https://youtu.be/wGbOvHIpp5o

Transcript Darshan Doshi (00:14)Today, I'm going to talk about setting and killing your fitness goals. Now, if you've gone through the GetFit Podcast series, you would have listened to Lavanya, become an ultramarathoner, you've listened to Ram Iyer, do all the things what an athlete does. Now, your goal could be to just stay fit or it could be to become ultramarathoner or it could be to become an athlete. Whatever your goal is, how do you achieve them?Darshan Doshi (00:41)There are four ways that have helped me to achieve my fitness goal. First is ambition, and I'm going to talk to you about all four of them today. Second is focus. Third is sacrifice, and fourth is discipline. All right? Ambition, focus, sacrifice, discipline is what is needed for you to set and achieve your fitness goals. I'll give you the most recent fitness goal that I have achieved. Mid August, me and few friends decided that we will go do an international trip because we've been in Pune for the last couple of years with COVID and the various lockdowns that we've had. Now we decided that we'd go to Maldives during Diwali time. The kids have holiday that time. That's the only time that we could step out of the country. And Maldives seemed to be a good place for us to enjoy our vacation. Come September, we finalized the booking and there was about six weeks of planning, six to seven weeks, which gave me enough time to come up with a goal with my trainer in one of the workouts. I said, we are six weeks away. Why don't we do a six week fitness sprint where I try and achieve a six-pack abs? So it looks good in Maldives. Now, very simple goal. There was nothing more to it than try and convert what was already being done into a fitness goal. We agreed upon it.Darshan Doshi (02:12)We said, all right, not six pack abs, but let's tone up the body, shape up the body as much as possible. Now, mind you, I was already doing, I had done about 350 plus sessions in the last two years, about 25,000 minutes of workout in the last two years. So I'm in good shape. I'm doing four workouts. My weight was about 73 kgs. I was still enjoying my two cups of tea, one cheat day and enjoying bread, rice, dal, all of the good food made at home. But in order to achieve my goal first was ambition. I told you what the ambition was. The second was the discipline. So the discipline around nutrition. I would focus on protein heavy diet. What that means is no outside food, no cheat day, no tea, no sugar, no coffee, no rice, no bread, no roti. And I am a vegetarian, I don't even eat eggs. So there are only very few cases of protein intake that I can have, rajma, dal, protein powder. So I had to increase that a little bit.Darshan Doshi (03:26)Now, in the last six weeks that was on the nutrition bit. On the second bit on exercise, I still did about four weeks of workout, but they were much more intense, and I added three sessions of walking about 40 45 minutes or climbing the Hill, making it a seven day workout. Now, every alternate week, we took one Sunday off, which wasn't too bad. Now, in the last week, something happened. You have to have the discipline and you have to have the sacrifice in place, right? You need the discipline. My trainer, Ashish decided to trek Sandakphu, which is in Himalayas. It's about a week long trek. Out of these six weeks, if he's gone one week, it gives me an excuse to not follow the routine that we had set.Darshan Doshi (04:17)It takes this one simple thing for all of it to fall apart. But me and my friend Gaurav, we decided to climb Sinhagad. Sinhagad is a trek which is not too bad here outside of Pune, and we did that twice last week while my trainer was away. Not only did I continue focusing on the fitness routine and the nutrition, but I actually upped the game a little bit working all seven days and not taking a rest day. This week, now that my trainer is back, we are back to five days in the gym and then two days of walk just

https://youtu.be/v6hh-YqcULc

TranscriptDarshan Doshi (00:10)Hi, everyone. Welcome back to DASAR. As a part of the Fitness podcast series, what we are calling as GetFit. I have an incredible guest with me, Lavanya Tekumalla. I've known Lavanya for a few months, and I just recently saw her social media update where she had completed an Ultra Marathon. Now, I don't know a lot about Ultra Marathon, so I reached out to her to just learn about what is an Ultra Marathon. What does it take to become an Ultra Marathoner? But just a quick introduction about Lavanya. Lavanya is the founder of machinelearninginterview.com. She's also doing a PhD in machine learning at IISc, Bangalore. She's an ex Amazon InMobi and Myntra. So we have someone with us who is a thorough professional who thrives in her domain of expertise, which is machine learning, data, science, analytics and the world. And so as a part of the GetFit podcast series, we try to bring to you people who have competing expectations.  So you're running a house, you are running a job, you're running a company. But fitness is important to you, and you're doing something about it. And so that is what we want to decode in this GetFit podcast series. So, Lavanya, thanks a lot for joining this morning. And I'm absolutely excited about this podcast.Lavanya Tekumalla (01:39)Thank you, Darshan, for having me here. It's lovely.Darshan Doshi (01:43)Great. So, Lavanya, let's just get straight into this, right. You've completed an Ultra Marathon. Now for someone who doesn't know what an Ultra Marathon is, I know what a Marathon is. I know what a half marathon is. I know what a 10K is, what a 5K is. But what's an Ultra Marathon, really? And how did you come about thinking about doing an Ultra Marathon?Lavanya Tekumalla (02:03)Right. So Ultra Marathon is any distance beyond a marathon distance. So marathon is 42.195 kms. And Ultra Marathon is any distance beyond this. So Ultra Marathons could be like 50 km, 80 km, 100 km, and so on. So what I ran recently, Hennur Bamboo Ultra was a 100 kilometer Ultra Marathon.Darshan Doshi (02:30)Wow. 100 km. And in what duration did you run these 100 km?Lavanya Tekumalla (02:36)So I completed it in 16 hours and 5 minutes.Darshan Doshi (02:40)Wow. That's just incredible. 16 hours you're running. I don't think I could run more than 30-35 minutes. I have done a 10K. So I have ran a 10K, but that's probably the max that I have ran. So is this the first Ultra Marathon that you've ran? And I just wanted to get a sense of have you been a marathoner right throughout?Lavanya Tekumalla (03:05)Right. So this is the first Ultra Marathon that I ran, but I have been running for four plus years. And I did run a marathon distance a few times before. So at least two races. And, like, five to six times, I ran the 42 km. And the next thing was, I would still say I'm a relatively new runner because four years is not very long into running. And I wanted to try different distances. So in fact 50 was what I had in mind when I wanted to try an ultra. And in fact, I wanted to do it on my birthday. I'm turning 40 this year. So I thought, okay, I'll do my first ultra, but then COVID was at its peak, and that didn't happen. And it turned out that Prasanna, my husband, PK he's called, is actually turning 42 this year in October. And then 100K race was there exactly on his birthday. So it's like it's a good thing to actually go and try to do it.Darshan Doshi (04:04)Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And so, sorry, a lot of questions coming to my mind. And you're saying you've done a few marathons. You've been running only for four years. I think people don't even make it through for four months. So that's a long duration enough. But again, you know, one of the things at DASAR we say is consistency over intensity. But you seem to be matching consistency with intensity, which is the next level, of course. So this is your first Ultra Marathon. You have already gone to 100K. What was prepar

https://youtu.be/GTdOJwv-FxI

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Coming soon...

If you liked this podcast, you may also want to listen to:

How to Start Training like a Triathlete? Ram Iyer | GetFit | Fitness Podcast | DASAR

Myth Busting: Personal Finance is Easier Than You Think | Darshan Doshi | Managing Money | Wealth | DASAR Podcast

Experience Design (XD): How to Create Experiences That Transform People | Garrett Gatlin | Adeption | Leadership | Learning & Development | Podcast | SaaS

Gaining Financial Independence | Darshan Doshi | Personal Finance | Financial Freedom | Optionality | Career | Wealth

D2C Brands | Creating #1 Consumer Food Brand | Ravi Nigam | Tasty Bite | IPO | M&A

Building Enterprise Tech Products | Shridhar Shukla | SaaS | kPoint | Video Analytics | Tech Services vs Products | DASAR

Building Billion Dollar SaaS Companies | Monish Darda | ICERTIS | Contract Lifecycle Management | Culture | Bikes

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From August through till New Year, we enjoy a series of festivals from Diwali, Dasara, Thanksgiving, Christmas to New Year. We enjoy some delicious food cooked at home and outside. And not to forget the Sweets!!! So watch this podcast to learn how you can balance enjoying the food and company of friends and family while staying fit through a range of activities and rest. Take a look and share your own fitness goals. Let’s #GetFit together!

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How to Start Training like a Triathlete? Ram Iyer | GetFit | Fitness Podcast | DASAR

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What does it take to become a triathlete? Is triathlon reserved for only a special few or can everyone train and achieve peak fitness?

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https://dasar.in/podcast-player/5634/how-to-start-training-like-a-triathlete.mp3

Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 29:16 | Recorded on November 12, 2021

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https://youtu.be/qkThQw8_cVQ

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[00:00:00] Darshan Doshi: Welcome back to DASAR. As a part of our fitness series today, I have an incredible guest with me Ram Iyer. Ram, welcome to DASAR. So let me give a quick overview of Ram. Ram is someone who is in extreme fitness, in swimming, running, trekking, yoga, meditation, and more. And what we are going to do in this podcast is I'm trying to understand or get in his mind to understand why does he do what he does, which is train seven days a week. And those extreme fitness goals. Why does he want a goal? How does he approach his training? How does he build accountability? How does he make his fitness routine over the years. So let's begin. Ram let's first, my first question to you is, what is your fitness routine today? You've done a lot of marathons. You've done trekking. You've done, I know you do a lot of swimming. So maybe how would you define your fitness routine? 

[00:01:24] Ram iyer: Currently, the focus is on getting to a BQ, Boston Qualifier. So for my age group, I need to get to a 320- ish full marathon. Right now I'm at 340. I need to cut 20. So the last six months I've joined a coaching program, which gives me a very structured program saying so much mileage, so much pace, and he defines it and he has delivered. I mean, Atul Godbole has delivered a lot, and I think he has set out the first sub three marathoners in Pune. So I said, hey, that's a good guy to go. And then also, as we discussed earlier, a lot of it is whom you train with. I need to enjoy whom I am running with. Because you are in a zone of semi pain, it's what I call sweet pain. But that sweet pain also has to be with people whom you like being with. You can't run with someone just because a person is running fast. And over the last few months I discovered that hey there are a few people whom I like running with, and that helps. So BQ is the target. Triathlon wise, I would try to get to a half iron man in five and a half hours.

Once that goal is about 546-ish right now. So the next two years I would like to get to a five and a half. If that happens, then I will move to a full iron man. In short, I would like to get to a sub 12 iron man. I don't want to do a nine, because at 54 there'snot too much of time. You could save and keep doing iron mans as we discussed. It's also that if you have to do an iron man, six months of your year is gone. Every weekend, pretty much, it's all devoted to that sub 12 iron mine target. And that means my trekking will go for a toss. My music will go for a toss. I don't want to compromise on all this. Can I get as much as possible within this program?

So most of my programs are like three-year programs, five-year programs. So this year I'm focusing on two things in 2021 and 2022. I want to get two or three 15 marathon. And I want to get to a point. I don't. I learned swimming very late in life from the age of 16 to the age of 40, 44, I would go to every other swimming coach, never managed. At 44, luckily Walavalkar Sir at Law College, which is just below the tekdi. So I loved that space. You liked the teacher and you liked the whole ambiance. So that helped me learn swimming. It took me like, kids learned swimming in like three weeks, four weeks. I took 12 weeks to do breaststroke, it's the simplest of all the strokes. But then I managed and then, but even then he said, this is not good enough if you want to do a sub-12 iron man, because you have to keep your legs fresh. And coordinating the body at that point, as age goes by becomes a challenge. So for the last six months I been learning what Walavalkar Sir calls the ocean Swimming. So you have you get the angles perfect. He keeps saying that, "Change this angle". He wants an angle at 45, not 40 not 50. So just that and he keeps going back and forth. And it's like you're saying why? And three, four times in the last six months, why am I doing this? But yes, I want to swim from Elephanta to Gateway of India these ar

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[00:00:00] Darshan Doshi: Welcome to DASAR. We are launching a new series on fitness. Fitness, which is for common people, working people, moms and dads, youngsters, people who are working in various companies and different roles. And what we are going to do in this fitness series is really decode, how do we get into a routine? What are the benefits of doing fitness? And just, how do you get in the habit of building a fitness routine day after day, week over week, year over year. As a part of this fitness series, I've invited Gireendra Kasmalkar. Giri is an entrepreneur and an investor. Most importantly, we are going to decode, how has he built his fitness routine over the years? So while we can talk about entrepreneurship, we can talk about investments. We are not going to talk about it, and we're going to focus on his fitness routine and what got him started. And why does he continue doing what he does? A quick introduction of Giri. He is the lead investor and managing partner at Pentathlon Ventures, which is a SaaS focused venture capital fund based out of Pune. And second, he's also the founder of Ideas to Impacts. A quick overview of what we are going to talk in this podcast. We are going to decode what got Giri started in his fitness journey? What is the routine that he follows? Why did he start? What does he do on a day-to-day basis and how does he keep it simple? So Giri, I've given a quick overview of who you are, first of all, welcome to DASAR, an absolute pleasure to have you here. We'd love to hear any thoughts that you have at this point.

[00:02:00] Giri: Thank you so much Darshan. Basically I think that I would do anything to come on your show, so it's not investment and the other things that I typically talk about, I'll talk about fitness today. To be honest, this is the first time I'm going to talk, will be talking about fitness. And I think your audience might be wondering why is this guy going to talk about fitness? So I recently had my 56th birthday. And I made a '56 till now' poster for myself and shared it with my hostel mates on the WhatsApp group. So maybe that photo, or that poster, maybe a better introduction. So I'm putting it up now.

[00:02:38] Darshan Doshi: Fantastic. It's amazing, you know, 56 years old you're fit as you have ever been. I think that's a fantastic thing for most people to look up to. Before we get into the fitness, what routine you follow and what is it that you do on a day to day basis or a week by week basis, I want to learn about what got you started into fitness. How long ago was it? What has been your fitness journey so far?

[00:03:06] Giri: Sure. It started in the childhood. I went to Dyanprabodhini, it's a famous school out of Pune. And there, the school includes not only the classes during the day, but the sports in the evening. And I think that's what got me started. So every day in the evening, two hours, we were going to play something or the other on the ground. And although the focus was not so much on specializing in any particular sport, we really got into fitness. I think that's what it got started. So yes, there was, of course, interschool competitions. And I remember representing the school in Kho Kho, for example, I used to run and then that carried over to when I went to college in IIT Bombay. There also, in fact, we started Kho Kho and I was a representing IIT Bombay in Kho Kho. One more interesting thing, in IIT, I also represented IIT Bombay in gymnastics . And gymnastics is a tough sport, but I got into gymnastics because I had some flexibility problems, actually.

So to be honest, it was, I wouldn't say that I was a talent in sports or something like that. I was more of a trier. And that's what continued. So when I went to the U S for example, I actually took courses in swimming, in the first one semester took a course in swimming and learnt swimming. In the second semester, I took a course in weight training. A

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[00:00:00] Darshan Doshi: I hope you've enjoyed the personal finance podcast series, it was a lot of encouragement and we have to be very grateful of these experts, the fund managers, Parin Gala, Mandar Mhatre, Jaydeep Doshi, Jaideep Merchant for sharing their insights and expertise and years of experience with us, which now brings me to the culmination of this personal finance podcast series; is myth-busting. Personal finance is easier than you think. Now, if you've grown up in India like me, you probably have had or have been safeguarded by your parents and your family members. When was the last time you went and met your chartered accountant for taxes? May not be your taxes, but your parents' taxes. Did you spend a lot of time in that? Unless you are studying finance or accounts, it's unlikely you ever did that. Shouldn't you have been exposed to how to manage money? Shouldn't you know how to manage money even at the age of 15? I believe we should have, we should have been taught how to manage our own money because money plays a big part in what you have to do over a very, very long period. We are talking about 50, 70 years of your life.

So let's break down personal finance, what are some of the myths? The myth is it's very difficult to do. I don't understand finance. I don't understand accounts. I don't know taxation. Well, that reason is simply not good enough. Why? Because all you have to do is read a few books, meet experts, make it a habit to spend about an hour, a week with your chartered accountant or your cousin or your father or your mother who actually knows and has been managing your family you know, taxes. What that will do is you'll get in the habit of just looking at these documents. Even if that means, what has been your family, if there's a family business, the balance sheet, the income statement or just the bank statements. If you are a salaried professional, what is form 16? What are some of the taxes ? How much taxes are you or your family paying each year? Shouldn't you know that?

The second part of this is expenses. How much are you actually spending in different categories? How much did you spend last month on hotels or restaurants? Last year how much did you spend traveling? How much have you spent on Amazon or Flipkart last year? Do you know? Do you have that number? Refunds. Let's talk about refunds. Suppose you purchased and you returned things on Amazon. Did you even cross check whether you got all that refund back?

Now, these are very simple things. You might say well, this is really silly. But you have to do these things. It's very silly, but it needs to be done. Due attention, needs to be given, which is my very important point. You have to form habits and allocate time to give the necessary attention to manage your finances every week. If you join DASAR club, one of the gain financial independence program, you will go through and you will be forced to be accountable and to spend time on your personal finances each week. If not, you'll be asked to leave that program.

So the next part about personal finance, one of the myths is also, I don't know how to make investments. Hopefully this podcast has been helpful, but the only simple way to kind of be better at investing and to grow your money is first to earn more money and then to deploy. Read, or talk to experts, talk to people like Jaydeep Doshi. Read books like the Psychology of Money or The Richest Man in Babylon. These are all books there is enough written material, there are enough podcasts, there are enough people who you can reach out to and really understand whether what would make a sound investment and whether that would make you money and what is the risk involved. So I think that's another part which you need to think about.

I talked about taxes, taxes is very important. We end up managing our personal finance only end of the year. And not also end of financial year. In India, your finan

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[00:00:00] Darshan Doshi: Welcome back to DASAR. My name is Darshan Doshi and I have an awesome guest with me, my colleague from Adeption, Garrett Gatlin. Garrett heads product studio at Adeption, and Adeption is a SaaS platform that is used by thousands of business leaders to be better versions of themselves. It's in the L&D space that has been growing rapidly over the last few years and Garrett has been critical part in designing the experiences, the programs and, creating an impactful program for participants of Adeption programs. So Garrett, welcome to DASAR.

[00:00:46] Garrett Gatlin: Thank you. Thanks Darshan. And thanks for the intro and I'll do my best. So excited to connect today.

[00:00:54] Darshan Doshi: Awesome. So first things first, what is experience design? And, what are the top, maybe few frameworks, two or three frameworks that you use or have come across for conducting a program experience design?

[00:01:12] Garrett Gatlin: Yeah, now it's like, I think it's a really good starting point. One of the, I think things to actually start with is, is kind of defining sort of two buckets in this space, broadly there's experience design, and then there's user experience design. So experience design XD, we'll call it. And then user experience design is UXD. And I think it's helpful to start here because it helps define not only the work that we're doing currently, but it also defines sort of broad buckets of work that are happening in the design and creative space with respect to technology in particular. So the way I sort of think about the two is experience design XD, which is the work that we do that I've spent my sort of life's work doing over the last decade plus, is in the experience design space, the XD space and, broadly defined that as actually the broader category of the two. So XD is really looking at how do we design experiences that create positive human outcomes? How do we create feelings and emotions? How do we create transformation for people? And really XD experience design, it is, it's quite complicated to get it that when we're talking about transformation and human development and feelings and emotions and it's this very broad interdisciplinary world. UXD user experience design is often more specific with respect to technology and human interaction with different interfaces. And typically UXD is going to be focused on task for a user or usability of a particular platform or technology. So it's not to say one is better than the other. And often in our work, we inter interact in or intersect with UXD, but I think that's actually a really good starting point is defining the two separately. So UXD being a little more specific, focused on usability and then experience design being the broader of the disciplines, focusing on positive human outcomes, feelings, emotions, transformation, experiences. You know, I, the It's still, I think even an emerging field too, in my observation, and having played in the space for the last 10 years I don't know that it's fully sort of formed, but it, that's emerging, and that's been emerging over the last couple of decades and really looking at how organizations have shifted. As we look at sort of the industrial economy moving from service economy in to experience economy is what some would call this over the last couple of decades. And that's how we, as, as end users, as consumers of, of products and brands have an experience with a brand or with a product, and it sort of transcends the usability of the product to our emotional state. The feeling of transformation that, that creates, and probably one of the biggest you know, ways to kind of crystallize this at an individual level is to think about your, one of your favorite brands or businesses that you frequent. So this could be anything, I mean, this could be a restaurant that you love, this could be a retail store. This could be you a

you know, product company where y

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Transcript [00:00:00] Darshan Doshi: Welcome back to DASAR, on DASAR podcast today, I have a fantastic guest with me Raj Sheth, I've known him for a few months. He's a serial entrepreneur in the SaaS space and has a very unique point of view about how to acquire SaaS companies and then scale them up to a few million dollars ARR. And so that's what we are going to talk about today. Raj, thanks a lot for joining all the way from San Francisco, I'm very excited about this podcast.[00:00:36] Raj Sheth: Thanks for having me Darshan. I'm excited too.[00:00:39] Darshan Doshi: Perfect. So first things first, what is Decalab? And how do you go about acquiring SaaS companies? At what stage? What's the process like? And maybe some examples that you can share with us?[00:00:54] Raj Sheth: Absolutely. So I'll give a super quick intro on why we picked this model and then what the model is. But exactly 10 years ago is when my first SaaS product journey started, Recruiterbox. And, I'm sure we'll talk about that later, but that happened to be a bootstrap journey. So we bootstrapped it to a few million in revenue, ran the company for almost seven years, and then we were acquired by a private equity fund in, in San Francisco. Obviously, we learned a lot and made a ton of mistakes there, but we didn't go the institutional capital route. And frankly, that was not by choice. So I, I don't want to claim that we had this very deliberate vision. We kind of fell into a lot of things and then it just seemed like more SaaS products with teams in India. It was just making more and more revenue. So we kept unlocking those growth bottlenecks. And then when we couldn't, or when we were trying to attempt other products is when we felt the exhaustion and this offer was was very welcomed. So basically after this experience and before Recruiterbox, I had two failed B2C companies.And I'll tell you why that's relevant to the psyche of Decalab. The venture scale model, as all of us know, as you know, very well is, in one in ten or one in a hundred does the true venture scale growth. A lot of people raise a lot of money and a lot of rounds, but if you look at the revenue trajectory of venture scale companies, that's 5% or less. And it's a very inspirational mindset, but the mindset is go big or go home.Or we are going to dominate a category. We are going to invent a category. So on and so forth. I had the grow big or go home mindset in my twenties, but essentially after all these years, like 16 years of doing this, etc., my mindset was of course I want to go big. We all want to go big, but I no longer want to go home. So what's the better model for me? The 'go home' is not an option at all. Right? And that's the foundation of Decalab, basically, which is that we want to get to 100 million in ARR through 10 product companies. And instead of deploying venture scale capital on an idea and getting it to product market fit, we are actually trying to buy revenue. So the, the exact model is like, I, I will go to the end point and we can work backwards is that if I wanted to solve for getting to 100 million revenue across 10 products, just over simplifying it, 10 products of 10 million each, we want to buy one third of the revenue. And then obviously we love growing these.So that's the big difference between us and PE, there's no arm's length execution. We are into every line of code and every landing page, every growth strategy, because we are operators and that's what we want to do. We want to perfect the one to ten, we love the one to ten. And so we want to grow that one third of revenue, but super efficiently. So the other one third will come by organic revenue growth. So take $3 million ARR company. We grow it to 6 million ARR across, you know, let's say four or five years. And then the the profit of these companies will be so great that the holding company Decalab uses the profits to acquire more revenue.So long rant, I'll pause there

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[00:00:00] Darshan Doshi: Welcome back to DASAR. My name is Darshan Doshi. I have a superb guest with me, someone who, who I am extremely proud to have as a guest on my podcast. She's the founder of The Pink Box. She works in the space of menstrual health, menstrual wellness talking about periods, and she's got a marketplace, a platform that helps women overcome any challenges that they may be facing during periods. So welcome to DASAR Sanjana, it's such a pleasure for me to have you over here.

[00:00:35] Sanjana Pai: Thank you Darshan. It's really, indeed a pleasure to be here and thanks for having me.

[00:00:40] Darshan Doshi: Right after Symbiosis, you have been working on menstruation, the platform called 'The Pink Box'. And it's been about four or five years now. And you converted what used to be a subscription box into a platform. But before we get there, I'd love to understand what are the top three or the top five challenges that you experienced and the last four or five years around menstruation, around periods, around talking about menstruation, the stigma around it, maybe some thoughts on that?

[00:01:14] Sanjana Pai: Yes, Darshan, I think like you said, talking about it is the number one problem that we faced. Whenever we try to speak to people about what The Pink Box is, what we do and the products that we have on our platform, the first feedback we get is, do I really want to be talking about this? So this kind of stigma that we've seen with regards to menstruation that is, it's a very age old stigma. It is so prevalent in our society that stops people from actually talking about it. So that's problem number one that we've been facing that we see in the market. And I think other problems just kind of descend from there. Problem number two is when people go out and they try to buy sanitary pads, right? If they go to a grocery store or a chemist, there's always a little bit of hesitation that the store owners show. They'll they'll wrap your pads in newspaper and then in a black bag. So they try to make it inconspicuous, but it becomes even more evident. And that causes a little bit of embarrassment to people about the products that they buy. So the kind of hesitation in the society is what we've seen. That's I think problem number two. And thirdly, I think most menstruators don't usually put themselves at the top of their to-do list. It's always family, career, that's interchangeable and then 10 other things and then self care. So that's where we come in. That's problem number three, during periods, like those five days when a menstruator is bleeding, we don't really tend to take care of our bodies because we feel like it's a very normal thing, but that's actually, when your body needs you the most. That's when you need to like really pamper yourself. So these are three problems that we've seen with regards to menstruation, and we do our part in breaking down those problems and dispelling the taboo.

[00:03:04] Darshan Doshi: So that's a good starting point, right? Let's get into The Pink Box. What does The Pink Box do? What have you done so far and any pivots, any changes that have happened in the last few years?

[00:03:18] Sanjana Pai: Right. So in a nutshell, The Pink Box is your one-stop shop for all things menstrual. We have a variety of products that a menstruator might need on their period or even before, and just after their period. And we also make sure that we raise a lot of awareness about different matters concerning feminine health, hygiene, reproductive, and sexual wellness. So when I started back in 2018, I started The Pink Box just as a subscription service. It's a cute little care package. It's been curated by experts. It's got healthy snacks and sweets. It's got a period pain relievers and stress busters. So it's a very holistic little box that reaches menstruators five days before their period. So that time when, PMS is on and you're having 10 differe

https://youtu.be/BqL8uu82hEc

Podcast Transcript 

[00:00:00] Darshan: Welcome back to DASAR. This is another podcast where we interview a founder. This time we have Karthik Sridharan , uh, he's a serial entrepreneur he is the co founder Remote Plan, Remote Tools and Flexiple. Flexiple has just crossed $2 million in revenue is what I read on Twitter. And I've been following you on Twitter. You know, you've be generous to share your journey. So maybe we first start with Flexiple, you know what it is, what does it do? And then your perspective around, does it make sense today for startups to hire people or just hire freelance developers?

[00:00:41] Karthik: Sure, firstly, thanks for having me Darshan. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. Uh, in a nutshell, what Flexiple is that we built an exclusive network of freelance developers and designers. We have a, a very comprehensive process screening process in place through which we vet each shop, you know, person who joins a network. Uh that's pretty much it we connect them with amazing tech, startups and companies across the world. And, uh, talking about the problem that you're sharing, which is something that I think almost every startup and company across the world is facing. So it is tricky. It is tough. I think, uh, engineers are the most sort of sought out people at, at the moment. So. There isn't going to be a single one answer, which is going to always solve it for any particular person. So that's where I think companies have to be a little more agile in how they think about hiring. So there used to be a time when people weren't comfortable with hiring anyone remote. Right. And, uh, they were afraid. What if, you know, people steal our information, do this, do that. And so, uh, those thoughts have evolved. And of course the pandemic has pushed us to, you know, expand our horizon and what we think and what we understand about remote work.. So I think hiring remotely, hiring freelance developers as well, but also hiring full-time people all, or these three things need to be used in combination to tackle everyone's hiring needs. Uh, each one has their pros and cons. Right. Like, uh, if I were to talk about freelancing, which is where flexiple, you know, really helps companies have the clear advantages that we typically map a particular developer or designer within a week. Right. And there are people who have extensive amount of experience. So it's going to be really helpful for a company that's growing very quickly and as a clear roadmap, but at the same time, I can understand the, the, the focus of companies, where they are looking at getting a core engineering group together who will be with them for maybe the next five years, six years and so on. So freelancing is not going to solve that so they can supplement. Freelance hiring with their regular hiring processes. But that call on that side would be that typically is going to take them three to six months to find any good hire. So I think using both approaches might be the way to solve for these problems that we are facing at the moment.

[00:03:13] Darshan: Incredible um, you've gone on to build a sustainable business, right? You've bootstrapped you've not taken a venture funding. Uh, so maybe first question is why bootstrap? And what were the early days and challenges to get maybe a hundred thousand dollar ARR because that's the breakeven point. Right?

[00:03:37] Karthik: Well, the question, so, uh, when we started, you know, all three of us, our co-founders are batchmates from IIM Ahmedabad so we knew each other very well. And, uh, as you can imagine, our alumni group, uh, network, uh, has a lot of people in the VC VC circle, right? So we had a lot of conversations around, uh, you know, funding and how, what, how we should go about it. And so on. Uh, I think we were very clear that we wanted some amount of validation before we take our take on VC funding, because we wanted to understand what we were building in the fi