First Principles

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 nothing, and by the end, just how much capital it's taken to get from that first office to the edge of a public listing. Part 2 gets into how he actually thinks.

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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-restaurant platform, and gets personal on hiring, Gen Alpha kids, weekends, and why his life scores 9.9 out of 10.

CHAPTERS

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, and the real engine underneath it all: people.

CHAPTERS

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, a quietly devastating line about the startup ecosystem itself.

If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, please go back and start there first.

Chapter list

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 conversation Bisu, who is just not the kind of founder who walks around telling you these numbers, finally agreed to do.

In Part 1, we get into the company history, the pivots, the contrarian decision to cut...

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 actually love looks like, and what a Unilever of foods means to him. He is also candid about how he hires, how he spends his Sundays with his son...

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 brands, and spun out Curefoods in the middle of a pandemic when the business was down to 2 crores a month.

In this half, Rohin and Ankit get into what those...

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, you got the sense that this is someone who has thought very deeply about his own life, his choices, and what drives him. It makes for one of the best examples...

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, you got the sense that this is someone who has thought very deeply about his own life, his choices, and what drives him. It makes for one of the best examples...

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 was terrified but her colleagues told her: "You do not say no to Mr. Kamath and live to have a great career in ICICI."

So...

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 was terrified but her colleagues told her: "You do not say no to Mr. Kamath and live to have a great career in ICICI."

So...

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 the company grew.

Rohit also gets specific about product building. He talks about designing HR software that does not need training sessions or long explanations, why adoption matters more than...

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 company grew.

Rohit also gets specific about product building. He talks about designing HR software that does not need training sessions or long explanations, why adoption matters more than feature...

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 incredible CEOs and founders who opened up about their journeys, their philosophies, their wins, and their struggles. These were deep, candid conversations about what it really takes to build...

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 took a radically different path. The one that would take nearly 14 years before Ixigo became a full-blown OTA.

Aloke takes us through Ixigo's unconventional journey, starting as a meta-search engine in 2007...

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 took a radically different path. The one that would take nearly 14 years before Ixigo became a full-blown OTA.

Aloke takes us through Ixigo's unconventional journey, starting as a meta-search engine in 2007...

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, a veteran operator and former product head at Paytm, was the go-to source for his data-filled, analytical posts.

That same data-driven curiosity is what led Deepak to walk away from...

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, a veteran operator and former product head at Paytm, was the go-to source for his data-filled, analytical posts.

That same data-driven curiosity is what led Deepak to walk away from...

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, principled art of building a lasting institution.

Rahul provides a rare, inside look into the unique challenges of building a professional services firm—a business where the people are the...

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 challenges of building a professional services firm—a business where the people are the product. He breaks down the counterintuitive models Trilegal adopted to foster a culture of collaboration over individual stardom. We explore their radi...

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 up their respective laptops and code a new customer engagement platform. In just a few months, WizRocket, as it was then called, found its first – albeit non-paying customer. Then...

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 up their respective laptops and code a new customer engagement platform. In just a few months, WizRocket, as it was then called, found its first – albeit non-paying customer. Then...

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 channel includes ALL our premium podcasts.

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My first introduction, and indeed my ongoing and recurring one, to Ultraviolette has been personal. For...

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 channel includes ALL our premium podcasts.

-

My first introduction, and indeed my ongoing and recurring one, to Ultraviolette has been personal. For...

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 channel includes ALL our premium podcasts.

-

Manish Sabharwal isn’t an easy man to nail down. By that, I don’t just mean it...

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 channel includes ALL our premium podcasts.

-

Manish Sabharwal isn’t an easy man to nail down. By that, I don’t just mean it...

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 alleys filled with cashewnut and mango trees before ending up on a dusty highway, dodging traffic next to an under-construction flyover.

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 alleys filled with cashewnut and mango trees before ending up on a dusty highway, dodging traffic next to an under-construction flyover.

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 Meesho and how he approaches life now as a parent. It’s a wonderful 40 minutes where I spent some time talking to Vdit about how he...

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 little bit of editing, before replying. Of course, all of this happens in a few seconds, so it’s easy to miss unless you are, well, having a conv...

The Ken is hosting its first live subscriber event! Join two long-term and contrarian CEOs, Nithin Kamath of Zerodha and Deepak Shenoy of Capitalmind, as they discuss the mental models, decision making frameworks, and potential outcomes related to a very real possibility: an extended stock market winter that lasts 24 months or more.

Buy your tickets for the event here - https://the-ken.com/event/beyond-the-first-order/#tickets-cta-container

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 discuss some of the biggest questions from the world of Indian business.

But, why's it called Two by Two?

Here it is: each episode of the Two by Two po...

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 making and life living.

Here are the guests you’ll get listen to in this episode:

Krish Subramanian, co-founder and CEO of Chargebe...

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 the specific founder and their approach to entrepreneurship, leadership, and well, li...

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.

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. It still takes the same amount of passion, the joy of building, stress, frustration and the ability to manage fires...

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 venture capitalists are facilitators or enablers, not builders or doers.

Manav, too, like Alok Mittal earlier, has been at both ends, being a...

"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, an online lending platform, had to say about startups getting caught up in the founder-worshipping trap.

I hope you have heard my...

“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. "Former CEO" because Manav started Eka in 2004 and just sold it earlier this year. 

Since Manav was earning $10K a month back in the e...

Kapil Chopra, the founder and CEO of Postcard Hotels told me the following statistics.

Of the 10 million foreign tourists who visit India each year, roughly 10% - one million - are classified as luxury. 

“So we've kind of made entire Rajasthan and Kerala as two big sectors for one million tourists,” he said.

In comparison domestic trips made by Indians was around 2.3 billion a year, a few years ago. 

Even if just 1% of those could be upgraded to luxury travel, that’s 23 million.

Chopra wants to make that happen with Pos...