EP13: Building a bar on the cloud to enabling payments & deliveries for wine-shops {Prasanna Natarajan, Co-founder & CEO of Hipbar}

Prasanna is a first generation alcohol beverage industry entrepreneur. Trust me, there are a very few of these in India.

Hailing from a family of teetotallers, at 27, he launched Sipping Spirits, a craft spirits business in Goa that he started from scratch in 2007.

On the episode we explore the world of alcohol and how an app from Chennai making it possible to buy alcohol from neighbourhood wine shops as well as enabling deliveries for these shop owners. Prasanna Natarajan & Prashant Adurty are the founders of Hipbar. Prasanna and I chat about the state of country spirits, and the business of delivering alcohol.

“Without knowing the extent of govt oversight, the naivety helped me become successful”

We get talking about indigenous spirits and the obstacle to their success in India. So far no online portal could successfully work on the liquor business as Indian laws do not permit the sale and purchase of liquor via digital channels. HipBar could overcome this legal obstacle by identifying itself as a pure-play fintech company. It currently counts TASMAC shops in Tamil Nadu as clients, has been in operation on and off in Bangalore and more recently started servicing Odisha & West Bengal for deliveries.

HipBar is backed by alcohol major Diageo.

Hope you enjoy the episode of Stars & Startups with Varun Vummidi as much as I did. You can connect with Prasanna on Linkedin

Timeline:

04:46 — What was the product?

05:35 — Partnership with Netherlands based Melchers group

10:01 — Classification of IMFL & country spirits

11:03 — Promoting country spirit

12:05 — Why tequila is popular around the world

15:12 — Problem of tagging country liquor as country liquor

16:04 — A case for local speciality alcohols

18:12 — Free movement of alcohol between states?

20:01 — Venturing into the business.

23:00 — Transitioning to HIPBAR from Sipping spirits

25:17 — Creating the Uber experience

28:06 — The opportunity explore alcohol deliveries

30: 29 — Mobile based payments in multiple states

31:35 — How efficiency is a casualty for wineshops and bars

33:32 — Challenges posed by Zomato & Swiggy to restaurants & bars

37:47 — Govts coming forward to implement digital solutions

40:44 —Regulatory rules, actions taken without oversight

41:41 — Hipbar participating in deliveries as well? Launch in Odisha

42:35 — Hyperlocal bar?