Episode
Part 2: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on digital landlords, doers & divas, and why delivery will never eat dine-in
- Podcast
- First Principles
- Published
- Jun 22, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3811
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/96943a14
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Summary
Part 2 moves from the journey to the operating philosophy. Riyaaz Amlani unpacks his evolving stance on the aggregators — from resistance to "uneasy truce" — and the hard lesson that restaurateurs who send guests to Zomato and Swiggy have only themselves to blame. He argues delivery and dine-in are two different businesses, lays out his ambition to turn Impresario into a full-service-restaurant platform, and gets personal on hiring, Gen Alpha kids, weekends, and why his life scores 9.9 out of 10. CHAPTERS 00:00 Recap and what's ahead: aggregators, the platform, the missing 0.1 01:48 "Digital landlords": Zomato & Swiggy, then and now 02:47 From resistance to cohabitation; how aggregators trained demand 05:24 Owning the customer; the cross-sector aggregator tension 07:04 The Booking.com / Hotels.com parallel and how hotels fought back 09:41 Build your own loyalty — don't blame the aggregator 10:09 Delivery vs dine-in: two completely different businesses 13:09 Restaurants beat the movies; lessons from raising VC/PE 16:34 Growth math: IRR, 20-25% stable growth, the late-stage problem 17:45 What motivates him: reading a city and its community 18:56 Curiosity over the "5 people"; planning for serendipity 24:29 Hiring: "doers and divas" and the largesse of hospitality 30:24 Social as social infrastructure: coworking from day one 34:25 First principles: people + process, soul, belongingness 37:08 Harvesting feedback: NPS, ORM, AI, the guest-experience officer 39:18 His kids and the Gen Alpha worldview 43:39 Weekends, FIFA, meditation, and protecting solitude 48:10 Comfort food and deferring to the chef 50:11 The 25-year view; the 10,000 cr platform and the invisible 85% 59:03 Anti-loyalty vs frequency: cafes are loyalty, restaurants are experience 1:01:44 Final question: 9…