hippoBrain: Recent Episodes
HippoBrain
Welcome to hippoBrain :)
This is where we have hippo-sized conversations with hippo-sized brains!
Join Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi as they speak to mammoths in the world about various hot button topics ranging from data analytics to Martech to economy and government policy!
Do you remember the famous Flipkart ad where children acted like adults? Do you remember the Seagrams 'Men will be men' ad?
Listen to the man instrumental in both ads, Shaun Williams, in this week's episode of hippoBrain. He talks to Jaimit Doshi and Rajesh Jain about what it takes to teach and train kids to act (especially act like adults), and the nuances around it.
"What makes you a 'creative' (guy)? A creative is not about having an idea. It's about 'having to have' an idea... Only the creative people in the room have the responsibility of having to have an idea. The others don't have that pressure," says Ramki or Ramakrishna Desiraju, the Founder of one of the largest Ad agencies in the country, Cartwheel Creative.
Listen to the Creative guru talk about what makes a 'creative', the challenges they face, how they inherently understand 'strategy' as the Ad planners know it, the pressure to come up with grand ideas that work, and interestingly--how does a 'creative' function as a CEO.
Don't miss out on part where he talks about the making of the Kotak ad featuring Ranveer Singh!
This week, we speak to Ruchira Chaudhary, Leadership Coach, Academic and Author of the book, Coaching the Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership. She speaks to Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi about coaching managers into becoming good leaders at work; how organisations can nourish and encourage good managers and leaders, and more.
This week, we have the Guru of Loyalty & Direct Marketing, Ajay Row, talk to us about an important topic: "Do loyalty programs really work?"
Listen to the guru narrate epic anecdotes from his experience on good loyalty programs and tips on how to build a program that works.
"Not an agency. We are an independent, integrated marketing services company that is digital first." That's how Sowmya Iyer, founder & CEO of DViO Digital would describe her company. In this episode of hippoBrain listen to her as she spills the beans on building DViO from scratch; how tough is it to be independent and survive in a cut-throat environment; how she bought DViO from the investors, and most importantly, the 'Zone to win' Framework.
Interesting insights for business owners and executives!
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
Listen to Mahesh Vyas, MD & CEO of CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy) talk about how to interpret the data in an effort to find meaning behind the numbers.
Did you know that employment figures went up during demonetisation and went down during the pandemic? How would these reconcile without throwing up aspersions on the data sets? Why did this happen, how did this happen, which other data filled in the missing piece? Where are the missing 15% of Indian women who seem employed but are not? Why are women absent from the labour force in India? What can we do about it? How does one collect data across the country? How do you analyse it? What is the most important data to be seen when you see the health of the Indian economy?
Listen to the master as he patiently explains, how a private firm, monitoring Indian economic data is critical to the functioning of the economy and its democracy; how rigour and honesty is critical to his job and how does one become a data storyteller. Because without a story, data is just a bunch of numbers.
“Take it. Read it. Return it”
Imagine you were travelling on the Delhi Metro, and found a beautiful fresh new copy of a book you've been eyeing lying around. You take the book and find a cute note inside. And it says: “Take it. Read it. Return it”. Such joyous serendipity, right?
That's what our hippoBrain guest does with her mobile library. With over 5,000 books in circulation, Shruti Sharma, founder of Books on the Delhi Metro and her 'book fairies' have spread the joy of reading over the last 4 years.
Listen to her story, her struggles and the learnings in this episode of hippoBrain. At one poignant point she says: “You cannot scrap an idea just because you cannot believe in people. You have to believe in people.”
In this episode of hippoBrain, listen to Nigel Morris, a doyen from the field of marketing and business strategy talk about the challenges that companies face in keeping up with times, especially in a digital era.
We all know that there is an 'India' market and a 'Bharat' market, where the Ramu Kakas reside.
One key differentiator between the two is that the Bharat market is dominated by a culture of service. Yet, internet as we know it is predominantly DIY - Do It Yourself. So how do you use digital and internet to service the Bharat market?
We have answers in this latest episode of hippoBrain. Listen to Sachin Jaiswal & Shishir Modi, the CEO and CBO of Niki respectively as they talk to Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi about 'Full stack Ramu Kaka'--their solution to servicing the Bharat market, and their learnings from the journey so far!
Not an episode to miss!
Typically, you find an expert in the art of running a business. And another expert in the art of marketing for a business.
What if we tell you, we found you one individual with both expertises?
Listen to Gulrez Alam, Chief Investment and Strategy Officer of ArabyAds, speak to Jaimit Doshi and Rajesh Jain about all things business, entrepreneurship, technology and marketing.
Don’t miss out on the little nuggets of wisdom and tips he shares throughout the conversation!
“Most people meet consumers to find solutions. It’s better to meet consumers to understand the problems,” says Prem Narayan, the Chief Strategy Officer at Ogilvy, India. And who would know better than him. After all, he was one of the first few 'planners' at the large agency, who's worked a lot of large projects for the likes of Hindustan Unilever and Tata Motors.
Lots of stories. Lots of annecdotes. And most importantly, lots of gyaan. Definitely worth a listen for those interested in marketing, storytelling and market research. As we always say, these are #conversationsthatmatter with hippoBrains from different sectors and industries.
In 2016, Instagram launched something called as 'Reels', where you create short 30-second videos. At around that time, one Brand decided to share a video of four friends dancing while wearing their products. It got 1 million views. And the products got sold within 24 hours--even before the Brand could promote their collection.
Today, they have nearly 3.5 lakh followers on Instagram. And they are known for their dance videos where the dancers are dancing in beautiful sarees. Yes, that's too many 'dance' words in one sentence, but that's the key to their whole business model. They are the first Brand to market themselves in such a unique way!
But like every other story of Entrepreneurship and creativity and innovation, there's so much more to their story.
So listen to the mother-daughter duo and co-founders--Hetal and Lekhinee Desai from Indian Ethnic Co. speak to Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi in this week's episode of hippoBrain.
They talk about their start-up story--how Hetal Desai started Indian Ethnic Co at the age of 55; how Lekhinee brings the new-age energy to the Brand; how they stumbled upon the concept of dancing to showcase their collections; how they track success; selling sarees worth Rs 45,000, and so much more.
P.S.: Don't miss out on their lockdown story and why they called themselves 'bedroom-preneurs'.
Is Internet no place for women? What do women want--on the Internet, that is? And how do you build a safe eco-system for women online? And importantly, how do you build a cohesive community and brand around the same that caters to real people and solves real problems? Well, there's one woman who has the answers in this episode of hippoBrain. Listen to Sairee Chahal, founder of SHEROES, talk to Jaimit Doshi and Rajesh Jain about unlocking the power of half of India's population--the ones with the X chromosome. It's a classic example of how to convert your ideas into actions.
What does it feel like to be a Cricketer representing India? What does it feel like to be a Cricket selector & administrator? And what does it feel like to be a sports marketeer—working for a large brand like Nike amongst some of the top names in Sports across the world?
Get your answers from the man who discovered Virat Kohli as Jatin Paranjpe, Ex National Selector and CEO & Founder, KheloMore talks to Jaimit Doshi & Rajesh Jain in this episode of hippoBrain.
Here’s the map of the whole conversation
1) Introducing Jatin Paranjpe
2) What does it take to be a modern-day Indian cricketer?
3) Can Cricketing intelligence be learnt?
4) The dynamics between Captain, Coach and Cricketer
5) How IPL has helped get Cricket talent of all kinds
6) Does the lack of Gully Cricket really matter?
7) What it feels like to represent India in international Cricket
8) How an ankle injury ended Jatin Paranjpe’s Cricket career
9) Is an India-Pakistan match stressful to a Cricketer?
10) Getting in Cricket administration
11) The role of a Cricket selector
12) Rise in Cricket talent in smaller Indian cities
13) Experience as a Sports Marketeer
14) Applying lessons from European Sports in India
15) What does KheloMore do?
16) Building the KheloMore platform
17) How Pandemic affected KheloMore
18) The resilience of Jatin Paranjpe
19) Last words
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you,” Maya Angelou quoted.
Here’s another quote to build on this: “Listen deeply to the stories of humans and their lives, their stories hold within it every single vector of brand and consumer strategy.”
But don’t forget to first listen to “the caretaker of stories" speak about Brand Strategy and Story-telling in an almost poetic conversation with Jaimit Doshi and Rajesh Jain.
From stories about the colour of emotions and truck drivers to houses with gaudy paints in Kerala, he weaves a convincing story of how COG evolved over the years to focus on human stories and unearth Brand strategies. \
Not one to miss, for sure.
“Media does not stand a chance when it comes to the old Ad-supported model,” Samir Patil said in one of our hippoBrains conversations. Our guest in this episode may agree. In fact, he wants to ‘make subscriptions great’.
How does he do that? By looking at journalism through the lens of a Product Manager and optimise it for business. Sounds interesting right? You bet it is.
In this week’s episode of hippoBrain, listen to Praveen Gopal Krishnan, the Chief Operating Officer at The Ken, one of the new breed media companies that uses email as its delivery platform. He talks about how he product-ises journalism every day.
Not one to miss for budding content writers, media professionals and product managers!
85,000-90,000 views — PER DAY
Over 1 million downloads
1,00,000 queries answered
Amazing numbers, right? All of it belongs to one single portal. For financial content.
It’s none other than Zerodha’s Varsity—one of the key pillars of the discount broker’s success.
Listen to Karthik Rangappa, the brain behind Zerodha Varsity, as he speaks to Jaimit Doshi and Rajesh Jain about the success of Zerodha’s content, what sets it apart, their strategy behind Varsity and learnings over the years.
Listen if you want to find out how one man helped Zerodha touch millions of stock market investors.
In July 1991, the Indian economy was on the brink of collapse. It barely had money to pay for a few days' with of imports.
To raise funds, the RBI pledged 46.91 tonnes of gold with the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan to raise $400 million.
But it was supposed to be done without public attention. One journalist, however, noticed trunks of gold being taken away. He eventually put together the pieces and broke the story.
He is Shankkar Aiyar, a political analyst, an author and our guest for this week. Listen to him tell Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi tales about how India has changed over the years, sparked by one crisis over another.
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Ask any entrepreneur and they will tell you—ideas can be found anywhere. Typically, where and how you least expect it.
Our latest hippoBrain guest will agree. He found his idea in the unlikeliest of places. In a sector that he knew nothing about (Tech). And in a country far far away.
Hear #yourisraelguy, Saket Agarwal, talk to Jaimit Doshi and Rajesh Jain about his journey from CA in Kolkata to becoming the liaison between tech startups in Israel and Indian companies requiring their services.
It’s an interesting tale of chance, opportunities, and lots of learnings!
Here’s the map of the whole conversation:
00:00 - Introduction
02:25 - From Kolkata to Israel, the journey
08:28 - Marrying the Indian & Israeli cultures
11:55 - Persuading Indian companies about Israeli tech
16:05 - Legacy enterprises vs Startups
18:05 - The Onnivation business model
20:40 - The lifecycle of a deal
27:55 - How Indian, Israeli tech companies differ
32:30 - The Onnivation journey
35:15 - Why is Israel tech & business so strong?
40:42 - Digital transformation tips for entreprises
47:27 - The makings of a good SaaS company
52:50 - How SaaS companies can scale
54:20 - Challenges for Onnivation in near future
1:00:12 - Last words
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We all hear tales of the aggressive, ambitious entrepreneur. But what does it really take? How do they think? What drives such an entrepreneur--these are questions we all have.
This week, enter the mind of a serial entrepreneur, Rajiv Dhingra, and walk in his shoes as he speaks to Jaimit Doshi and Rajesh Jain about his startups, entrepreneurship journey and the story of Watt Consulting, his successful digital marketing agency, and starting his new venture, RD&X.
You may know the inspiring story of Amul and the white revolution. You may enjoy their timely, witty ads with the Amul girl. You may enjoy the Amul products too (maybe even stacked it in your kitchens!?)
But do you really know the story? Did you know, for example, that Amul is one of the rare businesses that buys at a higher price from its suppliers and sells at a lower price to its consumers? Did you know that it launched 57 new products during the pandemic—many of which are beyond the realm of dairy? Did you know that Amul is one of the biggest chocolatier in the country?
No? Then this HippoBrain episode is one to listen. After a brief hiatus (happy new year!), we're back with Jayen Mehta, the Senior General Manager of Planning & Marketing at GCMMF (Amul), who talks to Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi about the business side of Amul.
You’ll learn first hand the aggression that a set of motivated employees can bring to the table in a co-operative, even though there are no investors to report quarterly numbers to!
Loyalty is a big buzzword in the world of Marketing. Of course, some would say, brands have run such programmes for decades. But the power of Martech has breathed fresh life into this fundamental concept of deeply respecting your customer.
This week, we speak to the founder of TLC Group, which specialises in loyalty programmes for the hospitality industry. Hear Sudhir Gupta as he speaks to Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi about his experience in the hospitality sector, the economics of a loyalty programme and the 1% rule in entrepreneurship.
Here’s the map of the full hippoBrain conversation with Sudhir Gupta:
00:00 - Introduction
01:45 - The idea of starting a business
07:25 - The economics of loyalty, dine-in programmes
12:20 - Why outsource loyalty programmes to TLC
14:45 - Entrepreneurship & hospitality
34:55 - Setting the culture & DNA of a company
45:05 - How to set up a loyalty programme
48:00 - Being 1% better everyday
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hippoBrain: https://twitter.com/hipp0brain
Rajesh Jain: https://twitter.com/rajeshjain
Jaimit Doshi: https://twitter.com/jaimitd
Your phone buzzes. Your calendar notifies you about an upcoming birthday. It’s a close friend in another city. What do you? You open your browser and search for Ferns N Petals. You book a cake and bouquet of flow and get it delivered at 12am midnight. It’s a close friend, after all!
Now, let’s pause for a moment and consider this:—
A business worth around Rs 500 crore. Of selling flowers. Online.
A business that depends thoroughly on the freshness of flowers, of timely, short-notice delivery, of uniformly re-creating the exact design of the bouquet you ordered. Across the world—not just India.
Now imagine setting the mechanism in the backdrop of the 90s and early 2000s when the internet culture was just setting in India. That too without any external capital or investment.
Get the whole story from the horse’s mouth in our latest hippoBrain conversation with Pawan Gadia, CEO of Ferns N Petals. He speaks to Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi about the FnP story, the challenges they faced both on the supply as well as training side; changing with times and adding more verticals like a wedding business.
Btw, don’t miss out on the part at ~38 mins where Pawan Gadia speaks about how FnP’s cashflow and how does not use its profits at all for regular business dealings.
4.8 stars and 1,200 reviews on Amazon.in—what is it about Hestia cold press juicer that it gets raving fans?
Drop all that you are doing and meet The Legend of Nehal Shah, the Chief Customer Growth officer of Hestia appliances. See how David beat the Goliaths in the cold press market by focusing obsessively on customer delight.
In a beautifully candid conversation, Nehal describes his journey of the education of India towards using a cold press juice. You understand his passion as he sent his service executives to the market to understand the various fruits and vegetables available so that they could best explain to the customers on getting the best juice.
He went about creating a system for service (lean service model) that would reach all districts of India. This was possible with proper planning on reverse logistics, obviously helped by a product that … simply did not fail.
He brings to home appliances this service obsession that he learnt while selling critical medical equipment and is maniacal about passing this on to his team.
He talks about transparency, as he explains how on his website every part cost is broken down and if you buy all the parts individually, they simply still add up to the juicer MRP, not more (unlike most others).
Nehal helps us understand how to best leverage the Amazon ecosystem to grow exponentially, get 30% direct traffic without spending a marketing dollar; expand to every corner of India, focus on customer benefits, grow 8X during a pandemic, with a waitlist!
Like I said – drop all what you are doing and watch the Legend beat the Masters.
Here’s the map of the conversation:
00:00 - Introduction
01:50 - The story of 4.8 stars on Amazon reviews
05:19 - Going to market during Covid-19 for better product experience
07:05 - Training employees for strong customer experience
08:00 - Educating customers for better experience
11:34 - Looking at every aspect of customer journey
14:46 - 2.7 - Average rate of referred customers
17:50 - Tracking pin code-wise sales
18:53 - Covering every pin code in India
19:32 - Selling on Amazon vs independently
31:26 - Dealing with unhappy customers & negative reviews
27:05 - The problem with being on Flipkart
30:17 - Why Hestia focuses on service despite a high quality product
36:45 - Setting up a lean service model
47:15 - Getting ideas from customers
53:00 - The benefits of selling through own website vs Amazon
An ad-supported business model for a media company is dead thanks to internet advertising, says our hippoBrain of this week—Samir Patil, the Founder & CEO of ScrollStack says.
But there’s something new on the rise—a new internet that will shape the way we consume digital media, much like how eCommerce has changed the retail business. All of this powered by a basic payments infrastructure.
Hear the whole conversation as Samir Patil, ex-CEO of Amar Chitra Katha talks to Jaimit Doshi and Rajesh Jain about inheriting & modernising Amar Chitra Katha, setting up scroll.in and now revolutionising the online content community with scrollstack.
P.S.: Don’t miss out on the concept of two internets and how even a small content creator can monetise on the new internet in future!
If Kabaddi is India’s original game, then Arjuna awardee Anup Kumar is India’s original Captain Cool. Listen to one of the finest proponents of Kabaddi and India’s first Kabaddi Superstar talk about all things Kabaddi, including analytics! A hippoBrain conversation like no other.
Conversations can be very powerful. Sometimes, all it takes is one phrase or word to change your perspectives completely. That’s what this week’s conversation did to us—changed our perspectives towards economics, markets, pricing, and most importantly—India’s Constitution.
This week, we have lawyer-turned-economist, Dr Shruti Rajagopalan, who researched about the Indian Constitution and its economic impact for her PhD. How she got there? That is an interesting conversation in itself. It all boils down to the controversy of giving farmer’s land in Singur to produce Tata Nano.
But here’s the most interesting tid-bit to come out of this hippoBrain conversation—the Indian Constitution is at conflict with itself.
You want to understand why India is not rich, look at the fault-lines etched in the Constitution. You want to understand the dynamics of Indian markets, look at some of the contradicting rules in the Constitution.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Listen to Dr Shruti Rajagopalan talk to Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi about the economic cost of a loose Constitution.
She also talks about how we look at markets and pricing isn’t correct. A market, she defines, is an invisible social cooperation. Pricing, meanwhile, is a signal wrapped in an incentive. “When prices are allowed to function naturally, markets coordinate beautifully,” she says.
Seems like Civics & Economics 101? Not at all. These will be ideas that will last a lifetime with you, we can bet.
Here’s the map of the entire conversation:
00:00 - Introduction
02:30 - Journey from law to economics to Indian Constitution
09:55 - Why PhD on economics of Indian Constitution
15:50 - India’s Constitutional backdoor
17:53 - Why India’s Constitution is at conflict with itself
21:55 - The Market as a form of social cooperation
30:00 - Why Price is about signals, not money
36:45 - How Constitution can cripple markets using Tata Nano & Farmer protests as examples
46:40 - Why government should not intervene in markets
52:45 - India’s moonshot entrepreneurship
58:00 - Behind Dharavi’s Covid-19 success story
1:02:00 - Last words and summary
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Connect with us:
hippoBrain: https://twitter.com/hipp0brain
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Here are the books mentioned in the conversation:
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The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy by economists James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock - https://www.amazon.in/Calculus-Consent-Selected-Gordon-Tullock/dp/0865975213
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I, Pencil by Leonard E. Read - https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/
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Modern Principles of Economics by Tyler Cowen; Alex Tabarrok - https://www.amazon.in/Modern-Principles-Microeconomics-Tyler-Cowen/dp/1319182119
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Marginal Revolution (Blog) - https://marginalrevolution.com
How do you transform a firm from inside out? Especially when the odds are stacked against you.
When you transform legacies, being a third generation of the founder just makes the job tougher.
Watch our hippoBrain, Anant Goenka, talk about how he started building a digital presence for the Indian Express group.
There are lessons here for everyone trying to keep up with the digital times—be it executives trying transform their companies, marketeers trying to build relationships with consumers, or even product managers looking to build the right solution.
Listen to the conversation and tell us which part struck a chord for you.
What’s an Olympian swimmer and Arjuna Awardee doing on hippoBrain?
Meet Rehan Poncha, one of the best swimmers India has produced. He talks about what it takes to achieve the highest level and then restart your life and do it again.
His inspirational story had humble beginnings; he took up swimming as he was too shy to dance with a girl. Then wait till he explains his path to qualification for the Olympics. Shaving one precious second at a time to the point when he had only one fourth of second left to shave off in a day.
And then after reaching the pinnacle of one sport, Rehan decides to do it again – this time in Golf!
As mortals, we have a lot to learn from these super humans, and none so articulate as Rehan as he breaks it down for us, explaining to us that to achieve greatness, you have to take your goal and break it down into smaller sizeable, achievable units that you can aim for.
Listen to the man as he talks about being driven as a child, missing parties, social interactions and jumping into freezing pools at 5 am just to train for one great goal, one milestone at a time.
After all, as Rehan says: “It is the easiest thing in the world to not choose sport, to not choose a life that demands so much of you in terms of effort, and just be a regular happy kid who goes to school, plays, grows up, goes to parties, dates and has fun.”
We present to you the ace swimmer and professional Golfer as he talks about his inspiring journey through various highs and lows, in our latest hippoBrain conversation with Jaimit Doshi and Rajesh Jain. It has lessons that, in Jaimit’s words, even a 45-year-old can draw some meaning from.
Here’s a map of all that Rehan talks about in this conversation:
00:00 - Introduction
01:44 - From 7 to 22 - The Swimming journey
08:33 - Even 0.25 seconds matter—qualifying for Beijing Olympics
20:48 - The highs and lows of success
23:40 - Setting the right goals to be persistent
30:19 - Is Swimming a lonely sport?
39:58 - Why Rehan chose Golf after retiring from Swimming
51:45 - The 4 pillars of success in sports
1:02:00 - Sport, life and entrepreneurship
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swimming #sports #rehanponcha #olympics #hippobrain #conversationsthatmatter
What can bees teach you about media planning & buying? Quite a lot, it turns out, as per Gautam Surath, Senior Vice President at Starcom.
When bees fly out of their hives, majority of the bees go out to the regular locations—that’s where the chances of success will be higher. A small portion of bees, however, will go to new places, effectively in search of newer opportunities.
This, Gautam Surath says, can easily be applied to Media planning & buying.
While a media planner’s job is to ensure that as many consumers get the Brand’s message in the most efficient way possible, it’s also important to broaden the audience. That’s the only way to lay out the seeds for a fruitful tomorrow.
This, however, can pose interesting challenges—where do you find the new set of audience? How will you estimate the ROI? How will you convince the client to spend on this new audience?
Listen to the full hippoBrain conversation to get some of these answers, while also enjoying interesting stories and anecdotes. After all, if you spend around two decades in media planning like Gautam Surath, you are bound to pick up interesting experiences along the way!
Here’s the map of this week’s hippoBrain conversation:
00:00 - Introduction
01:05 - Two decades in short
03:41 - What to learn from China on media planning
07:31 - Why you need just two KPIs
10:54 - Learning media planning from bees
13:56 - Getting more customers for tomorrow
15:40 - New audience for Brand growth
18:38 - The problem with IPL, impact advertising
27:08 - When is impact property effective
32:47 - Using data to drive media planning
38:50 - Making the most of spillover audience
47:31 - 4 pillars of media planning
52:24 - Selecting a good media planner
55:36 - The future: Hyper-targeting vs mass targeting
58:26 - The problem with retargeting
01:01:55 - Focusing on creative vs target audience
01:04:19 - Conclusion and key takeaways
mediaplanning #mediabuying #marketing #advertising #conversationsthatmatter #hippobrain
Why is India poor? Who is the reason for the lack of prosperity in India? What is the single activity that can help change the story?
You’ll have to listen to this week’s hippoBrain conversation with Ajay Shah, Economist and Author of the book ‘In Service of the Republic’, to find out the reasons for India's rampant poverty and lack of prosperity. Ajay also explains how things changed through the eras—across the post-independence era under Jawaharlal Nehru’s rule, in and around the Emergency in the 80s, pre and post the 1991 LPG reforms, and after 2011.
Interestingly, he speaks about why all hope lies in India’s private sector to eliminate poverty, the mistakes that he—and others with him—made during their time in the Ministry of Finance, and the disturbing signs he sees for India’s near future.
A must-watch for everyone who is interested in what’s happening to India’s economy and politics.
P.S.: To those who are wondering if Jawaharlal Nehru was great or made grave errors, you’ll probably find a nuanced answer at around 27 minutes.
Choosing to go from creating CD-ROM content to digital media
Choosing to go from a service agency to a product company
Choosing not to sell your company
Choosing to be self-funded instead of getting a seed investor
Choosing to create a product and then figure out how to adapt it to the market
Choosing to launch a product company from San Francisco while targeting the Asian market
Choosing to create a single integrated system instead of modularised, siloed products
Choosing to change the market rather than do what the market needs
If there were to be a title to this episode, it could probably be ‘hard calls’. After all, every single one of the decisions listed above are hard and against the trend. So what experiences do these decisions lead to? Find out in our latest hippoBrain conversation where Redickaa Subrammanian narrates the incredible experiences while pivoting from a services-based agency to a product company, where she learnt: “It’s about saying no when you’re designed to say yes.” Listen to the CEO of Resulticks, one of the global leaders in omni-channel marketing automation, talk about shifting the mentality from a product-market fit to a problem-mindset fit.
Serendipity (n): Finding something good without looking for it. That’s how Rachmat Kaimuddin, the CEO of Bukalapak, Indonesia’s largest e-commerce company, describes his journey from engineering and technology to banking and corporate finance, and back to a tech-based sector like e-commerce—all this when the world witnessed crises like the 9/11 attack, the Asian crisis in 1998, the dot com bubble in the 2000s, and Indonesia’s own transition from the old economy to the new economy. But is it really that simple? Nothing more than fate and chance? Watch the episode and find out the other value mechanisms at play here than mere serendipity. Here’s a trailer: He says, “I go to school and study because I want to know, not because I want to pass.”
In a wide-ranging conversation with Rajesh and Jaimit, Ramesh discusses about how India can become a manufacturing power, why strategy is about making choices, how to get the best from consulting firms and his philosophy on giving back.
Public service vs private sector. Economic thinking vs political thinking. Every changing politicians vs (almost) never-changing bureaucrats. Watch opposites reconcile in this week’s episode as Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi speak to Akhilesh Tilotia, the author of the book ‘The Making of India’. He talks about how he experimented with his career and journeyed from the world of private sector to get an inside view of public service, when he took the post of ‘Officer on Special Duty’ to the then Minister of State for Civil Aviation for the Government of India. He also speaks about his experience with policy-making for the UDAAN initiative; how the two different aspects of public and private life come together; the idea about power ‘highs’ and seamless transfers in a functioning democracy; and the other dynamics involved in the running of the Indian government. P.S.: Look out for what it means to have flowers replaced daily in a bureaucrat’s premises! You won’t regret it.
In this episode, Rajesh and Jaimit speak to Ashwini Asokan! Ashwini talks to us about her journey from Chennai to Carnegie Melon to California and back to Chennai to start up Mad Street Den, and takes us deep into the world of AI.
What do romantic English poetry, law, business school, tennis and investments have in common? You wouldn’t know but when you mix them together, you can see the magic happen. If you want to know how to invest $4Bn, watch Navroz, the co-founder and Partner at Falcon Edge, talk about his mentality and discipline as he unravels a keen understanding of the fundamentals of investing and picking markets along with which entrepreneurs to back. Lamenting on the valuations in search of business, he instead tries to chart a path of investing by focussing on US, China and India markets. It amazing to see the differences in each as he focuses by identifying segments and markets that are characterised by a terrible buying experience and a fragmented supply, allowing for innovation to work. Understand how ecosystems are getting created in India, how the unit economics are brutal and how the unique demographic and cultural spread of India is creating an opportunity like no other. This is masterclass by the person who pummels his days with a desperate daily desire to compete, but having an aim to one day, give it back to society. The drive is almost terminator-esque but the power still comes from the heart beating, feeling and pushing him forward. Listen to a hippoBrain like no other.
In this episode, Rajesh and Jaimit speak to Neha Barjatya, CEO of Rajshri Entertainment. Neha tells us about her inspirational journey as she transformed from being a home-maker to becoming the CEO of one of India's largest multi-format entertainment platforms.
Jayesh Ghatge talks about his journey over two decades – which mirrors the evolution of Indian IT, and also outlines how to do digital transformation right.
As India celebrates 25 years of the Internet, Ramaraj takes us down memory lane -- how he led Sify to an IPO on Nasdaq at the height of the dotcom boom in 1999 and how Sify built a world-class Internet Internet company with its entrepreneurial energy.
In this episode, Arvind Sivdas explains MS Dhoni's captaincy, Kabaddi auction theory and Sania's Badminton, all through Analytics and Data!
Ambarish talks about his journey from Knowlarity in India to starting on his dream of building Basis Vectors in the US, a private equity fund focused on B2B SaaS.
Rahul Chandra tells us about his journey from being a successful venture capitalist, then reaching a tough crossroads in his career, and the struggle of starting afresh as an entrepreneur-and-VC. Rahul gives us the unique perspective of being on both sides – as an entrepreneur and investor. He also shares his learnings of what he looks for in entrepreneurs and how this has changed through the years.
In episode 6, Rajesh and Jaimit speak to the CEO of LeadSquared, Nilesh Patel. He speaks about his journey from Proteans to Leadsquared to create a global B2B SaaS company focused on sales efficiency -- the importance of product simplicity, creating distribution as a moat, the synergies in a founding team and how to "outlearn the other guy."
Welcome to hippoBrain! In Episode 5, Rajesh and Jaimit speak to Rentomojo's founder and CEO Geetansh Bamania. Geetansh tells us about his journey starting from a small town in Chattisgarh to the ideation and inception of Rentomojo, the behaviour and characteristics of the core Rentomojo customer, the challenges of raising capital, and how his triad of knowledge of finance, engineering, and product expertise helps him run his company!
Welcome to hippoBrain! Hippo-sized conversations with hippo-sized brains! In Episode 4, we speak to Sandeep Mittal, the Managing Director of Cartesian Consulting! He gives us his perspective on the evolution of direct marketing, data analytics, and their relationship. Sandeep also talks to us about the need for benchmarks in data modelling in the marketing industry, the challenges of segmentation and personalised targeting, and the benefits of confluence between data modelling and data systems!
Welcome to hippoBrain! Hippo-sized conversations with hippo-sized brains! In episode 3, Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi speak to Kartik Jain! He explains the interplay between the three pillars of data, tech and customers, calculating the profitability of a customer, the challenges of understanding the needs of the individual customer and more! To know more about Kartik Jain, here is his linkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jainkartik/?originalSubdomain=in
Welcome to hippoBrain! Hippo-sized conversations with hippo-sized brains! In episode 2, Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi speak to NYU Stern Professor Anindya Ghose! Professor Ghose talks to us about his perspective as a professor and consultant on the evolving trends of the martech and adtech worlds, the four verticals of AI along with its role in the marketing world, and the importance of storytellers in the marketing industry! To know more about Professor Ghose and his work:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aghose LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anindya-ghose/
Welcome to hippoBrain! Hippo-sized conversations with hippo-sized brains! In episode 1, Rajesh Jain and Jaimit Doshi speak to Vivek Bhargava about his entrepreneurial journey, evolution of ad tech and martech, the consumer perspective of the marketing world, and building brands in the digital age. To know more about Mr. Bhargava here is his twitter: https://twitter.com/vivekbhargava and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivekbhargava/