Disclosure
Balakrishnan Rejected Shark Tank Offer Because 70 Lakhs Was Insufficient
“And I genuinely believe that
You know, 70 lakhs is not enough for, you know, creating this all over again.
Which is why I said no.”
What-if
Balakrishnan: Flatheads Should Have Paused Operations During COVID Lockdowns
“I would have paused everything. I would have told people to go take a holiday, right? And come back and we will try when this madness dies down. I would not have spent as much on trying to force the product into the market where the demand was low, which is wh…”
Insight
Balakrishnan: Consumer Brand Markets Are Not Winner-Take-All Like Tech
“And the beauty of the brand ecosystem is also that unlike a tech play, it is not a winner-take-all, right?”
Assertion Supported
Momoe Pioneered Offline Mobile Payments in India Before Paytm
“Momo was in, in one of the first mobile apps that enabled mobile payments at real world restaurants, retail stores, and so on. At that time, even the Paytm's and the Mobyquicks, which were the big guys were doing you know, utility bill payments and recharges. …”
Assertion Contradicted
Offline Mobile Payments Were Largely Undeployed Globally in Early 2010s
“In fact, worldwide, other than China, where, you know, WeChat Pay and Alipay had exploded, most of the other places, literally Google had done one pilot with Google Wallet, and PayPal had done one pilot, but that's about it. Nobody had deployed this.”
Disclosure
Flatheads Is Dormant and Exploring Potential Acquisition Partners
“Right now the company is still very much, you know, pretty much dormant, right? We have done all our supplier negotiations and closed stuff. So we are trying to figure out whether there is a potential home where flatheads can belong. It could be another brand.…”
Assertion Partly supported
The Indian Foot Has Never Been Measured in a Scientific Study
“The Indian foot versus the Chinese foot versus the American foot. Versus the European foot is very different. And guess what? We are the second largest consumer of footwear in the world because we are the second largest population in the world. But Indian foot…”
Insight
Functional Positioning Fails to Create Brand Aspiration in Footwear
“Functional positioning, you are not able to create the aspiration. So I would have played the brand story a little differently, right? Given a little more of an emotional connect rather than a pure functional connect.”
Disclosure
Shark Tank India Was Flatheads' Last-Ditch Effort to Survive
“Actually, that was our last ditch effort at You know, keeping flatheads alive. So once the episode was done and we realized that, Hey, there's movement is not forward. So then, you know, we had a lot of conversations with our, you know, suppliers, partners, ev…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balakrishnan Received 30,000 LinkedIn Requests Overnight After Shark Tank Episode
“Next day morning, I opened LinkedIn and I had 30,000 requests.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Flatheads Sold Out All Remaining Inventory Within 38 Hours of Airing
“Within 38 hours, all the remaining inventory that we had, we sold out.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Flatheads Generated 25% of Organic Traffic From LinkedIn and Twitter
“We got 25 to 30% organic traffic from LinkedIn and Twitter, not from Instagram as a brand, right?”
Disclosure
Flatheads Expanded to Zappos in the US to Hedge COVID Disruptions
“So then second wave, we hedged our bets. We decided to go international, right? Zappos had called saying, Hey you know, we need fresh infusion of interesting shoes and USPs for our core audience. So we are opening up an international program. Would you be inte…”
Disclosure
Flatheads Lost All Potential Funding Term Sheets in April 2022
“And then when April happened, all the, you know, conversations and potential term sheets that were on the table also went away. So when the demand actually came, we didn't have the marketing money to do something meaningful.”
Disclosure
Flatheads Founders Incurred 70 Lakh Rupees in Personal Liability
“So both of us had put in 35 lakhs each. So there's about 70 lakhs of personal liability that we have. Not counting the pre-corporation of the company, one and a half years that we worked, that was about 20, 25 lakhs each.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Flatheads Converted One in Three Customers at Pre-Pandemic Pop-Ups
“Every week we used to do at least two roadshows, and that worked beautifully well, right? People tried the product, one in three customers who used to walk into our pop-up used to convert into customers.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Most Shark Tank India Pitches Last Over 45 Minutes
“So most pitches last more than 45 minutes on Shark Tank.”
Disclosure
Flatheads Previously Raised 10.5 Crore Rupees for 33% Equity
“Look, I had raised 10 and a half crores for 33% earlier, right?”
Disclosure
Flatheads' Advisors Explicitly Advised Shutting Down During the Pandemic
“Our advisors told us this, that shut down and take a vacation. The voices were there. Okay. And these were voices who have been through multiple, you know, cycles of bad times and good times. This was a once in a generational event for sure, but the voices wer…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shark Tank India Judges Called Public Reaction to Flatheads Pitch Unprecedented
“Every shark has called me and said this is unprecedented, right? Throughout the two seasons, they have not seen anything like this, right?”
Disclosure
Flatheads Paused India Operations While UAE and US Inventory Sold Autonomously
“We had some limited inventories in India, and we had inventories in UAE and US, which were selling on autopilot. So that is something that was going on. We said, let it continue. Eventually, this episode will air. So at that time, we'll see what happens. Until…”
