INSIGHTS Podcast Series

With GenAI on the rise, software is evolving from a tool that needs constant supervision to an intelligent partner that handles tasks autonomously, similar to human assistants. This shift promises a future where enterprises are more efficient, with AI seamlessly integrating into daily operations. In Episode 1 of SeedToScale's Decoding AI series, Accel's Anagh Prasad explores the future of enterprise software with Surojit Chatterjee, Founder and CEO of Ema, a company which elevates Agentic AI to the enterprise level. Surojit explains how the next generation of enterprise software, driven by Gen AI, will be radically different from the current systems. These new applications will break down data silos and access information across the enterprise to create adaptive, real-time user interfaces that respond dynamically to user needs and roles. Watch the full episode as Surojit shares how Ema is designed to bridge the gap between AI capabilities and business needs, and how Gen AI, much like past technological revolutions, is poised to create more jobs and opportunities than we can currently imagine.

2023 is particularly momentous to Accel as we complete 40 years as a global fund and 15 years in India. As we celebrate this milestone, we hope to share insights from the firm's shared history with you, in this riveting two-part podcast series. We begin with a look at the past, and how startups and investors evolved over the years; moving on to investing today, and why many call 2023 the year of reset in VC. Finally, we look to the future, with timeless lessons the next generation of investors must carry forward.

2023 is particularly momentous to Accel as we complete 40 years as a global fund and 15 years in India. As we celebrate this milestone, we hope to share insights from the firm's shared history with you, in this riveting two-part podcast series. We begin with a look at the past, and how startups and investors evolved over the years; moving on to investing today, and why many call 2023 the year of reset in VC. Finally, we look to the future, with timeless lessons the next generation of investors must carry forward.

Know what is harder than pivoting when the going gets tough? Pivoting when the going is good. On the surface, most metrics were scaling efficiently for Urban Company (previously UrbanClap) at the end of 2015. The tech company mainly generated leads for at-home service providers. But founders Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, Raghav Chandra recognized that improving the experience of suppliers and customers would require deeper involvement. They needed to build a full stack marketplace with trained professionals. Eight years later, the company is valued at $2.8 billion. After proving their chops by taking the beauty industry online, Urban Company went on to digitally connect customers with a range of professional services including cleaning, repairs, electrical works, plumbing, and carpentry. When they first looked into the space, at-home services in India had been full of holes. The founders, all three from IIT Kanpur, knew that the problem had the potential to keep them busy for a lifetime. So they joined hands in 2014 to bring in organization and digitization. *** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3UnptTO *** 0:00 - Introduction 1:20 - Origin story 4:10 - Early days 9:33 - Product-market fit 14:25 - Picking the right service 16:30 - Testbed 17:40 - Zero-to-one phase 21:15 - Scaling the company 24:30 - Key strategic decisions 27:40 - Value to service partners 32:40 - Disintermediation 34:10 - Creating value on both sides 36:30 - Navigating COVID 39:50 - Leadership and culture 43:20 - The future

At their core, marketplaces are in the business of efficiency. Deeply optimized supply was the need of the hour in the world of construction, where access to materials was fragmented and unreliable. Souvik Sengupta of Infra.Market and Prashanth Prakash of Accel talk about transforming the manner in which real estate companies buy for their projects. *** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3UnptTO

What does it take to build a timeless marketplace? Time. Long-lasting marketplaces have little to do with restless hustling, and a lot to do with clear research and balancing gut calls with data calls. You can trust that bit of wisdom because it comes from Mukesh Bansal who knows the ups and downs of entrepreneurship in India more intimately than most. As founder of Myntra, head of commerce and advertising at Flipkart, and now as founder-CEO at Cult.fit, the relentless entrepreneur has sold fashion, fitness, and almost everything in between. Mukesh was one of the first startup folk to have brought the Bay Area ethos to the Bengaluru ecosystem. Over the last 15 years, he has steered companies through teething problems, pivoting and scaling missions, as well as acquisitions. In this part of a series of conversations sponsored by Accel, Mukesh shares his favourite entrepreneurial hits and misses. Joining him is Subrata Mitra of Accel who has been among Mukesh's earliest backers. He shares wisdom not just for the benefit of founders but also for venture capitalists as they go from backing two to four to 20 companies. Over the course of chatting with Pankaj Mishra, the duo sum up their journey so far in many quotable quotes. *** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3DqT87o

When Niraj Singh started up Spinny, the used-car market in India was already crowded with cash-rich competitors. More and more Indian buyers were leaning towards buying pre-owned cars because of the better value they offered but the landscape was still full of potholes and barriers. There were few trusted intermediaries, and no convenient way for buyers to go through the sea of options or for sellers to find the right price. That is where Spinny came in. Niraj Singh founded the full-stack platform for buying and selling used cars in 2015, together with friends Ramanshu Mahaur, a fellow alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi, and Mohit Gupta, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad, who moved from Flipkart to join as operations head. A car lover himself, Singh wanted to address the pain points in the sale and purchase of a used car. “When you're buying your first car, it's a very important, very aspirational, very emotional purchase for you, and your entire family. It was very clear that we are not going just after the used-car market opportunity, but we are going to solve (an issue) of trust, experience and aspirations of people,” he said in an interview with Pankaj Mishra, co-founder of the digital media publication FactorDaily, a journalist tracking start-ups, with over two-and-a-half decades of professional experience. Sellers put in a request to sell their cars on the website. If it passes a 200-point test by an inspection team, Spinny sets a price, features the car on the site, and takes over the responsibility of selling the car. Buyers have the assurance of buying a Spinny-certified vehicle and the added benefit of a 1-year warranty. The company takes care of all the paperwork, from registration to title transfers. Among others, Spinny competes with OLX, Quikr and CarDekho in a market that was valued at $23 billion in the financial year 2021-2022 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19.5 per cent until FY 2026-27, according to a report by IndianBlueBook, an auto technology platform, and Das WeltAuto, the pre-owned car business of Volkswagen India. After starting operations in the National Capital Region (NCR), centered on Delhi, Spinny has expanded into Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Indore, Coimbatore, Lucknow and Kochi. It became a unicorn with a valuation of about $1.8 billion, when it raised $283 million last year from a consortium led by Abu Dhabi-based ADQ, Tiger Global and Avenir Growth. This interview is part of a special series brought to you by the Indian unit of Accel Partners, which has backed some of the most significant marketplaces that have come up in India including food delivery platform Swiggy, e-commerce company Flipkart, TaxiForSure, which offers ride-hailing services, and Urban Company, a provider of home cleaning, appliance repair, beauty treatment and handymen services to customers at their doorstep. Joining Pankaj Mishra in the chat is Niraj Singh, who at the time of founding Spinny, already had two start-ups behind him – TechMonkey, an Internet media company, and Locus Education, an IIT-JEE prep venture with offline and online presence. They dive into the details of going from a marketplace model to a direct full-stack model, the business of trust, and the basic rules of team building.

Conversation HighlightsIn addition to asking if the sector is unorganized, ask whether it is inefficient. Know exactly what kind of a profit pool is available there.There are businesses where a tight testbed is not possible. So find your fulcrum. It takes trial and error but look for the side where your tech intervention as a marketplace will drive the most value.Fairness is an easy sell. Both sides of the marketplace appreciate fair policies and practices. Once built, marketplaces are not static. They are in dynamic equilibrium. Pay attention to both demand and supply and balance them.Unknown mistakes are okay. Don't make known mistakes.

Cutting out the intermediary helps many industries. Not so in manufacturing. It needed a middle layer. Suppliers routinely failed to deliver on time, and customers failed to pay on time. To improve trust and speed, Amrit Acharya and Srinath Ramakkrushnan introduced Zetwerk as a B2B marketplace for manufacturing in 2018. Zetwerk began as a hub for steel fabrication. Within six months, its business went from a topline of ₹1 crore a month to ₹10 crore a month. Since then, the company has expanded into more than 10 categories and is valued at $2.7 billion today. The company has transformed the space with high-quality products, increased transparency, and fewer and shorter delays. The backbone of its operation is technology. It uses dashboards to track each order at various stages in real time so that suppliers can stay on schedule and customers can get regular updates. Manufacturing appealed to Amrit because he had dabbled in it fresh out of college. In several ways, it prepared him for starting up – because ‘building' things from scratch is common to both worlds. In this part of a series of conversations sponsored by Accel, Zetwerk CEO Amrit Acharya participated along with Prayank Swaroop of Accel Partners, who has backed the company right from the early days. They discuss the brass tacks of setting up a B2B marketplace with Pankaj Mishra. * Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3DqT87o

Give someone a fish, you feed them for a day. Give someone reliable access to seafood in a supply-deprived industry, you go on to create a successful B2B marketplace for fish. Take it from Utham Gowda, the founder of Captain Fresh, an investment banker-turned-fisherman, so to speak. Three years after its birth in 2019, the company has raised $126.5 million in funding at a $500 million valuation. In an industry where the average level of spoilage is 20-30%, Captain Fresh manages to minimize waste in seafood shipments to 2-5%. It was in 2015, while scouting for viable sectors as an investment banker, that Gowda embarked on an aquatic adventure. He was helping a seafood player become IPO-ready. Some years of diving deep into fisheries revealed a fragmented, underserved industry begging for scientific solutions. There was a clear entrepreneurial opportunity, but few had even touched the space. Quite frankly, the waters were muddy. There was a combination of problems: High perishability, seasonality, varying tastes by region and so on. Gowda rose to that challenge with a combination of his own: Research, resources, and people. As an investment banker, he knows the importance of due diligence. As a single founder, he knows the importance of finding the right talent. And as someone who started up a little before COVID-19 hit, he knows the importance of planning and stress-testing. In this part of a series produced by Accel Partners, Gowda was joined by Barath Shankar Subramanian of Accel, a vegetarian who strongly backs the fish-fuelled business. In July 2021, after many Zoom calls between Subramanian's and Gowda's teams, Captain Fresh raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Accel. They talk to Pankaj Mishra, co-founder of digital media publication FactorDaily, about their journey. * Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3DqT87o

It's essential to keep things as simple as possible initially, with a total focus on understanding the consumer problem statement. Because when it comes to subscriptions, users drop off a lot — they are commitment-phobic. In the next stage, startups must know how to decentralise well. A founder cannot go on micromanaging a hundred things. Many startups fail because while they thought they solved a problem, they had no idea about its sustainability in terms of how it would scale economically. And as far as possible, until you hit product market fit, keep things as lean as possible. If you start hiring too many people for specific roles, it gets difficult to roll things back when they go wrong. Eventually, it all boils down to two questions: Who are you building for? Do they consumers like your product? In this conversation, Nandan Reddy and Phani Kishan from Swiggy and Accel's Anand Daniel share lessons learned while building and scaling their startup in a crowded market.*** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys.Learn more: https://bit.ly/3DqT87o

About TaxiForSureTaxiForSure, founded in 2011, was the outcome of a drunken conversation in a Bangalore pub between friends Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna, who had both been to National Institute of Technology Karnataka and the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad. Raghunandan was 33 and Radhakrishna a year older.      Three-and-a-half years after it started up in a 100-square-feet office in a Bangalore suburb. TaxiForSure was acquired in March 2015 by bigger rival Ola Cabs, which paid $200 million in a cash and equity deal as it attempted to fend off competition from Uber.   By August 2016, TaxiForSure was gone after Ola integrated its service with its own and fired hundreds of its employees.    Today, Raghunandan and Radhakrishna, who both worked briefly at Ola as advisors before walking away, are successful people and have funded a string of startups. The former has founded fintech firm Zolve and the latter is co-founder of Koo, the Indian version of Twitter. WasTaxiForSure a failure?. Not so if the experience and insights they gained into running a startup in a space like mobility shaped their future roles.   HighlightsResearch, research, research. When things get difficult, and they will, this user research will be your north star. There is a tendency in founders to assume the role of the customers. Stop. You were the customer when you conceptualized the marketplace, now you're no longer a customer. Build for what the customer wants, not what you want. Happiness. The happiness of the team guarantees happiness of all stakeholders, which in turn ensures happiness of the customer. A happy customer will always reflect on the bottom line.Build a team with diverse backgrounds. If you plan to disrupt a market, try to hire from outside the market. Those within the market come with their mental blocks, and fresh perspectives guarantee innovation.Evolve to where the market will be, not where the market is currently. This will ensure that you're ahead of the pack.

Like in most markets, India is a large but under-penetrated insurance market. While the COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp uptick in life insurance premiums, bringing it at par with the global average of 3.2% of GDP, non-life premiums - health and motor insurance - continue to lag at sub 1% of GDP, compared to 2% for developing Asian countries and 5% for developed economies. In a low-income economy, paying up premiums to protect against potential long-term downside is not a top priority for people. However, this will grow. As India's GDP and per capita income grow, more people will begin insuring themselves and their assets. This has happened globally and India is no different.Second and more important, the state of insurance in India leaves much to be desired, both for the insurer and the insured. Improving this can be vital to changing the Indian consumer's relationship with insurance, and building enduring private companies in the space.We spoke to Varun about his journey building an insurance company, how he approaches building a brand in an industry with established players, and what he sees in the future. He is joined by Abhinav Chaturvedi and Subrata Mitra, investors at Accel who have had a ringside view of Acko and Coverfox.Key Segments3:19 - 7:20 - Varun's journey from Coverfox to Acko14:13 - 17:43 - Technology's role in insurance: Underwriting Distributor vs Underwriting Customer17:44 - 20:11 - Future of Insurance: Ancillary Services21:36 - 25:30 - Learnings from the US Insurance Sector36:32 - 40:12 - Managing regulations in Insurance44:31 - 46:31 - What's next for AckoThe Accel team wishes Varun and Acko all the best in their mission.Blog authored by Sankalpana Agarwal from AccelCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

India, frequently referred to as the two-wheeler factory of the world, serves a tremendous market both in India and abroad. About 15M two-wheelers were sold in India in 2021 and 3.7M two-wheelers manufactured in India by the top 4 Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) were exported. By 2030, the number of two-wheelers sold in India annually is expected to reach 35M representing an about $30B market, growing at the back of limited penetration of affordable public transport (public transport only serves 7% of the total trips at present) and the ever-increasing cost of not-so affordable four-wheelers.However, with rising fuel prices and the increasing cost of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) scooters, ownership of personal two-wheelers has become financially challenging.Owing to this, customers are now looking for reliable and affordable personal mobility solutions for their daily commute. This new customer demand, along with increasing environmental concerns and favourable government regulations, has created an urgency for electric mobility and set the stage for the rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs).As Accel, we have always looked for new-age solutions that add immense value to consumers and Bounce with its dockless mobility solution presented a great investment opportunity in 2018. What started out as Wicked Ride - a luxury bike rental platform and pivoted to a dockless mobility solution has today become a full-stack EV mobility solution for the Indian masses with 3 core business verticals - electric scooter manufacturing, Battery-as-a-Service and dockless mobility. With a capacity of 220K+ scooters per annum, Bounce launched its Infinity e1 electric scooter in early 2022 and has already received 60K+ pre-orders. It completed 5M+ EV rides covering 27M+ EV mobility kilometres with 1M+ swaps by building India's largest battery-swapping network present in 40k+ locations across India.To understand this new era of mobility which is rapidly unfolding, we spoke to Vivekananda Hallekere, Co-founder and CEO of Bounce, who has been at the helm of EV mobility adoption in India.In this conversation, Vivek talks about his journey, the various phases of Bounce, EV trends in India and abroad, the inevitability of EV adoption and the need for regulatory support.Key SegmentsBounce's journey from luxury bike rentals to full-stack EV mobility - 1:15Battery charging, battery swapping and Battery-as-a-Service - 17:00Future of Electric Vehicles - Global and Indian - 26:06State of regulatory environment in India - 44:46Future of Bounce and Energy-as-a-Service - 50:46We thank Vivek for coming on and sharing these insights with us and we wish him and Bounce team all the best for this amazing journey of revolutionizing personal mobility for India.Blog authored by Lakshay Bansal from AccelCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

Banking opportunity in India is tremendous, with overall banking assets expected to reach $3T by 2025, with deeply under-penetrated private credit markets which account for ~50% of GDP (vs. 150%+ for developed economies).Despite this large opportunity, customer experience and engagement in traditional consumer banking in India is broken and has been so for over a decade.With the increasing digital penetration in the country, customers armed with their smartphones are looking for an easy, seamless, quick and personalised experience and their expectations are ever-evolving.Neo-banks attempt to fix the broken customer journeys and provide a superior banking experience, serving as a layer over traditional banks. This means that customers no longer need to spend hours at their physical bank branch queues, mired in paperwork for everyday banking needs. While doing so, a neo-bank improves access to a whole suite of financial products across wealth management, lending, and insurance through a single platform.As Accel, we've always believed that technology can revolutionise banking and attempted to enable that ecosystem, first through our investment in Monzo in 2018, then through our investment in Zolve in 2021, and recently through a growth investment in Niyo - Niyo is a leader in the consumer neo-banking segment in India with a base of 5 million users.To understand this new era of banking which is fast unfolding, we spoke to Vinay Bagri, Co-founder and CEO of Niyo, who is a long-standing veteran in the banking industry in India.In this conversation, Vinay talks about how Niyo came into being, shares some of his reflections on the ongoing changes in the banking ecosystem, draws parallels from other fintech segments and discusses the need for regulatory support.Key segmentsThe large market opportunity for a neo-bank in India - 18:05 - 19:48How neo-banks provide a completely new banking experience - 20:22 - 22:41The success of neo-banks globally - 24:00 - 25:20Customer segmentation in neobanking - 30:25 - 32:12State of neo-banking regulations in India - 36:28 - 39:10We thank Vinay for coming on and sharing these insights with us and we wish him and Niyo team all the best for this amazing journey of revolutionizing consumer banking for India.Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

B2B marketplaces are different. There are tremendous opportunities, but also different challenges. This arises from the business model itself. Having to cater to both the supply and demand side is one thing, the other is adjusting to the nuances of the products and commodities being bought and sold. This is different for every domain and therefore there is nothing that can be replicated. Everything had to be thought through first principles.One example of a company that did exactly this is Bizongo, the largest business-to-business online marketplace for packaging needs in India. Bizongo has been a phenomenal success story in the last few years, witnessing exponential growth during the pandemic. Founded by Aniket Deb, Sachin Agrawal and Ankit Tomar, the company is now at a significant point, poised to scale. The team raised funding of $110 million in December 2021 and now stands at a valuation of over $600 million.  As Bizongo scales, we thought this was the best time to get CEO Sachin Agrawal to talk about their First 500 days.I also have on the podcast Prayank Swaroop, my colleague, and partner at Accel, who led the seed round in Bizongo. Prayank has been a part of Bizongo's journey from the beginning, and he will help us shed light on some of the decisions that helped Bizongo get here.We'll be diving into the initial days, the evolution of the business model, pivots, and finally the challenges due to the pandemic and how Bizongo overcame them. With Prayank here, we will also take the opportunity to dive into how investors think about such businesses and what they look for in founders and the team when they invest.I thank Sachin and Prayank for coming on and sharing all of these stories and insights about Bizongo's first 500 days. We wish Sachin and the Bizongo team all the best, they have an amazing few years ahead of them!Summary of the conversation:GMV versus profitable business - 17:14 - 18:31Creating a culture of trust at Bizongo - 26:14 - 27:06Building a bond as co-founders - 29:23 - 30:24What is working capital? - 32:06 - 34:18Business expansion during Covid times - 35:59 - 38:11Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

The D2C ecosystem has truly found its feet in India. There are now a lot of great brands making niche, high-quality products for targeted audiences. The e-commerce wave has given them a channel of distribution that they own. But as the market matures, there are other needs for young D2C startups. They need marketing, sales, and brand talent, things which they can't easily get access to in order to grow as fast as they want to.Ananth Narayanan's Mensa aims to solve this problem for the new D2C economy. Mensa is a house of brands that invests in digital-first, D2C brands, and scales them globally. Previously, Ananth was CEO of Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart, and co-founder and CEO of Medlife, which was acquired by Pharmeasy.Remember, Mensa is not even 500 days old!Subrata's presence is also notable here, as he has had a long relationship with Ananth. Fun fact: Mensa was co-created as a concept by Ananth and Accel working together from the start. We'll go into more details in the podcast, but Subrata has been in the trenches with Ananth: from ideation to team expansion, and from strategy to building out their tech platform.I thank Ananth and Subrata for coming on and sharing all of these stories and insights about Mensa's first 500 days. We wish Ananth and the Mensa team all the best, we are definitely rooting for them!Summary of the conversation:6:55 - 8:16 - The India opportunity for a digital house of brands.8:34 - 9:58 - How did Mensa achieve Unicorn status in 6 months?16:35 - 18:55 - How did Mensa use technology top scale?19:37 - 21:37 -  How did Mensa convince founders to sell their brands to Mensa?27:05 - 29:25  - Advice for founders from Ananth & Subrata.Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

How is the world of Open Source faring in a landscape that is being overturned by Web3 and its ascendant new technologies? It's an important question  and not just in the realm of entrepreneurship and products. Open Source was the first promise of some kind of a technological revolution, where everyone could build and use things they want to with help and support from a real, tangible community.Where is that promise now, what is being built out of it, and where does it stand with the advent of new technological paradigms?That's the topic of the conversation I have the pleasure of bringing you today.My colleague, Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel, is talking to Abhishek Nayak, founder and CEO of Appsmith. Appsmith is a startup that provides an open-source low code tool that helps businesses build any custom internal application within hours. And the company has just raised its Series A of $8 million.There's one more Accel connection here: Abhishek was also part of the Accel team for a while.In the podcast, we try to understand from Abhishek about where the open-source world is, how far it has come, and what we can look for from it, and all of it from the lens of Appsmith.This podcast has a lot of takeaways for founders thinking about building open-source projects and companies. Thanks to Prayank for the interview and thanks of course to Abhishek for taking time away from the grind of entrepreneurship to come talk to us!Summary of the conversation 16:00 - 17:57 - Why did Appsmith take the open-source route?11:44 - 13:24 - Why internal apps & not consumer facing apps?24:50 - 25:53 - How to build an engaged community on Discord?30:03 - 31:40 - Why aren't business users adopting open source tools?35:10 - 37:08 - How did Appsmith acquire users?38:52 - 40:50 - Do developers care about design?44:18 - 46:27 - Challenges raising money for an open source project48:24 - 49:32 - Advice for founders thinking of open source projectsCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

If you know about Crypto, you can't have missed FalconX, I'll still give you a brief: FalconX is a blockchain, cryptocurrency, and fintech-focused cryptocurrency brokerage and digital asset trading platform. Accel has been proud partners since the startup's inception, and we've been cheering on their success loudly!Crypto is definitely here. With the slew of recent advertising and coverage around it, plus the FOMO that investments in it are generating, we are definitely overdue for a discussion on the space.And we have just the thing for you.Pratik Agarwal, my colleague at Accel has been interested in this space for a long time, and he is interviewing Raghu Yarlagadda, CEO of FalconX, one of the world's fastest-growing companies of the last half-decade.But that's not just why we are talking to Raghu for this episode. As reported by Bloomberg in August 2021, FalconX saw its revenue grow by a multiple of 30 times in the 12 months (up to June 2021).Evidently, Raghu and the team know something we don't.And that's not all.The crypto world is moving at a pace that is beguiling to even seasoned market watchers. There is just so much happening every day. Raghu and Pratik will also attempt to give us a lens into this world and how to make sense of a rapidly changing scene.This podcast has all this and more. It has been one of my favourite episodes recently and we hope to bring Raghu back for more next year.6:57-7:59: Insights that helped in starting FalconX; building a tokenization gateway for institutions8:15-10:26: Why was it critical to focus on institutions and not retail customers?16:00-18:20: Convenience in the institutional adoption of crypto assets 20:39-22:21: De-Fi(decentralised finance) explained23:15-25:35: Nuances of De-Fi; Comparing it with conventional banking system27:22-29:50: Global overview on the regulatory landscape in crypto31:06-33:01: Future white spaces that could be chased starting today in crypto33:03-33:55: Newer opportunities on the infrastructure side in the crypto marketCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

Edtech is a category whose time has come. The pandemic and its attendant ramifications have meant that Edtech is now one of the hottest spaces for innovation and growth globally. This also means that a lot of new Edtech startups are coming up, with newer visions and interpretations of what the future of learning and education can look like.And they have a lot to navigate around and wade through in a rapidly evolving landscape.Which is why we bring to you this conversation with Bob Meese, the Chief Business Officer of Duolingo, one of the most innovative Edtech companies in the world. You know the company, of course, and we are delighted to be bringing you a glimpse into its history and workings.Bob is interviewed by my colleague Manasi Shah, Vice-President at Accel. She is deeply interested in the space and has been looking at Edtech startups for a while now.What resulted from this meeting of minds is a far reaching conversation, about the nature of online education itself, how the world is embracing it, what the challenges are, and what the future will look like.13:10-15:30: Monetization at Duolingo and it's framework; Audience growth more critical than monetization17:52-19:41: Frameworks of monetization and the key areas of focus with each approach23:15-24:52: Perception of experimentation and subsequent failure with monetization28:07-30:00: Empowering teams to come up with newer and better ideas; also taking help from the ecosystem31:10-33:24: Retention metrics and how Duolingo approaches them39:32-41:46: Approaching GTM at Duolingo; how growth of mobile devices helped them scale44:10-46:34: Challenges during Bob's early days at Duolingo; not having the right set of people; setting up ambitious goals and missing out on them consistently48:54-50:56: Future of edtech; how Duolingo saw edtech transform from being a "bad word" to a promising vertical51:55-53:50: Shaping up the product as a key source of customer delight

Credit cards are one of the most ubiquitous financial products in the world. We all use them everyday, they are part of our lives.But as the world changes and our spending and consumer behaviour changes along with it,  so have our needs with regard to financial products. We now have different financial behaviors and the exciting field of fintech is ready to serve us according to our own preferences.Credit cards are the first logical step in this revolution.Over the last couple of years, several startups in India are trying to disrupt and change the credit card ecosystem in India, and literally all of them are tremendously exciting.One of the foremost among them is Uni, and Nitin Gupta, the CEO is one of the domain's most knowledgeable.  Which is why I'm delighted to present to you this conversation between Rachit Parekh, Vice President at Accel, and Nitin. It's a far reaching dialogue on the evolution of Indian fintech, what the future holds, global trends, and challenges the field is facing.The conversation is also insightful in that it makes clear the opportunities that exist in a nascent fintech space like India's, in which credit cards may be the first step in a boom of new and innovative products the country has never seen. But, and here's what I think is the more important part of the conversation, Rachit and Nitin also spend time on the regulatory challenges faced by Indian fintech. This is important not just for the fintech and credit card ecosystem, but for anyone who needs to navigate the Indian system.I learnt a lot from the conversation, and I know you will too. And yes, watch this particular space in fintech. There's going to be a lot of action here in the decade ahead0:00 - 8:00: Intro8:08 - 9:37: Why go after credit card business?11:35 - 13:36: Global trends in the financial services business26:39 - 29:11: Challenges in the Indian financial services industry31:29 - 32:10: Making customer data available  34:39 - 36:44: How to manage regulators?Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

From lipsticks to hair care to bath and body -- there's little to nothing that the average shopper cannot find that covers all beauty and personal care needs. And what's more, the shopper can browse through multiple brands within the same unified platform.It is to talk about this vision that I am joined today by Prashanth Prakash, senior partner at Accel and the man behind the glam himself -- Darpan Sanghvi, CEO and co-founder of MyGlamm, India's fastest growing direct-to-consumer beauty brand. MyGlamm is one of our more recent investments in the beauty and personal care (BPC) segments that has seen tremendous success with its house of brands model and direct-to-consumer (D2C) business approach. It was enervating to hear Darpan's unique take on the growing BPC market from an entrepreneurial perspective, along with Prashanth's keen and experienced insights into the burgeoning business. In this episode we discussed everything from MyGlamm's journey, building a scalable beauty company using technology, the challenges and opportunities of the Indian market, tackling the COVID-19 crisis, leveraging social media, creating a data engine, and more -- all while keeping an eye on the offline sales game as well. 0:00 to  - 6:25: Introductions and beginnings! Darpan isn't your average CEO, and MyGlamm wasn't born without some serious on-ground work that began with a keen interest in brands, and a never-say-never attitude. 6:30 to 10:51: Prashanth's thoughts on the brand space with specific insight into BPC, and what is unique about the sector. 10:53 to 20:45: How Darpan navigated this space from an entrepreneur point of view. How did Darpan decide what product to launch with?20:50 to 24:00: Prashanth gives us the investor perspective. 24:03 to 27:51: What are the challenges and advantages that startups face in this segment, when they come up against the goliath brands that have been around for longer. 27:52 to 30:40: Darpan tells us how he learnt from the foundations of the business, and in the BPC space the challenges that exist, are actually opportunities in disguise. 30:35 to 31:45: Prashanth on how brands and businesses have to look to survive. How they must leverage the offline muscle that they built, to stay relevant in digital times. 31:5o to 34:47: Does Darpan believe in the offline sales concept as well? How does it apply to his D2C brand and platform? 34:50 to 39:20: The impact that COVID-19 has had on this industry and the surprises that came along with it! 39:22 to 46:55 : Internet penetration in India has been far more successful and higher than the BPC penetration. What does this mean for aspiring companies in this space? 47:00 to 55:34 - What does the future hold for BPC brands as well as the broader D2C segment. Our experts have predictions, aspirations, and hope for the future.  Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

In the latest episode of Grit Stories, I spoke with Baskar Subramanian, founder and CEO of Amagi. Baskar has been an internet entrepreneur and startup founder since before either of those terms were really a thing. Having started and sold his first startup in his mid 20s, Baskar, along with a group of friends, started looking for new problems to solve.  The group set their sights on disrupting television advertising with technology, the startup that became Amagi.The startup ecosystem, Indian or international, sometimes focuses too much on the loud and the noisy. But there's another kind of startup, quiet, tough and resilient, focused on their business and their goals. It's clear which kind Amagi is, and this was a great insight into the people behind it.Amagi has been in the future since 2008, and we wish them the best with their rocketship.2:44-3:45: Baskars Story; Coming from a small time; being dyslexic but still finding a connect with the computers3:45:20-5:14:09: First business stint in grade 11! Building financial products from small businesses!07:45:23-09:19: Making the decision of leaving Texas Instruments although being a top coder there and thoughts on starting up16:34-19:06: Amagi Story: Empowering the smaller players to advertise on TV!20:30-22:36: Challenges faced operationally; Extensive traveling in tier-2 cities; facing the cable mafia and getting them onboard!25:23-28:34: Facing the problem of scale and changing the targeting through research on larger brands32:48-39:03: Friction with the TV channels; Broadcasters v/s Amagi35:51-38:59: Changing the model and almost starting afresh; tough times as a founder!41:16-44:22: Grit of continuing even during tough times; Unconditional support from the employeesCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

Aprameya is no stranger to the entrepreneurial journey. He's the co-founder and CEO of Koo, a microblogging platform catering to the Indian vernacular. Koo was born as an offshoot of Vokal, a vernacular question and answer platform. Within one year, it amassed over a million users and became a force of its own.Before this, he was at the helm of TaxiForSure, leading it to a successful acquisition by Ola Cabs back in 2015. I was part of this journey, and Aprameya's clarity and grit has been something I've been aware of throughout.This was among my favourite conversations, and not just because of having known Aprameya for so long. It helped me better understand the fast-shifting world of content, and the directions in which it is headed.Koo is about to make some noise, and we are excited for it. Listen and find out more.00:00 - 3:10 - Introduction6:35-8:38- Parents not agreeing for his startup stint; Shift in his own inclination towards startups and getting conviction9:04-10:24- Grit to start TFS; anyhow getting people from point A to point B10:57-12:32- Angel Investors being very scarce and lack of information12:34-14:25- Market explosion and TFS being not really ready for it18:09-20:05- Grit to build for local language and not English: Vokal story- empowering non-English speaking crowd20:27-22:41- Challenges as a founder of shifting from a transactional business into a non-transactional business27:28-29:05- Pursuing the right person to rope him in as a co-founder32:08-34:04- Atmanirbhar Bharat victory, being just a 3 month old product!34:59-35:57- Moving fast to capture the Nigerian market44:11-45:03- Advice to new founders: Start early & Always trust in your first thought!Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.com Share your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India 00:00 - 03:16 Introduction 03:17 - 5:26 Tough beginnings and what shaped Niraj 05:33 - 7:25 Grit to get to IIT-D 12:34 - 13:42 Support of the ecosystem being very low back in the day 14:53 - 17:23 Lost his father but bounced back in 3-4 months and started his second company 31:42 - 33:51 Going with the full stack model even though the new investors pulled the term sheet 35:22 - 37:37 Restarting with the new business model: What happened after the investors pulled back? 39:43 - 41:28 How the team stepped up during tough times? 52:46 - 53:57 Being open to feedback and it's importance

The story of Vedantu is a heady mix of grit, determination and conviction. The Bangalore based startup, which raised almost 200 million in 9 rounds, has had a journey and a story that will definitely inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. The startup witnessed 4.5x to 5x growth in the last financial year on each of its core metrics. And the growth trajectory has been rocketing upwards with 12x to 15x growth in the past 2 years. But how did it get here? In this candid conversation with Anand Daniel, Vamsi Krishna, co-founder and CEO, talks about the unseen struggles of an entrepreneur and what it took to make Vedantu what it is today. Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.com Share your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India

If there is one thing that the pandemic is bound to teach humanity, it is the will to go with the flow and not plan too ahead in life. That said, counterintuitively, it seems important to be prepared and planned when similar outbreaks arise in the future. A healthcare startup from Canada, BlueDot, in its report, shared that the outbreak was fast spreading in China even before the World Health Organisation (WHO) had reported it. The startup's outbreak risk software helps mitigate the exposure to infectious diseases using Artificial Intelligence. It goes to show that healthcare organisations, governments and public health officials would have to rely on these AI-based systems in the future to prevent similar outbreaks from reoccurring. On this podcast, Murali Aravumdan, Founder and CEO of nference and Radhika Ananth, Vice President at Accel cover some of the important applications of AI in healthcare, and the sub-segments that are still untouched by AI but have huge potential for disruption. We also cover the apprehension of the medical communities to adopt to new technologies and the steps to overcome them. The focus areas within healthcare for Accel are AI in diagnostics, drug discovery, precision medicine and digital therapeutics, with some recent investments made in these categories.

Taking cues from a top-down structural approach, the Agritech industry has many layers to it. On top of them however, like every other major industry, Financial services is also a critical part of Agritech. However, it is largely unorganised and has plenty of room for disruption. Most farmers in the country do not have access to credit-based lending facilities and startups like Samunnati are attempting to fill that gap. Mark Kahn, the Founding Partner of Agritech-focused impact venture fund Omnivore, chats with Prashanth Prakash and Anand Daniel of Accel, discussing the trends in Agritech in India. They talk about the major market segments Agritech is segregated into, the factors that are fueling the growth of the industry, and how COVID has contributed to the sector's growth.

The future of digital health pertains to a myriad of technologies put together. Whether it is Artificial Intelligence (AI), advanced health sensors genomics, digital therapeutics, or all of them put together, digital healthcare is very much technology-based only on paper as of now. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we have learned in a hard way that we need to be better prepared when similar outbreaks happen in the future, and the only way to predict, prevent and manage care would be through massive digitization of the healthcare industry. On this podcast, Dr. Bertalan Meskó, Director of The Medical Futurist Institute and Radhika Ananth, Vice President at Accel cover some of the high impact trends in digital health, some north star metrics for healthcare startups, and finally how prevention and care will be delivered to the patient of the future.

Podcasts have been one of the ways we try to bring out untold stories of startup founders. Continuing with this tradition, we at Accel are excited to introduce our new podcast mini-series: Untold Seed Stories. This new show aims to unravel the first 500 days of our founders' startup journey — ranging from how they first conceived the idea and met their co-founders, to details of how they secured their first funding and challenges along the way. For the fourth podcast of our Untold Seed Stories, we chat with Girish Matrhubootham, Co-founder and CEO of Freshworks. Founded in October 2010 in Chennai, Girish and his CTO Shan Krishnaswamy grew the company to a Series-H stage, after its latest fundraise of $150 million.

Podcasts have been one of the ways we try to bring out untold stories of startup founders. Continuing with this tradition, we at Accel are excited to introduce our new podcast mini-series: Untold Seed Stories. This new show aims to unravel the first 500 days of our founders' startup journey — ranging from how they first conceived the idea and met their co-founders, to details of how they secured their first funding and challenges along the way. For the third podcast of our Untold Seed Stories, we chat with Sri Harsha Majety, Co-founder and CEO of Swiggy. (Bengaluru-based hyperlocal food delivery platform. Founded in 2014 by Harsha, Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimini, the startup now operates in more than 600 cities in India.

Most of our other podcasts are targeted towards early-stage founders looking to build and scale their companies. But now we are also launching a new podcast mini-series keeping in mind the founders of fast-growth companies. The Scale Playbook, as the name suggests, will help unravel the playbook of large startups for founders to understand how to solve scale challenges across different business functions like engineering, product, sales and strategy through candid conversations with specialists from some of the most successful startups in the ecosystem. A lot has always been said about secret sauces, key factors and the different drivers of value creation and growth to build any business. It's a subject that has received a lot of attention over the last 30 years, that does not just confine to venture-backed or self-funded private companies but also public companies. For digital companies, in the recent past, Venture Capital firms around the world have started to observe this aspect closely. Including some analysis from within the Accel Community through the lens of digital companies, there are four key drivers that primarily contribute to value creation in a company. In our second episode, Ajay Sethi, Venture Partner at Accel takes us through these four key drivers. Over the years, Ajay has worked with most of our portfolio companies to help them achieve deliberate and sustainable growth. Listen now to learn how Scale, Habit, Brand and Network Effects can contribute to value creation in your company

Podcasts have been one of the ways we try to bring out untold stories of startup founders. Continuing with this tradition, we at Accel are excited to introduce our new podcast mini-series: Untold Seed Stories. This new show aims to unravel the first 500 days of our founders' startup journey — ranging from how they first conceived the idea and met their co-founders, to details of how they secured their first funding and challenges along the way. For the second podcast of our Untold Seed Stories, we chat with Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Co-founder and CEO of Urban Company. (Gurugram-based home services marketplace that offers services in cleaning, painting, spa & beauty, plumbing, carpentry and so on.) Now having its centers in 22 cities across India, Singapore, UAE and Australia and Singapore, Urban Company boasts of 30,000+ service partners and more than 10,000 beauticians.

Most of our other podcasts are targeted towards early-stage founders looking to build and scale their companies. But now we are also launching a new podcast mini series keeping in mind the founders of fast-growth companies. The Scale Playbook, as the name suggests, will help unravel the playbook of large startups for founders to understand how to solve scale challenges across different business functions like engineering, product, sales and strategy through candid conversations with specialists from some of the most successful startups in the ecosystem. For our first episode we have two industry stalwarts from Flipkart — one of India's largest ecommerce platforms. Jeyandran Venugopal is the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Flipkart. He has previously led several engineering and product teams at Myntra, Yahoo and Amazon. Naren Ravula is the Vice President and Head of Strategy at Flipkart. He was leading product strategy and operations at Salesforce and NetApp previously. Today's episode is focused on building a strong engineering team and strategy. We will also touch upon Flipkart's Leap Accelerator program which is targeted towards early-stage founders.

Thiru is a serial entrepreneur in its truest sense. He founded six startups including a coaching academy and a Biryani cloud kitchen before he landed on Ninjacart - which, interestingly, isn't the same business as it was initially perceived. Though the first six companies failed to take off, he did not give up and kept charging ahead with one idea after another. His attempt at building these companies came with its set of learnings but his biggest learning of building a large, fast-growing company was from his stint at TaxiForSure. “This is where I learnt how to build a culturally strong startup,” says Thiru about TaxiForSure. After the Ola acquisition, Thiru decided to revisit his last startup, Shout, which was initially a location-based social network app. He decided to convert it into a location-based e-commerce app which eventually became Ninjacart.

The 56th episode of the INSIGHTS podcast features Sairee Chahal, Founder and CEO of SHEROES- a social networking platform with over 20M women. Sairee is also an Aspen Fellow and serves on the board of Paytm Payments Bank. She has been an entrepreneur for 15+ years. In this episode, Sairee shares insights on building successful products around communitiesTo learn more about Sairee's inspiring journey, tune in to the latest episode of the Insights Podcast by Accel.

In this episode, we hear from Vetri on what OKRs are, how they are different from other goal-setting frameworks, how businesses can go about adopting them, and some common challenges and pitfalls to be careful about.To learn more about how you can adopt OKRs as a powerful tool in your organization to increase alignment and engagement around achieving goals, tune in to the latest episode of the Insights Podcast by Accel.Listen hereSpotify                                             Soundcloud                                         Apple Podcasts

In today's special episode of the INSIGHTS podcast on ‘student entrepreneurship', we cover the journeys of two well-known founders in the startup community whose entrepreneurial journeys started right from their college days: Shashank Murali from Tapchief and Farid Ahsan from Sharechat.We hear from Shashank and Farid on their early life and college days, how they decided to take up entrepreneurship, how they arrived on the idea they went after, how they worked progressively to build their companies, and finally how they would do it differently if they were to do it all over again. Listen hereSpotify                Apple                                     

In this episode of the INSIGHTS podcast, we have with us Neeraj Arora, who played a pivotal role at WhatsApp as an early employee and then as the Chief Business Officer.  We hear from Neeraj on his early career days, non-obvious career moves, learnings from the WhatsApp journey, the multi-billion dollar Facebook- Whatsapp deal, his experiences from investing in India, and finally some advice for startup founders.Listen hereSpotify                                                        Apple                                            Soundcloud

Listen hereSpotify                                                        Apple                                            SoundcloudAnand and Sudheer give a glimpse into their respective startup journeys - skillsets they brought from their previous experiences, new challenges that they were not prepared for, and milestones that marked their journey. The podcast covers all the different phases of their journeys: from identifying the problem to go after and building the MVP to scaling the product, figuring out monetization, and solving for Sales GTM and funding.To learn more about what it takes to build scalable global SaaS companies out of India, tune in to the latest episode of the Insights Podcast by Accel Notes:04:24 – Early days of startup journey11:22 – Picking the right mountain and validating it (Vertical vs Horizontal SaaS)20:40 – Finding the first set of customers29:55 – Business model and monetizing34:55 – Funding the early phase: bootstrapping vs fundraising39:20 – Scaling up phase, expanding geographies48:30 – Advise for early-stage SaaS founders50:30 – Rapid Fire Round

Listen hereSpotify                                                        Apple                                            SoundcloudAlex throws light on how the entrepreneurs from frontier markets are reinventing startup best practices and offering a brand new playbook for innovation that looks different from that of startups in the valley.The podcast centres around the shift of innovation from the silicon valley to the global playground. Alex talks about the incredible stories of entrepreneurs in emerging markets who maneuver challenging environments to build resilient sustainable businesses that create large social impact.To hear more from Alex on global innovation trends, tune in to the latest episode of the Insights Podcast by Accel Notes:02:31 – Genesis of ‘Out-Innovate', the book04:44 – Future is at the frontier: Innovation increasingly coming from emerging markets08:49 – Social impact of creators16:59 – The camel approach: Building sustainability from Day 120:50 – Going global from the Get-go23:55 – Frontier innovators = Ecosystem builders

Listen hereSpotify                                                        Apple                                            SoundcloudMukesh shares how his journey as a leader has evolved over the last decade and in times of COVID, what got him to write a book, and how he manages to carve out time to give back to the community.The podcast deals with some of the most relevant topics in today's times: focusing on holistic health, improving performance, and giving back.Notes:02:10 – Productivity in COVID times03:39 – Settling into the new rhythm of running the company05:36 – Executing fast through decentralized decision making09:36 – Hacks for managing personal physical & mental fitness13:04 – Cracking the performance code: No Limits18:09 – Importance of introspecting about purpose20:39 – Long term strategic thinking and daily healthy habits24:00 – Supporting the Olympic Gold Quest initiative 26:14 – ACT Grants and Bharat Health Stack27:50 – Rapid Fire Round

Listen hereSpotify                                                        Apple                                            SoundcloudSubrata and Prashanth share an on the ground view of the state of the VC ecosystem in India amidst the COVID situation and what to expect for the road ahead. They share advice for founders as they plan for the tough times ahead along with learnings and observations from previous economic downturns including some of the positive outcomes.The podcast clears the air around what founders can expect the fundraising situation to look like in the next near future.01:27 – Comparing COVID-19 times with dot-com bubble burst and 2008 recession06:23 – Efforts going on in the startup- VC ecosystem around helping fight COVID09:50 – Current state of Indian VC ecosystem amidst COVID13:00 – Assessing risk at a portfolio level16:08 – Actionable advice to startup founders20:20 – Planning for cash runway- time frame and approach21:55 – Advice for founders looking to startup or in pre-PMF stage24:30 – Fast forward: view of 24 months ahead28:43 – Reinventing yourself in crisis times (INSIGHTS #13: 1999 to 2018 — Ashish Hemranjani recaps the BookMyShow journey)30:25 – Fundamental transformation of some sectors31:13 – Dealing with anxiety33:25 – Rapid Fire Round 

Listen hereSpotify                                                        Apple                                            SoundcloudThis is a continuation to podcast #46 on SaaS. In this podcast, Shekhar and Krish dive deeper into the best practices for building a SaaS company out of India.Shekhar and Krish share learnings on the important tips to keep in mind for founders looking to build a large SaaS company: spending time on market research to identify the right opportunity in your area of interest, validating the problem through multiple customer interviews, building strong context on the problem before building the MVP and having the willingness to pay conversation early on. The podcast is filled with analogies and examples from Shekhar and Krish's more than decade-long experience in SaaS. To learn more about things you need to get right to be successful in building a large SaaS company, tune in to the latest episode of the Insights Podcast by AccelListen hereSpotify                                                        Apple                                            SoundcloudNotes:01:47 – Climbing the mountain analogy05:18 – The advantage of having a strong industrial experience09:08 – First mover advantage13:32 – India advantage for SaaS startups19:00 – Picking a good founding team21:57 – Co-creating product with initial customers23:30 – Understanding go to market29:28 – Building MVP32:15 – Testing for willingness to pay from early on35:00 – Rapid Fire Round

Listen hereSpotify                                                        Apple                                            SoundcloudHow are Indian Startups dealing with the COVID-19 situation?This is a special podcast episode that deals with the tough situation that the world is facing today amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and features how the startup ecosystem in India is responding to it.We have 4 guests on the podcast this time around:  Vivekananda Hallekere, CEO & Co-founder of Bounce (two-wheeler scooter sharing solution operating in Bangalore & Hyderabad)  Abhiraj Bhal, Founder and CEO of Urban Company (managed market place for all kinds of home services) Suman Gopalan, Chief HR Officer of Freshworks (Software-as-a-Service company focused on customer engagement) Girish Menon, Head of HR, Swiggy (online food ordering and delivery platform)Podcast SummaryOur guests today represent startups employing over ten thousand employees and take out time from their schedule to share some of the best practices for dealing with the disruption to business operations. Vivek, Abhiraj, Suman, and Girish cover some of the most critical themes for business owners which include communicating within the organization and with the customers, prioritizing the health and safety of all stakeholders, planning for business continuity and dealing with challenges that come along the way. To learn more about how these leading startups are dealing with the COVID-19 situation, tune in to the latest episode of the Insights Podcast by AccelListen hereSpotify                                                        Apple                                            Soundcloud Notes -02:04 – Vivek on dealing with business continuity challenges at Bounce05:48 – Abhiraj on steps taken to continue Urban Company's business line10:24 – Suman on the steps they're taking at Freshworks globally15:12 – Limiting exposure vs. extreme measure at the cost of losing business20:45 – Best practices on communicating to customers21:58 – Girish on educating customers and 2 lakh + delivery executives at scale27:30 – Dealing with challenges in rolling out Business Continuity Plans for work from home35:24 – Keeping employee productivity in check38:40 – Impact of COVID-19 on business plan and runway

Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/show/1YQdnQ50mmenzWVA2MBsQy Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/insights-podcast-series/id1364412685The several success stories of Zoho, Freshworks, Browserstack, Icertis who have all reached several hundred million dollars in ARR with most of their product built in India give proof points for the possibility to build large scale SaaS companies coming out of India.Unlike the 90s when software was a one-time sale, the subscription nature of SaaS pricing ensures that the interests of the customer and the software vendor are well aligned. Today, there are over a hundred thousand software companies serving over two thousand categories with over five hundred billion dollars spent on software purchases. The SaaS industry is just one hundred fifty to two hundred billion dollars, so there's another three hundred billion dollars of traditional on-prem software that needs to be replaced. Another opportunity exists in creating a product for the customers currently being served by custom software solutions built by the large IT services companies. At the same time, new industries are seeing digitization, creating more opportunities for building software. In terms of liquidity as well, SaaS as a sector offers significant options- from an active M&A market and active interest from venture capital and private equity to fund growth to several examples of companies going public. Krish ends by quoting Jason Lemkin, “In a SaaS business, once you cross $10M with good momentum, you basically become unkillable because of the recurring nature of the business”

In the first episode of 2020's #InsightsPodcast series, we take a look back to round up the learnings that 2019's series left us with.We kick-start 2020's #InsightsPodcast series with a special episode that offers a quick roundup of our 2019 podcasts and presents the top 12 highly recommended insights for entrepreneurs. Finding the right opportunity The bare essential task of identifying the right opportunity is something that every founding team must go through. 1.Farid Ahsan of Sharechat shares how he and his co-founders went about discovering the idea. “We started observing why people were making WhatsApp groups and sharing content on them.” 2.Ritesh Arora of Browserstack shares the importance of thinking global from early on, helping expand the opportunity set for the startup. 3.Kunal Shah of Cred shares his framework on how startups can validate whether their idea is creating a delta change in consumer behaviour and emphasises the importance of picking a market opportunity with good tailwinds. “Great product-market fits even with mediocre founders create a lot of value while terrible product-market fits with great founders can never create value. Fighting headwinds only burns fuel.” Building a team and culture to go after that idea The team forms the building block of any organisation and is an integral contributor to the success of a startup. A good culture keeps the team motivated to keep going after the problem. 4.Naveen Tewari of Inmobi talks about the importance of having a co-founder in the roller-coaster of a journey that entrepreneurship comprises. “Most of the moments in the journey are low moments. The co-founder's role is to bring you out of these low moments that you're in and vice versa.” 5.Binny Bansal of Flipkart shares about the importance of being willing to ‘let go' and empowering your team. “We realised that only way to scale the company was to hire people like us, to do the things that we do - there were going to be hundreds of things to do and we would need hundreds of people would need to work like we work, every day.” 6.Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks talks about focusing about culture and building a work environment that motivates and inspires the team. “Anybody can create a happy work environment, but the real happiness is when people really feel that they're playing to their strengths, the job is tapping their potential and giving them an opportunity to learn, and that they have managers who they see as role models.” Raising money and building a sustainable company With a boundless vision comes the need to find the right support, and finding the right investor can really help a startup. 7.Harsh Jain of Dream11 talks about the advantage of meeting investors ahead of fundraising. “Meet VCs six months or a year before raising money and get honest, open feedback. When the journey and progress is shared with VCs, they're much more vested.” 8. Deep Kalra of Makemytrip talks about the importance of unit economics and scaling sustainably. “Irrespective of the kind of business, you should not be losing money on a variable cost basis.” Key lessons for founders' growth In the greater scheme of the startup journey, the founder's individual self often gets ignored. Here are some key insights on keeping a founder's growth on track. 9. Shradha Sharma of YourStory talks about the founder's growth journey being more internal and how entrepreneurship is a journey of patience and perseverance. “You have to internally reflect very deeply on what you want.” 10. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys and the man behind the Aadhaar programme talks about the importance of being execution-focused. 11. Ritesh Agarwal of Oyo talks about the importance of perseverance. 12. Dheeraj Pandey of Nutanix shares his valuable insights on balancing family life along with running a startup.

In this edition of the #INSIGHTSPodcast series, we have with us Aditya Agarwal and Ruchi Sanghvi, both of whom were early members of Facebook's engineering team. Aditya was the first Director of Product Engineering at Facebook. He also co-founded Cove, a modern collaboration software company that was acquired by Dropbox, where he went on to join as the VP of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer. He was also on the board of Flipkart. Ruchi was the first female engineer at Facebook, and went on to co-found Cove along with Aditya and Akhil Wable. Cove was a collaboration, coordination and communication product for organisations and communities. On acquisition by Dropbox, she joined in as the VP of Operations. She also established South Park Commons, a residential and professional tech space that functions similarly to a hackerspace. Ruchi graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in electrical computer engineering in 2004, a time when it was tough for international students to find a job in the US. While extending her stay at the university so she could interview with more companies, Ruchi became a power user of Facebook, was fascinated about what they were building and went on to join them as their first female engineer. Growing up in Southeast Asia, Aditya graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in computer science and joined Facebook as one of its first five engineers. Facebook's hacker culture Aditya and Ruchi share their Facebook experience, including being part of some of the earliest architecture - the Facebook search engine and the News Feed. Giving a glimpse into Facebook's hacker culture from the early days, Ruchi and Aditya share how the engineers were always into building something- a minimum usable version- much before the concept of MVP was talked about. Aditya talks about the importance of focusing on tooling and infrastructure to be able to deploy faster even at scale with a conscious effort to improve iteration speed and tracking it just as closely as the business metrics. Ruchi speaks about the importance of adding light-weight processes that are built for the work environment of your company, and updating these processes every four months to make the product management practice in the organisation stronger. After Facebook, Ruchi and Aditya decided to start up on their own to change the way organisations communicate and collaborate with Cove. The startup went on to become Dropbox's first acquisition. Culture of original thinking Discussing the pros and cons of starting a company with your partner, Ruchi highlights the importance of being cognizant of each other's strengths and weaknesses, making sure that one partner isn't dragging the other along and that both want to participate, and finally having a clear understanding from the start on who's taking the lead. On the hiring front, Ruchi says, "When companies find product-market fit, everything feels like it is falling apart. You need to hire enough people to keep things going. At that point, most people are often looking for the unicorn hire - someone who is perfect when the company is just 50 people but can also scale with the company when it gets to 100 people, is an individual contributor, and an excellent manager. It becomes impossible to find this unicorn hire at that stage. People need to reset expectations on how this person can help your company today and in the next one to two years, and be comfortable that their roles might evolve over the next few years." Aditya and Ruchi end by sharing tips on how they manage their personal lives and their excitement for the way the Indian startup ecosystem is shaping up.

In this episode of the #INSIGHTSPodcast series, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairperson and MD of Biocon, talks about starting up and her strategic shift to the biopharma industry, and gives young entrepreneurs advice on innovation, problem-solving, and mentorship. We continue with the #INSIGHTSPodcast series and on this episode, we have with us Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairperson and Managing Director of Biocon. A pioneer of the biotech industry in India and the head of the country's leading biotechnology enterprise, Kiran is a highly respected business leader and has been named among Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. She's a recognised global thought leader in biotechnology and has been awarded the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan, two of India's highest civilian honours. Today, Biocon is one of Asia's largest biopharmaceutical companies — 12,000-people strong with 30 percent women, most of whom are scientists. It focuses on diabetes and cancer as thrust areas and has a vision of making global impact on healthcare by providing affordable access to life-saving drugs. On this podcast, Kiran talks about her journey, building Biocon, how she started out, built a great team, and went on to take the company to IPO. She also shares insights on how founders can find a good work-life balance by prioritising what matters most to them. An accidental entrepreneur Kiran calls herself an “accidental entrepreneur”, starting Biocon when she was discriminated against as a woman while applying for the job of a brewmaster. She set up Biocon in 1978, initially focusing on the enzyme industry, and made a strategic shift to the biopharmaceutical industry as it was a much bigger opportunity — riding the shift in cancer care from chemotherapy to immunotherapy. Starting up at the age of 25, in a field that was not understood by many, raising capital was not an easy task. Especially at a time when a woman entrepreneur without collateral was considered a high financial and business risk. Hiring talent was another challenge. As Kiran started building her company, she aggressively pursued building the team, hiring people with complementary skills to form the core team, and incentivised them with rich stock options. A bottomline-driven business In 2004, Kiran did a lot of roadshows and went IPO, to raise capital for the business. She wasn't concerned about raising the value of the company, but made sure it was profitable in the last four quarters before going public and had clear visibility on profits in the foreseeable future. She says today's companies are topline-driven in contrast to her business that is “bottomline-driven”. Opportunities to learn On her personal growth, Kiran says she used her team as a think-tank and used her mentors to draw inspiration and for brainstorming. “Mentors in an entrepreneur's journey should only help stay focused. I don't think any entrepreneur should keep going back to a mentor asking ‘what should I do next'? That is not entrepreneurship,” she says. “Entrepreneurs need to script their own journey, figure out their own things, and solve problems. If you keep running back to your mentor at the drop of your hat, you're not an entrepreneur. A true entrepreneur is a risk-taker, problem-solver, a person who's willing to face challenges and failure.” Kiran says she encourages young entrepreneurs to not worry about making mistakes and see them as opportunities to learn. Adding to her advice, she urges them not to wait to develop the perfect product and to instead go to market first. Continuing to reiterate how AI can help transform healthcare, she also gives her take on work-life balance. Kiran believes the answer to this question is only one: “Prioritisation”. Tune in to the podcast to hear more interesting insights from Kiran's journey of launching and growing Biocon.

INSIGHTS #42 Madhavan Ramanujam of Simon-Kucher gives his take on monetising innovation by Accel

In this episode of #InsightsPodcast series, we have Dheeraj Pandey, Chairman and CEO of Nutanix, taking us through his journey of building a generational company, its IPO story, and how he built a culture of reading and learning at his organisation. As we continue with the #InsightsPodcast series, we head to Silicon Valley to meet Dheeraj Pandey, Chairman and CEO, Nutanix. The company helps customers modernise their data centres and run applications of any scale on the cloud. Dheeraj co-founded Nutanix a decade ago and took the company public on NASDAQ in 2017. Today, the company trades at a $5 billion+ market cap. Dheeraj's entrepreneurial spirit has been recognised with several prestigious awards including Dell's Founders 50 and E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year, Silicon Valley. On this podcast, Dheeraj takes us through his journey of building a generational company, his vision of making computing invisible, and the Nutanix IPO journey. Dheeraj grew up in Patna, finished his undergrad as a Computer Science major at IIT Kanpur, and then decided to pursue a PhD at UT Austin. He completed his master's and dropped out of the PhD programme to pursue a career in the computer science industry. Before starting Nutanix, Dheeraj spent a decade working in the industry with stints at a couple of startups and one large company (Oracle) building software for data servers. Read to grow Talking about his transition from engineering roles to that of a CEO to build a business, Dheeraj gives an analogy of how the product and the go-to-market strategy are like the heart and brain of the business and over time he learnt to straddle both ends of the spectrum driven by his passion for building the bridge between technology and business. Dheeraj has always believed in learning from the experiences shared by his advisors and is an avid reader. Learning from other entrepreneurial journeys, he believes, gives one precedence and courage to deal with the highs and lows of the roller coaster ride that building a business can be. He explains that as a company, Nutanix has built an organisation culture that cares about reading. “It gives you courage, parallels, frameworks, and principles to think about. It's a great de-stressor,” he says. Disrupt to stay relevant Switching gears and sharing lessons for entrepreneurs, Dheeraj starts by talking about the importance of disrupting yourself with a long-term view versus becoming irrelevant. He says, “You should act as a competitor to yourself because if you don't, someone else will, and it will be a lot more uncomfortable to deal with the unknowns of a competitor.” This was realised at Nutanix when they decided to give away their software to their hardware partners allowing them to compete with Nutanix (shaving of 26 percent of top line) and again when Nutanix made the shift from software to subscription. Both the times involved a complete change in business model at the scale of a publicly traded company. These bold moves allowed Nutanix to disrupt themselves and extend their reach, stay more relevant as the customer's tastes changed. Dheeraj talks about how businesses/entrepreneurs who postpone gratification and think about long-term gains mostly constitute large outcomes. The largest companies have taken long-term bets, something that the mob doesn't have the courage or fortitude to do. That said, long-term goals must be check-pointed with short-term ones, without losing sight of the larger picture. This for Nutanix came out in the form of the 5Hs- Hungry, Humble, Honest, Heart, and Humour. On a closing note, Dheeraj shares how at the end of the day, family is as much a partner in the entrepreneurial journey as you are. “You are at war out there and when you go home you don't want to be at war. Hence it is so important to reduce that friction. You have to believe that your professional goal is something that you share with your spouse.”