Wings

India & The World 🗞️ Edition 7 Returning from Dubai right now last Nov week but head is dazzling at all the copious notes I am following across different sources re what has just happened in the UK. If you have been reading this with me so far, you already know I was realllyyyy glued into what UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves finally does in her budget show. In 10 days from now, I’ll find myself in a large Labour Party gathering in Scotland. I don’t want to give in to the commentators and the headlines, but understand the realities with my own context and lens, so yea I’ll publish this piece in Dec after letting those happenings sit inside me for a while. That said, not even for a moment am I doubting that Britain needs structurally strong reforms right now. I definitely like a bunch of things, don’t agree with a few others, and would like to pass that feedback to the Prime Minister and his cabinet myself (if I make it that is!) From where I look at it by the way, I foresee they needing something 10x a PSW 4-6 years from now when this cycle truly ends. If I had a couple million pounds lying around, I’d buy a nice apartment in Kensington or anyplace Central London in a heartbeat. It is bound to see a significant uptick once this phase bottoms out, and the next one starts. Corollary advice, one should be betting on the UK more than they have in the past now! As a business, as a resident, as a professional, just go for it, these are the troughs that you wait for to make those mafia numbers! What learnings do I take away from all this for India? To begin with, DON’T ANGER THE PUBLIC over simple solvable fundamental issues, they are already very mad at bigger things and small wins should be prioritised. Those same keyboard warriors who would swear by you are now fighting personal wars on affordability, and those emotions are visible in full display across streams of Instagram Reddit comments. Make taxes reasonable. Curtail the authorities’ ability to be unnecessarily overreaching and hurting professionals and businesses. Solve for the massively growing unemployment numbers. Invest in education. Embrace even more equality than before. And so on … In Trumpland, lot happening as usual. To begin with, Trump is back in the pro-talent pro-legal-immigrants camp. Reels were full about the 360-turnaround on needing immigrant talent to make America win. Well, don’t want to be the guy saying “said so”, but what else to say at this point than just that lol. Though if you look deeper, I wonder if the domestic election results from few weeks back are behind this. What with losing Virginia and New Jersey so badly, and even huge twists in Georgia and Mississippi. New York and California of course continue to defy the big man. Ken Martin is on top of the moon, I think, “Democrats are back finally” etc mood is building. But I’d never underestimate President Trump. Have you watched The Apprentice by the way? Please leave reading this mid-piece and do that!! What I’d say in India parlance is this though. And this isn’t about the politicians, but about us. I really hope that atleast 10-15 years out, we are able to get out of the caste voting gutter we are in. Where politicians win on solid performance track, while governing or in their previous careers. Where victory parades happen only and only because a specific politician addresses voters’ concerns and represented them wholly, including those whose votes don’t count (aka the middle class in India, which is why we are breathing the poison that we are in Delhi). Where we as Indian voters, come together, and don’t care about the place anyone comes from or what God they worship. Where we become proud of the diversity in our cities and towns. Where we choose leaders who can drive bold, ambitious policies that are commensurate with the size of challenges we deal with today. Yes, that’s a lot to hope, but I am a madly optimistic entrepreneur, so that’s where everything starts for me! (contd)

Checked out today’s Times of India? Ok. Checked out EUROPE? Well, ignore the noise & get onto the safarnama!

Khoon khaul uthta hai aise dekh kar Is there a way to find this girl & fund her to pursue those dreams? To take science?

@AlokSama, is probably the brand ambassador of what I am trying to build at Leverage for the last 7-8 years .. 👆🏼THAT, is the thought that kept crossing me when I read his now-bestseller “The Money Trap”, interestingly enough while on a long train ride in quintessential-Bharat. He, is the true Global Citizen 🌎 Weeks later, when I was to be in audience for his closing keynote, AGM of @DSGCP who backed us super early, he said it out in words better than what I would’ve found by myself (while talking about his broad India thesis) …. “what I found all these years, consistent and only moving in one direction, is this desire for upward mobility to get out of India, and make money, and be successful .. .. in this country, desire to learn, desire to improve, is phenomenal” And that, is pretty much also my life thesis. So it was pretty invigorating to then meet Alok for breakfast (thx to @BKartRed), and build up on top of ‘all of that’ and crystal-gaze into the future ..

Spent the last 3 hours on 📞 with teammates @ Leverage across 4 different continents right now, all while our TGIS Superstars WhatsApp group was buzzing with a lot of super-activity, top quartile of the Co wearing their hearts on their sleeves and breaking down what they want to achieve next 6 months, how, and what that means to them! Feel incredibly fortunate at the end of crushing day, on most nights, and just like everyone else on this very global team 🌏 — to be working alongside such a talented mad-passionate super-super-ambitious bunch, that has it’s heart in the right place, and wants to WIN in a style that’s never seen before … Coming from dozens of different corners of the world, united by purpose, strong steely in-your-guts purpose, to do the most exceptional work ever of our lives, to do well by people at large, & to create something absolutely extraordinary together ✨

Thank you, dear Meeera & Sameer Jain, for having me / Leverage over at the @EconomicTimes Corporate Excellence Awards. Having only read about it since I was a school kid, felt quite the deal to attend it this very first time. And what spectacular show it was ✨ 🧚 Was great to meet some early Leverage believers, some old friends in the startup land, and some others who I’ve wanted to meet for the longest time. To top it, the event had an incredible dose of inspiration, top to bottom, pure fuel! My top three moments: - when N Chandrasekaran came to share some words about Bharat’s jewel, Sir Ratan Tata, he recalled the time when he’d made a request to renovate Bombay House, and Mr. Tata’s response, after a few moments, was “where will the dogs go” …. It pierced right through, something I deeply desire to achieve in life - one of our own, Peyush Bansal of Lenskart, also an early believer in Leverage, winning the Entrepreneur of Year award, and his wife’s note following that; its powering because it somehow signals that “if we work hard enough, we will get there” - Business Leader of the Year, Kumar Mangalam Birla Sir’s note, when he almost choked up .. I’ve (by his good grace) had the chance to meet him a couple times in the last few years, but wouldn’t have ever reckoned him getting a tad emotional, and rightly so though, the impact “just he has had” on the Birla Group, over last 30 years, that ability to survive and continue to win irrespective how many times they write you off, is so so powerful! ET continues to be a beacon of business leadership in India. Glad that they are taking us into the future with focus on sustainability plus frontier technology, hand-in-hand :) Thank you to all the awesome leaders I’ve had a chance to engage with in the past in the ET ecosystem, @sruthijith @prachivermaET @sreeradhabasuET @RicaB_ET @Indulekha_A @IshaniDg @digbijaymishra1 @samidhas @brindasET @jessicarajan @GhaiNeil @pranavmukul

Vast majority of people play on “price margins” ~ aka source at X, put your label, sell at Y - thinking “I am Bezos, your margin is my opportunity etc etc” ⚖️ without understanding what that really meant .. Very few people actually strive to create something beautiful, be it product or service, something that is very very beautiful, obsessive craftsmanship at play ❤️‍🔥 Latter is a longer deeper game, needs patience, needs many ‘smile at yourself and be okay’ moments Time decides, what is more precious 💎

Bombay has meant a lot to Leverage. It’s given us a lot. So it was about time to start giving back, start making it our own 🤍 ही एक नवीन सुरुवात आहे .. Heads held down. Thank you, to this great beautiful city, for giving us the opportunity. कामाला लागायची वेळ आली 🙏🏼

Starbucks India must be at ballpark 500 stores by now. And I’d estimate they are making just about ₹3Cr on every store (basis past year trends) Of these, 100 are in Mumbai ^ these def must be doing more than the average (given I run into Starbucks outlets in tier 3/4 cities as well now) If Starbucks was to give a franchise tomorrow (not that they intend to), and expect complete capex + inventory management etc, then they payback must be running into (at the very least) 3+ years = not very attractive at an outlet / few outlets level + its not as if you are waiting for the brand to catch-up (incl smaller markets) ++ I don’t understand how / why EBITDA hovers around 20%ish If this was a founder-led private investors’ keeping-on-toes business, and not the TATA-forever-lens that it is, things would have (could have?) looked a tad bit different I guess Or, what am I missing? Can Starbucks India, as it scales, break out and be at 35% EBITDA profile one day? (maybe that’s what the believers / management see, a hundred percent, difficult for someone running a naive thought experiment like me unable to*) ^ then what would they do for that? Also, if this wasn’t TATA-owned, how much would a private equity have bought this at? Just under a $Bn ?

Hmmm You’re an upgraded version of Dilliwallah ;) I spent my raw days in Okhla, late 2000s / early 2010s, at @91springboard / other such startup factories, trying to pick up business-building-basic from anyone I could Then returned in 2015 when I got an opportunity to work at @snapdeal, was (and am!) a @1kunalbahl fan, badi raatein guzaari in galiyon mein, too much unadulterated hustle, and a lot of startup-dreams were taking shape over tapri chai And then again, couple years back, became a pilgrimage site when the absolute absolute legit-rockstar Rajeev Juneja Sir (@IRajeevJuneja) backed Leverage, who’d tell me “beta mere se AC ki baatein mat kiya kar, zameeni baat kar, dhandha vahan banta hai” .. time spent with him / in that amazing @Pharma_Mankind office has inspired me / team a lot over last few years .. (and ofc the beautiful Sai Baba statute right outside it) You’ll see us demonstrating a bit of that when we publish few highlights this 31/3 & more ;) Okhla is zameeni Okhla is tapti dhoop mein sapne neeche utaarna Okhla is dhandha 101

Surreal seeing you earlier tonight, listening to every single take, multi-layered, at times transcending parallels Still in part-disbelief, another thing to read / watch you for 2 decades, ANOTHER to “experience” .. hits across senses 👊🏽 THANK YOU, for doing what you do, for inspiring like nothing else can And to imagine, if a crazy launch day, prep for 19/1 Innaugration, the long evening with us 🇮🇳 etc etc wasn’t enough, you still WIDE UP at 1230 am, reimagining, as obsessed as ever !! 🚀🚀🚀