First Principles: Recent Episodes
The Ken
Some of smartest and most successful entrepreneurs out there join Rohin Dharmakumar CEO of The Ken, for a chat what makes their work, work.
Thoughtfully crafted questions, and a deep probe into their ways of doing business will reveal a lot more, not only about who they are, but also how they got there. Subscribe to never miss a new episode!
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.
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.
The three co-founders continue to work from a single desk in the same room 23 years after they started the company.
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.”
Welcome to the 25th episode of First Principles. For this episode, I 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
Stay on and keep listening for another wonderful conversation around leadership, long-term thinking and perspective.
Before I leave you with the conversation, I have a request. If you like First Principles, please rate us on your favourite app or platform. Your ratings are one of the strongest signals for us.
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
In 2023, the business of online comparison platforms seems old-fashioned.
Sure, people may land upon them via search engines, but only some would rarely transact through them. Especially if the products being compared are as life-altering as insurance, right?
Wrong.
PolicyBazaar—not just India's but the world's largest insurance comparison and transaction platform—proves that.
Yashish Dahiya, the co-founder and Group CEO of Policybazaar, takes us through this story in this episode of First Principles.
Policybazaar started in 2008 and is a publicly listed company today. It's the largest in its space by far. Many of the things it does, or how it does, don't fit into the easy patterns we've been used to.
For instance, employees making phone calls to prospective customers is at the core of their business. In an era where we're told phone calls and call centres are a relic of the past.
So, why do they do it?
Yashish attributes this and many other decisions to PolicyBazaar to being fundamentally First Principles-driven.
Yashish is incredibly energetic and driven. He is a serious sportsman and triathlete. He's also as straight-talking and candid as they come.
In this episode, we talk to Yashish about why he calls PolicyBazaar an education platform and not a comparison one, the "right to win", how he spots and grooms talent and the importance of physical endurance and excellence.
This is Episode 23 of First Principles, with Yashish Dahiya — The Ken's fortnightly leadership podcast.
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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
Most founders on First Principles—The Ken's fortnightly leadership podcast—have also been CEOs. And one of the questions we often ask them is: when to make way for someone else as a CEO?
If leadership is a ladder, we often make the mistake of thinking that the CEO title sits at the apex.
Instead, leadership is a journey. And the best founders know that to create organisations that outlast them, the CEO title is but one milestone in their journey. The road doesn't end there.
Varun Dua, our guest for this episode, co-founded Acko—a digital-first insurer most recently valued at over $1.4 billion. He was also Acko's CEO before hiring a seasoned insurance industry leader to take over that role.
That's not the only thing different about Varun.
He freely admits that as a graduate, he was super lazy and had neither a plan for his life nor any interest in being an entrepreneur. His dream at one point was to get hired by eBay or Cleartrip. Thankfully for him, neither of the companies hired him.
So, he ended up starting one company, which morphed into another firm, which morphed into Acko.
Along the way, he went from super lazy to super driven.
In today's episode, Varun reflects on the choices he made in his career and life and talks about how he's preparing for the ones that still lie ahead.
This is Episode 22 of First Principles with Varun Dua.
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
If you started listening to First Principles—The Ken's fortnightly leadership podcast—in 2023, then today's special episode might be something you'll love.
We went back to guests from episodes 6 to 10 from 2022 and created a supercut episode highlighting some of the most interesting bits from conversations with these accomplished leaders.
We'd urge you to listen to the full episodes, but this is a great place to start if you've been meaning to check out our older episodes but haven't gotten around to it.
We begin with Harshil Mathur, the co-founder and CEO of Razorpay—a fintech giant offering loans, payroll services, and even bank accounts.
Harshil talks about his journey into entrepreneurship, how Razorpay develops products, the importance of deliberately driving company culture, and much more.
Episode 6: Razorpay CEO Harshil Mathur talks about deliberate culture, building to a need, and the principles of product development
Next, we have Vineeta Singh, the co-founder and CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics—one of India's most popular and fastest-growing cosmetics brands.
Vineeta talks about overcoming stereotypes as a female founder, the importance of passion when selecting your workplace, and why hustle, hunger, humour, and humility are key pillars of SUGAR's culture.
Episode 7: Vineeta Singh of SUGAR Cosmetics talks about building products, educating consumers, and focusing on the long term
And then, we have Amrish Rau, the CEO of Pine Labs—the payments solution provider whose point-of-sale terminals are visible in most Indian shops and stores.
In 2016, Citrus Pay, an online payments provider Amrish co-founded, was acquired by rival PayU for $130 million in cash. It was one of the most significant acquisitions back then. But Amrish says it is also one of his biggest regrets. As a first-time founder, he decided to sell his company too quickly. Amrish tells us why.
Episode 8: Amrish Rau of Pine Labs talks about the differences between being a founder and CEO
Next, we have Amit Agarwal, the co-founder and CEO of NoBroker—the 8-year-old Bengaluru-headquartered real estate platform that wants to disrupt the very concept of brokerage fees.
Amit speaks about entering management consulting as a young MBA because it paid the most, starting a business that almost no investor wanted to fund, convincing notoriously value-minded Indians to pay a subscription fee before finding a rental apartment, and running a frugal organisation with a cockroach mentality.
Episode 9: Amit Agarwal of NoBroker talks about his single-minded mission to disrupt brokerage, building a cockroach company, and why his office address is a secret
And finally, we have Tarun Mehta, the co-founder and CEO of Ather Energy—India's best-known electric scooter maker.
Tarun speaks about his journey to convince investors of his vision, doing hard things that defied common sense, building an organisation over decades, and why it takes at least three years to make a true impact at work.
Episode 10: Tarun Mehta of Ather Energy talks about doing hard things, going down multi-year rabbit holes, building companies over 30-40 years, and being chief storyteller
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
We don’t have a new First Principles episode this week, but we do have something special for you.
If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, you’ve already built a curiosity for mental models that force you to look at the world differently. To break down complex problems from the ground up. To analyse and synthesise.
This, precisely, is also what the First Principles newsletter is about.
Each Sunday, this newsletter will bring fresh insights into how accomplished founders, leaders, and changemakers apply First Principles thinking to see the world differently and remake it in their vision.
If you’re a free or paying subscriber of The Ken, you’ll find this newsletter in your inbox already.
But if not, please click here, sign up for free on our website, and you'll receive the newsletter in your inbox for free: https://the-ken.com/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=podcasts&utm_campaign=podcast_ep
The stories of entrepreneurial success around us are so often slick, bulleted, and cleaned up to remove all references to false starts, serendipity or accidents. And at the centre of those stories are founders.
These visionary leaders dream up startups worth billions of dollars out of nothing, like Krish Subramanian, the co-founder and CEO of Chargebee.
Chargebee started by helping businesses manage their paying subscribers and now operates in the broader revenue management market. This Indian company was last valued at over $3.5 billion.
Krish's own path to success, though, was anything but formulaic.
He graduated in 2001, as the dot-com boom was cratering and when the 9/11 attacks on America spooked the world.
Krish couldn't find a job. Six months later, when he finally did, his first salary was Rs 3500. It would be another ten years before he finally got together with his co-founders and started Chargebee.
And even then, they spent the first five years going around in circles before finally hitting their groove.
In today's episode, he reflects and explains the meandering path he took to success and the lessons he learned along the way.
For instance, he believes early-stage founders must set constraints and say 'no' instead of 'challenge accepted!'
Krish talks about learning to let go of the need for world-changing ideas, hiring for strengths, why someone great for a zero-to-one project may be terrible for a one-to-10 or 10 to 100 project, treating business as a game and not getting attached to your preconceived definitions of success.
He also shares what he believes is the most critical role for a CEO: Trusting others, getting out of the way and letting go or, in Krish’s own words, continuously firing yourself.
This is Episode 21 of 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: https://the-ken.com/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=podcasts&utm_campaign=podcast_ep
In a career spanning 25 years, Amrish Rau has been on multiple sides of the leadership equation. He’s been a corporate leader, founder, professional CEO and angel investor. As the CEO of Pine Labs, the payments solution provider whose point of sale terminals can be seen in most Indian shops and stores, Rau says his ambition is to “make money from every transaction”.
In 2016, Citrus Pay, an online payments provider Rau co-founded, was acquired by rival PayU for $130 million in cash. It was one of the biggest acquisitions back then.But Rau says it is also one of his biggest regrets. As a first-time founder, he made the decision to sell his company too quickly. As an entrepreneur, he says, “at the end of the day, you need your own horse and your own carriage. And you need to be able to hug it every day and saying, this is mine.”
In this wide-ranging conversation Rau touches upon a range of topics. From creating corporate cultures to “FU money” to risk-taking to the evolution of fintech, there’s interesting themes every few minutes.
If you’d rather (or perhaps also) read than listen, we have also published the full transcript for this interview on our website. You can click here and read through it.
And if you have any questions, thoughts, suggestions, or tips, please email them to podcasts@the-ken.com. We might not be able to reply to all of them but we do read every single one of them.
Sugar Cosmetics, though now amongst the most popular and fastest growing cosmetics brand in India, wasn't the first choice when Vineeta was asked to name her new cosmetics company, and neither was cosmetics the first business that Vineeta undertook when she set out to be an entrepreneur.
Getting Sugar to it's users was a tumultuous journey and as Vineeta sits down with Rohin to recount some of the most important points in the journey, we get a peek at the lenses she uses to look at the world around her.
We have also published the full transcript for this interview on our website. You can click here and read through it.
If you have any questions, thoughts, suggestions, or rants, please email them to podcasts@the-ken.com. We might not be able to reply to all of them but we do read every single one of them.
Today’s guest on First Principles is Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder of Razorpay.
Razorpay claims to be India’s first full-stack financial solutions company. And if that sounds very much like how a coder would describe a company, it’s because that’s exactly what’s happening.
When Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, two coding enthusiasts fresh into their first jobs, started working on what would later become Razorpay, they never really set out to build a company or be entrepreneurs. They just wanted to solve a problem.
But in doing so, they were compelled to create Razorpay.
Today’s episode is a delightful mix of first principles thinking, thoughts on product development, and the importance of deliberately driving company culture. Earlier in August, The Ken’s journalist Shashwat Mohanty did a story on the challenges Razorpay faces in realising its neo-banking dream. The story is now behind a paywall but you can find it here.
Feedback? Write to us on podcasts@the-ken.com
Mensa Brands is India’s fastest unicorn. It took them only six months to zoom past the one-billion-dollar valuation mark. Having raised over US$300 million in debt and equity so far, Ananth Narayanan, the founder and CEO of Mensa Brands and the former CEO of Myntra, seems to be on to something.
In this episode, we tap into all of it. From his time at McKinsey as a consultant and his stint as Myntra's CEO, to leading MedLife and its sale to PharmEasy, and eventually founding Mensa Brands, Ananth shares everything good and some things that weren't. We touch upon his thoughts on ploughing through the tough times, the ability to bounce back after major lows, and the value of learnability and curiosity.
As always, we’re happy to hear your feedback. Please share it with us at podcasts@the-ken.com. You can write to us with feedback, questions you want us to ask future guests, or even guests you would like to see on the show!
You can also read the story we wrote on Mensa Brands here for free: Mensa, Evenflow pitch e-comm brand aggregation to rigid Indian sellers
This story will only remain free for a week and then move behind a paywall.
Valued at 12 billion dollars, InMobi is not only amongst the first unicorns that India saw but is also amongst one of the most valued tech start ups of the country. Spanning across InMobi, Glance, and Roposo, Naveen's journey has seen failure, innovation, and most importantly, survival, through strong first principles of business and creativity.
We being all the way from m-khoj, Naveen's first tech start up, and trace his journey down to the current day behemoth that InMobi is. Through this journey, there are stories, anecdotes, notes on culture, and in each of them, some first principles. Principles that help Naveen look at the world a little differently than the rest of us.
We're always looking for feedback and suggestions on everything we put out. If you have thoughts, suggestions, questions we could ask our guests, or even guests you wish to see on the show, please write to us on podcasts@the-ken.com We read every single email that comes in there.
This time around First Principles makes its way to possibly one of the most fascinating success stories to come out of the Indian start-up space. Zerodha's cofounder Nithin Kamath joins Rohin Dharmakumar in this free wheeling chat about what makes him tick, why he is thankful no one ever invested in his idea early on, thoughts on their early success, and a lot more around building relationships, identifying risks, and seeking opportunities.
First Principles is a show where Rohin Dharmakumar, founder and CEO of The Ken, interviews some of the most successful business leaders, and entrepreneurs of our time on the lenses they use to look at the world around them. Lenses that help them see things that most of us don't.
You can look at all the other Ken Podcasts here
In this episode of First Principles we speak to Baskar Subramanian, co-founder and CEO of Amagi, a profitable unicorn you probably haven't heard about. Yet. Valued at almost 1.5 billion dollars, and a leader in the broadcast-technology domain, Amagi's road to the top wasn't easy, but it definitely makes for a fun listen. Listen to that and more about how Baskar built the company, how he leads life, his thoughts on leadership, parenting, and more.
First Principles is a show where Rohin Dharmakumar, founder and CEO of The Ken, interviews some of the most successful business leaders, and entrepreneurs of our time on the lenses they use to look at the world around them. Lenses that help them see things that most of us don't.
You can look at all the other Ken Podcasts here
This pilot episode of First Principles features Kabeer Biswas, founder and CEO at Dunzo, one of India's fastest growing quick commerce companies. Kabeer talks about how he navigates failure, accepts feedback, and makes sure that Dunzo is always focused on the things that matter.
First Principles is a show where Rohin Dharmakumar, founder and CEO of The Ken, interviews some of the most successful business leaders, and entrepreneurs of our time on the lenses they use to look at the world around them. Lenses that help them see things that most of us don't.
You can look at all the other Ken Podcasts here