actually feeding people um well uh you know the first answer would be yes but if you look a little deeper under the bonnet um it's not really about food right it's about it's about the people it's about the people who are inside your restaurant it's about how your restaurant makes them feel uh it's about how uh why why they have you know sometimes restaurants are different things like some some restaurants make you feel elegant and sophisticated some restaurants uh you know you just want to go in your flip-flops and have a beer some restaurants are romantic some restaurants are you know are just all about the food and some restaurants are only about uh you know being seen and hobnobbing and taking selfies so uh it's all it's very different right so people usually come to restaurants to actually commune with each other and you you just provide them you provide them real estate uh for them to actually hang out with each other so that's really the business we are in and unfortunately because what kuwait has done you know social


unfortunately because what kuwait has done you know social distancing is the ex is the anatomical restaurant it's the exact it is uh it is the opposite of restaurants in a sense right so um that that is where we are right now we cannot continue to function as as as what we intend it to be so when you come up with a restaurant you take on a really large prime real estate uh you you know you spend a lot of money trying to make it look beautiful you spend a lot of money on the audio you spend money on the decor you spend money on the service the tables the chat and all of these super powers all this kryptonite that the restaurant has suddenly been taken away so it's it's a little bit of a jolt to the system and i guess everybody including me is is trying to figure out our relevance in in the lockdown scenario right and you know we've tried everything we've tried home delivery we've tried diy kits we've tried you know cocktail mixers


diy kits we've tried you know cocktail mixers and we've done all of that but we are not set up our infrastructure investments and our superpowers are not about that we are set up to entertain people we are selling to be hospitable towards people we said have to take care of people when they walk into a restaurant it's not just about putting food in a bag and sending it to your house we can do that of course and that's that's primarily one thing to do to you know keep in touch with our customers so they don't forget us so we do delivery so they can get that if somebody has a craving they can order but our primary business is actually hosting people inside our restaurants which is what uh you know has taken a big beating um and and right now we have to understand that we it's very tempting to you know want to do things and want to pivot and find you know find that magic trick that nobody else has found the fact of the matter is we


else has found the fact of the matter is we are in the business of hosting people in our spaces and that's no longer there so i think uh you just have to you know bide your time wait for a while take a deep breath heal a little bit because restaurants lead extremely stressful lives extremely stressful lives uh take this time down time you know just recharge your batteries and stuff try and reduce the amount of pain as much pain as you can which means that go to your landlords you know have a chat with them tell them hey listen we are in a bad place how can we work this out can you you know can you reduce my rents can i pay you a little later can i preserve this outlet if that's not happening walk away and live to fight another day you know but um it's a lot of pain for sure and uh it's not easy it's not easy uh being in the restaurant business right now uh but you know i mean it is what it is yeah


you know i mean it is what it is yeah um i to just give the listeners some context i think you're the founder of so many famous chains the social chain um you know like is like in almost every indian city now dude like people prob a lot of people don't know that you're behind it i'm sure every young indian has dined or been to one of your restaurants so actually could you yourself take us through the whole list super quick just so the listeners know everything that you're in charge of i can tell you that we started a journey with a restaurant called mocha it was a coffee shop and we were serving uh coffee and dessert and we um famously owen famously started off this whole hookah trend at that point of time uh then the mocha then we opened up saltwater grill that became saltwater cafe uh smokehouse deli uh which is one of my favorite restaurants flea bazaar cafe um uh yeah i think that that smart water cafe right and social of


think that that smart water cafe right and social of course yeah so smokehouse delhi has been a personal favorite of my mom and me for years now like it's kind of a happy place yeah and uh either way coming back to the conversation uh while i understand it's hard i just want you to separate like the entrepreneur riaz from yourself and just think of the guy riaz dude when all this started happening back in march when the lockdown started becoming a reality i remember i was really scared because i'm like dude i have a team of 10 video professionals how are we gonna like operate you know remotely i can't imagine what you went through so what did the man riaz go through dude like what were you thinking it was a nightmare and i kept wanting to wake up from it uh to be honest and it's and you know part of it hasn't really sunk in still you know um like i said earlier suddenly all your superpowers are taken away from you


suddenly all your superpowers are taken away from you one day and uh it's hard to do it right of course our first thought was you know what will happen uh to my business and what will happen to my family but but you know that quickly made way to what will happen to my people because it was honor you know i was seeing on a daily basis even they were going through a lot of pain and insecurity and anxiety and i had no answers for them because i i didn't know myself what i could do they were all very new we were all trying to figure it out when we first went into locked lock-in we thought it would be for you know two or three weeks and we all come out it seem like uh a lifetime you know how how will he pay the rent how will we be our people how will it be our suppliers all of that yes it was it was very very stressful uh but i guess um you know it came down to me then realizing that it's okay


came down to me then realizing that it's okay not to have all the answers it's okay to uh you know uh not know the next course of action because you're so used to being the guy who you know has all the answers and uh will get everybody across but at this time i just had to have no option to you know just round up all my people and and have a chat with them uh face to face i mean i i we did a lot of room conferences we've got when we shut down we had about thousand nine hundred people working for empresario directly uh so it was it was really horrible but you know i just try to tell people as honestly and plainly as possible that look you know uh as of now uh you know i can't really do much uh when things get better i'll take all of you back but right now i can't do much for you guys and i think people appreciated the honesty and it was horrible to be the better of such


and it was horrible to be the better of such terrible news but i think the support and the love i got from my people was really really heartwarming it gave me a lot of strength and uh also led me to believe that the business is not about one person or two people it's about the entire family who make it up so it was a it was in a sense a life changing lesson for me also uh to realize that it's not about me doing things for them but it was about they doing things for me right it was quite um it was quite it was quite a life-changing lesson for me yeah brother i i totally relate to that burden of entrepreneurship like uh i think i've just been running these things for four or five years now and i feel a very intense burden already and keeping in mind just the scale of which your business is i can't imagine what you're going through in terms of lifting that weight on your shoulders so um i was carrying that weight around until


so um i was carrying that weight around until my people took it from me you know okay and that that was the most beautiful part i mean entrepreneurship is can seem like a burden but it's also a privilege what like what do you mean you you the fact is that you know i mean you're the guy who can't check out right you're the guy who can't uh quit you know the guy who can't just say it's been a bottle yeah i'm resigning you know you you started this and you're to finish it in a sense here you're riding a tiger so in that sense it feels like a burden but it is also a privilege to be able to uh create something to actually uh you know dream of something and uh be able to kind of see it materialize in front of your eyes and then to actually have it right so i think that's also a privilege and um it's it's one of those things that you know a lot of people dream of being entrepreneurs but


a lot of people dream of being entrepreneurs but uh do uh you know they don't find something that they want to spend the rest of their lives doing they never know and those guys who find it don't find themselves not in a position to do what they want to do because they've got other responsibilities maybe they're not in a financial position to do that maybe they don't know how to do it i think the third part of this jigsaw is actually having the talent and the passion for the thing that you think you love doing right so i think that all these things when they come together that that is a position of tremendous privilege right because um you're blessed you're blessed i i hate being the guy who takes this conversation to a negative place again but um again this is just to give the viewers context so the restaurant business primarily kind of loses money in rent and in salaries like off the staff uh so i i know like i'm sure you know you're bleeding


i know like i'm sure you know you're bleeding out in a big way right now because of the circumstances but in terms of business again how are you managing the finances like how are you pulling in money to kind of make up for the money that's going out because the money that's going out i'm sure it's in some massive amount whatever lacks crores but what are you doing to like you know inject it back into the system right now well you know honestly speaking there's nothing much we can do right now i mean the only way of getting some degree of liquidity for the restaurant business right now is either debt or uh raising equity right either way um both these scenarios are really really difficult i mean of course there's you can do you know catering or you know cater to uh some institutions like uh like doctors who need some kind of you know food scent or people in home qualities mean foods and so people in home did you do home deliveries and enters that but


did you do home deliveries and enters that but that doesn't really pay the bills so to speak right that that just covers part of the expense and sometimes doing this business in this kind of a scenario you actually end up losing more money than you make but it's a way of keeping in touch but right now i think the only way of really doing it is to try and raise some degree of liquidity through the debt or the equity markets and really conserve as much cash as you can like you'd live to fight another day that means taking some really hard decisions you know sometimes uh you have to have the discipline of being able to walk out of your property uh because uh bleeding money and not knowing you know the you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel that could be even worse so uh we've been taking some really hard decisions every day you know letting go people letting go outlets uh kind of it's almost a creative uh destruction of everything that you've built over


creative uh destruction of everything that you've built over the last 20 years wow yeah so it's just dismantling everything trying to uh make sure you minimize the damage we've uh it's been crazy i mean we try to um find jobs for the people who were working for me uh in other companies so like grocery online grocery companies were doing really well delivery companies were doing well so you know trying to take my people and then almost give it to other other companies i mean it was all it is it is hard but i think that um you know we will bounce back because i think it's important runway to think in in years now and not in months right um how long will uh this pandemic class you know anybody's guess is as good as mine uh we don't know when we will see the peak when we will recover but um we have to understand this two will end at some point and uh if people will want to you know come back and they'll you know i always was wondering who's


they'll you know i always was wondering who's the first person i want to have a drink with who's the first person i want to have coffee with you know who's the who do i want to go and meet first right and that sweet anticipation is still there and i think we'll come back and uh we just have to make sure that we survive uh till the point we get there that's the most important thing yeah speaking as a punjabi who enjoys the good life that's exactly what i believe i think there's going to be a massive bounce back in the hospitality industry lots of people are waiting to get out um but also again like if i had to just take all uh experiences from these four months what's been your one big life lesson just one life lesson uh sometimes you you know you you tend to get very wrapped up uh in your own identity in your own head right um there was a guy who was realized before he became a restauranter um and uh you know


he became a restauranter um and uh you know i'm actually quite shy and introverted and i love being a homebody and reading books and i'd forgotten about that guy uh for a very long time because you know as a restaurant you have to have a certain persona you have to be gregarious you have to be outgoing you have to be a man about them so you know by living that life i forgot about the guy who was really you know more quiet more resident um so i think that it was nice nice to uh be acquainted with myself again it's it's nice to spend so much quality time with my children and my wife and you know build stronger bonds with them um slowed down a little bit and you know i was so stressed out uh there was this constant state of low level stress when you're a restaurant because there's always something uh going wrong or just about to go go wrong whatever like any different things that are exploded in your face and you know especially on saturdays


in your face and you know especially on saturdays and weekends it's always more stressful you really don't have too much downtime uh so i think that one good thing is that you know i've taken this kind of moment to pause and reset and recalibrate myself so on a personal level uh i've never been happier but on a business level you know things are really really do you grew up as an introvert uh well when i was growing up i didn't have that many friends i was painfully shy i was always slightly overweight so i was always you know being teased is that so i was always a little socially awkward always uncertain whether you know i'm welcome there or not so i my best friends are books i spent a lot of time reading um and yeah i think um it took a while for me to you know uh i think that really helped me kind of gain a lot more confidence in myself um uh it went from being shy i still am a little shy but i


shy i still am a little shy but i have to now suddenly put on this suit where i am yeah dude with with restauranters the word you usually associate is flamboyance like you know so when you're saying that you're shy i i don't i don't completely understand how you broke through that shell so that's exactly where i want to begin uh your story like we'll talk about how you built out the business but that first eggshell that you broke which is that how do you go from being shy to becoming that guy who says okay i'm gonna talk to people i'm gonna get done how did that happen like did you tell yourself something did you practice some kind of i don't know personality development technique like what happened well spending time with a lot of books does um transform you into a slightly more articulate well-read you know person uh so that does give you a sudden sense of more confidence in you know yourself of course and before i got into the


know yourself of course and before i got into the restaurant business i was a shoe salesman oh wow and um i think being a salesman is is really um uh something you know which which gives you a lot of insight into people and how do you actually kind of ingratiate yourself with people and how do you get them to trust you in a very small period of time and how can you you know make them feel better about themselves so i learned that while i was selling shoes and i i remember i was pretty young when i started off as a shoe salesman i was 14 or 15 and uh i used to say auntie these shoes look so lovely on you and i used to i used to make a sale man and i used to make good sales and good commission so that that gave me a lot more confidence uh so i went from being shy to arrogant very quickly the brashness of youth i suppose yeah i think that's that's all of us bro like again


think that's that's all of us bro like again i was having this conversation with this other entrepreneur friend of mine yesterday and he said something really cool he said that everything in life once you're an entrepreneur everything in life is sales whether that is actually selling your product or even marketing yourself like if you're a single guy like myself if you go to a party i'm not saying i'm trying to put out anyone but you have to kind of project yourself in a certain way and even that is its own form of sales you're selling yourself so which brings me back to the books you spoke about some books that gave you strength that gave you confidence could you name some of them like some books that actually had an impact on you when you were younger ah okay some books that had impacted when we were younger you know you grow up i mean there's a particular hierarchy of reading books you know you go from your fa your secret servants to famous either i already know if people


servants to famous either i already know if people know what those are anymore and it blightened man louis lamours and and then sydney sheldon and then you kind of go from there right so i was i was really i was really a for a fan of a fan of well written uh literature so you know books like uh unbearable likeness of being um the fountainhead um uh you know the the those are all the cliched books say that that everybody's read and kind of but but what do you gain from fiction like i'm just asking out of curiosity what you can gain from fiction is i think while you know it's really i mean you can read a lot of these kind of business books um but you have to understand that all of these business books are nothing but one big marketing field right i don't really give you the unbridled truth but when you read fiction i think um it gives you a window into another another life another time another space in a sense and i think the


time another space in a sense and i think the ability to kind of um string together words uh well uh use use them well salman rushdie does that really well uh and to you with great effect ben oakley again one of my favorite authors they just the way they actually use words as a meaning of communication and not just communication but also means of of of basically uh connection right uh is is really really special and i'm rediscovering the joy of reading again uh which again you know i mean uh reading something which is not on our screen is uh is is great uh i'm enjoying that so books books are uh you know it is just uh is they're just friends that you never uh leave you you know stay on your shelf yeah uh you become the books you read as they say uh and at least from what i've gained from this chat with you is that i feel i felt like you learned i mean it's it's it sounds bad when i felt like you learned sentence construction and somewhere that


felt like you learned sentence construction and somewhere that translated into sales when you match it with your own internal business acumen am i right well you know i'm i'm i am not a big seller about like when it comes to myself i am still very shy and i don't really kind of i'm not very good with social media i'm not very good at putting myself out there you know on a day-to-day basis but i'm very passionate about the things i build and that's something i really like to share so for me it's it's more i mean i i get you know like uh when somebody entrepreneurs who build who especially entrepreneurs who are leading the company like for example richard branson he is the brand right elon musk he is the brand uh but they're also entrepreneurs who would not really you know putting themselves forward but more about the product i think i'm in the in the latter category uh not really kind of the guy who likes to lead that particular lifestyle has to


who likes to lead that particular lifestyle has to be a particular way uh in the sense i'm not that guy so um actually kind of my private life is very very quiet and and down time and relaxed but when i'm entertaining i've got to be the guy i've got to be the player so when we're speaking about the things you built i want to go back to mocca your first restaurant how do you start from one establishment and then build out so much and also in what year was that because i remember mokka coming up in in bombay when i was a teenager so like 2005 2006 i'm guessing 2001 actually oh wow okay cool so that's like almost 20 years you've been doing this yeah two decades what's the story what's the what's the what happened in 1999 that got you thinking about i want to become that guy in 20 years you know i uh when i started off uh my career the shoe salesman my big dream was to have my own shop


salesman my big dream was to have my own shop which i did you know i had my own little shoe shop which i ran for five or six years and uh one of the things that uh while i was doing that i was dating somebody and you know i found that in bombay you never really had um entertainment you really couldn't do much if you were you know if you wanted to kind of commune with your city uh besides going up and down on marine driver worley c faced you know there was really at that point of time not much to do not much to do by by means of entertainment so i thought like you know bombay needs to have something which where people can just go and hang out and and do stuff so i got into the um family entertainment centers which is basically bowling alleys go-karting tracks i was helping consulting uh you know developers to to set up those things and uh what i noticed was people used to come for these activities but no matter what happened whether


for these activities but no matter what happened whether they went bowling or not whether they went bumping you know into the bumping car or not they would definitely grab a cup of coffee and a sandwich and take the time to actually hang out with each other so um you know and and slowly slowly you know i used to just put a coffee machine and some steel sandwiches over there and that was enough but slowly slowly i started enjoying that part of the business a lot more than just the bowling and the the bumping cuts um in my head you know i thought that people just needed a space to hang out with each other and for you know it might appear strange but uh for for for people now but if at all you wanted to go to a restaurant at let's say 5 p.m and hang out uh you couldn't go anywhere you either went to a five-star coffee shop which is open 24 hours or you went into a odp restaurant to have italy and there was nothing in the


restaurant to have italy and there was nothing in the middle right all the restaurants were open only from 12 to 3 and then from 7 to 10 in the evenings and you never really had an all-day space to really hang out so um that's how mocha really came about and you know starbucks was very popular in the west it had become all the rage uh we wanted to do something uh like a coffee shop but we didn't want to do a rip-off right so we wanted to create our own little uh space where people and create a atmosphere conducive for conversation so we built uh mocha around a middle eastern coffee shop which was uh you know kawakanas of turkey in morocco where people used to gather around coffee and a hooker and you know chat the evening of your chat the afternoon away so that was the real inspiration and i honestly didn't know anything about restaurant thing zero not a pup kiss nothing and i just found some really great coffee from all over the world and uh i


great coffee from all over the world and uh i used to remember i used to buy desserts from other people and sell it in my restaurant so it was just that i was selling a coffee was easy to to make and uh desserts were coming from outside so it was it just started from that so you know and then when i did that and uh one of the things that me and two of my friends came together to do this business varun and kiran and um we we kind of ran out of money halfway through the project within our money furniture so we bought furniture from wherever we could um and a very famous legend goes from a watchman's tool which is still in my office uh we put it inside the restaurant and all this mixed match and i think that's what really caught the attention of people and uh even we were very surprised by how uh well it was doing uh mocha and then i think one thing led to another so we started off uh our company with an investment of 15


started off uh our company with an investment of 15 lakhs five lakh rupees each me and three two of my friends and uh yeah since that day uh you know one thing is led to another in here we are um can i take you back to that young version of riaz and if you're comfortable like talking about it early on in your first two three years what kind of money was ending up in your pocket from just that one restaurant you know um we got greedy pretty quickly uh so while uh we we set up the first restaurant like i said we ran out of money 15 likes was clearly not enough uh but we got really pretty quickly and we said you know what this is doing really well we should open up a lot more so then we started our first one in churchgate and we took all this property in bandra again with you know uh no money in our pocket thinking that now money is starting to roll we are you know like we are doing 15 lakhs of sale we are


we are doing 15 lakhs of sale we are saving two lakh rupees a month that's a lot of money at that point of time so you know we're going to now invest that money in another restaurant so while we had a lot of cash flow coming in we were not really blowing it all up we were being we were reinvesting it so we bootstrapped away pretty much for five or six years before we started you know uh leading a fancier lifestyle that that's that's good advice honestly for all entrepreneurs where i feel that like you know young entrepreneurs nowadays in startups when they raise money a lot of them kind of eat away a big chunk of uh money in terms of their own salaries but that whole profit and loss game is really the it's a very basic lesson but it's something that a whole generation doesn't pay enough attention to um also like i want to ask you again so cool like you did walk off for a while you opened up outlets what gave you the those


you opened up outlets what gave you the those like the guts to open say like a new brand what was in your head was it again that whole thing of okay we did it once let's replicate the formula what was it trying to capture a larger market what was going on in your head you know uh i mean we when we started mocha that's all we wanted to do we just when i when i did my first mocha i thought i'll grow old uh you know be that old uncle behind the galla and and be that guy and i had no ambitions of having a chain but after it became successful right um we got a little greedy and said okay now we will have hundred more cars in the country it never happened um that happened with social that happened with social though but uh we um we came across this beautiful piece of property on a beach on choppati uh and it was available and they said why don't we do a mocha over there and we said


we do a mocha over there and we said look you can't do a coffee shop because you need the whole day to run the economics don't work so we we actually created a restaurant called saltwater grill which was only about that space right it was called salt water because it wasn't by the ocean and also the two most basic ingredients of cooking is salt and water and we we really created that space for that space right and um i often like for me uh a good restaurant you know is is is always bespoke uh you can it's very all very nice to have a chain but sometimes when you come across a really interesting property you want to build your restaurant around the property and not build the property around your restaurant right and i think that that's a big difference and um and if each space is unique you know some uh so i think that you kind of have to marry the concept and the space really really nicely yeah it's very very important i think that's what you guys have strongly followed


think that's what you guys have strongly followed with the social chain of restaurants okay and i'm gonna give you a perspective of a kid who's gone to social right from college so i remember you guys started colaba social first if i'm not mistaken and it was a rage and it had a very bombay vibe plus it was next to the gateway of india and then i remember going to i think the next one was bandra or soba one of them and it felt completely different all right but my real business learning came when i went to chandigarh in delhi and i saw your socials there and you had a different menu you had a different like kind of look and feel and i realized that you're trying to mimic what chandigarh is you're trying to mimic what delhi is i dived a little bit deeper and i found out that you've hired teams from delhi for the delhi restaurant who understand delhi really well who are able to paint the vibe of delhi


who are able to paint the vibe of delhi inside the restaurant and there's actually a really strong branding lesson there for all businessmen it's exactly what you said that um you know if you start a business out of bombay it's very likely that your first customers will come from bombay and someone from delhi may not it may not appeal as much if you grow it out on a national level indians will love your restaurant but maybe the japanese won't so wherever you start your business your target market is always around you uh it's a great branding lesson but again like can you like was this something you thought of consciously how did that thing happen you know when we really built uh we were very clear that social was a kind of community space for that particular community and then uh one of the most beautiful things about india is that it is so not homogenous it is yeah it is so varied um unlike the west you know where you know the same uh burger works in uh the west coast


the same uh burger works in uh the west coast and the bible well there in the east coast right in india is is is very very different uh we we have so many nuances like there's a huge south bombay north bombay divide you know there's a whole west bombay central line bombay divide you know um and and you know and when we were doing mocha one of the things that i really enjoyed was getting to understand how each city was slightly different and you know how those people were slightly different can you can you take us to few of those lessons like that each city being different okay so for example let me hit like bombay for example right um bombay is not uh in your faith you have to kind of discover bombay right uh in a sense that is in delhi you have uh cannot place you have wasan kuns you have uh uh cyber hub you have you know you have all these little grand boulevards you have horse cars village you have all these little little spots


horse cars village you have all these little little spots like bombay is more punctuated it's more spread out you have to go into the buy lanes to discover bombay right it's not it's not about the hubs and everything is then concentrated in the house because bombay is all about niche whereas delhi is all about you know year residential colony no commercial activity has all got to be you know in that market and it is it is it's got that little flavor right even when it comes to their flavor profile right people in delhi love spicy food uh people in the south of india love spicy food people in bombay because of the gujarati influence maybe like their food a little sweeter why they like a little sweet in their flavors but the delhi spice is very different from the bangalore spice because delhi spice is all about the red chili spice mango spice is all about the green chili and the peppers price so you know it is it's still different right and


so you know it is it's still different right and you when when you enter into a city and you want to be relevant to that community you really need to be respectful of that community and in a sense uh you don't pay homage to that community and and try and uh each person's nostalgia is different right what what and nostalgia is um is is actually a great feeling it brings out something in you that you you like to connect with so um the the nostalgia of people in delhi is all about nerolas for example right they they grow up eating the chocolate fudge over there and bombay is all about the paw bhaji and the the vada the what those triggers of those nostalgia that are different in different cities and um you know you have to dig a little deeper uh and and that also is the most rewarding part of the business because you get to discover so much you get to learn so much and that expands your horizons a lot more the most fun is like even


horizons a lot more the most fun is like even for smokehouse delhi right uh we uh love doing that because the walls are illustrated museums of that particular community right so smokehouse bandra is about those little golden villages that used to exist in bandra uh sorry the banter villages that used to exist and fifc uh pandakura is all about money and monopoly so um it's really nice kind of looking a little deeper under the skin of where you are as a location and being respectful of that i think do you do you collect all this data anywhere like do you kind of have a dossier or something where you write down that okay more spicy food for delhi and bangalore sweeter food for bombay or is this just from your instinct we know i i i actually unfortunately um i'm a horrible document of things uh it's all uh here and here so you know as as as the company grows larger uh the the importance of you know uh communicating and writing things


importance of you know uh communicating and writing things down and you know preserving that is is becoming more and more essential but no i'm not i'm not one of those uh you know uh 100 page sop type guys no okay so you started with mocha social happened smokehouse delhi happened how do you expand teams how do you go from three guys running one restaurant into this big conglomerate like this big kind of corporate company how do you transform into that are you mentored by someone do investors come on board and help you how do you scale up um all of that actually you know um you you start off um and you stumble your way along uh your journey you know and you have ups and downs and you have mistakes and then uh you know i've had um if you can't find mentors please you know get mentors if you can surround yourself with people uh who will support and guide you and hand hold you through your journey please do get them right but at the same


journey please do get them right but at the same time i a lot of times people come to me and and uh ask me should i do this or should i do that and i always tell them that my advice is not my advice because you know um it is true because i i when i had this idea for a coffee shop i went i thought the prudent thing to do would be to go to a lot of people and ask them what they thought and they always said you know okay you know and then it worked right and many times people come to me and they say i want to do a juice bar or i want to do a micro green salad bar and i'm like yeah salad and then i realized that i have become the same guy who was telling me you know uh don't do it like 20 years ago and so uh it's very easy to get caught up when you get high on your own supply you know in the sense that um and uh you know today's uh beast


that um and uh you know today's uh beast will be tomorrow's dinosaurs and uh it's just the way it is and it it moves on right so i try not to keep my traps shut when it comes to advice and uh and say that look it's it's okay to take speakers uh you know what henry ford famously said if i'd asked people uh what they wanted they said faster horses right so um i think it's you have to list go with that little voice inside you that is nagging you all the time it doesn't let you sleep you know captures all your waking moments and you've got to listen to that guy more than you got to listen to everybody else around 100 like always always for you follow your gut uh but i have like two burning questions in my head right now the first yeah the first question is um why did you all expand so much like you all expanded like a lot dude like i'm sure you looked at bangalore and they got delhi


sure you looked at bangalore and they got delhi you could have just stopped at running a really successful chain of restaurants in bombay so what are what's the core of you co-founders thinking like why did y'all want to expand so much like what is the end goal you know um three reasons i suppose uh initially it was ego you know they are you know look at we are building an empire i think that very quickly made way for uh the need to share the love you know in the sense that uh you wanted to kind of embrace more people uh and that was you know when you're still younger more passionate and you know saying you know oh you don't have a mocha in your city you know you guys need to have a mocha necessity yeah they're going to find a way to bring mocha in your city um but i think eventually that it what we realized that if we if we did not grow people would leave us right um and we didn't want people to leave at


right um and we didn't want people to leave at all and so we started growing so that we could give people growth if the company is stagnant you can't really uh give anybody growth because i after some time there's going to be people are going to come to a top and then they're going to get itchy feet so this kind of forward momentum was prepared first by ego the then by love and then uh by the people i think yeah that's the other course of entrepreneurship like if you really want to hold on to the best talent you have to kind of work even towards their dreams not just yours yeah you in fact and it's beautiful because i think that both your dreams drive both of you forward 100 i think um they both it's it's symbiotic in that sense i'm gonna talk about this thing that happens to me sometimes so i'm deeply spiritual deeply god fearing always been that's how i've been brought up and it's been kind of an anchor point for me


and it's been kind of an anchor point for me through my career the entrepreneurship journey there are many moments where in deep meditations and deep prayer i let out tears of entrepreneurship that's what i call it where you feel a certain burden of leadership you feel exactly what you said that this pressure of uh your people's dreams as well kind of placed on you so i kind of cry out my pressure do you have moments like that i'm not i'm not saying do you cry i'm saying do you kind of let it out somehow my wife keeps telling me that i'm very internal and i don't let out my uh i bottle up a lot of my things but i i know that you know sometimes it can you you could can get uh very lonesome yeah lonely at the top that's what you can but you know i think um one of the things that i really enjoyed was my time serving with the national restaurant association of india which i led for a bit uh


association of india which i led for a bit uh it was really great because you know i could yeah there's so many people who going through the same stuff like me like our best friends couldn't understand what we were going through but you know as another restaurant because you know the conditions are so horrible the odds are terrible you know uh the police thinks you're a criminal the the the politicians think you're a criminal and you're treated almost like one and then you do so you work so hard and it's a high-risk business and there's very little reward i mean it's glamorous but honestly you'd make more money selling ball bearings right wow um so it is so but having you know a peer group uh in a sense you know really really helped i mean uh some of my best friends now uh my com my com my direct competition you know people like priyank and rahul and zolaver and kobe these these guys uh you know rachel these are all very very good friends of mine and


these are all very very good friends of mine and they're all restaurants and we i find myself you know even after work hanging out with them or going out to their house when i'm in delhi or going over to a restaurant just house in bangalore and even the very fact of actually discussing your craft you know with another person who understands the nuances of your craft you know i think that that that actually takes away the loneliness and it makes it a lot more fun so i actually consort a lot with the enemy and uh and now they are my best friends i think that's the case with youtubers and social media stars as well right before this conversation we were talking about how you were kind of seeing online hate as a subject that's come up during covert 19 we kind of shed that off ourselves by talking to each other about it so i completely relate great you know it's also like this kind of this almost rivalry but it also propels you forward right yeah yeah it doesn't


also propels you forward right yeah yeah it doesn't import you i mean you know there's always going to be that one guy who irritates you so much that you want to prove him wrong right by the same time there's going to be they're going to be there's going to be admiration yeah and because you know they understand how difficult it is uh to get so much love and so much following and to be relevant to people and to to you know keep bettering yourself from day to day i think uh it's it's a very hard thing that you do runway and one day i will sit and i'll ask you questions and to kind of be on all the time and to you know be constantly thinking of how this could be relevant to other people and kind of you know opening up yourself and living in an aquarium almost yeah dude the most vulnerable side it's hard business man it's it's exactly what you said i never articulated it like that but that aquarium feeling i was just talking


that but that aquarium feeling i was just talking about it to my mum to my friends that you take pieces of your own self your emotions your mind and just place it out there for the world it's like cutting off chunks of your flesh and throwing it on the internet so it does like you're exposing your underbelly all the time right you know it's just it's hard you know one of the things like one of the things that i saw in the in the lockdown period like i was i was saying that what is relevant and i saw these guys doing you know cooking at home and i'm really being very expressive and being very good and i'm i'm all thumbs when it comes to that uh it just felt like wow this is so hard to do it's it's you know and now and now more than ever i really realized uh that that this is the future right the the the decentralization of media the democratization of media and and you know the decentralization of the


media and and you know the decentralization of the power in the media is just boils down to you whether as a person your connection to so many other people uh a friend of mine zakir khan who's our top comic in the country today i was having this conversation with him what is this i love that yeah yeah he told me how he looks at this decade as the age of leaders which is that personal brands uh individuals who lead media houses even say your normal fmcg brand like a toothpaste or hair oil will be led by this one dude like this one marketing genius and often it will be someone who's capable of some form of creation so whether that's writing video creation whatever uh but this is going to be the age of leaders where it's going to be very kind of individualistic which i think is exactly what you've unknowingly done over the last 20 years because when your name as riya zamlani's brand is associated with a restaurant people have certain expectations of that place so um


people have certain expectations of that place so um i mean i yeah have you ever thought of that though i know you're kind of a low-key guy or introverted but uh i'm sure you had a moment in your life where you realize this is happening and you're like okay that's a little pressure but then you dealt with it so as a person again how do you go from oh i'm feeling too much pressure to okay you know what i'll handle this honestly it's a little bit of schizophrenia i think there's a there's a part of you which is so cocksure right you know you've made cross of investments you've like you you've taken these big gamblers and you're not like here man i'm riaz amlani man you know if anybody can do it it's me yeah yeah and and then there's another part of you which is like man you think they like it do you think you really think they like it do you like the food you like the way it looks you don't tell


food you like the way it looks you don't tell me tell me tell me the truth you know and and so i think there's this constant like duality uh which again i think it's good i think that you know every restaurant i opened i'm very very nervous i could never i can i really am nervous until i actually walk in and i see it full i'm i'm so scared that this is the restaurant will be the restaurant will be man doing this will be the restaurant that will say reason nani has lost the plot you know so i think it's a little bit of both i think it is it is some degree of confidence and some degree of paranoia yeah dude self-doubt never leaves perfectionists i think it's the curse of being a perfectionist where you'll always kind of have that little sense of it's not perfect enough yeah i said a lot of self-doubt before but now i'm perfect okay so i've got to ask you the other burning question which i haven't asked you


the other burning question which i haven't asked you yet uh which is that you mentioned henry ford so are there like three to five entrepreneurs you can name that other entrepreneurs can pick up from in terms of lessons or or that you've really kind of been inspired by or you've learned from by studying them uh yeah so many years it's just too many like it's really hard to i'm not a fan boy of any one particular entrepreneur but there are bits of them that that are worthy of admiration and you know uh the pioneering spirit that they actually brought and they actually saw things you know which which other people didn't see before and i think that we all are kind of in a sense it's it's all about a relay race right you you're always passing on the baton to somebody else because then somebody else uh you know in the future we'll do something we'll build on something that you've built on right and i think that i think it was who said that we are


that i think it was who said that we are standing on the shoulders of giants i can see further because i'm standing on the shoulders of giants so i think we all kind of owe some tribute to people who've come before us right and um and i i always find that the uh true art is to is not about being completely original but to actually funnel it through your prison right you take something that somebody else has built and then you kind of give your unique uh lens to it and then it and then somebody else takes that and then builds something on with that right so there are uh you know i mean it's all very different i mean restaurant like i mentioned my heroes in restauranting in india was uh rahul akira sanjay narang uh eddie singh you know these these are the guys who came before me and were able to inspire me to build something because they built that and they showed that it works and so i was able to add to that so i think uh


was able to add to that so i think uh uh i think you should you have to hack your own heroes in this house so yeah i know exactly what you mean man you were that person for me in my engineering college when i thought i'm gonna become a restauranteur but a bullet buddy why do you say that i mean because of this you're in this covered time and you're doing something which is really relevant and uh really important and i am here twiddling my thumbs now and um what what do you what do you think is the future of this industry because i again i think there's gonna be a massive bounce back but or do you think the restaurant industry has changed forever is it going to come food delivery only like what's going to happen no of course not i mean the i mean the very dna of the reason why we have a cerebral cortex is because we are social animals and the reason that that is the the genesis of humanity is is this need to be social right


of humanity is is this need to be social right you could take that out of people and they cease to be human um so no it's not that it'll go away but things will definitely change right already we uh you find that uh millennials you going to restaurants as painful you know gen z's uh want to order food at home they don't want to get out they are part of the shutting out economy where they prefer to have fewer people in their homes and less outgoing so you you never know where this is going to land up you know but so uh it's hard to say but uh what even for for me when i created moca it was a coffee shop for the gen x's which is people who are my age i was born in 1974 right so up to 86 i believe that that's the gen x is then um the social was a coffee shop for the millennials and and already i feel that you know it could be outdated very soon and we i need to create something for


very soon and we i need to create something for the gen z's and i think uh the important thing is to actually constantly be in touch with your audience and know what they want and give it to them in a way that they love got it um and my last question for you and this is because your kids kind of came into this phone call in the middle um again you know that kind of separates the entrepreneur from you it it leaves you being the family man like you can't show them the entrepreneurial side of yourself you can't share tensions entirely with your kids so somewhere there your motivation somewhere they are like you know the reason you hustle for uh growth in your own life i'm sure that's the case the part of you and i'm sure that knowing you knowing the kind of business acumen you have you've taken really good care of your own personal finances so one could you elaborate on that whole equation about how your kids become your motivation and two can you


your kids become your motivation and two can you give some personal finance advice in terms of okay even if your industry is really you know taking a hit now how do you protect yourself as a man as how do you protect your family i always think that i was a better restauranter when i was didn't know anything about restauranting because you you didn't know that it couldn't be done or you you didn't have set ideas of yeah or any challenger as you as you grow uh in experience you you tend to take uh less risk i've always maintained that uh experience is a terrible substitute for enthusiasm uh so you know as we go along i think um and when you have a family you you tend to be more responsible of course you take less risks you tend to be trying to err on the side of caution all the time you're trying to you know say hey i've got kids i've got a family uh having said that they also kind of bring they ground you in many ways


also kind of bring they ground you in many ways um and they make you realize what is really really important and you have and then you realize that why families are so important and why um you know the responsibility of making sure that your kids grow up to be good humans uh so that you know the kind of stuff you were talking about earlier the cyber bullying and saying bad things to people you know that does not happen and you kind of they they they kind of feel that they need to make the world a better place and comes from within and i think it with children also it kind of makes you want to be you know set better examples and be a better person yourself right because uh they are unforgiving in their uh criticism and so they are so honest and refreshing and even when you know i asked my son uh when this was happening i said you know my business is suffering and what should i do and he said you should take care of your people first papa


said you should take care of your people first papa and you know it was like and i shared it on instagram also it was like it was so inspiring like this this young kid giving me business advice um i i yeah i think um i am i am i'm a more risk-averse businessman now uh because i have a family but um it's not a bad thing it adds some layers to you probably it does it does it does add some layers to it mellows you down a little bit um [Laughter] and what about like the personal finance side of things like on a personal level how have you like protected yourself over the years like in the mid 2000s when things start popping for you what did you do with your money um well you know i mean uh when it comes to money it was always all in right it was uh um whatever money we got like i said from from day one it was we always put it back into the business and we grew the business um having said that in


and we grew the business um having said that in hindsight uh was that i mean we were able to build a really solid business because we were all in we didn't have a plan b right so uh failure was not an option you know success was the only way we had to like sink or swim i mean that was that was it so that's one school of thought and there'd be another school of thought they'll tell you you should diversify and you know the co-weight is a very good example like everything that we built uh over the last 20 years uh faces the very real risk of getting dismantled in a matter of months so you know they would say that you should diversify and you should spread your money but um i think uh you know financial a good clever financial planning has never been my strength so it's not something my wife is actually a fantastic financial planner but um yeah i mean i think that you know just to have a diverse set of asset classes as as you have some


set of asset classes as as you have some money so a little bit in real estate a little bit in stocks a little bit in mutual funds you know a little um a little indulgences here and there by the end of the day you know i think um you you have to remember to enjoy your life also because that's also very important and one of the things that i'm seeing about the newer generation is you know how they're not collecting things but collecting experiences and that's also you know amazing because uh earlier it was all about your status symbols and now it's more about where you've been and what you've done um which have become the new status symbols right it's not about the gucci and the the prada anymore and it's about going to uh you know unheard of places and doing crazy adventures so things are changing but i think as long as you enjoy your life you know and you you uh have your facilities about you and you you lack out a living somehow or


and you you lack out a living somehow or the other beautiful i want a signing of note not for me but for all the young restauranters who are say you know you in your first three to five years who are suffering right now people who are gonna start restaurants and who are suffering right now if you had to give them one piece of advice about the future of this industry what would it be um well you know i'll say that uh don't get into the restaurant business because you think it is glamorous don't get into the restaurant business because uh you can you know make dal very well you know um be prepared that it is it's not a side business it's going to take uh every ounce of of you like every inch of you every ounce of you is going to demand it is it's um it's a business where you you it it is a passion project you will do it from a place of great passion that's the only way you're surviving it because it's going to be


you're surviving it because it's going to be it's going to be very very tough you know you've got a lot of headwinds mortality rates in the restaurant business are very very high uh the 90 percent of all restaurants don't make it past five years that's a that's a true statistic um so you know get in get in do it small you know start off really small uh perfect your craft make your mistakes make small mistakes um so that you can live to fight another day and just go for it man i mean just go for it hammer and tongs do it your way don't do it any other way don't look over your shoulder don't look towards the west don't uh try and uh yes you know like social but different no i mean do do what really speaks to you right if you if you enjoy khichari then do a bloody kitchen but make the best khichidi in the world i mean that's it you know that that's that's all i can say yeah beautiful mr riya


that's all i can say yeah beautiful mr riya zamlani i can't wait to go to a smokehouse delhi with my mom again and just experience some of that gorgeousness thank you for the memories over the years thank you for this podcast uh again i learn from everyone i meet and i just ask you the questions i've wanted to ask you since college so really appreciate it man thank you ranveer i hope it was useful


welcome to a special episode of didn't we show we're gonna be talking about the impact of the Karuna virus nothing to do with the precautions the symptoms the immunity factor we're just gonna talk about the impact that it's had on the financial world on the business world and specifically on you the future of your wealth the future of your money the future of your business and trust me the world hasn't seen a situation like this with me today I have a childhood friend of mine Josh Thole ager here man so Yash has been a huge business guide to me especially early on when I started be a biceps or learnt a lot from him his family uh yeah she's someone who's kind of worked in multiple industries we go back a long way we were in school together he's one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to economics and just business generally all over the world but specifically in their vacuous conversation Thank You Man dude coronavirus I want to first highlight the fact that


coronavirus I want to first highlight the fact that my industry has benefited a lot from it which is the content industry because people are sitting at home watching YouTube watching Netflix reading Twitter things like that so we as content creators have been told to generate a lot of content but we turned because very soon public transportation and yeah Mumbai is gonna shut down but all the other industries are taking it yeah likes taking everything like I know you would just in my office right before this podcast and you got a call from someone at your office saying yeah I got a message actually saying all government offices are going to be shut and since my work involves reasoning with some government departments yeah work is stopped yeah so what kind of impact has it had on the industries others in the content industry I mean it's pretty far-reaching it's like you're reorganizing the conditions under which these markets operate right now suddenly if a lot more people are going to stay at home and you know the dynamics of


to stay at home and you know the dynamics of people change so like you said content if they're going to stay at home and be able to welcome content is going to be a big thing but stuff like travel manufacturing trading a lot of those things travel airlines and all especially have taken such a huge yeah you tell me about the banks and USA oh yeah the Federal Reserve or cut interest rate so usually what that means is when they cut interest rates to I think it's a range of 0 to 0.25 you break that down a little move all of you so what it means is when they cut interest rates it's the the cost of borrowing money is going down okay if I charge you a lower interest rate it's easier for you to borrow because you have to pay me less interest so what the Federal Reserve in the u.s. has done is they've reduced the interest so much they want to they want people to borrow they want new business they want people to spend has it gone down to zero


want people to spend has it gone down to zero it's all so it's usually it's the overnight rate so the Fed gives to banks and it's a long mechanism but this is one of the biggest cuts that they've had in a long time and the US markets like it's the biggest sell-off that they've had since 2008 I think Monday was the biggest sell-off I mean biggest hello um because of people thinking that business is going to take such a big hit and things in especially certain parts of the world will come to a standstill people will want to sell stocks of businesses which they think are going to take a hit because of this which is almost every business to be fair so finance even in India so there's something called a circuit in a financial market in a stock market if too many people start selling stocks and the price starts dropping really fast they halt trading for a bit it's called hitting a circuit they want everyone to calm down and you know reassess and take it


calm down and you know reassess and take it from this so that's happened it's rare for these things to happen in markets mm-hmm and also I have been told that this is also the right time to buy certain shares yeah like again in the content industry I just had one of my mentors actually talking about how you should totally invest no TT platforms like Netflix like a Disney like a hot star going forward because what's gonna happen now is P plus staying at home they're gonna discover a lot of stuff on Netflix the content that was already there is gonna get discovered now definite people will continue watching it even after this situation like leaves us that's what it is rates of change in social dynamics usually if I am as a consumer in the economy if I am spending on certain things that involve me going out with my friends and going to a bar ah go into a restaurant it's my spending is now redirected maybe I can spend more maybe I'll buy


redirected maybe I can spend more maybe I'll buy another subscription because I don't have things to do so clearly it's a reorganization which means that some things will definitely benefit like you're saying streaming platforms would benefit people were talking about hygiene products people that manufacture those so that all these things that are needed now what are the products do you think will benefit um people were talking about soaps people are talking about like hand sanitizers debt all this shortage of debt all everywhere general sanitation products I feel given that one of the precautions to be taken is washing your hands and good idea the e-commerce industry has gone up a lot definitely mobility is tall people are basically buying a lot more products online they don't want to go to physical retail shows to purchase because they won't wanna get infected and you know for example we have uber or Ola we have like you know dried sharing platforms they're gonna degrade if people are on lockdown and on quarantine


if people are on lockdown and on quarantine they can't travel and so the people a lot of the times these guys are contractors they work with ruber and then they're going to have a tough time but tough time with their livelihood especially and but governments are helping out it's not that the market is being left to its own devices there have been eight packages for airlines all over the world for you know helping I think what immediate packages like the government is helping them because suddenly it's a not a normal circumstance right like usually now we're heading into spring summer which is when the world vacations and travels but this time no airlines are going to go anyway plus there are travel bans hmm oh if flights coming in from Europe aren't allowed into the u.s. there's gonna be no flights back from the USD or up right things like that so there's going to be an impact hopefully you know things will smooth out and start going back to normal soon right um specifically


and start going back to normal soon right um specifically about the e-commerce industry we actually have one of our business Mentos mr. money Chaudhary he runs Wow skin science which is one of the biggest FMCG brands and India's an upcoming brand he did well on Amazon he'll now like really where they've built out the entire brand through Amazon but because Amazon itself has got such a big boost people are spending more time on the internet right his brand was already big there so it's taken off to another level he's doing really well like you know that's that's the effect its had on his business coming back to the content side of things more specifically he gaming dude yesterday I think than my posted on his Twitter he got something like half a million live viewers at like one time there were 500k kids watching him play a video game okay so we both watch football right and football more sports if you are a fan of the NBA or fan of the Premier League everything has topped European football


of the Premier League everything has topped European football completely stock players are streaming for tonight I think there was a mess it was a little stream on for tonight a couple days ago so it's people everyone needs something to do with their time right and given that we can't interact with each other face to face or have to you know have some kind of social distancing like things that let you connect to someone from a distance whether that's in a community forum or one-to-one those things will definitely get a boost but I'll tell you what else as content creators right now I remember Veera just called me last night okay my manager and he told me that dude listen the content industry is on a big boom you better be creating a lot more content so I called my demon today I think we're three or four of the only people in the Sendai building yeah like including all of us recording here okay there's no one else in this entire building of offices and we can't come tomorrow because public


of offices and we can't come tomorrow because public transport is gonna be sure so I cannot create content as much as I want to imperil eyes I can probably create story content on my phone or you know do some jugaad I'll have to go back to basics as I like when I began I still make I made record my YouTube videos I have to do that I remember the green screen man yeah pure by cells posters that you give out also back in the day back in the day but you got to go back to basics now dude like never saw this coming this is the closest thing you had to Walking Dead The Walking Dead a la mist but yeah so I think there's also going to be a need to balance everyone safety and schedule and versus with like actual productivity yeah there are some industries where I know for example people who are working at like you know food delivery apps and all businesses going well they are working from home but there are only so many things you can do


but there are only so many things you can do remotely mmm so all these dynamics are going to change but someone was talking to me about how maybe this will be the reason that you know people start adapting a more work from home or remote working approach in India because it's forcing people to experiment with these kind of working styles I'm just thinking out loud here but so again like we did this detailed Hindi video on the coronavirus for it attorney so it's a lot and my final like piece of research was this podcast Joe Rogan did with this guy girl Michael host oh I saw it oh what a beautiful podcast great podcast are big fans of Joe Rogan yeah yeah and they spoke about how as long as your immunity is high and you have a really healthy lifestyle you're pretty much safe from the effects of the virus of course you might be carry on you might pass it on so it's still not advisable to go out and risk infection but in saying that I


out and risk infection but in saying that I feel like this also might be one of those switches health switches for a lot of people you know people might stop start adopting healthier lifestyles going for which means that the whole wellness industry also might come up after this route oh because anything that is a fundamental like life shift causes you to like think about where you are today someone tells you that you know being not having great cardiovascular health or something for example is going to leave you vulnerable you want to change that yeah and it's it's going to be your shift and it's also it comes as a responsibility like we may not be as younger people you know the mortality rates for people obviously I'm no expert on this from what I've read is quite low for people under 40 but then again there's a concept called herd immunity right we are immune to certain things because we all take precautions and it doesn't be make it not easy for it to transmit through communities which is


easy for it to transmit through communities which is what our responsibility would be here yeah all of us live with like our grandparents er our parents are you know heading towards like late 50s early 60s no so we the responsibility for us is to make sure a healthy environment is there for all of them hundred percent row so okay but coming back to the whole financial side of things what's the situation with the stock market should you be investing in it what's happening there there's definitely a case to be made for saying that you you know you invest when markets are down Warren Buffett has said that you know you buy low sell high is like the way to do things and yeah definitely the stock market has fallen but today judging from the way the world is still reacting and still coming to grips with things you can't say for sure that today like I I believe the Sensex made our recovery today for quite a while but then we don't know how markets are going to open tomorrow


don't know how markets are going to open tomorrow there are so many factors at play there's not just you and I buying stocks in a market you know there are international investors buying in Indian markets there are mutual funds buying for people so these big changes we don't know the way the market could go and really it'll stabilize yeah which means it would be a good time if it's stabilizing now you buy and then you wait see now if someone is looking to invest it should be very long term mm-hmm that you know those are things also shonali like in witness again the things we mentioned anything you can like if you want to buy Sensex car ETF which is the exchange-traded fund okay what is not so it means that when you sense X is an index of all the stocks in the in the BS it represents represents multiple stocks in the market so what people can do is in an ETF you buy a stock that's representative of a group of shits okay of a group of


of a group of shits okay of a group of different company ball different companies like nifty 50 nifty 50 is a group of different companies listed on an index so you can buy one stock off cents xo1 so what the difference is it's diversified like today I buy a stock of any I buy more Motor Company okay and now mobility is going to reduce suppose like for some reason whatever people will use less or less so cause and the stock price will go down but if I buy a Sensex ETF for example it's like I'm hedging I'm diversifying you know that it'll include a motor company as well as a gaming exactly gaming the money might benefit but exact exactly that'll like so hedges it model a bit it counteracts one of certain single stock so so how can you break it down for the viewers I was just so you know get under the stall so if you are obviously now is a volatile time in the stock market you in short predictable it's not predictable like right


you in short predictable it's not predictable like right now the whole world is waiting and watching right but generally speaking yeah buy low sell high is a thing you should wait for at then markets although it's a great time to buy it's a great time to buy long term and it's also better to diversify like by saying you if you hold stocks only extensively in you know the streaming industry you're doing really well or content industry you're doing really well so you have to diversify your portfolio keep things from different sectors so you know that there's a balance because at certain times there's no some certain sector will be doing better or worse than the other it's inevitable percent and also just one financial precaution you should be taking during a pandemics outbreak is that you should have a lot of money in liquid form like in your bank account because you don't know what's gonna happen you don't know how long we lock down for it's been two three days since in lockdown right now


been two three days since in lockdown right now yeah and it's still in progress right like for example but we don't know whether the clam down is getting more serious in Bombay to what we just what about government offices that also we just heard about it they're waiting on things official communication to come in which is what we should trust yeah because panic at a time like this is the worst thing that we could do but either way it's always better to be prepared for the worst-case scenario it is no no have a lot of liquid funds I'd also suggest something on a human level this is one of my great learnings of life in the last year which is that everyone perceives money differently what 500 rupees may mean to you may mean a lot more to your uber driver or to your watchman yeah or something this is that moment in human history where you kind of let go of selfishness as well and you know put money out there in Indian society if you feel someone is running short money go


society if you feel someone is running short money go help a friend go help someone who really needs money if you're going out on a cab don't ask for that 10 bucks change 20 rupees change exactly let people let money spread out see it's all like your talk you know it's the right time for us it's our responsibility to help the vulnerable time like this and I don't mean vulnerable just from my health perspective I mean from a financial perspective also like you said that money means so much more to people they have public transport and all is affected taxi drivers and all you know it it matters a lot more to them so in places where you suppose as a business owner I have pending payments to make out and I have small vendors like I would pay them because you know who wants to keep anyone hanging in this time where you don't know when is next check is coming when he doesn't know where his next check is coming from hundred percent just kind of down to your human side yes


percent just kind of down to your human side yes it is a time to make some fantastic financial decisions but at the same time please please please be there I know sound cliche but be there for your brethren be human first yeah yeah it's it's times like this where like you know we talked about herd immunity and all but it's all about communities here it's about help making sure that everyone gets through this in you know safe and sound and as like with little disruption to their life as they can yeah if we have to take precautions and be pre-emptive for that we should do it yeah and as I read on Instagram yesterday that the party that we throw after this whole situation is gonna be a greatest party of all time hopefully any last notes when you're signing off from this podcast um just that it's an evolving situation and we should trust official information coming to us everyone and we should look out for everyone not panic take things as they come because things are changing for the


things as they come because things are changing for the government every second or governments all over the world every second as they are for us yeah so be cautious be prepared but you know be like keep everyone safe and sound but do it sensibly yeah so keep a track on your money keep a track on what's happening in the financial markets also very crucially I know we're not supposed to talk about precautions when it comes to the virus focus on your immunity focus on your health lead a healthy lifestyle right now obviously follow the precautions you guys know all the precautions there's no point in you guys so follow it to the tea and yeah just have a good one stay positive in this situation yeah definitely Charo you


Narendra Kumar ornery as most people know him is one of the most influential people in the world of men's fashion in today's day and age he's been voted as one of the top 50 menswear designers and today he's heading the creative aspect of the entire vertical called Amazon fashion he's interacted with Jeff Bezos and Jeff Bezos is just one of the million successful people that this man has interacted with he's learned from all of them he's a crazily voracious reader this conversation of the Remigio is going to add a lot of information into your mind we're also gonna touch upon what makes a human being more attractive and you know what more than the information there's a lot of classiness to be gained from this man so without further ado enjoy Narendra Kumar on the red meat show one of the best things about my own career one of my biggest blessings is that this youtuber / entrepreneur tag opens up a lot of doors I'm very fortunate to have met marine


lot of doors I'm very fortunate to have met marine the Kumar pleasure nari there are proud to call you somewhat of a mentor to me glad to be one proud to also I didn't know that but glad to be well you are proud to also know you as a fellow I'd like to call it Bachelor right you are in a relationship but you're on unmarried 49 year old person yeah and you don't see that a lot in India you don't see the that's my choice yeah that's my choice some of our most interesting conversations have been about relationships about a partying right but also about how you've landed the country's most desired creative job right you're the head of creatives for Amazon fashion for Amazon I'm glad to be there nice to be there from the very beginning and you're considered one of the world's top 50 fashion designers menswear designers and you're talking to menswear you do so absolutely we're gonna be tackling all these topics through this podcast yeah look


tackling all these topics through this podcast yeah look forward to it go for it so I'm gonna ask you man how did you go from being an everyday average sports playing ba maked to being up there yes I mean a long journey I mean you know I was really not that great at studies and education was really not my forte I did I didn't do so great when it came to my university really did badly actually passed by copying I have to say that right now but I think and I was quite lost for many years until I really found my calling when I was 26 27 what I do from 21 to 26 my first job was selling photocopies at 10 percent 15 by some office to office in Norman point were you that guy in the Xerox shop yeah exactly yeah pack that and gave it to people and then I think my parents felt a little bad for me and they said I should get you gave me a more respectable job kind of stuff and I got a job selling


job kind of stuff and I got a job selling glass bottles like milk bottles and I did that for about five six years and then I heard this school NIFT National Institute of Fashion Technology opening up and they looked for 1 years they looked for either a first class in graduation or a years experience in the industry I had neither and so I couldn't job the day I got to know about it and life took on from then you always like clothes you like fashion I did I I mean I I did like fashion from the very beginning I remember the first time maybe I was in my 10th standard or so I used to alter my clothes my own clothes for the fit and the shape I used to use my mother's hand sewing machine to play around with the shapes and fits of clothing but then they were note school real schools too for boys to learn fashion in you know the only girls schools and fashion was not considered a career for boys at that time here how do you


career for boys at that time here how do you climb up the ranks how do you become one of the world's 50 top fashion designers I tell myself then I think to put it simply is I tell myself I told myself when I finished fashion school that I should be the bet I just kept the bar really high so I said to myself I should be the best in the world and nothing less but I also knew that it was a very difficult task for menswear designer for a designer in India to fish on to the top kind of stuff and but what I did is put my head down and work at it every Ingle day of my life every single day of my career I looked at creating the best that I could always fascinated by something nice that I would do it would be something that would lift me to such great heights and take me pass all my depression all your depression all my depression take us through that there's a lot of you know depressions always


that there's a lot of you know depressions always been around yeah but it's just that because of social media and the modern day it's been highlighted a lot more by yes yeah it's highlighted more and is seen as a disease yeah bird you know I don't know if it is true and I'm not qualified to say if it's a disease or not but I look at both the high and low the depression for being that inspired me that drove me every day it was a teacher you know it was a teacher actually from the age of it was not just a teacher I think it is a lesson learnt in life very much early that my parents took me to these lectures by Krishnamurti J Krishnamurti and that's where I got of understanding that you know you're really not much in control of what is going to happen to your life the only thing you can do is leave it you know of course you can plan it but your plans might not go the way you want to and so


might not go the way you want to and so it allowed me to deal with the highs and the lows in the same manner and therefore both the high and the low were inspiring and I've created great shows ideas from being depressed and also from being high like could you give an example of something you learned from J Krishnamurti that stayed with you I mean I think that that there is no great Authority in life a God kind of spirit it is about how you deal with everyday life when how you look at life everyday and how you deal with your next person the person you meet and really that is where apparently the godliness comes in is how you deal with the next person you meet more the people you see and that to me has really been a driving idea through my career and through my life also with successful people especially people like you who've done different things and been successful in different things and show you how like this core formula that you follow you know like okay work hard yeah keep


you follow you know like okay work hard yeah keep learning about this industry absolutely and maybe that X Factor yeah the X Factor was just you know if I were to describe my life I mean that X Factor would be no rearview you know I've always wanted to expand on every aspect of what I do and when I did fashion I also taught in fashion school I was also a fashion journalist I've done photography I told myself that I should be trained in every aspect of that function or that career you know most people just become designers and just remain designers for 30 40 years in their lives I couldn't do that I wanted to know every aspect of design from styling I don't know if you guys know we style India's most seminal film on fashion called fashion yeah with Priyanka and Kangana and Mukta and people and so I I had this need to know every aspect of the work that I was doing so it never made what it did was you kept me independent at least


what it did was you kept me independent at least had a top view maybe I didn't do everything at the same time but at least I knew what I wanted and probably that's what really helped me bring these things and I used all of them and everything I tell myself that everything that I have learned through my life has always been helpful because somewhere or the other it has come it has been of help whether it is my personal life or how I see it or how I execute my ideas they say knowledge is never wasted it isn't absolutely agree and all knowledge is great knowledge you also someone who reads a lot I do I know you as a person and you're the kind of person who reads again to add layers to their mind absolutely I mean I I think there are reading is a way of understanding how other people think and you know to grow yourself you relate to other people and therefore without understanding them it becomes difficult to relate to people this don't life yeah you know


relate to people this don't life yeah you know with my generation a lot of people don't read right but there are people are hungry for knowledge so things like this podcast have betrayed our versions of books right so I think the difference between books and what does is that books you go and you scan the subconscious mind and the conscious mind of the writer the very author right but with podcasts you're getting a larger quantity of information that's spread out you're not doing as deep you're getting a lot so I read multiple books at the same time I read five six different books on different subjects you know and I recently saw in apparently a documentary film on how you expand your brain how your neurons fire when you're doing multiple things as opposed to doing just a single thing you know it has happened all along and this was just a confirmation but it's not like I would read a book from page one to page two the last page I mean I go back to books in different stages and the


I go back to books in different stages and the most important thing is picking out the essence of the book because you know the author has spent a lot of time qualifying that thought there is a single line if you could collapse a book into five lines that is really the sense of the book you know and to me always yeah more important than what somebody has done in their lives like artists for instance it was always important to me to understand how they grew up yeah what their influences were and how did they think because for me it gives me a way to adapt that thought process into my own world instead of just repeating what they have done physically and convert it into my world so it gives me a deeper method of thinking I was always are interested by the method of the thought rather than one final thought in itself Wow beautiful so straight off the top of your head three books are like life-changing for you you know different books of influence be in different n different I think number one


influence be in different n different I think number one was Krishna move his book the awakening of intelligence Jai Krishna Krishna moves his book of awakening of intelligence and the other book was the atheist guide to reality living life without illusions by Alex Rosenberg which is absolutely a fantastic fantastic view of why we are here as human beings on this earth and what is the purpose that we did and it says there is no real purpose to our lives but since we are here we should make the most of it yeah and I think the third one is called the antidote by Oliver Bookman and that talks about for those four people who and the byline says for people who hate positive thinking and I think it's a real great view because positive thinking was created in the sixth in the 50s and 60s in America for people to get over the war and depression and live in the future in a skip what they were living then you know today if you look at the Millennials and


know today if you look at the Millennials and Gen Z everybody wants leave the moment hmm you know this positive thinking of like oh I want to live what I'm going to live 20 years from now live and believe that I am going to work towards that I don't know how relevant it is today in today's world I think it's coming back it's making he would come back so I I think that you know contrary I feel that you know positive thinking he's in today's world people want to live today more than today and you look at and that's the reason why everybody has 15 different things that they do don't last in a job for six months or eight months you know so people are finding just searching for what makes them happy and sometimes small things don't make them happy you know positive thinking is just live like you are happy today yeah yeah and it might not be there but just live about think about it today you're living in the future and you really don't want to do that and


future and you really don't want to do that and for most young people I know they want to do things now because there is lots to do why do you not get married to all this I think that marriage is signing a paper is never a important issue for me it was commitment and commitment is what is really important commitment to your work commitment to your partner commit to all of that those are important things you know and in a paper does not qualify that yeah I have been through a lot in my life and I have been through I have been with partners which are really long I have a partner for many years now all of that kind of stuff and and business partner work partner all of that kind of stuff and I think that it is commitment that is really the most important thing you know you could have signed that paper and not be committed to yeah so for me I I never looked at it as an important aspect like but did you see marriages feel around you as well like your friends and


marriages feel around you as well like your friends and things like that but I would still not use that as a qualification as to why I never got married but I heard from an external posted perspective I an observer why I think the pressures are lot expectations a lot today I may yeah because you know you were open today to so many influences that were never there before in your life your example I mean people that you meet careers that you want travel that you want to do and it's difficult to find people with both the same level of expectations and somebody who would probably encourage you in your own journey you know and a lot of people look within themselves rather than look to others to help others and put people out and I think that the pressure is a lot more yeah there are a lot more things to do a lot more things to achieve and unless you have this commitment of taking each other along or multiple people along it finds it very difficult to get through a long relationship and have


very difficult to get through a long relationship and have you seen any successful long relation of course I have my parents were married for the longest time ever who write my I mean I think that they committed and respected each other they knew that each one qualified their lives they were friends first before they got married more than anything else I mean it's not to say that you have not to be friends do you you can be stranger than you can get together you can explore and you can find out in the journey as you get along and that itself is a great thing you know so there are lots of successful people but you also hear of a lot of things that go awry when it comes to relationships and marriages and I'm no judge for this what advice do you have for people in their twenties both in terms of relationships and work I think that relationships can nurture you a lot and can destroy you also yeah you need to be able to be you need to be mindful of what relationships are


be you need to be mindful of what relationships are and how it is nurturing you I mean nurturing cannot be selfish cannot be just about you it also depends on how you nurture the other person because that is what is the nourishing relationship where you can nurture each other in the ways that you want to do as far as careers are concerned you know today there has never been a time like this over the last 200 years of our Industrial Revolution you know we learned today our parents learn today from generation to generation they grew up their parents taught them their father taught them do the values and they spoke about careers to their children you know and they said you mean 100 years or 50 years ago if someone said you were better at don't dr. bond job because that is great for you in life you did it because that was the choice today I think the other real important thing is how health has improved over life earlier people told you generation in the past people told you


told you generation in the past people told you that you have to do and build your career from the age of say 21 22 to 60 and then you were retired you know and then you had to save for the next part of your life the age in the future is not going to be limited to 60 you know people are already living till eighties in another 20 years they will live out till 100 and you probably will have to work until you're 80 and you will be in good health and good you know kind of stuff because all of that is improving healthcare is improving life is improving standards are improving for everybody you know so people will live longer and in in that situation how do you measure your life you know do you want to become a CEO by in 15 years of your within 15 years of your career do you want to be an entrepreneur what do you want to be because what do you do after that you know there are not millions and millions of CEOs


know there are not millions and millions of CEOs there are only a limited amount of jobs that go with that you know how do you maintain or sustain your interest in one thing or the next 40 50 60 years is a difficult thing also for people you know so that's where people need to think you know I would say that it is a steady climb instead of a vertical climb and comes to careers I think that as you build your career you got to know today every aspect of your career you know I mean you cannot be just a a master of one you need to be a master of one which is the basis of your career but you need to be a jack of all other stuff because today's the age of the entrepreneur and to be an entrepreneur you need to know something about everything yeah you also you work with a lot of young people in your Amazon team right I'm sure in your hiring process you're hiring people with that little kind of mentality of you look for certain things right


of mentality of you look for certain things right what do you look for in that hot prospect I think that you know looking for people in is you're looking at a place where you think about the new work culture you think about Millennials and how they work how you going to foster how you going to help them how you going to nurture them into their careers and the kind of backgrounds they come with you know are you a free thinker are you independent do you follow processes how do you structure your thought process and how widely you think yeah and for me that is the most important thing and some of the questions I asked people at interviews is what's the top of their playlist music list currently you know and or what are the three top books you're reading currently it's kind of stuff I mean not religion anything to do with the actual job but rather of their minds Minds you know to me that is really the essence of the person because I know if you have your favorite music


person because I know if you have your favorite music so who's your favorite musician you know maybe a band Pearl Jam you know and for me what is important is what do you know about them how do you follow what you love and to me that gives me a perspective of how the person thinks about what they - because if you are really thorough about what you love you know it could be anything you know it could be music it could be vine it could be he could be traveling it could be cause it could be any single kind how deeply you get into it allows me to give a possible allows me the perspective of the person as being someone who is thorough in what they love and so definitely they should be thoroughly in what they do so you're a really good guy and though your curio is gone it is a relative term to use like you seem like a really nice person so amp you I'm sure you like you know you've gone really fast in your career you've gone way


gone really fast in your career you've gone way ahead of a lot of people right and I'm sure you've seen people who don't capitalize on their moment right what if those people done wrong you know the ones who've not reached where there was a whole story I mean I think that that's a lesson in life that I have learned you know I used to also be like this person racing ahead doing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing I couldn't stop myself and then I realized that I was just creating these ideas of next thing where everybody else was benefiting from it profiting from the idea yeah and I also told myself I need to do the next thing but I need to be able to make the most of the things that I'm talking about develop it further develop it a little deeper and layer it with the new things you know and and that is really important I mean a simple example would be I'll do shows and my shows I would have like 30 different ideas in