Verma: A Starbucks-scale chain in India must be built around chai
Raghav Verma · Aspiring India, What Indians LOVE & How Chaayos Began! ft. Chaayos Founder Raghav Verma | Neon Show · Aug 22, 2023 · at 32:27
Raghav Verma, co-founder of Chaayos, recounts the core investment thesis that led Tiger Global partner Lee Fixel to back Chaayos.
0:00 / 0:10exact quote · 10.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“What Chai is to India, Is what coffee is to the West. So if there ever is to become a Starbucks like brand in the country, it would have to be around chai.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Raghav Verma
Zomato and Swiggy reported Chaayos retention is unheard of
“We hear from Zomato and Swiggy that the kind of repeat behaviors and retentions that we have for this business is pretty much unheard of in, in in any kind of delivery space.”
Verma: Indians work much harder and hold higher aspirations than Americans
“The kind of level of hard work that you see in, in the Indian context versus say a developed economy. I can safely say that compared to my time in the US also, people, people work much harder. People have, Much, much higher aspiration.”
Combining value for money with aspiration is the only way to scale
“Value for money with the right aspiration, that's the key to That's the key to India, right? There is no other way to scale. Either if you're too expensive and you're aspirational, then you will be catering to a niche set of customers. If you are too, if your …”
Raghav Verma: Food accounts for almost half of Chaayos's revenue
“It's almost like half our revenues come from food”
Verma: Offline startups should penetrate one catchment deeply before expanding
“I think if there is a possibility to go deep, we should only go deep. Like I was studying a friend of mine, he used to lead marketing for us. He's actually running a startup, which is in like a domestic health space. I told him if it's possible for you to just…”
Verma: Dining out frequency in India has permanently declined post-COVID
“COVID and a lot of work from home has made us very comfortable with ordering food at home or with, you know, just being comfortable being at home. And I think the number of times that we used to go out before versus what we do now, that has definitely come dow…”