Vaibhav Khandelwal On How He Co-founded Shadowfax, Gig Economy, LOTR, Reliable Last-Mile Delivery, Power Of Tech, Engineering Pleasant Experiences, Forgotten Frontline Warriors And More!
Vaibhav Khandelwal On How He Co-founded Shadowfax, Gig Economy, LOTR, Reliable Last-Mile Delivery, Power Of Tech, Engineering Pleasant Experiences, Forgotten Frontline Warriors And More!
About Vaibhav Khandelwal:
He was an all-time school topper. Bagging 100% scholarships throughout his schooling! He pursued his Engineering from IIT Delhi where a chance internship at Adobe changed the course of his career. He enjoys solving Kakuro (a Japanese crossword puzzle), learning tabla and unwinds with Premchand’s stories and listening to upbeat songs. In 2015 along with an IIT Delhi batchmate he founded a company that is today India’s fastest and most reliable new-age logistics company empowering over 1,00,000 individuals and presently delivering 5 lakh+ orders a day! But more than anything else he is engineering pleasant experiences! He is the co-founder and CTO of Shadowfax.
Linkedin: Vaibhav Khandelwal
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Vaibhav_V1
Puneeth: [00:01:48] Vaibhav welcome on Galata
[00:01:52] Vaibhav: [00:01:52] thank you, Puneeth
[00:01:55] Puneeth: [00:01:55] the usual, first question I ask is what were the conversations around the dinner table when you were growing up?
[00:02:03] Vaibhav: [00:02:03] Yeah, so so we, I hail from a middle-class family, so it's a joint family that we stayed together. This is a usual mudavadi family. If you would see a lot of people are actually involved in some or the other business. My grandfather has a shop in Jaipur Monday.
[00:02:25] So that's mostly for wheat. I mean the wheat grains, et cetera. My father also runs a business in partnership with some of his childhood friends only. I remember my dad saying this one time to me that I would never want
[00:02:41] you to do business.
[00:02:44] I have seen the nuances of doing a business. You might get a bit of fame, but you would never get a good mental peace and very early in your career. I always had this feeling that you should not do any business. And while these feelings did not come out until I told them that I want to do a startup until then they used to eagerly discuss with me or the different startups that were coming in.
[00:03:14] Even the idea of the startup. I remember discussing it very fondly with my father, and he used to give good suggestions there. And all of a sudden things changed when when he realized that I'm actually looking to implement this idea. So it was kind of a mixed bag conversation that was happening with my parents.
[00:03:36] Puneeth: [00:03:36] So your dad was encouraging from the start, but you were being hesitant
[00:03:42] Vaibhav: [00:03:42] My dad actually was intrigued with startups. So we used to discuss which of our seniors are doing.
[00:03:49] What, and what kind of disruptions are they creating? We also used to discuss how players like Flipkart able to get that much funding. I mean, so he's a traditional businessman in knees, always intrigued. I mean, how does it work? How does it work? I mean how can you raise money without any revenue who would invest in your money and are these people taking loans or is it, how is equity financing different there?
[00:04:18] Because the traditional businessmen I mean, all my father, uncle, grandfather, they had just raised the business from their own savings from taking loans from banks exactly. So they would do a lot of the groundwork on their own. They will do the menial work on their own just in order to save that money.
[00:04:36] They were always intrigued with that thought we used to discuss around it. So normally I tend to have at least one hour call with my father. Wow. I mean it's like at least every two, every two days in a week, we used to chat for one hour, even till today.
[00:04:55] Puneeth: [00:04:55] I'm not sure it recorded They would make such brillaint podcast.
[00:05:02] Vaibhav: [00:05:02] They were a combination of everything what's happening in home. What's happening in my job. What's happening everywhere else. I mean, today we even discuss, share market as well. So dad is an active contributor to share market. I mean, he's an investor. And so with the new age companies coming in, for example, Nazara did an IPO.
[00:05:27] So I was the one telling him that, Hey dad, this is a growing sector. Do invest in it. It's a, it's a good opportunity to get into such players.
[00:05:38] Puneeth: [00:05:38] Did he, did he see it through
[00:05:40] Vaibhav: [00:05:40] Yeah yeah.
[00:05:41] Puneeth: [00:05:41] I'm I'm curious. Did you, did you sit in your Dadu's kirana shop?
[00:05:45] Vaibhav: [00:05:45] I used to visit that, so not sit per se. So it is it is actually a decent sized shop in a Mandi. So mandi is in really a wholesale shop. So you would get a lot of merchants, there would be loading and unloading of a lot of shipments there.
[00:06:01] I used to visit there mostly on the Diwali so during the maritime they do prayers at the shop. So I used to carry my yeah. Lakshmi Pooja. So I call my grandfather Baba.I used to take Baba there. And I also used to sit in those prayers. That was the only experience there as a day to day while his own, my many better
[00:06:29] Puneeth: [00:06:29] lucky boy.
[00:06:29]Vaibhav: [00:06:29] Yeah, so my parents and almost everyone in the family, they were all clear of this setup, that in the initial years , you have to be a student. You should not see money because if you start thinking about money, then your passion for education would go down.
[00:06:49] So that's why nobody, I mean, nobody used to take me for these business matters. They don't want
[00:06:58] to be honest education is much easier as a thing to do than making money.
[00:07:05] Puneeth: [00:07:05] Hmm. Interesting. I've seen that fear across my extended families, too, that when you see easy money coming in at an early age, you lose the rigor you need for education.
[00:07:18] Vaibhav: [00:07:18] Because once you have money in your hand, then you can spend on all your luxuries or whatever you wish for.
[00:07:25] And in the initial days, your luxuries are limited. So you may be excited that it may seem
[00:07:33] and then there is always that dilemma with our Indian education as well. He
[00:07:37] you don't know different Hm. All those dilemmas do exist. So that's why shop could be better. And I in general money matters while it's easy to discuss
[00:07:52] Puneeth: [00:07:52] this is unusual. I'm I'm seeing an entire reverse perspective here. You, must've been a really studious kid through and through school and college
[00:08:02] that's one plus two. Yeah, kind of. Yes. So I apparently have a unique record in my school that I topped all the classes from class one to 12th. So every year, every year, every year, in our school there was this scheme or whatever, you can call an appreciation mechanisms. So they used to tell that throughout the year, if you top your class, then the school will wave off the tuition fee for the next year.
[00:08:30] Vaibhav: [00:08:30] The entire tuition be. So the major part is tuition fee.
[00:08:33] There are other extracurricular activities and other fees that are still there. Be roughly around 80, 85% of the total fees that was there. That was sort of the motivation for him to get that. I, you received that throughout my entire schooling period
[00:08:52] Puneeth: [00:08:52] hats off.
[00:08:54] Vaibhav: [00:08:54] Yeah. So I was kind of studious in that manner.
[00:08:56] Puneeth: [00:08:56] So you actually made a lot more money than the average might've already boy who sat in his power shop
[00:09:01] Vaibhav: [00:09:01] so in a way, yes, I think I mean, my friends used to joke about Miki MATLAB
[00:09:12] or um
[00:09:26] Puneeth: [00:09:26] Hmm. I can't agree more that,
[00:09:31] did you move to quota the usual pink after 12?
[00:09:35] No. I did the coaching per se in jaipur and at that point of time, I think Jaipur was becoming a good ground. So a lot of institutes were which were primarily based in kota. They, started coming in Jaipur so it was relatively easier for us to take that call almost all the good folks in our batch and all my friends, they were in Jaipur only.
[00:09:58] Hm.
[00:09:59] How was your time with IIt Delhi? Because I see such fascinating synergies throughout your careers. Thanks to the time at IIT Delhi,
[00:10:11]Vaibhav: [00:10:11] it was wonderful time, a lot to learn both on a personal and a professional level and lot to discover things around.
[00:10:18] So I mean a couple of good things happened with me at IIT Delhi. So in its generally there is a concept of assigning a mentor.When you join as a fresher, there is a senior from 30th that is assigned as a mentor to you. The first good thing I would say is that I had a very good mentor who continues team the Dipesh Mittal
[00:10:38] Similar kind of a background middle-class family, Good at studies but at IIT he tried a lot of things and that is something that he told me as well, that at IIT you can be whatever you want to be. If you want to be good in dance, you can be good in dance here. You want to be good in academics, you can be good in a academics here. .
[00:10:58] It, there is no burden on you that you have to be good in a particular thing that the entire society things. So in that sense is a lot of, lots of guidance, lots of ways in one should approach the IIT life that eased that helped a lot in that direction there then lots of good friends.
[00:11:19] So one good thing, for example, that happens at it daily is that you stay in the same hostel for four years for your entire journey at ICL. So what that helps you is that you are actually in the same hostel with your seniors and you tend to learn a lot from your seniors, their good and bad, good and bad both.
[00:11:41] Yeah. That that really helped us. So even if you see at shodowfax, I mean my co-founders, they all are senior students. And when we started, the only thing is that we knew each other out in our hostel days, we knew what kind of personalities we are and that gave us each of us confidence that we can actually take this off.
[00:12:03] Puneeth: [00:12:03] Did you have brainstorming session with the Dipesh during your college time?
[00:12:09] Vaibhav: [00:12:09] I would not call them brainstorming sessions. I would call them guiding sessions. ,we used to roam around I mean we used to meet later hours in the night and just , both of us. And we used to discuss a lot of things.
[00:12:23] not only Dipesh. I mean, there are a lot of other seniors as well, who probably I was comfortable in sharing all the ups and downs of my personal life as well. Andthey were able to get me up and help me think in the right directions, in those moments.
[00:12:37] Just one incident, to be honest this was one of the major ones. as an IIT Journey my journey actually got diverted into two different aspects. And maybe that has helped me what I am right now. So in the initial part of the journey, I was more inclined towards extra curricular activities.
[00:12:56] I was one of those people who used to not attend a lot of classes. And as you would also know, I'm not much of a morning person. So I mean, waking up at 8:00 AM and attending a class in daily winter was like a no go for almost everyone in our wing. So all of us used to sleep. Nobody was there that please wake me up at this time.
[00:13:24] There was one or two people who were the, who were good enough in studies and they were fortunately the department rank ones that we had in narrowing. So when they used to go and we were, we were absolutely, yeah, we were absolutely fortunate have in our wing. They are they're in the wing and they were wonderful people to help us out as well.
[00:13:42] So We used to study one week or one and a half weeks before the exams. And a lot of our studies used to happen using internet. So middle classes needs, put notes, easily maintain it to topic, but it's his book separately. And then we used to go on Google and maybe understand it in more depth.
[00:14:08] So we, that kind of people do they would not, huh?
[00:14:16] Puneeth: [00:14:16] no need for grace....marks.
[00:14:17] Vaibhav: [00:14:17] Yeah.
[00:14:18] So yeah, that was in the showroom extracurricular activities, but the other thing, and mother, we went till the end as well. So I used to take part in debating. I used to take part in street play I even danced that was very pathetic. But I danced in my first year, so yes, sorry, Kathy TJ Curry.
[00:14:35] And generally year at Turkey when you are in it. And you are ready to extracurricular activities. You generally go in for certain positions of responsibilities, like becoming a representative of a particular society becoming a secretary. So I was the representative of Hindi Samiti and then in third year I became the secretary of Hindi Samithi
[00:14:59] Uh I used to do MATLAB putting Nita valet com caravan, then fortunately one good thing happened. So a third year, your internship, I had applied for Adobe's interview. And so fortunately I got into Adobe's research team as an intern till date, to be honest, I don't know why I got into pre-K, but so I wanted to how was something that I'm still amazed at because the kind of people that were there in that team, they were much, much better in terms of Academy qualifications.
[00:15:35] I mean, you would find the top 10 all in the ranks that you will find the top department ranks of comp science in that program. And I'm from electrical engineering. I am not
[00:15:48] Puneeth: [00:15:48] the interns
[00:15:49] Vaibhav: [00:15:49] or the, the interns, they income. Okay. Interns to the other interns both from our college and from other colleges who were shortlisted, they had much better Academy profiles than me and interestingly, my intern interview was also not an Academic focused interview.
[00:16:10] So you had discussing different aspects. So we were discussing the way education policies in IDs, the person kind of liked it. And maybe that was the reason why I got into that internship program. And that was my first journey in Bangalore.
[00:16:26] that was the turning point for me to enter into technology domain. So I mean, being there with so many good people from different colleges, from different spheres and then solving problems there. So the way the internship was also conducted was pretty good. They were a lot of brainstorming sessions.
[00:16:46] They were a lot of execution sessions. And in that journey I realized, yeah, tech is a very good space. You have a lot of power to solve problems. You have real problems, you can solve a lot of real problems out there. So fortunately the work that we did at Adobe research, that got accepted as a patent and it is now registered as a U S patent and it is on the concepts of social learning.
[00:17:13] That, how do you identify an expert in a social network basis? What the person reads, how he or she interacts with the content? Hmm.
[00:17:26]Puneeth: [00:17:26] Do you not see the dots connecting?
[00:17:30] Vaibhav: [00:17:30] So kind of, yes. that, what was the moment when when I was very clear that this is something that I would want to do, this is where I would want to be at.
[00:17:41] so generally if you see a lot of people in nineties or a similar background, if you're good in curricular activities, if you are holding positions of responsibilities the natural career path is to take it to a consulting setup. So you would try to interview for the big four consulting firms and you would like to join them.
[00:18:02] And so was the journey for me prior to that internship. But after that internship, I was very clear that want to execute. I want to build things I don't want to give gyan. I mean, there's nothing wrong in a consulting setup. Even in our organization, as well shadowfax as well, we do take help of these consulting firms to guide us in different setups.
[00:18:26] But there was a good feeling that I want to execute. I want to build things on my own because the power that technology gives you is immense. So you can think of any problem. You can look to build solutions in that direction there. So that got changed. Just after an internship internships, are they, I was like, eh, I'll call I'll practice coding until then I did not use to code.
[00:18:51] I used to just take courses of computer science or mathematics department and used to do them just for the sake of learning. Then I realized that if I have to execute, I need to get into some good coding company. And that's where the dilemma started.
[00:19:10] Puneeth: [00:19:10] The dilemma started.
[00:19:12] Vaibhav: [00:19:12] Yeah. So the dilemma was, my profile was very good for a consulting setup, not good for the technology setup because I am from electrical engineering.
[00:19:20] And not that hands-on with coding as some of the people from comp science department would be whereas my interest was less on consulting and more on the technology side of it. I prepared a lot. the bigger companies, I wasn't able to crack their interviews. But I was able to get shortlisted by Zomato.
[00:19:40] I still remember I hope Gunjan doesn't remember. I still remember that Gunjan took my interview. I was very happy. So Gunjan is their CTO, so I was very happy on cracking the interview there, but somehow I didn't make the shortlist there. And eventually I got into housing.com. So that was the first time that housing had come for a campus interview on day one.
[00:20:05] And they offered the data scientist job.
[00:20:08] That was the journey there. Interestingly, I didn't join housing. So a lot of, things are there in that direction.
[00:20:19] Puneeth: [00:20:19] A lot of interesting things there, which are skipped.
[00:20:22] Vaibhav: [00:20:22] It's great. Say, so. I mean, as soon as I got my job in housing, I informed my parents. It's a day one job it's giving this much of a package instead of feeling excited, they were a bit confused,
[00:20:38] Puneeth: [00:20:38] confused.
[00:20:39]Vaibhav: [00:20:39] I was never able to identify the right signals. Maybe they were like, why are you, why are you in joining such a startup, which is spending so much on their domain name itself, there are 12 co-founders. How does any business work if they have two co-founders.
[00:20:57] So what a lot of, lot of questions were there and they didn't seem happy about it. That's where
[00:21:04] Puneeth: [00:21:04] good ideas for decision-making. Whoa, 12, co-founders the amount of expensive for a domain name. Your parents have done their homework really, really, really well.
[00:21:17] Yes.
[00:21:17] Vaibhav: [00:21:17] That was the thing. I didn't feel that good on getting that placement to be honest the next source is to reach out to seniors. I reached out to them had a discussion with them. they were quite Frank in helping me out and they told me that he try off campus and to go in for other companies.
[00:21:36] So I used to apply for Google Xerox Zomato, all these bigger companies in an off-campus manner. And then I went in with a system to advisers. So that's a US-based hedge fund. And again there one of my seniors referred me there, so that allowed me to get a good, quick interview. So, yeah. Both in a profile, what is your balance
[00:22:02] reaction?
[00:22:02] I'm curious when you joined the hedge fund,
[00:22:04] They were better. So just to be honest here, I went in for a pay cut. My package at a hedge fund was lower than what housing was offering at that point of time. I went in for a pay cut, but I was confident of the quality of work was better.
[00:22:16] So the learning was more in a hedge fund and that turned out to be true. Maybe what fate had decided was that I went in for a job in the same vacinity only. So housing's office was in powaii the office of that hedge fund in India. So that was a co-working space that vikroli . So both these places are close together and in Mumbai and we were three flatmates and two other flatmates worked in housing.
[00:22:46] So it had decided that I have to work in that vicinity only. And maybe Both of them working in housing.com also gave me a perspective of what my work or what my life@housing.com would I be with them. So in that census as time progressed, I felt that the head's fun option was a good one and the manager there.
[00:23:12] So again, calling out his name, Adil Sandalwala manager had that had fund was super helpful in crafting what shadowfax is,
[00:23:21] Puneeth: [00:23:21] what were you discussing with him
[00:23:24] Vaibhav: [00:23:24] problems and able to take a lot of takes a lot of things to be discussed with him. I mean, when we were starting up, when we were Abhishek, we, when we were discussing things, we were we used to work over weekends. We used to meet over weekends and we used to brainstorm and the initial MVP I used to prepare after coming from office.
[00:23:49] So I used to come back at roughly around 10, have my dinner and then work till two, 3:00 AM to build the initial MVP. We used to do that. We used to Pilate it around in Mumbai, but there was a point in time when we actually wanted to do it on ground. We want to get in real delivery partners.
[00:24:09] And wanted to taste it across. And at that point we went to Delhi. We had to go to daily. So I had told my manager that Hey, I'm going to my hometown and I'll be on leave for this week. And he was fine ticket I don't know why, but two to three days after my leave, so I hadn't gone to Jaipur. I wasn't Delhi and was working on this pilot.
[00:24:36] I don't know why, but when his quality came, I explained them the entire story that, Hey boss, I am not in Jaipur , I have not gone to meet my family. I'm here in Delhi. I'm doing this pilot. There is this idea. I don't have that much savings that I can say that I want to quit the job. So I don't want you to tell it to anybody else because I'll finish up the work.
[00:25:04] But please bear with me for this much duration. So he said, yeah, that that was a week. So when I came back to Mumbai I had a discussion with him. I told him so today and yay team hands. And we were thinking of picking it, but a B for time, I can work on this. So some of the books, things that were there was a, he helped me as a friend rather than as a manager.
[00:25:36] So he said idea Telegraph, and it is the right time for you. So I think you should. So that was his first words he had. Madam, you should pursue this food delivery app. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And he was like a, I can understand, you cannot leave your job at this point of time. So you've been giving me options, like.
[00:26:03] I mean, if you want you can work four days here and three days on your startup. So he even gave me suggestions on how we can build a product. There are some of the suggestions, some of the technology related optimizations that he suggested at that point of time that we still use that is still there in our product so that he did not tell anyone else in the company.
[00:26:27] It was a mutual discussion. I mean, coffee Monday when we were very close to getting good conviction on the product and getting good conviction on the market, then he asked me
[00:26:41] and it was a, mutual conversation. And then he discussed it with the seniors. And that was a good support, to be honest. I mean, it lifts a lot of burden on your head. When you know that there is somebody who knows about your thing and who is holding your back.So at some point we're paying
[00:27:04] either he used to pitching or uh I mean, he used to give me some more
[00:27:12] so that was really big shout out to others.
[00:27:20] Puneeth: [00:27:20] I think it must be proud. Looking back
[00:27:23] Vaibhav: [00:27:23] at the kind of support he has lend to you. Right? I mean even, even after moving on from system two, we were in touch.
[00:27:32] I used to meet him for lunch or dinner and I mean, good, good, good person. one of the people who actually shape the, the right seeds for Shadowfax,
[00:27:47] Puneeth: [00:27:47] we've been talking about a Japanese game before we started this conversation. Do you know in I in Japanese is somebody who helps you shape your ideas and helps your prosperity is called the Gui in
[00:27:58] and then they got it with a lot of respect because when they come into your life, a lot of things change, especially prosperity and success waves.
[00:28:08] Vaibhav: [00:28:08] So yeah. You know, I mean I would looking back, I would say that yes destiny had an introduction with him. Destiny had this thing that I will not join housing, I would go in for system two advisers. I would meet who would help me, who would assist me better in doing the startup.
[00:28:29] Puneeth: [00:28:29] Makes sense. I mean, sharing your ideas with a few people you trust can be such a needle mover.
[00:28:39] Okay.
[00:28:39] Why the food delivery idea though? I'm just curious. Was it because it was hot at that time? Or was it because I was shaking, you were jamming about multiple ideas and this seemed the easiest one to enter.
[00:28:53] Vaibhav: [00:28:53] Definitely not the easiest one. So see at that point of time if you recollect the market was booming with startups like food Panda, tinyowl,
[00:29:05] Puneeth: [00:29:05] it was put on
[00:29:06] Vaibhav: [00:29:06] 14, 13 era, right.
[00:29:07] the era was of digitizing the entire food ordering experience. So they were gaining good traction. And then Alicia had seen in his earlier case studies with the China counterparts that on demand logistics is something that'll boom up that will go further, when we used to visit the market, when we used to have those conversations with the restaurant operators.
[00:29:33] So they used to tell us that while it is good, that we are getting a lot of orders from these platforms, but fulfilling these orders is a nightmare for us because when they're running a sale then we tend to get a lot of orders, but we cannot get delivery partners that quickly.
[00:29:51] I mean, at that point of time, the delivery partners used to be on a fixed payroll of that restaurant. They used to be given the bike from the restaurant as well. So it was difficult for them to hire, get a bike. And then as soon as the sale ends, then you have to absorb those additional fleet in some other way.
[00:30:11] And so that was the scenario at that point of time. So we felt that fulfillment is the major call-out and there will be a lot of businesses that would be needing such fulfillment capabilities.
[00:30:22] Puneeth: [00:30:22] Was this around the time that you've pivoted or no? No, no, no, no.
[00:30:26]Vaibhav: [00:30:26] I would not say that it was a pivot perspective.
[00:30:29] when we started, we believe that the food market in itself would be a very big market to crack. So we were entirely focused, I would want because I mean, if you see in the current scenario, I mean, we were maybe five years earlier there. If you see the current scenario, if you see the kind of valuations or the kind of market that Zomato swiggy they are capturing, you would realize that the market for food delivery in itself is very big, right?
[00:30:57] So if you take the combined volumes of dominoes of Swiggys' of zomatos', it's, it's huge. Definitely that burst in volume came after three years when we started. Yeah, I mean, until then it was mostly the bigger chains which were delivering food. You would see a McDonald's, you would see a Domino's, you would see a pizza hut
[00:31:16] what Swiggy or Zomatos' have done is that they have democratized this access. So you can now open your own shop. And if there is good reviews about the food that you are preparing, then you needed to be a big chain to do logistics, or you need to be a big chain to deliver it to the end customers there and get that same, good customer experience.
[00:31:41] So we ferried at that point of time that it will be a big market. Definitely that market came in after three years. And as a result of it, once we were there with the full delivery aspect, we realized that we had to enter into other domains as well. So it can not only be a food delivery, but what we realized that if we can deliver food in 30 minutes, then we can deliver a lot of things in other time, SLA's as well.
[00:32:12] So a natural extension was to go into grocery.
[00:32:15] Puneeth: [00:32:15] How early in the journey was this?
[00:32:17] Vaibhav: [00:32:17] This was six to seven months of our entire operation. Yeah. Oh, okay.
[00:32:24] Puneeth: [00:32:24] And how many months or years were you working on it? Part-time from 10:00 PM to 2:00 aM.
[00:32:28]Vaibhav: [00:32:28] It was primarily from November, 2014 we were working on it.
[00:32:33] Part-time we incorporated it in April, 2015, and that was when roughly full-time had started at around that point. So definitely six months, six months we were working in, in a stealth mode. You can say that. So he had heard the, when we started, so food market made hay then thought of entering into grocery, we did a very good integration with a big basket and that allowed us to cater to groceries as well from the same fleet then entered into e-commerce then into pharma then into e-commerce when we entered, it was on the reverse logistics, reverse logistics is the part.
[00:33:21] So let's say you ordered a t-shirt, you didn't like it, and you want to return that journey from returning from the customer to delivering it to the origin seller is the reverse logistics part. The major aspect, there is the quality check, the doorstep quality check whether you are able to identify that the customer is returning the correct item or not.
[00:33:44] And trust me Indian customers are not that great with that.
[00:33:48] Yeah. Did you know, do you know in college we had this I don't know how to put it in the right way, but there are so many smart kids who are exploiting the reverse logistics of every possibly commerce. They would just put an X amount on Flipkart or Amazon and have a new wardrobe every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and they would return it.
[00:34:07] Yes. That honestly, I would say is a simpler mechanism is, well, a lot of people when we had started, what they were doing was that they used to let's say order iPhone seven, and then they used to place a return and then return an iPhone six in place of it. Whoa. So your delivery partner generally, I mean, they are not that well-versed with different iPhone models, so they would see that it's a phone, it's an iPhone and they will use to collect it.
[00:34:40] So in the initial days, later on, a lot of checks got built in head. I mean, in the current scenario, if you see your flip cards and Amazon do not allow you to return any electrical plans, right. Primarily because
[00:34:55] that is such a cool idea.
[00:35:03] So a we were able to identify a lot of such frauds that were happening later. the industry also revolved whenever there is an exchange of a mobile phone per se. So they used to validate it with the IME number. So now it's scenarios are less, but I mean, yes, people, people have done such cases as well.
[00:35:22] One of the problem in reverse logistics is that the refund did not use to come instantly. Now there are certain players who are willing to do refund, and that is something that we are happy to have enabled them as well.
[00:35:35] So one of our offering in reverse logistics is that if our delivery partners says that it is QC past and that the delivery partner does it on the doorstep itself, if the delivery partner says QC passed, then just quality check past. Yeah, yeah. The quality of the last. Yeah. Yeah. So if the delivery partner says that quality check is passed, then you are free to initiate a refined to the end customer.
[00:36:02] And in any scenario, if when you receive the item, you feel that we have paid an incorrect item, then we will be order debit for it. No, it's like an insurance. Yes. Yeah. So we offer them the images, the real-time images that the delivery partner had clicked at that point of time, we allow a very stringent quality check parameter that you can configure on a customer by customer basis and definitely we do charge a premium for it, but we also say that.
[00:36:37] If we do it wrong, then we are the one to be penalized.
[00:36:39] so there had been cases earlier where some of the first timers e-commerce buyers, what they did was they did not let the delivery partner leave their house.
[00:36:59] Puneeth: [00:36:59] this shows the trust issues that Indian consumer
[00:37:03] Vaibhav: [00:37:03] had because , they were like, yeah, you have taken our product. You have our money day. All we have to do is exactly all we have to do is to trust you that in five or six days, you will return back the money. What should I do if you do not do that?
[00:37:21] So either you don't take my product or you refund my money right away.
[00:37:26] Puneeth: [00:37:26] How did you solve this in initial discourse? This must have been so challenging on one end. You're limited by capital, the other end. There's a risk and mold and you have a. Activated.
[00:37:39]Vaibhav: [00:37:39] a lot of our writers or the hubby judges,they are known in their community for some of the work that they do. So generally they have been charged, has a comp conversation. Then there are central team members have a conversation with those customers. They tend to explain or ally those fears that even your neighbor is comfortable. So please be comfortable.
[00:38:02] It's it's a big company. It will not go burst. So yeah, those, those are the challenges, but yeah, I mean the initial days were a lot of new learning for us. There have been cases. They might be a bit scary for the audience.
[00:38:21] Puneeth: [00:38:21] Go ahead. .
[00:38:21] Vaibhav: [00:38:21] So in gudgoan for example this happened in good council. There was certain delivery partners were not behaving properly, or I would say they were not doing their best performance. So they were not accepting orders or they were canceling certain orders on their own wish. So we thought of letting them go.
[00:38:38] We are in that, Hey guys, we do not want you on your, our, on our platform. And please go in. So in those initial days, our cluster manager used to be there and our cluster manager went there to give this information to these writers. Some of these writers had a understanding that such a thing would happen.
[00:38:57] So they just phoned their friends who came in with latth who came in with uh gun actually. And that cluster manager was held ransom yes.
[00:39:11] We, we got a frantic call from ground Kia. They could cut down, set up. It ended up, luckily AI turned off.
[00:39:23] Puneeth: [00:39:23] How did you handle it, Jackie? Yeah.
[00:39:26] Vaibhav: [00:39:26] Good name. I mean, you allowed those things to work on your platform.
[00:39:30] Yeah, that, that was there then not a lot of scenarios, but then did you get to get,
[00:39:38] Puneeth: [00:39:38] to get, get them under check? Did you guys.
[00:39:41] Vaibhav: [00:39:41] See over the course of time, both parties realized. if they work on your platform, then gradually they feel that there are other better learning options.
[00:39:51] If you have that much of a cloud in a city, like go to the mountain, you can. I mean, why are you able to do we have delivery by job? So, yeah, that's how, I mean, a natural course of attrition also happened and we also distanced a bit key and mean we will not a lot, a lot of audits to you guys so that our performances are also in check.
[00:40:15] So overall , I mean mutually amicably or silently, we will. Yeah, they were, yeah, they were initial delivery partners who were, I mean, we were unsure to be honest, how they had that much money, but in the initial days we were also unsure key consequently orders. It was somehow around Valentine's day uh bakery, who was a client of ours.
[00:40:44] They got a lot of orders which could not be delivered on a bike. And apparently what came to a surprise for us was that a delivery partner actually got a car from his home. And he got the items in the car and delivered in his own car.
[00:41:03] Puneeth: [00:41:03] He doesn't understand unit economics, but,
[00:41:07] Vaibhav: [00:41:07] well, we were also amazed. I mean, almost everyone in our team at that point of time, none of us had a car. Okay. None of us had a car and we were like , but yeah, they were in the initial set of delivery partners. I'm not sure how what the scenarios are, what they're trying to game us, but the scenarios where there were some of them who had iPhones as well.
[00:41:30] And they were like, you said, iPhone cab in a year.
[00:41:32] Puneeth: [00:41:32] That's what I have an app. When you wouldn't know. Yes.
[00:41:37] You have an iPhone using.
[00:41:46] Vaibhav: [00:41:46] Yeah. Whoa, conversation say it also gave us a lot of insight on how these folks think. Seems it really, if you see , for a lot of youngsters uh iPhones or similar gadgets, they are a way of showing that you are good. And a lot of the delivery partners, they didn't want to be delivery partners.
[00:42:09] They just wanted a bike from their family. And getting a delivery. Exactly. Getting a delivery by a job is something that they could tell their family that this is the reason why I need a bike.
[00:42:22] So yeah, a a lot of new answers, a lot of understanding of how these youngsters think, how people think and yeah,
[00:42:31] Puneeth: [00:42:31] hard to digest and I phoned caring delivery, boy convincing his family for a bike. Yeah.
[00:42:40]Vaibhav: [00:42:40] Getting a bike to be honest is a passion for a lot of youngsters in the country. And on our platform, we do have people coming in from different colleges as well. So there are folks who work with us over weekends when their colleges are there.
[00:42:54] Right. And for some, it is a part-time set up. And for some it is also a way of roaming with their bike or just helping people around as well. So. Lots of new answers. I mean, I think the way we have grown the kind of people that we have been able to empower that gives a bit of satisfaction on what you have been able to build in.
[00:43:15] I mean, using a similar sort of a technology, you could maybe build a solution, which could ease the livelihoods of people like us. People like us were fortunate enough to be sitting in a home to be getting everything home delivered and not that worried about the complications that COVID might arise at the same time.
[00:43:36] You can use this technology to build a solution for the kind of people who I mean, I mean, just, just to think it out loud, that the kind of product that you have built allows 50,000 and more delivery partners to get an opportunity to make 10, 15,000 rupees a month. Is something more satisf , these are the kinds of people who would find it difficult to get any other job in an organized sector. They might be working in an unorganized zone only, or may not be able to get a requisite job as well, which would give them that much money. Yes, their life is difficult. I mean, it's not easy to go around in the heat of Delhi on the heat of Jaipur to deliver shipments.
[00:44:21] And it's also not easy to be roaming around when you are the only person roaming around in the COVID lockdowns. So lonely. Yeah. It's a lonely, it's a risky as well. Yeah. I mean at some point of time, when everybody around you is saying, stay safe, stay indoors. These are the people who can not do that.
[00:44:43] And the problem statements that we ourselves are facing our friends, our relatives uh being down with COVID, they also are facing, I mean, they even might know more vulnerable in that regard. It's not easy for them to do that, but from our perspective, it, I mean, apart from all other things, this aspect gives a lot of us a good sense of satisfaction or a good sense of motivation to keep working.
[00:45:09] So for example one important thing that I keep saying to that payer team is that, Hey guys, you need to ensure that anyone working diligently for shadow fax has to get the right money at the right amount at the right point of time. Take care. It is fine for people like us bank.
[00:45:29] It should be, and we'll get you the money on the third day. Okay. But it is not fine for these guys. Okay. And you need to ensure that they are getting the right full amount and they're getting at the right point of time. So that gives us a lot of motivation, responsibility and a sense of satisfaction. I mean the same team, the seminar prepared, I got the same team could build a solution, which could make your life easy.
[00:46:01] It could allow you to make investments. It could allow you to order food or order groceries or, or the e-commerce. Right. But that would just ease your life. Right. And that's not a bare necessity, to be honest. I mean, I agree. We are entering in a zone where e-commerce is becoming a necessity.
[00:46:22] Right. But if you look at another competitive zone I mean I would still rank the requirements that these folks have, or the problem statement that these folks have to be slightly higher than the problem statements are people like us. Yeah. I think what you've
[00:46:37] Puneeth: [00:46:37] really done is you have bridged.
[00:46:40] The lower part of the pyramid, the Indian pyramid to the upper part of the pyramid
[00:46:46] Vaibhav: [00:46:46] using tech kind of yes. Kind of yes.
[00:46:52] Puneeth: [00:46:52] The bottom of the pyramid, it's
[00:46:54] the iPhone caring delivery boys that are exceptional case, but otherwise I'm curious, this must have been an accidental value addition or was this an intent from the start when you pivoted from a food delivery service to a third party logistics player, or as somebody called it diversified new age logistics player?
[00:47:22] I don't know. There's not a question there.
[00:47:26] Vaibhav: [00:47:26] So one thing I would say that I mean, it's, it's it's not a pivot per se. I mean, what we did in our initial days, we continued to do that and we have just diversified into new age diversified businesses. So, but to answer that question on that, is it an added advantage that definitely, I mean, it's an added advantage.
[00:47:47] Something that was there in our mind as well when we were starting up. So when we were, to be honest, when we were starting up, when we had to recruit these delivery partners upfront, we actually visited the nearby village areas of Gudgaon. We visited the nearby village areas of Delhi
[00:48:03] we used to take tempos there. Mother, we used to who I'm not sure up me or any one of you would have seen, basically you go to the village, you take a tempo and there is a loud person saying on a loudspeaker that Naukri, Naukri, Naukri Naukri lelo low
[00:48:19] we went in therethose mobilizations were there and then we used to sign up people there, and those were interested. We used to onboard them and take it up.
[00:48:31] Puneeth: [00:48:31] The conversion was good of
[00:48:32] Vaibhav: [00:48:32] something like that. So you haven't seen in the initial stages.
[00:48:36] The initial stages, our requirement was also on the lower side with the Neami, the Kutney we, one of the major challenges that we face in this kind of mobilization is thatthe stay and food is something that these rural folks are unsure of. So there have been some solutions that we have also the likes of Swiggy's or Zomato's they have also worked on.
[00:48:59] But it's still a work in progress.
[00:49:04] Puneeth: [00:49:04] Hmm. But before I move on, what solutions, what did you find? Did you find an allowance for food and did you find a place for them to stay?
[00:49:13] Vaibhav: [00:49:13] Yes. So generally experience, right? So generally what you do is you tend to get in a three or a four story building similar to a PG and you have sharing residences for these folks.
[00:49:29] So that was the kind of arrangement that was
[00:49:34] Puneeth: [00:49:34] interesting. What fascinated me about is the entire business model being. So asset light, was this out of the reason that you were trying to bootstrap it, or was it something that came organically?Why choose to have freelancers as delivery boys? Why choose to use the space of local stores for inventory?
[00:50:07] Vaibhav: [00:50:07] So the idea here is that more so my differentiation perspective when we were thinking, I mean, the earlier logistics setups, if you had seen, they were all focused around building assets and using those assets to the plus we knew that we were late and into to the sector and we may not be able to get into the capital that is needed to build those assets.
[00:50:31] So we had to innovate we had to come up with a solution that could allow us to reach the similar scale with the lesser amount of capital to be needed. And that is how things started then from uh getting these delivery partners on freelance actually while one was obviously you would want to have it on a per transaction setup.
[00:50:50] The other aspect is also that it opens a lot of areas for you. So for example, I did to be in an employment sort of a thing, then you could only give employment to people.For example, if a person is employed by delivery employees by Zomato then we can not employ that person because dual employment is not allowed.
[00:51:11] But if the ecosystem evolves around in a freelance mechanism, where in the person is free uh to work with multiple companies, then it becomes easier for the ecosystem to work in. And plus on our platform, we still have people who have a nine to five job and they come in on evenings and they work on our platform for extra money.
[00:51:34] You know, we have these quality students who work on weekends and make money on our platform. We have folks who work with different logistics partners as well. And when they have a shift off, they come and work with us as well. So the freelance aspect actually allowed us to tap onto a larger supply base to to build a more wider base and a faster perspective.
[00:51:59] Puneeth: [00:51:59] Yeah. And you, you are not only able to organize about a hundred K youth, but you're also able to create and further the entire gig economy that's happening in India. Cause this, this is
[00:52:10] Vaibhav: [00:52:10] essentially a gig. Yeah, this is exactly, exactly. I mean, this is a gig economy and I think the good thing that happened is that a lot of people in the ecosystem also moved in that direction there.
[00:52:22] When we started at that point of time Uh the scenario was that these people were working in another organized sector. So in
[00:52:34] they used to get money at any point of time. And depending on the financial situation of the business, with which they are working, they used to be paid. According to that, season here too. They are given a bonus as well. They can lean period. They are not even given their base amount as well.
[00:52:52] Right. And they also did not use to get any benefits from a health perspective from an insurance person. Now, the ecosystem with the likes of are so many players moving into this gig setup. Yep. That has a made this entire setup move towards an organizer. Now a delivery partner would have right. Visibility of how much he or she has earned.
[00:53:16] And when will that money come and that money would come entirely on to their bank accounts. Right? Similarly they they have these benefits, they enjoy these benefits of insurance. They enjoy benefits of maybe taking a quick loan as well. They enjoy benefits of maybe referring new folks in the ecosystem as well.
[00:53:39] So services all, these are red. Exactly. All these are added services, which even improve the quality of their life as well. And in a sense also needed for them.
[00:53:50] Puneeth: [00:53:50] I love how competition makes the entire ecosystem better in the longterm.
[00:53:56] Vaibhav: [00:53:56] Yeah, this is a beautiful example of it. And we had seen folks earlier and they, also used to complain care, Covey time, mother Malina take care of them.
[00:54:08] We had toto care. We even did not have money for a few per se. So those were the things. And now and, and to top of it, their earnings have also increased. What they used to make at that point of time, now they are able to make it more by the same amount of effort. And since the rise of marketplaces or laser aggregators is there.
[00:54:33] So now they can do orders from multiple platforms earlier, if you are deployed with Domino's, you will only do orders for domino, and you are limited by the business. That Domino's is. Yeah. That is the chooser. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. and something that we have been able to see internally, as well as in the upcoming years, you would see that these writers will not only be delivering you food, they would deliver groceries.
[00:55:01] They would even come to your house and do some key as well for financial services. They could go to a shop and do an FMCG audit as well. So , the, the amount of contribution that they can do, the possibilities that they can do will increase. And that's, great for the entire ecosystem.
[00:55:23] Puneeth: [00:55:23] Hm. The possibilities are so fascinating,
[00:55:29] Vaibhav: [00:55:29] right?
[00:55:30] Puneeth: [00:55:30] It's it's like Domino's effect you solve one problem. And a lot of seemingly similar problems also get resolved.
[00:55:40] Vaibhav: [00:55:40] Date, again, see, , it's also important that the entire ecosystem moves in that direction there and that's where the major things move.
[00:55:51] Puneeth: [00:55:51] You mean the entire demand and the infrastructure? Hmm. Hmm.
[00:55:57] How did you come up with the local stores being used as a space or a place for inventory storage? Was that an intentional design of your business model
[00:56:10] Vaibhav: [00:56:10] or so not in our initial setup, I would say. This is something that we observed. The entire philosophy is that you would want to deliver things to customers as quick as possible, as fast as possible.
[00:56:26] The speed is the thing. And as we have also seen when we had started the delivery times, and if you see it in the current state, the delivery times have drastically reduced. there are, two aspects of one is from a logistics setup that you need to fast in your logistics moments how you design your network, how do you sort it all these aspects, how quickly can you deliver?
[00:56:49] The other aspect is on the inventory management. So consider the scenario that if, if what item that you are ordering, if it is available in a nearby shop, then there is good guarantee that you would get it in a day. But if it is available in a different city, then there is good guarantee that you can not get it in a day or two.
[00:57:11] So the entire hypothesis is that if you have to deliver fast, you need to get items closer to the customer. Now, how do you get it closer to the customer? Either you build up or set up your own infrastructure there, your storage infrastructure, or you can partner with the existing infrastructure that is there.
[00:57:33] So that is where the thought process trauma Karada stores actually comes up.
[00:57:38] Uh getting things closer to the customer is the most important thing. Now, I mean, we delivered mobile phones in 30 minutes as well. And there's a good study on Amazon as well. So what Amazon uses your click stream data to analyze what is that that you're looking to purchase?
[00:57:57] So for example, if there is a mobile phone that you are actually searching out quite often on Amazon, then they'll stock it. They'll actually start shipping it from their warehouse. So if the warehouse is in daily, even before you click on buy now I mean, you will actually want to wait for a deal or you would want to wait for the sale to start, but Amazon can analyze your click stream data, and it can understand that yes, there is a good amount of interest that is coming in from a particular locality about this particular shipment.
[00:58:31] So what they'll do is that they'll ship X number of shipments uh from their warehouse in daily and it will reach their backlog dispatch centers. And then Amazon will show you that if you place an order in X minutes, you can get it same day or you can get it next day.
[00:58:49] Puneeth: [00:58:49] What a calculated bet.
[00:58:51] This is, I think this is the beauty of the entire. Data analysis that's happening, but that's the saving so much of hate, but there's this beautiful aspect. Maybe it's a little I don't know, a little creepy sort of thing, which is, but there's this beautiful aspect of commerce that's
[00:59:15] Vaibhav: [00:59:15] that that's shining.
[00:59:17] So, I mean, a lot of this clickstream data analysis is creepy nature. But yeah, very, very busy to be honest. And but maybe one, one savory fact is that not everybody knows that what happens under the hood. So maybe they are they're comfortable in that direction.
[00:59:36]Puneeth: [00:59:36]
[00:59:36] Have you had delivery girls? I'm curious, has that
[00:59:39] Vaibhav: [00:59:39] happened? Yeah. What we have done is I mean, while we are going more on the delivery girls side, we are also getting a lot of women in our facilities in our dispatch centers.
[00:59:52] So our dispatch center is roughly like 75,001 leg square feet out of a space where a lot of processing happens. And so for example, our backlog DC backlog DC has, I would say almost 90% of them are women.
[01:00:07]Puneeth: [01:00:07] I see the bike as such a liberating factor for women already wherein I still remember my childhood days when a girl riding anything close to a two Wheeler was looked up to. And now I see aunties and grannies riding around two wheelers and being able to feel that empowerment that Tula brings
[01:00:27]Vaibhav: [01:00:27] The good thing that has happened in the recent years is the rise of these electric bikes as well. So they have made it much easier for a larger community to come onto this platform. while impacting better gender diversity here, but at the same time, there are a lot of folks who do not have the upfront money to buy a bike.
[01:00:47] And we have had those discussions as well earlier. I mean, they are like here, we would first want to on something, make us savings and then use that to get a bike.
[01:00:56] Puneeth: [01:00:56] It's, it's beautiful. They are using a phone that they bought on an e-commerce platform. They're using apps. Those are, that are aggregators for food or medicine. They riding awaken that they've got some other aggregator of vehicles.
[01:01:11] Vaibhav: [01:01:11] if you see it in a, in a five-year horizon, you would see that. as a country or as a technology set up we have leap frogged a lot. Yeah. and the good thing, which I mean, I feel satisfied that a lot of these innovations have actually also helped the bottom of the parameter as well.
[01:01:29] Mm Hmm. So when we were starting, for example, a lot of solutions who are buyers towards people like us for making our life more simpler. Yeah. It just sprinkled down really fast. It has trinkled out nicely. So that's a good thing that as an overall ecosystem, we have been able to drive it.
[01:01:49] And now we see a lot of people are also focusing on the loan requirements for these people, the insurance requirements for these people. That's also a good thing to get in. and they do need emergency cash, they do need emergency money.
[01:02:03] And as more and more organized players are looking in this direction, It is making their life easier to actually get that capital quickly. some of the partnerships, for example, the delivery partner can apply for a loan on our app. Since we have his payout performance, since we have his performance information available, we can lightly shared it with the loan disbursement company and the loan disbursement company can identify the risk potential and accordingly give a quote to that person and among the sanction.
[01:02:36] Yeah. If the amount is sanctioned then we can just pay it out directly in our payout that we give to the billing department and with UPI available with so many avenues available for payments, it's actually much easier now to get money even for these people.
[01:02:54] Puneeth: [01:02:54] How do you communicate with 1 Lac plus freelancers?
[01:03:00]Vaibhav: [01:03:00] It's a work in progress, sort of a problem. So our app in itself does a lot of communication. We run a couple of community programs like Apna adda on Facebook as well wherein these partners can come and share their experiences, share their stories. Then a large part of it is from the interactive notifications that we share.
[01:03:19] We do have a WhatsApp integration in place as well. So that is where Kaleyra has helped us as well. Those are, the way we are able to interact with these guys. So the primary thing is, again, all these tech enabled solutions with COVID coming in it's even difficult to have ground huddles as well.
[01:03:37] So everything is on a digital setup.
[01:03:42] Puneeth: [01:03:42] Interesting.
[01:03:43] Vaibhav: [01:03:43] How has your
[01:03:45] Puneeth: [01:03:45] experience with Kaleyra been
[01:03:47]Vaibhav: [01:03:47] when we started, when we were looking out for solutions for our SMS for our voice the call masking requirements and they were the first partners.
[01:03:56] Whom we got in touch with, and they are a major partners, to be honest. so far they have been good in terms of technology implementation.
[01:04:04] They have been great in terms of relationship management and very rarely we would have to go in for a backup solution. So. That's the beauty of working with them has been a good journey. Yeah, we look forward to more solutions. I mean, now the relationship has moved in a direction where we also are bouncing up new suggestions, new thoughts of new product ideas from our side.
[01:04:29] it's a good state to be in where we can be that Frank, that honest and think in a long-term perspective to build those long-term partnerships, when we started with Kaleyra at that point of time, they were Solutions Infiny
[01:04:43] we were also small and I mean, mostly we were small. They had a good set of clients at that point of time as well, but we were small and we will go to that. They supported us in our journey. They betted on us, but that was good.
[01:04:56] Puneeth: [01:04:56] The better on you.
[01:04:57]Vaibhav: [01:04:57] it's difficult to get a partner in your initial years to do a bit of customization for you when you are at arelatively smaller scale.
[01:05:06] Once your scale increases, once your business with a particular partner increases, then obviously there are a lot of players who are willing to make customizations for you. Like we do for our bigger clients this way. But in the initial days to see a good potential with us and to take a bet on us that yes, we should be going good.
[01:05:27] That, that helped.
[01:05:30] Puneeth: [01:05:30] Yeah, it makes sense for them as well, because I think right about time, they would have chimed in for you. You'd already seen a wave of e-commerce having an upward trend. So, yeah.
[01:05:44] Talk to me about engineering pleasant experiences.
[01:05:49]Vaibhav: [01:05:49] the idea here is as a business that we are running, it's a very strong combination of strong engineering and Even equally strong or most strong operational processes on operational excellence. So the magic can only be created if both these aspects come together.
[01:06:08] Unlike some of a technology focused companies like Google, SAS platforms where the, a large part of it exists with the engineering uh capabilities or the product capabilities in this, how we were good algorithm, we can, right. It has to be adopted. It has to be used by people on the ground.
[01:06:30] And that defines how you design solutions that defines how you build solutions. So for example, one of the important thing for us is to create the right routes, the optimized routes that a set of orders can be delivered into now in a typical engineering scenario, you would use traveling salesmen as a problem statement.
[01:06:51] You'll try to use a hero stick to solve that piece. Now, the kind of results that you get using a plain vanilla solution in that direction is not something that can be adopted on ground. Why? Because a lot of these routes would be created in a manner that there are certain riders who have to drive a large amount of distanceto deliver a small number of orders.
[01:07:13] And there are certain writers who have to travel a smaller amount of distance to deliver a large number of orders. Not that does not work well on ground because the payout of these writers is a function of the number of orders that you give it to them. And the moment they start realizing that there are certain writers who tend to get an undue advantage of it.
[01:07:32] It generally doesn't work well within the community there. So we had to build our solutions in a manner that can understand these nuances. We have to build a solutions in a manner that we can incorporate the location, friendliness or location familiarity of a writer as well. So in cases like grocery now the grocery case is very unique in a sense that the delivery boy in most cases would be entering your house, not in the COVID scenario, but in the regular scenario, the person would be entering your house.
[01:08:03] To drop the shipments or to give you the right groceries. Now, in that case as a customer, you would want a consistent experience. You would not want that every day or different delivery boys coming to your house and giving you these veggies or giving you these groceries. So we understand the past location history of these writers.
[01:08:28] We identified that which writer has more affinity to a particular location. And we try to optimize our road spaces, that capability as well. So these are the kind of nuances that you get when you work closely with the operational setup. And that is what we mean by engineering pleasant experiences.
[01:08:48] Pleasant does not mean excited. Pleasant does not mean depressing sort of a zone. And to be honest, the entire logistics setup is a shadow sort of a journey shadow, sort of a journey. So, I mean, trust, I mean, you yourself to answer it.
[01:09:07] You would not even remember the delivery boy. In any way, if he delivers the shipments properly to you, or if he delivers it in a proper, complete process, et cetera, there is no acknowledgement to be honest, that the person gets that's a logistics course. Yeah. That's a logistics course. And that's like a problem statement similar to a wicketkeeper in cricket or a goalkeeper in a football.
[01:09:33] I mean, we could keep her in a test cricket that guy's collecting all the balls that are coming on his way. And at the end of the test match, he would be remembered for the balls or the catches that he couldn't take.
[01:09:46] Puneeth: [01:09:46] Yes,
[01:09:46] Vaibhav: [01:09:46] it is exactly. I mean, whereas if you are a batsman, you, it's not a binary scenario for you. I mean, even a gorgeous cover drive would get you a lot of representation, which whichever could keep her might not get that easily. So same as the case uh in the logistics things. even if I take it one more step forward if we deliver your shipment fast, let's say it's a Flipkart shipment.
[01:10:15] If we deliver your Flipcart shipment, fast, Flipkart would get the, get the appreciation for them. It is very rarely that people know that it is Shadowfax powering it. And what all different circumstances has this delivery partner strived to get these orders delivered. Yeah. Right. So in general, , it's a shadow sort of a zone.
[01:10:44] And that's why we kept it as a pleasant thing that we do not want to put a mental burden on you to understand what all we are going through, what all we have gone through to ensure that your experience is pleasant
[01:10:59] generosity. Yeah. So that's why, I mean, initially when you asked that via logistics and buy food delivery, wasn't the easiest of the problem statement that we thought of it is definitely not the easiest. You do a lot of hard work behind the scenes. You do a lot of optimization. You do a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes and you may not get the right appreciation as well, but you still have to go out there and do it.
[01:11:30] Hmm.
[01:11:31] Puneeth: [01:11:31] Hard to digest,
[01:11:33] Vaibhav: [01:11:33] but that's, that's the reality And that's the beauty of it. I mean, any glaring mistake from your side would be highlighted, will impact the customer experience. And any nuance from your side is expected. I mean, it is something that you have to be so
[01:11:57] and I would say the consumer sentiment in India has improved. People are now willing to take these delivery partners. People are now willing to empathize with these delivery partners and that's an encouraging sign. And that's something that keeps us motivated, keeps our delivery partners motivated as well because I mean, trust me, it's not easy, eh, it's listeners.
[01:12:23] Puneeth: [01:12:23] I mean, yeah, I wrote you to Tesla is my
[01:12:30] Vaibhav: [01:12:30] right? So that's a good thing. I mean maybe uh by virtue of this podcast if I could convey to the listeners as well, that, do try and understand or do try empathize with these folks and I can understand that there are both kinds of scenarios. There are scenarios where these partners could not meet the requisite SLA or, I mean, requisite timeline under which the audit should be delivered or they messed up with your order, or they they made an incorrect remark as well.
[01:13:00] I'm not denying those things. Those things also happen. But maybe one thing that we all can take good care is that if they delivered us a pleasant experience, we ensure that we may be just give them a good, thank you. Or we just express our gratitude to them uh for helping us out during these times.
[01:13:23] Puneeth: [01:13:23] Hm.
[01:13:23] Cause you mentioned go with, yeah.
[01:13:27] Vaibhav: [01:13:27] See the thing, it is key, the kind of challenges that we as individuals are facing that are friends, families, relaters, they are having a mental tension or they are having a health issue because of COVID that is something that is happening for these guys as well.
[01:13:45] So we should, think in that direction there, and then a lot of them uh may not have access to that network, they may not have access to capital to work out their way in this direction there. So yeah, it has been a challenging zone and at the same time the demand from businesses is also on the higher side.
[01:14:05] A lot of businesses would want to reach out to their customers by home delivery. So the demand is on the higher side, the supplies having the same issues that we as individuals are having. And therefore it's getting a bit tough to work out in these durations, but I think I'm happy and proud of the team, how they're pulling it up on how they're facing and driving decisions during this piece, get
[01:14:30] Puneeth: [01:14:30] Right.
[01:14:30] pitch Lisa, or is the phone
[01:14:34] Vaibhav: [01:14:34] coffee, coffee metal decay, lot of aspects. And last time I feel, I personally feel KV called a log down a bit too early which hurt from a business standpoint. And let's say e-commerce, we was time per Banta too. It was imperative for us to drive writers from e-commerce to do essential deliveries so that we are able to cater to the increase, the essentials delivery demand.
[01:14:59] And at the same time, we are able to create enough opportunities for these delivery partners to make money. , those were challenges plus to ensure that all your fleet is safe and healthy. So we even created a COVID support fund where in as employees, as team members, we started contributing and we use that fund to help any of the delivery partners in case of any seizures, concern.
[01:15:21] So those were, those words was, is
[01:15:23] Puneeth: [01:15:23] fun.
[01:15:24] Vaibhav: [01:15:24] It was roughly around two and a half SIA.we matched whatever donations that we thought. So we got in roughly one in a 1.2, five sort of CR and delivery boys. , no. This was not from the delivery boys. This was from the employees.
[01:15:40] It wasn't voluntary contribution and we partnered with Give India and we opened it up for larger audience as well to, in case any person who sympathizes with the problem statement of us, they could contribute to that fund as well.
[01:15:53] Two and a half was raised.
[01:15:55] And we mobilize this for helping our delivery partners in times of need.
[01:16:00] Right now I think the mental fatigue because of the fear of COVID spread is slightly on the ISA, which is impacting the performance of some of us in the central team. And sort of a bit gloomy at times, but I think as a team we have always it is in, in those scenarios, we have always helped each other out in whatever way we could.
[01:16:21] Yeah, that's, that's something that we are continuing to do forward.
[01:16:25] Puneeth: [01:16:25] Give me instances where you found hope this last one year
[01:16:30]Vaibhav: [01:16:30] Coffee, coffee instances there. So first one was I think once the down opened up and the kind of demand that we got in from different players that gave us more confidence the important thing that happened is that a lot of bigger players, a lot of players, which had a very prominent offline presence, they also started understanding the need for home delivery and it made it easier for us to set up partnerships with them.
[01:16:57] , that gave a good boost to the system, to the overall business per se, that the likes of Demarts, the likes of Dmarts. So that gave us a good impetus or that gave us a good confidence. That theproduct that we are building is something that the market needs and we are able to ride on the shoulders of some big players and can assist them in that direction.
[01:17:17] There second is on the fact that the way we were able to hire or onboard a lot of delivery partners there I mean, the Ray of hope was more on a fact that a new varied kind of the workforce actually started joining us. And that, that helped us. I mean, due to COVID, a lot of people actually lost their job.
[01:17:40] They lost their regular jobs and this became a good opportunity for them to actually make money in these difficult times so that we have had a lot of such instances that we have had a lot of such new answers, which were really helpful, which were really encouraging for us that , something that we are building is helping people overcome the pain that is there.
[01:18:05] So yeah, those were things Bucky, I think within the team itself, the way people stretched themselves, the way people came forward towards donating maybe their salaries or assisting people in the time of need. Uh That was an encouraging thing.It's always good to see your team United as a family.
[01:18:24] By all of us, we have been working remotely. We haven't seen a lot of us in person each other, but to have that bit of warmth have that bit of empathy is, is always encouraging.
[01:18:37] Puneeth: [01:18:37] Where were you when you, first saw that COVID is not just a statistic, but it's also a real issue.
[01:18:44]Vaibhav: [01:18:44] I was in Bangalore early and so we had one cousin also stayed with us and before the Lockdown, we had told her that you please leave for Jaipur because you won't get an opportunity once a longterm kicks in then, throughout that log down throughout that initial phase, we were in Bangalore only.
[01:19:00] Then at one point of time situation got actually a bit difficult. A lot of cases came up in our society and it was difficult to even arrange for groceries in our locality. At that point of time maybe more than me and my wife, he got a bit tensed and then we had this conversation with our parents I should become, or should we not come back to JPL?
[01:19:23] Uh It was always a risk in a sense. , while the parents are always eager to get the kids at home, but we were feeling a bit dicey that we stay in a joint family grandfather, grandmother, everyone is there. So we were feeling a bit unconfident.
[01:19:38] I mean, we were I mean, feeling a bit of guilt, maybe that it might be possible that we guys eat the virus to the right. So they are doing fine right now. Why should we go there and increase the risk there? So they're not on and off at that point of time, but one fine day one fine night, actually, both of us were me and my wife.
[01:19:57] We were not able to get a proper sleep. We were just tensed. So that tension was from both fronts on our own self as well, that there are a lot of cases in the society and the spread is on the higher side. We were also tensed about our parents as well, that God forbid, anything happens in that direction then we ideally want to be with them to help them out.
[01:20:18] So the next morning we did our tickets to Jacob. We went there, we were there in 14 days of time. We both were logged in a room. Fortunately that things worked out good thing happened is that this COVID allowed us to stay with our families for such a long duration.
[01:20:34] I mean, after 12, both of us hadn't spent that much time with our families. So that was good to have. We were able to celebrate certain festivals as well, which we normally wouldn't, or we normally would skip if we were in Bangla. So there are some traditional festivals in Rajasthan and then after that, she uh uh all these things.
[01:21:00] I mean our families keep that as sacred ones They are not those big festivals, like they were leaky. You were make a trip back home while we were there. It was called to be a part of those setups. And to an extent it was better. I mean, our families were also.
[01:21:16] Relaxed that we are in front of them. So, anything, any infection due to it could happen. I mean, they are there in this direction and for us as well, I mean, we are there trying to find families, so we thought we'll TVP and that worked out well. Unfortunately put the me and my wife, he contacted the COVID just before Diwali live while we went in Jacob.
[01:21:38] So we were in home isolation only. There was mild symptoms. I mean, we had fever the first staple post Detrick was fairly the little easier, so that was there. And it went out my lab say, send me
[01:21:56] So yeah, it was in Jaipur. Isolation, isolation while Kaibab
[01:22:05] isolation, that would have
[01:22:09]
[01:22:09] Puneeth: [01:22:09] Respect for the honesty of brought in this conversation.
[01:22:16] Vaibhav: [01:22:16] Yeah. Thanks for that. But yeah, mostly I mean, I think a lot of us have gone through in a similar journey the parents to go to not go how to go to take good care being in covert it's it's not easy. It's not easy. When, if it's a mild symptom, you mean your parents panic. Yeah.
[01:22:36] Right. It's not easy to keep your composure there to trust yourself
[01:22:44] would that,
[01:22:45]Puneeth: [01:22:45] There's always this nagging pot in the back of our heads, if it spreads to our elders or to the younger ones.
[01:22:57] Vaibhav: [01:22:57] No, I absolutely will. And , being in a different city, you just pray. And display, you have multiple calls a day with your family yeah.
[01:23:07] Just assist them in any manner, be mentally be yeah. In any help that is there. And these are tough times. These are not uh I mean this current wave is even more devastating than the first one. Yeah. So I mean to all listeners as well, I mean, do take care of yourself, your family help in whatever way you can.
[01:23:29] Yeah.
[01:23:31] Puneeth: [01:23:31] I still feel that in this devastating time, the delivery boys and the entire team of one lack or how many ever they are like now they must have reduced significantly. They're also frontline warriors in a lot of ways.
[01:23:52] Vaibhav: [01:23:52] Absolutely. I mean, they are frontline warriors. We even requested a couple of state governments as well to maybe classify them as frontline warriors and get them Senator it's, it's, it's important in some States.
[01:24:04] Yes, but not in all it's important for these riders actually to be vaccinated that it's not easy around there.
[01:24:12] Puneeth: [01:24:12] What state was the proactive one? I'm just curious
[01:24:16] Vaibhav: [01:24:16] because. . Yeah.
[01:24:21] Puneeth: [01:24:21] Hm.
[01:24:23] Vaibhav: [01:24:23] So Mara started to release certain guidelines but again, I mean dosage to available head. They are also on the limited quantity.
[01:24:33]Puneeth: [01:24:33] There is such courage that is such generosity from, from people who have taken granted forever. Right?
[01:24:44] Vaibhav: [01:24:44] Fills me with that's the scene of the overall logistics setup. You are always in shadows
[01:24:49] Puneeth: [01:24:49] and listeners that shadow that he keeps mentioning is no way to do a shadow factor of the name, because I made that big mistake.
[01:24:55] Initially. I was like, mm. Shadow facts. Amongst the founding Dean was the fan of
[01:25:00] Vaibhav: [01:25:00] Lord of the rings. So almost every one of us is a month later. First started with Chetak first thought of, are you serious? Yeah. Again, the thought is key. We want to rely on fast and reliable. Then you don't get a domain with Jetpack.
[01:25:19] So
[01:25:20] Puneeth: [01:25:20] I needed to get the legal permissions. Is that all you're going to get?
[01:25:25] Vaibhav: [01:25:25] So then you look for similarities there that we figured out shadow facts and were like, you hire Yetta back there.
[01:25:33] Puneeth: [01:25:33] Wait, how did you jump from Chetak to shadowfax.
[01:25:37] Vaibhav: [01:25:37] So again, I mean, Indian folklore candor was there if you . Yeah, so Oh
[01:25:47] Does a similar sort of hers for the listeners. So in a lot of this, for the listeners who have read, lutea as a book, they might understand the shad effects better. It's the horse of Gandalf the gray Gandalf, the white to gang diet was that wizard and the Ponca transformation while I was eye shadow. It's almost con yeah, that's a good way of putting it. The shadow facts came in from there and even not in date. So all our servers, all our databases, we tend to name it basis LOTR characters.
[01:26:26] So we try to figure out that what utility does this database or this server do in in ourcurrent operations. And then we try to find out a similar character or a similar reference in a lutea and we named that service, or we named that database accordingly.
[01:26:42] Our app, for example, is named Gandalf
[01:26:44] so there is a service Floto and the Rivendell is the Salma and salt on all these. I mean, Bordeaux me whenever you can find in a, I mean, there are a lot, there are a couple of senior folks in our team who can be reached out and they will take good care of naming your services, naming projects.
[01:27:07] Yeah.
[01:27:08] Puneeth: [01:27:08] Hm. And RTI was a bonding factor. I was actually seriously considering reading it for the research of this
[01:27:14] Vaibhav: [01:27:14] interview. And it's a beautiful, movie as well. I mean, beautiful book, beautiful movie. And personally, I was more from a movie perspective. I had seen the movie, I didn't read the book after Shadowfax happened.
[01:27:29] I mean, I went to the book
[01:27:31]Puneeth: [01:27:31] Now I need to go and check out the book. It's, it's a pretty serious commitment listeners and I think there's this locked down time. You read the three volume CDs. It'll be linked with the short description. If you go and buy it from there, I'd get a hot chocolate that I can sit and read the book from
[01:27:48] moving forward. Actually, I'm just thinking of the new senior managers and new senior recruits. How would their first response be when they see this culture? It's it's startling at the same
[01:28:03] Vaibhav: [01:28:03] time. Yeah. Okay. It's a part of their, of my, I mean the way we have named a lot of things it is automatically a lot of people would would understand.
[01:28:16] That they have to go back and either view the movie or read the book, read the book. Yeah. Their life would be much more easier,
[01:28:24] Puneeth: [01:28:24] which would be, which would you recommend first reading the book first or the movie for watching
[01:28:28] Vaibhav: [01:28:28] the movie? First it start with the movie in the movie and it sent a trilogy.
[01:28:32] I think there are, I think three.
[01:28:34] Puneeth: [01:28:34] Yeah. And all of them are in I'm I'm DB top.
[01:28:37] Vaibhav: [01:28:37] Yeah. They've got beautiful movies. Beautiful, beautiful movies. I mean, each of them is three hours long, so it's a nine hour commitment for a movie set.
[01:28:47] Mm.
[01:28:50] Puneeth: [01:28:50] Yeah. The kind of forums that have propped up online on Ello.
[01:28:56] Lot of dealings, LTR is LOD area. Yeah. It's crazy. Each and every character, their nomenclature, how their names have come from their origins. There are books written going deeper into the uh wow. Small world in
[01:29:14] Vaibhav: [01:29:14] itself. Yeah. pretty pretty good thing. I mean, if you want to watch a movie pretty good movie.
[01:29:19] C obviously there are scenarios where the book is good and the movie is, and vice versa as well. But I think in this scenario, both things Shina, if you want one 10, a British watch go in for a movie, if you would want to relive the entire experience with the book,
[01:29:37] Puneeth: [01:29:37] Any other movie, any other book that has had a similar or a close second impact on the company and the company culture before you move on. But this is the first for
[01:29:49] Vaibhav: [01:29:49] me, not, not on a company culture per se. More from an individual perspective. I'm more towards Hindi.
[01:29:56] I am a big fan of Premchand Munshi Premchand? Munshi Premchand. Believed her. Then then I read a lot of poems from Dinkar, Harivansh Rai Bacchan you know what, so uh introduce
[01:30:09] Puneeth: [01:30:09] the listeners to Munshi Premchand and Ramdhari Singh Dinakar in your own style.
[01:30:14] Vaibhav: [01:30:14] Okay. So tender beauty about non chip claim genders that, he wrote those stories way back in 1920, 1930s, and they depict the nuances of the society that we have as of date as well.
[01:30:33] That's, that's the beauty of that story. the One thing isthat they are so relevant within the current scenarios. you would, at times think he hired Gabler, visionary you, the exact target, the second Desky he analyzes in animate objects or he analyzes animals in a way that he could convey the human psychology justified taking the examples of these animals.
[01:30:59] if you read doorbell Loki, Qatar, story there, here's a written talking about two buffalos licking uh When you go deeper into it, you understand key. They are just used as a sidetrack, became more, but another human psychology pre-heated there. Uh Then there is a I'm forgetting the story.
[01:31:27] actually,
[01:31:32] some has done with it. Argument on carrier. Thank you. Basically. buddy-buddy grandparents.
[01:31:43] uh. You should be constant. You should be constant. Whether there is a happiness or whether there is sort of like you should not be too excited with your happiness and you should not be too downside with us. All those that are coming because they are part and parcel of life. Now, Munshi Premchand argued that key
[01:32:12] jerky
[01:32:21] that
[01:32:22] Puneeth: [01:32:22] is in Dover looking at them.
[01:32:23]Vaibhav: [01:32:23] I'm not sure. take
[01:32:34] human thoughts or human sympathy or feeling it might beI'm not able to recollect right now.then Kerr coffee, simple. Luteal again, MATLAB. So Dinka used to be in the wheel Russ sort of uh so in the and the uncle uh John rays, fate to
[01:33:14] I mean, they can move you or they can motivate you internally. That's the beauty of the car. They say
[01:33:24] uh uh uh KCB. Whenever you are down, you just listen to them.
[01:33:37] If you are ever in a state of feeling down, or if you're ever feeling the uh obstacles gelatto guide you're feeling sad or guilty about it. That's a good poem to read through, which will calm you down. And which will also give you motivation to go back again and try correcting it.
[01:33:56]Puneeth: [01:33:56] Any poem that you think is relevant for this time? Maybe we'll read it up for a quick minute.
[01:34:06] Vaibhav: [01:34:06] Immediate basis.
[01:34:11] who gave me the book? KVB
[01:34:23] Bilquis. So a T poem had kind of maybe depicts a joke, Amari delivery partners with them. So basically it's Carita ma Covey. You cannot take here. They call up.
[01:34:44] sorry.there was a guy at
[01:34:55] or the background?
[01:35:03] confidence.Joe difficult part of
[01:35:14] Joe mocha, Gaia. Okay. Whoa, I gotta be so to say, Hilda to yellow Joe hair uh plus me, Whoa, gap equal overall experience there.
[01:35:35] uh Will be connected. So yay. Coffee or tea was set up me. Cavita jokey um uh sense perspective. everyone is important in your life. it's not the captain in a cricket team, for example, jokey it's even your 12th boy as well, who has contributed to the victory of the team as well.
[01:36:16] Yeah uh mechanic, Joe, they say uh schedule Pontiac
[01:36:30] uh So Muslim uh basically uh my beach men actually
[01:36:41] like in, uh Yeah.
[01:36:56] who say
[01:37:02] Layla
[01:37:17] so it was make a VA, but another thing here,
[01:37:26] it just human. It's just human to be not able to do that. It just shows that nobody is perfect out there. And we need to just appreciate the fact that such things happens. Coffee. Coffee's a tick over the physical by Nan uh not love
[01:37:53] I wanna say they belonged at them.
[01:37:57] Puneeth: [01:37:57] Beautiful. There's somebody who has made an audio of it.
[01:37:59] the link will be shared in this show description. Maybe if my audio editor likes it, we'll play it in between. You never know.
[01:38:12] Nice.
[01:38:17] I love these kinds of distractions because they bring such um I think se deep, intense free-wheeling conversations, character logo. So Shaya Hamadi bought this on and Coopa. So intimate feeling. Agnes DKI.
[01:38:49] Vaibhav: [01:38:49] personal level. Uh What I believe is that you need to give good juice to your brain as well. It's not only work, it's not only your personal life. It's also about going a bit deep about how you feel, why you feel how others feel. And that's I think the beauty of human life as well.
[01:39:10]
[01:39:10] Puneeth: [01:39:10] Talk to me about, because you had already taken a D route, let's go deeper. Yeah.
[01:39:15] How does classical music help you to unwind at the end of a hard day or engage your mind when you are stuck in a problem?
[01:39:25]Vaibhav: [01:39:25] Personally speaking I am a big follower on I'm a big believer basis. The study that I've done and on a personal level that I felt that music has a power to heal on music has a power to motivate, or music has a power to calm you down.
[01:39:44] So do classical music, major Maria, Rob K, what are actually. If you look at at a scientific level, they take two spitting up certain neurons in your mind. So different kinds of routes. They spring up different neurons in your mind and basis uh activation of those neurons, you feel certain calmness, or do you feel certain emotions that they come up so matlab, there are certain Rob jokey down here too.
[01:40:14] They can give you, motivation. There are routes which Cavenders calm you down. They can give you a sense of soulmates I do see it to be a good science in itself and that helps there have been lots of times where I've failed low, where I've failed uh not up to the Mark.
[01:40:32] And these have been something that have helped me a lot to tell them that I do. I tend to read about it. I try to go more deep about it. That gives more perspective divide. This thing works. Does it, is it working only for me or is it working for everyone? So it was centered at that in general.
[01:40:56] so I'm more of a,lyrics first kind of a listener.In certain cases, in Musicophilia cheque. And vice, I would say is the most Danny person that's attended and killed lyrics chain music SIB. They say that mother motivation
[01:41:23] miracle . Uh So
[01:41:28] Dangal,coffee or tea gives you good motivation there. Then there is a song Kinare, which is from queen Garfield to scabby lyrics and music, music, Batavia char is good ups and downs in, in that sense from an English music perspective. I like uh love, they also have beautiful lyrics uh quite deep at that direction that and the music
[01:42:08] Okay. Not personally coffee, coffee. I could very well correlate key if you need some. Some support. Yeah. Then music, music is a good, good. And in general Mattel, they saywhen I used to prepare for it, I used to solve that problem by listening music. Uh Or uh
[01:42:42] mostly uh uh Mm. So beautiful. That used to be my association with music and not a good signal is never a good signal, but we're all doing the same, these new ANSYS,
[01:43:08] Puneeth: [01:43:08] we're all good feelers. Maybe we feel the music and we just sway and we sing and
[01:43:20] maybe, maybe he'll create a playlist for us and we can link it up in the show, descriptions, a Spotify playlist, or something.
[01:43:27] Oh God, I totally forgot about it. Delhi. The fascinating thing listeners is the amount of team members that have been roped into shadow. It's it's like an alumni network instead of
[01:43:45] how many,employees do you have from identity first off in the company at the moment?
[01:43:49] Vaibhav: [01:43:49] I'm not sure, but we are uh I think we will have more members from IIT Guwahati and our team now. Yeah. Then I entered daily. Yeah. So we have been going to it IIT Guwahati for our campus recruitment.
[01:44:05] So we have been getting some good freshers from there for a couple of years now. I don't remember the exact numbers, but yeah. I remember an internal conversation where we were saying has taken over it daily now.
[01:44:22] Puneeth: [01:44:22] Thanks Keegan listeners. Just to update you even, debasement his first mentor who. Uh His third year senior is also part of shadow fax.
[01:44:33] You know what this shows me is that when one or two people take the bold step and begin something interesting, the network that have built in your college, which is usually the strongest network that a typical Indian hands is so helpful, but it was a hard sell for, for the investors because the investors were slightly unsure initially which came out in the research cause these, this is call it students and they weren't store they'll stick out and see through the product.
[01:45:06] What do you think were the,
[01:45:07] key factors that played and made things work for you guys? So well, cause you're friends, you've known each other for a while. It's a very risky thing to do in at least in the Indian context to start with a friend. So what worked for you guys? How did you guys make it work?
[01:45:23]Vaibhav: [01:45:23] C whenever you are starting up, whenever you are building a team right away and taking such a massive risk as that, of starting side effects, it is, it is difficult for people to trust you, to believe in you, that they can leave their regular cushion job, and they can start working with you.
[01:45:44] So at that point of time, it was quite natural that some of our close friends who knew us from college, who knew us as a person who knew us the way we have worked in the past they were more confident of betting on us. And that's how a lot of folks came in from it, the leader uh from an investor perspective.
[01:46:05] Yes. Obviously there is always and is it easy or difficult to work with friends? I think more from a thought process perspective is something that is important. So one thing that we all what I agreed to is that company comes first. It's not the individuals. I mean, we will do what is right for the company.
[01:46:27] We'll do what is right for this business. And I mean irrespective of uh how V on a personal level fee
[01:46:34] we are here to build a long lasting company, , not a bias, sort of a set up here. And we hold our internal team culture to be of very high uh importance of what we want to build, how we want to build. And we would want to be absolutely clear that we can be friends after work, but while we are working, we are true professionals and I think each one of them is mature in that direction as well.
[01:46:58] The good thing that we all trusted each other to take the right decision from a business standpoint and that helped and then being connected on a personal level. One thing we'd like to share, I mean, it's not that the IIT folks are connected on a personal level.
[01:47:13] I think a lot of us within the team, we are connected on a personal level as well. We share the problems that we get in our personal life as well. And each of us can help in whatever way we want to. And in the current scenario, there are certain folks who have their parents on their admission and each one of us are comfortable in sharing those things.
[01:47:34] And each one of us are taking the right step forward to help them in any way that we can. Well that's a sort of culture that we are trying to build it. so what we feel is here, the kid you need to eliminate the personal bias, but you should not eliminate the personal connections that are there.
[01:47:52] So it always helps if you have people whom you can trust, if you have colleagues whom you can trust with your personal issues as well. And that builds a very strong bond among the team. what that allows you is you do not have to motivate them additionally to do something outside their like, because that's the kind of bonding, that's a kind of a family sort of a setup that you would like to build that up.
[01:48:20] So, yeah. That's the thing from an investor perspective. Yes. Initial level pay coffee questions, then what worked out well for us that we were very good. Executor's. So even in college, we, as a team were kind of people that you give us a problem statement and we'll get you an answer. It doesn't matter how we get it.
[01:48:41] Okay. For example, if we don't know the answer, we will be willing to talk to people. We'll be willing to go those extra miles to figure out an answer to guess. So even when we were starting should remain a club as a, as a CTO I'm pretty young in this setup. And even six years into shadowfax
[01:49:00] I know that there are a lot of things lot of capabilities, a lot of skills that I don't have, but what I think we did good was that so we used to maybe reach out to some industry experts as with in our initial years, we used to reach out to them over LinkedIn. We used to send them messages that he said we would just would like to catch up with you over a breakfast over lunch or over dinner, and just want to get insights on your learnings.
[01:49:27] So we used to meet the directors of engineering, of Flipkart. We used to meet the data scientist of different companies. And we used to just have those conversations on how to build the right team, how to hire what kind of skills that we should look for. What should we prioritize for how do we prioritize between product and engineering?
[01:49:45] How do we ensure that operations are working at the right pace? How do we build the org structure there? So we learned a lot of things on the go and we are also good first principle thinkers. So given a new problem, we would have a good probability of coming up a solution to that. I think thathelps us in uh driving , in this industry where we did not have any buyer lots of sticks exposure as well.
[01:50:12] And that that is something that we feel has sailed us uh sofa. , our hunger to learn our hunger, to get things done is something that we all are proud of. If it's a problem, we'll figure out a solution come with me.
[01:50:27] Puneeth: [01:50:27] Hm. The go-get attitude. Yeah, yeah.
[01:50:33] Vaibhav: [01:50:33] Yeah.
[01:50:33] Puneeth: [01:50:33] Congratulations on the 60 year though, listened. They just recently done six. It's unbelievable. The kind of growth that I've had in six years.
[01:50:47] Vaibhav: [01:50:47] Thanks Puneeth. It has been an interesting journey,
[01:50:53]Puneeth: [01:50:53] coming to the final question.
[01:51:00] We've been diving for a while now.
[01:51:02] Vaibhav: [01:51:02] Yeah. To be honest, I am a bit then feeling a bit exhausted.
[01:51:06] Puneeth: [01:51:06] Exhausted. I,
[01:51:09] Vaibhav: [01:51:09] I think I have spoken a lot.
[01:51:12] Puneeth: [01:51:12] Yeah. Yeah. It's it's easily. The case 98% is UN and stillbirth and me um
[01:51:21] one more question, maybe in Ben. Um I realize the kind of scale you've had and the group that is there in front of you, or foremost for taxing the entire business in the next five years, what is the impact shadow facts as a company seeks to make?
[01:51:41] Vaibhav: [01:51:41] there are a couple of personal goals. we would want to have a zone where we are talked about as pioneers in the industry. He had yellow guy or to solve these problems. That's an informal way to be honest a coach I had to coach noteworthy got kitchen.
[01:51:59] We don't want to be uh just another player in the ecosystem. We want to leaders. We want to be the path Creekers then see on an overall vision perspectives. He, our idea is to enable commerce and empower people anywhere and everywhere. And that's something that we look to strive for while we are doing it in the logistics framework.
[01:52:20] Right now, we do feel that there are certain avenues. There are certain zones where we could contribute on a longer term perspective which would do both, which would enable the commerce in this country. And which would also empower the people in this country. As an organization, we want to go deep into India.
[01:52:39] We do not yet have plans of going abroad or figuring out other countries. What we feel is that the amount of scope that is there in a country like India is immense. And we would want to contribute. We would want to empower the local entrepreneurs here. We would want to ensure that we are significant part of the journey of this country's evolution.
[01:53:02] Not this country's transition into a good global technology leader.
[01:53:06]Puneeth: [01:53:06] I think we should end with just the right thing that I found from rom daddy sing, then it's a beautiful pumping. Hmm
[01:53:33] O geo. I understand. I think now we need that more than ever before that you're fighting go within the all different line warriors that you have been empowering. Yeah.
[01:53:48] Vaibhav: [01:53:48] Please keep it up. Just a part of it yet. I mean the actual frontline warriors deserve much bigger applause.
[01:53:56] Puneeth: [01:53:56] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think, I think for the next two to three generations, the way we are going to really look at doctors and nurses and individuals who chimed in and especially in Jews and all of them.
[01:54:11] Would be, would be with the sense of respect. Sense of dignity.
[01:54:18] Vaibhav: [01:54:18] Absolutely.
[01:54:19] Puneeth: [01:54:19] Yeah. Thank you Vaibhav thank you. Keep making the Galata despite everything that's happening.