$450M, 6 Brands & 4 Countries: Why Sunil Agrawal Refuses to Stop

Summary

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Operators Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: $450M, 6 Brands & 4 Countries: Why Sunil Agrawal Refuses to Stop
Podcast: Operators
Date: July 16, 2026
Guest: Sunil Agrawal (Founder, Visual Group & Shop LC)
Hosts: Sean Frank, Mike Beckham, Matt Bertulli, Jason Panzer

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Episode Overview

This episode features Sunil Agrawal, founder of Shop LC and Visual Group, a publicly traded, multi-brand, vertically integrated enterprise operating across four countries. The discussion centers on Sunil's journey from gemstone supplier to a vertically integrated retailer, his philosophy of business as a platform for good, and scaling a business that now delivers 57,000 meals per school day with an ambitious "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" (BHAG) of 1 million meals by 2040. The conversation covers the evolution of the business, challenges of public markets, managing growth, leadership principles, AI and robotics in operations, and family values in entrepreneurship.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Company Scale & Purpose

• Company Age & Scope: Visual Group started 46 years ago; Shop LC, its consumer business, began 19 years ago.
• Scale: $460M revenue last year, 6 brands, operations in 4 countries.
• Purpose Beyond Profit: Sunil focuses on impact: “I look at the business not in terms of dollars as much as pieces sold, meals delivered.” (00:27)

2. Going Public and Shareholder Dynamics

• Public for 30 Years: IPO’d in India decades ago.
• Benefits of Public Markets: Access to funding, share-based rewards, M&A currency.
• Challenges: “A lot of compliance, quarterly results… but it was good for us because it gave us additional currency for awarding our good employees and retaining them.” (01:19)

3. Vertical Integration & International Footprint

• End-to-End Control: The group manages gemstone manufacturing, jewelry design, logistics, and retail across India, China, Thailand, and Bali.
• Retail Evolution: From gemstone supply to brick & mortar (Caribbean/Alaska), then TV and online home shopping.
• Key Decision: Exited brick & mortar post-2008 crash, focusing on TV and digital.
• Current Brands & Geographies: Shop LC (US, UK, Germany) plus supply chain brands in Asia.

4. Business Evolution & Reinvention

• Pressure to Reinvent: Ongoing need for growth—public market expectations drive constant adaptation.
• Quote: “The growth is crucial for pretty much all stakeholders.” (07:19)

5. Stakeholder Approach

• Multi-Stakeholder View: “We consider biggest stakeholders, employees, number one; customers, number two; then shareholders and communities, vendor partners, governments, Mother Earth.” (07:19)
• Balancing Act: “It just becomes natural to you over time.” (07:53)

6. Personal Drive and Leadership Journey

• Longevity & Passion: “I've never thought of exiting the business. I'm enjoying what I do… the business takes care of so many stakeholders.” (08:24)
• Leadership Evolution: “Doing → Directing → Empowering → Inspiring. … My favorite stage? Empowering. It allows me to see people grow and thrive…” (13:07, 13:46, 13:50)
• Learning: “The learning is my personal mission.” (09:31)

7. Mission-Driven: The Meals Program

• Origin: Inspired by Blake Mycoskie (TOMS): “We sat thinking… what can we do that can be so impactful?” (14:26)
• Implementation: For every item sold, a meal is given to a child in need, now across all brands.
• Current & Future Goals: 57,000 meals/school day, aiming for 1 million by 2040. (13:13, 13:21)

8. Succession & Family Philosophy

• Next Generation: Sons encouraged to be independent; not directly involved in the business.
• Family Values: Kids earn pocket money, taught consequences/freedom, encouraged to chart their own path. (56:05, 57:08)
• Quote: “My sons never got pocket money ever. They had to make the money… [we] would only provide their education, best education.” (56:17, 57:08)

9. Embracing (and Rejecting) Technology

• AI as a “Once-in-a-Lifetime” Opportunity:
  • “This is bigger than dot com.” (35:07)
  • Recent platform migration (Salesforce Commerce → Shopify) made possible by AI: “It took us five months and about half a million dollars. Four brands moved to Shopify.” (26:34)
• Robotics:
  • Introduced robots in warehouses (“robots in cages”—29:34), but removed them after cost analysis prompted by hosts: “I fired the robots… they were costing more than people.” (30:19)
  • Will revisit as technology matures.

10. Operations, Category Management, and Customer Metrics

• SKU Complexity: 90,000 SKUs across brands; 28,000 in Shop LC alone. (27:57, 28:03)
• Category Testing & Buying: Launches 100 new products daily, tests in small quantities, expands into winners; speed leverages in-house manufacturing for jewelry especially. (45:22, 45:34, 45:49)
• Growth via Acquisition: Recent acquisitions in e-commerce and TV retail (24:36)
• Customer Lifetime Value by Channel:
  • TV-only: $800
  • Web-only: $100
  • Multi-channel: up to $20,000 (47:51–48:29)
• Product Range: Everything from jewelry to dinosaur replicas (43:20), price points $10 to $20,000 (53:21)
• Return Rate: Approximately 18% in the US, varies by category (54:27)

11. Marketing and Channel Strategy

• TV Shopping: Live 24/7, can't "market" the channel effectively—depends on channel surfing & engaging content. (61:44–62:43)
• Digital Transition: Migration to Shopify, use of AI, focus on DTC and auction-based platforms.
• Live Shopping: “Invented” online live shopping before current trends; sees great opportunity as AI enhances experiences. (36:31–37:14)

12. AI, Automation, and Jobs

• AI for Efficiency: Has not replaced employees; rather, moves them to revenue-generating or new roles including category management. (33:26)
• Philosophy: “AI is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to learn and leverage.” (34:48)

13. Growth, Future Plans & Profitability

• Growth Target: 20%+ per year to hit the million meals goal (55:26, 65:01)
• Strategic Agility: Open to new markets (targeting India & Japan), not wedded to Ecom only—will go where growth and opportunity are.
• ROIC Focus: Minimum 20% return on invested capital for any venture. (66:17)
• No Detailed Roadmap: “We are going with a BHAG… open to any possibility of platform, product or strategy.” (65:21)

14. Leadership Principles and Personal Wisdom

• Most Important in Leadership: “Listening skills.” (69:28)
• Most Important in Business: “Empowerment.” (69:38)
• Contrarian View: “Doing good is good for business.” (69:07)
• Overrated Tactic: “Media buying.” (70:22)
• Underrated Tactic: “Team building.” (70:35)
• On Letting Go: “Let people run the business. Even if they make small mistakes, I let them learn from the mistakes.” (60:58)
• On Impact: “Biggest joy I get is to see people thrive… and really progress well in life.” (59:25–59:44)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I look at the business not in terms of dollars as much as pieces sold, meals delivered.” – Sunil (00:27)
• “We consider biggest stakeholders, employees, number one; customers, number two; then shareholders and communities, vendor partners, governments, Mother Earth.” – Sunil (07:19)
• “I've never thought of exiting the business. It's just that I'm enjoying what I do.” – Sunil (08:24)
• “Doing → Directing → Empowering → Inspiring. … My favorite stage? Empowering. It allows me to see people grow and thrive…” – Sunil (13:07, 13:46, 13:50)
• “We sat thinking… what can we do that can be so impactful?” [on meals program inspiration] – Sunil (14:26)
• “This is bigger than dot com.” [on AI] – Sunil (35:07)
• “I fired the robots… they were costing me more money than I would have with the people.” – Sunil (30:19)
• “SKU count? … Shop LC: 28,000; All brands: about 90,000.” – Sunil (27:57–28:03)
• “Customer who buys from five platforms… lifetime value is $20,000.” – Sunil (48:18)
• “AI is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to learn and to leverage.” – Sunil (34:48)
• “Minimum ROIC we need for any venture, it's 20%.” – Sunil (66:17)
• “Doing good is good for business.” – Sunil (69:07)
• “Empowerment.” [most important word in business] – Sunil (69:38)
• “Media buying [is overrated]. Team building [is underrated].” – Sunil (70:22, 70:35)
• “Let people run the business. Even if they make small mistakes, I let them learn from the mistakes.” – Sunil (60:58)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Business Scale and Meals Program: 00:27, 13:13
• Going Public & Shareholder Pressure: 01:10–01:33, 07:19
• Origin Story and Early Business: 03:15–03:47
• Vertical Integration & International Expansion: 02:18–02:47
• Leadership Philosophy: 13:07–13:50
• Mission Impact: 14:26–15:13
• Tech & AI Journey: 26:29–27:41, 34:48
• Robotics Experience: 29:33–31:42
• SKU and Category Complexity: 27:57–28:32
• Customer Value by Channel: 47:51–48:29
• Family & Succession Philosophy: 56:05–58:32
• Product Launch & Assortment: 45:22–46:04
• Returns Handling: 54:27–54:44
• Growth & Future: 65:01–66:06
• Leadership & Business Wisdom: 69:07–71:19

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Final Thoughts

Sunil Agrawal’s story is one of relentless adaptation, deep stakeholder commitment, and an unwavering belief that business can—and should—do good. With uncommon operational complexity, a digitally forward mindset, and a clear sense of mission, this episode serves as a rich case study in building enduring, impactful brands in the modern era of e-commerce.

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Transcript

[Host]

Sunil, just introduce yourself. Tell us. Tell us about the business. Where are we right now?

[Sunil]

So we are@shop LC started this company 19 years ago, part of Visual Group, which I started 46 years ago.

[Host]

Your company's older than me.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's my same age. Guys, it's incredible.

[Host]

The entire group of companies. You're publicly traded. So you can say what is the total size of the business today?

[Sunil]

Yeah, so last year we did $460 million revenue. But I look the business not in terms of dollars as much as pieces sold, meals delivered. So we have 57,000 meals per school day. My hope and aim is to take it to a million meals per school day by 2040. That would mean that we need to grow 20% or so something every year at $450 million.

[Host]

20% is like $90 million that you have to add to the business. So you are. You're publicly traded too? Yeah, that is very rare in consumer. We've long talked about this on the show that like consumer companies typically don't go public. How long have you guys been public and where are you public?

[Sunil]

Yeah, we went public in India 30 years ago.

[Host]

What does it mean to be public then? So, like, we're neither one of us. We run private companies.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

Can you just unpack that for me?

[Sunil]

So a lot of compliance, a lot of shareholder outreach, investor meetings, quarterly results. Quarterly investor meetings. So a lot of compliance and engagement with investor community.

[Host]

Okay.

[Sunil]

But in retrospect, we went public when we did. And when I look back, I probably may have delayed going public. But it was good for us because it gave us additional currency for awarding our good employees for retaining them. And as a currency, if you want to acquire another company, it's additional currency.

[Host]

Got it.

[Sunil]

There's a lot of benefits to that.

[Host]

And how many employees today?

[Sunil]

Shop LC has about 325 group wide, about 3500.

[Host]

Okay. In the group, what is the rest of the group? So Shop LC would be the online shopping, TV shopping. What's the rest of the group do?

[Sunil]

Yeah, so the the of rest, we are a vertical company. So Shop LC is the front retail company. We have supply chain that we own ourselves from gemstone manufacturing, jewelry design, jewelry manufacturing, logistics, all come to retail units. We also have similar business in UK and Germany. So we have total six brands within the group. They are retail brands and supply chain in India, China, Thailand and Bali.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's incredible.

[Host]

You basically do everything but mine the gold and the stones.

[Sunil]

Yes. And there's something that I don't want

[Host]

to go in no, you decide you stopped at digging the hole. That was like, we're going to go as vertical as you can. Just like. But right there, that's.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Somebody else digs it. He wants the pretty things out of it.

[Sunil]

There's enough to do here.

[Host]

So take. Let's go right back to the beginning then. What was the first version of this business? Because as I understand it, there's been like lots of iterations as we go.

[Sunil]

Yeah. I started 46 years ago as a lapidary gemstone. Lapidary. We made those gemstones, supplied those gemstones to people who are making jewelry and then supplying that jewelry largely to TV shopping companies.

[Host]

Okay.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Which is your biggest competitor? Yeah.

[Sunil]

Slowly over the years we went from gemstone to jewelry manufacturing to. To brick and mortar retail and then to TV retail.

[Host]

Do you still have brick and mortar retail?

[Sunil]

No, no. So we set that up in 2005. We built it up to 19 high end stores in Caribbean and Alaska. And when global financial crisis hit, nobody was going on cruise ships, nobody wanted to buy jewelry. So we sold that chain off, penny on the dollar.

[Host]

And when did the home shopping, like this sort of digital, like you're. We're going to walk around, you're going to show us this. But like when did this version start that. It was right after that.

[Sunil]

We launched in 2006.

[Host]

Okay.

[Sunil]

In UK, then 2007 in Germany and US.

[Host]

Can you talk to me about. So you were selling to the existing TV people and then you, was it their model that inspired you to do this? Like, what did you see from them? That you were like, I want to do that.

[Sunil]

So it was more constrained for our growth. So we were already public company and investors expected us to grow revenues and profitability. We were OEM when we were selling to TV shopping or retailers like Walmart or Macy's and we were competing with everybody else in the world. Thai companies, Chinese companies, other Indian companies, European companies. So the profit got squeezed pretty hard.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

So we thought there's no other way for us to scale except to go into retail. And that's when it happens.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Did you tell them that you were, did you tell them that you were going into it yourself or did you kind of ride right, like, well, I know, but what do you do? Like, I mean, did you, did you kind of slowly build it up and then eventually they had to have seen you on their radar?

[Sunil]

This is something you can't keep secret.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. So you announced it to me.

[Host]

You're on tv, you can't keep it secret.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Which is actually I think the most interesting part of his story is, right, we all talk about being entrepreneurs and working 24 7, but Sunil, they don't lock the doors here.

[Host]

What?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, it's.

[Host]

You're on air 24 hours a day.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, it's so cool. Wait till you see this.

[Host]

What's the longest workday you've ever done?

[Sunil]

Well, in early parts of my business, I remember doing 72 hours stretch.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Sunil.

[Sunil]

I remember that.

[Host]

Elon, eat your heart out.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That's the old like 72 hours work. And your business, I mean online, I guess we're all 20, 24 hours but you're actually operating live TV 24 hours a day.

[Sunil]

So 32 hours much prior to the TV. So there was when I was doing the gemstones.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay.

[Sunil]

So I didn't know at that time how to delegate. I was doing, I was buying, I was sorting, I was supervising manufacturing, I was selling. So there was a time right before a major exhibition in Italy that we had to prepare and everything and it needed all hands on the deck for three straight, straight days.

[Host]

So you built a competitor business to the companies that you were selling to. You're public, you made this comment that shareholders are always looking for growth. Is that, that's gotta still be true today. And is this sort of the through line? When I look at like all the iterations of your business over time, is that kind of like one of the through lines is like you just constantly have to reinvent yourself because of this public pressure.

[Sunil]

So there are a lot of stakeholders in the business, not just shareholders. So we consider biggest stakeholders, employees number customers, number two, 10 shareholders and communities, vendor partners, governments, Mother Earth. So all these stakeholders take their share in our decision making. So the growth is crucial for pretty much all stakeholders.

[Host]

Do you not find it hard to balance that? Like the community level versus a shareholder, like a public market shareholder is a very different stakeholder than a, like a local.

[Sunil]

So all the time it just balanced. It is not that you consciously have a balance sheet or the excel sheet on that and make those analysis, but it just becomes natural to you over the time.

[Host]

Did you know, I mean, it's so hard to answer this, but like did you know that you were gonna be in business this long? Like was that always the vision was like, I wanna build something enduring and long lasting? Or were you at one point like, I'm going public to get the exit and then I'm outta here?

[Sunil]

You know, I've never thought of exiting the business. It's just that I'm enjoying What I do. And a business takes care of so many stakeholders. We have. We distribute 57,000 meals every school day. So the thousands of kids. Every day, Every day, every school day. So those hundreds of schools and thousands of kids look forward to come to school as a meal. We have 3,500 employees. Their families are taken care of. We have 140,000 shareholders. They are loyal to us and we want to make sure that they are well taken care of.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I have to tell you, I've known Sunil for several years and he's gonna be. He's very humble. But this man cares more about and this is a lesson I think we all need to hear constantly with our companies. I think Sunil cares more about his family that is here like his employees and what's giving back. And a thing that's always, I don't know, I guess impacted me that you talk about is that you feel like you have to constantly keep learning.

[Sunil]

Yes, sure. The learning is my personal mission. Yeah, I enjoy learning and the business allows me that every day. But the point I was making to Nat's question is that the business continues to grow for the sake of all stakeholders and it's not just shareholders alone.

[Host]

What do you spend your time on now? Like where do you. Because when we run into each other at events like walk me through a typical day, a typical week, because you're. You don't live in Austin, Texas full time anymore. You're also back in India. So I'm just curious, like what's a week in? What's a week in your life look like?

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[Sunil]

Well, I get up at 5:00 every day. I work out or do yoga and then my day starts at seven o' clock and I work about ten hours a day, but I sleep seven to eight hours a night.

[Ad Voice 2]

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[Host]

Yeah, I know, right?

[Sunil]

The life is good. I stay positive through my breath works and meditation. I stay healthy with the workouts and yoga.

[Host]

Do you spend time on a particular area in the business today that you is? And how has that changed? I guess like over the last 46 years.

[Sunil]

Initially I was more into doing the stuff, but I learned pretty quickly that this is not sustainable. It's not. It won't grow if I keep doing stuff. I had to learn to delegate. It was not easy. So from doing to directing to empowering to inspiring, that has been the journey. I'm not fully there yet. I'm still in some part in doing some part in directing.

[Host]

For sure. You're still in doing. I mean you're in text groups with us where we talk about media buying. Like you're there. So you're definitely still in it, which

[Co-host/Interviewer]

has been your favorite stage of those. Those four or five.

[Sunil]

Empowering.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Empowering. Why?

[Sunil]

It allows me to see people grow and thrive and meet their life goals. That really makes me feel a bit. I'm making impact.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You are making an impact.

[Sunil]

Well, no.

[Host]

You're feeding 57,000 meals a day, dude. That's impressive. Was that always part of it too?

[Sunil]

No, it came about, I think, 12 years ago. We were at a conference. We heard entrepreneur named Blake Mykowski. Oh, yeah, Tom Shoes.

[Host]

Tom Shoes.

[Sunil]

So there were 3,000 people in the audience and he got standing ovation. And that day we sat thinking. We were eight of us from our visual group there. And we sat thinking, what can we do that can be so impactful for the world? And there we came up with the idea that every piece we sell, we give our meal to a child in need. So we started with our UK operation there. And then we saw that the employees in UK had additional reason to come to work. Not just paycheck. There was a mission and they were connecting with that. The customers were connecting with that. So we expanded that to US and Germany, all six brands.

[Host]

So you're very public with that as part of the brand and the mission, with a goal.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Your goal being?

[Sunil]

Yeah, we have a bihag mission of 1 million meals by 2040. Like per day, Per school day.

[Host]

That means you have to sell a million things a day. So your employees are like, what?

[Sunil]

It's per school day. So it will be almost 600,000 pieces per school day. Per day. So million pieces per school day.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But you're almost halfway there now.

[Sunil]

No, we are 57,000 meals per school day.

[Host]

It's got to go 10 times.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Well, then you can't quit anytime soon. Sunil.

[Sunil]

I'm enjoying what I'm doing. There's no reason to quit unless I meet. I hit a truck.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You hit. Unless you get hit by a truck.

[Sunil]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Well, okay, that's a good reason. Yeah, that's a good reason. Yeah. We could think of a couple others too.

[Host]

If it's your truck, it's definitely a recent event to quit. Can you. Did you have like, where does this, like, some of this stuff come. Did you have, like, really good mentors when you were younger? Because you. This whole, like, I'm on a mission to learn and continue to learn. And I. We see you in these groups, like, where. Where did you first get this? Sort of like not drive, but I guess like, his characteristic is quality.

[Sunil]

Yeah. My grandfather has been my role model. So he was a freedom fighter when India was under Britishers so he went to jail many times when Britishers sent him when he was protesting. And after India got free in 1947, he took upon himself on behalf of government to spread the cotton spinning and yarn billing and Vedic all across North India. So he was managing 100,000 people for the government and he was very ambitious for the country. So I learned a lot from him. How to manage the ambition, the values.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Did your father work with him too?

[Sunil]

My father was a photographer and he was such made man.

[Host]

These are the photographers and consumers.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

We're brilliant.

[Host]

You're everywhere.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. But you're very close with your parents still.

[Host]

Yeah. Your. I'm still stuck on this. Like you've. You've had to change the business while being public. Is that. I mean the communication of that must be not easy. Like I could just imagine you got a hundred some thousand shareholders. So we're going to change the business direction. How do you do?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How. When you. Because right now you're leaning into digital. Right. It's always been TV and just what's come from that? How. How did you pitch to them that advertising on social media was going to be the way of the future? Right. How did.

[Sunil]

So there is a going process right now.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

So every quarter we communicate how far we've come on digital journey and we inform them to the board as well as the shareholders. And we've got a lot of support from the investor community for our transition journey from TV onto the E comm.

[Host]

Has one of the business models over time been like much harder than the Others?

[Sunil]

Yeah. From B2B to go to B2C we made multiple attempts to go that go there. The television was towards the end, but before that we did brick and mortar multiple times. Didn't go well, but we kept on flying and shareholder had support because our B2B supported that. We didn't initially for initial attempts we didn't raise any additional funding. But for this TV and brick and mortar retail chain that we set up in Caribbean Alaska, we raised around $70 million as additional funding in our public company.

[Host]

Okay.

[Sunil]

It's called pipe investment.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Would you go back into brick and mortar now? Now that this company and the product catalog alone. Well, not just jewelry, they do.

[Host]

I know they do everything. I mean we haven't even gotten to like the skew count yet. But I mean jewelry as his own thing is like a great brick and

[Co-host/Interviewer]

mortar and it's kind of a cool story that it's like tanzanite. Right. Can you. Do you know this.

[Host]

No no, no, tell me.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

So there was a gemstone. I was in Japan and a customer said, sunil, do you have this gemstone? It was blue color. And I said, what is this? He said, tanzanite comes from Tanzania. What is special about it? It's real, really rare stone. If you can get it, I buy as much as you have. Next week, I was on flight to Tanzania and I bought everything possible. And we became known for this stone because we started promoting in Caribbean, Alaska for cruise ship. We started promoting on television and became big thing.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you not remember growing up? Well, no.

[Host]

Look at me.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay. So I have to tell you, I remember traveling with my mom and my family as a young girl. And I remember, and I'm pretty sure we were on a cruise going to like St. Thomas or the Bahamas, and they would educate the people about tanzanite. And it was different colors. It could be blue or purple. And. And we all got to pick out pieces of tanzanite, like a necklace. But that was you out marketing brand. Oh, my God. That's so crazy.

[Host]

When is this. This the 90s or the 2000? Like when. Just give me time.

[Sunil]

So 90s. We started early 90s.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. You were being born. Matt, you can't.

[Host]

Oh, I'm.

[Sunil]

I'm.

[Host]

I'm an 80s baby.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I. I think it's pretty cool that that was you. I mean, who would have thought? So cool.

[Host]

I got a super, like, very niche question for you because the. The jewelry thing fascinates me. How do you deal with the rising gold prices?

[Sunil]

Yeah.

[Host]

Like the last couple years, what happens

[Sunil]

is when the gold price goes up, if revenue is going up, it's a good position to promote this as an product that people would want to keep, cherish when they can, and then pass on as a value. We can't really present it as an investment because we are not investment advisors, but we can present it as a way that they'll cherish while they can, but when they pass it on, it'll retain a lot of value. So people continue to build that collection. The challenge arise when the prices are kind of ups and down, up and down, but similar trajectory.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

In that case, you have to talk about not just the gold. You talk about the gemstone or the diamond or the workmanship or the story around the place where it was made or the stone mine, and they use that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So. Have you ever watched on live TV his. You don't do your homework very well.

[Host]

I don't watch tv.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It is so well. So we're gonna go and show behind the scenes.

[Host]

Yeah, I want to see it. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Watching them sell and then watching them run the system on the back end is. I just remember the first time I saw it here, I was like, this is incredible. And they have, they call it talent. Right. The people that are the hosts, they basically tell these stories like Sunil's talking about to the customers watching at home. And then on the back end they're adjusting the pricing and everything. It is in real time on TV and talking into the. It's so cool.

[Host]

But you can do that legally?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I think.

[Ad Voice 2]

Yeah, why not?

[Host]

You can adjust price real time, like based on how it's going.

[Sunil]

So what we do is we have the falling down placing so we can keep the price there or keep it falling down depending on the demand.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

He invented tanzanite and FOMO all at the same time.

[Ad Voice 2]

That's awesome.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, it's so cool.

[Ad Voice 2]

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[Host]

Just to back up though, like the last few years gold's basically gone up by like four or five times. Does that make it harder to run the business or do you actually look at that like. No, no, we use that as an asset and that, that's the whole investment piece.

[Sunil]

But it's a good opportunity to tell a better story.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

Okay, so it didn't back. It didn't really impact us.

[Host]

That's awesome because that just terrifies me

[Co-host/Interviewer]

because we're talking about growth and how do you lean into it And I know that you have actually been starting to ac companies. Is that part of Your growth strategy?

[Sunil]

Yeah. So the first E Comm company that we acquired was about two and a half years ago. There was more to learn E Com and we learned a bunch. The second company we acquired, it just fell in our lap. It was a TV shopping company in UK that was running for 22 years but went into bankruptcy and we acquired a good prize and it's a good brand. It's very profitable for us. It's growing very rapidly.

[Host]

You know one of the things I love about this is like direct consumer. I've got like, you know you, you said that you've tried DTC multiple times and did not work. I like that direct to consumer for this is just not E commerce like we're talking about like brick and mortar or television. Like you've done every form of like

[Co-host/Interviewer]

direct consumer and in reverse order because you know what they're working on right now is actually transitioning to Shopify.

[Ad Voice 2]

What?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Host]

Wait, what?

[Sunil]

So we were on Salesforce Commerce cloud which is enterprise level. So we were there for last eight, nine years. But we found that to be too rigid and not as agile for our today's Ecom needs. It was served us very well when we were on television and Ecom was supporting function. But if E Comm has to become primary function we need more agile platforms and that's why we looked at many platforms and we decided Shopify Enterprise is the best suitable.

[Host]

I'm going to send this to Harley. I've known Harley and Toby. I started working with them when they had 3,000 merchants on the platform. 3 or 4,000. They're good Canadian boys like hours away from me growing up.

[Sunil]

Now there are hundreds of thousands.

[Host]

Yeah, I know. Now it's millions of people on the

[Co-host/Interviewer]

platform but imagine he's got live shopping on the site. So they had to take something that was completely custom built for them and now make it work and with the help of AI it's insane.

[Sunil]

Yeah. So AI was really God sent. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And perfect timing.

[Host]

Why?

[Sunil]

When we made last transition from another platform to Salesforce, it took us almost two years and about two million dollars this time it took us five months and about half a million dollar. Four brands move the Shopify.

[Host]

Wow.

[Sunil]

And rather smoothly. Much much.

[Host]

And that's an AI thing.

[Sunil]

All coding is done by largely.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, but Eva, we were just talking about this the other day. Had Sunil started this transition even last year it would. It would have been chaos.

[Host]

Yeah, it's. I love that you brought this up. Yeah, I'm sure you follow this just because I also Know your son is in. One of your sons is in tech.

[Ad Voice 2]

But.

[Host]

And we'll get to that. But the big narrative, one of the competing narratives in AI is that like there is just not a lot of value or like where is the value?

[Ad Voice 2]

Right.

[Host]

Like the investment that everybody's making. And then here you are as like. No, no, no. This is like a legitimate huge value. Yeah, huge value.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Massive for us.

[Sunil]

The smooth transition within five months at such a low cost compared to what it would have been otherwise.

[Host]

With the complexity of your business. That's insane.

[Sunil]

Our site has 30 custom applications. 30. With that comple getting done for five months within five months. And four brands in the company.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

That's insane.

[Host]

How many total SKUs across the brands at this point?

[Sunil]

About. So just shop and sees about 28,000 SKUs.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh my God.

[Sunil]

28,000 and all four brands together must have been about 90,000.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh my God.

[Host]

What are you.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Don't man, you make me feel bad about.

[Host]

No, no, but you're high skewed down too, like because you, You've got a crazy amount of profit.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, but Sunil just now mine's gonna sound really. If I say mine, you gotta say yours. Cause at least I'll feel better about myself after that. Yeah, I think. I mean, we're active products. Probably 6,000 active SKUs.

[Sunil]

But that's very unusual for E com.

[Host]

Yeah, it is.

[Sunil]

So that's pretty.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's hard. We just.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sunil]

It's not easy.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You're seeing it, but it's. I just. Sunil's story is one of my favorite stories and he is probably one of. I mean, you've made the biggest impression in my life in E commerce, hands down of anybody I've met.

[Sunil]

Thank you.

[Host]

Well, it's a. It's just variables here that I. You just don't see very often.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

Like we started out at the public thing. The SKU count is insane. The fact that you're vertical with the SKU count, then you're multi brand, you're multi market. Like you're. It just. You're doing a lot like the. I would say the level of difficulty that you're operating at is unusual in what. What Katie's referring to. Like, just call it like D2C is an umbrella. Right. Like my business looks so simple that like we have 15 or 16,000 SKUs, but there's no inventory. Like we make it on demand because we own the factories. So it's not, it's. It's a lot simpler than what you guys do.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But wait till you see his operations and you'll understand why he is so successful. It's incredible. They have robots.

[Sunil]

Not anymore.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You fired the robots?

[Host]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

You fired them.

[Host]

You can't fire robots.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You can't fire robots.

[Sunil]

Because they were not working out. No.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And he kept his robots in cages. It was the coolest thing.

[Ad Voice 1]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I mean, it was pretty cool. Oh, no.

[Sunil]

You see all those fires lined up?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

So they were not working out.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And so now there's people in cages.

[Sunil]

And you're the reason we fired them.

[Ad Voice 2]

What?

[Sunil]

You're the reason we fired them.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I'm the reason you fired your robot.

[Sunil]

Last time you visited us and you asked me, sunil, what is your ROI of the robot? And that set me thinking, I don't know.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

Because I had people and robot working side by side, and then I split up the cost of robots operation and the people, and I saw robots costing me more money than I would have with the people.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

So I fired the robots.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I love it.

[Host]

Do you have a strong opinion on. On sort of like robotics? Because, like, you were. I guess. Okay, so when did you first put robots in the.

[Sunil]

About six years ago.

[Ad Voice 2]

Okay.

[Host]

And when you. So you fired yours. I love that. If you look at, like, sort of state of technology today, do you think that you at some point will bring. Is it coming back?

[Sunil]

Most definitely. We'll come back. There's no doubt, because the world is going towards robotics and AI, so we will go towards it. But the system that we bought in UK and US was not working for us.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What's really cool about. And maybe it was a loss. Right. Maybe you learned that having people in is just better operations and more efficient. But probably what you learn from having the robots, when we have better options come out, you're going to be able to make much more educated. Like, there's not going to be the shiny, you know, nickel syndrome. Like, Jamil is going to know, you know, oh, totally.

[Host]

He's got robots. Like, for sure.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yes. And immediately on Twitter, they're all going to talk about, like, it's going to change from incrementality to what the buzzword is, Whatever the buzzword is of the year.

[Sunil]

Most definitely.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And Sunil's going to be like, yeah, you guys have fun. Because you've seen that.

[Sunil]

Yeah. So you're calling out and then us sending out people to your office and comparing the costs. Open our eyes. I didn't know before. I didn't know.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I opened his eyes. What did you do for Sunil?

[Sunil]

You're good. You don't know how good you are.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh, thank you.

[Sunil]

So you opened the eyes. We compared the cost, went a deep analysis into all line items. We tried to work it out, we tried to make it efficient though we were hitting against something that we could not move and we took a call for both US and UK justify them. It was a difficult decision.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But he puts a lot of thought into decisions, I'll tell you that. Something I've learned about this man is he is very thoughtful. I mean you truly, you think about the entire picture and I think it's just I always tell you. Do you remember when I told you you had to meet Sunil? I'm like he is the most wise person I have ever met.

[Host]

Yeah, he's the wise. He's the wise ecom grandpa.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

Oh, he's so.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You are so Jason is not the grandpa.

[Sunil]

I'm not ecom grandpa.

[Host]

No, that's Jason. Jason's E commerce.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

No, but we decided yesterday. Jason is the great grandpa of E commerce. You're the grandpa and you said you're the uncle.

[Host]

I get called UNC on Twitter all the time.

[Sunil]

Yeah.

[Host]

This is the new term that apparently kids use. I don't actually know what it means.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I think it's so great. I mean the events that we go to together. You really are invested in helping people learn through to your experiences, which is such a gift.

[Sunil]

Thank you. It was very kind of you.

[Host]

How the robot thing do because you have so many people, you've been in business so long. How are you thinking about AI robotics impact on organization? Like where, where do you sit in this like broader conversation around jobs and what are we doing and or just

[Co-host/Interviewer]

have you replaced jobs with AI or are you just incorporating it into your company?

[Sunil]

So so far our effort is to bring in AI for efficiency gains. We are doing it every level and trying to retain the talent if not for that particular job for something else. We're trying to put in more in revenue generating roles. People who are on vaccine support roles, for example, people who are into media buying or content creation. Get them into owning the categories. Because we have so many different product SKUs and categories. So we don't have enough category owners.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

So put them into different category owners for different platforms. We have E Comm as a platform, we have marketplaces as a platform, we have TV as a platform, we have OTT as a platform. So there are multiple positions that we can put them in.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I feel like he's lighting up talking about it.

[Host]

Well, it's, it's, it's such a great topic.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

I mean it's so controversial. Right. I tend to be with, with you. I think, I think we're just going to see more and more companies take this approach of like let's just boil the ocean now. Like there it's, you know, we used to not be able to put enough people on it because the cost of putting a person on something relative to the return wasn't worth it. But if the technology gets better, you can now put people on these things because the cost to the upside is totally worth it. Which is the whole boil of the ocean. It's like if I want to do 10,000 things I couldn't before.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's about efficiency.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Optimizing for efficiency with these.

[Sunil]

Yeah. AI is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to learn and to leverage.

[Host]

Did you feel the same with the, the mobile, the rise of mobile and then like you're, you know, I'm old enough too but like the dot com, when that first started, like is it the same feeling that you get now having been in business so long?

[Sunil]

So I feel this is better than bigger than dot com.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Really.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Well, how do you think it's going to impact consumer behavior?

[Sunil]

Still? I don't because a lot of people are utilizing AI for research and for shopping. I still don't know how the consumers will change because still emerging technology. But this is technology which would impact humanity more than pretty much anything that we've done.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah. I think you're in a really good position for it. I think that the live shopping thing is going to get crazy with AI. Like and I'll hear me out. Okay, here's my theory. This is why I think you.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Here it comes. Sunil, get your notepad out.

[Host]

No, no, this is my theory. This is why I think that your business is going to crush. I think it's like any technology tends to commoditize and lower the cost of things. So you're going to get stuff like if I buy toilet paper or deodorant, I'll have machines just do this for me all the time. Like those are, those are probably products I don't care too much about. Whereas you operate in sort of like entertainment and like the actual shopping.

[Ad Voice 2]

Right.

[Host]

It's not just transacting. And I think that the whole like it's much more human. And my I, one of my strong theories is I think that anything that feels more human is going to get even more valuable. And anything that is like the opposite of that is where AI is going to sort of like commoditize and take it away.

[Sunil]

I agree with you and to that point I learned from one of the ECF members Hublf there's so much of value of people doing things by their hand and this going to become bigger and bigger. So we launched our own DIY jewelry kits business and that's doing really well as we go more towards automation and I believe this AI will also create more loneliness in the people.

[Host]

Yeah, of course.

[Sunil]

So this kind of business will become more valued.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Not to mention Sunil invented live shopping online before TikTok.

[Host]

Yeah, I know. Well that's what I mean by that is now going to be a thing.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

Like all live shopping in America is not as big yet as it might be.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you think it's because people want to feel, they want to actually believe that they're talking to the real person or.

[Host]

I just think that shopping. I think there's just we DTC is largely dominated by like 25 year old men.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

Who don't like to shop and I think that they forget there's a lot of people in the world where like shopping is an experience, it isn't a utility. It's not. I'm not just like turning the taps on. It's like no, no, you go. I mean they called for the death of the mall. The shopping mall was E commerce. Like I remember that. I remember, I remember in the early 2000s it's like shopping malls are going to go away because this E commerce thing is here and it's so much better and it's faster and whatever and meanwhile you go to a shopping mall today and it's packed and the kids are in there because it's a social experience, it's just a real thing.

[Sunil]

Yeah, yeah, I agree. So that's where the experiential things will come in handy. I do not know how the television shopping or online shopping which can be bots generated and bots purchased will fare. I do not know how it'll pan out.

[Host]

Yeah, that's hard to predict but, but

[Sunil]

I do believe that the product that we sell which really people like to touch and feel will be there for a long time.

[Host]

Yeah, it's. I think I love this topic because I. If you look through history, especially recent history, I think there's like a law in the universe that I think actually might be a physics thing where like for every, you know, equal there's an equal and opposing force. I think it's the same culturally. I think like a good example would Be. I used to bug my wife about this that I'm like, the vegan movement was so big and so loud, so fast that I'm like something's following it. And then some years later it's like now all people do is eat meat. You know, like it was an opposing movement.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

You know, or like the crossfitters. Like anytime you get like this big, this is a big force, there's another opposing force. And I think that's what we're going to see with AI is like it's so obvious that it's a polarizing thing. We're already there. And I think that while it makes like you'll see a rise in people being lonely, I actually think it's going to be. And it's why I'm so bullish on like in person and small intimate events and anything that is like human to human connection. That's why again, think it become more valuable. Yeah, I think it gets more valuable as an opposing force to the thing that's pushing it.

[Sunil]

Yeah, I agree with that.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Can you.

[Host]

I want to go back to sort of like the. The birth of this business today. The. You started off with like tv, live tv, the E commerce thing. At what point did you guys realize like we need to get. We gotta go beyond TV as a channel and lean hard into other forms of acquisition.

[Sunil]

Yeah. So we saw in TV the growth was moderating. Initially years we were growing 20, 30% a year. And then we still have some room to grow in terms of our TV distribution, but it was moderating.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Is it because they were leaning into streaming TV and the viewership was just

[Sunil]

so cord cutting is happening. Although OTT is growing even over the air antenna is growing.

[Host]

Oh really?

[Sunil]

But not at the speed of the loss of the cable. Okay, so then there is a growth challenge. So we had to go towards E. Com. That's where I became member of MDS and ECF and I met you guys and learned tons from you. Yeah, you've been great teacher.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Is there not a world where you can go from like a linear TV to transition into streaming?

[Sunil]

Like so streaming as a advertising mechanism for D2C is good.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

But streaming as for live TV is still not mature.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you think it will become.

[Sunil]

It's difficult to grow further because to get distribution into those networks as a live tv. Is it live shopping TV is not easy because they prefer like sports content or home content or entertainment content rather than a shopping content.

[Host]

Do you think it's a demographics problem? So like they're. They're streaming as like a younger audience and your business might be positioned or like serving older.

[Sunil]

Although I think the demographic, older demographics also gone into ott. But the platform owner's mindset is still there. To your point.

[Ad Voice 2]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

That they are still into younger demographic. They want sports, they want entertainment. Younger demographic programming, which we don't. So slowly it'll come. I know it'll come. And we are into some platforms already but till the time that the market matures for TV shopping we have to find other avenues of growth. And that we believe is E Com. That's where I am at ECF and

[Host]

what we call it traditional E commerce, you know. So like you're buying traffic, digital ad like all the ad auction based ad platforms.

[Sunil]

Yeah.

[Host]

So you've got a huge amount of products. The business started in sort of like gemstones, jewelry. Can you give us an idea of like what are the other major categories that you're in?

[Sunil]

Just for people watching, about 65% of sales is jewelry, 35% is non jewelry. And the idea of non jewelry was our customers are loyal to us, they trust us and if you offer them good value and good quality of other products, they'll buy from us.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

The definition of product experience.

[Host]

Yeah, I was going to say Sean's going to watch this and be so happy.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, he is.

[Host]

More products. All he ever says is more product.

[Sunil]

It's a different ballgame than G2C E comm.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But 30 you said 35% is all these other product categories.

[Sunil]

Other products are beauty, home, kitchen accessories

[Host]

and all under the Shop LC banner

[Sunil]

or all the Shop LC banner for US and UK STGC Germany, Shop LC as well.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What is the weirdest product you sell?

[Sunil]

I remember one time one of our home buyer got these dinosaur replicas.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

A dinosaur replica.

[Sunil]

He bought tons of them. It filled the warehouse and it was difficult to ship. It was pretty cheap. 32 cars.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What it was like a buyer gone rogue. He's like I think this dinosaur will sell.

[Host]

It's like how do you actually. How does buying work with this many SKUs? This is a great point because like you got all these employees. How do you put guardrails in place to not have that happen?

[Sunil]

So each of them had their own OTBE systems in place and each of them are rewarded based on their performance, how much inventory they have, what is the profit they got per minute? And we break it down each vertical for pnl.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Honestly, everybody watching should go immediately to Facebook ad library just to see his product.

[Host]

I've done that and I'm very Confusing.

[Ad Voice 2]

It's.

[Host]

I'll be honest.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Was there ever a product that just went like viral that surprised you?

[Sunil]

Yeah, there was a one time bracelet we bought called Shambhala. So it was a kind of macrame knitted bracelet with some crystals and we didn't know it was so crazy. We sold millions of them over a few months. We sold millions of those bracelets.

[Host]

Wow.

[Sunil]

It just went crazy.

[Host]

Just like cultural phenomena.

[Sunil]

It was cultural phenomena. It was trending on social. It was started by somebody about Shambhala bracelet and one of her buyer picks picked it up and it just went crazy. That was about 10 years ago.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How do you decide? Because I know that you've shown me before that a lot of your live shopping, the message is very much, there's only a hundred left, there's only 50 left.

[Host]

And like real scarcity in a real FOMO.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh, you just wait till you watch it. It is incredible.

[Host]

Am I buying something today? Is that what's gonna happen? You're like, oh shit, yeah, totally. Take that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Canes, they sell canes.

[Host]

There we go.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So how do you decide what stays as inventory on your site? Maybe these bracelets. And then what do you do if you buy something and it doesn't sell? How do you, how do you liquidate that?

[Sunil]

So we bring in smaller quantities when we bring in. So we bring about 100 new products every day and then we bring them in small quantities. Something like $20,000 sales or $15,000 sales or something like that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So you have a testing.

[Sunil]

You really testing mechanism with 100 new products coming every day and whichever does well, we bring in higher quantity and it starts again, bring higher quantities and most is jewelry. So it's very quick to bring. We manufacture ourselves so we can turn around the things within four weeks.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I love it. And there's probably times where you've sold out of it and you're like, God, we should have ordered more. Right. That's the ultimate.

[Sunil]

But the point of business is the treasure hunting.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

So we have a lot of sellouts every day and there's FOMO of for the people. And that's good thing.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

That's got to be hard though in like auction based ads in D2C because they reward momentum. Right. So like and scale. So if you get into something like I'm just thinking of meta and you start spending against it, you don't want to stop. Like it's like Amazon, like the minute you stop it's like, damn it, now

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I got to restart or how do you monitor that? Because it's. It's driving traffic probably to a PDP or maybe it's a collection. But if it's sold out, how do you think about that?

[Sunil]

So that's a good point. So if you land people to PDP or a landing page of an individual product, it's very hard, but you could land them on a collection page where you refresh that collection every time. For example, the jewelry DIY kits. Our plan is to launch those kits every day, new ones, and retire the old ones every day, sell out, don't bring them again. So the people would come back for those new owners, new kits every day. So Zara does that very well.

[Host]

Oh, yeah.

[Sunil]

So Zara has refresh of inventory every week, and we deeply learned that from them. To create that fomo, bring the limited quantities and let people come in again. So on our average, TV customers buys from us 15 times a year.

[Ad Voice 2]

Whoa.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh, my God.

[Host]

Okay, do you have a customer that has spent a weird amount of money with you? Like, you must have them. So like an average of 15 mean tells me that there's somebody who buys like 100 times a year, and there's somebody who buys once more than that, more than 100 times a year.

[Sunil]

There are people who buy every day.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay, so I remember you telling me, Matt's going to like this. We talked about LTV one time. Tell him what? What? Your most valuable customer, where do they start shopping? Do they start shopping online? Do they start shopping on TV on your website? Who is your most valuable customer?

[Sunil]

So the most valuable entry point for us is television. But we have multiple platforms. We have television, we have website catalog, we have rising auction on website. We have web TV as well. We have OTT. So the customer who buys from Just TV, our lifetime value for that is about $800. The customer who buys only on the website, the lifetime value is about $100.

[Ad Voice 2]

Whoa.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

The customer who buys on both, the lifetime value is about $1,500. And the customer who buys from 5 platform, the lifetime value is $20,000.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay, I quit.

[Host]

Unpack that last one. I want to know how to do this.

[Sunil]

Customer whom we can successfully transition from one to other to other to other. At least five platforms. We have about seven platforms in the company the customer can interact with.

[Host]

What's a platform to you?

[Sunil]

Like tv?

[Ad Voice 2]

Yep.

[Sunil]

Then we have on our website catalog, we have website clearance, we have website $1 auction, we have live TV, we have OTT platforms. So total seven platforms. We have marketplaces too. So we total seven platforms. A customer who can buy from five platforms of lifetime value is $20,000.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you know what percentage of your total customers falls into that category?

[Sunil]

Very few. But our top 2% customers gives us 50% of revenue.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh my God. That's insane.

[Sunil]

Yeah.

[Host]

Okay, so then you must have people that are just working on moving people around in platforms. Like how do you actually get. How do you like ascend these people up?

[Sunil]

We have flows in place to move people.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So cool.

[Host]

Do you do phone sales as well? Yeah.

[Sunil]

So we have about 180 people call center in India, our own. And we land a lot of people on. We try to put people into IVR as much as we can. So about 75% of our inbound traffic lands on IVR and 25% lands on people on the live agent. And that is handled by 180 agents. 24 hours. That handles about four different TV channels. So two UK, one Germany and one US.

[Host]

How far out are you guys looking for new product categories? Because you mentioned you have otb. So OTB being open to buy. Every sort of category manager has that strategically. Then how are you directing? Like where you want people to go explore? How do you figure out what's next? What's the.

[Sunil]

I don't do that. So what we have is every product category has their own way to get their OTB increased. So they must make their spot. So if the productivity of the category is high, they get more airtime so

[Host]

they can pick a new category if they think that they can hit the number.

[Sunil]

Yeah. Within their section. For example, home. Can they have a right to the freedom to pick new category within home if they want to.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you have a design team here also that like the buyer saying in home, we think these pillows are going to be very. Then does it shift to a design team that's creating the product? Is it all in house like that?

[Sunil]

So jewelry we have full design team, merchandising and trend spotting. But for other products we don't have design team. We have trend spotters, a few of them. But mostly we depend on vendors we don't manufacture other than jewelry.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So you go to the vendors and say what's your best selling?

[Sunil]

Or we have seen this trend. We have something like this. So we have transporters, we don't have designers, we don't have those technical technicians in place which like apparel manufacturers have. We don't have them. But we have transporters who go along with merchants to the vendors and then discuss those, what their collection is, what we like to see. And then they have A program with them.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I want to be a trend spotter here.

[Host]

And that must. That has got to have changed over the years. Like how to figure out where to go as a product.

[Sunil]

Yeah.

[Host]

Like, it's just so you can. There's so much data now that we just never had before. Like 46 years ago, even before online,

[Co-host/Interviewer]

you probably sent people to market.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sunil]

I went to stores all the time. Yeah, yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And just took pictures on your camera, not your phone. Yeah, right.

[Sunil]

And then you faxed it, bought your product.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Ad Voice 2]

Yes.

[Sunil]

Send the pictures. Nice pictures. And send all the factories. We did a lot of that. Now it's pretty much online. We're transporting sites, we're using AI and it's much easier now.

[Host]

Are there categories when you look at the company, are there categories that you're like, that you wish you guys were in as a brand?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Don't say baby in phone cases.

[Host]

That'll get weird real fast. That's fine.

[Sunil]

You won't work on TV anyway. Okay. Yeah. So since our team has such a freedom, I don't think that there's any category that I think we should be. And we are not. I don't believe there's any.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I think when you walk his warehouse, you're going to realize that there is not.

[Host]

There is not a product sell everything it's in.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's insane.

[Host]

Yeah. I remember the. I think that at ECF this year in our small group, you gave us the range of price points, prices in your catalog and it's like as low as 20 bucks.

[Sunil]

10. $10 to $20,000.

[Host]

It's just crazy.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's insane. I. I have so many product questions. Can this be like a six hour.

[Host]

Yeah, let's talk product.

[Sunil]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay, one more. And then I really want to ask Sunil questions about his family too, because I know how important it is to him. But when you talk about selling out of products and I. Do you know what your return, not return, customer rate is, but like what is the percentage of returns that just get sent?

[Sunil]

Depends on the product. So we know what product category returns would be. So we'll assess a product based on expected return rate. And then what would be the net revenue? The TV typically is very high return rate because people buy on impulse and

[Host]

then very emotionally charged buy. Yeah.

[Sunil]

On impulse. You bought a $4,000 diamond ring. And then when she talked to her husband, she said, husband says, well, honey.

[Host]

Oh, well, honey, maybe you shouldn't have done that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That husband doesn't know what he's talking about.

[Sunil]

And they don't know how much value she's getting.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

She's getting so much value.

[Host]

Spoken like the business owners. Yeah.

[Sunil]

So return rate is approximately 18% in

[Co-host/Interviewer]

the U.S. what do you do though? If they return a ring that's sold out, what do you do with that ring?

[Sunil]

So if the ring is unused, then we would put it back for the sale. And if it is a apparel or a beauty product which is used, then we just discard it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Is there like a closet here I can go through?

[Sunil]

You don't need to

[Co-host/Interviewer]

souvenir for my shop.

[Host]

LC far the entire group of companies, you're publicly traded. So you can say what is the total size of the business today?

[Sunil]

Yeah. So last year we did $460 million revenue, but I look the business not in terms of dollars as much as pieces sold, meals delivered. So we have 57,000 meals per school day. My hope and aim is to take it to million meals per school day by 2040. That would mean that we need to grow 20% or so something every year up until 2020.

[Host]

Okay. And do you imagine you're the. You're. You're going to be the CEO that you. Do you hope you're going to be the CEO that long?

[Sunil]

I'll enjoy. I'll do as long as I enjoy and I'm able to. And if I'm not, I hope I create a successor who takes this forward as I'm passionate about.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Could it be one of your boys?

[Sunil]

I doubt it because my older one is successful tech entrepreneur and a younger one wants to follow his older brother.

[Host]

Of course he does.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I know.

[Host]

Yeah. So, okay, so like go a little deeper on this. Did your kids work in the business

[Sunil]

at any point very early on when they were interning? They did. They were finding out those gemstone around the warehouse and every gemstone they found, they would get 25 cents.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That's so cool. The ultimate treasure hunt, right?

[Sunil]

That's how they made the pocket money. My sons never got pocket money ever. They had to make the money and. But since the tech industry was more enticing for them.

[Host]

Sure.

[Sunil]

And they're both into that area quite deep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You've told me one time. So we've had a lot of personal conversations about how you raise your children. Right. When they have kind of. I mean, they live in this world where you're very successful and you told me how you think about it and you know, is this something that you're going to gift your sons or. And you. I don't know if you want to share it or not. But you said that you set goals for your sons and they have to hit a certain goal for you to be able to give. Do you know what I'm talking about?

[Ad Voice 1]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

So starting from how we bought them up, it was never really bring expensive stuff for them. They had to buy their phones, they had to buy their own laptops, they had to buy their own tech equipment. We would only provide their education, best education, their living and boarding and lodging, just to help to manage themselves. We would give them opportunities to earn and then they did a good job at it. And other thing we bought in our family was not to say no to them. So that means not to reprimand them. And if they're doing something which is not good for them, just tell them the consequences of what they're doing and then they're free to take decision of what they want to do.

[Host]

And so your kids are probably very high agency, then like they'll just go and do whatever.

[Sunil]

That's why they don't want to come in my business.

[Host]

No, yeah, of course. Yeah, that's exactly why. Yeah. It's like stay out of the family business.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's incredible. I. I just, the listening to him and how he's raised his family and his life.

[Host]

Well, we've been talking about this on the way over here. Like how. How do you actually raise entrepreneurial kids?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

Like, can you you or are they just like, are you just born a certain way? How much of it is nature versus nurture? I was reflecting acadium. If I look back at all of my friends that I grew up with, I'm like, why are some of them entrepreneurs and some of them aren't when we were all raised so similarly.

[Sunil]

Yeah, so the nurture counts because my sons saw me talking about business all the time and they were in the business earlier when they were interning, so they saw the business as well. So they must have got those thoughts of how to run a business, how to have relationships with people, employees and outside world. So that must have helped them. But everybody has to have their own ambition, own purpose in life and they found their own purpose. And for that they found their own path to serve the purpose.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

If you.

[Host]

I'm curious to see how you answer this, but if shop, if this company was disappeared tomorrow, would you start another one as you are right now with everything you know?

[Sunil]

Probably, yeah. Yeah. Because I'm really enjoying what I do. I learn quite a bit every day and biggest joy I get is to see people thrive within the organization and meet their goals. Life goals and really progress well in life. So that gives me a lot of pleasure.

[Host]

You must have, like, you talk a lot about people. Could you give me a sense for what the. Like, who are the people that you work with every day? Do you have, like, a leadership team that you spend most of your time with? Like, how is. How are things structured and how do you actually run a company this size?

[Sunil]

Yeah, so we have. I have 12 people report to me and I talk to them once a week. And I have once a month review for each business. So I have geographical heads. Us, uk, Germany, Asia, they are geographical leads. And then I have branding, innovation and gemstones lead. So these are the seven leads, vertical leads. And then I have CFO, CHRO and CTO. They report to me. And then I have EA. So we have 12 people report to me pretty much once a week, conversation with them, reviews, reports, sometimes daily, sometimes weekly. And once a month, business review that I do along with my CFO and other seniors.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I would call Sunil a leader that stays in the weeds.

[Host]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, clearly.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. He's not a sit back and watch and just. I mean, you. You dive in where needed and you enjoy it.

[Sunil]

Yeah, I dive in where needed because I have my fingers on the pulse. But I am not. I don't want to be in the way of people managing the business, so I intervene only when I need to. Otherwise, I let people run the business. Even if they make small mistakes, I let them learn from the mistakes.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

He's like the ultimate father. Can I send my children to you? I have a few like you spoil them.

[Host]

No, he'll spoil somebody else's kids. His kids know.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

They're.

[Host]

They're disciplined.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

They're disciplined? Yeah. They'll send yours back worse than I did with them.

[Sunil]

Would you be okay with that?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

No, you can't grandpa them. I need you to father them.

[Host]

Then there's a difference between the two.

[Ad Voice 2]

Yeah.

[Host]

Okay, I'm gonna ask. I think this might be a dumb question, so bear with me. I'm back to the TV thing. How do you get people to watch the channel? How do you market the channel?

[Sunil]

You can't. We tried so many times to market us on different channels. Yeah, but people don't leave what they're watching to come and watch a shopping channel. It doesn't happen. So you have to depend on people surfing on channels and come across you or word of mouth.

[Host]

Do you have control? This is going to be super tactical. Do you have control over what shows up when somebody's, like, clicking through the channel guide.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

No, it's live.

[Sunil]

No, it's live 24. 7 live. So it's same programming.

[Host]

So they have to discover you, you discover you.

[Sunil]

And your programming has to be engaging enough with enough movement on the screen and enough interest that they stick to you.

[Host]

So for like the app to the direct response, like your D2C advertisers that are going to listen to this or watch this, you're. A live stream is basically a forever hook.

[Sunil]

Yes.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And think about it. It's just like scrolling on. On TikTok or Instagram. But they. You. We used to scroll channels and so you'd have to stop and pause on a channel.

[Host]

Yeah, I remember like flipping through.

[Sunil]

Yeah, right.

[Host]

Like as a kid like you're clicking television.

[Sunil]

That's pretty much it. It for online. You know the whole book. Right.

[Host]

Was having a. This background in like live shopping. Has that actually helped in the transition to online direct, like direct consumer like Facebook, Google, like these, these like modern day platforms. Like has that been an easy transition or has it been a completely different game?

[Sunil]

So you know the story about all the airlines in the world tried to become Southwest. None of them could. Yeah, it's hard. So for me to become kind of Southwest, I had to become ECF member. We tried before without being in the weeds. I could not. So I had to really immerse myself into E Com to become an E Com player. And we are seeing that working out now.

[Host]

Do you think that. But if you look at like this big hairy audacious goal that you have, your bhag being a million meals a day, do you think that it's E commerce that takes you there or do you see other channels and other things that you're going to have to do?

[Sunil]

So E Comm is the right next step for us. I do not know how the world will evolve in the next 15 years. They may come other channels as well and Ecom may not be enough to get us there. I do not know that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So you don't really know the roadmap. You're just keeping yourself open to opportunity. Yes, I love that.

[Host]

Do you. So you said 20% per year.

[Ad Voice 2]

Is that.

[Host]

Do you just see that as like this is just the appropriate growth rate? We've talked a lot about sort of growth rate on lots of episodes of the show. And like where is the sweet spot in a consumer business? Because there's like, you know, financing inventory and there's a lot of working capital in Your business is 20. The number that you're like this is just the number that works really well for us.

[Sunil]

So it'll be more. It's 20% plus. It's not 20. So it's quite high number. But this is what we need. And sometimes we may have the spurt of growth by acquisition. Sometimes we may have spurt of growth by finding some great product, great channel, great time. So we do not know. I don't have full roadmap to get to Miriam.

[Ad Voice 2]

Yes.

[Sunil]

So we are going with a bhag with the idea. We are open to any possibility of the platform, the product or the strategy. Yeah, I don't know fully.

[Host]

You know, it's what's nuts. I don't know if people do the public math. I hate public math. But I'm going to do it anyway. At $450 million, 20% is like $90 million that you have to add to the business.

[Sunil]

Yeah. And it grows up every year.

[Host]

Every year it goes up. You know, it's. That feels like. Like a lot of either and most companies like this, it's either products, markets or channels. Do you feels like you're going to have to go into more markets at some point?

[Sunil]

Could be, yeah. Yeah. So for us we are considering India as the next market. Japan is a possible market for us.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Sunil]

Because the TV shopping is still pretty robust in Japan. So Japan and India are target markets.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Now how important is profitability as you grow up to a million?

[Sunil]

We look at the business from ROIC point of view, return on investment capital and we constantly have a benchmark for any venture that we do. We look at that as a gold standard for us. So minimum ROIC we need for any venture it's 20%. And if a business would give that return, we'd go into it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So you're managing growth but also keeping an eye on the bottom line.

[Sunil]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[Ad Voice 2]

Yeah.

[Host]

I think you kind of have to as a public company.

[Sunil]

As a public company you got to have it.

[Host]

Is there something about this business that if you look back over time that you would have thought like this is impossible. But today you're like, I can't believe we actually do this.

[Sunil]

Yeah. So people thought that the jewelry business you just can't delegate coming from India, very traditional minded. Every jeweler manages himself that closes the safe vault every night, opens the vault, puts out the jewelry and then let other people manage. So that was a difficult thing for people to absorb. Accept that you can delegate gemstone business and a jewelry business. But it worked.

[Host]

No kidding. It worked. Okay. So one of the things we like to do because we're going to go, we're going to tour next. But before we do that. But we like to finish on this segment we call the Titan 10. So I just have a bunch of questions I want to ask and I'm so curious your answers given everything we've talked about. Public company, how many divisions, how many markets, all the things. So I'm going to start.

[Sunil]

You ready? Sure.

[Host]

And as gut feel as you can.

[Sunil]

Okay. Okay, go ahead.

[Host]

So the first one is you get to a desert island, right. You have to manage the business from a desert island but you only get to look at three numbers every week. What are those three numbers?

[Sunil]

Revenue growth, customer growth, roic.

[Host]

I love the ROIC thing by the way. You don't hear that very often in consumer. You also get to take a book but it can't be about business. Which book are you bringing?

[Sunil]

I'm reading a book by Vietnamese Buddhist monk. His name is. And the book is this is your home and there is impactful book. So I've not finished it. So if I have to go tomorrow, I'll take it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Are you taking that?

[Sunil]

I love it.

[Host]

Are you a big reader? Just in general like you? Yeah, it sounds like it. That's a obscure sounding book. Can't promise I'm going to read that. I'm going to be honest.

[Sunil]

Go with me on that and we'll just talk.

[Host]

Yeah, there we go. What is a belief about business that you feel you might have that is like contrarian that other people might not agree with you on

[Sunil]

doing good is good for business.

[Host]

Actually I think it's a great one because I think most people would actually disagree with you on that. I think they, you just, you do good in business then you go do good. Personally, they never mix. I like that. What is the single most important word in leadership?

[Sunil]

Listening skills.

[Host]

What's the single most important word in business?

[Sunil]

Empowerment.

[Host]

Best meals of the day and why breakfast?

[Sunil]

I'm putting, I'm trying to put on some weight so a lot of protein after my work.

[Host]

Opposite problem.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Sunil. I wish somebody would just say I need you to gain weight. I'd be like I've been training for this my whole life, dude.

[Host]

I'm a pro.

[Sunil]

I got you.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Watch and learn. You look great, Sunil.

[Sunil]

Thank you.

[Host]

Right now, you know you've been in ecf. You're in sort of like all of our network. What do you see? Like what is something that you see happening that you just think is really overrated? Maybe it's a growth tactic. It's something that people are doing

[Sunil]

media buying.

[Host]

I love that you said that so much. Thank you. What's the most underrated thing?

[Sunil]

Team building.

[Ad Voice 1]

Yeah.

[Host]

Love it. Do you want to know why I think you're right on the media buying? Can I give you. I think media. I think Facebook ads made us all really bad marketers.

[Sunil]

Yeah. Yeah. Initially, you've had so much of manual process in Facebook. Now it's so much automated. So going after the top media buyer may not be the right thing. Going after the top product, top angle story is more valuable.

[Host]

That's it. It's a. We've forgotten how to be good product people and great storytellers. And I think Facebook just trained us how to be good Facebook advertisers. We've, like got 20 or, you know, whatever, 15 years of this where it's like we just forgot the other parts.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Host]

So thank you. I think that. I think we're a wrap.