Laws of Hype Creation : How Comet engineered Hype to build 167 cr Sneaker brand?

**Ganesh** (0:03)
Team of staff to the CEO of Hotstar, you went to LSE, Bain, Kellogg, and yet you came back to start a sneaker brand. What exactly is your strategy to crack Instagram?

**Utkarsh** (0:19)
Our drops are extremely sought after. It's only on our Instagram, and people will put alarms at 6pm, and by 6.15, almost all of it will sell out.

**Ganesh** (0:27)
Oh wow!

**Utkarsh** (0:28)
I think we can decode what is cool.

**Ganesh** (0:31)
Yeah, what is cool?

**Utkarsh** (0:32)
I have a principle in my marketing team, we will never use a skateboard and a basketball to ever make this brand cool. We make it cool in real life. We make mango shoes, scribbles, we make it cool in real life. We make it cool in real life.

**Ganesh** (0:44)
You chose not to scale on Amazon or Flipkart?

**Utkarsh** (0:47)
I wanted to take the Apple strategy, which is d***.
Unfortunately, we could not sustain that. We even flew down people from Taiwan for that.

**Ganesh** (0:55)
How do you price your product right? If you price it lower, you're losing money. If you price it higher, you're losing customers.

**Utkarsh** (1:02)
My philosophy is that the first digit of the pricing makes up 90% of your decision. 3 or 4 or 5 or 6

**Ganesh** (1:08)
If somebody decides to enter this business, what are the biggest traps that they must avoid?

**Utkarsh** (1:12)
Number one is...

**Ganesh** (1:30)
You know, while we were talking to Utkarsh about Comet Shoe, I realized something very important. Every time they launch a new shoe, there is a huge line of people waiting to grab it. The staff is running around, the boss is constantly ringing, and for those few hours, the entire store feels like madness. And that's when it occurred to me that running a shop is insanely hard. You are tracking orders at the counter, managing staff schedules, handling cash and UPI, and trying to make sure that not a single customer walks out frustrated. All of this leads to missed sales and a constant sense of chaos.
This is exactly where Odoo comes in. Odoo's point of sale shop helps you manage your offline or retail business very, very easily. Products are neatly categorized with color codes to help you organize better. And you can get full details of the product from the product list. You can run product combos, set presets to handle the rush, and the past shop stores the details for every customer so that you can run marketing and loyalty programs like discounts or rewards. It lets you track and update inventory in real time across multiple locations so that you never run out of stock right when demand is at its peak. Odoo connects with payment terminals to streamline payments and also gives you a clean view of daily sales across cash, card and UPI.
If you're running a franchise, you can pre-configure stores and centrally manage their stock and payments. If you want to automate payments, customers can self-order from a kiosk. And the best part is that you can get started with Odoo for free using the link in the description. And as your business scales, you can access the full suite for just 580 rupees per user per month. So if you want to manage the madness in your shop, click the link in the description and get started with Odoo Boss today. Hi Utkarsh, for today's podcast, not just me, my entire team is excited to have you, which is why, as you can see on the set, we've got your shoes here. They are some of the most beautiful pairs of shoes I have seen. So thank you so much for being here on the podcast.
And I'm just fascinated by a brand for multiple reasons. A, as soon as I told my team that Utkarsh is going to be here, they didn't have a reaction. But as soon as I told them that you run Comet, they were excited.
And I also read this story where there were 200 people standing outside your store. The Apple Store guy came out and was like, guys, no sale is going on for us. And I said, we are standing for Comet's sale, not for your sale. That's a testament to the kind of brand that you build. And for all the people who are watching this episode, I want them to learn how to build a cult following in a crowded market.
That's the agenda for today's podcast. Shall we get started?

**Utkarsh** (4:03)
Sure. Yeah. Thank you for having me.

**Ganesh** (4:05)
Utkarsh, firstly, when I looked at your history, I saw that you were the Chief of Staff to the CEO of Hotstar. You went to LSE, Bain, Kellogg, and yet you came back to start a sneaker brand.