An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra Sharma

Soumitra Sharma
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An Operator's Blog is hosted by Soumitra Sharma, General Partner at Operators Studio, a micro-VC firm focused on the US-India corridor. This podcast takes you into the world of startups and venture capital, featuring candid conversations focusing on sharing real operating insights, tips, and playbooks that you can immediately start using to solve your biggest challenges as a founder and operator. Join Soumitra as he cuts through the BS & interviews top founders, operators, and investors who have built businesses in the trenches for decades.

  1. Building A Prosumer AI Startup: The Merlin Story

    2天前

    Building A Prosumer AI Startup: The Merlin Story

    This episode delves in-depth into building a Prosumer AI startup. We cover everything from overlooked spaces in AI, how to choose problem statements as a founder, learnings on upfront market research & customer discovery, creating defensibility in Prosumer AI, managing the foundation model layer, including closed source vs open source, Prosumer GTM, particularly influencers and affiliate marketing, new usage-based pricing models, fundraising learnings and finally, specific learnings for US-India founders. Joining me for this discussion is Pratyush Rai, Co-founder of Merlin, an AI productivity assistant that you can use for everything from getting one-click answers to summarizing & repurposing content, and much more. Pratyush is an IIT grad, worked with BCG in the past, before starting Merlin with two of his batchmates, and has now scaled it to 2M+ users. Merlin was recently covered in A16Z's top 50 AI apps where startups spend money. TIME STAMPS: (01:27) What spaces in AI are being overlooked? (05:26) Building a Prosumer AI startup: the Merlin backstory (09:41) Choosing AI problem statements to work on (20:21) Doing effective customer discovery (21:12) Competition & differentiation (24:15) Creating defensibility as a Prosumer AI product (30:33) AI front-end experiences: Browsers and Chrome Extensions (34:03) Managing the foundation model layer: closed vs open source  (42:46) GTM Approaches for Prosumer AI: Influencers & Affiliate Marketing (57:08) Pricing learnings for Prosumer AI startups: usage-based (1:05:55) Fundraising learnings for Prosumer AI founders (1:12:54) One hard-earned lesson for US-India founders Connect with Pratyush on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratyush-rai/ and follow him on X - @pratyush_r8 ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).

    1 小时 18 分钟
  2. Agentic AI Meets Compliance: Lessons From Sprinto

    10月23日

    Agentic AI Meets Compliance: Lessons From Sprinto

    This episode delves in-depth into building an AI Applications startup in the area of Compliance.  We cover everything from how to choose problem statements as a founder including a 2x2 framework for idea evaluation, approaching building in “boring” verticals, executing an effective customer discovery process, thinking through product differentiation in the Applications layer, evolution of GTM in the age of AI, new-age pricing models, present state of AI fundraising in the Bay Area, and finally, specific learnings for US-India founders. Joining me for this discussion is Girish Redekar, Co-founder of Sprinto, a unified, AI-powered compliance platform that enterprises can use to manage compliance standards such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR. Before Sprinto, Girish founded RecruiterBox in the HRTech space, which was acquired by TurnRiver Capital. TIME STAMPS: (01:17) What parts of the AI ecosystem are under-hyped? (05:31) Choosing unsexy verticals: the Sprinto backstory (11:48) Choosing the right problem statements in AI (17:21) Product Risk vs Market Risk: a 2x2 framework for evaluating startup ideas (21:12) Competition & differentiation (25:41) Staying on top of rapid changes in the foundational model layer (31:37) AI’s impact on GTM (37:41) AI adoption apprehensions of enterprise customers (42:27) Ground reality of AI-first pricing models (47:03) Bay Area fundraising advice for AI Applications startups (51:18) A hard-earned lesson for US-India founders Connect with Girish on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishredekar/ and follow him on X - @grease_ ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).

    55 分钟
  3. Building An AI-Infra Startup In 2025: Seed-Stage Lessons From Pipeshift

    9月25日

    Building An AI-Infra Startup In 2025: Seed-Stage Lessons From Pipeshift

    This episode delves in-depth into the present market landscape, challenges & opportunities being navigated by AI infra startups in the Bay Area.  We cover everything from parts of the AI ecosystem that are overhyped and underhyped, real AI infra pain points & apprehensions of enterprise customers, nuances of leveraging closed source vs open source models in enterprise infra, discovering gaps & wedges as a startup, creating differentiated products against competition, AI-first GTM, new-age pricing models and finally, lesser-known aspects of fundraising in the Bay Area. Joining me for this discussion is Arko, Co-founder and CEO of Pipeshift, a YC-backed startup that's building reliable and SLA-compliant inference-as-a-service for real-time AI applications in production. He and his co-founders started building products together as undergraduates, participating in hackathons over six years ago, and today they are building a best-in-class AI infrastructure company right here in the Bay Area. TIME STAMPS: (01:43) What parts of the AI ecosystem are under-hyped? (07:48) The Pipeshift backstory (11:23) The unique value of building in the Bay Area (16:31) Choosing the right problem statements (21:34) Competition & differentiation (25:22) AI infra pain points of enterprise customers today (32:24) Staying on top of rapid changes in the foundational model layer (42:48) Customer approach on closed vs open source models (48:02) Ground reality of AI-first pricing models (51:44) Early stage GTM learnings in AI infra (59:55) Bay Area fundraising advice Connect with Arko - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arkoc/  ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).

    1 小时 8 分钟
  4. From Zero to $1M ARR: Building a US–India Enterprise Dev Tools Startup

    8月7日

    From Zero to $1M ARR: Building a US–India Enterprise Dev Tools Startup

    This episode goes in-depth into the key operating aspects of building & scaling a US-India Enterprise Dev Tools Startup.  We cover everything from the ground reality of how AI is impacting enterprise dev tools, why engineering founders should code less & sell more, thinking through ICPs, MVP best practices, GTM approaches, including outbound and events, the importance of founder-led sales, and finally, how pricing models are evolving with AI. Joining me for this discussion is Sudheer Bandaru, Founder & CEO of Hivel. Hivel is a B2B SaaS solution that helps companies improve engineering productivity and release better software faster by providing interactive dashboards for visibility and actionable insights to enhance software delivery. Sudheer has been a long-time CTO and engineering leader, taking multiple startups from the garage to public listings. TIME STAMPS: (01:23) How will AI impact the way value gets created across functions (05:47) The Hivel backstory: Making engineering teams high-velocity (12:00) Why engineering founders should code less & sell more (15:00) Thinking through your ICP (18:45) MVP best practices (21:14) Leveraging AI as an enterprise dev tools startup (25:27) GTM approaches for enterprise dev tools (28:05) Crafting a go-to-market funnel for a new category (33:26) Structuring the sales org. (36:59) Approaching org. design in the age of AI (40:49) Ground reality of AI-first pricing models Connect with Sudheer - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sbandaru/ and follow him on X - @sudheerbandaru_ ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).

    48 分钟
  5. How Skydo Found Product-Market Fit in India’s Cross-Border B2B Payments

    6月17日

    How Skydo Found Product-Market Fit in India’s Cross-Border B2B Payments

    This episode goes in-depth into Skydo’s journey from Day 0 to emerging as a category leader in India's cross-border B2B payments today, helping more than 6,000 Indian products & services exporters receive payments from 150+ countries & in 32+ currencies. We cover everything from the untapped cross-border payments opportunity, learnings from fintech MVP iterations, doing customer research to identify unique product & business model insights, the philosophy of "do things that don’t scale" and figuring out differentiation pre-PMF, leveraging founder-led sales to acquire early customers, building a culture of radical transparency, learnings from VC fundraising and finally, Skydo’s plans for the next 2 years.  Joining me for this discussion are Skydo's co-founders - Movin Jain and Srivatsan Sridhar. Previously, Movin held leadership roles at PhonePe, Meesho & Ola, and Srivatsan at McKinsey, Ola, and Rupeek. TIME STAMPS: (01:00) The Skydo backstory (04:08) Why cross-border payments is an untapped opportunity (09:10) Iterating a fintech MVP (16:54) Examples of “do things that don’t scale” in fintech (20:47) Figuring out product differentiation at the early stages (26:52) Importance of intellectual humility (30:09) Finding early adopters in a high-trust business like fintech (35:01) Right-sizing the early sales team (36:53) Optimizing the marketing funnel  (42:51) Doing “unscalable” founder-led customer service to differentiate  (44:59) How to discover what to build or improve in a B2B payments product (51:37) Building a culture of radical transparency (59:30) Learnings from VC fundraising  (1:07:38) Navigating cross-border payments regulations (1:14:35) Why should Indian exporters prefer Skydo over traditional banks? Connect with Movin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/movinjain/ and Srivatsan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/srivats80/ ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).

    1 小时 16 分钟
  6. Finding US Design Partners As An India-Based Cross-Border Founder I Learnings From 3 Venture-Backed Startups (Bitzer, Quolum, Redblock)

    5月29日

    Finding US Design Partners As An India-Based Cross-Border Founder I Learnings From 3 Venture-Backed Startups (Bitzer, Quolum, Redblock)

    This episode goes in-depth into the key operating aspects of finding & working with US design partners as a US-India cross-border founder.  We cover everything from correctly defining who a design partner is, major categories and personas on the B2B side, discovering, qualifying, convincing & engaging them including navigating their organization structure, partnering with them to build early versions of the product, tension between direct sales & channel partner models, how to approach pricing discussions and finally, a rapid-fire round of questions sourced from An Operator’s Blog founder community.  Joining me for this discussion is Indus Khaitan, Founder & CEO of Redblock, a cybersecurity startup that provides identity security for disconnected apps using Agentic AI. Before this, Indus founded Quolum in the SaaS spend management space and also founded Bitzer, which was an early mobile security platform and was acquired by Oracle. He is a long-time champion, advisor & investor in the US-India venture corridor.   TIME STAMPS: (02:10) The early days of mobile security, iPhone 1, and starting Bitzer (04:39) The definition & value of a 'design partner' (08:25) Major categories of design partners  (11:29) Navigating through the org. structure of design partners (15:04) Should US-India B2B startups enter the US via a channel partner model? (19:02) Dealing with friendly vs cold/ outside-network design partners (23:36) Generating US design partner leads (27:57) Qualifying potential design partner leads (30:20) Prioritizing between SMB vs mid-market vs enterprise design partners (38:03) Reasons why founders’ and investors’ POVs on the business direction often diverge  (41:53) Most useful social media platforms for 0-to-1 founders (45:14) Are offline events & conferences useful for early-stage founders? (53:41) Approaches & frameworks for building B2B software MVPs (59:54) Approaching pricing conversations with design partners (1:03:06) Rapid-fire round Connect with Indus - https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaitan/ and follow him on X - @1ndus ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).

    1 小时 6 分钟
  7. Building a US-India AI startup in fintech software

    5月8日

    Building a US-India AI startup in fintech software

    This episode goes in-depth into the key operating aspects of building & scaling a US-India cross-border AI startup serving the US financial services market. We cover everything from customer behavior & AI adoption patterns by large US financial services enterprises, approaches & frameworks for building fintech MVPs, state-wise & country-wise regulatory & business nuances, AI’s impact on fintech product roadmaps, tactics for US-India fintech software founders to find US design partners, go-to-market approaches for large enterprise GTM, emerging AI-driven fintech software pricing models, building a US fintech GTM team as a US-India founder, and finally, learnings from fintech fundraising in the Valley. Joining me for this discussion is Shantanu Gangal, Founder & CEO of Prodigal, an AI platform for loan servicing & collection agents, both human and virtual. Prodigal’s Intelligence Engine touches ~40 million consumers in the US, Canada & UK. The company is backed by top-tier VCs like Accel & Menlo. TIME STAMPS: (01:15) AI’s impact on the US fintech software landscape (08:22) Backstory of Prodigal (12:02) Approaches & frameworks for building fintech MVPs (15:42) State-wise & country-wise regulatory & business nuances (21:44) Importance of meeting customers in person (23:59) AI’s impact on fintech software product roadmaps (32:59) Tactics for US-India fintech software founders to find US design partners (37:25) Go-to-market motions for a US-India fintech software startup (42:20) AI’s impact on fintech software pricing models  (46:45) Building a US fintech software GTM team as a US-India founder (50:26) Learnings from fintech fundraising in Silicon Valley Connect with Shantanu - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shantanugangal/ and follow him on X - @shantanugangal ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).

    52 分钟
  8. Growing In The US Via On-Ground Hustle - The Goodmeetings Story

    4月17日

    Growing In The US Via On-Ground Hustle - The Goodmeetings Story

    This episode explores US GTM strategies, playbooks, and learnings for US-India B2B founders. We cover everything from the playbook for finding the shortest way to PMF with the least capital raised, step-by-step framework for building B2B software MVPs, nuances of serving customers in the US vs India, finding US design partners including the best ways to generate leads & get warm intros, and finally, the importance of spending frequent & quality time with customers. Joining me for this discussion is Srinivasan Narayan (Srini), Co-founder and CEO of Goodmeetings, an AI-powered Meeting Insights & Automation Platform designed to enhance the performance of customer-facing revenue teams. Prior to this, Srini co-founded CohortPlus, an edtech startup that was acquired by upGrad. TIME STAMPS: (01:05) The game-changing nature of AI (05:57) The backstory of Goodmeetings, how repeat founders do things differently (13:28) Surviving tech cycles & disruptions (17:22) Approaches & frameworks for building B2B software MVPs (21:41) The playbook for finding the shortest way to PMF with the least capital raised (28:29) Nuances of serving customers in the US vs India (40:24) Finding design partners in the US, leveraging extended networks & cold emailing (46:42) Importance of spending time with customers  Connect with Srini - https://www.linkedin.com/in/srinivasan-narayan-5834928/ and follow him on X - @naryansrini ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).

    52 分钟
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An Operator's Blog is hosted by Soumitra Sharma, General Partner at Operators Studio, a micro-VC firm focused on the US-India corridor. This podcast takes you into the world of startups and venture capital, featuring candid conversations focusing on sharing real operating insights, tips, and playbooks that you can immediately start using to solve your biggest challenges as a founder and operator. Join Soumitra as he cuts through the BS & interviews top founders, operators, and investors who have built businesses in the trenches for decades.

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