Shantanu Deshpande
Founder & CEO, Bombay Shaving Company. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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After working at McKinsey & Company, Deshpande founded Bombay Shaving Company in 2015, scaling it into a direct-to-consumer grooming brand. He is also an angel investor in consumer startups and hosts the podcast The BarberShop with Shantanu.
2shows
2appearances
51statements
16resolved
5supported
4contradicted
31%fully supported
6said about them ↓ Everything Shantanu Deshpande said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Deshpande: TikTok's Chinese sister app Douyin accounts for 40% of retail
“Doyen, which is TikTok, is 40% of retail.”
Deshpande argues keeping early startup teams financially constrained increases burnout risk
“And investors try to keep that, keep founders and early teams in poverty for longer. They feel like that person will put in Jeejaan for their cost. It's a bad idea because your burnout risk is high.”
Deshpande: AI cannot yet help businesses frame and evolve strategic problems
“I don't think AI can help you frame problems, yet. Like a business needs to know how to frame the problem, and evolve, evolve the framing of the problem constantly.”
Deshpande: Profitable beauty brands jump from revenue multiples to 40x EBITDA
“In beauty personal care, there is a, there is the moment of transition is when you become profitable. When you start going from four times revenue, five times revenue to 40 times forward EBITDA.”
Deshpande: Unilever is struggling to premiumize its mass-heavy brand portfolio
“Unilever is struggling to premiumize. All of the brands, Dove, Ponds, Fair and Lovely, everything is mass.”
Deshpande: Sustainability will differentiate brands for young Indian consumers
“India for sure, young consumers, urban, young, affluent consumers will care. It'll be a differentiator.”
Deshpande: Only 3% of India's 300 million shavers buy premium blades
“There are 30 crore shavers in the country. 30 crore, three hundred million people who shave. 15 crore of them use one rupee blades. 15 crore, half the market use one rupee blades. Seven to eight crore people go to barbershops. Five crore people use disposable …”
Deshpande: Indian consumer brands can now reach 500 crore scale mostly online
“Today that number is now 500, you can build a good 500 crore business, 80% online, and some amount in modern trade, and still do well. Like we are 500 crores.”
Deshpande: Tier-2 city elites often have higher disposable income than metro elites
“So tier two India, if you in fact look at the top five percent households in a Ludhiana or a Nasik or a Coimbatore, will probably have much higher disposable income than the top five percent in a, let's say, Pune or an Ahmedabad. Because the cost of living is …”
Deshpande: Men are hard to engage but easy to please; women reverse
“Men are hard to engage, easy to please. Women are easy to engage, hard to please. The fundamental difference in consumption.”
Bombay Shaving Company claims 15% of India trimmer market
“So we have 15% market share in trimmers all India. We sell 7000 trimmers a day. 7000 trimmers a day all India. Yeah. At a thousand rupee price point.”
Deshpande: Building a meaningful company in India takes 15 to 20 years
“India is a country where you need 1520 years to find something meaningful.”
Dollar Shave Club's disruption model fails in India against cheap Gillette
“In the U S a Gillette razor cartridge sells for three, three and a half dollars. So Dollar Shave Club could come in at one and a half, two dollars with 80% quality and build out a scalable business. India, a Mark III cartridge you get for 80 bucks is like 1.1 …”
Consumer brands should raise small capital rounds to build brand, not revenue
“So my belief was always that we should never raise money to buy revenues. You should always raise money to build brands. Which is why you should always raise small amounts of money and not a large.”
Deshpande calls financial VCs cheerleaders compared to strategic corporate investors
“So financial investors are in my view, they are cheerleaders, right? They don't add and like Colgate and record can add tangible impact to it.”
Deshpande: Top management consulting teams cost ₹2+ crore per month
“Couple of crores a month for a good team.”
Deshpande: Mosquito Repellent Drove ₹3 Crore of Mamaearth's ₹5 Crore Monthly Revenue
“So, Mama Arath was doing four or five crores a month, and they were doing three crores of mosquito repellent.”
Deshpande: Hair care is $7B–$8B in India, mostly hair oils
“Hair care is seven to eight billion. Of which majority is oil by the way.”
Deshpande: Indian skincare market is $6 billion including mass brands
“Skincare is six billion, which includes, by the way, Dove, Ponds, everything.”
Shantanu Deshpande: The fragrance industry is shifting towards unisex products
“Then the world is moving towards unisex, by the way.”
Shantanu Deshpande: Gen Z skincare consumers are turning into 'Skinimalists'
“I think the Gen Z younger consumers are actually, what we are now starting to realize are Skinimalists.
Just give me what I need.
Don't give me extra.”
Shantanu Deshpande: Stress-relief skincare and magnesium roll-ons have exploded among Gen Z
“Another big trend in, in, in Gen Z, I think is also around stress management.
So skincare, like skinification of hair, for example, or skincare that helps you sleep better is hugely like magnesium roll-ons are like exploded.
Helps you sleep better.”
Deshpande: HRX succeeded through founder involvement and Myntra distribution
“I think HRX did a very good job because I think Hrithik was involved. I think the product was good. I think the distribution with Myntra was outstanding. They did such a good job with that.”
The other half of the tape: Shantanu Deshpande's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 3 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Bhavna Suresh 3Vaibhav Sisinty 1Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1
Statements about Shantanu Deshpande, by other people (1)
Vaibhav Sisinty Defends 18-Hour Workdays as Necessary to Outperform Competitors
“I mean, Shantanu's post went viral, sadly, the 18 hours. But I mean, if you ask me, there's nothing wrong with what he said. I've been working 16, 18 hours all my life. And that became part of my life as well. If you want to do more than others, you have to pu…”
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One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Shantanu's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 WTFLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Bombay Shaving Company | 1 | 29 | 38% 5/13 | full record on WTF is with Nikhil Kamath → |
| NEON SHOWLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Bombay Shaving Company | 1 | 22 | 0% 0/3 | full record on the Neon Show → |