Gaurav Bora

PVR is struggling as it does not produce the content it shows As Bollywood movie quality plummets, all streamers that produce content are benefitting PVR's competitive advantage of being a distributor for all has become a huge disadvantage Distributors who produce are winning

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Some much needed positive news for the Indian gaming industry… IGPDA launches to support Make-in-India Gaming IP for the world! Proud to be a founding member of the newly launched Indian Game Publishers and Developers Association (IGPDA) — a united platform to amplify Indian creativity in gaming and take original IP to global audiences. This launch comes at a pivotal moment, with the Online Gaming Bill, 2025 laying the groundwork for structured growth and actively supporting social, casual, and cultural games. The focus is clear: build games that celebrate India’s stories, talent, and imagination. 🎮 From WCC to Ludo King, Indus, FAU-G, and more — Indian developers are ready to shape the future of gaming from India, for the world. IGPDA’s first proposed state partner is Maharashtra, with a vision to make Mumbai the global games hub. We’re just getting started. 🌐 Learn more: igpda.com Vishal Gondal #gaming #India

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Will this brand hit a growth ceiling soon? Is current growth based on strong brand/product For founders and even VCs evaluating 50 cr plus revenue brands who don’t have an offline presence yet and want to look at marketing metrics beyond LTV/CAC to answer these questions 10 metrics that can help 1. Total Media Spends as percentage of revenue This is a very hard metric without any assumptions and difficult to manipulate Plot Monthly Data for total Media spends across platforms ( Amazon, FB, Google etc) as a percentage of total Net E-commerce Revenue( Marketplaces, D2C etc) If this remains constant/reduces as the brand scales, it is a huge positive If this increases, needs double clicking 2. Advertising driven Sales At early stages, brands rely on pure performance marketing to drive sales. But this reliance should come down as the brand scales. Plot Monthly Data for percentage of Sales on e-commerce platforms directly driven by Ecom Ads, and percentage of sales on D2C directly driven by paid media If both remain constant/reduces as the brand scales, it is a positive 3. Organic Visits and Brand Searches For consumer brands, it is important to reduce their reliance on performance marketing by working on organic acquisition channels, improving brand awareness and good of word of mouth Tracking Organic Visits and brand search volumes on marketplaces and search engines are good ways to understand this If awareness improves, brand searches always improve. Both on marketplaces as well as google 4. Amazon Reviews and Ratings At scale, Amazon Reviews and Ratings are very difficult to game and gives a very true picture of quality and customer experience Rather than overall ratings and reviews, plot the monthly data of ratings Often early adopters are more considerate and rate new products better But if the monthly ratings remain consistently high with growing scale, it means the products are really good. And has a wider PMF beyond early adopters 5. Conversion Rates Conversion rates trends tell a lot about product-price-market-fit, and about the future scope of growth Look at monthly trends on conversion rates. With scale, conversion rates should go up on both Amazon and D2C A lowering conversion rate often means the in-market audience/core affinity TG is getting exhausted It is a big red flag if it happens as, it often indicates that future growth by paid media is going to be difficult and expensive 6. Repeats Repeat purchases are often the difference between the life and death for CPG brands with AOV on the lower side Look at monthly data on M1 and M3 repeats depending on the consumption cycle If these numbers keep on improving/keeps constant even when the brand moves and scales beyond its early adopters and core affinity TG, it is a big positive as it indicates product market fit at a bigger scale The remaining points are in the blogpost the link to which is in the first comment

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"Your product will do great on quick-commerce!" A statement which most of my portfolio brands get to hear from the ecosystem day in and day out. There are strong investment thesis' which are being circulated for "Q-Com Only" / "Q-Com First Brands", and people talking great about the progress of our Q-Com giants in India. But no-body is talking about on ground challenges which a founder is facing in their journey on quick commerce platforms. Let me share some regular incidents, I have witnessed myself along with my portfolio brands: 1. Let's say it out loud: On-boarding a quick-com is like securing a seat in a Delhi / Mumbai Top College. Everybody in the industry - founders, investors, enablers & ME - everybody is finding connects to the latest category managers / POCs across platforms to connect with our clients. 2. Employee attrition is massive, and there is 0 handover of data when your POC / manager changes. It's a mess for days if not months, once they leave. 3. There is 0 communication between buying teams and finance teams and brand owners get caught in their crossfires, ending up in late payments and liquidity choking. 4. It does not stop at communication gaps between buying and finance! a. Buying team's are raising PO's. b. Founders are shipping goods, which reach the q-com warehouse c. warehouse managers rejecting goods because they have no communication for these entries. d. Goods lying around in logistics partner warehouses for weeks, PO's getting expired. e. Amidst all of this, No Responsibility, No Communication, Nothing from the Q-Com Teams, because event they are not able to figure out how to handle this mess. 5. Didn't even want to keep regular payment delays at the top of this list as they are so common, and people have made peace with it. 45 Days Credit Periods, Payments coming post 90 Days and multiple follow-ups because, the Q-Com Partner was shifting its accounting software, and hence decided to not pay to anybody for a while. Not to Forget, Banks starting to disregard, Q-Com Invoices for Invoice Discounting Lines. 6. Q-Com Partners loading Ad Wallets, without prior approvals from companies, for amount more than 3x of the brand's revenue on their platforms, and asking brand owners to pay for it, while they promise 1.5x Ad Credit Instead, but please don't escalate these issues ahead. It is an operational hazard, but it is yet a necessary. Brand's posting celebratory / success stories with q-com platforms also going through the same issues. It is important to at least provide support to the founders who are being hit in this entire cross fire. Because, these are the same founders, who get calls to schedule meetings with the marketing teams of Q-Com's to decide their "Ad Spend for their next month", before their PO's are accepted by warehouse managers. PS: Attaching a snippet from a daily conversation with one of the teams across the platforms. Zepto Instamart Blinkit

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I’m beyond excited to announce that Dexter Ventures has invested in Jewelbox, a lab-grown diamond jewellery startup! And this is about why we invested here. Led by the Kolkata-based dynamic sibling duo Vidita and Nipun, Jewelbox is redefining and expanding access to luxury in India. I’m genuinely thrilled to support their mission to make sustainable, affordable diamond jewellery the future. Here’s why. Firstly, the Kochar siblings are a powerhouse. Vidita, an Indian School of Business grad and a former Swiggy category manager, and Nipun, her entrepreneurial brother, turned Jewelbox into a profitable gem since starting in 2022. - They are outgrowing competitors to gain market share in the rapidly growing LGD jewellery space while maintaining healthy EBITDA - They’ve scaled to 8 stores across six cities - Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai and more - aiming for 30 by year-end And what keeps them ahead is the focus on design, branding and technology, as they have keep coming out with ~300 new designs monthly. And amidst this, they also won a great feature on Shark Tank India. .. Also, look at the bigger picture. In India, where LGDs only make for 6% of diamond sales. But, in the US and China, lab-grown diamond-based jewellery has already cornered a large market, especially in the engagement and wedding rings market. As awareness in India builds up, the same is likely to play out in India, the world’s third-largest diamond market - which will significantly expand the market because LGDs are more affordable. And, Jewelbox nails this shift, offering stunning designs at up to 80% less than natural diamonds - think ₹80k vs ₹4 lakh (as they had also shared in their Shark Tank India pitch). .. Also, JewelBox is not just riding the LGD wave - it’s shaping a future where luxury is sustainable and accessible. Thus, I am very proud to join V3 Ventures (lead investor in the round) in partnering with Nipun, Vidita, and the Jewelbox team as they build a legacy of elegance for the modern Indian. Looking forward to a good and long relationship, full of unbridled growth and learning! Best, Anuradha Tags: Devendra, Rishabh, Jayant, Yash, Ankit, Dexter Capital Advisors

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₹350 cpv for auto ads. The question is does this marketing work? We see autos with giant ads on it everyday. But do you ever take action on such ads? Honestly I dont. I spoke to a couple Brand Managers & surprisingly, the answer is quiet to think about. Some say it works, some say they dont. - 72% of commuters notice the back panel of the auto directly in front of them. This is not optional attention. It is forced. Which is great in terms of placement. - This makes 51% remember either the headline or the colour, which is higher than metro pillars and bus shelters. - In Tier-2 cities, auto ads outperform small hoardings in brand recall. Mainly because the same ad hits you multiple times a week on the same routes. - Autos run in high-frequency, high-contact zones like signals, narrow lanes, school areas and markets. It is literally where real India spends most of its day. But there’s an other side too, which nobody talks about. Auto ads have real limitations. - The placement of auto ads has low-intent visibility. Yes, you see the auto, but you are usually stuck in traffic, irritated or distracted. - ⁠Auto ads score high on recall, but click-through intent is estimated to be below 1 to 2 percent for most categories. - If your goal is lead gen, app installs, or conversions, auto ads underperform massively. For most performance marketers, the cost per acquisition is 3x to 5x higher compared to digital channels. - An auto back panel has barely 3 to 4 seconds of readable exposure. If your product needs explanation, storytelling or education, it typically fails. - Another problem could be, that not all autos actually run on the promised routes. Agencies have reported 10 to 18 % cases of fake installs, damaged stickers, wrong placements or ads peeling off within weeks. - Auto penetration is strong in mass markets but weak for urban elite audiences. In metros like Mumbai & Bangalore, less than 9% of premium customers say they notice or remember auto ads.   So yes, their’s a question on traditional marketing, but the data is even more interesting. As a mass-awareness tool in India, autos are definitely unmatched. What do you think?

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#BrandAIVideo Can AI show tea leaves blending smoothly in a teapot? Apparently yes! When we started work on a new specialty Tea brand launch - TGC & Co., we wanted to capture the essence of fresh tea leaves getting plucked from the tea gardens of Darjeeling. Focus on the motion of plucking tea leaves. Then bring the story inside a house, where a fresh pot of tea is getting brewed. To place the products at the right place, getting the background consistently same we had to do multiple retries. The sound of teapot being put on the gas burner, warm tea getting poured into the teacup. AI is accuractly able to capture these. While yes the video still looks AI generated (and this video was made before Veo 3.1 was launched) some video models have progressed much further. Considering the development from last year, we can only imagine how good these models will become by next year. Stay tuned for more creative content, thoughts and ideas. ---------------------------------------- We're running these services under Zyng Media, a customer-focused media agency. Thanks to Aman Dewan sir for letting me work on this video and sharing to showcase AI's capabilities.

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Why is it that out of the 4000 D2C brands doing $1M of monthly revenue on Shopify, not a single brand is from India? The answer is a mix of technical and cultural reasons. I will start with cultural. Because that is valid not just for D2C but for other industries like SAAS and tech as well. 1. Our processes rely on people instead of systems. And as warm and loving as that sounds, it simply doesn’t work at scale. It is also the reason why Indian orgs have so much internal corruption as they scale. 2. We are a risk averse nation. Government jobs. Education. Safety net. These are the values typically passed down and get hardcoded in our DNAs. So even when we start a business, concepts of credit and debt are not used as efficiently as they should be. Heck even our investor community is the most risk averse in the world. Everybody wants to copy and follow what’s working. Nobody wants to take the leap and innovate. 3. Entitlement comes very fast Anybody who has earned a couple of crores in their lives thinks they are God. Several socio economic reasons for this that I won’t get into here. 4. We care too much about not looking poor. We want to spend like the west because it “looks” cool. A person on a 50k/m salary has a 1L iphone. A person who earns 20L a year as a 40L car. A D2C business owner who earns 10L per month pays 4L in salaries. A founder who just raised a round of funding will overspend on IIM/IIT talent and swanky offices they don’t need. 5. We outsource/delegate too early. Because labour is cheap, we are quick to hire. We don’t do our dishes and laundry at home so then why would we do the dirty work of our own business? (Entitlement again) ______________ Moving on to the non cultural factors now. Specific to D2C only. 6. Founders have no grip on their P&L fundamentals. Nobody knows what their real breakeven roas is in the 0-1 stage and they keep pumping in more money until they run out. 7. Marketing, Finance, Inventory, Creatives & branding are all deeply correlated. But founders are not building businesses trying to prioritise all of these together. The founder who is great at branding ignores finance metrics completely. The founder great at performance ignores branding completely. And so on. 8. Founders don’t know enough about their own businesses. Remember point 5? This causes a gap. And this gap keeps growing with scale. 9. We are 5 years behind western markets in technology adoption. Purely because of points 2 (risk) and 5 (early delegation). Case in point -> First party data adoption. This is the one single technology switch that has enabled US brands to keep scaling without dropping MER and nobody in India is talking about it. But why is nobody talking about it? Because the people directly responsible for growth are MBA peeps, not founders themselves. These MBA peeps are even more risk averse. This would have never happened if the founder had upskilled and kept up with what’s new in the world.

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Pleased to announce that Karekeba Ventures, among others, has invested in Stylework SaaS-based co-working/managed workspace aggregator Stylework on Wednesday announced the closure of Rs 30-crore Pre-Series B funding, which is planned to be deployed towards technology enhancement, domestic and international market expansion, and hiring key leadership personnel. Of the total funding, the company had achieved the first close of Rs 10-crore led by Equentis Angel Fund last month, with participation from Karekeba ventures /Cogniphy AIF Fund alongside continued subscriptions from Lets Venture Fund, MoneyVyapaar, HNIs and other strategic investors, Stylework said. Karekeba Ventures Kshitiz Anand Vishal Nikumbh

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With the Indian toy market expected to reach $3 billion+ by 2028, a surprising new category is stealing hearts—and shelf space: high-fashion designer collectibles like Labubu by Popmart. While the Labubu trend is currently on a significant high, and may eventually fade, the conversation around aesthetic collectibles reveals fascinating insights into consumer behavior and content culture. But who’s investing in this space? Not just kids, but... - Young adults chasing aesthetics, nostalgia, artist collections, and storytelling - Gen Z creators investing in shelfies and blind box culture for content - Collectors & flippers riding the resale economy hype So why are they buying? 1) Ugly-Cute Design: That mischievous grin, oversized eyes, and offbeat charm break the “cute” mold, and grab attention. 2) Artist Credibility: Created by Hong Kong illustrator Kasing Lung, whose storytelling and signature art style make it much more than a toy. 3) The Blind Box Rush: FOMO. Gamified mystery. The urge to complete the set. Collectors keep coming back for more. 4) Scarcity Fuels Value: Limited drops, secret editions, and resale hype have pushed some figures to sell for ₹2–4 lakh in the secondary market. 5) Asian Pop Culture Wave: Collabs with K-pop, anime themes, and POP MART’s global popularity ensure drops sell out within minutes. 6) Made for Social Media: From ASMR unboxings to GRWM accesories and “rare reveal” reels, Labubu even draws in people who don’t usually care for toys. At this point, the common Labubus sell for ₹2,000–₹6,000, rarer ones are going for ₹30,000 to ₹50,000, and sometimes way more. Do you own one? If yes, which one? And if you're curious where to get them, hit “Labubu” in the comments below for links. #Labubu #Collectibles #PopMart #ToyCulture #ConsumerTrends #IndiaRetail #DesignToys #BlindBoxCulture #PopCultureMarketing #GenZIndia #ShelfieCulture

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