50 episodes
100x Entrepreneur Siddhartha Ahluwalia
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- Business
In the 100x Entrepreneur podcast series I cover the most successful venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and professionals. They have shared in this podcast series the habits and mindset that can help you become 100x of yourself.
100x Entrepreneur podcast series by Siddhartha Ahluwalia is made for young professionals, entrepreneurs and investors.
Through this podcast series I am living my purpose of positively impacting 1 Billion people, helping them grow and reaching their maximum potential in life.
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Sameer Brij Verma, Nexus Venture Partners
Sameer’s journey in India’s venture capital ecosystem began back in 2007 when he joined Reliance Ventures, where he focused on early-stage investments in the Technology, Media / Entertainment & Telecommunications domain.
After being with Reliance for 4 years he joined Nexus Venture Partners in 2011 & currently leads their Bangalore office. At Nexus in the last 9 years, he has been part of the investment team that has lead investments in over 35 of their Portfolio companies.
Some of his portfolio companies are Delhivery, Myupchar, Rapido, Snapdeal, Unacademy, Zomato, and Zolo among others.
In this podcast, Sameer shares his experiences of identifying top-notch founders & his signature style of signing the Term sheet in the first meeting with the founders in whom he sees potential.
Notes -
00:36 - From CFA Level-I to spending over 11 years in Venture Ecosystem
07:48 - I’m very fond of what I do as VC
10:50 - Investing in over 35 Portfolio Companies across - Business Services, Consumer Brands, Data & AI, Enterprise & Healthcare
16:30 - Top 2 Portfolio Companies in every fund
18:00 - Growth & Success of Postman and UnAcademy
20:19 - Story behind signing term-sheet at UnAcademy
27:11 - Size of Test Prep market in India
28:48 - Investing in Postman right around its buyout stage
33:37 - Signature style of getting Term-sheet signed & Investing then & there
38:30 - Learnings from Mistakes as a VC
41:05 - Identifying secular trends/shift in markets
44:48 - Guiding founders in situations where they are able to raise $50M+ but haven’t had experience building big startups
47:17 - Quality of founders is getting better & better
51:55 - Low-value creation in several crappy companies in India
01:01:20 - Low-key & Successful Portfolio Companies at Nexus Venture Partners
01:04:50 - Being called a P/E VC Investor
01:07:10 - Culture of hierarchy-free & openness at a VC firm -
Sanjay Swamy, Prime Venture Partners
Sanjay started his career in Silicon Valley in 1992 & spent over 7 years at his first company, working in different roles across - Sales, Customer Support, Engineering & Marketing. He then worked with Xerox & Portal Software in US before coming back to India in 2003.
From 2003 to 2011, he had several experiences most of which revolutionized entire ecosystems they were part of, right from mCheck, ZipDial, Ezetap & Aadhar Team (at UIDAI).
Finally in 2011, he started Angel Prime (now Prime Ventures) which invests in early-stage entrepreneurs to build great companies.
Some of his portfolio companies are Moneytap, Ezetap, Happay, and Kredx among others.
In this podcast, Sanjay shares his experiences & learnings from being on both sides of the Startup ecosystem - An Entrepreneur & A VC.
Notes -
00:38 - His journey from a small town in Karnataka to Silicon Valley & finally becoming a VC
04:04 - Part 1- Experience & Learnings in Silicon Valley (from working in Sales, Customer Support to Engineering)
05:55 - Working with Xerox
08:40 - Coming back to India and working with mPortal & mChek
11:20 - Realizing of being Ahead of Time at mChek
14:08 - Successful Startups which Controlled their Ecosystem like Paytm & those which rode the Ecosystem changes like PhonePe & GooglePay
16:49 - Part 2 - Working with Aadhar (UIDAI Team) & Experiencing the formulation of Aadhar
19:56 - Part 3 - Bringing together previous learnings & starting AngelPrime (currently Prime Ventures)
22:51 - Conceptualizing ZipDial while being on a flight
25:10 - Validating Market Fit in less than $100 at ZipDial
28:45 - Building Ezetap - Being on the Merchant Side
30:45 - Being the First Sculptor of the Company
34:16 - Formulating Market Specific Preferences as a VC
40:00 - Importance of being Honest & Open with your VC Partners
44:57 - There’s No Completely 100% Right or Wrong situation being a VC
47:59 - Being a Founder in Late 30s or 40s
50:37 - Having 360 days of Frustration & 5 days of Glory as an Entrepreneur -
Sid Talwar, Lightbox Ventures
#100xEntrepreneur
#Podcast with Sid Talwar, Managing Partner, Lightbox Ventures
In 2001, Sid founded Evolv, a vocational training company funded by Singapore Technologies. Over the next 6 years, he built it into a business that trained 20,000+ people annually across 200 cities in South Asia and the Middle East.
He later sold it to NIIT in 2007 but continued to lead the internal teams in adopting new technology as a transformative force in education and vocational training.
Post that, after being associated with GSF India for about a year, he Cofounded Lightbox Ventures in 2014.
Some of his portfolio companies are Furlenco, Embibe, Dunzo, Cleartrip, and Bombay Shirt Company.
In this podcast, Sid shares his experience of helping Entrepreneurs solve & avoid mistakes in their Entrepreneurial Journey.
Notes -
00:36 - His Journey of helping Entrepreneurs Solve & Avoid Mistakes
01:58 - Invest in Few Companies at a time to understand them better
04:03 - Top Exits from Fund-II
07:34 - Building relationships with Portfolio Companies
10:40 - What kind of businesses is Lightbox trying to promote?
18:39 - Investing in Embibe based on the Aditi’s conviction as a Founder
22:54 - Investing in Furlenco after getting to know Ajith Karimpana In & Out
26:34 - Challenges in building a subscription model in India for Furniture
35:42 - Thesis behind recent Investment in Nua
39:18 - Advice to Entrepreneurs while Pitching to VCs -
Adith Podhar, Gemba Capital
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#Podcast with Adith Podhar, Founding Partner, Gemba Capital
Adith belongs to a typical Marwari family from Mumbai, after completing his MBA from the University of Mumbai, he worked with ICICI Bank handling fundraising for individual investors in Private Equity.
During 2013 to 2017 he also headed Motilal Oswal Private Equity as their Vice President. In June 2017, he finally decided to start his own journey as an Early Stage Investors and started Gemba Capital.
Some of his portfolio companies are myHQ, ClearDekho and HoiFoods.
In this podcast, Adith shares his experience of operating as an Early Stage Investors and his learnings.
Notes -
00:42 - Journey from Typical Marwari family to experiencing different stages in Entrepreneurial Journey and finally becoming a VC
05:11 - Why he started Gemba Capital?
06:48 - How did he develop his Priority Sectors and created his Investment Thesis?
11:40 - Investments, Vision & Thesis in Fintech
13:19 - Difference between companies which have scaled faster compared to others
15:10 - Macro Factors behind Scaling faster and larger for a Company
16:44 - Why is Cashout / CreditLine model becoming a popular product in Fintech?
17:55 - How to crack your Distribution Channels suitable to your Products?
22:04 - Ideal Co-investors
24:20 - Overcoming Challenges and Hardships as a VC
29:57 - Is the Sequoia Surge Programme a Threat to Small/Early Stage VC Firms?
30:52 - Overcoming biases as a VC while Investing
33:22 - Mistakes & Learnings as an Angel Investor -
Tej Kapoor, Fosun RZ Capital
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#Podcast with Tej Kapoor, Co-Executive President of Fosun RZ Capital (India & Africa)
From 2007-13, Tej held several key positions at AOL in the United States and then at Naspers Group.
In 2016 he joined Fosun RZ Capital, where some of his portfolio companies are Gland Pharma, Delhivery, MakeMyTrip, Ixigo and Kissht.
In this podcast, Tej shares his experience of working with both Large scale markets as well as Seed-stage startups in India & China.
Notes -
00:47 - Journey from AOL in the US to Naspers and finally heading Fosun RZ (India & Africa)
04:17 - What is Fosun RZ Capital about?
05:42 - Typical Ticket Sizes
08:45 - Focus Markets in 2020 - Fintech, Travel, E-commerce, Consumer Brands
10:54 - Parameters to evaluate Seed/Early stage companies
12:41 - Shift from dealing with Large Ticket Sizes at Naspers to Seed Stage Investing at Fosun RZ
15:25 - Role of Storytelling in Fundraising by Early-stage founders
17:46 - Crucial aspects to building and selling your product
20:20 - Growth Scale of Ixigo & Delhivery
22:31 - Key investments & Thesis at Naspers
25:12 - Experience & Learnings in working with Founders of Ixigo, Delhivery & Ibibo
28:57 - How’s the Startup and Angel Investing culture in China?
34:50 - New Verticals of E-commerce Startups coming up in 2020
36:58 - Evaluation of a Fintech Startup & New opportunities in Fintech Space -
Inside the mind of Gaurav Munjal, Founder Unacademy, India's largest education platform
#100xEntrepreneur
#Podcast with Gaurav Munjal, Co-founder, Unacademy
“Every single mistake that entrepreneurs do 99% of that is already documented somewhere.” - Gaurav Munjal
Since his childhood Gaurav was an innovative person, at the age of 12 years, he created a similar to KBC-like quiz which was demonstrated amongst his classmates and the school.
In 2013 he started Flat.to (real estate platform for college students and bachelors across India) which later become FlatChat and got acquired by CommonFloor in 2014.
In 2015 he Co-founded Unacademy, which was originally a YouTube channel started back in his college days. Today Unacademy gets 140Million views / month on its youtube channels + app/web.
In this podcast, Gaurav shares his experience of scaling & creating a dent in the Edtech space, as well as lays down the path to how can one grow personally & professionally as an Entrepreneur.
Notes -
0:53 - Journey from a 12-year curious kid to Founder of Unacademy
03:32 - First Entrepreneurial Journey Flat.to (Real estate platform for college students and bachelors across India) (Later FlatChat)
09:12 - How he got started with Unacademy in 2015
09:54 - Learnings for building a product for Large markets
11:02 - Mistakes as a first-time Founder & Learnings
14:37 - “Learning should be part of a CEO’s schedule.”
17:05 - What do his notes or learning structure look like?
18:03 - How does his recall process work to revisit his ideas or tasks?
19:09 - Key milestones of Unacademy over the years
24:11 - Is storytelling a major pillar for an entrepreneur?
25:38 - Building a successful company that will create a dent in the Industry
28:25 - What is Unacademy replacing in the physical world?
32:42 - Getting the best educators on Unacademy
35:50 - How being an Obsessive founder helps him compared to other founders who are more relaxed?
37:53 - How does he transfer his passion for learning among his team members?
39:27 - “The values of an organisation are not what they put up on the wall, it’s what you do every single day!”
40:00 - Distribution & Branding at Unacademy
41:22 - What have been the Growth levers for Unacademy from 2015 - 2019?
45:16 - Cracking Monetisation
54:57 - Book recommendations by him for the listeners
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