First Principles

Summary I have hosted First Principles for four years and 58 episodes, and I have never once stopped to look at it. This episode is me doing that. There is no guest. It runs about fourteen minutes, and it ends with something I need from you. Season 3 started with Vidit Aatrey of Meesho in April 2025 and ended with Mukesh Bansal in August 2026. A lawyer, a banker, a restaurateur and a venture capitalist were guests on a show I had built for founders. The businesses were trucks, fish, kitchens and bikes. And my questions moved away from fundraising and towards where a person came from and how they decide. Then I go back to seasons 1 and 2, from Kabeer Biswas in August 2022 to Manav Garg in May 2024, and show how the exceptions of season 2 became the categories of season 3. Season 4 widens the guest list on purpose: musicians, athletes, actors, writers and scientists, alongside the founders you come for. The founders were easy for me to find because they live in my world. The people I want next mostly don't. So…

Where Part 1 followed the companies, Part 2 is about the person behind them. Picking up from Mukesh Bansal's move from one venture to the next, this half gets into how he finds talent ("work with them for six months"), the mental models he runs his life by, and the beliefs underneath them. He explains why rationally no one should start a company, how he processes every rejection as "no means not now", why he writes three books by simply showing up to a blank page, and how he separated the longevity basics he trusts from the biohacking he no longer does. It ends close to home: loyalty as loyalty to a mission, what he wants for his two children, why parents' expectations matter less than they did, and a life he rates an 8 out of 10. Chapters 0:00 Where we left off 1:46 Finding talent: "work with them for six months" 3:23 The one open-ended question he asks 5:57 Winning vs looking good 8:00 The compounding argument, revisited 9:40 Learning vs winning: drawing the 2x2 11:17 Three books, and the annual look-back…

Mukesh Bansal has founded and left more companies than most people build in a lifetime, and in Part 1 he explains why. He founded Myntra and sold it to Flipkart; he co-founded Cult.fit and turned fitness into a category; and today he runs the AI company Nurix and the Meraki Labs studio. Asked what he is now, he says "a learner", and admits he gets bored the moment a company starts working. Part 1 traces the thesis and the companies: how he allocates his weeks, why he thinks the AI era rewards the hands-on operator over the people-manager, what Nurix and Fermi are, why Myntra's move into fashion was an "adjustment" not a pivot, and the small-town Haridwar upbringing and library habit that set him off. This is Part 1 of 2; Part 2 turns to the person, the mental models, and how he thinks about health, family and success. Chapters 0:00 Welcome and who Mukesh Bansal is 3:15 How First Principles is already connected to him 4:21 "Do you see yourself as an operator, a founder, an investor?" 5:27 Zero-to-one, and…

1 · Summary Part 2 of 2. Part 1 laid out the bet: a fund built only for Indian consumer brands, back when the idea sounded absurd, and the anti-power-law machine Kanwal Singh built to make it work. This half is the person. The near-decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him his love of consumer, the Intel years, and the Paper Boat conviction that taught him to back the founder over the idea. Then the man himself: parents who came to India as refugees from Pakistan, a father who kept collecting degrees while feeding the family, the coach he started seeing in his sixties and what separates coaching from therapy, and how he reads a founder by meeting their family. He turned down twice the money he could have raised. He rates his life a 10. 2 · Chapters 0:00 Part 2 intro 1:22 The Hindustan Lever decade that started it all 2:25 Intel Inside, and bringing the inside out 4:22 The Paper Boat conviction: backing the founder 6:38 What he adds as Fireside's "CEO," and value of good 17:53 Capping the fund: turning down 2x…

1 · Summary Part 1 of 2. Kanwal Singh is the first venture capitalist to appear on First Principles, and the reason is the bet he made with the fund itself. In 2017, at the peak of the tech boom, he walked away from tech investing to raise a fund only for Indian consumer brands, when almost nobody believed India had a consumer story worth venture capital. His first backers weren't institutions, they were the consumer families who had built India's brands. This half covers the whole bet: what investors actually said when he pitched a consumer-only fund, why he raised in India rather than abroad, the ownership and follow-on design he corrected fund after fund, his claim that most of his companies succeed rather than one outlier, and his working map of India 1, 2 and 3. Part 2 turns to the person behind it. 2 · Chapters 0:00 Cold open and Part 1 intro 3:27 What Fireside is, and why it exists 10:04 How the fund makes money 11:23 The stats: 9 years, 4 funds, 68 investments 12:50 Raising fund one: consumer…

Part 2 of 2. In Part 1 we walked the road from 2011 — three companies, an investor ultimatum, and the capital it took to build. Part 2 is the mind. Saahil Goel starts with what, given hindsight, he'd do differently, then the first principles he runs Shiprocket on (distribution beats product), the two or three metrics he genuinely obsesses over, his bet on applied AI, why he believes you can't actually manage people, who does and doesn't survive at the company, the guitar he still plays, his dog, and the question Rohin closes every episode with, which Saahil answers with a single number. Chapters 1:02 With hindsight, what he'd do differently 2:10 “A paisa of every transaction in India” 5:23 First principles: distribution beats product 11:32 The metrics he obsesses over 17:22 Betting on applied AI 29:33 “You can't manage people” 31:45 Who doesn't survive at Shiprocket 42:05 The guitar, Pink Floyd, and Bruno the CHO 58:28 The book he forgets — and how he reflects 1:00:50 Rating his life an 8 This episode was…

Part 1 of 2. Most people date Shiprocket to 2017; in truth it was born in 2011, and the road there runs through two companies called KartRocket and Craftly. Saahil Goel walks Rohin through the build: Rs 15 lakh of their own money, nearly not being hired by their own first engineers, the hard lesson that in India you sell outcomes not software, an investor ultimatum to take $4 million or nothing, and by the end, just how much capital it's taken to get from that first office to the edge of a public listing. Part 2 gets into how he actually thinks. Chapters 0:00 The company that started in 2011, not 2017 4:01 KartRocket: building an agency to learn the market 6:09 Bootstrapped on Rs 15 lakh 9:02 Why Indian SMBs wouldn't pay for software 17:58 “Take $4 million or nothing” 22:38 How Shiprocket was born 27:06 What Shiprocket actually is — and how it makes money 37:58 The IPO, and the state of the business 44:19 Quick commerce without owning a truck 48:42 From Delhi to a US career — and back 55:59 Lessons from…

Part 2 moves from the journey to the operating philosophy. Riyaaz Amlani unpacks his evolving stance on the aggregators — from resistance to "uneasy truce" — and the hard lesson that restaurateurs who send guests to Zomato and Swiggy have only themselves to blame. He argues delivery and dine-in are two different businesses, lays out his ambition to turn Impresario into a full-service-restaurant platform, and gets personal on hiring, Gen Alpha kids, weekends, and why his life scores 9.9 out of 10. CHAPTERS 00:00 Recap and what's ahead: aggregators, the platform, the missing 0.1 01:48 "Digital landlords": Zomato & Swiggy, then and now 02:47 From resistance to cohabitation; how aggregators trained demand 05:24 Owning the customer; the cross-sector aggregator tension 07:04 The Booking.com / Hotels.com parallel and how hotels fought back 09:41 Build your own loyalty — don't blame the aggregator 10:09 Delivery vs dine-in: two completely different businesses 13:09 Restaurants beat the movies; lessons from raising…

Part 1 of Rohin Dharmakumar's conversation with Riyaaz Amlani is the origin story: why a returning UCLA grad decided Bombay was missing "places to be," how Mocha became Social, and what it actually takes to keep a restaurant group alive for 25 years in the highest-mortality business there is. The shisha ban, the private-equity money that never arrived, COVID, the marble hustle at age six, and the real engine underneath it all: people. CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro: 95% fail by year two — and the man who didn't 01:46 Why Mocha in 2001: a city missing "places to be" 03:23 Bombay the "coolest cousin"; South Bombay snobbery moves to Bandra 05:05 The MTV / Gen X generation and a West-facing India 07:47 UCLA, entertainment management, and learning to live culture 11:29 What "Handmade" and "Impresario" mean 14:13 The business today: 80 restaurants, 900 cr, 5,500 people 15:29 Why restaurants die; learning from the community 18:02 People vs processes — and why he keeps returning to people 19:32 Social: the millennial third…

Part 2 picks up exactly where I left Bisu — on why a 7-year-old audio platform is releasing a theatrical film on May 8. From there, we go everywhere. Bisu's actual journey from a small village in Shekhawati to Bandra. The "full equation" view of metrics. Why saying no requires more work than saying yes. Why most of his learning comes from iterations, not books. And, in his closing answer, a quietly devastating line about the startup ecosystem itself. If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, please go back and start there first. Chapter list 01:02 — Indian Institute of Zombies: why theatrical, why in-house, why AI in the pipeline. The decision-making cadence behind it 01:08 — "Your vision grows with you." How the original vision changed from "premium storytelling for Bharat" to something larger 01:10 — Bathoth → Shekhawati → IIT Jodhpur → Bandra. Studying in Hindi until Class 10, then +2 in Hindi, then English at IIT 01:18 — The discipline of saying no. Why nos require more work than yeses, and why nos are usually…

Lal Chand Bisu started Kuku in audio in 2018. Almost everyone in the press wrote them off — the louder competitor was getting the headlines, the VCs didn't believe vernacular India would pay, and the assumption was that short-video would flatten audio. None of that aged well. Kuku FM did ₹242 Cr in FY25 at 175% YoY growth, with roughly 10 million paying subscribers. This is the conversation Bisu, who is just not the kind of founder who walks around telling you these numbers, finally agreed to do. In Part 1, we get into the company history, the pivots, the contrarian decision to cut the free tier, and what 40 million Hindi listens to Rich Dad Poor Dad really mean. Chapter list 00:00 — How old is Kuku FM, and what Bisu was doing before (Easy Prep, two and a half years at Toppr) 00:02 — June birthdays, coincidence, and Bisu's definition of luck — "most things are out of control" 00:04 — The three pivots: podcast aggregator → UGC → PUGC. What killed each one and what was kept constant 00:09 — Why vernacular…

Welcome back to First Principles. This is Part 2 of our full conversation with Ankit Nagori, founder and CEO of Curefoods. If you have not listened to Part 1, go back and start there. In this half, the conversation slows down a little and gets even more interesting. Ankit has strong opinions about why healthy food will always lose to biryani on a Friday night, what building a brand people actually love looks like, and what a Unilever of foods means to him. He is also candid about how he hires, how he spends his Sundays with his son, and what drives him beyond the business. _________ This episode was produced by Uddantika Kashyap and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN. Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.

Welcome to First Principles. This is Part 1 of our full conversation with Ankit Nagori, founder and CEO of Curefoods. Ankit joined Flipkart as the 22nd employee after cold emailing its founders at a book fair with almost no relevant experience and within six years he was Chief Business Officer. He then co-founded Cult with Mukesh Bansal, built it into one of India's most recognised fitness brands, and spun out Curefoods in the middle of a pandemic when the business was down to 2 crores a month. In this half, Rohin and Ankit get into what those Flipkart years really felt like, what talent density means and whether you can actually design for it, and how Curefoods found its footing when everything was falling apart. ________ This episode was produced by Uddantika Kashyap and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN. Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to…

Welcome to First Principles! This is part 2 of episode 52, the full conversation. Rohin met Utham Gowda at Spacebot Studio in Indiranagar on a Tuesday afternoon. Utham was compact, measured, and precise in the way he spoke, like someone who has spent years learning when to talk and when to listen. What's striking was how quickly he opened up. Within the first half hour of the conversation, you got the sense that this is someone who has thought very deeply about his own life, his choices, and what drives him. It makes for one of the best examples on this podcast of a guest easing into a conversation and then, almost without noticing, going places you didn't expect. The story itself is hard to believe. A kid from landlocked Mysore, with no connection to the sea, no family background in business, builds a billion-dollar global seafood company. He took salary cuts at every job change, even after getting married. He has never owned a car and the highest tax he paid was in 2015. And his eight-year-old son, unable…

Welcome to First Principles! This is part 1 of episode 52, the full conversation. Rohin met Utham Gowda at Spacebot Studio in Indiranagar on a Tuesday afternoon. Utham was compact, measured, and precise in the way he spoke, like someone who has spent years learning when to talk and when to listen. What's striking was how quickly he opened up. Within the first half hour of the conversation, you got the sense that this is someone who has thought very deeply about his own life, his choices, and what drives him. It makes for one of the best examples on this podcast of a guest easing into a conversation and then, almost without noticing, going places you didn't expect. The story itself is hard to believe. A kid from landlocked Mysore, with no connection to the sea, no family background in business, builds a billion-dollar global seafood company. He took salary cuts at every job change, even after getting married. He has never owned a car and the highest tax he paid was in 2015. And his eight-year-old son, unable…

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to part 2 of the 51st episode of First Principles. Ms. Kalpana Morparia reached out to us via email after the bro-ification episode. It was the most pleasant surprise and we immediately knew we had to get her on the podcast. Here's someone who joined ICICI in 1975 as a lawyer, had absolutely no background in finance, and was then asked to run Treasury. She was terrified but her colleagues told her: "You do not say no to Mr. Kamath and live to have a great career in ICICI." So she said yes and built one of the most remarkable careers in Indian banking. She talks about the ICICI culture where contradicting the chairman wasn't just allowed, it was encouraged. A senior JPMorgan executive once said the most impressive thing about ICICI was that "the junior-most person could contradict the chairman and get away with it." She also gets candid about things most leaders don't talk about. Like why she wishes she had done an MBA. Why she has strong opinions about people's physical…

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to part 1 of the 51st episode of First Principles. Ms. Kalpana Morparia reached out to us via email after the bro-ification episode. It was the most pleasant surprise and we immediately knew we had to get her on the podcast. Here's someone who joined ICICI in 1975 as a lawyer, had absolutely no background in finance, and was then asked to run Treasury. She was terrified but her colleagues told her: "You do not say no to Mr. Kamath and live to have a great career in ICICI." So she said yes and built one of the most remarkable careers in Indian banking. She talks about the ICICI culture where contradicting the chairman wasn't just allowed, it was encouraged. A senior JPMorgan executive once said the most impressive thing about ICICI was that "the junior-most person could contradict the chairman and get away with it." She also gets candid about things most leaders don't talk about. Like why she wishes she had done an MBA. Why she has strong opinions about people's physical…

In the 2nd part of the 50th episode of First Principles, Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder of Darwinbox, joins the show to talk about what changes after the early chaos of a startup fades. He explains how Darwinbox has operated without a CEO for years, how the 3 founders divide ownership of decisions instead of debating everything together, and why this structure helped them move faster as the company grew. Rohit also gets specific about product building. He talks about designing HR software that does not need training sessions or long explanations, why adoption matters more than feature depth, and how small product decisions can end up shaping behaviour across entire organisations. The conversation also turns inward. Rohit reflects on moments where intelligence stopped being the advantage he thought it was, why staying with uncomfortable problems mattered more, and how his understanding of leadership changed as Darwinbox scaled. This episode looks at company building through real decisions, and what it takes…

In part 1 of the 50th episode of First Principles, Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder of Darwinbox, joins the show to talk about what changes after the early chaos of a startup fades. He explains how Darwinbox has operated without a CEO for years, how the 3 founders divide ownership of decisions instead of debating everything together, and why this structure helped them move faster as the company grew. Rohit also gets specific about product building. He talks about designing HR software that does not need training sessions or long explanations, why adoption matters more than feature depth, and how small product decisions can end up shaping behaviour across entire organisations. The conversation also turns inward. Rohit reflects on moments where intelligence stopped being the advantage he thought it was, why staying with uncomfortable problems mattered more, and how his understanding of leadership changed as Darwinbox scaled. This episode looks at company building through real decisions, and what it takes to keep…

What a year it's been. After a long hiatus and when we thought we'd closed the curtains for good, First Principles came back in April 2025 for Season 3. And what made this comeback so special? Simple: Rohin was genuinely excited to be back in the interviewing chair. That excitement is infectious. It showed up in every conversation and every question. This year, he sat down with eight incredible CEOs and founders who opened up about their journeys, their philosophies, their wins, and their struggles. These were deep, candid conversations about what it really takes to build something meaningful. In this special wrap episode, Rohin looks back at all eight conversations from 2025. He gives you the context about what it was really like sitting across from each guest, the moments that surprised him, the insights that stuck with him and then we play you the clips that mattered most. Think of it as a guided tour through the year's best moments. And here's the thing we're most proud of: First Principles has been…

Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the part 2 of the 49th episode since we started, or the 8th episode of season 3. In this episode, I sit down with Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO of Ixigo, one of India's fastest-growing and most downloaded travel platforms. While most Indian OTAs followed the Western template of flights-first followed by hotels, Aloke and his co-founder Rajnish took a radically different path. The one that would take nearly 14 years before Ixigo became a full-blown OTA. Aloke takes us through Ixigo's unconventional journey, starting as a meta-search engine in 2007 that couldn't raise funding for over a year. We explore how the insight that 96% of Indians don't fly, led them to build a train-first platform, spending four years creating utility features without any monetization. He breaks down the technical innovation behind solving India-specific problems. Right from predicting waitlist confirmations using machine learning to creating a crowdsourced running status system using cell…

Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the part 1 of the 49th episode since we started, or the 8th episode of season 3. In this episode, I sit down with Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO of Ixigo, one of India's fastest-growing and most downloaded travel platforms. While most Indian OTAs followed the Western template of flights-first followed by hotels, Aloke and his co-founder Rajnish took a radically different path. The one that would take nearly 14 years before Ixigo became a full-blown OTA. Aloke takes us through Ixigo's unconventional journey, starting as a meta-search engine in 2007 that couldn't raise funding for over a year. We explore how the insight that 96% of Indians don't fly, led them to build a train-first platform, spending four years creating utility features without any monetization. He breaks down the technical innovation behind solving India-specific problems. Right from predicting waitlist confirmations using machine learning to creating a crowdsourced running status system using cell…

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 2 of the conversation. The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak, a veteran operator and former product head at Paytm, was the go-to source for his data-filled, analytical posts. That same data-driven curiosity is what led Deepak to walk away from corporate life in 2019. He was clear: he didn't want to just manage; he had years left to actively "build products, you know, with my own hands". What he built was Indiagold, targeting the massive opportunity of gold in a market VCs often dismissed as an 'old economy product'. In this episode, Rohin sat down with Deepak Abbot, co-founder of Indiagold, to discuss how they are transforming India's massive $1.5 trillion gold reserve—an asset often…

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 1 of the conversation. The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak, a veteran operator and former product head at Paytm, was the go-to source for his data-filled, analytical posts. That same data-driven curiosity is what led Deepak to walk away from corporate life in 2019. He was clear: he didn't want to just manage; he had years left to actively "build products, you know, with my own hands". What he built was Indiagold, targeting the massive opportunity of gold in a market VCs often dismissed as an 'old economy product'. In this episode, Rohin sat down with Deepak Abbot, co-founder of Indiagold, to discuss how they are transforming India's massive $1.5 trillion gold reserve—an asset often…

Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the 47th episode since we started, or the 6th episode of season 3. In this episode, I sit down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, principled art of building a lasting institution. Rahul provides a rare, inside look into the unique challenges of building a professional services firm—a business where the people are the product. He breaks down the counterintuitive models Trilegal adopted to foster a culture of collaboration over individual stardom. We explore their radical “all-equity partnership” and the “lockstep” compensation model, designed to de-risk the firm from becoming dependent on individual “rainmakers” and to align everyone’s incentives towards collective success. A key theme is the power of compounding principles. Rahul explains how…

In this episode, Rohin Dharmakumar sits down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, principled art of building a lasting institution. Rahul provides a rare, inside look into the unique challenges of building a professional services firm—a business where the people are the product. He breaks down the counterintuitive models Trilegal adopted to foster a culture of collaboration over individual stardom. We explore their radical “all-equity partnership” and the “lockstep” compensation model, designed to de-risk the firm from becoming dependent on individual “rainmakers” and to align everyone’s incentives towards collective success. A key theme is the power of compounding principles. Rahul explains how foundational decisions made 25 years ago, such as not naming the firm after its founders and instilling a “firm…

Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap. Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did. In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire up their respective laptops and code a new customer engagement platform. In just a few months, WizRocket, as it was then called, found its first – albeit non-paying customer. Then, in fairly short order, word-of-mouth driven inbound Seed and Series A investments. Over time it became Clevertap, raising over $180M in VC funding and becoming a globally used and respected product. As it turns out though, one of Clevertap’s operating philosophies is, well, First Principles. A strong reason is because Anand himself is a strong believer in it. At the age of 12 he lost his dad. Thus, at an age when kids are taught to focus only on…

Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap. Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did. In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire up their respective laptops and code a new customer engagement platform. In just a few months, WizRocket, as it was then called, found its first – albeit non-paying customer. Then, in fairly short order, word-of-mouth driven inbound Seed and Series A investments. Over time it became Clevertap, raising over $180M in VC funding and becoming a globally used and respected product. As it turns out though, one of Clevertap’s operating philosophies is, well, First Principles. A strong reason is because Anand himself is a strong believer in it. At the age of 12 he lost his dad. Thus, at an age when kids are taught to focus only on…

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link. Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. - My first introduction, and indeed my ongoing and recurring one, to Ultraviolette has been personal. For years, driving by the Inner Koramangala Inner Ring Road from where I stay to Indiranagar, the Ultraviolette showroom would always catch my eye on the left. I used to constantly wonder about those really cool bikes hanging from cables in the double-ceiling office, intrigued by what kind of bikes they were. Coincidentally, Ultraviolette was founded in the same year that The Ken also started. We've both been in Bangalore, both in a similar part of town, for most of that time. And yet,…

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link. Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. - My first introduction, and indeed my ongoing and recurring one, to Ultraviolette has been personal. For years, driving by the Inner Koramangala Inner Ring Road from where I stay to Indiranagar, the Ultraviolette showroom would always catch my eye on the left. I used to constantly wonder about those really cool bikes hanging from cables in the double-ceiling office, intrigued by what kind of bikes they were. Coincidentally, Ultraviolette was founded in the same year that The Ken also started. We've both been in Bangalore, both in a similar part of town, for most of that time. And yet,…

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link. Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. - Manish Sabharwal isn’t an easy man to nail down. By that, I don’t just mean it was hard to nail down a time on his calendar to meet me for the podcast, which it was. Like with most founders and guests on First Principles, the gap between when I first invite them and when they finally appear is usually measured in months, sometimes years. I had first emailed Manish for First Principles in January 2023. But I’m saying Manish is hard to nail down also because he defies - resists - categorisation. Sure, he co-founded Teamlease, one of India’s largest recruitment and human resource…

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link. Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. - Manish Sabharwal isn’t an easy man to nail down. By that, I don’t just mean it was hard to nail down a time on his calendar to meet me for the podcast, which it was. Like with most founders and guests on First Principles, the gap between when I first invite them and when they finally appear is usually measured in months, sometimes years. I had first emailed Manish for First Principles in January 2023. But I’m saying Manish is hard to nail down also because he defies - resists - categorisation. Sure, he co-founded Teamlease, one of India’s largest recruitment and human resource…

Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally. Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now. It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back alleys filled with cashewnut and mango trees before ending up on a dusty highway, dodging traffic next to an under-construction flyover. By the time I got to the studio where I was meeting Sahil, my adventure quota for the day was almost over. I loved it. This was the first time I was meeting Sahil. We’d only exchanged emails with each other. He’s tall, lean and bearded. There’s a certain air of seriousness, for want of a better word, to him. A professorial sort. I steeled myself, expecting our conversation to be a bit stiff. But Sahil completely surprised me. Because he felt completely at ease diving into answers,…

Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally. Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now. It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back alleys filled with cashewnut and mango trees before ending up on a dusty highway, dodging traffic next to an under-construction flyover. By the time I got to the studio where I was meeting Sahil, my adventure quota for the day was almost over. I loved it. This was the first time I was meeting Sahil. We’d only exchanged emails with each other. He’s tall, lean and bearded. There’s a certain air of seriousness, for want of a better word, to him. A professorial sort. I steeled myself, expecting our conversation to be a bit stiff. But Sahil completely surprised me. Because he felt completely at ease diving into answers,…

Welcome to First Principles. This is the second part of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and CEO of Meesho, which we had released in full for Premium subscribers of The Ken last week and is also available to subscribers of The Ken Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Vidit and I discussed a lot of things. From the way his upbringing grounded him, the way he approaches hiring at Meesho and how he approaches life now as a parent. It’s a wonderful 40 minutes where I spent some time talking to Vdit about how he continues to look beyond the horizon to find answers to the more ambiguous questions Meesho faces now. And at the end of it, he has a wonderful book recommendation for everyone. I picked up a copy myself after our conversation. I hope you had the chance to listen to the first part of our conversation, where he covered Meesho’s history of growth and pivots and how it has aligned with the changes and demands of its customers. Here’s the link to part 1 of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey -…

I met Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder and CEO of Meesho, on 14th February, exactly two months ago. We met at Spacebot Studios in Indiranagar. Vidit is tall, lean and clean-shaven. He is a careful listener and a measured speaker. When you ask him a question, you get the sense he’s spending time parsing all its meanings, and then playing out a few versions of responses in his head, perhaps doing a little bit of editing, before replying. Of course, all of this happens in a few seconds, so it’s easy to miss unless you are, well, having a conversation with him for over two hours. That’s enough time for both of us to pick and read cues from each other. Think about it. Can you spend two hours in a room having a truly open-ended, candid and widespread discussion with another person about their life, their business, their colleagues, their company and its culture, and even their family, without getting to really know them? I’d been wanting to have Vidit as a guest on First Principles for a while, even during our first two…

From over here at The Ken's newsroom, we have a very exciting announcement: our first premium podcast – India's first premium business podcast – is now live! It's called Two by Two – and this podcast will be your personal investigative brain. Each week Two by Two will be where hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan will be joined by a few interesting and opinionated guests to discuss some of the biggest questions from the world of Indian business. But, why's it called Two by Two? Here it is: each episode of the Two by Two podcast will feature an important story investigated and discussed and visualized as a 2x2. A simple matrix that's the purest form of conflict – that places the players and their motivations on both axes. Along with incredible guests, the hosts will discuss what is going on, why is it happening, who gains and who loses, and where is all of this leading to? Two by Two is a premium podcast – but for now, the first episode is free for all listeners. On this episode, the hosts speak…

Hello, we're back again with part 2 of our final, final supercut where we’ve spliced together one interesting bit of conversation from the last 21 guests I interviewed on First Principles. And like the last episode where we covered founders 1 to 20, you’ll hear super sharp slices of a few minutes each which are reflections on their approach to organization building, risk taking, decision making and life living. Here are the guests you’ll get listen to in this episode: Krish Subramanian, co-founder and CEO of Chargebee; Varun Dua, founder of Acko; Yashish Dahiya, co-founder and Group CEO of Policybazaar; Archit Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Clear; M N Srinivasu, co-founder and Director of Billdesk; Radhika Gupta, MD and CEO of Edelweiss Asset Management; Lalit Keshre, co-founder and CEO of Groww; Niraj Singh, founder and CEO of Spinny; Karthik Jayaraman, Managing Director of Waycool; Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of Oyo; Soumya Rajan, founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors; Viren Shetty, Executive Vice…

I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t the First Principles podcast draw its curtains? Yes we did. But then we decided to do a final super-splice of every single episode we did. There were 41 founders. A bit too many for a single supercut episode, don’t you think? So, here’s the first 20. We went through all the episodes and picked a few minutes from each that we felt captured the essence of the specific founder and their approach to entrepreneurship, leadership, and well, life. You’ll listen to Kabeer Biswas, co-founder and CEO of Dunzo; Baskar Subramamian, co-founder and CEO of Amagi; Nithin Kamath, co-founder and CEO of Zerodha; Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO at InMobi; Ananth Narayanan, founder and CEO of Mensa Brands; Harshil Mathur, co-founder and CEO of Razorpay; Vineeta Singh, co-founder and CEO of Sugar Cosmetics; Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs; Amit Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of NoBroker; Tarun Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Ather Energy; Deep Kalra, founder and chairman of MakeMyTrip; Ruchi Kalra,…

First Principles is coming to an end. But it's not the end of the road for you as listeners. We still want to hear from you and know what you expect from the podcasts from The Ken. Let us know with your suggestions and critique. We'd love to know your thoughts and you can let us know here. Also, you can always write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your thoughts.

Becoming an entrepreneur is a leap of faith. Regardless of when or even if your business sees the light of day, starting up is still a tremendously hard thing for someone to take up, work on and say out loud to the world. The leap of faith still exists when you're a woman founder, but with a bunch of other variables you didn't ask for also thrown in. But I'll tell you what doesn't change. It still takes the same amount of passion, the joy of building, stress, frustration and the ability to manage fires that might go off anytime to keep the ship steady, and eventually succeed in the long run. Being a woman founder does present its own challenges and hurdles that are often unexpected or even patronising. Because if you've decided to jump into the world of terrible and exciting, then these are just additional hoops that you have to jump through. That's why role models matter. I must confess we - I - have been disappointed at not being able to get a lot more woman founders and their stories on First Principles.…

In the first part of my conversation with Manav Garg, I introduced him as the founder of Eka Software. This week, I would like to reintroduce Manav as a venture capitalist and the co-founder of Together Fund, a VC firm. Well, you know how I feel about having venture capitalists on First Principles if you've listened to my conversation with Alok Mittal. I had said in that conversation that venture capitalists are facilitators or enablers, not builders or doers. Manav, too, like Alok Mittal earlier, has been at both ends, being a facilitator and also being in the thick of building an organisation. A few months ago, he fully transitioned into being a venture capitalist and has raised almost $150 million for Together Fund's Fund II(Fund Two), which is almost double the $85 million they raised for their first fund. Manav terms Together as a founder and 'operator-led' firm, and that distinguishes it from other VC funds. Manav explained it as, "So we are the people who can, you know, roll our sleeves with them and…

"This notion of a startup should be centered around the founder is a mindset. It makes for great stories. It makes for great heroes. And that's the reason why that sustains But, you know, there are great organizations that have been built where founders did not believe in that. And the organizations sustain even after the founder leaves." That's what Alok Mittal, founder and MD of Indifi, an online lending platform, had to say about startups getting caught up in the founder-worshipping trap. I hope you have heard my first episode with him. I often ask founders if they believe in the concept of a founder-led organization. Or how they're planning for a post-founder future for their organization. Because like Alok, I do believe that just like a parent's role is to eventually step back and let go of their child, so it is for founders. But that's not easy when we're living in the golden age of founders. Where co-founder tags are coveted much more than CEO titles. It's not easy for many founders to let go. But…

“As I said, I am from a middle-class family. I was earning $10,000/month, which is a large sum in those days. And sitting in Singapore, Bangkok, travelling around the world. So my the larger question in my mind is that how do I take the decision?” says Manav Garg. Manav Garg, founder and former CEO of Eka Software, a SaaS company that operates in the global commodities trading space. "Former CEO" because Manav started Eka in 2004 and just sold it earlier this year. Since Manav was earning $10K a month back in the early 2000s, we talked about golden handcuffs. You know, when people earn so much that they become risk averse? A lot of people are attracted to the lure of startups but not necessarily the grind that comes with them. Including much, much lower pay. “So, my competition was TriplePoint, Openlink, SAP. Large companies, at that time. $100 million plus companies. So, I started calling them. Cold calling. And few of them didn't pick up my phone. One person luckily picked up my phone saying, ‘Please don't…

Jaydeep Barman has settled into his role of being a CEO for quite some time now. He admits he was not always the nicest of people when they restarted or ‘actually started’ Faasos, which later became Rebel Foods, as a QSR chain in 2011. He would be unreasonable and brash with the people he worked with and in his own words “must have rubbed people the wrong way”. But with time he has gained perspective, as one does when they go through all those experiences. Now, he’s thankful for all those who remained despite him not being the best boss. Today Jaydeep believes Rebel has found its way but he resists to rest in this fast changing world even though he stands by one belief: People’s love for good quality food will always be there and till the day that doesn’t change Rebel will be very much in business. In the first part of our conversation with Jaydeep he recounted the journey of Rebel Foods, a lot of anecdotes about the restaurant industry at large, how he hires people with founder’s mentality and not LinkedIn…

Alok Mittal has been on both ends of the startup ecosystem. He’s been a founder and a VC. These days he’s back in the founder’s seat but still enabling businesses but through his lending platform Indifi which lends money to Small and Medium Enterprises or SMEs. He has very strong thoughts about org building even though he admits Indifi is only 9 years old. He speaks from his observations and his strong beliefs. In Alok’s mind it’s the mid-management which holds together the organization and not necessarily the leadership team. Alok also has the history of setting up three ventures, which includes the part he played in setting up Canaan Partners, a VC firm in India. Then of course there is JobsAhead which was his first startup and now he’s busy lending to the sector which contributes to 30% of the country’s GDP, and yet finds credit hard to come by. Alok hung up his VC shoes in 2015 to solve this problem and take on the problem of lending to SMEs, the ones who were being given a pass by traditional banks and…

Rebel Foods was incorporated in 2015. Before that it was Faasos and Faasos has been around since 2004. But co-founder and CEO Jaydeep Barman says back in 2004 when he and his co-founder Kallol Banerjee started it, they didn’t look at it as a means of living. It existed to some extent, primarily, to fulfil their own craving for good Calcutta rolls as Pune, where both of them were living at the time, didn't have any nice joints for the same. A few years after starting it both of them left it behind to go and do their second MBAs from INSEAD and after completing it Jaydeep went on to work for McKinsey in London and Kallol headed to Bosch in Singapore. But the dream of having their own company brought them back to Pune in 2011 and this time they were serious about making Faasos huge. They wanted to make it a QSR chain in the image of McDonald’s and Dominos of the world, but catering to the Indian taste buds. They raised some venture capital and got a few angel investors and decided to fire up their journey to…

When Chetan Maini – co-founder and chairman of SUN Mobility – stepped down as Mahindra Reva CEO in 2015, he wasn’t thinking what was the next venture to start. In fact even though he stepped down he was still involved in the space. His time was still spent in understanding the possibilities electric mobility could unlock for the world and how these possibilities were being explored around the world. He was still involved in setting up and innovating the Formula E division at Mahindra, he still helped Anand Mahindra every now and then on strategic matters in Mahindra’s electric division, he was working with the government, he also helped the BMTC take a part of its fleet electric and the list goes on. One could say he stepped down to get a better view of the possibilities in electric mobility. He was not looking for opportunities actively during this period, he was merely synthesising what possibilities were feasible. He did travel across the world during this break but even during that time he was looking at…

What does your company do? There are many ways to answer this question. Most founders have a really good answer, some have a meandering one. Well, let’s just say it’s always a compelling answer. This week we have five founders to answer that question on a broader range. They function in very competitive sectors and are successfully making their mark in their respective sectors by innovating and more appropriately reinventing the wheel. First up, we have newly inducted Shark, Radhika Gupta of Edelweiss Asset Management telling us what her company does for its customers, and what she doesn’t want her customers to not do through a great example. Next up, we have Lalit Keshre of Groww, who is very clear who the target consumer for his company is. Starting off as robo-advisory and then pivoting into the mutual fund sector and now on their way to become a complete financial services platform. We have another Shark from the Shark Tank panel featured in this episode. Ritesh Agarwal of Oyo Rooms has built Oyo in his…

Our guest for this episode has a very specific weekly routine. Pilates - once a week. Strength training - once a week. Aqua therapy - once a week Functional training, swimming, breathing exercises, meditating daily with just a little trouble Golfing three times a week followed up with posture exercises And very recently, experimenting with intermittent fasting. Maybe you’re imagining a very specific type of person. A really fit, disciplined person – perhaps, a fitness influencer? Well, you ‘re kind of right. You could say the person I’m talking about is very much an influencer. And he’s fit too. He’s huge on LinkedIn, where he is part of the Top Voice program. On Twitter or X, he has close to a million followers. He’s very popular online. So, really, if you think about it, he could turn into a fitness influencer if he wanted to. But, here’s the thing. We're not talking about a young, health obsessed fitness influencer. This is the routine of a 72-year-old, health obsessed, and I must add restless founder and…