Two by Two

Dmart, the retail group in India, is absolutely number one on vision, execution, and consistency. Dmart opened its first supermarket in Mumbai’s Powai suburb in 2002. Like Walmart in the US, it adopted a deep discounting strategy, offering its customers low prices every day. Today, it has 381 stores. In spite of offering its customers the deepest discounts, Dmart’s net profit numbers beat the best among its global peers.

Yet analysts and investors have been becoming increasingly bearish of Dmart’s future strategy. They argue that what got it from 2002 to 2024 might not necessarily take it to, say, 2034.

One big reason is quick commerce. Armies of underpaid contract delivery workers rushing from dark stores managed by notionally independent owners on behalf of younger companies like Zomato, Swiggy, Zepto, Big Basket, and even Flipkart are challenging the conventional wisdom on retail.

Forcing Dmart to pause and blink.

What should it do? Stick to what it knows and does best? Or learn new digital and delivery tricks in its middle age? With only an estimated 5% of the $500 billion urban market for food and groceries currently penetrated by organised and modern retail, the way Dmart goes has profound implications for India.

To discuss this, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan invited Govind Shrinkhande, former managing director of Shoppers Stop overseeing all its formats, including Shoppers Stop, Hypercity, Crossword, Homestop, Beauty Formats - MAC, Estee Lauder, Air Port & Duty Free Retail etc. Govind has spent over 40 years in the retail sector, having been part of the launches of Denim and Arrow, the relaunch of Vivaldi and the turnaround of Shoppers Stop. He is currently an Independent Director on the Board of a few Companies and a mentor to a few start-ups.

Our other guest is Seetharaman G. Seetha is deputy editor at The Ken and also leads The Ken’s coverage of retail. He’s written quite a few stories on Dmart over the years as well.

Welcome to episode number 18 of Two by Two!

Two by Two episodes referenced in this episode:

Is Zepto a gold medallist or a bronze medallist?

Swiggy needs to reclaim its past glory

Stories and newsletters referenced in this episode:

Dmart and the supersizing imperative

Zudio wanted Dmart’s apparel shoppers. Now Dmart is hurting

Dmart changes its mind on store size. Again

Dmart is not used to being in a funk for so long

What if the quick-commerce warehouse was a supermarket?

Dmart and investors rekindle their love

Dmart’s e-commerce bet has gone from counterintuitive to obsolete

This is a shorter 'highlights only' episode. If you want to listen and get early access to the full episode, consider becoming a Premium subscriber to The Ken, which in addition to Two by Two, will also give you access to our long-form stories, Premiums newsletters and visual stories. Or if you just want to listen to Two by Two for now, for iOS users, we have enabled Premium subscription on Apple Podcasts.

You can sign up for The Two by Two newsletter here—it's free!

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, and tell us what you think of the show.

You can write to us at [email protected] with your thoughts and suggestions.

We’ve unlocked this episode for our Basic and Free subscribers for a limited time. Listen to it on your favourite streaming platform for a limited time.

Ola and Uber are in a “late-stage duopoly”.

After spending billions and billions of dollars, they have finally secured pole positions in ride-sharing in India.

Both of these companies together control 70% of the market and they have created network effects that make it much harder for anyone to enter and compete with them.

However, this particular situation is facing some new challenges and just like how Uber and Ola conquered city after city using a disruptive model and technology, the same thing threatens to happen to them.

Ola and Uber are facing structural disruptions from multiple fronts in India.

In today’s episode, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar try to answer how the disruptors are getting disrupted by upstarts who are coming in with both business model innovation and newer fleets which offer a significantly better experience, which was the original promise of Ola and Uber as well.

So what is the next stage of disruption in ride-hailing look like in India? Is it EV fleets? Is it democratized tech-enabler platforms like ONDC which enables platforms like Nammayatri? Are we looking at the return of local taxi operators? 

And most importantly, what should Ola and Uber do to defend their position as new incentive models are introduced for both drivers and passengers?

Welcome to episode 14 of Two by Two.

Joining the hosts for the discussion are Nilesh Sangoi, CIO of Fincare Small Finance Bank, previously CEO of Meru Cabs; Pradeep Puranam, Head of Revenue and Operations at Yulu, ex-Udaan and -Uber; and returning guest Professor Srinivasan R, who teaches Strategy at IIM Bangalore.

Episode referenced:

Will Flipkart become Phonepe before Phonepe becomes Flipkart?

Stories referenced:

Rapido rips up the Uber-Ola playbook for cabs

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, and tell us what you think of the show.

Write to us at [email protected], and tell us what you thought of the episode.

For the last 24 months, the default way in which startups were exposed to venture capital and its effects has been, in many ways, paused. There's a slowdown. Venture capital funding for the first nine months of this year is down 7% over a similar period last year per Tracxn.

There have been news stories about layoffs, company shutdowns, and downrounds at various companies from a time when unicorns were being born every three months or so.

Capital is abundant. A lot of dry it remains uninvested everywhere, but it's just not getting invested at the same rate.

Building a company and scaling a company is getting cheaper because of AI and LLMs, which can generate code, which can generate images or just about anything anything that you want.

And the biggest change—there's a focus on being profitable.

If you’ve been a regular listener of Two by Two, you’d know that VCs have always managed to sneak into most, if not all, discussions on the podcast. Maybe not in the way they’d like to be represented in general, but they have been part of the conversation in some way, shape, or form.

So when hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sat down for this week’s episode, they got two founders-turned-VCs to join in and say their piece on the role VCs play in the world of startups. And what they need to be doing right. Manav Garg is the founder of Eka Software and co-founder of the operator-led Together Fund (Manav has previously appeared as a guest on the First Principles podcast as well), while Rajiv Srivatsa is the co-founder of Urban Ladder, and now a founding partner at Antler India.

Welcome to episode 17 of Two by Two.

This is a shorter 'highlights only' episode of an hour-and-a-half-long podcast. If you want to listen and get early access to the full episode, consider becoming a Premium subscriber to The Ken, which in addition to Two by Two, will also give you access to our long-form stories, Premiums newsletters and visual stories. Or if you just want to listen to Two by Two for now, for iOS users, we have enabled Premium subscription on Apple Podcasts.

You can sign up for The Two by Two newsletter here—it's free!

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, and tell us what you think of the show.

You can write to us at [email protected] with your thoughts and suggestions.

We have unlocked the full and unedited version of episode 13, which we released on October 10th for Premium subscribers of The Ken on The Ken’s mobile app and Apple Podcasts. Now, you can stream the full episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts for free for a limited time.

If you are a Product Manager, especially in India, you’re probably going through a crisis of faith and existence.

As a career, Product Management in India has gone through multiple eras—in the early days, PMs struggled to explain to people what they actually did. Think about all the people you’d imagine who work at a software company. Marketing. Engineering. Sales. Analytics. Design.

You can explain what they do to your grandmother. But the one exception to the rule is Product Management. It’s the only function where the people who do it struggle to explain to their parents what they do.

Then suddenly there was a gold rush when everyone wanted to become a Product Manager. And now, there’s an existential crisis — partly driven by the reduced funding and attrition, the rise of AI, and the changing nature of products themselves, more and more leaders are asking the question : Do we even need Product Managers?

In today’s episode of Two by Two, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan interview two accomplished product leaders in India. First, there’s Chandrashekhar Vattikuti (CPO and SVP at InMobi, ex-Yahoo, Microsoft) and Shreyas Srinivasan, Chief Product Officer at Paytm*, and also founder of Paytm Insider. During the discussion, they trace the origin, the evolution and the crisis that Product Management as a career faces in India. They try to figure out why and how Product Management became a science and stopped being an art.

And they try to answer what makes for a great Product Manager, and how to find them.

And they also ask the question that CEOs and Founders are asking themselves — do we even need Product Managers at all?

Welcome to Episode 13 of Two by Two.

Further reading:

Product Managers used to be creators. Now they are mostly bureaucrats

Who killed the art of Product Management in India?

Who made the Frauduct Manager?

Episode referenced:

Google Pay: Big. Successful. Vulnerable

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and tell us what you think of the show.

*Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken.

Ola Electric's woes just don’t seem to be stopping.

From angry customers to its mercurial CEO getting into online spats as pressure mounts, many of its problems stretch seemingly beyond its control today for it to make a quick turnaround and change the narrative. And this is hurting its valuation significantly, both in the private and public markets. Just this week, Ola Electric's price fell below its listing price

Ola Electric can and should take credit for making EV two-wheelers common on Indian roads. It achieved this through rampant marketing, getting the word out about its product, and eventually delivering its products to eager customers as well. These did yield results in the short term as well. At its peak, Ola Electric’s vertically integrated ecosystem was a big pull, which, along with its marketing efforts, allowed it to gain nearly 53% market share in the EV two-wheeler segment.

But the strategy of moving fast and breaking things that startups usually apply to press an early mover advantage has now started to backfire, as angry customers take to social media to express their frustration with the longer wait times to get their vehicles serviced and working again.

These kinds of troubles tend to happen with startups. But when the situation is such that you can’t just fix things as you would do in an app, and you are under the scrutiny of the public markets. The need to deliver becomes absolutely detrimental.

In this week’s episode, host Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan try to understand Ola’s recent history, how it fared after listing on the Indian bourses, the troubles it has faced, and what the future holds.

Joining them for the episode are Jinesh Gandhi, Research Director at Ambit*, with over 20 years of experience tracking multiple sectors, and Narayan Sundararaman, an accomplished leader with over 28 years of experience in marketing strategy. Narayan has worked at Cadbury, Star TV, and was the ex-CMO at Bajaj Auto.

Reference Stories:

How Ola Electric blew its lead

Ola Electric wants to take on Hero’s Splendor. But e-bikes are not e-scooters

The real reason behind Ola Electric slashing its IPO valuation in a booming stock market

Episode unlocked for free and basic subscribers: Ather Energy was a pioneer. Can it also be a leader?

This is a shorter 'highlights only' episode of an hour-and-a-half-long podcast. If you want to listen and get early access to the full episode, consider becoming a Premium subscriber to The Ken, which in addition to Two by Two, will also give you access to our long-form stories, Premiums newsletters and visual stories. Or if you just want to listen to Two by Two for now, for iOS users, we have enabled Premium subscription on Apple Podcasts.

You can sign up for The Two by Two newsletter here—it's free!

*Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the analyst and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Ambit Capital Private Ltd. The analyst does not hold any financial interest in the securities discussed in the podcast, nor do their relatives. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. It is essential to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions.

This episode was produced by Hari Krishna. Mixing and mastering for this episode is done by Rajiv CN. Write to us about what you thought of the episode at [email protected].

We have unlocked the full and unedited version of episode 12, which we released on October 3rd for Premium subscribers of The Ken on The Ken’s mobile app and Apple Podcasts. Now, you can stream the full episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, Youtube or wherever you listen to your podcasts for free for a limited time.

Ather Energy is the third-largest seller of electric two-wheelers in India. Founded in 2013, Ather Energy is known to have kicked off the electric two-wheeler wave in India. They came in with a great product which offered the best of software and hardware on a two-wheeler. And over a decade of its existence, Ather has delivered on its promise of a great product which will create a “magical experiences” for its customers.

Ather spent years building their own electric two-wheelers from the ground up. They built their own batteries, their own chassis, their own electronics and powertrain, and even their own software. 

But in the process, they lost the opportunity to become the market leader, a spot that was filled by Ola Electric, a much later entrant.

On September 9th this year Ather filed its draft red herring prospectus as it plans to go ahead and list on the Indian bourses. And as hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sat down to discuss and understand what the market looks like for electric two-wheelers and how Ather will fare in a market, it kickstarted and popularized. They also got two great guests to discuss this.

First is the co-founder and CEO of IPO-bound Ather Energy Tarun Mehta himself and the second guest we had was Professor Rishikesha Krishnan, Director of IIM Bangalore, and a professor of Strategy.

It’s not often that we have the co-founder and CEO of a company heading for its IPO discussing its strategy with the director of one of India’s most prestigious management institutes, who both studies and teaches strategy.

And over the course of 90 minutes, they discussed the strategy and vision Ather Energy is going ahead with into the future and how they intend to keep innovating on their product leadership while also stepping up and getting on the front foot to improve their market leadership.

Welcome to Episode 12 of Two by Two.

Two by Two is also a newsletter, where every Friday a storified version of the latest episode is sent out to subscribers for free. You can sign up for the Two by Two Newsletter here.

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, and tell us what you think of the show.

Write to us at [email protected] and let us know what you thought of the episode.

Happy Deepavali, dear listeners!

On account of Deepavali, the Two by Two team is also taking a small break. But don't worry; we'll be back with our regular programming next week.

Until then, you can always listen to past episodes of Two by Two that you haven't gotten around to yet. If you're a Premium subscriber listening to this on The Ken’s mobile app or on Apple podcasts, you can just scroll down and listen to any of our episodes in their full, unedited form. On the other hand, if you aren’t a premium subscriber yet, you can listen to one of our older episodes which we’ve unlocked for you. 

In fact, in the latest unlocked episode, we argue, debate, and discuss what Netflix needs to do to win in its last growth market — India.

Netflix's last growth market. (Full republished episode for free users available on Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Youtube)

By the way, if you’re in the mood for something other than two-by-twos and business models, why don’t you head over to Daybreak, The Ken’s daily podcast?

Just last week, our colleagues Snigdha and Rahel did an amazing episode where they spoke to multiple people to understand why women freeze their eggs.

Successful women are freezing their eggs. And that's on men. (Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | YouTube Music)

If you have suggestions for potential future episodes, we’re all ears. We’re also all ears if you have recommendations for interesting guests we can invite to the show—guests who know their stuff and aren’t afraid to speak their minds, even if it goes against conventional wisdom. Write to us at [email protected].

We have unlocked the full and unedited subscriber version of episode six which we released on September 26 for Premium subscribers of The Ken on The Ken’s app and on Apple Podcasts. Now you can stream the full episode on Spotify, Amazon Music , Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts for free for a few weeks.

Netflix is trying hard to crack the Indian market. Ever since the US streaming giant entered the country it has been hard at work to make an impact. And over the years they’ve learnt a thing or two about how the Indian streaming space functions.

Netflix is also not shy about expressing how it sees India as its last growth market. Most of the other geographies it has saturated its reach to a large extent, but India has always been a pain point for it to get a leg up on. So much so, that the then CEO, Reed Hastings expressed his frustration about why they weren’t able to crack India during an earnings call in 2022.

But from then to now, Netflix has managed an interesting turnaround by climbing down the pricing ladder on its subscriptions in India, even as it raises its prices in North America, and throwing in a somewhat limited regional and diversified slate of shows into the mix.

But Netflix is clear on one thing, it sees India as its last growth market and expects to add 100 million paying subscribers in the country. But for that to happen it has to put in a lot more work and now it faces the added pressure of competing with the merged entity of Jio Cinema and Disney+ Hotstar which would create a mammoth of a content library stacked with regional content, endless range of movies and prestige television,  and the massive distributional heft Jio brings to the table.

All of this begs the question, given the situation, how seriously is Netflix looking at India as its last growth market?

To discuss this, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar are joined by Kunj Sanghvi who is the Content and Creative Head at Kuku FM, and Nishad Kenkre, who presently is an Operating Partner at Verlinvest. Nishad has previously worked at Swiggy and was also Director and Head of Strategy at Disney.

Welcome to episode 11 of Two by Two.

Two by Two is also a newsletter, where every Friday a short storified version of the latest episode is sent out to subscribers for free. You can sign up for the Two by Two Newsletter here.

(Listen to the free highlights only episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts)

Further reading:

Netflix house will let you experience your favorite shows, movies in real life

Netflix climbs down India’s ladder

Further listening:

Why couldn’t Stripe become the Stripe of India?

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, and tell us what you think of the show.

What happens when the government plays the role of regulator, policymaker, and operator?

The government has played a pivotal role in establishing and promoting Digital Public Goods (DPG) and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in the past decade and a half, and there have been few which have been integral in our daily lives in more ways than one.

The reason why these solutions exist is plain and simple: There emerged companies which disrupted the landscape of finance, commerce, mobility and a whole lot of other aspects of our lives, but as they gained prominence they also started to play by their own rules.

The regulator was not able to act fast enough in most cases to keep things in check. So the government intervened and helped establish and promote solutions which would keep things in check and protect the interests of all the parties involved.

Some solutions literally changed the way our day to day lives are, and created businesses which are built on top of these solutions. Think UPI, ONDC or Bharat Connect (formerly known as Bharat Bill Payment System).

In addition to creating and shaping these systems or frameworks or protocols these government-backed players or GBPs, as we referred to them in this episode also became a competitor on what they had helped build, which begs the question what kind of system does this shape up to be?

In episode 15 of Two by Two, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sit down with Anupam Manur, Professor of Economics at The Takshashila Institution, to break down the interventionist solutions championed by the government. From UPI and ONDC to the Unified Lending Interface.

Two by Two is also a newsletter, where every Friday short storified version of the latest episode is sent out to subscribers for free. You can sign up for the Two by Two Newsletter here.

This is a short 'highlights only' episode of a 90 minute long discussion. The full episode is available to Premium subscribers of The Ken and on Apple Podcasts via a standalone subscription.

Episodes referenced:

Google Pay: Big. Successful. Vulnerable

Stories referenced:

You need to download Digiyatra again. But it’s less about a tech upgrade and more about a scam

RBI is competing with its regulated entities — and killing competition

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and tell us what you think of the show.

Write to us at [email protected], and tell us what you thought of the episode.

We have unlocked the full and unedited subscriber version of episode six, which we released on September 19th for Premium subscribers of The Ken on The Ken’s app and on Apple Podcasts. Now, you can stream the full episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts for free for a few weeks.

The fastest growing segment of insurance in India is individual health insurance. It’s growing steadily at a, well, healthy pace of 20% annually. 

But scratch just a little beneath the surface and things don’t appear so rosy. Of the 20% annual growth in revenue, nearly 15% comes from medical inflation. Meaning, existing customers paying higher premiums each year because the costs of treatments are going up.

The growth in the number of customers each year is just around 5-6%. 

Health insurance in India is broken from top to bottom. 70-75% of Indians have no health insurance. Of those who do, the largest chunk have free or low cost insurance provided by the government, followed by usually employer provided group insurance. Less than 10% Indians have their own health insurance. 

Scratch that. It’s more accurate to call it hospitalization insurance, not health insurance. Because the industry has developed in a way that incentivizes catastrophic illnesses and hospitalization and treatment, not health. 

Why, you wonder? 

Because much of the industry wrongly incentivizes, for legacy reasons, all the wrong things. Like, large groups that make lots of claims. High commissions to distributors. Expensive procedures. Expensive premiums. 

Instead of incentivising the right things. Like, getting the young and healthy covered early on. Insuring blue collar workers. Building products customers actually want. And most importantly, staying healthy.

So when hosts Praveen Gopal Krishna and Rohin Dharmakumar sat down to discuss this complex topic, they decided to invite two guests who had the experience and candour to tell them what needs to change. 

Our first guest is Viren Shetty, the Executive Vice Chairman of one of India’s largest hospital groups, the listed Narayana Health. was our first guest. Viren has also been spearheading Narayana Health’s foray into providing its own health insurance, built to address many of the gaps I spoke about earlier.

Our second guest is Shivaprasad Krishnan. Shivaprasad currently runs an investment banking firm, Kricon Capital, but was a part of the founding team at ICICI Lombard, one of India’s first private health insurers. He also has over 3 decades of experience in finance and management.

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Sound engineering and mixing is by Rajiv C N.

You can listen to full episodes either with a Premium subscription to The Ken or by subscribing to Two by Two Premium on Apple Podcasts.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode of Two by Two or have some thoughts that you’d like to share with us you can always write to us [email protected]. We’ll be back next week with a new episode for you.