Siddhartha Ahluwalia 01:29

Hi, this is Siddhartha Ahluwalia, your host at Neon Show and co-founder of Neon Fund, a B2B SaaS fund that invests in the most enterprising software companies built from India for the globe. Today I have with me Vipul Parekh, co-founder of BigBasket, one of the most trusted and scaled grocers in India who started the trend of online grocery. Vipul, welcome to the Neon Show.

Vipul Parekh 01:56

My pleasure, Siddhartha. Thank you for having me.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 01:57

Vipul, you have delivered online groceries for almost 25 years now.

Vipul Parekh 02:03

I’m a dyed-in-the-wool sabjiwala now. I don’t think I can call myself an MBA graduate or you know a business person anymore. I’m a sabjiwala.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 02:12

You are one of the most qualified sabjiwala of the country.

Vipul Parekh 02:15

Exactly.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 02:17

And you know, you built a Fabmall which got sold to Aditya Birla in 2007 and rebranded to More as we know it and More got acquired by Amazon.

Vipul Parekh 02:25

Yes.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 02:25

And you started again in 2011, but this time with a bang. Right. You were the largest series A of your time. Right.

Right, when BigBasket started and you pioneered the concept called dark stores along with many other innovations.

Vipul Parekh 02:40

Right.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 02:40

So, how do you feel about this journey?

Vipul Parekh 02:43

Oh, it’s been a very educative journey and I think we have learned a lot, have been taught a lot by the market and by competitors and by the ecosystem and investors. But if I were to look back and look at this 13 years that we have spent building BigBasket, I wouldn’t exchange it for anything in the world. It’s just been fabulous.

One thing I believe is that, you know, I used to wonder when I used to work with Wipro and other companies before that, that you know, should I actually continue working in a corporate role for the rest of my life? Should I become an entrepreneur? And then when I took the plunge and the first few years, I sort of kept asking myself, did I do the right thing?

Was this really stupid thing to do? This was still early days. You didn’t have as many startups as you had today.

But I think after about 2-3 years, I realized, I said, I don’t think I can ever go back to working for a corporate group or a full-time job. I would rather be on my own. Doesn’t matter what the outcome may be. And we were still long ways away from any, let me say, discernible, profitable outcome.

And we said, you know, but the journey was itself just fabulous. It’s just been amazing building out BigBasket.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 03:50

And 2019, I saw one of the interviews that you gave with Brand Capital in preparation of this podcast, right? You mentioned at that point of time, your prediction that there will be 4 large online grocers in India, BigBasket, Amazon, Jio, and I think one more other, I don’t remember the name. I think in 5 years, the landscape has completely changed.

Vipul Parekh 04:13

Completely. And I was completely wrong. And this is not the first time I’ve been wrong.

So when we started in 99, we thought online retail would become very big, very early. And when I look back now, I said, we must be, I don’t know what we’re drinking. But it was something which really just warped our sense of imagination.

And, and it took us a lot. I mean, it took almost 10 years for the online market to really take off. And when I look back now, 3-4 years back, and we said, you know, quick commerce was still very, very early. And said, will it really become large?

And we felt it had a space in India. We had experimented with something like that almost about 5-6 years back, but not much, you know, traction. And when this happened, I mean, the landscape has changed completely. And I’m happy to be proven wrong.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 04:54

So you would have given it a lot of thought, right? How the last 3-4 years have changed the online grocery delivery in India. So what do you think goes behind it? What has changed fundamentally in consumer behavior?

Vipul Parekh 05:09

I think we underestimated, you know, how stratified our Indian market is.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 05:16

What do you mean by that?

Vipul Parekh 05:17

So, you know, most people don’t look at it from that perspective.

So let me explain that. See, we are, and when I talk to investors, and especially to foreign investors, the way I explain that is, so we have a European country sitting on top of India. And then we have a, you know, ASEAN country below that.

And then we have a sub-Saharan Africa. And these are really 3 countries within India. And we were operating in Europe, right?

And so therefore, what we didn’t realize is that this Europe is really doesn’t care about prices, doesn’t care about, you know, what the premium you’re paying. They lead a European life. And they may be cloistered in their own gated communities in India.

But their aspirations are international, their travels are international, their consumption is international, they consume similar brands. In fact, most brands in India find their footing there. So this top 30 million market of India, which is 30 million households, which most people call India one or whatever you want to call it, is very, very international.

And this is not a value-based market. Grocery, if you look at it, the popular definition is grocery is value-based. People look at prices and buy.

But that’s a, I mean, for the entire subsubstance of the market. But this is not for this cohort, it doesn’t matter. They’re willing to pay whatever is required to get convenience.

And I think that is what has played out. What has changed from a customer, there’s nothing that has changed. It’s just that a customer got a service which they loved.

And what is that not to love as a customer? I mean, I love it. My wife has moved to online grocery, I mean, to quick commerce completely.

And you get in 10 minutes what you need to order. You don’t need to plan, you don’t need to stock, you need, you run out of something, you don’t need to run to your kirana store and do all that. So it’s just really a huge convenience.

And so people adopt this service brilliantly. So that’s from a customer side. Interestingly, what also happened, and which I think colored a lot of our opinions in retrospect, was that this model didn’t work anywhere else.

So why did it work in India? From a customer perspective, yes, it’ll work anywhere else. You give it in 10 minutes, every customer in the world will buy.

But why weren’t people able to deliver this anywhere else? And I think there is a unique conjunction of three factors that happened in India, which is different from the rest of the world. One is obviously, we have very high density, right?

Only China has this kind of density. And why is density important? Because you can get a very large revenue from a one kilometer, one and a half kilometer kind of radius, which you can’t do in other places in the world.

Because that is important. Otherwise, you can’t amortize your fixed costs or you can’t deliver fast enough. How can you deliver in 10 minutes?

If the guy is 10 kilometers away, there’s no way in Indian traffic you’re reaching him ever, not even in a couple of hours. So I think that becomes important. So density was one key thing.

The second thing was the kind of retail store density or retail store penetration. So look at number of grocery stores. I’ll give you an example.

I was setting up new stores for us when we were doing a physical retail business way back in 1999-2000. And the number of grocery stores that were there in Indiranagar, I think we have lesser number of stores today in Indiranagar than then.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 08:16

Wow. That’s amazing fact.

Vipul Parekh 08:17

Yeah, it’s actually, I mean, I can count because I know the names that were there, I can count the names. And these I’m talking about supermarkets, not Kirana stores, supermarkets. And supermarkets have actually disappeared in India or disappearing.

And the reason for that is very high retail rents. And therefore, and your catchment is again, only one and a half two kilometers, people can’t travel more. So every year, your rent goes up by 10%.

And your manpower costs go up by 10%. And sales don’t increase. Because that many people don’t, people don’t start buying more food just because it’s the next year.

So they completely go out of business. So the funny thing that happened in India was, as stores became older, they became more unprofitable instead of becoming profitable, which is the reverse which happens everywhere else in the world. Because you amortize your cost, stores become more profitable.

In India, they become more unprofitable, particularly in grocery. So that’s the second phenomenon. Your retail store density in India is very, very low.

And that coupled with the fact that your overall population density is very high makes for a very fertile market. And the third factor which contributed is that we have the lowest manpower costs anywhere in the world. I mean, China is 3x more expensive, right in terms of cost per delivery, which is why quick commerce doesn’t work even in China.

Because cost per delivery, finally, this is always going to be low order value, right? If your order value is going to be $10, $5, $3, how are you going to make money unless you know, delivery cost is really low. And I think that delivery cost, which is low, which results in lower dark store operation costs makes it work.

So I think this combination of people factor, customers love the service, and the fact that all the, you know, economic factors worked well, that’s what has really transpired to make this a very potent model. And which is why people poured money into it, it scaled very rapidly. And it’s happened over the last two years.

It’s not been, you know, some 20 years in the making. So that’s the amazing part of it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 10:04

I think it would have taken the, all the grocers by surprise.

Vipul Parekh 10:08

It has taken everybody by surprise, including the incumbents or the people who are sitting there like us. I think it’s taken everybody by surprise.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 10:17

Wow. And people initially said that this model will never be profitable. But you said Blinkit today contributes to almost $15 billion of Zomato’s net worth.

Vipul Parekh 10:29

That is valuation.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 10:29

That’s valuation. But overall, it’s a profitable company in itself.

Vipul Parekh 10:31

Yeah, it is contribution margin positive, right? Like we are. I think the important thing to hear is that profitability is going to be a little stretched.

It’s not going to be easy to come in this business, right? And I think there are multiple things which need to still come together, which have not yet come together for it to really work. Remember that finally, the way the math works is, I mean, how is the retail store profitable?

Let me give you that analogy. Every store has to become profitable, or at least majority of the stores have to be profitable to cover all the costs of your other stores which are unprofitable. The same is true for dark stores, right?

Now, how does a dark store become profitable? A dark store becomes profitable when you get a significant share of revenue on the dark store from your catchment area, right? And your costs are therefore covered.

Now, beyond a point, you have a catchment area. Retail store also has a catchment area. Beyond that, you’re delivering one and a half kilometers, one kilometer, because you’re delivering 10 minutes.

Beyond that, customers are not going to come. So there is a finite limit to revenue that you can get out of it. Now, the only way to extract more revenue is to either get more market share or to get more categories so that you get higher wallet share.

So I think the market share part of it has now, at least in the most popular areas, is sort of stabilized. Everybody’s got their market share. Market share movements are going to be very hard to come by.

But I think there is still a lot of scope in terms of what new categories can be added on. And I think that people are still discovering what people will buy. What will they buy along with their, you know, bhaji and sabji and, you know, dal, chawal is something which, while there is a lot of noise about it, I think there’s still, I think the jury is out in terms of what categories will work, work consistently and will also deliver higher revenue. So I think if that works, then I think this model will be really profitable.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 12:12

I’ll take an example. I just returned from US and I have a five-year-old son. So he expects a gift every time I come back.

Right. So, so this time I couldn’t take anything. So what I usually do is order on e-commerce and it will be delivered in one, two days. So what I did this time is ..

Vipul Parekh 12:29

Yeah, you get on quick commerce, it comes in one hour.

And that’s the, so which, so think of it this way now, you would never have expected toys to be delivered in, right? And more importantly, even if you to go and buy, you start wondering where is the toy store? How do I go?

Will I have parking? I don’t know what to buy. It’s so much harder.

So this makes it much easier. So toys, for example, but again, how often are you going to buy toys? How much of your toy budget is going to be there?

And you need a large assortment to buy from. So will it only be for these kinds of occasions, which is an emergency or a return gift? And therefore, what kind of value will you derive from the category?

So I think these are the things that all of us are grappling with. It’s not that anybody’s found the perfect mix, but I think people will, we will all discover which categories are intuitively closer to grocery and can be sold through quick commerce.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 13:14

Yeah. And in case of BigBasket, the fastest delivery that you came to is 30 minutes, right? Or you also came into 10 minute delivery.

Vipul Parekh 13:22

We’ve been 10 for a long time now.

Vipul Parekh 13:24

We’ve been 10 minutes for a very long time.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 13:25

But how much of this 10 minute delivery market share would BigBasket have today?

Vipul Parekh 13:30

We would have about 10 to 12 percent market share.

Vipul Parekh 13:32

And, but it’s climbing month on month. I think we are gaining share, but we also have a large slotted delivery business, right? So if you put that together, we are still a potent competitor.

I think what, where we are heading is that we will actually essentially just transform into a completely a quick commerce company. You’re not going to have two businesses like we have today, because I think the writing is on the wall. Let’s face it.

It’s been on the wall for a long time. And then we took a call quite some time back saying we’ll be a single quick commerce company. Because quick commerce is, the only challenge is, quick commerce is not just grocery.

We’ve been traditionally a grocery company, right? And grocery and contiguous categories, take general merchandise, take Beauty, take Meat, all of those.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 14:09

Electronics, some part of that.

Vipul Parekh 14:10

Some, maybe some part of electronics. But quick commerce is really transitioning to becoming horizontal commerce, with high frequency categories as the lead player. So that gets the customer in, grocery gets the customer in, then you sell everything else.

Unlike Amazon, where you have everything, so you come there. So I think the, what categories will sell, how it will sell is something that we will all discover. But we will transition to this pretty soon. I mean, we are almost there. We should be completing the transition.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 14:35

So you’re saying that beyond groceries also BigBasket will enter?

Vipul Parekh 14:38

We will, we will do multiple categories. And we have a natural advantage there, or natural, you know, capability as a Tata group to play on it. Because a lot of the core capabilities in different assortments lie with Tata’s.

I mean, take electronics, for example, Chroma is the largest retail consumer electronics company. You take jewellery, Titan, or fashion, you know, Westside, Tanishq, you have TataClique, you have all those. So there are multiple categories where they have a very dominant presence.

And so therefore, more than, you know, I mean, buying relationship, understanding how the category works and how to, you know, which products to take a bet on, how do you sell it? How do you position it? How do you price it?

I think that will work very well. And those learnings we can extract very quickly. I think that’s the advantage we have. So we will get cross category. We’ll be into Pharma, for example.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 15:31

Pharma, you already have 1MG as a Tata group.

Vipul Parekh 15:35

Yeah. Yeah. And so you think. And so therefore, a primary service will be a 10-minute service.

Okay.Nothing else. And if you want slotted, it’s your choice. So today, for example, we offer slotted as a separate option where you take a separate path to get into slotted, but we’ll remove that.

It’ll just become a single listing. Default is 10 minutes. If you want to take it one hour later, your choice.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 15:54

But you’re thinking that also like the original BigBasket proposition was get delivery the next day with better prices. Right. Do you still have the better prices advantage?

Vipul Parekh 16:04

Yeah, we will have, we’ll have, and we’re thinking through some innovative ways to do it. And I, at this point in time, since we’ve not launched it, I can’t exactly tell you, but we’ll continue to… see one of our core propositions always been that, you know, provide more value that people do monthly buying or stocking. And so I think we want to continue to build that even in this model.

So we’re thinking through which is the best way to do this and how do we, because think of it this way in a quick commerce, this thing, you’re running fast. You don’t want to spend time trying to figure out coupon, this that, 5% will be more or not, that, but when you’re buying for the month, the housewife is buying for the month. She’s thinking through building a long list.

She’s buying multiple things. The bill value is a large, and there you’re really worried about is the price, right? And today, a typical basket today, what happens to people who buy only on quick commerce is get split between quick commerce and part of it goes to the physical store.

And a lot of it may just end up in quick commerce, but it goes to the physical store because you may not have the entire assortment or you don’t have the pricing. You want to buy a large amount, you will go to physical store. So I think that is what is happening. We want to see if we can cover that too.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 17:05

Yeah. I’ll tell you how our behavior has changed. So today, now our cook tells us in the morning when he or she, what do you need and tells me, you order that, order that.

Vipul Parekh 17:15

Exactly. So a lot of households have moved there. So, I mean, in this 30 million, I wouldn’t be surprised if most people would move to a 80, 90% quick commerce, right?

Because this is the country which doesn’t really care. I mean, you are a European living in India, you know, you have such a big arbitrage on your time. Why would you spend time trying to do something which is unproductive or is very expensive for you? From that perspective, right? So you wouldn’t do it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 17:41

So a BigBasket has been able to transition, right? I think the earlier model was x day slot, then it was next day slot, it was then same day slot and this is now 10 minute delivery. I think the market is so dynamic and this is one category in India.

Why is this category only so dynamic that let’s say a 21 year old can come two years earlier and disrupt the entire category?

Vipul Parekh 18:08

No, I think see the 21 year old did not disrupt the category. The category disruption happened somewhere else, right? 10 minute delivery.

I remember speaking to Getir founder before even Zepto had launched and I was talking to him because they were doing these experiments in London where they were servicing our dark stores and I was trying to understand what they were doing and they said very high gross margins and 35-40% gross margin. I said 35-40% gross margin, nobody has seen that in India, right? And I said not in grocery or anywhere else in the world and he said we carry only this and we have only 1000 SKUs and we deliver on bikes and so therefore the opportunity has been around for some time, right?

I mean, so it’s not that, I think the fact was that a lot of the, whether it’s Blinkit who made the transition and saw the opportunity, made the transition very quickly and committed to it, whether it’s Instamart who saw, Instamart in fact started before Blinkit or even Zepto. In fact, they did the math, started their grocery even before that and then Zepto came along. So I think everybody caught the wave at the right time and this is a confluence of capital plus the customer is ready, you have a large customer base who’s already got exposed to grocery, buying online and so they were ripe to move to a new format.

So I think that’s worked beautifully for the quick commerce market. So that’s what has propelled this but this will, I mean, it’s very unlikely, these disruptions will keep happening, I mean, but I don’t see a timing disruption. I think you may still have disruption in terms of what categories will get delivered.

In fact, my feeling is the next wave could be, you may have niche categories happening in quick commerce. I read recently somebody is doing 10-minute food delivery now because otherwise food delivery is now slower than grocery, right? So, and you would have thought, hey, food, I’m hungry, I want to eat right now.

I mean, grocery may run in an hour, but the food should be delivered right away. But food comes later than grocery now. And that’s a reverse thing we have today. So I think tomorrow people will experiment with maybe subcategories, which will come online or maybe quick commerce itself will become multiple category, carry everything under one umbrella because finally the customer is not going to have 25 apps. Let’s face it, he’ll take three, four and say I stay with it and this is my ecosystem and I’m committed to it and I’ll keep buying from there.

So I think these paths will evolve and there could potentially be some disruption but it won’t be a mega disruption like that’s happened but you never know, never say never. I wouldn’t venture a forecast again after having got it wrong so many times.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 20:30

But as we are entrepreneurs, right, we just have to be right only once big time.

Vipul Parekh 20:36

Exactly, then you’re through, then you’re through. That’s true but not necessarily Siddhartha. Sometimes it takes time, you can be right the first time but to get it to success it’s not necessarily just revenue.

It takes time to build an organization and even and take Dipinder for example or Zomato and I admire the resilience they’ve shown. That company has been around for a long time, even Swiggy, right. They’ve gone through multiple challenges, weathered downturns, weathered… it takes time to build a really large successful brand and which is what they show.

I mean 20-25 years in the making, committed billions of dollars but really built a very solid brand and organization. So whether you take Swiggy or whether you take each one of these brands, even take Flipkart, right. Flipkart started in 2016, no sorry 2006-2007 and really it’s taken that long to really build a what is a 200,000 crore company now but the potential exists.

So not everybody makes the transition but there is, it takes time for this to happen, it’s never two-three years and there are lots of slips between the cup and the lip and people have to weather those downturns, they keep coming and going.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 21:44

One argument is that D-Mart today, right, the last valuation I checked was 40 billion dollars, right and Zomato today is a 30 billion company. So it’s hard to digest, where do you think?

Vipul Parekh 21:59

Think of it this way, I mean take DoorDash for example, right and look at the size of it, look at the multiple that it gets. So I think it’s sometimes markets value you and give you a high value, be happy with it, enjoy it because you don’t know because markets, I see at the end of the day, the market share price at that point in time is always not a great reflection of the receipt over a period of time and the best way to do that is sort of to look in history and see or look and say which are the, how the big companies are valued and how they grew and what price earnings, growth, multiple details and I think that’s one way to see it because eventually it catches up, it’s caught up with them on Amazon, it’s caught up with the best companies in the world. So it catches up.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 22:38

I think the other argument is the market very few times behave in a sane manner, most of the time they’re insane.

Vipul Parekh 22:47

It either completely destroys you or can completely lift you and both can happen. It can even be dominant for a very long period of time.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 22:54

Almost 12 to 18 months ago, Zomato was valued at 4 billion dollars. Right. And today it’s 7, the same public market and for them nothing has changed.

Vipul Parekh 23:02

Nothing has changed and they’re still building the same product, they’re still building the same and I think that’s one way to see it and that’s why not to worry too much about the share price.

Intrinsically as long as you’re growing and you’re more profitable and the business is building well, that’s a great way to look at it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 23:16

But why do you think India doesn’t have its own Walmart? Like D-Mart is a small comparison to that.

Vipul Parekh 23:22

It is but you know Walmart has been 100 years in the making. Not 100 years but 1960s, 60s, 70s, somewhere in that. Right. I mean 1970s when they really started expanding and you have to look at the size of the US market too.

Finally the consumption size is very very large and we are very small. So, the day India market reaches, D-Mart will be half the size of Walmart. Or maybe the size of Walmart. Right? So, that’s going to happen. I mean, think about it this way, when we started in 2011 and if somebody told me Flipkart would be across revenues of 200,000 crores, I would say, you must be joking. This can’t happen in India. And it’s happened.

In 15 years it’s happened. Right. Less than 15 years it’s happened. They’ve gone from zero to 200,000 crores and there are two companies of this size. Both Amazon and Flipkart. So 400,000 crores of retail built under in the last 15 years. So this is just tremendous growth. Yeah. So imagine if they had the same number over the next 15 years.

Yeah. There’s no reason they can’t. They’re going at 20-30 percent. Yes. In fact they may probably add more. Yeah. So you’re talking about very very large behemoths getting built under our very noses.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 24:29

In 2000 crores is almost 25.

Vipul Parekh 24:32

200,000. Yeah.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 24:32

200,000 crores is almost 25-30 billion dollars.

Vipul Parekh 24:35

Yeah. And that will be 50-100 billion dollars. So I think these are, they’re getting built. It’s not too far away. Our economy obviously has to keep pace.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 24:44

And in your journey, right, you have been a capitalist for 2-3 years. What were your learnings that you applied back to BigBasket and now you’re seeing to interact with different kind of VC funds?

Vipul Parekh 24:56

I think, see, it’s about the learnings which worked well for us. I realized one was to maintain absolute transparency. Yes, tell the bad news. It doesn’t come to us naturally but tell the bad news upfront. Yeah. Just own up to it.

Own up to your mistakes. Because see, the problem that a VC has, he’s anyway a passive investor. Yeah. Right. He doesn’t know, can’t learn your business well enough. Yeah.

And if you give him a quarterly update, by the time he figures out what your business is again and refreshes his memory, that meeting is over.

So he’s never on top of things. So unless you involve them very consistently, drown them in, you know, information and understanding about your business and convey news to them as it happens.

They really are not plugged in. So there’s a lot of anxiety building up because you’ve committed capital.

What is happening? I don’t know. If he sees only the top line and says, okay, top line drop 10% this will close. Or profit drop, they will run out of money. So the anxiety for somebody who doesn’t know is far higher than somebody who knows. You know, they will do this. They have a plan, they will figure it out.

So one of the first things we did when we started the BigBasket was we said we’ll have a 15-day board review. So we used to do, and for the first two years, I think we did a board review every 15 days. Okay.

For the six, seven years of our, I mean, till I think Tata came in, we did a monthly review. And even now we do a monthly review. A monthly review with our entire board.

And I mandated that they have to attend. So we would rarely have any board member missing. Okay.

If ever, only because of personal emergency, but they would all attend. So they’re all clued in. I am going to tell them this is what is happening.

And this is what we are thinking. You have something to contribute, contribute. If you have some way to help, help.

Otherwise this is the state of affairs. So I think that brings in a lot of comfort. I mean, up and down, they also understand.

They have a plan for it. They know at the end of the day, not every portfolio company is going to do well. Not everyone is going to do well at the same time.

People go through journeys. So I think that builds a lot of comfort. And more importantly, it builds comfort in you as an individual, you as a team.

And that is, so then what also happens is, if they have a problem, they come and tell you, what you’re doing, I’m just completely unhappy about it. Or that guy of yours is bad. Otherwise, they are also very hard. They find it very hard to tell you the bad news.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 27:00

Yeah. Because there’s no trust.

Vipul Parekh 27:01

Of their opinion.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 27:01

There’s no trust between the both parties.

Vipul Parekh 27:03

So I think that becomes very important. So involve them intensively. It was the first lesson I learned. That’s it. And give the bad news. Even if you do not give the good news, it is fine. At least you must give them the bad news.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 27:14

Got it. And you know, people would have expected, right? Or I would have expected because I was a huge consumer of BigBasket, even during the lockdown, I thank you and the entire team for saving us from lockdowns, right? You delivered like 8, 10,000 rupees of groceries, you know, next day or even a few days when it was hardly available.

But people would have expected BigBasket to take a lead as the world is changing. You mentioned a few reasons why BigBasket couldn’t take up the lead in online grocery. But what do you think was the fundamental DNA difference that now you are playing a catch-up game?

Vipul Parekh 27:51

No, I don’t think it was the DNA difference. I think it sometimes things happen because they’re outside your control. In this particular case, we were actually pursuing an acquisition, which worked brilliantly for us and for that company.

And we thought it was a done deal. Yeah. And that cost us about six months, seven months.

And if that had happened, you would have been a very different story there. And so at that point, then we decided, okay, fine, we’ll do it ourselves, doesn’t matter. So I think that is one part of it.

So it was less of a, I mean, so it was not a DNA in terms of understanding that there is a market change happening and that we should pursue it. I think that we had, so I think that slowed us down. The second thing that happened was also, we went through this entire Tata transition around the same time.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 28:34

Many changes are happening parallelly.

Vipul Parekh 28:35

Yeah. So that always takes away bandwidth to implement a new. And to also, you know, when you’re getting into a new ecosystem, you can’t take very aggressive steps and say, now my plan has changed, I’m going to do this.

That acquirer will say, you told me three months back, you said this, and now you’ve completely changed your. So I think, so that also sort of slowed us down, but this is really two things. So I’m not worried so much of DNA.

Okay. I think that is not the problem. I think we just got in a little late. And after that, I think we’re executing as well as anybody else. Yeah. So I don’t think we’re going anywhere.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 29:09

Yeah. But I think, I don’t see BigBasket as visible, at least in marketing or among that, as the top three players, like Instamart from Swiggy or Zepto or Blinkit do.

Vipul Parekh 29:22

That’s starting to change and has changed over the last few months and you’ll continue to see a lot of change there. And I think we’ll become a lot more visible. I think some of it also has to do with, we were also making a lot of changes, like, you know, changing our entire customer facing proposition to make it into a single door, changing our entire backend to just enable complete just quick commerce, all of it.

So I think that has happened. Most of it has happened now. And I think in the process of rolling out, so I think this will change. It’s a matter of time.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 29:46

Yeah. I think the other thing is that what I, as an outsider feel, Tata group takes a multi-decade approach to any change. For example, they acquired Air India and people expected Air India would change overnight. It has not changed. I know Tata group is fine with it.

Vipul Parekh 30:02

Airline business is very difficult to change. You know, supply times are there.

One year, two year. You can’t ask Boeing saying I have ordered a plane, give it to me today or tomorrow. It comes after two years. So I think that is a challenge. That’s a different challenge. But I think one of the things that we have learned from the Tata group is always to take a longer term approach.

Because their point is don’t build it for the short term. If you get revenue now, don’t worry about it if you don’t get revenue now. Nothing happens.

If we win after 10 years, it will work. And there are enough businesses of theirs which have taken their own sweet time to get to. But once they have, they have just execution behemoths and profitable and hugely profitable.

And there are so many such companies that have. So they have gone through the cycle so many times. They understand the power of just staying in business.

They understand the power of accumulating brand salience over a period of time. And how markets change. And sometimes you can’t predict.

You may rise like a rocket and fall like a rocket also. So it’s sometimes easier to just be steady. And so therefore they are not you know, let me put it this way very fussed about what is the rate of growth and how soon will you become number one and why shouldn’t you be the largest in quick commerce and all that.

I think their focus is build a good brand. Let’s make sure that we don’t dilute that. Keep the customer focus and revenue will happen.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 31:15

Which is very different from let’s say if BigBasket was still a VC run company.

Vipul Parekh 31:19

That would have been very different. You would have been under pressure to just say just increase your top line now. Just get to whatever numbers that you need to get to.

It doesn’t matter what capital it takes. Let’s just raise that. So this is a very different approach. And it’s good. It sort of plays into our ethos.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 31:32

Yeah. But you think that you know the three co-founders of BigBasket will still be running the BigBasket 5 or 10 years down the line?

Vipul Parekh 31:42

Maybe not 5-10 years down the line. I think definitely for some years to come. And that goes without saying.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 31:47

But then the DNA, are you worried the DNA of the company would change after the founders have left?

Vipul Parekh 31:53

See the DNA of a company doesn’t change as long as the DNA is the same across the company. It changes if it’s sort of very founder led DNA and everybody else is doing something else. Then it’s a different problem.

Then the new leader comes in. It adopts that DNA. So that is one issue. So you look at it this way. Why doesn’t the DNA for the Tata companies change? The CEOs change.

The businesses change. But the brand remains the same. The core values stay the same. Because people have been taught a certain way of operation. And they’ve been schooled in that and they’ve lived that and they’ve seen that play out over a period of time. They’ve seen people walking the talk.

So I think that’s the case with BigBasket also. I think we’ve had a team which has been with us for a very long time. They’re very long term oriented.

They’ve been through ups and downs with us. This is not the first time that we’ve been behind or up or down. There are lots of times opportunities have been written.

So this is one more time and I think it will pass. So that is not, that doesn’t faze us. So therefore I think, and the team understands that.

We know what we are capable of. We know what we can, what our strengths are, what we can deliver. So I think as long as the team, the DNA is incorporated.

We are a modest, you know self-effacing, less talk and more about customer focus and make sure they deliver on your customer promise. I think and that’s the DNA we have set. So that will continue to hold.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 33:06

What have you inculcated from Tata Group which was not there earlier?

Vipul Parekh 33:11

I think the two things, right. That you can actually run a company very well by focusing on key parameters and by incorporating very strong governance. So it’s not about necessarily having a hands-on, granular view of the company.

You can actually run the company very efficiently, very quickly, figure out what the key issues are provide key strategic advice, change the direction of the company by just being focused on fundamental metrics and by providing very strong corporate and financial governance. So I think that is one key learning and that’s very interesting. The second part is obviously take a long-term view and when you shift your focus out two to three years and in start-ups it’s very hard to do because you are always fighting a daily battle or monthly battle.

What’s happening today? What did he do? What did he promote? You suddenly shift your focus out three years and they say, okay, what do you think will happen three years later? You are forced to think. You are constantly therefore working towards a target which is you know, far more in the distance than it is today.

And I think that changes your thinking. You become long-term in your thinking, you start thinking maybe this will help me for the next one year but let’s not do it three years, this is not going to be a great business or this is not where I would want to invest money in.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 34:24

And can you give us example of the first, like how do you implement that?

Vipul Parekh 34:30

Which is the financial and corporate governance?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 34:32
Yeah, because you said.

Vipul Parekh 34:34
So I think it works at two three levels. First is really building very transparent financial reporting mechanisms.

What does that mean? So first identifying what are the key metrics? For example, in our business the key metrics are what is your average order value? What is your gross margin? What is your NPS? What is your rate of return?

What is your write-off? What is your you know, orders per dark store? All of this what is your per order cost of daily CPO?

You have eight or ten metrics which really you give me those and I can tell you what the health of the business is and you give me a trend over time and I know exactly what’s happening in that business. So I think building the right set of metrics is the first one. Identifying and building the right set of metrics.

Once you identify and build the right set of metrics building a reporting mechanism around this which is reasonably current and which is live. So today we have on all this we have always had this. We are lucky that way we thought of it that way.

But having this on a daily basis, knowing exactly what is happening you have a live dashboard in the business that allows you to know at any point in time you can take a dipstick and say and you have a running data you know over a period of time what’s how it’s faring, where the trajectory is, what’s going on, where it’s dropping, which city it is, which dark store is not doing well, which manager is not doing well, which picker is not doing well, which business is not doing well.

So I think that building the granular set of, identifying the set of metrics, building the reporting on top of that and then reviewing it. The third part is also hard right. You can build a set of metrics and present it.

Nobody has the patience to go through it and say no I will see. So they build the framework to review it. So they have a team which goes through it, culls out the insights from it reviews it and says okay this is what it is so therefore they do it at all three levels identification, making sure that it’s implemented and then reviewing and when you do that automatically your financial reporting becomes very very strong.

And obviously it doesn’t stop there. These are business metrics and your financial metrics which is in terms of what’s your cash flow so what’s your working capital, working capital what’s your payables versus what’s your outstanding, where are the outstanding, where is the this thing, how many days is your promo recovery how far are you in terms of payables.

So if you take those financial levers, take this, automatically you can very quickly figure out what’s happening in the business. And a lot of this is common across businesses. They are not necessarily unique to every business.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 36:43

I think this is an advantage that you built which advantage Zomato had because they always had InfoEdge as their largest shareholder.

Vipul Parekh 36:53

Which is not a typical VC. It is not a it is a strategic more than a VC.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 36:58

They were a public company before they became a public company.

Vipul Parekh 37:02

Exactly. And I think that’s the advantage we also have. It helps to and then from a corporate governance perspective make sure, reporting mechanism there, make sure, auditing mechanisms are very very rigorous. You go through every part of your business, audit it and building that.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 37:17

So we covered a lot of about India the tailwinds. My two worries are right now that our GDP per capita is $2700. Right.

And as you said rightly, the bottom of India the largest part of India, sub-Saharan when do you expect that to change?

Vipul Parekh 37:37

That’s the you know, that’s the, let me call it the trillion dollar question, not the billion dollar question because that will determine when do we hit that 10 trillion dollars. And I think, see there are two ways to think about it. One way is the trickle down theory.

Saying that as your rich become richer, automatically trickles down. It doesn’t always happen. And that’s the worry I have that sometimes this won’t happen.

But there are two things that can change this. Now when I told you about the tax base, when you look at the number of people in each of these India’s, India 1, India 2, India 3 there is a lot of movement happening between the cohorts. It’s not that they are static.

India 1 is not 30, it will become 50 in another 2-3 years. India 2 is not 70, it will become 120. So I think that is one movement which will keep increasing but the problem that remains your largest cohort is still below that and how do we therefore make movement there.

And there things will only change by two or three things. One is great, significant state intervention and significant state spending. Some of it is starting to happen.

And it’s happening indirectly. So if you look at there are funds which are beginning for early employment now. The government has recently announced a scheme.

There has always been this MGNREGA which created a significant amount of capital flow. To the extent that people said, I don’t know whether it’s benefiting or whether people are stopping to work and just enjoying the benefits of MGNREGA. But that has made a difference and that has really empowered at that level.

The third level which will happen is one is financial inclusion. So that is starting to happen. If you just look at the number of this Jan Dhan accounts that have been set up, it is just phenomenal.

But all this follows I have noticed, infra development. One of the biggest things which this government has embarked on and which has consistently happened over the last 4-5 years is starting to build three things. Roads, rail networks and electricity.

If these three reach everywhere automatically it powers change. It’s so funny. If you go back in the history of most countries, even if you go back in the history of US and figure out why US became such a dominant power, actually eventually it takes it back to roads.

Just because they built that road network in the 1950s and 60s, that eventually built that connectivity, built modern retail, built transportation goods, built people mobility, built access, built healthcare, built everything because that created that network. And I think that is starting to happen in India. We are maybe 2-3 decades behind but that is starting to change.

And one reflection of that is to see how many flights does Indigo have to cities which you didn’t think Indigo had a flight to. And I keep going whenever I go to the airport, I look at oh shit Indigo has a direct flight to Baroda every day. Indigo has a direct flight to Guwahati every day.

Indigo has a direct flight to Patna every day. And I am wondering, I said how many people are travelling from Bangalore to Patna and to Baroda and I said suddenly it tells you, ok this is changing dramatically. And this is what will really this connectivity, whether it is through road or through air traffic will change India, number one.

And that infrastructure getting built will eventually pull everybody back because it just provides, because what happens is industries move outside because access improves and therefore creates a local employment. Agricultural markets become easier to target because the farmer can’t reach he can’t drive longer or people can’t come to him from too far, both ways. So it becomes too expensive, transportation kills you, the cost of transportation.

Now this provides access. So this changes the dynamics of our access to economic benefits works. And I think that is what will change India.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 41:18

And my other part is when will India see Microsoft, Google, Amazon like outcomes built out of India because the US, if you see the US GDP, the top 10 to 15 trillion dollars of it is dominated by 5 companies Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and Amazon.

Vipul Parekh 41:40

Think of it this way. Think of it for a moment that you are in China and you are thinking 10 years back or 15 years back thinking when do I have my Microsoft and Google and this thing. And if you look at it now, forget Microsoft, Google and Apple they have their own Xiaomi’s, they have their own Alibaba’s they have their own Tencent’s, they have their own and more importantly they are investing in terms of technology China crossed US last year or year before last in terms of number of patents filed.

So they are taking technology leadership in all developing areas EV’s today I think they left US behind long time back. I mean Tesla is sort of beacon of hope but I mean China was full EV I mean completely different. Automation, AI, Robotics, they are far ahead of everybody else. So I think and this has happened over the last 15 years.

So companies can make this transformation. So it is not… So countries can make this transformation, companies can make this transformation and… But it doesn’t happen until the ecosystem is ready for it and what happened to China was one, per capita was very high by that time. I mean comparative where we are today Infra had already been built or the government was powering through building crazy Infra and third there was significant develop, you know infusion of capital from the state to power this new areas.

It just said do whatever it takes to get it done and we will put in the money. It doesn’t matter long term cost. So that kind of commitment which is essentially giving a blank check to an industry and saying build it just change the game and I think that is some parts of it starting to happen.

Take our manufacturing PLI now for the first time any government as over the last few years or in this entire time since independence talked about manufacturing and saying how do we actually become globally competitive.

And so you are starting to see changes. You are starting to see companies invest. You are starting to see you know Tata’s investment 20 billion chip plant. You wouldn’t have thought that possible. Who was building a chip plant in India. So I think these things take time.

So whether we will get a Microsoft, Google or we will get a generative AI startup in India I don’t know or something else which will happen but it’s not going to happen in the next 5 years. Do you think the probability of that happening in 15 years? Very very high. So I think that’s what will happen and it doesn’t have to be Microsoft, Google and International. We are English so maybe we can be but if you look at the Chinese tech companies because the local economy is so large. They are as big as any of these companies and as profitable. So I think that will happen.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 44:03

I think one thing that India is now learning from China and China 30 years ago became the manufacturing hub of the world. They said we have cheap labor, dedicated labor and one instant approval to set up your factory and we don’t care about our environment. You can do whatever you like with our environment and set up here.

Vipul Parekh 44:24

And we will provide you all the incentives required. So essentially they made it easy for technology to come to them first because they are also in the same boat, they didn’t know how to build. So whether you want an Airbus or any of these people, they went and built there.

And once they built, they got the technology. They started… They become very good at manufacturing, invested in scale and acquired dominance. I mean look at the route that they have taken to EV dominance. Government supported initially, leading edge of research so invested in labs, invested in research, invested in companies and once you have local market scale, mandate local market adoption scale in domestic markets, then just go international.

Now they are at a cost structure and technology space where nobody can compete with them. If I were in Mercedes or Volvo or BMW, I would be very worried. These brands are not going to last.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 45:16

Yeah. And one thing India right now has an advantage of, because of whatever negative connotation China has earned over the last 2-3 years because of COVID or state policies, right India has become the alternate to China for global investors.

Vipul Parekh 45:34

It can be an alternate to China. I think we need to pursue it very aggressively and we also need to make commensurate investment. But at least we have begun, made a start and I think that’s visible now.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 45:43

Like Apple setting up plant in Tamil Nadu. In Neon Show, we interview various economic advisors like Sanjeev Sanyal who is Chief Economic Advisor. He is the right guy too actually. He is a fantastic guy. So he says that centre has done what it has to do in the last 10 years and now in the next 5 years. The centre is saturated like the scheme that it could do. Now it’s up to every state to follow the centre and because India is such a state party wise.

Vipul Parekh 46:14

There are lot of variables. A lot of variables. State level variables, you also have company level variables. But think about this collectively, just look at your top 3 groups.

Adani, Ambani and Tata and look at their investment plans, what they have invested and what they were doing 10 years back. It’s multiple port. So I think that will continue to drive. Every one of them is getting into new areas whether it’s EV, whether it’s Semicon, whether it’s defense whether it’s production.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 46:46

One thing that I want to touch as we conclude the podcast is, I want to share with the audience, what has been if you can share bits and pieces of what has been your journey of financial independence.

Vipul Parekh 46:58

So I used to work for Wipro I think, before that I joined TVS Electronics from campus and I wasn’t worried about at that point, I am financially more worried about making ends meet and making sure that you grew in your career and I joined Wipro and then got exposed to the Wipro ESOP program.

And then I realized over a period of time that there is an amazing capability to build wealth longer term in equities and stocks and ESOP and equities and running businesses.

And that’s what sort of triggered the change in me. And it sort of changed my the way I looked at investment or wealth and I said the only way to really build true wealth is to actually invest in either earn a lot of money through a job and invest in equities and build a portfolio over a period of time make smart investment decisions or you know get a lot of ESOP and use that or build your own company.

And so therefore when that occurred to me it always became an option saying I think at some point in time you have to attempt this because the risk reward for this is just stupendously in favor of building this. So I think my journey sort of got triggered by this revelation in my mind that you know the true wealth creation happens through equities especially if you are not a generational wealth person.

And the only way you can build substantial wealth is through equities, now whether you go through investment route where you earn enough money and put it into it or you go through ESOP route where you work in early stage startups and do it or you do your own business.

So I think around that time therefore I made the decision saying that I will either start or I will join a startup and so therefore it became very easy for me when three of us actually first talked about getting a startup.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 48:39

When you were almost 36 years old

Vipul Parekh 48:40

Yeah and he said so I remember meeting Sudhakar and Hari and they were just thinking about it and Sudhakar said would you like to join me and I said yes there was no discussion I mean it took me roughly three seconds to tell him yes, I didn’t even think about it, in fact Sudhakar said have you thought it through, I said no no I am very clear in my mind I have thought it through a long time back this is the path that I need to take.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 49:01

And how financially well off were you when you joined?

Vipul Parekh 49:03

I was working at a salary and those salaries those days in tech even were not at great so you were reasonably okay but you didn’t have a nest egg built for.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 49:12

If I didn’t had worked out.

Vipul Parekh 49:14

I would have had to go back to a job for sure there is no question of it and but you had enough capability to last maybe a year worst case you could last a year but beyond that was obviously you had to go back to a job no second thoughts.

So I think that journey started and it took longer than a year and so it became quite difficult and he said but by the time I became even more had more faith in my belief that this is the way to go this is taking time longer than but I am on the right path.

So I think that was a great thing because the moment the first startup didn’t work we pivoted and that started working, we said okay fine we have now really found this and I think that sort of kept continuing to so when we sold the first business we made some money so that made us reasonably financially independent.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 50:00

But not completely that you could live it off for the rest of your life.

Vipul Parekh 50:05

Not that, so we said okay but this at least gives you a good cushion now you can do multiple things think about what you want to do for 5 to 10 years yeah and then I went and worked with the private equity firm so I think that also gave us some financial freedom. But I think the real wealth creation happened through BigBasket and where we when we sold some of our initial equity fraction of it. I think that created wealth what we had done before created wealth.

So I think a lot of my financial independence has come through really my startup journey more than anything else. And then obviously so my advice to everyone at least do the startup early rather than late.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 50:37

But let’s say I would say it’s your hard work but a lot of luck also like…

Vipul Parekh 50:42

It’s a significant amount of luck it is extreme, you see there are two things that in any startup that work one is you need to have patience, nothing happens in less than 7 to 10 years, you can’t do anything, I mean most people keep talking about somebody build a billion dollar company, I mean it takes up to 3 years but those are the exceptions to the rule and these are the ones which get talked about .

99% of companies don’t reach that kind of outcomes very quickly so it’s typically a 5 to 10 year journey and therefore you need to be tenacious you need to be resilient, you need to be able to survive first, more than even luck.

And if you do that I find that a lot of times luck finds you instead of the other way around you may have one bad year, something will happen you will find something else which works you will figure out this doesn’t work, that works.

Something happens and that happens because you are operating in that space, you are looking at multiple things your ecosystem is focused on that space, so opportunities come to you so your luck gets created so the first is, so it’s not luck that leads wealth it’s tenacity which leads to luck which leads to wealth.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 51:45

But let’s say even Fabmall getting acquired by More or BigBasket becoming the outcome that is today, they are 1 in 10,000 outcomes.

Vipul Parekh 51:55

Yeah exactly, exactly. It’s very very rare, it’s very very rare and therefore it’s not easy. But you know all the startups that I have seen about 50% of the ones which I have been involved in have shut up and people have started doing something else.

But all those guys have gone back to doing something else which has worked out well right, of the 50% which did well, they all had some had great outcomes, some had middling outcomes some had reasonably okay outcomes. It wasn’t that it would have been significantly better if they had actually worked at the corporate, so I think and they are all very happy. Because I am independent, I am not answerable to anybody so even the people who didn’t have the best of outcomes, probably got away.

And I think that’s to do with the timeline that we are living in it’s also, I mean 20 years back this wouldn’t have worked out this way, you are going through a period of growth, you are long on the economy, if you are long on the economy you have to be long on startups, you have to be long on equities as simple as that.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 52:49

And I think, you think that the 10-20 trillion dollar economy that we are talking about today of India would startups play like a 2-5 trillion dollar role in that?

Vipul Parekh 53:00

100%, 100% think of these, the top 10 companies today itself and if you add up their market cap and even today and assume that this will grow 5x, 10x over the next 10 years that’s the minimum that you would expect in the top performing.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 53:16

I would say top 10 companies today would contribute 200 trillion dollar of market cap.

Vipul Parekh 53:21

And you assume now 10x growth yeah so they will, 100% they will in fact there are companies which are not born today which will contribute to that which will probably contribute a trillion to that.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 53:33

Yeah, yeah, so I am looking forward to seeing India’s first 100 billion dollar startup. I don’t know whether it will be Zomato or somebody else but.

Vipul Parekh 53:42

Possibly Zomato, possibly Swiggy, possibly Flipkart, and though it’s acquired by Walmart, it’s still an Indian startup.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 53:48

But it will still create the amount of wealth.

Vipul Parekh 53:51

Yeah it does, it will

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 53:53

For India. And just before we know, we conclude our discussion today Vipul, I want to touch upon your background, you mentioned that you know you were from middle class, worked in Wipro at age 36 you jumped into startup but where did you grow up and what were your parents like.

Vipul Parekh 54:13

So, my father was in the defense services. We had a transferable job, so I did all my schooling, every 4 years we got sort of uprooted, did my schooling in in Maharashtra and in Madhya Pradesh.

In fact, when I passed out of high school in Madhya Pradesh, my wife said sorry, my mother said you know, no more travelling stay put, let the people do the kids do their college. So I did my B.Sc and M.Sc in physics actually and I was all set on you know, becoming getting into an academic career, because I started to do research program and I was thinking of applying to the got admission to the University of Columbia and I was thinking maybe it’s time for me to really do, become a scientist.

And then through chance somebody introduced me to I mean, talked about MBA program and I said this looks very interesting. I would love to do this, this somehow appeals to me. So I wrote the CAT exam and along with that I wrote the Air Force’s because that was more on a LARC and so I did my, I remember it was so funny, I did my you know, Air Force Medical the same month and my IIM interview in the same city, within a month which was in Delhi.

And when the when I got through I said yeah, this is, I definitely want to do this. So came to Bangalore, joined IIM Bangalore in 88, started my career with 86 and finished in 88, started my career with TVS Electronics which was again a startup. So, in a way it was a role which is, this was a company which is newly formed, part of the TVS group they were just starting into computer peripherals for the first time. And they were setting up a new plant, they had just done a collaboration with Citizen of Japan.

And so they were working with them and other companies and I joined as part of marketing and sales and was sent to Bombay saying please start Bombay we don’t have anybody, so it was a ordeal by fire, you were practically a startup, you had nothing, I had one desk in one Lucas TVS office and one phone and said please collect money also some money outstanding from people who supply to please collect that also.

So it was quite an interesting experience and that taught me a lot about marketing, sales, working through a startup and that’s where I met Sudhakar and Hari, but all three of us were in the same company Sudhakar was involved in the project right from day one in TVS in TVS, so that is it goes back that long. So therefore I met them in 89 and we’ve been together ever since.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 56:35

Wow, 34 years of…

Vipul Parekh 56:36

And then I worked till there till about 94. Joined Wipro as in the Wipro peripherals and then part of the IT business till about 99. When all of us got out and started Fabmart which became Fabmall, which eventually we sold to the Birla’s.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 56:55

So you really saw the Indian economy opening up in 91. Did it make any difference to your life?

Vipul Parekh 57:00

It did because it completely changed your perspective. First when I was working for Wipro, my last one year was as a corporate business development manager and one of the projects I was handling which was internal to Wipro was really to set up the Wipro intranet.

So you had to make a presentation to Premji and said these are the things we are doing and to businesses and then work with the businesses to set up the corporate intranet. So that exposed me to the power of the internet, so the first time I realized what it was, how it worked, what it needed to get it implemented, which is why I landed up where I am today. Those choices dictate what you eventually become.

And that’s how Sudhakar on the other side landed up in Planet Asia, the CEO of Planet Asia which is an IT services company and Hari joined him so they were exposed to the internet from that side and at one point in time we were planning to use Planet Asia to do Wipro’s corporate intranet, so he said I was speaking to them and that’s how I met Sudhakar again and I said okay, let’s start.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 57:56

Thank you so much Vipul, I enjoyed this conversation a lot. I learnt a lot.

Vipul Parekh 57:59

Thank you, so did I. Thank you.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 57:56

And I hope my listeners enjoyed as much as I did.

Vipul Parekh 58:04

Let’s hope so.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 58:05

Thank you so much.

Vipul Parekh 58:06

Thank you