Best Place To BuildPhani Kishan, Co-Founder, Swiggy |"Be deeply obsessed with the problem you're trying to solve"| Ep16
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
75 min read · 14,556 words- 0:00 – 0:46
Introduction
- PKPhani Kishan
one thing which most founders will definitely give an arm and leg for is high-agency folks who just run once, given a mandate. Being obsessed about a problem and making sure that you, you know, take it to its logical conclusion is important before you start diversifying-
- UHUnknown Host
Right
- PKPhani Kishan
... into others, right? In India or worldwide, you're never gonna be successful alone. If you're gonna be successful, people will necessarily take a crack at it. So there was this restaurant partner that we, you know, had in Dehradun, who survived the pandemic because Swiggy was still delivering. [upbeat music]
- 0:46 – 1:18
Why Madras is the Ultimate Hub for Tech Entrepreneurs
- UHUnknown Host
Hi, my name is Amrit. We've heard that IIT Madras is the best place to build. [upbeat music] So we've come down to the Sudha and Shankar Innovation Hub. We want to meet some people. These are builders. We want to talk to them about their work, and also ask them, what makes IIT Madras the best place to build? [upbeat music]
- 1:18 – 1:45
Swiggy Co-Founder's Journey from IIT Madras
- UHUnknown Host
Hi, welcome to The Best Place to Build Podcast. Today, we're sitting with Phani Kishan, co-founder at Swiggy. It's a very exciting day for me because it's going to be a great conversation. Welcome, Phani.
- PKPhani Kishan
Hey, thanks a lot for having me here, M- Amrit.
- UHUnknown Host
Phani, let's start with, uh, some... Okay, so we all know that you're the co-founder of Swiggy, and it's been, I, I'm guessing, a very exciting last 10 years. [chuckles] But let's start from the beginning. You were a student at IIT Madras-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... in the computer science department.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yes, I did.
- UHUnknown Host
Um, why don't we start there? Tell us about
- 1:45 – 2:16
The JEE time
- UHUnknown Host
how you got here. What is your JEE experience like?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, I keep, uh, joking about this, but, um, uh, there was a time in my life when I gave, like, an entrance exam to get into a coaching institute, which is preparing me for an entrance exam, to get into a coaching institute, which is preparing me for an entrance exam to get into IIT.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? So I come from, like, a hardcore lineage of, you know, people who are trying to crack, uh, IIT from a very young age.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- PKPhani Kishan
That was kind of... Actually, i- this is surprising. I would say that you've not been to Hyderabad? [chuckles] Like,
- 2:16 – 3:27
Evolution of IIT Entrance: How Multiple-Choice Questions Changed the Game
- PKPhani Kishan
it's pretty common, uh, for, for people to do something like this, right? Um, but I would say my experience getting into IIT Madras was pretty straightforward, actually, to be honest. Uh, I was quite lucky to get the rank that I did. Um, actually, mine was the second batch where we switched from the, um, subjective, you know, oriented exams that you used to have, to the multiple-choice, or-
- UHUnknown Host
Right
- PKPhani Kishan
... objective.
- UHUnknown Host
The mains and the advanced, or was it-
- PKPhani Kishan
Oh, no, no, no, no
- UHUnknown Host
... paper one, paper two?
- PKPhani Kishan
No, I, we only had, we only had one exam-
- UHUnknown Host
Okay
- PKPhani Kishan
... still, but basically, we switched from these long-format questions where you would actually write down proofs-
- UHUnknown Host
Right
- PKPhani Kishan
... et cetera, to a format which is more MCQ-oriented, right? Multiple-choice questions and match the following.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Objective is what we used to call it, right? So that is the switch that was made as a second batch, um-
- UHUnknown Host
Now, that's become the mains, and then you qualify that, and you give another-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, I think, I think now they, at least from what I understand, they have, like, a common exam-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... for JEE, which is for many, many institutes, even outside IIT Madras, a- IITs, and then you have the advanced, which kind of determines whether you get into IITs or not, right? Is that, is that right?
- UHUnknown Host
That is correct. And now the exams are conducted by NTA, National Testing Academy, and the entrance is actually held centrally by an organization called Josat.
- 3:27 – 8:18
Inside IIT Madras: Campus Culture and Academic Challenges Revealed
- PKPhani Kishan
Ah, got it. Understood. Yeah, so, so we didn't have all of this. It was pretty straightforward. We did counseling. I had a bunch of friends, uh, who also, uh, studied along with me from my school. Actually, there were, like, seven people from my school who joined IITs, my same batch, right? So we all kind of actually ended up in IIT Madras because-
- UHUnknown Host
Oh, nice
- PKPhani Kishan
... it was fun to, like, just continue the vibes-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... [chuckles] I can say that. Um, yeah, I was in CS, unfortunately, I was just telling you, right, before, I wrote my last line of code this weekend, and the last one before that was 15 years ago. [chuckles] Uh, but, um, been out of, you know, the computer science world from a coding perspective, I would say. Um, but yeah, I, I graduated from IIT Madras, joined IIM Cal at that point of time.
- UHUnknown Host
Wait, one... I, I want to just reflect on this. Students in cluster, when they join after studying for JEE, and then they start their engineering first year, second year, it's quite a bit of shock. Uh, because engineering is quite different from what you studied in-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... 11th and 12th.
- PKPhani Kishan
Mm.
- UHUnknown Host
And I think in computer science, the shock is quite heavy.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, actually, um, I mean, given the first year, I'm still... I assume the case, it is the first semester and second semester, like, common courses that you end up doing. Like, you still do math, you still do physics, you still do chemistry. Of course, you have the CS110, if it's still called that, I'm not sure. The first coding introduction that everyone does-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... right? EC 101, 110, whatever, right? So I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't actually say that there's a dramatic shift from how things go, because you're still doing math, right? You're still doing physics, you're still doing chemistry. The switch comes a little bit more gradually, like, when you start doing, you know, 2-1 is when you go a little bit more deeper, but by then, I think you're probably already settled in-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... well enough into campus life and how the classes are. I was also fortunate, uh, because I had a brother. My brother was, like, two years senior to me in IIT Madras.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- PKPhani Kishan
Um, so he was in mechanical. I'd actually visited the IIT Madras campus when I was in my class 11, when I was preparing. Uh, that kind of motivated me a little bit because I really like the campus. It's massive, it's amazing. It's actually amazing to be back.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, I can't, uh, you know, wait for people to come visit it.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
My fiancée is here. I would love for her to show, [chuckles] show around the campus because it's just so beautiful.
- UHUnknown Host
It's beautiful.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, it's really good. So I actually quite got motivated, um, to, uh, crack JEE even more when I visited the campus. Uh, saw how the vibes were here. And, um, yeah, I mean, I did have some amount of guidance, given my brother was, uh, here before me.
- UHUnknown Host
Um, also, but, but i- in that, in computer science especially, uh, it's also very competitive because, like-
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh
- UHUnknown Host
... everybody's a top ranker, right? And then maybe you were top of your batch, I don't know, in, in coaching. [chuckles] And then here you are, and everybody's must have been top of their batch, or it's-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, I think that's going to be true, actually, of the-... most branches, like most people who come to, you know, an IIT Madras or any of the IITs would probably have been-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, fair enough
- PKPhani Kishan
... class toppers-
- UHUnknown Host
Sure
- 8:18 – 9:55
From Engineering to Management: Navigating the IIT to IIM Transition
- PKPhani Kishan
um, I think it's, it's- it was a wise decision in, in hindsight, uh-
- UHUnknown Host
Now, after IIT, you went to IIM?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, yeah, I did. I did.
- UHUnknown Host
And so, so I want to reflect on this a little bit. You were at CS, and, uh, you moved from a core code branch to a management science kind of-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... field.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. So to be very honest, um, uh, the decision was led a fair bit by my wanting to not work. [chuckles] Like, you know, I said, "I'm too young to be working right now. I want to maybe-
- UHUnknown Host
Delay the-
- PKPhani Kishan
... Yeah, delay, delay joining, uh, any company," right? Uh, I don't think my grades were good enough to like, do a, pursue MS in-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- PKPhani Kishan
... uh, in the US or anywhere else, right? Even in India. Uh, or actually, to be very fair to my- to myself and everyone, right, I, I was not, like, super drawn to the concept. I actually really liked some things like data structure, algorithms, things like that, which is a little bit more theoretical in nature, like, you know, cracking the problem, as opposed to maybe coding, which I always saw as like implementing the solution. And I used to get these, you know, segmentation fault errors whenever [chuckles] I used to try to code, which kind of depressed me a fair bit. So I said, "Okay, I can't code."
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, that's not really my, um, forte by any stretch. So that's when I started looking at what else could I do, and the other option which I had was basically take CAT and, uh, join B school.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- PKPhani Kishan
So that's kind of how I ended up in, in B schools. I wouldn't say it was like a thought-through decision, and I planned for it, and everything was, you know... uh, li- ducks were lined up, and I started shooting them. No,
- 9:55 – 14:00
The Pivotal Decision
- PKPhani Kishan
it wasn't at all.
- UHUnknown Host
Fair enough. Um, and after IIM Cal, at some point, you moved to Swiggy, right?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
So can you tell me the journey here? And also, it's interesting to me because, um, this is the period, I think 2011, '12, there were a bunch of food startups. I used to run a food startup.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Um, it was a difficult operation-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... heavy business.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
UPI was not there, um, smartphones were not there, and, uh, Google Maps was not there. So, um, it, it was not an easy business.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Uh, and to take the decision to sort of after CS, IIM Cal, to move into a food tech kind of startup.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, yeah. So I, I see the, the story... To be honest, like, after IIM Cal, I went to a consulting firm. I went to BCG, right? And again, I didn't apply a lot of my brain. Uh, it was... It is still a fairly reputed firm and stuff like that, right? So if you look at it, it's like the classic sheep, you know, go to IIT, then go to maybe B school, join the consulting firm, that sort of stuff. Uh, it was around a couple of years in to my consulting stint, even a little bit earlier, where I started to think about what is it that I exactly want to do in life, right? And, um, as silly as this may sound to Professor, uh, Ravindran, who was my BTP prof, I was, [chuckles] uh, I, I was drawn to the whole tech world a fair bit, right? And if you look back at that point of time, the tech of the world was still Facebook, and Google, and Microsoft, and, uh, et cetera, et cetera, right? Indian tech was just coming. I think 2014, 2015 is kind of, let's say, the seminal year in Indian tech when, you know, Flipkart raised a billion dollars.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Um, Snapdeal raised a ton of money. Myntra got acquired. There was Uber, Ola. I was working in, uh, BCG. You, you get these, quote, unquote, "perks of, uh, commute," like you get a, uh, Sixt or Avis or whatever, right? You can book a cab whenever you want. And then they basically said: "Listen, there are better options, Uber and Ola. Just book them yourselves, claim reimbursement." So the world was-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- PKPhani Kishan
... changing-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- PKPhani Kishan
... a fair bit, right? By then, smartphones, for example, had become-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... fairly, uh, ubiquitous, is, is what I would say, right? And, and not the BlackBerry keypad, uh, s- uh, you know, smartphones, but the actual-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah. I don't know
- PKPhani Kishan
... smartphones as we know them today, right? So I kind of actually felt-... that there is a big change, and sitting in, uh, you know, BCG, working, let's say, in a bank or any of the places that you do in an AC room in Bombay, is probably not going to give you a real perspective of what's happening on the ground, right? Because, I mean, now there are enough publications that cover tech startups and what is happening, and it's big, it's great for the, um, the industry as well. But back then, you probably had one or two-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
And even they were not covering them, right? Your show was probably one of the first.
- UHUnknown Host
Just started, I think.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. You know-
- UHUnknown Host
2010, '11 they started.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. So you, you didn't even... You couldn't even get information, and the only way I thought you'd get a sneak peek was to be part of it. Uh, and that's when I started searching for, uh, potential companies to join, explore, et cetera, right? Uh, got connected to Harshad, who's the CEO founder of Swiggy. Uh, he, he and I didn't overlap in, uh, IIM Calcutta. He was two years my senior, so we didn't really overlap, but we had a lot of common friends.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- 14:00 – 14:54
Startup Fundraising Secrets: How Swiggy Secured Early Investment
- PKPhani Kishan
leap of faith, right? If you're looking for why food delivery, and I was not even there when the decision for food delivery was taken.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, it was, it was... It preceded me, right? By the time I, uh, decided to join Swiggy, we just were raising our first round of investment after hitting 50 orders a day, 100 orders a day.
- UHUnknown Host
I've read this interview where you say that, uh, we raised this first round, or I, I don't know if it's first round or second round, and then you had to suddenly hire 25,000 delivery men. Is-
- PKPhani Kishan
Ah, no, actually, [chuckles] uh, we didn't, we didn't have to hire 25,000 delivery partners. I was saying, um, in my first conversation with Harshad, and, and then there's Nandi. Nandi is the other founder, right? So we just, you know, outside a Chai Sutta Shop, just having a conversation, right? And, uh, me and Harshad were talking about what does food delivery look like, what is the future, et cetera. So, like, I don't think any of us knew what exactly we were talking about. We're just always-
- UHUnknown Host
Hypothetical. [chuckles]
- PKPhani Kishan
... Good to have that slightly dreamier conversations,
- 14:54 – 15:55
Scaling a Billion-Dollar Vision: Setting Foundations for Swiggy's Massive Growth
- PKPhani Kishan
right? And then, um, what I remember really well is basically Nandan coming to me and basically saying, "Hey, if you had to hire 25,000 delivery partners-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- PKPhani Kishan
... what would you do?"
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
And we literally were doing, I think, 60 orders a day or something like that, right? Like, four of us could probably do the, those orders. And I'm like, "Why are we trying to hire 25,000 delivery partners?" So it kind of actually was setting maybe the foundation for dreaming big-
- UHUnknown Host
Right
- PKPhani Kishan
... is what I would say. Like-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm, yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... you, you will some things into existence in some shape or form, right? So the story behind that is not that we were planning to hire 25,000, [chuckles] but, uh, you know, how- if we had to hire, how would we do it?
- UHUnknown Host
Right.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
It's interesting. You're saying that it started as a small conversation, but even at the very beginning, you were thinking, "What if this was really big?" Right?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. Uh, it's true. I mean, to be honest, like, uh... So I, I joined Swiggy, uh, right? And then I, uh, started playing a bunch of, like, handyman roles, if I can call them that, right? And one of them was basically to... Uh, because I knew how to work Excel
- 15:55 – 16:26
Behind the Numbers: Excel Models That Predicted Swiggy's Market Dominance
- PKPhani Kishan
and make PPTs, because I came from a consulting background [chuckles] I was also starting to manage some part of our investor relations.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, we, we had a bank, but as- managing some part of the investor relations. And in that, you make these Excel models of five years out, how the business economics is going to look like, 10 years out-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- PKPhani Kishan
... what it's going to look like. And, uh, to be honest, you know, we're quite surprised at the scale we've achieved, because even our Excel models didn't really put the size and scale. Uh-
- UHUnknown Host
It's interesting, because most of the time, when you look at these Excel model, you think that the Excel model, model is exaggerating.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, that is true. But-
- UHUnknown Host
You are saying it's the other
- 16:26 – 18:29
How Flipkart Revolutionized the Indian Startup Ecosystem
- UHUnknown Host
way around.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, but I think the world has changed.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Now, people are dreaming big even [chuckles] when they start out, a lot more than then. Because 2015, you had basically... You know, I mean, I would give a lot of credit to the folks at Flipkart. When, when I met Binny, I told him the same thing as well, right? Like, it's, uh, they kind of set the stage for people to dream enough to start companies.
- UHUnknown Host
Sure. Uh, you've given us the permission to think big.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, like-
- UHUnknown Host
Or you've shown us that it's possible.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, shown us it's possible, right? It's like, it's... One of my favorite things which I keep talking to the team about a fair bit is the Four Minute Mile. You know, till the time Roger Bannister did it, basically, people said, "You can't do it."
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
"You'll probably die if you try to do it," et cetera, et cetera. And then he did it, and then a few hundred-
- UHUnknown Host
And everyone did it.
- PKPhani Kishan
And a few hundred people did it, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Like, it kind of is like the glass ceiling, that once it shatters, once it breaks, it just makes it possible for other people to imagine. It's like what DeepSeek probably just did.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? With their, you know, R1 launch or whatever.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Where they said, "Oh, you know what? The training costs can actually be-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... much lower than what-
- UHUnknown Host
And also that you don't have to be in the valley to do this.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. And you don't need H100 chips-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... and you don't need to code at the CUDA level.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
And you can... You know, suddenly it just kind of-
- UHUnknown Host
Sure
- PKPhani Kishan
... opens up your possibility, uh, in a big way. And I think I would definitely give, let's say, credit to, uh, Flipkart. Uh-
- UHUnknown Host
So you're saying in that period, in the 2013, '14, '15 period, Flipkart's big moment, uh... I mean, of course, they did it really well, but also that they sort of allowed all of us-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- 18:29 – 22:32
What True Co-Foundership Means: Building Together vs. Just Joining Early
- UHUnknown Host
I want to just, uh, reflect on this a bit. Uh, you joined Swiggy, um, you are, uh, uh, you are a co-founder, but you were not there on day one.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
And it's a, uh, it's... I want to understand this a little bit. Now, also from a point of view of what does co-foundership mean?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Also, um, as I'm saying it, I'm thinking, you know, we had this, um, reflection, Elon Musk is the founder of Tesla, but he was not there on day one.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right.
- UHUnknown Host
And, uh, in Facebook, there was a founder on day one, but he's not... Nobody remembers his name now.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
So what does it mean? What does co-foundership mean, and how does this work?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, see, I, I, I'm not usually or I don't generally profess to pigeonhole things into one thing or the other, but I can give you my perspective for what it's worth, right? Uh, I think there is definitely a question of impact, uh, which is always going to be there, right? And, uh, if you think about Intel, right, uh, of course, there's Moore and Noyce, but most people remember Grove.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right?
- UHUnknown Host
Andy Grove.
- PKPhani Kishan
And Andy Grove is number-
- UHUnknown Host
He was not.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, he, he was the third employee-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... uh, of, of Intel, right? Like, I would say that probably history will look back at, uh, Microsoft, and if you think 100 years down the line, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, yeah, of course, there's Bill Gates, but we don't necessarily-
- UHUnknown Host
You will not, you will not remember the CEO that was between Bill Gates and Satya Nadella.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, right? I mean-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... we will do remember it?
- UHUnknown Host
We now remember it-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... but 100 years from now
- PKPhani Kishan
100 years from now.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, I get it.
- PKPhani Kishan
I actually think that, you know, Coke exists for 150 years.
- 22:32 – 24:10
Powerful Business Models: Strategic Frameworks Behind Swiggy's Success
- UHUnknown Host
and, um... So one of the things I've always admired about Swiggy is that, um, uh, Swiggy has followed a lot of frameworks and models right from the very beginning.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Also, a lot has changed, right, from 2014 to now. Of course, smartphones were just coming in, but they blew up and, uh, the 5G revolution happened.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
UPI came in, and maps came in, and then the pandemic came in.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
So how- what kind of models do you use that allows you to sort of go through all this change that's happening with your customers?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, I think the, uh... I'll answer this with a framework as [chuckles] well, right? I think it's, it's something which, uh... It's not mine, uh, it's not mine. It's basically Jeff Bezos who said it, right? And this is a question that he's actually gone on record basically saying, people keep asking all the time, saying: "Hey, um, you know, what is going to change? What is the next year going to be looking like? What is five years going to look like? What are you worried about?" Et cetera, right? And, uh, his pushback, of course, is basically: What does, what doesn't change?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? What doesn't change-
- UHUnknown Host
I think he says, uh, people will always want their stuff faster and cheaper.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. A wider selection, uh, lower prices, and a faster delivery, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Mm-hmm.
- PKPhani Kishan
More convenience. That's, that won't change, right? And, uh, I think that's a good question to ask others, right? What is going to be true five years later? The world is going to change dramatically. Like, I don't know how many people expected, uh, let's say, um-
- UHUnknown Host
10-minute delivery
- PKPhani Kishan
... a 10-minute delivery transformer architecture to come along.
- UHUnknown Host
Oh, sure, sure. Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Like, you know, there's-
- UHUnknown Host
So yeah, nobody expected, [chuckles] uh, LLMs to take over.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, I mean, and to be honest, it was sitting in plain sight, right? Like, Google released what? 2018, 2019-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... et cetera, et cetera. Right? So I just think, uh,
- 24:10 – 25:23
Customer Obsession: The Core Value Driving Swiggy's Decisions
- PKPhani Kishan
you know, your, your only thing is going to be to keep looking at, for... From our perspective, has always been obsessing very, very deeply about, uh, what customers want. And when, when we drew up our values for Swiggy, uh-... our first value was basically about being obsessed about the customer. The customer always comes first, and we went to very good lengths because there's a big debate at that point of time saying, "Hey, uh, for a sales manager, the customer is actually a restaurant; for an operations manager, the customer could be a delivery partner; for a ven- you know, for a marketing guy, the customer could be someone else," et cetera, et cetera.
- UHUnknown Host
Because you're a three-faced-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. Uh, and, and we were super clear that when we say customer, we meant, we meant the actual end consumer.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? W- uh, you know, we live to serve our consumers, and the only reason why we will succeed or fail is if we do right by them. That's probably, if I have to distill all our frameworks and, uh, anything into one thing, it is just that, right? Just absolutely obsessed about the consumer.
- UHUnknown Host
You, you mentioned that customer obsession is like a value.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Um, and that helps you sort of stay connected with everything. What are the other values you have? And also, I'm very curious because for a startup, the moment you sort of freeze your values is a big moment,
- 25:23 – 29:05
Creating a Winning Company Culture: Establishing Values from Day One
- UHUnknown Host
right?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
So when did that happen? What are your values, and how has it changed over time?
- PKPhani Kishan
So actually, when I, when I, when I joined from consulting, right, uh, I think there were, there were many things for me to unlearn, uh, right? And one of the... For example, one of the big things to unlearn was, um, you know, the burden of proof is incredibly high in consulting, right? You're going in advising a multi-million dollar startup or a company-
- UHUnknown Host
Right
- PKPhani Kishan
... and then you need to be sure about what you're advising, right? And in startup, it's completely opposite. Um, the other thing for me is bringing some frameworks or some, uh, ideas that I got from consulting background after having worked with some companies into a startup, and one of them was culture, was an important thing, right? So we were- we- our first set of values were drafted probably in 2015 or 2016.
- UHUnknown Host
Okay, that's quite early, right?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, yeah. Like, I think you should obsess a lot more about surviving before values. [chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
But, I, I mean, we were young kids. We didn't know what to do, and we... We, I, I would do it a different way-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... to be honest, even today. But we did actually come up with, you know, three or four values, uh, even before we were fully in the clear of having a sustainable business, if I can say that right.
- UHUnknown Host
Sure.
- PKPhani Kishan
So we were early. We've actually had, like, two versions of it. Now, we have, like, 11 values. [chuckles] We have a lot of values. And this-
- UHUnknown Host
It's going to be as 12, by the way.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. So, so we, we don't... Uh, uh, it's okay. We, we didn't, we didn't necessarily say that everything needs to be something that people can rat off on the top of their-
- UHUnknown Host
Okay
- PKPhani Kishan
... mind, right? We have simple frameworks. You know, we, we basically have what we call as who we are, um, uh, you know, how we act, and how we think. Those are the three broad-
- UHUnknown Host
Buckets
- PKPhani Kishan
... buckets that we do. So who we are is probably the most important for us, right? Um, uh, the, the who we are has been a lot more about humility, honesty, curiosity to learn. Those are things that we actually hold very dear. Uh, anyone coming into the company needs to necessarily espouse a- aspects of being humble, being honest, having high levels of integrity, being very curious, because that's probably what is going to-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... um, you know, grow you. Then we have these how we act, which is thinking consumer first, win-win, uh, that's something we added, uh, and so on and so forth. I don't want to go through all this, but-
- UHUnknown Host
Sure, sure. Let's not make it a value conversation.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
But, uh, what I understand from what you're saying is that the core, that you started this value exercise pretty early, um, so maybe inspired from your earlier, uh, stints. Um, and once it was in, customer obsession was on the top.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, it was super clear for us that, you know, on day zero, that that's what we wanted to, uh, be v- very, very... See, and, uh, you know, I'm sure everyone's seen the Netflix culture deck.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, right? Like, that's the seminal-
- UHUnknown Host
If they haven't, now they will.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, they should. They should. If you've not seen it, [chuckles] you should be seeing the Netflix culture deck because it talks about things in many ways. And one of the things they start off the whole deck with, I'm sure you remember, is basically, you know, showing a slide of, you know, uh, integrity and-
- 29:05 – 30:33
Product Development Mastery: Swiggy's Stage-Gate Procedure Explained
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. See, um, internally, we try to follow a st- it's not always the case, but we try to follow a stage-gate procedure, right? The first and foremost thing that when you're trying to do anything is, um, you know, do customers love your product? Without that, you anyway, n- everything else fails, right? So that's the first stage. Whenever we try something new, the first thing we try to do is assess if consumers are going to love the product, right? Uh, the second thing we do is then say: Is this a large enough market? At the scale and sky- size and scale at which we operate, the opportunities need to be meaningfully large for us to go after, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Sure.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, and that's what we check for the next, right? The third thing is basically saying that, "Hey, uh, you know, can we establish proof points of profitability?" And then the fourth part is scale, right? Then we start scaling the business. So that's kind of how we've stage-gated ourselves internally, saying, uh, "Prove consumer love, show that it can become large, uh, prove that it's profitable, and then you get the money to scale," right?
- UHUnknown Host
Sure.
- PKPhani Kishan
And there have been enough businesses which, um, the nature of innovation, we are sitting in CFI, is, uh, is you are more likely to fail than succeed.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Um, as someone said, "If you're, if you're not failing enough, you're not trying hard enough," like you're not pushing yourself enough in that sense. So we keep trying, we keep tinkering with a bunch of stuff. Um, if you have one in five hit rate, I think we'll take it. Like Instamart, for example, came from one of these explorations that we end up doing, right? And we have three other explorations we did which didn't necessarily pan out the way we thought,
- 30:33 – 32:13
Supr Daily Case Study: Lessons from Swiggy's Grocery Delivery Service
- PKPhani Kishan
uh, they would.
- UHUnknown Host
Of course, you were heading Supr Daily, so that, that's something that, I guess-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... didn't cross the last stage.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, yeah. I think, I think we, we, we, we had amazing customer love-... it was going to be a very large market. At one point, we were delivering to two hundred thousand households, uh, every day without investing a lot into marketing, right? Because our thesis at that point of time was, uh, you get, you get a foot into the door, um, with milk. So, so we used to deliver milk on a subscription basis every day to people's houses, and then along with your milk, you can also order bread, eggs, et cetera, et cetera, right? And, uh, you know, I would say, uh, we had that customer love, we had high retention, people love us, uh, we had pretty good scale, but we could never just get the economics to work-
- UHUnknown Host
Okay.
- PKPhani Kishan
-right, uh, at that point of time. Um, I think it was also an execution thing. Sometimes you're ahead of time. You started food delivery before-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... mobile phones were really a thing or GPS was really a thing.
- UHUnknown Host
We had a call center. [chuckles]
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, right. So, so that, you know, sometimes you're ahead of time, uh, sometimes it's also, uh, poor execution, and I don't think I did a good enough job of understanding the consumer needs as well as I should have. Uh, and then, of course, we also started seeing that the whole quick commerce wave was taking off, and then, you know-
- UHUnknown Host
You had to decide.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, and then basically, what we could capture was primarily, you know, your milk, bread, eggs sort of stuff, which was not enough basket size to make the economics work.
- UHUnknown Host
Right.
- PKPhani Kishan
And then we realized that that's not a business that we can continue scaling, and we had to, you know, sunset it into a different business-
- UHUnknown Host
Sure
- PKPhani Kishan
... uh, later. But yeah, that's the story of-
- UHUnknown Host
So broadly, try a lot of things based on what works for the customer, gauge it, see, um, at what point you want to scale?
- 32:13 – 34:32
Why Focus Beats Diversification: Startup Strategy for Maximum Impact
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. So I would say, I would, I would just caveat that a little bit, right? I, I would definitely say that, you know, being obsessed about a problem and making sure that you, you know, take it to its logical conclusion is important before you start diversifying-
- UHUnknown Host
Right
- PKPhani Kishan
... into others, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Fair enough.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, even, I mean, in hindsight, I would say it's probably a little early for us as well, but, you know, we started out in 2015, 2014, right? The first set of our, um, innovations beyond the core food delivery business happened in 2019. It was five years after, right? Till then, you know, it was super clear obsession about making sure that the food delivery business, uh, could hit a certain scale and establish itself as a force to reckon with, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Right.
- PKPhani Kishan
Only when we felt comfortable that this is something we feel is confident working, is when we started doing other things. Now, everyone's going to do their own thing. I'm no one to go and tell people how to, uh, run-
- UHUnknown Host
But as you were saying it, I'm thinking, um, you mentioned Freshworks earlier, and Freshdesk was their main product for the longest time.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
And only after they hit a particular scale, and they were very confident of it, did they start... Uh, they rebranded themselves to Freshworks and started doing other products.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
That makes a lot of sense.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, and I'm sure you'll find one example contrary to this, right? Someone who basically started out very early-
- UHUnknown Host
Everything
- PKPhani Kishan
... and did a bunch of things and still are-
- UHUnknown Host
Sure
- PKPhani Kishan
... very successful. Uh, so you can always... I, I personally, at least, believe, this is my belief that, you know, you want to be super obsessed about something, taking it to a particular size, scale, and size where it can run itself-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... in many ways, before you, as a founder, uh, should start diversifying because your time is really valuable.
- UHUnknown Host
Sure.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? I mean, uh, you bring a lot of focus. Uh, you do- I mean, I, I, we keep kept talking about this. As companies, you get, uh, you are a function of what you do, but also a function of what you choose not to do.
- UHUnknown Host
Sure.
- PKPhani Kishan
And I would definitely push for, uh, having driving great focus.
- UHUnknown Host
Fair enough, and as you're saying that, I'm also thinking Professor Ravindran, who you mentioned, who was your BT- BTech, BTP guide. Uh, by the way, students don't have to do BTP nowadays.
- PKPhani Kishan
[chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
Trade it with a credit course.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, um, I would have loved it. [chuckles]
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah. Professor Ravindran said, uh, i- in, in reinforcement learning, there's this idea of exploration versus exploitation-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... where you have to sort of decide whether you want to branch out, and at some point, you have to sort of refocus, go deeper, uh, sort of like a breadth versus depth.
- 34:32 – 36:12
Outmaneuvering Competitors: Swiggy's Innovation Playbook
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. I mean, see, on this side, basically, I would say, um, there's, there's something we keep discussing, and Harsha said it once, right? Uh, in India or world over, you're never going to be successful alone. If you're going to be successful, people will necessarily take a crack at it, right? Like, think, give me a company which doesn't have competition in the world, right? For a while, people thought, you know, OpenAI was miles above everyone else.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
And then, you know, Claude dropped, and DeepSeek dropped, and, uh-
- UHUnknown Host
Perplex.
- PKPhani Kishan
Perplex. There are just so many companies out there right now, right? You're never going to be successful alone, because you were going after a really tough problem, and if you're going, going after creating a lot of value, people will follow you.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
People will necessarily take a crack at it, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Sure.
- PKPhani Kishan
Um-
- UHUnknown Host
And the minute you've proven it, it's more incentive for others to try it.
- PKPhani Kishan
Absolutely. It's again, the Four Minute Mile-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... in, in a way, right? And, uh, the thing is, uh, you know, um, because you're talking about innovation and us, I would say that, you know, every time you're picking a fight, you're picking up with a fight with a guy who's going to, uh, not do ninety hours a week because it said somewhere, but genuinely wants to do it.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? Like, wakes up every day just dreaming about that problem statement, and you need to beat that resilience and that drive and that passion.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, right? And that's not going to be easy.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm-hmm.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, for that, you should be able to give the same amount of passion back-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... in many, many ways. Uh, and that, I think, is going to be important. Can, can you afford to actually give that much passion?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh-
- UHUnknown Host
Fair enough. So that the innovation DNA, uh, has to remain as you grow older as a company, because now there's some other young company which is trying to...
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, and you try anything new, and you're successful at it, more people will turn up, as has been the case with us, with, let's say, the, the 10-minute delivery as well, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah,
- 36:12 – 37:12
How 10-Minute Delivery Changed Consumer Behavior
- UHUnknown Host
yeah. I mean, did you, did you expect 10-minute delivery to be such a big thing?
- PKPhani Kishan
I mean, we didn't start out [chuckles] as a 10-minute delivery, right? We started out with a 45-minute delivery, to be honest.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, right? And our thesis was very simple. We said, "Hey, we built a layer of Domino's over every restaurant. Uh, can we build a layer of Swiggy over every, you know, um, grocery needs?" Right? And that's how we started with, which is about 40-minute delivery. Uh, it's actually a competition, which came and basically said... Like, globally, there's a wave of 10-minute deliveries and stuff like that. Um, and I saw a competition who came and basically said: "You know what? Actually, you can do that in India, and you can possibly do it profitably, too," right? So I give credit-... where it's due, uh, in that sense. Um, but going back to your question, no, [chuckles] I don't, I don't think any of us really, uh, thought-
- UHUnknown Host
I remember, I remember somebody asked me for... Because they were doing some market research in Bangalore, and I was one of their subjects. Uh, and there were a bunch of 10-minute delivery questions. I was like: "Why will I ever need this? Don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need."
- 37:12 – 39:49
Reading the Market: Translating Consumer Feedback into Winning Products
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, I mean-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... you were probably happy with the fast track in when you were on campus, right? Like, you would just call a cab and it'd come to your doorstep-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... right? I don't know if you woke up-
- UHUnknown Host
I don't know if it still exists, by the way.
- PKPhani Kishan
Ah, I don't know. But I don't know if you woke up basically thinking, "Oh, I wish if I just had an app to do it," right? I think people imagine... Consumers, consumers are good at explaining their problem.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
They're not great at ex- giving solutions.
- UHUnknown Host
Sure.
- PKPhani Kishan
Like, seldom, because you're limited by your imagination. It's like-
- UHUnknown Host
Fair enough. This is famous Henry Ford-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
For example, right? Like, you know, what do you want, right? People will say, "I, I, I wish I could get there faster." Uh, that is, that is the articulation that they're going to give. It's your... As the entrepreneur, it's your basically, um, it's all- the onus is on you to imagine that, "Hey, they don't mean a faster horse cart, they actually mean a car."
- UHUnknown Host
Fair enough. So the argument there is that wherever there's a leap that's required, consumers will not be able to always imagine that leap. And Henry Ford said: "If I had asked my customers, they would have asked for a faster horse carriage, and not really a car," because they didn't see it coming.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, they didn't. And, and therefore, I, I don't think when people-
- UHUnknown Host
Like-
- PKPhani Kishan
... run in a survey-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... on Twitter saying, "Hey, will you order 10-minute delivery?"
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
And people are like, "No, who wants it?" I don't think it works that way.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, right? It finally comes down to what is the problem that you're trying to solve? Is it an important problem, right? Uh, and the kind of problems that we solve are, like, very di- wide and diverse. Um, you know, uh, it's India versus South Africa, T20 World Cup final, you know, 70 runs required of 30 balls or 35 balls. Uh, you're not going to order anything if it is not going to come in 10 minutes, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
And that's an obviously a very indulgent example, but, um, you know, there's this, uh, you know, consumer I was talking to in Delhi a few... last year, actually, right? And she was talking about how she was in Jaipur, and she needed, you know, some sanitary napkins, uh, when she was watching a movie in Jaipur, and we were there-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- PKPhani Kishan
... uh, for the consumer. So and then there's this, you know, mother who's talking to me about how, um, her son has a lot of demands, you know, wants this, wants that, uh, et cetera, et cetera, right? And now she's like, "Earlier, I used to feel bad, you know, he used to give me grief, et cetera. But now I tell him two minutes, and, and it's here." So I do think that the use cases are quite diverse.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- 39:49 – 42:10
Marketing Evolution: How Swiggy Built a Household Brand
- UHUnknown Host
I think this is a nice segue. I want to, uh, segue this to innovation and marketing. Uh, and uh, because as you were saying it, I was thinking of the Juhi Chawla ad that you guys-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yes
- UHUnknown Host
... released. It was hilarious. Uh, the ad goes like, I think somebody is typing Chawla, and the delivery team has started packing Juhi Chawla.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
And it's hilarious. I, I think it's a moonshot ad, right?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Um, I guess they're known for those kind of ad. But also, the, the thing that I'm interested in is that from an innovation and marketing perspective, Swiggy was really quiet for five years-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... six years, and suddenly, like, there was a lot of activity coming out of, uh, Swiggy-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... which was nice to watch.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
In contrast to, say, an Ola or a Zomato, which were very heavily marketed right from the beginning, very heavily founder-led-
- PKPhani Kishan
Right, right
- UHUnknown Host
... uh, marketing. Uh, so I'm, I'm curious to know, what is the thought process inside? Uh, how... What flipped?
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, see, I think I would actually say that there are two different points you're making, right? Uh, one is about founder-led marketing-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... or brand, et cetera.
- UHUnknown Host
Sure.
- PKPhani Kishan
And the other one, which is where Ola and, uh, and Zomato come in. And then there's this whole brand marketing, which is-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, India start brand marketing.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, right. I actually think, um, we've probably been associated with some of the seminal campaigns, uh, even much before, right? Like the Gulab Jamun uncle-
- UHUnknown Host
Oh, yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... ad is, of course, like, quite famous.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, and people still recall it and they collect it, uh, even today, right? So I would actually say that we, we did always have, um, a draw towards good brand marketing campaigns. I don't think Harshad and I or any of us would take credit for that. It's largely the team which came up with the campaign, executed it, won plaudits, won awards, whatever be the case, right? So, uh, what I, what... I think the, the point you're of course making is, hey, the last couple of years, uh, suddenly there seems to be a breadth of-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... uh, you know, new campaigns which are making noise. Uh, it's coming- it comes down to the team, right? I think if you take really solid folks, give them the mandate, give them the playground to play with, people create magic. Uh, and we have a pretty solid team. In between, I would say, we went a lot more per oriented, like, invest-
- UHUnknown Host
Performance marketing
- PKPhani Kishan
... per-for- performance marketing oriented, as opposed to, let's say, investing as much... I wouldn't say we didn't do enough brand marketing, but there's a lot more focus on performance. Um, but I think
- 42:10 – 43:35
Brand vs. Performance Marketing: Finding the Right Balance for Growth
- PKPhani Kishan
we came back-
- UHUnknown Host
It's a tough question, right? Like, because, uh, when you meet founders, they're always thinking about, "Should I do performance marketing? Should I do brand marketing?"
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
"What is the split of money?"
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
"How much should I invest?"
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
"Should I have better people there? Should I have better people with us?"
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, I mean, you should have great people everywhere.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, of course. [chuckles]
- PKPhani Kishan
Right. [chuckles] That's what I would say.
- UHUnknown Host
If you raise a billion dollars, sure. [chuckles]
- PKPhani Kishan
No, I think... See, um, I mean, you, you're going to talk to Dan Meyer-
- UHUnknown Host
I get it
- PKPhani Kishan
... right? Like, you can talk to... I think it comes down to going and identifying great talent.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
There's a discussion on the IIM Entrepreneurs Group-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... the other day also about who do you hire for? I do think, you know, if you have the patience and the time, there is amazing talent-
- UHUnknown Host
Fair
- PKPhani Kishan
... at a good price point.
- UHUnknown Host
And I guess as a, as an entrepreneur, it's also... As a founder, it's also your responsibility to sort of make the workplace attractive-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... to really good talent.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, absolutely, right? And I think, you know, some of it is brand. Actually, people look at the, uh, early set of employees first, because people experience the service.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
And they're like, "Yeah, I want to be part of this"
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... in many ways, right? Like-... our first sales head was actually a customer, who, when we went to deliver food, said, "I wanna join you guys."
- UHUnknown Host
Really?
- 43:35 – 45:21
The Seven Powers Framework: Hamilton's Strategy Applied to Food Tech
- PKPhani Kishan
for anyone even listening here, right? He talks about what he thinks that actually distinguishes, uh, companies. What are the seven axes of differentiation? He tried to distill down to that, right? And I can quickly maybe talk about it, but, like, you know, he, he starts off by basically saying a corner to source is usually one of the key things, right? Um, uh, then, you know, you have your switching costs, you have scale effects, you have network effects, et cetera. But finally, at the end, what matters the most towards the end-
- UHUnknown Host
I know
- PKPhani Kishan
... is going to be your brand.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
And it's going to be your DNA.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? He, he calls it process power.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
For example, the best example of process power is Toyota, right? There's only one Toyota in the world.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Everyone basically knows- everyone keeps wondering-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... how do you make great quality at such a cheap price? Everyone's tried to reverse engineer it. Mo- almost everyone has failed.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
The only reason it works is there's just fundamentally DNA baked into the company. The guy on the shop floor doesn't know why he's doing what he's doing, necessarily, can't articulate it-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... but-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... the systems basically make him work in a particular way, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Fair enough.
- PKPhani Kishan
So that's one-
- UHUnknown Host
Unexplainable.
- PKPhani Kishan
Okay, and the other one is brand, right? Like, you know, at scale, you, you have to choose Nike versus Adidas, right? Now, a lot of people might choose Nike, some people will choose Adidas. I think, I think it comes down to brand, so you should-
- UHUnknown Host
So you say that, uh, in a long enough scale and at a large enough scale-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... um, the largest moats are brand and culture?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. For example, you know, there's enough cases of carbonated beverages, you know, companies talking about it as well, right? Like, where Pepsi is, for example, many times actually spoken about how, uh, in a blind test-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... you know, they taste better, right? Uh, but depending on the market, of course-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- 45:21 – 48:37
Why Founder-Led Marketing Delivers Superior Results
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, fair enough. And the other question that, uh, you correctly said, I kind of mixed them up, is about founder-led marketing.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
And Sriharsha and, um, all three of you have been fairly quiet for the longest time.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Uh, is there any reasoning behind that or, um, what is the thought process? And, and also, are you guys going to be more visible from now on?
- PKPhani Kishan
I'm here. [laughing] No, no. Um, see, we have our quarterly earnings call, so we have to be there, [chuckles] right? Uh, people keep asking us this, right? I, I would say it comes down to authenticity-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- PKPhani Kishan
... right? Uh, be authentic to who you are. Now, if you are someone who's, you know, out there, wants to be the face on the stage in many way, by all means, that is you. Y- you can't... I think what kills is being inauthentic.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? Uh, you know, and, and you know, companies, there is, there is, uh, Sundar, yeah, you know, Sundar Pichai's ways of running a company. There is an Elon Musk way of running company, and there is Satya Nadella. And all of these are, like, multi-trillion dollar businesses which are running at scale, right? So I don't think that there is a right answer or wrong answer. For us, I think it's been about who we are, authentic. Um, we would like for Swiggy, the, the company, to be the focus of basically what people speak about. Uh, and I think we're deeply uncomfortable by, uh, you know, yeah, by putting ourselves out there, uh, because it just doesn't come authentically to us, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Sure. Fair enough.
- PKPhani Kishan
And that's actually... So I don't think it's worth trying to draw, like, a thing, saying, "This is right or that is wrong," and that is right. It just comes down to who you are and what are you comfortable with. Uh, that's at least what I would say has been the right thing.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, I think in the entrepreneurs group also, we've had this conversation many times. Builders, founders who are building, uh, sometimes feel a lot of pressure from others that I have to be out there, I have to, um, I have to post more, or I have to give more interviews, I have to explain myself more.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
But what you're saying is just, just be yourself and what comes to you naturally.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, and, you know, uh, you feel it's right, you try it, it doesn't work, it's fine, right? I, I think the moment you start doing things because other people believe it's the right... If you're doing it because you believe it's the right thing to do, uh, even if it doesn't work out, it's fine, right? But you doing it because other people believe it's the right thing to do, that's when I think you'll start to kn- I mean, it's like the Abhimanyu thing, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
You know only how to get in, you don't know how to get out. For that, you need your own self-reserves-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... uh, to, to actually come through in many ways. And that's what I would actually say is, um, whe- whether it's right or wrong, make sure that you believe what you're doing, and, okay, it's okay. It doesn't work, it doesn't work after that. So for us, it's been we're comfortable in the way we operate, uh, right? We believe that we build a strong enough brand that attracts good talent. Sometimes people actually have to do that as well, right? Like, you wanna attract a lot more talent-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... uh, you need to put yourself out there. Great. Uh, for example, some investors really like, um, the face being very clear, uh, as well, and I totally respect that. So I'm not here to say this is right or that is right.
- 48:37 – 55:21
First Principles Thinking: Breaking Down Problems the Swiggy Way
- PKPhani Kishan
Do what we think is right.
- UHUnknown Host
Sure. That's amazing. I, I want to, uh, bring this conversation on innovation to this, um, very interesting thing that, over the podcast, we have spoken to many people about, um, this idea of first principles thinking.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Uh, especially because I guess founders or builders get it because many of the things they're doing, they're doing it for the first time.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
But also the world is doing it for the first time.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
So it's not like you can check Google, saying: How do I do this?
- PKPhani Kishan
You can now ask ChatGPT [laughing] for whole bunch of stuff, or even Google, right? Uh, yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
... um, how do you think about first principles thinking, and how does that, uh, sort of come into the innovation practice at Swiggy?
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
In fact, let me start this way: to someone who is a first principles thinker, it's really obvious what it means. To someone who's not, it's really hard to explain what it is.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right.
- UHUnknown Host
So if somebody comes and asks me, "How do I become a first principles thinker?"
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
I have zero answer, because I, I don't know. So how would you answer that question?
- PKPhani Kishan
See, I think, um, Musk has spoke-- Elon, Elon Musk has spoken about it a fair bit, right? He's speak- spoken about how... He talks about the idiot index and stuff like that. You should read about it. But fun- fundamentally, for me, I would say it's just about breaking down a problem statement to its individual constituents, right? It's like basically saying, "Hey, for profits to increase, revenue needs to go up and cost needs to come down," right? Okay, for revenue to increase, you launch new service lines, you go into new geographies, right? Like, it's basically just about breaking down a p- problem statement into, quote, unquote, "a decision tree of sorts," which basically explains how you will address the problem, right? Uh, and this is something which I would actually give a lot of credit, uh, to, you know, any consulting firm. Like, BCG was a incredible influence on me because you are basically trying to operate in industries that you, as a twenty-one year old, have, have never like-
- UHUnknown Host
Sure
- PKPhani Kishan
... even thought about.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? It could be an IT services client, it could be a bank, it could be anyone else. But the only way in which you can actually add value is by breaking a problem down and saying: "Okay, to solve this problem, what are the three, four things which are most important?" Like mutually exclusive, completely exhaustive. MECE as the framework, for example, goes.
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
You kind of break down every problem into mutually exclusive, uh, areas, and then which are completely exhaustive in nature as well, and then you get started with that. And that's historically why, for example, I, I took the example of Musk, right? Which is basically saying: "Hey, when SpaceX had to come, of course, there was traditional information about how much rockets were supposed to cost. Can they be reusable?" He will just say: "Hey, if you could make them reusable..." I'm trivializing, of course, but if I c- if I can make them reusable, then, you know, the costs of basically operating this goes down in a dramatic way. That's... And, you know, breaking it out into constituent parts, mutually exclusive, completely exhaustive, questioning why that is the case. And I was giving the example of, you know, Elon Musk's SpaceX, which what I understand, right? Where the big cost of operation was, you know, like you, you had spaceships not being used again, that does increase the cost of operations in a big way. And the simple first principle question there was, why can't we just reuse them, right? Why does something have to cost? And we've proven it. For example, India has proven it by saying, "Hey, why does it have to take, uh, a billion dollars to launch a satellite, uh, to Mars, uh, right? Or a rover to Mars." And DeepSeek has probably done it by basically saying: "Why does it take ten billion dollars to train a model," right? So this is, this is just first principle questioning at its basest form, where people are coming-
- UHUnknown Host
Don't accept assumptions, question everything, break it down into mutually exclusive, uh-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... complete-
- PKPhani Kishan
Completely exhaustive.
- UHUnknown Host
Mutually exclusive, completely exhaustive sets. Three things.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, and then you start asking, right? Why? Uh, I mean, there's also the five why principle, right? Like you, you keep asking why, why, why till then you get to the actual answer as to why-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- 55:21 – 57:48
Beyond Business: Swiggy's Societal Impact and Responsibility
- UHUnknown Host
too. Um, want to quickly move to impact. Uh, uh, Swiggy has been a deeply impactful company. Lots of things have changed-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... because of Swiggy. I want to ask you, what do you consider as the most satisfying in terms of impact?
- PKPhani Kishan
See, I think there are two axes that we look at. One is just plain hard numbers, uh, right? And, uh, the other day I was, I was having a chat with Harsha, and the scale at which we operate, I would say, you know, at least a quarter of Bangalore would be ordering from us every month-
- UHUnknown Host
Okay
- PKPhani Kishan
... if not more. Uh, a city like Bangalore or Gurgaon, et cetera, right? Uh, for me, [chuckles] I don't think we really imagined that, uh, to happen, right? Growing up, you, you grow up on iconic brands, right? Like, I don't know, it could be a Cadbury, it could be Britannia, it could be Coke, it could be Pepsi, it could be any of these guys. Um, to basically see us being a part of the daily lives of millions of consumers is probably something that, yeah, I don't think we really expected-
- UHUnknown Host
Mm
- PKPhani Kishan
... or planned for, but that gives an incredible amount of joy-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... uh, to us. Um, the other one, to be honest, is a little bit more emotional. Well, this is, is number backed emotion, is a little bit more emotional, where, you know, when you do talk to that mother of a child who basically says, "I thank you very much, because it's 12 o'clock in the night, my kid had a cold, uh, I needed a thermometer, uh, and you guys were there, uh, for me." Uh, right? Uh, or you know, a student basically late night, needed some, you know, fancy dress competition or some project work that he had the next day, and we turn up on time for them. Those, I think, are... You know, it's about the joy that you- every festival season, um, we keep talking about internally, uh, is a very busy time for us. It's a time when, you know, uh, we are away from our families-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... you know, to make other people celebrate the festival with their families.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? Uh, so every time that happens, when we see millions of people just use us, some of them who basically praise us for what we do, that gives a different high, because it makes the effort worth it, uh, in many ways, right? At the end of the day, you want to do something that makes a difference to people's lives. And, yeah, sure, we're not putting rockets in space, but we are helping you have fun on the Diwali and helping
- 57:48 – 58:51
Customer Recognition: Why Users Love the Swiggy Experience
- PKPhani Kishan
you.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah. I will come back to that comment, but, uh, I just want to reflect on this a bit more. I know you mentioned it already, uh, but what are some of the praise that you've received that's totally surprised you?
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, I told you, right? Like, I think the one, you know, with that, uh, woman in, in Jaipur.
- UHUnknown Host
Right.
- PKPhani Kishan
I was like, okay. I didn't, didn't really, uh-
- UHUnknown Host
Didn't see that coming.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. And so, for example, there was this restaurant partner that we, you know, had in, uh, Dehradun, who survived the pandemic, uh, because Swiggy was still delivering. Otherwise, her business would have just shut down, and she's spoken about it, right? Uh, there is, uh, you know, this delivery partner who started out as a delivery partner, you know, just recently exited us as a product operations, uh, executive who's doing, doing a bunch of stuff for us, right? So when, when these people walk up and say, "Hey, you know, there's a..." It hits different.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right? It- Yes, there is a different hit because you're hitting a particular scale and size, but it hits entirely different when you know that you've had some small impact on people's lives.
- 58:51 – 1:05:04
Handling Criticism: How Swiggy Turns Feedback into Improvement
- UHUnknown Host
In the same vein, there's a lot of criticism also, right? Um, and some of it is very predictable, you know-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... daily lives of delivery boys or plastic use-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... stuff like that. How do you deal with that? Like, is it, is it overwhelming sometimes?
- PKPhani Kishan
It'll be overwhelming if you can get it-- if it, if it gets to you, right? But see, um, especially as an entrepreneur, you've definitely seen that there are enough highs and lows, right? Uh, it comes down to what day of the week it is and what hour [chuckles] of the day it is, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Mm-hmm.
- PKPhani Kishan
Uh, you have to let the highs basically get you, get you through the lows in many ways. So there are always these ups and downs. Uh, I think there's been fair criticism, there's been unfair criticism, many, many kinds and, and shapes are formed. But fundamentally, if you look at it, right, we are probably... And Rohit, who's one of our CEOs of food delivery business-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... spoke about, we are probably today the fastest to employment generation for any person, right? Like, if you land up in Bombay, within 30 minutes, you can start working with Swiggy. And we have a, a base of what? 400,000, 500,000 delivery partners who are working with us, 300,000 restaurant partners who are working with us. If you look at the impact that we have in terms of, um, employment, directly and indirectly, it will run into millions of people, right? And, um, so yes, uh, can we do better? Of course, we always try to find ways to do better, but some of this ends up being a little unfair, like, you know, literally two week- two days back, I was at a friend's... There was a friend visiting my house. He's also IIM Madras. Uh, his wife was there, and she was asking, saying: "Hey, does the tip really go to the delivery partner?"
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
And we're like: "Hey, of course. Like, where else will the tip go to?" There's unfair criticism which comes from time to time, which is around saying: "Hey, if you charge money for some purpose," and say, "Hey, there's a platform fee," people are like: "Why are you charging a platform fee?" Et cetera. And then possibly the same person two days later is going to say: "Hey, uh, what are these loss-making startups? Do they know how to build a business right?"
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
So [chuckles] I mean, it's okay. I think all is fair. Uh, we're building a business. If you don't have thick enough a skin, you can't build a business anyway.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
So I would say-
- UHUnknown Host
Definitely not of this scale.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah, not... I, I would say it's okay. I, I don't think we are anyone to go and tell people what they should criticize on and what they should not criticize us on. Uh, I- what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. It's important that we continue to learn from people. Um-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah
- PKPhani Kishan
... and uh, today, for example-... Fairworks, I'm not sure of the name of the company, which, uh, which publishes, uh, treatment of frontline workforce, right? Puts us at number one. Uh, and that's also happened because we've taken a lot of effort and energy over the last many years to make sure that we do a good job. Can we do five things better? One hundred percent, and we are all ears to, um, figure out what that could be.
- UHUnknown Host
That's cool. Um, I want to come back to a quote that you made, uh, which said: "Oh, sure, we are not launching rockets." And, uh, I remember this, uh, maybe about ten years back, there was a ex-Facebook engineer, really smart guy, went on to found other companies. He made this comment saying: "The best minds of my generation are only thinking about how to make people click more ads." It was, like, all over the internet at that time.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
I'm sure there's somebody thinking, "Oh, the best minds of my generation are only thinking about how to get people to order food faster."
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
Does, does that-- does that criticism even make sense?
- PKPhani Kishan
No, I don't think so. I mean, sure, you can always find, uh, nice quotes to... [chuckles] I'm not sure. I'll tell you what, right? Like, uh, the best minds in our generation are getting people to basically click ads, for what?
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
Who are running these ads?
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah, makes sense.
- PKPhani Kishan
Right?
- 1:05:04 – 1:08:13
Essential Advice for College Students and Aspiring Entrepreneurs
- UHUnknown Host
Fair enough. Uh, in fact, I'm just thinking about it also. When we meet... In Ask IITM, we meet a lot of parents and students who are in the, in that decision-making phase of their life, of what, what course to take-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... what career to choose, and all that.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
And, um, there's a, there's a common path. By the way, your, your first path, which is the, the, the JEE, uh, CS, uh, IIM-
- PKPhani Kishan
Mm. Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... McKinsey, Bain route.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
MBB route, um, that is a heavily coveted path. Uh, but you have sort of almost moved away from that-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... to a business which is supremely operations-heavy. Um, it's an interesting choice. How would you advise people who are just entering college, um, and are super hyper-focused about, "I want a coding job, I want this job, that job," or, um-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah.
- UHUnknown Host
How should they look at this?
- PKPhani Kishan
Mm. See, I'll give you an analogy that I keep talking, right? We have a bunch of these young folks in Swiggy, uh, who, uh, you know, come for advising, career advice, right? Like, "What do I do? What do I do next?" Right? And, uh, I, I just have asked them very simple questions, saying, "Okay, how long have you worked for?" And, "How long are you likely to work for?" Right? Usually, this is, like, I don't know, some twenty-eight-year-old, twenty-nine-year-old, worked for six years, probably is going to work for another thirty years in their lives, right?
- UHUnknown Host
Mm.
- PKPhani Kishan
And that kind of sets the perspective.
- UHUnknown Host
Right. It's too early.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. I mean, it's okay if you're going to, you know, take a year off, right? It's, it's a lot more difficult when you're fifty, you have to do it for sure, right? Um, and therefore, the question, you know, to... It's easy for me to say it, but I would, I would say there's, there's only-- Your job is to probably take the best decision you think with the information that you have available, right? What you can do, what is under your control, is to get as much information as you can. That's the only thing you can do, right? Everything else, you know, you could be preparing for, uh, I don't know, a particular b- branch, computer science right now. And I think there was a video I saw the other day, where the VP engineering of OpenAI came down to IIT Madras, and a student asked a question, saying: "Hey, what do you think about jobs for us?" Right? The world is going to change. You can predict maybe at best what's going to happen one year later, and you'll still probably be wrong, right? So you- your job is to make sure you make the best decision with the information that you have, and try to get as much information. Now, is branch A better than branch B, and is branch B better than branch C? I have friends who have nothing from IIT Madras, who didn't code a single line because they didn't belong to CS, who are, like, incredibly successful at coding right now. Finally, motivated people, passionate people, driven people, will find a way to... I don't know h- how you thought about start. Did you ever imagine launching CoreWise when you were in IIT Madras?
- UHUnknown Host
I think I was very reckless-
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah
- UHUnknown Host
... with my decision-making, and I only wanted to build, and I didn't plan anything. Just-
- PKPhani Kishan
Which is true of most of us.
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
It is true of most of us, right? Uh, at some point, you'll find a calling which you believe-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah.
- PKPhani Kishan
And then you, you need to find, you know, hopefully, um-
- UHUnknown Host
Yeah,
- 1:08:13 – 1:09:04
Final Insights: Key Takeaways from a Food Tech Pioneer
- UHUnknown Host
builders will build. Can't stop them. Okay, that's a great point to stop this conversation. Thank you so much for coming. Um, lots to learn, and I have taken- I've actually taken notes, so maybe I'll share the notes, uh, on the podcast.
- PKPhani Kishan
Yeah. No, thanks a lot for having me here. It's, uh, a privilege and an honor I never imagined. I never entered CFI when [chuckles] I was in campus.
- UHUnknown Host
It was not this big. [chuckles]
- PKPhani Kishan
I never entered CFI when I was campus, so, uh, it's, uh, super... Been a big, big privilege to be back on campus after so long. Uh, hope people have found it a little bit interesting. [upbeat music]
Episode duration: 1:09:04
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