E82: Chaitanya Ramalingegowda (Co-founder, Wakefit)

Chaitanya Ramalingegowda is the co-founder of Wakefit, India’s leading direct-to-consumer, mattress and sleep solutions company. He brings over 19 years of experience spanning entrepreneurship, management consulting and marketing across companies such as IBM, Cognizant, Zinnov Consulting, YourStory and LetsVenture. In this episode, we will cover: 1. The Wakefit origin story (3:25) 2. Building the right culture even when the company is failing (7:36) 3. When did the founders feel that were onto something with Wakefit (12:05) 4. Scaling values and culture as a company grows (19:00) 5. Reasons why Wakefit decided to bootstrap (28:56) 6. Biggest learnings running Wakefit (33:40) 7. When and why do Indian D2C brands opt for the offline retail experience strategy as they grow? (38:39) 8. Tapping into the middle India markets through (42:05) 9. Doubling down on markets in India (45:11) 10. Lessons Chaitanya would share with his younger self (50:05)