Tira, Bombay Shaving Co., Inde Wild | WTF is Fueling India's Beauty & Skincare Revolution? | Ep. 25

27:39So services is also beauty, right? Like hair services, when you get into... Like a salon. Like a salon. 70 % is all about hair. But when you're talking... Well, why wouldn't consider salon under the beauty pyramid, would you? You're still selling product there, right? Like a Kerastase. You're talking about the products sold at a salon, not the treatments. No, not the treatments. But it's still consumption, no? But it's still consumption on how people think differently. Is that a big part of consumption? Salons? Salons is huge. Used to be, I think. In India particularly, all professional hair care brands have started in salons.

28:17If you look at Kerastase, they do majority of their business still through salons And what does it take to crack a salon? Like if I'm a new brand like Karis does? So India is very fragmented even on the salon space. So you'll have like eight to ten big brands that are dominating different markets, right? Like the north or the west or the south. And you have to actually be able to strike a deal, for example. And it's a Karis task if they go into any salon. they don't allow any other brand to be there. Is it like a pharmacy where you pay rent to get shelf space? It's a lot more than that. You have to give them products that you can use on a service.

29:06So you basically craft an entire treatment menu with your product and then that's how you actually sell your product because it's all about the after-sales service and after-sales purchase, right? So if I like a product, if I go to my hairstylist who I trust, because again, beauty is all about trust and, you know, believing in someone who you believe is an expert. So when I go to them and, you know, my hairstylist, your hair is falling. Why don't you use this serum? You know, and let me let me use it after I, you know, shampoo your hair before blow dry. This is how you use it. And oh, you know, the weather is really dry outside.

29:42So maybe you should try this shampoo that's moisturizing and that'll make your hair, you know, hold well in this weather. And then at the end of it, he's used all of that on me. And then he'll be like, listen, do you want to buy it? And I'm like, oh, I really like my hair. Because again, then it goes back to validation. Does a salon optimize for best quality product or the highest kickback or margins? Definitely. I think it's a mix of both, right? because you also want people to keep coming back to you. But if, like you said, a brand just takes over and says no other brand, then I guess you're only serving the client one brand.

30:24That's why now a lot of salons are also saying, no, we don't mind having three or four brands because they cater to all different kinds of products. Like curly hair, it's huge, but we never speak about curly hair. It's a whole segment in itself, booming segment in itself. And it's just been started getting addressed now. So that pattern is breaking out. And I think that's great. Like I've discovered a lot of brands, you know, even international brands through salons because they come in through a distributor. So you can work with a distributor who'll, you know, have all the best salon connections, go to them saying, listen, I want to distribute my brand.

31:01They'll probably connect you to, if it's a small one to 10 salons, if it's, you know, your brand is growing bigger than to a chain of salons. And so I think my experience has been a little bit different. Obviously, IndieWild's hair products are best-selling. We're number one on Nika, number one on Tira. And we're beating out salon brands like Kerastas, like Olaplex, like others. I don't know the names of all of them. That really are salon-first brands. And I think so there is a change, and I'd say specifically double-clicking into Gen Z, where they want that salon experience at home. They want it fast.

31:39They want it quick. They want it to do it themselves. but they want the level of that expertise and ingredients and salon-like feeling, but to be able to do it themselves. And so when you notice, even if you look at the new shampoos that are coming out, everything is so intelligent now. Everything has to be bond repair and peptides and proteins and ingredients led that the customer feels like, why would I go to a salon and spend$4 ,000 on getting the hair done first, then get fed these thingies when I can get it quickly from Tira by the next morning and it claims to have all the same things. Plus, the influencer who's talking to me about it has said you get the same effects.

32:19I can see the before and afters. I feel like consumers, maybe the salon is still very important for maybe the millennials and perhaps our aunties and our moms and stuff. Yeah, the older generation. But Gen Z is a lot more like, I need it now. Instant gratification. They want it now, they want it all. I would say salons are good for sampling. So the thing that makes brands work in salons, and I think L 'Oreal is a fantastic example of this, is they're able to get a SKU assortment, which is larger. So they'll do like 500 ml and 1 liter. And shaving foams will do like a 2 kilo pack, stuff like that.

32:54Veejohn will do a good job with that. The customer and the consumer are different. So the customer is the stylist. The consumer is the person who's doing it. Yeah. So the consumer probably gets it done the first time and then will come to a tira and... As a second purchase. Yeah, I'll tell people how to do this. Yeah. How much do you get the tera? Then they do it themselves. The second thing is… Do they look for the same brand when they're on tera? Often times. The second thing that I think really good salon first brands do is they invest a lot in training. Training. They do a lot of like these…

33:23They'll have massive teachers, they'll go into these academies, they'll call 50 stylists in one go, keep them for a week, like take them through it. So now, there's a product which is assorted for a salon, then there's a stylist who's trained to use that product to the optimum performance. Then the consumer leaves the salon saying, hey, that was fucking amazing. Exactly. Now I want to come and see my money. And then the repeat goes on to, you know, any platform. They go on to Atira and they're like, okay, now we keep buying it. And again, going back to what Deepa said, right? I think that Gen Z is a lot more comfortable figuring it out for themselves.

33:55I think the millennials and, you know, all the, everyone older than that is very used to getting it done. So they feel a lot more comfortable saying, okay, my stylist said I'll get it. You know, now I feel comfortable. And I think who we look as experts has changed. Exactly. Like, I think millennials look at experts as the trichologists, dermatologists, like salon hairdressers. Yes. And the Gen Zs looking at influencers. KOLs. And like, you know, KOLs as their experts. What is KOL? K-Opinion leaders. Would you want your brand to be in salons at some point? Have you thought about like a salon range?

34:31I think, I mean, India, while there's such a, like, wellness, Ayurvedic, like, I can see that happen, especially, I think, our chumpy hair, or, like, you know, reinventing the chumpy in this really cool hair treatment way. I can see it, but I think, at this point, we're good with our, yeah, online and, like, our retailers, and I think next step, perhaps, could be more spa-led first, perhaps, and then the phase after that could be salon. Deepa has really nice hair. Thank you. You need to get my oil. I need to send it to you. I will send you my oil. Do you oil every day? No, that would be crazy.

35:09I oil usually once a week. We call it Sunday Chumpy. That's kind of the thing we've made with our brand, where every Sunday, our community Chumpy's with us. Girls go to Pilates with oil in their hair. Girls go to groceries with oil in their hair. I worked out with her Chumpy hair on a Sunday. And you keep it on all day? No, we keep it on for an hour, two hours, and then you wash it out. It's almost, honestly, it has become a movement of sorts with the Gen Z because this thing, the chunky, the hair oiling, was a PTSD to all of us growing up. I mean, I hated it. Like, you would have to go to school with it.

35:46It would stink. It would be heavy. Like, you just didn't like the experience of oiling your hair. And especially if you go abroad with it, you would be made fun of, you know. So Indians abroad, Indians in India, all of us together have this really bad experience of hair oiling. And what Indaiwal did is we took that very same experience, turned it on his head and made it cool. And now there's this clean girl aesthetic where it's all about the slick back and updos. Do it with the chumpy oil. That's cool. And so it's become like instead of using a wax or a gel, use this oil that is really good for your hair while you do a cool style with it and then really treat your hair every Sunday and the before and after speak for themselves.

36:30They were ideating a jewellery brand recently with lab-grown jewellery, lab-grown diamonds. And two people we were consulting, Kishore and Santosh, Biani, they were talking about how the youth is buying not a new product altogether, but they're buying reimagined old. Is that something that's working for Champi? And do you agree with that analysis? I think 100 % for the brand as a whole. Like India Wild, I think, really resonates with the new India because we just take age-old, nani ke nuske, scientifically back it, make it super cool and bring it out again. And I think it's definitely that nostalgic element that our products give while it being something that you're really cool to show off to your friends.

37:22Like our dewy lip treatments, there are lip balms. Bhakti loves them. The rose. Yeah, the rose. They basically have ghee in it. Could you ever imagine a lip balm with ghee in it? And it is the talk of the town. Like you go to a soul house, every girl has it on her table. They have it locked to their bags. They have it locked to their jeans. Really? And it's ghee in a lip balm. But it's so funny because when I was growing up, my mom would tell me, eat a date and she would put ghee inside it and then she's like eat it and whatever is left just put it on your lips and I've grown up literally with that like you know put ghee on your lips so they don't chap Can we establish market size?

38:02You said skincare, makeup, hair and fragrance how big is this market in India now? You said premium is thousand bucks lux and prestige is 2300 bucks mass is below that, women are majority of the market. How big is the market and who is buying overall in India? I think beauty personal care at this point in 2024 was 21 billion, which is so funny because our first investor deck had something from McKinsey and Bain saying in 2025, the Indian beauty market would be 20 billion. We've already beaten it. So it's going faster than anybody expected. If you double click on beauty itself, I think 40 to 45 % of the market.

38:43When you say beauty, you mean skin care, makeup, hair fragrance? Correct, yeah. Do Indians still buy the Western narrative? That's such a good question. Yes. Yes and no. Yeah. Explain. You start. I think that, you know, there was a time when a lot of the, when particularly when MAC entered, right, I think they came, they had first mover advantage, entered the market and really took it by storm. There was no Indian brand, you know, there was no global brand other than Maybelline and Lakme, as we always all know, has like, you know, changed the game in the mask segment. But Mac came in and kind of, you know, we were all, I think the millennial generation was the first one that started, you know, traveling and going out and getting a little bit of the taste of what beauty was, you know, in the Western countries.

39:42And I think that when that MAC phenomena began, we were all, you know, oh, wow, this is made in Italy. It's made in France. It's come from the UK. It's come from the US. There was that whole enigma to kind of, you know, want and just be that, right? So it was, whether it was in looks, whether it was in how we believed what we wanted to be, just dressing, everything was kind of aping aping the West. Now I said as brands started really coming in and the consumer mindset started moving, one consumers believe that when brands are coming from a country like France or they're coming from a country like Italy where they're known to have really, really good quality ingredients, they want product that is very, very good.

40:31But I think when it comes to a brand and storytelling and who they identify with. That identification has changed very beautifully. They realized that they were not seeing people who represent them. So I think when it comes to what they expect from a quality perspective, yes, there is a want to emulate the West in product standard, in quality, in transparency, in how they talk about claims in, you know, I think Europe has the highest standards when it comes to safety and ingredients and transparency. And the consumers today in India demand exactly that. Do they want to see the same kind of brand storytelling, the same kind of, you know, they want to see who they are on a global brand as well.

41:22So I think that when you, global brands are alienating, you know, alienating Indian consumers when they don't see someone who looks like them in India. So that's, I think, any time a brand is coming and I always tell them this, that make sure, you may not get a face, but make sure that you are being able to, your brand has something that connects to the Indian consumer. There's something that speaks to their unique journey. That's something that's dear to them and their values. So I think that is something that has changed and what's not changed, I think, is the standards. But traditionally, the opposite worked, right?

42:00Yeah, so I think in India, like growing up here, I think we had a colonial hangover. Like I think everything was... Don't be still. I would argue less or perhaps for many people also not because I think... And specifically in the premium and prestige categories? What about mass category? I'll get to that in a second. But I think the Eurocentric ideals of beauty, the colonial hangover, I think we, like you said, anything that came from the West was just way better, way superior. India could never, because look, look at our backyard, look at how dirty everything is. But I think as time went by in recent years, there's this pride, there's this nationalistic Indian pride that I have seen in myself.

42:44I think when I first went abroad, I myself would be like, oh yeah, I've studied, I have cousins from America, or like I've studied. And now, so proudly do I say I'm from India. And I think it's been a conglomeration of so many different - You're a white guy and live in Netherlands. But love I can't choose, right? I happen to fall in love with a white guy. You killed me for that. You ran straight. I know. You know what happened actually when I got married and I posted these beautiful wedding photos? Some Indian men literally were like, didn't we have enough men in India? I'm like, guys, you don't choose who you fall in love with.

43:20But no, back to this story. So then I think now, you know, with everything that India is doing, Like the global south is where it's at. India is the epicenter of beauty in our industry, but also in so many other things. It's where it's going to be. But we are still buying more Estee Lauder. We're not, but that's what we're arguing. We're not. Majority. I feel like, I think we'll get to that. I think there's a shift. There's a significant shift in homegrown brands dominating minimalist being a big one, right? And something to be said about timing. Can you put a percentage to this? Say five years ago, how much market share did L 'Oreal and Estee Lauder have?

44:01And how much do they have today? The belly of the market, Nikhil, is still very mass, right? So mass and mass stage. So while L 'Oreal Paris and Maybelline play in that segment, it is still a L 'Akme and a Maybelline that dominates. So L 'Akme is still sitting on the top of the color cosmetics charts. There's L 'Akme, Maybelline and MAC. But do you think people look at Minimalist as a nationalistic Indian brand? Or it seemed foreign to begin with? And they never spoke about their story. They didn't do that many interviews. Nobody associated a name with the founder. So nobody... I think all of that aside, I think what Minimalist did really well, and of course they're part of the Unilever portfolio, so I love them as well.

44:49But I think their products, they really focused on good quality. They were, I think, one of the first brands who said, Like even if you go to their labs or their manufacturing units, it's high quality ingredients, high quality products. That I think was the first time that consumers were like, okay, we are being shared transparency. They really led the kind of growth in India on ingredient led and really educating the customer. Give me a tip here. I'm starting a brand. I'm 20 years old or 25 years old. I have great quality, but how do I tell people I have great quality or how do I show them? How quickly do you want to scale?

45:25How much time do you have? As quickly as I can. How much money do you have? Say 2 crore rupees. They started with that much, no? Minimalist, 2 crores, 3 crores. They were very capital efficient. They didn't raise a lot. They had their own manufacturing unit. That was a big up. But it doesn't cost a lot to put to manufacturing. It wasn't very capex intensive. It was a small lab. See, a lot of people can hack good quality. The question is, how is the story? How are you going to market? Yeah, of course, good quality is part one of the equation. Then you need a phenomenal, like, marketing. Like, of course, with me, it was great that we had that trampoline jump to begin with.

46:04It is a content creator economy. Like, it is content, content. Like, I tell my team this all the time. We're a product company and a media company in one. Like, if we can do our content and media. That seems to be what everybody tells me today. Not just in your industry. Yeah, yeah. You have to. Like, that's the way. Including him, he's a media company as much as he's a product company. We're not a media company, but we do a lot of distribution of content through channels that we own, as opposed to buying media off of inventory. Yeah. As is Teera now? I think Teera is, we're also focusing highly on, I think, content is one end, but community is on the other, right?

46:43And I think that you have to, you can be a great content creator, but if you don't have a community that is authentic, that has been built on a shared value, you're not really going to be able to maximize it. So I think that what I would, you know, I would start with is a hero product. You need to have one solid product and you need to be able to solve a real problem. I think that's one thing. So even if it's good quality, I think that's one. And then you can go and... Give me an example, hero product. My favourite example is actually Mama Earth. Because their hero products changed but they were really...

47:22Onion something. No. Do you guys remember what Mama Earth's first big hero product was? When they were doing 5 crores a month at a total level. Take a wild guess. I love this. Onion one. Onion one was like... Maybe when they were doing 10 crores. Yeah, something for kids. Baby, huh? No, but what? They were the best mosquito repellent for kids. Oh my god. It was an outstanding product. It smells good. I literally ordered it on Blinkit yesterday. The same mosquito repellent, Mama Arath. Mama Arath was doing 4-5 crores a month. And they were doing 3 crores of mosquito repellent. Good problem to solve.

47:57And then they went from that to the onion. And then of course they had a lot of... I think also Mama Arath was the first way. But I think what Bhakti is saying about community right now. Giving an example of her, right? Like Chumpy Hair Oil. She has that one product. And a lot of the story really works on that. So she picked that product. She had a story which was nostalgia. But it's the community that made it. So I think like in today's day and age, you can copy product, right? You can copy branding, marketing. You can copy that. You cannot copy a community. It would take you so long to build the community at a level that we've built.

48:32How do I build? How is it built? How do I build? How do you build? I'm 25, I'm starting. Like I want all the questions that I will need answered to start tomorrow. You start small. My first community event had 14 people. Is it by hosting events? It is by hosting events. Is it more offline than online? But what if this founder does not want to be the face, right? I think there are people who may not want to be the face of, they're like, we spoke about minimalist. You can still build the community. Yeah, exactly. But I think finding the shared values, so finding other creators who would have the same shared values as you or your brand and then really reaching out to their communities I think that's another way and a quicker way because there are people who will believe in the exact same thing.

49:20So if you take something as simple as acne, you know, you're solving for acne. So and you reach out to creators who've spoken about body image. You reach out to creators who've spoken about changes that they've gone through, you know, who talk about their journey and or even experts, right, who know how to solve this issue. and then reach out to their communities versus putting yourself out there as well. And offline helps, but a lot can be done online as well. I think online is huge. I'm starting with 2 crore rupees. I'm trying to build a community. Where are you playing first? That's the first question.

49:56I have some question on the market. So for me, like, I always say... D2C, I guess, no? Yeah. Yeah, I think GTM will be D2C will be interesting. But for example, the market is, by the way, hair care is 7 to 8 billion. Skin is 6 billion. But you're talking about also hair care as personal care. Yeah, you're talking personal care as hair care. We play in the other area. Hair care is 7-8 billion. Of which majority is oil, by the way. You're confusing us. You're talking about personal care. Okay, you said BPC, right? Beauty and personal care. Or you're saying only beauty? No, I want to know the break-up of skincare, makeup, hair fragrance.

50:33You said skincare, right? So hair is 7-8 billion, of which majority is oil, by the way. The rest is shampoo, conditioner. Parachute and Vatica and Chumpty all of that. So if you are looking at the skincare fragrance, makeup… How big is skincare? 6 to 7 billion. Skincare will be about 30%. Okay. 25 to 30%. Colour cosmetics? 3 billion. Makeup is also similarly 30%. 3 billion? Yeah. You can take actually skincare as about 20%. Makeup as about 25 to 30%. Fragrance is actually significantly high. 30%. Particularly in the prestige section. Of what? Of the total market? I'm talking about the beauty market only, which is 40 to 45 % of the BPC.

51:13I think there's a little bit of confusion here. She keeps talking about beauty, you talking about BPC. He talks about BPC, exactly. So at a personal care level, hair is 7 to 8 billion, which includes Vatika, Dabar, Amla, all of that. All of that. And Champi from Indoor. Makeup is? 3. Skincare is 6 billion. Which includes, by the way, Dove, Ponds, Dettol, all the stuff that you were talking about. Moisturizers, Glow and Lovely, everything. Okay. Then beauty is 3 billion of which I think the division… What is beauty? Beauty would be colour cosmetics. Now there will be some… Now I don't know where minimalists will either sit in skincare or beauty.

51:49I think… We'll lie in beauty because it's skincare. That's 3 billion. And fragrances is 3 billion. Okay. So beauty is growing faster than personal care which is… Yes. Everything FMCG other than these four categories. And as I said, even in hair care there is a difference. And this is a forever, there is no right answer to how you segregate this, right? Every report has a different answer. And there's a few products that are great. Exactly. Like, you know, the Glow and Lovely, we consider BPC. We wouldn't consider them in beauty pure, but technically they're a moisturizer. You know what I mean?

52:26So there's a few, I guess, those conglomerate brands and the ones who have really been like legacy brands. but masks, we consider them part of BPC. The skincare, like a minimalist, wouldn't be BPC. That would be beauty. Okay, let me rephrase my question. Tell me which category is growing the fastest. Skincare. Fragrance. Yes, this is it. Fragrance? I think fragrance is growing really fast. I think fragrance is going to grow really fast. Fragrance is going really fast. It's crazy. And fast, you mean like 15 %? No, I think... No, skincare, so they're all growing between 10 % to 13 % because beauty is growing at a 10%, 10 to 11 % gig goal right now.

53:03If you were to start today, start in a place where there is a little, one is growth rate, the second is disruption. Yeah. I agree with her. I think fragrance is seeing insane disruption. 100%. From last 15. Because why is if you look at the Indian fragrance market right now, there's one of two things. You have the really expensive Chanel, Tom Ford's, blah, blah, blah, above 10 ,000, 15 ,000, but originals. Then you have dupes, which I don't know the brand names fully, but they literally sell dupes of, say, the best-selling Gio, Aqua de Parmas, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. $5.99,$6.99,$7.99. Bella Vita.

53:40Bella Vita. We do it. Exactly. Like a lot of people do it now. And that's really mass. This entire segment, basically between$1 ,000 to$10 ,000 for the grabs. Yeah. Like it's empty. Also there's a lot happening with fragrances. So there's something called perfume wardrobing that's happening. Yeah, layering. Layering. So one is layering. Second is perfume wardrobing. So when I grew up. Different occasions. My dad and mom or I had like one or two fragrances. Perfumes at any given time. Today, a 25 year old Bombay shaving company employee. Is buying three new fragrances a month. Yeah. So now you're buying 10 ml, 15 ml, 20 ml skews.

54:20Packs of four, packs of six, packs of eight. So the entire... It's like the song is like in Reliance. Literally, it's kind of kept stacked on. So people are putting three, four things on at the same time? No, no. That's a layering part. That's one trend that's layering. Where you layer different to make a whole new fragrance that's unique to you. Do you do that? Do I do that? Little bit, yeah. Little bit. Like you pick your favourite like Joe Malone, or you pick your favourite like Tom Ford and mix it. Then it's like your fragrance. And it's also different on you. That's Shahrukh Khan's head, no?

54:49Sorry, I interrupted you. No, I said it's also different on you because everyone has a different, you know, smell that they have. A particular one. But what he's talking about is fragrance wardrobing. Where now also for every mood. Mood. Oh, wow. For every mood, like date night, I want this fragrance. At work, me wants this fragrance. Like evening, chilling with my girlfriends, I want this fragrance. So you have like a different mood. Also on the go, right? You're carrying it in your backpack and stuff. On the go, refillables. I also think in fragrance, one more thing that's really exploding is the cleanness of ingredients.

55:27Because I think for so long, beauty in general, people are becoming more conscious of ingredients and how clean they are. But in fragrance specifically, under the name parfum or fragrance in your inky list, inky list is the, how do I explain inky list? The percentage of all your ingredients. This is like the thing that you have to write on your label of all the regulatory ingredients. So with perfume, you can literally just say perform and get away with it. But what people have found out is that there's a lot of endocrine-disrupting ingredients like phthalates and this, that within perfumes that get in that people have been selling for so long.

56:06And a lot of the infertility rates and all of that stuff is increasing because of these phthalates that people want clean ingredients. So clean fragrance, another huge trend. So India, I think... By clean fragrance, you mean like vanilla, cherry, something like that? No. Clean means more. Chemical. Chemically like... I think, Nikhil, you'll need a whole day without... Vanilla and cherry is gourmand. That's like you want to eat that. That's a micro trend. Okay, clean you mean like it won't harm me. Ingredients, yeah. Chemically a lot easier. The purity of the ingredients, the percentage of ingredients.

56:45The transparency, the like no phallage. Give me an example of a perfume brand which does very clean. In India, I don't know, in the West, there is Josie Maran. It's this brand, like body care brand that now have done this really strong movement on their no alcohol as a base, which is what majority of fragrances have. So they reduce the alcohol because it's like drying for your skin and hair. And their entire fragrance is 100 % natural as in essential oil fragrances. And do they last as long? It doesn't. It doesn't last as long. India is a hot country. The issue with Indian longevity of fragrances is that the western climate is very different from the Indian ones.

57:20It is. For Indian consumers, the number one concern is long-lasting. And that's why they like fragrances that have a lot more scent. Like the concentration of… The air de parfums. Exactly. It has to be significantly higher. They like strong smelling perfumes versus… But even the gourmand fragrances, it's a two-year-old tend. So you'll see vanilla, croissant, like all the big things. It's working. Yeah, pistachio. Today, Fragon World got funded. Sol de Janeiro is the biggest brand in beauty right now. It's all gourmand fragrances. Every single one of them is you just smell it and you want to like eat it.

57:59I actually use perfumes like that. Like I have coriander and… Coriander is a good one, good note. And that's another one. And like now everything in beauty is all about food. If you see like that's such a big thing that's happening that it's like if you can eat it, you can put it on your face as well. But that's a big trend, whether it's on content, whether it's on color, whether it's on marketing, storytelling, it's all about like, you know, cherry was the big trend. So if you think of it psychologically, food hits such a nice place in your brain. Like anything that has that, donuts, Or like our lip balm, like one of our lip balm flavors is glazed jalebi.

58:38Yeah. You know, and it does insanely well. It's because you get this happy emotion subconsciously with jalebi. You're like, oh, I'm going to put this in my lip balm. And lip balm, you're tasting it. Yeah, exactly. Also, it's nostalgic, right? Yeah. So mango bite, for example, is now like a fragrance that people are like really looking for. Keyword searches for mango bite. You make that? No, we don't make it. You make mango bite fragrance. We don't yet. There's a pistachio gelato. So Kayali has these fragrances. Kayali, it's by Mona Katan. It's a Dubai-based brand. And she has done all. She has really caught on to the gourmand trend.

59:14I saw someone else also have. Pistachio gelato. Matcha. Matcha. Everyone's doing matcha. That smells bad. No. But they make it smell good. They can make it smell good. They can make it smell good. Good and bad is so subjective. Mochi. Mochi. But yeah, fragrance is going to... I think it... Who is going to make the first Ladoo fragrance? Yeah, basically Ladoo like a nostalgia. Okay, I'm going to summarize a bit of what you said. You said the category overall is about 21 billion. Skincare 6, makeup 3, hair 7, fragrance 3. Fastest growing is skincare and fragrance. Yeah. Making deals with salons when you're starting a brand might be a good idea.

59:55Old products… For hair care. For hair care. Yeah, that's unprofessional hair care, right? Like if you're looking to work with professional grade products, so you need to be able to call your brand a professional brand to actually be able to work with them. Old products made cooler, nostalgia sells. You said Western better, still sells, but the trend is shifting. shifting faster in premium and prestige and slower in mass. Mass is below 1 ,000, premium is 1 ,000, prestige is 2 ,300. But I wanted to ask you a little bit, so I complete your thought. All product companies are media companies. You need to run a media company if you want to sell a product.

1:00:38And community? Community. You said community, but we didn't finish the thought on you hinted it offline might be better than online or you need to have offline. No, I don't. And then we moved on to influencers. Okay, we can go back to community. So I think community, like, again, what Bhakti said, it's a buzzword today. Everybody's like, community, community, community. But I think, I can only speak for us, but at Indie World, everything we do starts and ends with community. And I mean in every aspect. Like, before we launched the brand, we had surveys that were written by 16 ,000 of my followers that really said everything.

1:01:19I had 13 focus groups before the brand even existed, asking them, what do you care about? What is your skincare concerns? What is it not in the market? Like, you know, really figuring it out. Even in our bio till today, it says co-created by you. So that is pre-brand launch. Once the brand launched, you know, we really interact. Like, even the way our customer service is done, it's not like a, oh, order misplaced. Okay, here's your number. Go figure it out. like we really genuinely talk to them like we say educated bestie like you are their bestie you talk to them you keep the conversation going it's not just like finish order done and so in every aspect of Indie Wild community is infused it almost sounds like you're saying listen to your followers and speak to them constantly exactly is that community because I don't know what community sounding like spirituality I don't think it's about we all mean different things I think it's everything together.

1:02:17What's the best community? Who runs the best community? Take his example. It is about like there is a whole community of people who like to take care of their beards. It's a small one, but there is a whole community that looks at it as self-care versus just looking at it as something you have to do on a day-to-day level. Now, that community is very different from people who use the products as personal grooming products. They actually, and I have a friend in London who really takes, who has a three to four step grooming routine for his beard. He lives in London. So he has a Turkish barber who he goes to every month to take care of his beard.

1:02:58And he, it's his ritual and it's his self-care ritual, right? And now, there may be a... I suspect Chantanu is a bit like that. Sorry? No, I said I suspect you might be a bit like that. You have your barber who does everything and stuff like that. Yeah, so we have a group, whole group of Babas who kind of work with us. And that is exactly a community. So is that a community or a group of people who have something in common? No. How do you translate that into a community? So it is about, because they have a shared value, right? So I think if I have to simplify what a community is, it is a group of people who have certain shared values that they can come together and speak about.

1:03:37So as I said, if you have acne concerns, that's a you know that's a community and you may have a micro community in that saying you know I'm I'm 15 years old and then there's these young teenage you know like I've just grown out of or mums for example you know I have uh I have two nieces and they are now 11 you know in that 11 to 13 age bracket and they're the most impressionable um age group now and they're also the most exposed i don't think when i was 11 or 12 i really cared about skincare my mom just said wash your face and that's about it they know every single brand that's trending whenever they go to a t-rast store my nieces will be like oh b we saw that you launched you launched fenty you launched that brand they know everything they told me like oh why don't you have this brand they know it a lot more so there's exposure but with that comes a lot more pressure as well right now their mums are a community because they're trying to figure out how can what like my sister's always asking me listen what can I use you know if she's having an acne breakout so I think also what happens with community is if when you're truly a community of a brand you have a choice you could go to any other brand like they could buy hair oil from any other brand but the fact that they choose to come back to you in their world every time that to me is a community and how you make it I mean I leave it to the creative lens of the teams as well.

1:05:04So is community an emotion? Yes. It's definitely an emotion. So you pick one emotion, stay consistent, then you listen and speak to your followers while reiterating that emotion. Yes. And you're like a custodian of the emotion. Yeah. How do I pick what emotion for my community? That's a very good question. I think you have done six, seven years of community building followed by brand building on the back of that community. Correct. So what is that emotion for Indyewald, for example? Is it you? Are you the emotion? No, I think it's bigger than me. I think the real emotion of an Indie world… Hot girl.

1:05:38Huh? What do you mean? Hot girl. Is that… God, no. That could be an emotion, right? It could, it could. The more basic, the stronger it is. Identity, vulnerability. Like, I think our community's real thing, honestly, I think in… There's pride, definitely there's pride. Like, Indie world being that first global Indian brand, there's that pride to it, like Hamara. Are you selling patriotism? Yes. You have an IND in the name, no? There's, Indie Wild is purely a very proud of our culture brand. Is that working more? Patriotism is selling? Oh, for sure. Especially if the West is also like, wow, chumpy, wow, Indie Wild.

1:06:17Then India's like, well, our chumpy? Yeah, like our Indie Wild. And so I think there's definitely pride and patriotism there. But there's also this, there is indeed that cool girl effect, what you said. that like IndieWild users are a certain type. Like Rode is a great example of that as well. If you use Rode subconsciously, you're like, I'm part of the it girl. It girl, yeah. I'm an it girl because I use Rode. And how do I show that? The first few community members I have have to be good looking girls as well? Not good looking necessarily. It's more, what does a confident girl exuberate? It's confidence.

1:06:53It's you're dressed well, you're sure of yourself. Like it doesn't have to necessarily be hot, but it can also be imperfectly beautiful. Let's actually do this. It's also lifestyle, right? You talk about the lifestyle that comes with being the it girl. So my circle of friends, my buying into the wellness, my Sunday matcha with my pilaris, my athleisure. You're depicting affluence by making it about matcha. Yes. Right? Affluence and identity. So let's do this thought experiment with your company. You have two crores. You know you're going to build a brand and fragrance. He hasn't said if it's women or men yet.

1:07:30That's okay. Women's. Okay, okay. I don't want to build for... He's like, he's too slow growing for me. But if you're going to build fragrances... Are you building a fragrance? Then the world is going towards unisex by the... Gourmand fragrances. I mean, I want you to tell me. I think gourmand. I think it can be for every mood, right? So you can have a whole variety of fragrances. I think what you would pick is a hook. Like for example, Joe Malone is based on these beautiful ingredient stories. And they really, really present it so well. Let's say Nikhil's Fragrance Company. Yeah. Actually, don't say Nikhil because I probably have a community.

1:08:08Let's say… What the Fragrance? Huh? What the Fragrance? What the Fragrance? What the also has a community. That's the whole thing. Let's say my name is Dilip. And I'm building a perfume company. First question, what is your emotion? I'm 25 years old. I live in Bangalore. You have two crore rupees. I have two crore rupees that I borrowed. I spent the last many years of my life going to an engineering college. But today AI has come and I'm feeling very obsolete and irrelevant. First question, what's your why? Yeah. What's the right space? What's my why of fragrance company? Why are you, engineer 25, wanting to build a fragrance company?

1:08:57That's a very good question. Because there are many reasons why people are doing this. Because I go to an engineering college in South Bangalore. I used to go. And people smell really bad and I want to change this. Excellent. I actually really like that. That's a good point. That's a very good start. And why do they smell bad? Because they don't use fragrance. No, they probably do. You're smelling them in the evening. What? But in India, the dust will... We have it. We've done it for you. Your brand is going to be India's premium brand focused on a technology that changes sweat, that the sweat stink can be altered or differentiated like an odor-fixed technology that you put as your proprietary ingredient within your fragrances.

1:09:41But you only have two crores to do all of this. So I would... You can find the ingredients. And then I'll come to you guys and raise some money. So while you have a problem, I would say, okay, there may be... two or three or four companies already doing what you're doing. So I think, yes, that's your problem. But, you know, how would you kind of solve the white space? But I think having a why is very, very powerful in storytelling. And like in being authentic and real, you know, like if you just make a business because like white space, money. No, I'm coming from a very like, very practical mindset as well.

1:10:15Because while you have the storytelling, I think a lot of brands also fail because they have storytelling. They have all of these other things and they don't have this. Yeah. So I'm here. I've figured that why is people around me smell horrible. They don't use perfumes or maybe they do, but it's not working. Deepa suggested that... Public service. We create an order fix technology. It could go huge. Maybe you're an engineering student who's never... Who doesn't want to stink. But who's never been seen, right? Can I market it with the story of do it for me, not for you? No. And you put on the perfume?

1:10:53Absolutely not. You cannot do that. You can't market it. I mean, you will not build a community, you will lose it. You're using a sarcastic marketing technique, which is also very out there. There is a market for it. Okay, I'm on Instagram. If he's tongue-in-cheek about it. Yeah, yeah. There's so many brands that use tongue-in-cheek. I'm on Instagram. I have 445 followers. Okay. Actually, Bhakti, I like that idea. Yeah, be tongue-in-cheek sarcastic saying you stink. Nobody's ever told you you stink. So this is my brand for you. The person who people don't say you stink. And all of us in the humidity sweat and stink, right?

1:11:30And you always want to tell that one friend, listen, here, here, here. But you don't have the heart to. So now this brand will do it for you. Call my perfume stench? Call him what? If you're going to be a tongue-in-cheek branding overall. No. You can't break category codes so much off. You want it to be positively reinforcing in some way, right? Like, oh, I'm going to use this. Yeah, stench is a bit far. Every perfume and deodorant and fragrance brand is about… I call it gutter. You can. It's a big risk. It's a risk Dilip should not take. Stick to FinTech. I'm glad this is on paper. I think Nikhil can take that risk.

1:12:10Dilip should not. Dilip should, I think, follow in category codes. I'm not listing it on Tira. No? You wouldn't list it if there was a perfume called stench, if people asked for it? So beauty is about making people feel good about themselves. But everybody is doing that. But again, it's about... That's why your marketing can be tongue-in-cheek. Like your content can be tongue-in-cheek. That can be a bit sarcastic. That can be funny. Why would you call it gutter or stench? Yeah, don't do that. That's not what the product is, no? But then you're saying the opposite of what your product is doing.

1:12:41And that's the first thing that people see, right? Like that's the first relation they make. What's the name of your product? What's the story you're telling? Okay, so what do I call? Anything else. Like something positive. I got you. So for example, look, Nikhil, let's take it a step back. What are the big trends? Like one is gourmand, second is oudh. Yeah. It is huge. Third is there is, Kanoj is now the mecca of fragrances. So Dilip should go to Kanoj. What is Kanoj? Kanoj is this little place, it's like the grass of India. It's like this perfume. Oh, like that wet sand smell, are you talking about?

1:13:16No, no, no. No, no, it's a place where they make perfume. Perfumers there. Right. Who, like, in the thousands. Where is this place? Kanoj is, you be at... I'm going to write down, go to Kanoj. Kanoj, K-A-N-N-A-U-J. Whatever. I think also going back to what Deepa said about nostalgia, there are so many beautiful Indian fragrances that are native to India, and that's a big trend. that's, you know, picking up now and people are kind of also giving that, you know, alluding to Indian fragrances as well, right? Like, jasmine is so powerful, but it's never found that rooting. We've never kind of overly commercialized it from a beauty perspective.

1:13:54By the craziest thing, Chanel No. 5, everybody knows Chanel No. 5. Their two main key notes is from India. It's the jasmine and the rose from India. Like, in their documentary, They literally showcase like the Indian jasmineica. It's literally from India and a French brand has used it for centuries now. And yeah, time to take ownership. I also feel like the big trend in fragrance is that there is gender neutrality happening there. Like, people are… the strong fragrances she's talking about… My husband and I share fragrances. Yeah, very easily. We go fragrance shopping together actually. Fruit is becoming very common.

1:14:35No wonder Teja smells feminine. I don't want to use feminine fragrances. Then also to the whole layering bit, right? So you can have a floral fragrance and then pair it with something extremely musky. Yeah. Then you have a fragrance that's not too feminine, but just enough that you like it and it's masculine on your spectrum. There's a spectrum in fragrance, but I think there will always be a differentiation between men and women. I take the issue of this layering thing. I feel like… So brands themselves by the way now sell perfumes layered together. Why do you find that an issue? I'm paying a brand for their taste.

1:15:16For their nose to do the job. Yeah. Why would I pay Chanel's perfumer or gourmand or whatever he's called money for his taste and his nose and then I take it and try to make it my own? But it's like you're saying that you'll buy all your clothes from the same brand. No, I will not go to say, Tom Ford and say, okay, now stitch a flower over here and then cut this part off and make it in a certain way. I think it's just creativity. It's about self-expression. Individuality. It's like self-expression. Minimalist's first brand was actually this whole, you remember that, right? Minimalist's first brand was, these guys said, you tell me all the ingredients you want and all the stuff you want done.

1:15:53And we'll put it together and give you a personalized shampoo or a personalized body. That happens in the US a lot. Like it may not be everything you want, but in skincare, they will create a... Questionnaire and all that, yeah. Questionnaire, you know, basis your skin time. How does that business model work though? It's very hard. I've tried that. It's a pain in the ass. It's crazy. I mean, your supply chain just goes for a toss. But I think that people have tried it, right? Hyper-personalized skincare. So that's there now. Because remember, we were talking about how beauty has been through those phases.

1:16:26Beauty is in this self-expression phase. So while it's a shared value, community is also driving beauty. It's still you. There is a you and an us. And the you part of you is driving all of these movements. I think for your business, the layering part can actually be a part of your offering. Because in fragrances, it's a lot easier. It's much easier to mix fragrances together. But I'm a 25-year-old guy. I've lost my job. I'm thinking what to do in life. I don't want to have 10 bottles and I'm layering. But you're upselling. Are you doing it for yourself? You're confusing what the customer is. You're cross-selling.

1:16:58Are you for yourself or to women? We started off saying women, right? So then why do you keep thinking of Dilpreth? It's Dilip. What do you call it? Dilpreth. No, but tell me, Nathana. You want to build a fragrance brand. And your issue is that you don't want them to go to like 10 fragrances and buy Bella Vita or, you know. No, I don't want that. But you can yourself create. You can do it. You sell it to the consumer saying, Hey, you take this fragrance, great, you like it on its own, amazing. But you take this plus this and now you've got a fragrance specially for you and I'm telling you how to create it.

1:17:36You remember the big moment in fragrance, the big aha moment in layering? You know when it happened? There was an Instagram reel which had 20 Bollywood actresses saying, I just love how Shah Rukh Khan smells. He will smoke but he smells amazing. There's Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra and Kati Rana. All the women who men aspire to like date someone like her or marry someone like her saying this dude smells so good. And then there's a separate video of Shahrukh Khan saying I'll layer two fragrances diptyque something and something something. And then there are 20 antelips in India who combine these two fragrances made a skew and just sold it on Myntra.

1:18:14You know what he does? He doesn't spray perfume on himself. He takes his jacket holds it like this and he sprays. Really? Like 20 times. How do you know that? Because I've seen him do it. Wow. Some people also spray and walk into it. Yeah, that's like, you do it and then... Does any of that make a difference? I'm not still selling this, guys. Like, Dilip has no business going right now. You need to believe, Dilip. You need to have, yeah. It's not working out. Dilip is not delusional enough to be an entrepreneur. Okay, fine. You want to do fragrances, but you don't want to do the layering bit. Yeah.

1:18:47Okay, fair. That's fine. You don't need to do the layering. Okay, first thing, I'm building for the mask premium or prestige category. I think it's a pretty good price point. I would say that entry premium, because there's a great segment. What price am I selling it? Above thousand. Yeah. But below two thousand. I think… Because there are so many. I bought Masono. Yeah, I think there are too many players under thousand. I would say between the thousand to two thousand space. Thousand to two thousand is empty. How big, how big, sorry, can I talk in Hindi? Yeah. How big do you want the business to be?

1:19:18500 crores. That's it? That's the upper limit. Then you can do it. I think this can be much bigger with a thousand. How much is it? Zara is doing fragrances at a thousand rupees. I'm just saying entry price point. That becomes entry price point. Because anything under that is too mass. My view is you should be able to give value and aspiration. If you do that, you nailed it. But today when you're looking at a fragrance that is a Dior or a Chanel or even lower, right? Everyone wants to aspire there. So when you're talking about fragrance, you want to also make it a little bit more aspirational.

1:19:56So you can start small. So you can say, okay, I'll have a 50 ml at 1000 and then maybe a 30 ml at 400 or 500. But guys, if you want to give them good quality perfume, if you look at a 599, 499, you want an 80 % margin. No, I was thinking more 999. Okay, that is a thousand. But not thousand to 2 ,000. She's hoping 999 is a very nice price point. But even that 80 % margin, then like the quality of ingredients you're going to have are not going to be as good as the quality of ingredients that a proper perfume would have. And this is very true in a market like beauty. I'm talking clean fragrance. No, just going to this point of margin and everything.

1:20:34As opposed to the$200 product versus the$20 product. There is a big difference. Significantly because of the quality of ingredients. So this is one industry where you're like, you know, particularly in the efficacy of ingredients. But if he doesn't care about that. So it doesn't mean that you won't get the same results. But there is a difference in selling. You're not selling the same thing at$20 and$200. The results can be the same because you're using different kinds of ingredients. But in an industry like beauty, yes, there is markup, there is margin. I thought perfumes are like bottled water.

1:21:11There's no difference between$200 and$2. Huge difference. If you would go to a nose. They operate at 90 % margins. Yeah, they do. So nobody's spending more than like 50 bucks in making the product. They do, but packaging makes a big difference. Glass versus plastic. You're talking about quality of product. It does. There's the weight of oil. If you use pure saffron oil versus if you use like a synthetic saffron oil. How much will it cost me to make a 100ml perfume with pure, good, clean ingredients? Less than 1 ,000. I think it's better than 500. Okay, none of us have a fragrance brand. So we can't really give you that much detail.

1:21:46Yeah, and we won't be like accurate. Absolutely accurate about it, yeah. We just launched a$9.99 fragrance. Oh, he does have, okay. You can give him details. We just launched like a week back. Under which brand? Bombay Shaving Company. So it's called Toxic Fruit and Little Beach. They call your fragrance Toxic? Fruit. Oh, like the forbidden fruit. Yeah, and Little Beach. So it's kind of rebellious. It's like Bombay Shaving Company in a way. At$9.99, so it's a big price point for us. Online or offline? Both. It's doing good. Omni-channel. Start is good. We're at 100 DRR now. 100 days, it's good.

1:22:23So then… Is that a non-negotiable? Omni-channel? Oh, yeah. I think, yeah. Today Omni-channel… If you want to grow at scale, Omni-channel is the way to go. And that's where like multi-brand retailers like us come in, right? Because if you're talking about a D2C brand, yes, you can start your own website, but I already have captive audience, right? I already have the customers. I had an idea actually. For the lip or for me? For the lip. We were thinking about community and like for example, there's a huge opportunity to build out the frag head community of India. Explain. I don't even know what that means.

1:22:58Like sneaker heads. Like sneaker heads but frag heads are people who understand. So they're called noses. So if you're a nose, you can distinguish between multiple notes. And there is like in a group of five friends, the nose has become like this status symbol that you are actually… It's like a good wine taster in a group of people who like wine. For example. Like a sneaker head is cool. A sommelier is cool. I don't know what frag head is. So you're saying build it up. Build it up. Make it cool. That becomes a common purpose for… Like how we made the chompy cool. And that's a community. Then it's a community.

1:23:26Now you can also make insane content about this community. You get frag heads into your pot or whatever. Your Bangalore home. I can go around smelling celebrities and making expressions. Have smelling events. Yeah. Bring them together. Let them create their own signature perfume. And then you can have food associated with it. Absolutely. Can I tell you a very funny story? So I rented this place some time ago. And I've had a few house managers along the way. One of them, for three months of the year, smells like dead fish. One of them joined. I was not in town. I spent like a week, a month here.

1:24:04One of them joined and quit even before he could ever meet me. and he said, this area smells so bad that he can't survive. Wow. So smell is a big... He had a very strong nose then, yeah. So smell is a problem. But good smell is not equally proportional as an incentive to do a trigger, to be a trigger event. No, it is. In what way? Like, I feel like I can sell fear around bad smell much more than I can sell the incentive of good smell. No, no, no, no. I totally disagree with that. Because good smell triggers, again, we spoke about emotion. It triggers that emotion in you. It triggers a memory. It triggers something.

1:24:49It takes you back to some moment in your life. It triggers a memory. The same way makeup, like when women put it on, they feel almost like this more confident versions of themselves. Perfume has the power to do that too. Like the second you smell an incredible perfume, like I can feel suddenly more stronger in myself or like you can armor yourself or something or you feel more sophisticated or you feel more it's like another like putting on clothes yeah it's sensual as well yeah it's like another part of your identity you can put on and some people some people have the same fragrance for many years like Old Spice my dad like forever that was that generation I love everything that smells like a barbershop why doesn't Dilip make Old Spice in a new way nostalgia plus A smell that everyone remembers.

1:25:38Like spicy. Layer it up, right? Yeah. I think it's a fantastic idea. Old spice mixed with? Mixed with, oh wait for this, whiskey smoke. Yeah. Or Old Spice plus like Danish paste. It's like mmm. It would be nice. That could work. Old Spice with a vegetable or like… No, I think bakery. I can go on sexy so quickly. I think by the end of this, we're like… Never go into a vegetable. Cabaret, we ate a fragrance brand. Old Spice Jalebi. Yeah, I think that'll do really well. You can make an entire… Old Spice and sweet is like a… A bath and body range as well with that. I think step one for you is to find a good nose.

1:26:19Because cabbage and Old Spice… And I don't think you can do it. No, you can develop it, I think. No, I don't think he can… He cannot develop it. But your bathroom here has some really nice fragrances, by the way. That doesn't mean he has a good nose. I'm assuming you've… You have to say I'm biased. Had some say on what's there. I've had no say on anything in life, pretty much. But let's say Old Spice, what did we say with? Cabbage. Danish pastry, I think. Old Spice. With bakery or jalebi. Jalebi are not sexy. Basque cheesecake. Jalebi are sexy. Old Spice with leather. You'll be amazed, Nikhil, how much?

1:26:53Do you want to make it for men or women? Women. Women. Old Spice with then something gourmand. Yeah, vanilla. Vanilla. Vanilla. We'll have men for that. We'll have men for that. Man take off of that. Yeah. I like vanilla smelling perfumes. I buy them all the time. Vanilla is one of the most popular scent profiles. I don't know. I don't know if this is selling. But we'll come back to this. Okay. The community offline helps. Online also helps. Offline I think has a impact which is exponential in nature. I don't know why. With most communities I've found that. When I bring a bunch of people together who see each other physically and touch each other.

1:27:29Touch each other. I think it kind of... Sounds like a cult. But if you're doing offline community events, like making content around it and distributing it on the frag-head community is very important. There's a dual effect for that. And I agree, patriotism is selling. And Trump has four years left, right? Three and a half. It'll sell more up until then. Is status affecting you? Big time. You were asking only your first question was your share in business, right? US used to be 60 % and in the last year, thanks to people like Teera, our retail has grown 500 % in India and now India is 60 % and US is 40%.

1:28:10So back then US was 40 and India was 60, India was 40, now it's flipped. This is another thing that India has done. Where you manufacture it? I'm one of those really product obsessed people. We go wherever the best manufacturing is. it's not my husband hates it because he does the ops and finance part you guys work together we do we're co-founders yeah so where do you manufacture so we manufacture um like chumpy is in india obviously but like our lip balms are in korea because i found the best lab there for it our eye cream is japan again indian ingredients but manufactured in japan the tariffs are hitting you but not at every corner every side this might be an opportunity in itself make indian products outside of India to beat tariffs.

1:28:55Yeah. I'm sorry, make Indian products where? Outside of India. Make Indian products outside of India. Because there is demand for Indian products and you don't have to pay for it. And sell them there. Yeah. Yeah. For the American market. I'm not suggesting that. It's a bad idea. No, no. A lot of Indian companies have now created US subsidiaries because of TikTok shop. Yeah. Yeah. TikTok shop is huge. Huge. Huge. A lot of people when I was researching this told me that Instagram is content created by brands and TikTok is more UGC. Yes. I mean, there's a TikTokification happening of Instagram as well.

1:29:31But I don't think it's managed to crack it. Perfume doc, yeah. Perfume doc, yeah. There's every talk. Like in TikTok, there's every talk. Skin talk, hair talk, hair oiling talk, this talk, that talk, every talk. And TikTok is insane. I hope we get it to India soon. No, man. But it was like China, India was shaking hands. I met a Unilever guy who heads China. So we hear all these numbers, you know? I was blown away, I don't know if you guys know this. Doyen, which is TikTok, is 40 % of retail. It has broken every marketing rule possible for one reason. It's because there's now so much content for consumers.

1:30:09They're doing four hours of research before they buy a face wash. So not this whole thing, that if you're making a brand, you'll tell me only one message for 10 years. It's gone out the window. I have to tell everything. But you're still buying more than you would have bought if not for TikTok. It's going to be very noisy. Very noisy. But it's not good. But the question then is, why doesn't TikTok create their white label products if they know what sells and they can influence it? Because that's not the game they're playing in. Like Amazon not making private labels. Eventually, the Chinese companies tend to do everything, right?

1:30:42I don't think they need to. Like Amazon does that. Now they have TikTok shop where they keep a percentage of every sale every brand does. So they're already making so much and ad sales on top of that and shop sales. So like they have enough revenue streams. But making globally relevant fragrances will be a good idea for Dilip. Coming back to... Oh, Dilip. You might be Dilip. I think building from India for the world is something that we have to start doing a lot more of what she does. What Indeewald is doing. 100%. I think the world's ready. Like we've had Korean skincare, beauty obviously explode in the world.

1:31:24Japanese skincare, beauty. We've had fragrances from France. We've had skincare from France. Like it's all happened. It's time for India. It's time for India and Indeewald doing that. We've done, right? With Ayurveda and all. We've done a bunch of exporting. But still the UK still, like if you look at Kama Forest, they're only in the UK. Like nobody's really dominated the US. But I feel like that's a big step, right? From a brand to go outside of India, have this stunning presence and for people to kind of bench it on global, you know, with global brands and, you know, take their names in the same breath.

1:32:00And I think we would have never imagined that like 10 years ago. And I think that just goes back to what you said. Patriotism, pride. But even 10 years ago, like when I was growing up, I would never imagine Sephora, the Sephora, take an Indian brand like Indie Wild and build a global partnership. Like, I mean, Sephora America is like the world cup of beauty. Like there's nothing bigger than Sephora North America. And for them to be like, Indie Wild, we want you to come launch with us is, yeah. And Ayurveda and Indian beauty, yeah, for sure. Ayurveda's hugely, like popular right now. You know the supermarket store Erewhon, right?

1:32:40In LA. So this time I went there. You get$40 smoothies there, by the way. I like going there. It's so good. But it's expensive, but it's good. But if you look at their shelves, everything, Shilajit, Shratawari, turmeric, ashwagandha, like there is a craze in at least the wellness, like kind of longevity. A lot of sea moss. Sea moss. Yeah, but that's not Indian. I'm focusing on the Indian one. That's the main thing in the store. I think it's a way of life, right? And I think that to your point, when we were talking about what we got from the West, I think now Indians are kind of understanding the longstanding traditions and heritage that India comes with.

1:33:19And kind of, we've always had it. I think we're just now extremely proud of it. And I think Indian beauty is a way of life. Wellness is, you know, Indian wellness. Like with Ayurveda has really been like intricately woven into India for so long that we ourselves didn't give it enough credit. Like if you look at yoga, meditation, breath work, mindfulness, we've all had it. You know, it took the West to be like, wow, scientifically prove it. And now we're like, oh my God, we should be nervous system reset, kapal bhaati, you know, like. Do you think a high-end boutique hotel like Amman with Indian yoga, breathwork, turmeric, all of that will do well?

1:34:00It will... Like insane. Insane. I think Kapil is doing a postcard in a way, no? Like it's all about longevity. It's more in India, inward looking. I'm talking outside of India. And outside it will work even better. He has something in Bhutan. I think he's going outside now. He wants to build the best out of the world. But that's not so much around wellness. Postcard is more take a home, The postcard is more, yeah, exactly that. Clean. There's no yoga, there's no breath work, there's no wellness. It's not pivoted on wellness. I think the searches in the pandemic for like ingredients like ghee, like all the fitness bros now cook in ghee, you know, because like the smoke point's really high and it's super healthy.

1:34:41Our dadi was like, cook in ghee is the best and we never believed her. But now indeed, they're all getting scientifically backed and it's growing a lot. What about influence? I'm starting a brand. I have figured out maybe how to make a deal with salons if it's in here. I figured out the old product I can bring back and sell nostalgia. I have added the Indian narrative to it. Patriotism. I found an emotion. I've doubled down on the emotion. I talk to the people who follow me, the few people. I listen and I speak to them often. And I've figured out that I have one hero product that I'm starting with.

1:35:24That product is, let's say, a moisturizer. Okay, for the lack of a better word. Omnichannel, I'm on Tira, I'm in some physical stores, I'm selling online, all of that. Now, I have come to a point where I've realized that all of this is only taking it so far. And I need to figure out my influencing and marketing piece. How do I do that? Are you sure the product works? The 100… The hero product question. The 100 people I'm speaking to right now are buying it. So repeat rates are 70-80%. Yeah. Then, my view has always been like that the best influencers are your current customers. Not celebrities?

1:36:09Not early on, no? My view is just take the product and start sending it to celebrities and see who starts liking it. Can I do that? Just send it to them and they'll post it. Oh yeah. Has a celebrity posted for you just by sending it to them? Oh plenty of times. That's lovely. Who? Men, multiple. So we send it to Ranvijay. We send it to Ashwin. We send it to… Who's Ashwin? The offspinner? The Indian cricketer? If she's asking who, there's a problem with the celebrity. The cricketer. It's a different demographic. Legend cricketer. Yeah. When we launched the headshave, we had sent it to Raghu and Rajiv.

1:36:48They posted? Yeah. Raghu and Rajiv. Just on their legends. Yeah, they handed a note from the founder. Wow. Handed a note from the founder, someone from the team getting in touch. For the address. You have to make the effort to make the person feel special. Perhaps it was less cluttered then? Were you the first one? No one was the headshave. With Ashwin it was with trimmers. Yeah. With Ranvijayi also it was Tremors. When did you start the brand? 2016. Okay, so it was a less cluttered market. Which one? Tremors? Like men, grooming, skincare, in general? It was a smaller market but it was getting cluttered quickly.

1:37:23There were some legacy players. Tell me some conversion rates. How many celebrities did you send it to and how many posted? What was the cost of that exercise? Till date, we probably sent 10 ,000 to 12 ,000. pre-samplers to micro-influencers, macro-influencers, creators, and then cricketers, actors, television, etc. We've probably had 500 organic. 500 organic, yeah. 5%. Is it more the product or your letter that is getting the trigger? It's a combination. I think as I have also built a public profile, people also know that, okay, this can be like a give and take thing. And then the conversion has gone up as a brand.

1:38:06They post and you repost and that gets them distribution. Post, repost, come on. But I don't have that as a new person. I don't see any celebrity. That's why I'm keeping quiet because I love influencer marketing and topic. Like we do it very well. But indeed, if you're telling me the person is starting with no following, it is a harder game. Indeed, a lot of people like are, we send about per launch, say 500 to 600 influencer boxes for any launch. 50 % post us 50 % because they're like Deepa will repost Deepa will look at it or or I think that's a aspect and second aspect I think is Indie Wild is such a like loved brand that they look forward to the PR box because every time a PR box is an experience it's like and so for a young girl to get an amazing box where you open it and look super pretty and the product is there like they want to show the content to their following as well so it becomes like a a content piece for them altogether.

1:39:07So we have a really high organic, like, love and kind of push for packages and gifting. But if I didn't have a following, I don't know. It's a hard one. I would say, Need, you start with micros then. Start with nanos and micros, who even if they have 2 ,000 or 5 ,000 followers, you start with them and start building them into a community, the words that we keep saying, and then start from there and then start leveling up slowly. And that's where I think that shared purpose or value comes, right? That you find those creators who align with your brand. Who are the frag heads. And they grow with you because I think that's the beauty of it.

1:39:49Like you have maybe, if you don't have that much money, right? You will have about 20 of them versus, and I truly believe that the nanos and the micros get you a lot more traction, organic reach and conversion versus you know using mega influencers you use mega influencers for the awareness and the problem with mega is they're very used to getting paid exactly so because they're so used to getting paid and they get a thousand packages a month from all the different brands in the world for an unknown small brand they're less likely to open it so it goes to waste they charge a lot and they charge a lot it's all brand paid brand collaboration now the meta so by the way meta Instagram is now bigger than WhatsApp in India on daily active.

1:40:34It's a crazy number. Do you guys know this? No. Instagram, like two weeks back, has gone ahead of WhatsApp on daily actives. And creator partnerships are becoming big. The thing with micro-influencers is that, A, they'll do it for you, even if you're a small brand, with two expectations. One, that I might become a brand ambassador or I could get an influencer deal if I do a good piece of content to start with. Two, is my friends will think that I'm now getting paid for content. You start signaling that you're an influencer also. That's what I said. Like, indeed, they feel like they can use this for content.

1:41:05Yeah. Like, it becomes like, oh, brands work with me now. Yeah. So, if I'm trying to build influence or marketing, I should definitely send it to celebrities. Bottom up, start with micro. With, the gift box should have a heartfelt handwritten letter. And I need to repost if they share. Yes. And if it can be unique, cherry on top. Not like every other box that they're getting, but think of something outside the box. Can you give it to them in a, I don't know, a tin box? Can you give it to them with fresh flowers? Like, is there something you need? I was going to say that if you have some element of storytelling.

1:41:43Yeah, or a surprise and delight. That goes far enough. And then you create that unboxing moment. So again, you're telling the consumers about the brand in that moment, right? So again, we were talking about that. How do consumers interact for the first time through influencers in that moment? So you kind of think of that entire piece together. Oh, they're unboxing the brand. They're seeing the brand for the first time. So that kind of is as much for the consumer as for the creator. Yeah. So you think of it that way as well. I also think sampling distribution is a huge opportunity which we don't do well enough on.

1:42:19Explain. 100%. For example, my favorite example of sampling distribution is uncle chips. Uncle chips distributors would go with big malas of uncle chips around their neck and go into a village and the kids would just come. And feed a chip, feed a chip there suddenly. Kids are buying, moms are there. That is full gorilla marketing. I love it. With fragrances, like going into a college fest for example, with a whole suitcase of your perfumeric innovations, yourself smelling really great, would be great for them. What is the word you used for this? Sampling? Sampling. Yeah, sampling. You basically get a sachet of something or a trial, not even a trial pack.

1:42:56It's a small sampling sample that you can use for maybe two or three washes or two or three moisturizing sessions. You can also do it really well with a Tira where you say, hey Tira, I'm going to give you 100 ,000 samples. Put it in every order. That doesn't work. That never worked for me. You don't think so? Tira, I don't know what Blinkit's not. You did Blinkit? But the thing is, I think it really depends on who the customer is. We are very interested in who you are sending it. We are very interested in whether it's correlated or not, whether it's going to Kit Kat buyer or not. Repeat is just not there.

1:43:28I think it works if you do it correctly. It's great for even upselling, right? So if you want to convert a mass brand into a… you want to convert a consumer who's shopping in mass for hair care to Mastige, then you will send them that Mastige sample and I will upsell them. Especially if the product has been getting a lot of buzz in social. Exactly. And people are hesitant to buying it because, say, price or whatever. And then they get that sample. They're so happy. Especially if it's a deluxe sample. And they get to try it once in their hair or, like, try it on their face two, three times. And they're like, oh, I've been dying.

1:44:01Now I got this. Now I'm going to buy full size. And that's where minis come in. In beauty, the mini and travel size is just, it's a whole business on its own. And in fact, a Bobby Brown area manager told me this, that India is a mini capital of the world. Like global brands have produced their best sellers, particularly for India, because they know that India is a value market. Value, I don't mean that we move from price consciousness to saying that I will pay for the product if I find value in it. So to cross that barrier, they're like, okay, we'll give you a mini, you still pay for it. after having sampled it, there is that bridge.

1:44:40So you buy a mini of our best-selling product. If you like it, then you will buy the full size. So they've built that bridge particularly to get you from a must-beach to a premium brand. And you may not even move into the full size. And you sell the mini or do you just give it away? You sell it. You sell it. So like Estee Lauder specifically did the phenomenal mini job with Mac. For India specifically, they made their lipstick in a mini form. It was like a tiny lipstick. I think it's a plastic, killed it. And they're best selling sheets, not the ones that don't sell too much. Same with the moisture surge, minis.

1:45:17Everything is like, oh, I want luxury, but give it to me at an affordable price so I can try it. And then I'll buy the full thing. But it's the whole wardrobing thing, right? If I want to keep 30, I don't want 30 hundred mls or whatever. I'm going to have 30. Are you talking fragrance or skincare? Both, I think. Skincare people wouldn't wardrobe, no? With colour, for example? Yeah, makeup. Yeah, makeup. Yeah, makeup. You'll want brown one day. For example, a mascara runs out. If you open it in six months, you have to finish it or else you should not be using it. So I only buy mini mascaras because I'm like, okay, great, I only use that much.

1:45:48So I will only buy a mini mascara. Is that true for perfume? You shouldn't use it after six months? No, there is expiry dates of perfume. Expiry, but it's, yeah, for perfumes. For mascaras, it just clumps after. Yeah, mascaras for sure. I think supermarkets do this right well. I feel like the sampling works better in person when you give somebody something in person at maybe a Tira store or a supermarket. We have a vending machine that when you enter, even if you don't walk out with anything that you purchased, you walk out with a sample because, you know, we made it, we've gamified it. You put in your number and, you know, your email address and you select which sample you want for that.

1:46:28You know, you'll have a fragrance sample, a skincare sample and a makeup sample and you select which one you want and we let you take one sample in two months. So every two months when you come to our store, you get something to take back. And we work with brands to really utilize this for sampling. So again, you've gamified it. You've created a moment. And offline is all about experiences. So you've created that experience. Two greatest sampling successes from a brand standpoint was Lifebuoy at Kummela in COVID 2020 or 2021. Oh, yeah. Where they gave Lifebuoy to everyone who was eating roti. So, before you eat, use Lifebuoy.

1:47:06The second one was Paperboat in Indigo Airlines. Paperboat was built as a brand. Again, nostalgic taste. By distributing as samples on Indigo Airlines. And then it became something a part of the menu. And then... This nostalgia keeps coming back. The more I think about it. Paperboat was about nostalgic flavors. And then you might be bang on with your chumpy. Yeah. Especially with Gen Z. Is that what it's called? Chumpy? Chumpy Hair Oil. Yeah. Even the name, I had to fight in my team. They were like, no, but like, don't call it that. We all have a bad connotation with it. I'm like, no, it's going to work.

1:47:36Because it's a ritual. You're literally putting the name of what we all know is a household name on a bottle. It's going to work. Could a brand of just minis work? Yes. I think in the category, in fragrances, yes, I think so. Yeah. Yeah? Fragrances for sure, yeah. But it's also expensive to make minis. Yeah, that's true. The margins are not as good. Yeah, the margins are not great in minis. because you have to make that much product and your packaging still costs them in the same. I actually was going to ask you. And that's just from the limited knowledge that I have that, you know, brands don't like minis as much as consumers do.

1:48:14Correct. That's true. I was actually going to ask you whether sustainability is something Bilib cares about a lot because that's another Genji trend. I don't think that's a trend right now. It was a trend yesterday. No, it's a bare minimum. I think you have to care about it. But I don't know. Do you think that... Again, maybe... Do you think something sells more because you... Sustainability is also a little bit of affluence? Yeah. Does something sell more because sustainable? Maybe in India, not as much yet. But I think, again, the Gen Z value is starting to become more important. And for me as a founder, I don't want to clutter the market more.

1:48:46If you look at even just sustainable in every measure, they say, our packaging is mostly glass, so it can be recycled better. We have six SKUs in three and a half years. We're not in the business of building 200 SKUs, 300 SKUs, clutter the market. We really are like hero product strategy only. Talk to the consumers, what do they want, build it for them. And then really put all your marketing might in six SKUs instead of which one am I picking here? Am I playing, you know, you're gambling then. So I think sustainability for me as a founder is very important. Do you put it on every product? That we're sustainable?

1:49:21No, because it's a given. Like I don't need to scream about it. I agree with that. That's why I don't think putting sustainability will sell. No, no, so I'll tell you where I'm coming from. The reason is I think today's Gen Z, whether it comes to food or personal care, actually cares about the product inside the bottle, not the bottle so much. They're very too smart for that. And if you make that a point of your communication, you don't need to spend 30 % of your cogs on a glass bottle that looks great. You can get away with a product that is much cheaper. It could be an idea for Dilip. Yeah. And then you actually focus all the money on the product inside.

1:49:53It can be a plain black bottle. And my marketing can be not about the bottle. Yeah, like ordinary is all about that. You know, have you seen those ordinary billboards all over the place where they're like, ordinary eggs. Yeah, people told us we should hire celebrities, but we put all our marketing money into building the best product ever. They said make better packaging, but we put all the money into the formulations. Not about the bottle is a good line. Do you think? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah, because fragrances are always... They're starting to feel better, slowly. But for sustainability, I think the thought leaders of the world today are moving away from sustainability.

1:50:37And hence, I think it will trickle down, permeate down to the consumer as well. If you hear a Trump talk about bring plastic straws back, drill baby drill. I was doing a... You mean you're saying it's going backwards? The normality around sustainability has gone, I think. It was really big two years ago in my opinion. No, we are pushing a lot. I don't think so. I think the young consumers care. Yeah. India for sure, globally I don't know. India for sure, young consumers, urban, young, affluent consumers will care. They care. It will be a differentiator. If it were Deepa would have sustainable on her packaging.

1:51:19No, because they know what a conscious brand I'm building. Like when I speak to the content I make, it's about we are sustainable, we are vegan, but we're not screaming about it because that's a no-brainer for us. You know, being vegan, being this. It's like table sticks. Cruelty free. Table sticks. This is how we stand out. I feel like the word sustainability has been used around in very many ways. And people also have some amount of doubt around it that what is actually sustainable. So I think brands also do stay away from for the fear of getting called out because anything you say today that's sustainable, you will still get called out for it.

1:51:56So I think there's a little bit of fear as well on what the consumer really believes you stand for. So I think it's kind of not being able to distill those sustainable values, what sustainability in beauty really stands for. Like right now, if we talk about sustainability, technically it's less consumption. right but now there's refillable so that's a step in the right direction but is it 100 % sustainable no but you're still kind of again it's all about creating that lifestyle so I think it's it's still about the lifestyle I think being honest about that I think also with founders who are a little sustainable nobody can be all the way sustainable because then don't have a brand if you're going to be like be honest about these are the areas we're working on our sustainability These are areas that we cannot yet until we get scale or until we can, you know, the refillable program.

1:52:48Oh, there's a way to do it. Exactly. Sometimes there's no way out. Just be honest. I think that's the main thing. Because you said honest so many times. Like I am as far removed an expert in this industry as anyone can be. but looking from afar it feels like the sustainable organic natural movement happened when was it Jessica Alba started The Honest Company which was six, seven years ago? Long back, ten years back. Ten years ago? You could say so, yeah. I feel like Gwyneth Paltrow. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the wave after that was the wave of actives. Yeah, yes. Which was maybe a couple of years ago.

1:53:33And most companies that I looked at, which did really well, were companies that caught on to a change in cycle before the cycle changed. I think Minimalist was exactly in that spot. So my question to you guys is, if the active cycle is midway, what comes next? And what can I build to catch on to the next cycle before the others can? I don't think it's about sustainability. I think the younger consumers are actually what we are now starting to realize are skinimalists. Just give me what I need. Don't give me extra. Skin minimalism. Skin minimalism. So just like, minimalists are a classic. Just give me these three molecules.

1:54:14I don't need the jazz around it. I don't need a 10 step skin care routine. If that is what they are thinking, why should I have three molecules? Why can't I have the combination of three in a way which is affected? That's what we do. That's what three molecules. So like the whole six SKU thing I was talking about earlier, our whole play was we're not going to be a minimalist. We're not going to be a plum or a mama earth. We're not going to do the whole thing. Assortment, yeah. We're going to do one serum with 12 serums in it with an expert who does it for you. We're going to do one evening ritual for the mom on the go, for the college student, for the one who doesn't have time for a 12-step skincare routine.

1:54:52That's very progressive, actually. Yeah, and we did this already two and a half years ago where everybody was only buying the 700 rupee vitamin C from Ordinary or this. And I'm like, wait, they're going to get there. Like at one point, because we saw it in the West as well. It was the Ordinary that led the way. And then it was the Drunk Elephants. It was the... Youth to the People. Youth to the People. All the other brands that really brought them together that people are like, okay, one, that's it. I don't need anything else. And this is moving even into makeup, right? So you want skinification of makeup.

1:55:25So anything to, you don't want to put anything on your skin that harms it. So skincare ingredients in makeup products and layered with an SPF. So imagine that you're just putting that one product on the go. So if I don't have time, but I'm coming here and I just have that one product, it should do the job. Everything for me. It moisturizes my skin. It protects me from the sun and it allows me to have a good amount of coverage for my no makeup look. Like multi-purpose, multi-act. on the go. On the go. That's what the consumer wants. Do you think the next wave could be that in my bathroom, I have three bottles.

1:55:59One which says morning, one that says afternoon, one that says... Afternoon, what do you need for? Yeah, then two bottles. Two, yeah. Yeah. And sunscreen. So the two bottles would be like your actives, like your serums. The morning will have the sunscreen. Okay, fine. Then you're fine, yeah. You can put the sunscreen together with it. Another big trend in Gen Z, I think, is also around stress management. So skincare, like skinification of hair, for example, or skincare that helps you sleep better. Is hugely, like magnesium roll-ons are like, explode it. Helps you sleep better. Is that like a...

1:56:36Sleep well and clean, but it's great skin. I mean, I could eat the magnesium pill as well, but... Yeah. So great, great... There's some studies shown that the magnesium is absorbed by, like skin better then your gut takes it away or something there were some studies I think doctors would still say you can do the pills I take the pills but indeed magnesium lotion magnesium oil because apparently it gets into your bloodstream more from your skin isn't that more a magnesium thing than a skin care thing where did magnesium come from 2-3 years ago nobody spoke about it but for example if you're building a fragrance brand a pillow fragrance would be a very critical new age case like a lavender That helps you.

1:57:17I've had like sleep fragrances. You never remember to use them. I don't feel like it's a habit. It's not like brushing your teeth. It's just one of those products that's great to have. Every hotel gives it to you now. But how often do you actually use it? That's very true. One dose will use it. Or if you're a girlfriend. I also feel we don't. Because we don't use it. Others can see you use. No, no. Or there's some effect of it. You'll feel it, man. You'll feel it. You feel? With a lavender spray, you sleep better? Oh, magnesium is really improved. No, magnesium is not. Where to go with a lavender spray?

1:57:52Lavender spray, I don't know, but magnesium will hold on. I'm using my morning serum, whatever is in this one bottle which has everything. That's the Indie World's vitamin C. You need that one. But then you still need a moisturizer. It has everything together. It has vitamin C, it has moisturizer, it has sunscreen. Niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, everything. So it's got moisture, brightening, acne, sun. You can get creative with the bottle. Maybe the bottle has three sections. you go one, two, three or something. Or like a triphasic that you mix. So say form factor can change of the bottle.

1:58:27But again, these are all areas which are category creating and hence community matters. Yeah. Right? So I think the trend, the next wave you were asking, skin minimalism, definitely. Skinification of makeup. I think nostalgia is not really a trend, but I think it will always come back in life. Like whether it's fashion, whether it's beauty. Like I think we as human beings go after things we know. There's a familiarity. There's something that's familiar, but then something that's new is the best way we digest it. Like if you look at music, The remixes of like really old songs with something new are the ones we immediately are like, oh, I like this.

1:59:07Gen Z is getting into Gazals now. It feels familiar. Exactly. It's insane. There are like so many Instagram singers who are now getting into like Mehdi Hassan. I was like, wow, that's incredible. And I think if you can package nostalgia and identity and India prideness again, I'm going to say that. But for a new India and for the world, I think that is the next big wave. That's a very good point. And minimalism. Yeah, that I already said. Nostalgia, minimalism. Okay, I'm now taking notes. Nostalgia, minimalism. He's like my next brand. I also think there's a huge pickup of micro trends. So that's changed every three to six months.

1:59:45So brands that kind of catch on to that or figure a way of how to catch on to that trend. Then you show the product in a different light. For example, glass skin, right? So that came out of Korea. Yeah, yeah. But it's not, it's just that that's all the Korean brands, even if they were not talking about it, or brands that are inspired by Korean ingredients started using that trend as a viral moment to resell their product. The same product that has, as she said, repackaged and sold. You're talking about the mob wife look. If I go to Korea, I find a person willing to white label. I bring back a whole bunch of products because this is a country with better skin and not a celebrity.

2:00:28So they're probably being a bit more honest. Will it work in India? Yes, it will. I mean, brands are doing it. Yeah, brands are doing it. Like, I don't know, Clayco, Diyu, right? I think they're all kind of Korean-inspired. They're all Indian rappers and Korean brands? Diyu is... So what they do, like the best way to... I don't know. I think there's two differentiations, right? So you're using... You're getting Korean... You're getting brands made, manufactured in Korea without any of the Korean inspiration or you're using Korean origin ingredients and then packaging it as a Korean brand, getting glass skin and then bringing it to India.

2:01:05What if I'm just taking a Korean product, putting a different wrapper on it and selling it in India? It's 90 % water. Why will you transport it all the way? No, it'll work. It'll work. It's about your doctor. I mean, my lip balm, the main ingredient is ghee, but I'm making it in Korea. Why? because they are, the texture and the sensorialism in their ingredients is far superior. No, but I think he's saying I'll just get a Korean product. So Korean brand and then sell it to you. But what I'm saying is it will work because they're, I think they're manufacturing at this point. I think India is coming up there.

2:01:34Like our manufacturing is getting better. But at this point, Korea has certain textures and ingredients and the way they mix it together. They're far ahead of the game. So I think that just... We can't mix Korean beauty here in India? Yes, you can. You can, right? I think we're talking from a quality perspective. from a technology perspective, from an innovation perspective. Hygiene, like... Innovation is huge. I feel like what they're saying is, can you make a Ferrari in India? Yes. But it won't be Ferrari, right? But Ferrari and beauty is very different, yaar. Because it sounds complicated, like beauty is not...

2:02:06Beauty is not just like mixing things in a pot and doing it. Like there's so many emulsifiers, so many steps, like you gotta cool it, you gotta heat it. And then I think the way Korean chemists specifically, the manufacturing, I think you can still do in India because you can reverse engineer the formula. But I think the chemists in Korea, like the ingredients they use, like PDRN, like salmon sperm. Salmon sperm is the trendiest ingredient in skincare today that came from Korea. And they literally create ingredients like that. And because they have this branding of having better skincare, people as consumers accept it.

2:02:42Is it always better? No one can argue. Someone who got it injected into his knees because the logic was salmon sperm will help. Who injected that? My brother. So we were traveling somewhere recently. He got it into his knees. He got an IV into his body. Did it help? It put him on a wheelchair for like four, five days. Oh, dear. Yeah. It's a caution for salmon sperm then. But there's also a lot of information out there. So I think, you know, it's also about understanding. That's why going back to experts. So while it's all about influencing, it's also about understanding what your skin type is.

2:03:16And I think that's something that I would tell anyone who's starting a brand that understand who your audience is and who you're creating for. So if it's a concern-based solve, particularly for skincare, make sure that, you know, you also have experts who back your brand or have them as advisors to kind of tell you this is the right thing to do. But I think country, you know, like if you look at different countries, like we, like what you started off earlier saying that when you look at Italy or Germany, you know they would have good color, good makeup. You look at France, of course, French pharmacy, you already subconsciously are like French skincare.

2:03:52It must be good. Yes. Like all the La Roche-Posay's and the Caudillis, like they must be good. Korea is this new one that's come on where subconsciously because they have good skin, we all are like they must be good. India, I think, has that globally for hair. Yeah. Anyone thinks of Indians, they're like, they have some secret to hair. Great point. That the world needs to know. And that's why even Ayurveda, right? Like, I think it's so unique to India. It's the entire lifestyle that we're kind of, you know, putting out there. And anything from India about Ayurveda really moves the needle. So you're saying a product that says Indian hair oil could do well in the West.

2:04:31Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's so sweet. It does, yeah. And it will. And I think... What else are Indians known for? What else are Indians known for? Weddings. Yoga. Spirituality, wellness. I think just their warmth and love for food. I think that's another one. Food's a biggie, yeah. Food is huge. Bollywood? Just colour. We have to build on those things when we build a brand. If you want to build a global brand, then... Because it's subconscious. Like, I think what then, it's like the winds are behind you that's helping you. Like, with Koreans, any Korean brand can launch something now. And we're all like, ah, Korean skincare, like, let's put it all over us.

2:05:11So, like, go wear something because consumers already are thinking of you with that. So then you don't have to, like, train them to change their mindset. You're like, okay, you think Indians do good hair care? Here, an exhibit A, my mom who has hair down to her ankles and she's 63 years old. Does she? She does, yeah. She has really, really long hair. And so it's like you give that exhibit. And like the same way Shea Butter came from Africa. Shea Marie is a brand in the U.S. that sells like insane. It's one of the best hair care brands there. And the story is the grandmother on the side of the road sold Shea Butter.

2:05:48And look at her hair and how amazing it made. And that story they've kind of built over the last, I think, two or three decades. And it's this amazing. and now shea butter is really, you know, the ingredient for moisture. And we've seen this happen in India, by the way. Indians are known for hair. Also, what else? Weddings? Weddings, we said food. Yeah, I think just animals. Animals? Animals. I think family tigers. Like whenever I speak to a foreigner about India, they have a mental image of like tigers and snakes and all of that. Elephants? I think family. Like there's a lot of like... Asian culture.

2:06:26Asian culture, right? Warmth, vibrancy, like just… Yeah, I think that's… Music. Music. Classical music. Punjabi music also. Punjabi music is more of a good movie. And it's stereotyping but I feel like India is very vibrant in terms of its colour palette, right? So you always expect an Indian brand to… They think of like Jaipur, Udaipur, yeah, yeah, that's true. Palaces, palatial… That stuff, yeah. You've actually seen what she's saying, right? Religion. New age brands. Spirituality. More than religion, I'd say spirituality. Really? Hinduism. Two different things. We're saying two different things.

2:07:03I don't think they look at India purely as Hinduism. Because they don't know enough about Ganesh and all of that. But they look at Indians being very spiritual people. Like, you know, we do our morning meditations. None of us do, but they think we do. My husband wakes up at 5.45. He does it? More pious. We're a pious gentleman. It's not fun, but that's it. What else? Because you live there, you're a better person to answer this question as well. This is a funny one I always say in my friend group now, but of late CEOs, like every multinational is an Indian CEO. Yeah, intellect, intelligence, education.

2:07:45Like everyone in the West has that one Indian friend who's highly educated, who's just doing really well in their career. IT, I think. So if I'm building a community, I should pick something from weddings, culture, colorful, palaces, religion, spirituality, yoga, CEO, smart and build on top of that. It's a good start. And food. Food don't forget, food bonds us all. Because food and I think even native florals, right? Food, masala, like that? No, I think… It's cultural, right? Chicken tikka masala. Like that could be a perfume. Chicken tikka masala. Jalebi? Like jalebi. She's launched jalebi and chai lip balms.

2:08:28So again. I wouldn't launch chicken tikka masala. I'm not sure. That's one of the stuff that… It doesn't sit right. Yeah, I think what she said touched on florals as well. I think maybe the West doesn't know it enough. But that is something we can scream about. Like our flowers. The jasmine, the champaka, the firangi pani. Rajneegandha. Rajneegandha. I think it's a really good point. And they have like roots in India. I'm not saying they're only native to India, but they have a huge amount of storytelling and history here. How about temples? Temple smell? What if Dilip sells temple scent? That ittar.

2:09:06Pool. Pool and ittar. That whole thing is used temple flowers. What if Dilip's perfume brand is called temple? Cute. I like it. Yeah. Agarbatti is like a very, very... Agarbatti needs to be disrupted. Yeah. But we're saying bring back the old in a new way. Yeah. So temple maybe has a hint of Agarbatti somewhere. The perfume temple. You can also make it your body is your temple. It has camphor. Exactly. So Agarbatti for example. I love camphor. Yeah, the smell actually is about cleansing the home. Age. Yeah, and camphor is also about like, you know, good energy and making sure that you're purifying your space.

2:09:44Dilip is starting to feel better. That's great. Is there a tech play here to identify which product? Let's say we are doing morning, night. There's two products. Morning has sunscreen plus moisturizer plus niacinamide plus vitamin C. Night has peptide, magnesium and retinol. Yeah. Okay. Good. And if we combine, if we have two bottles in the bathroom, A, I would love that because it removes so much clutter. is there a tech play to figure out Deepa's morning is different from Nikhil's morning and Bhakti's night is different from Shantanu's? Using AI? Using anything. AI. If you have enough data, for sure.

2:10:31No, just about taking a picture of your face and asking a genetic AI to tell you which product to use. Either pick morning one or morning two. I mean, there's a lot of advances in that. My only concern with that then is, are you going to the model of hyper-personalization? Because then operationally, I don't know how that's going to work. That's what we were saying, right? It's just too many permutations, combinations. What if you only have three skills? Three mornings and three nights. Okay, then it can work. Yeah, then it can work. Then you come on the website. You come on the website. You show, take a photo, do a quiz.

2:11:05Give your details. No quiz, nothing. No questions. Just photos. That's fine as well. we can tell you there's skin analyzers that'll tell you okay only thing with that is you're not giving it your environment are you hot humid cold are you living in Canada but you can add that layer as well I can figure out your location no you can take a yeah you can put in your location your location yeah so just one picture yeah that's doable you walk into a website one picture that you take there and then you say morning two is right for you and night three is right for you send it done and age the picture has to calculate because the physical age does not matter with skin nature and you can do a try before you buy saying okay try it if you like it I mean and you you know you pre-book it if you don't like it you can send it back to me and I'll give you your money back so you can absolutely do that I'm just saying it for a brand because a brand Ilma Kiyar has done this they have the try before you buy and they've also built their tech platform called Oddity which is all about again really predicting what shade will match you.

2:12:13So they sometimes will send you three shades. In color, I see this work very well because now you have lipstick try-ons, you have virtual try-ons, everything in color. But even with skincare, because if you have tech that's good enough to kind of give you at least 96 to 98 % accuracy. If you can indeed like zoom in and analyze, oh, he has pores or he has under eye circles or he has acne, then he needs these and these ingredients or he looks a bit older, so he needs more like peptides and that stuff. Yeah. And we can change the form factor of the bottle to have one to three. Yeah. So you put one on, then two on, then three on.

2:12:46You love your one, two, three. No, but if you're going to have fewer skews. I hate looking at clutter and each time I go into my bathroom... So then if you have fewer skews then you don't need tech. I think the juice is not worth this cruise at all. No, he's saying tech so that the customer knows what they should get. He basically doesn't want to interact with anyone. He's like, this is it. No, but the customer will figure it out. The tech is when what she's saying is right. No, no, customer figuring out is very hard. How will the customer figure out? I don't know what I should use. The brand has three skews.

2:13:12They'll figure out, no? On YouTube, how to do it. But I think for sure, how would a customer know? You believe the customer knows everything. You have to, if they don't have any information. Can I tell you, I have no clue what is good for my skin. You knew peptides though. Yeah. But I have no clue what I should use, when I should use. If something is right for me, I'm not a white guy. If you want to solve that problem, then you can't have a three skew business. Sorry? You can't have a 3 is Q business. The morning one, because you're super blending everything. We're not believing that this is the night's morning.

2:13:41The premise is that I'm going to mix everything and give it to you. Then you'll say, okay, I'm going to mix everything. You'll tell me. Everything is good. You choose one. I think what he's saying is not everything, not every active ingredient, but he's saying one becomes a supersonic brightening one. One becomes a supersonic anti-aging one. One becomes a supersonic acne one. Correct. You know, and then people whose skin is more prone to one or the other, they get that. How will they know? Acne, I will know I need acne. I don't know. Aging, I will know. You don't have acne, you don't need it. No, but...

2:14:11It's also we're super simplifying it. I don't think you can have this. One element that we're also missing is while all of this is great, consumers today still buy 80 % of beauty for the first time in a store, in an offline environment. Because the emotional touch, feel factor is still so huge in beauty, right? That you want to... 80 %? That's a shocking stat. By 2028, beauty will be 33 % online and 67 % offline. But the trend is going more online. It is, but I feel like offline will still dominate significantly. There will still be always a healthy mix. I think for first purchase. First purchase.

2:14:50Second purchase is definitely online. But that's why offline is moving to being all about experiences. It's all about experiential marketing. It's all about creating your stores as experience centers. You know, for people who travel a lot, like I travel incessantly. I've been traveling for the last three months. I'm not going to carry 10 bottles with me. But minis, you can not carry. But we agree. Skin minimalism is the thing. I think also for supplements. I'm not going to carry 10 boxes of... Like what AG1, do you know AG1? What AG1 did with supplementation was phenomenal. Like I was waiting for that my whole life.

2:15:30and now Parallel is another supplement brand in the US, UV backed as well. And they put all your supplements in one packet. So it's like you just have to open the packet and just take it in the morning. Why not even in one pill? I think because active ingredients can interact with each other. Like an omega-3 is an oil-based, but like maybe vitamin C is a powder-based. But I think simplifying time and simplifying life by optimizing for time is a great idea. Bathroom break? I think they want it. I can take one. Yeah, I don't want it. Take a bathroom away. I like your tattoos. What do they say? So my job is that of a trader in the stock market's primary job.

2:16:18So delay gratification is a reminder not to sell stuff fast, which I tend to do a lot. Without the tattoo, you would forget. Be patient. I don't remember with the tattoo. be here now is not I have a tendency to procrastinate I spent a lot of my life thinking what will happen 5 years from now 10 years from now this says do unto others as you would have others do unto you which I feel like is a simple moral if you had to pick one to live by yeah and this is my handwriting I like that and all together or in different moments in life? Different moments in life. That's really nice. Very cool. And the date of when I got it is also there.

2:17:07See, that's 2013. Very cool. Do you have tattoos? Yeah, a bunch. This one is the funniest. Back then, tattoos used to be quite thick. Now you can make them really thin and beautiful but these are bleeding a little into each other. But it's Roman and it's like a conversation start. Every time someone's like, oh, what does your tattoo say? I'm like decoded. But it basically is Roman numerals for the letter G is the 11th letter in the alphabet, R-I-T. So when I was in my final year in high school, I did a thesis on what makes people successful. I think it was my social psychology class or something.

2:17:50I was obsessed with how do people become successful? What is it that makes them different from everybody else? and long story short, the end answer was grit. That whether you have money or not, whether you're beautiful or not, whether you have the right people, if you just have grit, that was a common denominator in every successful person. And so I was like, I need to tattoo that. What is the biggest thing you have going for you? Why is Deepa successful? Why is Deepa successful? Oh, can I have multiple answers? One. Grit? In the face of adversity? Yeah. Adversity being? I mean, as an entrepreneur, as a founder, you're hit with like the velocity and the amount of shit that hits you on a daily basis.

2:18:43And whether it's rejections or no's or things not working out. And I think a good founder and entrepreneur is the one who's able to take that and come on the other side over and over and over again. And even when you think, finally, I'm on the other side, the sun is shining, you know, the sales are great, something else will come around. So I think people who can really withstand that will end up being good entrepreneurs, according to me. And pre-entrepreneurship? Pre-entrepreneurship, I think I just really wanted to be somebody that did something with her life. Like I wanted to be, like leave a mark.

2:19:21I know it sounds a bit cliche, but my biggest fear was to die ordinary. I'm like, what if I don't become an anybody or nobody? Like you get this one life to live, make it count. You know, so that was something that always kept me going as a child. Like make sure you do something worthwhile. Make sure your life means something and make sure it also means something bigger than yourself. Interesting. Digressing from our subject for a second. You didn't tell us about how you started Tira. And you didn't finish what happened after McKinsey. Maybe we do a little bit of your lives. You want to go first?

2:19:57Okay. So I had nothing to do with beauty. I started, you know, did my undergrad in psychology and communication. Graduated and got my first job at Macy's. But as a management trainee and then in fashion, you weren't really going to get, you know, anything post your OPT. So my dad was like, come home and, you know, figure it out. So I had nothing, had no plan. I think I've always kind of been, I like to say, good at many things. And, you know, like I was average at a lot of things. I was good at a lot of things. And I think, so I was trying to find that one purpose, that kind of, you know, what is it that will make me feel, oh, wow, I've got it as well, you know, because you keep looking at other people and everyone has something about them or they know what they want to do.

2:20:54And I think it can be easy having a dad like your dad as well. Yeah, but I don't think... I feel the opposite is true. Yeah. It can or it can't be easy. I think it depends on the kid. The unhappiest people I know are people who have these really, really large figures as their parents. Because happiness is always relative and you get your validation when you get something beyond what they have. And if you start at that scale, like I could have gone from A to B and got validated. She has to go from Z to Z plus. Yeah. But I don't think, I think that when I've, what I liked about my childhood was, yeah, I grew up in a conservative household.

2:21:35My parents were strict, you know, follow deadlines. I wasn't allowed to be out till 1 a.m. My dad always opened the door, even, you know, didn't have the keys to my house even when I grew up. But I think that the one thing that I'm very grateful for is that I grew up without pressure. I grew up, as I said... That's probably because people were trying to kidnap you. No, I think that's what, that trend has kind of followed me. I, you know, graduated and then came here and as a 21-year-old was very enamored with this whole retail side, right? And Reliance Brands had just started up. And my first ever gig was when, you know, Darshan told me, he's like, okay, you want to work in retail and you need to know how to sell.

2:22:24So my first job was selling shoes on the Timberland storefront. He said, you will be allowed to enter my office after you want to, you know, after you can, you've actually sold something. And I was like, okay, cool, I'll do it. So I've done the, you know, the six to eight month, you know, shop front associate, sales associate job. And I was selling Timbaland shoes. And in Mumbai, where the weather is completely, you know, not accustomed to selling winter wear. and I learned something, I learned this one rule from my boss at that time where he said that it's a rule in the retail industry that particularly for footwear, so if someone's coming to buy one pair of shoes, you bring out three for them because if they don't like that one, you sell them, you make them try the other two.

2:23:14So it was a three box rule. And for me, I remember I told my sister, my dad, that, oh, we're having an end of season sale And, you know, my mom and him came and they bought that one pair of shoes just to, you know, it was that that really also, again, validated that it didn't to that 21 year old meant a lot. Because for me, that was like, oh, wow, I've done that thing for myself. And then I worked in retail for about I had, you know, and you're talking about having this having this large larger than life, you know, figure. I think I used, I turned that as an opportunity. I got access to opportunity and I never took it to waste.

2:23:58I believed that I had access and I really, really used it. I feel like I've overcompensated at times. You know, I would sometimes be the last one to stay back and I wanted to always prove that I could do it. And at some point I just embraced it. Yes, this is who I am and I'm going to make use of everything that I have and I'm going to do it. I didn't know what I was going to do when I was 21, but I worked through multiple roles. And I still was figuring it out. I worked in fashion for eight years. I did buying. I worked at RGO. And when I got married, after working in Reliance Brands for about five years, I moved to RGO.

2:24:36And I did something completely different, which was inventory planning. My boss at that time asked me that, yes, you can do marketing or do something completely different and learn do inventory planning. So I learned all about couponing, discounting, how do you manage inventory, how do you look at, you know, how do you calculate everything when it comes to e-commerce. I learned the basics then. And I think I'm grateful for the opportunities and also the people that I met through that time to kind of, you know, kind of give me that confidence that, okay, you know, I got a varied, just multitudes of opportunity that I would have not got.

2:25:15And I'm so grateful, super grateful for that. And after that, I was in fashion for so many years. I was like, that's when that, oh, I want to do something on my own. Like, I believed that I could do a lot more. And I was like, okay, I want to now get out and do my own thing. And I was like, okay, I think I want to go to school again. I always thought that I wanted to go back to school and do something that was completely different from what I had done. And I wanted to then be in the fashion space. I was like, OK, I applied to Parsons for their AAS degree, which is, you know, for people who want to change careers.

2:25:50So I had friends who were lawyers, who were doctors, who all wanted to get into the fashion space. So you basically take a four-year course, condense it into a two-year course. and I got married, moved to Bangalore. And after one year, I decided just to move to New York for two years. So I did long distance marriage and studied for those two years, purely out of passion to wanting to build something for myself. And I was like, it really works, no long distance marriage. It's great. I think that I give so much credit to my husband, my partner, Tejas, because I think that there was no conversation about you are allowed, which, you know, kind of stems, these conversations stems, yeah, I'm allowing you to go, you should do this.

2:26:36It was always like, you want to do this? Let's figure it out. And you have my entire support. So I think that that kind of set the bar for me on what I expected, right? And I think that that, I don't think my parents ever asked me once that, are you guys okay? just purely out of when anyone saw. And it's not like we didn't have our fair share of fights and quarrels, but never for a moment did Trust walk out. And he knew, he's like, you made the move to Bangalore for me. And it's only fair that I do that for you because you want to do this. Because imagine if he had to go to MBA, it would be easy that, oh, Bhakti will go with him, right?

2:27:17No one would say anything. If it's the opposite, And people still gave him a lot of credit, which I do as well. But I also went, right? So that kind of gets lost in the whole process. But I think we've kind of been okay with letting that limelight go. But I think then when it was COVID, we lived in New York for one year, after my two year degree, because I was like, okay, I'm not coming back. I have a couple of more months at school. And he took the last flight out and came to New York. And we were stuck in the pandemic for an entire year. And I think it was the best time that we had in our bubble, just figuring it out.

2:27:55And I didn't, that was that one year where I did not work since I started working. And I was like, okay, what do I want to do? I wanted to, at that point, start my own at-leisure brand. So I was making all my plans, speaking to my dad, saying, okay, great. So putting all my plans together. And plans never go the way they're meant to. I moved back to India and I started again working a little bit on the design side with trends because the entire fashion and lifestyle business is in Bangalore. So I was trying to see how I could actually put my skills to test. So I was working on designing a small collection and then beauty just happened to be a conversation that I was part of as a consumer.

2:28:42And then nothing was planned. I remember having this conversation with Tisha where I told her, I said, I'm just going to, you know, I'll be around and I definitely want to do my own thing. She's like, yeah, of course you go ahead and it'll all work out and that was the plan and then there was no set moment. It was, we named Tira together. We had about two days to name Tira together. I know that me and her have this Google sheet where we came up with names like Sorbet, Blush and then Why Tira? That's right, I'll get to that And it was just such an easy flow in that we started from there. So we named it Tira because we were thinking of what are some of the best, the genesis of some of the most powerful brand names.

2:29:26And if you think there's Nike, which is from Greek mythology, because Nike is a goddess of power. Sephora is from the goddess Zephyrus. So everything was rooted. These brands were rooted in Greek mythology. So we're like, we're in India, we have so much history, so much culture. Let's go back to Hindu mythology. And then we looked up some of the Indian goddesses and goddess Ratti, who's the goddess of love, passion and beauty. And we're like, can we make, you know, Tira is an anagram of goddess Ratti. And the entire idea is that when any person looks at themselves in the mirror, they see, you know, every person has a unique superpower.

2:30:11because goddesses have superpowers and that unique superpower on the inside helps you feel beautiful in the outside and Teera celebrates that superpower. So I think, and we didn't use an agency. You light up when you speak about Teera. It's so nice. Why don't you keep it Rathi and why don't you change it around? I think it's also about... It's more modern. Yeah, we wanted to also let, we were making it for the Indian consumer but also for the, we wanted to be a global retailer for the Indian consumer. I think we were both, I think the beauty of it is that we always looked at the brand as consumers of beauty and what we wanted, the Indian, what we wanted to have that shopping experience in India, right?

2:30:52So every decision we made was from that perspective versus saying, okay, let's look at what else is happening out in India, I think. And that gave such a fresh perspective to what we were trying to do at Teera. What's cool about Bhakti also, whenever we run into each other in a function, I gravitate towards her and her husband and I hang out with them. I couldn't quite put my finger on why, but if I asked the question I asked her to people in her shoes, 9 out of 10 would be masking insecurity with some form of ego saying, I did this. it takes a certain amount of evolution to not do that compliment her father then her husband and place credit elsewhere and not take any thank you she's nice I don't know how to take that but thank you the Rati Teera story I think more people should hear about it it's really beautiful thank you And I think that happened without an agency.

2:32:04And our tagline is Tira for every you. So we're not, you know, when we spoke about beauty is self-expression. I think for us, it's celebrating every journey, every part of your beauty journey. And also just kind of, you know, alluding to the fact that wherever you are in your life, even if it's a bad time, we got you. And we want to celebrate that version of you. We don't want you to evolve. We want you to be in that moment because we are with you. And I think that kind of came from, as women, what we feel on a daily basis, right? That we want someone to just tell us, you are enough. And I think that really, that is very personal to me.

2:32:43And I would like to also, you know, from, if you're talking about like, why Teera is so special to both Isha and I, I think, from a perspective of just championing what women leaders can be, right? and beauty is a space where we've been able to do that. We have 60 % women leaders and we have one of the highest diversity ratios. And, you know, we have, I have 100 % success rate in women having, anyone who comes to Tira has a baby, goes into their maternity leave and comes back. And I think we've, I'm so happy, I didn't know that I was so passionate about it, but when I started this, I saw what a difference we made to women leaders and when people were coming back from maternity, taking a break and coming back and seeing those leaders and the kind of hunger they have has just been, you know, an unknowing success that, you know, that I feel more proud of than anything else, you know, that we've been able to do that.

2:33:48And I understood the power of like, you know, when so many women come together, what they can put together. So I think that has been the most special part about Teera that it has this amazing energy that there's everyone who kind of wants to do something like they want they also want to find themselves and prove themselves and I think that has resonated a lot with me. If I build my brand, Dilip the fragrance or me with morning and night skincare product. Yeah. Is that going to be Nikhil Kamath's line morning and night? Yeah. How do I pitch it to you? Um to Tira particularly? I think that the one thing that we at Tira, you know, in terms of our mission and vision, we've said that we want to be aspirational, affordable yet aspirational.

2:34:40And whether we're selling a 200-rupee lipstick or a 2 ,000-rupee lipstick, we want the consumer experience to be premium, right? So whether it's the UI, UX that's clutter-free or whether it's not really throwing the constant discounting in your face or leading with education, having an editorial approach. I think that has really been, you know, a differentiator for us. And I think when it comes to a brand, particularly homegrown brands, right, we want to champion them. And for us, it would mean that have a good brand story, have a solid product. And, you know, we, again, really enjoy working with founders as well.

2:35:20So I think for us, it would be, for me particularly, would be to have great product, right? And fit into that ecosystem. So we're not being picky about a brand. I feel like if you're entering into the brand, even if you're a young brand, we would definitely want to work with you. How do I reach out to you? You email us. So the number of people who reach out to me on LinkedIn is also insane. And even if I can't reply, I will connect you to the merchandising team. And they at least have the convos. There will be times when, you know, you've not reached a certain scale and, you know, you're just starting to distribute.

2:35:58And sometimes that you can also get lost in the entire, the number of brands that we have. So I think when you've got a little, when you just started, I think it's gained a little bit of traction. Like we've worked with very small brands, like we spoke about Clayco. So, you know, I think it's about discovery. You want to have more brands to lead discovery. And I feel like as a platform with scale, it is a little bit of our duty to kind of also set that platform, right? So I think for us, it's important. So as long as you're a brand with solid product. Is there a product you're looking for right now?

2:36:32The odds will be higher if I build that? No, I don't think so. I think, see, we're a retailer. We want to be able to give the variety to the audience, right? Right. That's your job. I think what our job is to make sure that your brand is going to the right consumer. So we spoke about hyper personalization. So if I can if I understand who my consumer is and if that consumer is is your consumer, then I'm doing right by you. And then it makes sense for you to list with me. And then I would want you. Right. So I think for us, it is about having a large portfolio of brands, but also then making sure that the right brand is going to the right.

2:37:09We're connecting to the right consumer. That is all about the personalization. If I build my morning and night, one form factor which does it all. Correct. And I build a tech layer on top of it, which is housed in Teera, for example. And it does really well. At some point, won't Bhakti think, why don't I just do this myself? Yes. Absolutely. Naturally. But that's a disincentive for me to then sell on Tira, right? No, I don't think so. I think first and foremost, we're a retailer, right? So I think that we will always make sure that we will always support the brand. And if we're getting into something, it's great for the consumer because you're giving the consumer choice and they can decide what they want to.

2:37:58I think it's pure retail. So I don't think it's about... It's also there's so many different ways now of working with brands. There's collaborations, there's exclusivity. So if you tell me that I'm going to be exclusive to you and, you know, we get into, I make money off your brand, then I'm like, great. Because it also takes that much amount of time and effort to create another brand, right? So I would also want to create a brand in a white space that I know is going to win quickly. Because you guys have done that, right? With a few of the celebrities. Yes. And also the recent Ayurvedic one. You just launched a brand called Pura Veda.

2:38:33Are celebrity brands working? I think that I think they are working yes I think but I feel like not the way they were working in the past I think that you need to have solid product you need to still have you need to have that hook that links you to the consumer today and it's not just about slapping your slapping your photo on a product that those days are gone you need to be able to connect with the consumer so the consumer buys the product for you and also for the quality so it you need to have story a very strong storyline that depicts what you kind of stand for and they take a little bit of your thought a piece of you or something that you stand for so it is very important for a celebrity to be authentic I think the exactly the entitlement that sometimes really famous people have of like if I just promote something it should be fine.

2:39:33I think that has really really really shifted because we've all mentioned consumers are very smart today. They want value. They want quality. They want good ingredients and just slapping a celebrity face doesn't cut it anymore. So I mean there's so many. Which brand are you thinking of? I'm not going to mention the name. I'm not going to mention the name but there are so many celebrity brands in India. I think I know which you're thinking of. And globally. And globally of course that have started And then if you're just not into it enough, like, for example, if you come on and somebody you're doing a live or you're doing a video and somebody is like, what ingredients does your product have?

2:40:09And you're like, oh, my moisturizer moisturizes. Like, we're not dumb. Like, we can see you don't know enough about it. And then you ask another founder who really is deeply involved, whether that's a rare beauty, whether that's Fenty. Yeah, you could literally wake them up in the middle of the night and be like, what is the name of your blush in shade, blah, blah, blah. What ingredient does it have? I think they're so deep. Like, for me, 100%. Like, I would know for sure anything you ask me. Even the name of our warehouse in the U.S. or U.K. or whatever, I would know those things because we're so deeply involved.

2:40:43And I think they see that. They see that involvement. They see that love. And they see that care. And I think that translates to sales. And if a celebrity can do that, it still works. If they cannot because they're really busy being actresses or influencers or whatever else, then I don't think it works. What are some of the examples of celebrity brands that have worked? And what did they get right? Not necessarily in beauty, anything. India. Latest one I really like underneath. What is underneath? Underneath is Kusha Kapila's lingerie brand. Super U by Ranveer. Very good start. Very good start.

2:41:19What celebrity should start what brand? What celebrity you should start with? Give me a name. Shah Rukh Khan. Fragrance. 100%. Fragrance. 100%. We all said it. We'll all invest in it. So me, Dilip, should try and pitch him to be the partner. Give him 30%. Like, that's half your job done. For sure. I get Prashant to invest. Your two crores gets to 25 and you're home. So Prashant, the friend you met. Yeah. He founded a Venture capital company Called Axel Oh So they've been The first check in Flipkart Flipkart Swiggy Ola All the tech companies I think we spoke to them Very good Very savvy investors I think even they're looking At some beauty brands He would have had some insight Myglam Myglam Myglam That's not doing too well Myglam is I think the Kardashians Are amazing examples Of what it means To create a brand They sell everything What I find they're also really good at is even if something fails, they just push it under the rug and start the next one.

2:42:23Like they don't care about failure. They're just like, okay, that didn't work. Fine. Let's start the next one. Skims, I think Skims has, she lives, breathes and really, really buys into Skims. Skims has again taken, not just beauty, taken a category. But again, I think we need to mention the operator. I'm agreed. And like the product, like the product of Skims is phenomenal. Is it? Like, so people come back for it. I think celebrity influencers were a great, like, trampoline, like I said, but the product will bring you back. I agree. You know, the marketing, the branding, the product. The product is still king, right?

2:42:58If you don't have product, you can build a brand, but you're not really going to. You won't have any repeat. Yeah, exactly. And it's going to. But I think in beauty, both Rare and Fenty are, I think, gold standards for being able to road. but I still think when it comes to a storytelling I think that Rare with the mental health impact and Rihanna with inclusivity and diversity and really championing those two causes has made it you know it's gone beyond the founder so now that cause and the brand has gotten related it's the singular thing that creates a community yes and they have built communities and that's what I think has driven it they have made themselves relevant as people, moved away from the celebrity status and kind of champion something that is core to all of us.

2:43:50And I think that is what they've sold. And I think that's what a lot of, let's say, Indian celebrities have seen, where they're like, oh, after their relevance as a pop star or as an actress died out, they're still saying relevant with the business. Let's do it too. And I think that's the wrong intention to start a business just for the, oh, I'll be in the buzz and I'll make a quick buck. but I think if you truly start for like we said with the cause, the why. Like what was my first question to you? What's your why? Like if that's really strong then the business will become bigger than you. Like it will sustain.

2:44:23I think HRX did a very good job because I think Hrithik was involved. I think the product was good and I think the distribution with Myntra was outstanding. They did such a good job with that brand. HRX is a good celebrity brand. So I have to figure out the product first and then find the celebrity. And then the distribution. Coming to you with a brand. Let me know. It's going to be Nikhil123. Dilip123.

2:44:50What was your why? You just spoke about why. My why was truly to create India's first global beauty brand and to be on the shelves of Sephora that I never saw growing up. It was all French brands. It was all American brands. And I didn't feel seen in that. And I think creating a brand with so much pride from where we come from and being able to stand on those global shelves is uncharted territory. And honestly, it freaks the shit out of me to do it. It really does. To really take on the U.S. market, which is a beast of a beauty market, with sitting next to brands like all these ones that we mentioned.

2:45:32But that is the why. It's like we need to build something from our country that can do that and truly be global. and have that, like have us Indians be proud of our skin, our skin type, our ingredients and everything that we come from. If I were to ask you why enough number of times and you don't have a filter on, you'll go back to first principles, identity?

2:46:01Like my own identity? Perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. And but in that mirrored identity of the community that I built, I think, like ultimately, yes, I'm really proud of it, too. And I think there's definitely an identity piece there. But I think it it just makes like it's a national pride in a way as well. And I think the community of the women that I've built so far together, I think we've all had this very clear friction points where I think maybe I told Bhakti when I was first pitching Inderwal to her as well. well. It's like, you know, there's this, on the one hand, we love where we come from. We love being Indian.

2:46:42We love our food, the culture, all the lists that we made. We love it. But at the same time, we're not our moms and grandmothers. We're modern Indian women who want to talk about sex if we do. We want to like stay with somebody before we marry them. We believe in science and fact. And there's almost this dichotomy and a friction between us. And there was no brand that brought them together. So Indewald is an identity of that friction point in a bottle. It is Ayurveda and everything mum and grandma said use ghee, use turmeric, but it's cutting edge, clinical, vitamin C, niacinamide put together in a bottle.

2:47:20So that's me, Deepa, I see that and that is my, that's me. So I can identify with it. Her name is brilliant, by the way. Indewald? Yeah, thank you. I suspect you will do, you're already doing well, but after this I think you'll do exponentially well. That's very kind. You come across as a great spokesperson for an Indian woman. Thank you. Thank you. And you own so many things, which is also nice. White man, okay. Once you meet him, you will love him. He's more Indian than Deepa. Thank you. I was just going to say that. He's literally, he's Indian inside. Like his entire life, even though he's as white, blonde, blue-eyed as they get, like literally Scandi vibes.

2:48:06He has always been eastward looking. I think he was in his past Janam, in his last life. I think he was Indian. Like he literally just, I'll get you to meet him. You'll see what I mean. You'll love him. I should have met him. Day before yesterday, right? Yeah, in London. Yeah, I missed it.

2:48:25When we spoke about categories first, we said, what is mass, what is premium, and what is prestige? Is there a case to be made for premiumization happening fast? Which category is growing faster? Is there a case of premium? 100%. Are you saying the 2300 prestige category is growing fastest? It is growing. Yes. Yeah? Premium to prestige is growing. Premium to prestige is growing. The fastest. Mass is plateauing. Yeah. And even mass brands are looking to premiumize. So I think it's about premiumization at every level. while prestige is growing because it's such a small market. At every level, we are premiumizing.

2:49:08Mainly because multiple, like in India has a lot, Indian, the target audience has a lot more disposable income and the expansion into tier two, tier three cities and just break out of online, right? So there is reachability and awareness and access. So people want better, they want quality. So at every level you premiumize. So people want that aspiration to move up. It's not just there. It's at every level. So I think it's premiumization across the board versus just in that segment, if I have to put it. Yeah, agreed. I think wealth equals I want better quality. I want better things. Are you seeing that in society that discretionary spending power is going up at such a pace?

2:49:55Why are you building in mass then? So two very different questions. I think the first question is around discretionary spending power going up. I think it's concentrated in the top 1 to 5%. Beyond the next 5, from 5 to 100%, it's going up because people are not buying homes enough. So you now have a lot more money in your hand because you don't have a loan to pay off. That's global also, India also. That's why people are able to spend more because they're saving less. Our savings rate has come down by like 1000 bips. from 14 % in the last five years. Experiences, right? Also. Now you're experiencing like you're experiencing hence you know coffee shops and We'll rent and this concept of small luxuries I don't know like Labubu is just an example of that right?

2:50:43That you're getting a piece of a small luxury like you may not be able to buy a handbag of that brand but you can buy a small beauty product. And beauty is the biggest one of that. So it's It's about getting a little piece of that next thing. You may not be able to take a big holiday, but you can get that fragrance that reminds you of it. So I think that small little luxuries is another trend that's kind of feeding into this premiumization. Women entering the workforce, like a generation before, women did not enter. It was looked down upon in a family if a woman would work. And I think women entering the workforce, young women entering the workforce, having that disposable income, but still live with their parents.

2:51:24So their entire salary is let's go shopping. So I think a lot of these changes in society are, especially for the beauty industry, really, really strong kind of trends to help grow that. And then they have social media, let's not forget, where they look at global brands. They look at global trends and they're like, I want that nice cinema as well. Or I want that face mask as well. We have 500 million social media users in India. Just give or take. If I were to like project a average Indian girl who is 25 years old and is making say$10 ,000 a year in income. How has the beauty category of my spend, discretionary spend changed in the last five years?

2:52:16In the last five years? Has it like doubled? Do I spend today 20 % of my income and five years ago it was 10 % or 30 %? I don't know actually. I think it's a lot more about awareness. So, you know, an average Indian probably spends about$10 on beauty versus now with platforms and brands coming in that has gone anywhere up to, you know,$80 in our offline stores, right? and even though we're looking at premium to prestige online it's still if you say you know consumers purchasing twice a year still about 3 ,600 to 4 ,000 rupees in the year that they're spending even if it's just you know someone who's freshly out of college they will wait to buy that one Dior lipstick or they will build their entire skincare routine in that 4 ,000 rupees but the good thing is there is availability to do that now earlier there wasn't so it's it's also about moving that wallet share there, right?

2:53:18So I think that has happened. And as I said, at every level, there's been premiumization. So it's not so much about doubling it, but it's about getting, spending a little bit more because of availability as well. Like from my perspective, I only know India World data, but like if you look at our AOV year on year, it's been increasing. Year on year in the last three years, our AOV in India has just gone bigger and bigger, the basket size of people are able to spend more. And even back to, sorry to sound like a broken record, but to the chumpy example, nobody would have given me five cents for the idea.

2:53:50Let's launch a hair oil in the country of hair oils, price it 950 rupees for 50 ml, and that you're going to do well. Imagine, in five years ago, when in the country of every hair oil you can possibly imagine, You're going to price it at 950 and sell it at 50 ml. And they were like, it's not going to work. Like, who are you to sell a hair oil? And just people accept it. They want that. They want it because they know it works. They believe in the quality. They like the packaging. They like the story. They just, they have the money. But the market is still mass. So what he's seeing, that the pie.

2:54:29Okay, so the biggest pie is still mass. But the fastest growing is the category you're saying. The baseline is very low. Yeah, but you guys have a lot more competition as well. In masks, there's so many… It's a crowded market as well. Depends. So, soap, yes. Shaving, not at all. Shaving, okay. I'll give you an example in my world, okay? There are 30 crore shavers in the country. 30 crore. 300 million people who shave. 15 crore of them use one rupee blades. 15 crore. Half the market uses one rupee blades. Seven to eight crore people go to barbershops. 5 crore people use disposable blades. 1 crore people use premium blades out of 30 crore.

2:55:123%. All of us will assume Mark III is like the biggest. It's a crown jewel brand globally. And Gillette is the best. I respect that company like crazy. Their inability to take someone buying a 1 rupee blade or a 20 rupee disposable to a 200 rupee Mark III is, they just can't do it. We are not premiumized. Look at Colgate. It's a 6 ,000 crore company. 50 % market share, the most successful penetration brand possible. 70 % of the business comes from 10 to 12 rupees toothpaste. And they have outstanding premium products. So you will have a perfora here. SensuDain is a good example. But the thing, Shantanu, is also that it's not just…

2:55:50As we said, that sector is small, but it's premiumization at every level. So now that 10 to 12 rupees will be 15 to 16 rupees. So I'm saying that is the trend, right? That… It's a lot difficult. It's a lot of difficult. It's the one to two rupees. It's the price. Net of inflation. So net of inflation. Okay. Large markets, every CEO, you hear Priya or Prabha or you know, Gauravad, everyone says we need to premiumize. Whether it's a Dettol or a Durex or a Co. Everyone wants to do it. I just feel like it's happening in pockets. It's not happening in a linear way. It's not happening homogeneously.

2:56:24It will take time like your core will still remain mass, but you will have a valorized product for that mass brand for the consumer. so you don't also lose the consumer, right? That's the thing that tastes are changing. So I want to keep that consumer in my brand. So I'll be like, okay, I also have to have something that I can upsell, otherwise it'll move to another brand. And I've lost my consumer. But tell me, in beauty, on mass level, which are the brands that have scaled above 1000 crores? Like me, is Mama. Mama Earth, would you put it in beauty or skincare? Beauty, no? Yeah. Mama Earth? Mama Earth has, you know, actually...

2:56:59What do you mean beauty, skincare? beauty is the higher one. Minimalist. The colour cosmetics or whatever. We need to teach these men. I think Lacmi is the biggest example of validising. You're talking about Masi, you're asking for premium brand, right? Which premium brand is true? I'm just saying, premium brands that have scaled to a large, like 500 crores. I think it's starting. I don't think a premium has hit 1000 yet. But I think in the years to come it will. I mean, MAC has taken time, but it's the number three colour cosmetic brand on the, you know, when you look at… Do you think they do 1000?

2:57:29a year. Is that premium or prestige? That's premium. Premium, for sure. Like I see, for example, So how big is that market, Shantanu? How big is the prestige market? How big is the premium market? I think Baw Chota. Like I feel it's still very small. The prestige market is 0.8 billion USD. In what? In what category? In beauty. In beauty. Yeah. And I think it's growing faster than we expect. I have a feeling it taps out. That's my issue. So it'll still be significantly small. because we live in that, we live in this world. But you know, I think with India, what we need to always look at is India's, like, consumers and as a country, I feel like it lives in many different centuries at the same time.

2:58:07Like, yes, the premium market is not as big, but I just think the middle class and the luxury consumer is growing at a very fast rate. It's not as big as mass, I agree. The pie there is way bigger, but I see it from my own brand. Like, if I look at my pricing, a couple of years ago, people would just find that very very expensive for an Indian brand. And it's working. So for example, to aid your argument I would say okay fine. Mercedes for example is a 25 ,000 crore company in India. It's four times the size of Colgate. But they just have to sell 25 ,000 cars. Yeah, that's true. It's 25 ,000 cars, 25 ,000 crore.

2:58:43If you have to sell a small volume, you can have a large premium luxury business. But in beauty I think it's a volume game also. I really really believe. I believe in the consumer. I think the consumer wants quality. I think the consumer wants good ingredients. And when you truly can give it, like Indywal wouldn't exist otherwise. Like they really do. Do you think to get to a thousand crores you don't have to compromise on price? You can do it at a 950 rupiah oil? Yeah. You'll get to a thousand crores? Yeah. I mean we also have the US luckily. No, in India. Oh, in India purely, eventually. I don't think in the next three years, but I think eventually, yes.

2:59:21it's also about how much if you can build a thousand crore brand if you're putting in like crazy amounts of money but to do it purely on organic building it on with an organic mindset and doing it sustainably will take time it's not easy to build a thousand crore which is a high volume prestige game that has happened in India the last five years I think minimalist came to us look at Forest Essential and Kama It's not about big, it's about them being able to capture market share in their market. They're not saying market is small. Yeah, of course the market is small. Today it's 4%.

3:00:04Today prestige is only 4 % of the beauty market. It'll be 10 % in the next three to four years. Even I made that huge mistake of launching very premium and then realizing that it'll remain a niche business. But no, I don't agree with your definition of premium. Premium is not one thing, right? What is premium to me may not be premium to him. Yes, there's a definition of premium on classification. By category, you can make out, no? Like Gadi, for example, 40 lakhs. In mass, you're still premiumizing in mass. You're still staying in mass. So that is what I'm talking about is the trend. Yes, that I agree.

3:00:38That's exactly what I'm saying. That your 10 to 12 rupee Colgate, you will maybe... You will create a product that is 10 rupees more expensive. You're not going to... But it's not. Look at the biscuits, chips, chips. Grammage has reduced prices ten bucks. I'm not saying it's happening, it is happening. That's where everyone is saying that as well, right? Everyone is saying that I have a huge question mark on it because of inequity. I just feel all the money gets concentrated in a small number of people. And then we fool ourselves into believing there's a consumption story. We're seeing it getting stagnated for the last three years now.

3:01:08But there is that new, like women entering the workforce. That is a new variable. And young women having that disposable income. We have the highest unemployment rate of women in the world. Our employment rate in women is reducing, not increasing. But where are you? I think you're always looking at it from the lens of... like tier 2, tier 3. And I think we're always looking at it from the lens of... tier 1 metro. I think that's the big difference. But even metro, how much of Bombay do you think is tier 1? In terms of income? Under five 100 % under five If you build a large business, you have to do it.

3:02:07It's the belly of the market. 100%. And what, according to you, is the definition of a large business? 1000 CR. So let's talk oils. Let's say Parachute is what? 4000 crores? The largest oil business. Yeah. In terms of beauty oils. If you want to get to 25 % of Parachute, your average order value will have to come from 950 to 400. In my view. In my view. But what would make it a successful business? If I hit 1000 CR, you'd be like, that's successful. No, no, that's totally up to you. You can totally say that, boss, I want to build a… Like Forest Essentials promoter will say they're the most successful business because they build a great brand and it is the scale at which it is.

3:02:45But I think, like, for example, if you want people to become entrepreneurs, you have to aim for the stars and then be okay to fall on the moon. So large markets with large outcome possibilities should be a starting point fairly, in my view. I just feel that the illusion of scale in large price points because it is aspirational is very high. Do you think ironically enough you need a larger capital pie to go after the mass market and a smaller one for the premium market? It is very expensive to go after the mass market. It is very expensive because we have 5 million retailers and it is capex heavy to go after 5 million retailers.

3:03:23And you'd rather go top down than bottom up? I think with quick commerce it will change a little. So earlier you could build a at 100 crores you'd say okay at 100 crores now a beauty or an apparel or a food F &B brand has to go into stores. Today that number is now 500. You can build a good 500 crore business, 80 % online, and some amount in modern trade, and still do well. Like we are 500 crore. Do you think the pathway would be to build a premium brand and then trickle down? Yes, to an extent, yes. Because you set aspiration, and then you can kind of sub-brand it out or make more product. That's how I feel.

3:03:54Like Mama Earth has done a good job with that. Right. But I just feel you have to do it. Or you acquire a brand, or you become more. Or you start a sub-brand, which is accessible. Because I think Humco, I've invested also in so many entrepreneurs who think big and then they just see the market just fall off a cliff. That universe becomes so limited. Additional customer acquisition becomes so expensive. Do we fear? A lot of what we're discussing today is what Indian brands can sell outside of India. Fair. That's a very different story. That's a very different story. And I think that's a fair point.

3:04:23I think that's how it should be. You know, we should inspire people to build brands not just for India but outside of India. Very Indian in nature brands. India has the ability to do it as well. We're the largest motorcycle seller in Africa. Bajaj has beaten Chinese motorcycle players. Scooters, three wheelers, all of that. But that's because the really large Western markets or Chinese markets are not two wheeler. Yes. Also true. So I think we've figured that out. I think for example, Indivy, huge opportunity in the US. Huge. Absolutely. With oils and like… And GCC as well. Yeah, UK as well. UK were already there.

3:05:04When we were told, when we started, we were like, I want to build a global brand from India, I have to have global appeal, blah, blah, blah. So one of my friends from Unilever, I told him, tell me some name options which is Indian in nature and has global appeal. He did some research and he came back after a few days and he was like, you have four options. Himalaya, Taj, Gandhi, Bombay. These are four words, which are Indian in nature and have global appeal. Himalaya and Taj were taken. Gandhi said it will be political, suicide. So Bombay is what you have to do and then we built out Bombay. So that was one of the first things we want to build a global business.

3:05:37Oh, you know, like Indivylde, for example, is something you came up with. But starting point was that. So a tier two is an opportunity. I know Purple is doing well there. Beyond metros. Yeah. Yeah. How does one hit that market? I think, for example, I think I really think you should just kind of go with marketplaces who are building out infrastructure. Do you find that tier two is going to purple not coming to Tira? No tier two is coming as well I think it's about as I said it is about premiumization at every lever we are we're really we I don't think that we are only speaking to the the metro audience what what I think what we wanted to create is a platform for for the Indian consumer of today right and that consumer is not just sitting in tier 1.

3:06:26They are sitting in tier 2 and tier 3. And in fact, there is at least 5x times headroom to grow in terms of acquisition and even premiumization. A huge amount of prestige sales come from tier 2 and tier 3 cities. So we should not assume that those consumers are buying value. They have the ability. They also have the wallet share to be able to spend on those things. So there is huge amount of untapped revenue acquisition all beyond metros. Because those consumers, there is aspiration at every level. As I said, there's aspiration and premiumization at every level. And there's so much untapped potential there.

3:07:13We should actually make the distinction between income India 1, India 2, India 3 and urban rural India 1, India 2, India 3. So tier 2 India, if you in fact look at the top 5 % households in a Ludhiana or a Nasik or a Coimbatore will probably have much higher disposable income than the top 5 % in a, let's say, Pune or Ahmedabad. Because the cost of living is so much lower, you end up saving and then you will want to have Tira. But I want to ask you, are you thinking quick? Like Blinket is now in 200 cities and they're like expanding. And in Tier 2, for example, the good part about Tier 2 India is you need only two Blinket stores to serve the whole city.

3:07:46I know a friend who's starting Quick Commerce specifically for beauty. Oh, Quick Commerce for X has now become... Yeah, quick commerce for fashion. Maapre, so much price. Quick commerce for this. Food. Fashion was crazy. Quick commerce for food? Yeah, five minutes. But that's Zomato. No, no. Zomato has bistro or whatever, cafe or whatever. You know what the offering is? Two minute cook time, eight minute delivery time. Two minutes is making food, eight minutes is making food. Who is cooking? Who is doing this cooking? Cloud Kitchen with like ready stuff. Yeah. A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewing Dara.

3:08:18The Uber CEO in the US. he had a very interesting take on this the American markets skipped quick commerce because they had big box retail and he said quick commerce can work in very densely populated societies but the distinction is how many people in that society are willing to pay a dollar two dollars, five dollars a day in perpetuity because the labor arbitrage comes in. If this building has, I don't know, 30 houses or 50 houses and we all use quick commerce a couple of times a day and we're spending a few thousand rupees, at some point it gets to the point where people start thinking, okay, a few thousand rupees a day is a few lakh rupees a month.

3:09:12Should we hire five boys who will not only go and bring the grocery, but they also do errands at home? it works in high cost of labor societies somehow. In India, I don't know. I don't know what the TAM is. I don't think it's much more than 50, 60 million people. That's a large TAM. But not more. Micro people are a large TAM. Well, these companies have 2 lakh, 3 lakh row market caps. So TAM is reciprocal of that, right? I don't know. It's a tough question. I've never bought. All of them are my friends, but I've never bought from quick commerce? I've never invested in a quick commerce thing. Which you have ordered.

3:09:53Yeah. It's now becoming a feature. So for example, Nika is now doing some two-hour delivery in Bombay and Bangalore. For D2C brands, there are now companies that do quick commerce. They'll say, for these pin codes, we'll deliver in six hours. We'll have a... But I'll tell you, this is again labor arbitrage. Uber does this exact same thing where their riders are not employees. They can't have unions. they don't get pensions and medical and this, that and the other. When seven, eight players come into the foray and they start unionizing and they start asking for benefits, at some point that cost to convenience math will get skewed and not for the better.

3:10:36That's what happened with Uber and Ola also in India, no? Yeah. The market tapped out very quickly. Yeah. And then all that supply of cars became problematic. Rapido is like the upcoming thing. From Bangalore. Bombay? Only use Rapido now. Yeah? Only Rapido. Burgaon, Bombay, Bangalore. Only Rapido. Pradeep will kill me for saying this. But yeah. Uber is too expensive. Who's Pradeep? Pradeep was Asia head for Uber. Is now working in Dara's team. I think on their enterprise. He's one of my investors.

3:11:11Ayurveda. Ayurveda was a novelty a few years ago. Is it still? I don't think it's a novelty. I think as she said, it's about... In the pre-actives era. Right now, it's all actives, right? Now it's about how do you... If you can take Ayurveda and... Hybrid. And actives and put it together and, you know, get the benefit of, as you said, the natural, the holistic, the... So in beauty, I think there's always been two lanes. There's people who like clean, which is all natural, herbal, la, la, la, la. And then there's clinical, which is the dermats, the actives, da, da, da. And I think there's a new trend or phase that's coming up where it's clinical.

3:11:56So it's the clean and the clinical, a.k.a. hybrid. And I think Ayurveda is having that phase now. So I think the brands like Kama, Forest, that are pure Ayurveda are there. But I think it's a different demographic that they serve. And I think brands like IndieWild, which are clinical, Ayurvedistry is the term we coined, like Ayurveda meets chemistry. Is that how you would describe IndieWild? Yeah, that's the main, I think, bucket is that we formulate and we kind of do everything under Ayurvedistry, which even is that friction point I was talking about earlier where the consumer is Ayurvedistry.

3:12:32You can have food, that's Ayurvedistry, which basically just means fusion of Ayurveda and the chemistry or the science-backed things. And I think that is easily acceptable to the new consumer. Did you just raise a round? Did, yeah. Who was the investor, Unilever? They led it, but we had two more. Ventures or Unilever from the balance sheet? No, ventures. In India? No, in the global office. How large was the round? We raised five. Million? Yeah. At like a... Aadhaar. 4x 5x ish yeah and you're selling 8 to 10 no 12 million now this year we're gonna hit 12 in net yeah the company really has grown a lot in the last 12 months thanks to India is just exploding for us exploding like US is doing really well but we're only on .com in the US at this point UK we're.com and Sephora but Sephora is tiny there.

3:13:39It's seven stores. And India is just, like, it's the retail side. It's our dot-com side. It's just really, yeah. How much is direct to customer? I'd say we still do 40 % direct and 60 % is between all our retailers. But changing. Retail is taking the pie, like, every month more.

3:14:07would you be open to someone coming in and getting equity in your company like significant do you mean you me or anyone watching this i mean right now i don't think we're fundraising but i think we'll probably do series a next year but right now we're we're good yeah but yes always come meet me have coffee that's always welcome for that we know sometimes with these things it's before you get into a marriage you need to court so we're always happy to have coffee yeah interesting your story after McKinsey we didn't get there how did you get to hear from there I think I was a part of the cohort of branding there was a lot of infrastructural things happening in India at that time right we had Jio and Airtel and Xiaomi and iPhones and Samsung putting phones and internet in people's hands.

3:15:01Amazon, Flipkart, Facebook, Google giving us ability to market products and store them. And we had a consumer base that was truly changing because of Virat and Ranveer at that time with beards and expression, right? So masculine trends were really taking off in terms of styling. And hair removal was going from cheek to chin and ankle to thigh waxing and cheek to chin shaving to like whole body hair removal. So there was infrastructure, there was distribution, and then there was consumer which was changing. So for us, I think there's a whole host of brands. So Boat, Mama Earth, Plum, Bombay Shaving Company, all of us was a part of that 10-year-opie.

3:15:40Now all 10, 12, 8-year-old businesses today. Thank you so much. This is like protein powder and yogurt. You're really spoiling us. Everything has been so delicious. It's really clean food. Thank you so much. Really, really delicious. Pragati is cooking and she's really good. This has creatine, protein powder, dark chocolate, plus some nuts. You're really in your longevity journey. Trying. I like that. Is there magnesium in it? No. So we started the premium shaving business. We thought that we can build a good shaving brand. It became very niche. Went into men's grooming. And then after COVID, we realized that hair removal is a big place.

3:16:19We went into trimmers. We went into women with our brand Bombay. And today we are now 500 crores. net profitable EBITDA and PAT both I love that we speak in net yeah cash positive over the last 3-4 months cash balances are going up good investor base and 170-180 people with 99 % of our business in India which is something we want to change now we do believe that there is a brand pull that is significant outside the country for us especially amongst Indian consumers so we are very focused that if we are in the universe which removes hair off your body in that 10 minutes when you go into the bathroom, brush your teeth, take a shave, use the loo, take a shower, come out, put on a fragrance, after shave and leave.

3:17:02In that 10-15 minutes, we want to be a big part of your life. And that's the brand. And that's what we do. It's very simple. We don't do rocket science. We're an unremarkable company that way. But we do the small thing very well. But it's crazy scale, so it's super impressive. Yeah. To give you a sense, in COVID, 2021, so we will do more EBITDA this year than the revenue in 2021.

3:17:28So, that's the five year journey. First five years was struggle and discovery, next five years have been good scale. But still 500 crores is nothing. I don't think it's a large scale business yet. Gillette is 2500 crores. Philips Trimmers is 1000 crores. But can you take a second and believe that you've built it from ground up? So, I think that is something that's commendable. You know, for sure. I think… And a sustainable, you know, profitable business is what… Everybody wants. I'm very proud of what the team has done. I think the brand is very good. I genuinely feel like we are a brand that…

3:18:04People will think that we are premium when they see our logo or when they see our product. But when they see the price, they go, this is pretty cheap. Like, you know, you'll get like a 20 rupees raise up. So our brand goes from one rupee blades to 7 ,000 rupee trimmers. The width is pretty large. One rupee blades? We sell the one rupee plate which you sharpen your pencil with in school. Wow. Yeah, it's called Sharp Max. Bombay Shaving Company, Sharp Max. Pack of 100 rupees. Yeah. Which barbers use and so on. And who's your average customer? So we've realised over a period of time, for men, we've realised that…

3:18:37We started with older consumers. But we realised that taking sharp metal to your face. So if you've used Gillette for a long time, it's unlikely you're going to change. So, men are hard to engage, easy to please. Women are easy to engage, hard to please. The fundamental difference in consumption. So, we realized that… All of life is like that. It's too difficult… I'm stealing that. It's too difficult to… Women are easy to engage, but then the product has to be really good. With men, you put a good shaving foam, does the job, they're happy, they keep repeating, right? So, then we realized the idea is actually to get in early.

3:19:12So, when you're going to shave for the first time, or you're going to trim, you're 15 years old, You have a small moustache, sideburns, you want to take it off. That's when… Our brand has become a lot younger for 16, 17-year-old. How do you find them? So we do a lot. So Instagram and social for young consumers. We do a lot of college activations. Like very Red Bull approach to like… We run the barbershop for young people. Very young, DG. Very. If you shave first, you… So the first product a man would buy… In our age group, or all of our age group, would probably be a 25-Rupee razor at the age of 18.

3:19:48How old are all of us? I'm 37. 34. 35. 38. The oldest. So in all of our age groups, the first product a man would buy would be a 25-Rupee razor at the age of 18. The first product a boy is buying is a 500-Rupee trimmer at the age of 14. And Gillette is not in trimmers. So we have a four-year runway before they can get into Bombay. So we have 15 % market share in trimmers all India. We sell 7 ,000 trimmers a day. 7 ,000 trimmers a day all in India. At a thousand rupee price point. That's why the price point becomes so important for me. Like, you know, if I can premiumize. So, the idea is, you come with me.

3:20:25When you buy your first razor, at least you've used a trimmer for some four years. You'll choose Bombay Sharing Company. But if you're 25, 27, 28, you've used Gillette for 10 years, you're used to it, there's no way of changing. There's no way. It's too good a product. Gillette's too good.

3:20:42so that's the idea thank you I don't want chocolate all of them sorry thank you you guys are serving us the wrong food for the podcast yeah yum though right yeah but noodles and chocolate it's like slurping the noodle up but yeah and we are still like we we did the whole GT thing by the way We went into offline stores. Boss, you need to really be prepared for this stuff. And we have Colgate, Palmolive and Reket Bankies are two successful global offline businesses as investors who taught us how to do it. Wow, good. But until the brand pull is there, assortment sharpness is there and pricing is right, anyone watching this, general trade, just be super careful.

3:21:28Start in a small city, around a dark store that's doing well. If you try one in the shop, then only you can take it. But yeah, that's where we are. Okay, last part of today. We need step two. Now Dilip has figured out his fragrance brand. Back to Dilip. That story was not finished. I think we should, four of us should create this fragrance brand. Oh my god, it would be so good. Yeah, it would be fun. Okay, Dilip fragrance or Deepa's, I don't know. Keepa has started a new kind of hair oil. or somebody started a marketplace or some new men's grooming product has started. What do they do next? The idea is here.

3:22:17I know what to make. How do I make it? Who do I go to? Co-packer? How do I sort out manufacturing? It's just the idea phase. Idea phase we have crossed now. Okay. Where is Dilip's idea? It's on paper. Yeah. 25 years old. he's going to promote it as not about the bottle. The name of the company is Temple. He's going to try and get Frag Heads community going. Think of flavors like Old Spice plus Agarwatti. Vanilla plus some camphor, Temple, something. Stuff like that. Solid. So he's gotten that far. Okay. And now he needs to go out and manufacture the product. Where does he go? uh trade shows like there's a huge one in italy that happens every year i'm in bologna called cosmoprof there's also cosmoprof in india now um every country has their own like these manufacturer hubs they come from all over the world and you can go there walk around for two three days talk to every manufacturer about everything and you'll also meet package packaging you know packaging experts you'll meet uh contract manufacturers will be like, okay, this is your idea.

3:23:34We'll do everything for you end to end. Sometimes they even get into branding. So they'll be like, we'll brand it for you. Tell us your idea. We'll do end to end for you. And they will touch me if I have the demand for 100 pieces? Few, not all. I think few manufacturers will have a low MOQs. So then you can be like, only 1 ,000 I want. Or they'll be like, no, our minimum is 10 ,000. but for a thousand, they'll do it more expensive per unit. And generally, like if you're doing, there's open molds and custom molds. So if you're doing smaller quantities, it's very expensive to make a custom mold.

3:24:16So you want a particular shape. So generally, a lot of young, and we discuss is that it's not about the bottle anymore. So how do you kind of, a lot of brands use generic bottles, even like bigger brands, because it is expensive and you can't get a huge amount of MOQs, you know, say 10 ,000 or 20 ,000 for that one SKU and then change the mold. So generically, all of this advice you will get from your contract manufacturer and packaging. The good part about India is because all the contract manufacturing is written on the back of pack. Yeah. That's crazy, guys. I find that so crazy. You'll know every manufacturer within like a day.

3:24:53Yeah, a day. And then you can just go and talk to them because... And I think with fragrances particularly, I think MOQs are like really low. That's a really crazy hack that you're giving everyone. But it's insane. You can literally find out people's manufacturers. Yeah, you know exactly. Actually, that's easy. If I like a good product, I can just call you. Write a sharp brief and get an 80 % answer within a week. Yeah, but they should have NDAs and like contracts in place that they don't give the formula away. Yeah. They'll tweak it a little bit. Yeah. Is there something like patenting my perfume?

3:25:23No. not patent in perfume unless like the odor technology whatever we're talking about that you could probably patent but just purely the notes no you can't patent that keep it a secret so many dupes like the dupe market is a whole different market it's insane yeah insane and people are like people use dupes and they say that they use dupe and there's a whole community about telling you which is the best dupe by dupe you don't mean like a Chanel it's called Chanel No, it's a duplicate. It's a Bella Vida. He says this is Chanel No. 5. Yeah. There are two of them. And you can even tell the manufacturer that I want to create this, make it 60 % closer to this.

3:26:04It's very easy to make anything that is water or gas based, broadly. And as you said, everything is inspired. So something has been inspired from someone. So it's all... circular. What you can also do is benchmark a fragrance you like. be like make it like this but give me more oud or give me more increase or d or give me more spice or something and then the manufacturer can like at least use it as a baseline so you're not full copy copying but um but it's a bit but that's that's the reason innovation is so rare in our industry and that's why um you know companies like l 'oreal estee lauder they win and they have products whose formulations don't change over 15 to 20 years.

3:26:48It's because there's hard-coded time and energy spent on research and development, innovation, and technology that comes together to kind of create a product that surpasses it, right? Whatever you do, you will not be able to create that. And I think that you can't take that away. So I think when you want to create something clutter breaking it's either a great storytelling or you know an idea like minimalist or solid product that is that is innovation led L 'Oreal is so good at just innovation like out of this world yeah but they also keep buying over like biotech companies and stuff to constantly keep that innovation wheelhouse going but that's why brands that are smaller like us we need to go find that innovation in a Korea or in a Japan and then take our Indian ingredients and mix it to bring that proprietary kind of something to the formula, you know, that either makes the delivery of the niacinamide deeper into your skin with things like exosomes and stuff that like deliver the ingredient better.

3:27:51So you're like, yes, it's still niacinamide, but our serum is going to deliver it to you stronger. Or you do it based on ingredients or you do it based on the texture itself. Like it's the most unique sunscreen texture you've ever felt because in the humidity it just melts in your skin. So there's something that I think as a brand you have to give your customer that's then different than every other kind of cookie cutter. The greatest story in this world was actually Darshan Bhai in 2010-11. When he said that my perfume lasts longer, we don't need this whole aerosol technology. Let's put water and gas, give it in a can and we call it deodorant.

3:28:26And Fogg is a thousand crore business built off of great marketing and a product that lasts long. Fogg, F-O-G-G. The deodorant brand. Axe was 40 % market share. Fogg came in within 4 years, they were 25 % market share. HL brand is losing market share quarter on quarter on quarter. Insane. She's like, one thing would be known for it. Hero product. And the same applies for my NICU's... Skincare morning night supplement business. Trade shows. I think trade shows is a great start for you to be able to... meet, see everyone, brands, manufacturers, build a network. Which is the next trade show? Maybe we'll throw it up.

3:29:08Where? In India? Yeah. I think India only Cosmoprof happens. Yeah, there's Cosmoprof that happens in India, but there's Cosmoprof that happens in Vegas, there's Cosmoprof that happens in Italy. Those are the biggest ones. But like US, Korea and stuff have many. Many. Go to Canton also. Canton is a great place to go. Canton? Oh, for packaging. Yeah, no, in general, for everything. You want to build trimmers, packaging, manufacturing. everything Canton is like the world Korea has through the year they have many conventions and trade festivals and it's a great start particularly if you don't know anyone in the industry it's great to go build that contact network and also there will be smaller manufacturers who you will want to work with who will be able to suit to your scale and help you innovate and take that time and then move to once you've got it okay this is what I'm going to do because indeed as a small brand it can be a lot harder to go to a really big manufacturer that builds for the biggest brands because they're like sorry but no you don't have scale but one that's starting up themselves then i think that would be a good fit yeah okay last word guys any advice to somebody starting tomorrow um i think mine would be definitely identify your white space have a hero product strategy and really i think there's there's this think about like perfection right you want to get everything right I think keep keep building that momentum and getting out there and it's not about beauty it's just about really keep on going and it's about progress not perfection so I think that is something that really that I keep telling myself that okay what's the next move so be agile and that'll really help you because you're you can adapt so I think for me that's that that's what I would tell anyone that yeah in beauty definitely the white space storytelling and Hero product are three things and community to kind of build your brand.

3:31:04And we'll put out Bhakti's email so people can reach out. People find me and email me. That I think is already happening. But you might have a great funnel of good ideas. Absolutely.

3:31:19Mine would be remember your why. I think through tough times and good times that'll keep you going. And as a brand, especially when you're building, it's very much for the community and for it to mean something. And then secondly, I would say build a winning team. I think you as one person can do so much, but having an incredible team around you. Marry them. Huh? Marry them. That helps. That's a big one. Marry them. It can't be easy to work with your husband. I know people say that, We're one of those crazy couples that is, and Bhakti's witnessed it live, but we're so happy to be with each other all the time that even if we, like, are away for 24 hours, we're like, oh, I miss you.

3:32:07But I think from a business perspective, we have very complementary skill sets. Like, he was an ex-diplomat, and he's really a kind of people's collaborative leader, and I'm much more like the solo vision kind of leader, and I'm much more marketing and storytelling and it's all in here and I need to bring it out. And he's so much more about, you know, and it's just really complimentary. Like, I think without him, Indeewald wouldn't exist. So, yeah, very grateful to work with him. But also the team that we build together is so important. Where is the team based? In Bombay. Our HQ is Lower Perel.

3:32:44Lovely. Come by. I would love to. I would love to.

3:32:50I think, like, it's... For me, I think the most important thing for entrepreneurs is that this will be a decades-long gig. It's not going to be a small one. You've experienced it yourself. And if you look at… Mukesh had actually told me this from Myntra. He said, very interesting thing. He said, look at companies that have lasted 20 years. You'll see 93 % of their market value is created in the second decade. Only 7 % in the first. See, companies that have lasted three decades. Almost 80 % is in the third decade. 15 or 17 in the second and only 3 or 4 in the first. So in today's world of instant gratification…

3:33:28Do that many companies last three decades anymore? Amazon. He was giving me examples of Amazon and Meta. And in India, I think like… Is Meta three decades old already? No, no. Google is three decades. Meta is probably two decades. I think a lot of companies die in like 8-10 years. But the thing is, in a world of instant gratification and wanting to tell the story of your startup before the startup is even there. Because we're building communities and we're on Instagram and we want our friends to know we're entrepreneurs and blah, blah, blah. At the first sign of failure, I'm noticing this with like a cohort of companies we invested in 21-22.

3:34:04They suddenly found us like, three years, something's happening. What do we do? Not worth it. I'm through grit. Yeah. So I think patience and knowing that this is, There's opportunity cost and there is a very long zone of frustration for most good companies, even the most successful ones. So just go through it. But don't become a zombie company where you're doing something which is totally not worth it and there just because you're surviving. So don't do that. But going and know that this will take 20 years at the very least to see the first signs of something meaningful. One life cycle that Prasanthi is here, you'll know.

3:34:41Everyone's promises eight year life cycle is 13, 14 years. India is a country where you need 15, 20 years to find something meaningful. We run all perpetual funds. We run all perpetual funds. No fund life. What's your takeaway from spending three hours with us on beauty? Four hours. Four hours. Wow. A, if there is a Dilip listening, that idea is yours. You can have it on the fragrance. Unless we do it first. Unless they do it first. Yeah. But… I think tomorrow we will care a lot more for how we look as a means of getting validation so anything that aids that will likely grow both in the mass and the premium segment I think the affluent will probably adapt faster so the premium will go significantly faster than mass so it feels like a good category to be in.

3:35:44And as an investor, strangely enough, there aren't enough listed Indian players which allow you allocation into this category. So lots of room and potential for someone to build here. Beauty, for example, so many new companies. I see Foxtail and DU and Deconstruct and Pilgrim. Large scale businesses now. Look at Minimalist. They were like three, four years totally. Yeah, I think four, five. yeah wild crazy very well done done thank you guys thank you so much thank you so much so nice to meet both of you as well four hours weren't like 30 minutes I just went by super fast when you're having fun and eating yummy food thank you so much for bringing all of us together yeah yeah