First Principles

Fireside Ventures' Kanwal Singh on the consumer-brands bet nobody believed in, why "for a 5x, nobody will call you legendary," and on refusing the one-100x-outlier game Jul 20, 2026 3700 1 · SummaryPart 1 of 2. Kanwal Singh is the first venture capitalist to appear on First Principles, and the reason is the bet he made with the fund itself. In 2017, at the peak of the tech boom, he walked away from tech investing to raise a fund only for Indian consumer brands, when almost nobody believed India had a consumer story worth venture capital. His first backers weren't institut

Part 2: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on wanting a paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces, who doesn't survive at Shiprocket, and still playing Pink Floyd on a Fender Jul 13, 2026 3715 Part 2 of 2. In Part 1 we walked the road from 2011 — three companies, an investor ultimatum, and the capital it took to build. Part 2 is the mind. Saahil Goel starts with what, given hindsight, he'd do differently, then the first principles he runs Shiprocket on (distribution beats product), the two or three metrics he genuinely obsesses over, his bet on applied AI, why he believes you c

Part 1: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on rebuilding the same company three times, the $4 million he was told to take or leave and why in India you sell outcomes, not software Jul 7, 2026 3921 Part 1 of 2. Most people date Shiprocket to 2017; in truth it was born in 2011, and the road there runs through two companies called KartRocket and Craftly. Saahil Goel walks Rohin through the build: Rs 15 lakh of their own money, nearly not being hired by their own first engineers, the hard lesson that in India you sell outcomes not software, an investor ultimatum to take $4 million or n

Part 2: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on digital landlords, doers & divas, and why delivery will never eat dine-in Jun 22, 2026 3811 Part 2 moves from the journey to the operating philosophy. Riyaaz Amlani unpacks his evolving stance on the aggregators — from resistance to "uneasy truce" — and the hard lesson that restaurateurs who send guests to Zomato and Swiggy have only themselves to blame. He argues delivery and dine-in are two different businesses, lays out his ambition to turn Impresario into a full-service-rest

Part 1: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on Mocha, "Handmade," four near-deaths and 25 years of building places to be Jun 15, 2026 3858 Part 1 of Rohin Dharmakumar's conversation with Riyaaz Amlani is the origin story: why a returning UCLA grad decided Bombay was missing "places to be," how Mocha became Social, and what it actually takes to keep a restaurant group alive for 25 years in the highest-mortality business there is. The shisha ban, the private-equity money that never arrived, COVID, the marble hustle at age six,

Part 2: Kuku’s Lal Chand Bisu on the Bathoth-to-Bandra arc, learning from iterations not books, and why nos beat yeses May 4, 2026 4529 Part 2 picks up exactly where I left Bisu — on why a 7-year-old audio platform is releasing a theatrical film on May 8. From there, we go everywhere. Bisu's actual journey from a small village in Shekhawati to Bandra. The "full equation" view of metrics. Why saying no requires more work than saying yes. Why most of his learning comes from iterations, not books. And, in his closing answer,

Part 1: Kuku's Lal Chand Bisu on killing three products, ditching the free tier and charging Bharat ₹399 a year Apr 27, 2026 3842 Lal Chand Bisu started Kuku in audio in 2018. Almost everyone in the press wrote them off — the louder competitor was getting the headlines, the VCs didn't believe vernacular India would pay, and the assumption was that short-video would flatten audio. None of that aged well. Kuku FM did ₹242 Cr in FY25 at 175% YoY growth, with roughly 10 million paying subscribers. This is the conversati

Part 2: Curefoods' Ankit Nagori on why Indians only eat healthy Monday to Thursday, focusing on brand over scale, and what drives him now Mar 30, 2026 3796 Welcome back to First Principles. This is Part 2 of our full conversation with Ankit Nagori, founder and CEO of Curefoods. If you have not listened to Part 1, go back and start there.In this half, the conversation slows down a little and gets even more interesting. Ankit has strong opinions about why healthy food will always lose to biryani on a Friday night, what building a brand people

Part 1: Curefoods' Ankit Nagori on cold emailing his way into Flipkart, designing for talent density, and surviving a pandemic on 2 crores a month Mar 23, 2026 3216 Welcome to First Principles. This is Part 1 of our full conversation with Ankit Nagori, founder and CEO of Curefoods.Ankit joined Flipkart as the 22nd employee after cold emailing its founders at a book fair with almost no relevant experience and within six years he was Chief Business Officer. He then co-founded Cult with Mukesh Bansal, built it into one of India's most recognised fitness

Part 2: Captain Fresh's Utham Gowda on seafood as the world's last unorganised trillion-dollar industry, why undervaluation is a founder's superpower and his “reverse career path” Mar 2, 2026 3485 Welcome to First Principles! This is part 2 of episode 52, the full conversation.Rohin met Utham Gowda at Spacebot Studio in Indiranagar on a Tuesday afternoon. Utham was compact, measured, and precise in the way he spoke, like someone who has spent years learning when to talk and when to listen. What's striking was how quickly he opened up. Within the first half hour of the conversation,

Part 1: Captain Fresh's Utham Gowda on seafood as the world's last unorganised trillion-dollar industry, why undervaluation is a founder's superpower and his “reverse career path” Feb 23, 2026 3988 Welcome to First Principles! This is part 1 of episode 52, the full conversation.Rohin met Utham Gowda at Spacebot Studio in Indiranagar on a Tuesday afternoon. Utham was compact, measured, and precise in the way he spoke, like someone who has spent years learning when to talk and when to listen. What's striking was how quickly he opened up. Within the first half hour of the conversation,

Part 2: Kalpana Morparia on the culture of dissent, the 90-day NYSE race, and why ambition requires self-redundancy Feb 9, 2026 3428 Hello, listeners, and welcome back to part 2 of the 51st episode of First Principles.Ms. Kalpana Morparia reached out to us via email after the bro-ification episode. It was the most pleasant surprise and we immediately knew we had to get her on the podcast.Here's someone who joined ICICI in 1975 as a lawyer, had absolutely no background in finance, and was then asked to run Treasury. She

Part 1: Kalpana Morparia on the culture of dissent, the 90-day NYSE race, and why ambition requires self-redundancy Feb 2, 2026 3613 Hello, listeners, and welcome back to part 1 of the 51st episode of First Principles.Ms. Kalpana Morparia reached out to us via email after the bro-ification episode. It was the most pleasant surprise and we immediately knew we had to get her on the podcast.Here's someone who joined ICICI in 1975 as a lawyer, had absolutely no background in finance, and was then asked to run Treasury. She

Part 2: Darwinbox’s Rohit Chennamaneni on leading without a CEO, the ‘show don’t tell’ product mindset, and why resilience beats intelligence Jan 19, 2026 3703 In the 2nd part of the 50th episode of First Principles, Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder of Darwinbox, joins the show to talk about what changes after the early chaos of a startup fades.He explains how Darwinbox has operated without a CEO for years, how the 3 founders divide ownership of decisions instead of debating everything together, and why this structure helped them move faster as th

Part 1: Darwinbox’s Rohit Chennamaneni on leading without a CEO, the ‘show don’t tell’ product mindset, and why resilience beats intelligence Jan 12, 2026 3002 In part 1 of the 50th episode of First Principles, Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder of Darwinbox, joins the show to talk about what changes after the early chaos of a startup fades.He explains how Darwinbox has operated without a CEO for years, how the 3 founders divide ownership of decisions instead of debating everything together, and why this structure helped them move faster as the comp

First Principles, second look: The 2025 wrap Dec 29, 2025 5921 What a year it's been.After a long hiatus and when we thought we'd closed the curtains for good, First Principles came back in April 2025 for Season 3. And what made this comeback so special? Simple: Rohin was genuinely excited to be back in the interviewing chair.That excitement is infectious. It showed up in every conversation and every question. This year, he sat down with eight incred

Part 2: Ixigo's Aloke Bajpai on using empathy, customer experience, and resilience to both survive and thrive Dec 22, 2025 4139 Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the part 2 of the 49th episode since we started, or the 8th episode of season 3.In this episode, I sit down with Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO of Ixigo, one of India's fastest-growing and most downloaded travel platforms. While most Indian OTAs followed the Western template of flights-first followed by hotels, Aloke and his co-founder Rajnish

Part 1: Ixigo's Aloke Bajpai on using empathy, customer experience, and resilience to both survive and thrive Dec 15, 2025 3694 Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the part 1 of the 49th episode since we started, or the 8th episode of season 3.In this episode, I sit down with Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO of Ixigo, one of India's fastest-growing and most downloaded travel platforms. While most Indian OTAs followed the Western template of flights-first followed by hotels, Aloke and his co-founder Rajnish

Part 2: Indiagold's Deepak Abbot on turning a nation's 'dead asset' into credit scores and working capital Nov 17, 2025 3355 Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 2 of the conversation.The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak,

Part 1: Indiagold's Deepak Abbot on turning a nation's 'dead asset' into credit scores and working capital Nov 10, 2025 3991 Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 1 of the conversation.The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak,

Part 2: Trilegal's Rahul Matthan on the firm, the partnership, and the principles Sep 22, 2025 3758 Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the 47th episode since we started, or the 6th episode of season 3.In this episode, I sit down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, pr

Part 1: Trilegal's Rahul Matthan on the firm, the partnership, and the principles Sep 15, 2025 4128 In this episode, Rohin Dharmakumar sits down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, principled art of building a lasting institution.Rahul provides a rare, inside look into the unique cha

Part 2: Anand Jain of Clevertap on starting with nothing and learning, building and leading as you go along Aug 18, 2025 4283 Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap.Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did.In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire u

Part 1: Anand Jain of Clevertap on starting with nothing and learning, building and leading as you go along Aug 11, 2025 3898 Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap.Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did.In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire u

Part 2: Ultraviolette Automotive's Narayan Subramaniam on tinkering, designing and learning by discarding Jul 28, 2025 3704 Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link.Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The chan

Part 1: Ultraviolette Automotive's Narayan Subramaniam on tinkering, designing and learning by discarding Jul 21, 2025 4558 Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link.Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The chan

Part 2: Manish Sabharwal of Teamlease on creating great ancestors, India’s development journey and ‘regulatory cholesterol’ Jul 1, 2025 2703 Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link.Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The chan

Part 1: Manish Sabharwal of Teamlease on creating great ancestors, India’s development journey and ‘regulatory cholesterol’ Jun 24, 2025 3872 Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link.Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The chan

Part 2: Sahil Barua on why Delhivery is the antithesis of moving fast and breaking things May 19, 2025 3981 Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally.Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now.It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back a

Part 1: Sahil Barua on why Delhivery is the antithesis of moving fast and breaking things May 12, 2025 4396 Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally.Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now.It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back a

Part 2: Vidit Aatrey on building a problem-first mindset into Meesho's culture Apr 21, 2025 2379 Welcome to First Principles. This is the second part of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and CEO of Meesho, which we had released in full for Premium subscribers of The Ken last week and is also available to subscribers of The Ken Premium channel on Apple Podcasts.Vidit and I discussed a lot of things. From the way his upbringing grounded him, the way he approaches hiring at

Part 1: Vidit Aatrey on building a problem-first mindset into Meesho's culture Apr 14, 2025 5536 I met Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder and CEO of Meesho, on 14th February, exactly two months ago. We met at Spacebot Studios in Indiranagar. Vidit is tall, lean and clean-shaven. He is a careful listener and a measured speaker. When you ask him a question, you get the sense he’s spending time parsing all its meanings, and then playing out a few versions of responses in his head, perhaps doing a

Introducing Two by Two, a new premium business podcast from The Ken Jul 18, 2024 506 From over here at The Ken's newsroom, we have a very exciting announcement: our first premium podcast – India's first premium business podcast – is now live!It's called Two by Two – and this podcast will be your personal investigative brain. Each week Two by Two will be where hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan will be joined by a few interesting and opinionated guests to d

The Final Supercut Part 2: Founders 21-41 Jul 11, 2024 5339 Hello, we're back again with part 2 of our final, final supercut where we’ve spliced together one interesting bit of conversation from the last 21 guests I interviewed on First Principles. And like the last episode where we covered founders 1 to 20, you’ll hear super sharp slices of a few minutes each which are reflections on their approach to organization building, risk taking, decision

The Final Supercut Part 1: Founders 1-20 Jul 4, 2024 5085 I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t the First Principles podcast draw its curtains? Yes we did.But then we decided to do a final super-splice of every single episode we did. There were 41 founders. A bit too many for a single supercut episode, don’t you think?So, here’s the first 20.We went through all the episodes and picked a few minutes from each that we felt captured the essence of th

Last Principles Jun 20, 2024 398 First Principles is coming to an end. But it's not the end of the road for you as listeners.We still want to hear from you and know what you expect from the podcasts from The Ken. Let us know with your suggestions and critique.We'd love to know your thoughts and you can let us know here.Also, you can always write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your thoughts.

Five women founders speak about leading with empathy, ambition, and not being apologetic and just focusing on building Jun 13, 2024 5157 Becoming an entrepreneur is a leap of faith. Regardless of when or even if your business sees the light of day, starting up is still a tremendously hard thing for someone to take up, work on and say out loud to the world.The leap of faith still exists when you're a woman founder, but with a bunch of other variables you didn't ask for also thrown in.But I'll tell you what doesn't change. I

Part 2: Manav Garg sold his business and started TogetherFund with Girish Mathrubootham. Naturally, the $150M fund has a founder-operator bias. What does that mean? Jun 6, 2024 4019 In the first part of my conversation with Manav Garg, I introduced him as the founder of Eka Software. This week, I would like to reintroduce Manav as a venture capitalist and the co-founder of Together Fund, a VC firm. Well, you know how I feel about having venture capitalists on First Principles if you've listened to my conversation with Alok Mittal.I had said in that conversation that

Part 2: Alok Mittal—teacher, angel investor, former VC—asserts Indifi is not a disruptive business. He also emphasises organisations should not fall into the trap of founder-worshipping May 30, 2024 3042 "This notion of a startup should be centered around the founder is a mindset. It makes for great stories. It makes for great heroes. And that's the reason why that sustains But, you know, there are great organizations that have been built where founders did not believe in that. And the organizations sustain even after the founder leaves."That's what Alok Mittal, founder and MD of Indifi,

Part 1: Manav Garg started and ran Eka Software for 20 years before selling it. His #1 advise to founders? Budget 6 months to "manufacture" your co-founders May 23, 2024 3809 “As I said, I am from a middle-class family. I was earning $10,000/month, which is a large sum in those days. And sitting in Singapore, Bangkok, travelling around the world. So my the larger question in my mind is that how do I take the decision?” says Manav Garg.Manav Garg, founder and former CEO of Eka Software, a SaaS company that operates in the global commodities trading space. "Form

Part 2: Jaydeep Barman explains how internet restaurant Rebel Foods and luxury good giant LVMH have more in common than one can imagine May 9, 2024 2841 Jaydeep Barman has settled into his role of being a CEO for quite some time now. He admits he was not always the nicest of people when they restarted or ‘actually started’ Faasos, which later became Rebel Foods, as a QSR chain in 2011. He would be unreasonable and brash with the people he worked with and in his own words “must have rubbed people the wrong way”.But with time he has gained

Part 1: Alok Mittal of Indifi on why org culture should not be defined but discovered May 2, 2024 4473 Alok Mittal has been on both ends of the startup ecosystem. He’s been a founder and a VC. These days he’s back in the founder’s seat but still enabling businesses but through his lending platform Indifi which lends money to Small and Medium Enterprises or SMEs.He has very strong thoughts about org building even though he admits Indifi is only 9 years old. He speaks from his observations a

Part 1: Jaydeep Barman of Rebel Foods on why his business is 'misunderstood'—and why that's a good thing Apr 25, 2024 5366 Rebel Foods was incorporated in 2015. Before that it was Faasos and Faasos has been around since 2004. But co-founder and CEO Jaydeep Barman says back in 2004 when he and his co-founder Kallol Banerjee started it, they didn’t look at it as a means of living. It existed to some extent, primarily, to fulfil their own craving for good Calcutta rolls as Pune, where both of them were living at

Part 2: Chetan Maini of SUN Mobility on finding his 'true north', again Apr 18, 2024 2432 When Chetan Maini – co-founder and chairman of SUN Mobility – stepped down as Mahindra Reva CEO in 2015, he wasn’t thinking what was the next venture to start. In fact even though he stepped down he was still involved in the space.His time was still spent in understanding the possibilities electric mobility could unlock for the world and how these possibilities were being explored around

From succeeding in overcrowded markets to creating customer delight, five founders share their secrets Apr 11, 2024 4665 What does your company do?There are many ways to answer this question.Most founders have a really good answer, some have a meandering one.Well, let’s just say it’s always a compelling answer.This week we have five founders to answer that question on a broader range. They function in very competitive sectors and are successfully making their mark in their respective sectors by innovating a

Part 2: Harsh Mariwala of Marico on experimenting with learning, fitness and leadership at 72 Apr 4, 2024 2438 Our guest for this episode has a very specific weekly routine. Pilates - once a week.Strength training - once a week.Aqua therapy - once a weekFunctional training, swimming, breathing exercises, meditating daily with just a little troubleGolfing three times a week followed up with posture exercises And very recently, experimenting with intermittent fasting.Maybe you’re imagining a very sp

Part 1: Why Chetan Maini of SUN Mobility stopped making EVs when it got cool Mar 28, 2024 4996 Chetan Maini, the co-founder and Chairman of Sun Mobility has done a whole lot in his life. He’s been forever a tinkerer as you’re bound to find out if you read his father Dr.S.K.Maini’s book REVA: India’s Green Gift to the World.Chetan’s raced solar cars, built his own car company REVA and is now building a pay-as-you-go energy infrastructure for a greener future with Sun Mobility. You’l

Part 2: Girish Mathrubootham on Freshworks' trade secrets – and why he opened them up to competitors Mar 21, 2024 2067 Girish Mathrubootham – founder and CEO of Freshworks – feels strongly about having the authority to take one’s own decisions, from a young age.He made a very apt example in our conversation with him earlier this month at his office in Chennai: a kid never gets to make his own decisions, even if it is to just order food of their liking. This in turn translates into their adulthood as an in

Part 1: From Parachute to Saffola, Marico's Harsh Mariwala on building and branding India's biggest consumer products Mar 14, 2024 3811 Sometime in the early 1970s a young Harsh Mariwala joined Bombay Oil Industries, a company set up by his grandfather in 1948, just a year after India’s independence. The company would trade in spices, oils and chemicals.Over the next two decades Harsh learnt the ropes of the family business. Till in 1991 - two decades after he had joined Bombay Oil - he left it to start his own company, M

Part 1: Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks on why he doesn't measure 'winning' by numbers Mar 7, 2024 3966 If you're here to find out more about our brand new early careers podcast, check out The First Two Years and how you can join the TFTY community here! You can also listen to our trailer on Spotify and Apple. Welcome to Episode 41 of First Principles.When asked, Girish Mathrubootham* – the CEO and Co-Founder of Freshworks, says that there’s one thing most of his direct reports would agree

Part 2: Why Vaibhav Gupta of Udaan doesn’t identify problems by patterns Feb 29, 2024 3227 There is a cliche often associated with hyper growth startups. That running one is like learning how to fly a plane while you’re already up in the air. Or perhaps it's like learning to change an engine while you’re driving a car. There is another version of this analogy: it's like learning how to build a plane and learning how to fly it and also mastering how to change an engine mid-air,

Five founders on creating trust, patience and careers in their organisations Feb 22, 2024 5169 Welcome back to First Principles. I’m your host, Rohin Dharmakumar. Thank you for listening to us. We’re thankful that you choose to spend a few hours with us each week! Today we have a “supercut” episode. Normally our conversations go deep with one specific guest, but every now and then we zoom out and go broad by stitching together a multi-guest conversation. And the invisible thread th

Part 2: Aneesh Reddy of Capillary Tech on how being called a “bully” led him to be a better leader Feb 15, 2024 3633 Welcome back to Episode 39 of First Principles!A few weeks ago, you heard the first part of our conversation with Aneesh Reddy, the CEO and Co-Founder of Capillary Tech, a software company offering products and services in the customer experience space.And you might remember that in that episode, Aneesh took us through the journey of Capillary in instalments – because as he explained, Ane

Part 1: How Vaibhav Gupta of Udaan builds, scales and improves execution playbooks Feb 8, 2024 4039 Welcome to Episode 38 of First Principles!If you're here to sign up for the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!In this episode, you will hear Vaibhav Gupta, the CEO and co-founder of Udaan, an online trade platform whose mission is to "transform India".It hopes to achieve that lofty goal by bringing tens of thousands of shopkeepers and grocery store owners closer to their suppliers

Part 2: How Viren Shetty of Narayana Health is building a career free of ‘groundhog days’ Feb 1, 2024 3984 Welcome back to Episode 37 of First Principles.If you’re here to find our latest edition of the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!A few weeks ago, we had a wonderful conversation with Viren Shetty – the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health. Narayana Health – formerly called Narayana Hrudalaya – is a hospital network that’s also listed on the stock exchanges. Today’s episode

Part 1: Aneesh Reddy of Capillary Tech on his wins, mistakes and a breakout SaaS model Jan 25, 2024 4613 Welcome to Episode 36 of First Principles!If you're here to find our latest edition of the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!Our guest for this episode is Aneesh Reddy, the co-founder and CEO of Capillary Technologies, a Bangalore-headquartered software-as-a-service – or SaaS – company that is one of the global leaders in customer loyalty and engagement.Capillary powers the custome

Part 2: Soumya Rajan of Waterfield Advisors on entrepreneurship, liberation and legacy Jan 11, 2024 3326 A few weeks ago, we published an episode with Soumya Rajan of Waterfield Advisors. We discussed what it was like to bet your future on an idea that no one had tried before, in India. In Soumya’s case, that idea was a business model around wealth management.You might remember Soumya saying it really wasn’t easy. Her peers had doubts. Her clients had doubts. Her family had doubts. She had

Part 1: Viren Shetty of Narayana Health on becoming ‘worse’ to become better and other ways to fix healthcare in India Jan 4, 2024 4121 Welcome to the first 2024 episode of First Principles! Though we’re only 15 months old, we’re also technically into our third calendar year, after our first episode in August 2022. A happy new year to you. Here’s to many more years of wonderful conversations, learning and growing.Our guest today is Viren Shetty, the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health—the publicly listed healthcare

Part 2: Why Ritesh Agarwal is a 'peacetime CEO' despite OYO's many wars Dec 28, 2023 3716 A couple of weeks ago, you heard our episode with Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and Group CEO of OYO rooms. If you remember, he talked to me about the atmosphere at the organization after COVID hit.To put it simply, it was wartime inside OYO.Cash needed to be protected. Leadership had to be let go. The company completely changed.In the first hour of the conversation with Ritesh, who explain

Part 1: Soumya Rajan of Waterfield Advisors on turning a 'sceptical' idea into a resilient business Dec 21, 2023 3974 “What is something you believe in, that no one else around you does?”If you’ve heard episode 30 with Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms, then you’ll recognize this as a question that he had to answer while applying for the Thiel Fellowship.It’s a simple but powerful question that usually differentiates motivated, passionate and unreasonable founders from other equally capabl

Part 2: Karthik Jayaraman of WayCool looks back on his career, starting up at 40 and building leaders Dec 14, 2023 2508 Welcome to to episode 31 of First Principles! If you’ve been listening to us for a while, you’ll notice that this was supposed to be an off week for us as a fortnightly show. We used to release new episodes every other Thursday. And last Thursday was our episode with Ritesh Agarwal of OYO Rooms. But starting this week, First Principles is now a weekly podcast. We’re going to bring you a

Part 1: Ritesh Agarwal of OYO on building a business on differentiation, communication and resilience Dec 7, 2023 5146 Welcome to Episode 30 of First Principles!We recorded this episode at Spacebot Studio, a new, sleek space overlooking the metro in IndiranagarOur guest, Ritesh, was already at the studio.Ritesh was asking the owners of the studio a bunch of questions: how big is this space? How many bookings do you get in a day? Are there other studios around in this location? And it’s not surprising, bec

Five founders on their childhood, choices and what drove them to start up Nov 23, 2023 5142 Welcome back to First Principles! If you’ve been listening to us for a while, you know that First Principles covers a lot of topics. Leadership, organization building, decision making, learning methods, careers, life principles, habits, people management, parenting..it goes on.But if there’s a common thread that connects them all together, it’s entrepreneurship. Thus, today we have a “sup

Part 1: Karthik Jayaraman of WayCool Foods on why disruption isn't always necessary for innovation Nov 9, 2023 4934 Welcome to Episode 29 of First Principles.Our guest for this episode is Karthik Jayaraman, the co-founder and MD of WayCool Foods.Karthik's leadership style and philosophies differ from many of the earlier leaders and founders featured in the last 28 episodes of First Principles. Perhaps it's because he started WayCool, an agri-tech startup, after turning 40. Karthik jokes that some peopl

Five founders on building a unique product and making it last Sep 28, 2023 6062 Welcome to First Principles, The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast! I am Rohin Dharmakumar, your host.First, if you’re a new listener of this podcast, I think you’ve clicked on the right episode. And if you’re a long-time listener – thank you, by the way – then you might know that here at First Principles, we have a few favourite questions. And we try and ask these questions to most of

Five CEOs talk about their journeys, struggles, successes, and failures Jul 6, 2023 6322 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 t

We don't have an episode today, but a newsletter Jun 22, 2023 154 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, t

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