Two by Two

The Ken
Two by Two
TWO BY TWO PREMIUM

Listen to episodes 30 days before anyone else

₹ 199.00/month

The Two by Two podcast is a premium business podcast from The Ken that investigates, discusses and breaks down the most important business stories around you. Hosted from The Ken's newsroom by business journalists Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan, Two by Two will feature guests and experts from across the industry and academia to talk about issues no one else is talking about.

  1. 2024 Year-end special

    TRAILER

    2024 Year-end special

    Welcome to the year-end special edition of Two by Two. We’ve released 22 episodes of Two by Two since our inaugural edition in July.  We’ve covered an incredible breadth of counterintuitive topics framed as, well, two by twos.  Would Flipkart become Phonepe before Phonepe became Flipkart? Did Delhi prick Bengaluru’s bubble? Is the golden era of the software engineer over? Why is health insurance broken? How will Ola and Uber avoid ‘death by a thousand cuts’? Why is Zepto behaving like a gold medallist? Can venture capitalists do no wrong? Dmart versus the challengers at the gates. AI and the impending disruption of Indian SaaS.  We’ve had incredible fun exploring these ideas with a bunch of really sharp, experienced and opinionated guests.  Finding guests who don’t hesitate to speak their minds and state unpopular truths has been one of the hardest things. Far, far tougher than finding interesting topics. We owe all our guests a huge thanks for trusting us. Far too many professionals and leaders prefer to stick to rehearsed and predictable talking points in public these days. We’d started Two by Two with the ambition to operate at the intersection of curiosity and synthesis. Each week, we said we’d spot the hidden connections and unasked questions. We’d identify the cast of players and their motivations.  We’d bring in incredible people to discuss these with. We’d try to answer simple yet fundamental questions like, what is going on, why is it happening, who gains and who loses, and where is all of this leading to? By always asking questions. Always connecting the dots. Always being unfiltered and uninhibited. We wanted Two by Two to be ‘your personal investigative brain’.  In 2025 we hope to make Two by Two even more interesting and unpredictable. Yes, at its core it will still be a weekly podcast. But I’m excited at the possibility of doing so much more by involving our subscribers, listeners and readers in these endeavours.  We want to make Two by Two ‘our collective investigative brain’.  And hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan will continue to do so with a new episode every Thursday. To listen to all episodes of Two by Two, consider subscribing to The Ken’s Premium plan, which in addition to the podcast, will also get you access to our long-form stories, Premium newsletters and visual stories. If you just want access to Two by Two, you can do that as well on Apple Podcasts with a paid subscription. Two by Two is also a free weekly newsletter published every Friday. You can sign up for it here.   Listen to all Two by Two episodes here: 1. Will Flipkart become Phonepe before Phonepe becomes Flipkart? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/will-flipkart-become-phonepe-before-phonepe-becomes-flipkart/ 2. Why has all the excitement and disruption gone out of startups? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/why-has-all-the-excitement-and-disruption-gone-out-of-startups/ 3. Is Zepto a gold medallist or a bronze medallist? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/is-zepto-a-gold-medalist-or-a-bronze-medalist/ 4. Delhi pricked the Bengaluru bubble -  https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/delhi-pricked-the-bangalore-bubble/ 5. Swiggy needs to reclaim its past glory - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/swiggy-needs-to-reclaim-its-past-glory/ 6. Is the golden era of the (software) engineer over? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/is-the-golden-era-of-the-software-engineer-over/ 7. Google Pay: Big. Successful. Vulnerable - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/google-pay-big-successful-vulnerable/ 8. Private coaching is eating away at schooling - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/private-coaching-is-eating-away-at-schooling/ 9. Why Stripe could not become the Stripe of India? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/why-couldnt-stripe-become-the-stripe-of-india/ 10. Health insurance in India is ripe for disruption - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/health-insurance-is-ripe-for-disruption/ 11. Netflix and its last growth market - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/netflixs-last-growth-market/ 12. Ather Energy was a pioneer. Can it also be a leader? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/ather-energy-was-a-pioneer-can-it-also-be-a-leader/ 13. Do we even need Product Managers? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/do-we-even-need-product-managers/ 14. How will Ola and Uber avoid ‘death by a thousand cuts’? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/how-will-ola-and-uber-avoid-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/ 15. The relentless rise of the government as a competitor - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/the-relentless-rise-of-the-government-as-a-competitor/ 16. What does the future hold for Ola Electric? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/what-does-ola-electrics-future-hold/ 17. Can venture capitalists do no wrong? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/can-venture-capitalists-do-no-wrong/ 18. Dmart versus the challengers at the gate - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/dmart-versus-the-challengers-at-the-gate/ 19. Marketing is eating itself from the inside - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/marketing-is-eating-i...

    56 min
  2. Dmart versus the challengers at the gate (Republished FULL Episode)

    3 DAYS AGO

    Dmart versus the challengers at the gate (Republished FULL Episode)

    This episode was first released on November 21, 2024, for The Ken's Premium subscribers. We’ve unlocked it for our Basic and Free subscribers for a limited time. Listen to it on your favourite podcast streaming platforms now. Dmart, the retail group in India, is absolutely number one on vision, execution, and consistency. Dmart opened its first supermarket in Mumbai’s Powai suburb in 2002. Like Walmart in the US, it adopted a deep discounting strategy, offering its customers low prices every day. Today, it has 381 stores. In spite of offering its customers the deepest discounts, Dmart’s net profit numbers beat the best among its global peers. Yet analysts and investors have been becoming increasingly bearish of Dmart’s future strategy. They argue that what got it from 2002 to 2024 might not necessarily take it to, say, 2034. One big reason is quick commerce. Armies of underpaid contract delivery workers rushing from dark stores managed by notionally independent owners on behalf of younger companies like Zomato, Swiggy, Zepto, Big Basket, and even Flipkart are challenging the conventional wisdom on retail. Forcing Dmart to pause and blink. What should it do? Stick to what it knows and does best? Or learn new digital and delivery tricks in its middle age? With only an estimated 5% of the $500 billion urban market for food and groceries currently penetrated by organised and modern retail, the way Dmart goes has profound implications for India. To discuss this, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan invited Govind Shrikhande, former managing director of Shoppers Stop overseeing all its formats, including Shoppers Stop, Hypercity, Crossword, Homestop, Beauty Formats – MAC, Estee Lauder, Air Port & Duty Free Retail etc. Govind has spent over 40 years in the retail sector, having been part of the launches of Denim and Arrow, the relaunch of Vivaldi and the turnaround of Shoppers Stop. He is currently an Independent Director on the Board of a few Companies and a mentor to a few start-ups. Our other guest is Seetharaman G. Seetha is deputy editor at The Ken and also leads The Ken’s coverage of retail. He’s written quite a few stories on Dmart over the years as well. Welcome to episode number 18 of Two by Two! ------ Two by Two episodes referenced in this episode: Is Zepto a gold medallist or a bronze medallist? Swiggy needs to reclaim its past glory Stories and newsletters referenced in this episode: Dmart and the supersizing imperative Zudio wanted Dmart’s apparel shoppers. Now Dmart is hurting Dmart changes its mind on store size. Again Dmart is not used to being in a funk for so long What if the quick-commerce warehouse was a supermarket? Dmart and investors rekindle their love Dmart’s e-commerce bet has gone from counterintuitive to obsolete ------ This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode. New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, and tell us what you think of the show. You can write to us at [email protected] with your thoughts and suggestions.

    1h 17m
  3. The death of D2C (Highlights only)

    TRAILER

    The death of D2C (Highlights only)

    It’s time for us to retire the term “Direct-to-Consumer” or D2C. The phrase is, anyway, a bit long in the tooth, having been used since the days of the dot-com boom. D2C used to mean selling directly to end customers, rather than selling through retailers or other middlemen. In theory, selling directly to consumers would allow a company to offer both lower prices and maintain higher margins (since it didn’t have to pay commissions to middlemen), having better products sustained through a faster innovation cycle and the ability to sell products through evolving brand stories instead of merely price. In reality though, few brands are even remotely D2C. For instance, 82% of Boat’s sales come via Amazon and Flipkart, with only 2% selling directly to consumers. The dependence on kiranas, distributors and modern retail has merely been replaced with a dependence on Amazon, Flipkart or Quick Commerce companies. Large and “traditional” FMCG companies, which were once acquirers of D2C startups, have sobered up. Their acquisitions haven’t really scaled up well, even as they’ve figured out how to compete with D2Cs. As a result, the acquisition premium for D2C startups has plummeted from the peak during the post-pandemic days. In some cases even a 50% discount from the peak isn’t leading to deals. In terms of categories, electronics has scale, but profits have plummeted. In skincare, there is also a downward spiral of competition and price pressure. A good example is Mamaearth, which is now paying the price on the stock markets. In terms of competition, the likes of Meesho, Fire-Boltt, Boult, Noise etc., are pushing prices dramatically lower. What is a differentiating factor? It’s hard to say right now. The entire category looks like a turnstile with a 2-3 year cycle. What is the way out? What should modern brands do to build lasting and sustainable brands? How should they cultivate consumer loyalty and connections? What should they even be called? Welcome to episode 22 of Two by Two. In this episode, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan are joined by Deepak Shahdadpuri, managing director and founder of DSG Consumer Partners–India and Southeast Asia's first consumer-focused venture capital fund. We also had Ajai Thandi, co-founder of Sleepy Owl Coffee and Seetharaman G, deputy editor at The Ken and resident expert on all things retail joining in for the discussion. This is a short excerpt from a more than hour-long episode. The full episode is exclusively available on The Ken app with a Premium subscription and on Apple Podcasts via a separate standalone subscription. There is also a free Two by Two newsletter. You can sign up for it here. ------ Additional reading: Boat, Noise unleashed cheap smartwatches on India. Rivals hurt them with dirt-cheap ones Mamaearth sold investors on its FMCG dreams. Consumers had other plans ------ If you’ve been a regular listener of Two by Two, consider following the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a rating too. You can also write to us at [email protected]. This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN did the mixing and mastering for this episode. We’ll be back next Thursday with a new episode. See you then.

    13 min
  4. 22. The Death of D2C (Premium Subscribers Only)

    18 DEC • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    22. The Death of D2C (Premium Subscribers Only)

    It’s time for us to retire the term “Direct-to-Consumer” or D2C. The phrase is, anyway, a bit long in the tooth, having been used since the days of the dot-com boom. D2C used to mean selling directly to end customers, rather than selling through retailers or other middlemen. In theory, selling directly to consumers would allow a company to offer both lower prices and maintain higher margins (since it didn’t have to pay commissions to middlemen), having better products sustained through a faster innovation cycle and the ability to sell products through evolving brand stories instead of merely price. In reality though, few brands are even remotely D2C. For instance, 82% of Boat’s sales come via Amazon and Flipkart, with only 2% selling directly to consumers. The dependence on kiranas, distributors and modern retail has merely been replaced with a dependence on Amazon, Flipkart or Quick Commerce companies. Large and “traditional” FMCG companies, which were once acquirers of D2C startups, have sobered up. Their acquisitions haven’t really scaled up well, even as they’ve figured out how to compete with D2Cs. As a result, the acquisition premium for D2C startups has plummeted from the peak during the post-pandemic days. In some cases even a 50% discount from the peak isn’t leading to deals. In terms of categories, electronics has scale, but profits have plummeted. In skincare, there is also a downward spiral of competition and price pressure. A good example is Mamaearth, which is now paying the price on the stock markets. In terms of competition, the likes of Meesho, Fire-Boltt, Boult, Noise etc., are pushing prices dramatically lower. What is a differentiating factor? It’s hard to say right now. The entire category looks like a turnstile with a 2-3 year cycle. What is the way out? What should modern brands do to build lasting and sustainable brands? How should they cultivate consumer loyalty and connections? What should they even be called? Welcome to episode 22 of Two by Two. In this episode, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan are joined by Deepak Shahdadpuri, managing director and founder of DSG Consumer Partners–India and Southeast Asia's first consumer-focused venture capital fund. We also had Ajai Thandi, co-founder of Sleepy Owl Coffee and Seetharaman G, deputy editor at The Ken and resident expert on all things retail joining in for the discussion. ------ Additional reading: Boat, Noise unleashed cheap smartwatches on India. Rivals hurt them with dirt-cheap ones Mamaearth sold investors on its FMCG dreams. Consumers had other plans ------ This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN did the mixing and mastering for this episode. Write to us at [email protected] and tell us what you thought of the episode.

    1h 17m
  5. Can venture capitalists do no wrong? (Republished FULL Episode)

    16 DEC

    Can venture capitalists do no wrong? (Republished FULL Episode)

    This episode was first released on November 14, 2024, for The Ken's Premium subscribers. We’ve unlocked it for our Basic and Free subscribers for a limited time. Listen to it on your favourite podcast streaming platforms now. For the last 24 months, the default way in which startups were exposed to venture capital and its effects has been, in many ways, paused. There’s a slowdown. Venture capital funding for the first nine months of this year is down 7% over a similar period last year per Tracxn. There have been news stories about layoffs, company shutdowns, and downrounds at various companies from a time when unicorns were being born every three months or so. Capital is abundant. A lot of dry it remains uninvested everywhere, but it’s just not getting invested at the same rate. Building a company and scaling a company is getting cheaper because of AI and LLMs, which can generate code, which can generate images or just about anything that you want. And the biggest change—there’s a focus on being profitable. If you’ve been a regular listener of Two by Two, you’d know that VCs have always managed to sneak into most, if not all, discussions on the podcast. Maybe not in the way they’d like to be represented in general, but they have been part of the conversation in some way, shape, or form. So when hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sat down for this week’s episode, they got two founders-turned-VCs to join in and say their piece on the role VCs play in the world of startups. And what they need to be doing right. Manav Garg is the founder of Eka Software and co-founder of the operator-led Together Fund (Manav has previously appeared as a guest on the First Principles podcast as well), while Rajiv Srivatsa is the co-founder of Urban Ladder, and now a founding partner at Antler India. Welcome to episode 17 of Two by Two. This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode. New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, and tell us what you think of the show. You can write to us at [email protected] with your thoughts and suggestions.

    1h 40m
  6. AI comes to annihilate India’s SaaS companies (Highlights only)

    TRAILER

    AI comes to annihilate India’s SaaS companies (Highlights only)

    Artificial intelligence will affect all facets of modern-day business in some way or another. But it will most definitely go a few layers deeper with the type of companies whose job is to be a record of business’ today – SaaS companies. SaaS as a business model is investment-heavy in the beginning. It’s risky to build, it takes time to build, and it takes skill to build. But if successful, it is a cash cow. Think of the biggest SaaS companies – Salesforce, Microsoft and Adobe. They spent years building and iterating on software products. And today, all of these products they poured money into make them billions of dollars. But there’s a perfect storm that has been turning the tides, and the incumbents have seen the signs and have jumped at it to secure their advantage and not lose out to upstarts. The one thing about SaaS products is that they have to be constantly sold to their customers. But with AI, the entire loop becomes a solution that makes the customer’s life easier. SaaS products integrated with AI will be bought because they’ll solve the use case of its customers specifically. Companies which usually resort to different pricing strategies for small additional features will have to reconsider and be aligned to deliver outcomes for their customer, not a feature list which is based on purchasing licences to gain access. And in all of this, what happens to the Indian SaaS companies as the AI wave ushers in? In episode 21 of Two by Two, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar sat down with guests Sumanth Raghavendra, CEO and co-founder of Presentations.AI and one of the co-founders of The Ken, and Sidu Ponnappa, CEO and co-founder of Realfast and former managing director of Gojek India. This is a short ‘highlights only’ version of the hour-and-a-half-long discussion. A Premium subscription to The Ken will give you access to our long-form stories, premium newsletters, podcasts, and visual stories in addition to Two by Two. If you’d just like access to Two by Two, you can do that too by getting a Premium subscription to Two by Two on Apple Podcasts. You can sign up for The Two by Two newsletter here—it's free! Tune in to the latest Two by Two podcast to listen to an engrossing discussion on how AI will shake up SaaS models across the world and what’s in store for India’s SaaS companies. Additional reading: The AI apocalypse is coming: Are SaaS companies ready? BarbAIrians at the Gate: The Financial Opportunity of AI The End of the SaaS Era: Rethinking software’s role in business ------ Listen to the Two by Two 'unlocked' episode – What does Ola Electric’s future hold? Link to the 'unlocked' episode: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Youtube ------ This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Mixing and mastering for this episode was done by Rajiv CN. Write to us with what you thought of the episode at [email protected].

    12 min
  7. 21. AI comes to annihilate India’s SaaS companies (Premium Subscribers Only)

    11 DEC • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    21. AI comes to annihilate India’s SaaS companies (Premium Subscribers Only)

    Artificial intelligence will affect all facets of modern-day business in some way or another. But it will most definitely go a few layers deeper with the type of companies whose job is to be a record of business’ today – SaaS companies. SaaS as a business model is investment-heavy in the beginning. It’s risky to build, it takes time to build, and it takes skill to build. But if successful, it is a cash cow. Think of the biggest SaaS companies – Salesforce, Microsoft and Adobe. They spent years building and iterating on software products. And today, all of these products they poured money into make them billions of dollars. But there’s a perfect storm that has been turning the tides, and the incumbents have seen the signs and have jumped at it to secure their advantage and not lose out to upstarts. The one thing about SaaS products is that they have to be constantly sold to their customers. But with AI, the entire loop becomes a solution that makes the customer’s life easier. SaaS products integrated with AI will be bought because they’ll solve the use case of its customers specifically. Companies which usually resort to different pricing strategies for small additional features will have to reconsider and be aligned to deliver outcomes for their customer, not a feature list which is based on purchasing licences to gain access. And in all of this, what happens to the Indian SaaS companies as the AI wave ushers in? In episode 21 of Two by Two, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar sat down with guests Sumanth Raghavendra, CEO and co-founder of Presentations.AI and one of the co-founders of The Ken, and Sidu Ponnappa, CEO and co-founder of Realfast and former managing director of Gojek India. You can sign up for The Two by Two newsletter here—it's free! - https://the-ken.com/newsletters/two-by-two/ Tune in to the latest Two by Two podcast to listen to an engrossing discussion on how AI will shake up SaaS models across the world and what’s in store for India’s SaaS companies. ------ Additional reading: The AI apocalypse is coming: Are SaaS companies ready? - https://saasboomi.org/saas/product/saas-ai-apocalypse/ BarbAIrians at the Gate: The Financial Opportunity of AI - https://a16z.com/financial-opportunity-of-ai/ The End of the SaaS Era: Rethinking software’s role in business - https://www.forbes.com/sites/josipamajic/2024/09/30/the-end-of-the-saas-era-rethinking-softwares-role-in-business/ ------ This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Mixing and mastering for this episode was done by Rajiv CN. Write to us with what you thought of the episode at [email protected].

    1h 25m
  8. What does Ola Electric's future hold? (Republished FULL Episode)

    9 DEC

    What does Ola Electric's future hold? (Republished FULL Episode)

    This episode was first released on November 7, 2024, for The Ken's Premium subscribers. We’ve unlocked it for our Basic and Free subscribers for a limited time. Listen to it on your favourite podcast streaming platforms now. Ola Electric’s woes just don’t seem to be stopping. From angry customers to its mercurial CEO getting into online spats as pressure mounts, many of its problems stretch seemingly beyond its control today for it to make a quick turnaround and change the narrative. And this is hurting its valuation significantly, both in the private and public markets. Just this week, Ola Electric’s price fell below its listing price Ola Electric can and should take credit for making EV two-wheelers common on Indian roads. It achieved this through rampant marketing, getting the word out for its product, and eventually delivering its products to eager customers as well. These did yield results in the short term as well. At its peak, Ola Electric’s vertically integrated ecosystem was a big pull, which, along with its marketing efforts, allowed it to gain nearly 53% market share in the EV two-wheeler segment. But the strategy of moving fast and breaking things to press an early mover advantage that startups usually apply has now started to backfire, as angry customers take to social media to express their frustration with the longer wait times to get their vehicles serviced and working again. These kinds of troubles tend to happen with startups. But when the situation is such that you can’t just fix things as you would do in an app, and you are under the scrutiny of the public markets. The need to deliver becomes absolutely detrimental. In this week’s episode, host Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan try to understand Ola’s recent history, how it fared after listing on the Indian bourses, the troubles it has faced, and what the future holds. Joining them for the episode are Jinesh Gandhi, Research Director at Ambit*, with over 20 years of experience tracking multiple sectors, and Narayan Sundararaman, an accomplished leader with over 28 years of experience in marketing strategy. Narayan has worked at Cadbury, Star TV, and was the ex-CMO at Bajaj Auto. Reference Stories: How Ola Electric blew its lead Ola Electric wants to take on Hero’s Splendor. But e-bikes are not e-scooters The real reason behind Ola Electric slashing its IPO valuation in a booming stock marketOther Two by Two episodes: Ather Energy was a pioneer. Can it also be a leader? *Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the analyst and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Ambit Capital Private Ltd. The analyst does not hold any financial interest in the securities discussed in the podcast, nor do their relatives. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. It is essential to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. This episode was produced by Hari Krishna. Mixing and mastering for this episode is done by Rajiv CN. Write to us about what you thought of the episode at [email protected].

    1h 31m

Trailers

4.5
out of 5
90 Ratings

About

The Two by Two podcast is a premium business podcast from The Ken that investigates, discusses and breaks down the most important business stories around you. Hosted from The Ken's newsroom by business journalists Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan, Two by Two will feature guests and experts from across the industry and academia to talk about issues no one else is talking about.

You Might Also Like

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes and get the latest updates.

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada