 The first session is fireside chat and we'll be talking about challenges of building business in a diverse yet connected world It's an honor to invite on stage Priyanka Gill co-founder a good clam world in conversation with Rohil Armin senior editor Exchange for media and BW business world. I'll request you all to kindly put your hands together and welcome both of them on the stage We had a chat outside as well And you know, I'm also fascinated because I'm also talking to a journalist, you know somewhere, right? and the topic we have is Absolutely bang on on this forum Challenges of building business in a diverse yet connected world You know, I mean we are inundated with information day in and day out The time you begin your day to the time you go to bed you have to address and your overloaded information in This context in this reality building a business is not easy And as we know the good glam group Hyper local hyper present I mean, it's not easy to deal with that There was you know universe or the expanse that it has How do you ensure that yet you build a business that does well? Has a great brand recall has has profitability in built. I mean, how do you how do you ensure that? Firstly, thanks for having you Dr. Bhattra. Thank you so much for Inviting me back on the forum stage. You know, I think Inclusion diversity building for a connected world It's such an important thing For all of us today, right? Because all businesses that we build our omni channel by design Because we as human beings consume Content in different ways. We still will read the newspaper We will of course spend a lot of time on our phones on social media. We will still watch television So it's like an omnichannel approach to life when you go to shop We'll go and buy at the Kirana store. We'll go and buy at a mall We'll go and buy at a multi-brand retailer as well. So Because we live in an omnichannel fashion our companies our brands People who built for us also have to keep that in mind That's something that we at the good lamp group have been doing pretty much from day one Because the story of how we came together is actually an omnichannel story I started life as a digital media journalist. I started a media platform called pop exo My the group co-founder and CEO Dharpan Sanghvi He started as a brand owner with my glam our other co-founder She started as a parenting platform owner with baby chakra and I am and all of us came together to build The good lamp group which is a conglomerate of beauty personal care brands digital media platforms and influencer marketing companies Where we reach pretty much most more than half of India in any given month through the media platforms that we have We have 60,000 points of sale where we sell offline too So selling online offline reaching people online offline all of that are kind of the hallmarks of living in a hyper-connected world and Building for an omnichannel audience and for an omnichannel market Right, you know, you were also one of the Earlier brands that looked at content to commerce, you know And you mastered it and that's the engine that you brought to the good glam group and then the story how it unfold How has the content to commerce journey been and how has it panned out over the years? If you could just take us through that, you know Being a media entrepreneur is not easy and of course we have one of India's foremost media entrepreneurs Who's sitting in the room right in front of us and he will attest to that? It's not easy because it's very difficult to monetize, right? finding Sponsors all the time trying to get sponsored content. It's just not easy, but media is very good at one thing We are very good at Telling people what they should know about we are very good at attracting audiences organically So that is a superpower that media has especially in a country like India So as a media entrepreneur, that's something that I recognize. I also knew it's hard to make money, right? And the making money part of monetizing your audience is something that commerce does really well So they know exactly how to make the products. They know exactly how to sell those products and Their big challenges reaching audiences, right? So when you put media and commerce together or when you put content and commerce together You're literally solving for each other's big pain points. So when my glam and pop exo merge in August 2020 We got down the cost of customer acquisition for my glam to pretty much nothing That was the beginning of the good glam group based on that kind of Hockey stick that we discovered through content to commerce we raised 250 million dollars in one year we went and bought 11 companies and then we built the good glam group So the good glam group story actually shows how content and commerce can come together at scale to solve each other's pain points And really build something that is of lasting value not only for us as a group, but also for an audience. I Have to ask you this see everyone is attempting this formula trying to understand the content to commerce and you see the mushrooming of Agencies people companies in this space, but yet there's a secret sauce Which I mean you you kind of use what is that? I mean what makes your content click and What are the ingredients that really make it sticky in that sense? You know, I've been asked many questions and this is probably the first time I've actually been asked this question So thank you for that There's no secret sauce to be honest. It's a matter of luck timing It's a you know overnight success ten years in the making is how I define my journey How I define the good glam group's journey that burns your name as Johnny all of us have been doing it for such a long time So we literally been kind of honing our own companies and our craft first to actually come together at that perfect moment For the formation of the good glam group, but having said that there's something to be said for scale So I'm also the CEO of the good media company within the group where we have pop exo scoop Miss Malini tweak baby chakra five of India's largest digital media platform So 200 million monthly active users, right? So when you're able to do this at scale and not only do we have media we have the brand side But if you have around 11 million or transacting users that basically buy our products So when you're able to put media at scale in partnership with commerce at scale So content at scale and commerce at scale. That's actually the secret sauce. So people try doing it But then I think the missing ingredient probably is going to be are we doing it big enough? And are we actually doing it where we're reaching a large audience? I think that's the problem that Sometimes is faced Absolutely, and I knew you named the companies at the good media company that you have Pop exo scoop of Miss Malini baby chakra tweak India. I mean there's so much and each has its own DNA So the role is complex So how do you navigate this complexity of the role and then that the larger role of the good glam group? Is it easy? I mean, how do you actually manage it? You know, I spent the first Pop exo was my first job and I was just asked what was my first job? I gave my stuff my first salary. So I was I haven't had a boss before this So I don't know any better. So for the first kind of 10 years of my career I went about kind of trying to build a media company and we had 200 people mainly female at pop exo and Really trying to understand. What does it take to actually build the nuts and bolts of a company together? So it's almost I can it's like a training ground. It was my training phase in a way Then the good glam group happened and then we bought one media platform another media platform and suddenly people who are my competition in the media world they were all kind of all the teams were basically working together as the good media company and We literally took Principles that work at each of the platforms and we try to do this transfer of knowledge and experience across the platforms And the biggest thing that I think that we've managed to accomplish is convince the teams that all of us are the good media company All of us are distinct platforms We have our points of view, but we are also still one and what we offer to the market is something very unique Like just yesterday. We were there at the launch of booze 90 H and TV All David I had to do was speak to me saying hey Can you be there and because of that three of India's largest digital media platforms turned up at her event And it just took one phone call to basically get it done So this network effect of having different media companies that speak to different audiences is extremely valuable Not only for us as a group, but also for the brands that we work for it kind of comes together as a big force, right? That's what you mean, you know You have also described your journey from the journalist to the current role and position you have as rollercoaster What exactly why exactly a rollercoaster? I mean a lot of us are entrepreneurs in the room We even if we haven't been entrepreneurs in the true sense We've also been entrepreneurs in the jobs that we have and it's hard You know, there's no other way to define what you do because you're really letting go of any safety net that You might have and say I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this and I will only succeed when I succeed for the longest time. It's ups and downs I've had investors who walked out on me I started 2020 with my seriously investor walking out at the last moment Wondering what to do pandemic happened. Everything shut down. Everyone knows it was at home having no money Not knowing how salaries would come and then suddenly in August 2020 the merger happened and then a few months later You had the good glam group seven months, right seven months So like literally from one point where you're wondering how are you gonna kind of what are you gonna do right now? Remember those days where I had to do it a zoom my first zoom town hall was with 200 of my teammates saying hey guys I'm so sorry We will not be able to pay salaries for this man And I know it's a pandemic but you have to just basically stay by us But the good thing was every one of those 200 people survived and they're still with us today So I mean roller coasters the way it is but I think it's also once you get used to it That's pretty much all you want to do So I look forward to the adrenaline rush Things go wrong you go fix it so you kind of it becomes part of your DNA and your psyche and That's what keeps life exciting Absolutely, you know, so there's one perception about the good media company, which is that? Does it make content only for? The internal stakeholders How does it work with external brands say for example? There's another beauty product, you know and and can they work with? Media how does it kind of what is this relationship internal and external like at the good media company? I think it's a great question right and it's also a very fair question to be honest so we are independent media platforms at the end of the day if Tweak doesn't want to do a particular story They will not do it and I can't do other ones what the content owners and they decide what happens on their brand Similarly for tweak Scoop or Miss Malini or even the pop ex editorial team for that matter and we work with brands across the board I just gave it example of the who event that we did where we went and covered the launch of their big TV Right, so and we work with all beauty brands as well Minstras beauty content is primarily at some point. We're creating a lot almost 200 videos for them, right? There's a very large media platform owned by a very large media Conglomerate we run it for them, right? So we work with the brands across the board There's no brand that we will not work with we are independent companies at the end of the day Of course, we do work with our good brands and we work we create content for them as well But that's like any other media company would do right so that independence is is fiercely maintained Especially at an editorial level and even when working with brands who are not within the good brands Kind of ambit we I mean really look out and we search for them Most of my job today is putting together Decks where we can get Partnerships with other brands because monetizing is the lifeblood of what you need to do as a company and the good Media core monetizes when you work with other brands. So it's It's good to be back in the game That's what it's great to be back at physical events like this So you actually again networking with people and telling them exactly what you do Thanks for sharing. I think there's clarity a lot of different questions and thanks for sharing this also, you know, there's a significant investments that You are making in your video and digital assets How would it impact your current content to commerce strategy? Where are you headed? Where do you see on say from Two years from now. What is the vision that you have for your content to you know commerce, you know 2021 was a fantastic year right, especially if you weren't entrepreneur that was a time when investors from across the world were literally pouring money onto companies and Luckily, we were at the top of that cycle and we managed to raise a decent watches then to kind of weather the the slightly less robust funding Scenario that we are in right now. I'm trying to avoid the word I will use that word in my question. So Because of that, we were able to put our digital media companies together and when we announced the good media Co we said that we'd invest five million dollars in our media investments over the course of the next two years Which is exactly what we've done. We invested we acquired tweak India at that point We've made significant investments into video. We are on the verge of opening our first physical office After the pandemic on Monday, it's like a 15 20,000 square foot space So that has five studios where three units will shoot all the time Content not only for our media platform sponsored content for the brands and of course for good brands as well. So We produce almost 10,000 pieces of content any given month across different medium We have a team of 200 people who are in the good media quits of that's creating all this content So it's very exciting to be in this environment where you get to play with different brands we get to play with different mediums and Do it at scale. So our investments are of course significant But because of that we have two hundred million monthly active users who generate over two billion impressions in any given month Half of India social media audience comes to a good media Co-platform in any given month, which is immense reach Absolutely, these are humongous numbers, you know, you spoke about funding and let me put that that actually we call it the Winter of funding and luckily enough the phase you've seen was the golden era of funding, right? But that's a shifted What is leading to this winter of funding because you know, you understand the space? I think I have to ask you this And is it here to stay? You also refer to it as correction. I also Will refer to this but what is leading to it? Will it correct itself settle somewhere where we have? The golden days back again Look that was an aberration It was that black swan event or a white swan event in this case that happens Once in a very rare blue moon, right? What we are now is back to sanity back to reality, right? This is the normal course of life where a strong idea a strong team will find funding and Something that might be more speculative will not find funding that is reality actually I think we all got spoiled by that effervescence that happened at that time So now we're kind of falling back on tropes like say a funding winter But I think it is back to sanity moment the macro markets really impact how the Startup funding market behaves, right? So if you see a contraction in the macro scenario Suddenly you'll see the funds the LPs who invest in the funds They will pull back if LPs pull back then the funds will have to pull back So there's a lot of macro stuff happening right now So I think India anyway. We are seeing corrections at the moment it's been a good run for us recently and If there is a shining star in the economic scenario right now It has to be India if we've been saying that the next three decades belong to India Which is why it's extremely exciting to be in a room like this to be in India building in India now today building for in India for the world, right? As an entrepreneur It's extremely exciting times. I think the funding cycles repeat themselves. I have been through maybe one two three Hyper funding cycles have been through three really low funding cycles as a result of it So once you've done it long enough, you realize it is cyclical What goes up also comes down and it goes up back again And you live in that hope and I think that is the definition of being an entrepreneur And I think India per se as a market does not have those challenges These are external challenges that we have to absorb maybe momentarily, right? You know a lot of I mean read a lot about Going public and let me ask you here that what is the timeline realist real timeline in mind for going public? We've always said publicly I mean pun may be not intended is that we are looking to list In the public markets in the next couple of years It's really the so many things that go into timing that right and that's literally one of the most important decisions You make as a company time getting the markets right for when you do want to list The macro situation has to be robust. There has to be a good strong tailwind behind us The company numbers of course have to be kind of where we would like them to be Which is where the part that we are on right now So there's so many kind of different things in the mix that have to kind of come to one place for us to actually have that Date in mind, but yeah, the next couple of years is what we've been what we've said in the past and that's exactly where we are holding it to Journalists entrepreneur investor what defines you the most? Mother to be honest and not a cliche actually I was just telling someone my son's turning 18 in the next in Jan next year and my daughter's 13 And When she's as old as pop exo the brand and she's grown up with pop exo She's a known only known a world where the brand existed so I think I literally do a lot of what I do is because I might kids seem to get inspired by it and That would be my strongest definition and of course I speak to entrepreneur I speak to Many different things, but yeah, I think I guess mother Open this forum to some questions, but let me ask you one more question. We all have 24 hours You know and you did all this in 24 hours, and then you balance your life. I mean How do you manage this work life balance, and I also read that you don't believe in work life balance What is you have been reading up? No? I don't believe in work life balance because I do think it's a myth all of us as you said have the same 24 hours in the day Companies much larger than ours have been built in the same 24 hours people have Done unimaginably large things with the same 24 hours So I think all of us and I treat it as a privilege and I try packing into it as much as I physically can because that's what actually drives me and What I'm doing at that moment becomes super important when I'm sitting here talking to you This is the most important thing that I'm doing right now There are people who are building walls in the good lamp office. I'm I could be worrying about My daughters sitting at home. Is she has she had a lunch yet? I could be worrying about that as well But I choose not to because I'm sitting I'm enjoying this conversation with you So being able to hypo focus in the moment that you're in and really give it to your 100% and then quickly move on to the next thing I think once you master that it becomes easier to switch hats in the course of the day Wonderful, I mean that that's really of all of our discipline and Priority, you know Influencer marketing is something, you know, you know so much about and you have hands-on experience of that And we recently saw threads coming up and everyone rushing to it Let me ask you. I mean, how have you I mean What is your opinion of people going to new platforms? How does it change the influencer marketing space? Has threads been able to add a new value to this ecosystem? You know, it's a funny story. So back in 2017 Nike no Puma was a large client of pop Exo and They wanted to break the Limca world of records for the most number of women doing the plank at the same time So they came to us and said, let's do this campaign together and as part of that they wanted 800 Influencers they were no influencers back in the day 800 influencers to also take part in that campaign So at that time all we had was WhatsApp me my WhatsApp and two other people and their WhatsApp managed to get 800 Influencers to take part in this Puma campaign and we went to Bombay We were the we broke the world record with them. That was the beginning of my influencer marketing journey I remember my tech team coming back to me saying peachy What are you doing? Like you're trying to do this on WhatsApp You can use technology to do this and that was the beginning of plix so the influencer marketing company that we founded then and So I remember going to all the offices in the country saying hey influencer marketing is going to be a thing CMOs looking at me very skeptically. What is she talking about and what is an influence and why is it going to matter and At that time I truly believed that I think you have this I mean you need to have this ability to really believe in what you said I really believe that influencer marketing is going to be the next big thing and thankfully I was I was right at that point and Today you see influencers are the way that brands communicate with the audiences and that's going to be the way for a very long time That's not going to change Social media platforms. I think will come and go right? Millions of people for one two days really jumped on the platform and like what you said was you got in there Yes, oh, and you got there. You didn't know what to do. So I'm really hoping they kind of find their way They've like our channels grew really explosively on the threads account But now I think my content seems to think that's another distribution platform on which they have to post content now So yeah, I think threads is exciting. It'll be interesting to see what is actually becomes off the platform itself I think they'll have to do some innovations along to keep the audiences Engaged on that platform to because you again 24 hours in the day. How many platforms can you use also in the Ecosystem of influencer marketing. I think platforms also will saturate themselves beyond a point of in terms of their offerings How would a new platform be needed? You know, I mean what will give rise to our next Twitter and next Instagram? Do you think it will be the forces outside that will dictate those terms or I strongly believe that? Social media started as a response to The millennial generation of which I guess the oldest millennial that is there I lost touch with my friends who in school and college because I didn't grow up with a mobile phone That was Facebook, right and Facebook basically grew out of that Millennials have this impulse to want to tell the world about who they are our identity is We find identity when we express it to other people that was Instagram, right? Now I look at my son and I look at kind of my daughter who are both kind of Gen Z and beyond They don't have these needs. They grew up in a world with a mobile phone My daughter's changed three schools in the past in her schooling career so far. She's in touch with all the friends She does not need a Facebook in her life to meet her friends Similarly, my son does not feel the need to tell the world who he is through the photograph that he's taking He just wants to connect with his friends one to one and he uses Instagram like we use WhatsApp So I think generations change the impulses and the desires of the generations change and new forms of Communication technology is also some media platforms adapt to meet those changes So to your answer to your question would be whoever understands Gen Z and beyond and what does this generation want? They are the ones who will innovate the next platform that actually becomes large Tiktok did it because short attention spans we couldn't concentrate too much It caught on to that short form video was born. That was Tiktok, right? So really finding that niche in the audience demand and building it at scale That's what it is not going to be another social media platform in my estimation. I See some hands going up, but let me ask one question and then I'll come to you I always think that there is a third side to a discussion, which is the audience, you know a Lot of people look up to you They are inspired by your success story and what is your advice to them? And let me before that put the quote that I read about you that if you have an idea just take a shot Just have a just having a plan doesn't make anything happen ever How much do you actually kind of you know urge them to follow this? 2000% I have so many friends who have so many ideas and If you don't execute it, it's just an idea. It's just a plan And I think a lot of us get stuck in That loop of trying to perfect the plan before we take the leap To execute it because it's scary to take that leap, right? Planning is comfort planning is just on a piece of paper or an Excel spreadsheet No risk is involved in planning their first element of risk comes and when you actually take that first step And that is really scary. So most people don't do that. So my idea my kind of I mean to your point advice is if you have an idea Just do it. I mean it doesn't have to be a hundred percent fully formed It can be half baked you learn while you're doing it I made 10,000 mistakes in my journey so far and make 10,000 more and I'm happy to make them because each mistake Teaches you something and that's how you evolve Success failure is not trying right as long as you're trying You are still succeeding and if you don't stop you will ultimately succeed. So yeah, just take the leap just do it It's okay. So it's not the era of mr. Perfectionist or a mixed perfectionist. Let's just do it Just do it. I this align the resonates. So All right, let me come to some questions. So please and can could you please also introduce yourself? Can we give a microphone to the gentleman, please? Thank you. Thank you, Rohel and Priyanka you won a fan today evening Couple of you know before the question and the question that he pointed but just a couple of points You've mastered the art of handling stress and remaining young therefore, okay? I Appreciate the point about plunging in because that's the only way you can create a world record and We have that in common I've created one as a young entrepreneur 23 years back and that happened in the spur of a moment in two minutes I flew down with the chief minister and then you know 170 countries notice what I was doing The question I have is that point in time in your life and you decided to raise 250 million dollars Okay Could you just run us through? Where you were in that journey? It was a appropriate time 2021. But what exactly was that? My idea of the dream. What is an idea of the dream that clicked and got you that you know honesty The credit for that will go to my co-founder that one sangui. So He is one of the most dynamic human beings that I've met and I'm not just saying it for the sake of saying I do generally believe that So I think when we realize that pop exo and my glam can solve for cost of customer acquisition And that is the single biggest pain point of any brand that you want to build right you can get everything right You can optimize for all the cost, but you have to keep spending money to acquire your next customer It's a it's a race to the bottom, right? It doesn't work So if you're able to solve for the biggest Pain point of brand building which is cac and you do it through content That was the first kind of light bulb that went on second was we pop exo had at that time at 60 million Multi-active users right and we were barely using Any of that audience to scale my glam and it my glam was still kind of kind of zooming up like a hockey stick We realize there's so much unused capacity Within even the reach that pop exo has that other brands can basically be sustained by that I think those two three things happen and the first one we thought this looks like a fluke It can't be real second one is oh my god I mean two months in a row is not by the time we hit our third month into it I think darpan was firing on all cylinders and He managed to excite Or capture the imagination of that whole generation of investors and of course the funders happen in tranches I mean we add in two or maybe three tranches is basically what happened, but one success basically fed into another right and We made some very aggressive moves. We bought 11 companies in one year I mean Every single marketing strategy professor in every business school in the world is going to tell you M&A's don't work And here we are sitting on the positive end of 12 successful M&A's all of them happen in the past two to three years Right, so it kind of bucking the tri the bucking the tide in so many ways beating Conventional advice that would come your way and choosing to ignore it so it was like I mean I look back at that time and I mean It was a magical time because everything going right for you does not happen often, but when it does You got to double quadruple down and just literally run with it as fast as you can and recognize that moment That you are in it and really enjoy that So sorry Nice to meet you wonderful. Thank you so much. All right raven is here. I had more questions But thank you so much really really enjoy talking to you. Thanks for your time Can I request both of you to get a picture together and to show our gratitude to Rupali for of course I would like to call on stage G Rupali Fernandez chief revenue officer ABP network to kindly Join us on the stage to felicitate Priyanka for her valuable time here The reveal doesn't is not in the habit of getting all these goodie bags since he's the one mostly handing them out