Vinay Singh is the Founding Partner at Fireside Ventures, which is the hottest name in the “Direct to Consumer” Startup segment. Anchored by a slew of Marquee investors, Fireside manages a 150million dollar corpus. Some of the biggest names that they support include mamaearth, yogabar, Bombay shaving co. boat lifestyle and manay more

Vinay has over  7 years at Hindustan Unilever, McKinsey and Bankbazaar.com across sales and marketing. He has a unique perspective on the intersection between consumer brands and technology. He has also been an entrepreneur, as the founder and CEO of Stepni.com, which was acquired by Quikr.

1. To begin with, tell us a little bit about the birth of Fireside venture, how you came to be involved?
2. Direct to Consumer – a buzzword, the latest and most preferred business strategy. Vinay, you’ve been on the forefront of encouraging some of the best brands in this space, both through venture capital and mentorship. Tell me, what categories do you feel do well in this kind of model?
3. What are some of the challenges associated with D2C model?
   Since we have so many traditional brands also taking this route, what are some of the pitfalls they should be wary of?
   Follow-up Q – As a startup entrepreneur launching a product on this model, what are some of things I should NOT be doing?
4. What I have gathered from what we spoke so far is that in-depth knowledge of the consumer is the key to D2C. How big is the dependence on first party data here? How much analytics is involved?
5. Another thing we see with D2C brands is  Sales First – Brand laterapproach and partiality towards ROAS or lower funnel metrics. What are your thoughts here?
6. D2C models were catapulted onto the spotlight during the lockdown. But in a post covid world, do you see consumer behaviour changing?
7. On the same lines, what is the future of Retail going to look like?
8. D2C brands Aggregator brands carrying products, and product manufacturers selling products directly, are advertising in the SAME SPACES , and kind of competing with themselves in some ways. Is this sustainable?
9. So one of the ways brands are actually interacting with consumers is through social media, and over the last 2 years it has become so very easy to talk to brands.  Do you see this dependence on social channels as a challenge?
10. What are some of the considerations new age brands need to keep in mind when approaching new partners and new media channels?