Building a brand of Taste and Culture - GD Prasad (Founder, VS Mani & Co.)

Roshan Cariappa

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Startup Operator podcast. For those of you who have visited our studio, you guys know that we only serve VS Mani for coffee and snacks. And today we have the co-founder of VS Mani on the podcast. Hey, Prasad, welcome to the podcast.

GD Prasad

Thank you so much for having me.

Roshan Cariappa

Thanks so much for making the time. And it's been a long and tiring day with all of your meetings and whatnot, so I really appreciate it.

GD Prasad

No worries at all. I am also not that busy.

Roshan Cariappa

I think I first discovered you folks maybe about a year back through some Instagram ads, and since then I've tried the brand. I love the product. There's a lot of things that I want to talk about.

GD Prasad

Right.

Roshan Cariappa

I am very interested about the business in general, but for all of our listeners, could you give us a little bit of context on the VS Mani story?

GD Prasad

 I started VS Mani solo in 2020. The sort of idea of doing this was always in my head, I'd say about 2018- 2019 was when I gave it some leg and gave it some thought, but I never did anything about it those years. I was also busy at Webchutney, where I was spending the last six, seven years of my life. And I kind of owe a lot of the entrepreneurial ambition to whatever we did at Webchutney.

Sadh and Gotham, the founder and the CEO essentially gave us that kind of an atmosphere. And I think that's the kind of space, and it's the right kind of space where you really are encouraged to sort of think about your own team as your own business unit. So, I guess somewhere I still blame them for all of that. So that's where it started in terms of just wanting to do something myself. That's one part. The second part was, of course, all the, I guess, my travels and I've lived a little bit abroad and outside South India as well. Incidentally, Rahul and Yashas, who also worked with me at Webchutney, had very similar experiences. 

And all of us are from the south, and we have always spoken about how difficult it is to find our snacks and our filter coffee. It's very easy for you to just walk into if you're outside the country also. You can just walk into a Sainsbury or a Walmart or wherever, and you'll still find Haldiram's Bhujia or you will find Taj Mahal, Brooke Bond tea, whatever. But you'll still find it very difficult to get your filter coffee and the Muruku and the banana chips and things like that that we've really grown up on. 

And we used to really envy the non-south counterparts for whom it would make no real difference. But we'd have to rely on maybe our parents to send us a small box or something. Or we might find a small guy who's brought in a small batch from somewhere, and it's just there that day, and then you'll never find it again. And I think there are a lot of temple communities who make them and sell them. But the temples do it in smaller ways. So, the point is that there is still no brand that is nationally or internationally known for South Indian stuff. 

What is the Haldiram's equivalent of the South Indian snacks, especially given that I was born and brought up in Chennai? You're so used to brands like Grand Stores and Sri Krishna Stores and Saravanna Stores, all of these guys. And it's kind of funny that none of these guys really took on the FMCG part of the business. They focused a lot on the FNB part of the business. I think it also has a little bit to do with a few things. One is the South Indian mentality itself is such that we like to just keep to ourselves and we're a lot less flamboyant, I suppose. We don't really like to go around talking too much about things. Look at Vidyarthi Bhavan, for example. Just happy being that single old establishment and they are serving just the best dosas ever.

Roshan Cariappa

Yeah.

GD Prasad

And saying I'm happy being this way because my customers will come in because they know where they can find me. That’s a South Indian mentality. And the other thing that I also realized is that the South Indians never really migrated so much. If you actually just took a look at it, maybe the South Indians migrated because they were in bank jobs or they were in very few of them who ended up being in Government jobs or the army and the Air Force and things like that. 

Which is essentially why in Delhi and some places you actually find the Tamil and South Indian communities in that sense. So, we never really migrated so much. But we have a lot of other cultures that came into the south, whether it was the Gujaratis or the Rajasthanis or whoever. I mean, you found people coming to the south to make the south their home. What happened as a result is they brought in their culture and food with them. 

Which therefore meant that it made a lot of sense for a brand like Haldirams to be nationally distributed. And I guess therefore it never made sense for a South Indian brand to say let's be nationally distributed. Which is why even today, even in a VC circle, if you actually go up and try and have this conversation about South Indian food, it's unfortunate that there's actually no reference point, right? If I was actually trying to build perhaps the next Haldiram with a few innovations, I'd find it easier to actually raise funds and do things because there is a reference point. There's Haldirams (that's done about 7000 crores), Bikaji and Balaji. All of them are 1000 plus crore brands. And therefore, even if I wanted to shave off a small percentage of it, I'd easily be 100- 200 crores.

Roshan Cariappa

A captive market.

Now, in our case, we are actually trying to build a brand in something that's probably not been proven at national scale. Therefore, your examples end up being Maya or MTR or whatever it is, who always played in the region and not necessarily scaled to today's expectations. Of course, they scaled and of course they are way more profitable than some of us might ever be. But there's no reference point. 

Long story short, I think our thought process was that of course there is a clear space, there is no go to brand for South Indians to get their delicacies. Why don't we build that brand? That was really the only sort of reason for us to say, you know what, let's just do this. Because we were extremely passionate about South Indian cuisine, our food and our culture and whatever we've grown up with. And we said that it's unfortunate that there is no one who is doing this. So, let's just go out there and do it. So somewhere towards the end of 2019, I started toying with a few coffee blends and trying to do a few things just to see if we can come up with something. I would not call it unique, but at least unique to us with some sort of differentiation from what's available out there. 

We consciously decided to do filter coffee because it's almost an entryway to South India. You talk to anybody who even doesn't have an idea of the culture, he knows about Idli, Dosa and coffee. So, we said it's a great entry point. We didn't do coffee because coffee was sexy. Of course, there were other brands that started before us, Sleepy Owl and things like that. 

But we didn't do coffee because it was a sexy category to be in. We did coffee because it made a lot of sense for us from the South Indian storytelling standpoint. So, we decided to do filter coffee. And somewhere along the way I also said it's very much part of this 04:00 pm culture that we have. It's coffee and a few snacks to nibble on. 

So maybe we start with that and sort of build up the brand to have enough equity to sort of play in other categories as well in the future. But today our focus of course is very much on filter coffee and snacks. So, we are trying to take these two key offerings to the audience and sort of get ourselves introduced to them in the process. That's broadly how we did this. But of course, in early 2020, I started working on the brand architecture and what the real proposition is. One thing that we (me and my wife) were very clear about was that this needs to be a brand that doesn't speak product first, but speaks culture first. Even today, I keep telling people that I think we are in the business of selling culture, not coffee and snacks. We are trying to introduce to everyone what is authentic South Indian culture. And as a byproduct, you get our coffee and our snacks, which are good products. But I think the entryway for someone to like us and one of the reasons you discovered us was because of that South Indian touch.

Roshan Cariappa

Right.

GD Prasad

So we're trying to give people a sense of familiarity. If you're a South Indian and if you're not a South Indian, you get a sense of authenticity.

Roshan Cariappa

Right.

GD Prasad

Unfortunately for a lot of non-South Indians, the only reference point is lungi dance. And that's what absolutely sucks.

Roshan Cariappa

I think we can speak on behalf of all South Indians, but yes.

GD Prasad

And it's not stopping even now.

Roshan Cariappa

Right?

GD Prasad

You even had that recent Salman film which did that. But the point is, I think there is a lot of misconceptions about the south, our culture, our people, the way we talk, the way we dress, the way we eat and so on. We said this is not an exercise to go around correcting people, but this is an exercise for us to tell people who South Indians are.

Roshan Cariappa

Build something positive, basically.

GD Prasad

Yeah, let's be authentic about who we are. Let's be true to ourselves, let's be true to our culture and let's tell people that this is what South Indian culture is and come and experience that culture with Vs money, right? So essentially with Vs money, you're getting an authentic taste of South India. That's really what it is at a sort of broader level.

Roshan Cariappa

Right.

GD Prasad

And we're doing it via snacks and coffee. So, if you're a South Indian, it's going to be a little bit of nostalgia, it's got to be a little bit of referencing how you grew up. And it's a lot more familiar for non-South Indian, is a great introduction to real South India. We then bring them into the culture, into the family, and then we say, try our products. When I knew very clearly that this was the agenda and this is what we wanted to do and I was actually struggling to find a name for it. And that's when actually one night I think it struck me in the middle of the night, that it is very much the story of the home that I was born into and I grew up in. 

And that is an absolute true reflection of a humble South Indian home. And why not make this about that South Indian home? And my grandfather's name is V Subramanyam and he was called VS, or he was called Mani. So, I said VS Mani sounds nice. So, we gave it that name and it was just something that I thought of. We immediately went and booked the domain. 

Thankfully, it was available. So even today it's vsmani.com. So, we went and did that. Then the brand architecture and the brand story evolved and it came to a point where it was very clear that everything is the story of this home. Therefore, you will see it on the products, you'll see it at the back of the pack and on the website. So, VS Mani, it became the story of this humble South Indian home through which we will talk about the authentic taste of South India. So that's how the whole thing took shape. All of this took shape over a good six, seven, eight-month window. When we actually came to this point and realized we had arrived. We realized this is the brand, this is what we're calling it, and this is what the story is, and this is what we're selling first.

Roshan Cariappa

Right.

GD Prasad

You're coming to us. I guess whenever you saw the ad, you came to us because you thought this was authentic.

Roshan Cariappa

Absolutely.

GD Prasad

I don't think it was in your head that it looks like great coffee. Great coffee is just a byproduct. It's also a given.

Roshan Cariappa

No. I think my first introduction to the brand, as I mentioned, was through Instagram. And the first look of it, it looked authentic, whether it's the Dhara you're pouring the coffee, or even the name itself, VS Mani and Co.

GD Prasad

Right.

Roshan Cariappa

I mean, it kind of felt like this traditional sort of Tamil household. It kind of originated there and so on. And coffee is a religious experience in the south.

GD Prasad

Right.

Roshan Cariappa

I mean, I have very fond memories of my aunt serving me coffee in the morning and one of the first things I did when I moved out was to figure out the coffee scene.

GD Prasad

Right.

Roshan Cariappa

Forget about everything else, but what am I going to do for coffee? And it's amazing that you are introducing this to people. Definitely I relate to a lot of things that you mentioned, which is that there's just such a lacuna in terms of a South Indian food brand in North India.

GD Prasad

Right.

Roshan Cariappa

My brother was in Gurugam for quite a while, actually more than ten years. And every time I travelled there. There were authentic dosa, authentic coffee, authentic whatever else brand. Of course, you had all these brew and SKU variants, but it wasn't quite the same. And I always wondered, why isn't there a brand serving consistent quality of dosa, coffee, etc?

GD Prasad

It's changed now in the last three or four years. There are actually quite a few good establishments in the north and in the west that actually serve very good South Indian food. Look at Karnatak, for example in Delhi. It's just absolutely killing it. There's this little place in Pune. I'm forgetting the name. It is a sort of nice, cutely made place that serves good Filter coffee and some of our snacks. In Bombay there are some pockets. Of course, there is Matunga which always has South Indian food. But I'm talking about some of the newer pockets, like Juhu. The new areas seem to have some South Indian restaurants that do good South Indian food. I guess it's changed, but like you said, there's a lot of room for it to be available. Right. And I guess the gap that we are trying to fill is to not say that I can go out and get it, but can I get it at home every day?

Roshan Cariappa

Exactly.

GD Prasad

That's the primary business that we are in.

Roshan Cariappa

So, those who are listening would have had some kind of an idea for a product like this. How do you go from idea to product to company? Tell me about the whole process of the eight or nine months that you spent from the time you came up with this concept to actually deciding what the name should be, the brand architecture, what product, how do you get it to market, and so on and so forth.

GD Prasad

Right.

Roshan Cariappa

What are those first steps? I mean, first steps are consumer research, like, in your own way, validating whether this idea has legs or what was step one, step two and step three?

GD Prasad

I think at the most basic, absolute basic level, I'd say getting from zero to one is essentially saying, let me do it. I feel like that itself is a very big sort of step.

Because we see a lot of people talking. Hey! I've been having this idea for a while and I've been toying with it and I'm still figuring out what to do. My point is, if you really want to figure out what to do, then you go ahead and figure it out rather than let that idea just keep marinating in your head. And that was essentially what we did with VS Mani as well.

It could have very well been an idea that I could have said, you know what, let's just go out there, do some market research, figure out if there is indeed an audience for this. Do they want a product like this? Are we going to do something very different? Is there a need for a brand in this space and things like that, which I think you should do at some level at least at the back of your mind. At a much larger level, it's also about knowing your surroundings well enough to say that this will work. But when we decided to do this, it was more of an experiment. “Okay! I have a job, and this seems like a smallish investment”. 

I also had some experience with doing the website and the packaging and similar things. So, I said it's a smallish expense to write off. If it didn't do well, at least at the end of that six-month window or whatever, we could have said, at least we tried. And perhaps there is no audience for this. I think one of the biggest hurdles for someone to get from zero to one itself is to actually go to 0.1. 0.1 is to say, “Let me do it.” “Let me figure it out.” Because when you start figuring it out, you not just start answering some of the questions in your head. You also stare at new questions, and you then start figuring other things out. So, it could be packaging, it could be pricing, it could be legal requirements and things like that. So, I guess broadly, one is to really move your backside a little bit. But at another level, I think it's also about generally saying, I'm aware of the market at the end of the day, whether you're building a SaaS product or whether it's a consumer product like us, or whether it's even an app or whatever it is.

I guess it's about saying, “Okay, I understand the audience, I understand the people, and I understand what they're generally looking forward to.” You listen and you see and you know what's happening in the world and therefore being able to validate it somewhere in your head that, “You know what? Maybe this will work or this won't work”. But I guess after that, there is also an exercise to say where will we position ourselves? 

It becomes more a function of communication. How do you want to pitch yourself? Like Swiggy and Zomato pretty much do the same thing, but they each stand for slightly different things. So, I think it's about figuring out what you want to be for that person and then saying, you know what, then let me tailor everything accordingly. Of course, we come from the advertising background, and therefore, some of these things maybe are coming naturally to us. Because when we speak to a lot of product founders, we realize that that's a skill set, that they feel they have. And they have the need to go to an agency or get a consultant for some of these things. But I guess at a simple level, I think it's about if you know very clearly what you're building, you know who it's meant for and what are they thinking and what are they expecting and therefore, how do you sell the product to them. I think at this very simple level, that's what it is.

So, I guess if you are able to answer that question itself, then you have a start and then you know maybe what to call it, what colours you need to use, what it should sort of sound like and look like and all of that. And then, of course, all of these things also take shape because there's a certain level of aesthetics in mind. Like we like certain colours. Our logo itself is a representation of our hometown.

It's actually a representation of Palakkad. A lot of people actually think it's the beach, but it's actually the mountains behind the temple that has a family deity temple and the lake behind that. And the chair is meant to be Thata’s chair and stuff like that. So, I guess those things start falling into place once you know overall where you're going.

Roshan Cariappa

Yeah. I think your background in advertising really shows right, advertising and branding. Because obviously you started this out to be more than just the product. I mean, it stands for a certain ethos and a culture and so on.

So, can you give us a Brand 101 lesson? How does one start and what is this thing called brand architecture that you reference?

GS Prasad

Exactly what I just said. Without really getting into the theory of it. If you have an idea of something that you want to communicate to someone, the first thing is to understand who that someone is that you're communicating it to, and therefore what we call sort of understanding your audience.

But on the other end, it's about saying, therefore, who am I? What is the personality that I'm applying for myself? Am I a funny guy? Am I a sexy guy? What lo is like, for example, right? What am I doing for this audience? Am I sort of helping them solve a problem? Am I making something convenient for them? What am I doing for them? And therefore, how can I say to them it's basically as good as saying if I am a brand and I'm a person, what clothes am I wearing? How am I talking? Am I a sweet talker? Am I a smooth talker? Whatever, right? It's basically just defining personality for your brand. And that is it.

Because once you know what your personality is, then that will guide you throughout. Because the next time you look at something, for example, let's just say you wanted to comment on the Karnataka elections. Now, the only question that you need to ask yourself is as a brand, how will you define personality for this brand? Will he or will she as a brand want to comment on it? And that's where I guess, most brand marketers in brands also get stuck. Personally, they may want to have an opinion, but does the brand need to have an opinion? Are we saying this because it's trending and I need to have an opinion? Or am I saying this because the brand truly wants to have an opinion? So, I guess it's just about at a very simplistic level saying, let me just define who I am as a brand, as a person, and then do everything in line with that. And that's essentially what the brand playbook is.

Roshan Cariappa

I think that's a very important point. Because I think we get to the articulation and the communication bit as soon as possible. But I think it's very important to understand the personality.

GD Prasad

It's also sexy, right? I mean, you like to see things immediately and you like to see maybe your logo coming to life or you want to see that first poster. But I think if you just took another few steps behind and said, you know what, this is the brand's personality, what truly reflects our personality and what are those colors, what truly reflects my style of speaking? And therefore, what are the words I will choose and what are the words I will not choose? And where am I going to also be present?

Am I going to be displaying my ads on an app or am I going to mostly communicate outdoors? And therefore, you start thinking, okay, this is not going to look nice outside. Maybe it fits a smaller one.

So, I guess it's just about being very clear in your head who you are and then sort of doing everything forwards.

Roshan Cariappa

Customer acquisition, how did you get your first few customers? How do you scale that to a few hundred customers and then from there on to thousands and tens of thousands?

GD Prasad

I think in 2020 when we started, we were very clear about doing this online for two reasons. One, I'd say D2C was still sexy at that point. And the other part was you really didn't have any other alternative as well. It was bang in the middle of the pandemic. Getting the product out itself was a bit of a challenge, which we managed to do. It was like the only available platform and it was also the easiest platform to get to, rather get through to a customer.

My advertising experience also helped. I was very clear that from day one that we'll fire up a few ads, put in a small budget and see what happens. So, we lined up a few creatives and set up the ad campaign on Facebook. And then we assigned a small budget to it and we essentially took it live. So, from day one it's been reaching out to the customer with the same kind of storytelling and creativity that you've seen.

Again, like I said, we were very clear what the presentation needs to be and therefore we had those creators lined up. So, from day one onwards, we started running, actually traffic campaigns, because we're not a brand that can command a conversion campaign. So, we said, let's just drive people to the website, because it's almost like you standing on the road and saying, hey, come and check it out. If you don't like it, very good, you can go away.

Roshan Cariappa

Come into the shop.

GD Prasad

Yeah, just come into the shop.

So I took a conscious call to drive some traffic every day. Maybe the traffic was terrible, maybe the traffic was of very good quality, we don't know. But I could see that's essentially what I would do. I would never sleep, just have the shopify app open and just keep seeing the number of people on the site at all times.

We started seeing 50 people, 100 people. Slowly, we also moved up the budget a little bit. So, the first customers weren't family and friends. That was also something that we really didn't want, because then you're not selling to someone who absolutely has no clue.

Roshan Cariappa

Not unaffiliated.

GD Prasad

So, we said, let's just wait for that first unknown customer and it happened.

And it will happen. Logic is the same. I might push 1000 people through the door. Maybe one or two liked it and it's fine. So that's what happened. So, we acquired customers from day one on Facebook and Instagram. Instagram converted initially slightly better than Facebook, but then at some point in time, we started seeing Facebook convert better than Instagram, because in our case, our product was also something that was open for anyone between 25 and 55.

Our products are like typical FMCG products. It's something for everyday use. It's not niche, but it's just a simpler sort of what is the demographic.

Roshan Cariappa

That works better for you now with all the data that you have?

GD Prasad

This is going to be true for any young brand like us. People in this age group make up most of their users. For us, it's actually people in the age about 24 to 35 on Instagram and 35 to 50 on Facebook that actually works for us. We've seen that the slightly older audience is on Facebook and then they discover us there and they're also very open to shopping. I was just trying to think, will my mom shop? And the answer was no, but you'll be surprised. 

On Instagram there is the slightly younger audience who are also trying to experiment. The biggest advantage of doing this during the pandemic was that none of the brands were advertising. So essentially it was almost like Facebook was yours, which is also what the problem is today, right. Because a lot of brands saw this big, large open field. To play in 2020 with a great ROAS, and suddenly you're like, Shit, what's happening?

 So, we took advantage, I guess, of the good ROAS, and we had a fairly decent run, I'd say within about three and a half months or so. I actually broke even, got back the money that I had put in originally. Also, it's kind of skewed because I did a lot of the stuff myself. I was actually just calculating the money that I spent. If you actually looked at it, the cost of the product, the cost of the packaging, the cost spent on printing and things like that actually really came back soon because the product was moving. The initial signs for us to sort of feel a little happy about was the fact that people started commenting on products. There was a lot of WhatsApp in those days, even now, but it was a lot of personal WhatsApp in those days.

I used to message them myself what people were saying. They didn't know how to get filter coffee, and we don't know how to make it. And this one just made life very easy. And some of the non-South Indians said before us it was just Nescafe, and now we have another brand. So those were encouraging signs for us to know that there may be something. Of course, I wouldn't still call it PMF. Because it's not that big a base for us to say, maybe it's working, but those are good initial signs. So, acquisition happened entirely inorganically.

Roshan Cariappa

Let's take a slight tangent. What I realized is digital advertising is still the way of our customer acquisition. You set up a campaign, you spend some money and then see some customers come in. And its stuff that obviously you would have done earlier in your previous roles or whatever. But how do you scale the product? I mean, how would you go from just mixing a few blends in your kitchen, to bottling?

GD Prasad

Even when I look back, I think standardizing is one of the most important decisions. We decided that Filter coffee will be a single SKU or hero SKU kind of brand for a while. We didn't want to do multiple SKUs because we said, let's go with a clear offering. Let's just go and tell the story. Let's get people to buy in. That's our step one.

So, for about one year and maybe two, three months, we actually had just one SKU, which was the instant filter coffee powder. It was basically a filter coffee flavoured instant coffee. And that was our hero SKU. And it also worked really well because for a lot of the South Indians, they are used to doing instant coffee, and they know how to sort of just add milk and sugar and whatever. It tastes closer to what they've had. 

And for a lot of the non-South Indians, they knew exactly what to do because they've been doing it with Nescafe and this was a different blend for them. So, one of the crucial decisions is to know how many SKUs you want and how many SKUs you want on day one. Because I feel like a lot of the time the mistakes will happen when there are too many to manage. We don't have enough data at that point in time to say five SKUs will work in a certain category. 

So, we're saying, let's just go one step at a time. And that's how we launched. I mean, if we were an apparel business, for example, this wouldn't apply at all in our case, it made sense and also it made sense to us. So, I guess you'll have to see it a little bit in context to what we wanted to do. That, I think, was a conscious call.

From day one, we were aligned with a manufacturer and a manufacturer who had the capacity and the capacity to scale. And he was sort of kind enough to deal with us based on our little experiment. I remember G paying him for the first 500 pieces and he was okay to do 500 pieces.

A lot of people don't do 500 small packs. So, we knew that the blend that we were going for can be made available because he has the capacity to do it if it does scale. But of course, we were operating at perhaps 0.1% of what he would normally do.

So, it was just something that he did because I guess he liked us or whatever. He didn't want to say no. I think knowing that he had the scale or rather the capacity to scale was just comforting. So, when the orders did start going up and we started with something like about 5000 a month, and then it became 50,000 a month or something like that, which is still a small number, right, for a manufacturer, we knew that he could sort of deal with that kind of capacity. 

When we decided to do the second product, we now knew that, you know what, we have about 5000 odd customers and people are coming back for the existing product. So maybe there is some sort of data now to say that, you know what? My first order wasn't 500. In that case, my first order actually became 2000 pieces now that the existing base will also want to try them out. 

So that's how we scaled into the second SKU. But between the second SKU and the next one, we actually went a little all over the place, I guess, to try and figure it out, because we always wanted to do snacks next. And we weren't really able to find a manufacturer who would support us with these initial very small quantities and then, of course, also have the capacity to scale. And the other thing was that we were also taking recipes from home everywhere, whether it was the coffee or whether it was the snacks. And we told them that, you know what? This is what we're looking for. We didn't know any of the techniques these conversations go.

Roshan Cariappa

I mean, you would typically take a Ribbon Murukku or whatever and say, can you reverse engineer?

GD Prasad

let's say with snacks, for example. I think conceptually, they're all the same. It's just made from the same flour and the same oil. There's just like two or three things going in, right? If this was a Bhujia type Namkeen facility, it's basin and salt and maybe some sort of Jira or spice or something like that. 

And in our case, it's basically rice flour and salt and whatever seasoning that you want. So, at the base level, they're all pretty much the same. What we went in was knowing the recipe because we've been doing it at home and we wanted to bring in that same taste and flavour. And therefore, we went on saying that, you know what, for us, the flavour component is very important. Whenever I pop one piece in, I need to have that burst of flavour. It can't be very mild. So, we were very clear that, let's say with the Ribbon Pakoda, we said it needs to have a distinct garlic flavour. So, it needs to be that every bite should have that good garlic flavour. And therefore, we said it needs to be whatever, chili powder and garlic powder for that flavour. 

But in the case of, let's say, the banana chips, which is sort of our hero SKU next to decoction, right now. We were super clear that it has to be wafer thin, and we were trying to go lower than what the regular blades had. So, we were trying to go lower than that so that it's very light and very crisp and almost sort of crumbles in your mouth. So, we went in with these specifications saying that this is how it needs to be. 

Also, we have a preference, or rather, I have a preference for Hing, which we call Achapotita in Tamil. So, we said it needs to have the hit of that, which is a great flavour to do in some of these snacks. So, I think it's about going to them and telling them that these are the things that we're looking for and this is how we have done it at home. 

Of course, at industrial scale, all of these things change. So, you can't apply the same ratios there, and therefore, then they start tweaking it and they say, you know what? We can do this. And ultimately, it's a call on mouthfeel, what's very well known in this category. It is essentially how the snack feels in your mouth. So, we were actually always working backwards from mouthfeel, whether it was the coffee or whether it was a snack. We said this is how we want it to taste and therefore what can we do at the back end to sort of tweak this, right? 

The decoction actually took us a good six months to figure out because it was very easy for us to procure beans, grind them and drip decoction, whatever, and then fill them. But we were very clear that we don't like bitter aftertaste. And because we don't like bitter aftertaste, we have to go back to figuring out what the beans need to look like. So, we altered the ratio of the beans. We said we like the richness and mildness of Arabica. So, we'll do 50% Arabica, for example. And then we wanted the strength of a good coffee without the bitterness. So, we said, well, let's do about 30% of Robusta and that's dark roasted so that it's not too bitter. And then we said, of course, there's no filter coffee without Chicory for us, so let's have that for that nice mouth feel and that balance. So, we said we do 20% Chickery. 

Ultimately, whatever resulted in a good coffee that felt fresh and felt strong without the bitter aftertaste was what we ended up going with. So, I think it's also, in this process, a little bit of reverse engineering from whichever reference point we know. If I was a technical guy, I'd probably reverse engineer from the beginning, to say that these ingredients don't work in this ratio. But we were non-technical people, we just knew what it had to taste like.

Roshan Cariappa

Which worked out well for you, right, because you had all these iterations and everything and the mouthfeel that you say, right? I mean, you were able to index to that, basically.

GD Prasad

Yeah. I guess Pepsi or any of these other big snack brands would probably do multiple consumer tests before they actually zero in on something. Because there are so many tests where some of these snacks are offered in these surveys, and you'll always have one snack with the most amount of flavour coming out of it. The winner if that person has had only one or two of it. But if you let the consumer go through the pack, they are very likely to come back to you and tell you that it's just too much, too much flavour. So, we've not done any of those things. We've not done a lot of the lot of what traditional consumer brands would do. Not because we don't believe in it or anything like that. I think but it's more, because we were very confident that we are putting across the story of our humble South Indian home. This is what it was like at home. And therefore, we'll go with this because if you actually took a look at some of the existing south Indian snacks that are available in the market. They're actually very mild in flavours. That's what the market will dictate.

Roshan Cariappa

Yeah, actually, that's true.

GD Prasad

They will be low on salt sometimes.

Roshan Cariappa

Because one of the things that I noticed when I had your Murukku was that the pepper flavour was quite strong.

GD Prasad

If I had put that through a consumer test, we probably would have come back saying that it's too spicy and let's not launch. But that's what represents authentic South Indian.

Roshan Cariappa

How do you take that call with a lot of these things?

GD Prasad

I don't think it's a very ballsy decision to be honest. It was because in a lot of these cases, what we're doing is that we know that we have an audience online. By this point of time, we have grown that audience also. And our initial order quantity is not humongous. So, we know that even if it didn't work, it'll probably end at that batch, and that's not a huge hit on us. So, we're actually okay to take some of these calls and do them. 

Let me give you an example of something that is currently something that we really like but doesn't work. It is the power cut chips which are your bitter gourd chips. Now, it's actually a beautiful product. It's super crisp, flavourful, and it's not bitter at all. It's a very unique sort of crispy snack. But the trouble with power cut chips is that people have a misconception. They think bitter gourd is too bitter. They have had bitter god in many different ways, and therefore nobody will pick it. But whenever we sample the power cut chips at an event or wherever, it's the most selling SKU. But one year into all our sort of numbers and what we've seen, it still doesn't add up. We still sell power cut chips quite a bit, but it's not the scale of, let's say, banana chips, for example. So, we may just downsize that and we may even just withdraw from the market.

Roshan Cariappa

So, it's essentially running with your intuition, but then backing it up with whatever data.

GD Prasad

Yeah, it's a little bit about what I told you earlier, right? It's that 0.2 journey I will never know. Power cuts don't work until I try it out. So, I'd rather try it out.

Roshan Cariappa

All right, back to distribution. When did you guys’ list on Marketplaces? How has that experience been? Any tips, tricks, principles, hacks that you can share with folks based on your experience?

GD Prasad

If you were starting a business today, I'd say just go to Marketplaces first. The D2C landscape has changed in the last couple of years, and it's not as easy. I mean, even in 2020, I'd say I actually look back and I think, ‘Oh shit!’. We should have launched in 2015 when the Internet was just available for us. And we probably would have just scaled to a much bigger state. No, but the thing is, I think Marketplaces today have figured out how to acquire the audience and retain the audience while they come with apparent costs, like your margins. And yeah, I feel like compared to D2C and some of the other channels, you will still make money if you focus on Marketplaces. And Marketplaces will also encourage a business to survive and grow when they know that there is some response or reaction.

Look at some brands such as Flipkart and Myntra. All of these guys have also launched or co launched products. They'd find this little supplier who is probably having his product and it's doing really well. They will reach out to him and say, you know what, can we do an exclusive range? Because we've seen an audience just price it, right? And we'll give it that push. So, the Marketplaces will also do that. So today, I would say going the Marketplace route is a lot more sort of sensible because it gives you the ready audience. You don't have to really figure it out, just give them the product at the right price. For us, it was a bit of a journey to get to this point. Because we were predominantly D2C. I would say actually pretty much 100% D2C in the first two years. We started Amazon sometime late 2021, and Amazon was doing roughly about 40- 50,000, much like what D two C was a couple of months back.

And we've now grown that and we've scaled that. We've also understood how to advertise on the platform. About how to keep your product page and brand landing page right.

So, all the hygiene checks themselves actually just push you to a point. But we always wanted to be in Quick commerce. Quick commerce really picked up starting 2021. But it was a very difficult journey trying to get in somewhere. I think somehow the Big Basket deal happened. Although Big Basket was terribly slow to deal with. And in 2022, we started again. 

Of course, we were continuously trying to push and get into the Swiggy Instamart and the Blinkists of the world. And the Shark Tank episode really helped us close some of those conversations, I'd say. And of course, they are now super open to getting D2C brands. So, there are a lot of D2C brands trying to get in. I think now is a great time. So, we were able to get into a deal with Swiggy and Blinkist to agree on a good margin and a commission structure. And of course, you also commit to advertising on the platform a little bit. Of course, they also need to make their money. But like I said, they have that captive audience, and that audience is probably opening Instamart twice a week. Therefore, just being visible there, being relevant there, it makes a lot of sense. It is because I think today, we need to be where the customers are. And also, the customer isn't in the store as much. But that's, again, another channel that we can never ignore.

Roshan Cariappa

I think they solve that retention problem for you to an extent. Which is that rather than you worrying about how often will this customer come and repeat with me, or rather you acquiring this customer and having to nurture that person through your monies, you have this person who does it for you.

GD Prasad

I'll tell you why. Because even if it's mega expensive, I know who this customer is on my website.

Roshan Cariappa

And of course, but if I had to, for example, today we ordered a new batch of stuff. I went to Swiggy Instamart and ordered that. I don't know whether I would go to VS Mani and Co. Order there and wait for a day?

GD Prasad

In that case, yeah, absolutely. What you're saying makes absolute sense also.

Roshan Cariappa

Because we are not necessarily instrumental. All of this has become the equivalent of your neighbourhood store.

GD Prasad

Yeah. And the fact that they also, like you said, the service these guys provide in about 10-20 minutes is a great plus point. Because when you run out of coffee, you know that you can get it here and it's readily available.

GD Prasad

As opposed to on our website where it probably takes from day to ten. So, we're also trying to fix that problem. But I think today the marketplace ecosystem has evolved to a point where you can launch, build and thrive on these marketplaces. There's also this little risk in the sense that you probably have to keep in mind that there's a lot of consolidation happening. No one's really clear about the future of Quick commerce and therefore, will these players survive and therefore will we have a business. But I guess somewhere some consolidation might happen and therefore you still exist.

Roshan Cariappa

And the fact that you are hinging your destiny on these platforms. Even Amazon today has apparently decided to hike commissions. It might increase by 7- 8%, apparently, which is a huge chunk.

GD Prasad

That fear is always sort of going to be there, and therefore an offline strategy is what I think is always going to be trustworthy and predictable.

Roshan Cariappa

Let's talk about that. So, at this point, I think you will have to build distribution offline. You got to be in stores and so on. What is the way to do that?

GD Prasad

Last year, when we started scaling VS Mani and Co a bit further even on D2C. We started sowing the seeds for offline retail. And we decided to do it in Bangalore. Although our data said otherwise. Our data said that it was Bombay where the demand was at first. But Bangalore was closer home, and we can make mistakes here and correct those mistakes. So, we said, we'll do that, we'll launch Bangalore, and we will learn what works for us because there's also an understanding of what type of stores work for us and which SKUs work for us. 

So, we said, let's go through with that journey and then apply that model in other places. Right now we're in about 20-30 odd stores. Again, getting to offline retail isn't difficult. I think there's also this big misconception that retailers will not entertain you and you're not a big brand and all of that. No stores have space today. But look at MK retail, for example. There was no reason for MK retail to give us free space in their stores to put up our sort of branding on every wall or pillar. In most of their stores, they just gave it to us for free. They said, you know what? Despite being a new brand, you are selling. 

By the way this was all pre–Shark Tank. We are also seeing some traction, which I never imagined because when we first met them. He looked at ID Fresh numbers and said, are you guys mad? Do you really think you can match this? We said, we think our product is better. Keep it. And we'll see because we're also advertising. So then generally there is some brand awareness going on and they were kind enough to give us the space. Of course, there is a listing fee and things like that. But I'm saying it's fine to go through with that process a little bit. And we chose to do it with local Modern Trade, not with National Modern Trade, because I don't think we have the pockets for that or neither do we have the sort of production capacity also for that today. It's not like we're that big a team either. 

So, we said, let's just go with local Modern Trade stores which are self service outlets where people go in and pick up whatever they want. And we chose those outlets and we went in there. So, getting into a store is easy if you can find the right guy. Obviously, you need a sales guy who's always running and talking to stores, but once you know that person, your entry is pretty easy. And you will have to set up X number of distributors and therefore figure out which stores you want to service, which geographies do you want to serve. We were very conscious that we will go from the ring and we will go inwards. Because we also knew that our audience is a little bit mixed. So, we said, let's do Sajapur first, let's do Whitefield first, let's do a little bit of Kormangla before we come in.

Roshan Cariappa

Is it a little nerve wracking with the offline? Because I think online it's on demand, right? I mean, someone orders you to ship it, but whereas with Offline, let's say you send like 100 units of something or 200 units of something and you're just fingers crossed, hoping that it sells. That I think must be like an experience.

GD Prasad

Yeah, I mean, I think that's an interesting question because actually this is a nerve racking element in there for another reason on Marketplaces. I will tell you about that. So basically, as far as offline retail is concerned, we took a call not to stuff the shelf. So, we're sending them very little because there is a good chance of returns. So, we said let's not send them 10,000 pieces. Let's send them 1000 pieces and let it get distributed and we'll see what happens. 

We also did some merchandising and some promotions. We activated those things to help push the product. Because it's not like we're a very well-known brand. But this is a nerve-racking element present in a slightly different form as far as Quick Grocery is concerned. Now, Quick Grocery conceptually is getting the product quick to the customer at the fastest possible time. But the same logic actually works even in the back end. When they give us a Purchase Order. We need to service it to them at the fastest speed possible. So, unless we get it to them and they would not be able to deliver it to the customer. 

We try to get better at it. Today we're actually at a much better place. If we get a PO this morning, it's out this evening from our warehouse. So, if we do that, I'm getting more products to their dark stores. And they already have very little space in their dark stores, which means it gets the visibility that it needs and therefore the customers see it, it moves. So that cycle, that sort of domino thing keeps happening.

Now that's the more nerve-wracking part because earlier, as a D2C brand, I was able to predict my demand. If I increase the budget today, I know that I'm going to get more orders, therefore I can keep more stock. Even with Amazon, there is some sense of predictability. They also tell you now, with offline retail anyway, you've chosen to do a small quantity. So, it's in your hands. But with these guys, it's about servicing it and servicing it to them quickly. 

So, suddenly we went from planning, or so-called planning of stock to not really knowing how to plan. So, our working capital, which was just about two weeks or so earlier, has now become two months. I'm having to keep stock so that it goes any minute to any warehouse. And we're actually applying the same logic even to Amazon. With Amazon, we're actually opening up multiple fulfillment centres across India so that the product goes to the customer the soonest from whichever location they're ordering from. Earlier, it used to be just Bangalore. Now it's Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Bombay, Gurgaon and all of that. So, if you look at it, it's just coming back to the same good old way, right? Just be where the customer is and be in as many touch points as possible so that you can service them and probably your business grows. And that's essentially what's happening. There's a lot of technology that's backing all of this intelligence. Not with us, with all of these guys, right. But the logic still remains the same.

Roshan Cariappa

So, before we started recording, we spoke about the B2 B aspect of things, right? Where you're going to, let's say some of these corporations and figuring if there is some demand in stocking your coffee or serving your coffee in these places and so on. What's that experience like? How's that going?

GD Prasad

It is very new. I don't think we were ready for it last year. In hindsight, I think we should have done everything on day one. But I think it's also a function of you realizing that you have the right price point and the right product for this. So today I think with coffee we're able to command that. We are able to source beans at a much better price. Therefore, we're able to convert because we're doing much better volumes. So, we're trying to see if we can take some of our products from B2B, because we feel like now the time is right from a pricing standpoint. And this is purely a game of pricing. 

It doesn't matter really who the brand is. Maybe it helps that OVs money. I've heard of you guys, saw you on Shark Tank. But that's it. That's really just the conversation starter. At the end of it, the deal closes only if you have the right price. So, we're actually playing on the same level playing field as everybody else. So sometimes you wonder if this brand of sexiness was worth it at all. But of course, I mean, it's a journey that we are also trying to figure out. And maybe there's a lot of things that we might have to change. 

Where one would normally think B2B means large quantities, rather large pack sizes. But we are actually coming to understand that B2B will mean very small pack size because we are seeing a lot of the corporates. The companies give out free snacks to their employees and they want small packs for those free snacks. So even my 65 gram pack, which we have right now, is not small enough. They'd rather want a 25 gram pack. So, we're going to have to understand how this ecosystem is also going to play out and if some of those things will also make sense, maybe in the short term we might just take a few quick calls and say, yes, let's do it. But I think it's going to take us some time to figure out which channel, which line in that channel is the most profitable for us, right?

Roshan Cariappa

You've referenced it a couple of times. But let's talk about the Shark Tank experience. You guys had Anupam as an investor already. What is it like going in? I mean, standing in front of those folks, pitching your product on national television and then receiving feedback, critique, and all of that stuff. How long did it take for you to shoot? Describe that whole experience to us.

GD Prasad

So, we never really wanted to go in because of the Anupum factor. It was very sort of conflicting in our heads that we already have a shark and the audience shouldn't think that maybe there is some sort of internal play going on here. Because the game is extremely fair and transparent. We have this very Indian thing where we look at a lot of these things and say, it's rigged.

It's not. Of course, I had this conversation with Anupam and he was like, Listen, I don't need to know about it. You go through the process, see whatever happens. So, I never really spoke to him about it after that. And we applied and we sort of got shortlisted. And there's a process where you actually fill in a long form, you send them a video and I guess they gauge two things. One is if the business is interesting enough for the audience, a television audience. For a television audience, and if the founders can face the camera. 

So that's actually one of the first things that happens. So, they call you for a camera audition in major cities. It happened in Bangalore. So, we went for it sometime in June of last year and we did the exact same thing that we would, or rather what we wanted to do on the show. And what essentially happens is they have a mock panel that's trying to behave like the sharks, so they give you a slight sense of what this is likely to be. And they're also filming this so that they see if you have that camera presence and things like that. And of course, there's also some due diligence and stuff like that that they do. So, once you sort of go through with this, you get shortlisted. 

So, if they think that this will make for an interesting episode or whatever. I completely agree on all the calls that Sony takes. I think, on this one, purely from a perspective of whether this will be entertaining to watch, leave alone what happens inside the tank. I'm sure they also think about it, will they have a little fun with the sharks? Can that be interesting? I'm sure all of that plays in their head. But I think everything that the channel is thinking about is from the perspective of the viewing audience that starts translating once you're shortlisted. Everything that the production team does with you is thought through from that lens. So, they sit with you to understand what you are wearing? And of course, we also played this like our biggest TVC. 

So, we decided already that we want to wear our shirts with our Veshti. And we were doing a little bit of this culture selling. We had some ideas for what we can have, the product display section and things like that. So, when we spoke to them about it, they were happy because they also wanted to have that conversation with us again. Because whatever you say, whatever you jargon you say, maybe the sharks will understand, but can you say it in the form that the viewing audience will understand? 

And of course, Hindi is a challenge for us. I absolutely don't know how I spoke Hindi during those three days. Well, actually a lot of people said that I did well and I think in the three days I was just speaking Hindi throughout so that I just sounded okay. And the only good part is that I don't have an accent. So, I don't have a typical South Indian accent. I got away with it. So, it was just talking, and talking those three days and kind of got to it. But what the scripting team does is they help you with the pitch till the time you go inside, rather till the time you finish that first pitch. 

So how you walk in where you stand and till you deliver that first pitch, they help you script it because of the same reason. Will the outside audience understand it? So that, I think, is a very important part because it helps you refine your pitch to the audience. Leave shark tank out which is actually what you're there for also. You also want people to know that you exist as a business. So that really helps. And then once you go in, that's it. Whatever happens inside the tank is essentially all depending on what the circumstance of the situation is. 

So, I mean, it wasn't nerve wracking for us on the day of the shoot. But the previous evening we were shitting bricks because they took us to the same set without the lights and it looked like a ghost town. So, we were sweating and we were like nothing was coming out of our mouths. I don't think we can do this. But the next day, morning, after seeing the lights and seeing it the way you're seeing it on TV, we were like, this is fun. So, we actually had a lot of fun in the tank and it went on for about 90 minutes or something. Of course, whatever we see is an edited version of that one. Whatever points they made in the tank are valid. We also had, I guess, a fair bit of our logic and reasoning for why we did what we did. I guess they also got edited to look like we were just agreeing. It was a fun episode and it did a lot of good things for us and that was if I had to just be shameless and tell you why we went on Shark Tank. It's because we knew that it would give us good visibility. We didn't take the Shark Tank money, but we really enjoyed the benefit of the visibility.

Roshan Cariappa

So, you didn't take Namita's deal?

GD Prasad

No.

Roshan Cariappa

And what was the impact? I mean, did you guys see, like.

GD Prasad

I was actually sitting with my laptop open while the episode was airing live, and I think the website traffic spiked by about 400 x or something like that. Orders weren't I would say that many. And I completely forgot that we also sell on Amazon. Amazon saw a 20-x spike in orders. So, we actually, for that entire week, were I think we were like the bestselling coffee or something like that. And it basically just opened up the reality of how shitty our backend was. Again, because we were always operating to how we predict demand, never to how the market will demand a product. We were just unable to service any order.

And it was great visibility. We also sort of milked it with a little bit of PR and some ads and pushed it up a little bit because it's good to be visible when it's already hot. But I think a lot of the Jan 23rd orders ended up getting serviced only sometime in Feb end. We disappointed our customers.

Roshan Cariappa

You guys were significantly backed up.

GD Prasad

Yeah, and we disappointed our customers to a huge extent. A lot of people were like, really? You should still see the comments.

Roshan Cariappa

How do you deal with that? Does it worry you? Or rather, that's something that you often think about. I mean, consumers are so brutal, man. They couldn't care about what it takes to get a product into their hands and to make it the way it has to taste and so on.

GD Prasad

But they just care. I don't think they will. In this particular case, I feel like we knew what we were doing. I wouldn't say we were doing the wrong thing, but we were doing a very inefficient thing. We were just not able to get the product.

Roshan Cariappa

Okay, so this is like an obvious gap. I mean, whatever. But how do you deal with some of the other stuff? Like someone who comes and says, hey, your coffee isn't as great as what my patti makes.

GD Prasad

I think you can even go to wherever like the Taj and say that the food is shit. So, I guess it's about just saying that we respect that and we move on with it. There are some people who are genuinely critical about the product because they want you to take that feedback. And there are some people who do it because they want a refund. I don't know if we can ever tell the difference between the two, but if you don't like the product, you don't like the product. I think you can say that about any top brand today.

 You'll always have a section of the audience that doesn't want it, which is fine. That said, we actually very consciously look at all the feedback that comes in. We have made a lot of product related corrections as a result of that. One of our packaging tweaks itself is a result of customer feedback. Only the products. I don't know how you get some of your snack boxes, but we've seen a lot of the snack boxes being opened and things like that. So, we're moving to printed pouches that will roll in the next two weeks. This one moves into a format just like ID Fresh. The printed pouch and all of these things are related to all product and genuine customer feedback that somewhere is getting fed into the system and we try and even the deliveries. 

Today we've sort of partnered with Gross and Blee and that's because we saw Snitch on Shark Tank and one of us ordered on Snitch. It just came the next day and we were like this is exactly what we need. So, we realized that we found out who was sort of servicing that and we reached out to them and the effort is to now see if we can be better than we were before. So, there's always, I guess, a constant loop of us trying to fix things and I think it's very important for a business to say we will get to it quick if you let it marinate. I think we are setting us up for failure.

Roshan Cariappa

Although you have a very clear product and brand differentiation, right? I mean, how do you factor in the bit about competing with larger incumbents. Or are you competing with larger incumbents? I mean the likes of, let's say, Brew or Nescafe or the others? Because I think a household will have a fixed sort of a budget in terms of what they spend for coffee, right? I mean, it's not like they'll have four or five different types of coffees and they'll experiment with one every day of the week and so on. So how do you think about competition in this space?

GD Prasad

I think we are very conscious that our competition is some of the legacy players because at least if you just looked at us even as a coffee brand and not the South Indian brand, we are not competing with the new age coffee players like Rage and Sleepy Owl and some of these guys. Because they operate in a very different space.

Roshan Cariappa

And I guess it's a different target segment as well.

GD Prasad

Right. It does slightly overlap. I guess they target a younger audience because of the general fun of flavor and things like that. Cold Brews and stuff like that. So, I don't think we directly compete with any of these guys, but we end up being in the consideration set, right? Because you hear of these brands and therefore, you're like, “Oh, they also do it. And by the way, do they also have one variant which is a filter variant?

Roshan Cariappa

Filter coffee?

GD Prasad

Yeah, sleepy all did it a couple of months after we came in. Rage did it recently and stuff like that. So, they all have their own one variant which is tailored to the filter.

Roshan Cariappa

We've hosted the sleepy owl founder on the podcast.

GD Prasad

Yeah, I should catch that episode. So as far as we are concerned, I think we are very clear that ours is going to be a shift from a legacy brand only. We are not trying to take away a Sleepy Owl or a Rage customer and bring them into VS Mani because it's a completely different product.

Roshan Cariappa

I think that's a very interesting point. Because you want folks who are tuned to a certain way of like whatever. I mean, if I'm using that instant coffee, you want to give them a taste of what it's like to have freshly brewed coffee versus someone who has already taken that leap forward and experimenting with an alternative.

GD Prasad

If someone is in the flavoured instant space, they're essentially looking for a much more premium, once in a while local kind of coffee experience, which is something that they would get if they went to a cafe.

Because you can't do hazelnut instant, perhaps every day. You do it once a week and you'll definitely enjoy it. We are trying to operate in a space that can be your everyday coffee, which means somewhere maybe I am trying to eat into definitely we're trying to eat into ID Fresh and all credit to them for really launching this category.

It existed in some of the forms with smaller brands in the past, but they really brought it to the world in that sense. We're also trying to maybe shave off a little bit from existing large players. I feel like the biggest advantage that we have is, and you said that we have a differentiated product and a brand. I think we have a more differentiated brand than we have a product. I haven't invented this decoction. We haven't necessarily revolutionized it in any way. It's a very, very good coffee, but I can't say that it is some kind of plant based or whatever.

So, it's not technical in that sense. It's a great filter coffee. So, our differentiation is, I guess, in how we layer the customer. In the fact that we want to have a relationship beyond the product. And that's what we're focusing on, as opposed to some of the incumbents who probably built credibility because of products  like brew. Because it's great coffee, I guess, right. Reliable, fairly good coffee and been around for ages. It's probably been a part of your mom's basket every month and maybe your hand will go to it by default if you walk into a store but you're not picking it up because it's South India's best coffee. And we want to see if we can just be that for the customer. Can you pick us up because you believe that we are the most authentic version of South Indian?

Roshan Cariappa

If you were to look back on the last couple of years, what are some things that you would do differently? Like if you were to start today, do it like a whole laundry list.

GD Prasad

If we had to do what we did in 2020, today, I guess the brand architecture and some of those things may not change, but I guess we would have focused a lot more on marketplaces. We would have perhaps decided to do offline from day one and therefore our packaging and our pricing and everything would have been very suited to the larger market. I guess we would not have done some of the reckless advertising choices.

 I am using the word reckless in a you know, I'm taking the liberty of using the word reckless also, because, you know, somewhere I feel like when you have VC money in, you feel like maybe you can spend it kind of operating, knowing that it's not available to burn. That itself is a good mindset to have. I mean, no brand is going to be able to turn profitable tomorrow, but just knowing that this money needs to go into better use. We have money in the bank today. The question is, do I want to put it again on Meta or do I want to sort of put it on, let's say, even an Instamart, for example, that will allow me to grow and expand my sort of presence, right? And I feel like I might do that as opposed to just being in this mega acquisition board that I was in last year.

Roshan Cariappa

I think there is enough infrastructure today to spin up a business over a weekend. I mean, whether it is technology, logistics, digital, there is a sort of playbook being written on how to start D2C businesses. If you were to offer your two cents on what is the best way to do this from whatever you've experienced so far, what advice would you give to a budding D2C entrepreneur?

GD Prasad

Say the same thing I told you earlier. Just move like you said. See, the tools are there, the playbook is probably there. You have access to so many things. You can talk to incubators and all of that. The point is, if mentally you are not willing to go one step beyond the idea in your head, then it is going to be a problem. And I feel like a lot of the time the problem is itself that it's an idea and it dies an idea. Call the idea a reckless experiment or whatever. But try it out. Give it the best shot and see what the hell happens. If it worked, you have a brand and if it didn't work, you had some learnings. And you can do it. So, I feel like I don't think we've also achieved enough to give anyone any advice, but the only advice I would give is to just say, just figure it out. Go to the next step and figure it out. Maybe you have a great idea for a product. Do you know who you can get it done with? He will speak to him.

Roshan Cariappa

Right. And also, I think the cost of failure is sort of coming down, right?

GD Prasad

I mean there are slightly two different ways to look at it. The cost of failure is slightly low because most people also have stable jobs, whatever. Not stable jobs, but at least have jobs. And if you had to compare it to the times of our parents, they probably had nothing. It was a choice between going to a job and being an entrepreneur. It was just either or. In our case, we also have the opportunity. In some cases, you probably have folks who are willing to sort of support you in that endeavour or you started earning and you're like, I can take a little bit out of income and see what happens. 

And of course, I wouldn't say that the banks are that friendly in the start, but there are ways if you could even tap into someone, you know. You can ask them to sponsor the first experiment? Call him your angel or whatever, right. And see if it goes. So, like you said, I think the access to some of these things. My father was saying this when he saw the Shark Tank episode and he was in business. But of course, something completely unrelated. And I think he was telling my mother that. I think if we had access to such things, we also could have been a bigger business.

So, I think it's just that, we've transformed into a space where some of these things have become a lot more accessible. I mean, look at even what we did. A couple of years ago, it would have taken someone about six months to build a website and we did it in like 45 days because of Shopify. It was just putting the right images and whatever. In no time the website was ready.

So, tools are available, probably capital is available. The will is on you to say, I will take the first step. So, the only advice I would give is if you really have an idea that you like or you truly believe in. You don't even have to believe in it so much. You can believe in it to the extent that you're saying, I wish I could try as an entrepreneur.

Roshan Cariappa

I think on more days than not, I mean, you are losing something or the other. Shit is always breaking. Perhaps you didn't have a good meeting. Perhaps there was a customer complaint there's something or the other. And you're always in the thick of things. You have to be hands-on with respect to operations and whatnot. And I see that you're a self-critical person that way. Very critical about everything, very measured about reality.

I mean, what it is. How do you keep yourself motivated? What aggs you to go the next yard and the yard further?

GD Prasad

I don't know. I don't know the answer to it, to be very honest. I think it's also a little bit of and I've tried to also kind of study this and also understand if this is actually true. Probably I'm extremely wrong about it. But I guess if you have an upbringing, let's put it that way. I don't even have to go deep and call childhood or whatever. If you just had an upbringing that doesn't give you every luxury, then there is something that you yearn for. And therefore, you're saying, you know what? I will push it to whatever extent possible because I want it.

Roshan Cariappa

This is shot at a dream, basically.

GD Prasad

There's a dream. I feel like if you are a little bit privileged, and no offense to the ones who are privileged and still made it happen, and in which case something really is motivating them. I feel like if you're a little privileged, then I don't know what pushes you. So, this is just my PO unit. I always lived in a one BHK, and I was like, I need my own space. So, there was something to fight for. Whether it happened via a job or a business is a different story. But the whole motivation is coming from some space. And that space, one can call it a constant unhappiness with everything so that you keep motivating yourself. Or you can just call it a little engine that keeps pushing you from behind.

So, I think it's that. And it's not like even today, like I said, I don't think we've achieved jack. But even today, I don't think we've it. I think it's just generally a state of not being comfortable with this and saying, this is good but acknowledging that it's good is important because that's the problem. When you don't acknowledge that this is good, then you get into all sorts of muddled shit up in your head.

Roshan Cariappa

Nothing is enough.

GD Prasad

No, it's not just about nothing is enough. Then there's a constant state of unhappiness, generally right in the moment. But it's about knowing that things can be better. Then you keep pushing it. That's it.

Roshan Cariappa

No, I think it's so important to recognize your wins, right? However small and insignificant they may be. Because at least for the team, it's important for them to understand that, hey, this was good. And recognize that?

GD Prasad

I think we do very little of it.

Roshan Cariappa

No, that's a common thing I hear across startups as well. I mean, that we're just so self-critical of a lot of these things and it's always a work in progress, nothing is perfect, you could always do better, et cetera. But at some point, at least for managers, leaders, founders, etc. you have to recognize that, hey, you did something right.

GD Prasad

Yeah. I think it's general maturity to say that, yes, we have progressed from where we were to where we are now. But also knowing that there's so much more to do. So, I guess it's just that before.

Roshan Cariappa

We will wind up any books or podcasts that you would recommend to our community.

GD Prasad

Of the Startup operator I should listen to the Sleepy Owl one. Let me put it this way, I'm not able to read books. I am just not able to sit down and give it the time. Actually, that is kind of true even for TV shows and things like that. Somewhere 15 minutes in, I'm thinking, am I wasting time? I could be doing something else, right? I guess it's also about thinking about work all the time. I really have no idea about books, to be very honest. Because I think the last book I really read from top to bottom was the Steve Jobs biography. And I guess I was also in a very different mind space at that point. Like you said, maybe it motivated me back then.

You never know. Books are tough. I'm not able to do them. I do a lot of podcasts I'm not able to recollect, but I was recently listening to, I think, Nikhil Kamath's conversations with Kishore Biyani. It was a fun, nice conversation. Then Stanford puts up a lot of nice conversations that they have. So, I keep listening to them here and there. I suddenly discover some D2C podcasts or whatever and I listen to them. I also listen to a lot of non businessy stuff. Like for example, I probably listen to a conversation, I don't know if you know of this guy called Bharadwaj Rangan. He's a film critic and I was listening to his conversation with producer of Ponni Selvan. Essentially understanding the role of a line producer. And it just gives you ideas or whatever. It just gives you an insight also into how that world works. But there's a lot to learn generally from an unrelated industry to see how you can apply this right here, you're generally talking about how communication happens in their teams and they are not small teams. And we think that we talk so much about managing 200 member teams. They were managing 1000 member teams. And it's not like they get any credit for it. I mean, of course they get credit for it, but not in the typical sense of the way. So, I just listen to a lot of unrelated stuff here and there to just see if there is something interesting. Also, it's a little bit of trying to switch off from work, I guess. But yeah, sorry if I wasn't useful here.

Roshan Cariappa

The film crews. I don't know how they bring so many things and people together. I mean, it just seems like such a complex thing.

GD Prasad

Yeah. I think that's the other fascinating part about that.  It's fully people driven.

Roshan Cariappa

It is operations intensive.

GD Prasad

Yeah, so operations intensive. And I have also realized that these days multiple things happen in parallel. It's not like you have a script and you shoot and you edit. It's like you have a script but you shoot and you edit in parallel. You're probably doing something else. You may be thinking about the next one. Suddenly the actor is unavailable and we complain about one little thing going wrong.

Roshan Cariappa

I imagine you have a sequel to do, right? Ponniyin Selvan.

GD Prasad

So, I mean, it was just interesting to see how they were able to think far ahead on a project that needed all their attention. Because you were not just thinking about the end product, obviously, but you're also thinking about how do I manage the people, how do I manage expectations of some people? And I think it's nice to know about how they did that. You probably apply, you never know where you'll apply or when you'll apply, but somewhere sit behind, I guess.

Roshan Cariappa

Awesome. So, Prasad, this was a fascinating conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

GD Prasad

Hope I wasn't one of your most useless guests.

Roshan Cariappa

No, absolutely not. I think every conversation is unique and special in some way. I really feel that and this too was of that sort. I'll definitely reflect on some of the insights and stuff that you shared. And thank you so much for starting up. It will definitely encourage a lot more people.

GD Prasad

I hope we get success.

Roshan Cariappa

As you said, take the leap forward.

And all the best for everything that you have come.

GD Prasad

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks a lot for having me here. And I really enjoy a lot of these conversations. I'm sure your listeners are also on the road or running or doing something, but I guess some of these conversations just sit somewhere at the back of your mind.

I was talking to you about the Attenbourg the episode as well. I think we also look at that and say, you know what, maybe we should have done this. I guess it just helps you somewhere at some point. So, I hope someone finds this useful.

Roshan Cariappa

Awesome. I'm sure they will. And guys, go check out VS Mani and Co. It is available on their website, amazon. Quickcommerce. Everywhere you can get coffee. It's really, really good coffee and snacks as well. It's a double thumbs up from the startup operator team. So, thank you and see you in another episode.