Stars & Startups with Varun Vummidi: Recent Episodes
Varun Vummidi
We discuss entrepreneurship, technology, products, business & Startups. Indian startup founders, investors and the best operators in the business world.
stars.substack.com
Hi Stars!
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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Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
Hi Stars!
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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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.
Fittr’s co-founders include Sonal Singh, Jyoti Dabas, ex- Citigroup analyst, Rohit Chattopadhyay, and Bala Krishna Reddy.
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
Though being bootstrapped for most of the duration of FITTR’s life, it seems like they had raised some money while participating in the SURGE program and some news from 2019 mentions a small investment from Bollywood star Suniel Shetty.
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
Hi Stars!
Apologies for the sporadic episodes and the long gap between the last episode! Hope you and your family are safe and well during this crazy time. Go get vaccinated, please don’t wait.
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Founded by 3 friends Govind, Vimal & Ashish, friends from NSIT in 2017, CoinSwitch is now backed by bluechip fintech 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. A Soon-icorn?
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. I dig into their journey and Indians view on crypto and plans to be the “Coinbase for India” even in a very shaky regulatory environment.
Do you make crypto investments? Do you want to learn more about it? Do write to me.
& please do spread the word!
- V { Twitter @varunvummidi }
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
Hi Stars!
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 Indian e-commerce. 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 we chat about the many pivots Fynd made to find their mojo, the business models in retail commerce and what brought Reliance and FYND together.
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Fynd offers a technology solutions to retail merchants that helps them manage their inventory and sales across 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. In 2019 Reliance acquired a majority stake in the company buying out all investors.
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).
If you do get some value from this episode, please help 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 as Fynd
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 - Evolution & democratisation of e-commerce
50:10 - Angel investor
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP52: {Ankit Garg, Co-Founder of Wakefit}
Hi Stars!
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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Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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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]
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?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
Hello Stars!
Yes, been a while but we're back with a packed episode!
On this episode, episode 51, I speak with Rajiv Srivatsa a co-founder of a well loved consumer brand in the digital age, UrbanLadder.
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Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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Super fun chat with Rajiv on building a consumer brand in India. UrbanLadder was likely the big daddy of the Direct 2 Consumer trend in India. No retail stores, creating a brand, selling only private labels with only UL branded products. We discuss how using NPS in different areas of the business can help retain customers, the UL journey & solid advice for brands starting up now.
Rajiv has recently joined the Singapore-based early-stage venture capital and private equity firm Antler as head of India and local partner. Do reach out via Linkedin, he's extremely helpful!
Do share the episode, would be awesome if you did!
— Varun
{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.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP50: {Rahul Bhardwaj, Co-Founder & COO of Junglee Games}
Hi Stars!
We hit 50 episodes with this one. Thank you to every one of you for subscribing, sharing and encouraging me to do this. Really 🙏
On the blockbuster 50th episode, I chat with my friend and mentor, Rahul. Junglee Games has seen tremendous success in eights years since founding in 2012, with millions of users across multiple skill based games on Web and Mobile. Junglee today has over 25 million users and clocks more than $600M GMV.
Prior to Junglee Games, Rahul was the co founder and product guy at TwoMangoes.com, a leading dating site for South Asians, and Vayyoo, a web to mobile solutions company, both of which he successfully exited.
This episode is full of interesting nuggets about gaming, biohacking & Naval Ravikant.
Do spread the love not the germs.
- V (@varunvummidi)
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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!
→ 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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Timeline:
01:00 - Gaming's place in the world
03:50 - Growth of gaming in the last 8 years
12:00 - Business models for mobile gaming
18:51 - Neuroscience & feedback loops in gaming
21:20 - Should India building games for India?
26:30 - Importance of familiarity in building popular games
32:19 - Naval Ravikant as an advisor
37:10 - Biohacking advice for founders
44:29 - 5 things to change your life
47:45 - Learnings from exiting 2 startups
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP49: {Rohan Bhargava, Co-Founder of CashKaro}
Hi Stars!
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. We also chat about how affiliate businesses operate and a lot more on this extremely intriguing conversation!
Price sensitivity is lower in smaller towns vs urban centres. We actually see those with premium phones, including an iPhone, contribute to more than 60% of our user traffic vs lower segment phones
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Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffee, 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 retailers 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 and the only venture capital backed cashback site, funded by Kalaari Capital and the Hon. 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 his partner to join the journey
15:40 - Starting off as a B2B service
19:21 - Offering Cashkaro to 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 - Future of deals platforms
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP48: {Sudarshan Lodha, Co-Founder of StrataProp}
Hi Stars!
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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Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
Do check Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use the 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 ₹ 26 crore from 78 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP47: {Nishith Rastogi, Co-Founder of Locus}
Hi Stars!
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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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 decisioning 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP46: {Beerud Sheth, Founder of Elance & Gupshup}
Hi Stars!
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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Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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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 at the time 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.
His venture Gupshup is among the most popular cloud messaging platforms in the world with revenue upwards of Rs. 600 crore and servicing over 39,000 businesses including Ola, Flipkart, Zomato, HDFC, Google and 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP45: {Shruti Kapoor, Co-founder & CEO of Wingman}
Hi Stars!
Wingman offers a virtual assistant that assists sales reps close deals faster, guiding the rep with relevant information they need in real-time. Shruti Kapoor, an IIM alum, chats with me about sales and of course Wingman.
We discuss how Wingman is humanizing the sales process, where the sales person can focus on listening rather than being distracted with other aspects of a sales call.
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Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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The 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 AI tool records, transcribes and analyses calls, and picks out trends on what’s working and what’s not, in the pitch made by the salesperson.
The company is currently targeting B2B clients who sell in 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 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP44: {Vikram Chachra, Co-Founder of 8i Ventures}
Hi Stars!
We’ve had 4 of Vikram’s portfolio companies on the podcast already; Madhu of YAP, Ankit of Signzy, Rajan of Slice and Matt of BlueTokai! Vikram is 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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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 - India will evidence IPO’s of 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 investing in early stage companies
42:20 - Not all investments do well
46:01 - Cold emailing Vikram
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP43: {Amit Kumar, BusinessHead of OLX CashMyCar}
Hi Stars!
On this episode I catch up with Amit to discuss the state of the pre-owned car business in India and its increasing relevance to the audience while organizing an unorganized segment.
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Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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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 OLX CashMyCar, which 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 don'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 reduce
09:40 - Impact of Covid on workplace
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 Marketplace
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP42: {Ankit Ratan, Co-Founder of Signzy}
Hi Stars!
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 of 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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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
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP41: {Rajan Bajaj, Founder of Slice}
Hi Stars!
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 prepaid card that has 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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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, 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP40: {Shwetank Verma, General Partner of Leo Capital}
Hi Stars!
I sit down with Shwetank, 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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Shwetank opens up about investing, few of his investments & trends he has seen in the Insurance space.
Stay safe!
— V
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 - InsurTech 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP39: {Dhruv Suyamprakasam, Co-founder & CEO of iCliniq}
Hi Stars!
I speak with a founder who moved his company from Bangalore to his hometown Coimbatore to start healthcare venture iCliniq. We talk about Telemedicine, starting up in Coimbatore, the struggles of to signing up the first doctor for the platform 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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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.
Stay safe!
—V
Timeline:
01:00 - Starting up in 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 - Patients from 101 countries, consulted by 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP38: {Bharath Devanathan, SVP of Growth & EV at Bounce}
Hi Stars!
On this episode I 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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Bharath is an accomplished professional who earlier 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-ish career at Yahoo! Now at Bounce with the goal to make mobility green and clean (electric vehicles).
NewLearning: Well to Wheel Ratio is a way to quantify the “cost” of production and operating a vehicle; for an EV this cost 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 of 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP37: {Arjun Majumdar & Sandhya Chandrasekharayya, Founders of IndiaHikes}
Hi Stars!
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. Started 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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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 shared via various channels.
If you’re up for adventure, they're hiring too! Do check them out.
Stay Safe & please spread the word!
- V
Timeline:
03:17 - Genesis of IndiaHikes
09:50 - Educating the Hiker
13:27 - Creating content and 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP36: {Nithin Kamath, Co-founder & CEO of Zerodha}
Hi Stars!
I’m super excited for you to hear this episode. I got a chance to catch up with Nithin Kamath after a few kind introductions. Thank you to those who made it happen.
Recently Zerodha has been in the news for being a bootstrapped Unicorn along with the likes of ZOHO, homegrown tech companies that have inspired many. The scale and profit numbers for this bootstrapped company is mind boggling. More recently they have been in the news for a different reason, making some very interesting investments as part their Rainmatter initiative.
Some numbers:
Zerodha crossed Rs 350 crore in profit for the year ending March 2019
Zerodha’s ESOP buyback plan values the firm at $1 billion, surely Venture investors would value this differently, given the free cashflow
3 M users: first 5 years 65k users, since January 2020 added over a 1 million users
9 year journey to being an overnight success
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Zerodha followed these principles and built patiently:
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP35: {Mandeep Manocha, Co-founder & CEO of Cashify}
Hi Stars!
Before I tell you a bit about the episode, wanted to share that Mandeep & team at Cashify are running an initiative to help kids in need with the Donate for Education campaign. Take a moment to check it out, you can save the planet and support kids who are unable to participate in online classes.
Now about the episode.
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 Cashify comes in.
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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.
Those who buy a refurbished never mention that they have purchased a a refurbished phone. Aspirational value of an iPhone or premium phones remains extremely high!
On the episode we explore :
1. the refurbished device market
2. the real IP in the waste management business
3. creating the Cashify Donate for Education initiative
4. having 4 Chinese investors on the Cap Table!
Stay Safe and please spread the word!
- V (@varunvummidi )
About Cashify
Over the 6 years Cashify has become the official exchange partner for premium smartphone brands including Apple, Xiaomi, OnePlus and Samsung. Additionally, they’ve partnered with e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon and Snapdeal as well as offline retailers like Croma Retail.
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.
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 a cause
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 10M phone a year
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP34: {Gaurav Agarwal, Co-founder of 1MG}
Hi Stars!
Healthcare is a coveted space for tech startups in India, 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 recommendations: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari & A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
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We chat about his time at Zynga, how he transitioned to 1MG and on moving back to India after almost a decade in the Valley. He also gives us insight about the interesting work that's being done at 1MG and about building capability to completely change the way Indians would look at healthcare using technology.
At 1mg, their healthcare data repository consists of over 5 Billion data points and process over 250GB of additional data daily. It is likely that they have the largest healthcare data repos globally. 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP33: {Vinay Bagri, Co-founder & CEO of NiYO}
Hi Stars!
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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During the conversation we also discuss the state of banking, the challenges that being turned into opportunities & how some of their offerings have such a high NPS score! Not to miss that they doubled their client base just using referrals.
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 is HIRING, in case you were wondering. Get in touch.
Stay Safe & do share the episode!
- V (@varunvummidi)
About NiYO:
NiYO has raised $49.3 million in total, including a Seed 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.
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP32: {Akash Dongre, Co-founder of IndusOS}
Hi Stars!
August is a blockbuster month. For one, we have a lot more kickass founders coming your way. This episode allows us to take a look at another mammoth problem being solved at scale.
I chat with Akash, the CPO 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. IndusOS currently powers 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, a Vernacular Operating System for other OEMs and now becoming the go to App Store for Samsung.
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We also chat with Akash on his time porting mobile games, working with mobile payments in the early days and building product for scale with the vernacular app store!
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.
Stay Safe & do share the episode!
- V
Note: IndusOS is hiring!
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.
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP31: {Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Founder of Servify}
Hi Stars!
The latest episode features a startup that likely covers the premium smartphone on which you’re likely reading this email & subsequently (hopefully!) listening to or watching the Podcast!
Very few companies give service capabilities much thought. Indians too are not very demanding of service and service requests arise only for less than 3% of all mobile handset sales. Servify saw this as an opportunity to solve for globally, from India. A large opportunity to support mobile brands, to manage customer interactions & expectations using technology.
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We chat with Sreevathsa on his journey working with Indian & global brands. What he honed to build 2 service oriented ventures. The Service Solution, his first venture, he exited to B2X - a global service player - within 5 years of launch! Bootstrapped.
Sree share's what draws him towards building service businesses and his philosophy on what it takes to be an entrepreneur: Sree's 8Cs of Entrepreneurship (Aug 2020 version)
About Servify:
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
1:00:02 - COVID & its impact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP30: {Aakrit Vaish, Co-founder & CEO of Haptik}
Hi Stars!
On EP 30, I 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. As one of the leading players from India, Haptik has been able to reach over 100 million devices and process over 2 billion conversations.
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More recently Haptik supported the Govt of India’s My Corona Helpdesk initiative 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 becoming an angel investor. Aakrit is an investor in consumer focussed businesses and SaaS Startups. Notable investments include Unacademy, Third Wave Coffee, Flatchat, Tookitaki, Dil Mil, iON Energy and a lot more..
Haptik is Hiring! Do check them out.
Stay Safe & do share the episode!
- V (@varunvummidi)
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.
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 - Challenges of Haptik & finding Product-Market-Timing fit
32:45 - Industries that are in a hype cycle
36:06 - Hiring at Haptik
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP29: {Niranjan Nakhate, Co-founder of Futwork previously called Frapp}
Hi Stars!
I 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 basically 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 gig/task work is playing out for the millions who are out of work or are ready to work.
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Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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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.
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 groups 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 creating 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP28: {Damandeep Singh Soni, Marketing at WeCash, MilkBasket, Mobikwik}
Hi Stars!
This episode is going to be a little different from other Stars & Startups Episodes. Think of this episode as a Growth Masterclass.
Startups and businesses all too often don’t identify how to grow their users, plan acquisition and do things that help them grow 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 you may have thought of as hard. I learned a lot from this episode, hope you do too.
As a bonus for you subscribers, I am organizing an AMA with Daman on the 15th of August. Email me on varunvummidi@gmail.com if you’re interested to participate.
It would be a 40 min session. Limited seats available! Yes, you can invite others too.
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 Damandeep
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.
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 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP27: {Alok Mittal, Co-founder & CEO of Indifi}
Hi Stars!
I chat with Entrepreneur turned Investor turned Entrepreneur Alok 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.
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.
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Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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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 led the Indian operations of VC firm Caanan Partners between 2006 - 2015. The assets of which were sold to JP Morgan.
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 {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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP26: {Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Partner & CEO of Upekkha}
Hi Stars,
My guest from EP04 Krishi Fawani had spoken highly about the Upekkha Value SaaS 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.
Value SaaS means great founder outcomes, we want to help a 1,000 founders build great businesses that deliver on a lot of value for customers, employees and themselves.
Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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/
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 helped 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."
Stay Safe
- V (@varunvummidi)
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP25: {Sameer Verma, MD of NexusVP}
Hi Stars!
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 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. 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.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
About Sameer:
Based in Bangalore, and a graduate of Illinois Institue 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.
There are 2 videos; so don’t miss 1 or the other!
Stay Safe
- V (@varunvummidi)
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
Timeline
Part 1:
00:00 - Intro and COVID's impact
05:21 - Radical prioritisation framework
07:40 - Becoming a Venture Investor
16:03 - Starting at Reliance Ventures
22:15 - Waves & Cycles
25:05 - The investment thought process
26:48 - No. Thesis, teams & people
29:35 - Going after an opportunity to invest
31:20 - Continuity of COVID impact on growth
34:15 - Decision to invest
36:55 - Investing in Postman (part1) (part is is in Part 2 of EP25)
40:15 - Many tears of experience impacting the investment muscle
43:40 - Staying motivated while being a venture investor
Part 2:
00:00 - Intro, anecdotes & investment stories
01:00 - Hasura
09:14 - Postman (Part2) [Part 1 is in Pt 1 video]10:40 - Birra91
18:00 - Licious investment
22:25 - Investing in vice’s
24:55 - Value delivered by Licious
28:19 - MyUpchar
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP24: {Varun Chawla & Anand Vemuri, Co-founders of 91Springboard}
Hi Stars!
For the first time on the Stars & Startups show I host 2 guests, it was a lot more complex than I expected but I think we did quite well to pull this off!
In this conversation with the co-founders of the contemporary co-working pioneers in India - 91Springboard, we cover a lot of ground. Did you know that they moved their HQ to Goa in 2018?!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
Among other things, we chat about:
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The Goa vibe & how the 91Springboard team set the trend among businesses that moved their HQ to Goa
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The co-working business, how COVID is going to be a catalyst for increased adoption of co-working
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Advantages of building a remote team. Varun & Anand share their learnings & tips on creating an environment for a remote team’s success
-
Tools 91Springboard uses for making "work from anywhere" work
Do leave a thumbs up wherever you listen to the podcast!
Stay Safe
- V (@varunvummidi)
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→ If you are considering a Health Insurance program for your team do check out Wellmo; or write to me to learn more!
→ 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP23: {Rahul Chandra, Co-founder of Arkam Ventures}
Hi Stars!
On the latest edition of the Podcast, I host venture investor Rahul Chandra, who just launched his new fund Arkam VC, they have already started to deploy capital! It is a Middle India focussed fund with a very interesting thesis and an even more incredible list of LPs.
We touch on a range of topics on the episode, including his book the Moonshot Game that was published by Penguin Random House. We also discuss agri investments, reverse migration & rural mobility
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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→ 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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Rahul was earlier the Co-founder and 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.
Do reach out to Rahul at arkamvc.com if you're tackling any Middle India problem, B2B or B2C across the spectrum.. Arkam Ventures includes LP’s such as Binny Bansal & Vijay Shekar Sharma.
Don’t forget to subscribe & leave us a 5 star rating if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts! I’d really appreciate that.
This podcast's video can be found on YouTube
Stay Safe
- V (@varunvummidi)
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP22 {Raghav Chandra, Co-founder of Urban Company} : Solving for the services-at-home segment, 10 million downloads and $175M fund
Hi Stars!
You’re likely a user of UrbanClap. Aren’t you?
On the episode I chat with Raghav Chandra, co-founder of Urban Company, formerly called Urban Clap. Raghav had earlier worked at Yelp and Twitter prior to pursuing his startup in India, as a solo founder - a ride sharing platform called Buggi.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
On the episode we discuss building products for millions of engaged users and creating a unique platform that now serves major markets in India and globally.
Or chat also touches on cutting categories that you know can’t scale or you can’t do a good job with:
Bookings weren’t working, we gave up 50% of the then business to focus n things that worked
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→ 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
Urban Clap was 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 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.
Stay Safe - V (@varunvummidi)
PS: do share the post with friends! Help me increase my Substack list :)
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP21: {Girish Ramdas, Co-founder & CEO of Magzter}
Hi Stars!
My chat with Girish was so much fun and for a moment it felt a bit like Joe Rogan when we discussed life, staying fit and so much more beyond the amazing ways in which Magzter is disrupting content delivery and how they're bringing print online.
Listen to Episodes on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
Early iPhone users had very few app choices. Options were likely to have included Magzter on the the App store. Were you an early user? Message me about your experience using Magzter!
If you’ve had a smart phone since the early days you’d likely recognise Magzter. Along with Zinio they were one of the few apps on which you could find your favourite magazines from across the world.
We have an unhinged conversation about Magzter, their successes, the journey of starting and scaling. Girish speaks of how they hit 1 million downloads a months recently and likely greater than regular downloads due to COVID.
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→ 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.
Podcast links: https://anchor.fm/stars-and-startups
Don’t forget to part-take in our giveaway!
— V (@varunvummidi)
Listen to Episodes on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP20: Coffee, Cafés and the Third Wave {Matt Chitharanjan, Co-founder of Blue Tokai Coffee}
With Episode 20, we’re ending week 10 on the podcast with the story of a popular coffee shop and coffee company that has seen demand for premium Indian coffee grow and capture the mind space of Indians looking to consume GOOD coffee.
With the growth of their brand they have also seen competition rise and their cafe business gain popularity. On the episode I chat about their 8 year journey and the business of coffee with Matt Chitharanjan, who along with his coffee co-founder and wife Namrata have made premium Indian coffee accessible to Indians.
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→ We also have a coffee giveaway as we’re on 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!
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Blue Tokai has helped a lot of Indians re-discover coffee in a very different way. The commercial success of BTC has been the inspiration for a lot of smaller roasters to set up shop in the last few years. Also gave a lot of the Indian coffee estates the satisfaction that their coffees are being appreciated by fellow Indians.
We talk about the artisanal coffee wave, the influence of food delivery apps, barista training, working with local coffee estates and ambitions for BlueTokai! Blue Tokai has now grown from a single roastery & cafe and e-commerce venture in 2013 to multiple cafes in Delh NCR, Jaipur, Mumbai and Bengaluru with the goal of having 100 stores post COVID. Have a listen.
They have raised capital from some forward thinking investors such as Snow Leopard Technology Ventures, BOLD Ventures & 8i Ventures.
Don’t forget to part-take in our giveaway!
— V (@varunvummidi)
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
Hi Stars!
On EP19 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.
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→ 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!
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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 super chill and 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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
Hi listeners, we’re now on Episode 18! An episode where we chat with {Abhinandan of X1 Racing} about building a sports league in India.
If you have some time I urge you to check out the library of content from awesome doers (17 episodes) that maybe useful to you. Share your favorite episode with me via Twitter?
Listen to Episodes on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
We have a Blue Tokai Coffee Giveaway following EP20 with Matt Chitharanjan that drops this coming week!
I’m going to make this interesting: I want you to tag me & the podcast ( list of links) on Linkedin or any of your favorite social channels and share your feedback! If you have a voice note or message you want to add, you can send that to me as well.
All this will make you eligible to get a bag(s) of coffee! I’ll enter you into the draw :)
About the Epsiode with Abhinandan Balasubramanian, Co-founder of X1 Racing
Abhinandan (Abhi) is a Vellore Institute of Tech & Warwick grad who has built 3 businesses, Altflo, Chefhost & Liquity right from the moment he graduated. He also launched Premier Futsal in India prior to X1 Racing.
In his latest entrepreneurial venture Abhi has teamed up with 2 young racing drivers Aditya Patel and Armaan Ebrahim to launch the league X1 Racing League and Ultimate E . The league is not only very innovative but has gone about creating a moat from the beginning to capitalize on the growing number of entertainment I.P being built out of India. We’re witnessing e-sports gain popularity & leagues like the IPL and Pro Kabbadi League have broken some records with uptake of new forms of entertainment in India.
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. Premier 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.
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
170M users and a 14 year journey building the Google for travel
Hi subscribers,
On the latest episode I chat with Aloke Bajpai, CEO of IXIGO, who’s a well respected founder in the Startup ecosystem and is a travel industry veteran. Aloke & Rajnish have been in the travel business since the time they graduated from IIT in 2001. First with their 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.
Listen on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify
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.
IXIGO’s mantra to garnering 170 million users:
never benchmark against competition and stay close to customers would help understand what products to build
The muscle they spent a lot of time building is their “frugal mindset” & “marketing without money.” Additionally while navigating a downturn, Aloke recommends over communicating with employees & suggests 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.
Stay safe & spread the word! Please leave a 5 STAR rating on a Podcast player or hit like on Youtube. Hack the algorithm!
— V
Timeline:
02:10 — Joining the IITs
05:35 — IXIGO and fund raising in a downturn
07:10 — Amadeus and the origins of IXIGO
11:15 — the first year for IXIGO
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 MakeMyTrip & SAIF Partners
44:19 — Solving for utility as a growth hack to becoming the largest partner to IRCTC
50:40 — Surviving the downturn
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP11: {Aneesh Bhasin, Co-founder of Svami}
Hi subscribers!
We’re on Week 6, and on this episode I catch up with award winning photographer Aneesh Bhasin who is a co-founder of Svami drinks. Svami is a premium beverage brand that’s part of the latest wave of Indian consumer brands that is catering to an audience that wanted more in a category that has long lacked innovation.
Aneesh and I chat about coffee, his experience building his earlier startup HipCask and how he’s leveraged that experience to build SVAMI - a brand that’s built a massive fan following.
Listen on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify
Svami beverages 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.
The team 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!
Keep safe
— V
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
Hi subscribers! On EP10 of Stars & Startups I speak with Bala, the co-founder and CPO of Kawa Space. He actually started writing code at the age of 12, that means he’s been writing code for almost 2/3rds of his life!
We get a bit technical in this episode while speaking about how Kawa Space aims to make satellite data easily accessible to everyone by creating a layer that would enable intelligence from satellites be consumed at scale by businesses. We discuss the opportunity in the space of Space.
Listen on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify
We believe that eventually satellite data will get commoditised and there would be a point where the cost would tend towards zero
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.
Kawa is said to be working on a service cloud that would make it extremely easy to work with satellite data and offer a platform that would require very little technical knowledge for clients to get started.
Kawa Space had in 2019 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
Please take some time to share the episode with others who you think might find this helpful!
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
Hi subscribers! This is EP09 of Stars & Startups, I had a lot of fun recording this episode with a young entrepreneur and the maturity with which he has gone about building this business. He also shared some resources getting started on fermentation to keep occupied in lockdown, have included that in this email! Scroll to the end to find it.
Listen on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify
Jaspreet talks candidly about how he started hacking together quadcopters for the fun of it in the college lab & sold those crude copters to make some pocket money. When quadcopters started becoming accessible and extremely powerful there were very few who knew how to monetize and even fewer who went ahead and tried their hand at it.
Jaspreet started hacking building his own toys from home electronics at the age of 12 and started monetizing his talent at the age of 15.
Industry that has grown 530% but only accounts for 2% of India’s total energy production at the moment, we’re just riding on the growth of the industry
Now Visual AI manages over 35% of Indian solar assets, with a set of impressive client - comprising of 27 of the 35 companies in the solar space. The data science solutions help monitor geographical areas using its proprietary software. Clients include Adani Enterprises, Tata Power, Azure Power and ACC Cement.
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
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
Message from Jaspreet in case you want to get started on fermentation!
Best way to get started with fermentation is to grab a copy of this book on Amazon.
Easy & fun way to start is to follow these two guys on Youtube and/or on Payal’s Instagram
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com
EP08: {Sanna of The Wedding Brigade} on Building a content business, Zoom weddings and the future of the ~ 12 million annual weddings in India; and the commerce around the occasion
Listen on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify
We speak with Sanna, CEO of The Wedding Brigade, a platform that has carved a niche for itself by gathering a highly engaged audience and produces high quality content to stay connected and relevant to its customers. Sanna discusses how she looks at content, how it drives commerce, why very few have been able to have the same success as they have.
We also talk about the future of Zoom weddings and what's in store for the massive Indian wedding's market.
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 in 2019. 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.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stars.substack.com