Jul 26, 2021 · 48m · neon-show
Brand Building, fundraising by the founder of Bombay Shaving Company, Ex- McKinsey, IIM
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of the 100x Entrepreneur Podcast, Bombay Shaving Company founder Shantanu Deshpande shares his journey from McKinsey consultant to building a leading personal care brand in India. He outlines key insights on capital efficiency, omnichannel retail, product positioning, and scaling category leadership across hair removal.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Siddhartha as informed peer 2.0 Guest teaching 4.5 Guest disagreement 0.1 Siddhartha pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is Siddhartha, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 35:28 Rejecting the philosophy of keeping early teams cash-starved
Shantanu forcefully attacks the conventional venture practice of keeping founders and early staff financially constrained, arguing it dangerously increases burnout rather than motivation.
Hardest push from Siddhartha ▶ 24:15 Challenging dual corporate presence on cap tableSiddhartha tests Shantanu by comparing the cap table structure to Marico's buyout of Beardo, challenging whether corporate strategics like Colgate and Reckitt will inevitably attempt to absorb the company.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 14:26 Deconstructing unit economics of Dollar Shave Club vs. Indian marketShantanu schools the host on cartridge pricing differentials between the US and India, explaining why low-cost razor disruption fails against Gillette's Mach 3 pricing.
Siddhartha holds their own ▶ 16:04 Citing Financial Express revenue milestonesSiddhartha demonstrates rigorous preparation by citing specific financial reporting and calculating Bombay Shaving Company's 3x monthly run-rate trajectory.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Siddhartha as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Siddhartha pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Life, US Upbringing, and Entrepreneurial Family Roots | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Siddhartha opens with a friendly biographical prompt. Shantanu provides a detailed monologue tracing his early childhood in Florida, returning to Pune, and watching his father launch a Silicon Valley-backed startup at age fifty. | |
| Engineering, Business School, and Management Consulting at McKinsey | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The host asks what compelled Shantanu to leave a fast-track partnership path at McKinsey. Shantanu explains the emotional and professional triggers, including senior mentors transitioning into venture-backed startups. | |
| Market Research and Changing Socio-Cultural Dynamics for Men | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Siddhartha asks about customer discovery and market research. Shantanu educates the host on how sociocultural shifts, matrimonial competitiveness, and social media created unprecedented grooming demand for men without established peer conversation channels. | |
| Product Positioning and the Super-Premium Razor Strategy | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | The host inquires how Shantanu decided on manufacturing razors and blades. Shantanu explains market segmentation and why replicating Dollar Shave Club was economically unfeasible against Gillette Mach 3 pricing in India, opting instead for a super-premium Waterman-style positioning. | |
| Pandemic Accelerators and Employee-Led Women's Product Launch | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Siddhartha demonstrates domain awareness by citing recent press data regarding monthly revenue scaling from 3 Cr to near 10 Cr. Shantanu explains how female team members seized the lockdown opportunity to design and launch their women's hair removal line. | |
| Revenue Distribution Across D2C, Marketplaces, and Offline Channels | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | The host asks for channel distribution figures and fundraising origins. Shantanu breaks down the channel split and recounts how leaving McKinsey coincided with raising angel capital from senior firm partners. | |
| Institutional Capital, Strategic Corporates, and Cap Table Management | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Siddhartha pushes Shantanu on how having two global corporates on the cap table differs from Marico's total acquisition of Beardo. Shantanu clarifies his strategic rationale of capping corporate stakes under 15% with limited voting rights to balance the cap table. | |
| Scaling Milestones and Vision for Category Leadership in Hair Removal | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Host asks for yearly metrics and future scale targets. Shantanu walks through historical monthly revenues from 15 lakhs to 9 crores, presenting his plan to scale to 350 crores and eventually 1,000 crores via clinical hair removal services. | |
| Product Craftsmanship, Large Markets, and Brand Storytelling | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Siddhartha asks for foundational D2C principles. Shantanu delivers a detailed breakdown of micro-product craftsmanship such as cap ergonomics and acoustic feedback, advising founders to only tackle large addressable markets. | |
| Angel Investor Returns, Secondary Liquidity, and Team Wealth Creation | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Siddhartha asks about facilitating a 20 Cr angel secondary liquidity round. Shantanu rejects the traditional venture dogma of keeping early teams cash-poor, arguing secondary liquidity motivates sustained hunger and allows angels to recycle capital. | |
| Operational Agility and the Three-Pillar Decision Framework | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Host asks for operational decision-making frameworks. Shantanu shares practical field research lessons from Fogg's founder and explains his internal framework evaluating attractiveness, feasibility, and time to impact. | |
| Channel Dynamics, Category Fit, and Organizational Structure | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Siddhartha asks how channel thinking evolved and how internal headcount is structured. Shantanu details why men's shaving belongs offline while women's products thrive online, mapping out the 150-person organizational layout. | |
| Leadership Delegation and Founder Responsibilities | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Host asks how Shantanu divides founder time, extracts value from financial investors, and stays sharp. Shantanu outlines his hands-off delegation philosophy, praising the strategic and pattern-recognition value of his VC backers. |
Statements from this episode (22)
25 McKinsey bosses and mentors invested in Bombay Shaving Company's early days
“I found incredible bosses and mentors, 25 of them invested in Bombay Shaving Company when I left.”
Deodorants formed 75% of the Indian men's non-shaving personal care market
“In non-shaving, 75% of the market is deodorants. And then 25%, you have a long tail of face washes, and creams, and body lotions, and so on, so forth.”
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 …”
Bombay Shaving Company built initial brand equity selling one premium kit
“Bombay Shaving Company for two years only sold this one kit. And it created a huge equity in the system because women were gifting it. Men were finding it. Everyone's name was written on the razor. So people really felt that the brand was very premium.”
D2C brands compete easier with FMCG giants online than physical offline
“It's easier for me to compete with Gillette and Nivea on Amazon or on Google, as opposed to in Two million stores.”
Women's products reached 25% of Bombay Shaving Company's revenue in one year
“Over the last one year, I said that, that, that category has just ballooned for us. It's now 25% of our business.”
Deshpande predicts women's products will reach 50% of revenue within one year
“I think over the next one year, it will be 40 to 50% of our business. It will be women.”
D2C website sales generate 10% to 15% of Bombay Shaving's revenue
“So direct to consumer is roughly 10 to 15%. We don't use direct to consumer as a sales channel as much because we've realized we've realized one thing said that the men's shaving and men's personal care is not a very engaging category.”
Third-party marketplaces like Amazon drive 55% of Bombay Shaving Company's revenue
“Yeah, 55% now is e-commerce, which includes Amazon is obviously the highest one there.”
Offline retail channels drive 30% of Bombay Shaving Company's total revenue
“And roughly 30% is, is from our offline general trade, modern trade, BW, that kind of stuff.”
Deshpande raised a ₹4.5Cr seed round entirely from McKinsey partners
“My exit from McKinsey and my fundraising of the seed round was the same set of conversations, which I cannot thank the firm enough and the partnership enough till date. So we raised around four, four and a half crores. Someone put in 15 lakhs, someone put in 5…”
Indian consumer brands usually hit profitability at ₹150Cr to ₹200Cr revenue
“So consumer brands in India, when they cross one 5200 crores, they're mostly profitable. Many of them are profitable from the day one.”
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.”
Bombay Shaving Company caps strategic corporate investors under 16% equity
“So we said we will never allow, unless we are sure that we want to sell to this company long-term, we will always keep them under 15, 16%. So both of them have minority holdings. The rights are very limited.”
Deshpande reveals Bombay Shaving's monthly revenue growth across specific funding rounds
“So when Fireside invested in us, you were doing like 15 lakhs a month or 18 lakhs a month. Then, when Colgate invested in us, we were doing, like, 40 lakhs a month. Then, 19, when, ah, six cents and, ah, Colgate invested again in us, we were doing, my census, …”
Deshpande targets a ₹350Cr equal-gender revenue split within two years
“I feel that in the next two years, we can build a 300 to three 50 crore equal brand between men and women.”
Building a ₹1,000Cr hair removal brand requires both products and services
“I think to build a thousand crore business will require a con, you know, combination of product and service business. So it might involve salons. It might involve clinical treatments. It might involve hair treatments in, in, with dermatologists.”
Bombay Shaving Company forced partial secondary exits for early angel investors
“So what we did was, if someone had put in 20 lakh and was taking out a crore, we would not let them take out a crore. We let them keep 40 in the company and take out 60.”
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.”
Evaluate initiatives against attractiveness, feasibility, and time-to-impact criteria
“One framework that I found helpful is whether you're launching a product or doing a campaign or whatever, is to measure it across attractiveness, feasibility, and time to impact. So if you have two out of these three, it's a go, if you are questionable on even…”
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.”
Bombay Shaving leverages Colgate synergy for cheaper Essel Propack tube manufacturing
“Colgate, for example, they're, they make their tubes in a company called SLPropack, which is owned by the Z group, right? We now work with SLPropack. All our tubes are made by SLPropack. So that's a huge cost advantage.”