Sramana Mitra: Are these people in your payroll the people who are doing the delivery? Ricky Joshi: It depends. Sramana Mitra: It sounds like a very expensive infrastructure. That’s what I’m struggling with. For a bootstrapped company, to roll out that kind of infrastructure is rather difficult. Help me reconcile. Ricky Joshi: We’re doing $25
Sramana Mitra: Absolutely. Tell me more about the business itself. First and foremost, who were the people involved when you got this off the ground? You mentioned your co-founder. Where did he come from? How did you meet him? Where do you know him from? Ricky Joshi: There are basically three co-founders of the company—myself,
Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about the dysfunctions of the industry? Why does that industry warrant starting a new company? Ricky Joshi: You basically had four manufacturers who controlled 81% of the market. Majority of them were public companies. The average margins of manufacturers is around 40%. On top of that, you have distribution companies that
I have spoken with many VCs who are looking or e-commerce companies that can scale at venture pace, which is hard to achieve. On the other side of the spectrum, however, the bootstrapped e-commerce companies are going gangbusters! Saatva is one such and a terrific company. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your personal back story.