First Principles

Vaibhav Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Udaan, discusses evolving from a marketplace to a first-party business, Udaan's culture pillars, and daily conversations within the leadership team. They also explore Udaan's mission to transform India's trade ecosystem, challenges faced by retailers and traders, and how Udaan improves access and efficiency in wholesale purchasing.

Welcome back to Episode 37 of First Principles.If you’re here to find our latest edition of the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!A few weeks ago, we had a wonderful conversation with Viren Shetty – the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health.  Narayana Health – formerly called Narayana Hrudalaya – is a hospital network that’s also listed on the stock exchanges. Today’s episode is the second part of our conversation with Viren. In part 1, Viren talked about healthcare in India – something he described as an “assembly line.” If you remember listening to it, you’ll know that Viren has both intricate knowledge and undeniable intuition about the healthcare landscape in India. We discussed Viren’s ambitions to fix healthcare in India and where Narayana Health is headed. That led us to why Viren holds this mission so close to his heart, in this second part of our conversation.What led him to healthcare? What drives him to wake up and do this, day after day? In our opening, you heard about Viren’s innate pattern recognition superpower, which is very different from his father Dr. DeviShetty’s.So, how did he build this intuition? And how does he use it to run a vast hospital network?Viren answers all of these questions with stories from his life, career and even from the hospitals where he grew up. This is episode 37 of First Principles—The Ken’s weekly leadership podcast.P.S. Please recommend your favourite books for the First Principles community here! One channel. Every show. No more switching feeds.Follow The Ken on Apple Podcasts or tune in on The Ken app.

Aneesh Reddy, the Co-founder and CEO of Capillary Technologies, shares his inspiring journey from corporate life to leading a global SaaS company specializing in customer loyalty. He discusses the ups and downs of building a tech giant, including strategic pivots and battling economic downturns. Aneesh provides insights into how they foster brand loyalty through focused solutions and the critical role of team dynamics in a startup's evolution. Hear about the challenges of retaining talent and the importance of company culture in navigating growth.

A few weeks ago, we published an episode with Soumya Rajan of Waterfield Advisors. We discussed what it was like to bet your future on an idea that no one had tried before, in India.  In Soumya’s case, that idea was a business model around wealth management.You might remember Soumya saying it really wasn’t easy. Her peers had doubts. Her clients had doubts. Her family had doubts. She had doubts. But she dug her heels in. 12 years in, Waterfield Advisors is now India’s largest multi-family office and wealth advisory, managing over 40,000 crores for its clients. We covered a lot of ground around Waterfield’s early years. And then, we took a break. We had some coffee, looked around the studio offices, and came back in to record again. And slowly, the next hour of our conversation became about looking ahead. Soumya detailed her vision to me. Waterfield is planning to expand to Dubai this year. And perhaps even more international offices after that. In fact, Soumya said, she wants to build an organization like J.P. Morgan – out of India.JP Morgan traces its history nearly 150 years back. So naturally, I asked Soumya: how do make sure you build a company that’s around for 10, 20…even 50 years? How do you build a truly defensible and lasting moat?Her answer was very interesting. Soumya said Waterfield will continue what it started with – never manufacturing their own products, and continuing to remain only an advisory.She explained, Waterfield would never go into distribution – which is where the money is. It will always be an advisory. Again, Soumya has a big bet – she believes that Waterfield needs to give up growth and scale in the short term, to succeed in the long term. And in this episode, she explains why this will work. We also talk about: --> Being unapologetic about entrepreneurship--> Learning to let go as a CEO--> How to use AI as a friend --> Building a ritualistic work ethic This is episode 35 of First Principles—The Ken's weekly leadership podcast.P.S.: If you have any submissions for book recommendations, interesting reads, #SilentSunday pictures or songs for the First Principles newsletter, send them here.  One channel. Every show. No more switching feeds.Follow The Ken on Apple Podcasts or tune in on The Ken app.

Welcome to the first 2024 episode of First Principles! Though we’re only 15 months old, we’re also technically into our third calendar year, after our first episode in August 2022. A happy new year to you. Here’s to many more years of wonderful conversations, learning and growing.Our guest today is Viren Shetty, the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health—the publicly listed healthcare group that operates over two dozen hospitals across India. Refreshingly, Viren thinks about healthcare…as an assembly line. And there are many, many steps in this line. Many of these are very small...they seem unimportant. Even forgettable. Like scheduling an annual healthcare checkup. Or filling out a feedback form at your clinic. Or just waiting in line for your doctor's appointment. When I asked Viren how healthcare can be fixed in India, he pointed to this assembly line. Basically, what if you tweak every small step of this line a little bit? Small, unnoticeable changes at every step? He’s confident that the result will be a smooth, well-oiled machine that takes care of your health end-to-end. This is what, Viren says, Narayana Health is trying to do. It reminded me of Apple. Take existing technologies and make improvements while putting the user at the centre of the experience. Narayana Health is a name you might have heard, especially if you’re from Bangalore. It was founded in 2000 by Dr. Devi Shetty. It went public in 2016 and is valued at over US$1 billion.But what we know as Narayana Health today began as Narayana Hrudayalaya, a super speciality hospital with a laser-sharp focus on cardiac health. Twenty years on, however, it's changed a lot.In addition to its numerous hospitals across India, it's also venturing into health insurance policies, partnering with clinics and pharmacies, and building an ambitious bundled subscription plan for its customers. This episode is a first in more ways than one. It’s not just our first episode of 2024. It’s also the first episode with a guest from the healthcare sector. And it’s the first episode which may sound a little different to you. In this episode, I ask Viren:Why are health checkups such a hassle?Is the answer to better healthcare in hardware or software?What are the health tech startups doing right?And then there is the unshakable mistrust that the Indian population holds against hospitals and doctors. Can this even be solved?Patiently and confidently, Viren answers every one of my questions. He talks about building sticky habits in customers, changing the messaging in healthcare, and becoming “worse” as an insurance company to be better as a healthcare one.In this episode, we truly get down to the first principles of healthcare in India.Check out the First Principles Newsletter, a weekly Sunday read on entrepreneurship, mental models, leadership and reflection here.Send in submissions for book recommendations, interesting reads, Silent Sunday pictures or songs for the First Principles newsletter here.This is Episode 34 of First Principles, Viren Shetty—The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast.The Ken is India’s first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here. One channel. Every show. No more switching feeds.Follow The Ken on Apple Podcasts or tune in on The Ken app.

A couple of weeks ago, you heard our episode with Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and Group CEO of OYO rooms. If you remember, he talked to me about the atmosphere at the organization after COVID hit.To put it simply, it was wartime inside OYO.Cash needed to be protected. Leadership had to be let go. The company completely changed.In the first hour of the conversation with Ritesh, who explained in detail what it took to come back from this near-death experience. We’d urge you to check out that episode.Anyway, we took a short break after the first hour. We stepped out, had a coffee, and chatted a bit. Which helped immensely, because once we stepped back inside the studio, the conversation turned…inwards. We got to reflecting. Retrospecting. How has Ritesh grown, and what has he learnt as a founder, as a CEO, as a leader…And something he said was really surprising.  Rohin asked him if he considered himself a wartime CEO or a peacetime one.With cool conviction, he said he’s a peacetime CEO. With OYO being in war mode through all its years of difficulties, Ritesh could very well be considered a great wartime CEO.But when you’ll listen to this episode, you’ll know that Ritesh knows what kind of a CEO he is, because he is an extremely deliberate, reflective person. He’s thought about every challenge and every opportunity that has come his way. And what he’s learnt from it. Reflection is non-negotiable for a CEO, he says.In this episode – part 2 of our conversation with Ritesh Agarwal of OYO, he explains this. Why you must take time to reflect. When you should do it. And of course, the process at OYO to collectively reflect as an organisation. I think this is the perfect episode for us to wind down the year with, here at the First Principles podcast. Ritesh looks back on his decade as a young founder and CEO – how he’s changed, and how his own mission has evolved. We talk about recognizing which opportunities to grab and which to pass up, and how to deal with regret when it comes. We now have chapters available for this episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts! Click on any chapter you like to jump to the parts you want to listen to.This is episode 33 of First Principles with Ritesh Agarwal, Part 2—The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast.Send in submissions for books recommendations, interesting reads, Silent Sunday pictures or songs for the First Principles newsletter here. One channel. Every show. No more switching feeds.Follow The Ken on Apple Podcasts or tune in on The Ken app.

“What is something you believe in, that no one else around you does?”If you’ve heard episode 30 with Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms, then you’ll recognize this as a question that he had to answer while applying for the Thiel Fellowship.It’s a simple but powerful question that usually differentiates motivated, passionate and unreasonable founders from other equally capable professionals. Because what is a startup if not a mere belief in something that should exist?This question is also equally apt for our guests today. Because Soumya Rajan believed in something that no one else around her did. Soumya is the Founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors – India’s largest multi-family office and wealth advisory firm which manages over 40,000 crore – that’s over $4 billion – for its clients.But in 2010, Soumya was working at Standard Chartered Bank, a bank she’d joined straight from college after back-to-back mathematics degrees. A bank where she’d worked at for 17 straight years – her first and only job. She’d been the head of Standard Chartered’s Private Banking arm and reached the top. But having reached there, Soumya wondered why she wasn’t interested in playing the same game.2010 was also the year Soumya turned 40. The age when many professionals hit their mid-life crisis. If you remember, Karthik Jayaraman, the co-founder and CEO of Waycool, decided to start up too after hitting 40. Soumya too decided to quit her job and start on her own by making a contrarian bet – that it was better to charge her wealthy clients directly for financial advice instead of making money via commissions paid by financial services companies whose products she would recommend. Soumya says that in 2010, this went completely against the tide in India’s wealth management sector. No one else was doing it. Even her peers and ex-colleagues were dismissive of her belief. In this episode, Soumya, in her calm and reflective manner, tells me her story. There is a strong thread of vision that runs through our entire conversation – Soumya is driven by a sharp sense of curiosity and purpose in everything that Waterfield Advisors is doing. You’ll notice it in the way she breaks down her midlife crisis, her role as CEO, her beliefs about products and incentives, and even her work for empowering women as investors. We also talk about:What the wealth management landscape of India looks likeWhy Waterfield is like the lawyer or the doctor of financial wellbeingHow to survive in the short-term when you’re building to lastThe one question she asks people before hiring them.Check out the First Principles Newsletter, a weekly Sunday read on entrepreneurship, mental models, leadership and reflection here.Send in submissions for book recommendations, interesting reads, Silent Sunday pictures or songs for the First Principles newsletter here.This is Episode 32 of First Principles, with Soumya Rajan.—The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast.The Ken is India’s first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here. One channel. Every show. No more switching feeds.Follow The Ken on Apple Podcasts or tune in on The Ken app.

Karthik Jayaraman, the entrepreneur behind WayCool Foods, discusses his career, starting up at 40, and building leaders. The podcast covers topics such as adapting organization structure, policies, and market strategy, navigating changes and continual improvement, transitioning to a tech startup, mid-life crisis, T-shaped leadership, and forming and changing habits for success.

Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and Group CEO of OYO, shares his unique perspective on the hospitality industry, focusing on better utilization of existing supply. He discusses the journey of starting Oyo at a young age and the multiple pivots the company has gone through. They also explore dynamic pricing in various industries and the evolution of Oyo's leadership team and culture. Ritesh emphasizes the importance of exclusivity and upgrading education, as well as the role of the Chief Clarity Officer. They also discuss the potential transformation in the hotel industry through automation and anticipating consumer preferences.

Get ready for a supercut episode featuring five diverse founders. They share their childhood experiences, career choices, and motivations for starting their own ventures. Topics covered include the importance of risk-taking behavior, the downsides of early financial independence, cultural attitudes towards entrepreneurship in India, and the fascination with AI and robotics. The founders also discuss their favorite cuisines and working preferences, as well as their motivations for transforming the education system. Tune in to hear their inspiring stories and insights!