Episode 4: E-commerce for Bharat! Ft. Swati Bhargava, Co-Founder, CashKaro

From growing up in Ambala to building a company with annualized sales of INR 4000 crores! 🚀 Meet the woman who co-founded one of India’s largest e-commerce companies. 🙌 Raising money from Ratan Tata, going through a kidney transplant, supporting young founders and breaking multiple stereotypes along the way, this is Swati Bhargava's story! Swati grew up in Ambala and was always a bright student. She secured a 100/100 in Maths in the 10th grade. 💯 Seeing a bright spark her parents encouraged her to apply for a scholarship program in Singapore which only took 25 students from all over India. Through pure hustle and a never say never attitude, Swati got selected for the program and excelled in her 2 years in Singapore. She then applied for her undergrad at London School of Economics and got a full scholarship there as well. ⁣✅ It was at LSE that Swati met the love of her life Rohan Bhargava. ❤️ Always having an urge to build something of their own the duo started Pouring Pounds in the UK and launched CashKaro in India.🙌 The business saw immediate product market fit and Swati & Rohan started scaling the business sustainably. 🚀 CashKaro raised an initial investment from Vani Kola at Kalaari Capital and then also got the legendary Mr. Ratan Tata as an investor in the company. 💪 On his thesis of why Mr. Tata invested he said “in a country which loves to save, you are giving people cash back. What’s not to love about the business” 😎 Over the last few years CashKaro has scaled to become one of India's largest e-commerce companies doing annualised sales of INR 4000 crores, serving 20M users and working with 1500+ partner brands. 🚀 With India’s e-commerce market at 6% of overall retail, compared to 16% in the US and 30% in China, there is huge scope for CashKaro to grow. There are $B cashback sites all over the world and CashKaro is positioned to be that company for India. 🇮🇳 Swati's story is one of being persistent, never giving up, taking every opportunity and always smiling along the way! On the podcast Swati also shared how she bounced back from her Kidney transplant, and how it is important for founders to take care of their health and be measured in the face of success and failures. ❤️ If you are building the next big consumer business from India, apply to the ACLR8 program today. www.aclr8.vc / hello@aclr8.vc ✅ Content Timeline: ------------------ 2:45: Growing up in Ambala 04:00: 100% in Maths in Class 10. From Ambala to Singapore to LSE 09:00: Importance of supporting young girls in their education and career. 11:30: Life at Goldman Sachs 13:30: Meeting Rohan and starting up in London 16:00: Launching Pouring Pounds in UK 17:00: Getting an acquisition offer for 1 million pounds 18:43: Launching CashKaro in India 20:20: Raising $750K in 72 hours 21:00: CashKaro's business model 29:30: Scaling to INR 4500 crore annual sales. CashKaro's current metrics 34:00: Growth of e-commerce from Tier-2/3 cities 37:00: Launching EarnKaro and 3 other brands in the CashKaro umbrella 37:45: Building a billion dollar business over the next few years 40:45: Tapping 150K Kirana Store network to scale assisted shopping 42:00: Selling a luxury brand product through Kirana stores 43:30: Scaling profitably and sustainably 47:30: Trends in D2C ecosystem in India 52:15: Raising money from Mr. Ratan Tata 1:00:00: Scaling from good to great 1:03:00: Hiring the best founding team 1:05:50: Advice to couple preneurs 1:07:10: Importance for founders to build a personal brand 1:09:40: Bouncing back from Kidney transplant and striking a balance between work and health 1:12:30: Rapid fire with Swati Bhargava 1:17:10: Where can ACLR8 add value to founders 1:18:18: Partner Testimonial Ft. @grod2c . #podcast #podcasting #podcasts #podcastshow #trends #cashkaro #swatibhargava #aclr8 #aclr8vc #cashback #india #startup #entrepreneur #startupindia #entrepreneurship #business #founder