Stars & Startups

{Karthik Venkateswaran, Co-founder & CEO of Jumbotail} 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. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Jumbotail was founded with the objective of enabling the Kiranas or corner stores by envisioning a full stack experience; creating a wholesale marketplace and new retail platform to help retailers with inventory management, a digital PoS, working capital and retail as a service to make them modern convenience stores. Jumbotail's endeavour to build products, platforms, and services for the next billion people of India has landed them in over $55 million in funding from Venture Capital funds such as Nexus VP, Kalaari Capital & Heron Rick fund. Enjoy another classic episode! Jumbotail is hiring massively across verticals, reach out to Karthik & the team via mission@jumbotail.com Stay safe! — V {i'm on Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline: 00:00 - Introduction to Jumbotail 03:45 - Moving to Entrepreneurship from Military service 06:38 - Challenges building Jumbotail 10:20 - Battling competition in the food & grocery market 15:46 - Distribution is king? 20:28 - Differentiating in a supply rich market 26:45 - Post pandemic user behaviour 31:24 - Managing many business under the umbrella 37:22 - Hiring 39:10 - Learning from combat applied to business

{Jitendra Chouksey, Co-Founder of FITTR} The latest episode is with Jitendra Chouksey, aka JC, Founder & CEO of FITTR. FITTR has a highly engaged 2 million strong community focused on getting healthy and transforming themselves with the help of FITTR coaches, using the resources available. On this episode we chat about the journey from a small WhatsApp group that was created to assist a few friends and colleagues to becoming the platform it is today. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Founded in 2016, JC a software engineer transformed himself while working a 12-hour a day IT job. He created and shared a training methodology through his free book “Get Shredded” to prove that anyone can get fit with the knowledge of Quantified Nutrition. Now that has spawned into a fitness company that has a vision of making millions of people across the world fit and to create meaningful career opportunities in the fitness industry. We discuss: Building Fittr's highly engaged community Growing the user base & finding the missing pieces in achieving fitness goals Choosing Sequoia's Surge program over Y-Combinator Please do share the episode, and do spread the word! Hope you and the family are well. - V { Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline: 01:15 - Introduction to FITTR 05:10 - Journey to getting FITTR 08:39 - Transitioning from a Hobby project to a business 12:10 - Transitioning Groups to the mobile application 15:25 - Managing FB groups 17:00 - Engaging users 27:45 - 60% of coaches were clients of FITTR 33:25 - Joining an accelerator program having positive cashflows

EP54: {Ashish Singhal, Co-Founder of CoinSwitch} 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. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Founded by 3 friends Govind, Vimal & Ashish, friends from NSIT in 2017, CoinSwitch is now backed by bluechip fin-tech investors like Ribbit Capital, Paradigm and Sequoia India, raising $15 million in their Series A round. In April 2021, they raised another $25 million ( ₹181 crore) from Tiger Global - valuing Coinswitch at more than $500 million. Buoyed by the massive interest amongst Indians for cryptocurrencies, the platform has witnessed 350% growth in its user base since January this year. The most actively transacting age group on the platform is between 25-35 and the platform is witnessing a huge demand from Tier 2 and 3 cities. Investors from Tier 2 and 3 towns account for as much as 54% of Coinswitch's user base. Do spread the word! - V { Twitter @varunvummidi }

EP53: Pivots and the story to selling a majority stake to Reliance {Harsh Shah, Co-Founder of Fynd} Are you enjoying the new episodes of S&S? Do write to me! Also, do recommend amazing founders & stories that are worth spreading from the Startup scene in India. On the episode, I speak with someone I have known a while from the early days of ecommerce. I chat with Harsh Shah, an alumnus of the IIT, Bombay, and a co-founder of FYND. Harsh is also an angel investor with over 19 investments. In this conversation I chat about the many pivots FYND made to find their mojo, the business models in retail commerce for Indian retailers and what brought FYND to Reliance. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — FYND offers a technology solutions to retail merchants that helps them manage their inventory and sales across various demand channels. Founded by Farooq Adam, Harsh, and Sreeraman MG, Fynd had raised more than $7 million from investors including Google, Kae Capital, IIFL, Singularity Ventures, and GrowX, among others. FYND has pivoted and made major changes since its launch in 2012. Initially, it was called Shopsense, which provided brands with different products to improve customer experience. Some of its clients included Lee, Satya Paul, Anita Dongre, Flying Machine, and Being Human (along with other 330 brands, these are still FYND's clients). In 2019 Reliance acquired a majority stake in the company buying out all investors. Spread the word! - @varunvummidi Timeline: 01:00 - Intro to FYND and Harsh 06:01 - Shopsense, the solution 12:30 - Why did retailers adopt Shopsense, what were they buying? 19:19 - The second pivot 23:01 - Choosing to go down a specific path vs supporting retailers with technology 30:30 - Evolution of FYND into pure tech Ominchannel stack 35:02 - Choosing the type of client to go after 38:15 - Supporting Reliance brand stores & the future with Reliance 46:20 - Explosion & democratisation of e-commerce 50:10 - Angel investor

EP52: 600k users & creating a Brand for Generations {Ankit Garg, Co-Founder of Wakefit} Ever wondered what the deal was with foam mattresses? Is it better that coir? Listen in. Ankit Garg of Wakefit is on the show this week, Wakefit is a mattress brand that has been offering Indian customers the ability to buy a mattress online and have it home delivered at a very affordable price. Bringing down the cost while making it convenient to upgrade old mattresses. In the conversation we chat about the size of the mattress market, building a brand for generations & a lot more about mattresses! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel → Avail a Wakefit.co discount using code: WFSTARS27 for a 27% discount on MRP and applicable to online orders on their website website only [terms: discount applicable 3rd March to 31st March only on orders above INR 1000] — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 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?

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. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Youtube links: https://anchor.fm/stars-and-startups — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 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.

EP50: {Rahul Bhardwaj, Co-Founder & COO of Junglee Games} On the blockbuster 50th episode, we chat with my friend and mentor Rahul of Junglee. 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 Mango 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.  — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast will be available on my YouTube Channel → Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STAR to get a discount on your order! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Stays Safe  - V (@varunvummidi) 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

EP49: {Rohan Bhargava, Co-Founder of CashKaro} I speak with Rohan on building a business offering cashbacks that works with over 1500+ e-commerce websites. Famously, Cashkaro is a Ratan Tata backed startup. Rohan shares why he & his wife Swati gave up lucrative jobs in finance, moved back to India from London in the early days of starting up, how affiliate businesses operate and a lot more on this extremely intriguing conversation! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel → Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STAR to get a discount on your order! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — As a category leader, CashKaro has made cashbacks an attractive way to save money for online shoppers, while offering marketers a high ROI acquisition and retention channel. Other Cashkaro properties includes Pouring Pounds, one of largest player in the UK, and Earnkaro which enables its users become entrepreneurs to make some additional cash by sharing deals. CashKaro is India's largest Cashback & Coupons site. The only venture capital backed Cashback site, funded by Kalaari Capital and Mr. Ratan Tata. More recently received $10 M in a Series B funding round led by Korea Investment Partners (KIP). Hope you enjoy another S&S special. Have a listen, share feedback and share the episode! Stay Safe! - V ( @varunvummidi ) Timeline: 1:00 - Introduction to Cashkaro & starting up 09:07 - The Cashkaro journey 12:45 - Convincing the wife to join the journey 15:40 - Starting off as a B2B service 19:21 - Transitioning Cashkaro to the Indian audience in 2014 23:15 - Raising money for Cashkaro & moving to India from London 26:24 - How has affiliate marketing budgets have changed since 2015 31:15 - Choosing Affiliate marketing vs Performance marketing 34:43 - Does affiliate marketing cannibalise an existing user? 36:00 - Can you build a moat in with cashbacks 41:40 - Launching Earnkaro - enticing entrepreneurs 47:03 - Biggest challenge of building CK 49:20 - What's the future for deals platforms?

EP48: {Sudarshan Lodha, Co-Founder of StrataProp} On the episode I have Sudarshan to chat about Strata. The startup is bringing a new innovative approach to investing in real estate, one that is data-driven and allows the investor to own a fraction of a highly desirable asset and also a way to make it the most accessible real estate investment you could have. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel → Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STAR to get a discount on your order! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Strata is based out of Bengaluru and has raised $1.5 million funding led by SAIF Partners and Mayfield India, including a strategic investment from a real estate data analytics platform, PropStack. 150 investors participated in the first investment opportunity on the platform. The transparent and a data-driven approach to investment in real estate was so well received that their first investment opportunity was sold out within 7 days of going up on the platform, for a total of INR 26 crore from 74 investors. What sets this apart is the exclusive CRE intelligence and analytics from PropStack and the ability for investor to commit small sums of money, which is a huge deal for real estate investments. Have a listen, share feedback and share the episode! Stay Safe! - V ( @varunvummidi ) Timeline: 00:00 - Introduction to Strata 02:55 - Affordability of property in India 06:22 - Why 2nd home owners make best clients for Strata 09:19 - Commercial Real Estate vs other asset classes 13:00 - Fractional ownership of assets 18:35 - Data in Real Estate 20:45 - HavingPropStack as a Strategic 23:32 - Small CRE owners should rather invest in Strataprop 26:15 - Building a business in a segment that is not regulated 30:36 - Operationalizing Strata 33:54 - Getting Venture Investors into a business

EP47: {Nishith Rastogi, Co-Founder of Locus} Nishith is a BITS Grad and was an engineer at Amazon where he met his co-founder Geet, an IIT grad. They set out to launch a chat network that morphed into what is today Locus. Locus is a tool that plugs into the supply chain of an enterprise and starts automating all human decisions in the process; they automate route planning, traffic management, address correction, network planning, etc.. Locus is backed by some stellar investors and also service some of the top CPG companies in the world. Locus has become so integral to the operations of their clients that they had been offered hard cash by those who wanted to ensure Locus survived when COVID19 struck. Hope you enjoy my super intriguing session with Nishith. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — About Locus: The Locus platform uses deep machine learning and proprietary algorithms to offer smart logistics solutions like route optimization, real-time tracking, insights and analytics, beat optimization, efficient warehouse management, vehicle allocation and utilization. Locus also helps companies optimize their end-to-end supply chain network with its strategic consulting offering. Locus works with top clients across Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, and India, with offices in the USA, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The company has so far raised $29 million from Tier-1 investors including Tiger Global, Falcon Edge, Blume Ventures, Exfinity Venture Partners & GrowX ventures. Stay Safe & do share the episode! - V { @varunvummidi } Timelines: 00:00 - Introduction 05:45 - Finding the path to Locus 11:28 - Creating decision making systems for Big Basket 13:45 - Learning from Partners while building for them 18:02 - Complexity between geography & business types 24:21 - Pricing based on Total Cost of Ownership 27:55 - Building & Selling Enterprise SaaS 32:45 - Build vs Buy decision 35:06 - Challenges building logistics SaaS 38:15 - Having Falcon & Tiger as part of the journey 41:50 - BITS vs IIT & hiring 45:50 - 100M ARR

EP46: {Beerud Sheth, Founder of Elance & Gupshup} On this episode I speak with Beerud Sheth, who was the co-founder & CEO of the poplar freelancing work platform Elance in 1998, that is now Upwork. Beerud went on to found Gupshup a could messaging platform that has seen its share of twists and turns in the messaging and communications space since 2004 and now processes over 4 billion messages a month. Beerud joined us from his home in California for this chat. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Elance was co-founded by Beerud who moved to the US after graduating from IIT Bombay, to pursue his Masters at MIT followed by a stint in investment banking on Wall Street. Elance was the poster boy of the freelancer economy. Beerud was the CEO and top executive till 2007 and later a board member until the merger with Odesk in 2014. Gupshup is among the cloud messaging platforms in the world with revenue upwards of Rs. 600 crore and has over 39,000 businesses including Ola, Flipkart, Zomato, HDFC, Google, Paytm. Processes over 4.5 billion messages a month and recently expanded their services to South East Asia, Middle East and Europe. Hope you enjoy the episode! Stay tuned & stay Safe! - V @varunvummidi Timeline: 00:00 - Introduction 05:08 - Founding Elance 08:00 - Solving for supply 10:33 - Managing challenges building a marketplace 12:45 - Solving for Remote Work 14:20 - Took 6 months to build the business case for Elance 16:02 - Meeting co-founders & raising money 17:51 - Stock Markets were irrational in the 2000s that helped with fund raising 18:23 - Raising over $ 62M for Elance & the Odesk merger 19:50 - Transitioning out of Elance 23:28 - Reasons Gig Work is gaining popularity & the moment is now 27:23 - Gupshup - messaging & communication 30:21 - Messaging is the original super app 36:01 - iMessage Vs RCS 38:45 - Gupshup IP messaging 40:51 - Resident Message apps on OEMs 45:40 - Next phase of Messaging 48:30 - Mobile SPAM 51:25 - Plans & Hiring

EP45: {Shruti Kapoor, Co-founder & CEO of Wingman} Wingman offers a virtual assistant that assists sales reps close deals faster, guiding the rep with exact information they need in real-time. Shruti Kapoor, an IIM alumn, chats with me about sales and ofcourse Wingman. We discuss how Wingman is humanizing the sales process, where the sales person can focus on listening rather than being distracted with other aspect of a sales call How the AI tool enables a sales team play offence Enhancing all human conversation with AI might be the way ahead — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Bengaluru HQ'd Wingman was founded by Shruti, Muralidharan and Srikar in 2018. Wingman enables real time assistance to sales folk by telling them what to ask and say to a prospective customer. The tool records, transcribes and analyses calls, and picks out trends on what's working and what's not in pitches made by salespersons. Allows managers to set up cue cards to automatically coach the people when they are on the call. A bot will show a cue card if a prospective customer asks a question on how a product is different from a competitor's. The company is currently targeting B2B clients who sell to the US market. It has on-boarded a few SaaS companies such as Chargebee, Synup and Capital Number. They have raised $2.2 million in the seed round, led by Venture Highway, Speciale Invest and Y Combinator. Shruti & team are hiring and can't see a reason for you not to explore the opportunities in a fast growing startup! Checkout their careers page. Stay Safe & Spread the word! - V @varunvummidi Timeline: 00:00 - Intro 02:35 - What ails sales in India 07:24 - Training for outbound processes 10:20 - Salesman are born not made? 13:00 - Intro to Shruti from moving from Analytics to Sales 16:18 - Feedback loops & importance of Voice of customer for marketing 18:45 - Origin of Wingman & meeting co-founders 21:54 - Graduating from the IIM 25:15 - Intro to Wingman 19:15 - the Wingman Note-taker 32:02 - Evolving playbook ensures the product will not hit a plateau 36:45 - Consulting for SaaS success 38:45 - Making every human conversation better 40:50 - Challenges of building Wingman 44:15 - Monetizing & pricing 49:23 - Traction, growth & hiring

EP44: {Vikram Chachra, Co-Founder of 8i Ventures} We've had 4 of Vikram's portfolio companies on this show already. Madhu of YAP, Ankit of Signzy, Rajan of Slice and Matt of BlueTokai!! Vikram's in the process of launching his $ 50 million fund and took the time to have a chat with me about his investment philosophy and the journey being a founder. Vikram is a SRCC, XLRI & NYU grad who started up a mobile shopping startup in early 2000's and later went on to run the mobile division @ Snapfish ( acquired by HP ). He invests in India and across the world. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — He has seeded over 28 seed to early stage startups over the last decade that have created more than a billion dollars of value for their shareholders. These include several category leaders like Carwale.com, HCG Global (NSE: HCG), EzeTap, Blue Tokai, MoneyTap, Online Tyari, Eatigo, Signzy, amongst others. Vikram is easy to reach, and if you need someone to hear your consumer or fintech idea, strongly suggest you reach out! Stay Safe & Spread the word! - V @varunvummidi Timeline: 00:00 - Journey in as an entrepreneur 10:17 - Early check in PayTM 14:00 - Impact of COVID on the portfolio 15:01 - 8i and investment philosophy 19:00 - Founders becoming investors 22:45 - IPO's will start happening in challenger brands 27:04 - Getting deal flow 31:09 - Investing in Signzy 33:45 - BlueTokai 35:42 - Carwale 37:21 - Investing in a hot sauce company { Naagin } 39:50 - Making a decision in early stage companies 42:20 - Not all investments do well 46:01 - Cold emailing Vikram

EP43: {Amit Kumar, BusinessHead of OLX CashMyCar} On this episode I catch up with Amit to discuss the state of the Used Car business in India and its increasing relevance to the audience while organizing an unorganized segment. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — OLX Group is a Naspers company, a global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world! Take a look at CashMyCar, who offers one of the many services in India that uses a structured approach to assisting those who want to sell their cars. Would love to hear from you on how you liked the episode! So son't forget to write to me! Stay Safe! - V {host is on Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline: 02:14 - Used car market in India is growing faster than New car business! 05:00 - Ownership is going up but the need for travel will go down 09:40 - Many businesses are giving up workplaces 13:45 - Trends in Car Ownership 19:05 - Why used cars have a good resale value? 22:31 - Frontier Car Group & the revolution in the used car business 26:20 - Importance of having an Omnichannel process 30:29 - Straddling diff business models 34:05 - Building the market place

EP42: {Ankit Ratan, Co-Founder of Signzy} Regulation is probably one of the key pillars of banking. Sometimes it does become an excuse for being the thing that ails the experience. All that is changing now with the emergence of Reg-Tech. The use of Video KYC, Aadhar authentication layer, digital lockers & the India Stack is enabling a lot of that change. One of those companies that is quietly enabling the BFSI sector is Signzy. Ankit, a silver medalist from IIT Delhi (2011), had worked in New York deploying fraud analytics solutions at Citi Bank and Metlife. In 2013, started an analytics company that worked with large private banks in detecting fraud, in India before founding Signzy along with Ankur Pandey, and brother Arpit Ratan. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Signzy currently offers a digital on-boarding solution for banks, NBFCs and other financial institutions, enabling them to go digital. Signzy solves for the poor consumer experiences in managing regulatory compliance by handling workflows. Their no-code AI model builder and Fintech API Marketplace of over 200+ APIs have enabled them to verify more than 3M documents per day without compromising on quality & security. Over 90+ FIs globally including the 4 largest banks in India and a Top 3 acquiring Bank in US trust Signzy. Signzy has raised funds from Stellaris Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital. Angel investors like Rajan Anandan, Amrish Rau, Dilip Khandelwal, and Vikram Chachra.. Stay safe & share the episode! - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 01:00 - Identifying the problem statement 04:45 - Educating and working with Bankers 07:27 - Stopped using the word Blockchain 10:21 - Working with BFSI on problems that they are not building for themselves 12:29 - What is Signzy today? 16:24 - Involvement of the Regulator & supporting clients with legal interpretations 19:03 - Advantages of having a Lawyer as a Sales co-founder in RegTech 23:30 - Change helps RegTech players 26:05 - Understanding when to "build" Product? 30:39 - Being part of Accelerators (K-Start, Google Launchpad & Mastercard StartPath) 41:36 - Selling to Global clients from India 46:05 - Business Model of Signzy 47:23 - On Premise vs Cloud for FIs 51:00 - Growth

EP41: {Rajan Bajaj, Founder of Slice} On the episode I speak with Rajan Bajaj, the founder of Slice, an IIT grad who spent a few months in Flipkart before wanting start out on his own. He went on to start a business that morphed into what is today Slice - a credit line that caters to first time job seekers. Slice is targeting 5 million first time credit seekers every year who have little access to credit products designed specifically for them. We chat about how India's first payment card startup focussed on the millennials is doing and what young Indian's are spending on. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Slice (formerly known as SlicePay) on announced in June 2020 that it has raised Rs 46 crore in a Pre-Series B round led by Japan-based investor Gunosy. The round also saw participation from US-based EMVC, Kunal Shah of CRED, Better Capital, and existing investor Das Capital. Read more Book recommendation from Rajan: The CEO Within - Matt Mochary - Full book available here for a free read Stay Safe and do spread the word! - V(@varunvummidi) Timelines: 01:10 - Introduction & impact of moratorium 05:24 - Where young people are spending 06:31 - Starting up right after graduating 10:01 - Going through the diff avatars 11:45 - Sharing economy 14:04 - Trends in spends 17:50 - What is Slice? 21:15 - Business model of Slice 27:40 - KYC & Collections 28:44 - Going through pivots, 35:14 - Diversifying 40:54 - Getting support & advice 41:59 - Using Twitter properly 43:45 - Book Recommendation

EP40: {Shwetank Verma, General Partner of Leo Capital} Shwetank Verma is a General Partner and co-Founder of Leo Capital, an early-stage venture investor operating in India and SouthEast Asia. Leo Capital focuses on Digital Health, InsurTech and FinTech. Shwetank, prior to founding Leo Capital he headed open innovation at MetLife Asia, where he created and led (Collab), and was entrepreneur who created a healthcare and education ventures in India. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Shwetank opens up about investing, few of his investments & trends he has seen in the Insurance space. Timeline: 01:55 - Introduction 05:55 - Metlife Collab - the post accelerator 08:10 - Corporate innovation is learned helplessness 11:05 - Seeing patterns in industries across the world 14:40 - Timing the market 17:45 - Regulators enabling insurance 20:45 - Insuretech Association of India 22:50 - Having billions in Gross Underwritten Premiums 31:00 - Leo Capital Investments 31:44 - Cover Genius - APIs for insurance 36:10 - Functioning of the fund 37:10 - Beato App - Diabetes Management 46:08 - WayForward - Mental Health 49:24 - Meeting portfolio companies - choosing an investment

EP39: {Dhruv Suyamprakasam, Co-founder & CEO of iCliniq} I speak with a founder who moved his company from Bangalore to his hometown Coimbatore to start health care venture iCliniq. We talk about Telemedicine, starting up in Coimbatore, the struggles of to signing up the first doctor in India and convincing thousands of doctors from across the world to embrace their platform. More recently, COVID has helped with a massive upsurge with over 5x growth post lockdown. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — iCliniq is a part of the Digital Health Providers Association (DHPA) that includes the likes of Lybrate, Meddo, Visit, DocOnline, mFine, and DocsApp who have come forward to support the Telemedicine bill floated by the government. About iCliniq: iCliniq offers a high quality online consultation, where the quality assurance team ensures right diagnosis happens and doctors are supported at the right time for better health outcomes. They aim to be the go-to second opinion platform for the world. Timeline: 01:00 - Starting up from Coimbatore & hiring tech talent from across the country 04:11 - Choosing to startup in Healthcare 11:10 - Acquiring first set of doctors onto the platform 15:36 - First version of iCliniq 19:25 - Getting patients on the platform 22:28 - Most revenue is international, 101 countries, 3800 doctors from around the world 24:30 - Medical Second opinions 28:00 - 70% of all queries can be solved online without having to meet the patient 30:52 - Telemedicine guidelines from the government 32:08 - JIO partnership & the TM Forum 36:35 - Monetization for online consultations 38:45 - Impact of COVID - 5x growth in queries 41:00 - Vision for iCliniq 43:00 - 2,500 consultations per day 46:15 - Selling Value Added Services 48:30 - Hiring! We'll grow 3x by 2021

EP38: {Bharath Devanathan, SVP of Bounce} On this episode, EP38 of the podcast we chat with Bharath about Electric Vehicles and how India is on the path to start seeing a lot more action in the EV space as governments have now stepped in to accelerating the switch from ICE to EVs. We also chat a little about Bharath's time at Yahoo! On the email team as well as as playing Ultimate frisbee. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com to receive new episodes delivered directly to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Bharath is an accomplished professional who built Groupon India, and managed business and operations for Groupon APAC Emerging markets. Spent a little time in Management and Strategy Consulting, and had a long career at Yahoo! Now at Bounce with the goal to make mobility green and clean (electric vehicles). #NewThingLearntToday Well to Wheel Ratio - cost of production to operating a vehicle for an EV is much lower; over the lifetime as compared to an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle. Hope you guys enjoy the episode! Do spread the word. - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 02:45 - COVID has created the tail winds for shared mobility 07:23 - EV Adoption in India is imminent 10:26 - Sustainability for Incentives for EV adoption 14:01 - Should India be doing more on policy? 19:42 - Cost of going Electric 27:00 - Conversion of fleets to EV in India 30:50 - Consumer preference for EV 32:35 - Time at Yahoo! & 6MB mailboxes 37:31 - Email of choice today -> Hey.com 41:39 - Playing Ultimate Frisbee with the co-founders of Whatsapp 48:45 - Quick thoughts on deal sites

EP37: {Arjun Majumdar & Sandhya Chandrasekharayya, Founders of IndiaHikes} On this episode, I'm changing it up a little as I catch up with the founders of India Hikes. India's premier hiking company that started way back in 2008. With the hope of making hiking accessible to more Indians so that they can enjoy the nature that India has in abundance, right from the western ghats to the mighty Himalayas. Yes, this is not much of a tech conversation but a story that I wanted to share. Hope you enjoy it. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Timeline: 03:17 - Genesis of IndiaHikes 09:50 - Educating the Hiker 13:27 - Creating content, winning with credible content 16:02 - DIY Treks 17:10 - Customers becoming employees 18:18 - Trekking culture in India 22:07 - Running remote teams 26:31 - Handling 20,000 trekkers 31:05 - Green Trails Initiative 38:53 - Future of Hiking in India 40:34 - World of Hikes 45:34 - Favourite Treks 48:16 - Impact of COVID They're hiring! Do check them out. About: Indiahikes in 2008 brought trekking to a new generation of Indians, with deep knowledge and by opening up new parts of country to hikers of any age and ability. The Indiahikes' website is a treasure of trekking information in India. Including a wonderful set of content displayed via various channels.

EP36: {Nithin Kamath, Co-founder & CEO of Zerodha} 0 + rodha = Zero Barrier Nithin is an avid poker player and a CEO who still blogs and interacts with his customers to stay in touch and stay on the pulse of the customer. Recently Zerodha 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 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, next 2 years + 1.5 million users, since January 2020 + 1 million users — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full video of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Zerodha followed these principles and built patiently, a 9 year journey to being an overnight success.: built something where they had core competency created value without expectations, didn't chase growth took care of employees experimented continuously Another initiative I am really psyched about is the Rainmatter Climate that is an offshoot of Rainmatter, a fintech fund by Zerodha. They believe that climate change is the biggest existential threat to life have committed to using the resources available to enable potential solutions that may help society at large. They offer: Funding for grassroots social organisations, individuals, and startups looking to work on climate change. Industry connects and mentorship to help build and scale Focused on reforestation and sustainable living with agro-forestry models. Nithin loves playing poker, basketball, and guitar. @Nithin0dha on Twitter. Stays Safe and share the episode! Let me know what you thought about the episode. - V ( @varunvummidi ) Timeline: 00:48 - Trading Stocks at 17 of age 10:50 - Taking Risks 12:50 - Worked at a call centre to pay off trading losses 15:19 - Plan B helped me build Zerodha 19:07 - Taking Financial Advice from TikTok influencers 27:37 - ₹ 350 crores in Profit & a frugal mindset 38:48 - Creating a Platform with Kite Connect APIs 43:27 - Importance of Credibility & Trust to grow the 47:37 - Indians not able to save enough 50:40 - RainMatter Fund 54:52 - Philanthropy as part of Zerodha 58:20 - Zerodha is my biggest Trade 59:04 - What the future holds for Zerodha 1:00:20 - Enabling Investing in American Stocks

EP35: {Mandeep Manocha, Co-founder & CEO of Cashify} ----------- ALERT: Remember to participate in Donate your Old Phones initiative run by Cashify - https://www.cashify.in/donate-for-education; save the planet and support kids who are unable to participate in online classes. ----------- Have you ever wondered what to do with that old phone that you have sitting around? Or have you ever wanted to buy a second phone as a backup but didn't know how to get a reliable one. That's where this startup comes in. Cashify has seen demand rebound with COVID as everyone scrambled to get a second device for their kid who now needs to attend classes digitally. Mandeep and I have a free wheeling conversation about the refurbished device market, working out of an incubation centre informally, building a waste management business and pivoting to the unsexy business of Refurbished and having 4 Chinese investors on the Cap Table! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Over the 6 years Cashify is the official exchange partner for premium smartphone brands including Apple, Xiaomi, OnePlus and Samsung. Additionally, partnered with e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon and Snapdeal as well as offline retailers like Croma Retail. They have been funded by Bessemer Ventures, Blume Ventures, Shunwei Capital, venture debt funding Trifecta Capital, and latest being a Series C of $12M from Chinese investors, that included CDH Investments and MorningSide Group, with AiHuiShou as a strategic investor. Stay Safe! - V (@varunvummidi ) Timelines: 02:48 - Introduction 06:38 - Rebounding to over 90% post COVID 08:40 - What's Re-Commerce? 11:24 - Managing "Reverse Logistics" & the Genesis of Cashify 18:02 - Lehmann Brothers crashing & the downturn resulted in Cashify 20:08 - Choosing Waste Management 23:50 - Similarity between Refurbished Phones & the Used car market 27:30 - Devices aren't getting Cheaper; Premium phones are in 31:10 - Stocking phones is not a challenge! 35:44 - Bid Vs Buy models 42:00 - Building a Reseller Network 44:41 - Pricing & making money 47:15 - Scale of Operations & Ground reality post COVID 50:03 - Donate your Old Phones for good @ https://www.cashify.in/donate-for-education 50:40 - Kids are unable to study 52:48 - Going Global with the Cashify Tech 55:10 - Software is the IP 58:10 - Diversifying beyond Mobiles 1:00:46 - Challenges in the Journey 1:05:25 - Having 4 Chinese Investors has been an advantage 1:10:45 - Getting to 10 M phone a year

EP34: {Gaurav Agarwal, Co-founder of 1MG} Healthcare is a coveted space for tech startups in India, not because it's hard but because of the enormity of challenges you could solve. And the sheer size of white spaces that are available to be solved. 1MG is probably at the forefront of really understanding Indian health data with over 90 million users on their platforms. I have a super fun chat with Gaurav Agarwal, the CTO & co-founder of 1MG on his time in the Valley, and how 1MG is working towards making healthcare affordable and accessible. Gaurav's book recommendation: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari & A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — We chat about his time at Zynga and how he transitioned to 1MG and moving back to India after almost a decade in the Valley. Also about the interesting work that's being done at 1MG and also his ability to use technology to completely change the way we look at healthcare. Some Interesting facts: At 1mg, their healthcare data repository consists of over 5 Billion data points and process over 250GB of additional data. Likely, one of the largest healthcare data repos globally. 1MG has created a Data Science team that works on problems like AI Doctor assistant, Digitization and Disease Progression. With all the learning from the data, they recently published a paper in the JMIR (Journal of Medical Informatics Research) about the Triage AI system that proved their system is as good or better than a panel of doctors! The venture is supported by marque investors in Sequoia Capital, Intel Capital, Omidyar Network and Kae Capital. Stay Safe & please share the episode! - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 01:00 - Working at Zynga - the true casual gaming 05:58 - Moving from NetApp to Zynga after 9 years 10:50 - Building for Gaming 15:25 - Removing limitations on what you can do 18:05 - Centre of Product 20:10 - Building Product in India vs Valley 23:21 - Moving to HealthKart from Zynga 28:27 - Bringing in Valley Execs 31:02 - Seed for 1MG 37:10 - Evolution of 1MG - building Triage.ai 44:15 - Managing Chronic Care 48:10 - Choosing not to do certain businesses 49:30 - Launching Connected Products for Monitoring 57:41 - Fighter Pilot vs an Entrepreneur 59:00 - Book Reccos

EP33: {Vinay Bagri, Co-founder & CEO of NiYO} On the episode we discuss Vinay's fascination with Salary Accounts, banking and its evolution and what's Neo about Niyo. We chat with Vinay Bagri, the co-founder & CEO of NiYO, a Fintech that was founded in 2016 offering a digital banking solution for salaried employees. NiYO started off by digitizing the entire payroll and benefits process for contract workers in manpower supply companies - the atypical blue collar worker who earns Rs 15,000 per month. Today NiYO has over 5k clients servicing over 2 million or 20 lakh customers via their Salary account product. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — NiYO has continued to evolve and launched products with their banking partnerships with IDFC Bank, DCB & Yes Bank. The main product that caters to the blue collar account holders enables users carry out financial transactions including payment of bills and availing small ticket loans through the app that is available in 10 languages. NiYO has raised $49.3 million in total, including Seed a round from Prime Venture Partners, Series - A from Social Capital, and the last funding of $35 million in Series B round led by Horizons Ventures, Tencent and JS Capital LLC. They had closed FY2019-20 with a $10M turnover. Stay Safe & do share the episode! - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 01:25 - Intro 04:00 - Branchless Banking in India 05:40 - Evolution of digital banking 08:00 - Bankers of the 00s era 11:20 - Innovating on Salary Accounts 12:38 - What's ailing the bank? 16:15 - Regulations in Tech? 20:00 - Evolution of banks around the world 23:48 - Open Banking Vs Neo Banking 26:15 - Insight to building NiYO 30:48 - Dealing with blue collar users using Prepaid Wallets 34:15 - Growing 10x in 2 years just using referrals 38:00 - 5k clients & 2 million customers 40:40 - Partnering with banks & co-creating Products 45:30 - Monetizing 48:15 - Portfolio approach to banking 52:00 - $ 49M in capital raised & fund raising from global investors 58:36 - Creating Products for Diff customers 1:03:33 - HIRING

EP32: {Akash Dongre, Co-founder of IndusOS} I chat with Akash Dongre, the CPO and cofounder at IndusOS - the creators of the largest App Store outside of the play store with over 100 million users and thousands of apps created for the vernacular audience. They currently power the App Store on many of the Samsung phones and have been through quite the journey from starting up to meandering their way to a vernacular mobile device manufacturer, to a Vernacular Operating System for other OEM and now becoming the go to App Store for Samsung. We chat with Akash also on his time porting mobile games, working with mobile payments in the early days, building a hardware business and then finding scale with the vernacular app store! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — There's so much to share from their 14 year journey. Indus OS was available in English and 23 Indian regional languages which had an active user base of over 10 million. It has evolved to the App Bazaar that now has over 400,000 apps developed by 50k developers for the local audience, the real Bharat. Samsung invested $5 million in 2019 and now every Samsung phone in India ships with the Indus App Bazaar. About IndusOS: The @IndusAppBazaar was ranked #1 and fastest growing App Marketing Platform in the Indian Subcontinent on the @AppsFlyer Performance Index, 2019. If you're a native language developer they can provide you with sufficient visibility to distribute and monetize your app. In 2017, Indus OS raised $4 million in its Series A round from Omidyar Network, Ventureast, and JSW Ventures. Prior to that, its angel round saw participation from Naveen Tewari of InMobi, Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal, Pranay Chulet of Quikr, and Mayank Singhal of Temasek Holdings. More recently Affle made an investment into IndusOS. Note: IndusOS is hiring! Stay Safe! - V Timeline: 01:30 - Introduction 04:15 - IIT & getting started in mobile gaming 08:49 - Mobile payments - MoFirst 13:40 - Not choosing to pursuing gaming 20:30 - The seed for Vernacular OS 24:00 - Selling Hardware to regional customers - Firstouch 29:31 - Many hardware players in India 32:41 - Launch in Multiple languages 38:05 - 50,000 app developers to localize their applications 47:39 - Challenges with monetising the OS - How to compete with FREE? 51:09 - Transition from OEM to App Store & 100M users 52:16 - Consumption trends 55:30 - Apps that do well on the Indus Store

EP31: {Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Founder of Servify} This startup likely covers the premium smartphone on which you're likely listening to or watching this episode of the Podcast! Very few companies give service capabilities much thought. Indians too are not very demanding of service and service requests arise for less than 3% of all mobile handset sales. Servify saw as an opportunity to solve for globally from India. A large opportunity to support brands manage customer interactions & expectations using technology. We chat with Sreevathsa on his journey working with Indian & global brands and taking that learning into building his 2nd service oriented venture. On the Episode we chat about Sree's journey and also what draws him towards building service oriented businesses. He also shares his philosophy on what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Sree's 8Cs of Entrepreneurship (Aug 2020 version) Curiosity Clarity Commitment Conviction Courageous Conquer Care COVID19 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — About: Servify is on a mission to help consumers take control of all their devices and appliances - at home or at work. Servify today is one of the largest device lifecycle management platforms in the world and serves (as a Strategic Partner) consumers of Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, Motorola, Xiaomi, Nokia, Bose, Airtel, Vodafone, Du, Amazon, Oppo, Croma, AmTrust to name a few great associations. Stay Safe! - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 04:15 - The journey 09:44 - Nokia story 11:27 - Remembering Nokia 17:17 - Moving on from Nokia to building The Service Solution (TSS) 21:25 - Focussing on consistent service quality with TSS 24:24 - What is Servify? 26:22 - Service as a core pillar 31:03 - Need to outsource service for large manufacturers 35:41 - Solving for service around the world 41:02 - Using data from a Billion handsets 43:36 - Being a second time founder 56:19 - Choosing to raise funds as a second time founder 48:35 - 8C's of Entrepreneurship Curiosity Clarity Commitment Conviction Courageous Conquer Care COVID19 1:00:02 - COVID & its impact

EP30: {Aakrit Vaish, Co-founder & CEO of Haptik} We chat with Aakrit on the conversational AI space, his startup journey and the sale to Reliance Industries in April 2019, in a very candid conversation. The conversational AI, chatbot space has seen a lot of action across the world after messaging services like the Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have started enabling such interactions at scale. One of the leading players from India has been able to reach over 100 million devices, and process over 2 billion conversations. More recently Haptik supported the Govt of India's My Corona Helpdesk in the wake of the pandemic. They built and delivered it incredibly quickly and enabled it to scale to more than 76 million messages. We also get chatting about Aakrit's journey from Flurry to being an angel investor. Aakrit is an investor in consumer focussed and SaaS Startups. Notable investments include Unacademy, Third Wave Coffee, Flatchat, Tookitaki, Dil Mil, iON Energy and a lot more. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — About Haptik: Today, Haptik is one of the world's largest companies in the conversation AI space with more than 100 large enterprise clients including KFC, Samsung, Coca-Cola, OYO Rooms, Kotak Life and Dream11. In April 2019, Reliance Industries acquired majority shareholding in the company in a $100 million transaction. Haptik is also #Hiring! Do check them out. Stay Safe & do share the episode! - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 03:00 - Reliance JIO raising capital from global investors 04:45 - Becoming a part of Reliance - JIO Platforms Limited (JPL) 07:44 - Landing the MyGov Corona Helpdesk project 11:15 - Framework for choosing a strategic investor 14:33 - Creating a rapport with the promoter 16:51 - Govt's involvement in getting the chatbot right 19:20 - Evolution & the history of chatbots 25:20 - Returning to India and building a startup 26:36 - Venturing into Angel investing 30:15 - Struggles of Haptik & finding Product-Market-Timing fit 32:45 - Industries that are in a hype cycle 36:06 - Hiring at Haptik

EP29: Gig economy & the Future of Work {Niranjan Nakhate, Co-founder of Futwork previously called Frapp} On the episode we speak with a founder who has built a company in a space that has now been coined as the "Future Of Work." A space that means the future is driven by the gig economy, an array of jobs offered to those willing to perform it at their convenience. We dig into this concept, how this is playing out for the millions who are out of work or are ready to work. Niranjan also shares how the business has evolved over the years from being a student discount platform to becoming a student verification service to now enabling anyone to get work via Futwork. The startup boasts more than 300 brands that have used its solution to run gigs and micro-jobs. This includes big names like Samsung, Starbucks, Spotify, Universal Music, Puma, and many more. Niranjan & Armaan are Narsee Monjee (NMIMS) graduates who started out in 2014 on this journey and have worked through many business models to get to this point. A great listen. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Checkout https://futwork.com/ if you have any gigs or projects you wanted done and din't want to go through the hassle of hiring and managing an intern! Stay Safe & don't forget to share the episode! - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 01:00 - Introduction 03:06 - Handling COVID 05:35 - Slack group to bridge the WFH gap 06:36 - Having a young team 08:25 - Launching the Student Discount card 11:15 - Building a thesis around a student user base 16:20 - Moving away from Offers 18:02 - Why a platform was needed for earning opportunities 20:10 - Getting paid for tasks 27:00 - Pricing in the gig economy 29:47 - Profile of Gig workers 32:45 - Futwork Rebrand 33:07 - Companies embracing gigs/tasks 35:38 - Acquiring Futwokers PAN India 40:09 - Earnings from Gigs 43:10 - Building Trust 46:10 - Running a business as 20 year olds 48:26 - Mistakes that could have been avoided

EP28: {Damandeep Singh Soni, Marketing at WeCash, MilkBasket, Mobikwik} This episode is going to be a little different from other Stars & Startups Episodes. Think of this episode as a Growth Masterclass for Startups. Startups all too often don't identify how to grow their users, plan acquisition and do things that help them scale during the early days. We explore a few concepts to help build the growth function, build trust with customers, demystify and think through concepts that could be thought of as hard. I learned a lot from this episode, hope you do too. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Damandeep blogs at https://www.damansoni.com/ Don't forget to share the episode if you think it could add some value to others. Do write in to me or tweet at @varunvummidi if you liked this episode. Maybe we could do more such episodes exploring more such topics in the near future. Stay Safe - V Timeline: 00:45 - Intro to Daman 01:01 - Framework for building Growth Teams 09:55 - Growth lead as a bootstrapped company should be the founder 15:25 - Marketing is not Growth 18:46 - Who can apply the framework 21:14 - Building Trust for New Brands 24:43 - a. Treat organic customers in a special way. Treat them like a VIP b. Give customers a voice 27:05 - c. Creating authentic PR 30:50 - d. Social Proof i. Soliciting those who are using your product ii. Using logos of familiarity 37:32 - e. Customer Service 43:24 - Acquiring more users without much $$ 48:55 - Canva's method of SEO 50:12 - Referrals & Word of Mouth 56:25 - Importance of writing a Blog 57:55 -Influencers, and how to identify an influencer 01:02:13 - Meetups, Freebies and using Testimonials to engage 01:13:42 - Creating KPIs for Growth & Marketing teams 01:21:04 - How to WOW the investor

EP27: {Alok Mittal, Co-founder & CEO of Indifi} Entrepreneur turned Investor turned Entrepreneur Alok is on this episode of the Stars & Startups Podcast. Alok Mittal is an IIT Delhi graduate who you can say has become a fixture in the Indian startup ecosystem. Alok is currently the cofounder and CEO of Indifi, a debt financing platform for Indian SMEs. He's also a prolific Angel investor and the founding Board member at the Indian Angel Network (IAN) that he helped set up in 2005 after his first startup JobsAhead was acquired by Monster.com in 2004. Alok lead the Indian operations of VC firm Caanan Partners between 2006 - 2015. The assets of which were sold to JP Morgan. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — On the episode we chat about the JobsAhead journey, making it to venture investing, some of his learnings along the way and learning how to be an angel investor. Also, we discuss the pandemic and how Indifi is dealing with the situation and how startups should approach the momentary setbacks. Memorable quotes from the episode: “Consumers vote with their clicks” “The disruptive effect of GST is yet to come!” GSTN would be transformative. "Account Aggregators would change the game in the next many months" Indifi is hiring for non sales/business roles, enablers & strategic partnership roles at the moment. Do check out their careers page. Alok is also super approachable in case you need a supportive investor! Stay Safe - V {host is on Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline: 01:00 - Jobs Portals were the original Internet gold rush in India 03:50 - Jobs was what people wanted, relevant for Indians 05:17 - User generated content was restricted to job boards 06:30 - Moving on from a job to start an Internet business 09:00 - Joining Aricent & becoming an entrepreneur 11:25 - Raising Angel funding 13:42 - Selling to Monster 15:55 - Becoming an investor 19:30 - Investments at Caanan Partners 21:00 - Selling Caanan to an AMC 24:35 - Naaptol moving into TV Commerce 28:55 - Angel Investing 30:23 - 60 investments in 15 years 31:10 - Dealflow to make 4-6 investments a year 34:27 - Entrepreneurs he's enjoyed working with 36:44 - Advice to entrepreneurs in times of COVID 40:04 - COVIDs impact on Indifi 42:45 - Prepping the business to succeed through the pandemic 45:42 - Outlook on lending 47:10 - Resetting at Indifi 48:54 - Impact of GST in the lending business 50:05 - Taking advantage of the GSTN

EP26: {Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Partner & CEO of Upekkha} My guest from EP04 Krishi Fawani had spoken highly about Upekkha Accelerator that his company Hashtag Loyalty was participating in. Had a chance meeting with Prasanna and loved what they had to say and invited him to be on the Podcast. We talk about what it means to build a Value SaaS business, Pricing for SaaS, exploring some concepts of Effectuation as popularized by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy, and also what it is to be a startup in itself. There is a lot one can take away from this podcast and if you are a SaaS founder the deadline to apply for their next batch starting early Sep ends on Aug 15th! Book recco from Prasanna: {Monetizing Innovation - Madhavan Ramanujam} More info at : https://upekkha.io/ — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel → We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — About Prasanna: Worked intensely with 120+ startups to make them successful at Microsoft Accelerator India. Helped pick the right startups for Investors & Microsoft & as a founder going through similar ups & downs, he helps other founders push through. What is Upekkha? "We work with B2B SaaS startups to get you through the valley of death, to a place with predictable, scalable, profitable growth. Whether you want to build a $10M revenue business, or the next $1B SaaS unicorn, we help you accelerate." Timeline: 01:00 - Intro to Prasanna 02:15 - Upekkha becoming the YC of Indian SaaS companies 04:50 - Value SaaS is the opposite of Vanity SaaS 10:55 - Software is eating Software 15:00 - Shift in power dynamic in the world of SaaS 18:30 - Changing VC investment thesis towards SaaS 23:58 - Starting Upekkha 28:17 - Raising money for Upekkha; Rajan, Shekhar, Prasanna 33:25 - Purchase behaviour in a Do it for Me market 38:00 - Should I send a developer to fast track the process? An example. 42:30 - Pricing SaaS products 49:53 - Effectuation Concept by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy

EP25: 2 Unicorns, 1 Decacorn and the process of building the muscle to pick a Winner {Sameer Verma, MD of NexusVP} Sameer has been an early-stage investor in over 38 companies that include 2 Unicorns & 1 Decacorn. On the episode I speak with Sameer Verma of NexusVP about some of his investments, the startup ecosystem, and we get a chance to dig deeper into how he thinks about investing. More recently though, Sameer's investee company, Postman, was in the news for putting India on the map for creating a category creating unicorn! Do listen to this episode in its entirety there are some fun anecdotes in the conversation. In case you have limited time, we discuss 5 of my favourite investments of Sameer's portfolio (personal & that of Nexus') from min 47. These cover his investments in Hasura, Postman, Bira91, Licious & MyUpchar. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on YouTube: Part 1 & Part 2 → We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — About Sameer: Based in Bangalore, and a graduate of Illinois Institute of Tech, Sameer focuses on consumer internet, enterprise / SaaS, ed-tech, healthcare and b2b commerce domains. At Nexus, Sameer has led investments in Postman, Unacademy, Infra.market, Zolo, Hasura.io, Ultrahuman, Quandl, RoadRunnr (Zomato), Joveo and a variety of other companies. His complete investment profile can be found on the NexusVP website. Timeline: 05:46 - Radical prioritisation framework 07:25 - Becoming an investor 18:42 - Working in Venture investing, early days 27:53 - Thesis: Teams & People not stuck on idea 29:05 - His personal investing process? 31:40 - COVID's impact - behaviour shift & reinforcement loops 36:46 - Postman investment (part1) 47:53 - Anectodes & Investment stories 48:45 - Hasura 56:56 - Postman (Part2) 58:26 - Bira91 1:05:44 - Licious investment 1:10:20 - Investing in vice's and VC's not investing in such 1:12:37 - Incremental value delivered by Licious 1:15:53 - MyUpchar

EP24: Co-working & Remote-working {Varun Chawla & Anand Vemuri, Co-founders of 91Springboard} 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 the conversation with the co-founders of the contemporary co-working pioneers in India - 91 Springboard, we cover a lot of ground. We chat about: - The Goa vibe & how the 91Springboard team set the trend among businesses that moved their HQ to Goa - The co-working business, how COVID is going to be a catalyst for increased adoption of co-working - Advantages of building a remote team and both of them share some learnings & tips on creating an environment for a remote team's success - Tools 91 Springboard uses for making "working from anywhere" work - Fund raising in this environment - LOT more Stay Safe - V (@varunvummidi) — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on YouTube → We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 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

EP23: {Rahul Chandra, Co-founder of Arkam Ventures} On the latest episode of Stars & Startups we have Rahul Chandra, who was earlier the Managing director at Helion Ventures, a USD 600 million India focused fund, where Rahul led investments into some popular internet investments including Toppr, MoEngage and some of the others he discusses on the show. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — We touch on a range of topics on the episode, including his book the Moonshot Game that was published by Penguin Random House, the thesis of his latest fund - Arkam Ventures that includes LP's such as Binny Bansal & Vijay Shekar Sharma, we also we get his thoughts on agri investments, reverse migration & rural mobility Do reach out to Rahul at arkamvc.com if you're tackling any Middle India problem, B2B or B2C across the spectrum. Don't forget to subscribe & leave us a 5 star rating wherever you are watching or listening to the show! I'd really appreciate that. This podcast's video can be found on YouTube Stay Safe - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 01:00 - Introduction 02:07 - INR 300 crores is just the First Close for the fund 03:45 - Binny Bansal & Vijay Shekar Sharma 06:12 - Introducing thoughts on Arkam VC fund 11:09 - What is Middle India 13:17 - Angels, Founders & Investors working together 17:57 - LPs being advisors 19:02 - The support system process 22:05 - Moonshot Game 24:02 - Entry into the investment world 25:50 - Helion venture investments & Arkam commitments 30:55 - Agri tech 34:32 - Fintech & Agri combo 39:29 - Next generation of farmers 41:31 - Impact of reverse migration 47:10 - Impact of COVID on investments 50:51 - Rural Mobility Opportunity

EP22: Solving for the services at home segment, 10 millions downloads and $175M fund {Raghav Chandra, Co-founder & CPO of Urban Company} On this episode I chat with Raghav Chandra, co-founder of Urban Company, formerly called Urban Clap, where we discuss building products for millions of engaged users and creating a unique platform that now serves major markets in India and globally. We chat about 1. Building a product for the clients and service providers, 2. Owning the supply by standardizing service & vertical integration 3. The 5 pillars of the products to creating value, and 4. Learning the ukulele during lockdown — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — "We're not tied to any category, it gets pulled down if it doesn't work" "Bookings weren't working, we gave up 50% of the then business to focus n things that worked" Co-founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra, the startup has so far served over five million households across 14 cities in India, including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Vadodara, and Visakhapatnam. In the last five years, it also has expanded to Australia, Singapore, and the UAE. UrbanClap is backed by investors like Steadview Capital, Vy Capital, SAIF Partners, Accel and Bessemer Venture Partners and it currently has more than 25,000 individual service professionals (ISPs) on the platform across the seven verticals comprising of services such as beauty, spa, grooming, repairs, cleaning, painting, and fitness and yoga. This episodes Video can be found on YouTube Stay Safe - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 03:00- Genesis of the product 05:41 - Validation of the idea 07:07 - Launching the MVP 10:46 - JustDial vs UrbanClap 14:17 - Building Product 15:08 - Directly owning the Supply 18:27 - Standardizing Service & vertical integration 20:29 - UC Fulfilled & the 5 pillars of the product 22:38 - UC similar to a franchising business 24:50 - Build for Supply & for Clients 27:23 - "Semi-literate" Supply using the app 29:58 - Influence of Yelp & Twitter 34:23 - Process of Category creation 36:27 - Killing categories 40:32 - Launching subscriptions 43:10 - Saying no to aggregators controlling supply on the platform 44:18 - Going International 46:20 - Stakeholders in the UAE market to deliver a service 47:43 - 175 million USD war chest 50:32 - Consumers are "Divinely Discontent" 53:40 - COVID & plans for growth

EP21: 55 million app downloads, business of magazines & newspapers and starting with apps early {Girish Ramdas, Co-founder & CEO of Magzter} If you've had a smart phone since early days you'd likely recognise Magzter. Along with Zinio they were they apps that you could find your favourite magazines from across the world to access and read. They have over 55 million downloads of their apps and Girish speaks off how they hit 1 million downloads a months recently and likely greater than normal downloads due to COVID. On the episode I speak with Girish Ramdas, the CEO of Magzter. We have an unhinged conversation about Magzter, their successes, the journey of starting and scaling. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Magzter is hiring! Do check them out. Founded in 2011, by C.R. Venkatesh, Girish Ramdas & Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan. Magzter has raised a total of US$ 13M from investors including the Singapore Press Holdings & Kalaari Capital. This episode on YouTube . Timeline: 02:27 - Inspiration for Magzter 03:55 - App businesses in early '10s 05:42 - Everyone had a Magzter app 07:17 - The reading destination 08:38 - Deprioritizing products & choosing a path 11:12 - Achieving product market fit after 4-5 years (2015) 11:47 - Newspapers leading to max DAUs; shift in habit 14:14 - National gold medals in rifle shooting & staying active 18:02 - Running a marathon 21:42 - Yogic practice 25:20 - Operating from NYC 26:22 - B2B adoption & new use cases 32:28 - Changing interaction 35:27 - Discovering the Zone use case 37:12 - COVID Baby 38:52 - “Trending” content in education? 40:37 - Academic journals 43:37 - 1 Million download a month, 50% growth in May 43:42 - Retention 45:37 - Splitting the pie 47:27 - User Generated Content 49:37 - Savings using Magzter 50:32 - Form factor 55:12 - Content to Commerce via Magzter 57:53 - Services Business & managing that business 1:03:42 -Trap of being in the services businesses 1:05:02 - Hardware play, moving into new verticals 1:08:49 - Raising money & becoming cashflow positive 1:12:49 - Hiring

EP20: Coffee, Cafes 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 that 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. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → We also have a coffee giveaway as we'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! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 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 (Varun Vummidi) Listen to Episodes on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher Timeline: 01.26 — The Situation 02.41 — Third wave of coffee/starting of BlueTokai 05.53 — Educating Indians about coffee 07.45 — Biggest shift in mindset/trend 08.44 — Customers of BTC 11.30 — Customised coffee at the store 11.21 — Ready to Drink as a response to instant coffee 17.00 — Product development and market share 19.14 — Importance of stores 22.22 — Working with estates 24.40 — Amount of coffee sold monthly 26.41 — New styles of coffee 30.40 — Maintaining consistency 31.51 — Different roasters in the market 33.05 — What is BlueTokai today 35.57 — Effect of home deliveries on online market 38.08 — Training the staff 41.57 — Effects of covid19 46.01 — Owning a farm 47.04 — BlueTokai global

On today's episode I chat with Bhavik Vasa , he's the Ex - Chief Growth officer at ItzCash and managed the business after the acquisition by EBIX. He was instrumental in the ItzCash journey to acquisition. Bhavik & I discuss his journey, the acquisition, mindfulness & his latest venture GetVantage. ----- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! --> We also have a coffee giveaway as we approach EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! Prior to ItzCash Bhavik was a founding member of Radical Payments and ISTS Worldwide, a US based bespoke technology solutions ventures across financial services, retail and mobile payments. Bhavik's latest foray, GetVantage disburses capital through a commercial credit card, which allows the fintech to keep track of the borrower, and ensure that spends are made only towards the main cause of the borrowing. This is a source of alternate capital that seems to be the trend of lenders being enablers by participating in Revenue outcomes than as a fixed interest rate, like a bank would. Globally, alternative funding models have gained significant traction with firms like Clearbanc, Uncapped, and RevUp Capital leading the way to reshaping how digital-first businesses are raising capital. GetVantage, similarly is a revenue-based financing platform, provides marketing and growth capital of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 2 crore to emerging businesses without equity dilution or any interest. Instead, the startup charges a flat fee and disburses loans in less than two weeks. Bhavik is accessible on Twitter & LinkedIn, they're hiring! Stay Safe - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 02:25: - Black tees & lower # of decisions 05:50 - Early career 10:35 - Founding team to founder 12:50 - ItzCash 14:45 - Business of ItzCash 17:00 - What was the Network? 18:41 - Phygital profitability 21:50 - India , depth over wide : “ inch deep & mile wide market” 23:28 - Sponsoring the IPL 27:30 - Moving on from ItzCash/EBIX 29:10 - Mindfulness 38:55 - GetVantage 44:53 - What businesses are a good fit for alternate funding? 49:55 - How do you price GetVantage 52:33 - No Equity taken in those businesses 54:35 - Hiring

Abhinandan (Abhi) is a Vellore Inst of Tech & Warwick grad who has built 3 businesses, Altflo, Chefhost & Liquity right from the moment he graduated. He also launched Premier Futsal 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 interest in entertainment I.P being built out of India. We're witnessing e-sports gain popularity & leagues like the IPL and Kabbadi League break some records, now uptake of new forms of entertainment in India. ------ > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! X1 RL is not only Venture-backed by a some high-profile angels and family offices, it's first edition saw participation from international drivers including names like former F1 champion Niki Lauda's son Mathias, and F1 winner James Hunt's son Freddie. Adding major cred to the league. Abhi has taken his learning from launching Premier Futsal into X1 RL, Futsal was 5 a side short form football league that had brand ambassadors that included Virat Kohli and Luis Figo and Falcao. Futsal also had football superstars involved — Ronaldinho, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, etc.. which Abhi touches upon a little bit (at min 30:40 if you want to hear about that experience!) The venture is backed by a consortium of high-profile angels and family offices including Jiten Gupta, Mohit Burman, Chris Chaney, Raghunandan G, Angellist, Kunal Shah, Rattha Group, White Unicorn Ventures, Lets Venture, Anupam Mittal and Kronos Ventures. Enjoy this episode, this is a good one. Stay safe. — Varun (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 02:30 - Impact of COVID on the X1 League 03:24 - X1 06:38 - Drivers, integral to success 10:55 - Team 11:30 - Mindset of building a team 13:52 - Motor Sports and Global Interest 15:39 - Origin 21:00 - Addition of Teams 21:58 - Support and strategy 24:30 - Marketing for the New Gen 28:03 - eSports & racing from home 29:29 - Regulation of Motorsports 30:49 - Premier Futsal 35:16 - Learnings from Futsal 37:08 - Investors 42:54 - X1 post-COVID 46:24 - Plans & hiring

EP17: {Aloke Bajpai, Co-founder & CEO of IXIGO} On the episode I chat with Aloke Bajpai, CEO of IXIGO, a business that can be called a Travel industry veteran. Aloke & Rajnish have been in the travel ecosystem since the time they graduated from IIT in 2001, first jobs working at the Spanish travel major Amadeus and then building IXIGO as a travel search player in India even before flying was commonplace like it is today — at least prior to COVID19. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! They've been building IXIGO for over 14 years, frugally. Hacking their way through many industry & business cycles and have created an ecosystem of apps that have become leaders in their space to serve 170 million users. In this conversation, Aloke shares his journey starting up, getting through previous cycles and lessons that can help navigate the current situation. Aloke says their mantra to garnering 170 million users: 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 that would help in a downturn is their “frugal mindset” & “marketing without money.” Additionally while navigating a downturn, Aloke recommends over communicating with employees & suggest offering an upside (ESOPs) for those who stick around. Aloke, can be found on LinkedIn & Twitter. They're hiring! In the 14 year journey, they have raised total capital of 35 million USD and have some marquee investors including Sequoia Capital India, Fosun Kinzon Capital, SAIF Partners, MakeMyTrip Ltd. & Micromax Informatics Ltd. apart from some angel investors from their early days. { host is @varunvummidi } Timeline: 02:10 — Joining the IIT's 05:35 — IXIGO and raising cash in a downturn 07:10 — Amadeus and the origins of IXIGO 11:15 — the first year for IXIGO and fund raising 15:10 — the Google for travel 22:21 — Scaling to 170 million users 27:41 — Company culture 33:33 — Encouraging entrepreneurship 37:02 — Coming out of a downturn — learning from the previous cycles 40:51 — Raising funds from MMT & SAIF Partners? 44:19 — Solving for utility as a growth hack to becoming the largest partner to IRCTC 50:40 — Surviving the downturn

We have a deep conversation with Mukul Rustagi of Classplus, and IIT Roorkee grad who had the intent to solve problems right through college, just like his co-founder Bhaswat. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter so that you can receive future podcasts delivered to your inbox! We explore the world of coaching institutes, how a teacher at the institute influences a child's ability to learn and get better. We delve into building the Classplus business model and understand how Classplus has been able to carve a niche for itself and raise 9 million dollars as part of their Series A from marquee investors including Sequoia and Blume Ventures. Mukul has a book recommendation for anyone who loves sports and build a perseverance mentality— Marvan Attapattu My favorite quotes from the show are: “70%-80% of centers are in tier 2 cities and beyond” “Technology cannot replicate the experience of learning from teachers” “Technology will be a supplement teachers” Classplus is hiring, you can find Mukul on LinkedIn and email via mukul@classplus.co Classplus has investments from RTP Global - a prolific investor in early stage startups, Times Internet, Blume Ventures, Sequoia Capital India's Surge, Spiral Ventures, and Strive. Timeline: 2:45 — Early Days 4:42 — Finding each other and the passion for starting up 6:35 — Classplus 8:26 — Competitors; B2B vs B2C 11:29 — Tech adoption outside of Metros & large cities 13:15 — Expense on coaching spends 15:50 — Structuring classes 17:06 — Kota Factory* 20:58 — Mentoring a key part of tutoring 24:41 — Co-creating the product with teachers 33:15 — Sequoia Surge program 35:44 — Series A raise of $ 9 million 36:52 — Spending a large fund raise 39:01 — Hiring 44:03 — Kunal, Bhavish & Kunal

We speak with Vikas Chawla a friend of mine from my time at Loyola College - Chennai , who founded digital agency called Social Beat. He along with his brother Suniel Chawla have built a sought after agency that has won numerous awards as a Premier Google Partner & as a recommended Facebook agency. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter so that you can receive future podcasts delivered to your inbox! In the conversation we talk about the origin story, how an ecomm website became an agency and how an agency is looking at building products to scale beyond the services business. A fun conversation into all things digital and chatting about the 4 businesses being built inside of the agency. Vikas can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter Timeline: 2:13 — Aiesec 3:16 — Getting work experience while at college 4:52 — Working at The Murugappa Group 5:57 —MV Subbiah, Padma Bhushan & ex-Chairman of the Murugappa Group 10:42 — Moving on from Murugappa group to entrepreneurship 13:10 — Exploring Social Commerce 17:10 — Influence and curation is influencing commerce 21:23 — Understanding Social Media filters 23:41 — Transitioning to Social Beat — India's fastest growing Digital agency 26:43 — The client that put us on the map 30:13 — Multi lingual campaigns 32:21 — ROI driven agency 35:45 — UPI's impact on transactions 37:52 — Launching brands products from the Agency 39:02 — influencer.in 41:30 — Ads Quotient 42:30 — 22languages 43:25 — DigiGrad 49:01 — Hiring & Managing COVID19

EP14: Cricketer to Yogi and taking yoga to the world — 130k downloads in 75 days {Sarvesh Sashi, Co-founder & CEO of Sarva} Sarvesh Sashi was a cricketer from Chennai who was picked in 2 IPL squads. Yep, he put IPL fame aside to pursue his love for Yoga. Sarvesh talks about how he met his guru and how he took up Yoga. He also shares how the app has a star studded investor list including celebrities like Jennifer Lopes & her husband, baseball legend, Alex Rodriguez. We get chatting about yoga of course, and a lot lot more. Sarva has Malaika Arora, tv celebrity and actress, as a co-founder and more recently the app also brought onboard cricketer Shikhar Dhawan as an investor. If you want to join a rocket ship you should reach out to Sarvesh and team! Timeline: 01:09 — Arrogance, Attitude & Anger | Circket was life, meeting a guru 06:12 — Injury free with Yoga & being picked up by IPL teams 07:33 — Yoga has genuinely become a part of competitive sports 09:35 — Bikram 11:45 — Yoga being adopted across the world 12:55 — Sarva 14:05 — Adoption of Yoga 15:41 — Improving life outcomes with Yogic practice 17:23 — Importance of Yogic practice 21:35 — Celebrities launching workout programs 24:10 — Getting J.Lo & A.Rod as investors 26:35 — Moving away from creating studios to just focusing on a digital strategy 30:40 — Trends on app usage 32:54 — Enabling jobs with yoga

On the EP13 we explore the world of alcohol and how an app from Chennai making it possible to buy alcohol from neighbourhood wine shops as well as enabling deliveries for these shop owners. Prasanna Natarajan & Prashant Adurty are the founders of Hipbar. Prasanna and I chat about the state of country spirits, and the business of delivering alcohol. “Without knowing the extent of govt oversight, the naivety helped me become successful” Prasanna is a first generation alcohol beverage industry entrepreneur. Trust me, there are a very few of these in India. Hailing from a family of teetotallers, at 27, he launched Sipping Spirits, a craft spirits business in Goa that he started from scratch in 2007. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter so that you can receive future podcasts delivered to your inbox! We get talking about indigenous spirits and the obstacle to their success in India. How so far no online portal could successfully work on the liquor business as Indian laws do not permit the sale and purchase of liquor via digital channels. How HipBar could overcome this legal obstacle by identifying itself as a pure-play fintech company. It currently counts TASMAC shops in Tamil Nadu as clients, has been in operation on and off in Bangalore and more recently started servicing Odisha & West Bengal for deliveries. HipBar is backed by alcohol major Diageo. Hope you enjoy the episode of Stars & Startups with Varun Vummidi as much as I did. You can connect with Prashanth on Linkedin Video: https://youtu.be/XcYUPItDqq4 Timeline: 04:46 — What was the product? 05:35 —  Partnership with Netherlands based Melchers group 10:01 — Classification of IMFL & country spirits 11:03 — Promoting country spirit 12:05 — Why tequila is popular around the world 15:12 — Problem of tagging country liquor as country liquor 16:04 — A case for local speciality alcohols 18:12 — Free movement of alcohol between states? 20:01 — Venturing into the business. 23:00 — Transitioning to HIPBAR from Sipping spirits 24:19 — getting the HIPBAR name 25:17 — creating the Uber experience as the first 25:21 — One City One Price launch via HIPBAR 28:06 — the opportunity to start with deliveries 28:31 — confusion on what resulting in launching deliveries 30: 29 — Mobile payments in multiple states 31:35 — Efficiency is a casualty for wineshops and bars 33:32 — Challenges posed by Zomato & Swiggy to restaurants & bars 37:47 — Govts coming forward to implement digital solutions 40:44 —Regulatory rules, actions taken without oversight 41:41 — Hipbar participating in deliveries as well? Launch in Odisha 42:35 — Hyperlocal bar?

EP12 : {Jitendra of Citrus Pay & Jupiter Money} Exiting to PayU for a cool US$ 130 million cash deal, Angel Investing and on raising US$ 26 million to launch Jupiter with only an idea On this special episode of Stars & Startups I chat with my ex-boss and mentor Jiten Gupta, Founder of Jupiter Money. Jiten was the co-founder of Citrus Payments an online payment company that sold to its rival PayU payments in 2016 for a mammoth $130M cash deal, post which Jiten went on to run PayU's consumer play LazyPay. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter so that you can receive future podcasts delivered to your inbox! A lot of you already know that Jiten has become a prominent angel investor, some call him a Super Angel, with some blockbuster investments in Ridlr (exit old to Ola), JoeHukum(exit to Freshworks), Khatabook (60M $$ in capital raised) & Bank Open (37M $$ in capital from Tiger Global ) and the big one, the craft beer maker Bira 91 the maker of India's favourite white beer. Jiten has a lot more interesting investments, so do search for them if you're interested. He's invested in wide range of companies — consumer products, crypto, transport, entertainment, beauty & wellness and SaaS. We cover a lot of ground in the limited time with Jiten, where we get into the origin of Citrus, sale to PayU, Angel investing & we scratch the surface on what's cooking at Jiten's latest startup Jupiter Money for which he has raised capital of US$ 26M on an idea to create a better banking experience. Jupiter Money is hiring, so do reach out their careers page of you want to be part of Jiten's team. Technology candidates are always welcome and currently looking for folks in digital marketing (as of Jun 2020). Jiten is easily accessible on LinkedIn and Twitter Youtube: https://youtu.be/GMEfRkqpKIE Timeline: 4:05 — Intro to Jiten 6:35 — Genesis of Citrus — working at ICICI & meeting Amrish Rau 8:40 — First course of action for a, initial 2 years of launching Citrus 10:45 — Focussing on going after certain sectors while competing with well funded players 13:25 — Importance of strategic partnerships 14:45 — B2B vs B2C economics and brand 18:45 — Building LazyPay 22:20 — Exiting to PayU 24:30 — Transitioning into an Angel investor 28:35 — Support to investee companies 29:55 — Who should become an angel investor? 31:41 — How Jiten invests 33:35 — Raising a large round of capital on an idea 34:50 — Ambitions for Jupiter 36:35 — What to invest in while having a large pool of capital 38:45 — Mistakes from Citrus that is being avoided 41:50 — Tech talent in Mumbai 44:12 — The KILLER feature for Jupiter Money 45:35 — Hiring for Tech & Marketing 46:01 — Suggestions for entrepreneurs during COVID

On the episode I catch up with award winning photographer Aneesh Bhasin of Svami drinks. Svami is a beverages brand that's part of the latest wave of Indian consumer brands that is catering to a premium audience and offers variety in a segment that has long lacked innovation. Aneesh and I chat about coffee, his experience building his earlier startup HipCask and how he's taken that experience to build SVAMI - a brand that's built up quite the fan following. Aneesh has graciously offered a 15% discount on orders placed on SvamiDrinks.com and should be active for about a month (June2020). Do listen to the podcast to get your discount code! Do follow my channel wherever you listen to the podcast and do sign up to the newsletter so that you can receive the podcast delivered to your inbox! ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter Timeline 12:05 —  Building a taste for the good stuff 17:13 —  learning from launching an iOS app for wine users in Mumbai 24:43 —  Hipcask Passport 30:15 —  team and coming together of SVAMI 33:25 — Creating an FMCG brand for a non-drinker 34:05 — Overcoming the incumbents 36:02 —  Reason to start with “tonics” for an FMCG brand 38:45 —  Why build a brand via bar sales? 42:30 —  Packaging and it's importance 44:25 —  Creating an strong IP around SVAMI Superlative Cocktail League 48:10 —  Building goodwill during the lockdown across the board 50:35 —  Product Development process 58:07 —  Driving purchases and sales channels 1:01:01 —  Fund raising 1:03:33 — Competition from other startups 1:05:45 —  Expansion global vs local Svami Tonics, with their exquisite packaging and wonderful flavours, are finally putting the Indian in Indian Tonic. Svami manufactures and sells premium non-alcoholic drinks and mixers across retail stores, restaurant-pubs and e-commerce channels Aneesh has worked on projects for food, lifestyle and travel for brand including Johnnie Walker, Dom Pérignon, Hennessy, Starbucks, BBC Good Food, Vanity Fair, Lonely Planet, GQ, CN Traveller and a lot more! Svami was founded by three partners Sahil Jatana, Rahul Mehra and Aneesh Bhasin in 2018. All three are connoisseurs of good drinks — be it wine, beer or even coffee. Sahil started one of the first online stores for coffee in India, Rahul started one of the first craft breweries in Mumbai and Aneesh started India's first app for wines and spirits.

EP10: Writing code at the age of 12 to now creating applications that enables easy use of satellite data {Bala Menon, Co-founder of Kawa Space} Bala Menon is a tech entrepreneur who started writing code at the age of 12 and has built products across various industries and now, space. As the co-founder & Chief Product Officer he speaks about how Kawa Space aims to make space technology accessible to everyone; enabling the intelligence from space consumed at scale by businesses. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter The opportunity provided by Space, especially in Low Earth Orbit is a large and an exciting one, with India alone having over 300 companies focused on this market. Kawa is one of the latest in that lot and believe that eventually satellite data will be commoditised and there would be a point where the cost would tend towards zero. Timeline 02:24 — Entering the Orbit: Kawa 05:44 — Launching Satellites vs getting satellite data 11:19 — Space and making sense of managing satellite data 15:52 — Commoditising the Data and Monetizing the Business 21:03 — Competitors and Kawa's USP 28:48 — Becoming a Data Point for public as the Use Case 33:50 —Monetizing for Use Cases 36:24 — Space tech landscape in India 40:01 — Creating a moat 44:27 — Monitoring and rules of usage 47:23 — Onboarding the right team Kawa is said to be working on a service that would make it extremely easy to work with satellite data and offer a platform that would require very little technical help or time for clients to get started. We get a little technical in this episode with Bala Menon of Kawa.Space where he shares the opportunity in the space of Space & what Kawa is building. Kawa Space had recently raised funds from Speciale Invest and a sum from Paytm founder Vijay Shekar Sharma. If you're looking to partner or work with Kawa you can reach out to Bala@kawa.space or missions@kawa.space Bala is also easily accessible on LinkedIn and Twitter

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. 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. Also a little bit about what he's been upto during the lockdown. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter Timeline: 23:10 — Insight on cracking large enterprise sales 27:35 — Hardware vs Software business 30:04 — Operating a drone business 31:50 — Autonomous drones without control — what about the future? 35:12 — Drone use cases 37:23 — Opportunities globally for drones 39:42 — Team, growth & prediction for future of the business 44:30 — Drone racing & rules on flying a drone 47:20 — Challenges being solved by drones In 2017 they had raised an undisclosed amount of capital from the Mumbai Angels Network. Jaspreet is extremely accessible on social channels, so do reach out to him via LinkedIn or Twitter if you'd like to have a chat. Or you can follow WeDoSky

EP08: Building a content business, Zoom weddings and the future of the ~ 12 million annual weddings in India; and the commerce around the occasion 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. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Podcast and Newsletter Show Notes: 4:30 —  Planning The Wedding Brigade 7:18 —  What's the Wedding Brigade? 11:40 — Building quality content 17:23 — Evaluating content & it's impact 19:01 — Evolution of The Wedding Brigade 20:48 — Commerce of weddings 21:33 — Monetizing & event planning 23:51 —  Technology & Weddings 24:16 —  Weddings and Post COVID19 26:31 —  Changing trends in Wedding industry 33:18 —  Wedding budget post Covid 38:36 —  Virtual Weddings 41:18 —  On boarding the investors 46:27 — Looking beyond the creamy layer 53:53 — Changing Branding from Indear to The Wedding Brigade You can find Sanna on Linkedin and on Instagram The Wedding Brigade had raised over $1 million (₹6.9 crore) in a Pre-Series A round of funding led by Japan-based AET fund and Blume Ventures. Do share the episode with friends and family who too could benefit from hearing from Indian startups, founders and their journey. Are there any founder doing amazing things, do send me a message. Would love to have them on the show. You can find me on the Twitter. Don't forget to leave a 5 star rating on your favourite podcast player and do subscribe if you haven't done so already.

Amit Malik, founder of InnerHour, speaks about how Indians are taking to mental health, the stigma around it and how technology is playing role in bridging the gap. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Podcast and Newsletter This week we speak about something that's become the topic of discussion during the pandemic, given job losses, economic slowdown and the many reasons for anxiety. Some estimates that at very least 150 million Indians are in need of intervention for mental health but only 30 million Indians have access to mental health facilities currently. InnerHour was part of the Facebook India innovation Accelerator - AI for Social Good that Amit talks about briefly. He also shares how InnerHour garnered 650,000 users on the play store, who uses InnerHour today and also the Indian wellness landscape. Amit is an experienced Psychiatrist with extensive clinical leadership and healthcare operations experience in Mental Health services in Europe and India. InnerHour is a healthcare technology company looking to disrupt the psychological wellness/mental health provision. To provide an extended support system for people in these challenging socio-economic times, InnerHour is extending its digital programmes and self-help tools pro bono WFH employees of companies. Sign up for the service via www.theinnerhour.com You can find Amit and InnerHour on Twitter Do share the episode with friends and family who too could benefit from hearing from Indian startups, founders and their journey. Are there any founder doing amazing things, do send me a message would love to have them on the show you can send me tweet at me @varunvummidi on the twitter. Don't forget to leave a 5 star rating on your favourite podcast player and do subscribe if you haven't done so already. Show Notes : 1:35 — The Journey behind InnerHour 5:40 — Advantages of psychiatrists having an MBA 9:55 — The difference between UK's & Indian healthcare system 14:10 — Preventive Health in India 16:33 — Monetization & Payment models in the healthcare Industry 18:32 — InnerHour : Journey & Vision 22:47 — How people are reacting during lockdown-mental health 27:30 — Self diagnosis, how current generation looks at mental health 37:38 — Geographically availability of InnerHour 39:27 — Experience at Facebook Acceleration Programme 41:40 — Being a non-tech founder in tech company 42:53 — InnerHour services 45:22 — InnerHour offer during lockdown 46:00 — Hiring at InnerHour 48:08 — Revenues & monetizing the app

Hitesh chats about marketing now, marketing before and his journey from e-comm to real estate and back to e-comm. Hitesh also shares words of advice for Direct to Consumer (D2C) brands on how to approach marketing in the early days and launch their brand. Hitesh Malhotra is a management graduate from UC- Berkeley, prior to Nykaa he was at Jabong.com, MakeMyTrip.com, and an agency — MSL. We may have have misquoted some facts including that about RedBull and Louis Vuitton, feel free to correct us! Hitesh's social media handles: Instagram & LinkedIn Please subscribe to the Podcast and Newsletter Do share the episode with friends and family who too could benefit from hearing from Indian startups, founders and their journey. Are there any founder doing amazing things, do send me a message would love to have them on the show you can send me tweet at me @varunvummidi on Twitter .. Don't forget to leave a 5 star rating on your favourite podcast player and do subscribe if you haven't done so already. Show Notes: 8:00 — Hiring for the team 12:00 — Marketing now, Marketing before 14:51 — The Loyalty vs Life Time Value debate 18:45 — Impact to beauty category as a non-essential item 23:03 — Marketing & human behavior post COVID 27:23 — platforms of the the future 30:02 — Direct2 Consumer brands of future & Marketing 35:59 — Marketing & impression and budget 36:58 — Are marketplaces helping small brands? 38:53 — Using an agency vs a team for a d2c brand 43:00 — Developing talent 45:08 — Changing consumer behavior 49:45 — Influencer Marketing 51:53 — Hitesh's favorite marketing channel 53:25 — Favorite ad-campaign 56:16 — Words for new CMOs 57:30 — Creating IP