The New Shop scaled from zero to 57 stores in 20 months in its early phase, grew revenue from ₹2 crore ARR to ₹60 crore ARR in that period, and has since expanded to several hundred stores, including the rebranding of 24Seven outlets acquired from Godfrey Phillips India. The company runs asset-light, with franchisee entrepreneurs operating stores while The New Shop provides technology, partnerships, licences, and the brand.
Background – education and career
Aastha studied Economics at Hindu College, Delhi University, followed by a PGDM in Fashion Marketing from Pearl Academy as a full merit scholarship student, and is also an alumna of IIM Calcutta. She began her career in finance at Bank of America and Standard & Poor's Capital IQ, and while still an undergraduate joined her father's stock broking firm, becoming one of the youngest certified NSE stock brokers at 18.
She has founded multiple ventures before The New Shop, including Motion Punch Studios, Smartican, and ProductX, spanning gaming, AI-led content discovery, and online reputation management. She has been named to BW Businessworld's Retail World 40 Under 40 and won Retail Icon of the Year at the Golden Spoon Awards.
3 key takeaways from the episode
Franchisees outperform employees. Aastha's argument is that kirana stores are profitable because entrepreneurs run them, and the franchise model is built directly on that insight.
Convenience retail in India is structurally underbuilt. The store-count gap against comparable markets is not a demand problem; it is an execution and format problem.
Acquisition can buy time, not just scale. The 24Seven deal saved months of location research, which in retail is often the scarcest resource.
