If this isn’t the first time you’re listening to First Principles, you’re probably wondering what’s going on. Why did we have 

five different founders opening the episode, instead of just one. 

It’s because today’s is a special episode. We went back to the first five episodes we didto compile some of the most interesting, original and often counterintuitive conversations from five accomplished founders. While I’d urge you to listen to each of their conversations in full, this episode is a good place if you took to First Principles recently and are searching for reasons to listen to older episodes. 

We begin with Kabeer Biswas, the co-founder and CEO of Dunzo, the cult-like instant delivery service that started from Bangalore. He talks about the 10,000 plus tasks he’s run himself on Dunzo, the impossible grind of fundraising, how founders’ traits tend to show up as organization’s culture and many more things. 

Episode 1: Kabeer Biswas of Dunzo talks about raising money, gathering user insights, battling deadlines and more

Next, we have Baskar Subramanian, the co-founder and CEO of Amagi, the most unlikely of unicorns to emerge from India. It is a media technology company that enables virtually the entire video production and distribution chain for all sorts of media companies globally. “Glass to glass solutions” is how Amagi describes itself, implying its presence from the glass of the camera where video is being shot to the glass of the screen on which it is finally watched. 

Baskar dropped out of his master’s program at IIT Bombay because he found it oriented around getting grades, not necessarily learning. He talks about why entrepreneurship is like a drug for him, why vulnerability is a core value at Amagi, why a CEO’s job is to be a clock-builder and not a time-keeper, and many more things. 

Episode 2: $1.5B Amagi Founder Baskar Subramanian talks about culture at work, parenting, and building from ground up

Next is Nithin Kamath, the co-founder and CEO of Zerodha, India’s largest online brokerage. He doesn’t believe in setting targets or goals for his company or employees. He also is one of those rare Bangalore founders who have succeeded at scale without taking a single dollar of venture capital. No, in fact Nithin insists Zerodha’s success is partly due to avoiding venture capital.

From his anonymous days as “Nathan Hawk”, “Tarzan” or “Columbus” at a call center or internet forums, to running one of the most profitable and yet leanest startups in India, Nithin covers a lot of ground. He talks about thinking like a trader, running a company with zero attrition, creating optionality and many more things. 

Episode 3: Nithin Kamath of Zerodha candidly talks about building his bootstrapped business, weighing risks, and finding opportunities

Which brings me to Naveen Tewari, the co-founder and CEO of adtech giant InMobi, which is not only a unicorn in terms of its own valuation, but was also the first Indian company to incubate another unicorn of its own, lockscreen giant Glance. 

Naveen is one of the earliest tech entrepreneurs from India, having started his very first company, SMS-based search provider mKhoj, way back in 2007. Thus, survival is one of his recurring themes.

Over the conversation he talks about the mistakes he made as an entrepreneur and his lessons from them, building careers and companies slowly instead of “blitzscaling”, CEOs pushing the envelope of what’s possible within companies, and a lot more. 

Episode 4: InMobi founder Naveen Tewari gets candid about survival, innovation, and playing the game by changing the rules

And finally, we have Ananth Narayanan, the co-founder and CEO of Mensa Brands, a global tech-led house of brands – I know, it’s a mouthful – which earned the distinction of becoming India’s fastest unicorn. It buys existing brands, and then punches up their scale by providing the resources and knowledge to do so. Ananth says that’s no different from a P&G, which too is a house of brands if you really look closely.

Ananth talks about the emotional toll founders pay silently each day, learning to manage energy and not time, the best way to solicit and give feedback, and many more things.

Episode 5: Learnability, curiosity, and brand building; Ex-Myntra CEO and Mensa Brands founder Ananth Narayanan gets candid

I hope I managed to interest you in at least a few of those incredible conversations, if not all of them! Tell us what you thought of today’s format. Did you like it? No? What other new features would you like from First Principles or The Ken?  Write to me at [email protected]. 

And if you haven’t already rated us on your favourite podcast platform, why is that? I would truly appreciate your rating, no matter what it is. 

Lastly, a big thanks to my colleague Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, for helping put together this special episode across nearly 8 hours of conversations. 

See you next time with a new conversation with another accomplished founder. Till then, this is me Rohin thanking you for listening and for your support.