First Principles

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Five founders on building a unique product and making it last

First Principles

Welcome to First Principles, The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast! I am Rohin Dharmakumar, your host. First, if you’re a new listener of this podcast, I think you’ve clicked on the right episode.  And if you’re a long-time listener – thank you, by the way – then you might know that here at First Principles, we have a few favourite questions. And we try and ask these questions to most of our guests.  The most interesting part of this is that every guest has a vastly different answer to the same question – their age, experience, outlook on life…even their co-founder or their family plays a significant role in how they answer our questions.  Take motivation, for example. What drives founders/CEOs, even when things aren’t looking so good? It could simply be untameable perseverance – like in the case of Deep Kalra, the founder of MakeMyTrip. For Ruchi Kalra of OxyCo, it was the people around her. Srikanth Iyer of Homelane, in fact, quotes from a book that changed the game for him. We highly recommend going back and listening to our full episodes, but this is a great place to start, too.  We went back to some of our older episodes to make a supercut of some very specific answers from our guests to questions on motivation, perseverance, finding the right opportunity in a difficult market and fighting stress. Good stress, as one of our guests calls it. Here are our guests: We start with Deep Kalra, the founder and chairman of MakeMyTrip – a company that began when India wasn’t even ready for internet businesses. Deep talks about surviving as a travel business through the pandemic, learning to stay in the game and building to last.  Deep Kalra of MakeMyTrip on being “22 years young”, presenting from Excel sheets instead of Powerpoint slides, the importance of open disagreements, and the good stress of building Next, we have Ruchi Kalra – who has built two profitable unicorns in seven years: OfBusiness and Oxyzo. She takes us through an important maxim that drives both her businesses: finding the right opportunity in the right sector, even if it’s crowded. Ruchi Kalra of Oxyzo on creating two unicorns in 7 years, spotting gigantic market opportunities, putting profits and cash flow first, and letting go of personal ambitions Kamal Sagar, the founder of Total Environment, has had one thing driving him for 27 years: good quality. Good quality that even thousands of real estate companies in the West are just not able to deliver on. The most interesting part is how he does it: Kamal builds homes the way software is built.  Kamal Sagar of Total Environment on picking principles over convenience, reimagining real estate, design, authenticity and learning to say no When I asked how Srikanth Iyer, the founder of Homelane, fought through the first few years of absolute chaos at his startup, Srikanth said he focuses on understanding what you’re bad at.  He explains how he learnt and applied this First Principle in his career. Srikanth Iyer of Home Lane on embracing what you’re bad at in order to do better at what you’re good at, and being a wartime general Shan Kadavil of FreshToHome cracked a really tough business in a super competitive market. And then, he evolved as a CEO and a leader. He talks about scaling a 40-employee organisation to a 4000-employee organisation, encouraging his team to “be their own CEO,” obsessing over the right metrics, and much more.  Shan Kadavil of FreshToHome on selling fish, building moats, encouraging bottom-up “shots on goal”, and being honest with boards This is First Principles— The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast. The Ken is India's first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here.

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Radhika Gupta of Edelweiss AMC on the joy of creating impact

First Principles

Our guest for this episode, Radhika Gupta, describes Edelweiss AMC—or any mutual fund company, for that matter—as a company that solves financial problems for customers. Simple. Going into anything else, she says, is way too complicated. Edelweiss operates in a crowded market with nearly 50 players. And it's surrounded by giants, rivals much larger than itself. But that also gives it the space to take risks and bets that larger companies might not. That’s how Edelweiss pulled Bharat Bonds into their armour, which shot up their assets massively. It went from number 30 in the mutual fund rankings to number 13 in just a few years. As a CEO, Radhika is a big fan of keeping things simple and effective. She has a straightforward way of dealing with workplace politics. A one-step way to shut down mansplaining. A very simple approach to trying to understand her consumers. And even an easy but brilliant way of organising her favourite poetry, excerpts and stories! In this episode, we talk about: What is the problem that Edelweiss is trying to solve? How does Radihka define success? How Radhika uses an inner scorecard to evaluate herself How does she deal with criticism and separate constructive criticism from targeted bias? Why Radhika doesn’t believe in work-life balance Why Radhika has a third category of priorities after personal and professional Radhika’s advice for young, professional women This is Episode 26 of First Principles, with Radhika Gupta — The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast. The Ken is India's first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here.

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BillDesk’s MN Srinivasu on building quietly and sustainably

First Principles

BillDesk does not have a CEO. Instead, it just has three co-founders: MN Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal and Karthik Ganapathy. And they don’t have separate designations. In fact, BillDesk has no formal hierarchies or designations. People are hired as members of a team. That’s it. More than two decades after they started the company, the three co-founders continue to work from a single desk in the same room. For a 23-year-old organisation that handles over $150 billion in payments, BillDesk is surprisingly lean at just over 800 employees. And that's not the only thing contrarian about it. It has been profitable for over a decade and a half now.  When I asked Vasu—that’s how others usually address Srinivasu—how old he was, his answer was, “BillDesk is 23, I am 55.” For this episode, we threw in many new questions based on the subscriber feedback I’d been receiving. What often keeps founders going is the urge to prove something. What is it for Vasu? How has his view of a leadership team evolved? How does he prefer to be “managed upward” by his reportees How has what excites or challenges him changed Managing people isn’t what founders have in when they start out. And yet, it is the most important thing that determines their success. How has Vasu’s managing style or philosophy evolved since he started Billdesk in 2000? Over the entire conversation, we also talk about: Why BillDesk doesn’t handle person-to-person payments, for instance, via UPI. How the three co-founders hired and coached their first 100 employees Why BillDesk does not incentivise chasing glory metrics Why the three co-founders continue to work from a single table even today Snigdha breaks down the story of Disney's decline, on our business podcast Daybreak. Listen here. This is Episode 25 of First Principles, with MN Srinivasu — The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast. The Ken is India's first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here.

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Archit Gupta of Clear on anti-patterns and being misunderstood

First Principles

The business currently known as Clear used to be known as Cleartax before. It started out in 2011 as a minimal, sleek and blazingly fast website to help Indians file taxes. Today, it does much more than just people's taxes, even though its overwhelming market leadership means competitors are just "rounding errors," according to Archit Gupta, the company's co-founder and CEO. Operating largely below the funding and valuation radars of 2020-2022, Clear has been quietly effecting a business model pivot under Archit's leadership. Today, it is overwhelmingly a business-to-business focused company, not a business-to-consumer one. As India digitises and formalises its tax systems together, Clear has ridden both waves to help businesses and consumers stay compliant. But this transition hasn't been quick or easy, as Archit candidly opens up about in our conversation.  We talk about building a profitable and lasting company and why he turned from a "business-focused" to a "product-focused" CEO a year ago. We also go into how much of a cultural shift it took for Clear to start charging its customers to file taxes – and then, another significant shift: deciding to expand from India to Saudi Arabia. Archit also tells us how he spots excellent talent and much more in this episode. This is Episode 24 of First Principles, with Archit Gupta — The Ken's fortnightly leadership podcast. The Ken is India's first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here: https://the-ken.com/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=podcasts&utm_campaign=podcast_ep