Summary

The Offline Network Episode 31: Commerce & Discovery (aired 2025-11-10). Guests: Shlok Bhartiya from Shoppin. Shivam: "So depending on the need, depending on why the document is being signed by different kinds of e-signing options, Aadhaar being a major contributor, I think almost 50% of the transactions that we see are contributed by Aadhaar." Shivam: "Because as per Indian laws, a document, an agreement, a contract can basically only be executed in a court of law." Topics: venture capital and funding, AI and LLMs, consumer brands and D2C, B2B/SaaS. The Offline Network is India's live show on startups, tech, and venture — streaming M/W/F at 4 PM IST on YouTube.

Full Transcript

Dhruv Sharma: Welcome back listeners, today we have a literal rockstar sitting with us to cover the news segment. And we have Shrijan, who among many other things plays drums for the well-loved band Parikrama. I remember you guys, the band would come to my college and it would be quite a scene on the grounds. Shrijan, it's great to have you. What's up? How are you doing?

Utsav Somani: Love it. Thanks for having me, man. Let's have Friday fun together. All right, so let's get started with the news. Today Shrijan is helping us break it down. But also, fun fact for our listeners, Shrijan was the first person to message me that we should do a live news style show. And also he mentioned that we should build the TVPN of India. So here we are, three times a week, doing this 45 minutes every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So thanks Shrijan for getting us into this mess. But all right, so in the news, Whisper Flow, DPS RK Puram alum raising a big round as well and one of the best, most loved speech to text tool as well. So what's in the water of DPS RK Puram, sir?

Srijan Mahajan: You will know this, you are the one who's an alum. But I think I've just seen a lot of this, right? And like there is so much, there are just so many people over there. First of all, the incredible talent density, right? When you have like, I think you have like 20 sections, right, in the 11th and 12th. So you have like so many people in that, obviously the talent density is huge. But I also think that it is about what the school is prioritizing and the school sort of P0 prioritizes and gets it in your head that listen, like, you have to succeed and like success is a very big part of the culture at the school, right? And that just sort of drives people. And at that age where you're so impressionable, and you're forming so many of these worldviews for yourself, you're just sort of, it's in your blood, right? You're like, I'm going to do whatever the hell it takes to succeed. I want that blue blazer. I want that whatever that other, I don't know what those things are that you have in that school.

Utsav Somani: I want that blue blazer, blue tie.

Srijan Mahajan: So you just got to do that.

Utsav Somani: They've gamified it, man. They've gamified competition. I still remember.

Srijan Mahajan: And there are, it's very difficult to check out of that system, right? Because if you're in that system, then you're in it and it will raise some people with killer instincts, right? And all of these founders, and you've seen this, I think, Anmol Mehni sort of started this thing and Didi also started this thing of like so many people, so many founders who are from DPSRKP have raised X amount of money and they've gone on to be these absolute killers in the field. It's all started from there. It's crazy.

Utsav Somani: Yeah. And they mentioned Exin club and funny story, I joined that club because that was the only place with AC in the school. I was like, okay. And whenever the teacher used to be sitting in one corner, we used to just do all tab and then play Prince of Persia while coding, but I mean, yeah, I learned a good bunch there. Then we're talking about food delivery. So Bernstein put out a report as well. Dhruv, you want to summarize that for us?

Dhruv Sharma: I think we should put this in Gemini 3 if you want a perfect summary. It's an 86 page report.

Dhruv Sharma: But you know, there were two things that really stood out for me and it's whoever's written this report, by the way, terrific job. It's them oversimplifying it a little bit, but saying that, you know, there's two ways to address India's consumption story. One is to target the people who are in a sense, money rich, but time poor. That's the top 5%. And then you forget the top 10%, 11 to I think 40%, the next 30% of people who are in a sense money poor, but time rich and that's what's going on. And even for Zomato, I mean, I'm sorry, Eternal and Swiggy, they've beautifully framed the two opportunity sets that they're going after. One, which is helping you save time and two, which is helping you spend your time well. But there's a lot more in this report. We have some stats. I think you want to go over them. Yeah.

Utsav Somani: So I think the point that they make is that offline to online transition in India is mostly complete. So the growth will slow down below 20%, but these guys have approximately 20, I mean, Zomato or Eternal has 24 million monthly transacting users, but they're going to face headwinds when Rapido enters. I mean, it's already entered and it's going to scale up their food delivery platform with new pricing models for their partners in the restaurants. And QuickCommerce is also catching up with different players as well, Reliance coming into this picture. So I think it's going to get very, very competitive, but they still feel that the stock is underpriced and they're bullish on that.

Dhruv Sharma: In terms of market cap, Eternal is something like 30, 32, right? And Swiggy is lower. It's lower. But Eternal's got so many different businesses within the umbrella.

Utsav Somani: Within the umbrella. Feeding India, District, which is one of their big ones now, Blinkit, of course, the QuickCommerce. And I mean, the funny thing is that they mentioned that GLP-1 can be a potential bear case for these players because the minute the GLP-1 consumption goes up, of course, it's an expensive thing. So it's not going to have that much impact or reach in India. But people stop ordering food when they go on the GLP-1 medicine. So yeah, that was listed as one of the bear case possibilities for these investments.

Srijan Mahajan: I don't know how true that is though, you know, with the GLP-1 thing, because ordering like food from these platforms, it's not, nobody's going to be ordering healthy food is what I feel, right? Everybody orders like food to feel better. And everybody's ordering pizza or like a burger or butter chicken or whatever it is, right? And I mean, even the GLP-1 does sort of change your mental makeup towards even craving such food. I think the psychological and emotional effect of even just ordering that food for yourself as a thing to do to treat yourself is not never going to go away.

Utsav Somani: Even the QuickCommerce, right? Getting a delivery in 10 minutes is just a dopamine hit, like, I mean, yeah, it's crazy. Like, and I mean, there was somebody who mentioned a friend of mine, he said, they've uninstalled all of these apps, because for their kids, they never want them to learn this dopamine hit that you can just request for something and it just pops up to plan their grocery list, go to the mall on a weekend as a family activity. But what did you think about Dipinder's anti-gravity hypothesis?

Srijan Mahajan: Yeah, I mean, I have, you know, I have thoughts on this stuff.

Utsav Somani: Because you were involved in health, you were running a community called Health Enthusiasts as well.

Srijan Mahajan: I think there's a lot of discussion on that. And I don't think, I mean, I think that this is very preliminary research. And I also don't think, I think he put out a clarifying statement today as well, which I think makes a lot of sense, which is that I don't think he explained it well enough. Like, I don't think you can reduce scientific research the way that it is that they are presenting down to this kind of a tweet or to a post because it is, it has to be understood in context. I don't know, I haven't read the report because I read the headline and I was like, I don't think I can read this. I will not take it seriously.

Dhruv Sharma: By that logic, I'm just making a joke, but like, bats should be the healthiest animals on the planet.

Srijan Mahajan: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I don't, I don't get it. I mean, turtles are the animals that live the longest, right? Like you have turtles living for like 500 years or like 300 years. If I'm not mistaken. And they don't, they are not upside down. There's no gravity over that. So obviously it could be a contributing factor, but to what end, nobody knows.

Utsav Somani: Yeah. Because body has these self-regulating sort of features. Like, I mean, there was a thing that if you're eating food, don't lie down, but actually food just goes down, even if you're lying down as well. Exactly. Same for blood. Yeah.

Srijan Mahajan: I also feel that bro, like 100,000 years of evolution and human evolution, like don't fuck with evolution, a basic fundamental nature, you know, like nature finds a way and nature will find a way.

Utsav Somani: But I think you got to take these moon shots. I just hope. Oh, 100%. Like a temple or that device.

Utsav Somani: I just hope it's not linked to that.

Srijan Mahajan: Yeah. And it's a great thing to do for sure. And I have full respect for anybody to even taking this up in India, because in India, you know how the thing is, you know, better than anybody else. Both of you do this day in and day out. Like nobody wants to take moon shots. Nobody wants to take long term bets that you don't know will work out or not. And we definitely are maybe not give a return on capital that is employed, but it is something that is important for the world to do.

Dhruv Sharma: And I think the mere fact that he got immediate pushback from the medical fraternity might just mean that there's something worth looking into. Right. Like it's still super early, but maybe that there itself is a sign.

Utsav Somani: And I don't know about you guys, but I honestly trust Chachi Biddy more than my doctor these days. Like I put any report.

Dhruv Sharma: Is your doctor listening in?

Utsav Somani: We're talking about AI. So, I mean, Google made some noise yesterday and this week as well, they did Gemini 3 and now Nano Banana Pro. Have you guys tried it? It's insane. Like if you put the Bernstein report in it and ask it to create one page infographic, it'll do it for you in like 30 seconds. It's crazy. Yeah.

Srijan Mahajan: Last night, I installed my first ever agentic IDE, like what's it called? I forgot what it's called also. Sorry.

Utsav Somani: That's how fast the world of AI is.

Srijan Mahajan: That's how fast it is.

Srijan Mahajan: I have no idea. Right.

Dhruv Sharma: The vibe shifts so suddenly, right? Like you're constantly swinging from it's over to we are so back and day after day.

Utsav Somani: Yeah. We are so dead situation. Sam Altman had to write a memo to his employees where he said that we're not invincible. Google is waking up. I expect the vibes out there to be rough for a bit. I haven't read the memo, but these were the statements in that memo. So he's definitely ringing the bells because, I mean, everyone thought that you can be a disruptor. But with, I mean, Dhruv mentioned on the last show as well, that Google has a distribution power of a billion users in so many different categories. It's just very hard to compete.

Srijan Mahajan: I mean, you can underestimate Google all you want. And I think all of us did. We included, I've already adopted Google, right? For the past 10 years, I'm like, oh, what have you made? What are you not doing? Whatever. But fact of the matter is, I'm using Gmail every day. Fact of the matter is, I'm using a Chromium browser every day. Fact of the matter is that I'm using YouTube every day. And they have all of this data and they're the only company right now, which is actually sort of vertically integrated and they've integrated the entire sort of chain for AI, right? So they have their own TPUs as well, in which, for instance, and this is the funniest part, right? The model which has the highest benchmarks today is one that is not running on Nvidia chips.

Srijan Mahajan: When Nvidia is the most sort of valuable company in the world.

Dhruv Sharma: And they haven't started selling those TPUs.

Srijan Mahajan: Exactly. So if you're worried about the circular economy, I don't know what's happening, but yeah.

Dhruv Sharma: You know, I haven't yet had the chance to play around with Nano Banana a lot, but to me, the most exciting part about this is just how interesting it's going to make learning all over again. Sreejan, I remember from college, I used to have a friend who was the kind of guy who, you know, when you show up unprepared for a test, two or 10 minutes or whatever, before going into the exam hall, would just look at a YouTube animation and he'd know what to write. And he'd get the same marks as the guys would spend, like, three hours on that same thing. So the point being that not all of us learn the same, right? Some of us learn better by reading some, by seeing some, by listening. And AI is actually creating, we're going to be talking about Whisper as well, across voice, visuals, and text. I think it's just a great time to be a learner above everything else.

Srijan Mahajan: Absolutely. Like, we have democratized information so much. And it's just crazy because the only thing that's going to actually be a differentiator is courage and creativity. That's it. Everything is at your fingertips.

Utsav Somani: Knowledge is democratized, right? We're entering a world where access to knowledge is, we're post-knowledge world, I think, almost, like to be honest. Yeah. All right. Final topic for the segment, something that's what triggered Sreejan's entry into the show today. Sreejan, break it down. What did Aviraal write?

Srijan Mahajan: Yeah. So I think this tweet, I think it's a well-meaning tweet, and I'm a big fan of what Aviraal also writes. And I, again, at the offset, I would also say that there is no right or wrong way to think about this stuff, right? The only thing that I feel is that there is a lot of nuance to this stuff, and you cannot think of this stuff in black and white. And like, for instance, he wrote this tweet, and this is, it's right, like, I am extremely idealistic about a lot of these things, and I do, I am one of those people who feels that intent with what you do really matters. You know, the motives behind why you do things are very, very important, simply because every tiny micro decision that you do is going to be, is going to come from that motive, right? And that motive is at an atomic level, like, if on an atomic level, you are starting a company to make money, there will be 1000 subconscious decisions that you take to optimize for that. And that is P0 for you, right? And you're the way success is, it's going to be money first, and then everything else, if it happens, it happens, it doesn't matter. And that's great for it to for somebody to do that. But the thing is that, for instance, PG, PG started via web for making money, right? And he wrote that also, I think he replied on this, that we started via web for making money. And I think that's awesome. He optimized for money, he got the Yahoo exit, and he made money off of it, right? But if you think about it, he started YC, not to make money, he started YC, because he felt that the existing venture model was failing. But he only liked the value, so that comfort net was there. Absolutely. So but I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about the situation over there. All I'm talking about is that he started YC with the fact that hey, P0 for me is just to solve this problem of early stage venture capital, of having a community to help founders build the greatest product that I can. With that in mind, PG was very clear that this is my P0. So there could be an alternate universe where YC did not make money, but they still succeeded in that problem. And they managed to solve the problem. And it could have been very possible that they did not invent the safe, that they did not manage to get equity in Reddit or in Airbnb or in any of these things. And they could have done a very different model, who knows. But the P0 for them was to solve that problem. And they managed to solve that problem when they did. It's the same thing with like, for instance, when Dr. Lange started Polaroid, right? Or Apple started, I mean, Jobs started Apple, they were very clear that these are our experiments or this is, I just want to invent cool shit to change the way that we sort of interact with technology, right? That was P0. The money was made as a byproduct.

Dhruv Sharma: On the money, you know, VC means C, so it's capitalist.

Utsav Somani: Exactly. I mean, I honestly think like most people start, nobody in India, I don't know, most people are starting a company to get rich. Like it's very clear, like why else would you put yourself through that? Most of these people are so talented, where they can get a hyping job and sometimes don't even match up to what they would have earned, like while earning a job. I mean, you need to have some burning desire. But also I think Balaji makes a very good point. Sometimes there might be a paycheck coming, which might become your motivation. Sometimes when there's no paycheck coming, then you're basically involved for the mission. But sometimes they just go hand in hand, like I mean, Sam Altman has zero equity in OpenAI, it's still active, it's soft power for him.

Srijan Mahajan: Correct. And I don't think the, like, I think obviously the motivation, what the motivation is not important. The point is you are honest with yourself with why you are doing this. If you're doing it for the money, everything is good, but you should know, or at least admit to yourself, even if you don't want to admit to the rest of the world, admit it to yourself that, hey, I am doing this to do A, B, C, D, E, because that will just help you be aligned and be a lot more sort of intentional with your effort. Because you know, we talk about obsession a lot. And I don't think we need to be obsessed. I think you need to be aligned with what you really want to do at an atomic level. And if you are, then you're good.

Utsav Somani: But, I mean, self is the easiest person to fool also.

Srijan Mahajan: Absolutely.

Srijan Mahajan: Absolutely. Very difficult. Very difficult.

Utsav Somani: All right. Where's the next Parikrama tour?

Srijan Mahajan: We just came back from Vietnam, actually. So we were on tour last week, all of last week in Vietnam. And now we're going to Bhutan in a few weeks time. So yeah.

Utsav Somani: Dude, is it mostly Indian fans who show up there or international fans? I mean, like, what's the...

Srijan Mahajan: International as well. Wow. Awesome.

Utsav Somani: We'll bring the T1 community out and the offline community out to your next show whenever you're doing one in India.

Srijan Mahajan: Absolutely, sir. Done, done, done.

Utsav Somani: This was fun. Benny, thank you so much for coming. So lovely to have you.

Utsav Somani: Cheers. All right, folks, let's switch up gears. An offline member is with us now. He's going to teach us the world of legal documentation and how tech is being used to in India. make it simpler. Shivam, welcome to the show.

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): Thank you. Hello. Good to have you.

Utsav Somani: And thank you so much for giving us the time. Can you take us through what legality does in two, three minutes?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): Yeah. So I think what we do is very simple, yet very complex. Legality is a e-signing and document infrastructure platform for Indian businesses. What we basically do is we enable Indian businesses, irrespective of what industry they are of from and what kind of documentation they are doing, to just take their documentation processes completely digital, yet in a fully legally compliant manner. So a document digitally executed through legality is as valid as a physical document, if not more, and in a lot of cases, a lot more. So at the core of it, it's basically about making digital documentation processes digital and compliant.

Utsav Somani: And do you rely just on email or other e-signs and other methods exist as well?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): No. So we actually have more than 15 kinds of e-signing options on our platform, right? Because there are different reasons why businesses sign documents. Someone signs documents to be able to secure their transaction and be able to enforce in a court of law. Someone signs it for compliance. Someone signs to just like give a sense of formalization, right? So depending on the need, depending on why the document is being signed by different kinds of e-signing options, Aadhaar being a major contributor, I think almost 50% of the transactions that we see are contributed by Aadhaar. But at the same time, there's a good bunch contributed by non-Aadhaar options as well.

Dhruv Sharma: Shrim, from a documentation standpoint, what are some unique, call them quirks, call them demands of the Indian legal system that you've been able to digitize using tech legality?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): I think there are a lot. The biggest one I would say is this thing around stamp duty, right? Because as per Indian laws, a document, an agreement, a contract can basically only be executed in a court of law. If appropriate, stamp duty is paid for it, right? And stamping is an archaic law. It's a British era law and it's a state subject, right? So every state has their unique ways, how they issue stamp papers. Then for the last two decades, since the Telgi scam, we've been hearing of this thing called an e-stamp paper, but counterintuitively, it's only electronic for the government, but for the end user, it's still been a physical experience, right? So even in states where you get an e-stamp paper, it's only electronically generated by the government, but the end users still have to get a physical stamp paper, right? So one of the biggest challenges that we had to work around was, okay, if we are taking it digital, the documentation process digital, and to make it compliant, stamping has to be done in a compliant way. And it's so complicated and so physical, how do we do it in a manner that we can do it digitally on the fly and yet, and lead to a compliant e-stamp document.

Dhruv Sharma: Do you remember the first time a legality executed document was admitted as say, court evidence or something when it became like real to you, this works?

Utsav Somani: And when did digital signed documents actually were accepted in India as legally acceptable?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): So, so actually, digital signatures have been accepted since the Information Technology Act that came in the year 2000, right? So it's a long journey, but till Aadhaar came in, what was accepted, what was common was the traditional DSCs, right, which all companies and all use for like their filings and everything our company secretaries, CAs have been using. But obviously, that was a very, like hardware intensive way to sign documents, you needed a dongle, you needed to get your KYC, you needed a proper device or software to be able to digitally sign documents. And at the same time, digital, just like evidence, like being able to scan something and see that as a record, a valid record has also been there since the IT Act, right. But I think what changed was Aadhaar, because what Aadhaar did is Aadhaar provided the security and authentication of the DSC of the traditional government verified identity based digital signature to the mass market, right. So Aadhaar eSign, so we also started in 2016 and Aadhaar eSign also just came right around that. So I think that was a turning point. And in terms of documents, I think in COVID, we had a big first big crack at it where there was a insolvency transaction happening of this company called Orchid Pharma, right. So the entire transaction had to be done in COVID and that full transaction, co-driven transaction where like there were 20-25 lenders, public lenders, private lenders were involved and everyone did it through legality in COVID. And so that was the first like big moment. But over the years, till date, we have not received any information that, okay, any of our documents has been contested in court of law.

Utsav Somani: And you've raised 5 million recently from IIFL's FinTech fund. What is the scale of legality that enabled this raise?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): So actually that was also two, three years ago. So we have been actually cash flow positive throughout since 2019, since we, 2018-19, since we actually started to make real revenue. We have raised three rounds, but we have like 60-70% more cash than what we have raised. So that cash also when we raised was more of an insurance and just to get things going. We didn't know, okay, what will be the state of business, but thankfully we have not had to use any money. And over the last few years, though, we have, we don't see any point of raising any money. And I think till the point you're chasing money, everyone like is hard to get. And the moment you stop wanting money is like every person just wants to talk to you and like want to be on your cap table.

Utsav Somani: And I think that's- Just like a bank loan, you have to prove to them that you don't need a loan to actually get the loan. That probably brings up a very- How many documents get signed on this thing in terms of scale, like if you were to say a monthly or an annual?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): So at a monthly level, around 6 million documents, 60 lakh per month.

Utsav Somani: And what segment or sector is your biggest client?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): So BFSI is definitely the biggest segment as a platform, we are a horizontal platform at the absolutely lower end. It's a complete self-service platform where anyone can, even if let's say you just want to execute two, three documents, you can create an account and start using it. So that's the full self-serve platform. Then we have an enterprise there, which is the real moneymaker. There again, we are horizontal, but BFSI contributes a significant percentage of our revenue just because the sheer scale and volume of the problem that they deal with and the number of documents they have, BFSI is the biggest segment.

Dhruv Sharma: And what are the different pricing models that work there?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): So we work on a dual pricing model, like there are two layers to the pricing model. First is a subscription model at the base of it. So depending on the kind of configurations you need in your license and how many licenses you need, how many workflows you need and stuff. So there's an annual subscription fee. And then over the top of that, it's a transactional model where like for every e-sign or every stamp paper that is processed, depending on the type or the volume, there's just a different transactional pricing, which is different for client to client.

Dhruv Sharma: Nice. And if we take a step back from document execution, Shivam, more broadly in the space of legal tech, what are some very interesting trends you guys have your eyes on?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): So I think broadly now in the last one, two years with AI becoming real, I think a lot of things are opening up, like I think these companies like Harvey and all, which even in India, there's this company called Lucio, which is doing very well. So I think this is an entirely new segment where the core legal work of lawyers, like I think a lot of attempts have been made in the past to do this. I also have a few folks in my company who have tried to do this in the past, but I think now was just the right timing that the core legal work, just the monotony and the extent of the repetitive monotonous work is finally, like people are finally seeing results. And even in the last 10 years, one thing, one segment, which we have actually tactically ignored is the lawyer segment, because we have always seen that it's just very hard and there are a lot of challenges. We have found it easier to target the enterprise market. But I think now finally, it seems like, okay, the core of legal operations is starting to getting, like they're seeing results, which they didn't see earlier, though not still not our focus area, because I think we still have a slightly tunnel vision with respect to what our problem statement is and the kind of adjacent markets we want to attack. But I think in the legal tech space, especially India, also now we have seen that most big law firms are using, like we know some law firms are using Harvey, some of like the two, three tools, Harvey Lucio is two tools that I know. So I think that's one interesting.

Utsav Somani: There was an Indian LLM for lawyers as well that came up, right? I saw a big ad in the newspaper long back with Indian case fed in as data.

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): Yeah, I think the Agami folks, there's a legal community. I think they've been trying to do something for some time, though, to be honest, I'm not very updated on it. But I know for a while, they've been trying to do a lot with open data, open judgments. And I'm sure like off late in the last one, two years, all those efforts now can really make sense because of the just the technical capability.

Utsav Somani: And you mentioned adjacent spaces, what are some of the spaces if you want to share?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): Yeah. So I think one of the biggest space, our next biggest bet is this space around DPDP compliance. So DPDP is a new data protection act for India, which is the GDPR parallel in India. It was passed around two years ago. The rules have actually just been notified, I think, around seven, eight days ago. So for two years, it was a long wait. Yeah. So now they've been notified. And I think that's made a lot of hue and cry in the market because after taking like a full decade, the government has finally managed to pass a law. And even after one and a half, two years, the rules are also out. So I think that's a big market because everything changes, right? Any company which collects or processes data, personal data digitally has to comply with it. And the fines are big and the government seems to be very serious about it. So that's the space, which is our next big bet. We have launched a product called ConsentIn, which is basically at the core of it, a consent manager, but around it is a full enterprise DPDP compliance layer, which, which just, yeah, so just helps enterprise comply with every kind of regulatory expectation under the DPDP act.

Dhruv Sharma: Shivam, I think I heard you say that you have some people at your company who've previously built their own products. Do you have ex-founders working in your company?

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): Not a lot, but yeah, there have been people who tried this, even actually something similar, very similar actually to something like Lucio, which seems to be now, like I think in the last one year, I've heard a lot about them, but, and these guys who, like my colleagues who work with me, they had tried something around two, three years ago. I think that just the timing, the models and all were just not mature at the time. I'm sure if they had done it today, it would have probably led to just a different reality for them.

Utsav Somani: Yeah. Nice. Shivam, thank you so much for coming on the show. We'd love to have you back again.

Shivam Singla (Founder, Leegality): Great chatting with you, Shivam. Yeah. Thank you.

Utsav Somani: All right, listeners. Our next guest is Abhinav. I've known Abhinav for a very, very long time. We go back to his first company, Dorment, and then his second one, Swiftlearn, and now his third one called Illuno. I've actually backed all three. And I've learned so much from him. Sumit of CoinDCX is a common friend of ours as well. So lots to chat with Abhinav today. Abhinav, welcome to the show.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): Hey, Utsav. So glad to be here.

Utsav Somani: My pleasure. And I mean, I was remembering you on the day of the Urban Company IPO.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): Yeah. Yeah.

Utsav Somani: Things could have been different.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): Yes. And I also messaged Abhiraj and my Dorment team that, yes, there was an opportunity which we missed. There is no other word than saying it, but there are a lot of learnings from it, which hopefully will be deployed in this startup. But that was a very happy day for me also, because at least it showed that a large business can be built in a category in which I tried. So, yeah.

Utsav Somani: Maybe. And you, when you were shutting down the company, I think you really like broke down that email where you explained the reasons and your thinking and understanding of the market. That was super, super thoughtful. And I think that was just a factor of time as well. I think the funding market was different, dried up and people were concentrating bets in their winners. And then came Swiflun, your exit, profitable exit to Unacademy. Yes.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): So, and you were obviously a part of Dorment and Swiflun and now Elluno. So, yeah. Yeah. So, so, so, so we are trying to build in the premium category of the eyewear in India right now. It's almost a six and a half billion dollar market in India alone. And it is growing at around 12 to 13% annually Kega. So it is going to become like more than one and a half lakh crore market in the next 10 to 15 years. And as you will know, there are not a lot of full stack players in this segment because my understanding is that it's a, it's quite difficult category to execute in because it is a mixture of a D2C plus retail plus supply chain plus brand building, marketing, and tech. There are just in time operations because you customize every eyewear based on the order of the customer based on the power, which you have the coatings, which you choose and then it is delivered to you or you pick up. And then even after the sale, there is a service element to it in terms of a repair or a refit or an adjustment. So it has all the elements of building a brand, building a physical product, designing it, getting it produced, manufacturing, then retail, because it is something which is not easily sold online. You need that touch and feel, you need that eye checkup, you need to wear it and be comfortable about it. And most of the important thing is you should look, you should feel that you love this look because it is the image, you know, the image changes when you change your eyewear for the other person. So we believe, strongly believe that there is a lack of options to the customers today when it comes to design, when it comes to the after-sales service. And that is where we believe we can create a full-stack brand in the premium segment, which stands for very fashionable designs, very high quality material, deep eye care in terms of proper eye checkup, transparent and honest consultation in terms of what kind of lenses you should wear based on the eye condition you have. And then obviously a brand which is worth associating with. So a brand which is worth flaunting. So I think if you combine all of this together, we believe that there is a large opportunity and that is what we are going after.

Utsav Somani: I mean, the Lenskart question, you are entering a space where Lenskart has built a sizable, sizable business, right? And now, of course, did well on the public markets also. How do you answer that to any employee who's joining your company as well? Any investor you were chatting with and people just excited? How do you get people excited for your vision?

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): So I think I have been a Lenskart user all my life and I really love the business and I really love what they have built. And Lenskart is actually, is something that gives me confidence that a large business can be built in this category, because what I have learned in my previous two startups is that in the first startup, we tried online laundry as a service. In the second startup, we tried online K-12 tuitions as a segment and every market and business model, they come with their own physics, which you cannot change as a founder. So there are certain categories which whose physics allow large companies to be built, and there are certain categories where how much ever smartness or hard effort you put in, the physics doesn't allow the large companies to be built and we can discuss it in detail. But coming back to your question, Lenskart actually gives me that confidence that at least this segment allows large companies to be built and that is the confidence which I then translate to my team members, to our investors, that if somebody else has done a great job and built a large company out of it, then we can also do it. So I take it as in a very positive manner, actually.

Dhruv Sharma: And Abhinav, if we try and separate the expectations of a customer who comes to buy premium eyewear from one who comes to buy, for the lack of a better word, mass or mass premium, how are their expectations different altogether? And how do you how do you serve into those expectations?

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): I think like first expectation difference comes from self-serve versus served. So if you are a premium customer, you would want more guidance and more service element from the from the brand. So like it can be as simple as helping you choose which frame would look better on you rather than saying, hey, these are, you know, the thousands of frames around the store, just go and choose yourself.

Dhruv Sharma: Would you say exclusivity is also a part of what people come to expect?

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): So that is something which we are very early to, I do not know how that will pan out. Maybe that will. But as of now, the experience which I have after serving customers is that one is that service level. Now, that is what we call a styling in-house, which is helping you style that which frame would look good on you. And obviously, then you would take validation from your friend or your wife or your husband or your children that finally they have to give you the approval that this looks good on you. But we can help you choose rather than getting letting you get confused with thousands of options around you. So that is one. Second, I think eyewear at the end of the day is a need category. Both of you I see are not wearing it because there is an option to not wear it for you. But for people who have to wear it, they are wearing it for the need, which is ultimately eyewear, which is a correct division. So I think a very detailed eye checkup and a proper eye checkup also becomes an expectation that you have actually, you know, properly looked at my eyes and the power which is coming is fairly accurate. So that because even if there's a difference of 0.25 power, then it will lead to headache later. So that is one that is second, actually. And I think the whole aftersale element to it because I wear something which we wear 12 to 13 hours a day. So there are a lot of times where you will need maybe a just a change of lens or a repolish of the frame or a readjustment of the frame. So just that that peace of mind that, hey, if anything happens, I can just go back to these guys and they will take care of it without any without any questions. I think that is also part of the premium service. And obviously, needless to mention, just the design and quality part of it. Also, like there are certain designs which you generally find only in luxury brands, which only you find in premium brands, because they are actually expensive to make in the first place, along with the materials which they use, which is also expensive. So that differentiation also comes in the collection of what you are keeping. So I think these are the few things which I have learned till now. I'm sure there are a lot of things to learn as we go forward.

Utsav Somani: So Zotica is the big giant in the space. That's at the other end. Lenskart is the other end. Where do you fit it? Like in the middle? What's the pricing like? Average price for a frame, sunglasses, eyeglasses.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): So our average price point of a pair of a piece, which is including the frame and single vision lenses, that is around 5000 rupees. This is for if you have a single vision and you do not need any progressive lenses. So that is our average price point. And if you compare it with the luxury brands, where you buy the frame and the lens separately, I think they can go anywhere with above 15-20k. That is the luxury segment. And then in the mass segment, it can start as low as 500 goes till 2000-2500 a pair. And how are the margins for you on this 5000 price? See right now our margins are very low because we are operating at a small scale. But the difference in a software company versus a physical product company is that once scale starts kicking in, your margins improve a lot. So, but I would say in an end state scenario, we should, we should not, we should aim definitely above a 50-60% gross margins in the category. But as of now, we are definitely very low because the scale is very low.

Dhruv Sharma: And Utsav mentioned Luxottica, that's the, that's that big factory somewhere in Europe that manufactures the frames, right?

Utsav Somani: It's a house of brands for sunglasses. And basically, they've taken like license of like anyone, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, everyone. And they just like one single like this thing. Avinash would like be able to describe it better, I think.

Dhruv Sharma: And Avinash, can you describe to us also the lenses themselves? So the frames and the lenses, who are the dominant players globally in the lens business?

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): So, traditionally speaking, what has happened, Dhruv is that eyewear is a mix of fashion and function. So fashion comes from the frame and the brand and everything, the color and the material, like what if I'm wearing this, it is ultimately fashion, right? The color of the lens also. But function comes from that corrective vision need, which I have that ultimately, if I have a spherical or a cylindrical power, then I need a lens, which has that accurate power and secondly has coatings, which I need, for example, blue light protection or UV protection. So, traditionally, both of these businesses have been separate. And a retailer typically merges the both. When you go to a retailer, if you go to even like a normal retailer in India or anywhere in the world, for that matter, that is their job, that they have fashion quotient, like they will see multiple brands in their store and they will ask you, you can choose whichever brand or frame you want to try. And I have then few lens options, which you can then choose. And then I will merge them both, that is my job. Because both of them ultimately require very different types of strengths. If you, if you, if you will think about it, and that is why I wear has mostly been an accessory for traditional fashion brands and not their core product. So if somebody's like most of their core product will be clothes or boots or bags, purses, but I wear would just be an accessory in which not a lot of thought would have gone because it's a very small part of the overall that fashion business, right? And that is why many, many large brands, they just licensed their brand to use on their eyewear to other people, but it's a very small portion for their revenues. And once you, and that is where magic of companies like Lenskart comes in because they, they say that, you know, we are going to own both of these, that we are going to own the design and the fashion part of it also. And then we are going to own the function part of it also. And that is where you are able to save on the cost and margins while shifting price benefit to the consumers. Because see, as a retailer, if I have to deal with two, three brands, then every brand has their own margin as well. Whereas Lenskart or any other single brand, full stack layer would have a margin of only their like a single player, right? So they can actually transfer a lot of benefits to the consumer. So which is what we are trying to do. That can be also create those expertise in-house in which we are able to create the fashion element of it also, and the function element of it also on the lenses and create a full stack brand, retail also, service also, tech layer also, and combine everything.

Utsav Somani: And you, I mean, picked the battle for three times in a row. What are the learnings that you're applying from your previous bruises at the new company? Very deep philosophical question.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): I think first learning is definitely that choose the market and a segment which allows large companies to be built. And because as a founder, you can battle building your company or battle building the category. And I think building the category is also very romantic, like super romantic when you build a category. But that is very, very rare when you are able to build a new category and kudos to players who have built in quick commerce, who created the category itself, right? But this is, I think, very, very rare in that way. Also, I think this time after those two battles, I think I chose a battleground, which is where I think that there is at least categories already there. The physics allows large companies to be built and now you have to go and execute properly. So I think that is one. Second, I think learning which continues is focus on the gross margins, focus on that is important while building from day one, you cannot kick it down the road that will solve for it later. I think that is very important from day one. And third, I think, which I did not do too much in the first two is the power of content and social media, which I think I am spending conscious efforts and time in this startup itself. I think I did not focus as much as I should have in the in the in the in the last one. So that I am that I've learned that if you are spending previously, I used to spend hundreds in time of the building. Now I'm saying spend 98% of the time building, but at least 2% of the time talking about it so that you are able to attract talent, you are able to attract consumers, investors, like minded people.

Dhruv Sharma: You have to leave a discount coupon for T1 listeners.

Utsav Somani: Yeah, I mean, I mean, folks will buy it. So please, I mean, give us a discount code will post it in the community as well.

Dhruv Sharma: Also, I wear trends for 2026. I've been a if it's a market next next month for new glasses.

Utsav Somani: I actually wear glasses. But yeah, I've been up because the lighting of this this thing on a content mini content portable studio.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): Now we will give you something good, which is without glare. Nice. We'll catch up one on one and we'll sort it for you.

Utsav Somani: Nice. Amazing. My eyes faces sold as a sponsor tag to Illumina man.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): Yeah, yours is a very, very expensive real estate. So we would love to get hold of it. And that is what we say internally that face is the most expensive real estate actually of our entire personality. And if you are able to build a brand, which people are actually proud of wearing, that is a battle worth, you know, worth fighting. But that's the satisfaction I get when my friends and family members are now wearing Illumina and I see them because they are wearing it now daily, right? They are wearing it to the office to party. So it's a very satisfying thing to see that because face is something which people do not compromise on, right? Because that is something which is visible in every physical meeting and every online meeting everywhere on your LinkedIn photograph, your Instagram photograph, your dating profile. Your matrimonial profile, right? So it's the most expensive real estate on which we want to build a brand, which people love to wear.

Utsav Somani: And what are the trends for 2026 as Dhruv was asking? You have, like, I mean, in your team, like, I'm guessing there is curated.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): That is what I was about to say that we have, you know, experts in the team who are better positioned to answer this question. But one thing which I'm very bullish on is these tinted glasses. So, like, if you are seeing this, it has a little light color on the lenses.

Utsav Somani: So it's between an eyeglass and sunglass.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): Yeah. So I would not technically call it a sunglass because it is not dark enough to protect you from harsh sun. But it gives you a fashion quotient while even being indoors. So when you are doing meetings inside the office or even when you are going to restaurant for a dinner or a party, I think these will come. These will become very friendly in the coming time. That is my prediction because I love that. I have like 20 of these and I keep rotating them.

Dhruv Sharma: And I think one request as a customer, Abhinav, you should put out some content for iHealth. Whenever I get it tested, it only gets worse over time. It never gets better.

Utsav Somani: Help us improve it also, right? I mean, eventually you want, I mean, good educational content about improving your iHealth also can be nice.

Dhruv Sharma: So Dhruv, you have some power, but you don't wear it. I do. I do. I only wear it while driving, glasses while driving so that everyone's safe.

Utsav Somani: So I wear, well, I mean, computer wear most definitely. I have minus one point something. I wear it because of blue light blocking, I think. Brian Johnson has said so much about blue light blocking, blue light blocking. So I block everything with light.

Abhinav Agarwal (Founder & CEO, ELUNO): That is what we, that is what we would love to change that, that you are somebody who is, who has the need and has all the means to buy the best of the eyewear out there, but still you somehow took the decision to not wear it. And it is some sort of subconscious psychology, which people still have, you know, wearing eyewear is not cool. So we want to change that. We want to say that if you have need, then definitely you should wear. And even if you don't have, then it's a style statement, which you can explore. So something on those lines, but we'll do some more content on iHealth feedback taken.

Utsav Somani: Amazing. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you for dialing in. Thanks. All right, listeners, I hope you've had a good week with us. We're ending today's stream on a high and hopefully we'll have a good weekend and we'll see you on Monday, four o'clock. Bye-bye.