Bharat Sethi, CEO, and Founder, Rage Coffee
Bharat Sethi is the CEO and Founder of Rage Coffee, a comprehensive coffee company that manufactures, markets and distributes innovative coffee products in emerging categories.
Podcast
Overview
Waking up to the sound of your coffee maker boiling your favourite cup of coffee and the delicious aroma of roasted coffee beans all around your house is unarguably the best part of your day. Isn’t it?
Although coffee is not a traditional or an ancient beverage rooted in our culture, it has made its way into Indian households and is now a very integral part of many morning routines. Today, India is the world’s 6th largest Coffee producer in the world!
TBCY is pleased to welcome serial entrepreneur Bharat Sethi on the podcast today. Bharat is the CEO and Founder of Rage Coffee, a very renowned coffee brand in India.
In this articulate conversation with our host Ashutosh Garg, Bharat shares the story of Rage Coffee. He talks about the journey of setting up a successful and consumer loved coffee brand in the country. Having worked on a couple of business projects, Bharat launched Rage as a research and experience oriented project. It is now a well established and a widely loved coffee brand in India.
Bharat talks about the challenges he faced while scaling up Rage. He looks at these challenges as interesting learning opportunities. When asked how Rage is different from the hundreds of coffee brands available in the market, the entrepreneur replies:
“We really went after the bigger problems of the market. We really went after changing the sourcing, changing the ingredients, changing the manufacturing technique of making coffee. We went ahead and took some very difficult decisions with respect to production, with respect to distribution. So I think we have not focused on the low hanging fruit in the market. Apart from that the product is fundamentally differentiated. We did not create a ‘me too’ product. We went after launching the world’s first plant based vitamins coffee.”
Further into the conversation Ashutosh and Bharat discuss the changing preference of consumers and the increasing love for coffee in India. Bharat’s business stands on the morals of honesty and transparency towards consumers. Bharat is very passionate about getting feedback from consumers and providing the best experience to his consumers.
Profile
Bharat Sethi is the CEO and Founder of Rage Coffee, a comprehensive coffee company that manufactures, markets and distributes innovative coffee products in emerging categories. He heads the Business Operations, General Management, Business Development, and Marketing Functions at the company. As an entrepreneur, he looks forward to creating a company that leaps ahead for the generations to come.
A serial entrepreneur, Bharat is an alumnus of Delhi University where he pursued Economic Honours during 2008-11. Due to his stellar academic performance and a keen interest in leadership qualities, he was handpicked to be a part of various delegations to prestigious international forums and summits. Upon realising his true calling, he set on an entrepreneurial journey involving multiple successful ventures. Interestingly, Bharat’s first step as a serial entrepreneur dates back to 2006 when he developed an online business as a 16-year old.
In 2012, he started PosterGully, an online platform for artists and designers to create, showcase and sell their work. The company enabled artists to contribute and merchandise unique prints/designs for products across different categories in India and abroad. The startup successfully raised over $200K from well-known angel investors and was later acquired in 2016, which instigated him to focus on his other undertaking. Bharat had recently co-founded iDecorama — a visually-driven B2B eCommerce marketplace for hoteliers, designers, architectures, etc. — aas its CEO. His leadership helped the startup to receive the backing of ABEC promoters, the organizers of ACETECH, India’s largest and world’s third largest exhibition related to architecture, design, building materials and construction.
In 2017, Bharat looked forward to expanding his business prowess by enrolling himself in Cornell University for a specialization in Networks, Crowds & Market. The Macroeconomics course helped him explore the relationship between market, information, and consumer expectations and to better shape his business endeavours. His core skills include brand building, eCommerce, digital marketing, supply chain management, retail & distribution, online community building, integration of operations & technology.
In 2018, Bharat Sethi started Swmabhan Commerce Pvt. Ltd. — the parent company of Rage Coffee focusing on creating digitally native vertical brands to explore the gargantuan opportunities in the FMCG sector. He envisions creating a Rs. 500 Cr ARR company by 2025.
Bharat actively mentors young startup founders to help ease their entrepreneurial journey. He likes to motivate budding founders and extends industry-insights that add value to their business model.
