Lockdown With Kumar: Recent Episodes
Abhineet Kumar
This show is a deep dive on habits and rituals that make us better, startup opportunities and tech trends that create exponential impact, conversations about life, but mostly venture stories. Join host Abhineet Kumar, in this journey, as he talks to passionate upcoming leaders from diverse backgrounds - learning together on how to achieve limitless success through ambition, drive, purpose and vision
Christina MacDonald Sikand is the Director of Communications and Public Relations at Toronto-based cross-border fintech startup Remitr.
Before this, Christina worked as the head of community for Toffee Insurance in India, and in public relations with fintech unicorn Transferwise.
She's based out of New York, loves story-telling, building brands, and creating community.
Key themes:
1:03 Growing up in Maine, and discovering a fintech career
4:42 All things Remitr
8:00 On Remitr's highly successful Product Hunt Launch -- recognize the value of network
12:20 Journey from Maine to NYC to Delhi back to NYC
17:40 Being an early stage employee in Insurtech
27:40 Consulting brands on community building and PR
29:00 Working globally and adapting to a new culture in India -- find that foundation that will let you blossom
34:30 How can founders leverage PR better?
40:49 Bringing a PR team to help in early stage startups
41:52 Christina's morning ritual
Douglas Shinsato is the managing director of Anthill Ventures and a member of the advisory board of Via Equity, one of Northern Europe's most successful investment firms.
Currently based out of Hawaii, Doug has been a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii and has served in senior leadership roles at many leading technology companies including IBM, Xerox, as well as on the board of Mphasis and Deloitte Japan.
I love seeking Doug's mentorship around leadership and venture building, and he has been kind enough to advise me on my journey towards tech and entrepreneurship.
Here are some key themes we talked about on this episode:
Background:
- 2:07 Growing up, Education
- 4:22 Why did Doug study law at Stanford?
- 30:32 Doug's current work adventures
Anecdotes:
- 5:42 Doug's role in deregulation of airlines and working for the US Assistant Attorney General
- 8:29 Anti-trust in the 70s and 80s compared with anti-trust now (big tech)
- 9:26 Working in Japan and learning about working in a new culture
- 12:40 Role of luck in career success -- joining MPhasis' board when they had 60 employees
- 55:27 Doug's Xerox story. Have fun along the way :)
Advice on venture building:
- 10:45 What new leaders should be really focusing on when they go about expanding their ventures?
- 34:31 Thoughts on starting up and building an early-stage team
- 37:45 On leaders
- 39:59 Amazon vs American Airlines culture
- 40:56 How is a good board helpful at a company?
- 54:21 Single most valuable trait you look for when you go about building a team or partnering with someone
Tech Trends:
- 17:22 Excitement about telemedicine and edtech
- 19:57 Why is there an opportunity to reinvent the university business model with COVID-19 as a driver of change?
- 22:37 Bigger universities vs Smaller universities
Advice to students and professionals:
- 25:36 What would you study if you were a student entering college in 2020?
- 28:54 Reinventing yourself to scale the career ladder
On Innovation and change management:
- 43:06 Kodak, Digital Equipment started off as innovators
- 48:15 Future of air travel
- 51:35 Change management is about changing management, not management processes
Productivity and Rituals:
- 15:49 Doug's routine in quarantine
- 44:39 On networking and building relationships. Role of a personal CRM 30 years ago and now
- 58:03 How greeting his wife every morning has been the game-changing ritual all these years for Doug
Our guest Pranav Deshpande started working with Twilio when they were a growth stage company with 300 employees. He has since worked in sales and product marketing and seen Twilio become a public company with 3300 employees.
Pranav explains the fundamentals of product marketing and how Twilio's culture has evolved over the years. He also tackles the questions whether a Master's degree in the US is still worth it for foreign students, why he is bullish about API infrastructure companies, how he learns on the internet, and his views on India tech.
On Twilio:
1:57 Impact of COVID-19 on Twilio's business
3:56 How Twillio's valuation doubled during lockdown?
5:27 Pranav's journey to working with Twilio
13:25 Twilio's evolution from 300 to 3300 employees
On Recruiting as a Foreign Student:
7:27 Recruiting challenges as a foreign graduate student in the US
8:06 Pranav's approach when searching for jobs
9:17 Advice for recent Master's graduates
9:49 On wanting to come work in the Bay Area
11:19 Pranav's perception about Silicon Valley when he was in India and why he wanted to go there
12:40 Breaking into tech
19:44 How Pranav ended in Product Marketing and how it compares to Product Management
24:47 Is a Master's degree today worth it?
28:10 Understanding global context gives you an edge when you go back to India
On the Stock Market, SAAS ecosystem, API Infrastructure Companies
16:41 Stock market's on steroids
17:55 SAAS is where the opportunity lies ahead
18:42 BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index
30:36 Bullish on API Infrastructure companies including Postman
On Learning on the Internet, Writing & Lifehacks
36:11 Learning on the internet
38:56Abhineet's focus on building a second brain
41:37 Pranav's approach to writing online
43:46 Thoughts on India tech
47:19 Culture of buying software isn't there yet
48:41 Building from India from the world
49:39 One habit that has changed Pranav's life
Our guest Eric Martin has a background in software sales having worked for Swiftype (acquired by Elastic), DataFox (acquired by Oracle), and now at fast-growing cyber-security startup Vanta where he was the first sales employee. Eric has also been an entrepreneur having brought products to market in underwater hardware and fantasy sports markets.
Eric and I talk about:
2:20 His story growing up in Stockton
3:06 Studying in California & Saudi Arabia
5:18 Early entrepreneurial journey
6:51 Takeaways on building startups
9:22 Advice to entrepreneurs
11:22 Eric's journey into software sales -- Swiftype and DataFox
15:26 Software sales basics
18:49 How Eric landed his gig at Vanta?
19:58 Vanta
21:58 How Vanta saves time and $ for companies selling software to enterprise?
23:26 Who should get a SOC 2 certification in enterprise SAAS?
24:48 Takeaways for companies undergoing a SOC 2 certification
26:52 Building a sales team at Vanta -- how CRM (Salesforce, Hubspot etc) and thinking about an outbound engine is key from the start?
30:42 San Joaquin Soccer Alliance
33:24 Eric's daily habit or ritual taught by his dad that has changed his life
Our guest Aditya Narvekar has a background in investment management and financial services in both India and the US. He joins us to share his views on emerging investment tech platforms in both countries and how they are making retail investing mainstream:
- 0:40 Aditya's Introduction
- 3:45 How US and India markets compare?
- 4:55 Why India has more listed public companies than the US?
- 6:47 US vs India retail participation rate
- 8:52 How investment tech platforms like Robinhood and Zerodha are democratising finance for all?
- 11:05 How does Robinhood make money?
- 14:10 Emerging Investment Tech Apps in India and US
- 18:48 How are legacy players adapting?
- 20:40 What's one ritual Aditya abides by to stay productive?
Welcome to the first episode of Lockdown With Kumar
The future of work is remote and distributed - for some companies it will be a 100% transformation, for some partial. Whatever happens, remote work is here to stay. Featuring the host Abhineet Kumar, The World is Going Remote covers:
- 0:53 Gratitude
- 1:54 Why I am loving work from home?
- 2:22 Hiten Shah's Remote Work report highlights
- 2:51 Remote Work was there even 10 Years Ago at Citrix
- 3:20 Two interesting CEO takes on remote work: Austen Allred of Lambda School vs Brent Beshore of Permanent Equity (Tech vs Non-Tech)
- 6:00 Culture tweaks: Podia hosts a virtual retreat
- 8:00 Culture tweaks: Apurv from Squad hosted a remote townhall
- 8:23 With remote work, individuals will write more, and writing well will become the most important skill
- 8:27 Isolation and lack of social opportunities in remote work
- 9:37 Pragli and Hallway.Chat try tackling isolation
- 10:09 Unbundling of Clubhouse to cater to enterprise use cases
- 10:31 Kavita's tweet on employee visibility and upward mobility impacted in the modern remote workplace
- 11:23 Transformation of MSFT Teams from Nov 2019 to Mar 2020
- 12:12 Micromanagers will have a tough time with remote work LOL