

The Indian Dream
Sahil & Siddharth
The Indian Dream tells the stories of the profitable, long term thinker, risk-taker Entrepreneur because the country needs to be told that there's also a way to build long term value generating businesses in the era of VC funded hyper-growth engines. We wish to use these voices to showcase the strength of the Indian entrepreneurial spirit that forms the backbone of the nation.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 14, 2022 • 45min
Business Opportunities in the Circular Economy - Plastic & E-Waste Recycling
Sahil (@sahil071) and Siddharth (@sidbetala) hang out and discuss various ideas on this episode of Business Munchies. We're now actively sharing interesting snippets on Twitter and reels on Instagram. Follow us there to stay updated!Click here to help TID part time with content creation and distribution. On the show today, we do a dive deep on the Circular Economy, specifically Plastic Recycling and E-Waste recycling. (00:23) - Plastic Recycling in India(20:54) - E-Waste Recycling in IndiaResearch for Plastic RecyclingResearch for E-Waste Recycling

Mar 6, 2022 • 48min
Building a Chain of Restaurants - Burma Burma ft. Ankit Gupta
On the episode today, we have with us Ankit Gupta, Co-Founder of Burma BurmaIf you like the content we create, please drop us a review on Spotify & Apple. And join our No Spam Whatsapp Group to get summaries of the content we create. On the episode, we talk to Ankit about the business of restaurants, how food entrepreneurs can do market research, how restaurants are conceptualized and the painful processes that restaurant founders have to go through to get a concept to life! Burma Burma is one of my favorite restaurants, and what makes this even more unique is that its a vegetarian restaurants with no alcohol. A brave counter-positioning in the tough business of restaurants. Episode Outline: (02:41) - Thesis Behind Burma Burma(06:02) - Validating the idea of Burmese Cuisine in India(07:53) - What does it take to start a restaurant?(12:16) - Ankit's advice to people who want to start a restaurant (14:30) - Challenges in the Restaurant Industry(15:12) - The issue with Alcohol license in India(17:00) - Economics of Restaurant Business(20:00) - The Value and Supply Chain of Restaurants(25:10) - How to market a new restaurant?(27:20) - Burma Burma's scale up journey(28:23) - Challenges with growing through franchising(29:38) - How Burma Burma built its processes and talent pipeline to scale to 6 cities?(32:42) - The Backend team to required to build a chain of restaurants?(35:28) - Decision to enter the D2C Phase with Pantry (37:55) - Surviving the pandemic (41:05) - Scaling up the Burma Burma Brand beyond food(42:55) - What kind of investors invest in restaurant businesses?(44:40) - How has Ankit's relationship with money evolved over a period of time?

Feb 27, 2022 • 33min
The Journey of Building Fratelli Wines to 100 Cr+ in Revenue ft. Gaurav Sekhri
On the episode today, we have with us Gaurav Sekhri, Co-Founder of Fratelli Wines. If you like the content we create, please drop us a review on Spotify & Apple.We talk to Gaurav about the journey of building Fratelli and how they went about building the brand, distribution and more importantly, awareness for wines in India. (01:27) - How did the Fratelli journey start in 2006?(02:51) - How did the Sekhri family attain the knowledge of wine making?(05:46) - How did they manage the long gestation period and how marketing of wine became a bigger challenge in the early years(08:28) - How is wine distributed across the country?(12:00) - Why wine marketing and distribution is a slow game?(15:37) - The process of making wine(19:07) - Why Fratelli launched wine in a can?(21:40) - How are different types of wine made?(27:00) - How Gaurav identifies and manages new businesses?

Feb 19, 2022 • 43min
Disease Specific Health-tech, A platform to connect D2C Brands with Content Properties, Content Repurposing Agency
Sahil (@sahil071) and Siddharth (@sidbetala) hang out and discuss various ideas on this episode of Business Munchies. We're now actively sharing interesting snippets on Twitter and reels on Instagram. Follow us there to stay updated!Click here to help TID part time with LinkedIn & Twitter(0:55) - Update on Altigreen, that raised $40 million in Funding. We've had the founder of Altigreen on the episode in 2020 where he spoke about the work they were doing in the 3-Wheeler EV Market(05:00) - Update on Government's ban of Drones. Sahil's visit to a Drone Manufacturing & R&D Facility and conversation with Drone Labs. (13:34) - Rise of Disease specific health-tech solutions like platforms for Diabetes, Cancer, PCOS etc and the opportunities in this space. (26:42) - Platform to help D2C Brands partner up with Production houses and do collaborations for shows and movies. (36:23) - Content Repurposing Agency - A global business being built out of India.

Feb 13, 2022 • 48min
Future of Education & Real-Estate in India, How to do angel investing right - A conversation with a polymath ft. Dr. Ritesh Malik
On the episode today, we have with us Dr. Ritesh Malik, Founder of Innov8 Coworking (Sold to OYO) and Founder & Trustee of Plaksha University and an active angel investor who has backed 75+ startups. If you like the content we create, please drop us a review on Spotify & Apple.In this conversation, we touch about three broad topics: The Education Sector in India, The Real-Estate Market, and Angel Investing. Here's an outline of the conversation: (02:29) - The Problem with the Education System in India(10:21) - Why Edtech (in its current form) is just a pill and not the solution to the education system in India? Why we need hybrid infrastructure (Physical + Virtual) rather than just virtual education. (16:15) - How the Real Estate Market has evolved in India and why Shared Economy (Co-working, Co-living, Co-retail, shared warehousing) are the future?(30:24) - Why Dr. Malik has invested in 75+ companies and his thoughts on Angel Investing(35:09) - The Importance of Community Building in Angel Investing

Feb 6, 2022 • 1h 18min
Budget 2022 Business Opportunities Analysis ft. Sarthak Ahuja
Hey everyone, welcome to the Budget 2022 special of the Indian Dream Podcast with Sarthak Ahuja. In this episode, we do a complete Indian Dream-style breakdown of the 2022 Indian Budget speech to find the biggest opportunities for entrepreneurs to build new businesses. We discuss every business opportunity from the Budget including Drones training & manufacturing, Electronics & Wearables Manufacturing, Battery Swapping for Electric Vehicles, Ethanol production for fuel blending and so much more! Also, the last 20 minutes of the episode are a complete breakdown on the impact of the new 30% tax on Crypto in India. Listen in if you want to listen to our take on budget 2022.Sarthak's InstagramAll our Research Notes from this EpisodeTID Episode about DronesTimeline(0:00) - Introduction(2:00) - Predictions we got right last year.(4:55) - Electric Vehicles and Ethanol Production & Fuel Blending(12:55) - Electronics Manufacturing(17:50) - Manufacturing Tax Incentive Extension(18:45) - Why were umbrellas mentioned in the Budget?(22:00) - Skill Development(25:23) - What are Surety Bonds?(28:30) - Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics(32:40) - Drones in Budget 2022(35:40) - Land Bank Digitisation(39:10) - Drones Production Linked Incentives(41:15) - Infrastructure development and Ropeways(43:15) - Multi-model infrastructure open API’s(45:55) - Vande Bharat Trains(48:30) - Miscellaneous items from the Budget(58:30) - 30% Crypto tax in Budget 2022 and its implications(1:10:15) - Digital Rupee

Jan 30, 2022 • 44min
The Rise of Creator Economy ft. Manish Pandey, Co-Author - Booming Digital Stars
Today, we have with us Manish Pandey (Twitter), Co-Author of the book Booming Digital Stars to talk about the rise of creator economy and what it takes to be a creator in this day and age. Manish has been the force behind some of India's biggest creators and has helped them with content and distribution strategy. In his new book, Booming Digital Stars, he explores the life's of India's biggest creators and talks about the learnings from their journeys. We're giving away 10 copies of the Booming Digital Stars book to aspiring content creators. All you need to do is follow us on Twitter and tag us in a tweet about the kind of content you want to create!

Jan 23, 2022 • 46min
Business Munchies: Fertility Market (IVF) in India, Disrupting Family Managed Biz MBA, Rural Influencer Network
Sahil (@sahil071) and Siddharth (@sidbetala) hang out and discuss various ideas on this episode of Business Munchies. We're now actively sharing interesting snippets on Twitter and reels on Instagram. Follow us there to stay updated!Click here to help TID part time with LinkedIn & Twitter(4:00) - The Fertility (IVF) Market in India(24:43) - Disrupting Family Managed Business MBA (40:44) - Rural Influencer Network👉🏽 Fertility Care Market in IndiaThe fertility care market in India is estimated to be Rs. 3000 Cr market growing at a fast clip thanks to the rising infertility rates amongst couples for variety of lifestyle reasons. One of the most common solutions to this is In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). It is estimated that 30 million couples of fertility issues and just 1% of them go for an IVF treatment. And that’s where the opportunity is. From aggregating IVF chains to build content first brands targeting this segment, this market is ripe for some action in the next decade! 👉🏼 Family Managed Business MBA Colleges typically charge 10-15L for family managed business (FMB) MBA programs. And from our conversations, the quality of education is sub-par as the curriculum hasn’t been updated as fast as the business dynamics have changed. Is there an opportunity to build a new age FMB MBA program that’s tech first, focuses on digitization and builds a connect directly with professors and students/businesses? We think so! 👉🏼 Rural Influencer NetworkBy 2025, India will have more internet users in rural part of the country than urban. We’re already seeing the rise of influencers that hail from villages with followers and subscriber counts of a few million! To look for growth, companies will have no option but to tap into rural markets. What if there was a rural influencer network that helped match brands with rural influencers & facilitate the campaigns?

Jan 16, 2022 • 1h 7min
How to Finance and Grow Your Startup Without VC with Prof. John Mullins
We speak to John Mullins, Professor of Marketing & Entrepreneurship at the London School of Business and author of the fantastic book, ‘The Customer Funded Business’.Timeline:(3:20) - What is a Customer Funded Business?(6:10) - How do Business Authors find the stories for their books?(11:00) - What’s the difference between Cash Flow & Profits?(15:30) - How do you change the processes and business mindset from just Profit to think about Cash Flow as well?(22:00) - What is Float? How can Float help you grow your business faster?(27:50) - What is the danger of startups raising capital too early?(39:45) - The Pay in Advance Model(46:40) - The Subscription Model(50:15) - The Scarcity Model(56:15) - The Service to Product Model(58:20) - The Marketplace or Matchmaker Model(1:02:20) - John’s thoughts on Ed Tech(1:04:00) - How difficult was it to record his Course?Why do we love this book? Because it shows us how any business can generate more cash in the bank. Most businesses don’t fail to grow because they’re not making profits - they fail to grow because they don’t have enough Working Capital. This means that even if they’re making profits, there’s not enough cash in the bank that allows them to buy raw materials, pay salaries and all the other expenses to run a business. And that’s when they run to VC’s to get more Working Capital to grow. The Customer Funded Business provides 5 different frameworks on how businesses can have more working capital in the system and thus more money in the bank to grow! We discuss all 5 frameworks in the episode.Professor Mullins calls these Customer Funded Business Models where you’re using your customers to help grow the business instead of just selling tonnes of equity and raising Venture Capital funding. Why give away big chunks of your business when you can find ways to grow without VC money? The best entrepreneurs we’ve had on our Podcast were those that scaled without venture funding. Then these entrepreneurs had all the leverage in negotiations when they raised money to scale even further. We thought this conversation was especially relevant in today’s environment where Venture Capital funding has become ubiquitous.If you want to learn more about how to build your own Customer Funded Business, you can also check out Professor Mullins course on Coursera - How to Finance and Grow Your Startup Without VC.

Jan 9, 2022 • 43min
Business Munchies: Senior Citizen Market & Drones for Agriculture
Sahil (@sahil071) and Siddharth (@sidbetala) hang out and discuss various ideas on this episode of Business Munchies. We're now actively sharing interesting snippets on Twitter and reels on Instagram. Follow us there to stay updated!Click here to help TID part time with LinkedIn & TwitterTimeline(01:54) - Senior Citizen Market in India(33:27) - Using Drones for Agriculture Senior Citizen MarketMarket SizeCurrently, India has more than 138 Million Senior Citizens. 67 Million Male, 71 Million Female. By 2030, this number is expected to be 200 Million.Estimated to be a Rs. 73,000 Cr market or $10 BillionThe report noted a significant increase in the old-age dependency ratio, which rose from 10.9 per cent in 1961 to 14.2 per cent in 2011 and is projected to increase to 15.7 per cent and 20.1 per cent in 2021 and 2031, respectively. The old-age dependency ratio is defined as the number of persons aged 60+ per 100 persons relative to the age group 15-59.Why this market is ripe for opportunities?Empty Nest SyndromeHigher Spending Power AND Willingness to SpendHigher Education Levels The report said literacy levels among elderly males and females have improved over time in both rural and urban areas, but it noted a huge gender gap, with only 28 per cent female elderly literate as against 59 per cent males (Population Census 2011)Life Expectancy on the RiseNeeds that can’t be catered by the startups focused on Gen Z and MillenialsWhat are the main needs for this segment?Health Related - Physical & MentalSafety SystemFinancing SecurityEffective use of TimeIs the Govt of India focused on this segment?Ofcourse. In Jun 2021, they launched SAGE program. SAGE is Senior Ageing Growth Engine. Launched by Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerement.100 Cr fund. To invest 1 Cr as equity investment as a startup.The ministry has developed a 9-by-9 grid defining the elder care focus areas for evaluating start-ups and business ideas under this scheme.What are some of the interesting companies in this field in India?Seniority - 31 Cr Income, 65 Cr ExpensesPorteaGoodfellowsKhyaalSamarth Eldercare - 67 Lakhs RevenueEmoha - 4 Cr RevenueWhat are some of the interesting companies internationally?Papa - On-demand Young Pals for Elderly - $241 funding. Maybe $30-40 million in revenue. $15/hr or $15 memberships with additional features.Deveoted Health - $2B in Funding - Medicare Advantage PlansCaring Wire - Content PlatformKuvu - Elder People Renting rooms to younger folks at more affordable ratesGetSetup - $20m in funding, community based courses for elderly.Chirp - Non invasive sensors for elderly care