ChaiNet: The Agentic Commerce Podcast

India is protein-deficient. So I turned the country’s favourite snack into the solution. On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Razia Ali, founder of Poptein, India’s first protein popcorn. After 20 years at Dell, AMD, and Yahoo, Razia walked away with a few lakhs, a WhatsApp number, and a Wix website. Four months later, she’s bootstrapping a clean-label protein popcorn brand. We talk about...

On this episode of ChaiNet, Asgar Dungarwalla, founder of GiftsOnline4U, shares his journey from the RAF to building an e-commerce business in 2007, when people were scared to use credit cards online. Today, his team of five sells over 4,500 personalised products, including AI-generated caricature gifts made from customer photos. In this conversation, Asgar talks about: - What e-commerce looked li...

She spent 28 years climbing the corporate ladder. Won awards. Did everything right. Then one day, she threw all those trophies in the trash and walked away. Today, Shilpa Arora is the only woman among five co-founders at Insurance Samadhan, a company that has recovered over ₹220 crore for Indians cheated by their own insurers. She also pitched on Shark Tank. And has a lot to say about what it actu...

On this episode of ChaiNet , we sit down with Burak Karabulut , co-founder of Boost Up Solutions , a consultancy that helps brands actually get value from the martech they’ve already paid for. After four and a half years at Insider Turkey’s first software unicorn, Burak watched brands sign six-figure deals, get excited about flawless demos, and then fail to use the platform three months later. Tha...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Jashid Hameed, co-founder of Nuvedo India’s first premium functional mushroom brand. After IIM Indore and a career managing 25 fast-fashion stores, Jashid walked away to grow mushrooms. When he entered the market in 2021, it was practically empty. Even on Shark Tank, one shark had to be told that mushrooms are fungi, not plants. Today, Nuvedo has create...

On this episode of ChaiNet , we sit down with Lokendra Tomar , founder of Diabexy India’s first and largest manufacturer of low glycemic load food products. Lokendra spent years selling diabetes medication at Sun Pharma, but something bothered him: he was selling management, not a solution. He left, started nutrition consultations, and built Diabexy. Today, the brand has ₹16 crore in revenue, 2.1...

On this episode of ChaiNet , we sit down with Nirav Bhatt , founder of Sellers Umbrella , an Amazon agency that has managed over 200 brands and more than $5 million in ad spend. After six years at one of India’s top Amazon agencies, Nirav built his own firm to help founders move past guesswork and build real growth on the platform. Key insights from the conversation: * What separates winning Amazo...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Charles Roche, co-founder of The Roche Hair Experience. After 19 years in fuel logistics, Charles left a stable career to build a wig company built around one belief: losing your hair should not mean losing your confidence. He opens up about the moment he decided to start, the first six months of building while still working full-time, the hardest conve...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Seena and Reyana, co-founders of SheR HQ, a platform that helps health and wellness brands build online communities people actually want to be part of. Both founders have deep experience inside some of India’s most interesting health companies, Seena at Rocket Health, and Reyana leading content at Rocket Health and building community at Databeats in Sin...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Anant Bhat, Co-founder and CTO of Paperflite. After a decade at Cognizant, Anant left to build a content intelligence platform. But today, we’re talking about what happens when AI agents become the shoppers instead of humans. In this conversation, Anant breaks down: * What changes when AI agents shop on behalf of consumers? * Whether great creatives sti...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Amit Singha, founder of Anuprerna. Amit left a high-stakes M&A career at Infosys to go back to his roots in West Bengal. Today, he works alongside artisans who carry 200-year-old traditions, connecting them to modern markets. In this conversation, Amit opens up about: * What made him walk away from corporate life to count handloom threads in a village?...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Matthew Taff, co-founder of Natch. Matthew landed in Mumbai from New York and saw something most locals had stopped noticing a gap in the market for honest, premium snacks. In 2017, he and his wife Meher took the leap. Eight years later, they’re still here. In this conversation, Matthew opens up about: * What jumped out at him when he first walked into...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Manish Paul, founder of MoePuppy. After his dog Juno passed away because he couldn’t get a vet in time, Manish walked away from a 16-year trading career to build something that mattered. His first venture, Monkoodog, grew to real revenue and made it to Shark Tank India auditions, but eventually had to shut down. Most people would have stopped. He starte...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Ravi Rathi, founder of BLEP Pet Food. After a decade in banking, defense tech, and political consulting, Ravi’s world shifted when his German Shepherd, Max, got sick from premium kibble. That personal crisis led him to question what actually belongs in a pet’s bowl. He left his career to find answers. Today, BLEP has delivered over a million meals to th...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Jigar Mehta, founder of Honey Twigs, India’s first squeezable honey brand. For 2.5 years, Jigar was a showcaller at Kingdom of Dreams, controlling every second of 250 performances and working with the biggest names in entertainment at the IIFA Awards. He had the kind of career most people in live entertainment dream about. Then he walked away. Years lat...

Most fitness brands make money when you quit. You sign up, stop showing up, and they keep charging. Anish Menon thinks that’s broken. He spent four years inside The OutFit Gym learning the business, watching what worked, what didn’t, and why most people never see results. Then he built LIFTR Strength and Conditioning on a simple bet: align the gym’s incentives with the members’ goals. Eight locati...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Ravi Gupta, founder of Guugly Wuugly, a father who turned a frustrating shopping trip for his daughter into a D2C kidswear brand. With no fashion background, he couldn’t even tell cotton grades apart. Ravi left his IT job at Wipro to build something meaningful. He traveled thousands of kilometers across India, visiting manufacturers and learning textile...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we welcome Bella Vasta, a 20-year veteran of scaling service businesses, a former National Pet Sitting Business of the Year winner, and now an AI optimization strategist. Bella knows the struggle firsthand: the systems every growing business needs (hiring, onboarding, operations) rarely get built because creating them feels like work that pulls you away from the busines...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Apeksha Jain, Founder & CEO of The Gourmet Jar. In 2012, long before clean labels and D2C food were mainstream, Apeksha launched a gourmet condiments brand in India with zero preservatives, small batches, and premium pricing. Growth was painfully slow for years, but she stayed committed to quality when shortcuts could have accelerated everything. Today,...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Darshankaur Khalsa, co-founder of Pets of Paradise. After pitching dog ice cream brand Waggy Zone on Shark Tank India and receiving five “nos,” Darshankaur didn’t quit. Instead, she transformed her vision, merged into Pets of Paradise, and shifted focus to serving India’s massive first-time pet parent market. We dive into: * What she learned from scalin...

On this episode of ChaiNet, meet Shweta Poddar, founder of CandidMen India’s only men’s-only rental fashion platform. A woman founder in the world of men’s formalwear, she built a profitable, bootstrapped brand by ignoring conventional startup wisdom. Shweta’s journey began when her own data revealed a clear mismatch her inventory was women’s, but her customers were men. Instead of following the c...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Aasis Katyal, founding member of GOAT Life, just seven days after their game-changing Shark Tank India appearance. While the spotlight showed five Sharks fighting to invest, the real story unfolded off-camera over 16,000 orders flooding in within a week, backend systems pushed to the limit, and a 15-person team operating under unprecedented pressure. In...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we speak with Denil Dedhia, founder and CEO of Bowlful Foods, a bootstrapped D2C brand bringing authentic, convenient Indian meals to the world through freeze-drying technology. Tired of bland ready-to-eat options while studying abroad, Denil returned to India and bet on an overlooked food-tech method to preserve taste, nutrients, and authenticity. Without outside fundi...

On this episode of ChaiNet, we speak with Masroor Lodi, founder of Unlock Fit, a pioneering wellness platform that builds AI-powered health programs based on your DNA. After a successful career at Unilever, Sanofi, and founding The Entrepreneurship School, Masroor walked away at age 40 when genetic data revealed a truth he couldn’t ignore: most wellness plans are generic, but our bodies are not. W...

On this episode of ChaiNet, a mechanical engineer turned operator shares how a semiconductor supply chain career became the launchpad for a D2C fashion brand in India serving 1 lakh+ customers and doing around $65,000 in monthly revenue. We discussed: * Moving from engineering and supply chain into fashion without formal fashion training, and scaling 5x by focusing on business fundamentals and com...