 associated with Shark Tank. He's been associated with entrepreneur media for the longest years. He was first featured on the cover of Entrepreneur Back in 1985 and today it is so good that we have him right here in India. So Kevin, it's lovely having you here with us. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Thank you. So what excites you about India today? India in 2019? Well, there's north of a billion people here, obviously. So as a consumer marketplace, this is the one untapped market that I have never been able to conquer. Okay, so I started back in the early 80s selling products on TV in the United States, but we were able to go to Europe. We were able to go to Latin America and parts of Asia. But when we tried in the mid-90s coming here to India, it was very, very difficult and just not ready for us to come here operationally and all kinds of logistics that weren't ready. But now in the year of the as I think maybe the year of the entrepreneur, we could say we're ready to come here and we're looking to do some big things. So you made your first investment in India in new shock, which is primarily all about organizing new mage CPG goods. Correct. What is your understanding of the CPG markets of India? I mean, what is it that you researched and what do you think would make it a great success? So what what attracted me to new shop is that the that new shop it is their their concept is to be able to put small stores in places where people work, where they live, where they play, where they work out and where they stay, maybe at hotels, etc. So there's and so we have the ability to open stores very on a very low-cost basis and have distribution in workplaces and many of the other things that I just mentioned. But this gives us a chance to our goal. We have 30 locations now, we'll be in 200 within about four months, then a thousand and our goal is to hit 10,000 within a very short period of time. So if we can have 10,000 locations, we have a real a dent that we can make in the marketplace for new products that we bring on board. Do you see something very similar? Is it like a 7-Eleven of India that you're looking at building? Well, it's a much smaller scale than a 7-Eleven. So I think 7-Eleven has thousands of products. We'll have initially probably somewhere in the range of a couple hundred products. So and what we're looking for are fast-selling kind of products and this is what's interesting for me. My business for 35 years has been selling kind of hard goods, kitchen products, hardware products, fitness products. Some of these are you know one you know like one-time purchase kind of things. So it's when we launch a product, we have sort of a bell-shaped curve. When you buy a juicer or an expensive piece of fitness equipment, you don't need a second one. You may not even use the first one that you bought. So the business of Newshop is consumables and this is what really attracted me is that we're talking about a business where when we go into the ground floor of an office building and now the people are coming in in the morning, they need things in the morning. They need things at lunch. We may have to see a customer three times in one day. So it's a very consumer driven business for consumable products. Do you see more similar, do you see yourself doing more such investments in India? I do and and I'll say that first there's two sides of that. One is Newshop. So just think of it this way when we get to 10,000 locations and now a new entrepreneur, a young entrepreneur comes and says I have a new product, would you take a look at? Well if we put it into, if we order a dozen pieces for 10,000 locations that's an opening order of 120,000 pieces. That could dictate us maybe for a startup, being able to get some equity, maybe partnering, helping them with financing. So I believe that Newshop will be an opportunity for us to get involved in many other possible ventures but beyond that now that I'm here kind of spending time in India and hanging out with some of the kind of fun journalists like yourself and things like that. And by the way having done a little bit of the Shark Tank show, people will say hey can I pitch you something? So I get quite a few pitches and I can only see now that it's going to be pretty powerful here in India. Yes, we just actually, I mean particularly for CPG and consumer goods, we just sort of starting to see a first wave of big spur of growth happening. Yes. There used to be primarily our tech, we have been very tech heavy investment market till now but this year we're going to see a lot of movement in the CPG space. Yeah. Which is something we're very gung-ho about as a company. Yes, it should dovetail very nicely with what we're doing at Newshop but as an investor shark type of person I also like to take a look at other opportunities and things that think outside the box but I'm also looking to take products and businesses from here back maybe to the US. Back to the US, that's why. We've already identified. Do you see things the other way as well? The US products coming to Newshop. Oh yeah, absolutely. So we have the various products that will be part of Newshop that come from the US, absolutely. The format will continue to remain the small store format. Yes, to start with and the other thing, even though I say we bring products from the US back to India, we may manufacture them in India along the way because there is a duty structure that is can be prohibitive in some cases right. So we'll be looking to align ourselves with I say that in the US one of the things I can provide a young entrepreneur or startup entrepreneur is access to my Rolodex which for 35 years involves manufacturing, sourcing, distribution, etc. But in this particular case, we want to add to our Rolodex the fact that we can take products not just around the US but also into India and then align ourselves with manufacturers here in India which we're already doing now. So Newshop's products are all made in India right now. Right. Yeah. So I mean you've interacted with a few entrepreneurs you've invested in a young team of Newshop. What qualities do you see in Indian entrepreneurs that you feel a good affinity to with American entrepreneurs and what is it that you just like about them? Well I like the so far maybe I've been lucky but the entrepreneurs that I've been dealing with here they're not afraid to ask for advice and and help and I will be honest it as a young entrepreneur I was a little bullheaded in the day that I was thinking why not how to do it myself why do I need an expensive you know consulting deal or mentor or whatever but I found out the the hard way and a few ups and downs myself that having good mentors and people that will you know help you along the way I call it creating a great dream team and so I'm very impressed when an entrepreneurial team like I have now from the Newshop group came to me and said Kevin will you help us and and so right away that that's an opening step to saying okay well that you know somebody that acknowledges that they're that they could use some help makes me feel good because it's there there is a collaboration needed in building a successful business especially in today's world it's a very it's a challenging world out there so so having somebody open their mind to being open to taking good advice hopefully is good advice right is the first step in a good relationship as a shark investor what kind of investments have you made a new shop at this stage yes so so I have a partner back in the States is Harash Mehta who is is born in India and so he and I get together we have about five ventures together and he introduced me to the new shop entrepreneurs and so we immediately saw a great opportunity here because I've been a I say B to C business to consumer or D to C direct to the consumer entrepreneur for 35 years and he said Kevin this is a model direct to the consumer that is going to be you know in 10,000 locations and so we made an investment and now we're we're here this is my first trip to actually see the locations I saw pictures and things like that but now we're ready to start really opening up a Rolodex getting more products getting more sourcing and and looking to become much more involved not on a day-to-day level but on a on a brainstorming high level with kind of a assistance before we end it I would love to know what are the three qualities that you can pick in entrepreneurs before you make an investment okay so I love to see the first thing that I look for in an entrepreneur we've kind of touched on but it's it's it's somebody that is willing to accept some advice and guidance the biggest challenges that I had the worst investment I made on Shark Tank was somebody that I gave a half a million dollars to and didn't really want a lot of advice and and and about eight months later they closed the doors so I like somebody that is willing to accept some great advice I I love an entrepreneur that has a vision and a passion and and passion is very important because it as we all know and you've interviewed you know many many entrepreneurs there's obstacles every step of the way so if you go into it without a passion the first obstacle might knock you down and you got to get up and go back at it again so so I believe that that that passion and and the vision to succeed is is is very important and the and and the the last thing I think would be when when we get involved in in an investment we'd like to bring the dream team of experts up to help support the entrepreneur and so I think it's it's important that uh that that we can do that in the process and an entrepreneur that says yes I need a dream team I need a great finance person I need a great you know because myself when I started I was good in marketing but I didn't have the finance background I didn't finish college so um so I was a little bit pigheaded in the earlier days I'm getting the right kind of dream team so I think creating the dream team is important and and and having an entrepreneur with that with with with that vision that's willing to do that and knows how to do it and it's it's you know bringing on that advisor level and it's sort of look when you think about it why does somebody go on Shark Tank well they want money but really I think in many cases more than that they want that they want that dream team effect that this shark is going to bring to the table