Stars & Startups

Karthik served with the Indian army in hard combat and had successful stints with marketplaces such as eBay in the US and Flipkart in India before launching Jumbotail along with his Stanford University batchmate Ashish Jhina.

On this episode I chat with why Karthik & Ashish united behind this problem, and we deep dive into the business & the inspiration for Karthik to leave the military service and pursue entrepreneurship.

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→ Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Jumbotail was founded with the objective of enabling the Kiranas or corner stores by envisioning a full stack experience; creating a wholesale marketplace and new retail platform to help retailers with inventory management, a digital PoS, working capital and retail as a service to make them modern convenience stores.

Jumbotail’s endeavour to build products, platforms, and services for the next billion people of India has landed them in over $55 million in funding from Venture Capital funds such as Nexus VP, Kalaari Capital & Heron Rick fund.

Enjoy another classic episode! Jumbotail is hiring massively across verticals, reach out to Karthik & the team via mission@jumbotail.com

Stay safe!

— V {i’m on Twitter @varunvummidi }

Timeline:

00:00 - Introduction to Jumbotail

03:45 - Moving to Entrepreneurship from Military service

06:38 - Challenges building Jumbotail

10:20 - Battling competition in the food & grocery market

15:46 - Distribution is king?

20:28 - Differentiating in a supply rich market

26:45 - Post pandemic user behaviour

31:24 - Managing many business under the umbrella

37:22 - Hiring

39:10 - Learning from combat applied to business

{Jitendra Chouksey, Co-Founder of FITTR}

The latest episode is with Jitendra Chouksey, aka JC, Founder & CEO of FITTR. FITTR has a highly engaged 2 million strong community focused on getting healthy and transforming themselves with the help of FITTR coaches, using the resources available. On this episode we chat about the journey from a small WhatsApp group that was created to assist a few friends and colleagues to becoming the platform it is today.

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→ Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Founded in 2016,  JC a software engineer transformed himself while working a 12-hour a day IT job. He created and shared a training methodology through his free book “Get Shredded” to prove that anyone can get fit with the knowledge of Quantified Nutrition. Now that has spawned into a fitness company that has a vision of making millions of people across the world fit and to create meaningful career opportunities in the fitness industry.

We discuss:

• Building Fittr’s highly engaged community
  
• Growing the user base & finding the missing pieces in achieving fitness goals
  
• Choosing Sequoia’s Surge program over Y-Combinator
  

Please do share the episode, and do spread the word!

Hope you and the family are well.

- V { Twitter @varunvummidi }

Timeline:

01:15 - Introduction to FITTR

05:10 - Journey to getting FITTR

08:39 - Transitioning from a Hobby project to a business

12:10 - Transitioning Groups to the mobile application

15:25 - Managing FB groups

17:00 - Engaging users

27:45 - 60% of coaches were clients of FITTR

33:25 - Joining an accelerator program having positive cashflows

→ Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Founded by 3 friends Govind, Vimal & Ashish, friends from NSIT in 2017, CoinSwitch is now backed by bluechip fin-tech investors like Ribbit Capital, Paradigm and Sequoia India, raising $15 million in their Series A round. In April 2021, they raised another $25 million ( ₹181 crore) from Tiger Global - valuing Coinswitch at more than $500 million.

Buoyed by the massive interest amongst Indians for cryptocurrencies, the platform has witnessed 350% growth in its user base since January this year. The most actively transacting age group on the platform is between 25-35 and the platform is witnessing a huge demand from Tier 2 and 3 cities. Investors from Tier 2 and 3 towns account for as much as 54% of Coinswitch’s user base.

Do spread the word!

- V { Twitter @varunvummidi }

EP53: Pivots and the story to selling a majority stake to Reliance {Harsh Shah, Co-Founder of Fynd}

Are you enjoying the new episodes of S&S? Do write to me! Also, do recommend amazing founders & stories that are worth spreading from the Startup scene in India.

On the episode, I speak with someone I have known a while from the early days of ecommerce. I chat with Harsh Shah, an alumnus of the IIT, Bombay, and a co-founder of FYND. Harsh is also an angel investor with over 19 investments.

In this conversation I chat about the many pivots FYND made to find their mojo, the business models in retail commerce for Indian retailers and what brought FYND to Reliance.

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→ Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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FYND offers a technology solutions to retail merchants that helps them manage their inventory and sales across various demand channels. Founded by Farooq Adam, Harsh, and Sreeraman MG, Fynd had raised more than $7 million from investors including Google, Kae Capital, IIFL, Singularity Ventures, and GrowX, among others.

FYND has pivoted and made major changes since its launch in 2012. Initially, it was called Shopsense, which provided brands with different products to improve customer experience. Some of its clients included Lee, Satya Paul, Anita Dongre, Flying Machine, and Being Human (along with other 330 brands, these are still FYND’s clients). 

In 2019 Reliance acquired a majority stake in the company buying out all investors. 

Spread the word!

- @varunvummidi 

Timeline:

01:00 - Intro to FYND and Harsh

06:01 - Shopsense, the solution

12:30 - Why did retailers adopt Shopsense, what were they buying?

19:19 - The second pivot

23:01 - Choosing to go down a specific path vs supporting retailers with technology

30:30 - Evolution of FYND into pure tech Ominchannel stack

35:02 - Choosing the type of client to go after

38:15 - Supporting Reliance brand stores & the future with Reliance

46:20 - Explosion & democratisation of e-commerce

50:10 - Angel investor

EP52: 600k users & creating a Brand for Generations {Ankit Garg, Co-Founder of Wakefit}

Ever wondered what the deal was with foam mattresses? Is it better that coir? Listen in.

Ankit Garg of Wakefit is on the show this week, Wakefit is a mattress brand that has been offering Indian customers the ability to buy a mattress online and have it home delivered at a very affordable price. Bringing down the cost while making it convenient to upgrade old mattresses.

In the conversation we chat about the size of the mattress market, building a brand for  generations & a lot more about mattresses!

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→ Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

→ Avail a Wakefit.co discount using code: WFSTARS27 for a 27% discount on MRP and applicable to online orders on their website website only [terms: discount applicable 3rd March to 31st March only on orders above INR 1000]

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Wakefit identifies itself as a sleep and home solutions company, and has raised ₹185 crores as a part of its Series B funding in 2020 with investments from European investment firm Verlinvest & existing investor Sequoia Capital India.

The company has been profitable since inception with its revenue growing from ₹80 crore in 2018-19 fiscal to ₹199 crore in 2019-20 fiscal, as per audited financial statements. With almost 35% of the demand from tier 2 and tier 3 markets. Wakefit is playing in the furniture segment in India that is currently worth $17 billion and is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 15-17%.

Do spread the word!

- V { Twitter @varunvummidi }

Timeline:

02:07 - Reviews on Amazon

05:36 - Iteration process

10:54 - How does customer interactions translate into products?

16:54 - When does one diversify?

19:40 - Selling a touch-and-feel product via the Internet

24:00 - What’s special about foam tech?

29:40 - Is foam mattress better than coir mattresses?

39:01 - Do mattresses need to be replaced?

40:24 - Raising funds for Wakefit

45:02 - Does depending on Amazon carries a platform risk?

{host is on Twitter @varunvummidi }

Timeline: 

00:15 - Intro to Rajiv & UL 

07:17 - Early days of building a customer centric brand 

09:02 - Using new channels for creating low cost marketing  

12:40 - Scarcity & authenticity to drive user demand 

13:30 - Genesis for Urban Ladder 

15:40 - Keeping NPS as the North Star for Urban Ladder 

21:48 - Tracking & setting up NPS 

24:22 - Aligning & setting Brand values 

26:43 - Learnings from the downswing of UL 

32:00 - Is India ready to buy furniture online* 

37:00 - Reflecting on experiences and getting into the habit of writing & being vulnerable 

40:24 - Real Reasons to Startup 

43:46 - Intro to Antler   

47:40 - Closing thoughts

Urban Ladder had raised Rs 770 Cr since 2012 and was acquired by Reliance for Rs 182 Cr in November 2020.  Urban Ladder had raised capital from likes of Steadview, Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners and Kalaari Capital. The company had been struggling for the last two years of existence to find new backers whereas existing investors had not backed the company in follow on rounds. Urban Ladder and Pepperfry promised to disrupt the unorganised furniture and home decor market during the 2012-13 period. However some believe that Urban Ladder struggled for several reasons including challenges in supply chain management and believe that Ikea’s entry had dried up the investors’ confidence in the segment. With the acquisition of Urban Ladder, Pepperfry is the only independent large player in the online furniture segment, recently raising a $40 million round led by Pidilite at a valuation over $460 million.

EP49: {Rohan Bhargava, Co-Founder of CashKaro}

I speak with Rohan on building a business offering cashbacks that works with over 1500+ e-commerce websites. Famously, Cashkaro is a Ratan Tata backed startup.  Rohan shares why he & his wife Swati gave up lucrative jobs in finance, moved back to India from London in the early days of starting up, how affiliate businesses operate and a lot more on this extremely intriguing conversation!
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→ Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

→ Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STAR to get a discount on your order!

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As a category leader, CashKaro has made cashbacks an attractive way to save money for online shoppers, while offering marketers a high ROI acquisition and retention channel. Other Cashkaro properties includes Pouring Pounds, one of largest player in the UK, and Earnkaro which enables its users become entrepreneurs to make some additional cash by sharing deals.

CashKaro is India’s largest Cashback & Coupons site. The only venture capital backed Cashback site, funded by Kalaari Capital and Mr. Ratan Tata. More recently received $10 M in a Series B funding round led by Korea Investment Partners (KIP). 

Hope you enjoy another S&S special. Have a listen, share feedback and share the episode!

Stay Safe!

- V ( @varunvummidi )

Timeline:

1:00 - Introduction to Cashkaro & starting up

09:07 - The Cashkaro journey

12:45 - Convincing the wife to join the journey

15:40 - Starting off as a B2B service

19:21 - Transitioning Cashkaro to the Indian audience in 2014

23:15 - Raising money for Cashkaro & moving to India from London

26:24 - How has affiliate marketing budgets have changed since 2015

31:15 - Choosing Affiliate marketing vs Performance marketing

34:43 - Does affiliate marketing cannibalise an existing user?

36:00 - Can you build a moat in with cashbacks

41:40 - Launching Earnkaro - enticing entrepreneurs

47:03 - Biggest challenge of building CK

49:20 - What’s the future for deals platforms?

EP48: {Sudarshan Lodha, Co-Founder of StrataProp}

On the episode I have Sudarshan to chat about Strata. The startup is bringing a new innovative approach to investing in real estate, one that is data-driven and allows the investor to own a fraction of a highly desirable asset and also a way to make it the most accessible real estate investment you could have. 

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→ Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

→ Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STAR to get a discount on your order!

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Strata is based out of Bengaluru and has raised $1.5 million funding led by SAIF Partners and Mayfield India, including a strategic investment from a real estate data analytics platform, PropStack.  150 investors participated in the first investment opportunity on the platform.

The transparent and a data-driven approach to investment in real estate was so well received that their first investment opportunity was sold out within 7 days of going up on the platform, for a total of INR 26 crore from 74 investors.  What sets this apart is the exclusive CRE intelligence and analytics from PropStack and the ability for investor to commit small sums of money, which is a huge deal for real estate investments.

Have a listen, share feedback and share the episode!

Stay Safe!

- V ( @varunvummidi )

Timeline:

00:00 - Introduction to Strata

02:55 - Affordability of property in India

06:22 - Why 2nd home owners make best clients for Strata

09:19 - Commercial Real Estate vs other asset classes

13:00 - Fractional ownership of assets

18:35 - Data in Real Estate

20:45 - HavingPropStack as a Strategic

23:32 - Small CRE owners should rather invest in Strataprop

26:15 - Building a business in a segment that is not regulated

30:36 - Operationalizing Strata

33:54 - Getting Venture Investors into a business

EP47: {Nishith Rastogi, Co-Founder of Locus}

Nishith is a BITS Grad and was an engineer at Amazon where he met his co-founder Geet, an IIT grad. They set out to launch a chat network that morphed into what is today Locus.

Locus is a tool that plugs into the supply chain of an enterprise and starts automating all human decisions in the process; they automate route planning, traffic management, address correction, network planning, etc.. Locus is backed by some stellar investors and also service some of the top CPG companies in the world. Locus has become so integral to the operations of their clients that they had been offered hard cash by those who wanted to ensure Locus survived when COVID19 struck. Hope you enjoy my super intriguing session with Nishith.

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→ Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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About Locus:

The Locus platform uses deep machine learning and proprietary algorithms to offer smart logistics solutions like route optimization, real-time tracking, insights and analytics, beat optimization, efficient warehouse management, vehicle allocation and utilization. Locus also helps companies optimize their end-to-end supply chain network with its strategic consulting offering. Locus works with top clients across Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, and India, with offices in the USA, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

The company has so far raised $29 million from Tier-1 investors including Tiger Global, Falcon Edge, Blume Ventures, Exfinity Venture Partners & GrowX ventures.

Stay Safe & do share the episode!

- V { @varunvummidi }

Timelines:

00:00 - Introduction

05:45 - Finding the path to Locus

11:28 - Creating decision making systems for Big Basket

13:45 - Learning from Partners while building for them

18:02 - Complexity between geography & business types

24:21 - Pricing based on Total Cost of Ownership

27:55 - Building & Selling Enterprise SaaS

32:45 - Build vs Buy decision

35:06 - Challenges building logistics SaaS

38:15 - Having Falcon & Tiger as part of the journey

41:50 - BITS vs IIT & hiring

45:50 - 100M ARR

EP46: {Beerud Sheth, Founder of Elance & Gupshup}

On this episode I speak with Beerud Sheth, who was the co-founder & CEO of the poplar freelancing work platform Elance in 1998, that is now Upwork. Beerud went on to found Gupshup a could messaging platform that has seen its share of twists and turns in the messaging and communications space since 2004 and now processes over 4 billion messages a month. Beerud joined us from his home in California for this chat.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Elance was co-founded by Beerud who moved to the US after graduating from IIT Bombay, to pursue his Masters at MIT followed by a stint in investment banking on Wall Street. Elance was the poster boy of the freelancer economy. Beerud was the CEO and top executive till 2007 and later a board member until the merger with Odesk in 2014.

Gupshup is among the cloud messaging platforms in the world with revenue upwards of Rs. 600 crore and has over 39,000 businesses including  Ola, Flipkart, Zomato, HDFC, Google, Paytm. Processes over 4.5 billion messages a month and recently expanded their services to South East Asia, Middle East and Europe. 

Hope you enjoy the episode!

Stay tuned & stay Safe!

- V @varunvummidi

Timeline:

00:00 - Introduction

05:08 - Founding Elance

08:00 - Solving for supply

10:33 - Managing challenges building a marketplace

12:45 -  Solving for Remote Work

14:20 - Took 6 months to build the business case for Elance

16:02 - Meeting co-founders & raising money

17:51 - Stock Markets were irrational in the 2000s that helped with fund raising

18:23 - Raising over $ 62M for Elance & the Odesk merger

19:50 - Transitioning out of Elance

23:28 - Reasons Gig Work is gaining popularity & the moment is now

27:23 - Gupshup - messaging & communication

30:21 - Messaging is the original super app

36:01 - iMessage Vs RCS

38:45 - Gupshup IP messaging

40:51 - Resident Message apps on OEMs

45:40 - Next phase of Messaging

48:30 - Mobile SPAM

51:25 - Plans & Hiring

EP45: {Shruti Kapoor, Co-founder & CEO of Wingman}

Wingman offers a virtual assistant that assists sales reps close deals faster, guiding the rep with exact information they need in real-time. Shruti Kapoor, an IIM alumn, chats with me about sales and ofcourse Wingman. 

• We discuss how Wingman is humanizing the sales process, where the sales person can focus on listening rather than being distracted with other aspect of a sales call
• How the AI tool enables a sales team play offence
• Enhancing all human conversation with AI might be the way ahead

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Bengaluru HQ'd Wingman was founded by Shruti, Muralidharan and Srikar in 2018. Wingman enables real time assistance to sales folk by telling them what to ask and say to a prospective customer. The tool records, transcribes and analyses calls, and picks out trends on what’s working and what’s not in pitches made by salespersons. Allows managers to set up cue cards to automatically coach the people when they are on the call. A bot will show a cue card if a prospective customer asks a question on how a product is different from a competitor’s.

The company is currently targeting B2B clients who sell to the US market. It has on-boarded a few SaaS companies such as Chargebee, Synup and Capital Number. They have raised $2.2 million in the seed round, led by Venture Highway, Speciale Invest and Y Combinator.

Shruti & team are hiring and can't see a reason for you not to explore the opportunities in a fast growing startup! Checkout their careers page.

Stay Safe & Spread the word!

- V @varunvummidi

Timeline:

• 00:00 - Intro
• 02:35 - What ails sales in India
• 07:24 - Training for outbound processes
• 10:20 - Salesman are born not made?
• 13:00 - Intro to Shruti from moving from Analytics to Sales
• 16:18 - Feedback loops & importance of Voice of customer for marketing
• 18:45 - Origin of Wingman & meeting co-founders
• 21:54 - Graduating from the IIM
• 25:15 - Intro to Wingman
• 19:15 - the Wingman Note-taker
• 32:02 - Evolving playbook ensures the product will not hit a plateau
• 36:45 - Consulting for SaaS success
• 38:45 - Making every human conversation better
• 40:50 - Challenges of building Wingman
• 44:15 - Monetizing & pricing
• 49:23 - Traction, growth & hiring

EP44: {Vikram Chachra, Co-Founder of 8i Ventures}

We’ve had 4 of Vikram’s portfolio companies on this show already. Madhu of YAP, Ankit of Signzy, Rajan of Slice and Matt of BlueTokai!! Vikram’s in the process of launching his $ 50 million fund and took the time to have a chat with me about his investment philosophy and the journey being a founder.

Vikram is a SRCC, XLRI & NYU grad who started up a mobile shopping startup in early 2000's and later went on to run the mobile division @ Snapfish ( acquired by HP ). He invests in India and across the world.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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He has seeded over 28 seed to early stage startups over the last decade that have created more than a billion dollars of value for their shareholders. These include several category leaders like Carwale.com, HCG Global (NSE: HCG), EzeTap, Blue Tokai, MoneyTap, Online Tyari, Eatigo, Signzy, amongst others. 

Vikram is easy to reach, and if you need someone to hear your consumer or fintech idea, strongly suggest you reach out!

 Stay Safe & Spread the word!

- V @varunvummidi

Timeline:

00:00 - Journey in as an entrepreneur

10:17 - Early check in PayTM 

14:00 - Impact of COVID on the portfolio

15:01 - 8i and investment philosophy

19:00 - Founders becoming investors

22:45 - IPO’s will start happening in challenger brands

27:04 - Getting deal flow

31:09 - Investing in Signzy

33:45 - BlueTokai

35:42 - Carwale

37:21 - Investing in a hot sauce company { Naagin }

39:50 - Making a decision in early stage companies

42:20 - Not all investments do well

46:01 - Cold emailing Vikram

EP43: {Amit Kumar, BusinessHead of OLX CashMyCar}

On this episode I catch up with Amit to discuss the state of the Used Car business in India and its increasing relevance to the audience while organizing an unorganized segment.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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OLX Group is a Naspers company, a global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world! Take a look at CashMyCar, who offers one of the many services in India that uses a structured approach to assisting those who want to sell their cars.

Would love to hear from you on how you liked the episode! So son't forget to write to me!

Stay Safe!

- V {host is on Twitter @varunvummidi }

Timeline:

02:14 - Used car market in India is growing faster than New car business!

05:00 - Ownership is going up but the need for travel will go down

09:40 - Many businesses are giving up workplaces

13:45 - Trends in Car Ownership

19:05 - Why used cars have a good resale value?

22:31 - Frontier Car Group & the revolution in the used car business

26:20 - Importance of having an Omnichannel process

30:29 - Straddling diff business models

34:05 - Building the market place

EP42: {Ankit Ratan, Co-Founder of Signzy}

Regulation is probably one of the key pillars of banking. Sometimes it does become an excuse for being the thing that ails the experience. All that is changing now with the emergence of Reg-Tech. The use of Video KYC, Aadhar authentication layer, digital lockers & the India Stack is enabling a lot of that change. One of those companies that is quietly enabling the BFSI sector is Signzy.

Ankit, a silver medalist from IIT Delhi (2011), had worked in New York deploying fraud analytics solutions at Citi Bank and Metlife. In 2013, started an analytics company that worked with large private banks in detecting fraud, in India before founding Signzy along with Ankur Pandey, and brother Arpit Ratan.
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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Signzy currently offers a digital on-boarding solution for banks, NBFCs and other financial institutions, enabling them to go digital. Signzy solves for the poor consumer experiences in managing regulatory compliance by handling workflows. Their no-code AI model builder and Fintech API Marketplace of over 200+ APIs have enabled them to verify more than 3M documents per day without compromising on quality & security. Over 90+ FIs globally including the 4 largest banks in India and a Top 3 acquiring Bank in US trust Signzy. 

Signzy has raised funds from Stellaris Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital. Angel investors like Rajan Anandan,  Amrish Rau, Dilip Khandelwal, and Vikram Chachra..

Stay safe & share the episode!

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

01:00 - Identifying the problem statement

04:45 - Educating and working with Bankers

07:27 - Stopped using the word Blockchain

10:21 - Working with BFSI on problems that they are not building for themselves

12:29 - What is Signzy today?

16:24 - Involvement of the Regulator & supporting clients with legal interpretations

19:03 - Advantages of having a Lawyer as a Sales co-founder in RegTech

23:30 - Change helps RegTech players

26:05 - Understanding when to "build" Product?

30:39 - Being part of Accelerators (K-Start, Google Launchpad & Mastercard StartPath)

41:36 - Selling to Global clients from India

46:05 - Business Model of Signzy

47:23 - On Premise vs Cloud for FIs

51:00 - Growth

On the episode I speak with Rajan Bajaj, the founder of Slice, an IIT grad who spent a few months in Flipkart before wanting start out on his own. He went on to start a business that morphed into what is today Slice - a credit line that caters to first time job seekers. 

Slice is targeting 5 million first time credit seekers every year who have little access to credit products designed specifically for them.  We chat about how India’s first payment card startup focussed on the millennials is doing and what young Indian’s are spending on.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Slice (formerly known as SlicePay) on announced in June 2020 that it has raised Rs 46 crore in a Pre-Series B round led by Japan-based investor Gunosy.  The round also saw participation from US-based EMVC, Kunal Shah of CRED, Better Capital, and existing investor Das Capital. Read more

Book recommendation from Rajan: The CEO Within - Matt Mochary - Full book available here for a free read

Stay Safe and do spread the word!

- V(@varunvummidi)

Timelines:

01:10 - Introduction & impact of moratorium

05:24 - Where young people are spending

06:31 - Starting up right after graduating

10:01 - Going through the diff avatars

11:45 - Sharing economy

14:04 - Trends in spends

17:50 - What is Slice?

21:15 - Business model of Slice

27:40 - KYC & Collections

28:44 - Going through pivots,

35:14 - Diversifying

40:54 - Getting support & advice

41:59 - Using Twitter properly

43:45 - Book Recommendation

EP40: {Shwetank Verma, General Partner of Leo Capital}

Shwetank Verma is a General Partner and co-Founder of Leo Capital, an early-stage venture investor operating in India and SouthEast Asia. Leo Capital focuses on Digital Health, InsurTech and FinTech. Shwetank, prior to founding Leo Capital he headed open innovation at MetLife Asia, where he created and led (Collab), and was entrepreneur who created a healthcare and education ventures in India.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Shwetank opens up about investing, few of his investments & trends he has seen in the Insurance space. 

Timeline:

01:55 - Introduction

05:55 - Metlife Collab - the post accelerator

08:10 - Corporate innovation is learned helplessness

11:05 - Seeing patterns in industries across the world

14:40 - Timing the market

17:45 - Regulators enabling insurance

20:45 - Insuretech Association of India

22:50 - Having billions in Gross Underwritten Premiums

31:00 - Leo Capital Investments

31:44 - Cover Genius - APIs for insurance

36:10 - Functioning of the fund

37:10 - Beato App - Diabetes Management

46:08 - WayForward - Mental Health

49:24 - Meeting portfolio companies - choosing an investment

EP39: {Dhruv Suyamprakasam, Co-founder & CEO of iCliniq}

I speak with a founder who moved his company from Bangalore to his hometown Coimbatore to start health care venture iCliniq. We talk about Telemedicine, starting up in Coimbatore, the struggles of to signing up the first doctor in India and convincing thousands of doctors from across the world to embrace their platform. More recently, COVID has helped with a massive upsurge with over 5x growth post lockdown. 

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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iCliniq is a part of the Digital Health Providers Association (DHPA) that includes the likes of Lybrate, Meddo, Visit, DocOnline, mFine, and DocsApp who have come forward to support the Telemedicine bill floated by the government. 

About iCliniq:

iCliniq offers a high quality online consultation, where the quality assurance team ensures right diagnosis happens and doctors are supported at the right time for better health outcomes. They aim to be the go-to second opinion platform for the world.

Timeline:

01:00 - Starting up from Coimbatore & hiring tech talent from across the country

04:11 - Choosing to startup in Healthcare

11:10 - Acquiring first set of doctors onto the platform

15:36 - First version of iCliniq

19:25 - Getting patients on the platform

22:28 - Most revenue is international, 101 countries, 3800 doctors from around the world

24:30 - Medical Second opinions

28:00 - 70% of all queries can be solved online without having to meet the patient

30:52 - Telemedicine guidelines from the government

32:08 - JIO partnership & the TM Forum

36:35 - Monetization for online consultations

38:45 - Impact of COVID - 5x growth in queries

41:00 - Vision for iCliniq

43:00 - 2,500 consultations per day

46:15 - Selling Value Added Services

48:30 - Hiring! We’ll grow 3x by 2021

EP38: {Bharath Devanathan, SVP of Bounce}

On this episode, EP38 of the podcast we chat with Bharath about Electric Vehicles and how India is on the path to start seeing a lot more action in the EV space as governments have now stepped in to accelerating the switch from ICE to EVs. We also chat a little about Bharath’s time at Yahoo! On the email team as well as as playing Ultimate frisbee.

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→ Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com to receive new episodes delivered directly to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Bharath is an accomplished professional who built Groupon India, and managed business and operations for Groupon APAC Emerging markets. Spent a little time in Management and Strategy Consulting, and had a long career at Yahoo! Now at Bounce with the goal to make mobility green and clean (electric vehicles). 

#NewThingLearntToday Well to Wheel Ratio - cost of production to operating a vehicle for an EV is much lower; over the lifetime as compared to an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle.

Hope you guys enjoy the episode! Do spread the word.

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

02:45 - COVID has created the tail winds for shared mobility

07:23 - EV Adoption in India is imminent

10:26 - Sustainability for Incentives for EV adoption

14:01 - Should India be doing more on policy?

19:42 - Cost of going Electric

27:00 - Conversion of fleets to EV in India

30:50 - Consumer preference for EV

32:35 - Time at Yahoo! & 6MB mailboxes

37:31 - Email of choice today ->  Hey.com

41:39 - Playing Ultimate Frisbee with the co-founders of Whatsapp

48:45 - Quick thoughts on deal sites

EP37: {Arjun Majumdar & Sandhya Chandrasekharayya, Founders of IndiaHikes}

On this episode, I’m changing it up a little as I catch up with  the founders of India Hikes. India’s premier hiking company that started way back in 2008. With the hope of making hiking accessible to more Indians so that they can enjoy the nature that India has in abundance, right from the western ghats to the mighty Himalayas. Yes, this is not much of a tech conversation but a story that I wanted to share. Hope you enjoy it.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Timeline:

• 03:17 - Genesis of IndiaHikes 
• 09:50 - Educating the Hiker 
• 13:27 - Creating content, winning  with credible content 
• 16:02 - DIY Treks 
• 17:10 - Customers becoming employees 
• 18:18 - Trekking culture in India 
• 22:07 - Running remote teams 
• 26:31 - Handling 20,000 trekkers 
• 31:05 - Green Trails Initiative 
• 38:53 - Future of Hiking in India 
• 40:34 - World of Hikes 
• 45:34 - Favourite Treks 
• 48:16 - Impact of COVID

They're hiring! Do check them out.

About:

Indiahikes in 2008 brought trekking to a new generation of Indians, with deep knowledge and by opening up new parts of country to hikers of any age and ability.  The Indiahikes' website is a treasure of trekking information in India. Including a wonderful set of content displayed via various channels.

→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full video of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Zerodha followed these principles and built patiently, a 9 year journey to being an overnight success.:

• built something where they had core competency
• created value without expectations,
• didn’t chase growth
• took care of employees
• experimented continuously

Another initiative I am really psyched about is the Rainmatter Climate that is an offshoot of Rainmatter, a fintech fund by Zerodha. They believe that climate change is the biggest existential threat to life have committed to using the resources available to enable  potential solutions that may help society at large. They offer:

• Funding for grassroots social organisations, individuals, and startups looking to work on climate change.
• Industry connects and mentorship to help build and scale
• Focused on reforestation and sustainable living with agro-forestry models.

Nithin loves playing poker, basketball, and guitar. @Nithin0dha on Twitter.

Stays Safe and share the episode! Let me know what you thought about the episode.

- V ( @varunvummidi )

Timeline:

00:48 - Trading Stocks at 17 of age

10:50 - Taking Risks

12:50 - Worked at a call centre to pay off trading losses

15:19 - Plan B helped me build Zerodha 

19:07 - Taking Financial Advice from TikTok influencers

27:37 - ₹ 350 crores in Profit & a frugal mindset

38:48 - Creating a Platform with Kite Connect APIs 

43:27 - Importance of Credibility & Trust to grow the 

47:37 - Indians not able to save enough 

50:40 - RainMatter Fund

54:52 - Philanthropy as part of Zerodha 

58:20 - Zerodha is my biggest Trade 

59:04 - What the future holds for Zerodha

1:00:20 - Enabling Investing in American Stocks

EP35: {Mandeep Manocha, Co-founder & CEO of Cashify}

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ALERT: Remember to participate in Donate your Old Phones initiative run by Cashify - https://www.cashify.in/donate-for-education; save the planet and support kids who are unable to participate in online classes.

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Have you ever wondered what to do with that old phone that you have sitting around? Or have you ever wanted to buy a second phone as a backup but didn’t know how to get a reliable one. That’s where this startup comes in.  Cashify has seen demand rebound with COVID as everyone scrambled to get a second device for their kid who now needs to attend classes digitally. 

Mandeep and I have a free wheeling conversation about the refurbished device market, working out of an incubation centre informally, building a waste management business and pivoting to the unsexy business of Refurbished and having 4 Chinese investors on the Cap Table! 

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Over the 6 years Cashify is the official exchange partner for premium smartphone brands including Apple, Xiaomi, OnePlus and Samsung.  Additionally, partnered with e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon and Snapdeal as well as offline retailers like Croma Retail.

They have been funded by Bessemer Ventures, Blume Ventures, Shunwei Capital, venture debt funding Trifecta Capital, and latest being a Series C  of $12M from Chinese investors, that included CDH Investments and MorningSide Group, with AiHuiShou as a strategic investor.

Stay Safe!

- V (@varunvummidi )

Timelines:

02:48 - Introduction

06:38 - Rebounding to over 90% post COVID

08:40 - What's Re-Commerce?

11:24 - Managing "Reverse Logistics" & the Genesis of Cashify

18:02 - Lehmann Brothers crashing & the downturn resulted in Cashify

20:08 - Choosing Waste Management

23:50 - Similarity between Refurbished Phones & the Used car market

27:30 - Devices aren’t getting Cheaper; Premium phones are in

31:10 - Stocking phones is not a challenge!

35:44 - Bid Vs Buy models

42:00 - Building a Reseller Network

44:41 - Pricing & making money

47:15 - Scale of Operations & Ground reality post COVID

50:03 -  Donate your Old Phones for good @  https://www.cashify.in/donate-for-education

50:40 - Kids are unable to study

52:48 - Going Global with the Cashify Tech

55:10 - Software is the IP

58:10 - Diversifying beyond Mobiles

1:00:46 - Challenges in the Journey

1:05:25 - Having 4 Chinese Investors has been an advantage

1:10:45 - Getting to 10 M phone a year

EP34: {Gaurav Agarwal, Co-founder of 1MG}

Healthcare is a coveted space for tech startups in India, not because it’s hard but because of the enormity of challenges you could solve. And the sheer size of white spaces that are available to be solved. 1MG is probably at the forefront of really understanding Indian health data with over 90 million users on their platforms. 

I have a super fun chat with Gaurav Agarwal, the CTO & co-founder of 1MG on his time in the Valley, and how 1MG is working towards making healthcare affordable and accessible.

Gaurav's book recommendation: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari & A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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We chat about his time at Zynga and how he transitioned to 1MG and moving back to India after almost a decade in the Valley. Also about the interesting work that's being done at 1MG and also his ability to use technology to completely change the way we look at healthcare.

Some Interesting facts:

At 1mg, their healthcare data repository consists of over 5 Billion data points and process over 250GB of additional data. Likely, one of the largest healthcare data repos globally. 1MG has created a Data Science team that  works on problems like AI Doctor assistant, Digitization and Disease Progression. With all the learning from the data, they recently published a paper in the JMIR (Journal of Medical Informatics Research) about the Triage AI system that proved their system is as good or better than a panel of doctors!

The venture is supported by marque investors in Sequoia Capital, Intel Capital, Omidyar Network and Kae Capital.

Stay Safe & please share the episode!

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

01:00 - Working at Zynga - the true casual gaming

05:58 - Moving from NetApp to Zynga after 9 years

10:50 - Building for Gaming

15:25 - Removing limitations on what you can do

18:05 - Centre of Product

20:10 - Building Product in India vs Valley

23:21 - Moving to HealthKart from Zynga

28:27 - Bringing in Valley Execs

31:02 - Seed for 1MG

37:10 - Evolution of 1MG - building Triage.ai

44:15 - Managing Chronic Care

48:10 - Choosing not to do certain businesses

49:30 - Launching Connected Products for Monitoring

57:41 - Fighter Pilot vs an Entrepreneur

59:00 - Book Reccos

EP33: {Vinay Bagri, Co-founder & CEO of NiYO}

On the episode we discuss Vinay's fascination with Salary Accounts, banking and its evolution and what’s Neo about Niyo.

We chat with Vinay Bagri, the co-founder & CEO of NiYO, a Fintech that was founded in 2016 offering a digital banking solution for salaried employees. NiYO started off by digitizing the entire payroll and benefits process for contract workers in manpower supply companies - the atypical blue collar worker who earns Rs 15,000 per month. Today NiYO has over 5k clients servicing over 2 million or 20 lakh customers via their Salary account product.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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NiYO has continued to evolve and launched products with their banking partnerships with IDFC Bank, DCB & Yes Bank. The main product that caters to the blue collar account holders enables users carry out financial transactions including payment of bills and availing small ticket loans through the app that is available in 10 languages.

NiYO has raised $49.3 million in total, including Seed a round from Prime Venture Partners, Series - A from Social Capital, and the last funding of $35 million in Series B round led by Horizons Ventures, Tencent and JS Capital LLC. They had closed FY2019-20 with a $10M turnover.

Stay Safe & do share the episode!

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

01:25 - Intro

04:00 - Branchless Banking in India

05:40 - Evolution of digital banking

08:00 - Bankers of the 00s era

11:20 - Innovating on Salary Accounts

12:38 - What’s ailing the bank?

16:15 - Regulations in Tech?

20:00 - Evolution of banks around the world

23:48 - Open Banking Vs Neo Banking

26:15 - Insight to building NiYO

30:48 - Dealing with blue collar users using Prepaid Wallets

34:15 - Growing 10x in 2 years just using referrals

38:00 - 5k clients & 2 million customers

40:40 - Partnering with banks & co-creating Products

45:30 - Monetizing

48:15 - Portfolio approach to banking

52:00 - $ 49M in capital raised & fund raising from global investors

58:36 - Creating Products for Diff customers

1:03:33 - HIRING

EP32: {Akash Dongre, Co-founder of IndusOS}

I chat with Akash Dongre, the CPO and cofounder at IndusOS - the creators of the largest App Store outside of the play store with over 100 million users and thousands of apps created for the vernacular audience. They currently power the App Store on many of the Samsung phones and have been through quite the journey from starting up to meandering their way to a vernacular mobile device manufacturer, to a Vernacular Operating System for other OEM and now becoming the go to App Store for Samsung.

We chat with Akash also on his time porting mobile games, working with mobile payments in the early days, building a hardware business and then  finding scale with the vernacular app store!

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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There's so much to share from their 14 year journey. Indus OS was available in English and 23 Indian regional languages which had an active user base of over 10 million. It has evolved to the App Bazaar that now has over 400,000 apps developed by 50k developers for the local audience, the real Bharat. Samsung invested $5 million in 2019 and now every Samsung phone in India ships with the Indus App Bazaar.

About IndusOS:

The @IndusAppBazaar was ranked #1 and fastest growing App Marketing Platform in the Indian Subcontinent on the @AppsFlyer Performance Index, 2019. If you're a native language developer they can provide you with sufficient visibility to distribute and monetize your app. In 2017, Indus OS raised $4 million in its Series A round from Omidyar Network, Ventureast, and JSW Ventures. Prior to that, its angel round saw participation from Naveen Tewari of InMobi, Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal, Pranay Chulet of Quikr, and Mayank Singhal of Temasek Holdings. More recently Affle made an investment into IndusOS.

Note: IndusOS is hiring!

Stay Safe!

- V

Timeline:

01:30 - Introduction

04:15 - IIT & getting started in mobile gaming

08:49 - Mobile payments - MoFirst

13:40 - Not choosing to pursuing gaming

20:30 - The seed for Vernacular OS

24:00 - Selling Hardware to regional customers - Firstouch

29:31 - Many hardware players in India

32:41 - Launch in Multiple languages

38:05 - 50,000 app developers to localize their applications

47:39 - Challenges with monetising the OS - How to compete with FREE?

51:09 - Transition from OEM to App Store & 100M users

52:16 - Consumption trends

55:30 - Apps that do well on the Indus Store

EP31: {Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Founder of Servify}

This startup likely covers the premium smartphone on which you’re likely listening to or watching this episode of the Podcast! 

Very few companies give service capabilities much thought. Indians too are not very demanding of service and service requests arise for less than 3% of all mobile handset sales. Servify saw as an opportunity to solve for globally from India. A large opportunity to support brands manage customer interactions & expectations using technology. We chat with Sreevathsa on his journey working with Indian & global brands and taking that learning into building his 2nd service oriented venture. 

On the Episode we chat about Sree's journey and also what draws him towards building service oriented businesses. He also shares his philosophy on what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Sree's 8Cs of Entrepreneurship (Aug 2020 version)

1. Curiosity
2. Clarity
3. Commitment
4. Conviction
5. Courageous
6. Conquer
7. Care
8. COVID19

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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About:

Servify is on a mission to help consumers take control of all their devices and appliances - at home or at work. Servify today is one of the largest device lifecycle management platforms in the world and serves (as a Strategic Partner) consumers of Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, Motorola, Xiaomi, Nokia, Bose, Airtel, Vodafone, Du, Amazon, Oppo, Croma, AmTrust to name a few great associations.

Stay Safe!

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

04:15 - The journey

09:44 - Nokia story

11:27 - Remembering Nokia

17:17 - Moving on from Nokia to building The Service Solution (TSS)

21:25 - Focussing on consistent service quality with TSS 

24:24 - What is Servify?

26:22 - Service as a core pillar

31:03 - Need to outsource service for large manufacturers

35:41 - Solving for service around the world

41:02 - Using data from a Billion handsets

43:36 - Being a second time founder

56:19 - Choosing to raise funds as a second time founder

48:35 - 8C's of Entrepreneurship

1. Curiosity
2. Clarity
3. Commitment
4. Conviction
5. Courageous
6. Conquer
7. Care
8. COVID19

1:00:02 - COVID & its impact

EP30: {Aakrit Vaish, Co-founder & CEO of Haptik}  

We chat with Aakrit on the conversational AI space, his startup journey and the sale to Reliance Industries in April 2019, in a very candid conversation.

The conversational AI, chatbot space has seen a lot of action across the world after messaging services like the Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have started enabling such interactions at scale. One of the leading players from India has been able to reach over 100 million devices, and process over 2 billion conversations.

More recently Haptik supported the Govt of India’s My Corona Helpdesk in the wake of the pandemic. They built and delivered it incredibly quickly and enabled it to scale to more than 76 million messages.  

We also get chatting about Aakrit's journey from Flurry to being an angel investor.  Aakrit is an investor in consumer focussed and SaaS Startups. Notable investments include Unacademy, Third Wave Coffee, Flatchat, Tookitaki, Dil Mil, iON Energy and a lot more.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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About Haptik:

Today, Haptik is one of the world's largest companies in the conversation AI space with more than 100 large enterprise clients including KFC, Samsung, Coca-Cola, OYO Rooms, Kotak Life and Dream11. In April 2019, Reliance Industries acquired majority shareholding in the company in a $100 million transaction.

Haptik is also #Hiring! Do check them out.

Stay Safe & do share the episode!

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

03:00 - Reliance JIO raising capital from global investors

04:45 - Becoming a part of Reliance - JIO Platforms Limited (JPL)

07:44 - Landing the MyGov Corona Helpdesk project

11:15 - Framework for choosing a strategic investor

14:33 - Creating a rapport with the promoter

16:51 - Govt's involvement in getting the chatbot right

19:20 - Evolution & the history of chatbots

25:20 - Returning to India and building a startup

26:36 - Venturing into Angel investing

30:15 - Struggles of Haptik & finding Product-Market-Timing fit

32:45 - Industries that are in a hype cycle

36:06 - Hiring at Haptik

EP29: Gig economy & the Future of Work {Niranjan Nakhate, Co-founder of Futwork previously called Frapp}

On the episode we speak with a founder who has built a company in a space that has now been coined as the "Future Of Work." A space that means the future is driven by the gig economy, an array of jobs offered to those willing to perform it at their convenience. We dig into this concept, how this is playing out for the millions who are out of work or are ready to work. 

Niranjan also shares how the business has evolved over the years from being a student discount platform to becoming a student verification service to now enabling anyone to get work via Futwork.

The startup boasts more than 300 brands that have used its solution to run gigs and micro-jobs. This includes big names like Samsung, Starbucks, Spotify, Universal Music, Puma, and many more.

Niranjan & Armaan are Narsee Monjee (NMIMS) graduates who started out in 2014 on this journey and have worked through many business models to get to this point. A great listen.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Checkout https://futwork.com/ if you have any gigs or projects you wanted done and din't want to go through the hassle of hiring and managing an intern!

Stay Safe & don't forget to share the episode!

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

01:00 - Introduction

03:06 - Handling COVID

05:35 - Slack group to bridge the WFH gap

06:36 - Having a young team

08:25 - Launching the Student Discount card

11:15 - Building a thesis around a student user base

16:20 - Moving away from Offers

18:02 - Why a platform was needed for earning opportunities

20:10 - Getting paid for tasks

27:00 - Pricing in the gig economy

29:47 - Profile of Gig workers

32:45 - Futwork Rebrand

33:07 - Companies embracing gigs/tasks

35:38 - Acquiring Futwokers PAN India

40:09 - Earnings from Gigs

43:10 - Building Trust

46:10 - Running a business as 20 year olds

48:26 - Mistakes that could have been avoided

EP28: {Damandeep Singh Soni, Marketing at WeCash, MilkBasket, Mobikwik}

This episode is going to be a little different from other Stars & Startups Episodes. Think of this episode as a Growth Masterclass for Startups. 

Startups all too often don’t identify how to grow their users, plan acquisition and do things that help them scale during the early days. We explore a few concepts to help build the growth function, build trust with customers, demystify and think through concepts that could be thought of as hard. I learned a lot from this episode, hope you do too.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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Damandeep blogs at https://www.damansoni.com/

Don’t forget to share the episode if you think it could add some value to others. Do write in to me or tweet at @varunvummidi if you liked this episode. Maybe we could do more such episodes exploring more such topics in the near future.

Stay Safe

- V

Timeline:

00:45 - Intro to Daman

01:01 - Framework for building Growth Teams

09:55 - Growth lead as a bootstrapped company should be the founder

15:25 - Marketing is not Growth

18:46 - Who can apply the framework

21:14 - Building Trust for New Brands

24:43 -  a. Treat organic customers in a special way. Treat them like a VIP

               b. Give customers a voice

27:05 -   c. Creating authentic PR

30:50 -  d. Social Proof

                    i. Soliciting those who are using your product

                   ii. Using logos of familiarity

37:32 - e. Customer Service

43:24 - Acquiring more users without much $$

48:55 - Canva’s method of SEO

50:12 - Referrals & Word of Mouth

56:25 - Importance of writing a Blog

57:55 -Influencers, and how to identify an influencer

01:02:13 - Meetups, Freebies and using Testimonials to engage

01:13:42 - Creating KPIs for Growth & Marketing teams

01:21:04 - How to WOW the investor

Entrepreneur turned Investor turned Entrepreneur Alok is on this episode of the Stars & Startups Podcast. Alok Mittal is an IIT Delhi graduate who you can say has become a fixture in the Indian startup ecosystem. Alok is currently the cofounder and CEO of Indifi, a debt financing platform for Indian SMEs. He’s also a prolific Angel investor and the founding Board member at the Indian Angel Network (IAN) that he helped set up in 2005 after his first startup JobsAhead was acquired by Monster.com in 2004.

Alok lead the Indian operations of VC firm Caanan Partners between 2006 - 2015. The assets of which were sold to JP Morgan.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

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On the episode we chat about the JobsAhead journey, making it to venture investing, some of his learnings along the way and learning how to be an angel investor. Also, we discuss the pandemic and how Indifi is dealing with the situation and how startups should approach the momentary setbacks.

Memorable quotes from the episode:

“Consumers vote with their clicks”

“The disruptive effect of GST is yet to come!” GSTN would be transformative.

"Account Aggregators would change the game in the next many months" 

Indifi is hiring for non sales/business roles, enablers & strategic partnership roles at the moment. Do check out their careers page.

Alok is also super approachable in case you need a supportive investor! 

Stay Safe

- V {host is on Twitter @varunvummidi }

Timeline:

01:00 - Jobs Portals were the original Internet gold rush in India

03:50 - Jobs was what people wanted, relevant for Indians

05:17 - User generated content was restricted to job boards

06:30 - Moving on from a job to start an Internet business

09:00 - Joining Aricent & becoming an entrepreneur

11:25 - Raising Angel funding

13:42 - Selling to Monster

15:55 - Becoming an investor

19:30 - Investments at Caanan Partners

21:00 - Selling Caanan to an AMC

24:35 - Naaptol moving into TV Commerce

28:55 - Angel Investing

30:23 -  60 investments in 15 years

31:10 - Dealflow to make 4-6 investments a year

34:27 - Entrepreneurs he's enjoyed working with

36:44 - Advice to entrepreneurs in times of COVID

40:04 - COVIDs impact on Indifi

42:45 - Prepping the business to succeed through the pandemic

45:42 - Outlook on lending

47:10 - Resetting at Indifi

48:54 - Impact of GST in the lending business

50:05 - Taking advantage of the GSTN

My guest from EP04 Krishi Fawani had spoken highly about Upekkha Accelerator that his company Hashtag Loyalty was participating in. Had a chance meeting with Prasanna and loved what they had to say and invited him to be on the Podcast.

We talk about what it means to build a Value SaaS business, Pricing for SaaS, exploring some concepts of Effectuation as popularized by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy, and also what it is to be a startup in itself. There is a lot one can take away from this podcast and if you are a SaaS founder the deadline to apply for their next batch starting early Sep ends on Aug 15th!

Book recco from Prasanna: {Monetizing Innovation - Madhavan Ramanujam}

More info at : https://upekkha.io/

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel

→ We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC!

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About Prasanna:

Worked intensely with 120+ startups to make them successful at Microsoft Accelerator India. Helped pick the right startups for Investors & Microsoft & as a founder going through similar ups & downs, he helps other founders push through.

What is Upekkha?

"We work with B2B SaaS startups to get you through the valley of death, to a place with predictable, scalable, profitable growth. Whether you want to build a $10M revenue business, or the next $1B SaaS unicorn, we help you accelerate."

Timeline:

01:00 - Intro to Prasanna

02:15 - Upekkha becoming the YC of Indian SaaS companies

04:50 - Value SaaS is the opposite of Vanity SaaS

10:55 - Software is eating Software

15:00 - Shift in power dynamic in the world of SaaS

18:30 - Changing VC investment thesis towards SaaS

23:58 - Starting Upekkha

28:17 - Raising money for Upekkha; Rajan, Shekhar, Prasanna

33:25 - Purchase behaviour in a Do it for Me market

38:00 - Should I send a developer to fast track the process? An example.

42:30 - Pricing SaaS products

49:53 - Effectuation Concept by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy

Sameer has been an early-stage investor in over 38 companies that include 2 Unicorns & 1 Decacorn. On the episode I speak with Sameer Verma of NexusVP about some of his investments, the startup ecosystem, and we get a chance to dig deeper into how he thinks about investing. More recently though, Sameer’s investee company, Postman, was in the news for putting India on the map for creating a category creating unicorn! 

Do listen to this episode in its entirety there are some fun anecdotes in the conversation. In case you have limited time, we discuss 5 of my favourite investments of Sameer’s portfolio (personal & that of Nexus') from min 47. These cover his investments in Hasura, Postman, Bira91, Licious & MyUpchar.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on YouTube: Part 1 & Part 2

→ We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC!

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About Sameer:

Based in Bangalore, and a graduate of Illinois Institute of Tech, Sameer focuses on consumer internet, enterprise / SaaS, ed-tech, healthcare and b2b commerce domains. At Nexus, Sameer has led investments in Postman, Unacademy, Infra.market, Zolo, Hasura.io, Ultrahuman, Quandl, RoadRunnr (Zomato), Joveo and a variety of other companies.

His complete investment profile can be found on the NexusVP website.

Timeline:

05:46 - Radical prioritisation framework

07:25 - Becoming an investor

18:42 - Working in Venture investing, early days

27:53 - Thesis: Teams & People not stuck on idea

29:05 - His personal investing process?

31:40 - COVID's impact - behaviour shift & reinforcement loops

36:46 - Postman  investment (part1)

47:53 - Anectodes & Investment stories

48:45 - Hasura

56:56 - Postman (Part2)

58:26 - Bira91

1:05:44 - Licious investment

1:10:20 - Investing in vice’s and VC’s not investing in such

1:12:37 - Incremental value delivered by Licious

1:15:53 - MyUpchar

In the conversation with the co-founders of the contemporary co-working pioneers in India - 91 Springboard, we cover a lot of ground.

We chat about:

- The Goa vibe & how the 91Springboard team set the trend among businesses that moved their HQ to Goa

- The co-working business, how COVID is going to be a catalyst for increased adoption of co-working

-  Advantages of building a remote team and both of them share some learnings & tips on creating an environment for a remote team’s success

- Tools 91 Springboard uses for making "working from anywhere" work

- Fund raising in this environment

- LOT more

Stay Safe

- V (@varunvummidi)

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ Full episode of the podcast is available on YouTube

→ We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC!

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Timeline:

01:00 - Introduction

01:26 - Co-working space vs Working From Home

05:40 - Co-working spaces solving for today’s (COVID) need

09:55 - Future of co-working

12:05 - 91 Springboard, before & today

14:00 - 14,000 members across 27 locations & the community location

16:18 - WeWork vs 91Springboard

20:00 - Pricing in co-working

22:05 - Co-branding with Barclays for a workspace

24:10 - Partnering with Orgs to creating a platform

27:53 - Partnering with the Govt - Atul Incubation Mission

33:37 - Moving to Goa & its Pros & Cons

38:11 - Work from Anywhere is here to stay

41:21 - How to work from anywhere?

47:05 - Techniques used to work remote

50:20 - Raising capital for the uncertainty

54:21 - Pitch to existing investors

56:51 - Being the AWS for Workspaces

1:01:41 - A message for founders & teams

On the latest episode of Stars & Startups we have Rahul Chandra, who was earlier the Managing director at Helion Ventures, a USD 600 million India focused fund, where Rahul led investments into some popular internet investments including Toppr, MoEngage and some of the others he discusses on the show.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! 

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We touch on a range of topics on the episode, including his book the Moonshot Game that was published by Penguin Random House, the thesis of his latest fund - Arkam Ventures that includes LP’s such as Binny Bansal & Vijay Shekar Sharma, we also we get his thoughts on agri investments, reverse migration & rural mobility

Do reach out to Rahul at arkamvc.com if you're tackling any Middle India problem, B2B or B2C across the spectrum.

Don’t forget to subscribe & leave us a 5 star rating wherever you are watching or listening to the show! I’d really appreciate that. 

This podcast's video can be found on YouTube

Stay Safe

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

01:00 - Introduction

02:07 - INR 300 crores is just the First Close for the fund

03:45 - Binny Bansal & Vijay Shekar Sharma

06:12 - Introducing thoughts on Arkam VC fund

11:09 - What is Middle India

13:17 - Angels, Founders & Investors working together

17:57 - LPs being advisors

19:02 - The support system process

22:05 - Moonshot Game

24:02 - Entry into the investment world

25:50 - Helion venture investments & Arkam commitments

30:55 - Agri tech

34:32 - Fintech & Agri combo

39:29 - Next generation of farmers

41:31 - Impact of reverse migration

47:10 - Impact of COVID on investments

50:51 - Rural Mobility Opportunity

On this episode I chat with Raghav Chandra, co-founder of Urban Company, formerly called Urban Clap, where we discuss building products for millions of engaged users and creating a unique platform that now serves major markets in India and globally. We chat about  

1. Building a product for the clients and service providers, 

2. Owning the supply by standardizing service & vertical integration 

3. The 5 pillars of the products to creating value, and  

4. Learning the ukulele during lockdown

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!  

→ We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! 

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"We’re not tied to any category, it gets pulled down if it doesn’t work" 

"Bookings weren’t working, we gave up 50% of the then business to focus n things that worked"  

Co-founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra, the startup has so far served over five million households across 14 cities in India, including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Vadodara, and Visakhapatnam. 

In the last five years, it also has expanded to Australia, Singapore, and the UAE.  UrbanClap is backed by investors like Steadview Capital, Vy Capital, SAIF Partners, Accel and Bessemer Venture Partners and it currently has more than 25,000 individual service professionals (ISPs) on the platform across the seven verticals comprising of services such as beauty, spa, grooming, repairs, cleaning, painting, and fitness and yoga.  

This episodes Video can be found on YouTube

Stay Safe

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline: 

03:00- Genesis of the product 

05:41 - Validation of the idea 

07:07 - Launching the MVP 

10:46 - JustDial vs UrbanClap 

14:17 - Building Product 

15:08 - Directly owning the Supply 

18:27 - Standardizing Service & vertical integration 

20:29 - UC Fulfilled & the 5 pillars of the product 

22:38 - UC similar to a franchising business 

24:50 - Build for Supply & for Clients 

27:23 - "Semi-literate" Supply using the app 

29:58 - Influence of Yelp & Twitter 

34:23 - Process of Category creation 

36:27 - Killing categories 

40:32 - Launching subscriptions 

43:10 - Saying no to aggregators controlling supply on the platform 

44:18 - Going International 

46:20 - Stakeholders in the UAE market to deliver a service 

47:43 - 175 million USD war chest 

50:32 - Consumers are "Divinely Discontent" 

53:40 - COVID & plans for growth

If you’ve had a smart phone since early days you’d likely recognise Magzter. Along with Zinio they were they apps that you could find your favourite magazines from across the world to access and read. They have over 55 million downloads of their apps and Girish speaks off how they hit 1 million downloads a months recently and likely greater than normal downloads due to COVID. On the episode I speak with Girish Ramdas, the CEO of Magzter. We have an unhinged conversation about Magzter, their successes, the journey of starting and scaling.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC!

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Magzter is hiring! Do check them out.

Founded in 2011,  by C.R. Venkatesh, Girish Ramdas & Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan. Magzter has raised a total of US$ 13M from investors including the Singapore Press Holdings & Kalaari Capital.

This episode on YouTube .

Timeline:

02:27 - Inspiration for Magzter

03:55 - App businesses in early '10s

05:42 - Everyone had a Magzter app

07:17 - The reading destination

08:38 - Deprioritizing products & choosing a path

11:12 - Achieving product market fit after 4-5 years (2015)

11:47 - Newspapers leading to max DAUs; shift in habit

14:14 - National gold medals in rifle shooting & staying active

18:02 - Running a marathon

21:42 - Yogic practice

25:20 - Operating from NYC

26:22 - B2B adoption & new use cases

32:28 - Changing interaction

35:27 - Discovering the Zone use case

37:12 - COVID Baby

38:52 - “Trending” content in education?

40:37 - Academic journals

43:37 - 1 Million download a month, 50% growth in May

43:42 - Retention

45:37 - Splitting the pie

47:27 - User Generated Content

49:37 - Savings using Magzter

50:32 - Form factor

55:12 - Content to Commerce via Magzter

57:53 - Services Business & managing that business

1:03:42 -Trap of being in the services businesses

1:05:02 - Hardware play, moving into new verticals

1:08:49 - Raising money & becoming cashflow positive

1:12:49 - Hiring

— V (Varun Vummidi)

Listen to Episodes on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher

Timeline:

01.26 — The Situation

02.41 — Third wave of coffee/starting of BlueTokai

05.53 — Educating Indians about coffee

07.45 — Biggest shift in mindset/trend

08.44 — Customers of BTC

11.30 — Customised coffee at the store

11.21 — Ready to Drink as a response to instant coffee

17.00 — Product development and market share

19.14 — Importance of stores

22.22 — Working with estates

24.40 — Amount of coffee sold monthly

26.41 — New styles of coffee

30.40 — Maintaining consistency

31.51 — Different roasters in the market

33.05 — What is BlueTokai today

35.57 — Effect of home deliveries on online market

38.08 — Training the staff

41.57 — Effects of covid19

46.01 — Owning a farm

47.04 — BlueTokai global

On today’s episode I chat with Bhavik Vasa , he’s the Ex - Chief Growth officer at ItzCash and managed the business after the acquisition by EBIX. He was instrumental in the ItzCash journey to acquisition. Bhavik & I discuss his journey, the acquisition, mindfulness & his latest venture GetVantage.

----- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

--> We also have a coffee giveaway as we approach EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee!

Prior to ItzCash Bhavik was a founding member of Radical Payments and ISTS Worldwide, a US based bespoke technology solutions ventures across financial services, retail and mobile payments.

Bhavik's latest foray, GetVantage disburses capital through a commercial credit card, which allows the fintech to keep track of the borrower, and ensure that spends are made only towards the main cause of the borrowing. This is a source of alternate capital that seems to be the trend of lenders being enablers by participating in Revenue outcomes than as a fixed interest rate, like a bank would. 

Globally, alternative funding models have gained significant traction with firms like Clearbanc, Uncapped, and RevUp Capital leading the way to reshaping how digital-first businesses are raising capital. GetVantage, similarly is a revenue-based financing platform, provides marketing and growth capital of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 2 crore to emerging businesses without equity dilution or any interest. Instead, the startup charges a flat fee and disburses loans in less than two weeks.

Bhavik is accessible on Twitter & LinkedIn, they're hiring!

Stay Safe

- V (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

02:25: - Black tees & lower # of decisions

05:50 - Early career

10:35 - Founding team to founder

12:50 - ItzCash

14:45 - Business of ItzCash

17:00 - What was the Network?

18:41 - Phygital profitability

21:50 - India , depth over wide : “ inch deep & mile wide market”

23:28 - Sponsoring the IPL

27:30 - Moving on from ItzCash/EBIX

29:10 - Mindfulness

38:55 - GetVantage

44:53 - What businesses are a good fit for alternate funding?

49:55 - How do you price GetVantage

52:33 - No Equity taken in those businesses

54:35 - Hiring

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X1 RL is not only Venture-backed by a some high-profile angels and family offices, it’s first edition saw participation from international drivers including names like former F1 champion Niki Lauda’s son Mathias, and F1 winner James Hunt’s son Freddie. Adding major cred to the league.

Abhi has taken his learning from launching Premier Futsal into X1 RL, Futsal was 5 a side short form football league that had brand ambassadors that included Virat Kohli and Luis Figo and Falcao. Futsal also had football superstars involved — Ronaldinho, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, etc.. which Abhi touches upon a little bit (at min 30:40 if you want to hear about that experience!)

The venture is backed by a consortium of high-profile angels and family offices including Jiten Gupta, Mohit Burman, Chris Chaney, Raghunandan G, Angellist, Kunal Shah, Rattha Group, White Unicorn Ventures, Lets Venture, Anupam Mittal and Kronos Ventures.

Enjoy this episode, this is a good one. Stay safe.

— Varun (@varunvummidi)

Timeline:

02:30 - Impact of COVID on the X1 League

03:24 - X1

06:38 - Drivers, integral to success

10:55 - Team

11:30 - Mindset of building a team

13:52 - Motor Sports and Global Interest

15:39 - Origin

21:00 - Addition of Teams

21:58 - Support and strategy

24:30 - Marketing for the New Gen

28:03 - eSports & racing from home

29:29 - Regulation of Motorsports

30:49 - Premier Futsal

35:16 - Learnings from Futsal

37:08 - Investors

42:54 - X1 post-COVID

46:24 - Plans & hiring

On the episode I chat with Aloke Bajpai, CEO of IXIGO, a business that can be called a Travel industry veteran. Aloke & Rajnish have been in the travel ecosystem since the time they graduated from IIT in 2001, first jobs working at the Spanish travel major Amadeus and then building IXIGO as a travel search player in India even before flying was commonplace like it is today — at least prior to COVID19.

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They’ve been building IXIGO for over 14 years, frugally. Hacking their way through many industry & business cycles and have created an ecosystem of apps that have become leaders in their space to serve 170 million users. In this conversation, Aloke shares his journey starting up, getting through previous cycles and lessons that can help navigate the current situation.

Aloke says their mantra to garnering 170 million users: 

The muscle they spent a lot of time building that would help in a downturn is their “frugal mindset” & “marketing without money.” Additionally while navigating a downturn, Aloke recommends over communicating with employees & suggest offering an upside (ESOPs) for those who stick around.

Aloke, can be found on LinkedIn & Twitter. They’re hiring!

In the 14 year journey, they have raised total capital of 35 million USD and have some marquee investors including Sequoia Capital India, Fosun Kinzon Capital, SAIF Partners, MakeMyTrip Ltd. & Micromax Informatics Ltd. apart from some angel investors from their early days.

{ host is @varunvummidi }

Timeline:

• 02:10 — Joining the IIT’s
• 05:35 — IXIGO and raising cash in a downturn
• 07:10 — Amadeus and the origins of IXIGO
• 11:15 — the first year for IXIGO and fund raising
• 15:10 — the Google for travel
• 22:21 — Scaling to 170 million users
• 27:41 — Company culture
• 33:33 — Encouraging entrepreneurship
• 37:02 — Coming out of a downturn — learning from the previous cycles
• 40:51 — Raising funds from MMT & SAIF Partners?
• 44:19 — Solving for utility as a growth hack to becoming the largest partner to IRCTC
• 50:40 — Surviving the downturn

We have a deep conversation with Mukul Rustagi of Classplus, and IIT Roorkee grad who had the intent to solve problems right through college, just like his co-founder Bhaswat.

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We explore the world of coaching institutes, how a teacher at the institute influences a child’s ability to learn and get better. We delve into building the Classplus business model and understand how Classplus has been able to carve a niche for itself and raise 9 million dollars as part of their Series A from marquee investors including Sequoia and Blume Ventures.

Mukul has a book recommendation for anyone who loves sports and build a perseverance mentality— Marvan Attapattu

My favorite quotes from the show are:

“70%-80% of centers are in tier 2 cities and beyond”

“Technology cannot replicate the experience of learning from teachers”

“Technology will be a supplement teachers”

Classplus is hiring, you can find Mukul on LinkedIn and email via mukul@classplus.co

Classplus has investments from RTP Global - a prolific investor in early stage startups, Times Internet, Blume Ventures, Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Spiral Ventures, and Strive.

Timeline:

2:45 — Early Days

4:42 — Finding each other and the passion for starting up

6:35 — Classplus

8:26 — Competitors; B2B vs B2C

11:29 — Tech adoption outside of Metros & large cities

13:15 — Expense on coaching spends

15:50 — Structuring classes

17:06 — Kota Factory*

20:58 — Mentoring a key part of tutoring

24:41 — Co-creating the product with teachers

33:15 — Sequoia Surge program

35:44 — Series A raise of $ 9 million

36:52 — Spending a large fund raise

39:01 — Hiring

44:03 — Kunal, Bhavish & Kunal

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In the conversation we talk about the origin story, how an ecomm website became an agency and how an agency is looking at building products to scale beyond the services business.

A fun conversation into all things digital and chatting about the 4 businesses being built inside of the agency.

Vikas can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter

2:13 — Aiesec

3:16 — Getting work experience while at college

4:52 — Working at The Murugappa Group

5:57 —MV Subbiah, Padma Bhushan & ex-Chairman of the Murugappa Group

10:42 — Moving on from Murugappa group to entrepreneurship

13:10 — Exploring Social Commerce

17:10 — Influence and curation is influencing commerce

21:23 — Understanding Social Media filters

23:41 — Transitioning to Social Beat — India’s fastest growing Digital agency

26:43 — The client that put us on the map

30:13 — Multi lingual campaigns

32:21 — ROI driven agency

35:45 — UPI’s impact on transactions

37:52 — Launching brands products from the Agency

39:02 — influencer.in

41:30 — Ads Quotient

42:30 — 22languages

43:25 — DigiGrad

49:01 — Hiring & Managing COVID19

Sarva has Malaika Arora, tv celebrity and actress, as a co-founder and more recently the app also brought onboard cricketer Shikhar Dhawan as an investor.

If you want to join a rocket ship you should reach out to Sarvesh and team!

Timeline:

01:09 — Arrogance, Attitude & Anger | Circket was life, meeting a guru

06:12 — Injury free with Yoga & being picked up by IPL teams

07:33 — Yoga has genuinely become a part of competitive sports

09:35 — Bikram

11:45 — Yoga being adopted across the world

12:55 — Sarva

14:05 — Adoption of Yoga

15:41 — Improving life outcomes with Yogic practice

17:23 — Importance of Yogic practice

21:35 — Celebrities launching workout programs

24:10 — Getting J.Lo & A.Rod as investors

26:35 — Moving away from creating studios to just focusing on a digital strategy

30:40 — Trends on app usage

32:54 — Enabling jobs with yoga

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We get talking about indigenous spirits and the obstacle to their success in India. How so far no online portal could successfully work on the liquor business as Indian laws do not permit the sale and purchase of liquor via digital channels. How HipBar could overcome this legal obstacle by identifying itself as a pure-play fintech company. It currently counts TASMAC shops in Tamil Nadu as clients, has been in operation on and off in Bangalore and more recently started servicing Odisha & West Bengal for deliveries.

HipBar is backed by alcohol major Diageo.

Hope you enjoy the episode of Stars & Startups with Varun Vummidi as much as I did. You can connect with Prashanth on Linkedin

Video: https://youtu.be/XcYUPItDqq4

Timeline:

04:46 — What was the product?

05:35 —  Partnership with Netherlands based Melchers group

10:01 — Classification of IMFL & country spirits

11:03 — Promoting country spirit

12:05 — Why tequila is popular around the world

15:12 — Problem of tagging country liquor as country liquor

16:04 — A case for local speciality alcohols

18:12 — Free movement of alcohol between states?

20:01 — Venturing into the business.

23:00 — Transitioning to HIPBAR from Sipping spirits

24:19 — getting the HIPBAR name

25:17 — creating the Uber experience as the first

25:21 — One City One Price launch via HIPBAR

28:06 — the opportunity to start with deliveries

28:31 — confusion on what resulting in launching deliveries

30: 29 — Mobile payments in multiple states

31:35 — Efficiency is a casualty for wineshops and bars

33:32 — Challenges posed by Zomato & Swiggy to restaurants & bars

37:47 — Govts coming forward to implement digital solutions

40:44 —Regulatory rules, actions taken without oversight

41:41 — Hipbar participating in deliveries as well? Launch in Odisha

42:35 — Hyperlocal bar?

Jiten was the co-founder of Citrus Payments an online payment company that sold to its rival PayU payments in 2016 for a mammoth $130M cash deal, post which Jiten went on to run PayU’s consumer play LazyPay.

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A lot of you already know that Jiten has become a prominent angel investor, some call him a Super Angel, with some blockbuster investments in Ridlr (exit old to Ola), JoeHukum(exit to Freshworks), Khatabook (60M $$ in capital raised) & Bank Open (37M $$ in capital from Tiger Global ) and the big one, the craft beer maker Bira 91 the maker of India’s favourite white beer. Jiten has a lot more interesting investments, so do search for them if you’re interested. He’s invested in wide range of companies — consumer products, crypto, transport, entertainment, beauty & wellness and SaaS.

We cover a lot of ground in the limited time with Jiten, where we get into the origin of Citrus, sale to PayU, Angel investing & we scratch the surface on what’s cooking at Jiten’s latest startup Jupiter Money for which he has raised capital of US$ 26M on an idea to create a better banking experience.

Jupiter Money is hiring, so do reach out their careers page of you want to be part of Jiten’s team. Technology candidates are always welcome and currently looking for folks in digital marketing (as of Jun 2020).

Jiten is easily accessible on LinkedIn and Twitter

Youtube: https://youtu.be/GMEfRkqpKIE

Timeline:

4:05 — Intro to Jiten

6:35 — Genesis of Citrus — working at ICICI & meeting Amrish Rau

8:40 — First course of action for a, initial 2 years of launching Citrus

10:45 — Focussing on going after certain sectors while competing with well funded players

13:25 — Importance of strategic partnerships

14:45 — B2B vs B2C economics and brand

18:45 — Building LazyPay

22:20 — Exiting to PayU

24:30 — Transitioning into an Angel investor

28:35 — Support to investee companies

29:55 — Who should become an angel investor?

31:41 — How Jiten invests

33:35 — Raising a large round of capital on an idea

34:50 — Ambitions for Jupiter

36:35 — What to invest in while having a large pool of capital

38:45 — Mistakes from Citrus that is being avoided

41:50 — Tech talent in Mumbai

44:12 — The KILLER feature for Jupiter Money

45:35 — Hiring for Tech & Marketing

46:01 — Suggestions for entrepreneurs during COVID

Aneesh has graciously offered a 15% discount on orders placed on SvamiDrinks.com and should be active for about a month (June2020). Do listen to the podcast to get your discount code! Do follow my channel wherever you listen to the podcast and do sign up to the newsletter so that you can receive the podcast delivered to your inbox!

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Timeline

12:05 —  Building a taste for the good stuff

17:13 —  learning from launching an iOS app for wine users in Mumbai

24:43 —  Hipcask Passport

30:15 —  team and coming together of SVAMI

33:25 — Creating an FMCG brand for a non-drinker

34:05 — Overcoming the incumbents

36:02 —  Reason to start with “tonics” for an FMCG brand

38:45 —  Why build a brand via bar sales?

42:30 —  Packaging and it’s importance

44:25 —  Creating an strong IP around  SVAMI Superlative Cocktail League

48:10 —  Building goodwill during the lockdown across the board

50:35 —  Product Development process

58:07 —  Driving purchases and sales channels

1:01:01 —  Fund raising

1:03:33 — Competition from other startups

1:05:45 —  Expansion global vs local

Svami Tonics, with their exquisite packaging and wonderful flavours, are finally putting the Indian in Indian Tonic. Svami manufactures and sells premium non-alcoholic drinks and mixers across retail stores, restaurant-pubs and e-commerce channels

Aneesh has worked on projects for food, lifestyle and travel for brand including  Johnnie Walker, Dom Pérignon, Hennessy, Starbucks, BBC Good Food, Vanity Fair, Lonely Planet, GQ, CN Traveller and a lot more!

Svami was founded by three partners Sahil Jatana, Rahul Mehra and Aneesh Bhasin in 2018. All three are connoisseurs  of good drinks — be it wine, beer or even coffee. Sahil started one of the first online stores for coffee in India, Rahul started one of the first craft breweries in Mumbai and Aneesh started India’s first app for wines and spirits.

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The opportunity provided by Space, especially in Low Earth Orbit is a large and an exciting one, with India alone having over 300 companies focused on this market. Kawa is one of the latest in that lot and believe that eventually satellite data will be commoditised and there would be a point where the cost would tend towards zero.

Timeline

02:24 — Entering the Orbit: Kawa

05:44 — Launching Satellites vs getting satellite data

11:19 — Space and making sense of managing satellite data

15:52 — Commoditising the Data and Monetizing the Business

21:03 — Competitors and Kawa’s USP

28:48 — Becoming a Data Point for public as the Use Case

33:50 —Monetizing for Use Cases

36:24 — Space tech landscape in India

40:01 — Creating a moat

44:27 — Monitoring and rules of usage

47:23 — Onboarding the right team

Kawa is said to be working on a service that would make it extremely easy to work with satellite data and offer a platform that would require very little technical help or time for clients to get started. We get a little technical in this episode with Bala Menon of Kawa.Space where he shares the opportunity in the space of Space & what Kawa is building.

Kawa Space had recently raised funds from Speciale Invest and a sum from Paytm founder Vijay Shekar Sharma.

If you’re looking to partner or work with Kawa you can reach out to Bala@kawa.space or missions@kawa.space

Bala is also easily accessible on LinkedIn and Twitter

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Timeline:

23:10 — Insight on cracking large enterprise sales

27:35 — Hardware vs Software business

30:04 — Operating a drone business

31:50 — Autonomous drones without control — what about the future?

35:12 — Drone use cases

37:23 — Opportunities globally for drones

39:42 — Team, growth & prediction for future of the business

44:30 — Drone racing & rules on flying a drone

47:20 — Challenges being solved by drones

In 2017 they had raised an undisclosed amount of capital from the Mumbai Angels Network.

Jaspreet is extremely accessible on social channels, so do reach out to him via LinkedIn or Twitter if you’d like to have a chat. Or you can follow WeDoSky

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Show Notes:

• 4:30 —  Planning The Wedding Brigade
• 7:18 —  What’s the Wedding Brigade?
• 11:40 — Building quality content
• 17:23 — Evaluating content & it’s impact
• 19:01 — Evolution of The Wedding Brigade
• 20:48 — Commerce of weddings
• 21:33 — Monetizing & event planning
• 23:51 —  Technology & Weddings
• 24:16 —  Weddings and Post COVID19
• 26:31 —  Changing trends in Wedding industry
• 33:18 —  Wedding budget post Covid
• 38:36 —  Virtual Weddings
• 41:18 —  On boarding the investors
• 46:27 — Looking beyond the creamy layer
• 53:53 — Changing Branding from Indear to The Wedding Brigade

You can find Sanna on Linkedin and on Instagram

The Wedding Brigade had raised over $1 million (₹6.9 crore) in a Pre-Series A round of funding led by Japan-based AET fund and Blume Ventures. Do share the episode with friends and family who too could benefit from hearing from Indian startups, founders and their journey. 

Are there any founder doing amazing things, do send me a message. Would love to have them on the show. You can find me on the Twitter. Don't forget to leave a 5 star rating on your favourite podcast player and do subscribe if you haven't done so already.

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This week we speak about something that’s become the topic of discussion during the pandemic, given job losses, economic slowdown and the many reasons for anxiety. Some estimates that at very least 150 million Indians are in need of intervention for mental health but only 30 million Indians have access to mental health facilities currently.

InnerHour was part of the Facebook India innovation Accelerator - AI for Social Good that Amit talks about briefly. He also shares  how InnerHour garnered 650,000 users on the play store, who uses InnerHour today and also the Indian wellness landscape.

Amit is an experienced Psychiatrist with extensive clinical leadership and healthcare operations experience in Mental Health services in Europe and India. InnerHour is a healthcare technology company looking to disrupt the psychological wellness/mental health provision.

To provide an extended support system for people in these challenging socio-economic times, InnerHour is extending its digital programmes and self-help tools pro bono WFH employees of companies. Sign up for the service via www.theinnerhour.com

You can find Amit and InnerHour on Twitter

Do share the episode with friends and family who too could benefit from hearing from Indian startups, founders and their journey.

Are there any founder doing amazing things, do send me a message would love to have them on the show you can send me tweet at me @varunvummidi on the twitter. Don’t forget to leave a 5 star rating on your favourite podcast player and do subscribe if you haven’t done so already.

Show Notes :

1:35 — The Journey behind InnerHour

5:40 — Advantages of psychiatrists having an MBA

9:55 — The difference between UK’s & Indian healthcare system

14:10 — Preventive Health in India

16:33 — Monetization & Payment models in the healthcare Industry

18:32 — InnerHour : Journey & Vision

22:47 — How people are reacting during lockdown-mental health

27:30 — Self diagnosis, how current generation looks at mental health

37:38 — Geographically availability of InnerHour

39:27 — Experience at Facebook Acceleration Programme

41:40 — Being a non-tech founder in tech company

42:53 — InnerHour services

45:22 — InnerHour offer during lockdown

46:00 — Hiring at InnerHour

48:08 — Revenues & monetizing the app