The Neon Show

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journey from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys.  Hence was born the Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.  We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings. 

  1. AI Needs to Know Why You Took THAT decision | Ashu Garg, Investor at Foundation Capital

    5 HR AGO

    AI Needs to Know Why You Took THAT decision | Ashu Garg, Investor at Foundation Capital

    What if AI can learn the “why” behind decision making of humans? Ashu Garg and Jaya Gupta recently wrote one of the most discussed articles on AI this year. Their idea drew public responses from Dharmesh Shah, Aaron Levie, and Arvind Jain. Enterprise software has always captured what happened. It records the order, the ticket, and the approval. But it has never captured why it happened. It does not store the reasoning, the exception, or the past decisions that shaped the outcome. Ashu argues that this missing layer is the biggest opportunity in enterprise AI right now, and that the startups that capture it will be the biggest winners in AI. In this episode, we go deeper into what context graphs really are, how they get built, why startups have an edge over incumbents, and how close we are to seeing this work in practice. 00:00 – Trailer 00:42 – What are context graphs? 03:57 – Why agents haven’t lived up to the hype? 07:03 – The “why” of Decision Making 10:47 – How agents will store data for context graphs 13:17 – What will be possible for Digital twins? 17:32 – Can context graphs reveal a company’s moat? 19:48 – Guardrails on Access for agents 24:47 – Managing agents vs being managed by agents 28:46 – Will winners be vertical or horizontal players? 32:20 – The future is agent swarms 35:54 – Finding PMF is what makes a great CEO 39:34 – What will set apart successful enterprises of 2030 42:10 – Where Foundation Capital is investing 44:05 – Why AI won’t be winner-takes-all 47:03 – Where will the context graph reside? 50:56 – Will systems of record be replaced? 53:22 – Human in the loop → hands-off execution 55:57 – A reality check on where we are today 58:24 – Where startups will win in orchestration ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send a text

    49 min
  2. How AI Will Finally Deliver the Promise SaaS Made | Samay Kohli: From Robots to Digital Workers

    6 DAYS AGO

    How AI Will Finally Deliver the Promise SaaS Made | Samay Kohli: From Robots to Digital Workers

    Samay Kohli spent 12 years at GreyOrange, scaling it to over $100 million in revenue and a $3 billion valuation at its peak, making it one of the world’s largest warehouse robotics companies. Two years ago, he started again with Budy, this time in the US senior care industry. In this industry, decisions are emotional, sales cycles can run for years, and multiple stakeholders are involved. While the market sits at the intersection of real estate, healthcare, and hospitality, most sales still depend on manual follow-ups and scattered tools. Budy builds digital workers for sales teams: AI teammates that handle follow-ups, scheduling, and lead management across CRMs, calendars, and inboxes. Instead of adding another layer of software, Budy went zero UI-UX and focused on enabling sales teams in an industry with 99% inbound leads to manage their cold leads better. Today, Samay joins Siddhartha (Partner at Neon Fund, and a proud investor in Budy) and shares his journey from building robots to building digital teammates for a very non-traditional industry. 00:00 – Trailer 01:00 – What Budy is building for senior care 05:15 – Real Estate × Healthcare × Hospitality 06:25 – Zero UI UX technology 10:09 – AI teammates not assistants 12:03 – How sales teams operated before Budy 12:51 – A ninety nine percent inbound industry 13:45 – The real cost of senior care homes 15:35 – Can a CRM alone solve this 17:55 – Direct benefits of a digital worker 20:49 – Two founder archetypes 22:06 – Can lights out operations become real 24:49 – What Samay underestimated about the market 25:58 – The largest players in the industry 29:07 – Treat your customer’s company like your own 30:52 – Entrepreneurship as a profession 35:36 – Unlearnings as a second time founder 37:30 – What digital workers actually are 39:47 – The original promise of SaaS 42:04 – The next decade of digital workers 45:25 – Digital workers that read best selling books 47:26 – Will Claude build CRMs 49:38 – Business etiquette across the world 55:18 – How a second time founder chooses investors 01:01:00 – Why every team member should track the P and L 01:02:14 – How Samay’s view on growth evolved ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send a text

    1h 5m
  3. What Top 1% Investors Look For in AI Startups | Umesh Padval, Seligman Ventures, Ex- Bessemer

    13 FEB

    What Top 1% Investors Look For in AI Startups | Umesh Padval, Seligman Ventures, Ex- Bessemer

    Do startup valuations today make sense? Umesh Padval, an early investor in Cohere, now valued at about $7 billion shares why Cohere stood out at the time of his investment. He shares what he saw early that made him believe this was not just another AI model company. Umesh is the Founding Managing Partner, Seligman Ventures and previously at Thomvest and Bessemer Venture Partners. He brings experience from investing across multiple tech cycles, from chips to cloud to AI. Umesh talks about how deals are really done in venture capital and what he looks for when everything feels noisy and crowded in AI. He also shares why many strong companies are choosing to stay private and what has changed in the IPO market. Public markets now demand cash flow and durability, not just fast growth. Umesh talks about why open source has become a powerful sales funnel for modern AI companies. Developers become the first users, and community adoption turns into long-term enterprise revenue. After four decades in Silicon Valley and 20 years as a VC, Umesh shares what keeps him in building and investing. 0:00 – How big is the scope for investing in AI startups? 04:04 – Do unit economics justify large AI valuations? 06:00 – Thomvest’s LLM investment thesis (Cohere case study) 09:18 – Are CTO roles changing in AI 11:21 – Traits of the best AI founding teams 13:40 – Timeline to find the best founders 16:52 – Partnership with Jyoti Bansal 19:07 – Where is the IPO market headed? 23:40 – Salesforce–Clari acquisition 25:18 – Is profitability a prerequisite to go public? 26:00 – Can the India–US corridor beat US–Israel? 28:53 – Umesh’s investment philosophy 31:08 – Open source as a sales funnel 33:38 – IIT → Stanford → Startups 41:45 – The only CEO with 60 direct reports 43:43 – Why Jensen never does 1-on-1s? 48:23 – What ultimately drives Umesh Padval? ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send a text

    52 min
  4. When Founders Should Quit Their Startups with Matt MacInnis | COO Rippling

    7 FEB

    When Founders Should Quit Their Startups with Matt MacInnis | COO Rippling

    Matt MacInnis spent 6 years as COO at Rippling and now leads as CPO. He joined Rippling in 2019, when there were only 70 people, and has led the company across multiple stages. Before that, Matt was a founder for 9 years, building Inkling after 7 years at Apple. These three chapters of his career shape this conversation. We focus on how to build and operate teams as a company scales. Matt explains how he thinks about speed versus real progress, and which parts of building a company should move fast and which should move slowly. He shares how he decided when to introduce processes at Rippling, when to keep things informal, and how to recognize when a process that once helped the company had started to slow it down. We discuss how his role changed as Rippling grew from around 70 people to 100, then to 500, and now to thousands. He explains what he paid attention to at each stage and which metrics he deliberately did not obsess over. These are practical lessons for founders, from the earliest days of a startup to the challenges of scaling a large organization. 0:00 - Trailer 01:11 – One thing people get wrong about building a business? 04:01 – Great founders find markets that already exist 06:36 – What does a “death march” mean at Apple? 10:11 – How to build a good team in early-stage startup? 12:33 – Learnings from Apple to Inkling 18:11 – Processes to set up in startups 25:20 – Humans always optimize for comfort (and why that’s bad instinct) 33:09 – Why success teaches you more than failure 36:01 – How should processes change as company scales? 42:11 – How is AI changing the software industry? 54:03 – If Matt were starting up today, how would he do it? 57:07 – How would Next-gen PM roles look like? 01:01:51 – Matt shares about Rippling CEO Parker 01:04:32 – Founder instinct vs Data 01:06:06 – Over-optimizing for employee comfort 01:07:27 – If building a startup feels comfortable, it’s probably dead 01:08:36 – One thing only CEO’s should do forever 01:11:15 – One piece of startup advice Matt doesn’t trust ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send a text

    1h 21m
  5. How Buyers Discover Startups, From a 10-Year Founder Journey to an EXIT | Ankur Rawal & Vishwa Krishnakumar

    30 JAN

    How Buyers Discover Startups, From a 10-Year Founder Journey to an EXIT | Ankur Rawal & Vishwa Krishnakumar

    This is a special episode from the Neon Fund. In 2025, the US saw $1.8 trillion worth of M&A deals, around 25× more than India. But India’s startup ecosystem is much younger, which makes every acquisition a playbook for founders on process, pricing leverage, and stakeholder management. Neon backed Zenduty in 2020, when the founders had been bootstrapping profitably for two years and were already growing at a pace many VC-backed startups aspire to. Today, founders Ankur Rawal and Vishwa Krishnakumar join Siddhartha, Partner at Neon, to discuss one of the most untalked acquisitions of 2025. Over a 10-year journey, Zenduty pivoted to SRE in 2020. Vishwa and Ankur also share insights on the future of the DevTools space, which they believe will always be a strong choice to build great products, because engineers are among the hardest end users to please. This episode is a founders’ view on how acquisitions work in Indian SaaS. 00:00 – Trailer 01:00 – Initial years of a decade-long journey 07:12 – How Zenduty chose its investors 11:04 – How much should founders dilute? 12:24 – Building with profitability before & after fundraise 14:45 – Six years of survival before the pivot 17:01 – Why the pivot to the SRE space? 18:39 – How Zenduty differentiated from PagerDuty 19:12 – End users are the toughest to please in engineering 20:39 – Is market attractive if biggest player is valued only $1.5B? 25:22 – Why acquisition and not a Series A? 27:18 – The process before acquisition 29:23 – How pricing negotiations work 31:51 – Should devtool companies build from India or US? 34:58 – Three types of connects at physical events 37:06 – What physical presence at events signals 39:06 – Founders’ feedback on Neon Fund 41:41 – “Don’t build in silence” 43:50 – How to build a core AI-native company today 47:54 – Do first-time founders have an edge in the AI era? 52:08 – Cost to PMF has drastically gone down 54:48 – What hard problems are startups solving today? 55:37 – Why are acquisitions rare in India? 1:00:20 – How US investors are facilitating M&As 1:01:14 – How to make your brand visible to potential acquirers ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send a text

    1h 4m
  6. From Startup to US IPO in 5 Years: Kanwal Rekhi’s Historic IPO of Excelan

    22 JAN

    From Startup to US IPO in 5 Years: Kanwal Rekhi’s Historic IPO of Excelan

    Kanwal Rekhi first came to the US in the 1960s. He took his company public on Nasdaq in 1987.  As a young Indian in the US, he was laid off from his first three jobs. That experience pushed him towards entrepreneurship. At the time, Indians were known and hired for technical and mathematical skills, not as founders building companies on US soil. But Kanwal and his co-founders decided to bet on themselves. They faced rejection from nearly 50 investors before one VC agreed to invest $2 million for 50% of the company. In just five years, the company went public. From being appointed CEO overnight to being removed by the board two months before the IPO for a more “wall street-acceptable” CEO, this is a story of many firsts. After Excelan, Kanwal co-founded TiE in 1992 and has mentored tens of thousands of entrepreneurs. Beyond a personal story, Kanwal Rekhi is a turning point in how Indian founders came to be seen in Silicon Valley. 0:00 – Trailer 01:11 – How TiE was formed 07:11 – DoT Hatao, Desh Bachao 11:31 – Career opportunities in the 70s 13:41 – When Indians weren’t trusted to build companies 15:44 – Pioneers in computer networking 16:51 – Finding an Investor after 50 rejections 20:31 – Becoming CEO overnight 23:29 – Spare the story, show the numbers 24:17 – The “Wall Street acceptable” CEO for IPO 27:30 – Founders have to be financial thinkers 28:14 – How Excelan could go public in just 5 years 29:27 – Cost is unrelated to pricing in software 31:12 – Do Indian companies need Americans to lead? 34:05 – Benefits of registering in the US 36:53 – $1 trillion to solve India’s problems 40:49 – Policies for India’s startup ecosystem 42:01 – Enabling entrepreneurs in villages 44:41 – India in the 80s v/s today 50:36 – US vs India vs China 01:04:52 – How did IITs start allowing donations? 01:07:25 – AI investments of Silicon Valley Quad 01:18:29 – What Kanwal Rekhi looks for in founders? ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send a text

    1h 18m
  7. What Went Wrong Before iD Fresh Worked | For the First Time Co-Founders Tell Their Story

    15 JAN

    What Went Wrong Before iD Fresh Worked | For the First Time Co-Founders Tell Their Story

    Where did the journey of iD Fresh start? It began when a 19-year-old Abdul Nazer decided to run away from home to Bangalore with ₹100 in his pocket. He did any job that came his way: cook, cleaner, conductor and sold anything he could, from clothes and vegetables to spices and peanuts. Along the way, he brought his three brothers to Bangalore. Even with huge losses in business, they never stopped looking for new opportunities. Their first real glimpse of success came from a tea stall run out of a rented room that cost ₹80 a month. Despite strong demand, the tea business was still running at a loss. The turning point came when they started opening the stall at 2 in the morning: a disruptive business model, says PC. Those ₹2 cups of tea taught them lessons they would carry forward. Abdul Nazer and PC Mustafa together share these stories for the first time. Their journey reminds us that no success is overnight, especially not for these brothers. It was at their kirana store in Indiranagar that the idea of iD Fresh was born. Five brothers with no background in food technology spent six months experimenting with recipes before finding their hero product.  This is the story of five founders who pushed past their circumstances. Today, iD Fresh is at a scale the founders never dreamed of growing up in Wayanad.  00:00 – Trailer 00:55 – Dropping out of studies 02:32 – 19 Year Old that Runaway to Bangalore 04:35 – First job as a cook 11:25 – When Nazer decided to become an entrepreneur 14:01 – Huge loss in Vegetable business 16:15 – Starting the kirana store that led to iD 18:00 – On the verge of shutting down 20:10 – How Lambu Tea Stall became profitable 24:16 – When PC decided to do business with Nazer 25:14 – All the (failed) businesses that led to iD 27:04 – Why PC decided to come back to India 28:23 – The origin story of the idli batter idea 31:40 – The first $50k investment 32:57 – Cracking the batter without any food tech expertise 34:38 – The first recipe that became iD’s hero product 35:35 – Why iD failed to sell 100 packets in 6 Months 41:15 – The first customer approval 43:06 – Building awareness was the biggest challenge 44:35 – Lack of cold storage in supermarkets 45:22 – The inventory model of iD 46:25 – How the initial team was built 48:35 – Story of team spirit 50:15 – When iD Fresh Chennai & Mumbai Failed 52:27 – How the chemistry worked between the five brothers 56:52 – The buyout offer of ₹20+ crores 57:35 – How founders build the mindset to hire experts 1:00:50 – Did the runaway child achieve his dream? 1:03:09 – How Nazer’s choices directly led to iD 1:04:45 – Building within value systems 1:07:26 – Summary: what really worked for iD Fresh ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The vie Send a text

    55 min
  8. What Best Founders & Investors Said in 2025?

    29/12/2025

    What Best Founders & Investors Said in 2025?

    Best of 3500 Minutes in 45 Minutes 2025 was a great year for The Neon Show. 60 episodes, 72 guests, and thousands of minutes of insightful conversations on everything around building a business. You’ll hear perspectives from Founders scaling companies across the world, sharing the real challenges behind building high-growth startups; Investors on how they spot opportunities and make bold bets; and Ecosystem leaders who have navigated multiple cycles and understand what truly lasts. This episode is a carefully curated highlight reel. The sharpest ideas, boldest bets, and timeless lessons that defined this year. Watch it for clear takeaways to carry into 2026 on building companies that last for decades. 0:00 – Trailer 01:26 – Paras Chopra 03:37 – Avanish Bajaj 06:53 – Vijay Rayapati 08:33 – Ashu Garg 11:39 – Kiran Darisi 16:40 – Asha Jadeja 20:33 – Sanjeev Bikhchandani 23:22 – Alok Goyal 26:41 – Shiv Shivumar 29:34 – Saurya Prakash 31:59 – Raviteja 37:21 – Ashish Toshniwal 43:54 – Bhaskar Gosh 47:32 – Somesh Dash ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send a text

    50 min

About

Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journey from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys.  Hence was born the Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.  We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings. 

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