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Hustling, Hosteling & Gaming | Dharamveer Singh Chouhan @ Zostel
192 Plays5 years ago
In what has been one of the most fun conversations we’ve had on Founder Thesis - we sit down for a chat with Dharamveer Singh Chouhan, Co-Founder & CEO of Zostel - the largest chain of backpacker hostels & experiential homes in Asia.
An explorer & nonconformist at heart, Dharamveer’s journey into entrepreneurship is an exciting story. Through his early career days he has single-mindedly chased his passions and interests. Case in point, his tryst with Poker, and making games!
However, unlike most other game developers, Dharamveer did not study computers!
But when your dreams are larger than life, and you are driven by passion, nothing is impossible. And Dharamveer went on to prove this by starting his own gaming studio & also working as a game designer at Zynga.
Dharamveer eventually pivoted and went on to IIM Calcutta to chase the shiny MBA. And inspired by his backpacking trip in Europe, Dharamveer spotted an opportunity to build a hospitality product that is true to India’s cultural diversity - Zostel.
7 years down the road, and Dharamveer is onto another dream!
In this episode we talk to Dharamveer to know more about, well, everything. Right from growing up in Rajasthan to his experiences at IIT & IIM, playing poker, the genesis and growth of Zostel, & his new venture - or should we say adventure!
Listen on!
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Transcript
Introduction to Founder Thesis Podcast
00:00:06
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You are listening to an HD Smartcast Original.
00:00:24
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Hi, I'm Akshay.
00:00:25
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Hi, this is Saurabh.
00:00:27
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And you are listening to the Founder Thesis Podcast.
00:00:30
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We meet some of the most celebrated sort of founders in the country.
00:00:33
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And we want to learn how to build a unicorn.
Dharamveer Chauhan's Early Life and Aspirations
00:00:43
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If you Google the word maverick, I'm pretty sure that you will also find Dharamveer Chauhan's picture there as an example of an Indian maverick.
00:00:54
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Dharam showed signs of being a maverick very early in childhood when he was living in a small town of Rajasthan, dreaming of making it big by playing games.
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This trait only grew stronger as he got older with some amazing adventures along the way before launching Zostel, the backpacker hostel while he was still in the second year of IIM Calcutta.
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Dharam's never-say-die attitude has helped him through thick and thin and has established Zostel as a popular hospitality brand.
00:01:29
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Here's his fascinating journey of self-discovery.
00:01:41
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I enjoyed myself.
00:01:43
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I was a explorer type.
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I thought a lot.
00:01:46
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I would say that at least 10 years ago, I didn't have much goals for my 10 years.
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And I would have fun in my fun.
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Or else I was just fun, dreams were going.
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And then you get a little bit of 10 years ago.
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Then people are like, what do you want to do when you grow up, etc.
00:02:02
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Ask you what do you want to do when you grow up.
00:02:03
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But if you tell them, let's say, you know, I want to become a painter or let's say a musician, etc.
00:02:09
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As you say something, they are still like, you know, it's not serious now, overall.
00:02:13
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What I really want to ask you is, how do you make money in life?
00:02:18
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And then people are asking me, so I thought, you know, let's think about it.
00:02:21
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And then I noted down and I observed myself, what do I do the whole day?
00:02:25
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So I used to play games.
00:02:27
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So I figured out, you know, if I'm older, you know, if there is somehow...
00:02:30
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I can make money making games.
00:02:33
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And at that time, there was no concept of making money from making money.
00:02:36
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So making money playing games was a very ambitious goal.
00:02:42
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If we can make money making games, we'll have full moksha scenes.
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So I'm like, okay, how do I make this game for the game?
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And I'm like 10 years old, I'm figuring things out.
00:02:53
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And then I realized that whatever I have on my desktop is.
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And I got a computer when I was in 99, I'm 90 born, so I was 19 years old.
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So I started to understand how Microsoft is doing games, EA is doing electronic arts and engineers.
00:03:12
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So if you have money or games, you can become an engineer.
00:03:22
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So when I was in 6th standard, I was like, I have to do an engineering, I have to go to IIT and then I think it continued.
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For a couple of years, I was always asking everyone what to do.
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So I used to give a very straight answer.
00:03:37
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Look, I have to make games, I have to make an engineer for me and I have to go to IIT.
00:03:43
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So that exam will be 12th.
00:03:44
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So don't disturb me because I am studying.
00:03:48
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So, I mean, I feel very much like I'm one of the early internet's child kind of a person.
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Because I think obviously now every child has an internet.
00:03:56
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But you know, upbringing in time, when you have internet in Sikh standard in India, I mean, I was in Jodhpur.
Influential Childhood Experiences
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I never knew I was a geek.
00:04:04
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Now I think I was a geek.
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But back then, I was just downloading different.exe files from download.com, going to shareware and some beta, beta was not a word, it was a shareware type of word.
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So, they were downloading the whole phone line, and they were disconnected from our phone.
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It was 2 hours, 8 MB files were downloaded.
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There was a whole carton, which means, all CDs, you know, I used to have completely filled CD-Rex and I used to supply them in Jodhpur, which my friends were in college.
00:04:43
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So, I mean, even when I was in the 6th standard, so a couple of friends sometimes used to come at home in bike, uncle Dharam also, and my father is like, yeah, this
00:04:52
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He is so big and big friends are driving on his brother's bike.
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He is 11-12 years old.
00:04:56
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Why is he a friend?
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Where is he?
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But from an individual angle, I think it was a great exploratory time in that early days of internet.
00:05:03
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I remember that.com bubble before falling.
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I think in just early 2000 or before 2000, there was this netfundu.com.
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I think somebody got some VC funding or etc.
00:05:14
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And I used to just sign up.
00:05:16
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I was literally in fourth class.
00:05:18
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And I signed up with Dharamveer Singh Chohan.
00:05:21
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And they sent me visiting card in my email.
00:05:26
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I still think that people don't burn much money now.
00:05:28
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They send a business card to register.
00:05:31
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There were lots of funny things that happened on the internet.
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Like, this was Bazi.com.
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In India, it was not eBay.
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So, it was Bazi.com.
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And what happened was that I downloaded a such a hero Honda wallpaper.
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And I uploaded it like that we were going to sell a Honda bike.
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I was just experimenting, fooling around.
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I made an account and I put it on the bike.
00:05:52
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And it had to bid every day.
00:05:53
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Okay, that someone is coming and the bid will end in 24 hours.
00:05:55
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And the bid was increasing by 100-100 rupees.
00:06:00
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I always used to think of that.
00:06:16
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I don't know what's happening.
00:06:17
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Then I'm calling my husband and the customers are calling me.
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They're calling me Dharamveer Singh Chauhan.
00:06:22
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I'm calling my father, I'm calling my husband.
00:06:25
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I'm calling him from Delhi.
00:06:26
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I'm telling him, go talk.
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I'm feeling serious.
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And they're like, yeah, I just cut the fucking phone.
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I don't know.
00:06:32
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Until one month I had an ebay open.
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I didn't know.
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I didn't know.
00:06:38
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So my grandfather also had, you know, obviously very grand ambitions for their grandkids.
00:06:43
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So it was thought through, we'll go to India's best school.
00:06:47
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Obviously, if we want to do education, then we want to do it at the best place.
00:06:49
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So why do we want to do it?
00:06:51
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When I was born, at that point itself, my grandfather had bought a Doon school admission form for all four of us.
00:06:59
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We did a lot of bonding, you know, me and my grandfather in this.
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When I was in Jodhpur, I was a bit grown up.
00:07:03
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In 13-14 years, we used to have deep evening walks for one hour or so every day.
00:07:09
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You know, we went to the juice shop and then we'd drink some juice and then walk back 4-5 kilometers.
00:07:13
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And so this is the time, you know, this is the time when I, you know, really started asking him anything.
00:07:19
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Overall, I mean, I mean, if I was in life, I mean, if anyone else asked anything, I mean, after a point of time, people get frustrated or they give dumb answers or something like that.
00:07:27
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But like with my grandfather, we had this great bond which I could really ask him anything.
00:07:32
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And then I started asking him some deep questions that were sometimes troubling me.
00:07:37
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And so anyways, after this, this is a school of Bits Pilani.
Path to IIT and Realizations in Kota
00:07:43
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And if you go over there and you spend 4 years over there and you are among the toppers, so you get a direct admission into Bits Pilani.
00:07:50
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Apply, apply, I was there, just cleared it through.
00:07:53
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So it means...
00:07:54
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It was a very, I think it was just a two-year journey, but I think at that point of time, I mean, within that age, it really, really broadened my perspective of everything.
00:08:03
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I really realized, you know, obviously I was, you know, I was having a great time in Jodhpur, but wherever you don't know what's happening in the rest of the world.
00:08:13
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So you don't have a reference overall, okay?
00:08:15
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And I think it really impacts your conversation, it impacts your thoughts, etc.
00:08:19
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You don't really know how well you measure.
00:08:21
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I mean, how many of you are in your head are you don't know how much you can kill Ben Stoke or not.
00:08:27
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You don't ever know overall.
00:08:28
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So you have to go and fight in those environments.
00:08:32
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So I think that I really realized that I will have to move forward.
00:08:37
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Now, whatever you have in your formulas, the rest of the 7-8 colleges are the IIT.
00:08:43
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Let's go over there.
00:08:44
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I mean, we saw that we had a depressed depressed life of engineering.
00:08:47
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That kids are going to be in a cigarette, they don't feel like an interesting life outside.
00:08:52
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So I was among the topers in Pilani but I went to Kota then.
00:08:56
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Okay, so Dharam, you decided that Bits Pilani was very boring as a career goal and then you went to Kota.
00:09:02
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So, how did your experience of Kota?
00:09:05
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So, Kota tells us our thoughts first of all.
00:09:09
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I realized that if we have doubts in life, we can grow up and we will do a little bit of learning.
00:09:14
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We will ask doubts, we will not learn.
00:09:17
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We will not learn such a shame.
00:09:19
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We have a tough thing here.
00:09:21
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I just went ahead and solved all of them.
00:09:23
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I don't have to take it from IIT.
00:09:26
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All of the good people say that we need to solve so much physics.
00:09:30
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But if you have to prove your study, yourself.
00:09:33
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I don't know how I think now, we'll get to the top of it.
00:09:35
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But it was, I mean, I don't know how I think now, but it was, I mean, I don't know how I think now, but it was, I mean, I mean, I don't know how I think now, but it was, I mean, I mean, it was my dream goal, etc.
00:09:38
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And somehow, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, I mean, it was,
00:09:55
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First, you will come to the exam overall.
00:09:57
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And especially if you are working, you will come to the first.
00:10:00
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I couldn't really, for a lot of time, say that I don't come first because I don't study.
00:10:06
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You can always tell yourself that.
00:10:07
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Look, I'm not working with this.
00:10:09
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If I'm working, I'll make a podcast series of YouTube.
00:10:13
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The talent is always there.
00:10:14
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I remember that I worked a lot in an exam and every month we used to have exams.
00:10:18
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So I came 20th and then I studied very hard.
00:10:22
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I just started back.
00:10:23
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And then I came 11th overall.
00:10:25
Speaker
And then I quit.
00:10:26
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I cried when I came 11th.
00:10:28
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I cried my hearts out.
00:10:29
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So I thought that you can chill a little bit.
00:10:32
Speaker
We can't do IIT top.
00:10:34
Speaker
And then I started going back to my...
00:10:36
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My addiction, my cyber games.
00:10:38
Speaker
Then, in the next level, I think the next level of the Quota is growing up in the world.
00:10:48
Speaker
Like we used to shut down, I formed a couple of clans in Counter-Strike.
00:10:53
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So, I mean, our clan was a good place.
00:10:57
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And the routine back then was that after I got into this addiction in the later half of my 11th class,
00:11:02
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was that we'll wake up at somewhere around 2 pm or something.
00:11:08
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And obviously, in Kota, schools are not compulsory by now.
00:11:12
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So I'll wake up at 2 pm, we'll go wherever we want to have lunch, we'll pick up a friend on the way.
00:11:19
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And then we'll go have lunch and after the lunch, we'll discuss.
00:11:22
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And then after Counter-Strike, a couple of months, we moved to Dota.
00:11:25
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So Dota is a genre called MOBA.
00:11:29
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In defense of the Asians, there are 5 people teams and it's a 1 hour long game and there are heroes and there are a lot of things inside.
00:11:38
Speaker
But back then it was a very obscure map.
00:11:41
Speaker
It was a mod in a game.
00:11:43
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And it was like Dota 6.42, it was a very old map.
00:11:48
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And we used to play on that.
00:11:50
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And what was that?
00:11:51
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There was no internet connected.
00:11:53
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You didn't play online.
00:11:54
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We were 10-20 people in a cyber cafe and we played 5-5 people in the same place.
00:12:01
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And then this whole multiplayer gaming really blew my mind.
00:12:06
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I had been playing games for, I don't know, 10 years straight, I used to play games.
00:12:10
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But all of those games were largely single player games.
00:12:12
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They were all single player games, there was no LAN, there was no connectivity.
00:12:16
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But as soon as I started playing Dota, I really...
00:12:19
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you know, just completely left the single player genre largely.
00:12:23
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And I felt totally different, you know, there are different emotions that incite in you when you are defeating somebody or winning something or working as a team, etc.
00:12:30
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It was very engrossing, you know, very, very interesting then chemistry.
00:12:34
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So, you know, for the next six months, you know, after lunch, we'll go to the cyber cafe and inside the cyber cafe, we'll start playing and by 10 p.m., you know, he'll shutter down the
College Life and Early Entrepreneurship
00:12:45
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night stay.
00:12:45
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It was 50 rupees, I think, for the night stay and
00:12:47
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You can play the game all night.
00:12:50
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Sometimes you get some patties and wetties.
00:12:52
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We were up at 8-9am and we were eating the pot.
00:12:55
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We were eating the pot.
00:12:56
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We had a lot of deep discussions about what we will try today.
00:13:03
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and you know we spent i think thousands of hours in it i don't know maybe and uh oh eventually i think you know i think i just passed out i was like blank in the iot exam itself i never even knew 5000
00:13:23
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I'm like totally I want to drop this thing and I'll go again and I'll fight again and then obviously you know you are in that IIT zine so that you have a little view and then obviously I told you that that failure is not a little bit on ego My father was very chill, okay?
00:13:37
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My father told me that if you go back, you'll play, you'll be a little bit.
00:13:42
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I said yes, the thing is right.
00:13:43
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Let's see what we have to do.
00:13:45
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How is college?
00:13:46
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We don't need to join.
00:13:47
Speaker
So anyways, you know, then I went to this counseling over here in IIT, Mumbai.
00:13:52
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I got this IIT, BHU ceramic engineering, you know, so I'm like, what the fuck is ceramic engineering?
00:13:58
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It's not even an engineering.
00:14:00
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So we joined first year and as ceramic engineering, I was like, what a huge mistake.
00:14:05
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I, ceramic engineer, I deserve computer science at the very least.
00:14:09
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Computer science deserves me.
00:14:12
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I'm the one who was like born with computers.
00:14:14
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I was playing around with computers and all of these kids, you know, who want to go to IIT, they don't even know how to switch on a computer half the time.
00:14:21
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They want to do computer science because it pays a lot.
00:14:24
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Why does everybody care about paying so much?
00:14:26
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Why can't people really think for themselves beyond the payment?
00:14:29
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Another thing, the first day itself in the class, what do you call it?
00:14:34
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The introduction type, some teacher is taking and then teacher asks, okay, now a couple of interesting questions.
00:14:41
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So they're like, yeah, so some of you would love to change your branch.
00:14:45
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So who all want to change their branch, go to computer science, etc.
00:14:50
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Anyways, 5-10 people have been standing up, we're still standing up.
00:14:52
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Let's keep going.
00:14:54
Speaker
And then the teacher is like, let's tell you, who are those people who have been working for this year?
00:14:58
Speaker
They've been working for a long time, they've been working for a long time, they've been working for a long time, they've been working for a long time, they've been working for a long time, they've been working for a long time, they've been working for a long time, they've been working for a long time, they've been working for a long time.
00:15:10
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So I've said, this is totally me.
00:15:12
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Because I've been like, I've been working for a long time, I've been working for a long time.
00:15:15
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Grand teacher is like, you've been working for a long time, you've been working for a long time, you've been working for a long time.
00:15:19
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I said, yes, branch change.
00:15:20
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If you have studied, you don't have to study?
00:15:21
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I said, yes, without studying, branch change.
00:15:24
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If there is a formula, we will do it.
00:15:27
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So, Dharam, generally, college is one of the things you learn from academics.
00:15:32
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The other thing is that you get practical experience and real-world experience.
00:15:37
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So, how did you learn from academics?
00:15:43
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Like, you know, did you have interesting internships from which you learned something?
00:15:46
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Or was there any extracurricular activity that taught you something?
00:15:50
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I wanted to be an engineer so I wanted to make games.
00:15:54
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And for being an engineer I had to be in computer science.
00:15:57
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But now I don't have that kind of engineering, computer science.
00:16:01
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But today the world has changed.
00:16:03
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You don't need thousands of engineers to make games.
00:16:06
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The whole idea was that there is a whole distribution on it.
00:16:09
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So you can invite other friends and you can get a lot of activity in your app.
00:16:13
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And now you can make a game way on it.
00:16:14
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And it has become easy.
00:16:16
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You know, people can, you know, really, you don't need thousands of engineers.
00:16:19
Speaker
But it was very profound.
00:16:21
Speaker
App store is very profound.
00:16:22
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We don't realize it now.
00:16:23
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I thought, let's go, let's learn how to make a website, what to do.
00:16:27
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And so I reached out to this senior.
00:16:30
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So every branch of the company comes to computer science.
00:16:35
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Because he's a passionate engineer.
00:16:37
Speaker
So I reached out to my senior passionate engineer.
00:16:39
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So his name's Pushkal Srivastava.
00:16:42
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You know, still good friends with him.
00:16:43
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I told him to make my own website.
00:16:45
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So he said, what should I do?
00:16:46
Speaker
I was going to be an IPL cricket game.
00:16:48
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I will make an IPL fantasy game.
00:16:50
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Dream 11 types.
00:16:51
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So I said, let's design how to make and show.
00:17:02
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Then I started to design and I realized that it will be photoshop.
00:17:08
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Obviously, piracy is still in the past.
00:17:10
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We downloaded all the software from Photoshop, Dreamweaver.
00:17:13
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Then I started to study and study and study and study.
00:17:15
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I started learning from there that HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.
00:17:26
Speaker
I had a lot of work in JavaScript.
00:17:27
Speaker
In HTML and CSS, it becomes like a back-end server.
00:17:30
Speaker
It becomes a WAM clamp.
00:17:33
Speaker
PHP is a server language.
00:17:35
Speaker
It will compute.
00:17:36
Speaker
MySQL will be.
00:17:37
Speaker
Then it will be a database.
00:17:39
Speaker
So I understood everything.
00:17:40
Speaker
I understood designing, I understood front-end, I understood backend.
00:17:44
Speaker
I understood the monetizing aspects.
00:17:45
Speaker
How do we monetize?
00:17:46
Speaker
What do we do?
00:17:48
Speaker
Where do we come from?
00:17:49
Speaker
How do we do it in Comly?
00:17:51
Speaker
How do we do it in Google?
00:17:52
Speaker
How do we do it in the website host?
00:17:53
Speaker
Where do we come from?
00:17:55
Speaker
I got a domain called as IPL cricket game.com.
00:17:58
Speaker
I bought a lot of SEO oriented.
00:17:59
Speaker
I bought it.
00:18:16
Speaker
I still have that domain.
00:18:18
Speaker
And then I deployed my website on it.
00:18:20
Speaker
And then Google rejected me that your domain is not for six months or something like that.
00:18:25
Speaker
I had another network called Comly, Yahoo.
00:18:28
Speaker
And then I thought, let's go, visitors and we'll come.
00:18:32
Speaker
What happened was that I read blogs and everything.
00:18:35
Speaker
Maybe I read the blogs and Americans.
00:18:37
Speaker
So everybody is like, this is called a CPM.
00:18:40
Speaker
CPM is like ECPM.
00:18:42
Speaker
You get money for every thousand impressions.
00:18:44
Speaker
It's like $5, $7.
00:18:44
Speaker
I calculated that there are a million impressions.
00:18:50
Speaker
$7 per thousand, $7,000.
00:18:50
Speaker
That's not right.
00:18:51
Speaker
We'll be going to be 3-4 lakh rupees.
00:18:53
Speaker
We'll be going to be honest with you.
00:18:55
Speaker
I told my room partner.
00:18:58
Speaker
We are going to the final in Jonasburg.
00:19:01
Speaker
So I thought I saw my CPM rates coming.
00:19:04
Speaker
I got some traffic.
00:19:05
Speaker
I popularized in circles and local networks.
Internships and Cultural Experiences
00:19:10
Speaker
People are also registered in traffic.
00:19:12
Speaker
Things are going good.
00:19:13
Speaker
But then the first report came in the 14-7 days.
00:19:16
Speaker
It was so poor.
00:19:16
Speaker
What do I want to tell?
00:19:17
Speaker
It was like 5...
00:19:22
Speaker
It was supposed to be 50 rupees.
00:19:23
Speaker
How much difference is it?
00:19:39
Speaker
again then i started googling again etc and then i realized there are you know there's a problem of this subcontinent traffic yeah india and pakistan is so sad and so sad and depressed for a while
00:19:57
Speaker
What?
00:19:59
Speaker
I had so much time and so much effort to build it.
00:20:03
Speaker
After three weeks, I had to maintain the maintenance of today's score.
00:20:09
Speaker
Overall.
00:20:09
Speaker
And I just couldn't do it.
00:20:11
Speaker
I mean, I'm not able to do it.
00:20:14
Speaker
I don't know.
00:20:14
Speaker
I'm realizing that this...
00:20:18
Speaker
Why can't I really do it?
00:20:20
Speaker
And then I'm like, I've done so much for the time and now I can't really do it.
00:20:24
Speaker
So I realized it's easy to be excited about while you're building something, you really don't care about.
00:20:31
Speaker
But I realized about myself that the maintenance work is in which it gets routine, it gets mundane, that we have to do this every day.
00:20:40
Speaker
That's what we call grind.
00:20:42
Speaker
And I was like, I was tired for it.
00:20:43
Speaker
I really need something that really keeps me motivated if there's such a grind.
00:20:47
Speaker
everybody's looking for internships again they're googling good internship they're going to some websites called as let me know best internships 10 internships something like that and i'm like uh why can't i go to that website and there's obviously you know just say bazi.com you can buy and you can sell also
00:21:03
Speaker
Just like on the internship website, you can look for internship, but you can post internship also.
00:21:08
Speaker
So I decided that I'll post an internship.
00:21:10
Speaker
I said that, you know, we are going to make games on the Facebook platform this time.
00:21:13
Speaker
And I knew what to do.
00:21:15
Speaker
So I made a complete game design document.
00:21:17
Speaker
And I hired three interns.
00:21:19
Speaker
I got a front-end engineer.
00:21:20
Speaker
I got a back-end engineer.
00:21:22
Speaker
I got a designer as well.
00:21:23
Speaker
And then for the next three months, we really slogged hard.
00:21:26
Speaker
And then I...
00:21:27
Speaker
I made another game on this Facebook Canvas platform called as Battle T20.
00:21:31
Speaker
So it was very well designed but once again I think that was a little bit of subcontinent traffic etc.
00:21:37
Speaker
So there was no money in it.
00:21:42
Speaker
I kept delaying the release for a while.
00:21:45
Speaker
Later when I released it, the whole team had lost a lot of motivation.
00:21:49
Speaker
It's tough to motivate interns.
00:21:51
Speaker
And you know, that's okay, then after that, I really kicked off from the third year.
00:21:56
Speaker
And by now, I registered a private limited company, you know, for these interns etc.
00:22:00
Speaker
You know, working with me.
00:22:02
Speaker
You know, maybe it had become a long and tough grind, man.
00:22:04
Speaker
I mean, it's been three years, I mean, I'm going to make games.
00:22:07
Speaker
My whole mission was that I won't take a job from IIT.
00:22:09
Speaker
And somehow, I'll create something that pays me good enough.
00:22:13
Speaker
That was my original goal.
00:22:14
Speaker
That if I get money for a game, then life is sorted.
00:22:18
Speaker
I started to be 3 years and I realized that it will probably not be able to do it now because I don't have to do coding for 2 years.
00:22:25
Speaker
I don't even know what I'm doing.
00:22:28
Speaker
I thought, let's see what happens.
00:22:31
Speaker
So I started applying for this time in 3rd year again for some internships and the whole idea was that we will not do internships in India.
00:22:40
Speaker
We will do it in Europe.
00:22:41
Speaker
So we were like, we will go to foreign internships in 3rd year.
00:22:44
Speaker
So we have 21 years of mail and we have seen what is in Europe.
00:22:48
Speaker
And I was lucky I got this internship at a... You know, in the southern part of Germany.
00:22:52
Speaker
There's this place called Karlsruhe.
00:22:54
Speaker
It's very well located.
00:22:56
Speaker
And the professor was very kind.
00:22:57
Speaker
You know, he told me, I really trust you.
00:22:59
Speaker
So you can even bring a team of four.
00:23:02
Speaker
Any three people you think that would be great to work with you.
00:23:04
Speaker
I'll just interview them.
00:23:06
Speaker
And he's paying everybody like I think 1000 euro upwards per month.
00:23:09
Speaker
So it's an amazing opportunity.
00:23:11
Speaker
So our job was...
00:23:14
Speaker
I'll tell you what I'm doing, but it was kind of like machine learning types that we used to scan MRI scans of people with chemotherapy, cancer and chemotherapy.
00:23:23
Speaker
And chemotherapy doesn't work on all cancer patients.
00:23:26
Speaker
So we used to predict on past data that there's an 80% probability that chemotherapy might work on your breast.
00:23:32
Speaker
Otherwise, it might not work.
00:23:33
Speaker
Specific to breast cancer only.
00:23:35
Speaker
And it's very cool.
00:23:37
Speaker
Once again, I'm a whole beast of going to different environments, learning from them.
00:23:42
Speaker
I really took this Europe opportunity to really understand a lot more about their culture, etc.
00:23:48
Speaker
us you know also understand our own biases in India.
00:23:51
Speaker
You know what are the why are things like they are and obviously we used to work three hours extra every Monday to Thursday so we got Fridays off and I had this U-Rail pass with me so every weekend you know I would go to a new destination you know
00:24:06
Speaker
We'll go to Switzerland one time and we'll go to Austria and sorry, and then we'll go to, you know, Belgium, we'll go to Netherlands, we'll go to France, we'll go to northern parts of Germany.
00:24:15
Speaker
The trip was coming to an end and we were like, yeah, Kim, I will, I see, there's no epiphany in the way, overall.
00:24:21
Speaker
We have a little risk appetite.
00:24:25
Speaker
I am a football fan as well.
00:24:26
Speaker
This is also a golden period for Barcelona.
00:24:30
Speaker
They have just done a treble a couple of years back and then another one I think.
00:24:36
Speaker
And Messi is a god in overall Camp Nou.
00:24:39
Speaker
So we decided that we will go from Germany.
00:24:41
Speaker
We will go to Spain.
00:24:45
Speaker
We had 2-3 months in Europe, so we knew that we have a U-Rail Pass.
00:24:50
Speaker
We have dedicated tickets, you can reserve tickets to go to the other place, in fast trains.
00:24:57
Speaker
But there are many local trains that are not listed anywhere.
00:25:01
Speaker
Maybe in India there are many local trains that are not listed in your reservation.
00:25:04
Speaker
So we decided that we don't know exactly how we will reach exactly,
00:25:10
Speaker
Hopefully we will go there, there will be a train and then maybe France will get to the middle and then maybe France will get to Spain.
00:25:19
Speaker
Hopefully we will reach.
00:25:21
Speaker
I was like, no, no, Barcelona will go.
00:25:23
Speaker
This is a crazy thing to do and we are crazy.
00:25:25
Speaker
We are just like, we are just like, we are just like,
00:25:27
Speaker
And then we went and obviously, but then we had become very comfortable sleeping on railway stations and inside the trains itself.
00:25:34
Speaker
You know, for this whole, you know, five day thing, I think two and a half, three days.
00:25:38
Speaker
We took a couple of trains, like we have to go south, for example, in Interlaken, France.
00:25:44
Speaker
But we are doing the up-downs, so that we sleep in the train.
00:25:49
Speaker
Or at Zurich Station, we know that they let you sleep overall.
00:25:54
Speaker
They don't really kick you out of the station.
00:25:56
Speaker
So we figured out our ways and then from one train to another, to another, to another.
00:26:01
Speaker
Eventually, one of my batch mates from Saramak, Keshav, he was interning in Madrid.
00:26:07
Speaker
So his passport did not allow him to leave Spain.
00:26:10
Speaker
But he's like, I'll also come to Barcelona towards the end.
00:26:12
Speaker
So we sent him to Barcelona and we'll get to the same time.
00:26:16
Speaker
He reached one day before.
00:26:17
Speaker
He took a hostel to us.
00:26:19
Speaker
So we called him and I told him that we are in Barcelona, where do we have to come?
00:26:23
Speaker
And he's like, Badal Metro Station, you guys.
00:26:24
Speaker
I'm like, okay, okay, we're going to Badal Metro Station.
00:26:27
Speaker
And I just see, I mean, that's what I mean.
00:26:30
Speaker
I mean, I didn't see a lot of Metro in my life.
00:26:34
Speaker
I was in Delhi, for the visa.
00:26:36
Speaker
So the subway and metro was probably a layer above the subway.
00:26:39
Speaker
So this is intercity, this is intercity, whatever.
00:26:42
Speaker
So now I saw that the next station is Badalona.
00:26:45
Speaker
So I tell Pushkal where to go.
00:26:47
Speaker
I'm like, this is the one, this is the one, the one is the one.
00:26:49
Speaker
The train will be hit.
00:26:50
Speaker
We got to get to the train in the 30 minutes.
00:26:53
Speaker
So we get off at Badalona, it's already very late.
00:26:56
Speaker
It's 11.30 pm.
00:26:57
Speaker
And as soon as we get off, we realize that something's fucked bad.
00:27:02
Speaker
And there's like total silence.
00:27:04
Speaker
There's like you can hear the winds and you can hear that there's some beach nearby.
00:27:07
Speaker
There's a beach nearby.
00:27:09
Speaker
Maybe it's the beach.
00:27:10
Speaker
And then on the other side, maybe we'll see how the new train will come.
00:27:16
Speaker
Pushkal jumps inside.
00:27:17
Speaker
He sees the schedule.
00:27:18
Speaker
He sees that the next train will come in 6am.
00:27:21
Speaker
We had to go there and put some more stuff in the pay phone.
00:27:26
Speaker
Then we had to go to Keshav Khol.
00:27:28
Speaker
Where did we go?
00:27:29
Speaker
We had to go to the metro station.
00:27:30
Speaker
We had to go to the metro station.
00:27:32
Speaker
We had to go to the map.
00:27:36
Speaker
So we went to the beach and it's cold.
00:27:54
Speaker
I don't know that it was supposed to be.
00:27:56
Speaker
It's very late in night so I think cold winds are continuously blowing.
00:28:00
Speaker
We were in summer clothes so we were getting a lot of fun.
00:28:03
Speaker
And we were saying we found this big rock.
00:28:06
Speaker
I think in that album, maybe it's my rock.
00:28:10
Speaker
Behind this rock, we had to understand that there is a little bit of water here.
00:28:14
Speaker
I had this 30-liter backpack with me.
00:28:16
Speaker
It was all I was traveling with.
00:28:18
Speaker
I just kept that backpack on my head.
00:28:20
Speaker
And you know, I was watching the trees.
00:28:24
Speaker
I just said, yeah, what do you think?
00:28:26
Speaker
I was like, yeah, I think.
00:28:28
Speaker
I said, yeah, let's keep my attention.
00:28:31
Speaker
Then you go.
00:28:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:33
Speaker
So, I just slept off.
00:28:35
Speaker
I slept off like a baby.
00:28:36
Speaker
I woke up in the morning sunrise.
00:28:39
Speaker
I was sitting on the beach at 6 o'clock.
00:28:42
Speaker
Pushkal is all grumpy.
00:28:44
Speaker
Okay, brother, you...
00:28:45
Speaker
What happened?
00:28:46
Speaker
You know what happened at night?
00:28:48
Speaker
There was a club nearby.
00:28:49
Speaker
People were going at 3-4 pm near the club.
00:28:52
Speaker
And I thought, let's go.
00:28:53
Speaker
So, we are alive?
00:28:56
Speaker
And I mean, this time, you know, I was like with this whole baggage with me.
Career Moves and Realizations
00:29:00
Speaker
I couldn't really do this, you know, thing called as, you know, trying to make a living, playing games.
00:29:05
Speaker
And I just, I woke up and I'm like,
00:29:07
Speaker
Damn, what was I worried about all this time?
00:29:09
Speaker
If I can get lost in a different country, I don't know where I am, I'm still here too.
00:29:15
Speaker
If I'm still here, then what's the tension?
00:29:18
Speaker
I never really flowed, but then I was like, okay, whatever happens, let it be.
00:29:22
Speaker
Now I won't get tension about the job and college.
00:29:26
Speaker
and uh... kuch na kuch ho jayega let's just have faith in it and then i came back to my college and then you know obviously the placement type is a tricky for every college you know especially if you are in ceramics and you know your whole batch is about to get placed and then what randomly happened with me was that was my dream company Zynga and uh...
00:29:46
Speaker
They somehow just, you know, they came to India.
00:29:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:50
Speaker
And they came to India.
00:29:51
Speaker
They opened their office in MG Road.
00:29:53
Speaker
So I had applied to them in San Francisco.
00:29:55
Speaker
And, you know, some random application.
00:29:57
Speaker
You know, second year student is writing me.
00:29:59
Speaker
I'll make it.
00:30:00
Speaker
I still have a very random application.
00:30:03
Speaker
But anyways, they come over here.
00:30:04
Speaker
So I realized, dude, who is their HR?
00:30:06
Speaker
And then I stalked the hell out of HR.
00:30:08
Speaker
I pinged him on Facebook.
00:30:11
Speaker
I am not an engineer of computer science, but you are good.
00:30:14
Speaker
And then I talked with the placement representatives of someone else.
00:30:19
Speaker
He was from computer science.
00:30:21
Speaker
He was a very good guy.
00:30:22
Speaker
He told me, come on, you can sit in the PPT.
00:30:24
Speaker
PPT is bad for it.
00:30:26
Speaker
Okay, okay.
00:30:26
Speaker
So I came to the PPT.
00:30:28
Speaker
So PPT is this pre-placement talk kind of a thing.
00:30:31
Speaker
And I went there, I had my second game design document, which was very strong.
00:30:36
Speaker
It was a very detailed 20 pages.
00:30:38
Speaker
So I reached there and this is also a very interesting turning point.
00:30:42
Speaker
That pre-placement talk started, now all engineers are sitting there.
00:30:46
Speaker
And then they started asking questions, what is our business model?
00:30:50
Speaker
So some people are like, there are ads, etc.
00:30:52
Speaker
But I know that it is all about an internal virtual currency, their whole business.
00:30:59
Speaker
not really reliant on advertising so i'm like yeah they're virtual currency oriented then they are like what do we call people who you know pay us a lot etc and then nobody really knows but i am from the industry so i tell them yeah you call them whales you know these are whales who 2% of people pay 98% of money so and then you know they realize that you know something so they don't know the answer they have two t-shirt bags
00:31:22
Speaker
So everybody knows that if you don't have recruitment on PPT basis, I have put PPT in a sense.
00:31:27
Speaker
So I'm like, PPT is put in and I'm about to leave.
00:31:29
Speaker
So anyways, all of these guys call me.
00:31:31
Speaker
And I also go towards them.
00:31:32
Speaker
They also call me.
00:31:33
Speaker
Everybody huddles around.
00:31:34
Speaker
Who the hell are you, man?
00:31:35
Speaker
And then they had one very tricky question, which was, and which I still remember.
00:31:40
Speaker
I had an habit.
00:31:41
Speaker
I still keep watching my email daily.
00:31:42
Speaker
So...
00:31:44
Speaker
Just before the PPT had got an email that Zynga releases its new game called as Treasure Isle.
00:31:49
Speaker
And a week back they had released another game.
00:31:53
Speaker
So they asked this question that which is our latest game release.
00:31:55
Speaker
And so everybody is like mentioning the game that's been just released.
00:31:59
Speaker
But I know that in the morning they have released another game like two hours back.
00:32:02
Speaker
So I keep my hand up and they have also given up hope.
00:32:05
Speaker
And I know it, you know.
00:32:07
Speaker
And I think, you know, they had a very small team.
00:32:08
Speaker
So I probably think that they were designing the emails and posting etc.
00:32:12
Speaker
So they are very happy with me and I'm also in a happy mood.
00:32:15
Speaker
I have this nothing to lose attitude.
00:32:16
Speaker
So anyways, these guys are like, you give an exam.
00:32:19
Speaker
You have written exam.
00:32:21
Speaker
Then we talk about it.
00:32:23
Speaker
I know how these things go.
00:32:24
Speaker
So I just tell them, I won't get out of that exam because I will ask you a question about computer science.
00:32:29
Speaker
And I don't want to keep up for any job.
00:32:30
Speaker
If there will be anything for your job, then I will do everything.
00:32:33
Speaker
But I don't want to keep up for any job.
00:32:37
Speaker
I was like, okay, I'll give you a exam.
00:32:40
Speaker
I was like, okay, okay, I'll give you a exam.
00:32:42
Speaker
I was giving you a exam and after exam, these guys were like, yeah, I'm like, get the exam.
00:32:46
Speaker
So I reached there and these guys were like, they were doing lunch and lunch.
00:32:50
Speaker
make me sit.
00:32:51
Speaker
So they are like Tane and Anand.
00:32:53
Speaker
So Tane runs this Moonfrog Studios now.
00:32:58
Speaker
And so he was the studio head at that point of time before somebody else joined.
00:33:03
Speaker
And so these guys were building the team and then they start interviewing me and engineering questions since they are there for some engineering recruitment.
00:33:11
Speaker
And I do very good in puzzles.
00:33:15
Speaker
One of the puzzles I also know already, but I acted out.
00:33:17
Speaker
It's a very difficult puzzle.
00:33:19
Speaker
If anyone knows, he can do it.
00:33:22
Speaker
But I said, if I don't do it, then it's wrong.
00:33:26
Speaker
But we have a very heart-to-heart.
00:33:27
Speaker
We have a very heart-to-heart conversation.
00:33:30
Speaker
They give me two dice and three queens to make a game over here.
00:33:34
Speaker
So they keep asking me to make games and they keep asking me to code some coding questions.
00:33:39
Speaker
And then they eventually asked me, you know, if you have to find another string in one string, then you can find it.
00:33:46
Speaker
I said, anytime.
00:33:47
Speaker
And then, how do you do it?
00:33:49
Speaker
Tell me something.
00:33:49
Speaker
So I said, see, first letter of string, put one string in the array.
00:33:54
Speaker
And then check the other array step by step.
00:33:56
Speaker
If the first letter matches the second letter, then check the second letter.
00:34:02
Speaker
So they're like, have you heard about hex tables?
00:34:04
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, yeah, I've heard about hex tables.
00:34:06
Speaker
Can you apply hex tables?
00:34:08
Speaker
I've heard about hex tables.
00:34:10
Speaker
They're like, get out, get out, you get out.
00:34:14
Speaker
But I had a lot of fun, you know, I thought we left an impression and then I just came out.
00:34:20
Speaker
It was a sun was shining kind of loud.
00:34:22
Speaker
It's a Bollywood picture.
00:34:23
Speaker
I'm a pink color shirt.
00:34:24
Speaker
I'm super, super happy in my white striped pink shirt.
00:34:28
Speaker
I had given up on the dream that I would get money to make a game.
00:34:33
Speaker
And you know, just when I had given up, these random things are happening in life.
00:34:36
Speaker
Life gives you random things sometimes.
00:34:40
Speaker
Which you are not expecting.
00:34:41
Speaker
I don't think it's random.
00:34:42
Speaker
A lot of things are random.
00:34:43
Speaker
But you're thinking so much that you've all thought about it.
00:34:45
Speaker
Then there's something else.
00:34:46
Speaker
So yeah, anyways, so over here, then what happens is these guys call me if we can't give you an engineering role for obvious reasons.
00:34:53
Speaker
But there is a role called as game designer.
00:34:55
Speaker
Would you like to interview for it?
00:34:57
Speaker
Like you have to like sit on the word file and you have to write what a game should be.
00:35:01
Speaker
You have to code it.
00:35:02
Speaker
No, no, you just have to write it out.
00:35:04
Speaker
And then other people will code it.
00:35:07
Speaker
I'm telling you.
00:35:07
Speaker
I'm getting my eyes out of my eyes.
00:35:10
Speaker
What's happening?
00:35:11
Speaker
I don't know.
00:35:12
Speaker
What role is this?
00:35:13
Speaker
I didn't tell anyone.
00:35:14
Speaker
I wanted to become an engineer for the whole life.
00:35:16
Speaker
That I'm going to play a game.
00:35:18
Speaker
And now you say that it's a waste.
00:35:20
Speaker
It's a waste.
00:35:21
Speaker
I don't say all those things.
00:35:23
Speaker
But I'm like, you won't get it.
00:35:24
Speaker
So I tell you, what's the next step?
00:35:26
Speaker
They tell you, you have to come to Bangalore and all.
00:35:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:28
Speaker
So I'm very happy.
00:35:28
Speaker
I don't know, but I made my flight tickets.
00:35:30
Speaker
And then we had an interview.
00:35:31
Speaker
Then I also worked there for a couple of months before they extended an offer.
00:35:35
Speaker
And then they extended me a very generous offer overall.
00:35:38
Speaker
And, you know, it was a great team, you know, and it was a very cool environment.
00:35:42
Speaker
I had this criteria that, you know, in India, if I have to work anywhere, we'll work in a chadi job.
00:35:47
Speaker
What we really think about a chadi job is that you allow people to come in shots.
00:35:51
Speaker
So obviously, you know, that rebellious mode, we will not cooperate in a little bit.
00:35:56
Speaker
And Zynga was like totally on the top of it.
00:35:58
Speaker
Zynga was like, take a dog too.
00:36:00
Speaker
So anyways, you know, I worked over there and realized that even they were under a lot of this monetary pressure for the IPO.
00:36:06
Speaker
And there were so many goals and so much money in each quarter.
00:36:09
Speaker
$50 million.
00:36:11
Speaker
And I realized it wasn't fun, man.
00:36:13
Speaker
I mean, I think it's time for me.
00:36:16
Speaker
I'm watching my dream from 18 years, 10 years.
00:36:18
Speaker
My dream is full.
00:36:20
Speaker
And eventually I think the grass was greener on the other side all along.
00:36:23
Speaker
But I was about to take it.
00:36:24
Speaker
But luckily, because I had an exam so bad that I am in India, I have another exam for I.A.M.
00:36:30
Speaker
for I.A.M.
00:36:34
Speaker
So after that, the CAT exam was once again in the same rebellious phenomena that we won't take any coaching but we'll try to give CAT and I would once again try to attempt all of the questions in CAT.
00:36:46
Speaker
So another fun fact, I mean in IIT, AIEEE, CAT, I've attempted all questions always.
00:36:52
Speaker
I'm like, the negative marking is that leave the question and leave it.
00:36:55
Speaker
I've never left any question, ever.
00:36:57
Speaker
I mean if I don't know anything, I'll kill it.
00:37:00
Speaker
I gave this cat anyways.
00:37:03
Speaker
So I got this 99.9 percentile in cat.
00:37:05
Speaker
And then I got this call from IM Calcutta.
00:37:09
Speaker
And no other Ahmedabad, Bangalore or other IM.
00:37:12
Speaker
I didn't even say that, but I got this from IM Calcutta and I was very anti-MBA.
00:37:17
Speaker
I wrote a big, big blog.
00:37:18
Speaker
It was very, I mean, it was very famous at that point of time.
00:37:20
Speaker
I talked to my parents and I got, because I was through an I am Calcutta Joker, a senior of mine from Sarah Mekhi told me, I am Calcutta is not like other I am.
00:37:29
Speaker
It allows you to be an individual.
00:37:31
Speaker
It gives you, you know, a certain sense of life as well.
00:37:34
Speaker
It won't suck you dry.
00:37:35
Speaker
Otherwise, the image is, you know, MBA means, you know, 16 hours slog every day.
00:37:39
Speaker
All right.
00:37:39
Speaker
And, you know, you have to wear a suit and a tie all the time.
00:37:42
Speaker
So I'm like, I don't know.
00:37:44
Speaker
I don't know.
00:37:44
Speaker
I don't know.
00:37:45
Speaker
How do I do it?
00:37:46
Speaker
But I realized that I can build companies while I am a student as well.
00:37:50
Speaker
I've already done it in my IIT days.
00:37:52
Speaker
I can do it again in IIM.
00:37:54
Speaker
Why not?
00:37:54
Speaker
I won't even go to the side of the job.
00:37:56
Speaker
It will be a 2-year college extent.
00:37:57
Speaker
And I got to deal with my mother that they won't ask me to ever take a job if I go to IIM.
00:38:04
Speaker
So I don't go to this Zynga and I take the final offer and join IIM Calcutta.
00:38:08
Speaker
So once again, another change of environment.
00:38:11
Speaker
Banaras, we reached a little further to Harvard.
00:38:14
Speaker
Joka is another village outside Calcutta.
00:38:17
Speaker
And then the MBA business
Founding of Zostel: Identifying Opportunities
00:38:20
Speaker
journey starts.
00:38:20
Speaker
So Dharm, you understood this when you got into I am Calcutta that you didn't have to do a job?
00:38:26
Speaker
How did that change the I am Calcutta experience for you?
00:38:29
Speaker
Because generally, those people who go to I am Calcutta, they have a very clear focus that they have a consulting company or investment banks or such top paying jobs.
00:38:37
Speaker
So, how did your experience go?
00:38:40
Speaker
In any MBA, you have to spend in the first couple of months hours making your CV.
00:38:45
Speaker
When your CV is perfect, then this pre-placement talk starts.
00:38:49
Speaker
Then there's this whole impressionable, you know, those who went last year, maybe who have the PPO.
00:38:55
Speaker
So,
00:38:55
Speaker
So obviously there's a lot of networking, socializing that's happening.
00:38:58
Speaker
And so I'm like, I don't have to do this.
00:39:00
Speaker
It will be a full time for two years.
00:39:03
Speaker
So I decide that I'll opt out of the placements.
00:39:05
Speaker
I go and I talk with the dean.
00:39:07
Speaker
I write him an email that I need to meet.
00:39:10
Speaker
And they make me sit down.
00:39:13
Speaker
He does the counseling as well.
00:39:14
Speaker
He asked me to even go to the formal counselor as well.
00:39:17
Speaker
Maybe you don't understand anything.
00:39:19
Speaker
He has to come to the job.
00:39:21
Speaker
I just started reducing a lot of my interest and activities towards the placement.
00:39:40
Speaker
So I started getting time, so I started going to the library and I started reading a lot of research reports.
00:39:47
Speaker
And so what all happened had, you know, between the last two years is between the Euro trip and then coming back to India.
00:39:53
Speaker
That means that it was the whole year.
00:39:55
Speaker
And now I had started connecting models back in my brain.
00:39:58
Speaker
It's a little bit about backpacking which is different from the hotel industry.
00:40:03
Speaker
I come from the budget hotel industry.
00:40:05
Speaker
I have seen the whole real estate.
00:40:06
Speaker
So I get comfortable in the industry.
00:40:08
Speaker
What are the rules of the game?
00:40:10
Speaker
And I started to see that even if I have a million dollars, you know, backpacker hostel is something that's totally different.
00:40:16
Speaker
I would rather stay in a backpacker hostel, meet a hot girl or maybe make some friends rather than being in a boring five-star room watching TV that I can watch anyway.
00:40:29
Speaker
and uh and then you know everything starts to come and how they traveled the whole europe how easily easily available in the last moment we were always getting a hostel how many young travelers were always made maps and how many free travels were going walking tours and tips were going on and then i thought that india is so beautiful
00:40:52
Speaker
I think that there was a war in 50 years.
00:40:54
Speaker
World War II was destroyed.
00:40:55
Speaker
There was a gate that was called.
00:40:57
Speaker
There were so many tourists who didn't have any attention.
00:40:59
Speaker
All tourists are coming from the time.
00:41:02
Speaker
And all tourists are coming from the time.
00:41:04
Speaker
And in India, if the last Hindu ruler was the last ruler, what kind of fort is the situation in India?
00:41:15
Speaker
What's happening there?
00:41:16
Speaker
Whatever it is, Kunal loves Priya.
00:41:19
Speaker
I don't know.
00:41:20
Speaker
It's our history, our culture.
00:41:22
Speaker
It's just in travel.
00:41:22
Speaker
And travel really helps you preserve your identity.
00:41:26
Speaker
And I had already seen a lot of Maharajas and a lot of people who have palaces today that are converted into five-star hotels for their revenue.
00:41:35
Speaker
When they did not have those hotels, their revenue streams were shrinking.
00:41:38
Speaker
They did not have any revenue streams.
00:41:40
Speaker
forget about shrinking and the reason you know people like to come there is for the for the for the royal hospitality okay so i think i saw here is a good connection and when you map it on india so you realize that india is in europe from jammu to kanya kumari from rajasthan to you know the
00:42:07
Speaker
Farthest of the Northeast, I mean, in Bengal everything is different.
00:42:10
Speaker
You can see the uniqueness.
00:42:12
Speaker
From language, culture, to ethnicity, to the food we eat, to the history that we say, to the... Atiti Devo Bhava is a common theme that goes all across.
00:42:20
Speaker
And I really felt that if something is made here, it's fun to come back.
00:42:25
Speaker
So I started to, once again, rather than having a dream, something like what I had in IIT was a failed dream, truth be told.
00:42:33
Speaker
I had this dream that I can make games and make a living.
00:42:35
Speaker
It doesn't need to be myself who make games.
00:42:37
Speaker
And now I had decided that I'm free.
00:42:40
Speaker
I'll design the world how I want.
00:42:42
Speaker
And by now I had realized that if I built a company and if I get a funding of even a million dollars or something before I graduate, then it'll be great.
00:42:50
Speaker
Then nothing can be better than that.
00:42:52
Speaker
And then I thought, let's go, I didn't have money.
00:42:54
Speaker
Last time, I started a startup without money and without co-founder.
00:42:56
Speaker
So now I have a dream in the room.
00:42:57
Speaker
There's no difficulty.
00:43:00
Speaker
I have to keep my dreams in my hands.
00:43:03
Speaker
I kept my dreams in the gym and went to the library and started studying and started studying and what's happening in the tourism industry.
00:43:09
Speaker
We started internships in the first year.
00:43:11
Speaker
So I got this internship in Aditya Brilla Group.
00:43:14
Speaker
So they said that they had a very funko interview.
00:43:17
Speaker
And towards the end of the interview they said, you know, we are thinking of building this new gaming division unit and we like you to.
00:43:23
Speaker
help us do it.
00:43:24
Speaker
I said, it's right.
00:43:25
Speaker
It's right.
00:43:26
Speaker
Then I went over there and then they gave me some random work.
00:43:28
Speaker
I did not do any shit in the internship actually.
00:43:31
Speaker
I had a lot of fun.
00:43:33
Speaker
And I navigated it once again.
00:43:35
Speaker
Anyway, so internship got done on 5th November 2012.
00:43:38
Speaker
In the night I told my friend that I play poker again.
00:43:39
Speaker
So he was like, I'm sleeping, and you can tell me.
00:43:40
Speaker
And I told him, if I win, I'll win at 1am, so you'll be up by then.
00:43:42
Speaker
And he just laughed it off.
00:43:43
Speaker
Like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like
00:44:01
Speaker
you know somehow i was just such a beast run that day and totally dominated the tournament killing it because i was like i think eight thousand eight hundred people or something and then i finished first in that tournament and my eleven dollars turned into ten thousand dollars overnight and like everything like exploded like everybody's like yeah boss it's the bankers go intern and uh and then i'm like yeah you know was it
00:44:26
Speaker
I was like, was it one time luck?
00:44:27
Speaker
What is the thing?
00:44:27
Speaker
This is the first time I have any money.
00:44:29
Speaker
I was giving people to the people who had phone.
00:44:30
Speaker
I was like, you should give 5,000, 10,000, and I was like, I was trying to get money.
00:44:33
Speaker
But after that, I never got money from 5 November 2012.
00:44:35
Speaker
And I think that's a big thing also in India, because we don't have to get out of our house.
00:44:49
Speaker
So anyways, okay.
00:44:50
Speaker
So, you know, I played for a couple of more months and then I made another, you know, I finished top two in another two tournaments.
00:44:57
Speaker
I've shipped another one.
00:44:58
Speaker
So my big one means $15,000-$18,000 bankroll.
00:45:01
Speaker
So I got this money from myself, you know, I had, I now learned a lot about the Backpackers Hostel, you know, the first year was coming to an end.
00:45:07
Speaker
I had an internship that would pay me another 2 lakhs.
00:45:10
Speaker
And then, you know, I just, you know, evaluated poker as an industry until Black Friday was.
00:45:14
Speaker
So the biggest company was, uh,
00:45:16
Speaker
Poker stars only.
00:45:17
Speaker
They are Canada.
00:45:18
Speaker
And the whole company was $600 million.
00:45:20
Speaker
And then the biggest player was, you know, Daniel Negreanu, etc.
00:45:24
Speaker
And their whole winnings were like $22 million or something like that.
00:45:27
Speaker
So I said, man, there's no money.
00:45:29
Speaker
Overall.
00:45:30
Speaker
It's fun.
00:45:30
Speaker
It's fun.
00:45:31
Speaker
But, man, they're not even doing a billion dollars.
00:45:33
Speaker
Tell me, man.
00:45:34
Speaker
I thought personally, if we have $22 million in wealth, then we will hold real estate and then we will hold $10 crore to $100 million.
00:45:41
Speaker
And I also thought that it is quite individual.
00:45:43
Speaker
We will never take it in the future.
00:45:46
Speaker
Then I thought that now let us think, let us start with the whole backpacker hostel thing in India.
00:45:51
Speaker
And I really liked it.
00:45:53
Speaker
So I thought that let's do this.
00:45:54
Speaker
And we have our strength in our country.
00:45:58
Speaker
We have foreign tourists come here.
00:45:59
Speaker
We have positionings globally.
00:46:01
Speaker
So we start with Jodhpur.
00:46:02
Speaker
My father had a property, so we had a very straight business transaction.
00:46:06
Speaker
And I told him that I'll take this rooftop of yours and I'll invest my own money.
00:46:11
Speaker
I want it as a rental.
00:46:12
Speaker
And I have my friends as well.
00:46:13
Speaker
So it's a different partnership.
00:46:14
Speaker
So he said, we'll take 18,000 rupees.
00:46:16
Speaker
And he really helped the whole making of your design, what you're saying.
00:46:21
Speaker
How to make a building.
00:46:22
Speaker
So we made doms first.
00:46:25
Speaker
Doms in Lohe, a dubang bed.
00:46:27
Speaker
Everything was made on the site itself.
00:46:29
Speaker
Carpenter, Lohar.
00:46:32
Speaker
My father is an expert in getting these things up.
00:46:35
Speaker
So they helped and supported me.
00:46:39
Speaker
My local family was also there in Joth.
00:46:41
Speaker
So I started off when I was in the summer period when I was doing an internship in Bangalore.
00:46:45
Speaker
So this time I did the deal and realized that I will stay there myself.
00:46:49
Speaker
I will leave an internship there.
00:46:50
Speaker
I will pay for 1.5 lakh rupees from the internship.
00:46:54
Speaker
I hired 3 interns.
00:46:56
Speaker
They were my juniors at IIT, BHU.
00:47:01
Speaker
I took these interns.
00:47:02
Speaker
I started off with the name of Seekers.
00:47:07
Speaker
Seekers are those who seek the outside world to realize who they themselves are, to seek within themselves.
00:47:13
Speaker
So I thought that this was a great theme.
00:47:16
Speaker
But then I realized from a little bit of a bad cheat with other batchmates.
00:47:19
Speaker
And then I realized that.com will not get it.
00:47:22
Speaker
And then it's an additional word.
00:47:23
Speaker
So it will be a problem in branding.
00:47:25
Speaker
Google will not get a good search.
00:47:26
Speaker
So I realized that I must think of a new word that does not exist altogether.
00:47:32
Speaker
And so eventually, that's how we came up at Zostel.
00:47:35
Speaker
So I just started typing in the domain.
00:47:38
Speaker
I mean, hostel, bostel, costel, dostel.
00:47:40
Speaker
I made everything for EF, Z. And Zostel.com, like the domain available, it was like love at first sight.
00:47:48
Speaker
This is it overall.
00:47:49
Speaker
It's got the Gen Z thing.
00:47:51
Speaker
It's Zosteling.
00:47:53
Speaker
It's Zostelers.
00:47:54
Speaker
It's Zostel.
00:47:56
Speaker
It's so powerful.
00:47:57
Speaker
So, Dharam, you decided that you want to start a backpacking hostel.
00:48:02
Speaker
You selected the name of the hostel.
00:48:03
Speaker
Then, how did your next step go?
00:48:07
Speaker
How did you build a team and get funding?
00:48:11
Speaker
So, I started meanwhile, you know, keeping all of my friends from IIT, IIM, whoever was into entrepreneurship, you know, really updated about the progress we are making and, you know, what's the larger idea over here, you know, how we might do things and whoever is interested can, you know, really help and contribute.
00:48:26
Speaker
So a couple of friends picked up.
00:48:28
Speaker
You know, Chetan was, you know, one of those guys who was the first one.
00:48:31
Speaker
He was working in Bangalore.
00:48:33
Speaker
And I was with him in the internship.
00:48:34
Speaker
And as soon as I went back, he called and said, you know, whatever you say and, you know, you think if it works, you're going to do it full time after IIM.
00:48:42
Speaker
I told him, man, I'm not taking a job from IIM.
00:48:44
Speaker
So he's like, okay, then you tell me.
00:48:46
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, you just start now physically.
00:48:48
Speaker
It's important to reach there.
00:48:50
Speaker
But if there are two properties now, then I'll come.
00:48:52
Speaker
So we can really build the softwares and the rest of the requirements.
00:48:56
Speaker
and uh and we had a great bonding our business trust you know first year we were very deep and he quit on that phone call itself and then he joined in jodhpur and similarly then another iit bhu friend abhishek bhutras you know so he uh was also working somewhere else he was also iit batch mates and we had been decent uh friends you know back then while we were programming he was one of those things people who we used to work together studying
00:49:23
Speaker
So he also quit his job and came.
00:49:26
Speaker
So the whole idea was that we are doing two properties with our money and then we will try to raise funds and see how things go.
00:49:35
Speaker
And then my IM friends were always more presentable and pitch friendly.
00:49:42
Speaker
I feel myself as a rough guy.
00:49:45
Speaker
Overall, the way I think, the way I conduct myself.
00:49:49
Speaker
So here I mean Pawan was a phenomenal guy who I met in poker the first day.
00:49:56
Speaker
He was doing very well.
00:49:57
Speaker
He said that he loved to work on this.
00:50:00
Speaker
He was also interning somewhere.
00:50:01
Speaker
I told him as soon as the name was finalized Zostal, he was one of the first people that I told him.
00:50:07
Speaker
He told me that now everyone is set up.
00:50:08
Speaker
So come in the second year and we will get it.
00:50:12
Speaker
He was another one of my close friends from the IM days.
00:50:15
Speaker
He was my close friend.
00:50:16
Speaker
He was in our hostel.
00:50:19
Speaker
We had a hostel rivalry wars.
00:50:21
Speaker
We were the main team types.
00:50:24
Speaker
We were all the people.
00:50:26
Speaker
We had a close bond as well.
00:50:28
Speaker
He loved traveling, camping.
00:50:29
Speaker
He was doing 2-3 years.
00:50:30
Speaker
He knew that corporate job sucks.
00:50:34
Speaker
He always looked up to me and asked me how to tell me how to tell me.
00:50:40
Speaker
I'm not going to go.
00:50:41
Speaker
I'm not going to go.
00:50:42
Speaker
I'm going to get into my internship.
00:50:48
Speaker
He loved traveling, he loved going to mountains etc.
00:50:51
Speaker
His other friend Tarun Tiwari was 100% Ireland.
00:50:52
Speaker
Huge respect, we don't know.
00:51:03
Speaker
So I just told him that he had to do something with his own.
00:51:19
Speaker
So they were very inclined as well.
00:51:20
Speaker
They were also like, let's go with us.
00:51:21
Speaker
People will come, stay in the hostel, and travel.
00:51:25
Speaker
And another one was Akhil's friend, Sidharth Jhangu.
00:51:28
Speaker
So he had this whole Steve Jobs romanticism in his childhood.
00:51:32
Speaker
So he was his friend from MDI, Gurgaon.
00:51:34
Speaker
So Akhil is from MDI.
00:51:35
Speaker
So he was from MDI, so he knew he was a little bit of a startup.
00:51:40
Speaker
So, Siddharth introduced me to Siddharth.
00:51:41
Speaker
Siddharth was very passionate.
00:51:43
Speaker
Siddharth made our very good Excel modeling files.
00:51:45
Speaker
Okay, so we put a whole budget, friendly unit in which we put in a whole unit, how much profit will come, when will it come, how will it come.
00:51:52
Speaker
It's very good.
00:51:53
Speaker
It's very structured in the sense that we're doing pilots.
00:51:55
Speaker
We're not doing business.
00:51:56
Speaker
We're doing business pilots.
00:51:58
Speaker
How to make a hostel, what are the hostel economics.
00:52:00
Speaker
And the more we study it, the more we'll be able to scale it in the future.
00:52:04
Speaker
And that was the whole idea.
00:52:05
Speaker
And with all of these things, you know, the rest of us in the IM, we can contribute more.
00:52:10
Speaker
We were not even on the ground.
00:52:13
Speaker
Siddharth was also in his own job.
00:52:15
Speaker
Chetan and Abhishek were the foot soldiers who were on the ground.
00:52:19
Speaker
And we were like, we were also going to graduate.
00:52:24
Speaker
So now I had played a VC game.
00:52:26
Speaker
Because earlier when I was discussing that I was graduating from IM.
00:52:30
Speaker
That time we were much more towards the direction of the direction of the money, some equity, some validation.
00:52:36
Speaker
So that it's a great opportunity for all of us to work full-time.
00:52:39
Speaker
and then you know when we you know we had you know really scaled a business to you know 100 million dollars and I was very interested in that the people who are really witnessing you know Zostel right now purely from an investment perspective they are all looking at only the physical layer of hostels.
00:52:56
Speaker
Is it a hostel bed in 500 rupees?
00:52:58
Speaker
Is it so much rent?
00:52:59
Speaker
Is it so much in business model?
00:53:01
Speaker
But I really understood a lot of the passion economy.
00:53:03
Speaker
Because the people here are the people who are going to go and record the podcast yesterday.
00:53:09
Speaker
They are those people who will make their own YouTube, their own different things, their own life.
00:53:14
Speaker
And they are those type of people who are some risk takers.
00:53:18
Speaker
And so, people are in all of us.
00:53:20
Speaker
When we get bored of jobs, then we get out of the way to get exhausted.
00:53:24
Speaker
You know, this is a different phase in life.
00:53:25
Speaker
It's just like me making games in life.
00:53:29
Speaker
So, I never let that dream die.
00:53:31
Speaker
But it's not that I'm going to make a full-time game.
00:53:34
Speaker
Okay, but I keep the dream alive in me and that it remains in our own places.
00:53:39
Speaker
So you can always stay in different phases.
00:53:41
Speaker
You can always commit more to lockdown and try to release an album.
00:53:44
Speaker
Overall, try to create a new recipe or try to make it.
00:53:52
Speaker
So I think that there are different phases.
00:53:54
Speaker
The thing is that if you are able to make money out of it, like I love to build companies, you know, with my friends and, you know, I love to build things.
00:54:01
Speaker
So if I get money for it, then it's a bonus.
00:54:04
Speaker
I mean, if there's something that you have a bonus for it, then you can earn money for it and you can master it for it.
00:54:11
Speaker
Right?
00:54:12
Speaker
And, you know, these things of, you know, deep work demand that from you.
00:54:15
Speaker
What are you?
00:54:17
Speaker
If you're doing it for any other motivation, I'm doing this podcast because I'll get money.
00:54:21
Speaker
So, you don't do any good podcast records.
00:54:24
Speaker
And that's where we are.
00:54:26
Speaker
And then, you know, things moved since then.
00:54:29
Speaker
This really happened in 2016.
00:54:33
Speaker
And since 2016, you know, we, you know, from on the Zostel front, we really continue to grow organically, you know, without raising any external funds for that matter, really just increasing our footprint all across the country and even in Nepal.
00:54:46
Speaker
And meanwhile, you know, I also took a break of around close to a year.
00:54:49
Speaker
I went to Europe for a while.
00:54:51
Speaker
I went to San Francisco for a while.
00:54:53
Speaker
And I really wanted to, you know, deeply once again introspect that, you know, what is the latest learnings that I've learned from this journey now, you know, starting off with seven co-founders.
Entrepreneurial Reflections and Market Insights
00:55:01
Speaker
You know, earlier I had no co-founder and now I really practically had seven and another 20 that I feel responsible for.
00:55:07
Speaker
So practically 30 co-founders from my mental state, you know.
00:55:10
Speaker
And then I really started to understand even much more deeper, you know, like how do I really set my
00:55:16
Speaker
next goal, you know, etc.
00:55:18
Speaker
So these were interesting times in which, you know, once again, I was very free to think in terms of, you know, what to do next, you know, let's say I've even done this now, you know, I've really scaled the company, we have, you know, built a very great business over here, you know, there's another business that we are scaling gradually.
00:55:36
Speaker
So, to be honest, the first time I heard about Dharambeer was when I read the newspaper reports about his court case with Oyo Rooms.
00:55:43
Speaker
The story is that Zostel started a hotel aggregation business like Oyo Rooms, which was Zorooms.
00:55:51
Speaker
And eventually, Zorooms was supposed to get acquired by Oyo Rooms and the founders of Zorooms would have got equity in Oyo Rooms.
00:56:01
Speaker
But that deal fell apart.
00:56:02
Speaker
And they are still locked in a legal battle because of which Dharam Bir cannot tell us anything more about that part of his story.
00:56:13
Speaker
So, what did you do after that?
00:56:15
Speaker
And you are now working on a new venture.
00:56:19
Speaker
So, tell us about that also.
00:56:21
Speaker
One thing I understood is that if we have to make a big deal of things, so I started to understand a couple of key factors about market and scale.
00:56:28
Speaker
You know, there is a sufficient size that you can grow, depends on how big is your market.
00:56:33
Speaker
So if you are in the hostel market, or in the hostel, or in India, then you can do anything in that market, because Google works more than anything else.
00:56:42
Speaker
Even if you are the biggest company, you probably don't know.
00:56:45
Speaker
So I realized that this is one key factor in the venture game.
00:56:49
Speaker
And the other is obviously scaling, you know, how fast you can scale anything.
00:56:52
Speaker
So how big you can grow, how fast you can grow.
00:56:54
Speaker
And then I realized that to create, you know, really, really big wealth, let's say you want to create a trillion dollars.
00:57:00
Speaker
So if you look at the biggest companies right now in the world, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook,
00:57:07
Speaker
So you'll understand that they all won markets and then those markets really won the world.
00:57:12
Speaker
So for example, let's say Apple and Microsoft really battled hard for the personal computing market.
00:57:16
Speaker
And then everybody wanted personal computer.
00:57:19
Speaker
So Microsoft won the operating system over there and then Apple won the smartphone market.
00:57:23
Speaker
Then let's say Amazon was the best e-commerce on the internet in 97 as well.
00:57:27
Speaker
But...
00:57:28
Speaker
Internet then, you know, really went everywhere and Amazon was still there.
00:57:32
Speaker
So Google was the best search engine by 2000, but then internet went everywhere.
00:57:35
Speaker
So, you know, these are very young companies for that matter.
00:57:37
Speaker
I mean, we are small.
00:57:39
Speaker
So I think, I realized which market is, you know, going to be very key in the future.
00:57:45
Speaker
Let's say you want to really commit your life to really building it.
00:57:48
Speaker
So, you know, long story short, I, you know, shortened it down to three very large, you know, tech, you know, building over the technology layer markets.
00:57:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:55
Speaker
It's in the data science, machine learning, there are things that will change everything from, let's say, how computing works to how calculations work to how maybe images are processed or how people record podcasts and noise reduction for that matter.
00:58:10
Speaker
I said, it's good but it's a little research oriented and we don't have a lot of data already to work on.
00:58:15
Speaker
So, it's a bit tough in the starting phase and I'm not a hardcore researcher.
00:58:20
Speaker
And then there was this whole VR AR you know phenomena that I felt was
00:58:25
Speaker
It's phenomenal that in the next 20 to maybe 30 years, everything might change of how we interact in the layers.
00:58:31
Speaker
But once again, not from any gaming direction, from a consumer product, or from a hardware side.
00:58:37
Speaker
There's no really foot in the door in the industry.
00:58:39
Speaker
And then I really enjoyed reading about the cryptocurrency space and I really felt that it's very first principle in their
Exploring Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
00:58:46
Speaker
nature.
00:58:46
Speaker
That if it's Bitcoin, Ethereum, or whatever it is,
00:58:50
Speaker
Nobody really knows what Bitcoin is using now.
00:58:53
Speaker
Facebook has its own theory that maybe we will make it a liberal, make it a stable currency, whatever it is.
00:58:58
Speaker
So nobody really knows why everybody will need Bitcoin.
00:59:02
Speaker
And for me, that matters because that means it's a level playing ground if you have a right theory of what to build overall.
00:59:07
Speaker
So these are the times when startups can really come out very strongly and fight the existing mammoth.
00:59:15
Speaker
So, you know, that's why, you know, this is this one startup that, you know, even mentioned earlier.
00:59:18
Speaker
So our whole idea is that, you know, Opoch is the name of the startup.
00:59:22
Speaker
It's the idea is that the true information age is yet to come in which anybody can make a living anywhere in the world and, you know, just, just via the internet.
00:59:31
Speaker
So, so I think, you know, we all are, you know, right along communicating a lot on the internet information exchange that's happening, but as platform driven, it is, you know, the monetization capabilities are still fairly limited.
00:59:43
Speaker
And I think that in the passion economy,
00:59:45
Speaker
of loyal fans etc.
00:59:46
Speaker
a lot of different methods of monetization will emerge.
00:59:48
Speaker
But regardless of it, I think programming and to really program different sort of applications in which we have a programmable money in our past.
00:59:58
Speaker
We can just very easily code it and we can just take the time on this website.
01:00:06
Speaker
Or if you made such a high score, you won't give money.
01:00:09
Speaker
But if you made it less, you will get lost.
01:00:12
Speaker
So I just think that if we have our credit card on the internet, we should have a balance.
01:00:19
Speaker
And everybody else should just take money from the internet balance that we have.
01:00:23
Speaker
Rather than if I go to Netflix and I'll put my card on my card, then okay, that's $10.
01:00:28
Speaker
But Dharamveer Singh will probably take $1.
01:00:30
Speaker
But I'll put my card on my card.
01:00:32
Speaker
It's very tiresome to really do it.
01:00:34
Speaker
So the whole idea is that if you recharge 1 billion people in the world, you will be able to make a lot of developers and product designers who will make an interesting application for that money.
01:00:46
Speaker
The whole idea is to create an economy sink, so people recharge their internet and spend that money.
01:00:56
Speaker
Wow, what a story.
01:00:59
Speaker
The only way to conclude this episode is by using the famous line from the TV commercial of an alcoholic brand that says, it's your life, make it large.
01:01:12
Speaker
If you like the Founder Thesis podcast, then do check out our other shows on subjects like marketing, technology, career advice, books, and drama.
01:01:22
Speaker
Visit thepodium.in that is d-h-e-p-o-d-i-u-n dot i-n for a complete list of all our shows.
01:01:35
Speaker
This was an HD Smartcast original.
01:01:39
Speaker
HDSmartcast.