Best Place To BuildRaw and Real: Tarun Mehta on his IIT Madras days, NOT doing MBA & founding Ather Energy | BP2B S2E18
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
75 min read · 14,768 words- 0:00 – 1:46
Intro
- TMTarun Mehta
I applied for Harvard Business School. I got selected for an in-person interview. My parents, uh, paid for my flying. Did an absolutely pathetic, disastrous interview.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, no!
- TMTarun Mehta
I was really not ready for, uh, an interview. I didn't know what to do now. I thought I was a damn good student. McKinsey to le hi lega.
- SPSpeaker
[laughing]
- TMTarun Mehta
ITC to matlab, theek hai, I'll say yes to ITC, worst case.
- SPSpeaker
McKinsey and ITC are day one jobs.
- TMTarun Mehta
Interview nahi laga? Theek hai. You don't need a company behind you to, to create value. You don't need, like, an army of people and a full organization to necessarily create value.
- SPSpeaker
And you don't need a license. You don't need permission from anyone.
- TMTarun Mehta
And I think genuinely good ideas that you are really passionate about only come when you are either desperate, and that's the only way out-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... or you are completely bored, and you can do anything, but you decide to do that. [upbeat music]
- SPSpeaker
Hello, and welcome to the Best Place To Build Podcast. Today, we are sitting at the Ather Energy office. I'm sitting with Tarun, uh, the CEO and co-founder. Hi, welcome.
- TMTarun Mehta
Hey, hi.
- SPSpeaker
You are now, uh, one of the top three EV companies in India. Congratulations. You had a very good IPO last year.
- TMTarun Mehta
Thanks.
- SPSpeaker
Uh, and from the entire community at IIT Madras, very proud of you, and you are an inspiration to all of us.
- TMTarun Mehta
Thank you. Nice to hear that.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, and, and, uh, your story, um, is very rich. There are lots of plot points in your story, and I want to sort of start from the beginning.
- TMTarun Mehta
Sure.
- SPSpeaker
Um, you grew up in Ahmedabad, and you've said in your interviews that you heard of IIT really late-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... and you were a gaming guy, uh, in your schooling, schooling years, right?
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So can we start from there?
- TMTarun Mehta
Harsh,
- 1:46 – 7:57
From Gaming Guy to IITM
- TMTarun Mehta
I-- gaming guy is a... I, I think the modern definition of a gaming person is very different. I was just somebody who was not, uh, good with, uh, physical sports. I didn't bother much with it. I was too lazy. And I think, um, so Dad had a computer business, so there were always computers at home, and many of them were pretty damn good ones in the early years. I just got hooked on to playing games. Uh, and luckily, they were mostly not first-person shooter games, so they were not just like, you know, a way to sort of pass time. Uh, the earliest game that I got hooked onto was, uh, AoE 1. Uh-
- SPSpeaker
Age of Empires.
- TMTarun Mehta
Age of Empires ka bhi woh pehla Rome wala version. Uh, what-- I forget what is it called now, Battle of Rome, Conquest of Rome, something like that. Not the AoE II that became really famous.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
I actually got hooked onto the demo version of AoE 1 very many, many, many years early.
- SPSpeaker
Is this the period where we used to get these free games on CDs and-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yes, exactly
- SPSpeaker
... magazines?
- TMTarun Mehta
Exactly that, exactly that. Magazine mein toh nahi par kahin pe koi CD mein demo version tha, woh mujhe mil gaya tha. Uh, and I got hooked onto it, and this is... I'm talking about, like, class five, six level, uh, which might sound outrageous to many people now, that kids were allowed to sit on a computer and play games then. I was. Uh, so that, then Claw, then, uh, NFS, um, and then I found a bunch of friends. All of us were lazy enough, and all of us just wanted to basically play these games. So we just kept getting hooked more and more. Eventually, AoE, AoE II came around, Age of Empires II, which is the legendary version.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, and I got very, very, very hooked onto that. Uh, then many other things.
- SPSpeaker
It's, it's interesting, these are all strategy games.
- TMTarun Mehta
Ha, so basically, stuff that, uh, would involve you more rather than just... Like, I, I think a lot of first-person shooter games are like, uh, kind of like watching a movie. Uh, so you can just sort of, you know, relax, chill, and do stuff. A little better than that, maybe. But a lot of the strategy games kind of, you know, suck you in.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, they're, they're much nicer, I feel. So FPS bhi tha thoda, but yeah, a lot of these strategy games. Uh-
- SPSpeaker
And-
- TMTarun Mehta
... SimCity, Rollercoaster, uh, The Sims. Uh, not too much strategy in The Sims, but sure. [laughing] Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Not Civilization?
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah, nahi, maine kabhi Civilization nahi khela. Main Empire Earth tak gaya tha, but Civilization nahi khela tha.
- SPSpeaker
And your parents never came and said, "Kyu khel rahe ho? Go to coaching"?
- TMTarun Mehta
Oh, no, we never had coaching. Uh, I, I didn't go to tuitions until, like, 11th, 12th, I think. Uh, so... And I didn't go to any other class. I am a... I was rather a big believer in doing nothing except the bare minimum required in school, and then just chilling out all the time. So I read a shit, re- read a shit ton of comics and, uh, a lot of comics, and, um, uh, played a lot of computer games. That's it.
- SPSpeaker
What comics?
- TMTarun Mehta
Kuch bhi milta tha. Papa had a big collection of, uh, Phantoms, Mandrakes, Indrajal Comics from the 1970s. He had, like, a massive chunk of those-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... so that got me hooked in.
- SPSpeaker
This image of you playing Age of Empires, Sims, Indrajal, whatever-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... doesn't sit well with a student who's preparing for JEE coaching. And how did it... Were you naturally a good student?
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, yeah, as a decent student, I think, uh, rank, rank toh theek hi tha, marks theek hi the. Uh, but I was not certainly a "Oh, I'll kill myself for this" kind of a student, so-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- 7:57 – 12:32
Moving to Chennai
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, you know, our families often will know people almost anywhere in the country.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
So there were a few folks that I knew. Uh, so I could go to them once in a, once in a few months, you know? Uh, but I think I took to Chennai very comfortably. I, I loved the food, I loved the, I loved the, I loved the culture. Uh, and because of IIT Madras, the campus-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... 600 acres of pristine forest. [chuckles]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
I think I also loved the weather, weirdly. Uh, so that was frankly... I, I wasn't homesick. I was not like, you know-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... pining away for parathas or like, you know, puria, or like North Indian diet or-
- SPSpeaker
Dosa
- TMTarun Mehta
... you know, like, uh, has a good Nita.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
I absolutely loved everything about Chennai.
- SPSpeaker
Nice. That's damn cool. I have this memory, um, I think when you were in your first year, 2007, '8-
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh
- SPSpeaker
... I was in my final year. So I have this memory of-
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh-huh
- SPSpeaker
... an email that you have written-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... and I CC'd in it. Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh.
- SPSpeaker
Where you're talking about a project that you want to do.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I think it was a classroom project, something classroom 3D, 30 project. I don't remember what it was. I don't know if you actually did the project, but you pitched for a project.
- TMTarun Mehta
What project?
- SPSpeaker
Uh, for a Spirit of Engineering project. Uh, and-
- TMTarun Mehta
Oh, Spirit of Engineering! This thing was... What was Spirit of Engineering?
- SPSpeaker
It was a set of e- basically, I think at some point, the dean of students said, "We'll make some money available if students want to build projects on their own." And, uh-
- TMTarun Mehta
Was this a fountain thingy?
- SPSpeaker
I have zero idea. [chuckles] It's so long back.
- 12:32 – 17:52
Stanford Trip and the idea of Entrepreneurship
- TMTarun Mehta
time.
- SPSpeaker
In, in-- as part of CTides and as part of your responsibility, you also went to Stanford for a-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... conference, right?
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
For an entrepreneurship conference.
- TMTarun Mehta
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Was that a change?
- TMTarun Mehta
That was a massive change. I think if you take the Stanford one week out of my life, uh, chances are super high I never get excited about ideas in general, because... Okay, so this is the real missing part in that era in IIT Madras-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... or any college in India. I don't think g- given our backgrounds, uh, most of us didn't even understand what really entrepreneurship means.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
And it was also like a cultural gap, because you hadn't seen entrepreneurs.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
Like-
- SPSpeaker
Is Sachin Bansal was just starting?
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah, "... You don't know the InMobis and the Flipkarts of the world in２００７,２０１８, but they hadn't even started in２００７,２００８. Maybe they had.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, maybe-
- TMTarun Mehta
Just started.
- SPSpeaker
'０９. Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah, but they hadn't become idols for you, and, and social media wasn't that what it is today. So your idea of entrepreneurship is really, really wrong, I would say. Uh, risk-taking, risk taking, ..., I think for you to take a risk as an entrepreneur, you need to get excited. You need to get kicked about something, right? And for that, you first need to believe that you can build something.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
I think that was a missing aspect. I, I think for a lot of people today on campus, that would not probably be a challenge.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
They can believe that it is possible. There's enough, enough stories that have been sold. But for us then, [chuckles] but for us then, that was not the part. And I think for me, Stanford was that sudden vacuum-filling element-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... little thing that happened in life. Um, so pre-- Uh, in fact, I remember, the only reason I wanted to go to Stanford is to get my passport first time in my life, go outside India, have a lot of time, uh, have a lot of fun, uh, in US, right? Like a paid vacation and practically, why not, right?
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Um, I felt of most people there, I was probably the most impacted by what was happening on campus, because it just blew my mind that, uh, you could just start up.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- 17:52 – 22:33
The beginning of Ather Energy
- TMTarun Mehta
Yes, yes, yes. It was his name. He, he had this name fully thought through. Uh, so his idea was we should work in energy, and I think we spent the next couple of years coming up with some fundamental clarity about why are we seeing energy and why we like the energy space, and why it's so fundamental to mankind. Uh, so we drank a lot of our Kool-Aid. We, we, we, we, we drank a lot of our Kool-Aid. We came up with a lot of, uh-... a lot of vision, lot of names, lot of, lot of beliefs in this space together. Uh, so he wanted to, he, he wanted to-- he even he didn't know that this has to be a company. I think I had a basic idea because of the Stanford experience, but he had this name, Ather Energy, in mind. I was like: "That's a great name. We sh- we sh-- That, that's our company." Uh, so small pieces connecting.
- SPSpeaker
So at the time, you were just two of you-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... and you were just playing around with projects. And d- do you want to just spend, like, one minute telling us what is the Stirling engine project?
- TMTarun Mehta
So actually, we're not playing around with projects, we're playing around with one idea-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... specifically. Uh, and I think our lives have been that, uh, that, that, that we've-- we're really throwing a lot of billion ideas and, you know, seeing what sticks. We generally catch on to one, go very deep, and just end up dedicating many years to that. So Swapnil had already by that point, gotten very excited about Stirling engine. I s- I started spending time with him, and I fell in love, too, because it seemed to have a lot of potential. Very simply put, um, there's internal combustion engines.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, this is internal-
- TMTarun Mehta
Stirlings are external combustion engines, which means there is no combustion happening internally in the s- in the piston.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, so you heat it up from outside, and that heating kind of expands one side of the piston.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
It starts moving, but as it moves, the piston is a bit, um... the piston is actually porous, so air kind of goes through it. Uh, so it compresses, air goes through it, and then it goes the other way, and then just keeps doing this, and the energy is provided by the heating from outside.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
What this opens up the door is, since there's no explosion happening, the temperature could be even very low. Like, you have these small Stirling engines that you can just put on the palm of your hand, and they'll-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TMTarun Mehta
... start moving because of the heat of your hand. Um, and the efficiency are very high. They can, in theory, hit Carnot cycle efficiencies. Uh, so you can generally get to like sixty, seventy, sixty to five percent. Um, and they can work on any heat source.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
So they can work on burning farm waste below them. They can burn-- they can work on solar, Fresnel lenses, uh, concentrated, uh, solar, uh, directly. Uh, they can work on burning petrol. They can burn anyway.
- SPSpeaker
It's been like fifteen, twenty years since this project, and you still remember it clearly. [chuckles]
- TMTarun Mehta
We spent a lot of years on it.
- SPSpeaker
[laughing]
- TMTarun Mehta
We spent a lot of years on it.
- SPSpeaker
Okay-
- TMTarun Mehta
So we started calling ourselves Ather. Um, like Stirling engine ..., that's our first step. Uh, we, we started socializing the idea with a few people who were interested, and, uh, our game, game plan was meet every week in the library. Uh, open library, if you remember, third floor, ..., meeting room, you can just sit together and read.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, so we'd meet there, uh, with the idea of pouring deeply on a couple of books we had found on Stirling engine, going deep on the idea. Um, and we kept trying to attract people to work with us.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Eventually, nobody stuck. Everybody joined for a few months or maybe a year or so and moved on.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- 22:33 – 28:29
Final Year Placements and Dream Job
- TMTarun Mehta
see, you can't change the base expectation completely. I think Stanford for me was a, was a massive change because I woke up to the idea that, oh, you can just create value. But honestly, I hadn't connected that creating value to economical wellbeing properly yet.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
And the path was also not very clear, key. You can create value, and you can start up, and you start up, then you, whatever, make money, right? That, that, that bridge was still missing. As a middle-class student, your big reason, your big upside of joining IIT is up finally-
- SPSpeaker
...
- TMTarun Mehta
... ..., salary, job...
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
I remember that being a big reason to join IIT.
- SPSpeaker
Number change, okay, but-
- TMTarun Mehta
A number, okay. 2007, it was six, seven lakhs. Maybe by the time we are graduating, it was like ten, 11 lakhs. Maybe today it's higher. That's fine, but not a two, three lakh job, but a six, seven, or ten, twelve, whatever.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Some, some good job. So, um-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TMTarun Mehta
... your seniors play a big role.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
Your seniors play a big role, and every, every senior who was doing financially well-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... seemed to have-
- SPSpeaker
Gone down into consulting.
- TMTarun Mehta
Or gone to master's in US.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah, both options. Um, so maybe case me, master's, I was a little unsure, ki I can clearly see a path from master's to economical wellbeing.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, so I was not very sure of that. But MBA kind of seemed sensible.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
As the head of the entrepreneurship cell-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TMTarun Mehta
... I was putting up these blazers and, you know, organizing all these-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... business case studies. I should get an MBA degree.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- 28:29 – 34:39
Engineering Jobs and first EV
- TMTarun Mehta
yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. To IIT-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... to be in your lab.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah, so the build-up of that is, uh, in our final year, we were filing a lot of patents. Uh, we had cracked how to file patents, so we had filed, like, six, seven patents in our final year. Uh, and one of those patents was on swappable battery packs. Now, we just... I just told you the context. We hadn't found our dream jobs yet.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- TMTarun Mehta
We hadn't figured out how to start up on Stirling engines yet. And the jobs that we had gotten started on, uh, particularly on my side, had a lot of time. So I was trying to figure out, what can I do with battery packs? Still, koi, koi scope hai.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- TMTarun Mehta
So I was reading up like crazy on battery packs in electric vehicles. Um, and eventually I figured, while I'm reading a lot, might as well use my weekends, uh, and do something. So I bought the cheapest EV I could, which was an electric scooter.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- TMTarun Mehta
And I figured I'll start using it. I'll figure out what's... You know, like, the best way to figure this out is to use the product and be a customer. So, uh-
- SPSpeaker
C- can I just say something here?
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
This idea of free time-
- TMTarun Mehta
Huh?
- SPSpeaker
... and I've, I've heard you say this, uh, differently-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... in different forums. We have also spoken about it. When you have a lot of free time in your hand- [chuckles]
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... there are multiple things you can do, right?
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
And then at some point in your time, you were over-invested all your free time in games, and then-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yes
- SPSpeaker
... in college, you were doing all these POR and Stirling engine projects-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... and you're just getting your hands dirty. And now you're in your job, you have a lot of free time, and you are researching on something new.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yes.
- SPSpeaker
So I admire that. And, uh, didn't you feel like, just like: "I have a lot of free time, let me chill, let me travel, let me watch TV?"
- TMTarun Mehta
Um, I, I did that, too. I think five years of IIT was that, right? Like, let's be honest, itna stressful nahi tha IIT ka time.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- 34:39 – 40:59
Building the first battery swap vehicle
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah, so six months in, it seemed-
- SPSpeaker
Six months in, this, this is, uh, 2000-
- TMTarun Mehta
... 2012, Feb.
- SPSpeaker
2012?
- TMTarun Mehta
2013, Feb, sorry. August 2012, I joined your job. 2013, Feb tech, uh, I was getting pretty excited about this idea. So I had been talking to Swapnil, who was in Bangalore. I was going and meeting him a few times. Um, and I was trying to convince him that I think both of us should leave our jobs soon, and even if you don't leave your jobs, you should basically start working on this battery pack thing. I have a setting in campus, uh, with the professors.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. [chuckles]
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, they are all nice, and they're willing to host us.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
So, so I can continue doing this. You should also figure out how to move to Chennai, to Bangalore, Matra, okay? And, uh, February, suddenly he calls me and says: "Hey, I've been thinking about it last, so I resigned. Uh-
- SPSpeaker
[chuckles]
- TMTarun Mehta
... they're letting me go next week. Uh, so I'm sending my stuff over to Chennai. Where do you want me to send? I'm moving." Like, "Brother, I haven't resigned yet."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so you-
- TMTarun Mehta
So you're resigning?
- SPSpeaker
[stutters] Swapnil speaks quite fast, right?
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So it's like, when you're saying it, I can imagine him-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... saying it like, "Well, I've done it."
- TMTarun Mehta
Ha!
- SPSpeaker
"Now I'm coming."
- TMTarun Mehta
Done. Yes, 100%. I'm like: "Holy shit, he is coming back already." Um, so then... A- and just at the same time, I, uh, get, uh, the confirmation letter at Ashok Leyland, "Your probation ends. Sign this, you will become a permanent employee."
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
I feel really bad. I panic. So I rush back to campus. Swapnil had already moved to Chennai-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... literally within a few days. He'd already moved to Chennai. He spoke with another professor, Professor RKK, and he joined as a project associate. He moved, got a hostel room immediately. Okay. Um, I hadn't resigned.
- SPSpeaker
He's a man of action.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah, truly. So it took me a week. I got this, I got this pivotal moment, this letter. So I ran back, I came to professor, and I was like: "I also want to resign. Uh, but now, that means we are going to be doing this full time. Can you guys support us?" I think they said yes, so I resigned the next day. Took me a few weeks, I was out.... and now both of us are sitting in that lab, and that is us, and we started building.
- SPSpeaker
So, kya hua? Matlab, woh middle class background, you said, uh-
- TMTarun Mehta
I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Yes, you're right. Uh, sounds like a missing piece. It isn't, until you realize that the jobs we were in were not really glamorous jobs.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- 40:59 – 45:00
Pivoting from battery swap to EV
- TMTarun Mehta
that's it. And that's also honestly an architectural pivot.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- TMTarun Mehta
It's not a... Okay, you could say maybe a partly business model pivot.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- TMTarun Mehta
But even early days, maybe we were pretty sure that we want to build a vehicle. So it was vehicle plus swapping. Uh, we dropped swapping. So you could say that's a pivot, but that's only one pivot. That's the only one pivot. You will literally download the first, uh... you read the first pitch deck we have, and what Ather is today, it'll, it'll not be different.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh.
- SPSpeaker
It's amazing.
- TMTarun Mehta
We also-
- SPSpeaker
But it took, took you a long time to actually realize that dream, right?
- TMTarun Mehta
Hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Like, I think your b- uh, your, um, bike was, uh, first showed to public in 2017? Uh-
- TMTarun Mehta
'16.
- SPSpeaker
'16.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
And, and went on sale in-
- TMTarun Mehta
'18.
- SPSpeaker
'18. But you started working on it in '12.
- TMTarun Mehta
'12 is wrong.
- SPSpeaker
Maybe '13.
- TMTarun Mehta
I would say practically, mid '14.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- TMTarun Mehta
See, 2013, uh, we're just reading up about batteries.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
We haven't started up Ather.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
We start up Ather-- we registered the company formally in October 2013.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
And we are still thinking we are gonna be building battery packs.
- SPSpeaker
Uh.
- 45:00 – 48:46
The research and tech DNA in Ather
- TMTarun Mehta
See, f- as founders, we definitely do, and I think, uh, I, I would definitely encourage it. I do encourage it. Uh, Swapnil encourages it a lot, so I think it's there. Uh, see, the, the easiest thing is, you, you just force people to think very hard, have a lot of conviction before doing something. I think that just, that smart people, I just mean they will-- they would've read enough, they would have done enough homework.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
To honey, yeah, both kita. So to us, it was so obvious that battery prices will crash so much more. They're not going to be $300 a kilowatt hour because the material cost is so low. Look at the commodity prices. That price, when scaled up, is only so much. Why is the price so much here? It's here because economics of scale here-
- SPSpeaker
Scale hasn't hit.
- TMTarun Mehta
Well, the aiga he, because the scale required, Tesla is placing those orders today. How are we worried that we're scaling our Tesla? Okay, now scale create Kara kharid lo chup chap. Uh, on the business side, it made so much sense. Like, people are like: "Oh, wow, such a bad business, not gonna make sense." But I'm like, "But the unit economics is, like, 20, 25% gross margin." In that industry, like, industry jada chahi hai, but unki industry mein like, only Porsche can hope to make 25% gross margin. I'm like, "EV's already making that." The unit economics completely adds up. This makes complete sense.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
So for us, it, it didn't seem like, "Wow, what a crazy leap. We don't know how it's gonna work out." Like, obviously, it's gonna work out.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
Obviously, the costs will drop. Obviously, the unit economics will work.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. And I, I, yeah, you know, as you're saying this, I'm just thinking that, uh, in the period where you were starting with 2015, '16, '17, '18, '19-
- TMTarun Mehta
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... before your, you had so many experience centres, you were also hosting a lot of these, uh-
- TMTarun Mehta
Open houses
- SPSpeaker
... open houses.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Which-- where you, where a lot of people in Bangalore would just turn up, listen to you guys talk about these things. And, and I don't know how to explain it to someone. It was just like a nerdy group of people-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... talking about EVs.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah. So the origin of that is, um, I was reading, and I read, I think it was a comment somewhere about, uh, how Travis Kalanick, Uber, uh, s- positioned Uber as this fight against the unions-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... and all this-
- SPSpeaker
Medallion taxis.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah, whatever, medallion ta- taxis. And he positioned this as a-- positioned Uber as a champion of that fight. And to, to, to, to do that, he would call for these meetings with potential customers in bars and sell them on the idea of Uber.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
And I thought that was amazing.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, and I was like: We also want to position ourselves as champions of building electric and maybe against ICE, uh, and petrol. Um, so we should also call people.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
We should call people, and we should not be afraid that somebody will copy this.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- 48:46 – 52:48
The story of the Chennai Store
- TMTarun Mehta
forever grateful to that.
- SPSpeaker
Do you want to tell the story?
- TMTarun Mehta
So basically, uh, Bangalore, maybe we had one store. We were gonna expand to Chennai next, and we were gonna open up a store in Chen- Chennai, Nungambakkam back then. Um, so we posted that news on the forum.... I, uh, now, point to note, at this point, Ather is a cult brand. Ather is not mainstream by any stretch yet. You must have sold, like, 500 bikes, 1,000 bikes? Maybe couple thousand. Okay. Maybe 1 or 2,000. 1 or 2,000. Okay. Not even 5,000, 1, 2,000. So it's in very early stages. It's definitely, uh, a super nerdy frontier tech thing to do, to buy an Ather, to experience the store. And the people who had bought the scooter but at this point, they're super connected with all of us because it's a small group, small forum, and all of us are there on the forum all the time, talking to all of them. So when we posted there that we are thinking of launching in Chennai, and we're thinking of doing an open house event there, uh, to, you know, meet Chennai customers, uh, I will trace it back who, but somebody put their hand up and said, "Hey, can we come along? Uh, we would love to, uh, be there when you launch in Chennai." Uh, we said, "Yeah, absolutely. Please do." And then somebody would've suggested that, uh: "Hey, can we do a, uh-- can we bring our vehicles also along?" So I think it quickly started, uh, building up. There were dozens of people saying this, so we said, "You know what? If that's the case, um, if you're coming, we will ship your vehicles for you, if you want us to. We'll get your vehicles also there. You can do a ride with us." We didn't pay them, in the sense that we were not paying them for this, but we hosted them. Yeah. We paid them for the hotels. Yeah. And they came in Shatabdi is what I've heard. Yeah, they, they came in Shatabdis. Yeah. Uh, and about 50 of, uh, customers turned up. Uh, they spent two days, uh, in Chennai. Uh, and what we did is, because they were all gonna spend two days, we decided to do not one open house event, but we decided to do six open house events, three a day over two days- Mm ... Saturday and Sunday. And every event is, like, two, two and a half, three hours long, where we would go on stage, launch the vehicle, tell people about what, what's great about Ather. And we set up all these booths where we put up all our customers. That's amazing. "Hey, why don't you meet our existing customers?" And it's not like we're paying them anything for it, right? Like- It's like a dream for a brand. It's a dream for a brand. I, I agree. Yeah. And, and also, like, if you're saying you had 2,000 customers then- Yeah ... and 50 of them turn up, that's a huge percentage of your existing- Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, uh, it could be m- it-- we might have had a smaller group, but yeah, more than 1,000, so somewhere in that ballpark. I want to say that I'm also an Ather customer now. Yeah. I have a Rista. And the number of times somebody has stopped me and asked me about it, and the number of times I've- Still? Yeah, it, it happens, and it's, it's like, uh... it feels like a privilege to tell someone about this product, and, and I can totally imagine that if I had been one of those, I would've just come. You know, I think it's very happy- ... forever grateful, forever grateful to the group that, uh, put in that love, because I think it more importantly, most-- more important than anything, I think it cha- it, it, it affected the DNA of the team at that point. Mm. Uh, a- and I think, I, I'm thankful to all the people from that era, because I think that DNA change has lasted a very long time. Mm. I'm sure many of them will complain, "Oh, you have service, "" You didn't, you didn't upgrade the vehicle." Yeah. " ... " And, and I can't-- I, I, I don't think we can do-- we've, we've probably done everything, but I think it altered the DNA of the company directionally for a very long time, because that kind of love from, from your owners' group is... and I think to date, remains unprecedented. Yeah. Uh, it just rewired everybody very differently about communication, about transparency, about trying to do the right thing to the best extent possible. About DNA of company, you s- we just spoke about customer love- Yeah ... and being connected to customer. Before that, we spoke about reading and learning and- Yeah ... going deep. Uh. You guys a- also built every part of the bike- Yeah ... and every part of the supply chain and the factory yourselves, right? Mm. Was this also a choice you took? Because, I mean,
- 52:48 – 55:21
Challenges of building the EV Supply Chain
- TMTarun Mehta
l- a lot of your competitors have bought designs, bought components, assembled it. There's not a lot to buy in our times. Um, and as builders, the default option was, if it does not exist, just build it. Done. Because "" We are not pivoting out of that. We're not gonna pivot and say, "Oh, in that case, if this is not available, then we'll not build this." Yeah, but sometimes it would've been really hard, right? Like, if-- it might have felt like, "Oh, this is too much to build." Like, I think you built your own screen, own tablet? We built our own tablet. We obviously wrote our own software. We... uh, there was no clear guideline for how to use even Google Maps at that point on a scooter, because even Google hadn't thought through of that use case. There was nobody who had built battery pack, lithium ion battery pack assembly lines in India at scale, so we had to design a lot of our own equipment. Uh, Windows didn't exist for most of it. There was no standard for how-- like, the charging standard that we had to build, the standard didn't exist. We had no testing protocols. We had to come up with all of that. So there was a lot to come up, but frankly, you take young undergrad students, recently graduated students from college, and you give them an opportunity to build, I think you'll be surprised by how much they get a kick out of building all of this. Yeah. I, I think the, the, the, the single biggest good thing we did is, is we didn't stop anybody from building in the early years- Yeah ... by taking the more pragmatic option. Yeah. We, we were like, "" Whether good or not, we're just gonna deliver on that. So I think it was a incredible amount of clarity for everybody. What to do? That. Like, it's an unchanging, uh, fact every day that you come to office. Mm. What are you building that? So do you have something you can buy to build that? No? Then build it. Nice. " ... " That end goal is not changing. I think that unchanging end goal kind of, uh, really gave us a lot of clarity, and it kept our attrition really low. Mm. I think practically nobody left the company, uh, in the first 400 employees until we launched the vehicle. Uh, it kept management issues out. We didn't have to waste a lot of time, you know, doing, like- Mm ... explaining " things. Nice, nice. I wanna talk about, uh-
- SPSpeaker
... the one other DNA, uh, change that you guys had for, uh, because, uh, there were some competitors who were very aggressive in the market and who moved much faster than you. Although you guys were early-
- TMTarun Mehta
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
-you pretty much lost the entire market to someone else, and then you-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... regain it, right?
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- 55:21 – 1:00:58
Losing the market to competition and Regaining it
- TMTarun Mehta
I think-- So what's the question there? Sorry. Those are all facts.
- SPSpeaker
[chuckles] Yes.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So I think, how was that DNA change?
- TMTarun Mehta
How was the DNA change? Uh, uh, no, I think the DNA didn't really change. Uh, okay, there were some changes.
- SPSpeaker
Uh, you went from a builder-
- TMTarun Mehta
Um
- SPSpeaker
... company to, like, a more competitive kind of company, right?
- TMTarun Mehta
No, we didn't.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- TMTarun Mehta
That's what I'm clarifying. I don't think we changed as a company. I think the single biggest thing that happened is, it, it clarified how we do things even more.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
I think in the absence of a competitor, uh, you could have debated how Ather should do things. Should we build this kind of a vehicle or this kind of a vehicle? Should we market it in this way or this way? Should we build these specs or, or this kind of spec? Should we be more puritan, or should we be more, you know, just, just give the customers what they want? From a technology perspective, from a quality perspective, what is our benchmark? I think a lot of those answers, while we had them, I, I, I, in retrospect, do believe that there was still some confusion.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
The should we, should we not, right?
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
I think there is nothing more clarifying than an intense competitor-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TMTarun Mehta
... who forces you to, like, strip away all the faltu arguments and just come down to what you really, really believe in.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
So, um, I, I think till that point, there was confusion that with that vehicle back then, Ather 450, should we continue selling a 1.6 lakh rupee scooter, or should we launch something in the 90,000 rupee space quickly? I think we looked at what some of the competitors had started announcing, and obviously, that forced us to then take that question head-on.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
Because tab tak aisa tha ki you could, you could have wondered that, "Are we building this super expensive scooter because, you know, we're just drinking our own Kool-Aid, and you know, because we are very fancy, and we-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TMTarun Mehta
... we're becoming too bourgeois, and, like, samajh nahi aa raha mainstream janta ko kya chahiye?" Well, here is a challenge. Somebody's saying mainstream customers need that. So now get back in the room and decide: Can we build that?
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
And should we build that?
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, so we had those debates, and it was so clarifying, ki, "Listen, the architecture is not there. You cannot build that product yet at that cost structure. Lithium-ion cells are still at this cost. They will take still many years to fall. Electronics are still here. So if you build and try to sell a vehicle at 90K, you will burn through shitloads of money. Not a great idea. Uh, you can only do it if you've got hundreds of millions of dollars to burn. Do we have it? No, we have $5 million." [chuckles] "Okay, so can we even take that path? No, we can't."
- SPSpeaker
Nice.
- 1:00:58 – 1:07:16
Ather IPO and the Sachin Bansal story
- TMTarun Mehta
It wasn't a spectacular IPO, was it? I think it was, uh, bach gaye, nikal gaye IPO. [laughing]
- SPSpeaker
... [chuckles] Okay, it's spectacular after your IPO?
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah, it's spectacular after that, yeah. I think IPO, yeah, the, uh, we barely got, uh, subscription yet. Like, in an era of 30, 40, 100X subscription, Ather and 1.5X.
- SPSpeaker
Hey, but by the way, that has been your journey, like-
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... from the beginning, your, uh, fund-
- TMTarun Mehta
We were not surprised.
- SPSpeaker
Uh.
- TMTarun Mehta
We're not surprised. I think, uh... But yeah, I, I think the journey after IPO is when we have sort of delivered on some.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. In, in your investor journey, it's, um, what you have said earlier publicly, that it's generally been hard.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
But you also had some blockbuster investors. You had Sachin Bansal, and I think that's a great story, if you can share.
- TMTarun Mehta
Absolutely.
- SPSpeaker
Uh, you had Nikhil Kamath-
- TMTarun Mehta
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... at some point, and you had, uh, Lee.
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Um, so y- you wanna quickly just tell us about that Sachin Bansal story? It's such a great story.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, Sachin took an early bet, uh, and he took a wild bet. Uh, I, I, I'd been in touch with him. I'd, I'd cold-mailed a bunch of founders when we were running out of... When we couldn't raise money, or when we were struggling to find any traction, uh, Sachin was one of those two, three people who responded back, and he gave me time. Uh, met him in Bangalore when I was- when we were still in Chennai, uh, pitching the idea to get feedback on how should we position this better to be more fundable. Uh-
- SPSpeaker
Oh, this was the era when people used to advise, saying, "If you want funding, ask for advice."
- TMTarun Mehta
Actually, I didn't know that.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- TMTarun Mehta
I generally did not know that a founder can invest-
- SPSpeaker
Okay, okay. Okay
- TMTarun Mehta
... because the idea of secondary and the fact that a non-profitable company's-
- SPSpeaker
Okay
- TMTarun Mehta
... founder can still be rich was-
- SPSpeaker
Okay
- TMTarun Mehta
... reasonably alien.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- 1:07:16 – 1:09:15
Meeting his Co-Founder and their dynamic
- TMTarun Mehta
think we were also very philosophical. So the second year, okay, in May, when we started talking about building the Stirling engine, we spent too much time theorizing. Not, not theorizing, philosophizing about what the energy industry is and how we should build something, and, you know, uh, how we should think of prototypes, you know? Uh, what is the core idea here? Why are we doing something? Even when we were starting Ather, a solid year before we even hired anybody, right? So I remember a ton of conversations where we would debate things like, "Should we ever hire a non-engineer in the, in the new company?
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, why and why not?
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, what do we think about money? What do we think about... Like, not in that exact term, but that sounds very polished. What do you think about growth or what do you think-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TMTarun Mehta
... about capital? But-
- SPSpeaker
I-
- TMTarun Mehta
I think that cocoon of starting up in IIT Madras-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TMTarun Mehta
... away from all the advice, forced-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... us to come up with our own advice, forced us to come up with our own thoughts.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
I would strongly advise, encourage people to get that for themselves.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Build your own cocoon. Don't read up too much advice early on. First, form your own views, otherwise, you might quickly realize later on- otherwise, you will realize later on in life that all the thoughts that you think you have, they're actually Paul Graham's essays.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
They're not your thoughts. They are s-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TMTarun Mehta
... they are-
- SPSpeaker
And maybe they're con-
- TMTarun Mehta
somebody's podcasts.
- SPSpeaker
And maybe they're not contextual. Thanks. [chuckles] Maybe they're not contextually relevant.
- TMTarun Mehta
They will not be. But they sound good, right? They sound good, and they're likely very true. Uh, but thing is, before you watch all those podcasts, before you read all those essays and interviews and everything, at least for your own startup idea, go in a cocoon.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Come up with your own independent thoughts. Come with your own conviction. Uh, and I think we got that together.
- SPSpeaker
Nice. On, on, on that note, your thoughts... I know it's a podcast and you've already dissed our podcast [chuckles]
- TMTarun Mehta
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
But what is a, what is the mark of a good builder? Like, how would you recognize that, "I recognize this person. This person is a builder?"
- 1:09:15 – 1:13:39
The mark of a good builder and closing thoughts
- TMTarun Mehta
[exhales] From a hiring perspective?
- SPSpeaker
Sure.
- TMTarun Mehta
Or from, "Oh, I see that in you as a fellow person" perspective?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, that will be better.
- TMTarun Mehta
I think there are two kind of builders.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
I, I think there are builders who just like to build, uh, end goal be damned. Um, they just love- they just build for this love of building. Um, and then there are builders who are building for a specific outcome. They have a specific purpose-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... vision.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, I think they are very different people. The former, uh, should be careful about starting up because their startups could be short-lived dreams, uh, because they'll move on to something else once-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... this startup goes beyond this phase of building. The latter should definitely start up because you're building for a vision, you're building for a purpose. Paradoxically, both are completely attracted on the other sides. People who love building for the sake of building should honestly be joining places where they can build uninterrupted-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... rather than starting up, because you're building... Your physical building part will end very quickly.
- SPSpeaker
Very nice.
- TMTarun Mehta
And then you'll be building brands, and then you'll be building teams, and then you'll be building other stuff. Uh, and, and I, I think unfortunately, startups, uh, have a massive magnetic attraction for that though- for that mindset. I think the right place for them are, are, are, are the early 2000 era Google or the early years of Ather, for example, where you'll be just let loose, build, right? No questions asked. Budgets are available, money is available. Here is your CFI post-college, just build like crazy.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TMTarun Mehta
Uh, and the latter, who have a particular vision, they unfortunately are often attracted to other people who can allow them to chase that vision, right? They're often attracted to other people who can allow them to chase that vision.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
While really what they should be doing is starting up, because a startup is nothing but your vision that you decide to build out. And when you're chasing a vision, you will build everything required to chase that vision, right?
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TMTarun Mehta
You will build a funding deck, you will build a prototype, you will build a product requirement document-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TMTarun Mehta
... you will build the HR process, you will build the recruitment pitch, you will build everything. You will write... You will write the press release, you will build a brand ideology. You will build whatever is required to enable chase that- chasing that vision.
- SPSpeaker
Nice.
- TMTarun Mehta
So you should start up. There are two kind of builders, honestly. Uh-
- SPSpeaker
Nice
- TMTarun Mehta
... and I, I think we often mix them-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
Episode duration: 1:13:44
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