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Pep Talk with Vijay · PodcastIn short
- Back niche products that are hard to copy; the brand and its IP are what you exit with.
- Check the unit economics early: healthy gross margin, efficient ad spend, customers who buy again.
- Founders: keep a few hero products, know your customer, and run the company with good governance.
Chapters
- Meet CA Amit Singal (opens on YouTube)
- Investing vs managing funds (opens on YouTube)
- How he evaluates deals (opens on YouTube)
- Follow-on bets and "hero" companies (opens on YouTube)
- How he picks D2C brands (opens on YouTube)
- How much to spend on branding (opens on YouTube)
- Own website vs marketplaces (opens on YouTube)
- Contract vs own manufacturing (opens on YouTube)
- Relabelled products: a red flag (opens on YouTube)
- Why tech matters for D2C (opens on YouTube)
- How many products is enough (opens on YouTube)
- Know your customer (opens on YouTube)
- How loyal are Indian customers? (opens on YouTube)
- A success and a failure from his portfolio (opens on YouTube)
- Tips for picking a D2C brand (opens on YouTube)
What he checks
- Is it niche and defensible? Me-too products are easy to copy. The IP is what matters at exit.
- Gross margin. He looks for a high margin, around 65%, so there is room for marketing and overheads.
- Return on ad spend. If every rupee of ads brings back less than about three, he usually passes.
- Do customers come back? Repeat purchases and how often people buy say more than one-off sales.
- Six months of data. If losses grow as fast as sales, there is no path to break-even.
- Owning the customer. D2C means owning customer data. A healthy share of sales on your own site signals loyalty.
- Scalable production. Standard products made by contract manufacturers scale; relabelled imports are trading, not a brand.
- A few hero products. Stay focused on a handful of products before adding more; 80/20 applies.
In his words
“For an angel investor, the most important thing is to see who else is investing alongside you.”
46:45
“A company just bringing a product from outside and relabelling it is a red flag.”
29:13
“If you have good corporate governance in your company, success is the by-product.”
42:49
Guest: CA Amit Singal, chartered accountant and investor in consumer brands. Quotes are translated from Hindi.
Views in this episode are the speaker's own and are not investment advice. Startup investing is high-risk and long-term; you can lose your capital.
Hosted by Vijay Singh RathoreCo-Founder & CEO of Soonicorn Ventures. Pep Talk with Vijay is a conversation series with founders and investors.
