Listeners and viewers, welcome back. If you haven't listened to episode one with Amish Shah from Altar and Javar Diamonds. You gotta go back and hear this story. This is the entrepreneurial spirit writ large. Kidded from a small town in a very traditional Indian family is starts out listening to his grandfather and father tell him that his life was going to be in the family diamond business, and that simply wasn't enough. And Amish decided, if I'm going to be in the diamond trade, it's going to be a different world. So welcome back, Amish. You've told us the origin story, but now we're at the really, really important date. Two thousand sixteen is the first sale of commercially grown, lab grown diamond. And so tell us where the story picks up from there. Thank you, Ron, for the exciting first episode, and, thank you for inviting me back. So in two thousand sixteen, I was very clear that I need to ask the consumer that I have a choice. This industry is going to offer them a choice of beautiful labron diamonds. So June two thousand sixteen, exactly ten years and one day ahead later, And just like every founder or any, techie who's been punched around and never forgets that day, ten years, one day later, we exhibited at that same trade show again, hoping this time to get attention. To my blessing, eight days after that trade show, I got a call from one of the largest freestanding jewelry stores in Omaha owned by Berkshire saying, come and see us. Post my presentation, they said, we are going to give you an opportunity and present this product to the consumer and let them decide. I can't tell you the moment of joy or how happy I was that finally, it was the consumer that was gonna make that decision. Yeah. And, also, that you had just arrived in the industry now. You've arrived at a point on the journey where it's not gonna be the same. The road is not paved. You're going off on a different path here. That's what makes us so exciting and so invigorating is that you're taking these secretive middlemen out of the equation and going to the people who are procuring diamonds for their loved ones and saying, hey. Listen to my story. And if it if it makes sense to you, then let's do it. And that's what people, it sounds like, have started doing now. That's exactly what happened. So September two thousand sixteen, the first fine jewelry and bridal footprint of beautiful jewels created by us with ultra created diamonds came into retail in Omaha. And little did I realized or this industry realized that one six feet footprint went up in sale eight times in the next eight months, and education was the biggest marketing. Not one billboard, not one advertising, or not one social media post. Consumers were educated about a choice, empowered, and they made a decision. And in two thousand seventeen, Ron, once again, the one of the top national retailers in United States invited Alter into their stores. And November two thousand seventeen, we unveiled at Helzberg in fifty stores, and within the first thirty days, broke records on sales that almost had their management call me before the thirtieth day and said, we need you here. We need to talk expansion. Unbelievable. What a cool story, Amish. This is exciting. So now we're gonna go to two thousand eighteen, and I Another revelation happens, and you reveal, the first laboratory grown pink diamond. Is that right? Absolutely. So, you know, when you are a creative guy who's never out of curiosity and probably cannot stay still, you're consistently thinking, how do I do something different? So even before you hit two thousand eighteen with the unveiling the world's largest pink diamond, I would want to say, Ron, one very interesting thing we did in two thousand seventeen. You know, the conversation of sustainability today is big. You know, every industry is trying to do it. However, you need to do it in true form. It can't be a buzzword. It needs to be in the DNA of a company, a brand, and industry. And the supply chain. Right? I mean, you've gotta you're reinventing, the process of distribution for this entire industry. I mean, you're gonna deliver these differently. People are gonna procure them differently. They're gonna, replenish their supplies of them for the consumers differently. So everything's changing. Absolutely. And that is when the first successful implementation of ecertification of grading reports was introduced. Think of it. Millions of diamonds are put into the system every year with a piece of paper, plastic, with every single one of them. And I was like, why? In the world of tech, why can't a QR code with information replace and stop this cutting of trees and plastic that ends up in the back of a store. And we successfully implemented America's and pretty much world's first for the industry, ecertification of grading reports that has today become a norm for every grading laboratory of this industry. So they're not doing it on paper paper anymore. You've taken that away, and you've made all the e all the certificates, ecertificates. That's incredible. So now you're regulating and helping to regulate the business that you're disrupting. That's pretty, that's a pretty sizable, you're disrupting. That's pretty, that's a pretty sizable achievement. But I think there's even more, and this is what fascinates me because in the world of disrupted, we talk to a lot of people about the gobsmacking technology that is gonna change the way we see things. And I can't imagine that to our listening and viewing audience, procuring, buying, enjoying, and gifting a diamond is never gonna look quite the same after listening to your story here. So but it's not only that. You know, you have the country of India, which has been a very large supplier of the world's diamonds, spending thirty million dollars on a laboratory research facility to study lab grown diamonds. Now I have to believe, Amish, that this is this is more than just delivering diamonds to engagement prospects because the diamond sector also has a very large industrial footprint where they're using diamonds in cutting no pun intended, but cutting edge technologies. It's the it's the the toughest, most impervious to anything, gem out there and capable of making cuts into everything from surgery to industrial applications. So tell me about this investment the Indian government's making and what that's gonna do to further disrupting the industry you've already started exploding and disrupting. So the beautiful thing, Ron, is that, like you had said about the pink diamond, the world's largest pink diamond created by Alter was unveiled in two thousand eighteen right around the Berkshire Hathaway event. And each year after that, the consumer embraced lab grown diamonds. An industry that was less than a million dollars in two thousand sixteen was about six percent of engagement rings in two thousand nineteen. But amazingly, fifty percent of all engagement rings in two thousand twenty three were lab grown. This not only got the attention of consumers that did not need a billboard, but word-of-mouth, organic growth, but also governments. The Indian government saw this as an opportunity. What is very interesting is ninety percent of the world's diamonds today have a earth mined were being cut in India. Our original facility of growing diamonds that is today solar powered is also in India. The government saw that if you invest in this technology and take it far beyond just gems, high-tech, defense, water purification, surgeries, five g, six g. Think of the opportunity. And this is what led the Indian government in their budget last year to announce that they were giving thirty million dollars to IIT Chennai to research on this technology. And professor Rao, who's heading it, told me that when the government told them that in the next ten years, we want to be at thirty mill billion dollars, And I repeat, thirty billion dollars. He said that the opportunity in thirty years is three hundred billion dollars because gem industry will actually be the smallest of this category. The usage of lab grown diamonds for human like improvement from simple things like water purification because it's carbon, to using them for X-ray machines, to polishing the corner of your iPhone, which is the corning glass, to enabling faster technologies for communication through five g and six g and for protection and for the defense. And this is what Ron has changed the entire perception for the world. And, yes, that's what's happening, and that's where the Indian government has is really pushing it to the part. And this is interesting, and probably many, viewers or listeners are might not be aware that last year, when the Indian prime minister, mister Narendra Modi, visited the White House on an official trip to meet mister and missus Biden, he gifted a seven point five carat lab grown diamond to Joe Biden. And this is and this is to signify that India was serious about this. The future of diamonds from a perspective of growing technology, traceable diamonds, and sustainability. Unbelievable. So if you've been listening, you've been hearing from Amisha, the founder and CEO of Alter and the Javar Diamond, lab grown and exploding not only in revenue, but in terms of impact in the entire diamond industry. Amish, I have to ask you to come back. This is too exciting. So why don't we do this? I wanna hear your last thoughts about this before we wrap. And then after the conference you're going to on July fourth, I'd love to have you back to keep telling this story because there's so much more that I'm confident our listeners and viewers will wanna hear about. As we educate people about the power of democratizing the sale, purchase, and procurement of diamonds. So any closing thoughts for me, Shubh? Absolutely, Ron. And I would love and thank you so much for inviting me again for your, next episode. And in there, I would love to, unveil and talk about one of the world's first that the world has never seen in diamonds and also how and the benefits of lab grown diamonds, not only from the perspective of how they're sourced and grown, but from a value perspective and the price they pay for the beautiful jewels that will they will celebrate the precious moments with. So thank you, and I look forward to speaking with you again. Fantastic. You've been listening to Amish, tell us about his powerful journey changing and disrupting the entire diamond industry. You've been listening to Disrupt Ed. I'm your host, Ron Stefanski. We've already secured an invitation for Amish to continue telling us more about this disruption going on, the incredible investments the Indian government's making in the diamond industry. And, ultimately, we're gonna talk more the next time about the impact of more diamonds that are sustainably procured, changing human lives through the applications of industrial diamonds. So we're gonna welcome him back to talk more about industrial diamonds on our next episode. Until then, go out and get disrupted with us. Share the podcast. Share your feedbacks and comments. Tell Amish what you think about these phenomenon of lab grown diamonds, and we will welcome you back to another episode to hear about the industrial side of diamond producing. Thanks so much. Thank you.
