare as opposed to what? What is the comparable here? As opposed to 10th. Today, a lot of positioning in India is made in terms, and there's nothing wrong in it, made in terms of ingredients that I am the one who's cracked my cinnamite, let's say. I'm the one who's cracked coffee as an ingredient.
00:40:54
Speaker
I'm the one who's tracked XYZ. Now the problem with that that ends up happening is this ingredient first approach, it's worked really well. So there's one brand that I respect a lot who's done this ingredient first approach and then built a good brand there, right?
00:41:09
Speaker
For me, it's minimalist. I really respect what they have built. And they've taken the Indian project, but they've done a great job with modern. It's not the problem. It's not product. But then there is other side to it, which is like, there are brands that you take a more niche view, and then it becomes restricted in terms of time. So you are not able to scale. Second,
00:41:33
Speaker
Ingredient, first of all, people also compromise on the efficacy of the product. Very few brands say that, OK, ingredient is my marketing strategy, but product is not my product. So not a lot of brands have been able to crack that fairly well. And then there's a difference. Ingredient, maybe not a national ingredient, but a science-packed ingredient, a lot of those things.
00:41:54
Speaker
So efficacy has an angle is usually, it's said that all of us take it, but really to be able to own it, such the way Durmak's do, right? Like seeing that I will give you X results. So that's the angle that you would need.
00:42:13
Speaker
anti-wrinkle cream or dark circle cream. So these are products where it is left out first. Yeah. Yeah. There is a very clear problem statement. So brightening can be a problem statement and dehydration can be a problem statement, anti-aging can be a problem statement, pigmentation is a problem, acne is a problem statement. So take these problem statements, seven problem statements that we've taken and we solve for it around it. So all of this,
00:42:39
Speaker
As we solved for, so that was the problem statement we said, then what ends up happening? You can create limited SU, then you're not reliable, relaxed. See, today Aloe vera can be trending. Next year, red algae will start trending. The year after that, something else, because trends are trends. Trends are supposed to come and go, right?
Product Development and Brand Identity
00:42:59
Speaker
But benefits is something that is relevant. 10 years back, also anti-aging was a problem. Today, also anti-aging is a problem. 10 years later, also anti-aging is a problem.
00:43:08
Speaker
So the reality is that we wanted to pick that. So we didn't want to become obsolete. We wanted to create the problem. You were talking of consumer insights. The first insight was consumers buy based on efficacy. What were the other insights?
00:43:25
Speaker
And consumers, what efficacy quicker? Consumers can't wait for a very long time. So it has to be very, very quick. So now that was a product related problem. Now I still remember the second number, 52 people all across India. And someone I interviewed, the Fortnite guy told me about this guy, Dr. Ramesh Urinarayanan, who was part of the fair and lovely creation to what
00:43:46
Speaker
the third rework of Perin Rambi that made Perin Rambi what it is today, and he's called the Perin Rambi man in the Unilever, and part of Himalayas journey from five rows a year to whatever Himalayas became, so he was part of the Himalayas and he paid for his journey and the portfolio there.
00:44:03
Speaker
So to me, he was the guy, he had retired, somehow found him, he was actually, I searched him on LinkedIn, he had 22 connects, I still joke about it with him, it looked like, you know, your son or daughter, someone creates it, and then you forget about it. And then it really went like that. I reached out to all 22 people, three of them replied, one of them had two of his numbers, 8, 2, 1, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9
00:44:30
Speaker
And sir was just like, I don't know what sir would have thought. And then he said, OK, why don't you come and meet me? And he was based out of Chennai. I met him. Then we had a five-hour chat. His mother was actually recovering from cancer surgery, but she's the best cook in the world. She created the best dosas. And I don't like dosas, but dad really likes the dosas. So we ate dosas, and we spoke for four, five hours.
00:44:59
Speaker
today tells everyone that I stalked him, which I think I did. I restart to everyone that possibly could have known him. But yeah, so Sir and I spoke that is this possible, right? And Sir said it's absolutely possible to create this and this. And I said, why do other brands not do it? And then he explained it to me because it is
00:45:21
Speaker
not as simply as ingredient choice. It is about creating a formulation that can penetrate your skin and you need to understand which in vegan needs to penetrate at what portion of the skin and how do you prevent it from going into your bloodstream. So you have to amplify efficacy while being safe. And the third part is of course testing it. You cannot just launch a product because you know penetration method is out there.
00:45:44
Speaker
Hamsapka skin ka thickness a lage haamsapka skin ka you know molecular honestly cellular structures are very different skin to skin so while basics can be solved for how do you create a product that can be relevant for most people because we were saying we want to create thousand code so we had to create a product with steel we can't create a nice product
00:46:04
Speaker
So he said, these are the three foundational points. And I said, sir, you helped me solve the formulation part. I'll help you solve the testing. And with that, we shook hands. And we created our first R&D lab in Chennai back in. And the day sir said, yes, that's the day I put in my papers at 891.
00:46:22
Speaker
I told you 91 you know that this is what I'm doing and they said no great they were very encouraging and I had to serve a one month notice period so sir came in on December 2020 by that in between we got our first R&D lab in Chennai we got our instruments it was but second we just kicked off but luckily before that what had happened is colleges were closed across India, pharma colleges so a lot of colleges let us just rent their instruments and all of that stuff
00:46:50
Speaker
We got that, and we got a team of three scientists together. I told her, sir, it's not savings. I can't take money from my parents. They've already spent on my education, but I can't take money from them. I was not married or anything, so I didn't have anyone else who could run the house. This is the money I have.
00:47:09
Speaker
I'll keep 70 plaques for myself and the remaining to run my, but I don't know when I can raise money or not. The next one, one and a half year, whatever spends I have to do and the remaining. And I still remember the success and that you're using your own money.
00:47:25
Speaker
because you had to pay three salaries and, you know, rental and the instrument and all of that. For testing, this was a different cost. And so I said that you're using your own money. I will not draw salary. You just give me, you know, I said, but he's off. And I told him, let's become co-founders. He said, my astrologer, I said, if I'm a business partner, the business will not do well. So let's not call it anything other than employer employee. And really, that's how certain my relationship started in January 15, 2021.
00:47:54
Speaker
is when we started our lab. And I actually remember the day very well. I moved to Chennai. We made the products over a period of one year. We made only four products in one year. We still make every product takes 12 to 18 months to make because efficacy is so critical for us. And that's how we launched in 2022, Jan. And yeah, that's our story. Like that's how an investor, I don't think an investor turned into an entrepreneur, I think,
00:48:25
Speaker
I think there was a lot more that went into it. It was not simply the knowledge of what I had. What were the targets initially? What problems did the first few products want to solve? Because you said efficacy first, so you must have identified specific problems that you wanted to solve.
00:48:47
Speaker
To see it for me, at that time, I didn't know. Well, I had never thought that I will raise VC money, not raise, right? And all of those things. I just knew that I needed to create something that can give me access to a large stand without constantly going back into product development mode.
00:49:06
Speaker
And we were investing a lot of time into it. And that time, we also didn't know whether it would take two years, three years to make the product. So I needed to choose big categories. So I had chosen, I used the products I wanted to make, face wash, moisturizer, one sunscreen, one serum. These were four products I wanted to make. Because that's largely, if you break down Indian skin care, those are the four formats that do work in India.
00:49:29
Speaker
And I want it too strongly, but each of them have different use cases. Like for serum, I know it's a treatment product and brightening is the biggest use case in India. So for serum, I took brightening as the use case and I can very confidently tell you have the best brightening serum in the country and it's one of the most loved brightening serums. For a face wash, while people still expect a glow, it's a very, I knew there is polarization, right? You have a Himalayan in face wash which has great
00:49:58
Speaker
It can clean your skin versus a setup which is very gentle. I wanted to create which is gentle but also cleans very badly. So we created a cleanser and then the things you learn as a founder. We created it, it was a great product but I was like how do I convince someone that it's a great product because still they have tried it. So then we doubled it up as a makeup cleanser. So it actually removes, it's the first cleanser in India and removes makeup and because it removes makeup you immediately think that okay it really works.
00:50:24
Speaker
And once you use it, you know how gentle it is on your skin. So it's not harsh on your skin, but it really works on your skin. For a moisturizer, again, while glow is the use case in India, for Indian moisturizer is a lot to do with hydration. But what we wanted to do differently is be able to create a moisturizer, not an old-school moisturizer, a moisturizer that, you know,
00:50:45
Speaker
It's very light, it can give you the same amount of hydration as very thick moisturiser oil, but you can use any of them, it's very very light, so oily skin person can also use it, it's one of the most loved moisturisers in India, again our Ceramide moisturiser, and it keeps, you know skin hydrated was 72 hours, I didn't want something that, you know you sometimes put moisturiser on, chah you can think about dry nugget fat.
00:51:06
Speaker
So we really optimized on hydration as a problem statement there. And for the sunscreen, it was a combination. For me, sunscreen is always problematic because I always feel like you apply it after that. But what is the use? In India, sun protection is still not a very well-known problem statement.
00:51:25
Speaker
So it though functionality is like you applied, but it has wide cast. It's extremely thing. We got rid of all of them by maximizing the SPF. So we are SPF 17. We are not SPF 50, but, and we are PA 4 plus, which means that we protect from UV A rays, UV B rays, and also any other, you know, toxic rays that happens.
00:51:46
Speaker
and the blue light rays that happen through you on the laptop. So, the laptop also causes a lot of pigmentation and the phone rays, so it actually protects you from that. But on top of that, for me it was like, if I'm applying something to my skin, it can't just be as superficial as selecting things back. It has to work on my skin.
00:52:04
Speaker
So it's something that has niacinamide, and I'm throwing words that I'm sure, uh, ingredients that are there, uh, before you all sit there, but niacinamide etcetera, they're great. And like they're great ingredients to give you, no, of course there's a certain, but long term, like it's really makes your skin glow in the longer term. There's a lot of hydrating agents, but most importantly, it has antioxidants. And with the sunscreen for it was something that, you know, uh, India is a very like,
00:52:30
Speaker
The sunscreen notion is still less, but while you need sun protection, there's also a lot of humidity, so you need something that's light on your face when it comes to sunscreen, so it created something that protects you from, of course, the ultraviolet lights, but also the laptop and phones, right, the blue rays that come in. But on top of it, it was like, you know, something that is more holistic, like, you know, something that is more holistic, like,
00:52:55
Speaker
So it has some great ingredients that work together really well. So there's a niacinamide that works on you for the long term for glow on your face and reduction of any dark spots, right? The hydration levels are outstanding, but most importantly, it has antioxidant. So through the whole day, there are oxidants that move in your skin that causes aging in the long term.
00:53:12
Speaker
It kills all of those oxidants and reduces the pace of aging for your skin. So those were the first four products. Each product was made in a way that, you know, I'm okay with you buying one product from me because your skin is different, not everything can work on you. And hence that one, and also I'm okay with people and my customers using only having a two-step routine or one-step routine. I find post-Indiana today suddenly say that
00:53:38
Speaker
So, you know, you need products that are very holistic. Whatever you want to buy, it has to give you a little of everything and maximize on maybe one or two factors, like peak one or two factors, but be very holistic for your skin health and skin health. But yeah, that was really the first four products. And how did you decide your branding, you know, like Foxtail as a name, where did that come from?
00:54:03
Speaker
So, I'll make this a little quicker because I can talk about this for a very long time. So, you know, I told you I was interviewing all these women all across India and it's not easy, because when you're standing outside the wall, there's no one to tell people, please come back. A lot of people are just not ready to answer a lot of things. Do you think you're selling something?
00:54:29
Speaker
Yeah, they think you're selling something and they're also busy there with their families. Some conversations can really be like, who are you? And I had to stand for eight, nine hours because I only had Saturday, Sunday. So I had to go at nine, 10 in the morning. I would come back at seven, eight. Sometimes I would go at peak hours, like, you know, like lunch, but I took one, two hour break. Then I go again in the night.
00:54:53
Speaker
But it was very, it can be very jarring at times. And I was like, but I couldn't, I needed something and I had no one else. I was a single, I'm still a single college. I needed something that gives me a sense of what I'm like, a constant reminder. But I was thinking of a name, I couldn't think of any name.
00:55:13
Speaker
When I kept debating, all of that was happening and that time I went to Chikmagalur. It's a place outside Bangalore. It's a five-hour drive from Bangalore to Chikmagyur. And when you go there, these coconut trees are planted all over. It means it seems like coconut tree and I thought it's coconut. But once you go there, there are coffee plantations. They give you a tour of the coffee plantation.
00:55:37
Speaker
So the guy who was giving us a tour, he mentioned he says that before starting the tour, the things that you see, they are not coconut trees, they are, you know, they are fox teeth, F-O-X-T-I-L, and they're the most useless plants ever. And I was like, okay, and somehow it gets back
00:55:54
Speaker
with me because already it's planted all over and this guy is starting the tour saying it's the most useless plant ever then we had the whole tour we saw the bamboos and the coffee and this and that and then when we went back to the room I started looking it up just out of you know curiosity and I realized that it is useless from the perspective that you're comparing it to a coconut you can use the coconut for oil and you can so the seeds are inedible for coconut etc
00:56:19
Speaker
But it has one of the strongest roots in the plant kingdom and it holds the soil together and it's planted in such high quantities around coffee because coffee is a great commercial driver and agriculture relief for India. So it almost felt like an unsung hero and to me, it immediately reminded me of my mother because my father, me, my brother, we've all gone on to do what we have. We've got a decent societal accolade for what we've done.
00:56:45
Speaker
And I think it's truer for housewives, where they become the unsung heroes, but they become the food builders for us to thrive and move on to do what we do. So I love the name, right? It's somehow connected to me emotionally. But at that time, I knew that Fox is a, you know, there's a negative connotation to Fox. And I was just starting this skin care brand and you want to be delicate and you want to be sweet, but there's a lot of negative connotation around Fox.
00:57:13
Speaker
And I started reading about Fox, and when I read about Fox, that Fox is a very competitive animal, and it is very shy, but Fox is also the best mother, amongst the best mothers in the animal. So she is very, very nurturing as a mother. And that immediately connected with me, right? To me, it's like women and women.
00:57:31
Speaker
Actually, as a nation, we are constantly told, we are pretty, then not smart, smart, then not pretty. But, you know, I've been in male-dominated jobs and I've been asked that, you know, by women also, right, that, do you want to have kids? Will you ever get married? So I think women can have less and really women don't have to be Sati Savitri, not only, you know, Sita and Sati Savitri are the best definitions of women.
00:57:55
Speaker
We women also fight for survival as much as men do and hence it's okay for us to have less. I can be this alpha at work and I can come home and be a doting mother and a doting wife. So I can have both these roles in my life.
00:58:13
Speaker
So I loved Fox, right? And I still love Fox. I think the lair she has, and of course now that it's in my company name, I read a lot about it. She's such an outstanding animal with so much character and so many lairs. She's a beautiful animal. And T-A-I-L, because of that, I was speaking to so many women, and I remember after
00:58:36
Speaker
speaking to these women, one of the times I met my now husband then, you know, we were just dating at that time and I came and I told him, you know, sometimes it's so frustrating to talk to women. I was actually like, you know, like some very frustrated at that time, that day. I was very tired, I was very exhausted and I was like, you know,
00:58:55
Speaker
You talk to them about these questions and then the life story is also there because you know, women relate skin to everything. They relate skin to, you know, when they got married, when they had kids, how much time they spend in the kitchen, how much time they spend in the sun, hard water, soft water, that we just moved to Mumbai, the water is very hard, all of those things.
00:59:18
Speaker
And as I was telling and you know, honestly, I was genuinely just on a land clinic and I was just like, and then I said, you know, it's like every skin has its own story. And I knew that this is what like TAIL has to change to TAIL because that's what made me fall in love with this category in the process that I was trying to build it. That you can't create products if you don't understand the stories and the products can't be successful if it doesn't fit into someone else's story.
00:59:44
Speaker
So, even today, every product, actually, if you look at our products, there's a women's picture on the secondary packaging, and every product is dedicated to one woman whose personality the product relates to. So, all of us, right? And that's how we try to bring out the perks in us, is every woman has a different personality, and let's own it. And every product has a unique different personality. They are not an overlap with each other. And you will see the
01:00:10
Speaker
same woman, a real woman's illustration on the top and the right hand side you will see a story and what about her personality inspired us to do the product or what about the product's personality and this personality aligns very well. So that's how the name came about and it just became a reminder and till today it's a constant reminder. We want to build a brand that tells stories and we believe if you own those stories you can create a
01:00:38
Speaker
brand people love and brought, you can create right by the users and just this to them. What kind of sales had you achieved by the time you raised your first round? You would, I'm assuming you would have gone to raise after you would have done your go to market and right? Like, I mean, that's what the smart one would do. I don't think I'm the smart one.
01:01:05
Speaker
We absolutely weren't raising like 20, like I said, 2021, we were in R&D and I had a few people who started reaching out to me that know we've heard that you are doing something, etc. Because my LinkedIn had just changed to stealth, right? Because I didn't know when we are launching, etc. Nothing was mentioned that I'm looking at.
01:01:25
Speaker
And that's how someone, like I said, you know, the network, right? So these people, I was talking to someone connect and I said, you know, I'm not raising right now. And, you know, this is not something, uh, I'm not even build the products. I didn't have products to show. Like, I'm like, we are still in R&B. And, um, I got connected to Gaurav from K capital.
01:01:46
Speaker
And Gaurav and I had a great chat. And then they said, OK, you just capitalized, see nothing big, nothing formal, just come and present. And I went and presented. And that's when I met Sasha. And I met the entire team. And I loved the conversation. And sometimes we need to love conversations to take the biggest step.
01:02:08
Speaker
And they came back with the term seed. And to me, I felt like, you know, it was roughly a million dollar round. Actually, not even that much. It was less than a million dollar round. And I was like, you know, this money, but I get good partners. One was that I do come from that industry.
01:02:31
Speaker
I think the structure, the processes, the mindset that a VC can make you institutionalize very quickly versus build as a bootstrap company, et cetera. And third, I was a single founder. So having someone else in the cap table with spin in the game, I think that just felt emotionally a better place to be in. And a combination of me and I love K and I still love K. They are my
01:02:59
Speaker
favorite investors in the whole wide world, whether when I was an analyst, whether now that I'm a founder, I don't think, I think there are few.
01:03:07
Speaker
The one thing I read about them is they are great investors and great human beings. And I think that's very, very difficult. I don't know why it's become a thing that investors don't have to be good human beings. I don't relate to them a lot. But this was a team that are great investors. They're very disciplined. They are very clear. They're very focused. They're very good at giving feedback. I think I've gotten most feedback from them.
01:03:35
Speaker
They are very respectful. It is good human beings. No conversation. It's like baggage. You go home knowing that, OK, I've learned this. OK, I've done this differently. And this is something I can do more as a founder. And I was right about it. I also took a bet. And I was absolutely right about that bet. And I'm very grateful to God that it happened when it happened. And that's how my first round happened. So it was pre-product. It was not even pre-revenue. Now, the matrix sent here down happened.
01:04:04
Speaker
Why do you think VCs have this very strong conviction that single founder companies are risky? Why do you think they invested in you? It is very rare for single founder companies to get invested in.
01:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, I was recently told by someone from my current investors only that it was not only a better single founder, it was also better than 26 years old. And most founders want someone to come from experience. It might not be a founder experience, it can be an operational experience, especially in a cluttered market like this, right?
01:04:44
Speaker
I think you should ask K and matrix why they took a bet when they did but I think so and I you know like
01:04:57
Speaker
Four years back, Akshay, I was a young girl at 26. I had my own set of insecurities about myself also. And one of them was like, you know, I'm a very candid, I'm a very like, I talk and I will talk to you and I will talk with all my heart, right? And it is not something that I draw boundaries.
01:05:20
Speaker
To me, professionalism is giving respect to me. And I will talk about my personal life. As man, because my personal life and professional life are not different yet. I built, like, you know, it's down together. You can't take, like, and, you know, remember you asked me a question that how did investing frame you? And I told you that, no, my entire life has, in its own way, taken me there because I couldn't have built Foxtel, whatever wins, if I was not from Raji. Because, you know, the sense of community is so strong in that place.
01:05:47
Speaker
If I was in the bubble of the VCP and all of that stuff, I don't think I would ever be able to connect to the user. But I went to a school driver, he said, I.S. officers, he said, business man, he said, lawyers, he said. So it was a very different world. It taught you things in a very different way that you don't realize that you imbibe all these different cultures and values from both religious, social, economic, and all of those things. But having said that,
01:06:14
Speaker
I am all hard and at 26, I used to worry a lot and I used to be like, you know, I'm going to go to a counselor and I'm going to figure out a way to be all like, you know, not hard, be very like, you know, play these conversations the right way and all of that stuff. And at 30, I can tell you that that's the reason I think, that's the reason I have, might have things that might not ever, but that's the reason that more than
01:06:38
Speaker
a lot more number of things have worked out for me. So I think with Matrix and A, I do believe that from day zero, we had a lot of clarity on what we are building. I think there was never a lack of clarity and there was a lot of consistency, right? The story that I'm telling you today is exactly the story that I have told from my first pitch to today because for me, this is how I built it.
01:07:02
Speaker
So there's a lot of consistency, there's a lot of clarity, and there's a lot of rigor in what I and my team ends up doing. Of course, at that time, I don't rigor to Kahasya Dikawa, but I think clarity, I'm sure they wanted to be PC as a sector. Like you said, everyone's trying to find it.
01:07:25
Speaker
because you interviewed those thousand women, right? Yeah, I think those are things that they would have put together. But I genuinely believe that somewhere there was the trust to it. I think the reason they don't know first-time founders and a very young founder is trust to show that. I have not seen any, you know,
01:07:49
Speaker
What do I fall back on? And I think that's it. I said that, you know, that at 26, around insecurity, looking back, I think that truth and honesty has helped me more than not. And it helps me build relationships and at least build trust. And then it's my job to keep living up to that trust. And I do think that given, then you're all hard. I'm not trying to talk to
01:08:18
Speaker
So I think that truth and honesty is what worked for me. So again, it's a combination of these things. I think clarity and thinking of very deep understanding of the market that I had ended up building at that time. And a very clear path. I still remember my first day. I was showing it to one of my employees yesterday. Yeah, I didn't. I exactly did that. There was nothing, not a word that I've seen from there. I still use slides from my
01:08:45
Speaker
series page, I copy-paste it, because nothing's changed, except the numbers have come, the revenues come, the money's come, but as a business, the core of who we are is not saved. And to your answer on 26-year-old single founder, I think trust is, you know, and Sunita had told me once that I was, you know, matrix was coming in, and there are a few people who were eating out to me in January of 2022, we just launched, we were still pre-revenue.
01:09:12
Speaker
And I was like, you know, I told Sunita this, Sunita is from K capital, that, you know, I talk so much and I will tell you exactly what's, you know, I cannot, like, I will power play and all, I can't do that. So do you think, like, you know, I need to change myself. I remember this conversation because now I'm talking to all these alphas in the industry and I got lucky with you, but, you know,
01:09:35
Speaker
And Sunita told me something that I never forget. She said that, you know, Ramana, that's a filter. You should be very happy about it because people who can't appreciate it are people you also can't sustainably have in your life and people who can appreciate it will be people who you can sustainably have in your life and enjoy every board meeting, enjoy every board conversation.
01:09:56
Speaker
And I still remember her saying this to me, and I told Sunita this time, this year after two and a half years, we were sitting together and introspecting on our three years of journey together. And I was like, you know, Sunita, this is one point. There are two points with Sunita that has built a lot of who I am in the last three years. One was this, because I think you were fundamental in me owning who I am.
01:10:20
Speaker
That was critical for my team, because if I didn't own who I am, my team would not have owned who they are. And we would not be so comfortable in our skin, however we are, whatever we are. And so belonging ke baada, execute fair sector. Mentally, if you don't feel you are there, you will not be able to execute. So I think that's that. But they should answer this question, and you should let me know what they say.
01:10:48
Speaker
Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So tell me about, you know, how you learned to do sales. You told me that you've hit 200 crores, like last year's turnover was 200 crores? No. So last year, fiscal year would have been at a gross level for us 150, 160 crores. We are currently run rating at 240 to 250 crores in gross.
01:11:11
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Okay. So tell me the journey, you know, that, uh, how did you build up this kind of revenue?
Growth Strategy and Market Penetration
01:11:18
Speaker
What, it must have been a path where you would have done maybe one channel first and then opened up channel by channel with channel work for you. What is the split? Like help me understand the, what, what's going behind this revenue, the story behind the revenue.
01:11:32
Speaker
So I think again for us what has worked is consistency in channels. So what we take a lot of time actually to do is understand the problem statement. I took my time to understand what I wanted to build. So even when I today pick up a channel, it's not something that happens in day zero. I will really focus on why.
01:11:53
Speaker
So when we started, we started with Amazon and website, website primarily and Amazon. And what we, after that build, has been till today. So till today, my 50% revenue comes from website. My 30, 35% revenue comes from marketplaces like Amazon and Mica. And I have a very small portion, roughly 10%, which is offline. We've just started it. So we'll see how it
01:12:18
Speaker
So, I am not, even with my channel distribution, spray and pray. I don't think there's anything wrong with spray and pray. Horizontal expansion is okay for those who work. I think our team's strength is, you know, that, like, you know, pick something up and penetrate it deeply.
01:12:37
Speaker
And hence, my job as a CEO has always been that we pick the right channel. Because that can also mean if you pick the wrong channel, you are putting all your effort into it, and you're listing it. Because no channel in the first three months will tell you, oh, I'm 100% close or not. It will take its time. So I think my job as a CEO is increasingly to become channelizing the effort that picking the right problem statements and picking the right channels. And the team job is then to penetrate and execute it fully.
01:13:05
Speaker
So our journey's been from building products for the consumer. It was about selling to the consumers. I genuinely think two things swapped. First principle thinking, we've taken a very, very data first approach.
01:13:23
Speaker
We have our own, like when we were eight months old and till today, people are surprised. We had our own server because we did not data from website first day. And we did not let that data go. We have macros and pythons built over it. So the amount of data engineering that we've done and not in isolation because we had so much need for data analytics and taking a view on it. I'll give you an example. Like my website conversion is five to six and a half percent and India goals standard is one and a half, two percent, right?
01:13:53
Speaker
which means the funded user comes, I convert 6 to 7 users. In India, that's 1 to 2 users on any website. So, and even globally, like 6 to 7, when people hear, it's not an easy number, it's not a small number, it's a great conversion. And the second fundamental has been
01:14:12
Speaker
consumer understanding and story, which is why, because my data analytics will let you optimize user flow, what she sees, how she sees it, what she feels when she touches your product, how do you interact with her, right? All of those are very critical. So I always say this, we are a combination of PQ plus IQ.
01:14:33
Speaker
And that's what's special about the team and the brand. I don't think we expect either of them to exist in isolation. And I don't think in isolation they can work. To build a consumer category might work somewhere else. But we are trying to build something that is representative of the user that we get users love from. So EQ is critical. But we want to be able to play
01:15:00
Speaker
in a way that we are optimizing our marketing efficiency, optimizing every dollar we put in, the use of flow, compete with our players, it's a price more that keeps going on. So then that data analytics becomes critical. So it's a combination of the two and that's really led to the growth that we have seen touch wood and
01:15:21
Speaker
One question here. You know, most brands are like 50% on website situation is there typically when they're sub 100 crore. Yeah. 100 crore typically it becomes like maybe 10-20% from on website at scale. Yeah.
01:15:39
Speaker
Why did you, and I think the reason for that is that it costs you more to buy the traffic for your own website, as opposed to if your Amazon listing is well optimized, it's cheaper to buy orders or buy customers on Amazon, as opposed to your own website. So why choose to do that? Will it, like, will you be more profitable if you were to focus more on other channels or what's the story here? So, uh,
01:16:09
Speaker
Our website is profitable and it's been profitable for the last 7-8 months. I agree with you that acquiring users on the website typically is a lot more expensive than acquiring users on Amazon or Nica.
01:16:25
Speaker
But the reality is that we started with website. And we started with website also, primarily because of how many of us started SQT. So everyone was like, how do you build a D2C brand with 4SQ? Every marketplace you talk with, they will take growth of SQUs as a lever. And then they will criticize that as well, right? But they will talk about it as a lever.
01:16:47
Speaker
Amazon, I knew someone who was head of beauty who only pitched like, you know, we told this is what you're doing and he really believed in it and he helped me find the right team, connected with the right people and then helped us list with core SPUs. But the
Marketing Efficiency and User Acquisition
01:17:01
Speaker
reality of it is that, you know, that we optimize our website from day zero and because of which today I'm at a level where I acquire users
01:17:10
Speaker
profitably, and I'm able to make money on the first order itself. Second, my website revenue per chance percent is repeat users. 40% is organic revenue. So it's not like I'm spending money to get users. So in the last two years, it's not only like I said, it's not just data analytics. I require users at the same cost, if not lower, as I do it. I'm a banker. So there's, of course, marketing efficiency. The second thing is brand love. The people come back on their own.
01:17:37
Speaker
people are coming 40% new users come, you know, organically. And so this brand up to where the consumer connect has ended up playing up for us, playing for us, right. So if you are constantly acquiring users, pulling money to put in, if there's no pool, just push, it's very difficult to build a website. But if you are able to create that balance, it's easier to build it, right. So and that's what has happened for us. And like I said, like, it's not that
01:18:03
Speaker
organic has a marketing efficiency. I think I operated one of the lowest caps in the industry for new user acquisition and if not the lowest, then one of the lower ones. We make money on the first buy itself and we continue to scale by retaining them and building their reach of the cohorts that we end up with.
01:18:22
Speaker
And hence, we've been able to, we still wrote 20-30% on the website month on month, 20% on BAU month, 30-35% during peak months. And we are profitable at that. So it's a combination of both of these things. And again, that's the biggest problem statement to solve, because marketing dollars, by God's grace, we solved it. And so we are scaling more stuff. Amazing. What is the secret behind that 6% conversion rate?
01:18:54
Speaker
What did analytics help you change in the website? What was the outcome of using analytics? Analytics is the input, right?
01:19:04
Speaker
What's the conversion? User flow optimization, console user, where is he ending up landing? What are the reasons he ends up dropping? At what point? What reminder does he need to end up? All of those things. So it's a reminder you can't do because you're on the website. So really, it's not an app where you can push messages, et cetera.
01:19:26
Speaker
So in the few minutes, one and a half, two minutes that she's on the website, how do you keep capturing her attention and keep pushing her to convert is very critical. So it's user flow optimization using beta analytics and the output is conversion.
01:19:45
Speaker
Okay, okay. The user experience is driven by analytics, broadly speaking. User experience, user flow. If you're on one page, what are the links available to you to click the next one? Why this page? Why not something else? All of those things. Okay. Okay. So what do you think is a likely timeline for you to hit that thousand crore, 20% of it? Three years and three years we'll do it. Amazing.
01:20:12
Speaker
What is the levers going forward that you need to work on to reach that level? You've currently reached a certain scale where you have some presence in marketplace, some presence in own website. So what else do you need to do to hit $1,000? Do you need to go more channels and people in these channels?
01:20:35
Speaker
No, I think channel expansion will not happen. We've touched a little of what we wanted to touch. So website is fully like a mature channel for us. Amazon, Nikeard, fairly mature, but very like, actually I wouldn't say fairly mature, fairly early. So there's a lot to do this year. So by the end of this year, they will mature in terms of things that are working, things that are not working. And offline also we've touched, right? We want to build general trade there and we've touched it and we've been able to
01:21:02
Speaker
get PMF there. So product market fit is there. And now we need to scale it up. So today in offline, just second, actual sales retailer, which is a very good number for a, which is a PMF number that we were seeking, because it's not what you are selling, what is actually being sold in the market.
01:21:25
Speaker
So, all of these channels have been touched and in different stages, PMF versus growth versus hyper growth. And when I say growth economics figure out or I, you know, levers are being figured out. So, to me to answer your question, the lever is just penetration, taking each of these channels to the scale that we want to. And that's something that we are hyper focused on. And of course, the levers bi-channel are extremely different.
01:21:49
Speaker
but penetration of each of these standards, as Foxtel will only have 20-25 SKUs in our portfolio and skincare. We've launched some 17 already. We'll be launching five, seven more, but it's about continuing to get penetration in each of the SKUs. So my first nine SKUs contribute to 70% of the revenue, right? So it's not that one SKU driven story, which is what we wanted. We wanted to come SKU, but every SKU will be a hero by itself.
01:22:15
Speaker
and
Organizational Development and Culture
01:22:16
Speaker
continuing to penetrate that and identify the larger time. Till today, we've optimized bottom of the funnel, which is conversion across channels. Today, we've taken up top, which is top of the funnel, we're building brand awareness. So what we are good at is that if you experience Foxtail, we will love us. But what do you know us if you are not a skin care, if you are a skin care users, but not come across. Any skin care user in India should at least know that Foxtail exists, that it's a skin care brand. It stands for efficacy.
01:22:45
Speaker
So today solving that awareness and solving that brand, brand salience, we are very good at, but I think top distribution of brand awareness, right? That's a critical piece. And very honestly, actually, I think execution and conversion growth team, outstanding team ops, I have an outstanding team like imagine in two years,
01:23:05
Speaker
It's easy to say 250 to say that the ops can't support the infrastructure, especially with website map. Every time it's P2POD, then it's not changed. It's as we've scaled, right? We're one of the lowest RTOs in the country. All of those types of building a P&L is not just like the top line and the marketing dollars. There's cost. There's logistics. Each P&L item matters and everything flows into the other.
01:23:29
Speaker
All of these will continue to execute. But I'll tell you one thing that I believe is a journey for me here to 1000 crore is building an institution internally. Its scale is execution, profitability is optimization, but sustainability is processes, right? How can you create something that can
01:23:50
Speaker
sustainably keep doing optimisations and scalability. And for that, my role is critically, like I said, identifying the right problem statement and meaning that my team is focused on the right thing. But today or tomorrow, a company is not driven by one or two people. It has to outlast. Probably we all don't even know who universe
01:24:14
Speaker
founder was. We don't even know who Coke's founder was. But every CEO has come and demonstrated. Every brand manager has come and demonstrated. There might have been good and bad days. There might have been good and bad choices. But if you look back at the last 50, 70 years, the average is consistent. The performance is consistent.
01:24:35
Speaker
And that's because it's an organization. It's not a startup. So I have been very vehemently and very loudly saying, I don't want to be called a startup. I want to be called an organization. And I know I have work to do in that direction. And I know I have a lot of hard work to do that. It's institutionalizing. It's processed.
01:24:52
Speaker
creating processes across the system without losing agility. See, if I become super process driven, there is no reason I will win over a human reward. But the biggest reason we all these new age brands win is because we are very agile. We can do things quickly.
01:25:07
Speaker
I cannot create it sustainably if I don't learn from them. So how do I invite this new age, young blood energy that creates advantage for us, but with the experience and the groundedness and the sustainability of old school values. And there's a reason these old school values continue to today also create so much value creation in the market. So marrying them is critical for us.
01:25:35
Speaker
I am not going to leave us on this channel, but I think these will be two, three critical bits for us as we scale to the 1000 pro. Does this influence your hiring decision, that the desire to be a business and not a startup, you know, in terms of do you look for people who are from slightly more mature businesses when you're hiring because they would already understand processes or like, how do you hire like, you know, especially your leadership team?
01:26:05
Speaker
See, I actually hire with a very simple thing. You have to be super hungry. You have to be super hardworking. And you have to be a good human being. And good human being is a subjective matter, right? But your value systems and my value systems need to align because then compatibility gets aligned. But you are some principally strong people is whom I like, right?
01:26:31
Speaker
People who have not had their principles defined. I don't think there's a bad thing again, but it's just something that I find harder to work around with. So, I have never, I genuinely don't believe in pedigree. I genuinely don't believe in, I actually think I shouldn't hire most of the guys from mature companies now because, see, running a process, someone today who is getting hired at a union level, worked at a union level for even 30 years, he inherited a process and he's continued to do it, right?
01:27:01
Speaker
adopting a process and saying yes step 1, yes step 2, yes step 3, setting up a process is different. So we need people who respect her Unilever. We need people who have a vision to build something like that in the next three to four years.
01:27:22
Speaker
But at the same time, who have the rigor, who have the agility, who have the hunger, I'm going to figure it out one way or the other. So role by role, the years of experience matter. For growth, I always like getting generalists. I don't like getting subject matter experts there. And it also depends on the level that you are. My CEO is someone who has done it for 15 years.
01:27:50
Speaker
But all these minus ones are generalists. But of ops, it's also science. It's not something that is not happening with science. So it's a combination, the VR team is structured. Of course, finance is somewhere you want subject matter expertise. You can't do it if you don't know accounting and if you don't know the basics.
01:28:11
Speaker
But at the same time, when it comes to HR, I don't want a conventional HR person. This is what HR is. I want someone who thinks of people as strategy, who thinks of people as a growth engine. I genuinely think people are the real growth engine. So how do you orchestrate it? How do you create an entire musical team that can
01:28:38
Speaker
sing the right tunes at the right time that can play it and amplify it. Because if you ever attend an orchestra, it's so light because they're amplifying it in the moment and each pose into the other, the other pose into the other. And that's really how our business works, and especially a growing business like us. So no, I don't necessarily, I think I have, in fact, I believe I have a bias against pedigree. The moment someone's IAP, I'm like, no, because there's a certain entitlement that ends up happening.
01:29:08
Speaker
I want hungry people. I want people like me. And like I told you, I genuinely think I was an underdog for multiple reasons. I was young, I was a single founder. I'm not from, you know, I'm either from Rati or from UCLA. So I'm always compartmentalized into two buckets. Either she's a rich kid who went to UCLA or she's a tier two town who's really not seen a lot of the world. I'm not the Bombay, IIT, McKinsey, VC crowd. So I actually keep saying that I never found the sense of belonging in that world.
01:29:37
Speaker
What foxtail gives me is a sense of belonging because of which I fight here. And even if today anything touch would bite towards me, it will not go wrong. I will still do it all over again. Because to me, foxtail has given me that sense of comfort and belonging in safe ways.
01:29:53
Speaker
So irrespective, I think to me, hungry people who are hard-working and strong principally, whatever be the principle, but really had strong about their principles, are people I tend to hire more and are people I do believe have done better, way better at Popsdale because of the chemistry. See, everyone's not going to do well here. I don't
Leadership and Personal Growth
01:30:15
Speaker
think I can do right by everyone, but to do right, both parties have to, it's like a marriage, both have to work out.
01:30:22
Speaker
So, you know, earlier in the conversation you had said that you were fooled into thinking you have found product market fit and now you realize what is product market fit. Can you talk to me a bit about that? See, I think when I said pull into product market fit, I'll tell you it was right.
01:30:37
Speaker
See, when I was a VC analyst, you have views of the market. Those views are driven by, you know, Nielsen reports, these conversations that you are having, the life that you're ending. Like, imagine as a VC analyst, you're not from Bombay, but let's say Bombay, when there's a farmer's cafe, which is like very fancy, healthy place to eat, and there's a Jai Hind lunch home, which is like your normal place. But going to Jai Hind lunch home is an adventure. It's not a
01:31:07
Speaker
You know, daily habit, right? It's an adventure. Now, going to barbecue nation is nostalgic. But to the rest of India, it's reality, right? Like my husband, we love barbecue nation. So it's one of our, we go every week there. And then one of the reasons we started, because we only started going there a year back, and I had never gone to barbecue nation. Imagine, I had never gone, because Rachi Mehtani,
01:31:37
Speaker
UCLA, India, India, I used to earn enough to not go to Barbican nation and go to the yawchas of the world. And you're at that pace of my life where you're also overspending and all of that. So my husband was a year back like, you know, I used to go to Barbican nation, let's go there. And I went there. And one of the reasons before every week, there's so much simplicity there, right? Like people come to celebrate birthdays. It's the, we go there thinking, people come there thinking this is the big spend of the day, right? And why does it work? Barbican nation is such a out there.
01:32:07
Speaker
customer service. Outstandingly, well, it doesn't matter if you're spending pandras, they will treat you like the king and queen. The quality of the food, you can't compromise quality because of the food. The diversity, the value proposition that BBQ Nation has given to the users, and that's the reason they created what they have, and no other F&B brand has been able to create what they have, right? But, so, as a recent analyst, PM at Kai's thesis over there,
01:32:34
Speaker
When I started meeting these users, et cetera, and when I started executing, I realized it's different. So a PMF is not just a number. I would not say it's not a number. It's not just a number.
01:32:50
Speaker
Let's look at it, right? But PMF is really finding brand love. Like if you have been, and it's top of the number, of course, like I said, first principle thinking sales is critical. Can the founder
01:33:06
Speaker
deliver on growth. Of course, that's critical. But you are backing a non-unit economics view. So what is PMF? How do they feel about the brand? How are they talking about it?
01:33:28
Speaker
So brand love, I always say that brand salience is not something that you need to worry about just when you're spending on brand money or when you're spending doing this huge TV ads. Brand salience too, it's like when you talk to me, do you feel good or not?
01:33:44
Speaker
And
Empowerment and Encouragement for Women
01:33:45
Speaker
when you know that, like, you know, Narendra Modi first made sure that he has a huge fan following in Gujarat, and then he made sure that he's done it in India, right? And I'm sure his campaign budgets in Gujarat was very smaller than what his campaign budgets would be when he was campaigning for Prime Minister in India for the first time. But that's what it is. The answer is the answer. What do you mean by brand salience? What does that term mean?
01:34:14
Speaker
Brand salience is the ability of the brand to connect with you and have a lasting marketing. Salience, are you able to create a marketing? Are you able to own the user as a brand? And see, initially it's just product. People think brand is product. And it's everything. Brand is team also. I am also my company. I'm a representative. I'm part of that brand.
01:34:42
Speaker
Even your delivery speed is your brand, right? My delivery speed, of course, that's the big part of banner. And that's a huge part of retention. But every thing is part of the brand. Cool. Let me end with this question. What's your advice to women who are aspiring to become founders? Do it. I think
01:35:08
Speaker
And I am sure that you know there are a lot of roles that you do in life right that naturally comes to us in our life cycle where our role takes precedence over who we are as an identity. Starting something and building something of your own you get to build something that can
01:35:30
Speaker
you are receiving something that is you, so the brand personality is you, the team that you create is you, the culture that you create is yours.
01:35:41
Speaker
It requires so much unlearning and learning from all the stereotypes that we've grown up with. Honing ourselves is a very hard journey as women. And when you build something, you first hone yourself to be able to pass it down, be proud of it, and be able to build something that you believe will scale. You have to have convictions. The first thing you need is conviction on yourself. So I genuinely believe that if it's in you to build, build.
01:36:09
Speaker
And I don't, everyone will not see 1000 crore, 2000 crore, 5000 crore. What Mama had seen people after that with me may not see right in BPC as a category or Zomato and Swiggy might not be the same stories in 10 years, right? But I think too, or even there are a lot of people who came after Zomato also, they might not even scale, have scaled to half the level there. But building is,
01:36:40
Speaker
Building is a personal journey. So, I will not say that every founder is great. I will not say like, if you tell me to put my money on every woman founder, of course I will not. Because I will put money, because it's an investment decision, right? It will go into when there's certain, a lot of other things have to work. But whether it works or not,
01:36:59
Speaker
I will always want to bet on every woman starting something if she wants to start something because it is a personal journey, it is so spiritual in its nature, it helps you build conviction in yourself, it helps you build conviction in what you can be, what you can become and what you can create.
01:37:18
Speaker
that is going to last you for the rest of your life so today when we talk about women man equality and I'm like not going to get it to anything that's you know I don't think very radically most of the times in my life but I think the first thing that we as women I think really when I talk to women is
01:37:37
Speaker
And Khutko Onkarna is a very important journey for the women to come. So we have a lot today in the world that is going to work in our favor. So we can stop being cynical the moment we own ourselves. And then a lot of things that don't. So I'm not taking away the accountability from the rest of the world and from the men. I'm not trying to say that, but I think it's a beautiful journey.
01:38:01
Speaker
having conviction in yourself and betting in yourself is a huge, is a very powerful and empowering thing and I think all of us women need that sense of empowerment especially if we are seeking it, so I will just say do it and
01:38:16
Speaker
the only other thing I'll add to it that when you commit to it, see it fully. This journey is not going to fulfill if you're like, do it and then build your life around it, right? In a reason, it's going to be different. Like I was single, someone's married and has kids. Everyone will have different stories and different
01:38:35
Speaker
path to doing it, but really commit to it. Like, don't do it half-heartedly. Commit to it and make sure that you're giving your 100% to get to the vision that you've established for yourself. And then God has
Listener Interaction and Feedback Request
01:38:48
Speaker
this way of figuring it out. Like, figure it out if you give your 100%.
01:38:55
Speaker
And that brings us to the end of this conversation. I want to ask you for a favor now. Did you like listening to the show? I'd love to hear your feedback about it. Do you have your own startup ideas? I'd love to hear them. Do you have questions for any of the guests that you heard about in the show? I'd love to get your questions and pass them on to the guests. Write to me at adatthepodium.in. That's adatthepodium.in.