Daybreak

In this episode, we talk about the global trade war that stopped before it started.

First, we talk about US President Donald Trump's decision to reverse the "reciprocal tariffs" on almost every country in the world, except one.

Next, we talk about why India had little choice but to offer concession after concession to the US.

Finally, we unpack the long term and short term impact of the tariffs on the Indian economy.

Check out the newsletters and podcasts mentioned in this episode:

The latest edition of The Nutgraf by Praveen Gopal Krishnan — India is the mark 
Two by Two feat Mohit Satyanand — Are Trump's tariffs a crisis or an opportunity for India?

One of the largest deals to acquire a D2C brand took place in January this year. India’s largest manufacturer of consumer good, Hindustan Unilever acquired the skincare company Minimalist, a 90% shareholding for nearly Rs 3000 crores.

Homegrown startup beauty brands have been on a roll in India. Scores and scores of new age skincare brands have cropped up since the pandemic and all of them harp on the science of it. And their whole appeal is transparency. Transparency about the ingredients that go into each of their products.

Among all of them, Minimalist is the one that really stands out. It is an active ingredients based skincare company that sells things like niacinamide, retinol, Vit C, glycolic acid, and salicylic acid. It launched around the end of 2020, and within a span of eight months, it built a 1000 crore rupee  business. What’s even more surprising that the brand has remained in the green, meaning profitable, from the very first month itself.

For years, legacy brands like, HUL, Ponds, and Loreal have been selling products with similar ingredient--the only difference being they either didn't launch them in India or the kept the names hidden away in tiny fonts at the back of the bottles.

It was Minimalist that came around and broke that mould.

And now, seeing the success of brands like Minimalist, legacy brands are rethinking their strategy.

Case in point: Hindustan Unilever

The company’s has been wanting to turn its beauty and well-being portfolio into a “high-growth" premium category for a while now and the acquisition of Minimalist is a big step in that direction.

But how did Minimalist manage something that a giant like HUL couldn't?

Tune in.

**This episode was first published on January 27, 2025

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Indian family businesses contribute more than two-thirds to India’s GDP. 70 per cent. That’s amongst the highest in the world. And that number is expected to go up to as much as 85 per cent in the next 20 years. 

Yet, today a lot of these companies are at a crossroads. You see, many of them have realised that they can’t just carry on as they always have. Business as usual isn’t going to work anymore. Think of brands like Medimix, or Baidyanath syrups. Iconic names for sure, but they are increasingly being bracketed as “parent’s brands”.

The next gen leaders of these companies have recognised this. They’ve realised that to have a shot at winning they are going to have to break off on their own. That too in a world that looks very different from when their family businesses were first founded. 

Tune in. 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

 For a while now, the new kids on the block in India’s $750 billion mutual fund industry have been trying to really shake things up.

The likes of Navi, Zerodha and Groww have been dreaming of a big disruption. And a couple years ago, they thought they had found the answer to their prayers. A playbook that would catapult their growth.

They were convinced passive investing is the future. They had good reason to believe so. Last year, passive funds won the big game in the US, where—for the first time ever—they overtook active funds in assets under management (AUM). Blackrock and Vanguard built empires on this shift. So, naturally, the question is: why not in India?

Well, things haven't worked out quite how they had hoped.

Tune in.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Despite the recent upheaval in clean tech efforts, governments around the world are investing billions into green hydrogen. Analysts are calling it the missing piece in the clean energy puzzle, especially for industries that can’t run just on batteries or solar power.

But the future of green hydrogen may not be decided in Silicon Valley or Europe or even China. It might come from a factory just outside Bengaluru where a little-known American startup called Ohmium is building sleek, modular machines, the size of a fridge. These are designed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using nothing but renewable electricity.

Ohmium’s unique technology called PEM (proton exchange membrane) electrolysers—are compact, scalable, and fast becoming the system of choice for green hydrogen production. 

But can India really lead the global green hydrogen race and will Ohmium be the company to take us there?

Tune in.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

As fitness studios exploded across Indian cities after the Covid pandemic, Cult.fit rose to prominence on the back of its fun, accessible classes that appealed to sedentary urbanites.

Meanwhile, doctors noticed a sharp rise in workout-related injuries. Majority of those injured fell in the "most vulnerable" 35-45 age bracket.

What's going on? The Ken reporter DVLS Pranathi explains.

Tune in.

Question for listeners:
Whose responsibility is it to make sure you don’t suffer from any injuries when you start your fitness journey? Is it yours or Cult's? Or do you think it's both?

You can send in your answers to our Whatsapp number 8971108379. Also if you have any questions for Pranathi, you can send them on the same number as a voice note or a text message.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

India's biggest quick-commerce apps, Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy, have become prime real estate not just for regular FMCG brands but also for financial services, stock-trading apps, and even real-money gaming platforms. 

The top three players are already making Rs 3 to 3,500 crore rupees  in annual ad revenue. And that, dear listeners, is about half of what Amazon India made from ads in FY24, despite having way more users.

In today’s episode, host Snigdha Sharma speaks to The Ken reporter Gaurav Bagur about how quick commerce apps have become the new battleground for India’s ad money and our attention span.

Tune in.

Question for listeners:
Think of the times when you're on your phone everyday and tell us three instances where no one is trying to sell you anything.

You can send in your answers to our Whatsapp number 8971108379. Also, if you have any questions for Gaurav, you can send them on the same number as a voice note or a text message.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Back in January, when China’s Deepseek R1 model stunned the world with its performance and low training cost, India was thinking only one thing – how do we beat it? How do we become a global AI superpower? 

But when it comes to the AI race, India has been stuck at the starting line for quite a while now. Its approach has largely been to throw things at the wall in the hope that something eventually sticks. 

Now, Deepseek  has really amped up the pressure. India’s electronics and IT ministry, or Meity, has swung into action. It has been announcing housekeeping steps for the country’s year-old AI mission at a speed that can match the language model advances hitting the headlines. 

But in the process, the actual goal of the mission has become more incoherent than ever. 

Tune in. 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On January 29 of this year, Denta Water and Infra Solutions – a company that specialises in groundwater recharging projects – listed on the bourses. 

Three weeks later, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage  Board, or BWSSB, issued a set of guidelines to address what has become pretty much inevitable every summer in the city – a full blown water crisis. 

Now, those may seem like two completely random developments to you. But actually, there is a connection there. Because today, both the BWSSB and Denta Water have a vested interest in solving Bangalore’s water crisis. But one has had more luck than the other. 

Tune in. 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In this episode we fill you in on three standout stories from the past week. 

First, we talk about the unravelling of Blusmart, India's first EV ride hailing platform; 

Next, the private banking and wealth management boom in India; 

And finally how India’s ad agencies got raided over alleged price-fixing three days before country’s biggest marketing event, the IPL.

Check out the stories and podcasts mentioned in this episode: 

Everyone’s looking for a private banker. Have you seen one?

An IPL Whodunit