TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Hi. This is Ricky Vasandani, CEO and cofounder of Solitario, and you're listening to Trust Me. I Know What I'm Doing. My name is Abhay Dandekar, and I share conversations with talented and interesting individuals linked to the global Indian and South Asian community. It's informal and informative, adding insights to our evolving cultural expressions, where each person can proudly say, trust me, I know what I'm doing.

You know, periodically on trust me, I know what I'm doing, we share a spotlight conversation and feature brief chats with an individual from the community about a special topic or a unique endeavor. It's okay. A while back, I had to think about making a will and living trust. And not to be morose or sad, but it was a good exercise that sort of forced me to think about things that are family heirlooms or even the more basic question of what we find precious or beautiful or even enduring. For a lot of people, tangible things like jewelry come to mind and it's no real news flash that India has a fairly strong heritage and history with jewels and particularly diamonds.

Now in the 2025 that we live in, technology is bending the curve and offering alternatives for everyone to be conscious of sustainable affordability, ethical choices, time, and rapidly evolving definitions of elegance and fashionable beauty in almost every corner of every consumer market. So I was actually really curious to learn more about lab grown jewelry, and it was really great to share a spotlight conversation with Ricky Vasandani. Ricky grew up all over the world in a family that successfully scaled the legacy Indian lab grown diamond producer with an expanding domestic and Indian lab grown diamond producer with an expanding domestic and international retail footprint. In fact, just recently, Solitario finished a round of pre IPO funding, a solid positioning in a market that's expected to skyrocket in the next few years. We caught up to talk about his global journey and experiences about lab grown jewelry and the storytelling that it deserves when making choices.

But I first asked him to share the obvious, which was to tell me more about the jewelry he was currently wearing. Well, I'll tell you. My my first thing of entering the jewelry line is because I love diamonds. I love them from when I was a child. And for me, diamonds is an accessory which I need to dress myself up with always.

And if it wasn't diamonds, I need my Snackable bracelets. I need some kind of accessory. So yeah. So I'm just wearing what I wear every day. Yep.

So that's a 10 carat diamond. And then we have a three row tennis bracelet. And then you have something that goes with your watch. And, yeah, this is our logo. Sorry, darling.

Right. Well, you get well, you gotta you gotta wear it. Wear it and be honest. Right? Correct.

I know that. I mean, I feel good. And when I wear my stud in the morning and it's just accessories. It's like for me, it's like the makeup of men. Let's put it that way.

Hey. You know what? Everybody dresses themselves up in whatever way that makes them feel confident and really, really good about themselves. I I mean, in that way, for you, this, you know, this has been a part of your life for a long time now. And, you know, for you and your family, these kinds of pieces, right, they they speak to what you trust about yourself.

And is there a different kind of trust when it comes to jewelry specifically, you know, especially in a day and age where nothing really is that permanent. You know? I mean, we're we're a very fickle market. We're fickle consumers. We like trends.

We go for one thing one day, and and the next day, it's something completely different. Some days we like crypto, some days we don't. So, you know, in that way, what is it that sort of, you know, you find trustworthy about jewelry particularly? So I'll tell you, in India, I also, what I've always told my clients is jewelry is not really an investment. It's an emotional gift that you give.

See, today, jewelry has become part of our lives because of the dress up, dress down. At the end of the day, it's accessorizing yourself. Today, diamonds have become accessible to people because of lack of diamonds. I remember before, a one carat star was about a lot of hard work, and it was a status. It was something that you gifted your wife.

And then suddenly you go for a vacation, and she might just slip in the bathroom and the diamond is gone. So your money is completely gone. So it was, like, a lot of sacrifice towards jewelry. So that was, like, the trust that they created that this is the legacy I'm gonna pass to my family. This was good for the the kings and queens because they had all the legendary jewelry which are unique pieces.

When you talk about one carat diamond, you talk about two carat diamond, which is something common today, it's more of an accessory and an enjoyment than a luxury. More than, I would say, like, a legacy or a trust factor or or it doesn't come to that. It's just about fun. I mean, jewelry that you pass on to your kids is I know one thing. I if I wear this chain for twenty years, my kid's gonna love it.

In spite of it being lab grown or natural diamond or whatever it is, just because it was my identity. Yeah. So as long as you can create an identity to your jewelry and create that, makes it much easier in the future, for it to have its value. It's an emotional value, and it's a luxury for me. Do you get do you get nostalgic about things that, jewelry, perhaps that are family air rooms?

I mean, is the hope, of course, that, you know, someone has that emotional attachment to it. But, yeah, it is you know, for a lot of people, it's an investment. It's something that they've purchased and something that they can feel proud of. So in that way, jewelry as an accessory, part of it's fashion, part of it is feeling good about yourself and finding an accessory. Is it kind of supposed to be a blend of it, especially for you?

For me, it's it's more like an accessory and luxury. Yeah. Coming to a part of the emotional attachment, I do see that. But about status, I don't think it goes to that anymore. Mhmm.

Honestly, people can't even know the difference between a 90% of items on a naked eye can't really identify. So Yeah. Status comes with a lot of things. It's like I always say, you can have the best car. When you walk in, you're not gonna walk in with your car.

You're gonna walk in with your watch. So the same thing as jewelry. It, like, a lot of customers are like, can anyone tell the difference? I'm like, they won't be able to tell the difference if you're wearing a five carat diamond, which is supposed to be half a million, and you're probably living still in a rented apartment. It wouldn't add up.

So jewelry is all about how much you've created. And then after creating your assets, your wealth, and creating your your whole portfolio of investment, then you go into that luxury sector of saying, have it all, and now I wanna treat myself with something special. That for me is jewelry. It's not an investment from day one. If you really wanna invest, invest in gold.

Gold is always gonna that is an investment, but not not jewelry. That means I've never taken an off street of more than 8%. If it goes up, it goes back down. Sure. And that's my personal opinion.

As someone who's had, you know, a fair amount of expertise as an entrepreneur and, of course, you know, you've had, a lot of family experience in jewelry and and this kind of arena. What was there sort of an moment for you personally where, you know, that that made lab grown diamonds something that where you wanted to concentrate sort of the entrepreneurial energy and effort. Like, something that flipped the switch for you saying that, like, hey. I need to concentrate on this. Tell you what happened.

So I was the person to establish a diamond factory cutting unit in Pune. Normally, it's in Surat. So we used to work in actual diamonds. I used to work a lot of loose diamonds, especially in South America, and it was great. So I never came across that broad diamond because it was like a it's a taboo to our industry.

It was like it was there, but it was not you can notice three years back, nobody even knew what it is. And, a war started between Ukraine and Russia. What happened in that war is, the diamond prices started going higher. The rough that comes to India from Alrosa comes from a Russian. So you just come and the premium started, shortage started, and I don't really develop our whole factory.

I had all the machineries, I had stuff. I had people. I already brought them over here. I was like, what I'm gonna do? I mean, I have to solve something.

I've I've just done a CapEx, a capital expenditure of craziness. Yeah. And I go to Surat, and I sit with the supplies. I'm like, listen, man. I I need to cut something.

And they were like, yeah. Try just have a look at this. They gave me 12 stones, rough stones of lab grown diamonds. The cutting procedure was the same. The analyzing procedure was the same.

What are you gonna extract out of the stones? So I saw it was the same procedure with natural diamonds. I said, great. Let me try. It.

First time over, I cut and polished 57 facet round brilliant diamond. I fell in love with it. It was it was not by first sight because it was the cleanest diamond I've seen. It was the most enhanced diamond I've seen. And the cut was a triple x and then the ID cut, which in natural diamond, I remember we would do very good because we wanted the carat size to go a little bit higher because that would give you your premium money.

But over here, you don't have that problem because you're growing it. So it's okay. You can have extra wastage. Just people are hearing also I'll tell you, when you take a rough diamond, over natural diamond, we try and extract a yield of about 42%, forty three %. When a lab grow, even though we go up to 35, 30 two, we're okay with it.

We can live with it. So that was where the dream brilliant came into place, and that was what I saw and I really loved it. And on a personal basis, I always wanted to wear a 10 karat. But being slightly intelligent person, I couldn't spend 1,200,000.0 on a on a rock and wear it every day. And I don't know.

Maybe today when I'm flying in Europe, I'm on a flight after I move my ring, your hands rise up, and you just maybe forget it on a flight or you forget it again. Can't afford to do that with 1,200,000.0. But today, I can enjoy my I can travel. I can go in and out customs. I don't have a problem.

I'm in lab or diamond. So many facilities that people are just, like, they don't see that part of it. All they see is that, oh, but but natural has an investment. I've never had an investment. I mean, sorry to say it, but the day you bought a diamond and you go to another pawn shop or you go to any shop that you wanna sell it, you're already on 30% minus.

Yeah. So it doesn't really have that that investment plan. That's how I fell in love with LabCorp nine, basically. I was just gonna say, I mean, it it it does make a difference if you you do what you love and you love what you do. And trying to make sure that that's a big part of who you are personally, you know, certainly speaks a little bit to that for sure.

When you're just mentioning, like, you know, you probably have to make this speech a lot about, like, what the value of a lab grown diamond is and, you know, how it speaks to you personally and and what it means for you beyond just the, like, idea of, like, what you wear on your person and how you accessorize. You as someone who's had a lot of global experience. You've grown up in, you know, all over the world, and you've had your professional endeavors in a variety of different, you know, parts of the world as well. When you think about, like, what you do now and the story you're trying to tell, is there something about that kind of worldview that's made the experience for you additive? Meaning that each and every place, each and every experience is a building block to the next, particularly when you have to tell this story, particularly when you have to develop relationships.

I mean, what is it like to be a global citizen and try and make sure that you're growing, no pun intended, this this business? Well, honestly, this question I've never come across, but, you've just, lit a different bubble in my head, which I never thought about. And it's true. Because, see, when I I was born in Africa, I was there for two years. After Africa, we went into the Canary Islands, which is a bit different.

It's Europe, it was different. So I was born in Europe with Spanish people. At the age of nine, we went back to Africa. So, again, I was with my African mates. After that, we went straight to South America.

So, again, I go from, Spanish culture to, African culture, but Africa is a lot of Indian. I mean, it's it's very much more Indian than Spain because you have your community and that's the way you live in Africa. Down from there, we went straight to the Latin and to South American cultures. We did different. And from there, we came to India, and then from India, I get back to Africa.

So, basically, I've had a lot of changes. I've been in over seven schools for the twenty years that I studied because I have 12 standard. I kind of left university because I wanted to go out there and and create value create value. I wanted monetary value. I Yeah.

Maybe at that point of time, I didn't understand the knowledgeable value. And, yeah, I took that decision, and that's what it does. So what I've learned in that is the main thing that makes you today a person who can connect and create opportunities is your relationship management. And you learn relationship management when you deal with different cultures, different people. What happens is nothing surprises you.

When you meet a different human being, people get surprised, they get shocked, they get they feel something. I've broken that. For me, every idea is good. There's nothing good. There's nothing wrong.

And it's just about how you maintain that relationship with you, what you get out of that relationship. And also, I'm a person who's understood one thing. A relationship between two people is a relationship till there's a give and take. The date is not give and take. Our relationship is over.

So you learn to detach, attach. You're not living it with an intensity of %. Everything is at 50%, so you're very balanced in communicating with people. Once you're balanced with communicating with people, everything just becomes much easier. And that that makes my business easier globally because Yeah.

You can adapt, accommodate, it's easy. First off, that's great because it makes you empathetic to the stories of other people. And at the same time, as a business person, as an entrepreneur, as someone who's trying to develop relationships, hopefully, it makes it that much easier to, you know, share and and actually get your point across and get your story across. So in that same light, what's probably often the biggest surprise that you get when you tell people about lab grown diamonds? Well, two years back, the reaction was, can they tell the difference?

That was the first reaction. Can they tell the difference? And I was like, no. They can't tell the difference. Unless they take your diamond and send it to an IGI lab or to a GI lab and send it for a complete thorough study, they would know.

Otherwise, they can't tell the difference. So what I realized with everybody, at least 70% of the people, it wasn't more about how they felt about wearing a natural or lab prototype. It's how the other people thought what they were wearing that was a problem. So when I identified that, I knew that this is a betrayed and it's not a fad. It's not here for two, three years.

It's here to stay Because I realized that culture was there. Yeah. And then I remember having a conversation with one of, experienced old man, and he was like, Ricky, I don't buy South Sea pearls anymore for my wife. Then I understood that the poor the cultured poor to South Sea pearls, how it took its variation and how everybody's just worried about one thing is, will it tell the difference? I'm talking about against 70% of the people.

I mean, there will be that 30% of it. No. I won't and if you go to the it's perfect. I don't need to capture the whole market. National diamonds is only two to 3% of the worldwide or diamonds.

Let's put it that way. Today, we wanna take that to 25%. I want people to enjoy the size they wear. I want a woman to go and feel empowered and buy her own one carat stud. Still remember in us and, you know, Indian culture, Cindy is also saying, well, when you get married, you're gonna wear that one carat each hearing.

Why? You're not 19. Go buy it for yourself. Enjoy. We're gonna wait to get married, and then your in laws are gonna come, and then they're gonna present it to you.

Come on, man. We've passed out. And what I really, really feel that more diamond will be actually sees is the immense technology that we've developed. We've created 20% of the sun's heat in the machine with pressure. Like, nobody's looking at that beauty.

You look at AI and you're like, wow. It's beautiful artificial intelligence. Guys, we've created a machine that does the same thing like the Earth. You should be applauding for us instead of saying, no. But this is not the real thing.

Come on. It's it's created. It's magic. We made it happen. It should be an epic.

And so so I have to ask you. Right? I mean, like, you mentioned the notion of what other people think. Right? And you mentioned the the cultural aspect of, like, you know, hey.

I wanna be at my wedding wearing x or, you know, I'm wearing something or I bought something, and no one really knows the difference until you tell someone or, you know, based upon what the reaction of that other person is. So, you know, in a way, it's an innovation, and it's something that is like, wow. This there's this technology behind it. And yet you have to kind of unravel lots and lots and lots of cultural history. And there's a lot to un undo.

Is is that one that you are constantly battling, or is it the kind of thing that you're like, hey. Look. We live in 2025. It doesn't matter what, like, you know, the past has has really put there. Like, how how do you approach that?

So so I'll tell you, when it comes to our sense, by the way? I understand where you're coming from. But sorry, Daniel. What I've realized is I don't get into the price factor. I don't get into the whole, blood diamond story.

I I don't focus on those things. I mean, we are ethical. I said we are ethical because we're trying to use as much solar power as we can. So it becomes ethical in a way that it produces a carbon footprint, but neither is lab grown diamond, like, super echo family, still electricity, guys. I mean, let's come to it.

There are carbon footprints in it. So on that aspect, I wouldn't say that, you know what, lab grown diamonds are completely ethically sourced a lot. Mine is very simple. It's a luxury that you can afford. It's a luxury that you can buy for yourself.

It's something that if you enjoy it, buy it, use it. You don't need to go and check if an American diamond looks like a diamond because you can actually have access to diamond. So it's just about enjoying what you buy for yourself or buying it for your wife or going home and proposing with the nice big rock, not that teeny weeny diamond that, you know, you I remember sitting in Nashville. I was at clients who would tell me, listen, man. I want to be here to look like a big can you make an illusion setting for me?

You don't need that anymore. You don't need to create an illusion setting with small diamonds. Go buy the rock and propose. And if you wanna get a natural diamond because folks don't reason that you connect with the earth's surface and it feels good, go for it. Just go for what makes you unhappy.

Yeah. And if you don't like to really I mean, that's perfect. The world is so big. You don't need to convert everybody into consumer. So I don't fight with anybody.

I don't argue with anybody. I don't debate with anybody. You wanna buy? Right? You don't wanna buy it.

It's fine. No. That that's which is great. I mean, there's always this tension. Right?

Because, like, more and more of the consumer based market is trying to be conscious. Right? And consciousness takes effect when they are being sensitive to the environment, when they're being sensitive, of course, to cost, when they're being sensitive to the human toll that things have. I mean, what you just shared right now is incredibly transparent that, like, look, lab grown diamonds are not without their footprint, but when you have to share that with somebody who's trying to be conscious about things, but, you know, they're interested in a lab grown diamond. Do you have the same kind of approach where you just say, hey.

Look. I want you to buy what makes makes you feel good, but just know that we're not necessarily without our carbon footprint. But at the same time, you know, we're we're doing something that's technologically very, very different and, you know, one that we appreciate. See, that's what I tell people. The technology advancement in this, you're by tech.

Today, I mean, I don't know. We I haven't done the study personally, but they were looking at diamonds being a store for data. Store a lot of data. They're looking at diamonds being a battery supply for thousands of hours. So the technologies, you brought all these good things into into it.

I mean, jewelry sector for diamonds is actually tiny section of the diamond industry. We use diamonds even in runways for the flights or aircrafts. So Yeah. As technology is what I tell them. You like tech, buy lab grown diamond.

You wanna wear a big stone because if you're gonna buy these steely diamonds, it doesn't matter whether you buy natural or large. Price difference, by the time you put the making, you put the gold and gold price is going up every day. It really does make a difference. But if you like big stones and you like the blade, then, yeah, natural is a good option. Honestly, I see the conversion day by day.

That's why I'm the most stores. I see the business increasing. That's why we're going so strong. I mean, we're gonna be the first listed company. Nobody goes ahead of us in lap grown diamond jerk.

And if I'm doing all that and everything is happening, let's put it this way, with hard work and automation, it's because the demand is there, people like it, and the growth is there. LabCorp and Amazon, I can say, is here to stay. And and the price is never gonna be tumbling up and down. It's been a year end record. We've seen the price is quite stable.

So it's it's got to its it's got where it has to be. You know, you mentioned this. We we first talked about relationships, and we talked about your kind of world journey. And we we just were talking about, like, almost in a way, like, sort of self esteem when it comes to how diamonds make you feel and particularly a lab grown diamond, how it makes you feel. In 2025, again, jewelry, diamonds, their accessories, but previously, they have been they, you know, like it or not, have been looked at as enduring.

Right? They endure culturally. They some families have them for generations, and yet there is an innovation to this. There's a tech to this. There's really part of the cultural fabric of 2025 And one that, like you just mentioned, it's it's growing.

It's it's exploding. And you guys are being poised. You guys are poised to, you know, do great work here. When when someone first learns about a lab grown diamond and the work that you do, what do you hope is gonna be enduring for them when they make a purchase? When someone is learning about lab grown diamonds, when they learn about, or experience your product, what do you hope is going to be enduring about that?

So that in ten, twenty five years or sooner or later, that they will share the the same sort of thing that, like, you know, hey. This is something that endured for me or my family. Well, I'll tell you a small thing that happened. I was with my elder brother, Vivek Roy. We were launching a shop, Bangalore.

And there was this old man, Jim, running forward. I remember, Leo was like, oh, let me pass and come. And the first thing he told him, thank you, sir. Yeah. Because here, like, you swear most of you are thanking me.

Tell me about it. So he's like, sir, I wanted to buy a diamond necklace for my daughter for her wedding. I didn't want to only buy a gold necklace. And solidarity made this possible. This I'm talking about when there was not that many lab grown stores in India.

We were one of the first ones to actually come up with lab grown diamond shops and shopping centers by and see us and not just hear about. And that was tears. Like, she's gonna wear it on a wedding day. So for me, that is enduring, that a father couldn't buy it on himself, didn't need a loan, didn't need to go to the bank and finance, didn't need to sell his gold of his house to buy that necklace for his daughter. That's one example.

First time I opened pavilion, this happened to me personally, 19 year old guy came to the store, and he was like, I wanna buy diamond studs. It's like, perfect for your girlfriend and what size are you looking at? I was like, no, sir. My mother is 75, and she's never worn a diamond, and I want her to wear a diamond. And his budget was about 50,000 rupees, like, a 20 of each, but he was so satisfied that he's gonna take back home a diamond to his mother, which maybe he could have got a national diamond, a smaller size.

I'm not saying no. But he did have the courage to go into a national diamond shop and say, I wanna buy a diamond. So this is also a dear friend for me that the courage to enter a jewelry shop and say, I want a diamond, I start. And that's a revolution. People who could not consider today coming and saying, I'm entering a diamond shop.

Today, they're entering a solitary shop. They're not scared. They're not intimidated. They're they're not worried, oh, will I be able to get something or not? They know they'll buy.

They'll be able to buy. So for me, that that is endurance. That is coming to the society who's probably never worn a dime and bought a diamond. Now we talk about the high society. Hong Kong.

I have great clients in Hong Kong. First thing when they found out about Rapunzel, Ricky. I wanna get my wife finally what she always wanted. I want a five carat center with a three carat graduated. Now in National Land, that's about a billion dollars when you talk about top quality.

I mean, you can get a lower quality, maybe $3,400,000, but if you're talking top, it's a million dollars. What happened is the husband doesn't mind putting in a hundred thousand dollars, 10 percent of what he was gonna spend, and go to his wife and say, here, your dreams is for you. And the way they can design that necklace with the facet, with the brilliance, natural diamond will take them maybe five years to even get the diamonds at that point of time. Now, of of course, it's oversupply because of what has happened, but I'm talking about years ago. So that again is enduring.

You can complete dreams. Don't need to capitalize yourself and and work more and more and more because you wanna give that to your wife. If you can get it today with with easy access, That is a. Yeah. Then another thing about has changed is men never spend on themselves on them.

It's very rare. A man who probably his wife would give us one car, bring it down for what he will have throughout his life. That's he wouldn't go and spend on a dime. Today, you see men coming to shop and saying, I want a band. I want three diamonds on my band.

I want five diamonds on my back. I wanna wear a diamond bracelet. Look at it, man. So many men wearing tennis bracelets today. Nobody wore it before.

If you look at even the celebrities, if you look at the last five hours, they're wearing with diamonds. And that was only probably in The US culture. In India, it wasn't there for it. Today, it is there. And these young guys can can wear the diamonds and not the guy buys all the money.

So for me, that's enduring. That's Mhmm. That's what makes me wake up every morning and do what I do. I see people happy. Yeah.

Well, enduring relationships, enduring tech, and, really doing lots of unique and relationship based work. Ricky, what a treat to to have you on. I learned a lot, and congrats on everything, and we wish you nothing but the best. Thank you. Thank you so much, Yvette.

It was great great to have you and spend nice chat with you. It was great. Hey. Thanks again, Ricky. Check out Trust Me.

I Know What I'm Doing everywhere, and thanks to everyone for listening, subscribing, reviewing, rating, and sharing with your friends and family. You all are the true gems. Till next time, I'm Abhay Dandekar.