Avsnitt
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As per Statista, Market size of the cosmetics industry across India which was at $3 Bn in 2010 is expected to grow to atleast $20 Bn by 2025.
In today’s episode, we talk with Manish Taneja, Co-founder and CEO, Purplle, which was started back in 2012.
During the podcast Manish talks in detail about -
How he along with his Cofounders have always thought for the long-term?Problems they faced back in 2012 in Vertical Ecommerce.How MOATs against competitors are mostly in the minds of the founders? rather than being actually relevant to Indian customers, who are most price and value sensitive.What’s unique about their culture that has helped them retain as well as hire new talent? And more…Lastly before we dive deeper into the podcast, something that Manish mentioned during the episode - “Our 2nd part of the journey has been about, believing in yourself, doing things that are contradictory to the world but at the same time, we think could create massive value in the future.”
Notes -
03:19 - Intro to Manish & Purplle
04:57 - Being from a Finance background what got him to start his 2nd venture in Online Beauty space?
10:32 - Challenges in Vertical Ecommerce back in 2012
12:29 - Challenges in delivery, cash flow and more in the first 5-6 years
17:30 - Two defining characteristics in their fund raising journey
2!:52 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
22:55 - Learnings while his exit from Avendus Capital
24:18 - Major changes in the 2nd part of their journey from 2016-17 onwards
28:34 - Launching their own brands with 65%+ Gross Margin
31:08 - How has he evolved as a founder during Purplle’s journey?
33:21 - Shaping Purplle’s culture over the years
38:34 - “MOATs aren’t as relevant for consumers, as they are for founders against competition.”
42:23 - Opportunity to build a $20-30 Bn FMCG company from India
45:26 - Not succumbing to external pressures around Growth
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll -
Thinking about Entrepreneurship or Startups which of the following do you think really matters -
# Having Degree from a Tier-1 college?
# Having or finding the right Co-founder?
# Sky-rocketing your scale up as soon as you secure funding?
# Pouring in your resources to get as many customers as fast as possible via Ads?
Well the short answer to all the above questions is, IT DOESN’T.
In today’s episode we’ve with us Vaibhav Sisinty, Founder, GrowthSchool. And in this episode, while sharing his experiences of building and scaling GrowthSchool, he busts all the above myths one-by-one.
For all of you, who’ve been active on Linkedin, in the past few years, especially around themes like marketing and growth hacking, you would have surely noticed a post or an Ad by Vaibhav, or his perfect case of personal branding and self-curated courses on Sisinty.com.
During the episode, we talk with Vaibhav about how he learnt and grew his marketing skills during his job at Uber and Klook, how he used a brilliant growth hacking method even while raising his first round and much more.
Lastly before we dive deeper into the podcast, something that Vaibhav mentioned during the episode - “True Product Market Fit is, If I shut down my product today, will 25 people line out of my office, requesting to please turn it ON.”
Notes -
00:54 - Intro
01:55 - Starting in Growth Journey: From his 1st Venture to Uber
05:24 - Helping other startups: His playground to learn
06:29 - Building Organic v/s Paid Channels of Growth
12:02 - Founder-Market Fit towards starting GrowthSchool
16:02 - 0 to $1 Mn ARR before first round of funding
20:36 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
22:33 - Running Lean & Shrewd to achieve profitability
23:58 - Scale & format of courses before and after the funding
29:00 - Growth Hacking his way to raise funding from Sequoia, Owl & 80+ Angels
36:15 - “Blitzscaling right after funding will break things.”
39:17 - Focus & Internal goals in near future
41:46 - What’s his definition of PMF for GrowthSchool?
49:15 - Managing his time as a Solo Founder
52:55 - Various process which he has built in his life
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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As per Statista, globally there are more than 2.6 Mn Apps on Google Play Store, and when you’re building in today’s age of internet, you need as much as visibility possible around -
# Accurately measuring the impact of your marketing initiatives# Actionable insights on your user behaviour
# Potential Competitors & on what metrics do they compare with you and where do you & your team needs to focus more.
To understand mobile marketing analytics better in this episode we’ve with us Oren Kaniel, CEO & Co-founder, AppsFlyer.
Founded in 2011, AppsFlyer has grown leaps and bounds and is currently amongst the top choices of marketers to mobile marketing analytics.
In today’s episode, we talk with Oren about how they built and grew AppsFlyer where there was almost a free option like Google Analytics available to the masses, also what’s their focus triangle about Privacy, Users Value and Safety.
Lastly before we dive deeper into the podcast, something that Oren’s mentioned during the episode - “Do not fall in love with your product, fall in love with the ecosystem, with the problem-statement.”
Notes -
03:09 - Intro to AppsFlyer
03:55 - Starting with Entrepreneurship
05:53 - Identifying the opportunity and starting AppsFlyer
09:18 - How well positioned is Israel for capturing Asian and Global markets?
12:55 - $300 Mn ARR from the US & rest of the Global market
13:46 - Journey from 0 to 1 and 1 to 10
20:13 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
22:25 - Ensuring faster growth by balancing pricing and revenue model
27:53 - Evolving of Go-To-Market insights over time
38:19 - Building the team and culture
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll -
Today being an entrepreneur and starting with a new idea, you can take either of the two approaches -
1. You can build on top of an existing category in the market and bring your unique offerings
2. You can take the riskier bet and create an entire category.
In India, companies like Flipkart, Oyo, Ola etc. are the ‘Regional’ first movers. Although their concept was inspired from the global companies, however, being the first mover in the Indian subcontinent region gave them an advantage.
In today’s episode we have Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director, Arkam Ventures, who has a great focus on identifying and investing in such Category Creators for Middle India.
Prior to Arkam, Bala, was part of the founding team at Vistaar, which in simple words helps companies like Cisco, Dell, GE, Ford, and Hitachi to make better, faster, and more profitable business decisions.
Post that he became one of the founding members of Amba research, which was acquired for $100 Mn by Moody’s.
After Amba, he was also with Kalaari Capital for over 3 years, post which he co-founded Arkam Ventures, a Venture Capital firm with a focus on “Category Creators for Middle India” and “Enablers for the Global”.
In today’s episode, we talk with Bala about key ingredients of building a Category Creator, Solving for the pricing problem in SaaS startups, taking SaaS to the mass audience in Tier-3 cities and towns and much more.
Notes -
02:01 - Intro
04:05 - Essential ingredients to build a $10 Mn ARR company
06:29 - Why focus on category creators for Middle India?
18:38 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
20:08 - Evolving from a single problem statement to a platform with multiple offerings
22:23 - Razorpay’s gameplan for trust building for Small town customers
24:06 - His thesis around investing in enablers like Signzy and Spotdraft
30:26 - His thoughts on India-focused SaaS with regards to pricing
33:24 - Themes and Thesis which didn’t worked out
38:42 - What gave him an edge into the middle India consumer?
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll -
How can an experience being a VC come handy while starting up? To answer this today we’ve with us Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder, Sourcewiz.
Prior to starting Sourcewiz, Divyaanshu had already tasted entrepreneurship with his first venture in EdTech space, Connect2Teach in London. Post that after working with EY-Parthenon for a brief period of time, he joined Bessemer Venture Partners in California, United States.
At Bessemer he focused on EdTech, Consumer Tech for India/SEA and Enterprise/SMB SaaS being built from India/SEA for the world.
In today’s episode, we talk with Divyaanshu understanding his journey from being a Entrepreneur to becoming a VC and then going back for Entrepreneurship, his learnings and networks from his VC-period which came handy while starting Sourcewiz and more.
Notes -
02:24 - Intro
03:53 - Early Career and background in Venture Capital prior to Sourcewiz
07:35 - After VC what made him come back as an entrepreneur?
09:38 - Learnings from Mistakes from his previous venture
13:02 - Mistakes he observed other founders make while being a VC
15:04 - Key criterias for him while selecting a market from a VC’s lens
20:03 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
21:58 - Quitting at Bessemer Venture Partners to starting up Sourcewiz
31:10 - Connecting with Sajith Pai from Blume Ventures
35:02 - Identifying and Focusing on the problem statement within SaaS
41:08 - Getting their first paying customer
44:45 - Figuring out a scalable GTM for Tier-II customers
47:34 - Acquiring 400+ Paid customers in within first year
49:20 - Building a marketplace and its current traction
53:59 - His path to a $1Mn ARR and then for $10Mn ARR
56:16 - Building mechanism for scale
1:00:34 - Unknowns in the market they are still figuring out
1:02:12 - Closing their second round of Seed funding with Matrix Partners India
1:05:02 - Selection criteria for Angel Investors
1:06:44 - Key pointers of Do’s and Don’ts for new founders
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll -
The Indian market is seeing several startups offering innovative products in the D2C & FMCG segment.
One such innovative brand is Rage Coffee.
Founder Bharat Sethi launched Rage Coffee in the year 2018. It offers a variety of vegan-friendly, vitamin-infused instant coffee flavours. The brand is currently present in 2,500+ retail outlets pan-India and plans to expand its offline presence 5X within a year by strengthening its distribution channels.
In today’s episode, we talk with Bharat Sethi who has been a serial entrepreneur about his entire journey so far and how does Rage Coffee stands out as a brand, the mistakes he made being a founder and what are his future plans for Rage Coffee.
Notes -
02:02 - Intro
02:47 - Family background & what led him to entrepreneurship?
06:35 - Conceptualising PosterGully in 2012
11:09 - Exit from PosterGully
11:50 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
12:59 - Mistakes and learnings from iDecorama
18:45 - Ideating for Rage Coffee
25:55 - Milestones & Growth over the years
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll -
Founded in 2013, Portea Medical, India's Leading Home Health Care Company employes over 4000 people and covers 40+ cities in India doing 1,50,000+ home visits every month.
Portea has also helped about 5,00,000 COVID-19 patients, working with seven different cities and state governments, including Delhi, Mumbai, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Chennai, Bengaluru and all of Karnataka.
Meena Ganesh, Chairperson and Co-Founder, Portea Medical is one of India’s most celebrated entrepreneurs and business leaders. She sits on the boards of numerous firms like Axis Bank, and has a string of start-up successes to her credit. She co-founded her first company, Customer Asset, in 2000 and later on sold it to ICICI. Then came TutorVista, which she ran successfully till it was acquired by British publishing giant Pearson.
Before founding Portea, Meena also served Pearson India as the chief executive officer and managing director.
With her incredible career and achievements, she also became part of Fortune India’s ‘50 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business’ from 2015 to 2021.
In today’s episode, we talk with Meena about her entrepreneurial journey so far, learnings from building a healthcare startup in India and why even getting two large exists previously, she still thinks that journey with her third venture Portea is the most satisfying in terms of learnings.
Notes -
01:36 - Intro
02:04 - Family background & what got Meena into entrepreneurship
08:02 - Brainstorming Ideas during the conception of Portea
12:46 - Milestones after Series A till date
17:53 - Her thoughts on the notion that - “It’s difficult to create money from healthcare & health-tech startups”
21:36 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
22:37 - How has the pricing model evolved at Portea?
24:06 - Learnings from building in healthcare in India
27:14 - How has she grown as a founder during her entrepreneurial journey?
30:04 - Her fundraising journey at Portea
30:33 - Balancing investor-founder relation over the course of a startup’s journey
32:07 - Managing her time between GrowthStory, Portea and home
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll
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In startup ecosystem a lot of people talk about Category creating startups, but it is equally difficult and as it sounds glamorous and exciting.
That’s possibly the reason why we don’t see a lot such Category creating startups around us very frequently. And even if they do come up, they don’t sustain very long.In today’s episode we are talking with Vijay Arisetty, Founder, MyGate, i.e. a category creating startup in its space.
As of now MyGate cators to almost 4 Million+ homes across India. It is very likely that you would have interacted with MyGate directly, as its installed in your society or indirectly probably when you would have visited to meet a friend or family in a gated community, and you would have experienced the seamless flow it brings to gates of these gated communities.
During the episode, catch Vijay sharing what all challenges and opportunities did they come across being a category creating startup in terms of hiring, what to offer to its customers, how to monetize better and much more.
Notes -
01:51 - Intro
03:11 - Family Background and joining the Armed Forces
06:55 - His first startup - PurpleRoad in the Delivery space
08:19 - Aha moment which led to starting MyGate?
11:53 - Final Scale with his logistics startup and initial scale at MyGate before first funding
14:48 - Challenges during the first funding round being a category creator
21:25 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
23:13 - Current and operationally capable scale of MyGate
24:56 - Evolution of monetary channels
29:48 - Challenges during their 0 to 1 journey and then in 1 to 10 journey
37:36 - Existential crisis prior to first round of funding
42:13 - Journey from Series A to Series B and beyond
44:55 - How were the two years of Covid for MyGate?
49:02 - Similarities between being in the Armed Forces and being an Entrepreneur
54:08 - 30 Million homes untapped market by MyGate
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll
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In Sales the stakes are high. And for company’s growth it is important to get it right.
Thanks to multiple options of Sales engagement softwares which streamlines the sales process through integrations which enables companies to combine their sales and marketing efforts to create personalized and automated sales journeys.
In today's episode of 100x Entrepreneur, we have with us Yamini Bhat, Co-founder & CEO, Vymo; i.e An intelligent sales engagement platform for financial institutions.
Started in 2013, Vymo is used by 300,000+ Sales Reps across 65+ Enterprises such as HDFC Bank, SBI Life Insurance, and Sun Life Financial among others.
While most SaaS startups go global from Day 1, Vymo is one of the few Indian SaaS companies which scaled to more than $10M ARR with India Enterprises as clients.
During the episode, catch Yamini sharing why did they chose to focus on BFSI, how did they brought awareness for both their team and customers about their product and much more.
Notes -
01:33 - Intro
03:05 - Career background in Sales Transformation at Mckinsey which led her to Vymo
06:48 - Family background and getting into BITS Pilani & IIM Bangalore?
14:58 - Quitting Mckinsey and identifying the problem statement to startup
17:29 - Till Series-A being focused on a horizontal solution
20:53 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
23:04 - Milestones during Vymo’s journey
26:26 - Key challenges with team and customers early-on
28:56 - Convincing the first few BFSI customers for an average contract value of $350K
31:54 - Building a SaaS behemoth from India and then expanding globally
36:16 - Her 0 to $10 Million ARR playbook for SaaS-entrepreneurs in India
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll
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As per a recent article,“About 60% of companies that reach pre-series A funding fail to make it to Series A, so the success rate is only 30%-40%.”
Infact if you check on Crunchbase, in India you’ll find 4300+ startups at Pre-seed or Seed-stage, but only 600+ out of them have managed to reach Series-A, which bring the success rate to even lower at just 15%.
Apart from this, even in the entire Indian startup ecosystem, there are so many Product Managers, Ex-founders, and many more, who either have an idea around a Problem-statement, but don’t know how to proceed or there are students in college, who are amazed by the startup ecosystem, and want to take their early step, but afraid on how to take the next step.
In order to solve this we have with us our guest of this episode, Rajiv Srivatsa & Nitin Sharma, Antler India.
Antler unlike most VC firms bets on the startup ideas at Pre-seed stage with their Antler India Residency or in some cases even earlier with college students via Antler India Fellowship.
During the episode, catch Rajiv & Nitin sharing their First Principles approach and what infrastructure they are building at Antler India to make the founders succeed considering the time constraints at Pre-seed stage and much more.
Notes -
03:50 - Intro
04:44 - Why did they choose to build Antler India?
09:35 - How did Antler happen?
12:02 - Why kind of institutional mindset do they bring in?
16:18 - How do they balance the equation of a Founder’s optimism & a VC’s pessimism between them?
18:22 - Background around Antler’s India Portfolio over the last 18+ months
22:08 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
23:47 - What’s their approach and what’s the general cheque size?
29:48 - Learnings from the Ups & Downs in Urban Ladder Journey
33:28 - Focusing on building around core foundational use-cases during times of crisis
38:18 - Keeping founders from falling in love with the product and not the actual problem-story
42:12 - Examples of building PeakPerformer & Bookee with Antler
46:47 - How & when do founders get distracted after funding?
50:08 - When do founders have the best chances of succeeding at Seed-stage?
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll
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Varun Mayya was in college when he along with his friends started up a t-shirt manufacturing business called SIZR. Later on, he went into building a recruitment platform, Jobspire. And they were one of the youngest teams to raise venture capital of Rs 1.7 crore even before they graduated, and scaled the company to serve 4 million requests in 2016. In 2017, they sold Jobspire to a New York-based company.
Varun also authored a book named Pyjama Profit which is a guide for millennials to get started with an online freelance practice, while developing the skills needed to succeed.
Along with running a youtube channel, Varun also co-founded Scenes, a community platform for creators to manage, moderate, and monetize their communities in one place.
Scenes has raised funds from some notable investors including Kunal Shah, Gaurav Munjal, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Tanmay Bhat as well Tanglin Ventures, Better Capital, Whiteboard Capital, iSeed Ventures, and Blume Founders Fund.Tune in to this insightful episode with Varun to learn about building a brand, processes around content creation, and leveraging your youtube channel to scale your business.
Notes –03:10 – Intro
04:05 – His journey before entrepreneurship
06:49 – Getting introduced to oDesk (now Upwork) via his mother and earning his first $100
09:10 – Starting a visual version of Naukri in fourth year of college
11:09 – Writing an Amazon Bestseller Book – “Pyjama Profit: The Millennial’s Guide to a Sustainable Freelance Career”
12:48 – Starting Avalon Scenes
18:07 – Two rounds of funding for building a community space
19:22 – Top clients and why do they use Scenes?
22:11 – Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
24:09 – What excites him the most about Scenes?
26:40 – Solving a problem really well v/s Building a large business
28:41 – What’s their longterm goal with Scenes?
33:02 – Can Scenes eventually replace Discord?
34:36 – Why he continues to a creator with Scenes growing?
41:25 – Learnings on YouTube and Twitter around content creation
46:15 – One of his best videos on YouTube
52:44 – “I think we live in a trust-deficient economy and content is the only way to beat it.”
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll -
According to a recent article in Forbes, as per data of ProductLedGrowth.org,“Buyers want to self-educate.”
Personalization is expected by customers—not only are 80% of people more likely to do business with a company that offers personalization but Salesforce’s 2017 State of Marketing Report found that 52% of B2C customers would actually switch brands if they weren’t getting a personalized experience.
In today’s episode we’ve some Dheeraj Pandey, CEO at DevRev; Board Member at Adobe; Investor & Co-founder at Nutanix.
During the episode, catch Dheeraj sharing his experience around Product-Led Growth over the past two decades, taking Nutanix Inc. public within 6 years of inceptio and much more.
Notes -
01:44 - Intro
02:26 - Achieving Product Market Fit - “What is the journey is not a destination.”
05:15 - Identifying the problem statement for first 10 customer at Nutanix
07:54 - Main value prop by Nutanix for early customers
10:11 - How to identify large problems?
13:22 - Whether to find a niche problem and then expand or find a problem statement of the larger market?
15:07 - What’s the first Aha moment for customers on DevRev?
20:04 - Zoho Sponsored - Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?
21:18 - Why have Startups as the target audience v/s Large Entreprises?
27:10 - History of Product-led growth
32:50 - First principle thought behind Product-led growth with velocity
37:49 - Customer Relationship Management v/s Sales First Automation
39:07 - How a B2B developer can think like a B2C developer?
40:23 - What are risks of failure they need to think about?
41:40 - Building an entrepreneurial culture
43:47 - Dealing with the most difficult part of an acquisition (i.e. Integration)
45:38 - An early childhood in Patna, graduating from IIT Kanpur & Ph.D. dropout from University of Texas
50:33 - Why did he chose to startup in a downturn of 2009?
54:07 - Milestones in Nutanix’s journey
58:31 - Becoming a Public company
59:58 - Aspirations for DevRev
1:02:29 - What kind of person he is in his personal life?
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll -
In today’s podcast, we have Ishan Sharma with us! Ishan is a Youtuber, Entrepreneur, and Founder of MarkitUp. He droped out of his college(BITS Pilani, Goa) at the age of 20 and decided to continue his entrepreneurial and content creation journey!
Ishan Sharma has around 500k Subscribers on Youtube and about 100K on LinkedIn. He also wrote a book called "Crush It on LinkedIn" back in Mid 2020 which summarises his experience of using LinkedIn and it is a guide for college students to find opportunities.
Ishan will share his YT journey so far, why he decided to drop out, what motivated him to do so, how MarkitUp was formed, and a lot more!
Let’s listen to his inspirational journey so far and what he plans to do next!
0:00 - Intro
2:05 - What drives you in your life?
2:49 - How did you overcome the pain of Failing in JEE Advanced Exam?
6:22 - Do you remember the date you started your YouTube Channel?
7:18 - What's the main reason behind starting your YouTube Channel?
9:13 - What other skills have you learned after Coding & Content Creation?
11:40 - When did you make your First Money?
12:16 - How was your YouTube Journey & How did you reach 10,000 Subscribers?
13:35 - What are your learnings from YouTube?
15:24 - How did you master YouTube Thumbnails?
17:47 - What are your other Income Streams beside YouTube?
19:56 - What was your income in May?
21:44 - When did you get your First Brand Deal & What does it takes to reach here?
24:56 - What is the Sales Engine looks like for 'MarkitUp'?
26:20 - Where do you want to see yourself in 1 Year in terms of numbers?
27:15 - How many Brand Collaborations do you do in a month?
28:52 - How much do you pay a Freelancer per month?
30:05 - How does a day in your Life look like?
33:14 - What made you choose not to spend any more time in college?
39:00 - How do you differentiate your income?
39:55 - What do you do with the money you are making right now?
41:08 - Do you draw any salary from 'MarkitUp'?
43:05 - What is enough for Ishan?
45:02 - Why does $1 Million in Investment important for you?
46:03 - What is one thing that is missing in your life?
47:48 - What do you do to make your growth engine proactive?
49:32 - Have you explored during 10 Day Meditation or Vipassana?
50:43 - What is Your Biggest Fear right now?
53:14 - Do you watch Netflix or any other OTT platform?
54:16 - Do you believe in Manifestation?
55:18 - What's your process for recording a YouTube Video?
57:08 - What would you do if your Investment Portfolio reaches $1 Million?
59:49 - Outro
Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!
https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll -
If you’re a startup enthusiasts, its highly likely that you would have read or atleast heard about the book - Saying No to Jugaad: The Making of Bigbasket by by T. N. Hari & M. S. Subramanian.
In today’s episode we have Hari Menon, BigBasket’s founder sharing the his experience in the Indian Ecommerce Ecosystem over the last two decades.
In May 2021, Tata Digital invested $375 Mn in BigBasket. They have also recently launched their quick commerce vertical called BBNow and will now compete alongside the existing players such as Swiggy, Blinkit, Zepto and Dunzo.
During the episode, catch Hari talking about his learning from his first venture, his thoughts on the current market and the investment slowdown, and much more.
Notes -
02:20 - Building India’s online grocery market in the last two decades
14:37 - Starting BigBasket at the age of 50
21:16 - Dividing equity between the founders
21:42 - Mistakes & Biases which got carried from his first venture
24:15 - Becoming a part of Tata Group and growing bigger
27:16 - Top learnings and observations from Tata Group
29:30 - His thoughts on “10-minute delivery”
33:14 - Any similar patterns between June 2022 and 1999 boom and bust?
35:14 - Business which are not building a profitable model will suffer the most
38:22 - Indian Startup Ecosystem in the next 5-10 years
40:20 - Framework to identify large opportunities: Scale & Profitability
42:36 - Culture at BigBasket which keeps people from moving out
46:45 - Growing with the business as CEO
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We’ve heard inspiring stories of founders of Facebook and Microsoft who’ve dropped out of Harvard and even some of the well known Indian Entrepreneurs who’ve dropped out of IITs to build on their dream venture.
But in today’s episode we’ll talk with Anish Achuthan, who ran away from his hometown during his Class 11th with dreams to build something big in the Dotcom space and currently is the Cofounder of Open, which recently became Kerala’s first unicorn start-up.
Listen to Anish talk about his journey through his various ventures over the last two decades and how he’s building for Open to democratize the Neobanking space in India.
Notes -
02:42 - Being born in Govt service-oriented family in Kerala to getting inspired by Dotcom
06:11 - Meeting his cofounder & life partner
07:49 - Cumulative learnings from his previous companies
11:27 - Product Offerings by Open for SMEs, Banks and Fintech Entreprises
13:57 - Key milestones in Open’s journey
15:49 - Current metrics on the platform
16:56 - What are his plans with Open for the long term
19:17 - Their moat against other Neobanks and traditional banks
23:04 - Product & distribution strategy for the first 100 to 1000 users
31:46 - Licenses and certifications needed for Neo Banking
33:47 - Challenges while cracking the first banking partner
35:27 - Monetizing their services on Freemium model
36:55 - Advice to early-stage entrepreneurs
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On the podcast today, we have with us Sandeep Jain, Founder, GeeksforGeeks. GeeksForGeeks is one of the largest online learning platforms for coding enthusiasts, budding engineers, and anyone involved in the tech domain.
Sandeep is from Firozabad which is 40 kms away from Agra in UP. He studied in a government school before doing his graduation from UP Technical University, Mathura, and masters from IIT Roorkee. In the year 2009, he created a blog with the intent to help engineering students prepare for placements. What started as a blog is today a 1000 Crore+ annual revenue Edtech company with 250+ team members.
Let’s dive deep into his journey from leaving his engineering job to becoming a teacher to 10 Million+ registered 'Geeks' from across the world.Notes -
03:07 - Growing up in Firozabad to growing the love for coding
07:20 - Joining D. E. Shaw & Co after graduation
09:24 - 30% Salary cut in his first Teaching job v/s being a Software Engineer
10:00 - Starting GeeksforGeeks in 2009
16:03 - Hiring the initial team
18:26 - Annual revenue growth to 1000 Crore+
24:12 - Learning the skills and growing in the role of a CEO
30:35 - Growing against well-funded competitors
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March 2019 was when we published our first episode of 100xEntrepreneur.
So far we’ve covered 150+ VCs, Angel Investors and Entrepreneurs from the Indian startup ecosystem.
Alongside 100xEntrepreneur podcast we’ve so far invested in 30+ portfolio companies via like Airmeet, PlumHQ, Zencastr and Neeman’s.
In today’s episode we share our journey so far. We are Siddhartha & Nansi, a husband-wife entrepreneur-cum-content creator duo who started their podcast journey with a purpose to make behind the screen conversations, thought process, and mindset of VCs, Investors and Successful entrepreneurs accessible to thousands of early-stage entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts like you.
We really hope that we have been able to serve you with great content so far and would really appreciate your feedback. How can you share your feedback with us?
Reply to this emailComment on our Youtube, iTunes, Castbox or Spotify ChannelNotes -
01:09 - How 100xEntrepreneur was born?
09:44 - To Unlock Growth: Start reaching out to people who are better and bigger than you
14:19 - What went in the background while recording a podcast?
21:01 - Joining AWS to setting up 100x Fund
23:33 - Building the team at 100xEntrepreneur
27:46 - Our favourite episode so far
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India’s largest Content Marketplace with 1L+ creators, 2500+ customers, out of which 70+ are Unicorns.
Does that ring any bells?
We’re talking about Pepper Content, founded by Anirudh Singla, in his 2nd year of undergrad college.
Pepper’s journey started when Anirudh during his college decided to take up freelancing and content creation to fund his graduation all by himself. He then realised the potential of content creators in India and decided to organize it by creating an Indian marketplace for the same.
In our conversation with Anirudh, we dive into the journey of building and scaling Pepper to $8 Million ARR Content-marketplace in under 5 years and their plans ahead.
Notes -
03:06 - Baniya-family background, freelance exposure while at college
07:06 - First few steps to building a marketplace
11:06 - Splitting equity early-on
12:46 - Reaching out to 80+ VCs and Angel Investors while raising their 1st round
17:20 - What made them raise their 1st round?
18:43 - Scaling from $500k ARR to $8 Million ARR in 14 months
21:20 - Client base: 550+ Active customers and 70+ Unicorns
24:20 - Need to focus on a SaaS based approach for Content
26:15 - “Hustle doesn’t scale. By the same time what scale’s is the mindset of thinking big enough!”
28:25 - “Not building a family, but instead building a high quality sports team.”
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#1 Smartwatch Brand in India
#3 Smartwatch Brand in Asia
#9 Smartwatch Brand Globally
All the above feats are not from Apple, Samsung, or a legacy player in the market, but from our own homegrown Indian brand - Noise.
In this week’s podcast, we turn the spotlight on Noise : A brand that’s on a mission to offer quality smart wearables at affordable prices to its customers.
In our conversation with Amit Khatri, Co-founder of Noise, he shared how the brand started bootstrapped in 2014, what have been the challenges and how have they scaled over the years.
We have tried to summarize some key themes & takeaways from our conversation.
Notes -
02:09 - Early Career & Family Background before starting Noise
05:45 - Product development & Revenue journey from 2014 to 2018
08:04 - Finalising the main categories - Smartwatch and Wireless Earbuds
09:55 - Why prioritize growing own Website instead of relying on marketplace?
12:18 - Testing your idea in the market being bootstrapped
13:36 - Vision & plan of the brand early-on
14:56 - Initial Learnings for early-stage D2C Entrepreneurs
16:16 - Focus on building the brand from Day 1
18:55 - Building and launching the first product
24:15 - Secrets of scaling from Rs.160 Cr+ to Rs.800 Cr+ Revenue
26:26 - Key elements of creating a playbook for a Rs.1000 Cr+ D2C brand
31:36 - Keeping prices reasonable while ensuring better quality
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Why is HUL considered a Leadership factory?
“Every great brand is built on a fundamental human insights.”
Do you agree that people come before revenue?
“Invest in Brand, even as little as possible, and not just Performance Marketing from Day 1.”
Listen to Shashank Mehta, Founder of The Whole Truth Foods and a passionate HUL Ex-employee in today’s episode to know his perspective about everything mentioned above.
Notes -
03:43 - Definition of D2C market in India context
07:11 - His early career prior to starting his entrepreneurial journey
09:40 - Post-MBA why he chose Marketing over Finance?
11:30 - Why HUL is considered a leadership factory?
14:30 - Learnings from his stint at HUL
18:48 - Why he joined Faasos (now REBEL Foods) a lesser known startup leaving HUL in 2012?
23:40 - Scale of Faaso’s when he joined and left the company
24:30 - Why he left Faasos and joined HUL again?
28:22 - Learnings from setting up an Ayurveda-brand within HUL
34:09 - Consumer insight which HUL was trying to solve with its AYUSH proposition
34:54 - His blog about food and fitness - FIT SHIT
41:54 - Raising around 5 Cr+ initial funding during his Notice Period
45:10 - Zero to One Phase of The Whole Truth Foods
50:02 - Realizing the ‘Aha Moment’ of brand’s journey
52:32 - Sales & Revenue Milestones during their journey
54:05 - Being a Truth company rather than being a food company
57:00 - Key learnings while scaling a brand
- Visa fler
