Claim OwnershipDirect to a Billion Consumers
Subscribed: 38Played: 491
Subscribe
© 2025 Direct to a Billion Consumers
Description
India is booming with opportunity, yet building a consumer brand here is a Herculean task. With a market of a billion plus consumers, one of the world's fastest growing economies it is also the most difficult to navigate. Join Arjun Vaidya (CEO, Dr. Vaidya’s, Forbes 30 U 30) as he takes you through the world of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs), with some of the best minds from the ecosystem. This podcast features real world insights from founders of disruptive brands like Epigamia, Wow, Sleepy Owl and the Moms Co, who have made great strides in this sector. They'll talk about everything from building a brand from the ground up, convincing the first set of consumers, launching new products, mastering distribution and much more... Tune in and gear up to see how you can go Direct to a Billion Consumers. This podcast was produced by manicpod, #podcastingforall
54 Episodes
Reverse
“5 years later… when you look back, you should be proud to the decision you took – that’s the easiest parameter…!” In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Manish Taneja, the co-founder of Purplle.com. Hear about Manish’s journey from private equity to visiting beauty stores on the weekends with his flatmate and then eventually starting Purplle. Listen carefully as he deep dives on the importance of understanding your customer deeply, building for Bharat and using data to make decisions. Do...
1“Just the power of sitting behind a screen and selling to the entire country/world is something that just drew me to it (ecommerce) instantly!” In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Bharat Sethi, the founder of Rage Coffee. Hear about Bharat’s journey of building and exiting his first startup (Idecorama) until he arrived at the idea of Rage Coffee. Listen carefully as we deep dive on brand building with a limited budget and choosing brand ambassadors. Don’t miss Bharat’s insights on the ...
“The moment you ensure that every single order that you pack and deliver is being received in the way you want to receive it – that it when business starts making sense!” In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Aakash Anand, the founder of Bella Vita and now IDAM House of Brands. Hear about Aakash’s story of navigating and then establishing leadership in a crowded space with Bella Vita. Then, hear him deep dive on the concept of a house of brands and talk about how he is playing out this s...
“There are multiple brands which will get built over the next 10 years which don’t even exist today… the 100 Cr benchmark will move to USD 100m!” In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Swagat Sarangi, co-founder of Smytten. With rising D2C CACs – is sampling the answer (listen to answer this existential question)? Hear about Swagat’s from Mckinsey and Google to starting up with Smytten and disrupting the brand discovery problem. . Listen carefully we dig deep into how sampling to be corre...
“India celebrates 500 Cr moments every year. And, being a part of the large and small moments of every Indian – that’s my goal!” In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Tarun Joshi, the founder of Join Ventures – a brand that is innovating in the the celebrations and gifting space in India! Hear about Tarun’s journey from a aeronautical engineering to investing and then eventually starting up. Listen carefully as Tarun breaks down verticalizing the supply chain and solving the complex prob...
"...Entrepreneur who started a 20 machine unit now has 200 machines - this through the pandemic. So what we did really well is how we treated all the people associated with us". In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Yogesh Kabra, the founder of XYXX– a brand that is disrupting the inner wear space in India! Hear about Yogesh’s journey from an incubator in the US to, starting up back home. Listen carefully as he share his insights on scaling sustainably, excellence in manufacturing, contr...
“Every brand has a…mission statement – we have a purpose statement. We want to eliminate taboos…”. In this episode, join Arjun as he interviews Vikas Bagaria, the founder of Pee Safe – a brand that literally created categories like toilet hygiene and menstrual hygiene in India! Hear about Vikas Bhais’s journey from humble beginnings in Kolkata to cargo, defence, safety and eventually launching D2C. Don’t miss the insights on new revolutionary product development, influencer marketing as it sh...
Episode 26: Taran Chhabra, Neeman’s “Comfortable, all natural, durable, sustainable and made in India – this is something we set out to solve”. In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Taran Chhabra, the founder of Neeman’s shoes – a brand that Indian made sneakers a reality! Hear about the journey of a sneakerhead who moved back from a analytics job in the US, completed 500+ trials and 24 months later launched his product. Dig deeper into the his journey on building a business with hi...
“With logistics getting simpler and D2C brands getting smarter…one of the big trends is that you’re going to see a lot of Indian brands on global shelves!”. In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Akshay Ghulati, the co-founder and COO of Shiprocket – India’s largest e-commerce logistics aggregator. Hear about Akshay’s journey from Wharton & HBS to Smile Group and then from there to Amazon and Shiprocket. Learn about Akshay’s experience as a product manager at Amazon and what he brough...
“We dream of building some really impactful brands which can create at a global scale and we will build the infrastructure to take it there!”. In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Nitin Agarwal, the founder of Globalbees – one of India’s largest e-commerce roll up players. Hear about Nitin’s journey through the finance world and start-ups till he finally decided to start up again with his friend Supam (the founder of First Cry). Through the episode you can hear Nitin’s excitement about ...
“I also saw that you were the CEO of the company and seeing a female as a CEO...that just makes my day!” In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Ahana Gautam, the powerhouse behind one of India’s fastest growing D2C food brands – Open Secret. Hear about Ahana’s inspirational journey from Bharatpur in Rajasthan to IIT, P&G, HBS and finally starting up. Through the episode you can hear Ahana’s enthusiasm and zeal to unjunk snacking and provide tasty yet healthy alternatives to Indian con...
“The key thing is to know how to get into a consumer’s mind – at one level it is an art but it’s also a science”. In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Harsh Mariwala, the man behind one of India’s most iconic FMCG brands – Marico. Hear Mr. Mariwala’s story 30+ year journey as he takes us down memory lane on the evolution of retail in India. A lot of us may not have done business in the 80s and 90s and so the episode has gems on navigating the business environment and scaling to an FMCG ...
“My sense is that we will see 8-10 more Mamaearth/Boat size startups in India (soon)”. In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Chirag Taneja, the co-founder of one of India’s hottest D2C enablers, Gokwik. Hear Chirag’s story from banking, starting up, leading revenue at Bombay Shaving Company and finally starting the Gokwik journey. As all of us are seeing D2C brands growing exponentially, Chirag explains the need for enablers who solve existential and operational problems for founde...
“I’ll upskill myself to learn to do it and, that’s the reason that Sleepy Owl is the brand it is tod...
“I’ll upskill myself to learn to do it and, that’s the reason that Sleepy Owl is the brand it is today”. In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Arman Sood, the co-founder of one of everyone’s favourite D2C brand, Sleepy Owl. Hear the story of 2 lawyers teaming up with another friend to solve the problem of the poor coffee they had at their offices. Learn about how these 3 founders revolutionized the way the Indian consumer looked at coffee by building one of the strongest new age consumer...
“I joke with my team that I think more as a woman consumer than a male – that’s my instinct ”. In th...
“I joke with my team that I think more as a woman consumer than a male – that’s my instinct ”. In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Shankar Prasad, the founder behind the original ‘house of brands’ in personal care - Pureplay Skin Sciences. Hear Shankar’s dream career journey with HUL, Mckinsey and Everstone until he finally gave it up to start up. Learn about the importance of purpose in a business and how Shankar chose to be vegan way back in 2014. Also don’t miss Shankar's insights o...
“After one big failure (in QSR)… we sold our house - that was where the capital to start Veeba came ...
“After one big failure (in QSR)… we sold our house - that was where the capital to start Veeba came from”. In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Viraj Bahl– the powerhouse behind Veeba and the man who brought ‘sauce back to the fore’. Hear Viraj’s story of working in the oil rigs, starting and failing in a QSR business and then eventually beginning his journey with Veeba!. Today, Veeba is a household name but hear about Viraj’s struggle and resilience to crack his first large B2B account...
“The joke was in the city that two guys are looking for some gold plated chicken”. In this episode, join Arjun as he talks to Vivek Gupta – the force behind revolutionizing meat consumption in India. Hear Vivek’s story of switching gears as he moved from being the finance controller of a fund to creating 170 specifications of chicken! Rethinking the supply chain of an age old industry and disrupting it completely is no joke. Today, we take Licious for granted but we must remember that this br...
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States