Writing

Notes from the room.

Twice a week I write about operator finance and personal finance on LinkedIn — teardowns of public companies, treasury decisions I've actually made, and the money calls that matter at the operator stage. The published pieces live here.

Framework
Two D2C beauty brands at the same revenue — one valued at three times sales, the other seven. Growth used to be the whole story. Now it's CM2: the margin left after the product, the ad and the shipping.
14 Jun 2026
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D2C teardown
Everyone quoted Zepto's ₹5,905 Cr loss. The line that carries the 690-page filing is on page 162 — advertising revenue, ₹49 Cr to ₹1,636 Cr in two years.
11 Jun 2026
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D2C teardown
Zepto stocks 20k products a store. Blinkit carries 50k — and the smaller shelf has the higher in-stock rate. Inside a fixed-size dark store, breadth and availability pull against each other.
7 Jun 2026
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Framework
An RBI rate move changes your interest bill by about ₹20 lakh. Tightening your working-capital cycle is worth ten times that — and it's the number you actually control.
4 Jun 2026
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Career & craft
Coke rate at Vedanta, truck utilisation at Rivigo, NIM net of credit cost at Groww, repeat rate at Moxie. The metric changes by industry; the question never does.
31 May 2026
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Framework
Two founders, the same ₹100 Cr valuation — one takes home crores more. The gap was in four clauses underneath the headline: the option pool, liquidation preference, anti-dilution, and control.
28 May 2026
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D2C teardown
Nykaa's own brands grew 65% while the platform grew 27%. The company with the most data in Indian beauty still had to buy a brand and rent a face — because a brand is the one moat a platform can't shortcut.
24 May 2026
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Personal finance
₹10 crore of life cover for about ₹54,000 a year — bought at 29. The three decisions underneath term insurance most people quietly get wrong.
21 May 2026
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Inside the room
Every bank quoted a different rate. None of them quoted the real one. How a ₹10Cr facility went from 13.68% to 11.06% — ₹26L a year, recurring.
17 May 2026
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D2C teardown
₹106 Cr in profit. ₹235 Cr in loss. Same company, same year. Reading Urban Company's FY26 the way an operator does.
14 May 2026
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D2C teardown
Blinkit makes ₹1.35 per order. Instamart loses ₹76. Same category, same delivery promise — the gap isn't a quarter, it's structural.
10 May 2026
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Inside the room
On 27 March I broke a ₹25Cr FD two days from quarter-end. Penalty: ₹4.6L. Net after the swap: ₹8L+. The cheapest edge in treasury isn't information — it's attention.
3 May 2026
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D2C teardown
India's largest listed D2C brand reported all-time-high revenue and nearly doubled profit. Both true — neither tells you if the business works. The four numbers I read in any D2C quarterly, in order.
30 Apr 2026
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Framework
A CFO's monthly personal-finance review — four things, in order. First Sunday of every month. 30 minutes. One sheet.
23 Apr 2026
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Personal finance
I'm a CA and a CFA, and Head of Finance at a VC-funded D2C brand. And I still spend real time every month managing my personal cashflow. Earning well doesn't solve cashflow — it complicates it.
19 Apr 2026
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