Summary

The Offline Network Episode 8: Longevity & Clean Beauty (aired 2025-09-17). Guests: Dr. Marcus Ranney, Dhruv Madhok from Human Edge, Arata. Dr.: "I think if there was a pill for longevity, it would be exercise from a physiological perspective." Dr.: "Yeah, I think, you know, the traditional view of a doctor is that you see him or her when you're feeling sick to get better." Topics: venture capital and funding, AI and LLMs, consumer brands and D2C, health tech. The Offline Network is India's live show on startups, tech, and venture — streaming M/W/F at 4 PM IST on YouTube.

Key Quotes

"India is a far too sleep deprived country, and we're having a lot of health challenges because of it, both mental, emotional and physical." — Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge)

"Yeah, I think, you know, the traditional view of a doctor is that you see him or her when you're feeling sick to get better." — Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge)

"But the reality Dhruv is that 99 percent of the work I do is actually normalization of health back to where it should be." — Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge)

"For you Dhruv, you may not be converting the D3 into the 25 hydroxylated version by the liver, right, because of a liver enzyme deficiency, etc." — Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge)

"And hopefully we've got founders and entrepreneurs watching this who can think of innovative business models." — Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge)

"Yeah, so 90% of the work is focused on corporate India and entrepreneurs, individuals who are looking at living healthier for longer." — Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge)

"And certainly, I think folks of our generation now are beginning to appreciate that health is an asset that needs to be invested in over a period of time and it can pay dividends." — Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge)

"I think they have a slightly differentiated approach because it's obviously private capital and it's something they fundamentally believe in and they've experienced themselves." — Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge)

Full Transcript

Dhruv Sharma: Hello, listeners, you're tuning into the offline network and we're streaming live. I'm joined here by my co with my I'm here with my co host Utsav Somani. I'm happy to and today is Urban Company's listing day. There's a couple of other interesting developments in the news cycle, we'll be getting into them and we have two guests for you today. Our first guest is going to be Dr. Marcus Rani. And I'm saying his name, right?

Utsav Somani: Doc M. Doc M.

Dhruv Sharma: We know him as Doc M. And Doc M is a longevity physician super excited to have him. He's already here with us. So we're going to go through the news very, very carefully. And then later on, we're going to have my name, Sikh Dhruv, Dhruv Madhok, who's the founder of the personal wealth, personal beauty company, Arata. So why was Larry Ellison's picture doing the rounds on Twitter?

Utsav Somani: And that guy is the king. He's these awesome deals. I mean, TikTok was, I mean, about to be banned in the US and US pulled it gets banned wherever it goes. Yeah, but dude, US, right? I mean, they're dressing socialism as capitalism, where they, I mean, Balaji mentioned this on our first episode, 80% of TikTok is now owned by A16Z, Silver Lake and Oracle plus some legacy investors and 20% remains with ByteDance. But US got 10% of Intel, US got 80%, US owned companies got 80% of TikTok. So I think it's a fairly interesting move to allow them to be operative in the US. And also they've managed to ensure that all the data and the algorithm stays in the US. So there'll be a separate US app. I don't know if India could have done a similar move. I think it would have been nice. Otherwise, we wouldn't have seen the likes of Chingari and Mitro and countless others that took off. But I think Instagram filled that space with shorts. But the funny thing about Larry Ellison, dude, like 81, looks young, fit. I mean, his net worth is over, I don't know, some 300 billion. He's the richest man now.

Dhruv Sharma: He added the equivalent of Mukesh Ambani in one day, right?

Utsav Somani: One day. And the funny thing is, you'll see on the screen right now that circular economy at its best, right? OpenAI signs a $300 billion GPU deal with Oracle. OpenAI doesn't have 300 billion, but Oracle market cap goes up by 100 billion. So they end up spending on GPUs. And that's pretty much how the economy works. It's not just tech.

Dhruv Sharma: You know, what was happening earlier was that OpenAI and their peers were getting funded by these large big tech companies. And some would say that the big tech companies were, in a sense, turning the balance sheets into income statements in the sense that they were, whatever cash they had lying around, they were investing in these companies because it would come back as revenue, because these companies would spend in cloud spends. And now it's the other way around. But 300 billion, it's a big number.

Utsav Somani: Big number, big deal. I mean, it's going to take, I mean, as per your calculations, I think you mentioned in reference to that chat that Masayoshi Son did. Those are Masa's calculations. 9 trillion.

Dhruv Sharma: If you think 300 billion is a big number, Masa's bigger number, I'm going to just spend a minute on that maybe. So for Masa's estimate, you know, he's orienting everyone he's working with towards artificial superintelligence. His definition is we all get 10,000 times smarter. And per his estimate, it's going to take something like 200 gigawatts of compute to get there. And I think he says 200,000 chips, or maybe it's 2 million, I'm not sure about the specific number. Either way, it's going to take about $9 trillion in CapEx. And, you know, you might say $9 trillion is a lot of money, but productivity boost. And so, you know, that CapEx will pay for itself in one year itself, because 5% of the global GDP is roughly $9 trillion. That's what's expected to improve when we get to ASI, the promised future.

Utsav Somani: Awesome. Moving on to the next thing, GamesCraft, 250 crores, the CFO is running away. He lost 250 crores in F&O. And what a comedy of errors, right? I mean, that guy actually was responsible for a platform where retail players are supposed to come and lose money, most of them, right? And that's why the government banned all of this stuff. And that guy actually ended up thinking that he'll beat the casino where F&O traders typically lose 93% of the times. And he thought he'll be in that 7%. Now he's, of course, running away. Twitter had a field day with all of this, making all kinds of comments that with 250 crores, he could have been part of the startup ecosystem in a big way, or he could have done so much more.

Dhruv Sharma: Have you seen those memes where there's someone with very loose pants dropping on their shoes that if your CFO doesn't look like this, you're not going to make it? Yeah, I'm definitely guessing he's not. He's not one of them, yes. And folks, you want your CFOs to be chess players, not poker players.

Utsav Somani: 100%. And lots of interesting things happening in the world of VC as well. A couple of churns in the big fund category, Peak15, Shailesh, Harshit, I think they're now teaming up to do a fund, Sameer Brij Verma of Nexus is also doing his own fund. And Ashish of Mirai, I think is also doing his own fund. We're seeing an evolution of the venture ecosystem, but do you have any take on why this might be happening?

Dhruv Sharma: I can only hazard a guess. I think it's maybe you could say it's an occupational hazard. If you're around entrepreneurs a lot, at some point you want to turn an entrepreneur yourself. Many VCs say they're entrepreneurs in the VC business. So maybe that has a role to play with it, and there's a bunch of other factors. But Utsav, you know this, at AngelList we've long held this view that startups are about innovation. And one of the things they need is obviously capital, now capital is a commodity. You can get it from many different sources, but very often the bottleneck ends up being the total number of VC hours. I mean, they're humans, they only have so many hours to hear founders out. And so in general, we've been advocates for enablers of more VCs and more GPs. And in that sense, I think this is a pretty good welcome development.

Utsav Somani: No, AI is not taking away most of the VC's job, at least not yet, right? All right, something to celebrate, IPO season, Grow is filing for theirs. But Urban Co. got listed today, 109x subscription, they've beaten Zomato and Nika, all the subscription records as well by a lot. I'm reading the numbers, Zomato was 38x, Nika was 82x, but Urban Co. was 109x, and the enthusiasm is reflected in the public markets today, 60% pop, right? Amazing. I mean, amazing and excellent elevation, both reputed venture firms in India own 10% of that company approximately, and we're going to see good returns from the public markets today. So congrats to all of the people involved in this.

Dhruv Sharma: Congratulations to everyone. I'm thinking for a moment about who comes next, because outdoing this is going to be hard. There'll be a lot of pressure, whoever's listing next.

Utsav Somani: Yeah, no, absolutely. But I mean, now we'll talk about what matters the most, health and wellness. And today we have Dr. Marcus. He runs this unique setup where he consults with high performers, IPL teams as well to come and give them knowledge about what they can do to improve that. And longevity has been a very interesting topic for a lot of people. The thing that they want to talk about the most is how they can live longer, but also perform better while they're doing all of these tasks. I think I'm just hearing from my team that he's going to take a few minutes to join. But Dhruv, do you want to tell us more about what you think about this space? Have you been following the Brian Johnson trend?

Dhruv Sharma: Not as much. I mean, only through you. I think we had him once at offline and had... Yes, I'm sorry, what are you saying?

Utsav Somani: Almost everyone is wearing a woop these days. I don't know if it's for status signaling or it's something else. It's an expensive subscription relatively.

Dhruv Sharma: It's also a full-time job to be sober and be monitoring everything. But great to have Dr. M. Let's hear from him. I think we've lost him for a bit. I thought we had him for a moment. But I'm going to ask you the question I had for him. So sleep, nutrition, exercise, I mean, you've been studying this for yourself for quite some time. What do you think is the most important out of those three?

Utsav Somani: I think we're living in a world that's overstimulated, right? So for me, I think when you're spending so much time on the laptop, phone calls, Zoom calls, traffic, sensory overload everywhere, I think sleep is the thing that you need to optimize for. But I mean, let me not give my opinion. I'm not an expert, but we've got Dr. M. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Marcus. We've had a brief chat about health and longevity while you were just stepping in. Good to see you. Dhruv, you want to get started with the question that you were asking?

Dhruv Sharma: I'm going to ask. Yes. So, Doc, I was asking between sleep, nutrition and exercise, that holy trinity, which is the most important?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): Hey, man, that's like asking me which is my favorite child. But which one is it? I personally, personally love, love exercise. I think if there was a pill for longevity, it would be exercise from a physiological perspective. But I feel the right answer here is sleep, because I think sleep is the foundation for everything. Our body's ability to recover and grow happens during that phase of the day when we should be in bed. India is a far too sleep deprived country, and we're having a lot of health challenges because of it, both mental, emotional and physical. But I'm personally a fan of the movement and exercise.

Utsav Somani: Doc M, you're fine with me calling you Doc M, right? I, of course. That's nice. Let's recap for our audience and our viewers who are tuning in. What do you do? I mean, longevity has become such an interesting topic because of Brian Johnson, I think, popularizing the whole thing. And just generally, I think there's so much sensory overload that we're getting our systems and immunities. Everything is going for a toss in India. What is the work that you do and why is it important?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): Yeah, I think, you know, the traditional view of a doctor is that you see him or her when you're feeling sick to get better. And the way I sort of describe the day to day of my sort of work is that you see the doctor to stay healthy and to optimize from where you are. A few weeks ago, I was on another podcast and he introduced me. I thought it was quite an interesting analogy of being almost like the Formula One engineer, but a doctor equivalency where you're not there to sort of fix the engine when it's broken down or repair the chassis. You're there to fine tune the various algorithms and data streams so that the car can enhance its performance and it can have a sort of a spillover effect from there. So that's sort of the sort of analogy that I look at. I often talk about four Ps, which are health should be personalized. It should be preventative. It should be participatory. And of course, the fourth P will elude me when I'm on a live audience like this. But anyway, there's a fourth P out there as well. And and proactive, sorry, and proactive. Right. So this if we can if we can change the way we look at our bodies and think about it from a longer term perspective to make those small changes every day, that's sort of where I slot in and fit in.

Dhruv Sharma: And there's this question I ask often. I'm going to ask you that question also because we're always trying to get to new answers for the same question, which is it's one thing to get to a state of peak performance, but then to sustain it as a whole different game and pick what you want, whether it's sport, career, life. In your view, what does it take to get to peak performance? But more importantly, what does it take to sustain it over a very long period of time?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): I think health has to become an everyday action for an individual. Again, we've we live in a paradigm where we sort of intervene, intervene when something is broken down. But for you to really sustain the highest levels, you need to make sure that all of those little tweaks and changes you make are just part of your day to day so that it becomes instinctual for you. But the reality Dhruv is that 99 percent of the work I do is actually normalization of health back to where it should be. Right now, even our audience is primarily Indians, average age of 29, perhaps. We are already living with diseases which should have been happening to us in our fifth and sixth decades. They're now being pulled forward, convenience culture, sedentary lifestyle, high stress environment, poor toxins in the environment, poor nutritional choices, all of those things fueling this paradigm where we're just sicker earlier. And therefore, I wish more of my time was spent in super optimization and sustainability. But the reality is actually just first a correction towards where normal should be for that individual and then potentially in some cohorts of individuals and taking up from there.

Utsav Somani: And I mean, everyone's looking for a quick fix, right? I'm guessing many of your clients or potential clients actually come to you and say that what are the three magic pills that I can take? Here are my blood test reports, right? I mean, blood test supplements are easily available. You can see like, I mean, every day a new supplement company popping up, selling you like some magic solution that 3X more powerful omega-3 and like different kind of like interventions also even. So what's your take on this trend? People are looking for that quick fix, but are supplements really needed?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): I'll answer the supplements point separately. I think the first sort of approach to this is know your data. I always tell everyone I can't treat what I can't measure. You can consume all of the supplements that is being suggested to you by Instagram, but your body may not require it and therefore it's completely superfluous and you'll either pee it out in best case scenario or it may end up doing some damage to your liver and kidneys if they're a poor brand or poor dosage. So know your data, get tested. I know you guys were talking about the rings before I popped in, but whether it's your blood test, whether it's a digital biomarker, whether it's a functional biomarker like basic imaging, diagnostics, etc., do that annual or half yearly check so that that can guide you in terms of principles. So that's the first thing. The second thing I always tell everyone is we are each a universe of N equals one. All three of us could have exactly the same vitamin D3 levels and I might supplement each of us with the same cocktail and dosage, but six months from now when we repeat our bloods, we may find that we have different levels from that point in time. Utsav may not have a good absorption through the gut. For you Dhruv, you may not be converting the D3 into the 25 hydroxylated version by the liver, right, because of a liver enzyme deficiency, etc. So if we are each an N equals one, we need to intervene and close the loop by studying your data again to know whether that's working for you or it's not working, in which case you should make a change. So that's my second principle. And the third principle is try and limit the changes you're making so that you can actually identify what's working and not. You know, I openly criticize Brian Johnson. I'm a fan of what he's done in terms of contributing to the global conversation, but I think the biggest challenge that we have with quote unquote his protocol, blueprint protocol, is that there are over 200 supplements and a whole bunch of other things that he's doing on top of that. Very, very difficult. He ends up taking the full stack without the need for it probably. Exactly. Or tease out what's contributing in a positive way or a negative way, etc. But if you're doing two or three things and you're monitoring the progress, you'll be able to see whether it's working or not working. If it's working, great. Let it stick and then layer something else on top of that. So that's sort of how I sort of approach this.

Dhruv Sharma: Doc, what are some of the simplest things to do? Super common sense, but things we don't do anyway. So we've already spoken about the high flying stuff, but just basic changes to our everyday lives that we should be making.

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): I think the biggest but the hardest is to move away from a convenience culture. We celebrate platforms, apps, technologies. We put money behind it in places that are unfortunately worsening the choices we have to make on a day to day, you know, 10 minute delivery of any calorie. Drop me to any location without me having to move significantly. All of these things. I think we need to really have an institutional approach to the society we're building. So that the right choice becomes the easy choice and the convenient choice. Right now, the right choice is the harder, more expensive and requires more discipline and willpower credits than converse and vice versa. So that's more of an institutional thing that needs to change. And hopefully we've got founders and entrepreneurs watching this who can think of innovative business models. Hopefully there are venture capital and private equity guys watching this who will put their money where their mouth is and support those types of business models, etc. It definitely will make my life easier at the front lines. I'll have fewer people who I need to normalize and more people who I can then sort of super optimize from that point in time. So I'll certainly be happier for it as well. Regarding, you know, that was so more philosophical, but sort of tangentially answering or tactically answering your question, therefore Dhruv, I think just watching what you put into your body. The body is a machine. Every machine needs the right fuel. Make sure you're making the right fueling choices. Low-carb, low-cal, time-restricted eating can be beneficial in some individuals. What popular social media calls intermittent fasting, time-restricted eating can be effective. So that's the first thing. I think the second thing we should all be much more cognizant of is our bodies are deficient in critical micronutrients. I'm not saying that because I support any supplement company. I'm not paid by any of them. But the fact is that the food that we consume is deficient. The soil is deficient and therefore our bodies are deficient for them as well. So get tested and correct because you can make a massive change in your day-to-day energy, fatigue, everything by just supplementing in the right way and eating well. And the third I would say is just move every day. Your body was made for movement. Nature has designed it for movement. And we're just too sedentary as a species, unfortunately.

Utsav Somani: And we've not spoken a lot about the work that you've done at Human Edge. So for our listeners tuning in, what is the life cycle of the journey of a customer or a client who comes to you at Human Edge? What do you specifically do? I've read online that you work with IPL teams. You've spoken about it in the past privately. I would love for the benefit of our audience to also learn what does a longevity clinical approach look like?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): Yeah, so 90% of the work is focused on corporate India and entrepreneurs, individuals who are looking at living healthier for longer. As I said, looking towards the normalization of their health markers so that they can then potentially optimize from there. It is a longer-term approach to it, so there is no quick fix. I do have individuals who try and say, OK, Doc, just look at my bloods and tell me what I should do right now. But I always remind them that if you really want to climb a mountain, you've got to take those steps to get to the summit, and it takes time, therefore. So we typically look at a three- to six-month approach to begin with. There's a big diagnostic series, which is commenced where we're looking at blood, biomarkers, imaging, diagnostics, et cetera. We consume that data. We analyze the data. We measure biological age all the way through down to looking at various interventions that should be provided. And then the technology is there to create an interface with a coaching layer of my medical team and I, who then act as that sort of that concierge care provider to help nudge people and progress them up towards improving that. And then we're constantly doing testing and looking at biomarkers to ensure that those feedback loops that I was describing continues from that point. So that's the majority of work. As I said, my passion is in the high-performance space, so I get to work with some pretty cool men and women around the country who are at the cutting edge of sport, whether they're weekend warrior or representing the country, and that's where we translate the science for the day-to-day, everyday folks like you and I.

Utsav Somani: And I mean, a follow-up question, very quick one. Does, I mean, do things like HIROX, I know Dhruv is a big fan of HIROX as well. I've only done one. Only done one? But I mean, the world is catching on to it. Like for some reason, it's become a trend and I mean, popular imagination, right? It's got that. Do people come to you, I'm training for HIROX, can you help me improve? Is that something that you've seen amongst your clients?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): Yeah, absolutely. I think if I look back to the last six weeks, I've got many people actually who did HIROX. I had one client who just swam the English Channel. I've got a couple training for ultramarathons, myself included, actually, which are coming up. Oh, nice.

Utsav Somani: Which one are you doing?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): I'm doing the border run in Rajasthan to begin with. That's a 100 kilometer race, doc.

Dhruv Sharma: Why would you put yourself through that in a free country?

Utsav Somani: YOLO. Going the extreme way, right? Brian Johnson is like always going full extreme. So unless you can test your own therapies out, what's the point of this?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): I like pushing the body and the brain to do it.

Dhruv Sharma: Where in the training cycle are you right now for the 100k?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): No, so I'm doing the 50 in December and the 100 in March, split across two different versions. And yeah, we're coming up to, you know, now the slope goes like this for the weekend runs. But yeah, it's a whole bunch of different folks and definitely cultures like Devil's Circuit, HIROX, all the various ultramarathons, the Bergens, the Ironman competitions. They all sort of feed into what we do. I'm excited. I'm glad people are taking a more proactively active approach to life. And certainly, I think folks of our generation now are beginning to appreciate that health is an asset that needs to be invested in over a period of time and it can pay dividends.

Utsav Somani: Interesting. Dhruv, you had a question?

Dhruv Sharma: No, I think I'm just thrilled.

Utsav Somani: I'm just doubling down on that thread as well, unless you have something. So, I mean, the health and wellness market of India, right? I know Nitin Kama and Zerodha, they support a lot of initiatives in that space. And I think you're also backed by the Rain Matter Initiative as well, the focus that they have at health and wellness startups. So, what's been the chatter? Like, I mean, are VCs or investors still thinking that the market is limited or what kind of conversations do you have with investors in this space?

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): It's honestly mixed, you know, Nitin and his brother, they supported us early on and they've been a great support for the work we're doing, as they have been now with so many other health, fitness, longevity startups across. I think they have a slightly differentiated approach because it's obviously private capital and it's something they fundamentally believe in and they've experienced themselves. I think from the institutional funds that we converse with, of course, they're all looking at how does this feed into the bigger story, when's the scale moment for India, when does this become more mainstream? And I think we are beginning to approach those inflection points. I mean, certainly the commoditization, miniaturization and scale of wearable technology has rapidly increased over the last three, four years. I think the number of individuals who are now doing proactive diagnostics with some degree of frequency, it used to be one a year was a limited number, but that is increasing, more people are doing blood testing, etc. So that's going up as well. Of course, I think there are some cultural nuances which are changing, like what we were describing the high rocks, the devil circuits, all of those things. So I think it's an interesting time. Definitely the venture circuit is looking at it. And I wouldn't be surprised over the next few years if you see a lot more of these Indian brands then growing and providing services abroad, rather than just servicing for the Indian economy as well. Because there's a big cost arbitrage that can be gleaned from that.

Utsav Somani: And just to wrap things up, what does a day in the life of DocM look like? What therapies do you take? Cryo, red light, supplements, running, all of that stuff. What do you eat? Like a quick day in the life of DocM.

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): It starts early. I'm an early riser, typically around 5am. The first two or three hours, apart from getting the kids ready for school and dropping them off, are very much dedicated to the physical body. So I'll have at least an hour and a half, two hours of exercise. I will... And you focus on particular things? Like, I mean, VO2 max?

Dhruv Sharma: It's varied.

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): It's varied. And I make sure it's varied. So there's aerobic, there's anaerobic, there's strength training and flexibility as well. So it needs to be that varied for getting the sort of holistic improvement. I love sauna. I would do sauna, I think, four times a week for 20 minutes. I love chill pool immersion. I do that three times a week at a minimum. I have a red light panel at home, which I use frequently. Supplements wise, I typically have a base stack of eight or nine that I'm taking every day. And then two or three additions will happen on a sort of quarterly or six monthly cycle. I do take gerotherapeutic agents like rapamycin. I know Brian has come out against it.

Utsav Somani: Yeah, he's against it.

Dr. Marcus Ranney (Human Edge): You know, I argue, you know, we have different perspectives on it. I'm in favor of it. So I do use gerotherapeutic agents as well, personally, as well as creatine. What else? Sleep is a non-negotiable. At 9pm every night, our Alexa device makes an announcement at home, it's time for bed. And we're very quickly in bed because we all wake up so early as well. And then I'm just super, super disciplined with what I put in my mouth in terms of food. Really, really disciplined. And intermittent fasting, time-restricted eating are part of that. What I will add, though, and I make sure I want to end on this as well, is that everything we've spoken about looks at the body and brain. They pale in comparison to the real longevity benefit, which is having a good circle of friends that you can have a laugh with frequently. You know, going out and enjoying yourself and spending time with close individuals and good relationships and lots and lots of time in nature. My wife and I, we're very blessed to have a family who's very active and we're constantly either going out trekking or skiing in winter or doing long walks together. All of that stuff, right? That's where the joy of life comes in. So that shouldn't be understated.

Utsav Somani: Awesome, Dog. Thank you so much for coming on, T1, to share your thoughts with us. I mean, always fascinating to chat with you. Thank you, guys.

Utsav Somani: All the best for the run. Take care. Thank you. See you soon. Bye. Thank you. All right. So that was an awesome chat on longevity and health. Now we've got my dear friend, our dear friend Dhruv Madhok. He shares the same name as my co-host as well. And welcome, Dhruv. The first question I have for you is how much time did you spend on your hair today?

Dhruv Sharma: So this is my rolled out of... Thank you so much for having me here. This is my rolled out of bed look. If you think this is looking good, you should see me once I get ready with other products.

Utsav Somani: Awesome. That's a good start. So you've been early into the clean beauty trend in India, right? I mean, you were one of the first ones to talk about this and educate us this thing. How has the journey evolved in India? Now people are paying attention, especially after COVID, to clean beauty, clean products. And I mean, brands like Whole Truth, which are there for protein, which are making clean label products a reality in different... this thing as well, and educating people as well. You've been very early into that trend. What has been that slope like?

Dhruv Sharma: So there was definitely a clean beauty trend back in 2019, 2020 with COVID. It was there till even 2021. But it seemed like all of a sudden there was a lot of greenwashing happening in the ecosystem.

Utsav Somani: I think your volume is a little less. So it might be troublesome for our listeners to actually hear it.

Dhruv Sharma: We can try one more time. Is this any better?

Utsav Somani: Slightly, but not 100%.

Dhruv Sharma: All right. It was working fine. Give me one second. I'll put my AirPods on. Yeah, I think that'll fix it. Every... at every function and every gathering.

Utsav Somani: Many. All good to go. Yeah.

Dhruv Sharma: Is it... can you hear me from the... Just one moment.

Utsav Somani: Is it at my end? Or are you hearing, Dhruv?

Dhruv Madhok (Arata): Just fine. Sorry. Where were we? We were discussing clean beauty.

Dhruv Sharma: Right. Okay. So 2019, 2020 was like the era of clean everything, right? Clean beauty, clean F&B. And then there was like this influx of everything clean. And even those products and brands that weren't necessarily clean were positioning themselves as clean and doing a lot of hoodwinking. And, you know, if they had natural ingredients, they would say that, you know, made with natural ingredients. They've been asterixing, you know, some natural ingredients or some, you know, natural actives. So that happened. And then we also saw like the consumer's mindset kind of shift. You know, clean became table stakes, you know, because whether it was factually true or whether it was hoodwinking, clean became table stakes. And ultimately, the consumer now over the last two or three years we've seen is all about, you know, talking about performance and efficacy. And they want proof. They want science. So what we're... and this is something, you know, that we've been discussing with our investors. We're fortunate to have investors such as L'Oreal, Unilever, DSG. So we're seeing this across the board. So that doesn't mean that, you know, that brands should compromise on their clean ethos. But at the same time, they should also be cognizant and, you know, just the way we've taken cognizance of the fact that the consumer is, you know, it's great to be vegan and cruelty free and non-toxic, but the job to be done is of utmost importance. And that's what, you know, we as a brand have started focusing on as well. Interesting. Dhruv. What does it take to build a brand in an entirely new category, Dhruv? Let's talk about that for a bit. Now, Parata is pretty much a household name, if not across India, in many, many cities. But what's that journey been like? Okay, thanks for the question. And I think that's a very generous question. I think the journey has been like, you know, we started with, you know, just focusing on the consumer by having very strong D2C focus, which I think, you know, served us very well initially. But we kind of realized that, you know, to scale, we have to play in the marketplaces, we have to play in e-commerce, because D2C can offer you data. And so in the early stages, it's great to find, you know, product market fit, understand who your consumer is, understand what their wants and, you know, what their likes and dislikes are. So when we started, we had a focus on making clean products across the board, body care, skin care, face care, hair care, we even had oral care products like toothpaste. But what we realized was, you know, almost 90% of our revenue was coming from our hair care products. So, you know, in a very counterintuitive approach, one has to kind of find their niche and their wedge and really, you know, go really narrow and deep to really go wide, you know, so we tried by playing in various categories. But what we found was just focusing on hair care and, you know, premiumizing the experience and specializing the experience. So let me give you an example. Before, we used to just consider hair care, you know, hair to be just one type, right? But hair is of four types. They're straight, wavy, curly, and coily. People used to think that scalp is of one type, but scalps have dry scalp, combination scalp, scalps, oily scalps. It's like skin, basically. It is, the scalp is like skin. It's the only living part of your head, right? Your hair is essentially technically dead. So the scalp has its own microbiome. So by focusing on, you know, specific niches, by premiumizing certain, you know, offerings and going very, very, you know, narrow and deep and really solving for a set of consumers and then having them talk to their friends and family and, you know, getting their organic word of mouth, that's kind of like how we scaled. And then, you know, once we did that, so like once we went after a niche like safe and effective hair styling, clean hair styling, we were then able to extrapolate because we then said, okay, fine, what are the other concerns that would be adjacent to this? Or what is it, you know, how are we finding, you know, what is the need state of that user? So if they're using a styling gel, they probably want, you know, a shampoo to wash their gel off, right? And if they're using gel frequently now, they probably want a shampoo that they can use every day. You know, if they have an active lifestyle and they care about how they look, then they're probably working out. So they probably have, you know, an oily scalp or a dirty scalp after workout. And you start solving more and more of their needs. So we start solving more and more of their needs. So we launched something called the Super Shampoo, which is basically a safe and effective yet gentle daily use shampoo, became one of our best sellers contribution, 20% of our revenue. Then we understood that hair fall was a big concern. So it's kind of like, it's like you meander and go deeper into your consumer. Rudra, tell us when you raise your hand and say clean products, you're making a very public promise and holding yourself to a very high standard. So one, is that pressure? I'm assuming it is. And how does it, how do you, how do you carry that pressure from one product to another, from one category to another, from old customers to newly acquired customers? So, yes, it's definitely pressure. We have to say no to a lot of things. You know, there are lots of product offerings that could be, you know, that could be booming addressable markets. You know, like for example, like, you know, we could be using alcohol in certain styling products, but we don't use them. We could be using certain types of dyes for hair color, but we haven't gotten into that space. So it does mean saying no to several things. So it is pressure in that regard. But then again, like, you know, once you develop a, you know, a community, a relationship of positioning and ethos internally and externally, you're able to kind of, you know, double down. And once you find your, your product market and your consumer, yeah, exactly. You can kind of keep leveraging that. So we have like a framework that we follow, you know, across the board. So for us, it was very simple, right? We want to make sure that our products are non-toxic, but if a consumer wants to use high efficacy products, right? And what we're seeing is, you know, people are becoming more and more familiar with terms like hyaluronic acid and niacinamide. Now, are they bad for you? No, they are not, right? But if you put that onto your front of pack, then customers will think, oh my God, this brand is using chemicals. So what we were like, how do we, how do we go about solving this in a very, you know, objective fashion? We started following something called the EWG framework, which is basically the environmental working group. It's a US entity, which has a repository of every ingredient used across the board in beauty and personal care. And as long as we were, you know, in the safe, non-toxic zone, one, two, three, four rated and not in the, you know, five, six, seven, which is borderline and, you know, seven, eight, nine, 10, which is carcinogenic. So by, you know, by doing that, you know, we were able to kind of have a framework that we followed and a North Star that we followed and our customers trust us for that.

Utsav Somani: And I mean, when you talk about clean label products, do Indian consumers pay more for that? Do you think there's a premium in that? Because my personal consumption pattern for all these G2C brands is typically when like Whole Truth is running their monthly sale, I typically end up ordering for the next two months instead of ordering it when I need it. So my consumption pattern on online brands is typically focused on just buying when the sale is on, which is almost every month at least. But so across the board, like are people value conscious, are Indians paying more for luxury now or clean label products rather?

Dhruv Sharma: So definitely Indians, you know, we as a consumer are becoming, you know, far more evolved than we've ever been. And we are wanting more premium and more specialized products. And we are wanting more clean, high performing, effective products. And yes, the answer to that is people are, you know, paying a premium for it. So even if you are buying your Whole Truth bars at, you know, say a 25 to 30% discount on a flash sale, it would probably be, you know, still twice as expensive as the next non-clean, non-high performing alternative, right? But you see the value in it. So, you know, you're kind of subscribing to it. You're loyal to the brand. So is, you know, is discounting an incentive, you know, a part of the strategy? It most definitely is entirely, you know, across the Ecom and, you know, Qom playbook. But what we do is, you know, as we scale, we optimize the raw material costs and the packaging material costs. We're able to make the products more affordable and we're able to pass that back to the consumer. So where our shampoos used to sell for prices around 700 or 800 in 2020 and 2021, we're selling it for 600. But we're not doing that at the cost of our gross margin. We're just, as we scale, we're getting economies of scale on the raw material and the packaging materials supplied and giving it back. And that's becoming like a virtuous flywheel. And the more we do this, of course, you know, probably come a point where we can't, you know, reduce it any further. But until we get that perfect point, we can keep making better products for the consumer and passing it back to them. And, you know, and then there's also other strategies like small pack sizes, like, for example, on QuickCommerce, people may not necessarily need to buy 300 ml shampoo. They might want to buy like 100 ml shampoo or 150 ml shampoo. So you can still give a very high performing, clean, non-toxic, safe product, but in a smaller pack size. So the put down price is lower. So there's like strategies, you know, around that. Dhruv, can you give us a sense of where are new to Parata customers discovering your products? You know, a lot of the prospecting actually ends up happening online. So they discover us on social media. They discover us through meta ads. They discover us through, what's very good in our business is that about 20 odd percent of customers discover us from Instagram. But at the same time, 20 odd percent of customers also discover us through word of mouth. Because if you've solved a problem for a consumer, there's a high chance that they'll talk to their friends and family about it. So while majority of the customers, you know, the 75 percent of our business every single month is new to brand. And we're acquiring lots of customers. That's not to say that our customers are lower. It's just that we're growing, you know, like we've grown 300 percent last year. We're growing almost 100 percent this year. So there's a very, very active new to brand campaign going on all the time. And they're discovering us, you know, predominantly through the internet. And what's your perspective and why it's important for founders of consumer brands like you to get directly in front of customers? Because ultimately we realize that, you know, people don't want to shop from faceless brands anymore. So like if you look at any of the products that we're using in our lives, there's a high chance that, you know, we've, you know, there's a face behind that product or the brand. We want to know why a brand, a product was started, what problem it was solving. We want to know that if this is something that, you know, that this particular founder or set of founders face themselves and, you know, and find some, you know, relatability to that. And founder branding is, you know, is very important. We've seen my co-founder and I, we went to Shark Tank. And when we went on Shark Tank, you know, that got us a lot of visibility and a lot of mileage. And ever since then we became less camera shy and, you know, start coming more on social media. And we find that there's a lot of engagement on that. So it kind of validates.

Utsav Somani: We're learning that trick by doing the show.

Dhruv Sharma: Should we take T.O.N on Shark Tank as well? I don't know what to sell, but yeah, we will get less camera shy. You're selling content, which is very valuable. I think well said Dhruv. I think just for this, we're going to have you back on the show very soon.

Utsav Somani: But I mean, one D2C success story that's been on my mind, Minimalist, right? 3000 crore exit. Yeah. I mean, pretty amazing. Like what do you think was working for them? Or what really propels the brand to such a large exit in such a short time frame?

Dhruv Sharma: Right, right. So I think they were, they were excellent in, you know, in category creation and finding, you know, a white space. So they were experts in serums and, you know, and it's just, you know, it's a very interesting time because the consumer was first, there was no, you know, necessary problem awareness, but thanks to the democratization of information through the internet, through access to social media and the world becoming flat. And now thanks to, you know, democratization of not only information and knowledge, but intelligence with, you know, chat GPT. Discovering what all your problems are has never been easier. And then discovering what the solutions are to those problems has never become easier. And then figuring out the brands that cater to those solutions for those problems has never been easier. And then figuring out what products by those brands for those, you know, solutions to those problems has never been easier. And then those ingredients. So it was like, you know, it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's, it's a great execution. It's great, you know, sharp positioning, brilliant product strategy, great distribution. You know, they also did a bunch of strategic things like bringing manufacturing in-house and R&D and quality control in-house. So they have like, you know, super, you know, no compromise on quality, you know, also a better margin. So it's like a lot of smart strategic things done and they did a phenomenal job and we're all, you know, super inspired by it in this ecosystem.

Utsav Somani: No, wishing you all the same. And thanks for coming on the show. One quick one, three brands apart from Marata that you use and love.

Dhruv Sharma: Do they have consumer brands, new age brands? Yeah. Do they have to be Indian D2C?

Utsav Somani: Indian, yeah. Preferably.

Dhruv Sharma: Okay. Got it. Cosmix.

Utsav Somani: For the plant protein.

Utsav Somani: You shouldn't be taking that long to think through this.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah, I know because I'm realizing that I'm not, I'm not subscribing to as many D2C brands. Okay. I haven't used it because I was trying to pass that filter, but I really like Mocobara designs. Oh, yeah. And what else?

Dhruv Madhok (Arata): What a story again.

Dhruv Sharma: Darn. I should have more consumer brands that I'm using. No, they seem to be prompting me from the back. Like I don't use those. You can just tweet at us. I will.

Utsav Somani: No, no. Thank you so much. The question is out of the syllabus. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Wishing you, Dhruv. I mean, you are too, Dhruv, as well. Say hi to the scene as well. So all the best. And yeah. Thank you so much. Have wonderful success and see you back on the show with a better answer to the three Indian brands that you love.

Dhruv Sharma: I will subscribe to more products. Thanks. See you, Dhruv.

Utsav Somani: Thanks. Thanks, Dhruv. Cheers. Bye-bye. All right, folks. That's it from today. We'll see you on Friday. We've got two amazing guests. We've spoken about coffee in the past and Matt is coming on the show with one of our other favorite investors in the ecosystem. So Friday should be a good one to wrap up an awesome week at TON. See you very soon.