1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:18,520 Ritesh Parakh is a foodie, a traveler and the co-founder of a baking brand in Chennai 2 00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:20,080 called Beyond Loaf. 3 00:00:20,080 --> 00:00:25,960 He's experimented with a career in jewelry besides other businesses but kept going back 4 00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:27,240 to his true calling. 5 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:33,560 So how did a debater, a blogger and a qualified engineer find himself wading into a crowded 6 00:00:33,560 --> 00:00:37,840 market and build a name for quality and innovation? 7 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:42,760 Perhaps the clue is in the number of restaurants he has sampled and has an opinion on. 8 00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:46,880 He is completely into the food scene in Chennai with a gift of the written word he has built 9 00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:50,480 a following with short, pithy and snappy reviews. 10 00:00:50,480 --> 00:00:55,400 But from writing about food to building a business around it is a completely different 11 00:00:55,400 --> 00:00:56,800 proposition. 12 00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:04,740 This is episode 18 of My First Job, the podcast that covers engaging career journeys and every 13 00:01:04,740 --> 00:01:09,000 single one of them is full of twists, turns and insights. 14 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:16,240 I am Venu Gopal Nair, the host of this podcast and CEO of Ideascape Communications, an advertising 15 00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:20,040 agency into branding, creative and design. 16 00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:27,160 So settle in, sit back and enjoy the conversation or tune in with your headphones when you're 17 00:01:27,160 --> 00:01:29,120 on your daily walk. 18 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:31,160 Ritesh, welcome to the show. 19 00:01:31,160 --> 00:01:33,800 Hi Mr. Venu, how are you doing? 20 00:01:33,800 --> 00:01:34,800 I'm good. 21 00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:35,800 Good to have you on the show. 22 00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:37,800 Chennai is a city which is traditional. 23 00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:42,800 Yes, there was this experiment about hot breads and started 20, 30 years ago. 24 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:44,800 But what is it that got you interested? 25 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:47,640 Honestly, it was just the love for food. 26 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:51,680 That's the base of where it started, but more than anything, it was during the lockdown 27 00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:55,880 where my wife, Shikha, she started experimenting with making breads at home. 28 00:01:55,880 --> 00:01:57,320 I mean, no prior experience. 29 00:01:57,320 --> 00:02:02,080 Both of us only have prior experience in eating a lot of different food, but making it ourselves 30 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:04,760 was not something that either of us are good at. 31 00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:08,760 In some way, like during the lockdown, she found great passion for making bread. 32 00:02:08,760 --> 00:02:12,640 I mean, no pun intended, but we wanted to see how we can play around and take it a little 33 00:02:12,640 --> 00:02:13,640 beyond. 34 00:02:13,640 --> 00:02:15,020 That's pretty much how it started. 35 00:02:15,020 --> 00:02:19,160 It was just a bunch of random internet recipes that we started trying and then we started 36 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:22,160 talking to different friends of ours, different people. 37 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:26,720 And we even just thought that, okay, why don't we put this into bread and see what happens? 38 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:28,400 And that's pretty much how we started. 39 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:29,400 Okay. 40 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:34,480 We'll come to where you are right now. In your blog, you describe yourself as and please 41 00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:40,400 bring in any references to Shikha and how she's been a part of this journey at any point 42 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:41,400 in time. 43 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:44,200 You passed out of Venkateshwara and you're a mechanical engineer. 44 00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:48,720 I was always writing reviews for restaurants on Zomato thinking that it's the right thing 45 00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:50,600 to do per se 46 00:02:50,600 --> 00:02:55,960 Somewhere in that there was a new restaurant coming up and they reached out to me and they 47 00:02:55,960 --> 00:02:58,760 said that, Hey, we would love to have you over. 48 00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:00,360 We are launching a new restaurant. 49 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:04,440 And I went there and I see this bunch of 30 other people who are also people whose reviews 50 00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:06,960 I had read on Zomato at different points of time. 51 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:10,080 I reached there and I was like, wow, okay, this is a real thing. 52 00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:14,920 And that night I went back home and created an Instagram account by the name, the Vpanda. 53 00:03:14,920 --> 00:03:17,720 And that's how my food blogging journey started from childhood. 54 00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:21,520 My first thing that I would do when I would reach home from school or college is go to 55 00:03:21,520 --> 00:03:27,120 the kitchen and try to smell and guess what's going to be cooking in the kitchen. 56 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:31,120 One is that you're ravenous after coming back from school and the kind of appetite that 57 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:33,560 you have in school is can't be replicated. 58 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:39,560 Unfortunately, there is a slide later on, but you can never eat the way you could eat 59 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:40,960 in school and college. 60 00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:45,560 So food was one of the things that interested you, but what were the other things that you 61 00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:46,560 were looking at? 62 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:50,960 Were you really seriously considering something in terms of a career or how were you? 63 00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:55,560 I would always say on a weekly basis, at least 10 people would call me saying that, Hey, 64 00:03:55,560 --> 00:03:58,120 Panda, tell me which restaurant should we go to? 65 00:03:58,120 --> 00:03:59,800 Hey, Panda, I'm at this restaurant. 66 00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:00,800 What should I order? 67 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:03,320 Dude, listen, I'm going to this restaurant. 68 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:06,280 You know someone over there so we can get good service. 69 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:10,000 So on a weekly basis, I would get 10 calls and this is at the height of my food blogging 70 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:11,000 time. 71 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:14,960 It's something that of course I lost interest in as well for different reasons, but that's 72 00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:19,160 sort of where I was like, okay, I want to do something with this. 73 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:21,960 What that something is, is something I have to figure out. 74 00:04:21,960 --> 00:04:27,600 It took a COVID-19 outbreak interest from my wife into making bread to make it happen. 75 00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:30,600 I'm grateful for how lucky we turned out to be that way. 76 00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:34,760 I also noticed that you worked for some time at Carrot Lane. 77 00:04:34,760 --> 00:04:38,840 So what were some of the other business ventures that you got into? 78 00:04:38,840 --> 00:04:42,400 Just straight out of college, I worked in a visual effects company that was just starting 79 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:43,400 out at that time. 80 00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:45,160 We did a few local projects. 81 00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:47,520 I'm not going to name them because we never got paid. 82 00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:49,800 I was working in the visual effects company for a year. 83 00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:54,080 I was more on the operations side of it, where we would actually go out to studios and go 84 00:04:54,080 --> 00:04:56,960 out to shoots, be visual effects directors over there. 85 00:04:56,960 --> 00:05:02,360 I mean, I would be under my founder, so I would assist him wherever he would go. 86 00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:06,120 Just hiring, managing operations day to day, making sure that our work schedule is rolled 87 00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:07,120 out. 88 00:05:07,120 --> 00:05:09,400 Because about two and a half years into mechanical engineering, I realized I'm never going to 89 00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:10,400 do something related to this. 90 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:14,880 And when I told my father that, my father said, listen, you've taken off something. 91 00:05:14,880 --> 00:05:17,320 It's best that when you take off something, you complete it. 92 00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:22,920 Once I completed engineering, then it was always going to be just trying to work and 93 00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:25,320 finding where my passion lies, honestly. 94 00:05:25,320 --> 00:05:29,040 Strangely enough, food was a passion that continued throughout all the different things 95 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:30,040 I did in life. 96 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:32,640 So what is this, Panda is a nickname? 97 00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:35,800 Honestly, it was the movie Kung Fu Panda. 98 00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:38,960 My first name was actually Kung Food Panda. 99 00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:41,200 And then I realized it's too long. 100 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:45,080 So I just changed it to the Vee Panda, the vegetarian Panda. 101 00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:46,080 That is the idea. 102 00:05:46,080 --> 00:05:49,560 So you've never found being vegetarian a limitation? 103 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:50,560 Not at all. 104 00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:53,280 In fact, with my family, I traveled to the US for about a month. 105 00:05:53,280 --> 00:05:56,400 We ate in completely vegan or vegetarian restaurants throughout the month. 106 00:05:56,400 --> 00:05:57,760 It was not necessarily Indian. 107 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:01,280 I think our Indian meals were the worst meals that we had in the entire trip. 108 00:06:01,280 --> 00:06:06,800 Some of the best food we had, we had Ethiopian, Korean, Japanese, Mexican, and all that vegetarian 109 00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:07,800 vegan restaurants. 110 00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:12,200 And it's not just the US, Europe, even Southeast Asia, wherever you go, you get amazing food 111 00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:13,200 options these days. 112 00:06:13,200 --> 00:06:14,960 And vegetarian food is never a worry. 113 00:06:14,960 --> 00:06:16,960 In fact, they are more strict than us also. 114 00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:19,480 So yeah, that's the amazing part. 115 00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:26,400 I think today's generation is getting a lot of inputs from global destinations. 116 00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:32,840 It's not necessarily that you went only to the places within India and exposure to a 117 00:06:32,840 --> 00:06:33,840 whole lot of things. 118 00:06:33,840 --> 00:06:38,840 I just wanted to get a little listing of how this career journey evolves. 119 00:06:38,840 --> 00:06:39,840 What happened? 120 00:06:39,840 --> 00:06:40,840 What were the stages? 121 00:06:40,840 --> 00:06:43,200 I know for sure I gave my family a lot of stress. 122 00:06:43,200 --> 00:06:48,400 We've been privileged enough to be able to make choices that do not impact our financial 123 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:50,040 situation in any way. 124 00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:53,400 We've been lucky with that and we've been lucky to get the support of our family to 125 00:06:53,400 --> 00:06:54,600 be able to do that as well. 126 00:06:54,600 --> 00:07:00,960 I give a lot of credit to my uncle, my father, my brother, and my family in general to, you 127 00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:05,440 know, their first reflex response is no, because I mean, that's what anybody should do, honestly, 128 00:07:05,440 --> 00:07:07,960 if they say yes once it's never worth it. 129 00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:14,000 Eventually, with the right amount of answering their questions, they've been more than supportive. 130 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:18,640 After the visual effects stint, one of our family friends and I, we got together, we 131 00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:21,000 said, okay, virtual reality seems like a big thing. 132 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:25,720 He came with the idea to me and I said, okay, I just came out of VFX, so I know how some 133 00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:27,240 bit of visual effects works. 134 00:07:27,240 --> 00:07:28,600 I know how to sell. 135 00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:29,600 Let's see what we can do. 136 00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:33,920 We created these amazing visual effects models where we actually went to schools and did 137 00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:37,520 demos where kids would put on a virtual reality headset. 138 00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:41,800 And they would, for example, if they're learning human anatomy, they would actually be able 139 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:43,680 to play with the physical model. 140 00:07:43,680 --> 00:07:47,560 And then at the end of their class, they would have a quiz saying that place the right body 141 00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:52,400 part in the right place, something which is more visual, more practical and more realistic 142 00:07:52,400 --> 00:07:53,400 to learn. 143 00:07:53,400 --> 00:07:58,960 I'm sure even now I get confused where my longest in this times are or where my diaphragm 144 00:07:58,960 --> 00:07:59,960 is. 145 00:07:59,960 --> 00:08:03,800 I still, I'm still not sure, but I'm sure if I learned it in a visual way, we would 146 00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:04,940 remember it better. 147 00:08:04,940 --> 00:08:06,520 But we also spoke to a lot of people. 148 00:08:06,520 --> 00:08:12,120 We used to cold call, cold call and cold email about 100 people every week as investors or 149 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:15,520 as school partners or people who are in the field of education. 150 00:08:15,520 --> 00:08:19,720 And it was a very interesting time because my partner in this, he had a full time job. 151 00:08:19,720 --> 00:08:23,280 So we used to meet at Starbucks every night from eight o'clock to two o'clock in the 152 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:24,280 night. 153 00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:25,280 We used to sit there and work. 154 00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:28,120 And then in the day I would get onto my task of reaching out to people. 155 00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:29,120 And that was very interesting. 156 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:31,840 We also realized that it was too soon. 157 00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:34,120 I mean, visual reality for education is still not taken off. 158 00:08:34,120 --> 00:08:35,120 Yeah. 159 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:40,080 I mean, there is so much about right place, right time and right opportunity because even 160 00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:43,160 today the point is that do you have the processing power? 161 00:08:43,160 --> 00:08:46,760 Is it inexpensive enough to roll out at scale in schools? 162 00:08:46,760 --> 00:08:52,420 Is it something that because the pandemic really showed us the limitations of what online 163 00:08:52,420 --> 00:08:53,420 could actually do. 164 00:08:53,420 --> 00:08:56,560 There were a set of people for whom online education was fine. 165 00:08:56,560 --> 00:08:59,240 There was a whole lot of people who had just one device at home. 166 00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:01,400 I mean, it has to be scalable at some point, right? 167 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:02,400 How was your pitch? 168 00:09:02,400 --> 00:09:04,520 We were learning with every pitch, honestly. 169 00:09:04,520 --> 00:09:07,160 It started as virtual reality for education. 170 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:13,080 It eventually evolved into creating modern pedagogy, reducing the amount of time a child 171 00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:17,920 spends in school, but increasing the amount they learn with every minute spent in school. 172 00:09:17,920 --> 00:09:21,840 We wanted to pitch it to schools and parents saying that, hey, you can actually run your 173 00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:26,520 schools for a shorter amount of time, but the learning is so much more exponential. 174 00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:31,280 It's a good pitch because I think in the ed tech sector, there were a number of companies, 175 00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:34,000 but the one that seems to be doing really well is physics. 176 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:36,680 Well, for example, yeah, it's true. 177 00:09:36,680 --> 00:09:41,420 YouTube and lectures, which is accessible to practically everyone. 178 00:09:41,420 --> 00:09:45,200 So when was it that you decided that this is not going places? 179 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:49,160 Before I decided to do this full time, I also had of course, discussed it with my family. 180 00:09:49,160 --> 00:09:51,520 They said, okay, you don't go ahead and do it. 181 00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:56,160 It's something crazy that if you succeed, you can go somewhere. 182 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:59,600 And if you fail, you fail miserably, but you can't keep doing this forever. 183 00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:02,240 So give us a timeline that how much time should we give you? 184 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:04,600 They gave me about 12 to 15 months. 185 00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:08,640 And they said that if you're able to do something and take it somewhere, otherwise you join 186 00:10:08,640 --> 00:10:09,640 the family. 187 00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:12,440 And that was not something that was on your horizon. 188 00:10:12,440 --> 00:10:13,440 You had your own path. 189 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:14,440 Yeah. 190 00:10:14,440 --> 00:10:18,520 I always felt like because we have enough hands in the family, we could always diversify 191 00:10:18,520 --> 00:10:21,120 and everyone was on the same thought process. 192 00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:23,520 What are the kind of questions your father would ask you? 193 00:10:23,520 --> 00:10:28,600 I'm a little curious as to how would he figure out whether you knew this would make money 194 00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:29,600 or not? 195 00:10:29,600 --> 00:10:33,440 I think being Marwadi, you have it in your blood to be an entrepreneur. 196 00:10:33,440 --> 00:10:35,520 That part of it is undisputable to some extent. 197 00:10:35,520 --> 00:10:39,360 So it was not just my father, my father, his elder brother and my brother. 198 00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:43,120 So I had three fathers who I had to answer to plus my mother back home. 199 00:10:43,120 --> 00:10:44,360 They would start with why? 200 00:10:44,360 --> 00:10:45,360 What are you thinking? 201 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:47,000 What's the thought process behind it? 202 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:50,520 Why do you think that something like this will succeed or why do you think that something 203 00:10:50,520 --> 00:10:51,520 like this should even exist? 204 00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:53,960 It just starts with why and then... 205 00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:55,600 What is the answer to that why? 206 00:10:55,600 --> 00:10:56,600 What is the answer you gave them? 207 00:10:56,600 --> 00:11:01,040 I said that it seems like this is the future of technology where technology is headed. 208 00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:03,480 At that time, this is 2014-15. 209 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:08,760 Virtual reality is going to be mass produced by 2020. 210 00:11:08,760 --> 00:11:10,480 At least that's how it was positioned. 211 00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:14,640 So we thought that getting in early, we would be at the forefront of that as well. 212 00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:16,880 That was how I tried to convince them. 213 00:11:16,880 --> 00:11:18,760 It was not exactly very successful. 214 00:11:18,760 --> 00:11:22,040 So what is the Carrot Lane phase like? 215 00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:27,720 So between virtual reality and Carrot Lane, we also had a print packaging factory where 216 00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:30,680 these chips packets, masala packets and all of that. 217 00:11:30,680 --> 00:11:35,960 We had a factory that would produce these plastic covers, printed plastic covers. 218 00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:40,560 I was there for about three years, but somehow never enjoyed the entire process. 219 00:11:40,560 --> 00:11:42,020 I really, really tried. 220 00:11:42,020 --> 00:11:45,520 That was the option given by my family that, okay, now this is something you have to do. 221 00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:49,440 Now that you've taken two and a half or three years to do whatever you wanted to do, I think 222 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:51,480 you should try what we tell you to do now. 223 00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:53,400 Completely fair to them as well. 224 00:11:53,400 --> 00:11:54,960 They've been extremely supportive. 225 00:11:54,960 --> 00:11:56,840 They come from a lot of experiences as well. 226 00:11:56,840 --> 00:11:58,200 About 60 years between them. 227 00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:01,720 I said, okay, let me try this for about three years almost. 228 00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:03,680 I went every day to the factory. 229 00:12:03,680 --> 00:12:07,240 I really enjoyed the part of how to convert a customer. 230 00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:09,280 B2B is a different ball game in that. 231 00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:13,240 It was a great experience in understanding how people are thinking of their packaging. 232 00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:15,600 A lot of that came to Beyond Loaf later. 233 00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:18,640 My partner at the time also was extremely supportive in every way. 234 00:12:18,640 --> 00:12:22,800 I really enjoyed working with him as well, but I didn't see a future for myself over 235 00:12:22,800 --> 00:12:23,800 there. 236 00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:27,360 It was a very tough conversation to have honestly, because I got married in November of 2018. 237 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:33,000 In December, I went to my dad, uncle and brother and told them that I don't think I can continue 238 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:34,000 doing this anymore. 239 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:39,320 They had this expectation also fairly that you just got married and you're just trying 240 00:12:39,320 --> 00:12:40,960 to get very unstable again. 241 00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:42,680 How many chances do you think we should give you? 242 00:12:42,680 --> 00:12:46,360 It was a very uncomfortable period, but again, that's what family is about. 243 00:12:46,360 --> 00:12:47,840 They are there to ask you the hard questions. 244 00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:50,200 They're there to pull you out of that as well. 245 00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:52,520 At the end of that, I said, okay, do an MBA. 246 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:55,320 I thought, okay, just be away from everything for a year. 247 00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:57,480 Go abroad or do whatever. 248 00:12:57,480 --> 00:13:01,480 Let me just try studying for a year so that I can refresh my mind and sort of come back 249 00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:03,560 with fresh ideas on what to do next. 250 00:13:03,560 --> 00:13:08,360 This is also about the time where I was reading about a lot of startups and that's when I 251 00:13:08,360 --> 00:13:12,040 met Mr. Mithun, who is the founder of Carat Lane at a wedding. 252 00:13:12,040 --> 00:13:14,160 I told him that I want to meet you. 253 00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:15,160 Can I come meet you? 254 00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:16,160 He asked me what is this about? 255 00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:17,560 I said, I want to come work for you. 256 00:13:17,560 --> 00:13:18,560 I'm looking for businesses. 257 00:13:18,560 --> 00:13:22,200 So he told me his email ID at the wedding and I emailed him. 258 00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:24,800 He replied back that same night or the next day morning. 259 00:13:24,800 --> 00:13:27,240 I said, okay, meet me for lunch at Copper Chin Meal today. 260 00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:30,720 And this was a Saturday, I think it was the third or fourth of May 2019. 261 00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:31,720 I said, sure. 262 00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:32,720 Okay. 263 00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:36,000 So I met him there and he asked me, what have you been doing so far over lunch? 264 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:41,440 We had a great conversation and I already knew him externally about how impressive he 265 00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:46,000 was, but just meeting him in person was overwhelming to a different degree because I never thought 266 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:49,880 that the CEO of a company would casually say, okay, sure. 267 00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:50,880 Let's meet for lunch tomorrow. 268 00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:52,600 He said, okay, join Monday. 269 00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:55,120 All this while I hadn't discussed it back with family. 270 00:13:55,120 --> 00:13:58,320 As soon as I went and told my dad and my uncle, and they said, no way. 271 00:13:58,320 --> 00:13:59,720 How much more time do you need? 272 00:13:59,720 --> 00:14:01,480 After a year, what will you get out of it? 273 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:04,040 And I said, see, they're building a business. 274 00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:05,440 They're working at scale. 275 00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:07,680 They've gone through the stage where they were a startup. 276 00:14:07,680 --> 00:14:10,000 Now they're a full fledged business. 277 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:13,920 They've got 500 employees at that time. 278 00:14:13,920 --> 00:14:15,720 I think they have 1,200 employees today. 279 00:14:15,720 --> 00:14:17,600 When I joined them, they had 50 stores. 280 00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:19,280 They have 220 stores today. 281 00:14:19,280 --> 00:14:22,720 Just working directly under someone like that and getting paid to work that was like getting 282 00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:23,720 paid to do an MBA. 283 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:26,320 That was my pitch that sort of convinced. 284 00:14:26,320 --> 00:14:31,480 I would take my brother to the carotene office and that's where they want me to work. 285 00:14:31,480 --> 00:14:33,280 That got them convinced as well. 286 00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:34,640 What is that experience like? 287 00:14:34,640 --> 00:14:38,400 What does it like working in a company that was trying to sell jewelry online? 288 00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:39,400 It was incredible. 289 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:44,480 Just the way that they approach design, the way that they approach selling to customers, 290 00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:48,800 the way that they go for the entire customer cycle, the way they position the brand, the 291 00:14:48,800 --> 00:14:51,240 way they were merging online and offline. 292 00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:56,080 The entire focus was so much on making sure that the customer having an online experience 293 00:14:56,080 --> 00:14:58,880 and offline experience is at par with each other. 294 00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:04,360 I got to be in different sections of the company as well because working directly under the 295 00:15:04,360 --> 00:15:05,360 CEO. 296 00:15:05,360 --> 00:15:07,800 I got to see some bits of the production. 297 00:15:07,800 --> 00:15:10,440 I got to see some bits of the finance part of it. 298 00:15:10,440 --> 00:15:15,720 I got to see some bits of branding, some bits of how they are thinking of building new modes 299 00:15:15,720 --> 00:15:16,720 for the business. 300 00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:19,120 Now that we're good at this business, we've built the fort. 301 00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:20,960 Now how do we build a mode around it? 302 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:24,400 Other e-commerce companies, very small article, practically nothing. 303 00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:26,840 I think two grams and three grams is a lot of gold. 304 00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:31,360 If you were to send it through post in Korea, there weren't systems available to ensure 305 00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:35,120 that the safety and the security of the delivery was assured. 306 00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:38,040 Initially, I think that was a challenge for them. 307 00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:42,360 But at that scale, it was very easy for them because they were logistic companies that 308 00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:48,760 were specifically working only in this domain for jewelry and cash and gold and silver and 309 00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:49,760 diamonds. 310 00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:50,760 All of it moves in short. 311 00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:55,480 The chances of something happening is very minimal and that is something that only once 312 00:15:55,480 --> 00:16:01,000 you reach at a stage where, okay, we're sitting on the same table, that these things can be 313 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:02,000 discussed. 314 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:03,000 Yeah. 315 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:07,200 You have enough business to give companies of that size who can ensure it and then carry 316 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:08,720 it and all of those things. 317 00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:14,320 It is the early bit when you're trying to strike that match and find a flare and say 318 00:16:14,320 --> 00:16:16,360 that from here, the business will take off. 319 00:16:16,360 --> 00:16:20,160 So by the time you were joining, you were in Carrot Lane, you were saying they were 320 00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:21,960 looking at scaling the business substantially. 321 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:23,840 They were already doing pretty well. 322 00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:25,360 They had 50 stores at that point. 323 00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,880 By the time I left, they had 180, which was a year and a half later. 324 00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:32,720 And in fact, after we started Beyond Loaf at home during the lockdown, because we were 325 00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:36,240 all working from home, one of the first people I sent a box to was my boss. 326 00:16:36,240 --> 00:16:38,160 He told me, this is really good stuff, man. 327 00:16:38,160 --> 00:16:40,280 You should, what are you doing with it? 328 00:16:40,280 --> 00:16:46,840 Over the next few months from say July 2020 up to November in and out, he would just keep 329 00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:48,360 asking, okay, what's happening? 330 00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:50,800 In December, he told me, stop coming to office tomorrow. 331 00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:52,160 I think you should do this full time. 332 00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:56,160 I didn't tell him at the time that apart from the time that I was in office, the mornings 333 00:16:56,160 --> 00:16:58,560 and evenings, I was doing this. 334 00:16:58,560 --> 00:17:02,480 It's wonderful when you work for people who are interested in having you succeed, not 335 00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:07,040 necessarily in the organization, but to say that do well at whatever you're doing. 336 00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:08,040 Absolutely. 337 00:17:08,040 --> 00:17:09,040 That's what you're interested in. 338 00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:13,160 A lot of it is also because you have to take that initiative to surround yourself with 339 00:17:13,160 --> 00:17:14,160 people like that as well. 340 00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:18,600 A lot of this is chance that those people have agreed to let you be around them. 341 00:17:18,600 --> 00:17:19,600 So you have to try. 342 00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:24,040 Like you said, right in the beginning, you belong to a family that's been in business. 343 00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:28,320 So you understand risk, you understand what is involved in running a business in a lot 344 00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:29,880 of Indian middle-class families. 345 00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:32,080 That is practically out of the question. 346 00:17:32,080 --> 00:17:33,080 Business is frowned upon. 347 00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:34,080 That is a risky thing. 348 00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:39,840 And the most that parents do is invest in mutual funds or post office deficits and stuff 349 00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:40,840 like that. 350 00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:44,680 So you have a seat at the dinner table to see how business gets done. 351 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:47,240 Because that's what would happen practically every day. 352 00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:48,240 Yeah, absolutely. 353 00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:53,360 So we would always hear stories about how when my dad and uncle moved to Chennai, they 354 00:17:53,360 --> 00:17:54,360 are originally from Jodhpur. 355 00:17:54,360 --> 00:17:57,120 So they're the first generation in Chennai as well. 356 00:17:57,120 --> 00:18:01,280 How they would go for deliveries in buses, go for deliveries in cycles. 357 00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:03,560 And every day they would look at their book of accounts. 358 00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:05,840 That was that time was done manually as well. 359 00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:08,840 And the day they would actually lack in sales, they would celebrate. 360 00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:11,960 There was one scooter between them, so they would decide which would be the couple who 361 00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:13,680 would get that scooter that weekend. 362 00:18:13,680 --> 00:18:15,400 So you'd hear stories like that. 363 00:18:15,400 --> 00:18:17,920 It's not easy, but it's worth it. 364 00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:20,760 I think that's the amount of commitment you put into something. 365 00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:26,360 It's not just luck does play a role, but how long can you continue to do what you're doing? 366 00:18:26,360 --> 00:18:32,000 Maybe the difference is that the opportunities for new businesses was far limited earlier. 367 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:37,600 What you're doing today is something that was the corner store, the Iyengar bakery, 368 00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:41,120 which would come up with a set of puffs and pastries and buns. 369 00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:42,120 And that was it. 370 00:18:42,120 --> 00:18:43,120 That is it. 371 00:18:43,120 --> 00:18:44,960 Wouldn't really go beyond that. 372 00:18:44,960 --> 00:18:48,760 But today you have not just the opportunity for the business, but you have a whole lot 373 00:18:48,760 --> 00:18:52,560 of ways in which the audience for this has expanded dramatically. 374 00:18:52,560 --> 00:18:53,560 Yeah, absolutely. 375 00:18:53,560 --> 00:18:55,880 Like a lot comes down to exposure as well. 376 00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:59,280 I've spent every summer holiday of mine in Delhi. 377 00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:03,920 So my mom is from Delhi and the house is in Chandni Chowk in Paranthewali, Delhi. 378 00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:07,760 And we would enter the street, we would be smelling jalebi on one side. 379 00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:11,840 We'd enter the street and we'd smell jalebi on one side, naan katha on one side, paranthewali 380 00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:14,000 on one side, lassi on the other side. 381 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:18,680 So we'd literally be smelling that for 45 days in a row, every single day. 382 00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:23,240 Just being exposed to some kind of cuisines, enjoying experimenting a lot. 383 00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:25,240 This feels like a culmination of all of that. 384 00:19:25,240 --> 00:19:29,600 This is slight to say, why is it that chart in Delhi and all of these places just tastes 385 00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:30,600 so much better? 386 00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:32,600 I think it's a lot to do with the water. 387 00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:35,080 Also people being specific about taste. 388 00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:40,360 One of the caterers here told me, sir, you're only asking for taste in pani puri. 389 00:19:40,360 --> 00:19:43,600 Most people here, when we give them water and put some masala in that, they're okay 390 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:44,600 with that as pani puri. 391 00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:46,280 You are not my target customer. 392 00:19:46,280 --> 00:19:48,720 We can't serve customers like you. 393 00:19:48,720 --> 00:19:54,920 Amazing exposure because if you've grown up in places where flavor is, it runs rampant. 394 00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:58,600 Paranthewali Gully is known not just in Delhi, but anywhere. 395 00:19:58,600 --> 00:19:59,600 Bengali street. 396 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:00,600 Yeah, Bengali market. 397 00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:08,200 You know, when it came to this, was it mainly because she took up baking? 398 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:09,200 Yeah, absolutely. 399 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:10,200 Were there things that you were exploring? 400 00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:14,680 We were cooking different things every day because we had the privilege to as well. 401 00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:18,880 She just took up making breads and that's full credits to her on that. 402 00:20:18,880 --> 00:20:20,000 Nobody had to push her. 403 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:21,800 She did this like every afternoon. 404 00:20:21,800 --> 00:20:25,960 We would all go take a nap at two o'clock and then we would hear the kitchen sounds 405 00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:31,040 coming in from our bedrooms knowing that, okay, now the next two to three hours, you 406 00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:34,360 can't disturb Shikha at all because she's making bread. 407 00:20:34,360 --> 00:20:36,840 What kind of breads was she experimenting with? 408 00:20:36,840 --> 00:20:40,200 She started with the very basics, like just a regular loaf of bread. 409 00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:45,080 And then she had done a course in 2019, our family friend of ours, Ritu aunty, who helped 410 00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:46,360 us a lot along the way. 411 00:20:46,360 --> 00:20:49,160 With any doubts we had, we just follow up and we're like, Ritu aunty, this is not coming 412 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:50,160 right. 413 00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:51,160 What do we do? 414 00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:52,160 And she's a homemaker herself. 415 00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:55,000 She's somebody who's been passionate about baked goods as well. 416 00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:57,640 She had done this course in 2019, but nothing came off of it. 417 00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:01,160 And in the lockdown, she just pulled up the pile of recipes and just started making them 418 00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:02,160 one by one. 419 00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:05,880 The beauty of her Marwadi kitchen is that the number of ingredients and masalas and 420 00:21:05,880 --> 00:21:10,080 different spices that you can find in an earthenware Marwadi kitchen is amazing. 421 00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:12,280 We have an entire store room filled with those things. 422 00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:15,360 So we could just go crazy, you know, playing with different things. 423 00:21:15,360 --> 00:21:17,440 Started making bread somewhere in May. 424 00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:19,960 This is when the full lockdown was still in play. 425 00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:23,640 When things started opening in June, she was still experimenting a lot. 426 00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:25,920 At one point it became too much bread at home. 427 00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:29,360 What we started doing is for the few hours that you were allowed to go out, we would 428 00:21:29,360 --> 00:21:33,720 take our car and go to a friend's house and just drop off some bread at their place saying 429 00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:35,800 that, Hey guys, try this out. 430 00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:37,080 And we kept getting good feedback. 431 00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:38,120 I told someone about it. 432 00:21:38,120 --> 00:21:39,720 They want to know how can they order it? 433 00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:42,120 And we said, no, no, we're not taking orders for it. 434 00:21:42,120 --> 00:21:43,120 We just made some extra bread. 435 00:21:43,120 --> 00:21:45,200 So we thought we'll drop it off at their place. 436 00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:46,200 That was the first scene. 437 00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:49,260 After that, we were very intentional about a lot of things. 438 00:21:49,260 --> 00:21:54,720 We had a very good friend who helped us design our logo, our branding, our packaging. 439 00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:59,280 Shikha's sister, who was passionate about photography, she made sure that our stuff 440 00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:01,200 looks as good as it tastes as well. 441 00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:02,200 If not better. 442 00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:06,680 We got very lucky that we had this network of people that we could turn to over calls 443 00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:08,600 and we could done those things to them. 444 00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:10,680 And suddenly photographs would appear. 445 00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:13,720 Sadly, we had a great logo, great branding. 446 00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:17,720 My experience in Karat Lane, I was working in customer support for a month at the most 447 00:22:17,720 --> 00:22:22,160 peak time, which was Diwali, that also taught me that how do you manage an entire customer 448 00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:23,160 journey? 449 00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:27,320 How do you communicate with the customer with as precise detail, with as little words as 450 00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:30,920 possible, but get the information across so that they have the least number of questions 451 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:31,920 to you. 452 00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:34,220 Give me an example of an instruction, Ratesh. 453 00:22:34,220 --> 00:22:35,600 From Karat Lane or beyond those? 454 00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:36,600 Because we've had... 455 00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:37,600 Karat Lane. 456 00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:40,920 I'm saying Karat Lane, because that's where you started to learn. 457 00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:45,040 So there would be customers who would have ordered for somebody's birthday and the delivery 458 00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:49,080 date on the website would show that it will deliver after the birthday. 459 00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:53,000 But they would say that, no, now that we've placed the order, you have to deliver it within 460 00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:54,000 this day. 461 00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:57,940 And then the team would somehow rally together, make sure that the customer would get the 462 00:22:57,940 --> 00:23:00,560 delivery on the day that they are requesting for it. 463 00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:05,440 Some parts of chat happened during the lockdown when people had placed orders before the lockdown 464 00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:08,280 began and they were wondering, where is my order? 465 00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:13,600 And we would get some angry customers calling us, messaging us, sending emails, saying that, 466 00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:14,600 where is my order? 467 00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:17,800 And then the time when the entire country is at a complete standstill. 468 00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,760 People were still expecting their orders to come in, which was a great experience to handle 469 00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:23,720 because the customer is always right. 470 00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:28,900 No matter what you say, there are times when you don't want to entertain those customers 471 00:23:28,900 --> 00:23:29,900 as well. 472 00:23:29,900 --> 00:23:34,400 It's also something that once in a business you realize it's so difficult to get a customer 473 00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:35,400 to you. 474 00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:38,720 Like the amount of effort that it takes to bring a customer. 475 00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:42,480 One good customer can bring you another good customer, but one bad customer experience 476 00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:44,880 takes away 20 good customers from you. 477 00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:49,720 That kind of learning is something that you'll know only if you've been in the business, 478 00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:51,360 especially in a service business. 479 00:23:51,360 --> 00:23:55,120 I always, people who are younger to me, I always tell them that like the first two years 480 00:23:55,120 --> 00:23:59,640 of your career, just walk under a good person who can put you in different parts of the 481 00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:00,640 business. 482 00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:04,560 If business is your end goal, learning to do business is an art in itself. 483 00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:08,740 Even whether it's a business or not, even if you want to learn a career, develop on 484 00:24:08,740 --> 00:24:14,520 your career, being in different parts of functions within an organization teaches you a lot more 485 00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,440 about what is involved in getting that aspect of it done. 486 00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:23,680 How do you, for example, why did Caracolade need to have showrooms when 90% of the experience 487 00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:24,680 is online? 488 00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:26,200 One of it is confidence, right? 489 00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:30,840 I need the customer to see the article before they buy it. 490 00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:31,840 Absolutely. 491 00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:33,640 You know, that's like a huge bridge. 492 00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:37,720 So the moment they see the article, then they say, huh, this is not something that is just 493 00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:39,800 online and it will be sent to me. 494 00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:42,400 I know that this actually exists. 495 00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:46,720 That kind of understanding comes only when you realize why is it that certain businesses 496 00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,120 have to be this mix of online and offline? 497 00:24:49,120 --> 00:24:52,320 Who are your early guinea pigs, your old friends? 498 00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,320 I'm the earliest guinea pig here. 499 00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:58,320 But I guess you were the most willing one as well. 500 00:24:58,320 --> 00:24:59,320 Yeah, I still have. 501 00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:03,640 So a lot of people actually ask us that aren't you bored of your own breads by now? 502 00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:07,200 Because now that you've seen it a few thousand times in front of you. 503 00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:11,960 And I always tell them that, no, I mean, we always wanted to make products that you don't 504 00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:12,960 get bored of. 505 00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,240 And we've not gotten bored of our products at all. 506 00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:17,120 Because you can make what you really like. 507 00:25:17,120 --> 00:25:19,080 You source your ingredients locally. 508 00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:20,080 We buy everything locally. 509 00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:22,080 We don't import anything. 510 00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:24,460 Most ingredients are easily available locally. 511 00:25:24,460 --> 00:25:25,600 Sometimes it takes an effort. 512 00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:28,080 Sometimes it adds to the cost of it, but it's worth it. 513 00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:33,760 We also try to buy ingredients that are available locally, but are also available nationally. 514 00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:37,920 This is only keeping scalability in mind that our vision is that in five years, we want 515 00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:39,520 to be in a few more cities. 516 00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:44,240 We shouldn't have to play with our recipes again or do R&D and experimentation again. 517 00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:47,080 We try to standardize things as much as possible. 518 00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:49,480 But then there are a few things that you only get locally. 519 00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,640 For example, we have a product called Podi Bombs. 520 00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:55,200 So the Malavya Podi that you get in Chennai, you cannot get it anywhere else. 521 00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,600 So you'll have to export it from Chennai. 522 00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:00,280 Let's say if it was not the online era. 523 00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:04,440 The earlier thing is if you wanted to set up a baking business, you would have had to 524 00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:06,120 have a physical store. 525 00:26:06,120 --> 00:26:10,760 The beauty of online is that at least in the beginning part of it is people can forgive 526 00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:16,840 you for being new and you don't have to open a store or open a physical space with a hundred 527 00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:18,360 different products available. 528 00:26:18,360 --> 00:26:22,040 We had the liberty to start with five products for almost six months. 529 00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:24,120 We only added two products at that time. 530 00:26:24,120 --> 00:26:29,080 We have 70 products today, but at that time we had only seven products for the first seven, 531 00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:30,080 eight months. 532 00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:31,560 We were successful with that. 533 00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:32,680 That's only possible online. 534 00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:36,320 The same thing offline, somebody coming to a store and seeing seven products on your 535 00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:39,960 rack, they would laugh at you and they'd be like, I don't know why they're doing this 536 00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:40,960 because they shouldn't. 537 00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:45,040 With seven products, how do they even expect for more people to come back and buy it? 538 00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:47,200 And the perception is very different, Ritesh. 539 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:52,140 If you walk into a store and find only seven articles there, you think one of two things 540 00:26:52,140 --> 00:26:58,480 that you don't have enough stock or that this is old stock and it didn't sell. 541 00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:03,100 Instruction plays such a huge role and plus where you played a lot of the thing is to 542 00:27:03,100 --> 00:27:07,120 ensure that the packaging, the way it reached people was itself the experience. 543 00:27:07,120 --> 00:27:12,560 We were one of those first few brands during COVID who had an instruction card that came 544 00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:13,560 along with the box. 545 00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,320 Earlier, we never used to have these pre-printed boxes. 546 00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:20,900 It was a normal white box that we could, so my mom went out of the way on this. 547 00:27:20,900 --> 00:27:26,240 She would like wear double masks and then go to Saukhape and source these boxes like 548 00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:28,200 while we were making things at home. 549 00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:32,920 We would just have these boxes, but we always wanted to give them extra wow effect. 550 00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:37,560 Shikha was very keen on having a ribbon on top of every box and we would actually hand 551 00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:41,560 pack every box, but those ribbons were something only Shikha could pack. 552 00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:43,840 We could never figure out how to tie that ribbon right. 553 00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:48,880 At that point, it was 20, 25 boxes a day being hand packed with ribbons and we would add 554 00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:49,880 a tag to it. 555 00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:53,680 We would add a card inside that would tell you how to heat it, how to store it, what 556 00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:55,040 to do with that box. 557 00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,720 If there's something left over, what to do as soon as you receive the box as well if 558 00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:00,160 you want to eat it right away. 559 00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,000 There were these few things that were very intentional. 560 00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:08,320 Again, keeping that part where we wanted to make sure that we answered customers' questions 561 00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:09,880 before it came to us. 562 00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:11,840 Our branding was very intentional. 563 00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:13,240 Our packaging was very intentional. 564 00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:17,160 We could have saved, put it in a plastic bag and put a sticker on it. 565 00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:23,280 It would have probably cost us three rupees where our carton box costs 20, 25 bucks. 566 00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:27,600 But I feel like in the long run that has paid off for us as well because when you receive 567 00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,080 a product, you should feel happy about it. 568 00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:34,840 We have had those experiences earlier with different brands and we wanted to see how 569 00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:36,640 we can create that with our product. 570 00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:41,520 So did you add all these instructions about how to eat it, how to store it and all that 571 00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:42,520 before? 572 00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,440 Yeah, straight off the bat, we were sure we wanted to give these instructions. 573 00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:49,240 Initially, we were messaging it to customers, but then we realized nobody goes through a 574 00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:50,240 long message. 575 00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:51,240 It has to be made visual. 576 00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:54,480 A couple of weeks of starting, we had these printed cards with us. 577 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:58,560 And the early bit when you started off Ritesh, you told me that you used to take orders only 578 00:28:58,560 --> 00:28:59,560 on Saturday and Tuesday. 579 00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,800 What was the thinking behind that? 580 00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:05,240 You said this is my capacity and why Saturday and why Tuesday? 581 00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:06,240 It was simple. 582 00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,120 On Tuesdays, you would take orders for Thursday, Friday, Saturday. 583 00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,720 On Saturdays, you would take orders for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. 584 00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,680 It was only to make people feel like, oh, they didn't have to wait another week to order. 585 00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:18,960 That is the only thinking at that time. 586 00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:21,720 We knew that we had one hour at home. 587 00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:24,360 We have only as many hands at home. 588 00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:26,640 This is something that all of us were doing for the first time. 589 00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:30,080 Today, if you ask us to stand in the kitchen for the entire day, we can. 590 00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:34,080 But back then, like four or five hours and we would be lying down on the bed for like 591 00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:37,240 10 hours after that, because it was just so difficult. 592 00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:42,160 It was so much more manually driven where we were needing the doors by hand. 593 00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,320 We were doing every single thing possible by hand. 594 00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:50,840 Right now also, we only reduce the dependency on handmade things by maybe 5%. 595 00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,400 It's still 95% dependent on being handmade. 596 00:29:54,400 --> 00:30:00,440 In advertising, in any brand, perceived scarcity is always a great selling tool. 597 00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:04,120 We saw it first time that scarcity is a great selling tool. 598 00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:09,280 We also saw how quickly it became a habit for customers in the sense that there were 599 00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:10,400 two kinds of habits. 600 00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,960 One was the kind of customer who thought that, okay, great. 601 00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:16,120 I know I need to show up at this time and my order would be taken. 602 00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,320 The second kind of customer was no point. 603 00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:19,320 I'm not even going to try. 604 00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:24,040 Once you decided that you would take orders all the time, how was the transition managed? 605 00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:28,120 So we would have this Excel sheet, which we're still using, fortunately or unfortunately, 606 00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:32,200 where we would color code the number of boxes we would have available. 607 00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:34,720 Until those boxes were filled up, we were taking orders. 608 00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,520 And we would have three phones on which Instagram would be open. 609 00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:44,120 And three of us between Shikha, Shikha Siddharth, Riddhi and me, three of us would have our 610 00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,600 phones open and one laptop open in front of us. 611 00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:50,560 Okay, you're talking to this customer, you talk to this customer, you talk to this customer. 612 00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:53,480 All three of us would be entering, punching in the orders. 613 00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:55,320 And that's pretty much how we went. 614 00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,480 We would plan ahead that, okay, these are the number of slots we had. 615 00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:03,280 Every couple of weeks, you would try to say increase it by maybe one slot or half a slot 616 00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,480 or you would try to take in more customers. 617 00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:11,800 It was a lot of fun initially, but when people slowly started telling us, hey, if I want 618 00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:14,320 something for today, I really can't get something for today. 619 00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:15,320 Really? 620 00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,480 So those things started hitting us plus in two and a half months. 621 00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:22,360 So my mom was saying that now you guys are messing up my kitchen. 622 00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:24,400 So I think you guys should get out now. 623 00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:27,000 Shikha's first minions were my mom and I. 624 00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:31,040 So we were the ones who were sitting and working with Shikha day in and day out. 625 00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:35,360 For the longest time, I think another five, six months after that, my mom was still coming 626 00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:41,360 every day to the kitchen until we got enough people who then Shikha started training. 627 00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:43,520 That's just how we grew slowly. 628 00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:45,840 So how do you manage your inventory these days? 629 00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:47,480 I mean, how do you gauge? 630 00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:48,480 It's based on the orders. 631 00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:50,040 It's based on... 632 00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:55,400 Because we do this every day, we sort of go like, okay, what do we think we can sell today? 633 00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:57,600 That's just the basis of what we plan. 634 00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,320 There's no extrapolation of data yet. 635 00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:03,600 We want to move in that direction, but we still think we're too small. 636 00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,320 We're too hands on to not be able to do this. 637 00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:12,360 We call this my first job podcast, but I think in your case, it's been a journey of discovery 638 00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:14,360 in the sense that, okay, I like... 639 00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:16,360 Multiple first jobs. 640 00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:24,640 Yeah, a lot of people don't have this kind of breadth of exposure or the contacts or 641 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:26,920 the network that is normally available. 642 00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:31,120 Sometimes a fair amount of time is spent in just getting that network in place. 643 00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:35,200 But having got that on the outside, it seems that you build a business, but you really 644 00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:39,320 spoke about it when you said eight hour days when you're up on your feet and you're doing 645 00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,040 hand mixing and that's what it takes. 646 00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:47,440 I don't think people see that aspect of it at all because once it comes out into the 647 00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:51,960 it's delivered home, the effort never shows in the presentation. 648 00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,240 I mean, it was amazing like throughout. 649 00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:57,360 So we just had a baby boy about a month and a half back. 650 00:32:57,360 --> 00:32:59,960 So throughout her pregnancy as well, Shikha was working here. 651 00:32:59,960 --> 00:33:03,480 It was just something that brought so much joy to her as well. 652 00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:05,880 She's waiting right now to get back into the kitchen. 653 00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:10,840 There are days where, you know, we've showed up at 5am, 4am at the kitchen or left the 654 00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:14,920 kitchen at 12 in the night, 1 in the night and each of our product like bread as a process 655 00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:16,240 is a four hour process. 656 00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:17,960 From the start to finish, it takes four hours. 657 00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:23,520 Like you cannot squeeze that timeline without, of course, adding some sort of dirt into the 658 00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:24,520 breads. 659 00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:25,720 You cannot shorten that process. 660 00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:29,360 A lot of our customers probably don't realize that and for good reason, of course, we don't 661 00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,200 expect everyone to be aware of how a loaf of bread is made. 662 00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:33,960 So they expect that, okay, I'm placing an order now. 663 00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:35,280 Why can't I get it in an hour? 664 00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:38,640 Yeah, definitely if you make biryani, we would give it to you in an hour. 665 00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:43,400 But bread was something that takes the time it takes and teaches you a lot of patience 666 00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:45,360 as well because you have to wait. 667 00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:47,440 There's nothing you can do. 668 00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:53,160 That to a large extent is an analogy of how career is, how life is. 669 00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:57,800 You can put in the effort, but the results in this particular case, you know, if you 670 00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,880 put in this ingredient, you will get this result. 671 00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:06,000 But in a career, you can't just put in the effort and expect exactly the same results 672 00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:07,000 to come out. 673 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:08,000 Yeah, that's part of it. 674 00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:09,000 Absolutely. 675 00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:14,680 But it's amazing how you kind of, did you think it would be so much work when you started? 676 00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:15,680 Definitely not. 677 00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:19,360 So that simple assumption, if I say it in Hindi, it will happen. 678 00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:22,320 You know, it will happen. 679 00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:26,880 But a lot of times the effort that goes in, like at the end of the day, you hit the bed 680 00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:31,560 way more energetic than when you started the day because of just how good a day it was. 681 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:33,800 Sometimes you just hit the bed saying that I'm done with this. 682 00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:36,800 I can't see, I can't talk to another customer again. 683 00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:38,800 I can't see another piece of bread again. 684 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,800 That's just how you think. 685 00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:44,680 Do you think you're missing out on anything? 686 00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:45,680 Absolutely not. 687 00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:51,320 I think that we're very fortunate to have a great team who has our back even when they're 688 00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:52,320 not there. 689 00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,720 We're very fortunate to have great support in friends and family who are always there 690 00:34:55,720 --> 00:34:57,520 whenever we've called upon them. 691 00:34:57,520 --> 00:34:59,040 I don't think we're missing out on anything. 692 00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,800 There's always something we'll miss out on, but I don't think we regret any of that. 693 00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:03,800 Terrific. 694 00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,880 Real pleasure talking to you because it's quite a journey. 695 00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:10,520 There are conventional careers or at least they're seen as conventional careers. 696 00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:15,120 Go into a corporate organization, do a certain amount of work, learn, take it forward, get 697 00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:16,120 the next thing. 698 00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:20,960 Whereas you've kind of, maybe you didn't know that this is really be something that you 699 00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:22,040 wanted to do. 700 00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:27,760 But once you've gotten to it, I don't think both you and your wife just plunged into it. 701 00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:33,480 And I'm amazed that your mother went all through the right packaging. 702 00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:38,320 That's the kind of help that I think only a business family could really hope to get. 703 00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:43,320 There's a lot of gratefulness there, not just to the help we've had, but also to our customers, 704 00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,360 you know, who backed us through and through. 705 00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:47,560 We have some incredible customers. 706 00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:51,680 So good that we often don't even remember the bad ones, honestly. 707 00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,600 Close their eyes and just say that, okay, I'm giving this to you. 708 00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:58,000 We know that you guys are good, so you'll make something good happen. 709 00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:03,240 That kind of trust, at times that is scary because when you have that kind of a trust 710 00:36:03,240 --> 00:36:05,880 from a customer, the expectations are also very high. 711 00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:09,120 So it becomes all the more difficult for you to manage that. 712 00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:12,400 When we're opening the store now, so that's the biggest challenge that we are worried 713 00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:13,400 about internally. 714 00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:16,000 We've built this trust over the last two and a half years. 715 00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:20,080 So now how do we keep our customers happy through this process? 716 00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:24,800 You'll find a way to finish like you've done for everything else before this. 717 00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:25,800 Okay. 718 00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:26,800 Absolutely. 719 00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:27,800 So thank you for being on the show. 720 00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:34,480 It's been a wonderful experience talking to you and all the best for the show, the store, 721 00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:37,480 the expansion and for your career in future. 722 00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:38,480 Thank you. 723 00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:39,480 Thank you so much for having us. 724 00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:44,280 And on behalf of my team and on behalf of myself, thank you. 725 00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:46,840 Thank you, Ms. Deepa as well for having us here. 726 00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:53,200 My first job, the podcast is a production from Ideascape Communications. 727 00:36:53,200 --> 00:37:00,040 Guest relations, promotions and creative is managed by Deepa Ravi with occasional support 728 00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:02,200 by Venu Gopal Nair. 729 00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:19,880 Archiving and technical help is provided by LPS Jayachandran.