First Principles

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First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising authentic, candid, and insightful conversations between some of India’s most accomplished founders and business leaders, and Rohin Dharmakumar, The Ken’s CEO & co-founder. From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique.

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  1. 21시간 전

    Fireside Ventures' Kanwal Singh on the consumer-brands bet nobody believed in, why "for a 5x, nobody will call you legendary," and on refusing the one-100x-outlier game

    1 · Summary Part 1 of 2. Kanwal Singh is the first venture capitalist to appear on First Principles, and the reason is the bet he made with the fund itself. In 2017, at the peak of the tech boom, he walked away from tech investing to raise a fund only for Indian consumer brands, when almost nobody believed India had a consumer story worth venture capital. His first backers weren't institutions, they were the consumer families who had built India's brands. This half covers the whole bet: what investors actually said when he pitched a consumer-only fund, why he raised in India rather than abroad, the ownership and follow-on design he corrected fund after fund, his claim that most of his companies succeed rather than one outlier, and his working map of India 1, 2 and 3. Part 2 turns to the person behind it. 2 · Chapters 0:00 Cold open and Part 1 intro 3:27 What Fireside is, and why it exists 10:04 How the fund makes money 11:23 The stats: 9 years, 4 funds, 68 investments 12:50 Raising fund one: consumer families, not global institutions 17:14 Two years as a solo angel 25:51 Ownership by design, and the follow-on model 34:05 What "success" means, and the anti-power-law 36:56 The centre of excellence 45:40 The three breaks from the VC default, and India 1/2/3 53:47 Quick commerce is brand-first 57:54 Brand vs performance: Underneat, Truvi3 · Pull-quotes [0:20] "For a 5x, nobody will call you legendary." [34:24] "We can build successful funds, fund after fund... not necessarily depending on those one or two outliers. Good news is we also have the outliers." [40:26] "The answer lies in the question. It is hard." [54:12] "The power of the brand is truly manifest in quick commerce." 4 · Frameworks & mental models Anti-power-law investing: a portfolio where most companies clear "capital plus," not one built to live or die on a single outlier. The three breaks from the VC default: consumer over tech, Indian consumer-family LPs over global institutions, one shared-credit team over lone-hero dealmakers. India 1, 2, 3: his working map of where consumption grows, with India 2 needing products designed for it and India 3 reached through doorstep models. Quick commerce is brand-first: scarce shelf space and a buy-not-browse shopper mean only brands with genuine pull survive. This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.

    Fireside Ventures' Kanwal Singh on the consumer-brands bet nobody believed in, why "for a 5x, nobody will call you legendary," and on refusing the one-100x-outlier game

  2. 7월 13일

    Part 2: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on wanting a paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces, who doesn't survive at Shiprocket, and still playing Pink Floyd on a Fender

    Part 2 of 2. In Part 1 we walked the road from 2011 — three companies, an investor ultimatum, and the capital it took to build. Part 2 is the mind. Saahil Goel starts with what, given hindsight, he'd do differently, then the first principles he runs Shiprocket on (distribution beats product), the two or three metrics he genuinely obsesses over, his bet on applied AI, why he believes you can't actually manage people, who does and doesn't survive at the company, the guitar he still plays, his dog, and the question Rohin closes every episode with, which Saahil answers with a single number. Chapters 1:02  With hindsight, what he'd do differently 2:10  “A paisa of every transaction in India” 5:23  First principles: distribution beats product 11:32  The metrics he obsesses over 17:22  Betting on applied AI 29:33  “You can't manage people” 31:45  Who doesn't survive at Shiprocket 42:05  The guitar, Pink Floyd, and Bruno the CHO 58:28  The book he forgets — and how he reflects 1:00:50  Rating his life an 8 This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN. Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.

    Part 2: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on wanting a paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces, who doesn't survive at Shiprocket, and still playing Pink Floyd on a Fender

  3. 7월 12일 • The Ken Premium 전용

    Shiprocket's Saahil Goel on rebuilding the same company three times and wanting one paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces

    Everyone thinks Shiprocket began in 2017. But the company Saahil Goel and his co-founder Gautam Kapoor started was born in 2011, and it was rebuilt three times before it worked: a “Shopify for India” called KartRocket, a marketplace called Craftly, and finally the shipping-and-enablement layer now behind a quarter of a million Indian sellers, on its way to a public listing. In this ~2-hour conversation, Saahil takes Rohin through the whole arc: bootstrapping on Rs 15 lakh, why Indian SMBs wouldn't pay for software, an investor ultimatum to take $4 million or nothing, and how he came to believe you sell outcomes, not software. Then it turns reflective: the first principles he runs the company on, the single metric he obsesses over, his bet on applied AI, why he thinks you can't actually manage people, who does and doesn't survive at Shiprocket, the guitar he still plays, and a closing self-assessment delivered in a single number. Chapters 0:00 The company that started in 2011, not 2017 4:53 KartRocket: building an agency to learn the market 7:02 Bootstrapped on Rs 15 lakh 9:55 Why Indian SMBs wouldn't pay for software 18:51 “Take $4 million or nothing” 23:31 How Shiprocket was born 27:59 What Shiprocket actually is — and how it makes money 38:50 The IPO, and the state of the business 45:12 Quick commerce without owning a truck 49:33 From Delhi to a US career — and back 56:52 Lessons from failed fundraises 1:05:16 How much they've raised 1:05:27 With hindsight, what he'd do differently 1:06:34 “A paisa of every transaction in India” 1:09:47 First principles: distribution beats product 1:15:56 The metrics he obsesses over 1:21:46 Betting on applied AI 1:33:57 “You can't manage people” 1:36:10 Who doesn't survive at Shiprocket 1:46:29 The guitar, Pink Floyd, and Bruno the CHO 2:02:52 The book he forgets — and how he reflects 2:05:15 Rating his life an 8 This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN. Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.

    Shiprocket's Saahil Goel on rebuilding the same company three times and wanting one paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces

  4. 7월 7일

    Part 1: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on rebuilding the same company three times,  the $4 million he was told to take or leave and why in India you sell outcomes, not software

    Part 1 of 2. Most people date Shiprocket to 2017; in truth it was born in 2011, and the road there runs through two companies called KartRocket and Craftly. Saahil Goel walks Rohin through the build: Rs 15 lakh of their own money, nearly not being hired by their own first engineers, the hard lesson that in India you sell outcomes not software, an investor ultimatum to take $4 million or nothing, and by the end, just how much capital it's taken to get from that first office to the edge of a public listing. Part 2 gets into how he actually thinks. Chapters 0:00  The company that started in 2011, not 2017 4:01  KartRocket: building an agency to learn the market 6:09  Bootstrapped on Rs 15 lakh 9:02  Why Indian SMBs wouldn't pay for software 17:58  “Take $4 million or nothing” 22:38  How Shiprocket was born 27:06  What Shiprocket actually is — and how it makes money 37:58  The IPO, and the state of the business 44:19  Quick commerce without owning a truck 48:42  From Delhi to a US career — and back 55:59  Lessons from failed fundraises 1:04:23  How much they've raised This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN. Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.

    Part 1: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on rebuilding the same company three times,  the $4 million he was told to take or leave and why in India you sell outcomes, not software

  5. 6월 22일 • The Ken Premium 전용

    Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on 25 years of selling time, not food, and surviving four near-deaths

    In a business with the highest mortality rate of any, Riyaaz Amlani has spent 25 years building Impresario into 80+ restaurants across 20 cities — Social, Smoke House Deli, Antisocial, Bandra Born, Mocha — serving 8 million guests a year. He sits down with Rohin Dharmakumar for the full two hours: the philosophy of "handmade" at scale, the economics that actually decide a restaurant's life or death, the generational taste shifts from Gen X to Gen Alpha, his fights and truces with the aggregators, and the personal operating system behind it all. CHAPTERS 00:00 Cold open: 25 years, one craft, an 8-million-guest business 02:25 Why Mocha in 2001: Bombay's missing "places to be" 06:24 The MTV generation and a West-aspirational India 08:18 UCLA, entertainment management, and learning to "live" culture 12:08 What "Handmade" and "Impresario" actually mean 14:51 The business today: 80 restaurants, 900 cr, 5,500 people, 20 cities 15:31 Why restaurants die — and the people-vs-process debate 20:05 Social, the millennial third space, and the shisha ban 26:21 Decoding Gen Z; Saltwater to Bandra Born; evolution vs revolution 31:10 Real estate is the game: location vs locality, India's "80 pockets" 32:53 The only metric that matters: AOV x covers x table turnaround 35:57 Mass-extinction events: shisha ban, vanishing PE money, COVID 39:55 The COVID town hall: how the team carried the company 41:25 What losing a restaurant feels like; the discipline to quit 43:22 A resilient restaurant group needs 4-5 engines for every cycle 47:21 Childhood hustle: the fake-Chinese-marble business 53:28 Bowling alleys & Phoenix Mills: people buy time together 54:11 Self-rating: 7.5 as a parent, 5 as a CEO 55:46 Building a restaurant vs building an organization 56:43 The HR crisis: replacing half the staff in a year 59:21 The one thing he can't delegate: layouts and property 1:04:11 Zomato & Swiggy: the "digital landlords," then and now 1:08:52 The Booking.com parallel: stop sending guests to the aggregator 1:12:34 Delivery vs dine-in: two completely different businesses 1:15:32 Lessons from VC/PE; why restaurants need patient capital 1:20:05 What motivates him: reading a city and its community 1:21:18 Curiosity, echo chambers, and planning for serendipity 1:26:51 Hiring "doers and divas" and the largesse of hospitality 1:32:46 Social as social infrastructure: coworking from day one 1:36:47 First principles: people + process, soul, belongingness 1:39:30 Harvesting feedback: ORM, AI, and the guest-experience officer 1:41:40 His kids and the Gen Alpha worldview 1:45:26 Weekends, FIFA, meditation, and protecting solitude 1:52:09 The 25-year view and "no plan beyond 3 weeks" 1:53:17 The 10,000 cr ambition: Impresario as a platform (the invisible 85%) 2:01:21 Anti-loyalty vs frequency: cafes are loyalty, restaurants are experience 2:03:50 Final question: 9.9 out of 10, and the missing 0.1

    Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on 25 years of selling time, not food, and surviving four near-deaths

  6. 6월 22일

    Part 2: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on digital landlords, doers & divas, and why delivery will never eat dine-in

    Part 2 moves from the journey to the operating philosophy. Riyaaz Amlani unpacks his evolving stance on the aggregators — from resistance to "uneasy truce" — and the hard lesson that restaurateurs who send guests to Zomato and Swiggy have only themselves to blame. He argues delivery and dine-in are two different businesses, lays out his ambition to turn Impresario into a full-service-restaurant platform, and gets personal on hiring, Gen Alpha kids, weekends, and why his life scores 9.9 out of 10.   CHAPTERS 00:00  Recap and what's ahead: aggregators, the platform, the missing 0.101:48  "Digital landlords": Zomato & Swiggy, then and now02:47  From resistance to cohabitation; how aggregators trained demand05:24  Owning the customer; the cross-sector aggregator tension07:04  The Booking.com / Hotels.com parallel and how hotels fought back09:41  Build your own loyalty — don't blame the aggregator10:09  Delivery vs dine-in: two completely different businesses13:09  Restaurants beat the movies; lessons from raising VC/PE16:34  Growth math: IRR, 20-25% stable growth, the late-stage problem17:45  What motivates him: reading a city and its community18:56  Curiosity over the "5 people"; planning for serendipity24:29  Hiring: "doers and divas" and the largesse of hospitality30:24  Social as social infrastructure: coworking from day one34:25  First principles: people + process, soul, belongingness37:08  Harvesting feedback: NPS, ORM, AI, the guest-experience officer39:18  His kids and the Gen Alpha worldview43:39  Weekends, FIFA, meditation, and protecting solitude48:10  Comfort food and deferring to the chef50:11  The 25-year view; the 10,000 cr platform and the invisible 85%59:03  Anti-loyalty vs frequency: cafes are loyalty, restaurants are experience1:01:44 Final question: 9.9 out of 10, and the missing 0.1KEY COMPANIES & BRANDS Impresario Handmade Restaurants; Social; Zomato; Swiggy; ONDC; Booking.com; Hotels.com; Rebel Foods; Haldiram's; Rameshwaram Cafe; Starbucks; NRAI; PlayStation/FIFA/Minecraft (referenced). KEY CONCEPTS Aggregators as "digital landlords"; deep discounting & perceived value; the uneasy truce; owning the customer relationship; the Booking.com hotel-inventory parallel; loyalty programs & direct outreach; delivery vs dine-in as separate businesses; patient capital, IRR & late-stage growth math; "doers and divas"; largesse of hospitality; full-service-restaurant platform; store-level vs corporate EBITDA; the invisible 85% "iceberg" of running a restaurant; anti-loyalty vs frequency; cafes (loyalty/convenience) vs restaurants (experience/variety); NPS/ORM/AI feedback; Gen Alpha.

    Part 2: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on digital landlords, doers & divas, and why delivery will never eat dine-in

  7. 6월 15일

    Part 1: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on Mocha, "Handmade," four near-deaths and 25 years of building places to be

    Part 1 of Rohin Dharmakumar's conversation with Riyaaz Amlani is the origin story: why a returning UCLA grad decided Bombay was missing "places to be," how Mocha became Social, and what it actually takes to keep a restaurant group alive for 25 years in the highest-mortality business there is. The shisha ban, the private-equity money that never arrived, COVID, the marble hustle at age six, and the real engine underneath it all: people. CHAPTERS 00:00  Intro: 95% fail by year two — and the man who didn't01:46  Why Mocha in 2001: a city missing "places to be"03:23  Bombay the "coolest cousin"; South Bombay snobbery moves to Bandra05:05  The MTV / Gen X generation and a West-facing India07:47  UCLA, entertainment management, and learning to live culture11:29  What "Handmade" and "Impresario" mean14:13  The business today: 80 restaurants, 900 cr, 5,500 people15:29  Why restaurants die; learning from the community18:02  People vs processes — and why he keeps returning to people19:32  Social: the millennial third space and the shisha ban25:41  The Gen Z puzzle; Saltwater to Bandra Bourn; evolution vs revolution30:46  Real estate: location vs locality and India's "80 pockets"32:32  The metric that matters: AOV x covers x table turnaround35:33  COVID and surviving "mass-extinction events"39:17  The town hall: the team takes 40% pay to save the company40:51  What losing a restaurant feels like; the discipline to quit42:44  Mental model: 4-5 engines to ride economic cycles46:42  The marble business and hustling from age 1251:20  Bowling alleys & Phoenix Mills: people buy time together53:44  Self-rating: 7.5 as a parent, 5 as a CEO55:15  Building a restaurant vs building an organization56:15  The HR crisis: severe attrition, talent going abroad58:44  The one thing he can't delegate: layouts and property selection1:00:49 Becoming a "boardroom warrior" against his will KEY COMPANIES & BRANDS Impresario Handmade Restaurants; Mocha; Social; Saltwater Cafe/Grill; Bandra Born; Cafe Coffee Day; Phoenix Mills "Bowling Company"; Amoeba; UCLA.   KEY CONCEPTS Third spaces; "handmade" at scale; West-aspirational MTV-generation culture; people vs processes; AOV x covers x table turnaround; frequency as a metric; location vs locality / "80 pockets"; evolution vs revolution; mass-extinction events & resilience; working-capital-negative business; building a restaurant vs building an organization; restaurant-industry attrition; the layouts/property selection he won't delegate.

    Part 1: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on Mocha, "Handmade," four near-deaths and 25 years of building places to be

  8. 5월 4일

    Part 2: Kuku’s Lal Chand Bisu on the Bathoth-to-Bandra arc, learning from iterations not books, and why nos beat yeses

    Part 2 picks up exactly where I left Bisu — on why a 7-year-old audio platform is releasing a theatrical film on May 8. From there, we go everywhere. Bisu's actual journey from a small village in Shekhawati to Bandra. The "full equation" view of metrics. Why saying no requires more work than saying yes. Why most of his learning comes from iterations, not books. And, in his closing answer, a quietly devastating line about the startup ecosystem itself. If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, please go back and start there first. Chapter list 01:02 — Indian Institute of Zombies: why theatrical, why in-house, why AI in the pipeline. The decision-making cadence behind it01:08 — "Your vision grows with you." How the original vision changed from "premium storytelling for Bharat" to something larger01:10 — Bathoth → Shekhawati → IIT Jodhpur → Bandra. Studying in Hindi until Class 10, then +2 in Hindi, then English at IIT01:18 — The discipline of saying no. Why nos require more work than yeses, and why nos are usually the better answer01:19 — "The full equation." Why CAC alone is meaningless; why he tracks revenue, CAC, LTV and cohort profit together. The two real metrics: equation health and engagement01:21 — Numbers beyond a limit give you an illusion. "Don't go deeper in the data — keep your life simple."01:21 — Co-founders, span of control, how the four-way role split actually got sorted01:22 — How Bisu learns: most of it from doing and iterations; books help him articulate what the iterations have already taught him01:25 — Pet phrases at work — "build it like a business, not a startup" — and what management style his colleagues would say he has01:28 — Biggest value add as Bisu, not as CEO. The Uber-power-user analogy01:29 — When did he change his mind about managing people? Going from technical-first to people-first01:34 — Hiring: the open-ended questions Bisu actually asks when he meets potential leaders01:36 — What motivates and drives him on a daily basis01:42 — Family, parenting, and the village memory of his grandmother telling stories by oil lamp in the evenings — the original storyteller in his life01:45 — The personal questions: which morning of the week, how he spends weekends, what a productive day looks like, sleep01:46 — On a scale of 1 to 10, how Bisu rates himself as a CEO01:51 — The closing thought. Would the average Kuku FM subscriber actually want to listen to a two-hour interview with the CEO of Kuku FM? "We live in a bubble. The startup ecosystem feels that the world thinks what we think. It doesn't."01:53 — GoodbyeThings mentioned in Part 2 People: Vinod Kumar Meena, Vikas Goyal (co-founders); Kunj Sanghvi (Kuku's Content Head, previously on Two by Two and Zero Shot); the Dalal brothers (script of Indian Institute of Zombies — Hussain and Abbas Dalal of Brahmāstra / Farzi); Gaganjeet Singh and Alok Dwivedi (directors); Bisu's grandmotherPlaces: Bathoth (village in Shekhawati, Rajasthan); IIT Jodhpur; BandraConcepts: the full equation — Bisu's name for treating CAC, revenue, LTV and cohort profit as one calculation, not separate metrics; content is the only product; vision grows with you  To listen to all of First Principles If you'd like to listen to all 54 First Principles episodes — that's close to 110 hours of conversations with founders and leaders building India's most interesting companies — please subscribe to The Ken directly, or to our premium channel on Apple Podcasts.

    Part 2: Kuku’s Lal Chand Bisu on the Bathoth-to-Bandra arc, learning from iterations not books, and why nos beat yeses
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First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising authentic, candid, and insightful conversations between some of India’s most accomplished founders and business leaders, and Rohin Dharmakumar, The Ken’s CEO & co-founder. From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique.

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