Sometime in the early 1970s a young Harsh Mariwala joined Bombay Oil Industries, a company set up by his grandfather in 1948, just a year after India’s independence. The company would trade in spices, oils and chemicals.

Over the next two decades Harsh learnt the ropes of the family business. Till in 1991 - two decades after he had joined Bombay Oil - he left it to start his own company, Marico.

He had already seen the power of quality and brand in a category that was still almost entirely commoditized and unbranded. For instance, the huge 15 liter tin cans of Parachute coconut oil Bombay Oil sold to shopkeepers were resold in smaller quantities at much higher prices. Harsh rightly wondered, why should someone else capture the margin and premium for my product? 

The company that Harsh founded - Marico - had two powerful brands at its core - Parachute Coconut Oil and Saffola cooking oil. That is true even today, 33 years later. Nearly 1 in 3 Indians use Parachute oil, our research tells us. 

Of course, a lot else has changed since then. 

Marico, which went public just 5 years after being founded in 1991, today boasts a turnover of over 1.2 billion dollars. 

And Harsh is 72, but still learning, exploring, experimenting and unable to take it easy.

Earlier this week, I had the chance to speak to Harsh about his entire (and might I add still evolving) professional journey!

It’s a long time, but Harsh talks about the day Marico was separated from Bombay Oil just like it was yesterday. He talked about how in 1991 they attracted talent by positioning themselves as the disruptive outsiders. Sample one of the headlines from Marico’s ads: 200 employees walk out of Bombay Oil. 

Harsh had a lot of stories for me – from creating differentiation in consumer products even when the market is crowded, to how he fought back and won against the much larger Hindustan Unilever when it wanted to acquire Marico. And then he switched back to the present – and how he’s focussing all his learnings, experience, attention into cultivating innovation in India. 

This is an episode packed with anecdotes and lessons – you’ll hear Harsh talking about a ‘right to win’ in the market, strategizing acquisitions, and making ‘a difference without expectations’ to the shareholders. All in the context of Harsh’s years at Marico, the Mariwala Health Initiative, Ascent foundation and Marico Innovation Foundation! 

Let’s go!

This is episode 42 of First Principles–a weekly leadership podcast from The Ken.

If you're here to find out more about our brand new early careers podcast, check out The First Two Years and how you can join the TFTY community here! You can also listen to our trailer on Spotify and Apple. 

Welcome to Episode 41 of First Principles.

When asked, Girish Mathrubootham* – the CEO and Co-Founder of Freshworks, says that there’s one thing most of his direct reports would agree about him – that he leads from the heart. 

Many Freshworks employees have a different way of describing Girish. He’s a product manager first, and then a CEO. 

Product and People are thus two words to describe Girish. 

One of them - Product - was something he got into accidentally. But both of them are areas where he’s built organisational strengths and culture very intentionally. 

The news headlines when Freshworks went public on NASDAQ was that Girish had created 500 crorepatis within his organization. That is, employees whose Freshworks shares made them worth over 1 crore rupees.

Freshworks was the first Indian SaaS company to become a unicorn. It was also the first Indian SaaS company to be listed on the US markets. Last year it clocked revenues of nearly 600 million dollars. All before its 15th birthday. 

Across this episode, Girish the product manager is front and centre. It was evident in the way that he rattled off sharp and fun analogies to explain how he views Freshworks and his role at the organization as a CEO. It was almost as if Freshworks the company itself were an organically evolving product, with its CEO also its lead product manager. 

And to think that Girish’s entry into product management came over two decades ago when his then manager told him to build a product he had pitched – and essentially become a “product manager.” That day, he went back home and googled what a product manager is. 

He has very sharp and distinct views on leadership and organization building. As a leader, he’s opposed to measuring performance by numbers or execution alone. 

His metric for “winning” – as in, winning as an organization – is shaped by energy and vibes. 

He isn’t just hiring the best talent for a role. He’s giving the right role to the best talent.

In this episode, you’ll understand this curious mix of people and product that keeps the lights on at Freshworks. Girish talks about why a company like Freshworks – which entered and continues to play in a crowded and competitive market – succeeds. Why and how he’s made peace with growing at close to 20% annually, so long as he’s also aiming for around the same percentage in profits. 

And what the best way is to chart a path to entrepreneurship in this day and age. 

And, also – why he loves Chennai so much! 

This is episode 41 of First Principles—The Ken's weekly leadership podcast.

*Girish Mathrubootham is an investor in The Ken.

There is a cliche often associated with hyper growth startups. 

That running one is like learning how to fly a plane while you’re already up in the air. Or perhaps it's like learning to change an engine while you’re driving a car. 

There is another version of this analogy: it's like learning how to build a plane and learning how to fly it and also mastering how to change an engine mid-air, even as you’re hurtling at hundreds of kilometers per hour through the air. 

A great example of such a startup is Udaan, which in 2019 became India’s fastest unicorn within just 3 years of starting up. 

What does it take to build and scale a company in that manner? 

A few weeks ago, you heard Vaibhav Gupta – Udaan’s co-founder and CEO – answer this question in granular detail. 

Right down to how Udaan looked at the trade cycle of a small mobile accessories shopkeeper in Mysore, who got his supply from Bangalore every 15 days. 

Or the exact changes Udaan has made to their warehouses, so that they’re more efficient. 

He even broke down Udaan’s execution playbooks and what makes them reliable and repeatable. 

But…what happens when you zoom out a little?

The more high-level decisions. Which bets to take, which to let go. Which patterns to follow. What the B2B retail space in India will look like, in 10 years. And what is Udaan doing to prepare for it?

This is the episode where Vaibhav zooms out and reflects on some of these questions. 

He’s still very sharp and detail-oriented, of course. In fact, you’ll hear him say “retail is detail” with an unshakable conviction very soon, in the episode. 

But this time, you’ll notice that the larger decisions that Vaibhav makes for his organizations stems from his own strong beliefs and learnings. 

He’s an introvert, but he has learnt to discuss even his half-formed, unbaked ideas with his team. He’s driven by solving big problems, and so is Udaan. 

He’s become comfortable with being wrong, and that’s a feeling that his employees are encouraged to embrace at every stage.

We talk about all the mental models, habits and frameworks that drive Vaibhav – and the culture at Udaan. And, of course – how First Principles thinking is very crucial to all of these!

This is episode 40 of First Principles with Vaibhav Gupta—The Ken’s weekly leadership podcast.

Welcome back to First Principles. I’m your host, Rohin Dharmakumar.

Thank you for listening to us. We’re thankful that you choose to spend a few hours with us each week!

Today we have a “supercut” episode. Normally our conversations go deep with one specific guest, but every now and then we zoom out and go broad by stitching together a multi-guest conversation. And the invisible thread that connects the conversations with 5 founders we picked for today is company culture.

What’s the best way to empower your talent? What do founders expect from employees? And how do they build their company culture?

This is where it gets interesting. In most cases, our guests have differing opinions on these subjects. But while putting this episode together, we kept encountering one word – or a substitute for it, in some cases. 

And that was, patience. 

Patience in the way that they give feedback to their employees. Patience in investing in your employees. Building this patience not just within themselves, but the entire organization. 

There are some very interesting perspectives in this episode on how these founders approach and practice patience, among other principles of leadership and management. 

Here’s a rundown of our guests in this episode: 

First up, we have Krish Subramanian of Chargebee, who has a simple and powerful dictum, “Move the chairs and get out of the way of good people.” At Chargebee, you wouldn’t fit in if you limit yourself to a strict hierarchy – he sees employees more as his peer group.

Next, we have Varun Dua of Acko Insurance, who spoke about growing in a company from an employee’s point of view. One of the things he told me was that when you find something you love, you should be at it for 10-15 years. Because it is the payoff of years of perseverance that is fruitful – and  not the short term gains you make along the way. 

Yashish Dahiya, the co-founder of PolicyBazaar, was quite candid in our chat. He spoke about why an employee who spent five years at PolicyBazaar is considered a new employee. He  also went on to explain why he distances himself from making hiring decisions.

Next, you’ll hear Archit Gupta of Clear. When talking about employees, Archit was very specific. He told us why investing into the ‘sincere’,‘earnest’ people in the organization is necessary, and why uplifting them is important.

Lastly, MN Srinivasu or Vasu, as he’s often called, spoke to me how he built BillDesk by essentially teaching the first set of employees to be well-versed in the line of business BillDesk was creating. This is a part of BillDesk’s culture. There is a broad belief in patience, at Billdesk. Why does patience matter? What allows his employees to be patient? And how do you find meaning in practicing it? 

This is First Principles—The Ken’s weekly leadership podcast.

The Ken is India's first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here.

Welcome back to Episode 39 of First Principles!

A few weeks ago, you heard the first part of our conversation with Aneesh Reddy, the CEO and Co-Founder of Capillary Tech, a software company offering products and services in the customer experience space.

And you might remember that in that episode, Aneesh took us through the journey of Capillary in instalments – because as he explained, Aneesh dreams in instalments. 

The second instalment was the years 2013 to 2018 – which Aneesh called “Capillary’s confusing years.” 

They were particularly difficult years for them. 

Having raised a massive amount of venture funding at an expensive valuation, Capillary started burning cash as they expanded ambitiously beyond India. The leadership had to justify their valuation, Aneesh said. 

During this time, Aneesh’s co-founder Krishna Mehra, or KK, had moved to San Francisco in the US. Communication between the co-founders started breaking down even as the pressure on Capillary Tech started mounting.

Eventually, both of Aneesh’s co-founders left within months of each other. But before leaving, KK was upfront with Aneesh. 

He told Aneesh that he had become a bully. He wasn’t workable anymore.

Aneesh went to the Capillary board and told them he wanted to quit. 

In this second part, you’ll hear the two things that Aneesh ended up doing to bounce back. 

The first was executive coaching. A difficult process, because Aneesh, in his own words, ‘was a hard nut to crack.’ 

Eventually, the coaching process proved to be so transformative for Aneesh, that Capillary today offers coaching to not just its entire leadership team but also down to first-time managers. 

The second, very interestingly, was Vipassana. And again, as Aneesh explained, it was very difficult at first. 

But it changed him. 

He calls it a process of self-discovery and self-purification that every entrepreneur should experience.

In this episode, Aneesh talks to me about how these two interventions transformed him and Capillary. 

He takes me through both processes – day by day, in the case of Vipassana — and how it made a difference to his temperament, leadership style, and his approach to managing.

We also talk about Aneesh’s fitness journey, finding a purpose in working, and the future of Capillary. 

This is episode 39 of First Principles—The Ken’s weekly leadership podcast.

Welcome to Episode 38 of First Principles!

If you're here to sign up for the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!

In this episode, you will hear Vaibhav Gupta, the CEO and co-founder of Udaan, an online trade platform whose mission is to "transform India".

It hopes to achieve that lofty goal by bringing tens of thousands of shopkeepers and grocery store owners closer to their suppliers and offering them competitive pricing, guarantees on quality, and easy deliveries and returns.

Vaibhav and his co-founders—Amod Malaviya and Sujeet Kumar—were all senior Flipkart leaders before starting Udaan. And yet, he insists Udaan isn't merely a "Flipkart for businesses".

Since 2016, when it first began operations, Udaan has raised over a billion dollars in venture capital. It was one of the fastest startups to achieve the coveted "unicorn tag".

It has also gone through its ups and downs in terms of valuations and headcount.

In this episode—Part 1 of our conversation with Vaibhav Gupta, we discuss:

--> Why Udaan evolved from a marketplace to a first-party business

--> Why the firm instituted a formal CEO position after five years of its existence

--> The five pillars of Udaan's culture

--> What daily conversations inside Udaan's leadership team look like

This is episode 38 of First Principles—The Ken's weekly leadership podcast.

Welcome back to Episode 37 of First Principles.

If you’re here to find our latest edition of the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!

A few weeks ago, we had a wonderful conversation with Viren Shetty – the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health.  Narayana Health – formerly called Narayana Hrudalaya – is a hospital network that’s also listed on the stock exchanges. 

Today’s episode is the second part of our conversation with Viren. In part 1, Viren talked about healthcare in India – something he described as an “assembly line.” 

If you remember listening to it, you’ll know that Viren has both intricate knowledge and undeniable intuition about the healthcare landscape in India. We discussed Viren’s ambitions to fix healthcare in India and where Narayana Health is headed. 

That led us to why Viren holds this mission so close to his heart, in this second part of our conversation.

What led him to healthcare? What drives him to wake up and do this, day after day? In our opening, you heard about Viren’s innate pattern recognition superpower, which is very different from his father Dr. DeviShetty’s.

So, how did he build this intuition? And how does he use it to run a vast hospital network?

Viren answers all of these questions with stories from his life, career and even from the hospitals where he grew up. 

This is episode 37 of First Principles—The Ken’s weekly leadership podcast.

P.S. Please recommend your favourite books for the First Principles community here!

Welcome to Episode 36 of First Principles!

If you're here to find our latest edition of the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!

Our guest for this episode is Aneesh Reddy, the co-founder and CEO of Capillary Technologies, a Bangalore-headquartered software-as-a-service – or SaaS – company that is one of the global leaders in customer loyalty and engagement.

Capillary powers the customer loyalty operations of hundreds of companies around the world. From companies like Domino’s, Puma, Shell, Marks & Spencers, and the Tata Group, to 15 of the world’s top Fortune 100 companies. 

Each time you transact at one of their stores or respond to a marketing message or upgrade your room, it’s probably Capillary’s tech at play behind the scenes. 

In its 16th year now, Capillary powers close to 7 billion annual transactions for its customer’s customers.

But – and there’s always a but in great stories – Capillary and Aneesh didn’t have an easy ride.

They went through multiple economic downturns. They raised large venture rounds and expanded globally, only to shut down many of those operations after losing millions of dollars. Of the three co-founders, two left. 

One having burnt out and the other because Aneesh was too stressful to work with.

Aneesh himself wanted to quit. But his board wouldn’t have it.

In this episode, Aneesh explains how CapillaryTech bounced back from this point, by slicing  their journey into three  “dream installments.”

He also talks about:

1. How CapillaryTech “bounced” into SaaS in a global recession 
2. The breakout SaaS model that gets them $1 million deals 
3. Building a people-first organization 
4. Learning and changing as a leader

This is episode 36 of First Principles—The Ken's weekly leadership podcast.

P.S. Please recommend your favourite books for the First Principles community here!

A few weeks ago, we published an episode with Soumya Rajan of Waterfield Advisors. We discussed what it was like to bet your future on an idea that no one had tried before, in India.  In Soumya’s case, that idea was a business model around wealth management.

You might remember Soumya saying it really wasn’t easy. 

Her peers had doubts. Her clients had doubts. Her family had doubts. She had doubts. 

But she dug her heels in. 12 years in, Waterfield Advisors is now India’s largest multi-family office and wealth advisory, managing over 40,000 crores for its clients. We covered a lot of ground around Waterfield’s early years. 

And then, we took a break. We had some coffee, looked around the studio offices, and came back in to record again. 

And slowly, the next hour of our conversation became about looking ahead. 

Soumya detailed her vision to me. Waterfield is planning to expand to Dubai this year. And perhaps even more international offices after that. 

In fact, Soumya said, she wants to build an organization like J.P. Morgan – out of India.

JP Morgan traces its history nearly 150 years back. So naturally, I asked Soumya: how do make sure you build a company that’s around for 10, 20…even 50 years? How do you build a truly defensible and lasting moat?

Her answer was very interesting. Soumya said Waterfield will continue what it started with – never manufacturing their own products, and continuing to remain only an advisory.

She explained, Waterfield would never go into distribution – which is where the money is.

 It will always be an advisory. 

Again, Soumya has a big bet – she believes that Waterfield needs to give up growth and scale in the short term, to succeed in the long term. 

And in this episode, she explains why this will work. 

We also talk about: 

--> Being unapologetic about entrepreneurship

--> Learning to let go as a CEO

--> How to use AI as a friend 

--> Building a ritualistic work ethic 

This is episode 35 of First Principles—The Ken's weekly leadership podcast.

P.S.: If you have any submissions for book recommendations, interesting reads, #SilentSunday pictures or songs for the First Principles newsletter, send them here.

Welcome to the first 2024 episode of First Principles! Though we’re only 15 months old, we’re also technically into our third calendar year, after our first episode in August 2022. A happy new year to you. Here’s to many more years of wonderful conversations, learning and growing.

Our guest today is Viren Shetty, the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health—the publicly listed healthcare group that operates over two dozen hospitals across India. 

Refreshingly, Viren thinks about healthcare…as an assembly line. 

And there are many, many steps in this line. Many of these are very small...they seem unimportant. Even forgettable. Like scheduling an annual healthcare checkup. Or filling out a feedback form at your clinic. Or just waiting in line for your doctor's appointment. 

When I asked Viren how healthcare can be fixed in India, he pointed to this assembly line. 

Basically, what if you tweak every small step of this line a little bit? Small, unnoticeable changes at every step? He’s confident that the result will be a smooth, well-oiled machine that takes care of your health end-to-end. 

This is what, Viren says, Narayana Health is trying to do. 

It reminded me of Apple. Take existing technologies and make improvements while putting the user at the centre of the experience. 

Narayana Health is a name you might have heard, especially if you’re from Bangalore. It was founded in 2000 by Dr. Devi Shetty. It went public in 2016 and is valued at over US$1 billion.

But what we know as Narayana Health today began as Narayana Hrudayalaya, a super speciality hospital with a laser-sharp focus on cardiac health. Twenty years on, however, it's changed a lot.

In addition to its numerous hospitals across India, it's also venturing into health insurance policies, partnering with clinics and pharmacies, and building an ambitious bundled subscription plan for its customers. 

This episode is a first in more ways than one. It’s not just our first episode of 2024. It’s also the first episode with a guest from the healthcare sector. 

And it’s the first episode which may sound a little different to you. 

In this episode, I ask Viren:

• Why are health checkups such a hassle?
• Is the answer to better healthcare in hardware or software?
• What are the health tech startups doing right?

And then there is the unshakable mistrust that the Indian population holds against hospitals and doctors. Can this even be solved?

Patiently and confidently, Viren answers every one of my questions. He talks about building sticky habits in customers, changing the messaging in healthcare, and becoming “worse” as an insurance company to be better as a healthcare one.

In this episode, we truly get down to the first principles of healthcare in India.

Check out the First Principles Newsletter, a weekly Sunday read on entrepreneurship, mental models, leadership and reflection here.

Send in submissions for book recommendations, interesting reads, Silent Sunday pictures or songs for the First Principles newsletter here.

This is Episode 34 of First Principles, Viren Shetty—The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast.

The Ken is India’s first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here.