Building Myntra & CultFit and Taking India's Largest Exit | Mukesh Bansal | Full Episode

The BarberShop with Shantanu

Hi, thanks for stopping by! You’re listening to #TheBarbershopWithShantanu In today's episode, we have Mukesh Bansal, founder Myntra and cult.fit on the Barbershop. We talk about how he came back from Silicon Valley to run a startup in India, his journey with Myntra, the famous Flipkart acquisition, building cult.fit, his fitness secrets, and much more! Stay till the end, because you cannot miss this one! ________________________________________00:00:00 A tease of what’s to come! 00:01:17 Intro 00:02:07 Travelling and imbalance of life 00:03:45 Fitness journey & starting cult.fit 00:06:17 Pressures from exiting behemoths 00:08:24 Evaluating the market for cult.fit 00:11:16 Going from insight to business 00:13:37 Experienced founder vs first-time founder 00:14:25 Achieving PMF by fracturing ribs 00:16:50 Initial days of building 00:19:02 First team behind cult.fit 00:20:15 0-1 journey post-acquisition 00:23:53 Did simplifying cult.fit take things away 00:26:29 Dealing with acquisitions 00:31:19 Merging cultures of acquisitions 00:34:57 Dealing with Covid shutdowns 00:42:12 Learnings from cure.fit 00:45:25 Solving operations is a HUGE task! 00:51:58 Shantanu’s insights on shaving 00:57:44 Entrepreneurship through listening to consumers 01:02:46 How did the Tata conversation happen? 01:10:07 Coming back to India in 2007 01:14:19 Initial idea behind Myntra 01:17:41 Figuring out PMF for Myntra 01:19:46 Growth of phones in India from 2011 01:21:16 How to build a team, and attract talent 01:24:46 Obsession with product 01:28:00 Driving mentorship from seniors 01:30:17 How did Myntra get acquired by Flipkart? 01:34:57 Mukesh’s personal journey in transitioning 01:36:19 Does Mukesh have sleepless nights? 01:37:46 Toughest time as an entrepreneur 01:40:53 What Mukesh would do differently at Myntra & cult.fit? 01:43:37 Building iconic companies 01:47:45 Takeaway for today’s entrepreneurs 01:52:37 Is this the golden generation of entrepreneurs? 01:55:09 Mukesh’s advice to the viewers 01:58:14 Concluding thoughts ___________________________________________ABOUT OUR CHANNEL My name is Shantanu and I am the founder of Bombay Shaving Company and Bombae. I LOVE entrepreneurship. Personally, I would rate myself as an average (at best) entrepreneur, but I love great ones. The BarberShop with Shantanu S2: Raiser’s Edge goes beyond our conversations from S1 on our podcast to tangible help. With the help of our sponsors at BSC and Bombae we have put together a season which brings together a corpus of 50+ equity seekers looking to support 20+ start-ups in their growth and success. We will be releasing an episode every Friday at 9 pm. Tune in and hope you enjoy. :) ______________________________________________