Two by Two (Private)

Urban Company has spent years building trust as the go-to platform for home services. But a new generation of founders is now using the Zepto playbook to target its most profitable segments. On Two by Two this week, Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar are joined by Arpit Agarwal , a partner at Blume Ventures. The conversation explores the wedge strategy: how specialized startups like Snab...

Running a successful restaurant is hard. Scaling one without losing what made it special is even harder. This week on Two by Two , hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar talk to two people who are deep in that fight: Sameer Seth , founder and CEO of Hunger Inc. Hospitality (The Bombay Canteen, O Pedro, Veronica's, Papa's, Bombay Sweet Shop), and Karan Kapur , Executive Director of K Ho...

2025 is done. Forty-eight episodes. Hundreds of guests. Endless banter between Rohin and Praveen. This year, Two by Two covered stories from Bengaluru to the world including business, tech, and everything in between. We didn't just stick to the usual. We asked about people, trends, and the things others weren't paying attention to. We brought on guests who didn't rehearse their answers and tried t...

As we try to wind down this year, Rohin and Praveen do something they’ve never done before: go through every single episode they recorded this year. All 48 of them. In 60 minutes. The rules were simple. Each host had 10 points to build their personal top 10 list for the year. No take-backs, and no pre-discussion. It was a completely live, vibe-based recording where they figured it out as they went...

Swiggy just raised a billion dollars in its IPO last year. Now it needs another ₹10,000 crores. That's not a great sign. On Two by Two this week, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar try to make sense of the chaos in India's quick commerce space. Joining them are Ashwin Mehta , head of research at Ambit Capital, and Anand Kalyanaraman , finance editor at The Ken. Here's what happened...

"When you called me yesterday, I came up with eight different reasons to say no to you." That's Kosturi Ghosh , partner at Tri-Legal, explaining why she almost didn't show up for this podcast. It's a revealing admission and one that gets to the heart of why business and tech podcasts have such a lopsided gender problem. This week on Two by Two , hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar d...

This week on Two by Two , hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar dissect Meesho's strategy with Adarsh Menon (partner at Fireside Ventures and former head of Shopsy at Flipkart) and Ganesh Nagasekar (founder of GSN Invest). Fresh off filing its DRHP, Meesho has gotten here by doing everything differently. Zero commission when competitors charged fees. Optimizing for cost when others ra...

This week, Two by Two debuts a new format: "Reverse engineering the playbook." Hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan attempt to crack the math behind this recent wave of AI-telco partnerships in India. Why are companies like Perplexity, Google, and OpenAI racing to bundle their expensive premium subscriptions with Airtel, Jio, and Phonepe?  To decode the economics, they are joined by...

The popular narrative often blames Gen Z for a lack of ambition, but is it the millennials who are truly suffering from “ambition fatigue”? This week on Two by Two, the conversation takes its lead from The Ken’s deputy editor, Arundhati Ramanathan’s recent and concerning article, “Indian Tech Companies are Spawning an Ambitionless Generation”. Hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sit...

What is the “listing pop” that everyone is chasing, and does it still matter six months later? This simple question is the starting point for a deep look into the current boom in the Indian Initial Public Offering (IPO) market. Despite a massive influx of investor wealth, the standards for companies going public have significantly dropped.  In this episode of Two by Two, co-hosts Rohin Dharmakumar...

What’s the dumbest thing about hospitals that we still tolerate in 2025? This simple question kicks off a deep dive into the broken core of the Indian healthcare system. From confusing X-ray pricing and misaligned incentives that prioritise “sick-care” over healthcare, to the irritating experience of endless queues and fragmented records, the problems are deeply entrenched in the system.  In this...

In this episode of Two by Two, we map out a viable AI strategy for India that plays to its unique strengths, not its weaknesses. Co-hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sit down with Chaitanya Chokkareddy, co-founder and CTO of Ozonetel–a cloud-based communication platform providing call-centre solutions—who presents a contrarian view: India’s current focus on acquiring GPUs is a fla...

In this episode, we sit down with Ishendra Agarwal, founder and CEO of Giva, to unpack his mission to democratise fine jewellery in India. We look at how Giva is rapidly scaling its omnichannel presence with over 270 stores and targeting Rs 850 crore in revenue, all while catering to the modern consumer’s desire for accessible, fashionable pieces.  Co-hosts of Two by Two Rohin Dharmakumar and Prav...

India’s fintech-based NBFC lending sector offers many lessons. Three early pioneers—Capital Float (now Axio), Zestmoney, and Lendingkart—raised significant amounts of venture capital, built solid momentum, and achieved growth and penetration. They pivoted, explored multiple opportunities, and yet, ultimately had to sell out.  In this episode of Two by Two , co-hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen G...

In this episode of Two by Two , co-hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar are joined by Ayyappan Rajagopal, founder and CEO of the quick-commerce platform Firstclub. A veteran of India’s e-commerce sector with leadership roles at Flipkart, Myntra, and Cleartrip, Ayyappan shares his vision for a differentiated experience in the crowded quick-commerce market. While existing platforms are...

In this episode, co-hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar sit down with Munaf Kapadia (VP of growth and marketing, Natfirst), and Arjun Anjaria (founder, Unbox Health) to discuss the challenge posed by misleading food labels in India and the resulting deterioration in consumer trust.  Unbox Health uses independent lab testing to verify product claims, creating an objective D to A+ rat...

How does the India head of a global, category-creating giant view its future in arguably its most complex market? In this candid episode of Two by Two , we sit down with Prabhjeet Singh, the president of Uber India and South Asia, to deconstruct the company’s biggest strategic challenges and ambitions in the country. Prabhjeet breaks down Uber’s “barbell strategy”—a delicate balance of serving bot...

While India produces millions of graduates every year, the stark reality is that many remain underemployed, and some are increasingly turning unemployable. Contrary to popular belief, this is not merely a problem facing social science or non-STEM students. Data from the past decade shows that 40% to 50% of engineering graduates from Indian universities have not been placed in jobs, underlining the...

Whatsapp is the fastest and the best way to reach hundreds of millions of Indians, which makes it a dream distribution channel for everybody. But its owner Meta maintains an iron grip on its APIs, pricing, and policies, making it a risky place to build. This is Whatsapp’s double life.  This deadlock is why Whatsapp is universally used but not universally loved by India’s users. It’s why startups h...

Launched in 2016, UPI now dominates retail digital payments in India, accounting for over 80% of the volume and processing a massive 300 million transactions every month. What began as a government-funded project is now a public utility.  Unlike private companies like Visa or Mastercard, government-funded entities like the Internet or the World Wide Web are not typically judged in terms of profita...

In this episode of Two by Two, we discuss pest control.  It’s an old industry with little to no innovation, but there’s reason to take notice. Currently valued at $1.8 billion, the market is projected to grow to $3.1 billion by 2033, clocking a steady annual growth rate of 15%. Private equity wants in. Two service providers have been acquired by UK-based Rentokil. One is Pest Control India (PCI),...

In the first episode of season two of Two by Two , we unpack India’s evolving economic story at a pivotal moment—amid global uncertainty and rising US tariff threats that some have dubbed India’s "second 1991 moment." We break down the promise and illusion of India’s economic outlook across two critical dimensions: macroeconomics and markets. The narrative of GDP growth powered by rising productiv...

Join Rohin and Praveen as they celebrate the one-year anniversary of the 2x2 podcast, reflecting on 52 episodes of business and strategy discussions. This special ‘vibes’ episode looks back at their journey creating Two by Two , the evolution of the show, and future plans, deviating from their usual topic-focused format. Praveen shares key meta-narratives he picked from the past year, including a...

In 2016, Mukesh Ambani stood on stage and made a promise that seemed impossible. Jio would give away data virtually free and still build a profitable business. The telecom industry laughed. Six years later, Jio had 450 million subscribers and had driven three major competitors into extinction or merger. Now imagine that same playbook applied to your money. Last year, when Jio partnered with BlackR...