Building Real

Arjun Thomas
  • 5.0 (1)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Building Real is about how things actually get built—companies, restaurants, labs, careers, and side projects—without the highlight reel gloss. Each episode is a real, unscripted conversation with someone in the middle of building: founders, operators, educators, scientists, restaurateurs, investors, and people quietly doing important work.​ We talk through the doubts, trade‑offs, and decisions that never make it into funding announcements or LinkedIn posts. You’ll hear how guests find problems worth working on, test ideas, hire (or don’t), manage money and time, and deal with failure, burnout, and luck along the way. If you’re building something yourself—or thinking about it—you’ll get practical insight into product, markets, teams, and personal resilience, told through specific stories rather than generic advice. No scripts, no manufactured drama, no “five hacks”; just the process of how it actually happens, one builder at a time.

Episodes

  1. He Got Deported. Then Built Airbnb's #1 Culinary Experience | Dhruv Shanker (Boring Indian Food)

    3 DAYS AGO

    He Got Deported. Then Built Airbnb's #1 Culinary Experience | Dhruv Shanker (Boring Indian Food)

    Not a restaurant, not a food-tech startup. Just a balcony, four aunties, and the world's highest-rated cooking experience. What do you do when a startup folds, immigration botches your paperwork, and you find yourself locked out of Singapore for five months — no job, no income, and a lease you can't escape? For Dhruv Shanker — former Alibaba exec (Lazada, Daraaz), Groupon marketer, and obsessive home cook — the answer was to open a cooking class on his balcony. A deliberately, defiantly "boring" cooking class that Airbnb literally tried to reject. In this episode, we unpack how Dhruv runs two wildly different businesses — CashCounter (e-commerce enablement for brands entering Southeast Asia) and Boring Indian Food (private dining, cooking classes, catering). We get into the AI playbook he uses on Lazada and Shopee, the K-pop hot sauce story that explains Asian e-commerce, and the guests who've walked through his door: a drug lord's private chef, a blind guest who cooked an entire meal unaided, and a nine-months pregnant woman who just needed Gongura chicken. The first half is for anyone building a business on marketplaces — Dhruv draws on years inside Alibaba, Lazada, Groupon and Google to break down what separates great e-commerce sellers from everyone else. If food, people, and what happens when real passion meets a real crisis is more your thing, jump straight to [40:37] — that's where the story gets personal. The anti-restaurant story that hit 10,000 guests without a single table. 𝗗𝗵𝗿𝘂𝘃'𝘀 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀: → Airbnb's highest-rated culinary experience in the world — perfect 5.0 stars, 100+ reviews → 10,000+ guests hosted across 8 years of private dining in Singapore → Featured in SG60 — one of 60 remarkable people in Singapore → 2 years of forward bookings filled in a single night after Airbnb's global campaign =========================== 🔗 Connect with Our Guest =========================== Dhruv Shanker (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/madonionslicer/ Mad Onion Slicer: https://www.madonionslicer.com Instagram / All platforms: @madonionslicer =========================== 🎙️ Want to be featured on Building Real? =========================== Building something interesting in deep tech, climate, or hard tech? I'm always looking to speak with founders doing real work in the real world. 📩 Reach out: http://calendly.com/arjun-arcshift/ =========================== 🤝 Let's Connect =========================== I'm always keen to meet interesting builders, operators, and investors. Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjunthomas =========================== 🚀 Working on a venture? Let's talk. =========================== If you're an early-stage founder who needs strategic support — positioning, go-to-market, fundraising, or just a sharp second opinion — I can help. Book a call: http://calendly.com/arjun-arcshift/ #ecommerce #privatedining #singaporefounder #founderjourney #airbnb #boringindianfood #ecommerceasia #marketplaces #startuplife #buildingrealpodcast

    1hr 19min
  2. The Dirtiest Problem No One Wanted to Solve — Deep Tech Sewage Treatment with Tharun Kumar (EcoSTP)

    31 MAR

    The Dirtiest Problem No One Wanted to Solve — Deep Tech Sewage Treatment with Tharun Kumar (EcoSTP)

    Not another AI startup — this is deep tech that runs on bacteria. What do you do when your apartment's "sewage treatment plant" overflows and you discover it's just a fake tank dumping raw waste into a lake? For Tharun Kumar — former IT architect behind India's Aadhaar system — that crisis became EcoSTP: a sewage treatment system inspired by a cow's stomach that runs on zero power, zero chemicals, and almost no human intervention. In this episode, we dig into how Tharun left corporate IT to spend a decade "in deep shit," why 100-year-old STP technology never evolved, and how EcoSTP uses anaerobic bacteria and biomimicry to let some clients reuse the same water over 1,000 times. We cover the jargon wall that protected a broken industry for a century, the regulator who first banned his tech and then became his case study, and what it took to scale a licensing model across 24 Indian states plus Bangladesh and the Maldives — all managed from Bangalore. If the business model and scale story is what you're here for, the whole episode delivers. If you want to jump straight to the science — how cow stomachs inspired a zero-energy treatment system — head to [10:17]. That's where it gets fascinating. A cleantech and circular economy story that started with a real crisis. Not a pitch deck. 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗦𝗧𝗣'𝘀 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁: → 8 billion litres of water reclaimed → 12,000 tons of coal avoided (no energy-hungry aeration) → Startup India's "Most Circular Innovator" — pitched to the Prime Minister of India → Phenol-eating bacteria research underway at IIT Jammu — a shot at drinking-quality water from sewage =========================== 🔗 Connect with Our Guest =========================== Tharun Kumar (LinkedIn): https://linkedin.com/in/tharun/ EcoSTP: https://ecostp.com/ =========================== 🎙️ Want to be featured on Building Real? =========================== Building something interesting in deep tech, climate, or hard tech? I'm always looking to speak with founders doing real work in the real world. 📩 Reach out: http://calendly.com/arjun-arcshift/ =========================== 🤝 Let's Connect =========================== I'm always keen to meet interesting builders, operators, and investors. Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjunthomas =========================== 🚀 Working on a venture? Let's talk. =========================== If you're an early-stage founder who needs strategic support — positioning, go-to-market, fundraising, or just a sharp second opinion — I can help. Book a call: http://calendly.com/arjun-arcshift/ #cleantech #deeptech #wastewater #circulareconomy #startupindia #ecostp #biomimicry #founderjourney #buildingrealpodcast

    1hr 10min
  • 2 Episodes

About

Building Real is about how things actually get built—companies, restaurants, labs, careers, and side projects—without the highlight reel gloss. Each episode is a real, unscripted conversation with someone in the middle of building: founders, operators, educators, scientists, restaurateurs, investors, and people quietly doing important work.​ We talk through the doubts, trade‑offs, and decisions that never make it into funding announcements or LinkedIn posts. You’ll hear how guests find problems worth working on, test ideas, hire (or don’t), manage money and time, and deal with failure, burnout, and luck along the way. If you’re building something yourself—or thinking about it—you’ll get practical insight into product, markets, teams, and personal resilience, told through specific stories rather than generic advice. No scripts, no manufactured drama, no “five hacks”; just the process of how it actually happens, one builder at a time.

Information

  • Creator
    Arjun Thomas
  • Years Active
    2k
  • Episodes
    2
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Arjun Thomas
  • Show Website
    Building Real