Sriharsha Majety, Co-founder and group CEO, Swiggy
Image: Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Forbes India
If Swiggy has morphed from a noun to a verb over the last decade, the man responsible for starting quick commerce in India is an oxymoron. There is nothing ‘quick’ about Sriharsha Majety, co-founder, managing director and group chief executive officer of Swiggy, which was started in 2014. It took Majety a decade—thanks to its IPO in November—to come out from his self-imposed media exile and talk about the company.
“I have never been uncomfortable with speaking. It’s just that there are moments when you come out and talk about your story,” he says in an exclusive interview with Forbes India.
If India has seen a fair share of high-octane startup founders who are flamboyant, brash, animated, and have inadvertently made their company infamous for harbouring toxic culture, Majety again happens to be an exception and oxymoron. He embraces Zen-like calmness, his company is light years away from the word ‘toxic’, and the group CEO has created a different playbook grounded in humility.
“Words like one-upmanship, zero-sum game, and brinksmanship…these are not games that we naturally understand. They are not native to us,” he reckons. “I never built this (Swiggy) to be a public figure. Never. I don’t worry about individual status,” he underlines.
If playing a short-term game has been the guiding principle for a dominant share of founders, Majety again breaks the mould. He is defined by his long-term vision, bets and perspective. If a section of entrepreneurs loves to flaunt their swagger by hitting back at critics, Majety prefers to listen, and not react. “We are here, and we are in a very strong place, which proves that you can build a large startup without just worrying about what everyone is saying about you,” he says. What the consumers are talking about you, he underlines, is what matters the most. Excerpts:
On Being ‘Mr Reclusive’
People are most comfortable when they are living their authentic self. No individual is perfect. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. You have your energy sources, and you have your energy drains. And to be able to manage that energy, it’s quite important to be authentic to your true self. If you are not doing it, these energy drains add up. I don’t think you do your best work when you have more energy drains than energy sources. So, I try to create as many energy sources as possible, and keep an eye out for what I am enjoying, what I can talk about, and what I can’t.
I have never been uncomfortable with speaking. It was just that there are moments when you come out and talk about your story. And it was important. As we were going public, it was a broader audience. When you are a private company, people need to know how the service is working, do they like it or they don’t like it. Beyond that, there was no job to be done in telling the Swiggy story. We had always been speaking to our consumers, delivery partners and restaurant partners. During the IPO, our stakeholder base increased. With the institutional investors, we did road shows, we spoke to hundreds of investors. That was important. We wanted to convey what the company wants to do, what space we are playing, and what we are excited about.
Retail shareholders, a lot of them, want to know the Swiggy story beyond the numbers. I was very comfortable saying we need to tell why we started this and what we want to do. And that is it.
On Being the Face of Swiggy
I never built this to be a public figure. Never. I don’t worry about individual status. The company we are building and the work we are doing need to be relevant. I don’t need to be relevant. Of course, my opinions matter. But I also believe that, throughout this journey, thousands of folks have come and helped build this company. And it is really the work of so many of us. I also tend to be a little cautious about being the face of anything. There are so many faces and just being one face of it worries me a lot.
Also read: Swiggy is betting on quick commerce to become no. 1. Will it succeed?
On IPO and Life after IPO
Nothing has changed because the change happened in the months building up to the IPO or even building up to the IPO decision. The way I think, and I am sure a lot of founders I have spoken to also feel this way, it’s a flip in your mind. And when that flip happens, you are ready. I took maybe six to eight quarters to be ready in my head, saying, okay, what does going public mean.
It’s been three years since startups in India went public. You collect stories, you see stories as a close outsider from the sidelines. And then you build your comfort, saying okay this is what it probably looks like. What should we be ready for? These are going to be the ups, downs. And then after seeing enough of that, you say, okay, this too shall pass. Ultimately it is a change.
We are in businesses that go through change every week. At some point, I realised going public is like another change. So, let’s prepare for it. Then, I said let’s get excited because it’s a new part of the journey. Even as a founder, it’s a new experience. And that is exciting. You just have to make sure that you are comfortable. Every quarter won’t be a knockout. That is how exactly 100 percent of the companies work.
On Blocking Outside Noise
Whenever there are noisy signals, you just have to stay focussed and remind yourself about ‘why are you doing this’. Why did you start? And that keeps helping you find your inner compass and helps you pave the way forward. No, I haven’t been able to block all the noise. It’s a big challenge. As the company gets larger, it becomes increasingly harder to block the noise. But you have to keep working on it. For me, my inner validation matters a lot.
On Handling Criticism
I don’t get fazed by criticism. I tend to be my biggest critic. Maybe, it’s a coping mechanism. But I don’t let anyone else be a harsher critic of me than myself. That’s how I try to centre myself and stay balanced. I know there are things that I don’t know and there are things that I know. When people are saying something, you have to constantly keep figuring out because all noise is not noise. People will say 10 things about you and even if it is a lot of noise, there may be one or two things that can be interesting. Maybe 20 percent of it is quite helpful… maybe that part I can learn and get better. So, yeah keep it (criticism) coming. As far as the rest (80 percent) is concerned, it’s okay. People are going to say stuff. You have to stay true to yourself. I don’t try to get energy out of proving others wrong. You have to do the right thing. Every time you have a choice.
On Taking People Along
If you ask me what the toughest thing to do has been in this journey, I would say building and managing such large businesses. So, to do the right thing and take as many people along as you build these businesses is the most challenging part. You are taking consumers along, employees investors along… to make sure that everyone’s going along with you is a hard task. The same can be said about revising our IPO price. (Retail) shareholders are our new stakeholders and we would like to make sure they also go along with us. It’s just the mindset. It’s just our philosophy. We have our own inspirations, role models, many companies, many individuals who have shaped our thinking.
On Startups & Failures
For the first two to three years, our job was to avoid death because that’s what 99 percent of companies go through. So, no funding at that time didn’t faze me. We had to be among the outliers to survive two to three years, otherwise our job is mostly to die. Ninety-nine percent of startups die. So, I didn’t have the fear of death. When it’s the default outcome, all you can say is: Let’s fight it out. Obviously, you feel excited when you come out of that 99 percent failure zone.
On Cash Burn Being A ‘Dirty’ Word
Well, I don’t have such an evolved view. Businesses like Swiggy couldn’t have been built in a bootstrapped way. It was impossible. Maybe some businesses can be built like that—there are so many great bootstrapped businesses such as Directi and Zerodha. It’s great, but our journey was always going to need investment. And if you need investments, what is it for? It is for burn only. It is to go and build the market. So, I don’t understand why loss is a dirty word. It depends on what business you are building. When you have excesses, when the burn doesn’t add value, it’s (cash burn) a bad word. All of us make mistakes and learn, and then try to incorporate those learnings. So non-value-added cash burn is a bad word. Nobody should do it. You should do everything you can to avoid excesses. Our business could not have been built without cash burn. Without losses, we wouldn’t have built any of it.
On different stages
I don’t think there’s any sequencing saying 0 to 1 or 1 to 10 and 1 to 100. Jeff Bezos left at 1,000 or 10,000. So, it’s really a function of that company, its journey and the founder scaling along the way. I don’t think there is a formula that says 0-1 should be like this. It depends on the founders and ability to manage complexity with scale. I don’t believe in stage gates so rigidly per se.
On Quick Commerce Headwinds
You have to make it (headwinds) pass. It won’t pass on its own. When a headwind comes, I realise it means another problem. Another problem means it needs to be solved… one can’t get bogged down. Such a mindset takes time. When you are inundated with 10 problems at the same time, as it happened during the pandemic, you freeze. But then you start working on fixing them. I have seen so much in 10 years in terms of scale, complexities and pain that now when I see a problem, I say this needs to be solved.
Density of consumers is what matters in quick commerce. In food delivery, we have a presence in 700 cities and 100 to 200 cities don’t do that many orders. But we have been able to set up shop there because in a city which gives 20 orders, we only need to do a one-time setup and have two delivery partners. We don’t have other fixed costs. The demand thins down as you go into smaller and smaller cities. But in food delivery, we did not solve any selection problem. Convenience business works best in cities where we have migrant consumers, living away from families. So quick commerce is a work-in-progress. There’s no upside of saying it will never work but we will find that out in a couple of years.