Recently on Shark Tank India, a very inspiring pitch was from the founder of Designtemplate.io, Dadasaheb Bhagat. It was the pitcher’s life story that moved the Sharks immensely. On the show, Dadasaheb revealed that he left his education after Class 10th due to family responsibilities, and worked as an office boy at Infosys where he was making Rs 9000 every month. Before that, he was a daily wage-earner who was getting paid Rs 80 per day. However, his inclination toward design led him to start this successful graphic designing enterprise, Designtemplate.io, in 2018.
When he brought his digital product on the show, his ask was an investment of Rs 1 crore for 2.5 percent equity. Dadasaheb did get offers from Aman Gupta as well as Peyush Bansal, but he chose to close the deal with Aman for 10 percent equity for Rs 1 crore investment. In an exclusive interview with Indianexpress.com, Dadasaheb explained why he declined Peyush’s offer, also revealing how he went blank during his pitch and that Radhika Gupta helped him.
Talking about his experience, Dadasaheb shared, “It was very exciting, something I had never imagined. I went in and the energy was very good. I started speaking, but after the first two sentences I went blank, that time Radhika Gupta supported me, she gave me water, and Peyush asked me to not present it like a pitch. But it took me a good 10 minutes to feel normal.”
Dadasaheb also shared how Shark Tank India has changed his life, he said, “The minute Shark Tank India episode was released our traffic grew 100X, earlier the traffic was around 200-300, now it is 20000. Even the sales have gone up by 20 percent. Big VCs and investors have started calling me now. I never got to see this kind of circle before this.”
While Peyush had given an offer to Dadasaheb asking for royalty, Aman had opposed this ask, leading to friction between the two. But when asked why Dadasaheb chose Aman over Peyush, he said, “If Aman would not have offered, I would have taken Peyush’s deal with royalty. Our cash flow is good, so giving royalty is no big deal, but then I would have asked for a bigger amount. The issue with Peyush was the valuation and his condition to sell the product at other marketplaces. Mine is a digital product, and Peyush advised me to sell it to external parties, but they are our competitors. So if we keep tying up with them, no one will come to us. My projection is to make 100 crores, with this technique we could not even have made Rs 10 crores. Aman gave me that flexibility and guidance, hence I chose him.”
He also added, “Compared to me there have been bigger business pitches they get to see, so I respect them all. Both Peyush and Aman were interested in the business and they saw my growth. Aman saw my life story, and Peyush focused more on the business part, but both wanted to invest. So their rivalry helped me positively. I could have negotiated but I thought if such a big man is coming to me with a valuation that in itself is a big deal.”
Talking about the way forward with Aman Gupta, Dadasaheb explained, “The due diligence is going on, I recently met Aman at an event where we both were speakers. He was very nice, and we exchanged pleasantries.”
Dadasaheb revealed how he likes the marketing-oriented thought process that Aman has. Even on the show, when he received the cheque from Aman, he called him ‘Baazigar of the tech world’.
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