Dare Do Speak ( Limited Series ‪)‬ Diksha Dutta

In the last and fifth episode of Dare Do Speak, we speak to Karthik Sridharan, CoFounder of flexiple and buildd.co. He joined J.P. Morgan straight out of engineering and slogged for three years in the Investment Banking industry. Worked with very smart people across diverse cultures and on various interesting projects including a €550m M&A deal. Later, when he joined IIM Ahmedabad for an MBA , he started exploring his passion for entrepreneurship, during this phase, which led to the start of Flexiple.  At Flexiple, he learnt the importance of execution over strategy and hard work over pure intelligence. He picked up many skills including coding & product management and found my love for technology. Built a network of top software developers and designers and bootstrapped it to $3 million in revenues.

In the fourth episode, we speak to Iris Braun -- one of the founders of Share, a social consumer goods brand based on the 1+1 concept: For every share product sold, a person in need receives an equivalent product. She has created products and projects with share’s social partners before now leading the international business for share. Braun started her career at the Boston Consulting Group where she worked on strategy for consumer goods companies as well as for the United Nations World Food Programme. She then was a researcher on various development projects, doing social impact evaluations. Her work led her to Rwanda, Bangladesh, and India, where she also lived for several years. She has a super inspiring story when it comes to creating social impact and creating a successful startup at the same time. 

In a chat with Diksha Dutta, she speaks about the Share business model, pricing strategies, acquiring customers, funding, and internationalization plans.

In the third episode of Dare Do Speak, the guest is Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder, Info Edge. One of the first internet entrepreneurs from India, in 1997, Sanjeev launched India’s leading job portal Naukri.com. A little under a decade from there on, in 2006, Info Edge (Naukri.com parent) went for an IPO, becoming one of the first internet companies to go public. Sanjeev is an investor in several startups and placed early bets on the likes of Zomato and PolicyBazaar. Recently as Zomato went public, Sanjeev’s 11-year-old investment in the company yielded over 1,000x return.

InfoEdge owns companies like job portal naukri.com, 99acres.com in real estate, Jeevansathi.com in matrimony, and Shiksha.com in education. Sanjeev is also co-founder of Ashoka University and was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020. In a chat with Diksha Dutta, he speaks about why Naukri is still leading the job portal market in India; the importance of customer insights; making smart investments in startups; and why Zomato’s IPO is just the beginning of the next rising wave of Indian startups.

In the second episode of Dare Do Speak, the guest is Jag Singh, Managing Director of Techstars Berlin. Jag is one of Europe’s most active angel investors, with 60+ private investments (pre-seed through to Series D), and 30 through Techstars (pre-seed). He previously built four companies from scratch, with his first two exits in 2007 & 2009. Jag also has a decade of experience at the highest levels of politics & strategy, having advised US Presidential Campaigns as well as UK & pan-European politicians and campaign groups. 

In a conversation with us, he spoke about different facets of angel investing, what he looks for in startup founders, and the startup scene in Europe. 

Here is a list of the selected time stamps on the different topics discussed during the podcast:

01:12- 03:24   Jag’s journey from a political strategist to entrepreneur to now an angel investor and MD at Techstars Berlin.

03:24- 07:27   Learnings from the world of politics adapted to entrepreneurship

07:27-12:41    How difficult or easy is it to actually become an angel investor with no prior experience in investing.

12:41- 16:46  Jag’s angel investing portfolio

16:46- 17:53   How to manage your startup portfolio as an investor? How much to interfere?

17:53 - 27:29  The power of decision making in angel investing

27:29- 31:26   Why invest in technology-first startups?

31:26- 37:27   The value in bootstrapping for startups

37:27- 39:20   What is Jag’s favorite kind of founder?

39:20- 43:43  The concept of promise-market-fit

43:43- 48:04  Berlin as a startup hub in Europe

48:04- 54:14   How to build an international startup from the city of Berlin?

54:14- 58:33   What is the USP of Techstarts Berlin?

58:33- end      One final piece of advice for all entrepreneurs

In the very first episode of Dare Do Speak, the guest is Nischal Shetty, Founder and CEO of WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange (acquired by Binance). 

In a conversation with Diksha Dutta, he speaks about what it takes to be a crypto entrepreneur in India;  the proposed ban on cryptocurrencies in the country; the future of NFTs and DeFi; and more.