Insight
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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 …”
Insight
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.”
Opinion
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.”
Insight
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.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Disclosure
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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, …”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
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.”
Opinion
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.”
Insight
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…”
Assertion Partly supported
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.”
Assertion Partly supported
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.”
Disclosure
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Disclosure
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.”
Disclosure
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.”
Disclosure
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.”
Disclosure
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…”
Disclosure
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.”
Disclosure
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.”
