Podcasts about shashank kumar

It's Friday, March 7th, 2025. This is Nelson John, let's get started.  India's Market Turmoil & Potential Rebound The Nifty 50 has plunged 14% from its September peak, making it one of 2025's worst-performing global indices. However, India's steep valuations have cooled, with MSCI India's forward P/E ratio dropping to 17.93x. Analysts suggest the correction may be nearing its end, as similar past downturns have led to rebounds. While Jefferies India sees potential for outperformance, uncertainty remains due to delayed tax cuts, RBI policy shifts, and global trade tensions. Investors are closely watching upcoming inflation data (March 12), RBI's April rate decision, and the U.S. Fed's March 18-19 meeting for liquidity signals. The road ahead remains volatile, but history hints at a turnaround. Razorpay Expands to Singapore Fintech giant Razorpay is entering Singapore, its second Southeast Asian market after Malaysia, aiming to simplify payments and cut cross-border transaction fees by up to 40%. “Singapore is the ideal market for our next phase of growth,” said co-founder Shashank Kumar. With digital payments projected to hit $180 billion by 2029 and near-total cashless adoption, the expansion is strategic. Razorpay's payment gateway Curlec, which launched in Malaysia, is already seeing 30% month-on-month growth. Backed by investors like Tiger Global and Peak XV, Razorpay reported ₹2,501 crore in FY24 revenue, with net profits at ₹34 crore. While expanding globally, the India-born firm is also preparing for a domestic listing. Mudra Yojana's Impact on Small Businesses For years, small business owners in India struggled to access credit due to collateral requirements and complex banking norms. In 2015, the government launched the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) to provide collateral-free loans. Since then, ₹31.85 trillion has been disbursed, with Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka receiving the highest amounts. Over 516 million loans have been sanctioned, fueling entrepreneurship, job creation, and financial inclusion. Q3 FY25 saw a record ₹3.39 trillion disbursed, reflecting strong demand. In response, the government raised the loan limit to ₹20 lakh, effective October 2024. Meanwhile, non-performing assets (NPAs) under the scheme have improved, dropping to 3.4% in FY24. The U.S.-China Quantum Computing Race Quantum computing, a technology capable of solving problems in minutes that would take today's supercomputers billions of years, has sparked a fierce U.S.-China rivalry. In Hefei, a Chinese startup displayed a rare quantum machine, while American giants like Google and IBM pushed the field's limits. China's state-backed model has advanced quantum communications, sensing, and cooling technology, while America's private-sector-led innovation faces investor pressure. The U.S. imposed strict export controls, fearing China's rapid progress. With China leading in ultra-secure quantum communications and America holding a wide lead in quantum computing, the race for dominance remains heated, with global power at stake. Nestlé's Nespresso Bets Big on India's Coffee Boom India has long been a tea-drinking nation, but a new wave of young, affluent consumers is driving a coffee boom—one Nespresso wants to tap into. The brand launched its first boutique in Delhi's Nexus CityWalk mall, catering to consumers eager to recreate café-quality coffee at home. “Young consumers are exposed to coffee trends through social media and cafés. Now, they want that experience at home,” says Nespresso CEO Philipp Navratil. With machines starting at ₹16,500 and coffee pods at ₹95 each, Nespresso is targeting the premium market. The company is also eyeing India's growing hospitality sector, supplying five-star hotels, offices, and corporate lounges. With the café market growing at 8.1% annually, Nestlé is making a long-term play to redefine India's coffee culture.

Agent-based modeling (ABM) seeks to understand the behavior of complex systems by simulating a collection of agents that act and interact within an environment. Their practical utility requires capturing realistic environment dynamics and adaptive agent behavior while efficiently simulating million-size populations. Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) present an opportunity to enhance ABMs by using LLMs as agents with further potential to capture adaptive behavior. However, the computational infeasibility of using LLMs for large populations has hindered their widespread adoption. In this paper, we introduce AgentTorch -- a framework that scales ABMs to millions of agents while capturing high-resolution agent behavior using LLMs. We benchmark the utility of LLMs as ABM agents, exploring the trade-off between simulation scale and individual agency. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, we demonstrate how AgentTorch can simulate 8.4 million agents representing New York City, capturing the impact of isolation and employment behavior on health and economic outcomes. We compare the performance of different agent architectures based on heuristic and LLM agents in predicting disease waves and unemployment rates. Furthermore, we showcase AgentTorch's capabilities for retrospective, counterfactual, and prospective analyses, highlighting how adaptive agent behavior can help overcome the limitations of historical data in policy design. AgentTorch is an open-source project actively being used for policy-making and scientific discovery around the world. The framework is available here: github.com/AgentTorch/AgentTorch. 2024: Ayush Chopra, Shashank Kumar, Nurullah Giray-Kuru, Ramesh Raskar, A. Quera-Bofarull https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.10568v1

Razorpay, a leading fintech name in India, providing a payments platform and banking-as-a-service software to some 10 million businesses, in the country, yesterday elevated Rahul Kothari to the position of chief operating officer for India and Malaysia. Kothari was previously chief business officer at the company. He will report to founder and CEO Harshil Mathur, the Bengaluru company said in a press release yesterday. This appointment sharpens Razorpay's focus on the Southeast Asia region, where it's looking to expand. The company also aims to implement a deeper integrated strategy to step up growth by improving customer experience across its different lines of business and products. In January, I wrote that Razorpay was at an inflexion point. About a month before that Shashank Kumar, the other founder, and Murali Brahmadesam had spoken about sustaining the culture of engineering at the company as it became bigger. Brahmadesam came in from AWS, earlier last year, and he'd taken on the CTO's role from Kumar, who was looking to free himself up from day-to-day engineering to focus on products strategy. The company has about 1,000 engineers among its 3,500 staff, or “Razors” as they're called internally, including several senior engineering leaders. Kumar had talked about how over the next five years, Razorpay would seek “tremendous scale.” And imports such as Brahmadesam will be playing a critical role on the engineering front.  Razorpay is stepping up its expansion into a broader financial services platform, from its flagship payments business—it accounts for most of its revenues and is making money on a standalone basis—to facilitating loans, and banking software. The company is expected to go deeper into the emerging hot area of ‘banking as a service,' which accounting giant Deloitte defines as provisioning of banking products and services through third-party distributors. This opens up the possibility that a large number of new niche finance startups can partner large, established banks and financial services companies, and help each other tap a significantly larger market than they could individually. Razorpay could emerge as a facilitator of this growth, and benefit from it. To throw the story forward, while Razorpay has made a name for itself in India, “We want to see how we can create a global engineering brand while we are working out of Bengaluru and India,” Kumar had told me a year ago. Organizational changes such Kothari's appointment are important incremental steps in that direction on the business front. Kothari has a degree in chemical engineering from IIT Kanpur, and an MBA from Indian School of Business.  Over the last 20 years or so, he's worked in the US, Europe and Australia. Currently based in Pune, he's into his fifth year with Razorpay. Previously, Kothari played a critical role in making the payments business profitable at PayU, according to Razorpay's press release. He's also worked at security software company Symantec, BPO company WNS, and Boston Consulting Group. Next year, Razorpay will be 10 years old. Technically, it was started in 2013 in Jaipur, but Mathur and Kumar, alumni of IIT Roorkee, moved base to Bengaluru quickly, and the company is widely considered to be founded in 2014. They were one of the first Indian startup founders to be part Y Combinator. Investors including Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, TCV, GIC, Tiger Global, Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India), Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners, and Salesforce Ventures have invested a total of $741.5 million in the company in six rounds of funding. In December 2021, the company was privately valued at $7.5 billion, making it one of India's most valued startups. The company reported close to Rs. 1,500 crore in FY22 revenues, a 75 percent growth over the previous fiscal, and it was profitable on a standalone basis, for the flagship payments business.

Solana Mobile launched a web3-focused Android mobile phone Saga, along with an open-source software toolkit, Solana Mobile Stack; and is looking to take on the phone and app ecosystem giants like Apple and Google. We talked about the process of launching new hardware, working with the team behind Essential Phone, origin story of Solana Mobile, why the web3 ecosystem needs a web3 phone, and much more. SPONSORS Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio?fpr=prashant and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/creativedrewy Website: https://solanamobile.com/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagg Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (00:00) - Working with the team behind Essential phone (02:00) - Origin story of Solana Mobile (05:06) - Impact of a web3 phone on the ecosystem (10:45) - Manufacturing Process (15:20) - Feature 1: Seed Vault (18:55) - Feature 2: Wallet Adapter (20:01) - Feature 3: Dapp Store (27:27) - User Experience (31:40) - Launch (34:35) - Dapp Ideas TOP EPISODES 87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Michael founded Etherspot, offering account abstraction SDK to improve the web3 user experience. We talk about abstraction, wallet as a service, onboarding web2 developers to web3, leveraging AI, and much more. SPONSORS Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio?fpr=prashant and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/mm319 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmessele/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/etherspot Discord: https://discord.com/invite/GAkYj6m5Uh Telegram: https://t.me/etherspot Website: etherspot.io Build: https://buidler.etherspot.io/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (00:00) - What is account abstraction? (08:07) - Wallet as a Service & Social Login (33:40) - Onboarding web2 developers to web3 (35:51) - Leveraging AI TOP EPISODES 87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Wojtek is the Founder of Mazury.xyz - a web3 platform to earn, display, and use your web3 credentials to access exclusive job and career growth opportunities. We talked about going from a broke college dropout to raising million dollars for Mazury, ideal user experience for freelancers, the downside of building in a bull market, web3 messaging, and much more. SPONSORS Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio?fpr=prashant and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/wojtekwtf LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wojtekwojtek/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (00:00) - Broke college dropout to raising million dollars in crypto (06:03) - Origin story of Mazury (10:30) - Is it web3 LinkedIn? (14:40) - Being a founder in this space (23:15) - Ideal UX for freelancers & recruiters on Mazury (34:38) - Downsides of building in a bull market (40:12) - Mazury vs Braintrust (44:11) - Mazury integrating XMTP TOP EPISODES 87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Sukhman & his co-founder both worked as data consultants where they helped companies understand their customers. This included analyzing consumer behavior, habits, and demographics. While in these roles they started to see the blatant disregard for consumer privacy to prioritize marketing and profits. The work they did exploited customer data and directly provided millions of dollars in value to these companies. They felt like villains at work. This is when they started researching ways to protect their own online privacy and realized how difficult this task was. The onus was continuously on the average person to follow best practices, which often required tons of conscious effort and ruined the user experience. This is why they came up with Cyder. Cyder is a browser extension that makes privacy, and data ownership simple, free, and accessible to everyone. Their mission has always been to create an internet where users own and get compensated for their data. We talk about building Cyder, disregard for consumer privacy, expectation vs reality of being a founder, going viral with YC application video, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sukhmandulay/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cyder/ Cyder: https://www.getcyder.com/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Data consulting after graduation (4:00) - Feeling like villains at work (13:33) - Decentralized blockchain for data security (17:56) - Data Ethics (22:59) - Ad desensitization (28:35) - Origin story of Cyder (37:08) - Expectation vs Reality of being a founder (41:30) - Importance of having a co-founder (44:10) - Going viral with YC application video (46:20) - Do you still feel like a villain at work? TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Christopher is the founder of meTokens - allowing individuals to issue their own personal tokens. Personal tokens can be used to pay builders & creators for their work or to gain special access to their inboxes and calendar. We talk about the history of Personal Tokens, setting up a personal DAO, experiments in this space, token-gated experiences, future of Chris's token, and more. SPONSORS Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/CBobRobison MeTokens: https://metokens.com CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (00:00) - Origin story of meTokens (7:08) - Personal Tokens will lead to a better society (14:50) - Personal DAOs ?!? (18:16) - Live Discord concerts (19:54) - Experiments with Personal Tokens (25:20) - Token-gated experiences (27:32) - "Separation of Money and State" - E.C. Riegal (34:26) - Aligning incentives for issuer and holder (43:15) - Payment with meTokens (48:05) - User Adoption (51:34) - Future of $CBOB token (53:26) - Revisiting Payment with meTokens TOP EPISODES 87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Arman and Parker are the founders of Peaze - allowing you to use any dapp with just an email and credit card. A lot of cool things are being built in web3 - but most of the new users who come in are unable to use them. Users have to download a wallet, manage the private keys, on-ramp the correct crypto, swap it into the correct asset, bridge, transfer over from Coinbase, etc. Web3 user onboarding is a real problem. What if you could just sign in with your email. SPONSORS Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArmanVaziri || https://twitter.com/Peaze Medium: https://medium.com/@Peaze LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/arman-vaziri/ || https://www.linkedin.com/company/76595591 CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (00:00) - Leaving big tech job for build in web3 (03:30) - Origin story of Peaze (5:59) - How Peaze lowers the barrier to entry for dapps (08:30) - What happens behind the scenes when a user signs-in with Google on Peaze? (10:00) - How Peaze secures the private keys of a user? (11:23) - Narrowing down on the user onboarding problem (13:49) - Is Peaze Stripe for web3? (17:25) - User education around web3 concepts (21:10) - North Star Metric of Peaze (24:19) - The one-click experience (30:53) - Helping users become self-custodian (32:35) - DeFi is the use case for crypto '(35:12) - Market Adoption (37:44) - The Peaze Logo (38:40) - Raising $2m during a crypto downturn (51:02) - Other Web3 Trends TOP EPISODES 87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tristen Larsen is the founder and CEO of Blockem AI, an advanced anti-scam detection software for Ethereum wallets. We talked about how trust percentages are calculated, losing $20K in a crypto scam, origin story of Blockem, why web3 UX sucks, how their team flagged FTX wallets 2 months before the whole fiasco and much more. SPONSORS XMTP: https://xmtp.org/ Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/Suited_ETH Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suited/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristen-larsen-%F0%9F%93%B2-1a953a114/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (00:00) - How is the Trust Percentage calculated? (02:50) - Scams in Crypto (4:24) - Losing $20,000 in a scam (9:47) - Origin story of Blockem (14:31) - Product Insights (20:07) - Web3 UX sucks (23:04) - What does the Trust Percentage mean? (27:10) - Red flags in Smart Contracts (31:39) - Ideal user experience of Blockem (36:33) - Creative new scams in the industry (39:00) - Flagged FTX 2 months before the whole fiasco !! (42:54) - Story of coming up with the name (47:11) - Remote culture (52:31) - Reading 15 books per month TOP EPISODES 87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Ayush Ranjan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Huddle01 - enabling open and decentralized video meetings. We talked about building Huddle01 at a hackathon, what happens behind the scenes during a video call, decentralization efforts, finding product market fit and green crypto. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/ranjan3118 Farcaster: @ranjan3118 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ranjan_3018/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjan18/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjan18/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Why web3 Zoom? (3:53) - Meeting Co-Founder (5:46) - Building Huddle01 at a hackathon (09:50) - Architecture Overview (13:22) - Decentralization efforts & tradeoffs (29:20) - Finding Product Market Fit (37:23) - Quality vs Speed (38:32) - Green Crypto (40:51) - Longevity, Space & Quantum TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Pei Li dropped out of the University of Toronto to go full-time at Weathsimple, started a software consulting agency, and is now the co-founder of Venue. We talk about growing up in a financially poor background, landing internships at IBM and Shopify, traveling in Asia, building software consulting agencycanva and much more. SPONSORS Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Website: https://www.venue.live/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peicodes/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Growing up in a financially poor background (4:23) - Landing internship at IBM, Shopify & Wealthsimple (11:41) - First shot at building startup (15:42) - Travelling & consulting (24:05) - Joining Venue (26:25) - Replacing in-person conferences (30:00) - Venue's value proposition (37:30) - Raising $4M TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Delian Asparouhov is a principal at the Founders Fund and co-founder of Varda Space Industries, a space manufacturing startup. We talked about juggling between a VC and founder role, the science of space manufacturing, future plans, life of a space factory worker, creating zero-gravity on Earth, hiring from SpaceX, superpower of Peter Thiel, and more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/zebulgar?s=20&t=pfJTZ4FToEOJ2NY7gjAt2g LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delian-asparouhov-87447742/ Website: https://varda.com/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Juggling between VC and founder role (5:18) - Science of space manufacturing (12:45) - Putting Factories in Space (18:30) - Life of a space factory worker (21:09) - Is zero-gravity manufacturing on Earth possible? (27:28) - Hiring from SpaceX's Dragon team (33:29) - Role of NASA in the space economy (37:32) - Economic incentives in the space industry TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tibo started his career selling TVs and now makes $1M in ARR from his Twitter growth tool, TweetHunter. We talk about learnings from the first startup, shipping a product every 2 weeks, success of TweetHunter, acquiring initial users, finding a co-founder, making $1M ARR, and more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/tibo_maker LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thibaultll/ OUTLINE (0:00) Selling TVs (2:32) First Startup: Motivating Kids to do chores (9:50) Shipping a product every 2 weeks (14:59) Success of TweetHunter (19:26) Acquiring Initial Users & Finding Co-founder on Twitter (25:20) How to validate idea (28:18) Importance of building audience for Founders (34:55) Marketing your side projects (36:49) Making $1M ARR from TweetHunter (40:45) The viral TweetHunter Challenge (43:48) Replicating TweetHunter Success on LinkedIn TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Sang Le, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Shane Mac is building a crypto-native communication protocol for web3. Similar to SMTP for email, XMTP will enable communication between existing crypto wallets via its own independent protocol and decentralized network. XMTP has raised a $20M Series A from a16z Crypto, with participation from strategic angels like Packy McCormick, Alexis Ohanian, Anthony Pompliano, Austin Rief, Balaji Srinivasan, Bored Elon, Naval Ravikant, Rahul Vohra, Scott Belsky, and Sriram Krishnan. We talk about being young and lucky, learnings from interviewing Gary Vee, writing a book at 23, entrepreneurship, the origin story of XMTP, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/shanemac Blog: https://blog.shanemac.com/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Young and Lucky (12:22) - Getting calmer (18:31) - Gary Vee (25:37) - Hosting Podcast (30:57) - Great podcast episode (32:08) - Heavy Conversations (40:33) - Culture (42:50) - Writing Book (52:00) - Entrepreneurship (59:06) - XMTP (01:04:25) - Meaning of Life TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Anshul Rustaggi graduated from IIT, then IIM, worked at a hedge fund in London, came back to India, went to law school, got into the cannabis business, and now is building in web3 with Zionverse. We discuss crypto bear markets, tokenomics, how web3 incentivizes the right behaviour, the Bible of Metaverse, why Twitter only allows 280 characters, web4 and more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anshulrustagi/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anshulrustaggi/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnshulRustaggi CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Crypto Bear Market (11:14) - What kicked off Bear Market (18:32) - Stablecoin is gateway to mass crypto adoption (24:50) - Wikipedia should adopt cryptocurrency (27:44) - Web3 incentivizes the right behaviour (31:53) - Zionverse 101 (39:29) - Why Metaverse will be Mobile-driven not VR-driven (46:07) - Why do they hand out "Snow Crash" to every new team member (49:47) - Building a Web3 company (01:01:35) - Roadmap of Zionverse (01:05:48) - Why do we play Teen Patti on Diwali (01:08:46) - Web4 ?!?!?! (01:13:43) - Video games are extremely valuable for Kids (01:20:51) - Future TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tyler Denk led product & growth at Morning Brew, did product stint at Google and then last year, launched beehiiv - a newsletter platform empowering creators to monetize and grow like never before. We talked about building startup in college, dropping Big 4 consulting firm to join Morning Brew, scaling newsletter to 3M subcribers, product management lessons from Google, launching beehiiv, why email newsletter is a great business and more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio?fpr=prashant and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tylerdenk_/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/denk_tweets CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Building startup in college (4:57) - Dropping Big 4 consulting firm to join Morning Brew (9:05) - Early success of Morning Brew (10:40) - Sending newsletter from bars & games (14:31) - Lessons from growing newsletter to 3M subs (17:42) - Economics of newsletter (20:38) - The Hustle & competition (22:28) - Morning Brew's world-class Referral Program (27:25) - Product Management lessons from Google (36:10) - Origin story of beehiiv (41:28) - Why email newsletter is a great business? (50:37) - Growth channels (53:28) - Taking ad-share away from Facebook and Google (56:05) - Homegrown Success Story: Milkroad.com (58:01) - Fundraising (58:55) - Web3 TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Shashank Kumar is co-founder of Razorpay - a $7.5B fintech giant in India. He graduated from IIT Roorkee, worked at Microsoft in Seattle, was driving Mustang, and still felt he could do more. So he flew back to India and built a unicorn. We talked about life post-graduation, living in US, convincing dad to move back to India, early days of Razorpay, getting into YC, imposter syndrome, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/shashank_kr LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kumarshashank/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) Driving Mustang at 22 (4:58) Life in US post IIT (9:02) Origin of Razorpay (15:03) Dad's reaction to coming back home (18:06) Finding Product-Market Fit (21:20) How Y Combinator took growth to another level (26:21) Paid 25 lacs to get a Payment Gateway License (30:20) Imposter Syndrome (34:51) Hiring first 10 employees (38:53) The story behind the name 'Razorpay' (40:43) RBI driving innovation in the Indian fintech ecosystem (43:08) Living with co-founder even today (44:57) Future of Tier 3 & Tier 4 cities (48:12) Philosophy of Money (52:07) Day in Life as CTO of a unicorn (54:13) Razorpay's Web3 strategy (56:45) Reverse Brain Drain (1:02:56) Dad's Reaction today [MUST WATCH] TOP EPISODES 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell on Everything Bitcoin 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan 10: Aryaman Maheshwari, Software Engineer at Google (Hindi) Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Arvin Khamseh is a NFT marketing expert. He has helped 400+ NFT brands sell out. One of them made $10m+ in 20 hours. We talked about the current state of NFT market, biohacking, web3 vs web2 marketing, working with 400+ collections, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arvinkhamseh/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/arvinknft Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arvinknft Website: soldoutnfts.io CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Current state of NFT market (4:16) - Noise vs Signal in NFT conferences (10:12) - How he got into Web3 (21:15) - How NFT marketing works (23:27) - Marketing in Web3 vs Web2 (32:13) - Making $10M in 20 hours (37:06) - Is sell out guaranteed? (40:46) - Are NFTs hyped? (45:11) - $800 for a 30 min call (49:15) - Does good artwork or utility guarantee sell out? (52:00) - Biohacking (57:15) - Conclusion TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Kurtis Hanni helps business owners understand their financial statements and teaches them how to use numbers to think strategically about the business. He also runs a podcast called Frameworks & Finance. We talk about personal finance, living with intention, content consumption, storytelling, credit cards, the Waterline Principle, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtishanni/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/KurtisHanni Website: https://kurtishanni.com/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Graduating in the 2008 crash (3:11) - Should you cut your credit card? (10:15) - The importance of learning business finance (23:00) - Living with Intention (25:20) - Jurassic Park movie is not about Dinosaurs (27:55) - Increase your content consumption (37:57) - Frameworks for Life and Business (47:00) - Rhythms of life (51:10) - Building 'Frameworks & Finance' Podcast TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Josh Kaplan is the Co-founder & CEO of Smooth Media where they help creators build media businesses. After graduation, he joined PwC and then, led Audio Products at Morning Brew. We talked about getting into Morning Brew, experiences working with founders, lessons learnt from launching Business Casual podcast, origin of Smooth Media, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-kaplan-35029b73/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JKaplan1 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josh_kaplan_/ Website: https://www.smoothmedia.co/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Quitting PwC to join Morning Brew (2:56) - Early days of Morning Brew (4:46) - Growing Business Casual podcast to millions of downloads (7:05) - Getting Mark Cuban on the pod (11:09) - Origin story of Smooth Media (13:41) - Landing Colin & Samir as first client (17:44) - Smooth Media vs Jelly Smack (22:52) - Trends in Creator Economy (26:52) - Business Model of Smooth (28:22) - Solving Tax Filing for Creators (29:54) - Potential of Creator-led brands (32:58) - Being Founder vs Employee (36:40) - Creator Anxiety TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Aditi Kothari is the Product Manager of Razorpay Rize. She got into product management in an unconventional way, after randomly meeting the founder of Rapido in a cafe. Previously, she was PM at Bounce and runs a CBC (cohort-based-course) on No Code for Airtribe. We talked about breaking into product management, landing PM role at Razorpay, the fundamental difference between Swiggy and Zomato, micromobility strategy of Bounce, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditi-kothari/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/aditikothari_ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aditi_kothari_/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Got into Product Management after meeting a founder in cafe (7:25) - Life as a PM (11:24) - Strategy of Bounce during COVID (12:19) - Cracking Razorpay (14:31) - Interview rounds of Razorpay (18:38) - Fundamental difference between Swiggy & Zomato (20:50) - Impact of Razorpay Rize Program (25:23) - Reality of No-code tools (30:30) - Hosting CBC on No code with Airtribe TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Jeremy Moser is the CEO of uSERP, a $4M SEO agency that he scaled from 0 to $1,000,000 in ARR in just one year. They've worked with brands like Freshworks, ActiveCampaign, Monday.com, Robinhood, etc. He also owns a SaaS business called Wordable and he occasionally writes for Entrepreneur magazine. We talk about being a Twitch streamer even before it was a thing, why startups should invest early and often in SEO, why agency can be an incredible business model, acquiring SaaS startup, using Twitter for lead generation, infinite networking, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyamoser/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jmoserr Website: https://userp.io/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Getting paid to play video games in high school (3:18) - Why SEO (4:30) - Why agency is an incredible business model (6:45) - Reaching $1M ARR in the first year (10:04) - What does a successful SEO agency do? (11:40) - How are brands adapting to the upcoming recession? (13:26) - How to price your services and capture upside? (21:16) - Objections to closing clients (23:16) - How long does it take to get results from SEO? (26:30) - Monday.com Case Study (29:52) - Economics of Acquiring a SaaS startup (37:47) - Leveraging Twitter for Lead Generation (41:02) - Twitter vs LinkedIn (44:55) - Good copywriting requires unlearning everything that school taught TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Rachael Zisk is a journalist at Payload Space - where she covers the business and policy of space in their daily newsletter. We talk about becoming a space journalist, development of the James Webb Space Telescope, all the magnificent JWST images, instruments onboard and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaelzisk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RachaelZisk CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Becoming a Space Journalist (5:40) - Background of James Webb Space Telescope (12:45) - Instruments onboard JWST (15:15) - Possibility of life on WASP-96B (16:41) - Beautiful cosmic cliffs of Carina Nebula (17:21) - How stars are born? (19:25) - Southern Ring Nebula (20:39) - Stephan's Quintet (22:18) - GLASS-z13 galaxy (26:07) - 344 Single Point of Failures (28:47) - Deciding what to capture (32:40) - Is money spent on space worth it? (36:25) - JWST sustaining a micrometeoroid impact (41:57) - New Space Science newsletter (50:50) - Conclusion TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tristen Larsen is the founder and CEO of Blockem AI, an advanced anti-scam detection software for Ethereum wallets. We talked about how trust percentages are calculated, losing $20K in a crypto scam, origin story of Blockem, why web3 UX sucks, how their team flagged FTX wallets 2 months before the whole fiasco and much more. SPONSORS XMTP: https://xmtp.org/ Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/Suited_ETH Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suited/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristen-larsen-%F0%9F%93%B2-1a953a114/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (00:00) - How is the Trust Percentage calculated? (02:50) - Scams in Crypto (4:24) - Losing $20,000 in a scam (9:47) - Origin story of Blockem (14:31) - Product Insights (20:07) - Web3 UX sucks (23:04) - What does the Trust Percentage mean? (27:10) - Red flags in Smart Contracts (31:39) - Ideal user experience of Blockem (36:33) - Creative new scams in the industry (39:00) - Flagged FTX 2 months before the whole fiasco !! (42:54) - Story of coming up with the name (47:11) - Remote culture (52:31) - Reading 15 books per month TOP EPISODES 87: Shane Mac, President of XMTP Labs 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Karthik Jayaraman, Co-Founder WayCool chats with Gaurav Ranjan, VP Investments Prime Venture Partners.Listen to the podcast to learn about01:30 - Push-Led Supply Chain to Demand Led Supply Chain10:00 - Role of Tech in Food Supply Chain18:00 - Depth in One Category Vs Building Breadth30:00 - Build in-house, Acquire or Use 3rd Party Service Providers?35:00 - Solving Credit for Farmers38:00 - Resource Allocation: Physical CFO & Digital CFO42:00 - “My Job is to Develop Leaders”Click here to read the full transcriptWant to learn more about about AgriTech in India? Listen to this episode with Shashank Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO DeHaat where we talk about Scalability and Monetisation in AgriTech; Role of Tech(Enabler or Revenue Generator); Managing Scale in a Fast Growing Startup; New Startup Opportunities in AgriTech Space and a lot more. ----------We are organising a B2B commerce Roundtable, followed by a mixer, on 7th December in Bangalore. Join us if you are building in the B2B commerce space and would like to get insights from entrepreneurs and investors in the space.  Panelists include:- Sanjay Dasari, Co-Founder WayCool Foods- Nishant Verman, Co-Founder Bzaar- Shashank Singh, Co-Founder Poshn- Shivani Kulkarni, Senior Associate Prime Venture PartnersThis is a curated event and has limited slots. Please register at the earliest to confirm your participation. Register here: https://lu.ma/B2BCommerce----------Enjoyed the podcast? Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and subscribe wherever you are listening to this.Follow Prime Venture Partners:Twitter: https://twitter.com/Primevp_inLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/primevp/ This podcast is for you. Do let us know what you like about the podcast, what you don't like, the guests you'd like to have on the podcast and the topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes. Please share your feedback here: https://primevp.in/podcastfeedback

Pei Li is currently the co-founder of Venue, was previously the founder of CodeMode, a small development agency specializing in building MVPs. Studied at University of Toronto after that he has worked as a software engineer at Wealthsimple. We talked about growing in an unprivileged family, taking internships at companies like IBM, raising funds, building consultation firm and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Website: https://www.venue.live/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peicodes/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Growing up in a financially poor background (4:23) - Landing internship at IBM, Shopify & Wealthsimple (11:41) - First shot at building startup (15:42) - Travelling & consulting (24:05) - Joining Venue (26:25) - Replacing in-person conferences (30:00) - Venue's value proposition (37:30) - Raising $4M TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Ayush Ranjan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Huddle01 - enabling open and decentralized video meetings. We talked about building Huddle01 at a hackathon, what happens behind the scenes during a video call, decentralization efforts, finding product market fit, and green crypto. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/ranjan3118 Farcaster: @ranjan3118 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ranjan_3018/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjan18/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjan18/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Why web3 Zoom? (3:53) - Meeting Co-Founder (5:46) - Building Huddle01 at a hackathon (09:50) - Architecture Overview (13:22) - Decentralization efforts & tradeoffs (29:20) - Finding Product Market Fit (37:23) - Quality vs Speed (38:32) - Green Crypto (40:51) - Longevity, Space & Quantum TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shane Mac, Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Tyler Denk, Anshul Rustaggi, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Today's guest on First Principles is Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder of Razorpay.Razorpay claims to be India's first full-stack financial solutions company. And if that sounds very much like how a coder would describe a company, it's because that's exactly what's happening.When Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, two coding enthusiasts fresh into their first jobs, started working on what would later become Razorpay, they never really set out to build a company or be entrepreneurs. They just wanted to solve a problem.But in doing so, they were compelled to create Razorpay.Today's episode is a delightful mix of first principles thinking, thoughts on product development, and the importance of deliberately driving company culture. Earlier in August, The Ken's journalist Shashwat Mohanty did a story on the challenges Razorpay faces in realising its neo-banking dream. The story is now behind a paywall but you can find it here.Feedback? Write to us on podcasts@the-ken.com

Shashank Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO DeHaat chats with Gaurav Ranjan, VP Investments Prime Venture Partners.Listen to the podcast to learn about05:20 - "We Started when AgriTech was Agriculture"14:40 - Scalability and Monetisation in AgriTech 23:00 - Role of Tech(Enabler or Revenue Generator)37:10 - Managing Scale in a Fast Growing Startup 43:30 - New Startup Opportunities in AgriTech SpaceClick here to read the full transcriptNext, Learn the secrets of unlocking growth as a tech startup by harnessing the power of positioning. We were in conversation with April Dunford, who talks about her own experience of discovering the power of positioning, how to position a product in a market category, positioning yourself against a Giant, standing out in a crowded market, positioning trends and more. Tell me more Enjoyed the podcast? Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and subscribe wherever you are listening to this.Follow Prime Venture Partners:Twitter: https://twitter.com/Primevp_inLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/primevp/ This podcast is for you. Do let us know what you like about the podcast, what you don't like, the guests you'd like to have on the podcast and the topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes. Please share your feedback here: https://primevp.in/podcastfeedback

Delian Asparouhov is a principal at the Founders Fund and co-founder of Varda Space Industries, a space manufacturing startup. We talked about juggling between a VC and founder role, the science of space manufacturing, future plans, life of a space factory worker, creating zero-gravity on Earth, hiring from SpaceX, superpower of Peter Thiel, and more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/zebulgar?s=20&t=pfJTZ4FToEOJ2NY7gjAt2g LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delian-asparouhov-87447742/ Website: https://varda.com/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Juggling between VC and founder role (5:18) - Science of space manufacturing (12:45) - Putting Factories in Space (18:30) - Life of a space factory worker (21:09) - Is zero-gravity manufacturing on Earth possible? (27:28) - Hiring from SpaceX's Dragon team (33:29) - Role of NASA in the space economy (37:32) - Economic incentives in the space industry TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Sukhman & his co-founder both worked as data consultants where they helped companies understand their customers. This included analyzing consumer behavior, habits, and demographics. While in these roles they started to see the blatant disregard for consumer privacy to prioritize marketing and profits. The work they did exploited customer data and directly provided millions of dollars in value to these companies. They felt like villains at work. This is when they started researching ways to protect their own online privacy and realized how difficult this task was. The onus was continuously on the average person to follow best practices, which often required tons of conscious effort and ruined the user experience. This is why they came up with Cyder. Cyder is a browser extension that makes privacy, and data ownership simple, free, and accessible to everyone. Their mission has always been to create an internet where users own and get compensated for their data. We talk about building Cyder, disregard for consumer privacy, expectation vs reality of being a founder, going viral with YC application video, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ and use code BMS05 for 5% discount GUEST LINKS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sukhmandulay/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cyder/ Cyder: https://www.getcyder.com/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Data consulting after graduation (4:00) - Feeling like villains at work (13:33) - Decentralized blockchain for data security (17:56) - Data Ethics (22:59) - Ad desensitization (28:35) - Origin story of Cyder (37:08) - Expectation vs Reality of being a founder (41:30) - Importance of having a co-founder (44:10) - Going viral with YC application video (46:20) - Do you still feel like a villain at work? TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Shane Mac is building a crypto-native communication protocol for web3. Similar to SMTP for email, XMTP will enable communication between existing crypto wallets via its own independent protocol and decentralized network. They have raised a $20M Series A from a16z Crypto, with participation from other popular funds and strategic angels. We talk about the origin story of XMTP, learnings from interviewing Gary Vee, being young and lucky, writing book at 23, entrepreneurship and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/shanemac Blog: https://blog.shanemac.com/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Young and Lucky (12:22) - Getting calmer (18:31) - Gary Vee (25:37) - Hosting Podcast (30:57) - Great podcast episode (32:08) - Heavy Conversations (40:33) - Culture (42:50) - Writing Book (52:00) - Entrepreneurship (59:06) - XMTP (01:04:25) - Meaning of Life TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tyler Denk led product & growth at Morning Brew, did product stint at Google and then last year, launched beehiiv - a newsletter platform empowering creators to monetize and grow like never before. We talked about building startup in college, dropping Big 4 consulting firm to join Morning Brew, scaling newsletter to 3M subcribers, product management lessons from Google, launching beehiiv, why email newsletter is a great business and more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tylerdenk_/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/denk_tweets CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Building startup in college (4:57) - Dropping Big 4 consulting firm to join Morning Brew (9:05) - Early success of Morning Brew (10:40) - Sending newsletter from bars & games (14:31) - Lessons from growing newsletter to 3M subs (17:42) - Economics of newsletter (20:38) - The Hustle & competition (22:28) - Morning Brew's world-class Referral Program (27:25) - Product Management lessons from Google (36:10) - Origin story of beehiiv (41:28) - Why email newsletter is a great business? (50:37) - Growth channels (53:28) - Taking ad-share away from Facebook and Google (56:05) - Homegrown Success Story: Milkroad.com (58:01) - Fundraising (58:55) - Web3 TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Rachael Zisk is a journalist at Payload Space - where she covers the business and policy of space in their daily newsletter. We talk about becoming a space journalist, development of the James Webb Space Telescope, all the magnificent JWST images, instruments onboard, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaelzisk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RachaelZisk CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Becoming a Space Journalist (5:40) - Background of James Webb Space Telescope (12:45) - Instruments onboard JWST (15:15) - Possibility of life on WASP-96B (16:41) - Beautiful cosmic cliffs of Carina Nebula (17:21) - How stars are born? (19:25) - Southern Ring Nebula (20:39) - Stephan's Quintet (22:18) - GLASS-z13 galaxy (26:07) - 344 Single Point of Failures (28:47) - Deciding what to capture (32:40) - Is money spent on space worth it? (36:25) - JWST sustaining a micrometeoroid impact (41:57) - New Space Science newsletter (50:50) - Conclusion TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Arvin Khamseh is a NFT marketing expert. He has helped 400+ NFT brands sell out. One of them made $10m+ in 20 hours. We talked about the current state of NFT market, biohacking, web3 vs web2 marketing, working with 400+ collections, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arvinkhamseh/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/arvinknft Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arvinknft Website: soldoutnfts.io CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Current state of NFT market (4:16) - Noise vs Signal in NFT conferences (10:12) - How he got into Web3 (21:15) - How NFT marketing works (23:27) - Marketing in Web3 vs Web2 (32:13) - Making $10M in 20 hours (37:06) - Is sell out guaranteed? (40:46) - Are NFTs hyped? (45:11) - $800 for a 30 min call (49:15) - Does good artwork or utility guarantee sell out? (52:00) - Biohacking (57:15) - Conclusion TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Kurtis Hanni helps business owners understand their financial statements and teaches them how to use numbers to think strategically about the business. He also runs a podcast called Frameworks & Finance. We talk about personal finance, living with intention, content consumption, storytelling, credit cards, the Waterline Principle, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtishanni/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/KurtisHanni Website: https://kurtishanni.com/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Graduating in the 2008 crash (3:11) - Should you cut your credit card? (10:15) - The importance of learning business finance (23:00) - Living with Intention (25:20) - Jurassic Park movie is not about Dinosaurs (27:55) - Increase your content consumption (37:57) - Frameworks for Life and Business (47:00) - Rhythms of life (51:10) - Building 'Frameworks & Finance' Podcast TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Josh Kaplan is the Co-founder & CEO of Smooth Media where they help creators build media businesses. After graduation, he joined PwC and then, led Audio Products at Morning Brew. We talked about getting into Morning Brew, experiences working with founders, lessons learnt from launching Business Casual podcast, origin of Smooth Media, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-kaplan-35029b73/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JKaplan1 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josh_kaplan_/ Website: https://www.smoothmedia.co/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Quitting PwC to join Morning Brew (2:56) - Early days of Morning Brew (4:46) - Growing Business Casual podcast to millions of downloads (7:05) - Getting Mark Cuban on the pod (11:09) - Origin story of Smooth Media (13:41) - Landing Colin & Samir as first client (17:44) - Smooth Media vs Jelly Smack (22:52) - Trends in Creator Economy (26:52) - Business Model of Smooth (28:22) - Solving Tax Filing for Creators (29:54) - Potential of Creator-led brands (32:58) - Being Founder vs Employee (36:40) - Creator Anxiety TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Aditi Kothari is the Product Manager of Razorpay Rize. She got into product management in an unconventional way, after randomly meeting the founder of Rapido in a cafe. Previously, she was PM at Bounce and runs a CBC (cohort-based-course) on No Code for Airtribe. We talked about breaking into product management, landing PM role at Razorpay, the fundamental difference between Swiggy and Zomato, micro mobility strategy of Bounce, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditi-kothari/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/aditikothari_ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aditi_kothari_/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Got into Product Management after meeting a founder in cafe (7:25) - Life as a PM (11:24) - Strategy of Bounce during COVID (12:19) - Cracking Razorpay (14:31) - Interview rounds of Razorpay (18:38) - Fundamental difference between Swiggy & Zomato (20:50) - Impact of Razorpay Rize Program (25:23) - Reality of No-code tools (30:30) - Hosting CBC on No code with Airtribe TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

In today's episode we have Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur, co-founders of Razorpay, along with Vikram Vaidyanathan, MD at Matrix Partners India. In this episode they talk about the evolution of Razorpay and learnings from its hypergrowth journey - tune in the find out.

Jeremy Moser is the CEO of uSERP, a $4M SEO agency that he scaled from 0 to $1,000,000 in ARR in just one year. They've worked with brands like Freshworks, ActiveCampaign, Monday.com, Robinhood, etc. He also owns a SaaS business called Wordable and he occasionally writes for Entrepreneur magazine. We talk about being a Twitch streamer even before it was a thing, why startups should invest early and often in SEO, why agency can be an incredible business model, acquiring SaaS startup, using Twitter for lead generation, infinite networking, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyamoser/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jmoserr Website: https://userp.io/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Getting paid to play video games in high school (4:18) - Why SEO (5:30) - Why agency is an incredible business model (7:45) - Reaching $1M ARR in the first year (11:04) - What does a successful SEO agency do? (12:40) - How are brands adapting to the upcoming recession? (14:26) - How to price your services and capture upside? (22:16) - Objections to closing clients (24:16) - How long does it take to get results from SEO? (27:30) - Monday.com Case Study (30:52) - Economics of Acquiring a SaaS startup (38:47) - Leveraging Twitter for Lead Generation (42:02) - Twitter vs LinkedIn (45:55) - Good copywriting requires unlearning everything that school taught TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Anshul Rustaggi graduated from IIT, then IIM, worked at a hedge fund in London, came back to India, went to law school, got into the cannabis business, and now is building in web3 with Zionverse. We discuss crypto bear markets, tokenomics, how web3 incentivizes the right behaviour, the Bible of Metaverse, why Twitter only allows 280 characters, web4 and more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anshulrustagi/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anshulrustaggi/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnshulRustaggi CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) - Crypto Bear Market (11:14) - What kicked off Bear Market (18:32) - Stablecoin is gateway to mass crypto adoption (24:50) - Wikipedia should adopt cryptocurrency (27:44) - Web3 incentivizes the right behaviour (31:53) - Zionverse 101 (39:29) - Why Metaverse will be Mobile-driven not VR-driven (46:07) - Why do they hand out "Snow Crash" to every new team member (49:47) - Building a Web3 company (01:01:35) - Roadmap of Zionverse (01:05:48) - Why do we play Teen Patti on Diwali (01:08:46) - Web4 ?!?!?! (01:13:43) - Video games are extremely valuable for Kids (01:20:51) - Future TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tibo started his career selling TVs and now makes $1M in ARR from his Twitter growth tool, TweetHunter. We talk about learnings from the first startup, shipping a product every 2 weeks, success of TweetHunter, acquiring initial users, finding a co-founder, making $1M ARR, and more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/tibo_maker LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thibaultll/ OUTLINE (0:00) Selling TVs (2:32) First Startup: Motivating Kids to do chores (9:50) Shipping a product every 2 weeks (14:59) Success of TweetHunter (19:26) Acquiring Initial Users & Finding Co-founder on Twitter (25:20) How to validate idea (28:18) Importance of building audience for Founders (34:55) Marketing your side projects (36:49) Making $1M ARR from TweetHunter (40:45) The viral TweetHunter Challenge (43:48) Replicating TweetHunter Success on LinkedIn TOP EPISODES 77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Sang Le, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Shashank Kumar is co-founder of Razorpay - a $7.5B fintech giant in India. He graduated from IIT Roorkee, worked at Microsoft in Seattle, was driving Mustang, and still felt he could do more. So he flew back to India and built a unicorn. We talked about life post-graduation, living in US, convincing dad to move back to India, early days of Razorpay, getting into YC, imposter syndrome, and much more. SPONSORS BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/ Recast: https://recast.studio/ GUEST LINKS Twitter: https://twitter.com/shashank_kr LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kumarshashank/ CONNECT Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots OUTLINE (0:00) Driving Mustang at 22 (4:58) Life in US post IIT (9:02) Origin of Razorpay (15:03) Dad's reaction to coming back home (18:06) Finding Product-Market Fit (21:20) How Y Combinator took growth to another level (26:21) Paid 25 lacs to get a Payment Gateway License (30:20) Imposter Syndrome (34:51) Hiring first 10 employees (38:53) The story behind the name 'Razorpay' (40:43) RBI driving innovation in the Indian fintech ecosystem (43:08) Living with co-founder even today (44:57) Future of Tier 3 & Tier 4 cities (48:12) Philosophy of Money (52:07) Day in Life as CTO of a unicorn (54:13) Razorpay's Web3 strategy (56:45) Reverse Brain Drain (1:02:56) Dad's Reaction today [MUST WATCH] TOP EPISODES 75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread 74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust 68: Natalie Brunell on Everything Bitcoin 62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan 10: Aryaman Maheshwari, Software Engineer at Google [Hindi] Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

On the episode today, we have with us Shashank Kumar, Founder of PushOwlIf you like the content we create, please drop us a review on Spotify & Apple.And join our No Spam Whatsapp Group to get summaries of the content we create. On this episode, we talk to Shashank about his journey of building, scaling and selling Pushowl. We discuss the following topics: (01:41) - Shashank's Thesis that led to quitting Microsoft, and the initial failures(09:25) - Financial Survival for a Bootstrapped Business & the Entrepreneur in the initial years(13:13) - Fighting the psychological battle of quitting when the times are tough(15:19) - Finding the idea of PushOwl and hiring the first team member(17:45) - How should Indie hackers decide what's a good time to quit?(20:19) - Finding Product Market Fit on Shopify(26:51) - How to Interact with Customers without asking leading questions(29:22) - Hiring for Bootstrapped Businesses (33:14) - Choosing to stay bootstrapped even when there was Venture Capital interest(39:30) - Decision to Sell the Business to SendinBlue(41:00) - Risk of Building on someone else's platform - Platform Risk(44:32) - Headless Commerce - The new wave in E-commerce(47:38) - Advice for young Indie Hackers 

In this podcast - How can one contribute to the growth of India?After finding a problem, how to decide if it's a great startup idea or not?What is the next step one should take after deciding their startup idea?Why did Shashank leave the US and come back to India?How do you onboard your first big brand as a startup?What should a startup focus on to grow in the long run?Things that every startup founder should keep in mind once their startup is launched.How did Shashank pitch to Y-Combinator?How can networking or having a mentor help one in their startup journey?What is the next billion-dollar opportunity for next-gen entrepreneurs?In this episode of Figuring Out, Raj talks with the Co-Founder of Razorpay, Shashank Kumar.In 2013, India did not have a homegrown payments solution for small businesses while US-based PayPal was struggling with regulations. With a vision to simplify online payments in India, Shashank co-founded Razorpay in 2013 after working with Microsoft US as a software developer.Razorpay is India's first full-stack financial solutions company. They are on a mission to enhance the payment experience of over 300 million end consumers.Razorpay has grown from being a payment gateway provider to a solutions-driven organization boasting of an extensive products suite to accept and disburse payments as well as raise capital and park money.The company has powered digital payments for more than 1,000,000 small and large businesses such as Indigo, BSE, Reliance, Sony and Oyo, among others.—————————————————————————————————————————Subscribe to my YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/RajShamaniYT

Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for more than half of India's population. And with more than 3/5th of land under cultivation, the scope of incorporating technology becomes even more evident. In this episode of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt talks with Shashank Kumar, Co-founder and CEO, DeHaat. He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and has previously worked in the management consulting domain before kicking off his entrepreneurial journey. Hailing from a farming background, he had a first-hand understanding of the issues faced by farmers on a day-to-day basis. During his corporate stint, he further observed the gap between institutional buyers and farmers that led to the birth of DeHaat in 2012. And today this ‘Direct-to-Farmer' company does not only support farmers by providing last-mile delivery of 360-degree Agri services but also helps them with insurance and loans. Tune in to this episode to hear Shashank speak about how DeHaat is transforming the supply chain and production efficiency in the Indian farm sector through AI-enabled technology. What you must not miss! Building and scaling an online marketplace for farmers. Incorporating machine learning to set up an advisory for farmers The role technology is playing in bringing behavioural change in the agriculture sector. Fundraising journey.

SoftBank Group may invest as much as $10 billion in India next year, chief executive Rajeev Misra said in a virtual conference on Thursday, TechCrunch reports. SoftBank, which returned to Flipkart with a fresh investment this year, has already invested $3 billion in Indian companies this year. In India, the group will look for the right companies at the right valuations to invest between $5 billion and $10 billion in 2022. US President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law, the Secure Equipment Act, to prevent Chinese companies that are seen as security threats from receiving new equipment licenses from US regulators. According to the Reuters report, this will affect companies such as like Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp. The signing comes days before Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to hold a virtual summit. The new law requires the Federal Communications Commission to no longer review or approve any authorisation application for equipment that poses an unacceptable risk to America's national security, according to the report. Spotify Technology has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Findaway, a digital audiobooks distribution company, as Spotify expands its business beyond music and podcasts. Findaway's technology infrastructure will enable Spotify to quickly scale its audiobook catalogue and innovate on the experience for consumers; simultaneously providing new avenues for publishers, authors, and independent creators to reach new audiences around the globe. A91 Partners, a Mumbai VC firm has closed its fund II at $550 million as it seeks to invest in the next generation of emerging Indian startups, general partner Gautam Mago said on Twitter. While it was started only in 2018, the young VC firm is an investor in well known Indian startups such as Oyo, Ola, Freshworks, CarDekho, Sugar, Capital Float, and CueMath. Wipro, India's fourth-biggest IT services company, has launched Click-Shift-Drive—a contactless car-buying solution that addresses the complete automobile buying journey. Scalable, flexible, and rapidly deployed, the end-to-end solution enables automakers and dealers to offer everything from research and loan approval to purchase and delivery, the company said in a press release. Click-Shift-Drive incorporates a range of Salesforce technologies. Wipro also partnered with ThreeKit 3D & Augmented Reality to provide an augmented reality component so buyers can visualise a virtual rendering of the automobile in their own driveway. (3:42) Interview: Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO of DeHaat, on India's biggest agri startup funding so far, and plans ahead Perseverance is finally paying off for some of India's agri-tech startups, where founders patiently toiled away, having started their businesses long before the idea of a startup was fashionable in India. Last month, when DeHaat announced a $115 million funding round, it was the biggest fundraise by an agri startup in India so far. In today's interview, Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO of DeHaat, returns to this podcast to talk about the ongoing change in the Indian agri startup scene and plans ahead at his company.

Google's parent Alphabet reported strong results for its fiscal third quarter that ended September 30, with better-than-expected ad sales at Google. The company reported revenues for the quarter rose 15 percent in constant currency terms year-on-year to $65.1 billion. Profits rose 68 percent to nearly $19 billion. Google Cloud saw revenues rise to almost $5 billion from $3.45 billion a year ago, with operating losses halving to $640 million. Zolve, a digital bank, has raised Rs. 300 crore ($40 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by partners of DST Global, who have previously led rounds in prominent fintech companies such as Robinhood, Nubank, Chime, Revolut, and Wealthsimple. The round also saw participation from Tiger Global, Alkeon Capital, as well as existing investors Accel and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The 10-month old startup will use the money to scale up its services, including offering banking services to Indians going to the US. The investment values the startup by Raghunandan G, co-founder of ride-hailing service TaxiForSure, at Rs. 1,575 crore or about $210 million, according to the release. DeHaat, an agri-tech company in Gurugram, near Delhi, has raised $115 million in Series D funding to expand its operations, Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO, tweeted. DeHaat sees itself as a ‘full-stack' agri platform, meaning it aims to help farmers with everything from farm inputs and finance to scientific information and advice to selling their produce. This investment, co-led by Sofina and Lightrock, is the largest funding round for an agritech startup in India, according to TechCrunch. Temasek and existing investors Prosus Ventures, RTP Global, Sequoia Capital India and FMO also participated in the new round, which brings DeHaat's total funding to $161 million. In more agri-startup news, Gramophone, which also offers services similar to DeHaat, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Z3Partners. Gramophone will use the money to expand its operations, including acquiring other ventures, the company said in a press release on Tuesday. Existing investors Info Edge, Asha Impact, and Siana Capital also joined the funding. Dhruva Space, a space tech startup in Hyderabad, has raised Rs. 22 crores (about $3 million) led by IAN Fund and Blue Ashva Capital, as it gears up to launch satellite-as-a-service, space-grade solar arrays and ground station solutions, in India and abroad. The company made the announcement in a press release on Tuesday. With operations in Hyderabad and Austria, Dhruva is already executing orders worth several millions of dollars and expects to add customers in the US and West Asia. (3:40) Interview: Sangeeta Bavi, director of startup ecosystem, Microsoft India on the AI Innovate programme. Sangeeta Bavi spends a lot of time talking to startup founders every day. The director of Microsoft India's startup ecosystem unit started out as a developer herself and is active in multiple networks, including SaaS BOOMi. In conversation with Forbes India, Sangeeta tells us about AI Innovate, a new programme at Microsoft India, focused on helping startups take advantage of Microsoft's AI technologies.

Facebook, which sees India as a vital market, is also a platform used for spreading hate and misinformation in the country, Bloomberg reports, citing a 46-page research note that is part of the documents released by Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager who turned whistleblower. The report — ‘An Indian test user's descent into a sea of polarizing, nationalist messages' — shows how little control Facebook has in one of its most important markets, where it has also invested close to $6 billion into a partnership with Reliance Industries, the country's biggest conglomerate, according to the Bloomberg report, which is behind a paywall, but was also carried by Economic Times. Meanwhile, Haugen gives evidence, today, to the UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Britain's draft Online Safety Bill. This follows her testimony to the US Congress on Oct. 5. It will be the first public evidence she has given in Europe regarding her experiences at the company and her ideas to regulate social media. Facebook, which is expected to announce a new name for itself later this week, also reports its latest quarterly results today. Groww, an online investment platform provider in Bangalore, has raised $251 million in its series E round of venture capital funding, tripling its valuation to $3 billion, TechCrunch reports. The investment was led by Iconic Growth, joined by Alkeon, Lone Pine Capital and Steadfast as well as existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity, Tiger Global, and Propel Venture Partners. Groww was founded in 2016 by four former Flipkart employees. It has now raised more than $390 million so far, and was valued at $1 billion in April this year. Clear, which makes the popular tax filing platform ClearTax for consumers, has raised $75 million in series C funding, led by Kora Capital, Stripe, Alua Capital, Think Investments and existing investors. The funds will be used to accelerate Clear's expansion into lending and payments for business customers, and into international markets. Clear's cloud platform grew five-fold in the last 18 months, adding more than 3000 large enterprise customers. It also saw a surge in usage with over one million small businesses on the platform, which now processes more than 10 percent of India's business invoices with a GMV of $400 billion, according to the company. Clear recently acquired yBANQ to expand into B2B payments. (3:18) Interview: Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CTO, Razorpay, on RBI's rules, and finding and nurturing talent in India. When Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur teamed up to start Razorpay, most folks asked them why they were starting another payments gateway, and the duo had little knowledge of the financial sector in India, he recalls. Today, the Bengaluru company has become one of India's best known fintech successes, and a rapidly expanding platform for digital banking, lending, insurance, payroll management and a growing list of other financial services for a large number of customers. I caught up with Shashank for a quick update, and he spoke about topics including RBI's new rules and how Razorpay attracts and retains talented people. Here's more from our conversation.

In this Episode, I (@Jivraj Singh Sachar) speak with Shashank Kumar, Co-Founder of Razorpay. Razorpay is one of India's most successful FinTech Startups, providing a full-stack solution to businesses to accept, process and disburse payments. Founded in 2014 by Shashank Kumar & Harshil Mathur, Razorpay has come a long way in leading the financial services market in India and is backed by some of the most marquee investors across the globe including Y-Combinator, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capita, Ribbit Capital, and Tiger Global Management. Through the Episode we discuss the following: 1. (1:57) : What does "Utilising your complete potential" mean? 2. (6:18) : What is the Importance of Market & How to deliberately go after Large Markets? 3. (12:43) : Early Days of building Conviction with Razorpay! 4. (16:45) : Shaping the Culture of Razorpay & building a long term Org 5. (19:45) : How do you find the right team members early on? 6. (22:51) : Maintaining the Principle of Staying Focused & Saying No! 7. (27:35) : "I do not trust an Entrepreneur who cannot tell a good story" ~ Why is storytelling important for Founders? 8. (32:58) : "What you do not know, you learn" ~ How can Founders leverage the skill of Learnability? 9. (37:14) : Building Networks ~ Creating Serendipity! 10. (41:19) : How has Shashank evolved from Leaving Microsoft, Starting Razorpay and building a 3Bn+ Org, which is only just getting started!? 11. (45:05) : Diving deeper into Shashank's love for Building! 12. (48:26) : Conclusion Here is the 64th Episode of the Indian Silicon Valley Podcast - Make Something People Want! That was it from this Episode, thanks again for tuning in! :) We're available on Instagram & Twitter. Feel free to drop in your feedback! Do not forget to Subscribe to our WhatsApp Newsletter. Do share the Episode with your friends if you liked the content :) I, Jivraj, am reachable on LinkedIn & Twitter! "If you never try, you never know" Stay Tuned, Keep Building.

Leading this briefing is news that El Salvador, the smallest country in Central America, yesterday became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender. The country's Bitcoin law was been approved by a ‘super majority' Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's 39-year old president said on Twitter. Also in the programme, President Biden lifts US ban on TikTok; more women in India went online for STEM courses; and an interview with Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO of DeHaat on expansion plans at his agri-tech startup.

Harshil is the Co-Founder and CEO of Razorpay. He started Razorpay after discovering the dismal state of online payments in India. He graduated from IIT Roorkee in 2013 and started working at Schlumberger. With an idea to change the way online payments functioned in India, Harshil quit his full-time job and founded Razorpay with his co-founder, Shashank Kumar in 2014 to simplify online payments for India. Razorpay was one of the very few India-focused companies to be selected for the prestigious Y Combinator (YC) programme in 2014. Along with 33 reputed investors, the company is also backed by GIC, Sequoia Capital India, Tiger Global Management, Y Combinator, Matrix Partners and Mastercard with a funding of $207M across Series A, B, C and D rounds.