Inspire With Daivik

There are a few special conversations where the connect with the founder does not feel like it was the first time. This was one of those episodes. Connected with Manish and spoke extensively about how he is building one of the coolest apps in the country. An app, which is merging the world of gaming and personal finance. Through their app, you can invest in digital gold and also earn extra coins by playing games on the app which can then be redeemed for your investment. 

They are now backed by Y-combinator and are on a trajectory of stellar growth. He shared how he applied for Entrepreneur First and built his company in Bangalore with his cofounder who he met at the cohort. We discussed how to identify a market and map user behavior, gather surveys online or grabbing coffee with some early users. One of the most fun conversations filled with learning from an Entrepreneur who left the comfort of his job, took a leap of faith for his dreams and is now well on his way to grow this app as far as he can imagine.

00to 6:30 Introduction and the idea behind Fello

6:30 to 8:45 Gathering customer data through surveys

8:45 to 14:00 Gaining trust of your early customers

14:00 to 17:48 Sharing his journey on social media

17:48 to 21:30 Coming back to India after his Masters and taking up a job

21:30 to 28:17 What is Entrepreneur First?

28:17 to 36:35 Choosing the right investors and value of your parents support

36:35 to 51:54 What is Fello? Breaking down the business

In this episode, we spoke to Sharan Shetty, The Millenial Farmer. After completing his bachelors degree in Mumbai, he continued to work in the city for about 2 years. During this period, he kept visiting his family back in Mangalore. After spending 2 years in the hustle bustle of the city, he finally decided to move back to his village near Mangalore and take up farming up full time. 

Once he was back, he has been trying different types of farming to improve the yield of their lands. By employing more advanced techniques of farming, he is now bringing about a change in the kind of crops that he can grow on his farms. We discussed the different life lessons that farming has taught him and the products that they are now bringing direct to the consumer. He also dived in to details about the role of agriculture in our economy and challenges he has faced. But its now safe to say, he is very well settled back at his village in Mangalore and ready to take The Millenial Farmer to a next level.

0:00 to 5:50 Journey of deciding to be a Millenial Farmer

5:50 to 9:03 Challenges faced in this line of business

9:04to 13:55 Experimentation in farming 

13:55 to 16:45 advantages of growing medicinal plants

16:45 to 19:30 Growing brahmi and ashvagandha

19:30 20:30 business plans for medicinal plants

20:30 to 22:25 Real talk on hydroponics

22:25 25:10 What lessons farming has taught him

25:10 to end Parting thoughts

This is our Women’s day special episode where we spoke to Rhea and Yeshoda, the cofounders of Hoovu Fresh. With Hoovu, you can order or subscribe to receive flowers right in time for your Pooja or any other event of your choice. It truly is a fresh take on traditional flowers! They are building a brand in a space where no single brand exists.

Rhea and Yeshoda both grew up in a house surrounded by flowers as their father was one of the largest suppliers of Roses. They spent valentines’ day in rose gardens helping with deliveries around those weeks. After studying abroad, they both came back & decided to start Hoovu in February 2019. They took up the challenge as first time entrepreneurs to be first movers in a space. Hoovu delivers flowers from early morning to late at night, and you know the best part?! Their flowers stay fresh for 15 days! Want to know how?

Key questions discussed :

Starting a business right out of college

Benefits of being a first mover

Building a brand in a space without any existing players

Starting a business with your sibling

Growing up in a business oriented atmosphere

Being an introvert but overcoming that fear as a founder

Taking customer care calls as founders

Upskilling your team through the pandemic

Podcast Sections :

10:00 Their strategy during Covid and upskilling their team

16:24 The story behind the name ‘Hoovu’

20:06 Understanding their market and the supply chain

27:01 Starting a business as siblings

34:04 The way forward for Hoovu

38:15 How their flowers stay fresh for 15 days

In this episode, we dived into the journey of Pranav Dangi, CEO and founder of Hosteller. It is India's only branded chain of hostels and is present in more than 18 cities already. They have been growing steadily over the last 6 years and have also survived a global pandemic. We spoke about what drove Pranav to start his business which he initially started doing as a side hustle on the weekends, before quitting his full time job and jumping right into growing Hosteller.

Yes, True Elements is the same brand you see in the stores around you. And Sreejith Sir, has a very different start to his story. He started his career out as an HR and pursued that for over 12 years. During this period he worked in different companies like Tata and Cognizant. In 2012, he decided to quit his job, and start a business in the healthy foods space. It was called it Healthy World, which helped source healthy foods from across the country and make it easily accessible to people in metro cities.

As they grew, they realized the challenges with scaling their existing business model and decided to launch their own brand. Building a brand has its own set of challenges and moreover doing it for healthy foods, adds to it. What started off as pivot in 2014, has now transformed into a rapidly growing business with products from breakfast to sweets. Their entire production line is women and they have won international awards for their products and are India's only Clean Food certified brand. 

An episode for everyone out there

Wondering how they achieved all this? Head to the episode and give it a listen. It was an absolute pleasure speaking with Sreejith sir.

00-9:05 The start and story of Healthy world

9:05-17:00 A Pivot and start of True elements

17:00-21:45 Their founding team and cofounder chemistry for startups

21:45-28:35 How to startup when you have family responsibilities

28:35 -34:15 Building a tasty + healthy brand, not only healthy

34:15- 39:28  What is a clean label + whole grain brand?

39:28 – 49:05 Raising capital and scaling True Elements

49:05 – 56:29 His perspective on a work life balance as a founder

Shubham Chippa is a director and son of Mr. Purshottam Chippa, founder of Chippa Labs Private Limited. The company started in 1987 as a side hustle for his father who continued to grow the business while being on a full time job. Shubham has done his BBA and completed his masters in Cultural event management. After a few years of studying and working in a few startups, he decided to get back home and join his family business.

In this episode we speak about everything he did before joining the family business and how that gave him an advantage to shoulder the responsibility once he was ready to take it up. He shares how he initially stayed away and pursued different professions in starkly different environments as compared to their current business. He moved countries, cities and addresses, before finally moving back and diving right into the business.

If you are someone who is yet to join your family business or know someone who is going to, share this episode with them.

00-5.00 Early life and junior college

05.00-15.00 Initially following his passion for music and moving to Goa

15.00-19.23 An introduction to Chippa Labs labs and its story

19.00-23.10 The journey of joining and scaling the family business

Rohit Jethwani aka JuniorJethu is one of the most well-known dancers in the Indian Bollywood dance space. He is known for his Govinda like expressions and power packed performances. Not only does he upload the most entertaining dance videos, but he has also choreographed commercials for Flipkart and recently directed a music video as well. He is a very dear friend and we go way back to the early 2000s where we used to dance and train together at Shiamak Davar’s Dance Academy.

He is now building his personal brand , ‘Junior Jethu’ on social media. Rohit is well on his way to make an impact and disrupt this space. His dance videos are a treat to watch. Each video is with a new concept , location or style! In this podcast, we covered the journey of where he began, and what all he did which built the foundation for what he is doing today.

Listen to this episode to understand how to build a career in an unconventional field like dance and being a digital content creator. It will help you learn from his experience and challenges, to prepare you better to take your leap of faith and follow your dreams!

#JuniorJethu #PersonalBranding #InspirewithDaivik

Podcast Chapters :

1. Early days of school and doing a lot of extra curricular activities: 1.00 - 6.00

2. Professional dance training ,bodyshaming and moving to USA : 6.00 - 12.00

3. Starting USC Zeher ( Dance Crew ): 12.00- 16.15

4. Leadership skills and learnings from being a part of Aisec : 16.15- 21.30

5. Education as a passion and interning with iXperience(Edtech Startup)-21.30-26.30

6. What is garv and how it started : 26.30-31.30

7. Moving to LA and taking Garv forward : 31.30 - 44.00

8. Moving back to India and Personal goals :44.00-52.30

9. Content creation as a profession and building JuniorJethu: 52.30-60.00

10. Rapid fire 3 Personal Questions : 60.00-1.10.00

Rohit Nayar is a Financial Advisor by the day and a Choreographer at night. He is one of those people who has been able to successfully build multiple streams of income and master personal finance. He did his MBA in Finance and Marketing after completing his Mechanical Engineering. And did I mention, all along his years of studying, he was building up Rohit Dance Academy. He has a very simple way of helping you understand complex concepts around money and where to begin, no matter what your income is today. He grew up around personal finance thanks to his father Ram Nayar who is among the top names in the country in this space. Building up on his father's 33 years of experience, Rohit is now leading it and growing it out much further.

When I started this podcast, I really wanted it to add value and do it from a very practical sense. Personal Finance management is such a foundational topic for all of us young adults who are just starting out, learning to make and grow our money.

We all might have made our set of mistakes up until now, but its now time to take matters into our hands, learn and apply our knowledge to master our personal finance. Give this episode a listen and lets start saving & growing our money, one penny at a time.

Do listen and share it with your friends!

#InspirewithDaivik #PersonalFinance #MoneyManagement

Welcome to our Women’s Day Special episode with Nikita Dixit, founder of Bebadass. It is one of India’s fastest growing and largest feminist communities! It has a vision to empower women with a dose of Sass. Their page and website covers a wide diversity of topics around women and helps in making us more aware on how we can do our bit to support and uplift women around us. Their content is bold and fearless and they often cover topics which are taboo in our society today.

In this episode , we dived right into the story behind Bebadass with their founder Nikita Dixit. We discussed why she started this community and how she quit a comfortable well paid job to take a leap of faith and begin her entrepreneurial journey. She started all by herself and was simultaneously also battling mental health issues. But she’s a fighter and nothing can stop her. She now has a team of strong women by her side, and together they have set out to help women around the world BeBadass.

#InspirewithDaivik #WomensDaySpecial #BeBadass

We often hear of college dropouts, but dont often see them in India. Raj is not only one such example, but also a successful one. He dropped out and went on to form multiple businesses along the way over the past decade. In this episode, we discuss why he dropped out , the journey of starting a business, challenges along the way and where he is headed with it in the future.