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ACLR8 Founder Academy
ACLR8 Founder Academy episodes
- Episode 15: Meet the founder of founders! This man invested in 165 startups. Ft. Rajesh Sawhney, Founder, GSF
In this episode of the ACLR8 podcast, we host one of India's most iconic startup investors: Rajesh Sawhney.
Rajesh has invested in 165 companies over the last 15 years and sits on the board of many listed companies and unicorns. In today's episode we will try to cover 3 topics:
- Trends and opportunities for young founders as we become a $10T economy
- Fundraising 101 for early stage founders
- Thinking long term about company building
We hope you enjoy the podcast today and it inspires you to kickstart your journey. Do drop a note in the comments section about your feedback on the episode. Content Timeline:-----------------
- 00:00 - Intro
- 01:22 - Rajesh investment journey over the last 15 years.
- 10:50 - Learnings from Madhu Kela and public market investing.
- 17:24 - Fundraising tips for early stage founders.
- 31:45 - Common traits between successful founders.
- 36:20 - India opportunity.
- 43:24 - Building the right idea at the right time.
- 48:00 - IPO projections for 2025.
- 54:15 - India v/s China over the next 20 years.
- 56:30 - India Spacetech opportunity.
- 58:45 - Rapidfire
- 59:00 - Renting v/s Buying a house
- 1:00:20 - Top 3 cities to live in India.
- 1:02:00 - IITs v/s IVY league colleges.
- 1:03:00 - Gambhir v/s Dravid as Indian team coach.
- 1:04:25 - Can Singularity and AGI be achieved?
- 1:06:00 - Pickelball: Serious sport or fad?
- 1:07:00 - Will Tiktok be sold to Elon Musk?
- 1:07:42 - Ranking India's last 5 PMs
- 1:10:09 - Advice to early stage founders building the next big business from India.
#startup #funding #entrepreneurship #fundraising #startupindia #accelerator #incubator #aclr8 #aclr8vc #GSF #RajeshSawhney
1 hr 13 min - Episode 14: The Indiamart story! Building a ₹14000 crore listed tech company. Ft. Brijesh Agrawal
🚀 Coming from a small town in India to build an INR 14K crore company.🚀 Being the first Indian B2B marketplace to list publicly.🚀 Building profitably and building the technology backbone for 70M SMB’s in India.This is the IndiaMart story...Had a wonderful chat with Brijesh Agrawal, Co-Founder, IndiaMart on how they are building the technology layer for Bharat enabling millions of MSME’s to become more efficient and scale.. ❤️We talked about:✅ The initial IndiaMart thesis and how it has evolved over the last 25 years.✅ Building the business profitably, being persistent and being customer focussed.✅ Identifying categories where you can solve a high value need for a customer.✅ Critical elements for running and scaling B2B marketplace business.✅ How a founder’s role evolves as they grow from 0-1 to 1-100 to finally listing their company.🙌 The IndiaMart journey is truly inspiring for any early stage founder building in the SAAS / B2B space in the country. Building the next big thing? Apply to the ACLR8 program today! www.aclr8.vc/apply#startup #msme #smb #entrepreneurship #founder #aclr8 #aclr8vc #indiamart #ipo
1 hr 3 min - Episode 13: The Dressfolk Story! Building an Ethnic Wear Brand from India to the World! Ft. Nitin Mehrotra
Shot a super episode with Nitin Mehrotra, Founder & CEO, DressFolk on his journey of building India's most loved ethnic wear brand. We talked about:- Nitin's growing up journey and how his family background inspired him to startup in the fashion space- DressFolk evolution over the last 8 years and finding PMF- Building and scaling a D2C fashion business in India today, profitably- Raising funding from people like Ghazal Alagh and some of India's best angel investors and funds. - Way forward, future of India's handlooms and dreams of going globalDo check it out and let us know how you like the podcast!
Content Timelines:
- 00:00 - ACLR8 Intro
- 01:16 - Pre cap
- 02:27 - Nitin's family history and how that inspired Dressfolk
- 12:00 - Dark side of the fashion industry
- 16:15 - Initial days of Dressfolk
- 24:50 - India's ethnic wear market and opportunities for D2C brands
- 32:25 - Supply chain challenges and capacity building with artisans
- 37:00 - Scaling D2C at Dressfolk
- 45:40 - Meta ads strategy
- 48:00 - Fundraising journey
- 1:00:30 - Rapid fire with Nitin
- 1:05:15 - Closing remarks
Follow us on Instagram: / aclr8.vc
1 hr 8 min - Episode 12: How to build a career in content & marketing! Ft. AyushWadhwa, Founder & CEO, Owled Media
Learn content, marketing & advertising from Ayush Wadhwa ( @AyushWadhwa ) the founder of one of India's best media companies, Owled Media ( @owledmedia9296 )
At just 26, in a short span of time, Ayush has accomplished a lot. He is a creator, runs Owled Media, and has done done advertising campaigns for some very large brands. He is a super active angel investor and recently also started LIT school.His career is an intersection of content, marketing and technology.From this podcast our goal is to help young people understand how can they build a career in content, marketing and advertising.Catch the full episode now and let us know what you think!Content Timelines:00:00 - Pre-cap00:55 - Intro02:37 - Ayush's Personal Journey05:23 - Why Content11:15 - Building Owled Media16:30 - Challenges in running an agency18:52 - Learnings from Chris Cox (Meta, Chief Product Officer)22:11 - Career Opportunities in Content26:10 - Creator Mindset29:40 - How much do creators earn32:05 - Creator led brands34:50 - Rapidfire with Ayush43:42 - Feedback on ACLR844:40 - Advice to young founders building in contentFollow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aclr8.vc/46 min - Episode 11: @ixigo 's journey to IPO! 🚀 Building Travel for Bharat. 🇮🇳 Ft. Aloke Bajpai
98x oversubscribed! This was the crazy demand for the ixigo stock at their recent IPO. But what many don't know is the 17 year old journey of grit, determination, never giving up in the face of innumerable challenges and always building for Bharat.
Had the immense pleasure of hosting Aloke Bajpai, Co-Founder & Group Chairman, Ixigo, to the ACLR8 Founder Academy Podcast, hosted by Karan Jindal. Aloke shared his and Rajnish's journey of getting inspired by the movie Swades and coming back to India to start Ixigo.
We talked about:
- ✅ building at scale for Bharat
- ✅ being resilient in the face of setbacks
- ✅ being customer obsessed
- ✅ building profitably
- ✅ being in it for the long term…
and so much more 🙏
This episode is a gold mine of insights for any founder building a large consumer tech business in India today. Watch the whole episode now and let us know what you think. ❤️
Content Timelines:
- 00:00 - Intro
- 01:30 - 98x oversubscribed IPO
- 02:45 - ixigo's customer first DNA
- 04:30 - Inspired by the movie "SWADES"
- 08:20 - Idea thesis (2007-2011)
- 11:40 - Pivoting from meta search to OTA
- 14:45 - Fundraising challenges
- 18:10 - Doing the boring everyday
- 20:18 - Focussing on trains rather than flights (2011-2013)
- 24:38 - Tracking product market fit
- 26:18 - Raising only $21M till IPO
- 28:20 - Near death experiences (2015-2019)
- 31:25 - COVID stories
- 40:20 - Metrics to track for profitability
- 43:10 - 1 fundraise, 2 acquisitions, 1 IPO filing (2020-2021)
- 48:45 - IPO journey
- 52:30 - Finding your ideal co-founder
- 55:50 - AI trends for the future
- 58:15 - Thoughts on @aclr8 as a platform
- 59:57 - Closing remarks
1 hr 1 min - Episode 10: How to build a D2C brand in 2024. Ft. Jatan Bawa, Co-Founder, Perfora
If your goal is to build India's largest consumer D2C brand then this is the episode for you. 🚀 In this episode, our guest, Jatan Bawa takes us through his journey of building Perfora. 🔥
Perfora is one of the fastest growing D2C oral care brands in India doing revenues of 70 crore / year and disrupting a boring and traditional FMCG category like oral care. 💯
In this Jatan breaks down:
- ✅ How to find your ideal co-founder
- ✅ How to identify the right categories to build in
- ✅ How to crack product development
- ✅ How to sell on D2C, marketplaces, quick commerce and offline
- ✅ What metrics to track across all platforms
- ✅ Brand building and content creation playbook
- ✅ How to raise money from some of India's best funds
- ✅ How to apply to Shark Tank, get funding and leverage the platform for maximum growth
Catch the full episode today and let us know if it's helpful in your journey of building a D2C brand. ❤️
Content Timelines:
- 00:00 - Pre-cap
- 00:42 - Intro
- 01:05 - India wins the WC
- 05:00 - What inspired Jatan to start-up
- 12:30 - Studying in DU and building confidence
- 14:30 - Why Perfora, why oral care? How to do category research?
- 20:30 - Finding his co-founder on Jagriti Yatra.
- 24:15 - Validating category thesis
- 30:15 - Numbers and current traction
- 35:30 - Important metrics to track across platforms
- 43:30 - Cracking quick commerce
- 49:00 - Raising funding from Sauce.vc and other top consumer funds
- 56:30 - Shark Tank: raising funding from Vineeta, Namita and Peyush
- 1:04:00 - Content marketing playbook
- 1:08:42 - Are the Sharks helpful?
- 1:11:20 - Building a community of founders who help and support
- 1:15:00 - Ending remarks
1 hr 17 min - Episode 9: Building India’s largest cleaning products brand. Ft. Simran Khara, Founder, Koparo Clean
What does ₹15 crore worth of free publicity do to the scale and trajectory of a D2C brand? 🚀
Hosted the awesome @simrankhara2 at the ACLR8 Founder Academy podcast and talked about her vision of building India’s largest cleaning products company with a focus on sustainable and clean ingredients and honest claims. ❤️
We talked about:
- ✅ The home cleaning market in India and opportunities for young founders.
- ✅ Simran’s 0-1 journey, her tool kit to scale D2C, how to listen to the customers and keep innovating on products.
- ✅ Measuring repeats and marketing effectiveness especially as you scale across channels.
- ✅ Being the personal brand ambassador of your brand to build trust and relatability.
🙌 We discussed Koparo’s amazing Shark Tank episode, getting funding from Aman and Vineeta and the growth the brand saw after the episode.
🙌 Simran also shared her journey of being a solo woman founder and how it is important for founders to manage their personal and work life.
Full episode out now!
Content Timelines:
- 00:00 - Pre-cap
- 01:10 - Intro
- 02:00 - How much is a 15 min slot on Shark Tank worth for a startup?
- 03:20 - What inspired Simran to start Koparo?
- 06:30 - What worked for Koparo in the initial days?
- 09:30 - Current size of India's cleaning products market
- 13:30 - The Nirma Case Study
- 15:00 - How is Koparo disrupting the bigger brands?
- 19:00 - Quick commerce is a game changer channel for D2C brands
- 20:45 - Koparo current scale of business and channel split
- 29:30 - How can a brand list themselves on quick commerce marketplaces
- 30:50 - Raising funding from Aman and Vineeta on Shark Tank
- 45:52 - Secrets to scaling D2C
- 1:07:38 - How to raise money for your business?
- 1:14:40 - Challenges of running the business as a solo woman founder
- 1:26:30 - Dealing with failure
- 1:28:45 - Rapid Fire with Simran
- 1:30:40 - Simran's association with ACLR8
- 1:31:48 - Future of WA commerce in the country Ft. @grod2c #PartnerTestimonial
- 1:32:45 - Ending remarks
#sharktankindia #koparoclean #amangupta #vineetasingh #brandsforbharat
1 hr 34 min - Episode 8: Building a ₹500 crore Beauty & Personal Care Brand! Ft. Malika Sadani, CEO, The Moms Co
Building one of India’s largest Beauty & Personal Care D2C Brand. 🚀
Hosted the amazing Malika Datt Sadani, Co-Founder, The Moms Co, at the ACLR8 studio and discussed what it takes to build a large and loved consumer brand in India today! 🙌 🇮🇳
Malika shared her insights on:
✅ Building a brand in competitive categories and creating a niche.
✅ How can founders do deep consumer research to identify their TG.
✅ Thinking customer backward, understanding consumer needs and launching honest & clean products at good price points.
✅ Thinking about brand and marketing from a community first POV.
✅ How can founders be personal brand ambassadors for their brands.
We also talked about how challenging it is for new moms to start-up and the importance of building a network.💛 Malika shared insights on her angel investing journey, her favourite home grown brands from India and the sectors she is excited by in the consumer space for Bharat over the next few years. 🇮🇳🚀
Full episode out now!
✅ YT
✅ Spotify
✅ IG
Content Timelines:
- 00:00 - Pre-cap
- 01:45 - What we will discuss today.
- 02:53 - Malika's personal journey before starting up.
- 08:03 - The inspiration behind starting the brand.
- 11:55 - Initial product development and R&D.
- 17:00 - Importance of defining your consumer well.
- 20:20 - Small TG, big difference in their lives.
- 23:00 - MOAT for founders starting D2C brands.
- 29:10 - Making 10x better products!
- 33:30 - How would Malika start The Moms Co today?
- 45:08 - Exciting opportunities in the consumer space today.
- 51:50 - Challenges faced in starting up as a mom and a woman founder.
- 1:00:55 - Rapid Fire with Malika
- 1:10:30 - Future of WA commerce in the country Ft. @grod2c #PartnerTestimonial
- 1:11:37 - Ending remarks
#brandsforbharat #themomsco #mohitsadani #malikasadani
1 hr 13 min - Episode 7: Disrupting the home & kitchen market in India! Ft. Aditya Agrawal, Co-Founder & CEO, P-TAL
Building a large business, while reviving a cultural legacy, and providing social impact.❤️ Raising funding from some of India’s top investors, getting an all Shark Deal at Shark Tank India and all of this while just being 24 years old! 🙌 🚀
Hosted the super amazing Aditya Agrawal, Co-Founder, P-TAL, on how founders can use story telling to build large consumer brands and stand out! 🇮🇳
The kitchen and dining market in India is worth 30K crores and majority of the market is fragmented with larger brands doing about 5K crores in revenue. 💯
There is lack of trust, lack of awareness and lack of quality products - which means a massive opportunity to build a large brand in this space. 🙌 🚀
Super excited to share more about Aditya and P-TAL’s journey on how they are looking to build a large brand and revive India’s only UNESCO listed art form. ❤️
Checkout the full episode now. 🙌 ✅
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aclr8.vc/
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aclr8/
Building the next big consumer business from India, apply to the ACLR8 cohort today. www.aclr8.vc ❤️
Content Timeline:
------------------- 00:00 - Pre-Cap
- 01:15 - Intro
- 06:45 - P-TAL's journey. How did the company start.
- 12:20 - Reasons why consumers love P-TAL.
- 20:00 - Size of India's home and kitchen market.
- 25:21 - Current revenues and scale of business.
- 30:45 - How did P-TAL crack D2C.
- 35:30 - Power of content and being a purpose led brand.
- 40:20 - How P-TAL sources products, maintains quality and builds trust.
- 46:40 - P-TAL fundraising journey. Advice for early stage founders.
- 57:30 - Getting all Shark Deal at Shark Tank.
- 1:12:54 - Rapid fire with Aditya.
- 1:20:00 - Aditya shares his thoughts on ACLR8.
- 1:22:00 - Ending remarks.
1 hr 23 min - Episode 6: Investing in consumer brands for Bharat! Ft. Arjun Vaidya, Co-Founder, V3 Ventures
Today’s guest at the founder academy, is someone who has been a founder and investor.
As a founder, Arjun founded Dr. Vadiya’s. Scaled it to one of the fastest growing Ayurveda D2C brands in the country and sold it for 100 crores in 4 years.
As an investor, Arjun founded V3 ventures and raised over $100M to invest in some of India’s best consumer brands.
In this episode we discussed:
- Arjun's personal journey while growing up and what inspired him to entrepreneurship
- Building and scaling Dr. Vaidyda's
- Selling Dr. Vaidya's to RPSG group for INR 100 crores
- Journey as an angel investor and Arjun's top 3 investments featuring Lahori Jeera, P-TAL and Knya Med
- Starting V3 Ventures and raising a $100M fund to invest in consumer brands
- Advice to early stage founders on fund raising
- Top sectors and categories Arjun is excited by
- Top investments from the fund featuring - Kuku FM & Dil Foods
- Investing with Empathy and building a partnership with founders
- Importance of work life balance
- Rapid fire with Arjun featuring many things people don't know about him.
Catch the full episode and let us know what you think.
------------------
Content Timelines:
- 00:00 - Pre-cap
- 01:30 - Intro
- 02:35 - Arjun's personal journey
- 04:02 - Building Dr. Vadiya's
- 08:20 - Figuring out your strengths and MOAT while building a D2C brand
- 10:45 - Challenges in raising money for Dr. Vaidya's
- 11:50 - Selling Dr. Vadiya's for INR 100 crores
- 16:50 - What inspired Arjun to start angel investing
- 18:50 - 3 of Arjun's top investments as an angel
- 23:45 - Starting V3 ventures and raising $100M for the first fund
- 30:00 - Importance of content creation for brands and founders
- 31:05 - 3 categories that V3 ventures is excited by
- 37:00 - Unique investments from V3
- 40:30 - Transition from founder to investor
- 43:00 - 3 questions that founders need to answer before starting a brand
- 44:00 - Rapid fire with Arjun
- 46:30 - Arjun's association with ACLR8
- 48:00 - Future of WA commerce in the country featuring Business on Bot
- 49:10 - Ending remarks
50 min
About ACLR8 Founder Academy
From the publisher's feed
At ACLR8, our goal is to build the best early stage accelerator program in the world, helping founders from Bharat build large, generational and iconic companies.
Founder Academy is our exclusive podcast featuring the top startup founders, investors and operators in the country. Our goal is to help build the best resource for any early stage founder to learn from and connect with the best folks from India's startup ecosystem.