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00:00 Intro 02:52 Building Ather S340 and 450 09:15 Indian EVs vs Chinese EVs 19:29 Can India become the biggest electric vehicle exporter? 28:10 Indian EV industry (wave 1) 33:30 Struggles of building an EV company 40:40 How Ather almost shut down 52:09 The hardware wave 58:10 How to take feedback 1:04:48 Asteroid mining is the future 1:09:59 The future of the energy industry 1:15:45 Outro

00:00 Intro 01:50 From a Bedroom, to a Basement 05:53 Hiring in 2005: a Big Challenge 10:26 Building Culture, Organically 11:10 Running a Global Company in India 14:16 Being Profitable and Bootstrapped 16:16 Three Near-Death Experiences 22:40 Milestones and the Path Ahead Pallav Nadhani founded FusionCharts at the age of 17 in an effort to earn himself some extra pocket money. He succeeded in doing so, and now, 17 years later, he has more pocket money than he knows what to do with. The data visualization company has over 28,000 customers as of December of 2019, some of which include Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe, Walmart, NASA, and many, many more. In this video, Pallav explains how he built FusionCharts from his bedroom and turned it into a multi-million dollar company over the course of the last 17 years. From a Bedroom, to a Basement: Pallav Nadhani was able to run FusionCharts for three years on his own before he realized that he needed help. He onboarded his first employee, a friend of his cousins, and together they worked out of Pallav's bedroom for about a year and a half. By the end of this period, they were working with over 1,000 customers, and couldn't handle to workload on their own anymore. They shifted into a basement office and started hiring more employees. Hiring in 2005: a Big Challenge: Hiring wasn't a very easy thing to do for a startup in Calcutta in 2005. India's startup ecosystem was still in its infancy, and the startup ecosystem in Calcutta was nonexistent. Employees were hesitant to join the startup despite the fact that they were already working with a number of Fortune 500 companies. However, with time and experience, Pallav was able to assemble of solid team of engineers. Building Culture, Organically: Even as FusionCharts was scaling up and the startup was onboarding more and more employees, Pallav really didn't know anything about building strong culture. Instead, he simply focused on instilling values like pride in the company, a strong work ethic, and the desire to learn and grow on the job. As a result of these values, FusionCharts was able to establish a strong culture organically. Running a Global Company in India: Less than 1% of FusionCharts' customers are Indian. This is something that Pallav takes pride in, because going global from India was a pretty big challenge when FusionCharts was first starting out. In spite of this, FusionCharts has been able to build quality products that are good enough not only for India, but also for the world. What is more, they have done so as a bootstrapped, profitable company from day 1. Being Profitable and Bootstrapped: Because FusionCharts has always been profitable and bootstrapped, they have very rarely struggled with money problems. In fact, the biggest money they have faced is a surplus of funds. The challenge for them has been to figure out what to do with these funds. Part of the reason that they are able to be profitable and bootstrapped is that FusionCharts is a very lean company: they have 68 employees serving 28,000 customers!

Pravesh Pandey is one of the most renowned faces in India's Hotel and Restaurant Industry. He started his career with ITC Hotels back in 2002, where he was a Guest Service Coordinator. He spent the next decade of his professional career in senior positions at key companies like P&O Cruises, Lizard Lounge, Henry Tham Lifestyle Restaurant, and Hard Rock Cafe. In 2020, Pravesh started Bissi Bissi Oota, which is India's first QSR brand serving home-style meals that are 'Shuddha', 'Aarogya', and 'Taaza'. They ensure the provision of fresh, nutritious, and hygienic food at the most affordable prices. In fact, a meal is provided at a price of INR 30. Pravesh is also one of the shareholders and directors at Byg Brewski Brewing Company , which at the time of its opening was India's largest Microbrewery. Pravesh early in his career also helped in the rapid expansion of 'Social'.

Candice Lock's journey from her upbringing in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, oto her tech career in New York is a tale of cultural fusion and culinary passion. Growing up in a Cantonese family, she later found herself at the Copacabana salsa club in New York, where the Latinos affectionately referred to her as "Chinita," meaning "little Chinese girl" in Spanish. Her love for Latin American cuisine, especially Mexican food, blossomed during her time in the city that never sleeps.When Candice moved to Bengaluru for work in 2008, fate intervened, and she crossed paths with Amit Mirchandani, who had a deep appreciation for Mexican cuisine from his time in the United States. In 2010, and Candice had not only married Amit but had also fully embraced her passion for Mexican food.Together with Amit and his brother Sameer, who shared her love for Mexican cuisine, they embarked on a journey to bring the flavors of Mexico to Bengaluru. Tacos became their specialty, and they started selling them at Bengaluru's Soul Sante.

When Anubhav was a kid in school, he used to flip phones. That's the start of his business venture even though he didn't know that's how business worked. During his teenage, his parents wanted him to do his UPSC exam and become an IAS Officer but he chose entrepreneurship without his parent knowing about it.He moved from Delhi to Indore to start his entrepreneurial journey and decided to start selling chai. They came up with a business plan to start selling chai and decided to open their very first store in near a girls hostel. As they opened it, they had no name for the place. When customers came for chai, they started calling them "gumnaam chaiwallah" and that's they came up with the name Chai Sutta Bar.Chai Sutta Bar doesn't allow people to smoke in or around their outlets even though it has "sutta" in it's name. After they started their first store in Indore, they saw a massive demand and decided to open more locations. They had expanded to 3 stores by 2016 with a franchise model. Then in 2019 they expanded to 65 locations.Today, Chai Sutta Bar has expanded to 500 location across 300 cities, including 3 stores in Dubai. They are planning to open more stores in other countries like USA, Canada and the UK.

Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ When Nicolas moved to India from France for an internship, he was struck by nostalgia for the sandwiches from his homeland. And so, he embarked on a culinary journey. In 2015, he took a bold step and launched a food truck called Paris Panini in Bengaluru, with the aim of introducing gourmet French street food to the city.Paris Panini was among the pioneering food trucks in Bangalore, housed within a converted old-school van. Its weekly route quickly gained a following, with customers tracking its whereabouts through social media and forming long queues upon its arrival.Introducing a novel product to the Indian market posed its challenges, but Nicolas was determined to refine the menu to cater to local tastes while preserving the authenticity of French cuisine.One of Nicolas's key objectives was to change the prevailing perception of Indian street food as being predominantly unhealthy and unhygienic. To achieve this, the food truck was designed with an open counter, allowing customers to witness the panini preparation process, and fostering trust through a professional and hygienic live kitchen experience on wheels.Initially, the menu was quite limited, featuring approximately ten items. The primary focus was on delivering high-quality products crafted from fresh ingredients. Every item was painstakingly made from scratch, including the hand-cut and double-fried French fries that have since become iconic, reflecting the preparation methods in Nicolas's hometown of Arras, in northern France.Nicolas's unwavering passion and dedication catapulted Paris Panini into the limelight. The food truck gained immense popularity, leading to invitations to cater for major festivals, birthday parties, and weddings throughout the city.However, the food truck scene in Bangalore was marked by unpredictability, primarily due to the absence of regulation. At one point, the city's notorious traffic congestion even led to a temporary ban on food trucks. As Paris Panini's popularity continued to soar, Nicolas faced the challenge of scaling up his operations.This pivotal moment arrived when Nicolas crossed paths with AB and Nikhil from The Pizza Bakery, who shared his vision of transitioning Paris Panini from a food truck concept to a brick-and-mortar casual dining restaurant. They remained committed to maintaining the brand's core values while developing an extensive menu that would provide customers with an authentic Parisian cafe experience.In November 2019, Paris Panini opened its doors on the bustling 12th Main Road in Indiranagar, Bangalore. The restaurant's walls were adorned with hand-drawn Parisian street scenes, effectively transporting patrons to a Parisian cafe ambiance. The menu showcased gourmet panini, signature French fries, freshly brewed coffee, and delectable crepes, offering an authentic culinary journey.Today, Paris Panini boasts a rapidly expanding fan base, with the brand establishing itself in ten locations across Bangalore. It has quickly risen to become the city's leading purveyor of gourmet sandwiches, serving as a testament to Nicolas's dedication and commitment to bringing a taste of authentic French cuisine to the heart of India.

Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ Ankit got his start building an online community called YouthPad, with the tagline “Have your say” - ​​the website’s goal was to bring together the youth of Delhi NCR onto common platform, and he ran this platform from 2007 to 2010 when he got a job working at Flipkart.By 2015 Ankit had proven himself to be a formidable intrapreneur, and was promoted to the position of Chief Business Officer - everything was going well for Ankit, but in 2016, after more than 6 years at the company, he left and teamed up with Mukesh Bansal, Flipkart’s Head of Commerce & Advertising to built Curefit, and over the next four years, Curefit evolved into India’s leading health and fitness startup. They acquired numerous gyms across the country, worked with celebrities like Hrithik Roshan, and launched a health food brand called EatFit.Ankit Nagori had a vision to build marketplace of health restaurants for people who go to the gym and workout. So Ankit Nagori and Mukest Bansal started Curefoods and Acquihired EatFit as their first brand to build one of the biggest healthy-food facing house of brands startup in India. Now, Curefoods currently operates brands like EatFit, CakeZone, Sharief Bhai, Nomad Pizza, Frozen Bottle, Olio, Rolls on Wheels, Great Indian Khichdi, Home Plate, Juno's Pizza, Ovenfresh.

00:00 Intro 04:04 How Matt started a coffee business 07:13 Challenges while roasting coffee in India 08:58 Blue Tokai's marketing strategy 09:49 Blur Tokai's ₹40 lakh roaster 11:19 The raise of Blue Tokai 15:25 Opening their first location 21:25 Challenges faced while expanding 24:28 How Shivam Shahi joined Blue Tokai 27:01 Becoming a cafe 28:39 Delhi Police seals Blue Tokai locations 32:03 Evolving coffee culture in India 32:43 Blue Tokai during the pandemic 34:56 Blue Tokai post pandemic 36:30 Blue Tokai vs other cafes 38:56 Will coffee price increase in India? 43:27 Blue Tokai products 45:52 Blue Tokai going global? 47:14 Challenges for becoming profitable 51:08 Bootstrapped vs external capital 52:35 Blue Tokai IPO 56:11 Outro In the United States, third wave coffee culture in the United States was in full swing. During this third wave, concepts like farm to cup and single origin beans were popularised, and Matt Chitharanjan had been living in the Bay Area from 2003 to 2007, so he’d jumped into this movement headfirst during his time there. He even bought a small roaster and started preparing small batches of coffee as a hobby. When Matt came to India in 2011 for a 1-year job opportunity in Chennai, he spotted an opportunity. He saw the Cafe Coffee Days and the Baristas of India and realised that coffee’s third wave hadn’t reached India yet. It was in Chennai that Matt met his wife and co-founder Namrata Asthana, and after moving to Delhi in 2012, they got to work setting up India’s first homegrown specialty coffee brand, Blue Tokai. Now, Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters is India’s largest specialty coffee brand, with its headquarters in Gurgaon, India.

Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ When Bert Mueller first visited India in 2010 he never could have anticipated that he’d spend the next decade of his life building a business there. Today he runs a profitable 50+ location QSR chain called California Burrito - they did ₹110 crore in FY22. Bert Mueller started California Burrito with two American co-founders, Dharam Khalsa and Gaelan Draper. They each put in $15,000, and were able to raise an additional $250,000 from family and friends using a Tumblr blog which documented their startup’s journey. Initially they thought they’d launch their inaugural restaurant in Gurugram, but chose Bengaluru instead because real estate was more affordable there. Their first choice was Orion Mall, but after that deal fell through, they settled on Embassy GolfLinks Tech Park. This first location was a huge success. Located opposite of Goldman Sachs, the restaurant was doing 150 bills per hour in their first three months with no marketing. Bert and Gaelan Draper spent the first six months behind the counter serving burritos himself. Bert Mueller and an employee did ingredient procurement themselves. They bought a Maruti Omni and would fill it up with veggies from a local market twice a month. Seeing how much each vegetable cost was a key factor in the company’s strong unit economics. Apart from their dine-in business California Burrito also dabbled in catering; they made burritos for Zynga and a few other companies. Then, after opening two more restaurants in Bengaluru, they raised $750,000 in a round led by entrepreneur and angel Adhvith Dhuddu in 2013. Using these funds, California Burrito was able to expand their footprint to 15 locations using a COCO (Company Owned Company Operated) model. Bert Mueller believes that the franchising approach only works in countries where legal recourse is easily achieved, e.g. the United States. Despite the business’s success, Gaelan Draper stepped away from California Burrito to get married and return to the United States in 2014, leaving Bert and Dharam Khalsa to build the business on their own. By 2020 California Burrito’s business was thriving: they had their best month in February, bringing in ₹4 crore in revenue across 37 stores. However, because they were largely reliant upon tech parks and malls for customers, their business was devastated by the pandemic. Overnight, ₹4 crore dropped to ₹25 lakh monthly revenue, and while they did have ₹1.5 crore in the bank, Bert decided to raise a small round in May 2020 to keep the business afloat. With these funds, California Burrito finally began investing in marketing to increase sales. Also in May of 2020, Bert’s remaining co-founder, Dharam Khalsa, returned to the United States and built a startup called Mirador in California, leaving Bert to build California Burrito in India on his own as a solopreneur. By October of 2021, California Burrito achieved pre-pandemic sales with fewer stores. They did this by only opening stores that were located 8 kilometres apart, thereby optimising delivery efficiency. Today delivery makes up 60% of their business, up from 30% pre-pandemic. They also improved their outlet economics, setting an internal benchmark of ₹30 lakh revenue per store, up from their previous standard of ₹12 lakh. Other changes include product innovations like tacos, and new ingredients such as Mexican tomatillos and hass avocados. California Burrito celebrated their most successful location launch ever in May of 2023 when they expanded to Chennai. They now have a presence in Bengaluru, NCR, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Bert is aiming for California Burrito to have 100 stores by March 2025.

Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ 00:00 Intro04:26 How Samosa Party started10:27 How Samosa Party got it's name11:25 From B2B to B2C18:58 Expanding the brand30:12 Diksha joining as a co-founder33:03 Samosa Party during the pandemic44:54 Expanding to different cities50:47 Outro Amit Nanwani and Diksha Pande started Samosa Party in 2017, with an aim to provide a hygienic yet authentic alternative to India’s favourite snack.Before starting Samosa Party, Amit was a developer at INTEL, and while working here, he started Samosa Party as a side hustle. His initial plan was to start a catering business for corporate events, and while Samosa was one of the items they were selling at this time, they weren’t the sole focus.Diksha on the other hand had spent her corporate career in the F&B industry from the Oberoi Group to Pizza Hut to Chai Point, and this is where she learnt skills that would help her in future as a second co-founder of Samosa Party.She joined Amit full-time in January 2020.With Samosa Party, the co-founders want to create a differentiated experience for the urban millennial customers who value convenience, hygiene, and quality even if they have to pay extra.And today, Samosa Party is selling 35,000 Samosas every single day across 50 locations in 5 cities. Connect with us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/bwmillionaires/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/backstagewithmillionaires Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backstagewithmillionaires/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5rGPalovc6AKsfbOyjh32p

Book a free demo with Explorex here: https://share.hsforms.com/1wdxFNOxpQZ29F9MpD48e7Acyk5y Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ 00:00 Intro 1:52 Vijayawada - Barkaas' First Location 7:57 Hustle - The Struggles of Running a Restaurant 10:16 Mangalagiri - Barkaas' Second Location 12:05 Money - The Financials of Barkaas 17:09 Bengaluru - Experiences in Marketing 20:39 Expansion - The Challenges of Franchising 25:05 Scale - Managing 10 Locations 27:29 COVID-19 - Barkaas During the Pandemic 33:13 New Normal - Bouncing Back After the Pandemic 38:25 Round 2 - Expanding to 20+ Locations 40:00 Strategy - The Barkaas Business Model 45:34 Global - Barkaas' International Expansion 49:13 Gyaan - Advice for Young Entrepreneurs 51:38 New Frontiers - Old Mill Brewery 56:03 Outro Gowtham Kudapa launched his first Arabic cuisine restaurant, Barkaas, in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, in 2016. The idea for Barkaas as an Arabic mandi-centric restaurant first came to him on a trip to Sharjah where he was fascinated by the culinary culture of sitting while eating. He decided to bring the tradition of mandi back with him to Vijayawada. Gowtham Kudapa is a hotel management graduate, and understood flavours and recipes well, and from this education he also understood hospitality. Using his skills and experience, he was able to craft an Arabic mandi restaurant menu which preserved the dishes and styles of food from the UAE, while enhancing flavours and adding masalas which would be recognised and appreciated by the palate, and more specifically, the palate of people in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. Barkaas also brought in new ways of experiencing food via large plates upon which food for multiple people was placed and eaten, as well as cushioned seating areas instead of elevated tables and chairs like most restaurants. Gowtham Kudapa and his business partners spent between ₹30-₹35 lakh to get their first location up and running, and this initial ROI paid off immediately. Barkaas saw a tremendous response from the people of Vijayawada, and it quickly became the most popular Arabic restaurants in Andhra Pradesh. This meant that Gowtham Kudapa and his business partners and staff often worked 16-18 hour days just to keep up with demand. In spite of these challenges, Barkaas expanded to a second location about 6 months after the success of the first location. This second location was located in Mangalagiri, Andhra Pradesh, about 15 kilometers from the first location. This second location was very successful. From the financial side though, Barkaas was doing well. They were taking a margin of 35-40% which was amazing. These margins enabled the Barkaas team to think about expanding beyond Andhra Pradesh, to Karnataka, and more specifically Bengaluru. Expanding to Bengaluru was a real challenge for Barkaas. This was when Barkaas began allocating some of their expenses to marketing. It took 6 months for Barkaas to begin seeing acceptable footfall in Bengaluru. In Bengaluru, Barkaas took a very conscientious call to only onboard franchisees who were ready to be restaurant operators and managers. They didn't want any absentee franchisees. By taking control of the kitchen and inserting their own people into franchisee's locations, Barkaas was able to bring restaurant quality back to the level that they had envisioned in 2016. However, then the pandemic hit, forcing Barkaas to halt their expansion plans. As the pandemic came to an end, Barkaas began experimenting with technology to offer a contactless dining experience, including QR code menus from their restaurant operating system platform, Explorex. Today, Barkaas is still doing well financially - they take a margin of about 20-25%, and have expanded to more than 20 locations across India. They have plans to go global too, and Gowtham Kudapa is also setting up his first brewery, called Old Mill Brewery. This new business, Old Mill Brewery, will be establi

Book a free demo with Explorex here: https://share.hsforms.com/1wdxFNOxpQZ29F9MpD48e7Acyk5y Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ There’s an Indian burger startup that is stealing market share from Burger King and McDonald’s. Its founder hadn’t tasted a burger before 2010. Now he’s running a ₹100 crore ARR burger chain with 100+ locations. This is the story of Biggies Burger: Biraja Rout is from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. He comes from a regular working-class family. In 2010 he got a job at Infosys, and briefly shifted to Mysuru for training: it was here that he tried his first burger. The experience had an unusually profound impact on him. After shifting to Bengaluru to work at Infosys’ campus in Electronic City, Biraja borrowed ₹1.5 lakh from a friend and purchased a fabricated 5 sq. ft. booth. This was the first Biggies Burger location. He would man the booth after office hours and on weekends. Biraja was passionate about burgers but he had no business experience. From 2011 until 2015 he rarely had more than ₹1,000 in his bank account, and his motorcycle would often run out of petrol while he drove to Namdhari's to buy expensive, fresh lettuce for his burgers. Biggies Burger’s second kiosk was set up in Bhubaneswar in 2012. Biraja would transport ingredients from Bengaluru via the Prasanthi Express train’s AC chambers, as an affordable alternative to expensive cold chain logistics. He lost money on every Bhubaneswar burger sold. Biggies Burger became extremely popular in Bhubaneswar - it was essentially the only burger joint in a 200 kilometre radius. This caught the attention of Sandeep Satpathy, who approached Biraja about setting up a franchised location in Raipur in 2013. Raipur is a largely vegetarian city, and at this time the brand name was Biggies Burger ‘n’ More. One of their secondary product lines were hot dogs, which were made of chicken meat. These meat products were underperforming in Raipur, and so Biraja decided to create a veg option. However, due to a lack of quality veg hot dog products in the Indian market, Biraja wasn’t impressed and decided to import hot dogs instead, sourcing them from Malaysia. These hot dogs equated to a loss of ₹860 per kilo. Biraja sustained this loss for several years. By 2016, the business was still in a financially precarious position, owing between ₹18-20 lakh to various vendors. During this time, on any given day, Biggies Burger was ₹10,000 away from collapse, and when Biraja got married in 2016, he couldn’t afford to buy a blazer. Biraja’s fortunes finally turned when a master territory franchise was established and four franchisees paid their fees in rapid succession. Suddenly, Biraja and Biggies were out of debt. By the end of 2016, Biggies had 18 locations. In 2016, Sandeep Satpathy joined Biggies burger as a co-founder, along with Abilash Bellur, who had purchased the Electronic City location in 2013 as a franchisee. Abilash Bellur took on operations, Sandeep spearheaded business development, and Biraja focused on R&D. From 2016 onwards, the business was able to achieve financial stability. Biggies’ parent company, Beamer Food and Beverages, also launched a new subsidiary brand, Bigguy’s Wingery, to compete with KFC in the chicken QSR space. Today, Biggies has 124 locations, and is doing annualised revenue of ₹100 crore.