Manish Taneja
Co-founder & CEO, Purplle. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestorLinkedIn ↗purplle.com ↗
Manish Taneja is the co-founder and CEO of Purplle, an Indian online beauty and personal care marketplace. Prior to founding Purplle, he worked in finance and private equity at Lehman Brothers, Avendus Capital, and Fidelity Growth Partners India.
1shows
1appearances
24statements
6resolved
3supported
1contradicted
50%fully supported
2said about them ↓ Everything Manish Taneja said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Taneja: Arranging investor exits is the founder's responsibility
“Raising capital is a founder's responsibility and also arranging exit is a founder's responsibility too, because people who are putting money into our companies they also raise money from other LPs. And they also have back to back arrangements with those LPs. …”
Taneja: All Purplle blue-collar office staff receive ESOPs
“Who are blue-collared workers you know, they help clean the office, their janitors, and so on and so forth. All of them actually have ESOPs within the firm.”
Taneja: Purplle has never executed layoffs or retrenchments
“We've never let go of people. There have been never any retrenchments at Purple. We never. Even if we close down a business unit we absorb those people in our other businesses. We have never asked anybody to go just because we were shutting some part of the bu…”
Taneja: Platform rivalry matters more to founders than consumers
“I think competition plays more in our heads as founders and management teams than it plays in the heads of a consumer. Consumers, you know, are not as wedded to this category like, you know, probably we are.”
Taneja: Incremental improvements fail because consumer inertia prevents switching
“I think slightly better than others doesn't work. Consumers won't shift to you. You have to be fundamentally very different from consumer, from other sort of avenues where consumers can shop at so that, you know, I mean, that's the only thing that moves consum…”
Taneja: Beauty unit economics work due to high gross margins and repeats
“It has got exceptionally high gross margins and therefore unit economics is easy to make work in this category. And then, you know, third, it has good repeat business. So, you know, once you acquire a customer, you keep getting the customer for over and over a…”
Taneja: Purplle has always operated close to profitability without huge losses
“We've never made huge losses. I mean, I think compared to the capital in the bank, we've always been very close to profitability, if at all.”
Taneja: Purplle co-founders personally funded negative cash balances daily in 2014
“What happened was we had a term sheet that was withdrawn and, you know, our competitor got funded. And I think those six months are very unforgettable. Rahul and I would typically wake up every morning and see a negative cash balance in the bank account. And, …”
Taneja: IvyCap made 22x on Purplle, returning ₹330 crore
“Luckily IVCAP also exited that round in 2021 for about 330 crores. So they made about 22 X of their investment. IVCAP fund one was about 240 odd crores. So we returned much more than the fund size itself. Although we got only 15 crores from that fund.”
Taneja: Purplle plans to grow 35-40% and IPO in 3-4 years
“So I think, you know, we are looking at growing the firm at closer to 35 to 40% over the next five to 10 years. You know, potentially go public in like three to four years from now.”
Taneja: Above-average Indian startups compound value simply by avoiding cash depletion
“Because in this country, which is going to grow at eight percent, if you're just better than average, you probably will grow at 20%. And 20% compounded over 20 years will mean huge sums of value created. So just make sure that you never sort of run out of cash…”
Taneja: Purplle acquired Faces Canada at ₹300+ crore revenue with zero layoffs
“Then in December, 2021, early Jan, 20, 22, we acquired Faces Canada. It's a, it's probably India's top four or fair makeup brands. North of 300 crores of revenue, about 11, 1200 people and so that was a big acquisition for us, but and we had to really navigate…”
Taneja: Expecting employees to work like founders is unfair
“I used to feel like everyone should be as quick at doing things as I am. And I think that's an unfair expectation to have. I also used to think that everybody should work as hard as entrepreneurs do. And I think that's also an unfair expectation to have.”
Taneja: India presents opportunity to build a $20B-$30B enterprise in 10-15 years
“I think there is definitely an opportunity to build a 20, thirty billion dollar enterprise over the next 1015 years.”
Taneja: Top Indian FMCG companies trade at 10x revenue or 50-60x profits
“Large brand companies with high gross margins and high EBITDA margins typically trade at around 10 times revenue. And I wouldn't call it at 10 times revenue. I would say they just trade at 50, 60 times profits. So if you're able to demonstrate like 15, 17% Pat…”
Taneja: Purplle founders did not speak to media for first 7-8 years
“I think first seven, eight years of our life, we never spoke to media.”
Taneja: Founders can avoid toxic envy and pressure by cutting out media
“I think media induces a lot of competition and envy. I think envy is a very bad feeling for anybody to have, not just founders. And so, you know, it's a feeling which doesn't benefit anyone. You know, at the end of the day, you are envy of someone, but you can…”
Taneja: Purplle should have launched private brands within its first three years
“We ended up building our own brands, but that happened way late in our journey in 2017. I mean, we shouldn't have waited for six years to do it. We should have done this in the first two, three years had we spoken to our consumers.”
Taneja: Purplle was down to 50 lakhs in 2017 post-demonetization
“And you know, I think we had a very similar thing in 2017 post demonetization. I think we had about 50 lakhs in the bank account.”
Taneja: Launching private brands accelerated customer acquisition at Purplle
“And so we were able to acquire lot more customers when we launched our own brands, then, you know, when, then we were able to acquire, if we didn't have anything exclusive to the platform.”
Taneja: Around 150-200 of Purplle's 600 office employees hold ESOPs
“Out of maybe 600 people who work in our offices, about 200, maybe one 50 of them actually have ESOPs, and these are significant value ESOPs.”
Taneja: Purplle differentiated by targeting Middle India's ₹700-800 spenders
“The way we differentiated in the eyes of consumers was we focused on a dramatically different consumer. We focused on the middle class of India. Somebody who could probably spend seven, 800 rupees every time she shopped for her beauty needs.”
Taneja: In 2011, payment gateway integration took 30 days and bank-by-bank paperwork
“Getting payment gateway integrated used to be a 30 day process. You know, it was not plug and play that you can do today. You know you had to get documents signed with every bank whose net banking you needed to accept.”
The other half of the tape: Manish Taneja's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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the Neon Show 2
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Manish's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NEON SHOWLEDGER | Co-founder & CEO, Purplle | 1 | 24 | 50% 3/6 | full record on the Neon Show → |