I Sold My House to Start Veeba After My First Business Failed | Viraj Bahl (Veeba)

"I asked my wife if we could sell our house to fund something new. She said yes without blinking."

At the lowest point in his entrepreneurial journey, financially ruined by a failed business, Viraj Bahl made the ultimate bet—he sold his family home to fund one last dream. This single act of courage and conviction laid the foundation for one of India's most successful new-age food companies.

About The Guest:

Viraj Bahl is the Founder and Managing Director of VRB Consumer, the parent company of Veeba. After a major failure with his first venture, he started Veeba in 2013 by selling his house for ₹50 lakh. Today, he has built a food brand that is projected to cross ₹1,000 crore in revenue, with a presence in over 700 towns across India. A former marine engineer, Viraj is now also a judge on Shark Tank India, inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs.

In this conversation with your host Akshay Datt, Viraj Bahl unpacks the contrarian playbook he used to build Veeba from the ground up.

Key Insights from the Conversation:

• Failure as a Blueprint: The collapse of Viraj's restaurant chain, "Pocket Full," provided the exact lessons on frugality, quality control, and unit economics that became the foundation for Veeba's success.
• The B2B-to-B2C Pivot: Veeba deliberately started as a B2B supplier to giants like Domino's and KFC to build stable cash flow and perfect its manufacturing before entering the volatile consumer market.
• Offline Distribution as a Moat: While many new brands focus on D2C, Veeba's biggest strength is its vast offline distribution network, which reaches over 150,000 shops in more than 700 towns, especially in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
• "Loss-Making by Choice": Viraj reveals his unconventional financial strategy of reinvesting nearly all profits back into advertising and expansion to deliberately maintain a near-zero EBITDA margin and fuel aggressive growth.

Chapters:

[00:00] - Introduction

[01:33] - The Father's Challenge & A Rebel Youth

[05:41] - From Food Tech Dreams to Marine Engineering on the High Seas

[11:13] - The Painful Lessons from His "Naked Public Failure" with 'Pocket Full'

[18:21] - Frugality: The Billion-Rupee Lesson Learned from Failure

[20:51] - Selling His House: The High-Stakes Bet to Launch Veeba

[27:22] - The Grind: How Relentless Persistence Won Domino's as the First Client

[30:37] - The B2C Pivot: Building a Loved Consumer Brand from a B2B Base

[45:12] - The Real Moat: Winning India's Kirana Stores & Tier-2/3 Cities

[59:43] - The Funding Philosophy: Choosing the Right Partners Over the Highest Valuation

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