Hari Menon

16 statements across 2 episodes · 5 bullish · 1 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Jun 21, 2022 by Hari Menon · said 32 times in 8 episodes since 2019 · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: Hari Menon's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

Mentions by year

brought up most by V.S. Sudhakar (18), K. Ganesh (4), Vipul Parekh (3), Siddhartha Ahluwalia (2), Sanjeev Aggarwal (1), Meena Ganesh (1)

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00511022019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions per episode
2025 5 mentions in 1 episode
2024 3 mentions in 1 episode
2023 20 mentions in 2 episodes 10 per episode
2022 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Hari Menon, oldest first

Jun 21, 2022
Insight
Founders make a critical mistake optimizing for equity over financial runway
“The mistake people make is that they don't raise enough capital for a longer runway because they want to optimize for stake holding and not for growth and not for getting that thing off your head.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 17:15 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022
Insight
Startup co-founder trust is more critical than skill because skill is hireable
“The founders are very critical. I just try and figure out whether these founders live on trust or they just live on skill, right? Yeah. Skill you can hire.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 37:29 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022
Insight
Startup founding teams should strictly consist of two or three people
“And I believe in one thing that you must have a founding team, which is minimum two or three, not more, but can't be one because you go crazy up just trying to build a business and nobody else to bounce ideas with.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 19:30 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022
Insight
Process inherently conflicts with innovation because true innovation requires breaking established procedures
“Process and innovation don't necessarily go together. Those people who innovate don't necessarily follow process because you have to break stuff.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 51:16 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022 bullish
Disclosure
BigBasket plans to shift strategy and begin acquiring brands and companies
“And eventually going forward, I'm looking at us maybe acquiring brands, acquiring companies. We've not done that. We've built everything ourselves, but we will do that going forward.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 28:35 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
BigBasket achieved CM3 and CM4 positive contribution margins around 2016 or 2017
“And the first thing we demonstrated five years back or six years back is to become CM positive. So we are not, we are profitable trade at CM three, CM four level, which is basically everything you sell. You're making money. You're not selling it at a loss.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 41:13 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fabmart's initial undercapitalization forced the founders to fundraise every ten months
“Second, this capital, we didn't raise enough money. Nine months, 10 months, we were out in the market having to raise money. So it wasn't a great thing to do. It drains you out, right, completely.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 23:39 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022 neutral
Disclosure
BigBasket split its initial founder equity equally among all five co-founders
“Equally.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 21:19 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022 positive
Insight
BigBasket defines integrity as having the courage to admit ignorance to superiors
“For us integrity means the power to say no, which means that if I don't know something, if I'm able to sit in a meeting and say, sorry, I don't know it in front of people in front of his boss, I think we have achieved integrity, which means that I'm honest to …”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 43:58 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022 negative
Insight
Grocery delivery businesses cannot succeed without owning their inventory
“Grocery, you can't do without owning inventory, right? That's the model that, that runs. People have tried different models. None of them have worked.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 7:51 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022
Disclosure
BigBasket founders refused to launch without raising substantial capital upfront
“And we told ourselves very clear that if this money doesn't come, we're not doing a kitchen garage startup. We're not doing that anymore. It doesn't work for us. It's too stressful. It's too painful. So we will raise that quality. If you don't, we will not do …”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 22:45 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022 positive
Disclosure
BigBasket rejected Indian 'jugaad' culture to strictly implement standard processes from inception
“Day one is process. We don't do Jugaad. First day of the company. We build processes.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 50:52 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022 neutral
Insight
Founders who undercapitalize their startups fail to develop a scale-oriented mindset
“If you don't raise the capital for scale, you'll never think scale. So then you're always thinking how am I going to optimize that little money I have and keep growing and it becomes very difficult out there.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 48:17 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022 bullish
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Menon claims BigBasket will be the only profitable quick-commerce grocery player
“The only one that's going to build a profitable model today is of us because it's not for us. It's an extension of our business, right? I've got the same DC, same supplier, same everything. My supply chain is just getting more and more loaded, which helps me g…”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 34:11 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jun 21, 2022 neutral
Opinion
Hari Menon: Early Indian Startup Exits Were Not Enough to Retire On
“And the exits those days were reasonably good, but I don't think you would be comfortable saying that this is all I need for the rest of my life.”
Hari Menon Jun 21, 2022 ▶ 15:38 How He Built India’s Largest Online Grocery Store? Ft. Hari Menon, Ceo & Co-Founder, BigBasket
Jan 31, 2025 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Ganesh: BigBasket co-founders previously operated 300 physical Trinetra grocery stores
“Hari Menon can take a bunch of rice in his hand and tell you what the quality is, because they ran actually 300 Trenetra stores, physical brick and mortar grocery stores.”
K. Ganesh Jan 31, 2025 ▶ 14:56 75 Minutes Of Pure Business Insights From The Man Behind BigBasket, BlueStone & HomeLane
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