Sanjeev Bikhchandani On Opportunities In Indian Market | NDTV Profit
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00:00Welcome to NDTV Prophet. I'm Harsh Saita. We have a very, very special guest with us on this show and it's a special show as well.
00:16You know, the guest is not only a successful entrepreneur, which is, of course, a difficult thing to do, but he's also a very, very sharp investor.
00:28He started his company in 1997, when the word startup was more frowned upon in India than respected.
00:35And he has since silently disrupted several spaces. And in doing so, he's built an $11 billion company from scratch in the last 27 years.
00:46That is saying something. The company has disrupted the recruitment business through Naukri, real estate broking business through 99 Acres,
00:54the marriage business via Jeevansati and educational services business through Shiksha. But it doesn't stop there.
01:01He has thereafter gone on to acquire stakes in companies that have disrupted the Indian marketplace altogether, most notably Zomato and PBFintech.
01:11The guest I have the pleasure of speaking with today is Mr. Sanjeev Bhikchandani, the founder and vice chairman at InfoEdge.
01:19Welcome, sir. It's an absolute pleasure.
01:22Thank you for calling me. Pleasure to be here.
01:25Right. So let me I'm going to first start off with just trying to understand how you view India as a marketplace,
01:33both as an investor as well as as a promoter or a or rather a business person.
01:39How do you view the market? Because you largely done consumer tech and therefore, how should the market really look like to you?
01:49It's 140 crore in all. But is that really the market size?
01:55No, in the sense that the purchasing power for several of our production services is perhaps the fraction of the people,
02:04that fraction growing larger. And as India gets more prosperous and as economic growth continues, we expect that.
02:13This market will only grow larger. And I come from a perspective when we launched Naukri in April 97,
02:20there were only 14,000 accounts in the country. And so from there, we've come a long way.
02:27And we've seen those days and survived. So I think the future is only better and brighter.
02:33Right. So if if one were to look at you as an investor, were to look at a particular company,
02:40say of Zomato or a PB FinTech, say in 2008, when you did invest in some of these companies,
02:47what was the thought process? What were you thinking about? How were you looking at the opportunity at that point?
02:56We typically don't do, you know, total addressable market.
03:01We don't do TAM analysis, what is total addressable market, because we believe TAM will work its way.
03:08You know, India is growing. India is growing. If the founders are bright and committed, they will figure out the TAM.
03:16What we look at is, is what they're trying to do useful and to other people good and committed.
03:23And will they stay for the long haul? If both these questions are answered and, you know, as yes,
03:30then we know that this company is in with a shot.
03:35Then we go further. And then in India, you have to be patient because, you know, from inception to IPO,
03:42typically company takes 10 to 15 years. Real value is created after the IPO.
03:49So I would say that be patient. Founders are good. It will work itself out.
03:59OK, so you've covered a couple of points here and I'll try to break it up.
04:03I'll first talk about founders, because patience is more driven from an investor standpoint, which is from your standpoint.
04:10But just talk to us about the founder factor, as well as maybe another one or two factors that you look at outside of the founder that attract you to a particular company if you were to invest in.
04:25So you've got to have founders who are committed, who are courageous, who will go the distance,
04:39who are not interested in flipping in three years' time, who want to build large companies.
04:44That's when you can be patient. If the founder is not patient, how can the investor be patient?
04:49So both founder and investor have to be willing to be there for the long haul.
04:56Now, apart from founder and idea, of course, you look at network effect, you look at IP being built, you look at competition, you look at a whole bunch of other things.
05:07But those are all things you look at after we are comfortable with the founder and the idea.
05:14Right. So, you know, one of the unique things about what you've done is, one, you've got, you've of course, you have a niche for catching good companies.
05:24But you have also got a very, very high hit rate for that. Just talk to us about how do you judge what really stands out when you pick your companies?
05:38I think it's people and idea. You see, what we believe is that most successful businesses are built on deep customer insights about some unsolved problem.
05:49So you've got to see what is the customer insight, what is the unsolved problem they're solving?
05:53And you've got to look at quality of people, how committed they are, how capable they are, their integrity.
06:00And very often you're making judgment calls on a young person's capabilities 10 years out, five years out, seven years out.
06:07And you sometimes get those wrong. We've been fortunate. We've got it right many times on people.
06:13We've got 100 startups. We've been wrong on people maybe two, three times. But by and large, we've been right about people.
06:20And once you get beyond people and customer insight and unsolved problem, you get to areas like competition, network effect, IP, cost structures, unit economics, all those things.
06:32But sir, to you, those things are more secondary. Is that how you look at it?
06:38Well, let me put it this way. In calculus and maths, in differential calculus, there's a necessary condition and a sufficient condition.
06:47So necessary condition is customer insight, unsolved problem and quality of people.
06:52Sufficient conditions are the remaining stuff. You need both.
06:56Got it. I'll come to the second point you made. So two ingredients. One was good people with persistence.
07:02The other one is investors being more patient, which you've clearly demonstrated.
07:09So talk to us about how you think of the long haul, because there are times when investments can get to a certain extent egregiously valued or investments just don't turn around.
07:24When is it that you decide that? All right, here's the end of it.
07:33So, look, I think we respect all entrepreneurs.
07:38With the investment, including those with an investment, because see, entrepreneurs take a risk with their lives.
07:45And you need to acknowledge and respect that. Now, having said that, sometimes things don't work out.
07:53So patient, you will keep giving the company time.
08:00The question is, will you keep giving them money? And, you know, there will come a point when maybe you don't have the confidence to keep on giving more and more money.
08:09And maybe there are no other investors there. And when that happens, then you have to take a call. Yes or no.
08:16So giving time is never a problem. Keeping on giving money is where the rubber hits the road.
08:26Right. So when is it? What are those maybe three or four key red flags for you where you would possibly not give the company or the investing company more time, money, of course, but time more importantly?
08:46We give infinite time. We don't give infinite money.
08:52Got it. Now, when do you say no more money is when there is no external market validation?
09:00There's no inbound interest for the VCs. The units are not getting are not becoming OK.
09:07It is unclear when they will become OK. There is no clear path to profit emerging.
09:14And if you've been trying for seven years, the ultimate himself or herself is getting tired.
09:20These are all red flags, which you will then look at a company and then figure out.
09:26Right. And so, you know, maybe through a story, through an experience, if at all the two, three key mistakes that you feel you have made or learned or your learnings from some of those mistakes or mistakes of others, if if at all any.
09:44So I think some of the corporate governance lapses that have emerged in the Indian startups in the Indian startup space in the last five, seven years, some of those are of concern and should be of concern to every investor.
09:59It should also be of concern to honest founders, because if there are too many corporate governance lapses in startups, people will lose trust in the sector and they themselves get hurt.
10:11So I think corporate governance is a big area where all investors and startups need to work on.
10:18All right. So corporate governance, we'll come to that. I want to stay focused on the startup side of things or rather from the investor lens.
10:27You know, you've picked companies which have started to hit a J curve.
10:33You've picked them very, very early, sir. And that's really helped you stand out even in terms of your returns that you've made from some of those investments.
10:42Is there a specific formula to determine what helps the company achieve the J curve and to accelerate that, if at all?
10:54I think persistence, resilience. I think a sharp focus on customers, continuous innovation, investment in technology.
11:02These are some of the attributes of some of our successful companies and entrepreneurs.
11:12India needs patient capital. As an investor, we have to be patient.
11:15I recall speaking to the late Mr. Rakesh Niranwala about four or five years ago, maybe six years ago.
11:23It was COVID time and it was a Zoom call. I had just called him up.
11:27And he told me one very important thing.
11:33He said, Sanjeev, if you find a truly great company, then stay forever. You don't have to exit.
11:41And if you stay forever, you can make huge returns in the years to come.
11:47He said, that's how I made my returns in Titan. I stayed for a long, long time. I'm still staying.
11:54And you need to be very, very patient.
11:58And how does valuation play a role in some of these factors?
12:04Because you're looking at a very large addressable market, may not be 140 crore.
12:07But at the same time, some of the companies at early stage may not be profit making.
12:14And at the same time, they may take some time to hit a J curve.
12:18And therefore, how should one look at valuations, whether you're underpaying, overpaying, or that is not relevant at all?
12:24Oh, we are election sensitive.
12:28And by valuations, we would like external validation of other investors wanting to come in or coming in.
12:37Now, having said that, we went solo in Zomato in the first four rounds, but each time against a competitive term sheet.
12:45And the reason would give us confidence was the quality of the team.
12:49And the fact that the customer love that they were getting.
12:53The fact that the users really love what they're doing. And that's important.
13:00If users love you, the rest you can figure out.
13:03And were you concerned about the exodus from at least the top level at Zomato, given your large focus on people running institutions?
13:17There was never an exodus. There have been some departures.
13:21But, you know, each time I would call up Deepinder and ask him, is everything okay?
13:29He'd say yes. I say, are you sure? He'd say yes.
13:31Why did such and such person leave? And he would give me a logical answer.
13:36And if the founder, you know, has that, we think it's okay.
13:41All right. I get your point.
13:45And, you know, you got into consumer tech fairly early.
13:48Where do you feel the next bunch of opportunities are going to come from?
13:54Let's say, where's the value, large value creation going to happen at least between 2030 and 2040?
14:00Say, example, if you were to pin a dot.
14:05So we are not in the predictions business. We're not good at that.
14:08Right. So we don't do it top down.
14:10We don't look at, okay, which sector is going to be big and what's going to happen and where should we therefore invest?
14:14We just meet and study and analyze or at least a preliminary analysis of maybe a thousand companies every quarter.
14:24We have a team of 15 or 18 people doing it.
14:28And we prefer to do it bottom up, where we are meeting entrepreneurs and figuring out who's doing what and what makes sense.
14:36So we don't have a predetermined idea of which sector.
14:38We just go and meet everybody and see what's bubbling through from top to bottom and then we invest.
14:45Understood. So no speculation aside.
14:48So in 2008, if you told me that, you know, the insurance competitive space has potential, the space did not exist.
15:00I would have said, what is that?
15:03Or in 2010, you told me that restaurant listing space has potential.
15:06I would have said, no, when there's no such thing.
15:08You are going into category creating companies.
15:12Essentially, the category does not exist prior to where you're going in.
15:19And therefore, actually what you're doing is you are harnessing the imagination of the entrepreneurs and teams you're going behind.
15:26Whereas if you predetermine an idea of what sectors, you are limiting yourself to your own imagination.
15:32And if you're talking to a thousand teams, their collective imagination will be far ahead of yours.
15:38So we prefer to meet people and then figure out.
15:43Right. And I'll switch focus more towards corporate governance because that's something you've touched upon.
15:50It's such a subjective topic. Just give us your three or four key points that you look at in a company when you believe it's good corporate governance.
16:04So look, when you're going in early, very often there's no product or there's no revenue.
16:10Or if there's revenue, there's very low revenue and the team is small.
16:14So essentially you are making a judgment call on the person or the person's are they honest?
16:23Are they fundamentally honest?
16:25If they're fundamentally honest and they want to stay that way, you believe they will learn the rest along the way.
16:33Now, corporate governance as an organization grows and becomes more complex.
16:39While everybody wants to be honest and is trying to be honest, very often there are shades of gray which you need to navigate.
16:50And for example, if you are a company which is appointing franchisees and you have, let's say, a five lakh rupee franchise fee up front.
17:01Should that be recognized as revenue this year or should that be amortized over four or five years during the life of the franchise arrangement?
17:11Now, many entrepreneurs will use common sense and say, no, this is my money. I've got it. I'll recognize the revenue this year.
17:20Actually, you should be recognizing over four or five years.
17:24Now, this is stuff where founders need sensitization, coaching around revenue recognition, around what's the right way to recognize costs.
17:35And what's therefore true and fair accounting?
17:40That's one aspect.
17:42Then there are areas of conflict of interest, convergence of interest.
17:45Then there are areas of related party transactions.
17:47These are all areas that founders need to be sensitized about.
17:52And if they surround themselves with good people, good investors, good board members, good auditors, and are willing to adopt the tenets of good governance, a lot of things will get solved.
18:05So corporate governance actually begins and ends in the founder's head.
18:11The rest is stuff around it, around the founder, which if the founder does not listen to, then you have a challenge.
18:21And so how much do you advise or do you give lending advice to some of your subsidiary companies?
18:34Say, for example, Azamato or PB FinTech.
18:37Just trying to gauge how much of your thoughts go into their philosophy of how they operate.
18:46First of all, they're not subsidiaries, they're associates.
18:49Second, when they were much smaller, interaction was different.
18:58Now that they are large and more mature and listed and they have independent boards.
19:05And in Azamato's case, they're even a larger market cap than InfoEdge.
19:12It's different.
19:14Now we are always available.
19:15Perhaps we are called upon less now than earlier, but there's a constant conversation.
19:21So, for example, I could be talking to Deepinder or Shanthu, the CFO, in Azamato maybe once or twice a week.
19:33I could be meeting them maybe two, three times a month.
19:36Also not an agenda, just shooting the breeze.
19:39I could be talking to one or two other directors in the board and then taking it forward from there.
19:46And is there a specific decision to be made?
19:51For example, should Azamato acquire the Paytm ticketing business or not?
19:57That could be five or six meetings, maybe seven or eight meetings, usually on Zoom, sometimes in person.
20:03Right.
20:05And do you, of course, for smaller associates, for the smaller companies that you own stakes in,
20:12that may be more frequent? Is that what you were suggesting?
20:17I mean, that would likely be quite frequent, but there's a whole team of 15, 20 people which are managing the portfolio.
20:24Therefore, there are different companies meeting different people all the time.
20:28Right. And what would your advice to them be?
20:32Because that would be very different from the advice you give to the more matured kind of companies.
20:37It varies by company and by situation, by what are the milestones and tasks ahead,
20:46by what the company is doing well, what is not working, what is working.
20:51It varies from company to company.
20:53But in general, we like our companies to be capital efficient, to be frugal, to get to cash flow positive,
21:01maybe EBITDA positive, and revenue should be growing.
21:08So that's our general stance, is that you must do what is commercially sound.
21:16Right. And with regard to IPO, you had Zomato listing at a time when it wasn't profit making.
21:25PB Fintech also in a very similar kind of a space.
21:30Were you comfortable of them listing at that point?
21:35Or would you have liked a slightly more delayed listing?
21:39What was your advice to them at that point?
21:42It was, look, if the market is ready to give you a listing, go for it.
21:48Make sure that you get your profit within 2-3 years.
21:51And make sure that's what you promise to the market.
21:54Don't promise anything that you can't achieve.
21:56Right. So profitability would continue to hold the key.
22:02And what gave you the confidence?
22:04It's not profit, it is path to profit.
22:07Right. But were you reasonably confident that that would happen?
22:12And what gave you that confidence?
22:14Something like a Zomato or something like a PB Fintech?
22:15We obviously used to do regular reviews with the company.
22:20And the board had been formed and set up.
22:22And the board would meet.
22:24And we'd kick the tires on the business plan.
22:27And we were reasonably confident that we would do it.
22:32All right. So again, it was more your trust on the board and what the board was suggesting to you.
22:40The board was largely non-executive.
22:42It was our trust in the management team and the founders.
22:45Right. Right. Right. Right.
22:47You know, I'm going to switch focus now.
22:49More from a company standpoint.
22:51If I were a startup, what's the single largest contributor to my success, if I can call it?
23:00If I were a startup, your advice?
23:02Probably the founding team and the management team.
23:05The people determine the likelihood of success.
23:08Because everything in early stage revolves around the people.
23:14Right. And that's typically what you've always focused on.
23:18You've said that almost through the conversation.
23:21And what would be the right time for a startup to raise money?
23:25What would be the best case use in terms, just not money for the sake of money, of course.
23:32But what, in your view, would be the best case use?
23:34You should raise money, A, when you need it.
23:37B, when you're getting it.
23:39Raise a little bit more than you think you need.
23:42But not so much that, you know, it burns a hole in your pocket.
23:47So raise it, but don't spend it, you know, don't spend it foolishly.
23:54Right. And for how long would you delay profitability?
23:58Because we have a bunch of New Age startups in India that is currently the culture.
24:04For how long do you continue to burn?
24:07Is there a definitive timeline or is there an inflection point, if you can give us advice?
24:13It's largely driven by funds availability, as what I'm observing.
24:20If your competition is getting access to funds and is, you know,
24:24is spending money, maybe you need to spend that kind of money to face competition.
24:30In which case, you better be raising that money.
24:32When funding dries up, as it did towards the end of 2021,
24:37that is when, you know, the wheat is separated from the chaff.
24:42Did you have a sound economic model?
24:45Do customers continue to buy you, even when you're not subsidizing them?
24:49Do customers continue to buy you?
24:52Even when you're not subsidizing them, you're not giving discounts?
24:57And you know, so you see, you're going to be building a strong franchise,
25:01even if you're raising money.
25:03Raising money is not a substitute for building a good customer franchise.
25:09And how should one balance profitability with growth?
25:14Because you're talking about one customer franchise,
25:16but you're also talking about unit economics getting better.
25:19So how, at what point should one prioritize profit over growth
25:24or growth over profit to try and build market share, build your franchise,
25:29thereafter tweak back towards profit?
25:32How should one balance that?
25:34Actually, in my view, you can get high growth along with profitability.
25:40And if you're not doing that, it means you don't have enough customers.
25:46If you have to discount and subsidize to get growth,
25:50maybe you need to figure out what can you do with product offering
25:55to create pull that the customer comes anyway without a discount.
26:03And IPO is only when you see paths to profitability?
26:09Or do you believe that IPOing earlier also makes sense
26:14as long as the franchise is strong?
26:19You have to figure out if the market will allow you to IPO,
26:22will it take your IPO?
26:24In a buoyant market, you may get away with it.
26:26But what happens after one year or two years if the market corrects
26:30and you're still not profitable?
26:32So I think you need some predictability.
26:36You need some ear-parked profit to be stable post-IPO
26:43in a market that may or may not be buoyant.
26:49And how should one look at pricing the IPO?
26:53Should one price it at a level where there is enough appetite?
26:59Leave how much money on the table?
27:02Your views, because you speak of corporate governance.
27:05We've had so many IPOs come in,
27:08even within the main board,
27:12which haven't given the best returns to investors.
27:16What should one make in terms of pricing?
27:19I would be a little conservative and not too aggressive.
27:23You want to leave enough on the table that incoming investors are happy.
27:29At the same time, we don't want to leave so much on the table
27:32that the earlier shareholders believe that they were short-changed.
27:35It's a fine balance.
27:36But I would err on the side of perhaps underpricing the IPO.
27:43All right. And underpricing, would you therefore,
27:48because some of these companies are not really profit-making,
27:52how should one determine value?
27:55I think your bankers who are taking you public,
28:00they will have a fair idea of where the appetite is of investors.
28:03And listen to that feedback very carefully.
28:06And you can push the envelope on their feedback a bit, but not too much.
28:10Have you advised Zomato or PB Fintech, which have done very well now,
28:15but initially we saw a bit of a blip with regard to their performance on indices.
28:21Of course, they IPO'd very well, but thereafter we saw a bit of a blip.
28:25Have you advised them at all?
28:27What was your advice? What advice did they seek from you?
28:29My advice was similar, which is, let's be conservative.
28:33But you must remember that both those companies did very well post-IPO.
28:40It's only when the market corrected globally,
28:43when the Fed began to contract the balance sheet,
28:48when the market corrected globally,
28:50and then the Indian market corrected, then these two companies corrected.
28:53And then they came back strongly.
28:55Hmm. Understood.
28:56Okay. So I would say they both had good successful IPOs,
29:00including in the aftermarket.
29:03Right. And do you believe that both of these companies,
29:08in terms of your investment, as well as in terms of their path to profitability,
29:13have overachieved what you would have thought of when you invested in them?
29:20Not at all.
29:22If somebody told me that the motto would be between 20 and 30 billion dollars,
29:27I would have said you're smoking something.
29:30Likewise for Policy Bazaar.
29:33So you can't predict the future.
29:35The question is, you stick with what you see, which is, are the founders good?
29:39Is the idea good? Is execution good?
29:41Can they make it happen?
29:43Now, what eventually turns out, you don't know.
29:45You make it sound so simple, sir.
29:47But frankly, it's so hard to do, as we see with most investors.
29:53It's extremely difficult to do.
29:55You've got to stay a long time.
29:57You've got to understand one thing.
29:59Most VC funds are 8 plus 2 years, 10 plus 2 years, right?
30:03Yes.
30:05But for a company from inception to IPO,
30:07very often the journey is 12 years, 14 years, 15 years.
30:11And then in the aftermarket, see for five years more.
30:14So, but you don't have 20 year funds.
30:15We had the benefit of being able to invest from a balance sheet.
30:19And therefore, we can stay forever.
30:22Hmm.
30:24And a lot of the value creation.
30:26Now, we went into Policy Bazaar in 2008.
30:30It's now been 16 years.
30:32We're still there.
30:34We went to Zomato in 2010.
30:36It's now been 14 years.
30:38We're still there.
30:40If we'd been a regular VC fund, we would have wanted to exit by 2016, 17.
30:43And we would not have realized this kind of value.
30:45So, we are looking good because we waited this long.
30:49We are looking good because of the founders,
30:52because of the management team, because of the work they did.
30:55You know, we are lucky and fortunate that they allowed us into their companies.
31:00So, our contribution is a lot less than the management teams and the founding teams.
31:06Right.
31:08So, you know, your story is truly unique.
31:10You started off as an entrepreneur,
31:13started with Naukri.
31:16Thereafter, did a bunch of other very similar consumer tech startups,
31:22driving technology through InfoEdge.
31:25And thereafter, started as an investor,
31:28started a completely new journey.
31:30That's so difficult to do.
31:32Just talk us through what possibly was your most challenging,
31:36one or two biggest challenges you faced in this journey.
31:41So, what happened was that we had IPO in 2006.
31:46We had this cash sitting on a balance sheet.
31:49And more and more cash, we were profitable.
31:51More and more cash was coming in every month.
31:53And the board said, listen, you better use this cash.
31:57You know, you can't just let it sit there.
31:59So, it was decided that why don't we invest in startups?
32:02Now, that was given to me as an add-on assignment in 2007.
32:07I was still the CEO of the company then.
32:08And I was told that you can invest up to 160 crores next three, four years in startups.
32:16Now, by today's standards, that's a small sum of money.
32:19But at that time, it was a big sort of chunk of our treasury.
32:24In the next five years, we invested about maybe 200 crores
32:29across seven or eight, maybe 10 companies.
32:31Two of those were Zawahar Tawad policy.
32:34In 2010, I stepped aside as CEO.
32:36And looked at investing full-time.
32:40My biggest challenge then was, do I really have a job?
32:43But as the portfolio grew, it kept taking up more and more time.
32:50And I, over the years, made it a full-time job.
32:54So, what made you switch from founder to investor?
32:59You said you did that in 2010.
33:02So, what made you do that?
33:03I think, A, the other leadership in the company was ready to take over.
33:08The company had told me, listen, there needs to be a succession plan.
33:12So, I was 47 when I quit as CEO in 2010.
33:18And Hitesh was ready to take over, and he took over, and he's done a great job.
33:22So, if you look at the market cap of InfoEdge from 2010, when Hitesh took over to now,
33:28I think there has been a massive, massive increase.
33:35And all thanks to Hitesh and everybody else.
33:38And that's to me, of course, to some extent, Zomato and Polzibula do contribute to market cap.
33:44But really, then that credit goes to the other founders of Zomato and Polzibula, and the management team is there.
33:51Now, there are close to 100 startups we invested in.
33:54Some of those will succeed and are succeeding and are looking promising.
33:59So, I think over the next few years, we hope one or two more successes come out.
34:03Right. So, if I were just to zoom out, 1997, you started Naukri.
34:09What was the mindset at that time?
34:12So, I quit my job in 1990.
34:15And for the first seven years, I just did 20 small things.
34:19Naukri was the 21st small thing.
34:22It just turned out right place, right time.
34:25Worked hard, worked smart, got lucky.
34:27We had tailwind.
34:29The internet grew, we grew with it.
34:32We were able to raise venture capital just before the meltdown.
34:35And we were able to then grow the company through the meltdown.
34:39Break even, make a profit.
34:42I think a lot of the credit goes to people other than me.
34:47I just happened to be the founder or the CEO at that time.
34:53And so, I got to go on stage to accept all the bookies.
34:58But really, it's about a lot of other people in the company
35:02who have done a lot of the heavy lifting.
35:05Right. And you diversified thereafter.
35:09Of course, Naukri still contributes nearly three-fourths of the top line.
35:12Nearly three-fourths of the top line.
35:14But you diversified after that.
35:17Naukri contributes probably 140% of the bottom line.
35:20That's most important.
35:22Absolutely.
35:24No, I take your point.
35:26But what got you to diversify, sir?
35:33We got Naukri in 1997.
35:36It was going along, doing a couple of lakhs a month of sales.
35:40We were breaking even.
35:42I wasn't taking a salary.
35:44I told the head of tech, the CTO, Anil Lal.
35:49I told him, you know, we've done one category in print.
35:54It's jobs.
35:56Why don't we do a second category, which is matrimony?
35:59So, he said, okay.
36:01I gave a brief.
36:03He did a site.
36:05We call it Jeevan Sathi.
36:07We let it float.
36:08When we raised money from ICICI Venture in 2000, April 2000,
36:12they said, listen, what is this matrimony site?
36:14Just shut it down.
36:16Just focus on Naukri, because that's what we invested behind.
36:18And also, you know, we want a new auditor.
36:20Your small auditor will not do.
36:22We want a big five.
36:24So, I went to our then auditors, who had been with us 10 years.
36:30And I told them, listen, I'm very sorry, but that's not the end.
36:35I'm very sorry.
36:36But we have to part company, because we need to appoint a big five auditor,
36:41because that's what our investors are saying.
36:43So, we are going to price for a house.
36:45So, we'll have to part ways.
36:47And they told us, hey, no problem.
36:50We were thinking of shutting our CA practice and starting a dot-com anyway.
36:53It was bubble time.
36:55So, we said, great.
36:57Why don't you take Jeevan Sathi?
36:59And we gave them Jeevan Sathi to run at almost no cost to them.
37:03But we retained a minority shareholding of maybe 45%.
37:07Hmm.
37:09Now, meltdown happened.
37:11They couldn't risk capital.
37:13They worked it in for a few more years.
37:15They were again breaking even bootstrapping.
37:17And meanwhile, Naukri managed to grow and turn around and make a profit.
37:21And in 2004, we went to them and said, listen, you've not been able to sort of make it scale.
37:29Would you like to sell it back to us?
37:30And they said, sure thing.
37:32We agreed on a price.
37:34They made some profit.
37:36And we bought Jeevan Sathi back.
37:38And that's how we diversified.
37:40As simple as that.
37:42And once we diversified into matrimony, the next logical choice was real estate.
37:45And then education, because there were big advertising categories in print.
37:48We were essentially following the print advertising market.
37:50And so, you know, where is the money coming from?
37:53It's jobs in classifieds.
37:55It's jobs.
37:57It's matrimony.
37:58And real estate.
38:00And we did all four categories.
38:02So that's how we diversified.
38:04Right.
38:06And do you intend to, even now, scale some of those?
38:08Do you believe that they'll contribute significantly to InfoEdge going forward?
38:12We hope so.
38:14We are persisting.
38:16We are getting growth.
38:18I think Shiksha has broken even.
38:22Yeah.
38:24I think Nike and Nikkei has got burned.
38:26Jeevan Sathi has got burned.
38:28Right.
38:30And do you believe also that maybe at some point you will extract value from them through separate listings?
38:40Or do you believe that InfoEdge will continue to be the parent to a lot of the investments that you're making?
38:47As of now, there are no plans to demerge any business of ours.
38:54What the future holds, I don't know.
38:56But as of now, there are no plans.
38:58Hmm.
39:00What do you think are contributors to the InfoEdge story and the success that it has been?
39:07Of course, there have been several contributors all triggering at the same time to get you where you are.
39:14But what do you believe are the two, three key ones?
39:16I think number one is people.
39:19The people we have, the leadership team, leaders down the line.
39:25There are currently five and a half thousand people working in the company.
39:28There must be another five and a half thousand who have worked in the company in the past.
39:31They have all contributed.
39:33I think it's about people really.
39:35Hmm.
39:37And what do you think in terms of, because you focus so much on the people aspect throughout this conversation,
39:44what is it that you look for when you're hiring, you know, maybe someone immediately under you
39:51or someone that you believe say Dipender is hiring.
39:55What would you advise him?
39:56What's the kind of person that he should look for?
40:00I think you need people who are capable and committed and have integrity.
40:06Now, those are broad hats.
40:08Now, you go specific and you'll say, fine.
40:11When you say capable, what kind of skills?
40:14It's different for different jobs and different for different levels in the organization.
40:17But as you go higher in the hierarchy, I think while you have to go technically,
40:24you also have to be great with people.
40:26And that's important.
40:28Right.
40:30Jobs of the future, sir.
40:33You work with AI even now.
40:36You've got investee companies which are AI based.
40:41What do you believe?
40:43And you run Naukri.
40:45You know, just so happens.
40:47What do you believe are going to be the jobs of the future and the skills of the future
40:51that one needs to equip oneself with?
40:53Well, look, some of the jobs remain the same.
40:56Sales, operations, customer service, large numbers being hired there even now.
41:01And that's not going to change.
41:03I think within tech, you're looking at different skill sets.
41:07I think today AI jobs are, you know, people are in great demand.
41:12Tomorrow, it may be something else.
41:14Maybe some of the older skill sets may come back as IT services comes back,
41:18which it might.
41:20So, yes, there'll be ups and downs.
41:24And there'll be a few emerging areas for jobs.
41:28But by and large, 80% of jobs will still be in the original areas.