Z47 Moments

Z47
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Zero to Infinity, by Z47, is a podcast series dedicated to the founders, startups, and all within the ecosystem through candid conversations on what we think it really takes to survive in this wild startup world. In a world where we are endlessly engulfed with information in all its forms and sizes, this is our attempt to create, curate, and bring to you the insights and reflections that we have had the luxury of having learned the hard way through all the years spent in truly understanding what it takes to build and nurture a startup from ground zero.

  1. How 3 IIT engineers built one of India's biggest beauty brands | Manish Taneja | Unstarted

    1D AGO

    How 3 IIT engineers built one of India's biggest beauty brands | Manish Taneja | Unstarted

    Do you need an original idea to start a company? Do you need to be a consumer of your category? Do you need the "right" co-founders?Manish Taneja was none of those things. He grew up in Faridabad a self-described "frog of his own well." He went to IIT and "felt very small." He became a banker, then an investor, then started a beauty company with two other male engineers, with no female co-founder, and no personal stake in the category. He still built Purplle into one of India's largest beauty platforms.In this episode of Unstarted, Avnish Bajaj and Manish sit down to work through the questions that every founder without a clear edge asks themselves: 1. Do you need an original idea, or is it okay to be a "copycat entrepreneur"?  When VCs tell you your team is missing something  2. Do you fix the weakness or back your strength? – How do you find a wedge in a category where everyone else has more money, more experience, and more insider knowledge?  3. What do you do when your ego won't let you leave — and is that the thing keeping you in the game?  4. How do you build responsibly without losing your edge? Manish's answer to all of it, in the end, comes down to two lines: back your strengths, and build responsibly. This conversation is about how he got there. Chapters 00:00 The $100 million mistake01:55 Faridabad, the frog in the well03:03 Feeling small at IIT, and the speech that changed everything05:31 Lehman, Avendus, and the long apprenticeship08:52 "I was the original copycat entrepreneur"12:58 The feedback from Matrix: no woman co-founder14:54 Why beauty, and why now17:52 Dabau early: the rosemary water playbook22:00 How Purplle won Kerala (and met the priests)26:02 The internal compass, and saying no to Thrasios28:53 Why your ego won't let you leave30:36 Why he built in Bombay33:17 The IPO question35:49 Build responsibly

    39 min
  2. The man who sold his company to Jio for Rs. 700 Cr | Aakrit Vaish | Unstarted

    APR 30

    The man who sold his company to Jio for Rs. 700 Cr | Aakrit Vaish | Unstarted

    What do you do with the regret of being right too early? Aakrit Vaish started Haptik in 2013: an AI chatbot company nine years before ChatGPT. By 2016 he knew the market wasn't ready. He kept going anyway. In 2019 he sold to Reliance Jio. In November 2022, he watched the world finally catch up to the thesis he'd carried for a decade and for a few weeks, sat with the sentence: "This should have been me." Today he's co-founder of Activate, an AI-native VC firm running with two partners, one employee and seven agents, and an advisor on the India AI Mission. In this episode, Avnish Bajaj sits down with a founder who has rejected him more than once, and asks the questions most founders quietly carry: 1. How do you know whether you're early, late, or correctly timed?2. Why do you keep going when the rational move is to stop?3. When the world eventually proves you right, what do you do with the grief?4. In AI today, what does it actually mean to be in the 99th percentile — globally, not locally?5. How does a high-agency founder stay ahead when the tools keep rewriting the job?6. What Aakrit lands on: market timing matters, but identity matters more. 7. Mission over everything else. And the only advice he gives, seven times a day, to anyone who'll listen: have agency. Build. Don't wait. Chapters 00:00 Why Did You Let ChatGPT Happen?02:30 Welcome to Unstarted — Introducing Aakrit Vaish04:00 Growing Up in Juhu — Normal Mumbai Business Family06:30 UIUC, PayPal Mafia & Moving to Silicon Valley09:00 Why He Came Back to India at 2711:00 What Was Haptic? India's First AI Chatbot Company14:00 The Alexa Moment That Started It All (London 2012)18:00 How Founders Can Know If They Are Too Early or Too Late23:00 2016 — He Knew It Was Too Early. He Kept Going Anyway27:30 Fear of Failure vs Fear of Not Trying Hard Enough31:00 The Pull vs Push Test — The Clearest PMF Signal35:00 Why He Sold Haptic to Reliance38:30 ChatGPT Launched. His First Reaction Was Personal43:00 "Should That Have Been Me?" — The Honest Answer47:00 From Reliance to India AI Mission to Activate VC51:00 How to Know Which Problem Is Worth Solving With AI55:30 99th Percentile or Nothing — The New Bar for AI Founders59:00 Why AI in India Is the Most Ignored Opportunity1:03:00 Anthropic vs OpenAI — Two Different Strategies Explained1:07:00 Voice AI, FinTech & How GDP Will Actually Grow1:11:00  The K-Shift — GDP Growth at the Cost of Inequality Follow Z47 Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

    45 min
  3. How Rebel Foods Built the World's First Cloud Kitchen Empire | Jaydeep Barman | Unstarted

    APR 23

    How Rebel Foods Built the World's First Cloud Kitchen Empire | Jaydeep Barman | Unstarted

    What happens when you spend 13 years building something, and for most of those years, the people around you think it's not going to work out?Jaydeep Barman left a gilded career at McKinsey's London office to bet on a single roll shop in Pune. What followed was a decade-plus journey through India's costliest real estate market, the invention of an entirely new category (cloud kitchens — before anyone called it that), and the slow, painful work of staying in the game while companies that started years after him became unicorns overnight. In this conversation, Avnish and Jaydeep wrestle with: 1. How do you find the one insight nobody else has, and trust it when the world disagrees? 2. What do you do when your investors mentally write you off? 3. Why does every real innovation at Rebel come from the moments they were closest to shutting down? 4. How do you build a team that stays for 13 years, through the pain, the doubt, and the long wait? 5. This is a conversation about what it actually costs to stay in the arena longer than everyone expects you to, and what that buys you that nothing else can. Chapters:  00:00 The reality of startup comparison & investor pressure01:30 Why we didn’t pivot to food delivery (despite the hype)02:30 From McKinsey to starting a food business04:10 The first roll shop: how Fasos began09:00 Learning the business & why curiosity matters most11:20 Insight v/s timing: finding your “right to win”13:40 Building a cloud kitchen breakthrough17:30 Founder mentality vs CV mentality20:00 Hiring, ownership & building real culture24:50 Performance vs culture: who stays, who leaves27:20 Rock bottom moments: running out of money & pushing through Follow Z47 Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

    43 min
  4. Raised $12.5M to eliminate US healthcare's biggest problem | Coral AI

    APR 20

    Raised $12.5M to eliminate US healthcare's biggest problem | Coral AI

    What does it take to fix the most broken system in America — from the outside? Ajay and Aniket, co-founders of Coral AI, had zero healthcare experience when they started. What they had was a burning problem, a one-way plane ticket to the US, and a relentless drive to understand healthcare from the ground up — visiting 17 cities in 30 days, becoming interns, and reading thousands of faxes doctors still send in 2026. In this episode of Zee47 Moments, Ashwin and Vikram sit down with the founders to unpack how Coral is using AI to eliminate the administrative chaos of patient referrals — cutting weeks of back-and-forth down to minutes — and how they're building one of the most AI-native companies in healthcare. 🔍 What we cover: • Why 40% of primary care visits result in a referral — and how that process is broken• How fax machines still run US healthcare in 2026• The technology behind going from 80% to 99.1% accuracy on medical documents• Why Epic and OpenAI can't solve this problem — but Coral can• Winning head-to-head against a competitor that raised $100M+• The "forward deployed engineer" model and why it's not services• Building a lean, 10x team of future founders Coral just raised $12.5M led by Zee47. This is their story. ─────────────────────────────CHAPTERS 0:00 17 days to get a scan2:22 Picking healthcare with zero healthcare background4:48 17 cities in 30 days and the Mamba mentality8:26 Inside the fax machine: how a US referral actually works14:16 Getting to 99% accuracy (and why 95% isn't enough)20:48 Beating a competitor with 10x the money24:56 $100K to $500K without a sales team28:07 The 10X-only team and the FTE model done right33:40 Failure, rapid fire, and what's next Follow Z47 Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

    38 min
  5. Built a $70M company because he wasn't invited to birthday parties

    APR 16

    Built a $70M company because he wasn't invited to birthday parties

    Sanket Shah started thinking about business at 17. His first idea was putting ads on Mumbai's auto-rickshaws. The government said no. He went to Mantralaya three times, met the Chief Minister, got sent to the transport commissioner, and received government letters at home for four years.He got 4 rickshaws approved. Twenty-something years later, he's the founder of Invideo — a video creation platform operating at serious scale, with under 100 people. And right now, he's stopped looking at his revenue numbers entirely. He has two people running the existing business. He is fully allocated to what comes next. In this conversation with Avnish Bajaj, Sanket talks about why you can't optimise your way through a ceiling — and what it actually costs to do something drastic. He talks about the one conversation he had in San Francisco where he and his co-founder both knew they had to change course, chose not to, and paid for it all year. Founder questions tackled in this episode:  1. What's the difference between an L1 insight and the insight that actually can't be copied? 2. When does persistence become stubbornness? How do you know which side you're on? 3. How do you talk to customers without asking leading questions — and what do you do with what you hear? 4. When everyone's going agentic, how do you actually stand out? Recorded in association with Tech Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai (TEAM), ahead of Mumbai Tech Week 2026  May 29–30 at Jio World Convention Centre. Register at mumbaitechweek.com. Follow Z47 Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

    37 min
  6. 150 rejections, a government ban and starting over | The Dream11 story | Unstarted Ep 7

    APR 9

    150 rejections, a government ban and starting over | The Dream11 story | Unstarted Ep 7

    Harsh Jain built Dream11 from a family business detour and a love of fantasy football into a company that sponsored every IPL team, sent athletes to the Olympics, and had 300 million users.Then the government effectively ended the business he'd spent 15 years building. This conversation isn't about the rise. It's about what happens after the nuclear bomb falls — how you grieve something you loved, how you decide whether to fight or pivot, and how you keep 1,000 people from walking out the door. The questions Avnish and Harsh wrestle with: 1. Do you really need an original idea, or do you need to be obsessed with a problem? 2. What's the difference between being in love with your company and just being attracted to the outcome? 3. How do you keep going after 150 investor rejections — and is "keep going" always the right answer? 4. What do you do when the nuclear bomb falls on everything you built? 5. Can culture actually survive catastrophe, or does it only exist in the good times? In the end culture is the only thing that scales. Not the product or funding. The team and whether you built something worth staying for. YouTube Chapters00:00 The neighbour who built Dream11 05:09 Love vs. lust: the only thing that keeps you going 06:39 Q1: Do you really need an original idea? 10:27 150 rejections: the napkin, the car ride 18:37 Q2:How to know if you actually have product-market fit 22:03 Culture is the founder's DNA 27:43 The nuclear bomb falls 32:54 What happens after you grieve together 39:45 Why Harsh never left Mumbai 41:21 — What Mumbai Tech Week is actually for 44:10 — B talent. A culture. One big problem. Follow Z47 Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

    46 min
  7. AI won't take your job, here's why | Intelligent Indians Ep 3

    APR 7

    AI won't take your job, here's why | Intelligent Indians Ep 3

    OpenClaw went from zero to more GitHub stars than React, a library that took a decade to build that following, in 60 days. One graph, vertical, like nothing the developer community had ever seen. When Z47’s founder, Avnish Bajaj saw that graph, something shifted.Six months earlier, the at Z47 had sat down to look at the velocity of AI deal-making, the valuations, the volume of capital flooding in, and called it a bubble.  The consensus was clear: enterprise adoption would lag, the economics wouldn't close, and the correction would come.Then that graph happened. Then agentic AI happened. Then self-healing code happened. And the thing everyone assumed would lag — enterprise adoption — is now about to explode. Avnish sits down with Rajinder on Intelligent Indians to work through what changed, what it means, and what every founder and operator needs to do right now before the window closes. The conversation covers: 1. Why the bubble call was wrong, and the specific moment that broke the consensus thesis 2. The AI Agency vs. Mastery K-curve an what it means for your trajectoryAnswering the question “Will AI take my job?” 3. How India is positioned to build AI services 4. What AI-native actually means (And no, it is not using ChatGPT)  5. A live demo of Avnish's WhatsApp-based agent Zen Chapters  00:00 "I Called a Bubble. I Was Wrong 06:15 The Moment That Changed Everything: OpenClaw and the Enterprise Unlock 08:16 The K-Curve: Why AI Won't Take Your Job — But Someone Else Will 14:29 India's Real Opportunity (It's Not What You Think) 22:16 What Founders Should Actually Do Right Now 27:48 Live Demo: Avi's AI Agent "Zen" 33:24 I've Been Waiting 35 Years. It's Finally Here Follow Z47 Website - https://www.z47.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/z47.vc/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/z47-vc/

    36 min
  8. Raising $7 Million for your AI startup | Utkrishta Kumar | Unstarted Ep 5

    APR 2

    Raising $7 Million for your AI startup | Utkrishta Kumar | Unstarted Ep 5

    Most people know what they want. The problem is they keep waiting for certainty that never comes. Oolka founder, Utkrishta Kumar built India's first just-in-time fulfilment network at 27, helped scale Meesho through one of India's biggest social commerce pivots and then left before the IPO. Not because he had to, but because the regret of not starting felt heavier than the risk of failing. In this episode, Avnish and Utkrishta work through the questions early founders actually get stuck on: 1. How do I know I'm ready to start up?2. How do you find PMF and is tracking PMF enough?3. How do I build an AI product that ChatGPT can't just replace tomorrow?4. If I've already made money, why does failure still terrify me?5. The conversation lands somewhere honest: you won't see the whole road. 6. You just need to be okay with the fog A new episode of Unstarted - every Thursday 00:00  Leaving before the IPO00:56  Introduction: the one question every aspiring founder is asking 01:55  Growing up risk-averse 04:54 Q1: How do you know if starting up is the right move? 07:12 How to build a founder's operating system without an MBA 11:43 Q2: How do I know if I've reached PMF? 13:47 What Oolka does — and why every credit problem is individual 16:51 Why he left Meesho before the IPO — and the fear money doesn't fix 19:58 Q3: How do you build with AI without being replaced tomorrow? 26:49 Final advice: more than 70% never fire the bullet

    29 min
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4.5
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About

Zero to Infinity, by Z47, is a podcast series dedicated to the founders, startups, and all within the ecosystem through candid conversations on what we think it really takes to survive in this wild startup world. In a world where we are endlessly engulfed with information in all its forms and sizes, this is our attempt to create, curate, and bring to you the insights and reflections that we have had the luxury of having learned the hard way through all the years spent in truly understanding what it takes to build and nurture a startup from ground zero.

Information

  • Creator
    Z47
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    248
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Z47 Moments

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