Dhruv Sharma: Hey there, listeners. It's Monday, October 5. I suppose you're all back from the long weekend. My name is Dhruv, and, thank you for joining us at The Offline Network. We're streaming live. This is stream number 147. And today's first guest is Prashant Bhonsle, who's joining us from Mumbai. He's the founder of a company called Kuhoo. Prashant, welcome to The Offline Network.

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Thank you so much, and thank you for having me here, Dhruv. Very glad.

Dhruv Sharma: Our pleasure, Prashant. Maybe let's start with, just getting an overview. That's a great cup, by the way. Getting a... An overview of the business. What is Kuhoo?

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Yeah. Of course. Kuhoo is an NBFC I founded in 2021 to, provide education loans to Indian students coming from tier 2, three, or three, four towns pursuing higher education in India, actually. So I've I've done this business for the third time. So first two times, I was trying to solve for Indian students going abroad for studies. Yeah. And I said, now India is a bigger problem. So that's what we do.

Dhruv Sharma: Wow. And so is the bulk of your focus, students in India studying in India, or have you by now also expanded to an international business?

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): No. This is... Kuhoo is focused only on solving for Indian students who are trying to pursue higher education in India. The cost is... Inflation has almost doubled in education. So the... And affordability is not going up as fast. So that gap of affordability and the cost of education because of inflation every year, about 12, 13% of inflation compounded to almost 10% plus. That, I think, is what we are trying to solve, for Indian student focused on studies in India.

Dhruv Sharma: Can you give us a little more color on the personal context of the students who come to you and which cities are they coming from, what do their families do, what kind of courses are they pursuing right now?

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Yeah. Of course. And and this is fascinating how, as I told you earlier, this is the third time I'm doing this business as part of the founding team of HDFC Credila, which actually kind of kick started the industry, actually. So in the first seven years, I was building from scratch and we... That company is almost a $2,000,000,000 company now. And, but we were trapped solving for Indian students who were planning to go abroad and study and and and build their careers. Then and now, the profile of the customers at 180-degree change, actually. For... We used to get about 60, 70% of our applications at that time, about seventeen, years back. They used to come from 12, 20, 30 cities in India because they were all aspirational coming from better universities, going to better colleges abroad, so on and so forth, meritorious students. Now, as I'm seeing in last four, five years, Dhruv, about, 86% of our student applications coming for loans are actually coming from tier 2, tier 3, tier 4 towns, and about 61% out of them are actually tier 3, tier 4 towns. So they are coming from, smaller, they're coming from humble background families where 60, 70% of them actually, the families are some Kirana shop or some, small, very small business or working as teachers, the parent working at teachers somewhere or or working house help, so so on and so forth. So those are the kind of profile. But the students are, really talented, actually. They're... They... Though they come from smaller towns, I guess, what has happened to the period of time, the aspirations got democratized, and finance has not got democratized. So I think that's the problem we're trying to solve.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. No. Actually, well said. There's this, quote. I can't even remember where I heard it for the first time, but, basically, the talent is everywhere and opportunity is not. Yeah. And so it is our job to ensure that the right talent meets with the right kind of opportunities. What are the most popular professional courses? You would, I think, have incredible data on this. Which were the great students going right now? Is it still engineering, medicine, law? Are new avenues opening up when when children are coming from tier 2, tier 3, tier 4 in there as you said?

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Yeah. A lot of new opportunities and new courses coming up, and that is kind of the challenge for the existing lenders or banks, as we call them, why they find it difficult to lend to the students because this is the only asset class where you are trying to underwrite the potential of the borrower and not the past. So if you go from loan person on, they'll ask for a salary slip from 16, so on and so forth. And then they'll underwrite, oh, this is what you can give. So this is where... So the new age courses and colleges and universities, in fact, a lot of foreign universities are now being set up in India with new age courses like data science, analytics, AI, all of those courses that never existed and and, architecture. So a lot of other than MBA engineering, medical, a little bit of pilot, all of those things, there are a lot of courses which are now coming up, which are very niche and specified... Specific courses for specific skills and knowledge. Right? About, I I remember just to put things in number perspective through, I remember when 2007 when I... We were trying to build Credila as one only private student loan player in India and only public sector banks with lending, I was doing the market mapping and all that and realized that there were about 416 universities in India at that time, but 20,606... 77 odd colleges. And as we speak today, right now we're speaking, there are about almost 1,400 plus universities and almost 60,000 colleges. So this 16,060 colleges, six zero, a lot of them are coming into new streams and, and that's a lot of... Now students are also, because of the access to Internet and information, they are now aware... More aware, much more relatively during my generation. We didn't know much. The information asymmetry was huge, and that created a lot of intermediary businesses. But now students are, pretty well informed actually, and they're very clear what they want to do, why they want to do it, what are their career choices. So that Ikigai, I think, is kind of evolving into what I want to do, what I'm passionate about, what I'm interested in, what will pay. All of those things are now kind of slightly coming together.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. Talk to us a little bit about distribution as well, Prashant. How do you how do you ensure that you're getting in front of the right kind of students when they need, Google the most in their life?

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): So this is... Thankfully, I'm in a biz... I'm building a business. I'm in a business where the... My customer, who is student, our consumer is a student of a customer, is a parent because they play a role in in deciding whether to take a loan or from where to take it and so on and so forth. So I I bifurcates slightly nuanced, but I say these are consumers and their parents are customers. So, they are, what was your question? Sorry. You you said...

Dhruv Sharma: I I was just mostly asking about marketing, social media, content...

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): They are the most... Yeah. They are the most Internet savvy and network customers that you can ever ask for. Right? They... When when I go... Decide to do... Go and appear for CAT or GRE or GMAT or something, I will invariably appear with a group of friends because we'll decide together. It's also, what are you doing? What... This is what I'm planning to do. What... How is it? So they share a lot of information. There are most of the times on mobile and so on and so forth. So for me, direct to consumer this time around was very easy to build. So by... So we built a direct to consumer app, mobile app, Kuhoo mobile app, more than 300,000 downloads have happened. Every day, few 100 people, students come across the country, across 400, 500 cities in the country, 12,000 institutes across the country. They go and download app and they apply because we've kind of solved the problem of eligibility. So in Indian students, if they need to apply for a loan, the existing system of banks, you cannot apply for a loan unless you've got a confirmed admission. Now if somebody... If you're going for, let's say, July 26 or fall twenty six session, your admission confirmation will happen a couple of months or mostly, before that. Right? But your planning for that... Financial planning happens about eight, nine months back or probably even earlier. So you don't know whether you'll be able to do this course while you may be eligible. You've got the interest rate scores and all that because you you can't apply for the loan. So that's what we solve for when we are solving for direct to consumer as a distribution problem. We also solve for eligibility as a problem. Can we give the eligibility based on their past attack, based on their interest rate score, based on the school they're planning to go, the set of schools they're planning to go and all that? All the data we have gathered over the years and and that is proving you're putting in the, decision engines and rule engines and credit models and and eligibility models, all that. We use... We've got a lot a lot of data science that we added.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. I'm sure. Could you also give us a sense of, you know, just the cost of education, how it's changed? You were noting earlier about inflation in in education. There's inflation everywhere, but also education. So how expensive is it to pursue a professional course today? How does it vary from cost to cost? How does it vary from college to college? Also, maybe just distinguish, tuition expenses from living expenses, and and what are people borrowing for?

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Great great question. Actually, look. So, just for the perspective again, in 2007 when we started building this business the first time, I remember IIM Ahmedabad MBA used to cost 3.5 lakh rupees. That's almost 35 lakh rupees right now. But that one extreme example, but that extreme to the other spectrum other than

Dhruv Sharma: It is... I'm sorry to interrupt. It's the same campus. It's by and large the same props. Nothing is with the same degree at the end of it. Phenomenal. Just go on 10 x. Yeah.

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Phenomenal. Right? So the same thing, why not to... Multiplier can be slightly lesser, but nonetheless, it is a multiplier there. So, a normal MBA from a tier 2, tier 3 college in India, there are about 5,000, plus MBA colleges in India, about half a million MBA students pass out every year. The average, which is where the mass is. Right? So top 15 institutes if you leave aside ISBs and IIMs and... Or the world where the cost is higher and relatively better returns and all that. But the real large mass of students in MBA are going to tier 2, tier 3 colleges, then the cost had gone up from, let's say, $3.04 lakh rupees for two years, about ten, fifteen years back, to now about anything between ten to twenty lakh rupees. Right? 8 to 20 lakh rupees is the cost of two years MBA. Similarly, engineering, which used to cost, let's say, $25,000... 25,000 rupees to 50,000 rupees per semester has now gone up to at least minimum in the tier, mid tier colleges to about a lakh and 0.5 to 2 lakh, per semester per year. So it's anything between 8 to 15 lakhs again for four years and all that. Medical has just exponentially gone through the roof now, but the half... About $131,140,000 seats in India, half of them are government called... Government seats. So that's the, relative... The fees are relatively lower, but rest of the 60, 70, 80,000 seats, the cost can be as high as 25 lakh rupees to about 50 lakh rupees per year for next five years. So so it's phenomenally higher. So those kind of cost inflations are happening.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. But you know what's also true, Prashant, is that the entry level salaries aren't keeping up.

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Yes.

Dhruv Sharma: They kinda they kinda still stuck in the 2,005, 2,008 era. So so is that making it harder to, you know, to underwrite the customer, the consumer, the borrower, best potential?

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): 100%. It is. I mean, the... And I keep saying and my... Actually, my daughter went to Cambridge, but I keep telling everybody that, five years back or seven years back, I used to tell that best of the education opportunities, the quality of education opportunities in the market, post education used to be for the right student, used to be, outside of India. Now I... I've completely shifted it. I've I've seen more and more the Ivy League or this thing is is not happening. So the cost versus return on investment actually is the major issue or hurdle in underwriting alone. So if you're spending $8.10 lakh rupees, but if your if your salary is going to be $2.5.03 lakh rupees, then, then it's going to be slightly challenging if your product structure is as archaic as the banks are because banks will offer you not a longer term product. They'll ask you like

Dhruv Sharma: Related question. If someone starts by taking a... I'm just gonna call it a bad loan, can they come to you to refinance it? Well, when they're some with the sec, third, or fourth year? Or...

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Unfortunately, we, still give importance to, your bureau history, significantly higher because that's your intent. Rather the two problems, any lender wants to solve, willingness to pay and ability to pay. This also indicates the willingness to pay. And if it is only ability because of which of the wrong product that they were given, that you knew that this institute you can't get a salary more than 40,000 rupees a month, but you were given a loan where the EMI is going to be 50,000 rupees a month, that's a wrong product structuring. Rather than, so it's a... So if we identify that was the problem, then we look at it more positively. But if we identify the problem was more willingness, or intent to pay, then we, will not be able to help. So that's the nuance difference between how we underwrite. But coming back to your previous question, yes. So what we're trying to solve is if you're... I've always believed through that India has not an employability problem, and I'm making a very radical comment. I think India has a underemployability problem. So... And that makes it very difficult for lenders to underwrite. Because if you are underwriting that the student is not going to get get a job, then invariably you're going to be maybe rejecting 99% of the application, 95% of the application, which is what is happening right now. Right? But if you structure the product right and you say that I know this person may get a job after three months or six months, but... And will get a job only this much, if you're able to ascertain that, then you can structure a product in terms of tenure, EMI size, and pre MI size. If you can give that, then I think you are opening a market not only a... It's it's not a high impact not only a high impact, but it's a good business. Right? So good business, are you making commercial sense out of it? Right? Is your NP... Are your NP is going to be low? You can only ensure that when your ability to decide the leverage right. And that's what is the secret sauce. So it is a difficult challenge, and that's why across the world, it's a very specialized play across the world, whether it is US where Sallie Mae is the biggest aggregator and and Discover and... The banks are now the largest players. India also, Credila has become the largest player, not... Without without being a bank. So I think that's the opportunity because it's a very domain expertise driven business. So that's the secret sauce.

Dhruv Sharma: I get it. And, Prashant, let's say, somehow, magically, you know, this video or a clip from this video finds its way to a kid who is gonna be applying to college in a year or so and is already starting to think about how they'll how they'll actually pay for it. What do you wanna tell them about, you know, increasing the odds of their eligibility, concrete actions they can be taking right now, you know, by talking to their parents even? And, eventually, when you hopefully approve them for a loan, what, you know, what can they do to be just good borrowers?

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Absolutely brilliant question. I think the biggest problem I'm seeing now when families are planning is the perception that educate before they apply to a bank. The perception is in Indian family, culturally, you're... As a kid, you are told, don't worry about money. You focus on your studies. We'll take care of money. Right? So we are not making our generations financially literate, and that's causing problem later in life. So this perception that I will get it because I have an account in a public sector bank, and when we apply, you don't realize that you're running against deadlines or fee payment, deadlines or admission, form submission, so on and so forth. So when the admission, confirmation comes, then you are left with very few a week or two of paying commitment fee, and your loan will not come through. So what I suggest to students is start early the process. Right? Go and and go to more than one lender. They are all doing processing now without any cost. So plan your finances early because there are three sources of fund that will actually going to, fund your education, which is... One is your family saving. Second is your... If you are a good student, which are five, 10% of that, merit, scholarship, and all that. And third is, the education loan because the affordability, as we spoke, is different than all that. So I very, very strongly suggest when you are starting your application process or planning, for your next MBA or higher education or engineering or medical, start the process then of understanding your eligibility, go with your documents on and so forth. First. Second, actually try and apply because the same set of documents are required by almost all lenders. Right? So you need to do only copies of documents and then go and and do this. Right? So go to more lenders than one. Don't depend on one lender. Somebody in the bank has said, okay. Don't worry. Give the application. We'll give you a loan. And suddenly something happens because your father had some CIBIL history somewhere, and you will not get a loan. So don't get into this situation. Start early. Go to more options. Third, very, very important is... And this is the recent phenomena, and I want, as you said, if some young listeners or audiences is listening, I am seeing a lot of young students have taken those 1,000, 2,000 rupees loan for their mobile or recharge or something, and they don't realize the importance of gravity of not paying that point... Paying it or not. I have to, with a lot of heavy heart, decline something, at least a lot of applications because they did not follow financial discipline of small loans. So please get serious about what are you doing about your finances, how yours... Now lenders like us and most lenders like us are also looking at your spend histories. Where are you spending your money? Right? So those kinds of things I would suggest very strongly to them that become very serious about it. And lastly, very importantly, have a very serious conversation with your parents about that. When you... You funded us so far. I've done... You've sacrificed your life so much. Right? Let's go and take... Because India also, a lot of parents are debt-averse for the education of their kids. They will do and go and do mortgage this their home. They will not pawn their jewelry and all of those things. You should encourage them to explore that option first also so that they don't mortgage their future now. Because invariably your parents are 52, 53, 54. They'll be retiring by the time you come out of your... Come out of your college and all that when you start working. They need to start their life... Retired life more peacefully than, with the kind of... So the last thing is have very serious conversation, do research, have a conversation with them, your parents, that debt is not bad if it is taking the right amount. And last but most important, take only the amount, try and put your own money as much as possible. Don't take only the amount which is required bare minimum. So that leverage will put less pressure on them that they could get out of the college. So if they get out of the college and even for some, god forbid, some reason, they've got a salary which is not that... What they expected, and the EMIs are going to hit you after you start working, then your... If the EMIs are lower, then it'll be easier for them to manage. Right? So beside the loan amount very carefully, is what the few suggestions that I would like to go through.

Dhruv Sharma: Prashant, not only was this very practical advice, I think your care, your empathy for students who are the future of our country really came through, in the in the conversation. Thank you once again for, coming on the show and, telling us more about your work. All the best to you and, more importantly, the borrowers you're gonna be lending to in the in the coming years. Thank you so much.

Prashant Bhonsle (Kuhoo): Thank you so much, Drew. It it was a pleasure talking to you, and I wish you all the best for the the show. Thank you.

Dhruv Sharma: Thank you. Thank you very much. Alright, listeners. That was Prashant from Kuhoo. Our next guest is Praveen of Hansa Research. Praveen, welcome to The Offline Network.

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): Thank you.

Dhruv Sharma: Uh-uh. Pleasure. Where are you joining us from, Praveen?

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): From Mumbai from my office.

Dhruv Sharma: That's that's amazing. Tell us more about the company. What does, Hansa Research do?

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): Hansa Research is into consumer insights and market research. So we've been around for forty years. We are the largest, Indian company, in this space and, the only company to be listed on the stock exchange in this space again. So we do work with a whole host of clients in all kinds of sectors, primarily, BFSI, FMCG automotive. Yeah. These sectors. And, of course, many other sectors, but, primarily these.

Dhruv Sharma: You have a very impressive list of logos I was looking up... Looking it up on the on the website, Praveen. So, you know, a a question that often comes to my mind when I hear of, you know, research focused organization is, what are the products that, you know, large customers, enterprise customers come to you for?

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): So they would come to us for a whole host of, let's say, marketing or business problems. For example, they may want to, launch a new product in the market, or they may want to, at a very basic level, you know, run a campaign which may run for next three or four months. It could be, let's say, during the IPL tournament or it could be at any other point in the year. And then we want to understand if, you know, the messages that they're trying to convey through the ad is being understood by the target audience. So then they'll test the ad to see whether, you know, it's it's, the message they're trying to convey is understood, whether it's the ad is, appealing enough, interesting enough, so on and so forth. Or they may come to you to understand, you know, how satisfied the customers are with the services and the products that they're offering and, where are the where are, the areas that maybe the competitors are doing better, what the areas that they can, you know, improve on offer better services, and, obviously, the ultimate intent is to attract more customers. Yeah. Yeah.

Dhruv Sharma: Fascinating. If we just take a step back and get your perspective on high level level consumer trends you've been seeing, not just this year, but over the last three to five years, what are the most dominant teams that come up at work and, you know, in conversations with your clients?

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): I think, the things that, that we see are not different, from what we see over the years. Everybody is, all clients are trying to increase the business. All clients are operating in even, you know, more and more tougher, competing environments. And, with the loyalty of the customer gradually depleting over the years... You know, today, customers switch between companies, a lot more frequently than they did many years ago. There was some sense of loyalty in the past. And and not only loyalty, you know, the the options and the the the, different, the options that customers had earlier were much fewer in every sector. Today, if I want to buy an insurance policy, I have 25 different companies. Earlier, I had only NIC. So, you know, the the options are a lot more today. And, I think that is somewhere, partly responsible for the depleting loyalty, and also the fact that companies are finding your ways to, service the customers. So, a company that can differentiate itself on some innovative ways of, meeting customer needs, customers will tend to go there. So one of the days when, you know, you can just, say that I have a great product and customers will come to me. I think that, that no longer exists, and that is gradually, you know, depleting the loyalty of customers. So I think that is the biggest challenge. Companies want, to operate in an environment where... Are operating in an environment where competition has increased. And, so that, I think, is the biggest challenge, attracting customers and keeping them.

Dhruv Sharma: Have you found a new experience with your clients just broadly in the industry, you know, incumbents, finding... Struggling to get mind share amongst the Gen Z? Because, you know, as we know, the mind share, market share, two different things. You might have... You know, you might still be the market leader, but if you're losing mind share rapidly in the in the in the minds of Gen Z consumers, only a matter of time before someone else comes, reclaims your space. So talk to us. We'll spend some time talking to us about that as well, please.

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): About the Gen Z consumer?

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah.

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): I personally feel there's too much talk about the Gen Z consumer. Yes. They are different. There's no doubt. But we are really treating Gen Z's as a completely different animal which never existed before and, you know, some... Suddenly there's something on earth which which, you know, we don't know how to deal with. If you ask me, this would have been the... I think twenty years ago, we're talking about millennials like that. Not to this extent, but there was some talk about, oh, millennials, they are different. How do we deal with them? How do we service them? It's... I just feel that every generation is different. Right? And, and, and, and, and, it's... Obviously, a lot of it happens because of changes in the energy environment. A lot more options available. They are a lot more affluent in that sense because, you know, it's it's it's a lot more money that they're inheriting in some ways. And, so they won't struggle to find a... To to buy a house because they already have a house. But maybe their parents struggle to buy the house. Maybe their parents struggle to find a place to rent in or pay the rent for the house. So it's just trickling down to the generations. And so since their basics are already there, there's something else that they're looking for. And I think, it's... I just feel it's normal to to... It's it's it's it's normal for Gen Zs to be a different generation and, hence, just find what it takes for them, really. To really treat them and bring them out and, you know, signal them out as a generation which... Oh, what what kind of generation is this? And we don't understand these guys. I think it's a bit going over the top in my personal view.

Dhruv Sharma: That... That's that's an interesting perspective. How is, how is AI, impacting, you know, your industry, and what are the opportunities, and what are some short term disruptions it's caused as well?

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): AI is impacting all industries. Certainly, it has impacted our industry. What we are finding is that AI is gradually entering into the space where it makes, providing the insights to clients faster. And if we don't, imbibe all of that in our sector, rather in our working as a company, obviously, we will be left behind. So we have taken our steps to, imbibe AI into the system. We are using AI tools, in areas where we can do the analysis better and also the data better so that, you know, you can give sharper insights to clients, faster insights to clients, all of that. So so far, I would say the larger impact has been really in in in operational efficiencies. I don't see... See, the the mundane tasks, the routine tasks, you know, the things that are standardized across, all the work that we do from one assignment to the next. I think those are getting, standardized through AI, and, and things are moving faster then. I don't see the human element going out completely at all at the same time. So if I have to write a proposal for five different clients, maybe that'll be faster now because I have AI. But I still need to use my mind to make sure that AI has done the right thing in the final document that's created before it goes to client. At at a very tactical level, that's how it it works. And, yes, I'm using AI and technology, not just AI, but technology in in a larger way in in the analysis of the data, that I get, before I present to the client or before I give insights to the client. Yeah.

Dhruv Sharma: Great. Praveen, you know, most of the people who tune into our show are people and the... People from start ups, founders, sometimes operators, etcetera, and, many of them early stage. And, you know, when you chat with them, they will often cite reports. These are all off the shelf reports. Like, there's no way an early stage company can commission a custom research, report from you guys, for instance. And they're also in this phase where they have to do a lot on just their own. So we love your, you know, learnings on doing primary research that will be helpful for early stage founders when they're not in a position yet to come to Hansa for, you know, custom research, projects? What would you what would you share with them?

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): Well, quite the opposite. I think they have the funding to do that research. I don't see them not having the money to do that kind of research. Okay. In fact, we have start ups that comes to us for certain kinds of work to be done.

Dhruv Sharma: Mhmm.

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): It's not that they can't spend. I think they they sometimes lack the understanding to be very focused on what they really want. And this is not a comment on them. It's just that they are in that space right now where, you know, they want to cover a lot of objectives in that one research, and they're not really sharp about what they really want. And if you wanna cover several objectives in one study, then, obviously, that's gonna cost money. And that's where then they start feeling that's already expensive. But, no. We have some start ups, small time...

Dhruv Sharma: Let's frame it differently. Right? Let me take your word for it. Maybe, you know, the research isn't that expensive and their investors are gonna allow them to pay for it. But if they were to just do it on their own, you know, lessons from your your firsthand experience on leading primary research into some of these customer problems and propositions, that could be really helpful to our listeners.

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): So so what is the question? Sorry. I don't understand the question.

Dhruv Sharma: Oh, it's it's a very simple one. It's that, you know, if founders were to attempt doing what you do on their own, what lessons would you share with them if they were to conduct their own primary research?

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): Well, go ahead and try it. I'm sure you can get it through some AI tools. The timer doesn't available there. But, if you need scale, to be able to be sure of what the research is already saying is correct, you'll need to spend some money for that. You can, you can spend some amount, do away small research, go a lot by cut field, which is what a lot of them do, and hope that you're hitting the target. But, you can go wrong there as well. Well, it won't be an expensive mistake because you haven't spent too much money. But, I think you need to, you need to have some budget there. A lot of these startups have the funding. I don't think they have a problem there. And a lot of the researches that they really need to do are not researches that they need to do regularly every year or every six months. The initial state, there are these two or three or four studies that they can do, which will last them for the next four or five years in terms of this tangible understanding, sectoral understanding, and so also. So I think it's it's worth investing that little bit of money, at that stage to get their understanding so that you can get a little more on a, sure footing.

Dhruv Sharma: Got it. Alright, Praveen. Thank you for that answer, and thank you for coming and sharing your time with us. Pleasure having you on the show.

Praveen Nijhara (Hansa Research): Thank you so much.

Dhruv Sharma: Alright, Desnares. That was Praveen from Mumbai-based Hansa Research. We've got a couple of news items today. The first one is that AceVector, which is the parent company, the holding company of both Snapdeal and Unicommerce, they have a third consumer brand as well, has listed today. It's listed at a slight discount to issue price, but it's listing day nonetheless. You remember that Unicommerce had gone public a couple of years earlier. So if investors wanted, you know, direct SaaS exposure, that was the way to go about. And now there's... The holding company has listed as well. I saw that there is an investor presentation directly from Kunal himself, Kunal Bahl, of Snapdeal on YouTube. It's a channel called IPO Central. If you're more interested in learning more about the story, that is... That's the primary, source. You can hear it from the horse's mouth. The other one was an announcement from the the head of Anthropic in India, Irina Ghose. And I'm just gonna, like, I'm just gonna read out a quote from a post. Anthropic today announced that Claude models, there's three or four of them, are now live with in country inference in India through Amazon Bedrock. Request sent to Claude through the India endpoint are now processed within India giving regulated Indian institutions the data residency assurances they need to deploy Claude at scale across their most sensitive workloads. And so Anthropic appears to be making big moves in the enterprise domain, solving, you know, the the key problems, they need to solve before signing on enterprise customers, which is the question of where is the data going to reside, where is the inference gonna take place. The answer, it's gonna be very much within India's geographic, borders, maybe Hyderabad, maybe Mumbai. And so that's another development today. I think that's it for today from us. Thank you for joining us and spending time with us, and we'll see you again, on Wednesday. Cheers.