'Entrepreneurs must have courage to continue', says Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl

From Snapdeal's birth and evolution to his faith in startups and possible lessons from upcoming IPO, Bahl has a freewheeling conversation with Nivedita Mookerji

This lunch has come after months of trying to meet Kunal Bahl — an entrepreneur and investor rolled into one. Bahl, co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal, tells me he prefers to stay away from media glare these days. “I like it this way,” he says as we recall the last time we met several years ago in Snapdeal’s Gurugram office.

This time we are at Aerocity—Delhi’s latest go-to place. Bahl’s choice is Kampai, a cosy Japanese restaurant with ikebana style flower arrangements for that authentic touch. We look for the best table and then decide to settle down in a private dining room for an uninterrupted conversation, and hopefully an exciting meal. I follow Bahl, who’s familiar with the place. He takes his shoes off in a corner. I do the same. The Japanese paraphernalia, including the low-seating tatami décor, makes us crave for some Yakult or melon soda. But in the absence of any truly Japanese beverage, Bahl asks for Coke Zero and I take a Sprite. We get talking about our recent vacations— he, Mukteshwar and I, Shimla -- as Bahl orders the starters.

I’m curious about how the man who had started Snapdeal along with Rohit Bansal more than a decade ago has kept pace with the developments that his startup firm saw in the last few years. Will it be correct to call the company Snapdeal2.0 now? Bahl’s answer is philosophical: “Why go into the past when there’s so much to do in the future?” I persist. From Snapdeal competing with the best in the industry to the new path altogether, how does Bahl interpret the transition? “In the history of a company, five years is a long time. The change at Snapdeal five years ago coincided with the Jio and 4G revolution. From a low base, the number of internet users zoomed to about 800 million in a short span of time… The new internet users who came in were very aspirational but affordability was important.”

We talk about the wide-ranging brands that are available now in smaller towns. The gap between aspirational and affordable brands is narrowing, he says. A lot of new brands don’t position themselves as budget brands but as aspirational, Bahl explains. “They know people are not willing to pay huge money. Around 95 per cent things are below Rs 1,000 on Snapdeal. Thousand rupees is a lot of money for most people in the country.” So many of the newer brands that could never become mainstream have actually become so, he says. Urban Company is one such. “People didn’t believe in it when we invested many years ago”

The conversation veers to Covid-19 and how Urban Company became a household name. “The last three years I have not gone to a salon. All my haircuts are at home. My habit and so many others' won’t change.”

We are digging into spinach tofu salad (shira), which looks like cake and is delicious. There’s dimsum of two kinds—both well cooked and right for this setting. Rather than the food, Bahl stays focused on our talk, unwilling to lose the thread of the conversation.

“We invested in Ola back in 2011… People had little faith in an app for cabs at that point, but we have to keep challenging the ecosystem.”

As we try the chicken dish (chicken gyoza), I ask him what it was like to make the shift to a new ecosystem. He tells me about the earlier focus on electronics and mobile, even though it was tough to make money in those categories. Now, it’s more about categories such as fashion, home and beauty. These can be monetised in a positive way.

“We got off the hamstring (selling items and never making money) in 2017.” It should not be a battle of capital, he says emphatically. Could the trajectory have been different had there been a merger with Flipkart, as was the buzz back then? “I spend zero seconds thinking about it. We should be thinking of the future. We have good businesses, good team… And with our experience of being founders and entrepreneurs, we are able to provide mentorship and investments to new startups.”

Hot dimsum (tenshin) melts in the mouth and we move on to Bahl’s present, and yes, future. His tweets on his daughter learning the national anthem on the piano, on angel investors and many more have been prominent. “I tweet once or twice a week. Most recently, I had posted a photo of my US visa getting rejected when I was only 23.” After the H1B visa for employment with Microsoft got rejected, the company offered him a job in India; instead, he chose the entrepreneurial route. The rest is history.

Bahl tells me how he and Bansal started investing in startups as a hobby, and then it became institutionalised. “When we started, there was no ecosystem of mentorship. People didn’t know startups. An investor back then was willing to put in Rs 50 lakh in our business and wanted a large share in the company. We knew we had to change things.” There have been some 280 investments by the duo in 11 years. It’s tough to give a value, Bahl says.

The starters are almost over and I ask Bahl about the main course. I want to know more about his streak to fund other startups. Did anyone inspire him? He names Jeff Bezos as one of the many entrepreneurs funding startups for many, many years in the US. Bezos has invested in Google, Uber, Twitter among others in the angel rounds. From Bezos to Ratan Tata, one of the early backers of Snapdeal. Talking about his first meeting with him, he describes Tata as a great listener. “After I made my pitch, he (Tata) had only one question about the supply chain in the business.” And my answer better be good, Bahl says with a laugh!

We decide to skip the main course after an interesting range of starters. I’m hoping for dessert but Bahl disappoints. He’s not into sweets. Before we plunge into the final leg of our conversation, we order green tea for Bahl and cappuccino for me.

I ask him if he ever wanted to be a really rich person. He weighs his words: “While money is important, I believe in never letting one’s personal lifestyle be guided by success.” That has given him peace, he says, as life is filled with ups and downs. He fleetingly refers to moments of darkness and how people can help each other. Bahl, who saw success early in life, says only three things are important to him: health, family and freedom.

During our conversation, which has lasted almost two hours, ‘family’ has figured many times, with an air of warmth. But I can’t let Bahl go without bringing up the subject of Snapdeal’s upcoming IPO. How would life change after the IPO? “I don’t know how life will change but we already have the building blocks of good governance in place.” He talks of the quarterly audits being done in the company, but adds, ‘’There will be learnings, I’m sure (from the IPO).”

The man who co-founded the original online marketplace model in India recently raised the issue of the funding bubble bursting. But he wraps up the afternoon conversation, saying, “Bubble is part of a cycle. Troughs and peaks are both transient. Entrepreneurs must have the courage to continue.” On that note, we leave the restaurant. Soon, I get a WhatsApp message from Bahl asking me if I got a discount on the bill since he had done the booking with a membership card. I assure my guest that the discount was indeed reflected in the bill.