probably I was staring at the food not [Music] bad then they [Music] saying right St and then he became an angel investor in companies like dzo this story is about racks to riches about Indian Street smartness about please enjoy today's show [Music] the beginning absolutely abolutely Sunday Monday Tuesday wday it's not going down the Indian pulse for scale and he's holding on to that in my opinion price right good quality at the lowest price and uh that's the only USB that I can think of which everybody knows yeah but then the way he's executed it it's mindblowing mindblowing right so you get that right so Bangalore man restaurant called truffles okay he's got the same success I know truffles yeah uh even today you get the best of the food great quality at very low prices and you can't go wrong with it if you keep your quality high and your prices are low any business like there's always a competition betweenity in my opinion I'm not an expert on dmart but in my opinion number one is that he's got the real estate game right real estate game very right very right okay and the second thing is that he has kept his overheads very very low which is something that the startup ecosystem has not done the startup ecosystem has gone completely the opposite of that most startup you know Founders who raised money and raised money at a very young age they got carried away and also to some extent the VCS uh did not put checks and measures in place right I have heard I have heard but I have heard some really Moy vs telling startup Founders acquire customers hire people hire people was such a you know scam right there are instances 75 right so there have been massive errors the startup ecosystem has not learned from Mrtheone okay definition of success for me okay is not even the return or the money and stuff like that for me definition of success is impact on India impact whatab and you know the founders have done so they have done okay hyperal they took it to a different level and they were the you know way ahead of anybody else who executed it so well okay and look at the impact on the lives of Indians today everybody it's become like a verb right people have so much confidence today in India you know I will get it done that is success for me you impact on bhat and impact of success of success of bat is success for you your individual needs are being met of course of course right the sense of higher purpose comes later in life totally right for a lot of people that's success right so what was that point for you and just let's let's go back to your story first is you know in your research we got to find out that St my dad passed away when I was 12 H my mom was not educated um we from the age of 12 to 15 okay right I had a younger sister I had to get her married I wasn't sure where life is headed there was no money for Education absolutely and which city bang Bangalore had you know a thought I'll do something I don't know what it was a calling from inside or whatever K this is not going to work I have to do something extraordinary so I started just uh wandering till very late in the night one night and I was passing by the railway station I saw a lot of people felt safe I went and I fell asleep and that's when I realized ke not a bad place to sleep the next 3 months okay I would spend a lot of time just wandering thinking hungry there are days together when I have not had food and uh I have seen the best and the worst of humanity there give give me best example and the worst example which you have seen you felt best example uh unfortunately he no longer alive um to he used to see me and I would say too much of self-respect and I would be like I know what he's saying I know what he's doing okay and I would take it okay I am forever indebted to that man and maybe that helped me for the next one or two days right on days when I didn't get food I have just had water and slept right the best of humanity I mean um books no subject nothing so I have read books on space on science on economics right that's how it was so that was the best of humanity the worst of humanity was so I've shared this story many a times to probably I was staring at the food not [Music] bad they came they all started hitting me and then they saying right up I don't know I don't know I don't know but I'll also not do anything wrong wrong to get there right it'll take long but it's okay that was a changing point so the best and worst of Humanity on a railway platform right so there are so many things in life that have happened kaj they change you in that [Music] moment change right so this was one of those so railway station say you joined just [Music] dial business okay business no job Direct business on railway station so raway right it took me a few days to understand he was a financer okay he Cindi financer right I got very curious I slowly befriended him okay 10% for a day 10% honestly I started you know thinking in my mind then I asked him trust me I looked from a decent family I was speaking decent language with [Music] him so he trusted me I said so he said I couldn't believe it because was like a treasure for me right you know honestly 50 R per day so he started trusting me with a little bit of money slowly it became a little higher slowly it become a little higher I also started understanding because when I was giving the money to these cart vendors vegetable B fruit B I started understanding first business lesson came from there velocity and I'll explain this to you right so I started talking to these vegetable vendors in my mind it was like but they were very happy because they were borrowing 500 or, and they were almost making double of it though they were paying 50 or 100 rupes interest right so I asked uh some of these guys cart vendors second round or 50/50 partnership on your extra earning MH right so they said he will take the money back at 3:00 we'll need time till 6 I said that I'll manage with him so so I was so eager to get into this because I can earn money and that is when we started I had almost at one time 20 cards money was given by the financer the cost of money was still 10% but I was doing a second cycle second cycle 5050 was 50/50 right and the second cycle they were earning almost the same because here I learned something new you know I learned if I match the needs with the with the product for example Bangalore sash Rajiv stays there right so vegetable vendor who's finished his car now doing fruits in the second round so we started making per cart 500 600 rupees of profit per day 20 cards almost like I started earning 4 5,000 rupees a day for a guy who had no food to eat the first thing I did got a house for my family I should have stopped there then I got greedy right again brainless immature and uh um you know I didn't think I did anything wrong cuz I had enough money to lend these guys my own money now so I started lending so I didn't realize that he's a powerful guy but Lessons Learned right or another lesson that I learned which changed my life right right right no problem that's good enough right that's the start that's the [Music] timate first second was that's a very bold statement and third [Music] is I obviously he also learned probably I don't know what happened I was too scared to find out I moved on in life first job first proper job after the platform was that of an office boy office boy office boy in Bangalore there was an there's an area called chickpet and I was walking around ask he asked me I had no idea I said I didn't know what job I was getting H so he made me an office boy I started off by opening the shop mopping uh cleaning in hindsight I'm very happy that I did everything in life I didn't have an easy life right but I'm very happy that I did everything because um I wouldn't have been where I am without being where I was so um that was that was uh those five or six years were really tough then uh the way I got into get it Yellow Pages first that was the proper job you know the first proper job and uh I had reception then that girl at the reception said you have not come for an interview degree she said app I didn't even think I need a job because I was doing all kinds of OD jobs and I was earning enough interviewer he asked me uh a question key um can you do uh the accounting K I also applied for accounting because my friend was do you know how to do accounting and the honest answer is no I don't understand he liked it then the way I was talking I think he liked it he said so he said sales join first salary 800 rupees per month per month okay right this is 1991 1990 all my first learning about sales came from there I got trained by the Canadians uh B Canada collaboration I got trained by the best of the Canadian trainers I got to travel around the world okay to go and I went to Philippines Singapore Dubai etc etc and then I learned great processes from there to come back and implement it over here um so I learned so much in that company okay everything that you know I need to know everything that I know has come from there in those eight years in those seven eight years you know that was the foundation True Foundation let's let's break this down right right how do you sell something to people first of all first of all sales you never sell anything okay you need to understand what your product is and you need to understand the need of the person on the other side majority sales people make a mistake there is like everybody has to buy it it's not true so sales is an art you don't sell you actually make the other person buy right depending on what are his needs so the first thing in sales is you never sell you uncover needs right the first if your whole conversation is 30 minutes probably 20 minutes to you're asking questions asking questions understand everything and then in your mind you're mapping right and second thing in sales is you never offer the product straight right you've got to make him see what is the product going to do so for example how is his life without your product today and what are his desires which you have uncovered in the first 20 minutes who hog right that is when you are making him buy right you never talk about money right because if you've done the first part of it correct money money doesn't matter true right so that according to me is sales I don't know whether you agree with me what no I do agree with you actually formula sales okay I've made this formula which is spot on it's just I've broken down into three parts p e okay so p is preparation all right absolutely right that's preparation right is emotion right right e is emotion you need to understand the emotion and third is urgency you is urgency corre is never it's objection handling example right with this software with this think PE preparation emotion and urgency and that's how you sell a product which you said rightly it's just I've just broken down with three part yeah yeah I mean each of us have our own way of selling so it's very similar um yeah so that is sales majority of the sales people I have seen making a mistake is that they have one size fits all approach oh yes that's so bad that is a sure short way to fail and know you said something very nice that's a very good thing I call it salesman seduction nice word okay so as a Salesman yeah you have to seduce the other person and show them in their head right if they get you they're going to get the orgasm of their life cor absolutely that's all you want to do then the person automatically will try to buy you like they they just want to get to you absolutely that's the salesman seduction very well said Raj I'm I'm going to borrow this okay so next is I wanted to understand about your just di yeah Journey okay justd Journey was U uh you know almost about 13year Journey um from 98 was my first brush with jti um somebody introduced me to uh one of the founders and um they were struggling and I was coming from a high of Yellow Pages I was very very successful I had done Yellow Pages across India and then uh traveled across you know Asian countries um I knew a lot more so when I looked at what just dial was doing at that stage uh they were not new they were already in the market for some time so that's when uh he asked me if I can handle sales for them so I said yes but I'm not going to be a salaried person right so I have my own office by then I had built an office in Bangalore and my own office I'll do it on my own so he said okay then uh uh we negotiated ke what sales happen 40% is mine okay and I thought I did a great job in negotiating that 40% of the Top Line H that's that's really 40% of the overall top line or 40% of the top line which you get get what I get yeah what I get you okay so uh when I started selling is when I realized that the pricing at which they are selling I'm never going to make money they were selling a one year listing at 999 rupees and something called as a liftime listing at $29. 99 okay so then when I came in I tried to figure out and then I took the price up to$ 499. 99 for a year okay then 40% was worth it right so for the first few months I had this uh you know arrangement with just dial where I was an external um sales vendor bringing sales and earning my money what happened to I'm very curious I remember was the brand ambassador right cheese and I remember I think I was in college at that time okay so this is 20123 okay you know that's how you get to know that was the time was it a success what failure just disappear right I want to know that I think just di was one of India's most successful companies okay uh in in the IT services it was infosis and vipro TCS and later on Tech Mahindra and stuff like that in a product company there was no product company that was successful in India except for just di okay and just di was so impactful right um like you said if you wanted to go to a movie you call just style yeah right if you wanted to go to a restaurant you just car mechanics car mechanic right which be could be we basically at just dial what you got was everything you needed in your life right you had one number for everything yeah so that was just dial in terms of revenues uh just di was doing fantastic right uh in ter terms of employees just di hired more than 10,000 people at a time okay so the kind of impact that just di created the small medium businesses in India the amount they benefited from just stle is insane it's insane Discovery exactly right so what just Di has done for India I don't think any other company in that era has ever done for it so if you was it a success or not I mean Beyond doubt it's one of the most successful companies but financials like if they were doing so well yeah they got listed also I guess yes listed on the stock exchange in 2013 at a market cap of 3,800 odd crores which was about half a billion dollars a little over half a billion dollars at that time Dollar was at about 50 rupees uh and within about a couple of years 2015 March I think the company was trading at about $2.
2 billion on the market cap cap I mean in you know that that was the market cap of the company to uh super successful super super successful uh Innovation not keeping up with the times in my opinion some may agree some may not agree it's my personal view what I'm sharing with you is my personal View I think two things which just di could have done was most well positioned to do okay there was no room for zomato there was no room for no room for bookm show there was no room for prao today just di would have been all of this put together right but uh what I see from inside at that time was the classic debate between build versus bu okay okay this is a classic debate amongst uh business owners build build versus buy is like you know when you have a when you have a good Tech Team you think I can build anything in the world MH okay why should I buy why should I buy a company okay why should I buy 25% or 30% Stak in an Ola or a practor or a you know at those in those days they were all raising money at valuations that you can't you laugh at I mean they were so there was no valuation at all all right absolutely absolutely but the smart thing would have been to do yes you know put that by stake in all of them they all wanted just dial okay because just dial had the data we had the consumers just di regular users absolutely and absolutely TR because it at a point I remember at least for 6 to 12 months right for a period of almost 78 years I'm telling you my you you were very young at that time for a period of 78 years people swore about with you know that just it's yeah so you know in hindsight in hindsight you can be smart right so in hindsight I think that what we should have done was as a company of course I was not these things yeah a lot of these things but the debate internally was can we can we not build it okay uh uh so which can be true for a building team building team you're right and wrong or team DNA DNA of course of course DNA is everything in my opinion okay what do you mean by that I mean they could what works in a certain decade okay will only work in that decade the consumer is changed okay but you want to bring in you know your experience which is now become a baggage into the next decade and you want to say that you know it worked for me then so the same thing will work for me here is a myth yeah okay and that is the downall of a lot of companies what makes me feel sad is that just dial could have been all of these businesses put together today that we are all proud of right could have been one man who did it and I really appreciate is sanjie big chandani in for yeah yes he did it right and uh I've Had The Good Fortune of talking to him a few times uh and I think he got the pulse right oh yes right I you know I I'll I'll give you one take on just and then I'll come to sanjie because I love the man and I have had a good fortune I'll tell you my story with okay though I also feel you know just this is my take just taking from the hindsight and right I'm just because I'm like a keen Observer of this entire business world and startup world I love analyzing you know success patterns around the world right right right basis so don't quote me on this it's just opinion yeah you know mhm okay mdle abolutely abolutely that is exactly what happens specific brands or specific apps and I think that's where consumers like us we lost trust in just Di and we were like appoint it's not just of course of course it started off in the US um you know they were such amazing the the zato and spigg is a copy of copy of exactly GrubHub and uh which is the other one you know door Dash door okay to uh yeah you're right about it I completely agree with now India is moving to consumerism so I think and I always believe become become everything for someone become everything for someone instead of something for everyone very important so yeah I agree you know like it's like hungry [Music] customer platform membership platform probably I would have not been able to trust get 100% pie of one category instead of one one% pie of every category right that is what I believe what do you what do you think no I I to a very large extent agree with you to a very very large extent I agree with ob% it can't be Universal right right yeah so but you know at the same time you know when you spoke about sanjie see sanjie was also in the same boat at that time at that point right sanjie also had the same investors tiger was investors in both just is and in INF INF ede um so what you do for the next 10 years can't be the same as what I I spoke about this already right so you've got to you've got to be able to play the game okay what is for the future you can't so what sanjie did right was that he got into zato M uh and a whole lot of other uh businesses he got into edtech very early he got into to I think he had a company called shiksha. com H so this was coming to so I feel sanj he got the P of and with soani understood the pulse of India no I think he understood one more thing this you're right okay the other thing that he understood was that I can't do everything myself you know the smart thing that he did is he said okay I have the brand I have the money okay I have the knowledge but I don't want to do everything myself so he got the right people to lead and he invested secondly he didn't own I mean if you look at his look at his holding on the cap TS I don't think he holds more than 26 28% in any of those companies right so the smart thing he did was he made the owners um have enough skin in the game to build those businesses right so those are all very important things a lot of times investors and strategic investors get carried away I will own more right so that doesn't work too when I sit here as a podcaster and I talk to hundreds of business Founders okay startup Founders from from the traditional business owners like harsh marala to the modern day bootstrap startup Founders like nikil and to someone who right and as human beings right but when I go back to my house of X or as House of X as a found because I am so obsessed with my baby you know as a Founder it's very difficult how do you think as a [Music] Founder AB absolutely RoR Focus how do you found it's difficult I'm obsessed about my baby you are and you should be okay but while you are looking at as your baby you should also look at it from the point of view of the user now so first and foremost stop looking at it from a Founder's point of view okay start looking at it from a users's point of view okay and profile your user correctly and you see if there are five different profile files that are using your product what is it that that that they want right if you're not able to meet their needs then there's absolutely no point in building that product um and this changes every probably 2 months yeah right so you know unfortunate truth about technology is that everything is changing the user is changing the user's needs are changing technology is changing the money in your bank is changing right so absolutely so uh I have a belief that first build a cash cow okay build a cash cow let your cash cow be your fallback interesting and then experiment see because no great Innovation will happen without experimentation no great Innovation will happen without failures it's great to fail okay I really appreciate people who fail and and bounce back yeah right but for that you need money and you need money coming out of internal approvals investor money is only going to make you a slave right because at the end of the day every investor thinks that he knows the world just because he's giving you a little bit of money okay now that is not a great place to be in a great place to be in is when you have enough internal approvals that you can tell everyone in the world you know what leave me alone I know what I'm doing I'll build it and I'm building it out of the money that I'm making right so I know Founders who have built great companies with this kind of with this kind of an attitude because they were lucky they didn't have investors what do you feel different Canada customers or Indian customers UK customers like how are Indian customers Western customers different guessing a stock difference the customer in the west let's say West versus East right the customer in the west is willing to pay for service for Quality okay and he understands the difference between a low quality service or a low quality product and a high quality product or a high quality service and he's willing to pay for it he's willing to pay for saving his time the average Indian consumer wants everything on par with the rest of the world but when it comes to paying we are still not you know very willing right or compies they have to figure out new ways to monetize right so that is one big difference that I have seen in the users when it comes to teams and you know management U you know the big difference is they value their work life balance right they have a life uh lesser said the better you know that has to and I don't think that's going to change because it's again like I said DNA DNA it's it's it's just in our DNA change it's a billion dollar question okay tell me tell me about we're talking about giving back an impact and you said the next in which you're doing with zuel yeah is a form of giving back and is is is something which by which you're trying to create an impact in the country what is that what is zuil Right Zuul uh first of all the name a lot of people tell me is very intriguing it's a straight copy from Google okay okay so I am a big fan of what Google is built um so we've just taken that name and then changed the two G's to the two Z's so it's z o zle okay okay and uh I'm not ashamed about it I'm very happy that I could get something so close to Google right so that's will we ever become as big as Google I don't know I I I don't do anything with a result in mind okay so I'll tell you what started there are two things about Zuul that made me think you know I was looking at the whole e-commerce industry currently my portfolio of companies range between in tech gaming hyperlocal quick Commerce food Medtech uh media you know so on and so forth some of them are not even public for example there's a radio station that we are uh doing around the world 196 countries so when I was thinking about various Industries e-commerce industry right everybody is lost money and when we talking about lost money we are not talking about a few million dollars right cumulatively a few billion dollars have been lost right why is an industry losing that kind of money right for change of habit so all these companies have come to change the habit of the average Indian consumer here are offl which is a myth somebody's losing money right and then to build trust unreasonable no returns policy no questions asked returns right I was talking to some of my staff in the office small Med large right I asked e-commerce company her attitude was I don't care and she said exactly sir I don't care yeah and a lot of people to wear it in a party hide the tag and then return it back return it back right it's hurting Indian economy it is hurting in so many ways that you will realize the impact of this maybe 5 years from now right so I was I was thinking about it then it struck me it's not going to burn forever yeah right sanity right when I started thinking I said okay opportunity this trend is changing quickly now okay even if you look at swiggy zato they've changed many of their policies if you look at a large e-commerce players they have changed their policies and stuff like that so that's when I thought why not build something which is like an e-commerce enabler okay so Zuul is an e-commerce enabler they can come and list their products to sell on Zuul right what we do on the other side is very beautiful okay h on the other side we are building a micro distributor network of 2 million people okay what are these micro Distributors misho also did it it called reseller right something similar yeah but H we do it with a lot of credibility for example your Raj shamani in exactly 3 minutes from now Raj shamani can have a full-fledged e-commerce business called Raj shamani do. in okay and you will have thousands and thousands of products to sell to your network and earn money out of it okay you don't need need to uh you don't need to have products to sell you don't need technology we'll give you that you don't even need to uh worry about accounting and payment Gateway you don't need to worry about logistics all you need to do is probably tell your friend Raj shaman.
[Music] juul.
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