The Exchanges

Q And tell me this side, you went really deep, uh, into seven cities. First, the first three Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, uh, rather than spreading wide. So which kind of brands in your opinion should go deep and which could should go wide?

A You're talking about offline kind of, I think if there is a possibility to go deep, we should only go deep. Like I was, I was studying, uh, a friend of mine, he used, He used to lead marketing for us. He's, uh, he's actually running a startup, which is in like a domestic health space. Uh, I told him if it's possible for you to just pick golf course road as your catchment, and then just make sure that every single house you are able to penetrate that you will get, you will get much better unit economics. You will get much better network effect. Uh, everything becomes better when you're, when you're going deep, right? So proving concept at a particular, Uh, at a particular space, if, if, if there is enough customer base who's relevant for you, and if it's, if it's a high enough frequency occasion, you don't have to, you don't have to go broader than that. The only place where that doesn't work is where you are talking about, you're talking about being in a space where it is, it is kind of the winner takes the market, right? So, so for example, an e-commerce cannot work like that. Now Flipkart could not have said that, look, I'm only going to deliver to Bangalore because, because that's, that's by nature. It is, it is a business which, which requires you to deliver everywhere. Right. So, so I think as far as possible, picking one small market to prove what, whether, whether it wor…

AI assessment note: “The only place where that doesn't work is where you are talking about”

Q Bombay is much cooler, right? And like a Bombay kid, you want to stay in Bombay.

A No, no, I think, uh, I am, I'm actually very happy that that was the time that, you know, it was growing up the same set of people. It was, it almost become a comfort zone that, you know, I had a good, good set of friends, family was there. So for me, you know, getting out of that comfort zone at that point of time, coming and living in hostel, I think, I think it's, it's, it's one of the best things that happened at that point of time. And, uh, IIT was interesting, you know, first semester, You, you're like in this, in this group of amazingly smart, amazingly talented people. And it's, it's just the realization that, yeah, now, now this is, this was just step one. Getting here was a step one. And, uh, I think more than, more than the academics, more than, more than the professors, it was just being in that environment and being, being in the company of such, of such talented people and such, and such intelligent people. I think that, that really, uh, changes you in a way that, that not a lot of things do.

AI assessment note: “getting out of that comfort zone at that point of time, coming and living in hostel”

Q And what was your lowest moment, right? Because it's been a 10 year long journey. What has been your lowest moment in Chaios?

A There have been a couple of times where we have been, we have been very close to, to not having money to pay the next payroll. I think those, those kind of situations and that, that, that happened, that happened once in 2016, that happened once in 2018. I think where you are fighting for, for pure survival and, and, and there's a chance that, you know, what, what you've spent so many years building up, there's a chance that, that, that, that, That could not survive. You know, that, that, that very thought is so scary and so jarring. I think that is, that, that's been, that, that would be the lowest point because, you know, everything else, I think, I think it just becomes part of the game that, you know, there will be, people will leave, things will not work, businesses will, will, will, like, like, parts of the business will fail. But, but when you're talking about, yeah, stores will shut down, all of, all of that is, all of that is kind of, you, you get, you get accustomed to it that, yeah, there, there will be setbacks. But when you're talking about actual survival of, of, of something that you have built with your own hands, it is, it is actually pretty, pretty scary to see that.

AI assessment note: “very close to, to not having money to pay the next payroll”

Q What would be things that you regret? During the child's journey.

A I think we did a lot of things ahead of time. Uh, we could have been more focused, uh, the right focus on Doing lesser things and, and just, and just doing those more and more. So for example, we, we had, we had developed our, our chai bots, chai monk, right? Uh, before we rolled it out to our stores, we said that, look, this is a great business model that can be, that can go into offices also. So we started to set it up in offices. Uh, but this was not an automated machine, right? It was a, It was a man plus machine. So we had to set up a kiosk and, and, and there used to be a person there who used to serve it. Unit economics never worked out. Uh, so we could have deployed Chai Monk at, at each of our stores. We delayed that by a year and a half. Because we, we saw another revenue opportunity and, and unfortunately, you know, that, that revenue opportunity didn't pan out really. Uh, but, but then what the core business was that actually suffered because, because if that energy had been put in there, it would have been much easier to, to do that. That's, that's one example. There are other examples also. So I think we've, we've, we've been distracted by some, some opportunity Uh, more, more easily than, than what, what we should have been. And it's a learning. I would not say it's a regret regret, but, but yeah, more, more focus on those, on those right things would have defini…

AI assessment note: “we had developed our, our chai bots... Unit economics never worked out.”

Q It's tough to build, uh, that I have not seen it anywhere. You are, I believe, innovating on small, small things a lot, right?

A It is a lot of small, small things. It is a lot of rigor. These, these things are not, it's not about process. It's not about, it's not about that, you know, I, I just created a strategy once and then everything will, will, will happen automatically. One of our biggest realizations when we were scaling up initially, when, when, uh, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, We realized that, you know, while we had an aspiration and we saw enough demand potential to go up to say, you know, from seven to 50. But what we realized was that when, when we started to ramp up our, our number of stores, This is a very offline store by store people business and the kind of, the kind of culture that is, that is needed, uh, to be able to run a new store. You can't, you can't do that. Uh, you, you can't just buy that culture. You can't just get, get a completely new team and then, then expect them to behave like that. So that cultural integration was something that we realized is very, very important. Uh, we now actually have a child's academy also. So new team members who come in, they spend seven days and the, the primary objective is that how do you get culturally integrated into, into what Chayos is all about and what, what the Chayos way of customer experience really means.

AI assessment note: “It is a lot of small, small things. It is a lot of rigor.”

Q What was your father saying to you at that point in time?

A No, no, I think they were, they were, they were very supportive. They, the first time they were like, okay, I love you. You have to, you have to own your decisions. Uh, so, uh, So we actually quit our jobs like me and me and three other friends. We quit our jobs. We didn't have anything in hand. We didn't even have an idea because it was impossible to do, uh, do the office job and, and consulting is crazy. So, so we said, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll figure it out. We'll, we'll go. So we were, we were meeting a lot of people ended up realizing that, you know, people are so open when you are, when you are an entrepreneur and, and, and even at that time, when, when, you know, You know, startups weren't that big. Any, any big company, CEO, anybody's willing to like make time for you that, oh, you're a, you're a young entrepreneur.

AI assessment note: “they were very supportive. They, the first time they were like, okay, I love you.”