Abhishek: Everyone, yeah, today we have Shivam with us, ⁓ a fellow co-founder and you know let us hear about him the journey of the teaser company. Hi Shivam, how are you doing?

Shivam K: Doing very well man. Hope you are doing good as well.

Abhishek: Yes, yes take us through your when did you start with the teaser company and why and what was the story behind it and why did you

Shivam K: Yes, yeah, sure. So ⁓ I'm an engineer on paper passed out in from Bitswilani Goa campus ⁓ in 2013 and I was I always had a thing for you know, ⁓ a creative thing for myself was always exploring it during college days and had a passion for advertising almost since childhood. mean, you know, I could memorize jingles even before I could memorize my first poem. That was the kind of affinity I had. So it became, it was a very obvious decision when I was figuring out what to do after college and I I had to do something purposeful after engineering. So I got into advertising and I worked for a lot of network agencies. ⁓ Got a chance to work for some nice bigger brands like McDonald's, ⁓ know, Nestle, Honda. ⁓ Michelin. So when I was doing that, always, while there was a creative side ⁓ of mine I was exploring, always thought that ⁓ I would want to do something of my own because somewhere or the other when you're writing for the larger brands, ⁓ you feel that a lot of things are said in a certain way and the degree of freedom is compromised.

Abhishek: Hmm. Yeah. Hmm.

Shivam K: So I founded the teaser company with my co-founder ⁓ with an intent to not just do creative work, but also creatives that convert and the impact can be seen in real time. Something I was missing when I was working for larger advertising agencies. So the idea was simple. We wanted to bring content and media creative and analytics under the same roof and help do content that converts. That was the understanding and the vision. And the performance marketing in D2C just happened at the right time.

Abhishek: Right.

Shivam K: aligned with their vision. And then we went, fortunately got a chance to work with 500 plus D2C brands so far and some household names have been a part of our portfolio. So enjoying the journey so far, it's been around six and a half years now.

Abhishek: Yeah I would see that. ⁓ What is the main pillar service if you say that teaser company is good at?

Shivam K: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like I said, we are very much about D2C growth via effective and high converting ads. That was our original vision to do content that converts and D2C happened at the right time. ⁓ You know, and when we were doing creatives, like ⁓ we wanted to ⁓ see the conversion in real time and we had this idea that we would work on content at the point of purchase. So performance marketing just happened naturally. And fortunately and ironically over the last, you know, let's say some couple of years, the narrative has completely shift towards content in performance marketing. It's all about the right ads, the right content. But when we started, we, know, performance marketing agencies were essentially very analytical in media, you know, left side of brain. Yes. Yeah. So that wasn't the case at that point in time, but when we started, we thought that we would work on that vision.

Abhishek: Yeah. numbers. Yeah, yeah. Now I think Shivam both content and ⁓ performance goes hand in hand. I think there was a time where only numbers were taken ⁓ like for the ROI and ⁓ at a point of time there is only creative which was acting well in the market. But now I feel both content and numbers are playing well together rather than just focusing on a single you know

Shivam K: Absolutely. Yes

Abhishek: analytic I through your content I see you talk a lot about cac rising versus you know build LTV you know I feel most brands look look at LTV but they sit on optimizing for cac why does the app exist why do you feel that

Shivam K: Yeah. Yeah, Wow, that's so true man. That's so true. See, the thing is that most of the DTC brands and the marketing teams I've worked with, they do not develop a strong eye for analyzing their data. They don't look at their data from as many angles as they should. What happens is that a lot of times they're solving for acquisition when they should solve for retention. Gradually, know, the retention is coming down and down every month and you are pushing your performance marketing team to solve it solve it solve it you have failed to realize that how many new customers are required, you know over the months when your ROAS was slipping down. So it is a it is a very it's just that the volumes in acquisition are very high in the early stages that you tend to ignore retention. But originally you should focus definitely focus as much on retention as you should do in acquisition if not more even at certain stages. whenever I would suggest whenever the ROAS or the ROAS is falling down the CAC is coming going up you should look look at new customer acquisition and try to analyze where did you lose that was that an abandoned checkout sequence that was not working did you not do an offer at a seasonal level or your maybe you know your win back coupon wasn't firing at the right time you should study such things.

Abhishek: great. What does that you know brand actually builds LTV do differently in the creatives?

Shivam K: Yeah, so I think more than creators for LTV, your strategy should be very good. You should understand that, you know, what are your recycles rate and hit the customers with the you know, right message at the right time. Like the customer journey should be woven in a way that, you know, you're getting the right reminders and not just always about sales, but also, you know, nurturing a relationship because they new age, new age D2C brands are very much, ⁓ you know, like the let's say Gen Z ⁓ today or how the customers are evolving in the D2C space, they would want to build a strong brand affinity and brand loyalty and they're happy to be a premium. you try to, D2C gives you the leverage to ⁓ actually own your customer and own that relationship. So you build that connection with them, try to engage with the community of purchasers and try to drive that repeat.

Abhishek: Yeah.

Shivam K: So sense of belongingness, maybe there's a D2C brand you like and you purchase from, you must be having a sense of belonging or some kind of emotional thing to it. So that's how you should look at communication when it comes to driving LTVs.

Abhishek: Yeah, yeah. A lot of recent D2C brands which have grown well like if you say minimalist or super you or you know if you go to Comet now there is they see there is always a story around the brand that's why you know that is and blue orange as well you know they have I think they have cracked that brand storytelling what is your view in that what is that particular thing that they have cracked in the last five years targeting Gen Z markets in India and know cracking that number of you know 10 million dollars revenue.

Shivam K: Yeah, definitely very youthful brands, the ones you mentioned. ⁓ Most of them anyways.

Abhishek: ⁓ Yeah, the reason why I took out these brands are because these are the ones who have grown ⁓ drastically over last five years in India targeting Indian Gen Z audience. So I particularly wanted to talk about this niche and maybe people someone who wants to start a D to Z category is someone who is inspired by these brands as well categorically. So what would you say?

Shivam K: Yes. Absolutely, absolutely.

Abhishek: that they have cracked the what algorithm they have cracked.

Shivam K: Yeah, see, I would say, I most of the DTC founders in the early stage I've met and I'm like nothing against anyone, but a lot of times they have a wrong notion about building a brand. ⁓ Wrong notion as in look like, you would want to look at revenue. Yes, you should look at revenue from day one. No harm in that. But you should always try to find out the product market fit first and, you know, willing to invest your time and energy and also money into it. to figure out that whether a market exists or not because if you look at Comet, if you look at SuperU, there's a clear market that existed and they identified to discover the product market fit. ⁓ Sneakers are no longer in the higher range now, but when ⁓ at a certain point it was, all these Jordans, Nike and all that, ⁓ there was nothing that was ⁓ so-called affordable for the youth.

Abhishek: Exactly. Hmm. Bye.

Shivam K: That's how this market was created and it just blew up. Similarly for SuperU, they were very clear that we don't want to on the one hand the whole truth is always talking about the ingredients, the health. SuperU was always about taste. Wafers is a very nostalgic taste if you could infuse protein in it and sell it as protein wafers. It wasn't existing. Now there are but it had always had the first entry advantage.

Abhishek: Hmm. All right.

Shivam K: So when you have that kind of advantage and you're willing to test the market to discover whether or not you have a product market fit and once you have it, you just keep on blowing the trumpet that you know, I have a product market fit. I know that now I want to, ⁓ I know my TG more and more and I will look to continue to build and engage with them in a similar fashion. So that's what it boils down to mostly.

Abhishek: Right. I always had this question, you know, while I was working with my own clients, is retention a marketing problem or a product problem?

Shivam K: Yeah, very good question man, definitely very good question. ⁓ A bit of both I would ⁓ say. ⁓ Definitely I believe product, think advertising for everything advertising and marketing product is central to it. ⁓ But I mean seriously there is it's 99 % product sometimes I think and 1 % advertising. ⁓ But so that is that is what I mean your question makes me wonder that you know product has to come first.

Abhishek: Exactly.

Shivam K: But a lot of times good products lose out on a product market fit because of lack of a good and comprehensive marketing funnel and structure.

Abhishek: But I think there is a saturation for any product if you say a brand has increased its sales from zero to ⁓ million let's say through sales then they feel that their sales are not growing then they change their agency or like their consultant and look to go above that mark of revenue. So don't you feel that they have you know hit the point of saturation?

Shivam K: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Abhishek: of the product market fit they have in the market. Now even though they go out anywhere in the world is there a chance of them to increasing that when is that reality going to hit them that they have hit that mark because I see a lot of brands struggling there exactly they see a certain kind of revenue then they look for more of it and they keep hopping everywhere in the world.

Shivam K: Hmm.

Abhishek: How do you take this?

Shivam K: Yeah, absolutely. See, mean, definitely there is a, it's a very typical problem for a lot of brands to kind of, know, keep hopping on without, you know, actually realizing what the problem, where the problem lies. Right, that's a very, very common problem. I'm sure you have also come across, I've also come across.

Abhishek: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. But the reality doesn't hit them as early because ⁓ I've seen lot of brands hopping around for like two to three years and losing the whole market.

Shivam K: I think. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Do you have to you have to be very clear? So for example, one thing about good brands is that they're very clear with their vision and their TG from day one. Right. You cannot see if once you have hit the saturation, you know market saturations or a category saturation level. For example, there was a client of ours who understood that, you know, stevia is a market only has a limited market size.

Abhishek: Mmm. Mmm. Hmm.

Shivam K: out of which it has captured to the best of its potential then it switched to some other category which is 101 % fine but the problem is when you know you are continuously without ⁓ not taking informed decisions about category about your TG you don't have an informed decision to make and then you are just hopping around with the hope of adding numbers that is not something that is you know you will only lose yourself actually as a brand if you go that path yeah

Abhishek: Hmm. Right, exactly. Exactly. I mean why I wanted to put this on the record is if someone is you know hopping around like this they might hit this point that yeah this might something that I've hit this point of saturation. Yeah and also Shivam I feel with AI generated content do you think it is going to take over the human creative agencies or what because I see

Shivam K: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Abhishek: the A creative are giving more traction than the know general organic content which we used to rely on.

Shivam K: Yeah, I mean like very good question again. think AI definitely helps strengthen your workforce as in, you ⁓ helps sort of add the volume and the power to the engine of your creative workforce. So I don't think that you know certain things like at least advertising which is creativity so central to it is going to be replaced by AI overnight. Definitely design edit content.

Abhishek: Mm. Mm. Mm.

Shivam K: very big opportunity for AI to take up up to 90 % of you know, what the manual workforce was doing, but there's a bigger, ⁓ you know, there's there's a bigger human psyche problems that every marketer has to solve and has to look at ⁓ which is which is very contextual and psychological in a lot of ways. So a creative evangelist or a psychologist or an ⁓ analyst who look just like we how we started the call just full. is used to looking at numbers in different ways and marrying it to the strategy. That is something that will remain central to good marketers anyway. What it will do is, AI will do is take away the redundant work, the factory kind of work that was happening in marketing, and maybe make it more efficient.

Abhishek: only make things better. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that you have worked with 500 plus brands. I curiously want to know what is the success formula you have seen in a D2C brand that can, any category that can scale you if someone who wants to get into this space, your input with your experience.

Shivam K: Thank

Abhishek: in this market.

Shivam K: Can we, I mean, can we, are you talking about a specific category or any zero stage brand,

Abhishek: Any zero stage fan, maybe a founder mindset it would be, maybe a product quality it would be or anything that is you know that has taken a D2C brand. I think you have seen and compared a lot of brands. What is that success formula is my question for a brand.

Shivam K: He first is definitely clear proposition clear proposition will help you understand your TG very clearly look at that very clearly and then you have it in mind that I have this idea of a product and whether it is product market fit or not. So it's as simple as that a lot of you don't want to you know, unless you are. Cracked the supply chain or a very big reason to believe in a commoditized product. ⁓ I won't you know, I mean like a very commoditized price.

Abhishek: Hmm.

Shivam K: a common product like you know something like let's say a very generic kind of let's say ⁓ razor let's say right ⁓ or an appliance let's say is not very D2C friendly because right now ⁓ need to see me you are you know competing with a lot of ⁓ lot of brands and it's a cluttered space mostly so ⁓

Abhishek: Hmm.

Shivam K: you need to have a very clear point of differentiation against in the category you are. ⁓ Secondly, the understanding the point of differentiation, the proposition will help you identify the TG well enough and have the idea of a product market fit. Second, I think very importantly is also the founder persistence. ⁓ A lot of time founders, know, ⁓ tend to give up or like you say, hop on to from one thing to another or don't have the right ideas ⁓ in their head, can't find the right partners to work with to begin with. ⁓ So, so clarity in their mind and the perseverance to keep on going. because you see the first two years can be a struggle, can be a lot of pain and having that persistence, managing everything efficiently and you know, cruising through it is not everyone's game so that is also something I feel a good D2C brand founder is

Abhishek: I have a very I think a question to get out the exact answer if you want to start a DTC brand right now with all your experience in the market which is the category you would pick up and enter into the market what is the roadmap are you going to plan for it

Shivam K: Yeah. ⁓ yeah, that's a very good question I would say. ⁓

Abhishek: I mean this is the way I think I can get the best answer.

Shivam K: No, definitely there are categories that seem to be, you ⁓

Abhishek: because you have seen the numbers, have seen the categories behind and you know what is working, what is not. So what do you think that something can work out in the next five years if you are starting out as a DTC founder?

Shivam K: Yeah. See, there are two ways about it. One, feel that I would want to ⁓ do something in kids wear or kids care because that is something, I mean, as a new father, I would be very fond of. And like I said, the founder energy shouldn't die away and it won't die away if I were to found a brand. Secondly, of course, is a supporting argument that I've seen the kids care or a kids, larger kids category growing very, very well. You know, we have come off ages where you know, we would only trust as a generation just the Johnson and Johnson's of the world now we are open as a generation to new brands and trusting new brands for our babies and Those two reasons enough enough for me to believe that you know, I've been fun to pound. Although I don't have a plan yet Yeah

Abhishek: ⁓ In three, mean, what is the most AI layers are you adding in your workflows, Shivam as an agency founder or are you are proposing it to your clients? What are the AI layers are you asking them to add for, you know, get things better?

Shivam K: See, definitely in reporting and in creative iterations and basically automating the workflows, we are definitely adding a lot of creative layers. So if I have to break it down very broadly, creative iterations, once you have a winner strategy, you should know have the AI workflows to produce 10 creatives. with minimal human intervention. have the winner strategy understood that here. This is the proposition that is working. This is a winner ⁓ messaging. Now I should be able to have a master creative and it's 10 iterations being generated quickly via AI. That is one which is creative volume largely second is, know all the and it goes for all the service company that that you know, you know internal and external workflows should be automated as much as you can. You know whether it is sending the meeting ⁓ meeting minutes or it's you know sending the reports on an automatic basis with the right insights ⁓ these things solve will take a lot of time away from your team and make it efficient if you have the basic ⁓ workflows like you know the basics automated basically. Yeah.

Abhishek: Great. Yeah. Right. I would call personalization at scale that we can achieve through AI right now. You know, giving the right answers at right point of time to the clients we have.

Shivam K: Yeah, very good. Very good. You know inside there definitely personalization at scale. ⁓

Abhishek: yeah yeah yeah so and another question I get a lot is that I am starting my DTC brand so now I have 10 lakh rupees budget with me so where am I going to spend my first 10 lakh rupees on

Shivam K: See, either, ⁓ See, would say if you're obviously the supply chain and brand to take care of. ⁓

Abhishek: Yeah, the product is ready. I am only talking about the marketing side.

Shivam K: Yeah, then it should be definitely performance marketing. I have a lot of reason to believe that. Not that you should not invest into brands straight away, but get to the product market fit stage. Once you know that for this much money, you can get the purchase and this is your customer, then invest into brand building and everything. Just create. Sorry. Yeah.

Abhishek: Mm-hmm. Right. take the feedback first from your first customers through marketing then you get to know your product is working or not then you can rely on your brand which is very expensive than performance marketing

Shivam K: Yes, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That's the way to go. That's the way to go.

Abhishek: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think we have answered that question to them. Another one, ⁓ being a marketeer, which is that one book or like a person that changed? How do you think about marketing?

Shivam K: and I have grown up idolizing the likes of Prasoon Joshi, Piyush Pandey. These guys were veterans and always ⁓ knew how to trigger emotions. These ⁓ guys were fantastic writers also. Prasoon Joshi is a great lyric writer also. Largely they knew how to trigger emotions. ⁓ That is one. I mean like I my fundamentals of you know, I was a copywriter to begin with and my fundamentals of copywriting were sharpened by a book called Hey Whipple Squeeze This which a lot of people in this I mean currently may not have read but it was a Yeah, yeah, should you should look for it I mean if you want to see my fundamentals of copywriting were sharpened by two books one was the copy book and the second is Hey Whipple Squeeze This So I mean, I ⁓ feel these were very important in my entire journey in the business.

Abhishek: Right, right and also Shivam, is there any underrated channel or a platform that DTC brands ignore except from performance marketing in the market right now?

Shivam K: See, most of the channels that give you buck for your money are already out there. But yeah, definitely there are a lot of niche marketplaces, depending on the category you are in, that are worth exploring. And sometimes something as unusual or unorthodox as a newspaper insert can work. unless you try.

Abhishek: We never know, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But you have to keep exploring it.

Shivam K: Yes, have to give it back me. I understand it comes down to understanding your TG man at the end of the day. If you know it, know them so much that you know what they would be doing at this point in time, any given point in time, you would know the right chance.

Abhishek: Great, great, great, and coming to the teaser company what are you looking at it like 10 years from now where do want to keep it and as a founder not just as a marketeer watch a a vision for it

Shivam K: See for the next, I not thought about the next 10 years, for the next five years is definitely going to be AI education. Very, very strongly we have, you know, there are a few announcements lined up how we are going to function as an agency now. So a lot of very deep AI integration is happening in terms of, you know, creative volumes I just spoke about. and yeah, I mean, like, keep following for more updates. I cannot give, share all the updates right now, but very soon a lot of announcements are coming up. Yeah.

Abhishek: Right. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. I also want to add a thing here that I mean, I think let me introduce myself to you right now. So basically I was running a marketing agency called Wittelsbach from the last five years. Now we have pivoted it to a SaaS tool. It's called Wittelsbach.ai. So whatever the pain points that we were talking about the creative intelligence and the numbers and analytics.

Shivam K: ⁓ lovely, lovely.

Abhishek: We are trying to bring down them at a single space where once you attach your Shopify or your Meta dashboard with us, we give you a dashboard called revenue leak dashboard where we are trying to show you is it through your creative intelligence or is it through your numbers? Is it your CAC? Is it your CPC? Is it your LTV? And give you a whole set of report for your campaigns for your brand. And also not only that we are trying to build an agentic model where we are trying to optimize the campaigns 24 by 7 if there is a hurt in the campaign we are trying to fix it and bring down the loss. So this is a model which we are building and we are in the urge of the launch and we have launched the beta version called the revenue dashboard where you can check your revenue leaks by your brands or

Shivam K: Wow man, sounds fantastic. Why don't you share it with me? I'll like, I'll, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Abhishek: Sure, for sure. I'll share it with you and a person like you with a lot of experience in the D2C space can give us lot of feedback and inputs on how we can make it better.

Shivam K: Absolutely, would love to man, would love to. I will try it for our brands and sounds like a very, very interesting insight. I would love to try it for a brand.

Abhishek: Yeah, for sure. Yes, yes. I mean, this is something which we have pivoted seeing the problem that what we have spoken till now is the pain points I wanted to solve through this at a single space.

Shivam K: Lovely, lovely.

Abhishek: Yes, yes, man, yes. And also, you know, I think after this 28 minutes, I got to know, think you're a man of few words and more of action.

Shivam K: Yeah, yeah, true. mean, like, that's true. That's 100 % true about it. I mean, very sharp observation. yeah, yeah. Very sharp observation.

Abhishek: Hahaha Yeah, yeah, I got that. I got that. I thought all these questions might take a lot of time, but you have answered it quick on straight and point.

Shivam K: Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. I think the podcast was very on point more like a one-on-one like an not like an informal podcast, but I think

Abhishek: Yeah, yeah, I think that's what I was mentioning because we were in the same layer. It's hit on hit questions like, you know, I think you know, whatever problem I was asking is the industry problem, not my problem.

Shivam K: Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

Abhishek: So I wanted to address that with you and thanks for your time Shivam and I will be in touch with you and you know I think I mean Wittelsbach.ai can help you and the brands make things better is what I would feel and I would also you know give a shout out to you because I feel that you guys are doing good with Pisa company and you know we will help brands grow that's all I can say.

Shivam K: Absolutely man. Let's let's I really hope so and all the best for the tool. I can't wait to try it for for our brands. Yeah, that's it. Same way. Yeah.

Abhishek: Thank you man, thank you. I'll see you soon. Bye.