Hi, my name is Shivam.
I figure out why things sell.
Great products don't sell themselves — I take consumer industries apart to learn why they sell, then I sell them.
Growth @ MathonGo — Head of Sponsorships, DOSM · BITS Goa — 3,000+ community — new teardown decks weekly
Open to product roles & internships
Deal closer by instinct · product person by choice · chemist by degree · BITS Pilani, Goa
The teardown library
Industries, taken apart to see why they sell
Long, slightly obsessive breakdowns of why everyday products are built exactly the way they are. An ongoing library — new decks ship every week.
Casebook № 01 · Consumer brands, India
Mokobara
How a ₹700 crore brand was built on the luggage nobody wanted to carry.
₹12 Cr → ₹230 Cr
Revenue, FY22 to FY25 — the four-year climb behind a ₹700 crore valuation.
Brand teardown · India
Birkenstock
How an orthopedic sandal from 1774 became the status symbol India never knew it was waiting for.
59.3%
Gross margin — no markdowns, no promotions, no exceptions. Hermès economics on a sandal.
Casebook № 02 · Consumer brands, India
The New Scoop
How a generation of founders rebuilt Indian ice cream from the inside out, by taking the guilt out of it.
400 → 1,600 ml
India's per-capita ice cream consumption, 2011 to 2023. The United States eats 22,000 ml.
Full index
- №01MokobaraBrand & market teardownBrand & market teardown
- №02BirkenstockBrand & market teardownBrand & market teardown
- №03The New ScoopBrand & market teardownBrand & market teardown
- №04Maka DiBrand & market teardownBrand & market teardown
- №05The Bottle Is the ProductIndustry deep diveIndustry deep dive
- №06Beyond the SachetProduct investigationProduct investigation
- №07Reimagining the Potato ChipProduct investigationProduct investigation
- №08The Plastic WaitProduct investigationProduct investigation
- №09The Bottle That Sells the ScentIndustry deep diveIndustry deep dive
- №10Vapes: a beginner's complete referenceIndustry deep diveIndustry deep dive
The library grows weekly — the newest decks land on Substack first.
The range
The research is the thinking. These are the reps.
- 01
Sales & business development
Toffee Doodle
Business development intern — pipeline, outreach, and closing, learned by doing it.
- 02
Partnerships & sponsorships
DOSM · BITS Goa · 2026–27
Head of Sponsorships, Department of Sponsorship & Marketing — full cycle, from outreach to on-ground activation.
- 03
Community building
3,000+ member community
Discord engagement loops and retention systems, run day to day.
- 04
Industry research & writing
The teardown library · Substack
Long consumer-industry teardowns, shipping weekly — the practice this site is built around.
About
Reads things nobody assigned
I'm a dual-degree student at BITS Pilani, Goa — a chemist by degree and a product person by choice. Most of what I do happens outside the classroom, in two habits that look unrelated until you watch them together: closing deals, and taking industries apart to understand how they actually work. I sell sponsorships for my campus, I've done business development at a startup, and I run a three-thousand-strong community day to day. The rest of my time goes into the decks — long, slightly obsessive breakdowns of why vapes, fragrances, sachets and potato chips are built exactly the way they are. If a market has a hidden logic, I want to find it.
Writing
The desk, in your inbox
Every teardown starts as a letter: the question, the research, the argument. New decks ship every week — subscribers read them first.
Browse the archive on SubstackNo spam — just the decks, weekly.
Open to product roles & internships
Hiring for product? Let's talk.
The fastest way to evaluate me is a teardown and a conversation. Email works best — say which deck you read and what you disagreed with.