From How to Who: My Journey as a Founder

How → What → Who Bezos once shared his secret to scale as a founder: “graduating from how to what to who.” My journey has been nowhere near Bezos’s—but in building Rebel Foods from one small kitchen to 4,500 internet restaurants across 100 cities over 14 years, I’ve lived through this transition too. In the early years, it was all about how: How to open the next store How to build SOPs, integrate tech, create brands And mostly, how to make payroll next month 5–7 years in, I had become a notorious micro-manager with a short fuse—probably the worst kind of a boss. I meddled in every “how” of the business. Then came some brutal feedback from team. That’s when I gingerly moved to what: What should be our annual targets What brands should we build next What opportunities are on the horizon Slowly, I learned to let teams define the “how” for those “whats.” But the real breakthrough—the liberating shift for me, and for Rebel—came when I truly understood the power of WHO. When you find the right person for the job, and let them decide the “what” and “how,” everything starts falling in place. Who should lead international Who should run ops Who should lead brands Of course, I’ve slipped back into the trenches of “hows” and “whats” whenever I’ve made a wrong WHO decision. Over time, my most important job became finding the right WHO and giving them freedom with accountability. As we move to the next phase of building our company, I’ve been thinking deeply about who should be the CEO of our business for the next decade—the biggest WHO decision of my life. After deep introspection, it came down to two names—me, or Ankush, my partner of 13 years. And I’ve decided it should be Ankush, because he’s an order of magnitude better than I am at things that matter most for Rebel’s next decade— - His superpower is spotting great food from the merely okay - He’s the most money-minded person I know—deeply wired to understand returns on capital, margins, and how customers determine value - He’s a terrific leader who can spot talent from 100 miles away; I’ve seen many rise to the occasion under his leadership. WHO comes naturally to him - He’s an execution machine—he just gets shit done through ruthless prioritization and rallying the troops behind a few critical things. I’ve seen it countless times in 13 years Most importantly, he embodies "founder mentality" that defines Rebel’s culture: always challenging the status quo, always customer-obsessed, always thinking like an owner. As I step into the role of Chairman/Group CEO, my primary job will be: - Not to bother him with a new idea every morning. - And to be his trusted sounding board, with the occasional hard question. There are very few things I look forward to in this world more than partnering with Ankush, as we continue to build Rebel as a category creator in food on a global stage. PS: Here is the “Founder Mentality” credo of Rebel Foods, for the deeply curious. https://lnkd.in/dPdg_X8v