ChaiNet: The Agentic Commerce Podcast
ChaiNet is a podcast where we talk about the future of AI and ecommerce with the founders, builders, experts and brands to understand how do agentic commerce services improve the shopping experience of tomorrow. chainet.substack.com
Episodes
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Samuel Ade, founder of Ilana, a luxury fashion platform creating pathways for Black fashion designers.
Ilana means “pathway” in Yoruba. The platform was born from Samuel’s mother’s dream of seeing her designs sold globally. Today, Ilana offers free mentorship and a scholarship fund powered by every sale.
We talk about his mother’s story, launching during COVID, giving away mentorship for f...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Sidharth Sahni, Co-Founder of Helium.
Someone clicks your ad. Lands on your page. Then leaves. Most brands call this a bounce rate and buy more traffic. Sidharth thinks that’s the most expensive mistake in D2C.
Helium uses AI to adapt storefronts in real time for each visitor.
Sidharth talks about:
* What happens in the first thirty seconds in a store?
* Why founders misdiagnose conversion as...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Hunny Bhagchandani, founder of Torchit Electronics.
After watching a visually impaired mentor get hurt, Hunny spent three years and built 16 prototypes. Today, his device Saarthi, sells for ₹3,199 compared to German alternatives at ₹70,000 and has shipped to 50,000 people across 40 countries.
We talk about walking off Shark Tank without a deal, blindfolding himself live on TV to demo the p...
India is protein-deficient. So I turned the country’s favourite snack into the solution.
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Razia Ali, founder of Poptein, India’s first protein popcorn.
After 20 years at Dell, AMD, and Yahoo, Razia walked away with a few lakhs, a WhatsApp number, and a Wix website. Four months later, she’s bootstrapping a clean-label protein popcorn brand.
We talk about why she left corporate, why popcorn in...
On this episode of ChaiNet, Asgar Dungarwalla, founder of GiftsOnline4U, shares his journey from the RAF to building an e-commerce business in 2007, when people were scared to use credit cards online.
Today, his team of five sells over 4,500 personalised products, including AI-generated caricature gifts made from customer photos.
In this conversation, Asgar talks about:
- What e-commerce looked like before the internet was trusted.
- H...
She spent 28 years climbing the corporate ladder. Won awards. Did everything right. Then one day, she threw all those trophies in the trash and walked away.
Today, Shilpa Arora is the only woman among five co-founders at Insurance Samadhan, a company that has recovered over ₹220 crore for Indians cheated by their own insurers.
She also pitched on Shark Tank. And has a lot to say about what it actually takes to be taken seriously as a...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Burak Karabulut, co-founder of Boost Up Solutions, a consultancy that helps brands actually get value from the martech they’ve already paid for.
After four and a half years at Insider Turkey’s first software unicorn, Burak watched brands sign six-figure deals, get excited about flawless demos, and then fail to use the platform three months later. That gap between buying and using became t...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Jashid Hameed, co-founder of Nuvedo India’s first premium functional mushroom brand.
After IIM Indore and a career managing 25 fast-fashion stores, Jashid walked away to grow mushrooms. When he entered the market in 2021, it was practically empty. Even on Shark Tank, one shark had to be told that mushrooms are fungi, not plants. Today, Nuvedo has created a category from scratch.
Key insigh...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Lokendra Tomar, founder of Diabexy India’s first and largest manufacturer of low glycemic load food products.
Lokendra spent years selling diabetes medication at Sun Pharma, but something bothered him: he was selling management, not a solution. He left, started nutrition consultations, and built Diabexy. Today, the brand has ₹16 crore in revenue, 2.1 million YouTube subscribers, and a 70%...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Nirav Bhatt, founder of Sellers Umbrella, an Amazon agency that has managed over 200 brands and more than $5 million in ad spend. After six years at one of India’s top Amazon agencies, Nirav built his own firm to help founders move past guesswork and build real growth on the platform.
Key insights from the conversation:
* What separates winning Amazon sellers from those who struggle.
* Why ...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Charles Roche, co-founder of The Roche Hair Experience. After 19 years in fuel logistics, Charles left a stable career to build a wig company built around one belief: losing your hair should not mean losing your confidence. He opens up about the moment he decided to start, the first six months of building while still working full-time, the hardest conversations he's had with clients, and...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Seena and Reyana, co-founders of SheR HQ, a platform that helps health and wellness brands build online communities people actually want to be part of. Both founders have deep experience inside some of India’s most interesting health companies, Seena at Rocket Health, and Reyana leading content at Rocket Health and building community at Databeats in Singapore. In this conversation, they ...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Anant Bhat, Co-founder and CTO of Paperflite.
After a decade at Cognizant, Anant left to build a content intelligence platform. But today, we’re talking about what happens when AI agents become the shoppers instead of humans.
In this conversation, Anant breaks down:
* What changes when AI agents shop on behalf of consumers?
* Whether great creatives still matter when the buyer isn’t human.
* ...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Amit Singha, founder of Anuprerna.
Amit left a high-stakes M&A career at Infosys to go back to his roots in West Bengal. Today, he works alongside artisans who carry 200-year-old traditions, connecting them to modern markets.
In this conversation, Amit opens up about:
* What made him walk away from corporate life to count handloom threads in a village?
* The on-ground reality of working in w...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Matthew Taff, co-founder of Natch.
Matthew landed in Mumbai from New York and saw something most locals had stopped noticing a gap in the market for honest, premium snacks. In 2017, he and his wife Meher took the leap.
Eight years later, they’re still here.
In this conversation, Matthew opens up about:
* What jumped out at him when he first walked into an Indian supermarket was
* The moment a...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Manish Paul, founder of MoePuppy.
After his dog Juno passed away because he couldn’t get a vet in time, Manish walked away from a 16-year trading career to build something that mattered. His first venture, Monkoodog, grew to real revenue and made it to Shark Tank India auditions, but eventually had to shut down.
Most people would have stopped. He started again.
Today, MoePuppy is competing ...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Ravi Rathi, founder of BLEP Pet Food.
After a decade in banking, defense tech, and political consulting, Ravi’s world shifted when his German Shepherd, Max, got sick from premium kibble. That personal crisis led him to question what actually belongs in a pet’s bowl. He left his career to find answers.
Today, BLEP has delivered over a million meals to thousands of pet parents with just seve...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Jigar Mehta, founder of Honey Twigs, India’s first squeezable honey brand.
For 2.5 years, Jigar was a showcaller at Kingdom of Dreams, controlling every second of 250 performances and working with the biggest names in entertainment at the IIFA Awards. He had the kind of career most people in live entertainment dream about. Then he walked away.
Years later, he stood on Shark Tank India pitc...
Most fitness brands make money when you quit. You sign up, stop showing up, and they keep charging. Anish Menon thinks that’s broken.
He spent four years inside The OutFit Gym learning the business, watching what worked, what didn’t, and why most people never see results. Then he built LIFTR Strength and Conditioning on a simple bet: align the gym’s incentives with the members’ goals.
Eight locations later across India, Sri Lanka, an...
On this episode of ChaiNet, we sit down with Ravi Gupta, founder of Guugly Wuugly, a father who turned a frustrating shopping trip for his daughter into a D2C kidswear brand.
With no fashion background, he couldn’t even tell cotton grades apart. Ravi left his IT job at Wipro to build something meaningful. He traveled thousands of kilometers across India, visiting manufacturers and learning textiles from scratch. Then came the hardes...
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