Episode 83: CEO’s Journey: McKinsey to Entrepreneurship w/ Simran Khara

About Simran Khara: My next guest on The One Percent Project is the charismatic Simran Khara, the founder and CEO of Koparo. Simran talks about her Journey: From McKinsey to Entrepreneurship. She has an MBA from the Indian School of Business and is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and Shri Ram College of Commerce. With over 16 years of experience, she has advised, built, and monetized in her roles at McKinsey & Co, Star TV, and Juggernaut Books. Now, she is building Koparo, a D2C toxin-free home-care brand. In this conversation, Simran talks about the importance of discipline, adaptability, and social skills that she imbibed growing up in a Faugy Family, the liberating environment Mumbai offers to women, her role at Star TV and what she gathered from her mentor, Uday Shankar, becoming the CEO of Jaggaurnat Books, building Koparo, the impact of being featured on Shark Tank India, and much more. This conversation inspired me to kick off a series on "First Time Founders", where I will invite young and experienced entrepreneurs who will help share their journey of building a business with no prior entrepreneurial experience. If you have any guest recommendations, drop me a line at pritish@onepercent.live Follow & Subscribe: WhatsApp: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_WA2 ⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_YouTubeVideos⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_LinkedIn Instagram: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_Insta In this conversation, he talks about: 00:00 Intro 02:24 Finding Love and Career in Mumbai: A Personal Journey 03:31 Life Lessons from a Fauji Brat: Discipline, Packing, and Social Skills 05:07 Embracing Competition and Empathy in Professional Life 07:41 From McKinsey to Star TV: A Career Transition Story 10:47 Learning from Uday Shankar? 11:30 The CEO's Perspective: Sales vs. Operations 13:15 Leading Juggernaut: An innovative book publishing venture 21:06 Launching Koparo: Innovating in Home Cleaning 24:27 Applying to Shark Tank India: Leveraging TV for Brand Growth 26:24 Unique Challenges and Insights as a D2C Founder 30:15 Generalist Vs Specialist: A career choice for youngsters 32:26 Why is struggle an evolving concept? 33:41 Counterintuitive insight about entrepreneurs. 34:28 Shark Tank India: Impact, Value & Opportunity 36:15 What does success mean to you?