Hello there, thank you for tuning in. This is Dhruti Shah and welcome to the Resilient Entrepreneur podcast, where every month I bring to you the story of an entrepreneur who is proven to be unstoppable because they're resilient. This podcast is a culmination of my own story of resilience.
As someone who taught herself early on to be mentally tough, I came to realize that success stories are great to remain motivated, but true learning happens when you fail, you stumble, you reflect, and you rise. This podcast is an attempt to bring to you, to my listeners, the situations that test your nerves, your grit, and your resilience. If you listen closely, you will hear the entrepreneurs reflect, and who knows, you may have some light bulb moments yourself.
The Resilient Entrepreneur is brought to you by C2COD, a firm that specializes in people and strategy together. With that, let's meet my guest today, coming right up. Before I bring in my guest on our first episode of this wonderful new year, I would like to wish each one of you a beautiful, lovely, and resilient 2024.
May this new year be filled with boundless achievements for you and your loved ones. My guest today is someone who is deeply passionate about conscious living. She believes that everyone deserves a better food system, and she's actively building one for all of us.
Joining me in a few minutes is the dynamic CEO and founder of Wildermatt, Shweta Thakur. Wildermatt is a AI-powered health food store which offers over 1,500 products across 30 categories, ranging from certified organic staples to F&B, plain label artisanal food packaged foods to chemical-free personal and home care products. An alumnus of XLRI and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Shweta started out as a banker at HSBC, handling roles ranging from strategy, data analytics to sales and marketing.
After a very successful banking stint, she kick-started her entrepreneurial journey and co-founded Graffiti Collaborative, a communication agency. Shweta describes herself as a mother of five furries, a vegan for 10 years, an environmentalist, a health feed, and a hippie child who has seen the difference food choices can make on her mind, body, and spirit. She is on a mission to empower people to be able to make more informed food choices.
So here is Shweta for you. Hey, Shweta, so good to see you. Thank you for joining us.
Hi, Dhruti. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me here.
This is actually my first podcast, so I'm very excited. Oh, that's brilliant. It's always good to be somebody's first, you know, podcasts.
Yes. Great. Shweta, you know, I was, we've had a conversation before.
I've looked at what you do, and from business banking to creative agency to Walmart, what's been the journey like? Well, I think something that I have said, I mean, it happened when I was in college. I went to LSR, and I was studying statistics. And it happened, the first time it happened was then where I understood what serendipity was.
And, you know, basically, I got through economics, math and statistics. And I chose statistics, which was the oddest combination. And, you know, quite against my parents wishes, because they're like, you're getting economics, who chooses statistics.
But I did that. And somehow, you know, when the dots connect now, where you have to understand data and analytics, it works out. So I think most of my life has been like that, you know, serendipity.
So, you know, things have been coming. And I just say, yes, like the movie, Yes, Man, I say yes to what comes my way. And it just opens out into a beautiful space.
I think it's been a good journey, very diverse. And tell me a little bit more about WilderMarch, you know, how did that come into being? So again, I mean, I think the journey started very early on about 10 years back. And it started because at that point in time, I was I'm still very climate conscious.
And at that time, I was trying to figure out ways and means to cut down my footprint, climate footprint. And somebody I did all these, you know, switch off your tap and switch off the lights and don't turn on AC like I went for years without using air conditioning. Even now, I don't use it, for the most part.
But then someone told me that, have you looked at your food? Because at that time, I was a violent meat eater. And then they were like, have you looked at your food and the food print? I was like, no. And I didn't even like obviously understand that there was something like food print at that point in time.
And then I watched Cowspiracy. And overnight, I went vegan from being a meat eater. And it's 10 years this month now.
So I went vegan. And then I started understanding about food because still before that, I hadn't questioned my food. It was a very business as usual kind of thing, whatever I was being fed.
If I liked it, I ate it. If I didn't, I didn't. So it was all a palate based decision till then.
But when I started reading about food, I understood that, you know, there's a lot of complexity in that in the food systems that have been designed today. It is how it affects the planet, how it affects our health, how it affects the animals, the people on the journey. And it is a very broken food system.
And so when I went on that journey of changing food and researching that, that's when I started skewing towards health. And by then, I think 10 years back, I had already started a lot of steps and measures of what I would call broadly healthy, like I was never, I've never been a workout kind of person. But I've always watched what I'm eating, not from a diet perspective, but just like greasy food and stuff just doesn't sit well with me.
So I've kind of started connecting with my body a lot more. And when I went vegan, that happened a lot, lot more where, you know, I could understand signals from my body, you know, when it was aching, hurting, what could have gone wrong and things like that. So the journey of health started then.
And more than health, I think, personally, for me, it was this idea that how can something so basic, which is food to be so broken for all of us, like we have 7 billion people trying to eat, and we haven't got that right. Like, so that's when it started irking me that I need to do something about that, like, I need to be part of the solution. And not just, you know, just because I went vegan, that can't be my only contribution to this game.
And which is where I think it started. So at that time, when I had an agency, I started working with brands, which were in the clean food space. Then I started an event in Bangalore called Wilder Fest, which was essentially a flea market, which was a vegan conscious, first vegan market of Bangalore.
And from there on that Wilder Fest kind of became Wilder Mart. And it's just an extension of that journey of food that I've had, and primarily around the aspects of food, not just the taste of the food. Nice.
Oh, my God. So there's, of course, this realization, and I hear a very clear purpose for why you're doing this. It's much more than a business idea, right? It's something that you are clearly very passionate about.
And you've done this massive research around it. One of the things I always hear in entrepreneurs, and that impacts directly their mindset is you could be passionate about one thing. But when it comes down to the economics, and you know, you've studied that, when it comes down to that, how do your decisions get impacted, you know? Well, that is a mindset decision, actually, you know, so when I quit my career, I was, when I was with HSBC, I had just moved from Bombay to Bangalore.
And I was handling business banking in Bombay, and because you're from this tier one B school, so you get to work with the business heads and stuff. So I had a fabulous first work experience at HSBC. When I came to Bangalore, at that time, I was literally peaking in that part of the career, because I had done this massive 100 crore deal for the bank, and the bank had given me like an award, global hero award, the global CEO came down and gave all that.
So I was really peaking at my career at that point in time. And then a friend of mine asked me, hey, Thakur, you want to start, everybody calls me Thakur, but hey, you want to start a business? I'm like, cool, like, like I said, serendipity, I'm like, okay, it came my way. And I'm like, okay, what do I have to lose at this point in time? Because, you know, I'll try it out for a couple of years, if it doesn't work out, I'll come back to my job, I have no liabilities to work towards or something.
So I was very free in my mind when I took that first step towards entrepreneurship. And I think that was about 12, 13, 14 years back. And I think I got addicted after that.
Because that rush that you were feeling was not of building something and of creating something was not the same rush that I was feeling at my job. And, and of course, I took obviously, there was no money, there was no money at all at that point in time. And the money has been way lesser than you know, what I would have earned in my because I know what my peers are and where they are in their careers.
But and it comes down sometimes, you know, you have those dark moments and you're like, shit, what am I doing with my life? And was this the right decision? But you wake up and it's a fresh day. And you're like, yep, absolutely the right decision. So I'm very happy with where I am in my life.
And I have no regrets that I did not earn as much my family has a lot of such regrets. My parents are like, Oh, you go to a B school. And this is what you do after that, since you could have done without that.
I'm like, yeah, cool. It just happens. But yeah, so it is tough.
And financially, it gets struggling at points in time that the economics don't always work out. But I think it's about staying on track and knowing what you're doing and why you're doing it. Like you said, in my case, it's and I tell everyone, it's not actually passion.
It is just purpose. It is just purpose. I believe that with my time that I've been given on this planet, I need to do something more than myself and my immediate circle of people.
And this is my my legacy, or this is my way of contributing to the world today. So that drives and when that mental switch happens, no, it just it just drives you and yeah, you can you can take a few lesser holidays and buy lesser clothes, which I anyway do because I'm climate conscious. So a lot of my expenses are anyway not there.
So it's been comfortable that way. It just suits your overall lifestyle sounds like that, right? It falls in place with that. And that's correct.
I heard a little bit around. Of course, there is the financial pressure a little bit, right? And the social aspect of it as well. How do you cope with something like that? Because I think a lot of entrepreneurs go through that, right? It's not easy to make that decision.
And you were lucky that you do not maybe have the financial liabilities or debts to take care of. There are people out there who really want to become an entrepreneur, but are just stopping themselves short because they're like, oh, my God, how am I going to support my family if this goes on for you? You know, given that, OK, maybe the financial pressure was not as dire, but there was clearly a social aspect of it as well. How did you handle that by not caving in? How did you stand strong? Well, so what happened with the social circle is that the social circle itself shifted for me because when I started my entrepreneurial journey till before that, my entire social circle was my B-school friend circle, right? And which is a very different friend circle.
And when I started, even at the workplace, I would still hang out. Like even at HSBC, there were these graduates who had come from the schools and you would start hanging out with them or seniors and stuff like that. So your social circle was slightly high profile, I would say in that sense, seniors and stuff.
But when I started up at that time, because also because I started a creative agency, I went from being in a finance world to a complete shift where there was like completely disorganized bunch of people, you know, writers and designers and filmmakers. And their point of view and life was very different. Like and what happened to me at that point in time was that this entire structure broke down for me.
Like, till before that, I was this very milestones person, like all of us are, we're raised like that. So my parents said, these milestones in my life, you need to have a career, need to get married, need to have children and things like that. And that entire setup broke down very early for me, four years into my career, it completely broke down.
And I was like, wow, I was living in a bubble at that point in time. And when I came out here, I met a lot more people a lot. And I realized that those these full crowd was very small percentage of the rest of the world.
And I'm like, Oh, my God, I have been living in a bubble. And this is the real world. So my social circle actually changed.
And then I started hanging out with these artists and designers and stuff, because I wanted to understand how they view the world. And of course, I was learning a lot, because as a career, I had taken a career change about into a field that I had no idea about. So I started spending a lot of my time with them.
And I think then it just happened that okay, the B school culture stays in some part when I go for a Diwali party or something like that. But a large part of my social circle itself shifted. So I became one with a larger group of people.
I moved out from that top 1% into the 99%. And you know, so therefore, it didn't affect them. But if you ask me quite honestly, does it affect me when I go back into that circle and meet people? Maybe I mean, quite honestly, sometimes it does because you look at their lifestyle and stuff.
And honestly, I love my life. But still, when you go into that lifestyle, you feel like all right, will I be asked questions which I am not wanting to answer not because I don't I mean, I can't answer I would love to answer but then your view of me would change for some reason. So you have to really understand me to be able to understand what I'm doing.
And thankfully, my immediate friends circle from my school is really, really honest. I think they've been very honest bunch of friends right from the beginning. And they know me so they know that I will behave a certain way.
So they don't expect anything less of me or anything more of me than what I am. So that's also been very good. I think from the family side has been a little off because my parents are not that proud of me anymore, which they were when I went to a B school and I went to a bank and I was earning a salary that my father had never earned.
So you know, it was something to really shine about. And after that, they're like, yeah, cool. She's doing a business.
We're not entirely sure why. So after that, they stopped talking about it. So the family side of it gets affected.
So I think the friend side is still cool. Of course, of course. And what I'm also hearing is, you know, but creating your own tribe in that sense, you know, connecting with people who really share your purpose, your values and your goals.
Yeah. Other than dragging yourself in a direction that you know, your heart is not in it. Right.
And exactly. Thank you so far. And the way I am looking at it is, you know, thinking about well, the first of all the mark, it's just the start of something beautiful.
Right. And you are still in that. I mean, I know it's not been, you know, more than a decade or anything like that.
You're still getting started in that sense. And that's the beauty of entrepreneurship, right? That you're getting started almost every day because another idea and you pivot, you know, another idea, grow, you scale. You just don't know what's waiting for you.
And I think that's absolutely strength to kind of hold on to that. And, you know, I believe that this is my purpose and your words. And I've been put in this world to do something bigger and I'm going to do it.
That's it. Come with me. You know, correct.
Yeah. So I completely relate to that. And that says, have you had, you know, talking about having a support system, have you had any mentor or coaches along the way that have really supported you or has it mainly been leaning on this, you know, this amazing group of people that you're with? What has that been like? So I've had at different stages.
I would not, I mean, I really would love to figure out if there's a long term mentorship relationship that people have had. A lot of them have had that and it's been fairly lucky for them, I guess. For me, I think at different stages of my career, different people have come and played that role out for me.
So when I was with HSBC, the head of business banking at that point in time was the coolest guy and you could not have a better first boss. Right. He just he just did not look at me in any other way.
So which is why one of the things that happened for me was also that this unconscious bias that you have for women at workplaces and therefore the career from then on. And I'm asked a lot of questions about women entrepreneurship. That boss of mine made the difference, I think, in my life because he never saw me as something else other than an individual that was working on it.
And because of that, my mindset from there on was like that, that I never saw people for gender, race, any kind of this. They were just individuals who had a certain skill and talent to give in. So he was really mind blowing at that time.
When I moved into an agency, I had a couple of people from other agencies and other clients, actually, seniors in the industry who saw what I was doing. And again, I had come from a place, very different place, not from, you know, the Ogilvy's of the world where typically that's how you start an agency. You work at an agency and then you start out.
So it was refreshing for them, I guess, because I was coming with no baggage like that or no preconceived notions. So I was challenging, you know, a lot of things which would have just been understood in an advertising space. So.
Right. Yeah, I think. And today, today, for example, who I really love is Sairi Chahal.
She's been like a pillar for me because she's an investor with us. And I truly did not understand. I mean, I wanted when I raised my round last year, I wanted at least one female investor because I'm like, how can it be that there is nobody? Because, you know, women are my core audience and I am building a team.
And today, honestly, I mean, while I say I'm not biased towards the gender, but I love working with women today. So I mean, and then I was like, no, I have to get a female investor. So she's been a pillar because she's kind of navigating a lot of things, helping me navigate a lot of things, which I don't even know exists.
So, for example, you know, that this this boulder will come in your way. I don't see it right now, but she's probably seen it in her journey and she can tell me and warn me about it. Of course, vicarious learning is something that, you know, you seldom do unless you hit that boulder.
You'll not realize, oops, boulder. But yeah, but it helps. Absolutely.
And people like them who become our role models, they kind of show us that boulder a little bit early on so that we don't get smashed into that. Absolutely. Because I have her interview in my book as well.
And she is one hell of a lady. I love her. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic.
I love people who call a spade a spade. Like that's the kind of people and I've been fortunate to be mentored and trained by people like that. So I think my personality also started kind of becoming more like that.
Yeah, fantastic. And, you know, again, it comes to who we surround ourselves with, you know, that makes us who we are as an individual and has such a huge, immense impact on our experiences. Right.
As we move forward. Have you had any kind of routines? Because I know of entrepreneurs, you know, who have a certain routine. There is also books on them like the 5am club and all.
But yeah. Have you followed any routine that keeps you in that right mindset to go and get shit done? You know, I'm a very routine person. Yeah.
Yeah. So I'm a very, very routine person because I believe that kind of discipline, what it does is it cuts out the clutter in your head. And honestly, like, I would not have thought of these things before, like when you are in college and you're reading these books, they're like, OK, you know, I don't know.
But when you actually start doing it, you will see that it just changes like there are a bunch of things that I do, which is like really set in stone. So 5am club. Yeah.
I mean, for the last, I think, two years now, I've been waking up at 5am. It has changed my game because those three, four hours that I get in the morning is just a very different undivided time where I can get a lot of stuff done. You know, I have routine about my food.
I have very good discipline with my food and that has helped like really over 10 years the way I have eaten has changed my body. Like I have energy, which is much higher. I can go for 12 hours working, not get exhausted, not miss out on my personal commitments to my friends, family, all of that.
I'm able to manage my time. So my food has helped a lot. What has also helped a lot is single tasking.
Earlier, I was a very proud multitasker and like, oh, my God, I can have so many tabs open in my head and be cool about it. Later, I was like not worth it because you're not doing justice to anything then. So now I literally calendarize everything you want to talk to me.
It has to be in the calendar and I train my team like that. So everything in my life has become about time and project management. That's essentially and people management.
That is what I'm focusing on as an entrepreneur, but also as a person, as an individual, like if you can manage relationships, that people management, if you can find time for them, that's time management. If you have to take your pets to the vet, you know, that's that's also project management, like, okay, in my day, it has to fit in somewhere. So it's all about routine, because that really works out.
It helps declutter a lot of things. So you're not thinking something like right now, when I'm talking to you, I don't have anything running in the back of my head. So I'm totally committed to you.
And I'm in the present moment. And therefore, the whole experience of that is much, much richer. Yeah.
And I don't know if you've read that book, right? The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. No, I haven't. But I've read the summary.
Beautiful book. It's a beautiful book. And I highly encourage you to read that.
It's fantastic. And also also reading, you know, talking about routine and what keeps you really going. I don't know if you have moments like that, right? I was reading about Jerry Seinfeld, the famous actor, right? Yeah.
He says that, you know, before I have to go in, and on the set, right, I'm in my green room. How I get into that moment is I just wear my jackets. And I walk the room back and forth.
And that gets me into the zone, right. And in terms of top performance or however you want to put it. So I think a lot of people have these little habits, if I may, to keep them in that zone.
For you, for example, waking up at five, really ensures that you remain on top of the day. And that is on top of the game when it comes to your company as well. So fantastic.
Anything else, Shwetha, that you want to share, you know, with aspiring entrepreneurs, or people who are already out there, not quite sure what they want to do, but maybe have a, you know, have an idea in the plunge? What pushed you to do that? If you can share a story around that, and maybe a tip for them at a later point, that'd be great. So I think it's that mindset, which is about not just entrepreneurship, but it's a mindset in life that you need to have where you need to be open to what's coming. Like I have one of my tattoos read embrace change.
And if you if you're not able to embrace change, change is genuinely, I mean, however cliched it is, change is the only constant, you cannot avoid it, you cannot run it, run from it, the harder you try to push away, the more it will hit you in your face, and not in a way that you like. So I think being open to just how the universe is and accepting it like one of the, so once I had taken out time to actually train for Jeet Kune Do, which is Bruce Lee's form of martial art. And what I really liked in that three month period was that I was being trained in philosophy as well.
So it was a lot of mind and physical training that I was going through. And one of the key aspects of Lao Tzu philosophy that I took away is the acceptance that there is a larger system at play. And you're a mere cog in that.
And the minute you can accept that, then you are prepared to do anything about it till you're fighting that fact that there is something bigger and larger. It's not going to happen for you. So when you are trying to even live life, I would say, live life accepting that there are bigger things at play.
There's nothing in your control. The illusion of control is just an illusion. So you take your chances.
If you don't take your chances, like a friend very early on in my life told me that, hey, I've come back here talking to you because I don't want to take that chance of what if, you know, like you don't want to live your life with what ifs, right? So you want to live your life taking the chances. And what's the worst that will happen? I have lived my life with the philosophy. If it's not dead, if somebody is not dying in the process, then that's not the worst.
But that's really the worst that can happen. And which will also happen. It's not really worst.
I mean, it's part of the process. But if I'm not killing anybody, I can take the chance. And so it is about taking chances.
Some will work out, some will not work out. And you have to be very unequivocal in your life about that, like accepting your defeats and your failures with your successes and all this stuff that they tell you in the books are for real. And I think you realize that only once you grow up, you know, when you're still in your 20s, you're like, all this cliche and stuff, but it's all for real.
So you have to stay very calm in your head. So I think spirituality for me has helped a lot of this navigation where you start accepting and letting go of things like you, you cannot control everything. And hence you take take your chances really.
So if you're scared, if you're wondering what will happen, what is the worst that will happen, really wait out two years, you will live without salary, you will not go out to party, your lifestyle will change. If you have kids, of course, you have a lot more responsibilities. And if you have dependents, you have a lot more responsibility.
So probably you have to think a lot harder, but see if you can take that chance. Because what if it doesn't work out, you can always go back, right? Like, unless you get addicted, like me, you love the pain, you don't want to go back. Yeah, so that's also why I have that many tattoos, because I got addicted to that pain for that period.
And it's fine, like, it's okay, you got to live your life. And what else is there to do? Actually, if you think about it, you know, when you let go of all these small tiny pieces, you have like 60, 70, 80 years of time, what are you going to do with that time, you have to at some point in time, commit to yourself, right? A large part of your 20s, you're living in like this whole rush of getting somewhere, then you get married, you have children. And then when you come in your 30s, you're like, now what, you know, like, I have hit all those milestones that I had to and now the next milestone, my kid is going to get married.
So now in the middle is the time for you and which is why we are focusing and we are asking our customers to focus on health at that point in time. But if you want to focus on entrepreneurship or taking those chances in your life, please do. Yeah, there's nothing better than that.
And, you know, that's pretty much what truly staying resilient is all about, right? Everything that you've shared, right, from, you know, the purpose that you have, to creating a tribe for yourself that works for you, right, to spirituality, accepting for things as they are and accepting in, you know, the bigger picture, maybe buying into that entire philosophy, and having that routine that really keeps you going, right, all of that. So, Shweta, here is to taking chances. And I really hope that everything that you've shared with us today will go on to inspire entrepreneurs.
I wish you all the very best, both in your personal and professional life and, you know, stay resilient. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dutee.
And I wish you the same. You're doing something really fabulous. And I think resilience is a message that people need to learn, not just again, in their professional life, it's just a life thing, you have to bounce back.
Because again, what else is there to do? If you have a choice just to stay something you don't. Yeah, please, please driving that resilience and tell people to be more resilient, because I think we'll be better that way. Of course, as a society, as an individual.
Exactly.
It's always a pleasure to speak to a resilient entrepreneur. And Shweta has definitely proven that more than once in her career.
So let's bring in my producer, Remuna. Remuna, what did you think of this conversation with Shweta Thakur? Hey, Dhruti. And before I share my thoughts to all our listeners, hope you're all doing well, wishing you a fabulous year ahead.
Please do keep tuning in to the podcast. Dhruti and I have an exciting lineup of guests for you this year. Yep.
Coming back to Shweta's conversation, I loved her energy, you know, the optimism that she literally embodies. You can hear it in her voice, in her journey. That's very bring-it-on vibe. I think that's gotta be a great asset to have when you are an entrepreneur. Right? The other thing is, she referred to the 'yes man' thing so I feel like that open-mindedness has served her really well in her journey. Shweta is definitely someone who does not shy away from challenges or new opportunity.
Oh ya, That's exactly what stood out for me as well, she is not by standard to challenges. she is not someone who operate from a place