The Ashish Sinha Show

Akshayakalpa is a weird business (weird in a good way) - it is one of the largest soil management companies in India - but ended up selling milk to create a sustainable business for its stakeholders (primarily farmers).

And in the process, created a 400 cr+ (~$50mn) revenue business - accidentally!

My next guest in #UnPluggdWithSinha podcast is Shashi Kumar, Cofounder and CEO of Akshayakalpa - India’s first certified organic dairy enterprise bringing together a balance of practices based in science and the traditional heritage of dairy farming.

Topics we discussed:

How Akshayakalpa’s business model is a gamechanger (It is among the top soil management company in India, ended up selling milk as it offers a compelling value prop to farmers - faster revenue cycle being the most important one).

Shashi’s startup journey - he worked with Wipro, was in US. So why come back to India and go back to farming - something his parents wanted him to never take up (can you believe that his father did not speak to him for 8 years after he decided to take up farming as a career).- Why India being one of the largest producers of milk doesn’t stand a chance in global diaspora?- Why most agritech startups trying to disrupt middle-men fail.-

What’s the future of food? Answer: We are in a serious trouble

As a consumer - what is it that you need to understand about food ecosystem? Is your food producer making enough money?

The UnPluggd with sinha conversations bring you the very best of India’s startup ecosystem (minus the hype) in an informal setup.Wanna suggest guests for the show? Use this form: https://forms.gle/J1GfdGifcVgB7gA87—

Balkrishna Birla has started 2 of India's hottest startups - ZopNow and Asklaila. In this conversation with Ashish Sinha, he shares lessons learned building these companies - his 'Steve Jobs' moment, where he was fired from his startup to his candid take on startups - I.e startups are not sexy, there are many ways to make good money (and handling #personalfinance is the first step). Apart from being CTO of an AI startup, he also conducts workshops on #personalfinance for young working professionals. UnPluggd with Sinha podcast is aimed at bringing the very best of India's business and tech leaders - for candid, unfiltered conversations. use this form to suggest show guests / share feedback : https://forms.gle/nhfYREbrZ5d7TM5L6

Introducing : UnPluggd with Sinha - a new show, and a refreshingly new format (none of those standard studio setups)! UnPluggd with sinha is the show where real, raw, and refreshingly candid conversations happen on the move - no made-up studios! Because the best ideas don’t need a stage – just a car, a drive, and a great guest. We are breaking away from the studio format and creating a unique experience that - is out there in the real world (no *made-up studios*) - fosters great candid conversation with guests *(can’t get real than this)* - Makes guests open up and discuss a variety of topics The first episode goes live this Wednesday (Jan 29th).

Manasij is the founder of o-founder and CEO of ZapScale, a B2B SaaS platform aimed at enhancing customer success for small businesses. 

Before this he started ThreadSol, a very boring B2B company building fabric management solutions for the apparel industry which was acquired by Coats.

Manasij has written a wonderful book : The Economy Class founder and in this conversation, we talk about the evolving nature of GTM for SAAS businesses, the rise of AI snake oil selling (esp in B2B) and well..samosas.

Enjoy the conversation.

Contact centers/ support offices are changing and what was seen as a boring space is..the HOTTEST space in the Gen AI world!

In this episode of the Ashish Sinha Show, I talk to Gaurav Singh, founder of Verloop on how contact centers are evolving, how the ICPs are evolving and importantly, how does BPO2.0 will look like.

In this episode, we talk about:

1. Gaurav’s journey from B2C to B2B / Enterprise

1. ​2. How ICPs are evolving in GenAI era.
2. ​3. How Gen AI products also compete with companies’ CTOs/Product Managers
3. ​4. Outcome based pricing: How close are we to achieve that?
4. ​5. Enterprise LLMs: Is it a fad?
5. ​6. Why new-age enterprise products cannot be boring or unsexy.
6. ​7. Advice to Indian founders building global SAAS, especially on HQ/incorporation location
7. ​8. Tips to early stage startups on how to build trust / collect ‘logos’.
8. ​9. If you are building a global SAAS, does it make sense to raise funding from Indian VCs?
9. ​..and so much more!
10. ​​Masters of AI segment of the podcast brings deeper insights from founders / practitioners building AI-native businesses, deep in the trenches (and are way beyond fancy demos).

Welcome to a new season of this podcast where I speak with Masters of AI, i.e. founders / leaders building AI applications using AI.

Expect a mix of SAAS, prosumer and consumer startup founders and leaders sharing their learning building a growing AI native businesses.

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Vijay Rayapati is a tech entrepreneur  who earlier sold Minjar to Nutanix and is now building AtomicWork, an AI-powered ITSM platform.

In this conversation, Vijay and I talk about

• his startup journey
• Finding PMF in AI led world. And how PMF has evolved over the last few years
• Choosing the right problem statements
• Choosing the right target market (hint: GDP matters, but there is a product side to it)
• Vijay's tips to entrepreneurs building global SAAS businesses from India
• Enterprise AI: How are CXOs evaluating AI solutions

Do subscribe, share and like this conversation :)

Welcome to one more edition of 2by2 - wherein I attempt to demystify big questions using the power of 2by2.

Today, the big qn is whether your AI tool is a feature or a product.

There are 2 broad parameters to look at when answering this - customer benefit (i.e. value as perceived by your customers) AND integration / implementation effort.

Do listen to this episode and share your feedback. What else would you like me to talk about? Do share.

More: https://sinha.nextbigwhat.com

Founders are often confused whether to bootstrap or raise funding?

First of all, there is no right or wrong answers here.

"What'ever floats your boat" is a generic advice, but there has to be a better framework for founders to make a well-informed decision.

At scale (say $100mn+ revenue or Series D onwards_, startups are all about 2 things

1. Control
   i.e. ability to control your decisions, your destiny, your path. Given the gen AI world we live in where companies are getting disrupted with each and every new model launch, you need to have a lot of control on your decision making. This also helps you move fast, take quick decisions and not be at the mercy of your competition’s agility.

2. Growth
   Of course, nobody wakes up saying ‘I want to build a slow growth business’. We all want high growth business - but here is the reality: growth comes at a cost. And we all have seen what happened to those high-growth businesses of 21,22 (ZIRP era). They don’t even have money to pay salaries to their employees. Founders are left with neither growth nor control of their business.

So what’s the right framework to look at this dilemma? Enters 2 by 2 :)

Do review/share your feedback.

The ixigo story by Aloke : On being a cockroach to surviving and thriving!

This episode brings you insights from the keynote delivered by Aloke Bajpai at UnPluggd conf, India's largest startup conference.

Aloke shares the early days of ixigo and how the company survived economic downturn to VC rejections..and everything else!

Writing the Amazon way: With Kintan, Ex-GM of Amazon Podcasts

Decisions that help early stage startups: Ajey Gore of Sequoia Capital