DASAR

https://youtu.be/RiinwySqNUo

DASAR Podcast | D2C Brands | Shoptimize: Scaling Indian Brands into the Big League | Mangesh Panditrao | SaaS + Services |

Transcript 

 

Darshan Doshi: Welcome to DASAR. My name is Darshan Doshi. And in this D2C series I have a very interesting guest today Mangesh Panditrao. Mangesh Panditrao is the co-founder of Shoptimize. Shoptimize is a SaaS platform from Pune that helps brands go online by providing e-commerce as a service. He has some incredible brands, such as Harldirams' which he's taken online.

And we are going to break down all things D2C, which includes,  e-commerce as a service. What does it really mean? How do brands that have been present for decades?  How do they view the online,  presence that is needed and also selling through e-commerce? So thank you Mangesh for joining DASAR.

Mangesh: Thank you so much for having me here. 

Darshan: So Mangesh I have given a quick overview of who you are.   But when someone comes up to you and says, you know who is Mangesh, what do you typically say?

Mangesh Panditrao: If I think about it, I think if I were to answer that question, I mean, I'm just somebody who,  I guess works really hard,  and,  wants to make a difference, I guess, in whichever way possible that's probably the easiest answer I could give, of course, I am an entrepreneur, I am a family guy, and from Pune lived abroad, and come back and try and to make a difference from here now.

Darshan Doshi: Incredible. Thank you.  We're going to talk about consumer brands, brands like Haldirams' which have been present for decades. whose sweets we have eaten and, grown up and now suddenly with the advent of, social media, Instagram, Amazon,  internet penetrating the masses, even in India, roughly 615 million Indians are online today, we have  120 million shoppers shopping online today. So,  you've worked with a lot of brands that have been in our lives for a very long time to take them online through e-commerce services, but just help me understand, how do you take these consumer brands online? What does it involve?

Mangesh Panditrao: Yeah,  so this is an area where we have also learned along the way So when we started, the simple thing that we wanted to do is provide a platform that could take websites online and started with a simple vision like that. And then you realize what the gaps. are, what are, the opportunities,  what the risks are, and we've kept building around them to come where we are. . So, you mentioned how you,  getting to see story about how he started working at Haldiram's. I remember that time we were just starting and we had some customers in Pune who said that he is having problems with his mobile website.  So his website was built-in flash.  He just got his new iPhone and clearly, that website was not opening. So, what can you do about this? I said we can do a lot more on the website than opening on iPhone . I am coming to Nagpur. So, I flew to Nagpur , I met him and said let's fix this. But, how about selling through your website? That's,  how we started.  He and everyone in his team also, their typical answer was a 35 rupees packet and 50 rupees shipping won't work, We said, you leave that to us, and we'll figure out how to make this happen.  You just pay us a piece of the money you make. And that's kind of how  Haldiram's e-commerce started its a multi-million dollar business now. So the start was very humble, thanks to the website developed on flash and the owner buying an iPhone. So that's how we started and that's how the early days in e-commerce were in India yet in certain cases is there's a lot more awareness and a lot more seriousness about this channel and we don't have to convince, people anymore. it is more about how do we make this happen to them? So you asked me a bit about how does this journey happens?  So I am going to talk genera

https://youtu.be/70ph4f-90-k

SCARTERS: A Design-led Lifestyle Accessories Consumer Brand | Darshan Shah | Men's Accessories | Minimalist | DASAR Podcast

Transcript 

 

Darshan Doshi: Welcome to DASAR. My name is Darshan Doshi, and today we have an incredible guest with us Darshan Shah, Founder of Scarters.

Darshan Shah: Thank you Darshan for having me here, it’s a privilege.

Darshan Doshi: Let me give a quick overview of Darshan Shah and Scarters brand. This is part of the D2C series that we are running through. And D2C has seen a massive and explosive growth, not just across India, but across the world. And so, we are trying to bring together founders who are building interesting brands, who have interesting stories to tell and share their experiences and challenges with us.

One such experience is this Scarters brand created by Darshan Shah. Scarters is a premium D2C brand from India, which is in the lifestyle accessories sector. We're going to discuss a whole range of topics from customer centricity, attention to design and detail, how do you build a large-scale consumer brand from India for the world and funding that goes with it as well. So Darshan, my first question to you is; I gave a quick overview of you and as the founder of Scarters brand, but when someone comes up to you and says, who is their Darshan Shah, what do you typically say?

Darshan Shah: Well, I would start by saying that I’m born and brought up in Pune, very proud to be a part of the city and come from a background where my grandfather was a doctor in a hundred-bed hospital in a small town. And my father has been a serial entrepreneur. He didn't go that way. And I've seen a lot of businesses started, transition, failed, succeeded. So I’ve been in an environment where a lot of businesses have been grown, started, and, I did my education from Pune, did my schooling and undergrad from Pune.

And then I went to the UK for my masters in entrepreneurship. Avid cricket fan, been an integral part of my life, played for the state, for under 16 & up to 16. And I have a great passion for design and creativity. I have a family, a six-and-a-half-year-old son. I live with my wife, my parents and my grandparents. So yeah, that's what I am.

Darshan Doshi: That's incredible. I'm a big fan of Parag Shah, your father as well. I had the opportunity to work with him, learned a lot from him. Serial entrepreneur, as you mentioned, and you have had the privilege of seeing people in your family build things, create things out of nothing. And you've gone the same route by creating Scarters brand. But there has been a plethora of lifestyle, accessories brands, not just in India, but around the world. And so one wonders, why would you, choose such a competitive sector to start a business? So maybe what was the point at which you said I have to create this brand called Scarters?

Darshan Shah: So, it all started where I have tried a lot of things in my life. I gave it a shot for cricket as a part of my career. It didn't come across. Then I gave one shot for real estate gave ten years in that category of business. Didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. And at some point, I've felt that I have to be something that brings the best out of me. The idea of starting something from scratch and building something from scratch which you are going to build for the long-term really excited me. And the thought was never retained. The thought was never like accessories. I've never imagined myself to be in one category, but other way sure that I wanted to build something would have that impact. Apple as a brand, has had a very big impact through it's products. And I think at that point, I realized that if you get into some brand building business, it has a power of impacting the word. And I think of Scarters was born with that excitement and joy of creating something that would eventually give me the freedom to get the best out of me and eventually have some sort of impact to wha

https://youtu.be/Hpc-CnVli6g

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

Transcript 

 

Darshan Doshi: Welcome back to DASAR. My name is Darshan Doshi, and at DASAR we focus on building an online community of doers. People who want to take an action every week and achieve their goals. I have a fantastic guest with me, Ravi Nigam. Ravi, welcome to DASAR podcast.

Ravi Nigam: Good morning Darshan. Wonderful to be here at DASAR and great to hear about the wonderful work that you folks are doing.

Darshan Doshi: Excellent. We're going to have a fantastic conversation about direct-to-consumer businesses, consumer food brands, customer centricity. How do you really build a global presence out of India for a consumer food brand? Ravi Nigam is the co-founder and ex-managing director of Tasty Bite. Tasty Bite has been one of the fastest growing consumer food brands for good part of a few decades. It was one of the top stock performers in the Indian stock market. And we are very fortunate to have him. I'm very fortunate to have him join this podcast and learn from him on what we can do in today's massive D2C growth that we are seeing, not just in India, but across the water. So Ravi, I have given a quick overview of who you are and I've known you for a few years now. You're also the president of The Indus Entrepreneurs that I know you're also a director at Indigo Paints and you're also an investor investing in various new companies.

Ravi Nigam: Absolutely.

Darshan Doshi: So that's a lot to consume and a lot to discuss, right. But when someone comes up to you and asks, who is the Ravi Nigam? What do you typically say?

Ravi Nigam: See, you stumped me right in the very beginning! Because that's the one question that I haven't thought about, about who I am, but now they you asked me, I think I'm an academic who stumbled on to entrepreneurship and then stayed there with one idea of making a change. And making a change has kind of stuck to me in entrepreneurship earlier on myself. But now, as I look at working with young entrepreneurs, I feel the one thing that they must do is to look beyond the revenues, profits. They must want to make a change. So, all the time that I spend with them I try and get that one insight to say you can actually make change in society. You can make change in the lives of people. You will definitely build a robust business. I think in my mind, that's the one single mission that I'm working with is how do we get this community of entrepreneurs to work towards finding a mission that goes way beyond the revenues & profits. And that's the way I am. At home everybody tells me, my children tell me, they say, now dad's coming up with this ‘gyaan’ that's going to give something. So I think I am a professor I'm a teacher.

Darshan Doshi: Ravi, Tasty Bites has got a global presence. It's one of the top Indian food consumer brands and it has been for a few years. Did you have a background in consumer foods before Tasty Bites and maybe you could also speak a little bit about the journey of Tasty Bites in its early days.

Ravi Nigam: Sure, so I began with the national media development board initially and then soon transitioned to companies like Britannia and Pepsi. I learned a lot about brands over there. And then worked with large process driven companies, also learned about lot corporate culture, how consumers behave and how do garner consumer insights that are really deep and working for these companies which at that time hired I think amongst the best talent in the countries. I was really fortunate to be part of the consumer boom during that time. But I think somewhere down deep within me and I guess it happens now to entrepreneurs every time. ‘It must begin to make a change’ was the question. I think to myself what next would I be doing at Pepsi. Maybe head a new geography or you get a larger market to take care of. And then one day we'll land up in the corporate headqua

https://youtu.be/CkLekdfgotU

DASAR Podcast | Unpacking D2C Brands | What are Direct to Consumer Brands? How to Build & Scale D2C Brands?Transcript  Welcome to DASAR. My name is Darshan Doshi. DASAR is a community of people who want to achieve their health and wealth goals. Let's talk about D2C, Direct to Consumer brands today. What does it take to launch a D2C brand? What are the trends? Can anyone launch this D2C product sitting at the comfort of your home today? That's a reality. That's a possibility today.I'm very curious about consumer brands. I'm a big fan of apple products. I'm a big fan of Shopify. I'm a big fan of Oofos as a brand. And what I'm wearing today is March Tee. So, I pursued this curiosity and, I reached out to a few people to learn about what is D2C and what it takes to build a D2C brand. And so we launched a D2C podcast series. Right now, if you go on Amazon, you'll find over two and a half crore products over there. Imagine two and a half crores at your fingertips, which you can just place an order, and in 48 hours, it can reach your home. If I go on March Tee, I place an order. And within seven days I get towels, I get t-shirts, shirts at the comfort at my house. These are all custom-made for me. And there's nothing better feeling than that, right, when you always want something personalized for you. And so, what it takes to build such a brand? Well, one way to do it is to start a Shopify e-store, it's really that simple. You can use Shopify to get to say maybe 10 lakhs, 20 lakhs of revenue per month. You can build an online presence. You can figure out what products are being sold to whom. And once you got to the point where you know who your customers are, the kind of products that they're buying, then you can go to a company like Shoptimize. Shoptimize is like a homegrown Shopify at your service. Founder Mangesh Panditrao has really made it simple and works with you. The founder of your own D2C brand to generate revenues upwards of a crore to two crore per month. He's done that with brands like Haldirams. Now, suppose you even got a crore or two crore worth of revenue each month. What next? How big can you grow? Ravi Nigam, founder and ex-managing director of tasty bite has taken his company IPO. Moreover, you have some amazing brands which have received a lot of venture capital investment from the likes of Fireside ventures, Mama earth, Wow Skin, Boat. Boat recently did 700 crores of revenue just during the pandemic in one year. Sugar cosmetics made about 450 crores of revenue just last year. Imagine this. If you could pursue your passion, a product that you are unhappy about and you want to build or create a better product, you can do that today. And that brings financial independence. That brings creativity. That brings fulfillment, and a whole lot of things, which you wanted to do all this while.Lastly, we've got some really good guests who decode how D2C brands work. For example, if you wanted to build a premium brand from India, not a cheap brand, a premium brand, then you have Darshan Shah, the founder of Scarters share his story of how he built premium lifestyle accessories brand here from India. If you want to understand what it takes in the early stages, you want to go from launching a product, a first brand to save ten lakh rupees in revenue per month. The first step is typically the most difficult, right? But how much money do you need to launch such a product?How much time do you need to figure out whether that product is really selling like hotcakes? What about other product lines? All of this, we speak with Rohan Wekhande, founder of FitSter5. So there you have it. D2C is all around us. It's a highly competitive space, but because of technology developments, because of creator economy, because of companies like Shopify and Shoptimize, anyone, literally anyone can launch your own product, your own business and gain financial independence.So stay tuned, log into the DASAR podcast

https://youtu.be/92m1gSFWIPU

DASAR Podcast | Self Care Hacks | Building a Happy Mind & Body | Stress | Anxiety | Covid | Habits | Mental Health

Transcript 

 

Welcome to DASAR. My name is Darshan Doshi. DASAR is a community of people who want to learn by doing. Given the second wave of Covid-19 that's hitting around the world, today's podcast focuses on self-care. We are living in difficult times - ranging from uncertainty due to the Covid-19 pandemic to stress and anxiety arising from remote work. In this podcast, I share some self-care hacks to build habits for a healthy and happy mind, body and soul. I share practical tips and routines that you can apply right away to help you feel and be better.

Darshan Doshi: 2020 was a challenging year for us all. But I hope the difficulties, the anxieties and the lockdown have made you think about taking care of yourself. I remember getting overly anxious in March 2020 not knowing what is Covid-19 and how it would impact me, my family, my friends and my livelihood. It can get very stressful and it is at that time that self-care practices are most needed and useful. So let’s dig deep into what are some of the self-care practices that we could follow daily.

Subscribe To DASAR

Subscribe to receive the latest podcasts in your inbox

 

Over the years, here are 3 main self-care practices that have worked for me that I've made into habits.

Each one takes effort and commitment.

 

Taking Care of Your Body

Exercise: I exercise about 3 times a week with my trainer + solo running and cycling or hiking once a week. You can read how I lost over 10 kgs and reduced body fat from >30% to under 15% within a year in this feature: $2000 & 365 Days to Get Fit.

Sleep: By far the most important thing for self-care is getting sufficient sleep. About 8 hours every day + 1-hour afternoon nap about twice a week does it for me.

Food: Even with Covid-19, Zomato and others are delivering restaurant food at your doorstep. I order-in food about once a week/fortnight. Rest is home-cooked delicious Indian food.

 

Taking Care of Your Mind

Reading – I prefer physical books over Kindle and articles on the web. Scrolling on the mobile eventually distracts me towards WhatsApp or other social media. I still read about 2 hours a day - a habit built during my MBA days at Babson College.

Meditation – I went through a 10-day Vipassana meditation camp in 2019 that was transformational. I meditate about once a week 1 hour long (not as regular as I want it to be). 

Coach: I got me a coach and went through many assessments in the last 18 months. Finding the right coach is critical so don't worry if you've had a not-so-useful experience with 1-2 coaches so far. 

 

Taking Care of Your Work

Meetings: I try not to take any meetings before 2 pm. Alternatively, I know some people who club up all meetings on certain days of the week.

Emails: Emails have a habit of piling up. So how do you create a system such that only the most relevant come up to you? I end up checking my emails about twice a day - at a time when I'm not the most creative.

Social Media: This is a biggie! Covid-19 has forced many of us confined at our homes. With constant notifications coming from various apps, not only is it distracting but also stressful. I dropped out of many WhatsApp groups and limiting my time on social media. I found that calling friends and family on weekends (instead of messaging) keeps me happier.

 

Here are few self-care tips by my colleague Don McVeigh (JumpShift Leadership Development):

Being grateful – what are you grateful for today? Just the fact that we are alive during a major pandemic, we must at least be grateful to be alive. Build on this and remember that there's a lot to be grateful for.

Take regular breaks to energize yourself. One of my colleagues takes a day off a week while another takes a few days off ever