The Exchanges

Q So, uh, can, can you share your fundraising journey from the beginning to now?

A Uh, you know, I think, uh, I think our fundraising journey has been off. I would say there are two characteristics that define it. Uh, the first one is, uh, you know, build relationships with people when you don't need them, you know, and so, Um, I think my first set of capital came from people who I had worked with, um, and when I was deciding to start on my own, uh, you know, these people chipped in with their own personal money. Um, uh, Bloom came in in 2013, and I had known Bloom, um, When Bloom was raising its first round, when I used to work at Fidelity, they had pitched to us as to be their LPs. Uh, and so I knew Sanjay and Karthik from those days. Um, you know, Mumbai Angels, Chennai Angels, they chipped in with some money in 20, uh, 2013. Uh, then we raised our first Series A institutional round, uh, uh, in 2015 from Ivy Cap Ventures. Uh, Uh, luckily IVCAP also exited that round in 2021, um, for about 330 crores. So they made about 22 X of their investment. Um, IVCAP fund one was about 240 odd crores. So we returned much more than the fund size itself. Uh, although we got only 15 crores from that fund. Um, Then in 2016, uh, we raised, uh, a million dollars from JSW Ventures. Uh, you know, it's kind of different because these were not large rounds. I think they kept the company going. Um, but this was not enough capital to deploy a lot of money into long-term projects. …

AI assessment note: “then we raised our first Series A institutional round, uh, uh, in 2015”

Q What changed in the second half of the company from 2017 to 2021, uh, that you are today, right?

A I think, I think, um, you know, I think 2016, 17, uh, were very formative years for the firm. Although we had very little cash, I think we kept investing in our technology stack. Uh, and that technology stack is what I call as our beauty intelligence suite. Think of it like as a, how a human brain processes information around beauty. Likewise, using machine learning, the computer understands everything in the world of beauty from a supply and demand side point of view. This essentially tells us what products to launch, which can potentially become successful in India. Um, and so, uh, when we were very, very, when we were almost about to run out of cash in 2017, we tried to monetize this data. One of our investors had always worked at a data company, uh, you know, all his life. And so he sort of inspired us to say, you know, data is monetizable and, you know, you should do it. We tried to monetize it, but you know, we were running out of time and it was hard to convince large FMCG companies to use our data when they had the likes of Nielsen's and many other large data companies to use their data from. We also realized, you know, that we weren't very confident in selling our own data because, uh, you know, we didn't, we weren't, we didn't know whether it will work for people or not. And so the fruit of the pudding is in the eating of it. We decided to use that data to create our …

AI assessment note: “We decided to use that data to create our own brands.”

Q Manish, one other interesting question that I have is, how have you evolved as a founder during this journey?

A Yeah, I think that's a very good question and, uh, it's, it's a hard one to answer also, but I think, uh, you know, I would say, um, I, uh, you know, I would say one of the biggest changes in me has been, um, I'm a lot more calm now than I was earlier. You know, I used to lose patience much earlier, um, in the early years of purple. 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. I think I am now much calmer. Um, and I am also, uh, I think the second way I have sort of, I am different today versus what I was maybe a few years ago is today, you know, we plan for two, three years in advance. Uh, today we don't plan for this month and next month and so, and so forth. So I think longterm thinking is a big mode. And I think if people are able to do this and if people are able to operationalize their longterm thinking, I think that's a big, big advantage to people. And in third way, I would say, you know, um, the way, uh, sort of I'm different today versus the way I was probably six, seven years ago is, you know, from a doer, uh, and a solo performer, you know, today, uh, we are in charge of leading a 2500 people sort of team. And, Aligning with everyone, making sure that everybod…

AI assessment note: “one of the biggest changes in me has been, um, I'm a lot more calm”

Q How did you, didn't you succumb to external pressures of growth?

A Yeah, that's a good point. Um, I think there are some fundamental beliefs that we as founders have, which we have sort of lived up to. Um, uh, I think first seven, eight years of our life, we never spoke to media. Um, Uh, we don't think we should come out and say something that we will not be able to honor after many years, you know, saying that thing. Uh, it's very, very attractive to sort of speak to media and make sure that there is PR around the firm. I think we just wanted to stay away from it. Um, Second, uh, you know, none of us consume media. So we've had a, uh, I think media induces a lot of competition and envy. Uh, I think envy is a very bad feeling, uh, 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't achieve what they've achieved. And You are no better even if you feel envious about someone because, you know, you are in the same state as where you were probably worse off today. So I think the, the, I think the way to avoid external pressure is, you know, just reduce the amount of sort of distractions these things have in your life. Uh, for us, that's been avoiding media, uh, for a long period of time. We, I don't read newspaper. I have not read newspapers for like 10 years now. Uh, Uh, we hardly consume any content online unless there are re…

AI assessment note: “the way to avoid external pressure is, you know, just reduce the amount of sort of distractions”

Q And can you describe the initial, like, first five to six years of Purple? How big the team grew? What, what kind of business was it? Uh, and, you know, I think in the first five to six years, uh, you run out of, you run out of cash multiple times. So how did you keep on going during those times?

A You know, so I would say, uh, I think first, um, first three years, you know, we were just learning the ropes of the business, you know, just learning to be a better retailer online retailer at, uh, of beauty. Um, we were also learning how to build technology for scale. Uh, we were also learning how to run warehousing at scale without messing up on our consumers orders. Um, and, um, you know, delivery experience in those days also used to be not very good. And we were always dependent on third party career companies to come to deliver our orders. Um, I think, uh, I think it was just learning the ropes of the business. I think those were very fundamental years of, you know, building purple, uh, given that we did not have access to a lot of cash, uh, you know, from the start, uh, we chose to, and I think this is also true because of our backgrounds. Uh, I worked at Fidelity. We are a very value investor. Uh, we are also very sort of, I would say under the radar kind of company, you know, we don't tom tom our accomplishments very, very often. Fidelity is run out of Boston in us, not out of New York. Uh, and there's a reason for this. And likewise, you know, um, Rahul used to work at Tata group, uh, and again, a very value centric company, you know, company that will build value over decades, not necessarily over years. So being, you know, the fundamental thing that all three of us…

AI assessment note: “first three years, you know, we were just learning the ropes of the business”

Q to learn from you, your journey before Popal, because you started another venture and it couldn't work out. So what made you start a venture in beauty segment when online beauty was not a known market? How did you, you know, did math on this market since you had been in finance background? So it was not a, Uh, you know, uh, emotion, uh, that, that you wanted to pursue.

A You know, so as far as I can remember, uh, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Um, whether this was in college, I went to college at IIT Delhi. Um, I studied, uh, electrical engineering parts of microwave technology, and there weren't too many microwave companies in India to intern at. So I, one day thought, you know, maybe I'll set up a microwave company that students at IIT could intern at. I, I think I was naive in those days. I joined, I, I, I graduated from IIT Delhi in 2007 and joined, uh, financial services world. Uh, I used to work at Aventus Capital and continue to have great friends there. Um, uh, I also worked at briefly at Fidelity's private equity arm. It's called, it was called Fidelity Growth Partners India in those days. Um, uh, so, um, you know, I think, uh, uh, between Avengers and Fidelity, I tried to start a company with a couple of co-founders, um, uh, on the, it, it was called my next company.com, which continues to be my Twitter handle. Um, Uh, but I think, uh, post a couple of months, uh, some people had cold feet and, you know, they had other pressures. And so I moved back to Bombay and joined Fidelity, uh, private equity. Uh, again at Fidelity, I learned the art of investing, you know, especially I would say being very sane, calm about investments and not being driven by, you know, today's trends. Um, um, I think Fidelity is a great institution that…

AI assessment note: “I tried to start a company with a couple of co-founders”