MindGravity.

Nitya Sharma, CEO, and Co-Founder of Simpl. Simpl is a technology company that offers Pay-later solutions in India. Simpl has revolutionized online checkout in India by creating a market-leading Pay-Later platform, empowering e-commerce merchants to offer their consumers 1-click checkout, a line of credit at POS, and full buyer protection.

Before starting Simpl, Nitya worked on Wall Street for more than 10 years, where he structured, traded, and risk-managed structured credit portfolios at Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs. Before that, he was a co-founding portfolio manager at JNF Financial, a distressed credit hedge fund from 2010–2014. Nitya initially moved back to India with the objective of starting an emerging-markets focused hedge-fund. However, he experienced the shortcomings of the Indian payments and credit stack first-hand when his credit card application was declined. This experience prompted him to dig deeper into the Indian payments landscape and subsequently led to the founding of Simpl.

In this episode, Nitya shares:

1. His educational background and journey as an entrepreneur
2. Views on the fintech landscape in India and his thesis behind Simple’s
3. Differences between banking infrastructure in India and theUS
4. The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Simpl
5. The importance of building the right team
6. Leaning from the mistakes and what he wished he did differently

Reach out to our guest, Nitya on LinkedIn, or email him directly at nitya@getsimpl.com

You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

Ezra Goldman is the founder and CEO of Upshift that offers fractional car leasing service for low mileage drivers. Ezra cofounded a dockless bike-share in 1999 and helped design a shared folding electric scooter at the MIT Media Lab with Piaggio in 2006 while doing his Master's in City Planning. He's consulted on innovation for HP and was managing director of a tech startup in Copenhagen, where he also was a Ph.D. candidate studying why Danish people ride bicycles. Upshift has received almost $2M in equity, debt, and project financing from the likes of Urban Us, URBAN-X accelerator by BMW/MINI, an AngelList syndicate led by Sundeep Ahuja, co-founder of NerdWallet, and over 2,300 angels on Republic. 

On this episode we talk about:

1. Ezra's journey as prior to launching his startup
2. What launched him into the world of a startup?
3. What Upshift is trying to solve? And what it takes to build a startup?
4. His conviction in the idea, and why he went all in?
5. Who the right target customers are, and how to identify them?
6. How COVID has impacted his business? And how it impacted his personal life?

Reach out to our guest, Ezra on Linkedin, or email him directly on ezra@upshiftcars.com

You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

Vijay Nadadur is the founder and CEO of Stride.ai. Stride's AI platform enables development, deployment, and adoption of enterprise-grade, smart applications. We leverage cutting edge AI and Natural Language Understanding to build and deliver solutions, keeping in mind the pain points of a financial services organization. When these AI-powered applications are deployed, enterprises can better understand risk,  manage regulation, meet compliance, and automate mundane tasks more effectively than ever before. Our solutions are flexible, available both on our Private Cloud as well as On-Premise. 

On this episode, we talk to Vijay about:

1. His journey from India to the US
2. What are the challenges around building a startup?
3. When do you know there's a product-market fit?
4. What are the ingredients of building the right startup?

Reach out to our guest, Vijay on Linkedin, Twitter, or email him directly on vrn@stride.ai

You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

Taylor Matthews is the Co-Founder and CEO of Farther Finance. He has raised over $1.6 Mn in venture capital from Cota Capital, The Tiffin Group, and other investors and is developing an investment advisory platform created to provide modern technology with trusted advice. The company's platform offers investment advice on allocations of exchange-traded funds based on personalized information that each client provides via the firm's platform, as well as uses a proprietary algorithm to implement model portfolios designed by investment experts with target asset allocations of equity and fixed-income, enabling clients to get access to ETFs that preserve capital and capital growth over long term horizons. based on their financial situation and risk tolerance. Taylor focuses on delivering the best in class financial advice by empowering our advisors with the tools and technology they need to help you achieve your financial goals. Prior to founding Farther, Taylor was part of the leadership at ForUsAll where he helped build the company from $25 million in assets under management to just under $1 billion in two years. 

On this episode we talk about:

• The journey of our founder
• What was the genesis for Farther Finance?
• What is currently missing from the fintech ecosystem?
• What are the challenges and the right ingredients for launching a product/startup?
• How pandemic impact fintechs? How it forces consumers to rethink their financial decision making?

You can reach out to Taylor Matthews: taylor@farther.com

You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

KidzJet was started by parents with a vision to provide Safe, Reliable, and Affordable Transportation.  Breaking the barriers of transportation opens up a world of exploration and learning for children. With the students no longer limited by distance, schools can expand to new avenues to attract talent.  Benny Shaikh (CEO), after the birth of her twin sons, Kabir and Ruhan, she experienced the challenge of balancing her children's schedule with her professional life. In May 2014 she started KidzJet, in an effort to simplify life for parents and kids. Soon after, seeing the passion of her wife, her husband Ashish Chhaparwal decided to get on-board as well. 

On this episode we talk about:

1. The journey of our founders

2. Why all startups are not venture-backed?

3. The challenges and opportunities of launching a business, especially as a couple

4. How the pandemic impacts small businesses, and how to pivot?

You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

Dmitry Norenko is the Founder and CEO of Upswot, powering SMB-focused sales efficiency of online and offline channels of the Banks with continuous monitoring & insights into 92 alternative data sources. They are working with dozens of Banks and Insurers in Europe and North America. Martin Bailey is the Director of Innovation at Temenos, where he runs a cross-product innovation hub to incubate ideas in typically challenging areas (such as digital, cyber & cloud). 

And on this episode we talk about the journey of the partnership between a startup and a large corporate, covering the myriad of aspects that often never get discussed. 

You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

As the Founder and Managing Director of the JB Capital Group of Companies, Jeremy Hill is responsible for the overall strategic direction and leadership of the firm. His role contributes to the development and execution of our strategic and corporate goals, which includes oversight of relationships with capital partners and the evaluation and consummation of new investments.

Known for his entrepreneurial vision and development expertise, Jeremy was the President of several firms focusing on investment strategies and structured finance in the United States prior to founding JB Capital. Providing nearly $500 Million in capital to privately held businesses, he has recognized acuity for creating innovative strategies to complex situations and a proven track record of creative collaboration. He has shared his expertise as a guest on CNBC, earned multiple awards, served as a trusted advisor to growth companies, and created a name for himself as a visionary entrepreneur with a highly trained eye for opportunity.

Cody Candee, co-founder of Bounce, who aims to give you a place to leave your things anywhere in the city by providing short term bag storage in hotels and shops. Before starting Bounce, Cody worked at Intuit, the makers of the accounting software Quickbooks, and at the venture studio FactoryX. That’s where he learned about the importance of rapid prototyping and how it should be done so that you can find the right approach with your startup in the fastest way possible. The San Francisco-based startup has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from investors including Structured Capital managing partner Jillian Manus, Seabed VC, Airbnb general counsel Rob Chesnut and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Hyatt.

Artem Gassan is the General Partner (GP) at SaaS Growth Ventures and has +4 years of early-stage investing and was a founder of 4 startups with 2 exits. Former Partner and EIR at Upshift Partners and 500 Startups where he invested and helped to scale sales, and revenue for over 50+ portfolio companies. He has and reviewed over 1,000 investments for Fund IV at 500 Startups and accelerator.

On today's episode we talk about:

1. What is Artem's backstory? What is SaaS Growth Ventures? What are the focus areas? What is the fund thesis? What do you ultimately want to achieve with the fund?
2. How is COVID reshaping saas businesses? How was it different pre-COVID?
3. How to assess a startup? What are the key metrics that a founder should be obsessed with? What are the metrics investors should be focusing on? What does the decision-making process look like?
4. What do successful startups/founders do differently from the ones that die through a thousand cuts? And for those that succeed, what are the commonalities?
5. What does it mean to have a product-market-fit? How should founders be thinking about it?
6. What is the one piece of advice for the founders during these times? How would that be different under normal circumstances, if at all?

You can reach Artem via Linkedin or email him directly on artem@saasgrowthventures.com

You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

Dr. Mihaela Ulieru is currently the Chief Alchemist at SingularityNET and President of the IMPACT Institute for the Digital Economy. The broadness of her background and expertise enable Dr. Ulieru to tackle problems from original perspectives which require a high level of interdisciplinarity - such as her large scale international collaborative projects aiming to make ICTs an integral component of policymaking for social innovation generation for a healthier, safer, more sustainable, and innovation-driven world Future of Medicine, Living Technologies - book chapter here and Emulating the Mind, recently coined in a book. 

On this episode we talk about:

1. Dr. Mihaela's backstory and what she is currently working on?
2. What is money? What is the currency? What are cryptocurrencies? Why do we need it?
3. What are stable coins and what is the role of stablecoins? Why do we need it? What’s CBDC?
4. What do stablecoins or CBDC offer that the current currency/monetary system does not? What are the things that people understand, things that people don’t understand about stablecoins?
5. Cash advantage is privacy/anonymity in the face to face transactions, at least -- how CBDC can ensure that?
6. What is preventing the adoption of stablecoins across the globe? Is this the future of money? Why, why not?
7. FSB recently recommended against the use of stablecoins? What are your thoughts on it?
8. How is Libra helping (not helping) the push for the adoption? What are they doing right or wrong?

Reach out to Dr. Mihaela Ulieru via Linkedin.

You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

You can follow me on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com. 

Sankaet Pathak is the Co-founder and CEO of Synapse. Synapse is a San Francisco-based startup that operates a platform enabling banks and fintech companies to easily develop financial services products. It closed a $33 million Series B in 2019 bringing the total funds raised to $50 million, aiming to democratize and become the AWS of financial services. The backers of this startup include Andreessen Horowitz, Core Innovation Capital, and Trinity Ventures.

On this episode you will hear:

1. Sankaet's journey from India to the US, and what made him start Synapse?
2. What is SynapseFi and what are they trying to build?
3. What has taken technology so long disrupt the financial services as we know?
4. What is the future of finance? And how does it compare to the Pre-COVID world? Will trust get disrupted?
5. How should one think about building a product that is sustainable?

Reach out to Sankaet and Synapse to learn more on Linkedin and Twitter.

You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

Darshan Vaidya a derivatives trader from the UK turned founder of the startup called X-margin. X-Margin is looking to transform the way derivatives are margined and settled, using zero-knowledge technology to disintermediate traditional clearinghouses. X-Margin recently closed its seed round raising capital from renowned venture funds like Polychain Capital, XBTO, and several other angel investors.

I have personally been fascinated by zero-knowledge technology so we go deep into the weeds of it. On this episode, you will hear about:

1. Darshan's backstory and what got him excited about the cryptocurrency space

2. What problems did he see in the traditional financial trading space? How he aims to solve that using zero-knowledge proof and analytics?

3. What are zero-knowledge proofs, and more importantly X-Margin?

4. What is so hard about building a startup? What role does a team play in getting things done?

5. Looking back, what are somethings he would like to change?

Reach out to Darshan and X-Margin to learn more

Twitter: @xmargintrading, @darshanvaidya
Telegram: @darshvaidya
Email: darshan@xmargin.io

You can follow me, your host Rohan Handa on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

You can follow me on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

Kartik Tiwari has a background in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and was the CTO and co-founder of Starsky Robotics, a driverless truck startup that aimed to make roads safer and allow truck drivers to work closer to home.

Starsky began moving freight on the highway in early 2017, and one year later became the first company to take the safety driver out of a truck when it drove fully unmanned for seven miles on a closed road in Florida. In June 2019, Starsky did the first-ever fully-unmanned test on a public highway with live traffic. But was shut down in early 2020 after raising over $20 million in venture capital from the likes of Shasta Ventures and Unshackled Ventures.

In today's episode you will learn:

1. What was Kartik's journey from India to the US, and his leap of faith into the startup world

2. What is the entrepreneur's dilemma and how to go about it?

3. What are the challenges of starting a startup in the unmanned vehicle sector?

4. How does the team impact the development of products and technology in a space where things have not been built before? What kind of dynamic should exist?

Contact: Linkedin, Kartik Tiwari

You can follow me on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

You can follow me on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com

Cindy Chin is an entrepreneur, venture strategist, solutions leader, and cultural ambassador of the arts and sciences. As CEO of CLC Advisors, LLC, she is an advisor and board member on startup teams, opportunity scout for strategic investment partners, a global thought leader, and speaker. She is also a NASA Datanaut, an open data innovation program to promote data science and diversity operating within the NASA CIO office. In 2018, she was named as one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s “50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs in 2018” along with SpaceX/Tesla’s Elon Musk, General Motors’ Mary Barra, IBM’s Ginni Rometty, actress Reese Witherspoon, Chance the Rapper, Chef Jose Andres, and Spotify’s Daniel Ek. She was part of the American delegations to the Global Entrepreneurship Summits in Silicon Valley hosted by President Obama & U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in Marrakech. She was a delegate at the first Our Ocean Summit and a presenter in the Women’s Pillar at the U.S.-China High-Level Consultation People-to-People Exchange in Beijing with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

In today's episode you will learn:

1. What was Cindy's journey, and how does the current pandemic, and economic downturn compares to her prior experiences?

2. How the world will look different post-COVID-19, and how the innovation becomes more interconnected?

3. What is NASA Datanaut, and what are they doing to push the innovation envelope?

4. How diversity and inclusion are even more important in the post-COVID world?

You can follow me on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com

You can follow me on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com

Parul Gujral is the Founder and CEO of Snowball Money within the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, building a high-interest investment account product. Snowball has so far raised $1.1 Mn from world-class investors like Richard Blum, Sam Zaid, Greg Kidd, Reese Jones, Kevin Lin, and Jeff McDonald to name a few. Parul believes, blockchain technology can substantially increase the scope and efficiency of peer-to-peer transactions, turning previously infeasible business models into viable ones. Empowered by blockchain technology, financial services can become more decentralized, innovative, interoperable, borderless, and transparent. The DeFi space has gained tremendous traction, going from $150 million in April 2018 to $1.2 billion in February 2020.

In today's episode you will learn:

1. What was Parul's journey prior to Snowball Money? What got him thinking about cryptocurrency, and eventually building his startup?

2. What is decentralized finance, and why we should care? And how is it better than the existing system or the centralized finance (CeFi?) system?

3. Is DeFi really the future of finance? And why would centralized authorities like the government and financial institutions give away their power now?

4. How do you measure success for an early-stage startup? And what are the challenges of building a culture and team?

Contact/Invest: https://republic.co/snowball-money

You can follow me on Twitter, Linkedin, or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

This episode is inspired by the writings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the book Flow. We as a race are constantly looking to optimize our experience and happiness, but most of us are not utilizing our free time to do so. Instead, we focus on the mass consumption of media and other vices that I contest are making us dull beings. 

You can reach out to me on:

Instagram, Twitter, or Linkedin

Email: mindgravity2020@gmail.com 

Toshi Kameoka is the Head of Strategy at Airwallex US and Canada. Airwallex is a fintech unicorn founded in Melbourne, Australia (not the HQ as I mention in the opening remarks...yikes ) helping global businesses move funds cross-border in the fastest, cheapest, most transparent, and most predictable way possible. In short, they are looking to become the "AWS of global banking". The startup has recently raised $360Mn Series D with early 2020 at nearly $2Bn valuation. Its largest investor and major is Tencent and includes other marquee investors like Sequoia Capital, DST Global, Salesforce Ventures, and Mastercard. 

In today's episode you will learn:

1. Toshi's background and his journey up until Airwallex, and his non-linear path that in hindsight prepared him for his current role.

2. What is Airwallex? the status-quo it was looking to disrupt, and its current state.

3. The rapid pace of change and expansion, the challenges posed by the US regulation, the advantage of a b2b vs. b2c business, and how COVID-19 has impacted the startup ecosystem. 

4. What kind of team one needs to build to beat the expectations and meet the KPIs when growing from zero to one?

Items mentioned in today's show:

Startup to lookout: Middesk, a modern infrastructure to establish trust between every business. 

Contact: Toshi.Kameoka@airwallex.com or airwallex-us@airwallex.com

You can follow me on Twitter or the fastest way to get hold of me is to message me on Linkedin or email mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

If you would like to get in touch with me, just ping me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com or via LinkedIn.

Hope you enjoy this journey with me!