 Hello and welcome, everyone, to this virtual conference by Entrepreneur India. Today's discussion will revolve around how are startups gearing up for the post-COVID world. I am Saurav Kumar, editor of Special Projects, Entrepreneur India, your host and moderator for the section. Today, I mean, with these unprecedented circumstances going to the novel coronavirus outbreak, we are going to find answers to some of the questions that may have cropped up in the business community. So I'll start by laying out some ground rules here for the attendees and for others as well. So the discussion will go on for 40 minutes. This will be followed by a Q&A session for the next 20 minutes. If you have any questions during the course of the discussion, you can post them to the Q&A option at the bottom of your screen. Mention in your question if it is directed at any specific session. We would also like to request the attendees to keep the questions within the scope of the discussion here today. There will be also polls will be conducted during this session, so I'll request everyone to kindly participate. Let me now introduce our session co-host for today, Mr. Ritu Maria, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur India and Inch Appetite. Our panelists today are Mr. Raghav Joshi, CEO of India Business Unit, Rebell Foods. Mr. Prashant Tandon, co-founder and CEO, 1MG. Mr. Dipin Preet Singh, founder and CEO, Mobiquit. To start with, so I'll start with the panelists now to start with, given that everyone operates in separate verticals, I think the attendees would want to know what challenges have you faced due to COVID and the subsequent lockdown. And more importantly, the learnings that you're going to take away from here to prepare yourself for the post-COVID scenario. So Prashant, if I can start with you, please. All right, so during this phase, I think for us, it's a structural positive disruption from a business perspective. We are seeing unprecedented demand right now. The challenge is actually in fulfillment. Logistics is very much hampered. Team availability, a lot of people have gone back to the villages, so that is a problem. Morale is certainly an issue. But other than that, we are just stretched. We have way more demand that we need to cater to. And right now, we are just making sure that our operations are gearing up every day and getting better to service those people. So I think post-COVID, what we believe is going to happen from a health tech perspective is that this is a structural shift towards health tech. People actually clearly appreciate the benefits of this model of engaging with healthcare. It's safer. It's convenient. And what's happening is a lot of trial is being generated during this phase. Users are getting to experience this as the model to serve them. And for us, we believe this is a fairly significant step jump. So for us, the challenges are really going to be more about keeping up the supplies. And the second part is, of course, we have to be cognizant of the fact that we are entering into a phase where sustainability of businesses, unit economics, capital availability runway will be key for every business. So we also have to make sure our cost structures are best in class, highly controlled. And that will be a theme of the ecosystem. I think everybody will be working in preparation of a capital constrained next couple of quarters at least. Let me also welcome our panelist, Mr. Greg Moran, CEO and co-founder of Zoomcar. Welcome, Greg. Nice. So Greg, if I can come to you and if you can tell us that in terms of your business and the industry, what are the learnings that you're going to take away from here to prepare yourself for the post-COVID? Well, and the other startups who are aspiring to be in this business will take and also keep in mind when they start with Zoom business. Sure, sure. So I think for us, it's a little bit unique in the sense that, you know, we're probably one of the most hard hit startups, you know, in terms of sector right now during the lockdown, you know, given the fact that within mobility, you have 100% shutdown in the business and you're not able to serve any customers, you know, given the government orders. So for us, we've had to innovate around sort of B2B use cases and working and collaborating with large food tech players, logistics players, health tech players, government services, so effectively all of the emergency essential services providers. So I think that's something which has given us an opportunity to kind of branch out into a new business. Of course, that's not been kind of historically what we've done in terms of operation. But I think what we also see at the same time is that as the whole lockdown resumes, emerges as we come out of this gradually over the coming weeks and months, I think what we see is a huge shift in terms of the individuals going from a sort of like an Ola Uber, you know, going from a mass transit to more personal transport, which is much more sanitized, clean, reliable, private. And that's something which, you know, we see just a tremendous disruption across. And that's where, you know, we're actually looking at modeling for, you know, a significant, maybe a 5 or 10 X uplift in terms of overall demand over the 6 to 12 month period. So I think we're just actually really trying to think about how we do fulfillment in this period post COVID. Because I think it will take a long time for the attitudes to sort of readjust. So I think that's where we have to be front and center trying to capitalize. Okay. If you can, please come in and share your learning right now in terms of people. Right. So I think Prashant and Greg have provided, you know, two very different views from the demand side on one side, you know, the pharma sector is seeing and Prashant's company seeing, you know, huge spur in demand while, you know, for for zoom car. It's clearly, you know, the other side. For us, it has been, you know, sort of a mixed bag in terms of being a very volatile last couple of weeks. It almost feels like, you know, a couple of years, not a couple of weeks. And, you know, it has been very volatile, not just on the demand side, but also on the supply side as well. So, you know, if we just do a quick flashback, we see that, you know, from from March 22nd, when the lockdown started, the first lockdown on 22nd, and then from 25th onwards, the period which is going on right now. There were a lot of challenges on the on the regulatory front where the central government and state governments, you know, in the best interest of people of the country, you know, we're trying to make sure that as much as possible, people stay indoors and, you know, social distancing and everything is maintained. And at the same time, they were also trying to ensure that services are on and food delivery, you know, unfortunately fell into a category which was not crystal clear. So, you know, there were multiple interpretations across state and central governments on this. And eventually, you know, by the last week of the month, by March 31st and April 1st, around that period, everybody sort of agreed that food delivery should be an essential service. And the Ministry of Home Affairs memo in this regard made it clear. So, the first week of post lockdown, we had, you know, a lot of time spent at police stations across the country trying to convince the local authorities that we should be allowed to open. And those challenges are not there anymore. So, the first task for us was to, you know, get those challenges cleared and get our kitchen's live. After that, you know, it has been also a little bit of a challenge on the supply side from a supply chain perspective and from, you know, staffing perspective, ensuring that, you know, we have enough staff at each kitchen and ensuring that we get the raw materials, you know, delivered on time from our partners. That has been the phase of navigation over the last couple of weeks on the supply side, but I think we are pretty much sorted now. We have, you know, 90% plus of our network, which is up and running across the country. Tier one cities are mostly up, you know, where solving the regulatory issues has been easier. Tier two cities and some cities which have higher exposure to COVID, you know, there has been still a little bit of a challenge in getting the network up. But we are hopeful of solving that as well in the next few days. On the demand side, you know, it's again been an interesting story while the orders have been pretty volatile. We are seeing an increase in the average order value because people are staying indoors and ordering in groups. And we are also seeing a shift towards brands which have, you know, high level of trust from a customer's perspective. So for example, Behrouz Biryani in our case, Avan Story Pizza, you know, these are the brands which are actually seeing higher demand as compared to pre-lockdown period. We are seeing this across the globe, you know, the pizza industry is seeing a perception that, you know, customers feel that pizza going through an oven at 500 degrees Fahrenheit, you know, sort of takes care of the virus, so it must be safe or so. So pizza is one category which is actually growing. And we are seeing that different sort of shift across different brands in our portfolio. So it's been pretty interesting from that perspective. We've also introduced to handle the situation, we've introduced, you know, extra measures which create consumers trust. For example, you know, taking temperature and showing it to every customer on every order of all our staff at the kitchen. So if you order from the Behrouz Biryani website, you know, you will see the temperature of each person in the kitchen. And, you know, that is something which is obviously becoming more relevant right now. This is something probably not there anywhere else in the world we've seen, but other things such as contactless delivery, you know, a drop by at society gates, etc, which, which the industry is in general adopting that those are things that, you know, we've initiated as well. The other interesting thing which is specific to our sector is the opportunity to serve the needy at this point in time. There are a lot of people in millions of people actually who are stranded at different places. You know, we've seen in the news that at the ISBT, you know, people were stranded, they were trying to cross the borders and a lot of them got stranded and, you know, did not have food for many days. So Delhi disaster management authority, you know, just to give you an anecdote, contacted us on 26 March night saying that, you know, hundreds of people are stranded. And in a matter of few hours, we provided about 1200 meals. And, you know, those sort of opportunities have since been coming across the country. And, you know, very quickly we've put up a website called food for good on which consumers can go and they can, you know, donate meals to the people who are who are needy. And we prepare those meals and serve those consumers through a network of NGOs. So that has suddenly become a, you know, a massive way for us to, you know, build on this social capital, I would say. And, you know, take, you know, fulfill our responsibility, our CSR at this point in time, while the other demand, you know, still keeps getting volatile. So it's been, you know, so many different journeys for in the last couple of weeks. And, you know, we are just trying to make sure that, you know, we handle all of it in the right way. We've been I'll come to you now so completely different space, payment and, you know, context. So what has been your learning and, you know, which will help you when we get out of this situation. Yeah, so see from our point of view movie quick operates a fintech platform, which obviously where the core is around payments, digital payments, but also over the years we've added digital loans, digital and micro insurance, as well as wealth management, using mutual funds, digital gold, etc. So we are actually seeing interesting different trends across all these different categories of use cases. One thing is clear is that, you know, from a macro point of view, as you must have already noticed that everybody including the government is is focusing and telling people to go digital, which obviously makes a lot more sense, given that, you know, cash could be one, you know, way of transmitting this virus. So from an adoption point of view, I think, you know, it was anyway, a long term positive trend for digital payments. And so we've seen a lot of adoption new adoption from users. In addition, because of the lockdown, a lot of the essential services, which was still operating in cash in India, like, for example, paying for your mobile bill or mobile recharge or paying for your Tata Sky or satellite television or paying just your electricity bill. I think all those bill payments, you know, you can't basically pay the cash anymore, at least during the lockdown. And so the digital adoption of a lot of these essential services, which reach out to millions of users is increasing at a very rapid pace. That's basically a great for our top of the funnel for a lot of the new users entering into the ecosystem. And so, you know, we're seeing record numbers of new users and new transactions every day. We also obviously are seeing that a lot of the key categories in payments are also badly hit, you know, which, which also are very important. Like, for example, of course, travel, travel is a very powerful category for adoption of digital payments. So from booking of your plane tickets to booking of your flight tickets or bus rides or, you know, zoom car or, you know, Uber or any other kind of service. You know, I think it's completely shut. So that that's has a completely negative impact on, you know, digital payments because it's all stopped. And other any other kind of consumption, which is discretionary in nature. I think most of the e-commerce is shut. Right. I mean, except essential services like food grocery medicine, etc. So this is having a big impact in terms of people spending on, you know, anything, right, literally fashion is e-commerce, or people are not buying phones. People are not buying electronics, people are not buying furniture. So so everything is completely shut. So as a derivative of all these, all this commerce, you know, digital payments also has to take a hit there. So it's a it's a it's a it's a mixed bag in that sense. There's a lot of new users coming in, a lot of small ticket transactions happening. A lot of new users are getting the taste of digital payments for the first time. But a lot of the obviously existing users have are not making any purchases, which we hope will, you know, obviously rectify because the lockdown is not permanent. And hopefully the, you know, the commercial activity of economic activity will resume on digital credit, which is, you know, what we provide to our customers for spending on the platform. That's obviously taken a massive hit because, you know, at this point, people don't know what is the impact on jobs is going to be. What is the impact on on people's ability to repay their loans will be. And so risk is very uncertain. And so a lot of the lenders, I mean, we are not a lender, but we facilitate, you know, the capital from lenders in order to disperse it digitally to millions of our customers, which we have been doing for the last two years. I think most of it is is stopped for now because, you know, there isn't any appetite to take risk. So I think next three months, the more how people behave during the moratorium that has been offered and how soon the lockdown is recovered, how soon collections will come back. I think that will play a very important role. One sector which is obviously seeing a surgeon's surgeon's demand is basically insurance. I think similar to the health products. I think what this virus is doing is creating awareness about health, mortality and life in a very big way. And so we've seen a big jump in people trying to buy insurance products digitally. Mobitwick offers various kinds of health insurance products, you know, or accident insurance, life insurance on its platform, which can be purchased with one click. So we've seen significant demand and significant improvement in conversions there because, you know, we are one of the few platforms which is making these products available digitally. We also launched a specific insurance for COVID-19 and that's also seen a very significant uptake. So I think that will again be a very strong long-term adoption for insurance because people awareness about the risk associated with their health and their life. I think that outlook has completely changed. It's changing already. Lastly, I think we have obviously seen the markets, stock markets, how they've been performing, you know, wildly going down, going up. Obviously, a lot of foreign and institutional investors have withdrawn from the Indian market in the last one month or so since this virus became really a pandemic. But what we are seeing as a counter to this is a lot of new retail customers coming in and buying mutual funds. I mean, we don't do stock booking, but we provide, you know, customers and ability to invest into mutual funds, all the 40 asset management companies that are there. And so we are seeing a lot of new users investing. They obviously think that this is there's some kind of bottom here in terms of stock prices of very good companies having corrected a lot. So there's a lot of new investment activity that is happening as well as. So I think, you know, it's a, it's across the board. I would say the other piece related to mutual funds is that, you know, you can't really put cash into mutual funds at this time because all the branches are all closed. And, you know, even though they may be covered covered in the essential services, I think, you know, right now most of them are closed, which means that people are going away from cash based investing or any form of checks or any, any kind of other kind of instruments to really invest in using digital channels like, like, so overall, we've seen obviously a strong adoption. And but, you know, the time will tell in the next three months, how much of this adoption will be longer lasting. So, there was this question from one of our attendees who sent earlier that, you know, of course, every business is separate. So how is the highest scenario with the startups right now, both tech and non tech roles and when you expect it to recover, how soon do you expect it to recover? Yeah, sorry, can you repeat the question? Yeah, so my question was that one of our attendees sent a question, you know, they're looking at how is hiding impacted both in tech and non tech roles during this period. So I think, you know, our understanding is that hiding is pretty much frozen across the board for all companies. You know, there is maybe a little bit of tech hiring that is still happening. But you know, at this time, I don't think anybody is hiring for non tech roles. The reason is simple that, you know, non tech roles primarily are around either marketing or sales or business development or operations which require physical presence. Anything which requires, you know, meetings to happen or people to interact more, I think is not happening at this time. So every company has been at least all the, I would say companies which are, you know, a lot of the companies are being also advised to go completely slow or just stop hiring. And so I think there's also pressure from a lot of investors to not to push the pedal on hiring. As far as we are concerned, we are continuing to hire for key select tech roles. But I think, you know, that's what at least I see across the board other people can check in. Yeah, if I can, if I can ask you that your business is not as much as you know that there is some movement at least. So how is the human resources, what is the scenario right now? I think, you know, what we've been mentioned as far as hiding is concerned, that's that's that is actually the scenario industry agnostic right now. Non essential roles definitely, you know, as are the roles where definitely hiring is not, not happening within non tech specifically within, within tech, I think the long term opportunities that companies would be focusing on those would still be that you know they would continue to focus on assuming the cash situation, the, the funding situation is, is, you know, not, not completely in dire straits. So I think companies which, which are unit positive, which do not have to worry as much about runways, burn, etc. They will continue to focus on, you know, long term bets during this time. You know, short term with demand going down specifically in, in most of the sectors. I think business related hiring is definitely on hold right now. Okay. So in terms of, in terms of plans that you had, say, for your, for your most attention to something. So will you stick with that or will you look to utilize your existing assets more efficiently or maybe, you know, differently. What would be, what should be the way. So, you know, it would be slightly difficult for me to comment on, you know, what's happening specifically inside rebel, but what I can definitely share as the industry trend here is that nobody is thinking of expanding, you know, kitchen networks, or, you know, restaurant networks too much, you know, during this time. I think in general for all the industry that's important that any capital expenditure spend is, is evaluated very, very carefully because right now, you know, at least in the short term, the return on investment on capital expenditure is definitely in question. So, so CapEx spends, you know, non-discretionary spends, you know, on the operating side, things such as travel, you know, spends which can be avoided, those spends are definitely, you know, the ones which are getting deep prioritized across, across sectors. I think it's important for startups to evaluate, you know, depending on their cash situation and the runway situation on which are the spends that they can immediately cut down, you know, without impacting things such as employee morale. So, you know, I would, I would bring an analogy in here, you know, to think of a company which is, you know, sort of in a boat, so to speak, and you know, the shore is quite some distance away and the cash is effectively the fuel that you have to get to the shore. Now, with no more fuel coming in from, from outside, you know, nobody else providing that to you, you have to see that how much weight do you take off the boat so that your chances of reaching the shore increase. And, you know, the weights which you can possibly just remove off the boat and throw into the sea, so that you become more efficient in this time, you know, are probably those spends which, which can be avoided such as, you know, travel, etc. If that is not enough, you know, you don't still foresee that you'll reach there. Then, you know, I think the first things which are going out of the window are, you know, the annual bonuses because this is also the time of bonuses across sectors here and there happening. So I think most of the companies are taking calls on bonuses. After that, you know, comes, comes things like startups should evaluate that. But, you know, salaries, if they need compensation need to be deferred, or even worse, if compensations need to be, you know, cut for the short term. I think that's, that's something which is which has started happening, especially in, in, in the startup space. So yeah, so I would, you know, as a suggestion to startups, I would say that, you know, try to think of costs which do not affect people, try to cut those costs first. And then obviously, you know, the one time costs on people such as bonuses, those would be the second, you know, second thing on the list. And after that, you know, you know, things which, which obviously you would want to avoid, such as, you know, cutting compensations or, you know, in the worst case, layoffs. So I would, I think that then that is what startups would be evaluating, you know, as the hierarchy right now in terms of spends and capex obviously comes at the top. So capex is the first thing that gets done during this time. Okay. Prashant, if I can come to you now. So in one of our webinars, one of the investors said that, you know, this is the demonetization moment for healthcare sector in India. What's your view? How do you see it posing for whatever you're talking about? I think it's largely accurate. I think this is the time when all the value proposition of digitally delivered healthcare is clearly appreciated. The behavioral change is underway and it's not underway only in the consumer side. Of course, consumers are getting to see that this is a safer, more convenient, easier method. They're getting the trial of this kind of a service and from what we have seen once they, they actually try it out themselves, then they do stick quite a bit. But the behavioral change actually is of the rest of the ecosystem even more profoundly, the government or the regulators, be it the institutions, the doctors, the hospitals, the insurance companies, the pharma companies. So all of them are now waking up to the fact that this is how consumers are going to engage with healthcare and how quickly they need to adapt to this kind of a new reality. So yes, I think it's a very significant structural shift in favor of digital health and a lot of healthcare businesses will actually have to move very fast in figuring out their own digital strategy right now. And it's happening as we speak. Greg, if I can come to you and ask you that, you know, till now a lot of growth people say was more quantitative rather than qualitative. So do you think post this scenario, the focus will be on reducing burns and getting quality, you know, customers on board and better. Sure, I think absolutely. I mean, I go to echo what's been said by other panelists and I think definitely the focus will you have to go towards quality because especially in the mobility space, you know, quality means directly translating to better You know, you have your quality can manifest itself in a number of different ways. You know, you can actually see your quality coming in terms of a higher average order value, so higher basket value equivalent, which which leads to inherently better You know, it also, you know, leads to a, you know, much better sort of overall cost profile. And so, you know, I think there's a lot of ways that you know companies can kind of take advantage in these times to ensure quality I think for zoom cars specifically. You know, we've always had a very intense focus on iot in terms of vehicle monitoring driver behavior monitoring. And I think coming out of this type of crisis, as people start to come back on to road. I think what we will focus on is kind of doubling down to a large extent on this so that we can ensure your quality and it would actually you know really there's a certain sort of self section bias as well. And I think the other aspect, you know, which kind of plays into overall quality is if you have a strong loyalty program, which emphasizes that, you know, from a repeat customer court standpoint and that's something that we've been focused on continuing to build out. And so as we emerge from this period, we think that will also help drive more towards quality and more towards overall stellar economics. Okay, Prashant, I think you wanted to add something here. Yeah, what I was saying is, certainly this is a phase where people will look at fundamental economics, it's a phase where the primary optimization lever will move from growth to sustainability and and stronger economics across the board. That would be the, and it's driven not only by the different kind of customer demographic coming and more customers coming to platforms like ours. It's also driven by the fact that the capital markets are going to demand that so I think it's a it's a significant shift for all all startups and everyone now needs to be very aware of where the the next stage of financial support or capital will come to what kind of metrics that game would actually see a little bit of a significant read adjustment for the next couple of quarters. Okay. So, what would be the most challenging aspect to tackle? Would it be human resources or the broken logistics chain or, you know, what would be the most important thing that people would have to take up? I think different businesses will have different challenges in our specific business. As I said, demand is not a challenge and supply operations are geared up to deal with it. For us, the big challenge actually will be making sure that we keep our burn under control our economics strong and our runways is very much clear. I think the big challenge in this environment will be cost rationalization and and and fundraise. So that's what a business like one MG for a lot of other businesses, it will be fundamental reengineering of the business model. So those different people will have different challenges. I see cost reduction runway increase and fundraise as as the most important challenges coming out of this. What about the FinTech industry? Yeah, so I think for FinTech industry, this is a, you know, it's an unfortunate event what's unfolding but it's going to be a big shot in the arm because, as I said, money was anyway going and becoming digital. But now given that we are in a lockdown and, you know, we are in a face to face, we are not in a face to face environment in a remote environment. Any form of transactions, any form of commerce, and that happens between people and people are between people and companies. And in between companies and companies be to be easy to see whether it is essential in nature, whether it is non essential in nature, the first preference will be to do it digitally. So in overall banking, I think anyway was going digital in a big way. But I think this is a wake up call, not just for FinTech companies but also for all the banks that, you know, you just can't have the same reliance on processes which involve either paper or, you know, which involve a face to face interaction. So overall, I think for FinTech, I think this means a very big positive. But I think I would also add that a lot of FinTech especially digital credit also benefits from the aspirational consumption of companies as well as of consumers. The aspiration to expand, the aspiration to spend more, the aspiration to travel, the aspiration to upgrade your phone. Definitely, you know, credit will definitely take a hit at least in the short term, because people will be more focused, both individuals and companies will be more focused on saving money. So there will be a lot more refocus pack on savings and less on credit. But overall digital FinTech will see a huge, is already seeing a huge spike. Now, if we can hear from you that what would be the most challenging thing for food people? Yeah, I think Prashant and Vipin have, you know, given great perspectives about their industries which are also common for, you know, a lot many other industries. I would say, you know, the other thing which for all startups would be would be something which is common is, is how do you handle employee morale in this at this point in time. Demand and supply challenges are there, but I think it's important that the startups employees, you know, stick around, you know, they are motivated, especially at a time when, you know, hikes and bonuses may or may not happen. It's unlikely to happen in the short term. You know, startups may have to even deserve to, you know, cutting down compensation in the short term. The challenge, the biggest challenge I think on the employee morale front is how do you keep, you know, your, your team engaged at this point in time. In fact, right now it's important that the team actually steps up when there is no additional hiring happening. You know, how do you, how do you motivate everybody to actually give their 110% or more at a time when from their own personal standpoint, you know, things do not make as much sense as earlier. So I think what's important for startups at this point in time is to communicate a lot more with employees. Tell them about the situation, you know, as much as possible, you know, share the true financial picture. I think in my personal view, you know, sharing the real picture always aligns the team better as compared to, you know, you know, not sharing, you know, most of it thinking that it might impact morale. But I think it actually makes more sense to share as much as possible and, you know, the team will actually appreciate and the communication is handled in the right way. You know, the team will rally behind the, you know, behind the founders. So I think communicating a lot, keeping the team motivated, keeping the morale high is one of the most important challenges that every startup should keep a hawk eye on. Greg, if I can ask you the same question and then we look into, we look into a question now. So what is the most crucial aspect that, you know, the mobile section will have to be back and post, you know, back to normal. Sure. Well, yeah, I think for us, it's a slightly different problem statement actually. I mean, of course, I think, you know, I would, you know, echo some of the sentiments shared around ground logistics. And that is also a large component of our business where we have, you know, thousands of executives across cities. So that in terms of the labor component restarting that does become challenging. So we have our own sort of supply chain there as such. So that's a non-trivial undertaking. And it's something which will certainly be somewhat disrupted as we get back over the coming weeks and months. I think what's more unique to mobility and, you know, specifically on our side is that, you know, I think the whole notion of is it safe? You know, is it actually something which people can get comfort around to go in and take a self-drive car, et cetera, whether it's for a business purpose, whether it's for at least your purpose, et cetera. You know, so the communications, the problem statement really revolves around the communication. And how do you get people comfortable kind of going and taking these sort of trips? You know, again, because the reality is it might take several months if you're not able to kind of really nail the communication and give people the assurance and showcase exactly how you're tackling the problem statement of kindness, of sanitization, et cetera. And so that's something which, you know, the teams, you know, here I've been certainly thinking around a lot. You know, I think if you look across mobility, it's something which is probably even more so for players in the ride-hailing space. But, you know, it's definitely something which still requires more attention and more thought. And it's not an easy problem. It's something which will probably require several iterations. Great. Thank you so much. That was very insightful to know from, you know, four different perspectives. So we can now start with Q&A if we can have questions, please. Okay, we can have the first question from Vivek. This is Vivek. So my question is, I mean, how do you ensure to keep your employees and drivers covered in such scenarios? And would you increase the price post-COVID or will it keep the shelf price same? Sure. Sure. So yeah, thanks, Vivek. I mean, so maybe to tackle the second question first. So, you know, for us, you know, right now we don't have any expectation that we would be modifying our prices. You know, that's something, you know, which would remain, you know, somewhat fluid depending on how the situation picks up. But, you know, I think our broader belief is that, you know, we would keep prices in line with what we were doing earlier. You know, I think in terms of the first point, you know, in terms of the employees, the workers there. You know, I think certainly, you know, we've, from our ground logistic staff, we've kind of looked at really ensuring that we're going above and beyond in terms of, you know, providing certain resources to them, you know, in terms of masks, in terms of, you know, gloves and, you know, the requisite materials for, you know, keeping the necessary hygiene with the vehicles. So, you know, that's something that we have done to come up with custom sort of cleaning solutions to ensure that the vehicles are properly sanitized, etc. That's something which you will continue to do. We've given, we've even extended work from home office offers, in fact, to all of our sort of call center, you know, sort of customer care support for an extended period of time due to cloud telephony, you know, which is helpful because, you know, in this business where there's a heavy operating component, you know, it's important that you're not losing sight of the customer. So you need to have these folks working, you know, in most cases around the clock when your business does resume. But we wanted to retain, you know, certain flexibility there for that staff on the support as well, because it's a very important asset. So, yeah, I think we look at it, you know, very 360 on the business side of things. You know, we, I don't think we're doing necessarily anything different in terms of, you know, employees per se. But yeah, I'd be curious to hear from others on that as well. Thank you, Rick. Can we have the next question? We can take the next question from Shreya. Hi. So my question is for Prashanta, actually. So we are in the same similar business in terms of medicine delivery and delivery of essential goods and in that particular category. We're not facing a lot of issues when it comes to operations in tier one, but since majority of the folks that are in need or something like this are sitting out of tier two and tier three. How are you managing that particular demand? Yeah, so every day we are getting opening new pin codes. So when the lockdown started, first day was zero, then we got the metros going. Then we started reaching out to a bunch of third party logistics companies. So today we are covering around 16,000 pin codes, largely because the deliveries and express fees and e-commerce services are coming live. What we also have done in more than 50 cities is quickly identified new vendor partners who can do local retailers who can do local delivery. So it's still a challenge. It's not medicine deliveries are delayed into states and depending on the city is actually very, very tough right now. So I think as a company, what we are doing is expanding the network of retailers in small towns and cities. See if we can rope in as many as we can and bring them onto the platform. And in cities where we don't have a quality partner, then we rely on the third party logistics. So right now, as I said, more than 50, 60 cities have, they've already signed up new vendors for those particular cities located in there. And the rest of it is being covered by 3PL. Thank you Prishan. Next question. We can have Sandhya next. Hello. Yeah, we can hear you. Yeah, okay. So I work in the retail industry as a brand manager. So this industry is again, very badly affected. So my question to you is that what do you think that the new normal will look like after the lockdown? How do you think that the situation will change and the consumer attitude? So, Sandhya, I think if we have to think of retail as offline retail versus online retail, we do in the short term see a drop in offline retail for sure and many sectors even in online retail. If we specifically have to talk about the food sector where Rebel Foods operates in, we've done some surveys and we've seen that increasingly for customers, new parameters will become more relevant such as the safety, hygiene of food and more shift will happen towards restaurants which can be trusted as compared to price, convenience, etc., which were probably the bigger factors earlier. So we strongly believe that in the food sector trust will become increasingly more important as compared to say price, discount, etc. And I think similarly every sector will have to find out how their consumers are changing in the short term as well as in the long term. For example, FNCG sector we are seeing that for a company like HUL, sanitizers, the Lifebuoy product portfolio is obviously right now more relevant than the Axe product portfolio because everybody is sitting at home and people don't necessarily need to use as much deodorant as they need to use sanitizers. So I think every FNCG company, every retailer has to think of where the consumer demand is shifting and accordingly strategize on where they move their internal resources towards from building their future product portfolio which is going to be increasingly more relevant for customers. For us, for example, we have started focusing even more on how we can build trust with customers and make our portfolio even more safe for the customer. Prashant, what do you want to weigh in here? Yeah, I think for the foreseeable future at least this financial physical retail experience, retail, all of that would actually be the struggle. I think it's one needs to reinvent a lot of the like it really has to be a safe safety first experience and I think a lot of that I don't know how the new world of retail will look like. But people right now I don't see many of them wanting to go into crowded retail location. So is there a new model of retail where people have much more experiential but safe system of retail? I don't know what it will look like. Certainly I expect retail to be slow this year. I know you were saying that branches are not working and also do you think this is the game being twice lucky for the fintech sector once it happened and the monetization happened? So is this the second moment for the fintech? What do you think of the banking business? If the question is around retail, I think my view is that any form of discretionary spend, which is linked to consumption, people trying new experiences, new products, new services, or going for more expensive products and services, I think that is going to take a backseat at least for this financial year because right now everybody is no consumers, businesses, everybody is very scared. They want to sign and that too they will, as the panelists have been mentioned, when they step into a retail location, they will be very mindful of safety and health aspects. And I think even when ordering online, it will be a very decisive factor in terms of where they order for, not just price but also the health and safety of the product. So it will have a, that has a lot of impact on fintech as I already said, which means that people take loans to upgrade their televisions or buy a new washing machine or a new air conditioner or to travel abroad for the first time. A lot of the millenials, young people have been used to spending a lot using their credit cards or taking loans as you interest in order to spend and keep up their lifestyle. So overall, I think lifestyles in my view for a lot of the younger aspirational population will undergo a big change. And at least in the short to medium term, this will mean that they will spend less. So, you know, brands which are more essential in nature or and, you know, reimpose the safety and health aspect will actually stand to win in a very big way. Thank you. That's the next question. I think somebody should have the next question. Hello. Yes, Rishu, we can hear you please. Hi, good afternoon, everyone. So like my question is to all the founders, I have my own apparel e-com brand. It's a fairly new startup. I started it in August last year. And of course, during this time when like the revenues are actually zero since like the lockdown and even the sales that we had and like the last week before the lockdown, it was already turned or not accepted because of the chaos that was going on. So my question is like basically in three parts like firstly that, of course, how do I manage my overheads with zero revenue? And of course, we do not run on profits that much because it's a startup. I have a lot of overheads because of lesser volume. Second is like how are the investors affected during this time because I was looking forward for investors after a little bit of stability. So of course, how like how are they affected and when would be the right time to approach. And of course, any marketing strategies or any suggestions because apparel is a non essential product and it's a fashion product. So of course, like how do I go about it and how do I manage it? Greg, would you want to take that one? Sorry. Yeah. Greg. Sure. Sure. Yeah, on the cost I would say and this has been suggested I think by some of the other panelists as well. It's really important to take a really hard look at all of your costs at a line by line basis and sort of see what you could actually rework, revamp, renegotiate, cut out. And I think that's firstly where you have to kind of look because that's where the fat would ultimately be. And then even some of your other potential like say distribution or other deals that are more upstream. I think all that we need to be revisited at this point of time. And you can certainly look for certain relaxation, certain moratoriums much like the RBI circle that came in recently on the debt side. But there's other ways that you can look at potentially leveraging some of this like near term interim relief. And so I think that's something that you can always look at from your side. On the fundraising side, of course, it will be a challenge. There's no doubt over the next six months, maybe even longer could even go for 12 to 18 months. But I think what typically at your stage, what's oftentimes best is to kind of align yourself with people who are more sort of experts in that respective industry. So being a barrel, someone who understands that space as a high net worth individuals, an angel and master having two or three of those individuals can come together. And right slightly smaller check sizes in this environment. It's always easier to have that sort of round as opposed to a more sort of institutional or quasi institutional round. So I think getting them familiar and excited with the broader brand and the longer term vision should still be something which is possible. You know, I think at this point of time, you know, it's of course most startups you're not really stages you're not going to be in a position to take your very very strong terms. So I think just probably be a little flexible and open minded about somebody step. Sorry if I could just add. I'm, I know I've, you know, not been to comment, but you know, just to just to add to that, you know, I was reading up that in China and in some of the other places, you know, masks were something where the market obviously And there were some companies which pivoted into making masks, not just the standard conventional masks, but, you know, also very interesting new designs of masks, so that you know, people could sort of use that as the only fashion statement, even if they're at home and they're on video chat and on house party, etc. So, so, you know, just as a suggestion, you could possibly look at that market that if you can use your team to develop, you know, masks, aprons, gloves, some of the things which are becoming more and more relevant in this time, and see if, you know, you can spend some time, you know, exploring those opportunities, because they might become very relevant in the short term, just as an additional part. Hello, can you hear me? So my question is to the entire panel. I wanted to understand what is in your, your opinion, what is going to be the change in the foreign investor sentiment pre and post COVID. But I would want to understand from the investor's point of view, is the Indian market going to be attractive investment opportunity for them for the long term? Or do this see it going downwards early? Okay, I'll take that. So I think there are two, three parts to it. One is for the early stage market, I think investment activity will pick up sooner, because the fact is that the VCs in India right now are actually sitting on it. They've gone a lot of drive out of it. There is good money recently. So there will be certainly more decent enough activity. So you have to break it down early stage, late stage and short term long. So early stage will see a short term slow down a little bit where people are first figuring out their existing portfolios and what all they need to go through this phase before they look at external one. But in general, in principle, not a problem of a significant like for a series A series B kind of thing. For late stage, the immediate phase will be tougher, because people just cannot travel to do diligence to do management meetings, things like that. Just from a practical perspective, it's unlikely that there would be too much new investments coming in, even if there is appetite from a long term perspective. However, I think I'm actually very bullish on India. So I think for this year is about just getting through it and surviving through it. But after that, actually a lot of capital around the world is looking for diversification. A lot of Chinese investors are looking to invest outside China. A lot of other investors who are over indexed on China as a geography and there's a lot of capital that was he's going to find new areas where they would be looking at more diversification and new areas of growth. So for the growth stage, I would say short term, it would be hard to raise fresh capital in the long term. This is going to be a positive from the Indian ecosystem perspective. Early stage players will not feel so much pain. It's just a couple of months as the investors kind of get into a stable zone, then they are sitting on enough capital they will have to deploy. Yeah, so I think, you know, Prashant covered that well. I think long term, see, look, a medium to long term, everybody, every investor, foreign investor, domestic investor, everybody will be back in action right now. Just a situation is that things are a bit uncertain, quite uncertain because people don't know what is the extent of the, you know, economic and which industries are getting affected. There is early data, but there's still, you know, investors are in the risk business of evaluating risk. So I think they are for this quarter, which is April, May, June quarter, I think you can assume that, you know, investing activity will be very little. But I think after this quarter and depending on how the recovery is on the health side and also on the economic side, I think India is continues to last year, you know, and it's just do not have a sound business fundamentals. Businesses which are primarily top of the funnel businesses, which means they, whether they are driving on some kind of metrics which are not linked to revenue or profitability. I think those businesses will have a big challenge convincing any kind of investors to give them money. On the other hand, investors, businesses which have built more bottoms up where you can prove that a single transaction makes money. It could be a B2C scenario, it could be a B2B scenario, will have a much better opportunity, even if the scale is smaller. Because I think there is a overall reset in the market, not just in the private fundraising, but also in the public markets. The valuations have been reset in a very big way and a lot of the public companies which were also expanding a lot by burning cash that is all completely under, has undergone a big change. So you can expect that in 2020, in the second half of 2020 or in the first quarter of 2021, when you go out and raise money from foreign investors, be prepared to answer questions around how your business is going to make money now. It's no longer about an Excel where you project that I will get these many customers and then I will make money. I don't know, it won't be sufficient. You will actually have to prove that in segments, it may not be necessary to be profitable, but it will be definitely necessary to be positive on unit economics. Great. We're just running out of time, so we'll just take one more final question from Dheeraj. Just to share with you, I'm from a testing services firm on the qualitative side. So I would like to understand how will the IT industry during this time? I mean, like, you know, will the startups be interested to utilize this downtime for any of the initiatives around engineering or development? Or let's say on the QB side. Raju, what do you want to keep this for? So, see, I think during the entire discussion, one thing which is definitely coming out is that projects and even relevant for the IT sector, projects which are more of essential in HFO companies such as, you know, banking services, etc. They will definitely continue but, you know, projects around innovation, etc. in the short term would definitely be impacted. I would say that don't lose hope over to the median term. This is hopefully just a short term scenario. And, you know, sooner than later in the next few months, you know, things should start, you know, going back to normalcy. IT is one industry which can still function very well in a remote, you know, in a remote manner. So I would say that I see it as being less impacted. Various governments around the world led by the United States are pumping in money as packages to rescue industries out of the situation. And let's just hope that, you know, that money is utilized in the right way so that there is minimum impact on the sector. And I think a lot of that will be used for tech services. That's what my view would be. Okay, okay. I think we will take one more question. It is from Neelish. Neelish, if you can, if you can read your question please. Hi everyone. Yes, please go ahead. Yeah, so my question is specifically to Greg, and I wanted to ask that, how do you think the demand uptick would, how will we be seeing demand uptick post this entire fiasco ends. And since travel and mobility has been largely compared to the other sectors as well, what is the opinion of investors in this entire scenario. Sure. Well, you know, I think ultimately it's important to take a short term view, a medium term and a long term view. I think with mobility, I mean that's a fundamental service to everyday life. And I think that's, if you look at the structural demand over the medium term to long term, that can only go up because you're seeing an increase in urbanization. You're seeing an increase in overall per capita income. And so as those two megatrends continue and combined with digitization, so that's something which undoubtedly the long term curve has to move in a certain direction. I think again it's really to echo a lot of the sentiments here. It's really about the businesses that can demonstrate strong in economics and in this case, where investors will certainly gravitate towards. I think if you see the businesses that have more of a focus on really, really stellar quality transactions that are able to repeat in nature. If you're able to do that consistently, then I think certainly you will continue to see significant interest from the investor community in the mobility space. I will just take one more question that's from Harshet. Harshet, you can go ahead with your question. I think we're not able to correct Harshet. Well, that was very insightful gentleman and thank you for being a panelist here. I request the attendees to fill a short survey form for this section which will be available to you. And it was wonderful to have all of you here. We wish to see you again in the near future and hopefully at a time when we are free to move around. Stay healthy, stay safe. Thank you.