Dalbir Singh

Trustee, Redwood Day School · 1 appearance on the record.

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Dalbir Singh began his career in the technology sector at Macromedia and Adobe before joining his family’s business, Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Foods, in 2005. As Senior Vice President of Sales, he spent 15 years scaling the brand into mainstream national grocery and club retailers like Costco and Whole Foods.

11statements → 4claims → 1claims resolved → 3.73/5average certainty → 1.36/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 4 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

4 assertions · 1 opinion · 2 insights · 3 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Dalbir argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Costco can target inventory down to specific individual warehouse locations

“They have an incredible ability to target actually down to the entire, to the exact store. So sometimes you'll see stuff that's, you know, specific only to five Costco's in the entire country.”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 47:13 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Dalbir Singh on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said11 Episodes1

Everything Dalbir Singh said on How I Built This that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion

Dalbir Singh: The VC model means investors win even when founders lose

“The VC model for the most part is if you win, we win, but if you lose, we still kind of win in this process.”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 51:03 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Insight

Dalbir Singh: 99% of retail food work is getting products off shelves

“I think a lot of food businesses specifically early on, you know, get really excited when you get into Publix or Safeway or Kroger, one of these big stores, and you realize that, you know, as much of a crowning achievement that is to get on the shelf, really, …”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 48:33 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Disclosure

Dalbir Singh contradicts his mother, saying Sukhi's has no plans to sell

“Yeah, I mean, I think there's no particular plan To do that, and I think if you were to talk to mom on any given day, she might give you a different answer much like most entrepreneurs, and so, I don't know, the way that I think about it is, you know, we don't…”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 57:57 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Insight

Farmers market cash flow funded Sukhi's capital-intensive retail distribution channels

“The farmers markets provided the fuel for everything else in what we were doing. You bought the ingredients on a Monday, you made them during the week, you sent them out on a Thursday or Friday, and you got paid that week for it. So the whole cycle was compres…”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 34:34 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

What-if

Dalbir Singh: Founders probably wouldn't start if they knew the true costs

“Had we known what we know now about how much money or how much time or how much effort a lot of this stuff takes, we probably wouldn't have started.”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 44:45 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Disclosure

Sukhi's targeted retail expansion using Costco and Whole Foods sales data

“We didn't have money to buy data. For example, you know, there's lots of companies that will sell you data of where this demographic a person is. And this is this, that the other we would follow the lead a lot of times of Costco's or of Whole Foods, where we s…”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 49:07 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Whole Foods recruited Sukhi's to supply their early hot bars

“Whole Foods had approached us and they were just expanding. And a big part of their draw was the hot bars. They were putting out, you know, just Really top quality international cuisine in their hot bars. And they were having a hard time with Indian food. So t…”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 41:11 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Farmers markets once generated over 60% of Sukhi's total revenue

“At that point, the farmers markets were actually, I would say, the majority of our business. 60% plus. I mean, we were at one point doing about 65 markets a week.”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 41:45 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Assertion Supported

Costco can target inventory down to specific individual warehouse locations

“They have an incredible ability to target actually down to the entire, to the exact store. So sometimes you'll see stuff that's, you know, specific only to five Costco's in the entire country.”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 47:13 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Disclosure

Sukhi's hired an outside CEO to scale and preserve family relationships

“And there was this, you know, need to separate the business from our family life. And, you know, we realized, hey, we could, you know, we need some outside intervention here to help us see this business to its potential, but more importantly really to preserve…”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 52:55 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Refrigerated chicken tikka masala is Sukhi's top-selling product

“It's the refrigerated chicken tikka masala.”

Dalbir Singh Mar 14, 2022 ▶ 56:19 Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh	Mar 14, 2022	12m

Dalbir Singh

The record, in short

Their most notable supported claim

How they sound: not measured why? →

Appearances (1)

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