 I don't know what was probably the worst but I got popular but I still didn't have money. I got popular people used to take pictures and stuff but I still didn't have money right because the whole ecosystem of say social media, earning or like whatever brands, brands and stuff. I remember the first brand I quoted three lakhs for a video and we mutually agreed for eight thousand. Nikunj Lotia also known of course very popularly as BU Nick. Now he's a content creator, he's an influencer, he's an entrepreneur, we're going to be talking about different things to him today. So, Nik, first of all, welcome to our series Candid Conversations and to begin with, I'm going to talk about the content part of it later. What I want to start off with is you're involved in this in this website, this apparel website. I just checked it out called this kra.com, have I pronounced it correctly? So what is that all about? How did you get involved in it? So, I got involved because I wanted to do something on a clothing line and I've been getting a lot of opportunities since like, I don't know if you guys know I've been doing this since probably forever now, probably nine years of like making content. So in the first or the second year we started getting people coming and telling us to do much and stuff like that, but I always wanted to make my own line. So that's when the idea of kra came and that's how we started and yeah, I mean, that was the idea. I love doing a lot, I mean, I love doing a lot of businesses. I feel like I'm starting from zero when I start something. It's like, I feel like how I started to be unique nine years ago, I give the same feeling if I started any business and yeah, clothing line was like online since the beginning. And you know, I went to the website going to the different products and all. I mean, obviously, since it's your line, it's sort of designed on the kind of style which I have seen you adopting like over the last few years, the style you have a very sort of gangster style, gangster cool sort of a style. That's the kind of range which you're basically producing. Yeah, it's actually straight way to be understand. I remember growing up, I have very active history, right? So I didn't have enough money to like buy good brands back then. So I always used to style myself differently. So I used to like style myself, take baggy with baggy pants or like a full sleeve t-shirt on top of it like a t-shirt. Like, I know why I used to do that. I thought it was cool back then. But anything that I liked back then or anything that I thought that I would want to like or want to buy, I wouldn't or I couldn't because I don't have enough money to do it. And that's why the idea like the whole cool gangster vibe within like it's not very expensive to within range was the idea when we like, you know, start making crap. And that's what we represent. And yeah, that's how it started. That's how it works out. Okay, okay. Moving on to this other venture which is there, you started a food truck called the Feast India Company in Sunnyvale, California, USA. I don't even know. I've never even seen Sunnyvale ever on the map. But how did this come about? Sunnyvale is apparently way bigger than I thought it was because a lot of big companies are there like Facebook's office around like Google's offices around. And so I'd gone to visit San Francisco. It was a brand called Visit USA. But the whole, I had to make few videos, YouTube videos back then. The whole idea was to promote US tourism in India. And that's why they sent us me and like the shore from your home. And we traveled a lot of cities in France, like in the US, we went to Lake Tahoe, we went to San Francisco. And what happens is like back then when I used to go out in each city, I used to tell people like the people who are like watching my videos around that city to come and meet me like like a small meetup. And every time that I go to a city, there were like a lot of people who used to come and then I used to like pick a few who I think are like street smart enough to like show me few places around. So eventually I see us was the guy who I met who I thought like can show me around like really well. Then I was discussing his life. He's like I'm a chef, you know, he's I'm ambitious. I'm like, what are you planning to do? He said that I was thinking of opening a food truck. I'm like, that's interesting. And that's how the idea came. And then he was about to start like an Indo-Chinese food truck. But when I when we went there and we realized that there are a lot of Indian food trucks around and they're doing well. But everybody served me. Like everybody who was serving was serving a full-fledged meal like roti sabji or paavaji, which takes 45 minutes to make. And I realized I've traveled across the world. I've traveled a lot recently. And I've realized that you have a lot of South Indian and North Indian food everywhere, but not enough Martian food. So the idea was to like make very quick food like what about or missile power, which is like easy to make. So when somebody comes there and orders a meal, by waiting for 45 minutes, he would probably have to what about truck. That was the idea. And that's how it started. And that's kind of blew it up. We opened one more last week. So now we have like four food trucks in San Francisco. Two of them are called Fish and a Company. And the other two are called One Bite Stand. One Bite Stand. Yeah, One Bite Stand. Oh, no, that I got. Vodapower thing. Missile power becomes famous in the U.S. and all. So then you'll be given credit for that, obviously. Yes. So honestly, I'm not even joking. Not saying it because I own it, but across the country, like everywhere I've gone, like the Europe, Tokyo, whatever, U.S. I don't think I've had a better Vodapower outside India than the one that we saw at Fish and a Company. You tried once. Whenever you go, then it's on the house. Now the ticket is okay, Vodapower. Normally I travel to Ghatkopar, not to the U.S., so yeah. But I mean, I'm sure we'll be in touch with Vodapower. I'm going to say. So now moving on from your entrepreneurship ventures, now, you know, someone, let's say someone logs onto your Instagram today, they see your Instagram profile. Okay, first thing which is going to happen is obviously they will feel jealous because you've got 2 million followers, you're hanging out with all these celebrities, you've got a very cool lifestyle. What I want to talk about is what some people may not know when immediately when they quote your Instagram profile, because you had a very, you had a very interesting backstory. You worked at a cyber cafe. You worked as a bartender. You were living in Kolhava, which is of course the cream dealer. I don't even consider that living because I lived there only for a year, like the first year of my life. I don't even remember Kolhava. This is born there. So and then I believe you had to shift don't believe because of some financial conditions. And so how will it take me to that phase of, you know, why you have to work through in a cyber cafe and a bartender and how did you become financially secure again? Take me to that journey, really. I started working and providing for my family since I was like, I guess 14 or 15. And me and my brother, my brother in fact had to leave his education so that it could work and it could like provide for the family. And so we had like, we lived like a very, because I don't know, so I've heard, like we were very comfortable when we were in Kolhava. We had like, my dad had like a big business. And apparently when I meet my dad's friend, all the stories that he talks about that is exactly what I do right now. Like I live with my friends. I live like an, if you've seen on Raj, I live like Vinny from on that I take around like everybody, I take care of everyone. Like, you know, if I go to us, I take like four of my friends. So apparently my dad also did that and didn't like save enough. So during the crisis, what happened was, we had to move your because of some financial conditions and like the business was not doing well. And obviously like Kolhava's business, if you do it, it's not going to like work. So it all got like shattered and we lost the house and like everything. And then my mom started like working, my dad got retired like 15 years ago and he couldn't, the guy who's done business all his life couldn't do job. And he didn't try to do it too. Then we had like a very, like from where I remember, because that's whenever I even from where I remember, I never had like a comfortable life. We always have. Yeah, obviously you said you were running a rule. So how will you? Yeah, so it's just like everything like fell apart and like, we had this life where majority of my life I spent in trains like so I'll give you before my college life spent in trains. I'll tell you, I'll tell you the route. I'll tell you the college life that I spent. So I was a bartender. Okay, I did. So I did a hotel management course, taking loan. I did bartending course where I started to go out and pay any money. But I, and the first or the second day I started working for them. We used to be like initially you 150 bucks a night and then like 350 bucks a night serving like as a bartender. So I used to earn that 350 bucks a night. So now I live at Dumbribli. I used to catch a train to CSD because my college was there, JJ. From there I used to go to Khar. It's like your western line. So go to Khar. Then I used to go to classes and then wherever they used to send me for an event, like for the night, then we should like pray that we get the last pain back or else you sleep at Bandra or Dada station, majorly Dada station because you can get from Bandra to Dada to Miljata. Sleep at Dada station and get up by four, go back home and go to the college because the college was at 7 a.m. So whatever sleeping was happening was inside the train or at the station. And I don't have to tell you, but it's fun when you have friends around because you don't feel like you're just chilling. But if you're alone trying to sleep at a station, if you ever tried this, it feels like you will sleep and you're tired because I've done so much traveling and work at least like eight hours of work. Your body is tired. You feel that you'll sleep. You'll get up. It'll be four o'clock. You'll sleep at day 132. You'll get up at four o'clock and then you'll leave. You sleep the best sleep that you ever had in your life. You get up. It's only 15 minutes. Then you try to sleep. You get up. It's only 10 minutes. So that's two hours when you're trying to sleep alone at the station. It doesn't go well. Yeah. But that was the life that I lived when I was a bartender, which was like majority of my time. And your age at that time was what, around 1920 or something? Yeah, yeah, 18, 19, like probably that age. And they're not for like six, good six, seven years. And when did things sort of start to change for you for the better? Then I started working. I was in Goa for a year where I was a wedding planner. Then I started working in call centers probably for like two, three years, which was like a little decent because bartending is again freelancing, right? Because I didn't want to work behind bar. And behind bar, if you work, you don't get enough money. I don't think people still do. But the money that you earn, you get it like, it's like a freelancing like you just have to keep asking for the money that you earn. You know, you get that if you ever worked as a freelancer, you just have to like keep asking when you're going to get the money. And it's just like, you can't plan your life well. But at call center, we got like, we at least know that, okay, for the first of the month, we're going to get the money. So then it got a little okay, but my life got well only after being unique. Nothing before that. Like I paid off the loan only through my be unique money, my college loan, and whatever like Karaza we had on the family and like me and everything was all to be unique. So that must have been when you're around what 26, 27 types maybe, approximately. Yeah, 27. Yeah. Okay. You know, you mentioned, while you were talking, you actually mentioned something which people normally say in conversation if you've ever done this or if you ever slept at a railway station, but that's the thing, you know, I mean, most of the people probably watching this or most of the influences also, this is something which sort of sets you apart from a lot of the other influencers, right? I mean, the content part with celebrities and the comedy content, et cetera, all that is there. But I think this was one differentiating factor, which was there. No, I think, and that's what I like, I kind of train a lot of new people and like, I guide them through the one thing that I say is like, I feel forever started working on what we are doing right now, during that age, did it for passion because we never knew that we're going on through this. And that's why we are still relevant. Like I can, of that I can imagine people like Boo and Ashish, I think we all started when we never knew that anything's going to happen. Like, you know, it's going to blow up or like it's going to give you money. So the whole, I keep asking all these people that if you had like a hundred thousand or whatever, like a hundred million new account, would you still keep doing what you're doing? And that's exactly what I'll do right now, even if I had that money. And so it's why should be very, why you're doing this should be very prominent. I normally cut off the interview at 15 minutes because apparently Instagram is not allowing us to post more than 15 minutes, but I'll still ask this last question. And for the ones who can't see the entire interview, you can also go on to our YouTube or Facebook channels and watch it if the last minute or so gets cut off. See, you've told me about your, you know, your phase as a bartender, working in a call center, etc. When you started making videos, okay, talking just about that phase, how just that particular phase, how easy or difficult was it for you to become very popular? Like if somebody says that, oh, you know, be unique to start making videos and they started going by those, it was a very easy process. So what was it? Easy, difficult, that exactly. That's the reason I'm asking you. See, definitely I got the person who was at one, there's no doubt about that. But I think I'll tell you when I said I used to sleep in the station, which is still fine because you know, I didn't have money. I don't know what was probably the worst, but I got popular, but I still didn't have money. I got popular people used to take pictures and stuff, but I still didn't have money, right? Because the whole ecosystem of say social media, owning or like whatever brands, brands and stuff, I remember the first brand, I quoted three lakhs for a video and we mutually agreed for 8,000. That was the first brand that we did. So we didn't have money back then. And I remember going back and doing bartending, and I was famous. Like I had to earn, right? So I'm like, I'm again behind the bar right now, but at least I know what I want to do in life. But I'm again behind the bar, serving alcohol. They're like, hey, man, you was trying to drink, but how many eyes do you need in the drink? Like it was that. Yeah, obviously, because yeah, because if the owner sees, you know, he's just taking photos or selfies, he'll probably tell you. And it's just very irritating. I don't know how to say this because I'm not saying I love bartending, dude, I can do it right now. It's not, not a big deal. But I'm just saying that if you know what you want to do in life, you can't do anything else. Like I, I promised myself when I was 25 that I was never going to work for anybody else again. Everything worked out well. Like me, that seems like, like everything, I got like a little bonus from call centers and like I saved up and you paid it to the home and I told them, don't ask me for the next three months because I paid enough for the three months. Then it got over. Then I took like money from a friend, gave it to him. I was like, please one more month, like everything was like, I did not enough friends left, like ask money for them. I went, gave an interview at a call center and I was like killing myself to do that. I got the job. I went there in the first two hours, I left. I just can't do it. I just like, I don't know how to tell you this, but you know that you want, what do you want to do? You are not able to do it. Just don't do it. And the same week Maka Maka happened in my first video. 2015, right? Yeah, the same week it happened. Like, you know, imagine the whole, it's, you know, it's the, the saying is really right. When you're like pushed back a lot, that when you bounce, you just have to like hold a little longer, hold a little bit longer. That's a quite an amazing story. I mean, pitching three lakhs and then eight thousand. We don't know what was the whole business about, right? Like, we don't know what is influencer marketing. We got that. There was no Amazon brand. Nothing at that time. Nothing related to like influencers. The term was influencer wasn't there. We were an artist back then. Anything that we thought we were like, I just like, I think that three lakhs. That guy got like the video has five million views. He got it for like eight thousand views. Imagine that and five million previews. I'm talking about that time. You just couldn't do anything. I'm like that eight thousand was also like, that was our conversation with BU Nick. What an amazing guy. Thank you so much, Nick, for talking to us. We'll be in touch for other video, video interviews and take care. God bless you. Thank you. Take care.