Founder Thesis

"In India, 35% of all Indian cities are fully planned, but 75% is all on its own... that's not where 70% live. 70% of urban is in those areas, which have all on their own lanes and by lanes."

This powerful insight from Vivek Raina highlights the vast, often overlooked market that Excitel Broadband chose to serve. Instead of focusing only on the structured, planned parts of cities, Excitel ventured into the densely populated but underserved areas, bringing high-speed internet to the masses.

Vivek Raina is the Co-founder and CEO of Excitel Broadband. With over 22 years in the telecom industry, he has spearheaded Excitel's growth to over 1 million subscribers by its seventh year of operation. He is driving Excitel's mission to connect more of "BHARAT" by providing affordable, high-speed, and truly unlimited internet.     

• Untapped Potential in Unstructured India: A significant portion of urban India resides in unplanned areas, a market largely unaddressed by major telecom players, which Excitel strategically targeted.
• Broadband as Entertainment, Not Just Utility: Excitel shifted the perception of broadband from a mere productivity tool to a primary source of entertainment by offering high speeds and no data caps, enabling seamless video consumption.
• The "Uberization of Broadband": Excitel's innovative asset-light model involves partnering with thousands of local cable operators for last-mile fiber deployment, enabling rapid scaling and capital efficiency.
• Hyperlocal Focus is Key: Customer acquisition in the broadband business, especially in diverse Indian markets, relies heavily on hyperlocal strategies, including feet-on-street sales and targeted local marketing, rather than mass media campaigns.

• 00:00 Video Introduction and Initial Context
• 01:26 Viv's Background in Broadband Technology
• 01:50 The Evolution of Broadband Technology
• 03:47 Introduction of Fiber to Home in India
• 06:41 The Origin Story of Excitel
• 11:52 Excitel's Unique Approach to the Market
• 15:58 Excitel's Funding and Early Growth Phases
• 18:58 Internet Supply Chain and Cost Structure Insights
• 25:17 Excitel's Expansion and Market Positioning
• 30:15 Competition and Future Plans for Excitel

This episode is a fascinating story of the classic startup journey - you start with an idea, which works to an extent, and then you pivot and discover the much bigger idea. Disruptive mobility startup founder, Kapil shares insights about finding product market fit, building with a data-driven mindset, and scaling with capital efficiency.

Know about:-

• Building a product for train travelers
• Problems of the bus industry
• Branding buses and improving customer experience
• Scaling up supply

IndiaLends brings efficiencies in the lending process by aggregating multiple lenders on one platform so that every customer can find a lender that meets their needs. Gaurav is a lending industry veteran, having worked with global lending companies. He talks about the 7 year-long journey of building IndiaLends, surviving the pandemic, and the Saas opportunities they are chasing in the lending space.

Know about:-

• Business model
• Building a plug-and-play technology for lenders
• Fundraising journey
• Future roadmap

Abhay started India’s first pure play e-commerce website called malamall.com way back in 1998, at a time when the internet ecosystem in India was non-existent and not even 1% of India’s population was online.  This episode is a candid and honest story of the struggles of entrepreneurship and proves how grit can make you successful, even if it takes decades.

Know about:-

• Building malamall.com, India’s first e-commerce site
• Experiences of building Martjack
• How do consumers look at waste
• Deposit return system

"It was clear to me all along that this is how we were going to transact in the future." Sanjay Swamy shares this profound early conviction about mobile payments, a vision he pursued with mChek, attempting to build what resembled "Apple Pay on the SIM card" years before its time. This foresight into India's digital transformation underpins his entire entrepreneurial and investment journey.

Sanjay Swamy is a co-founder and Managing Partner at Prime Venture Partners, a leading Indian early-stage VC firm with approximately $300 million in assets under management that has backed over 50 startups. His work has been instrumental in shaping India's fintech landscape, including early contributions to the UIDAI (Aadhaar) project.

Key Insights from the Conversation:

• Early Vision: Sanjay recognized the potential of mobile technology to revolutionize payments and other sectors in India far ahead of the curve.
• Building from Scratch: He has extensive experience setting up and scaling operations, from building engineering teams to launching entirely new product categories.
• The "Missed Call" Innovation: ZipDial uniquely leveraged the prevalent "missed call" behavior in India for marketing and engagement, proving highly effective.
• Solving for India: Both Ezetap and his work with Aadhaar focused on addressing India-specific challenges and opportunities at scale.
• Entrepreneur to Investor: His journey provides a deep understanding of the founder's perspective, shaping Prime Venture Partners' "founder-first" and hands-on approach.  .

Chapters:

00:30 Sanjay Swamy, a doyen in the startup ecosystem.

01:41 Early life and education of Sanjay Swamy.

03:54 Second Masters and job search in US.

05:29 Design simulation software for Aerospace industry.

07:21 Billing software for the Telecom industry.

09:16 Mobile payments and joining mobile company.

14:44 Starting Zipdial and Easytap companies.

27:17 Zipdial raised about $3 million.

35:37 Prime Venture Partners and raising funds.

56:54 Spaces and technologies that Sanjay is interested.

Hashtags for YouTube:

#SanjaySwamy #PrimeVenturePartners #IndianStartups #FintechIndia #MobilePayments #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #StartupJourney #MakeInIndia #DigitalIndia #FounderThesis #Podcast #TechInnovation #StartupFunding #ExitStrategy

Imagine a world where a standard health checkup was more sophisticated than what your doctor can do for you today. Kiran’s venture, Ekincare is doing just that. Kiran talks about the challenges of finding the right business model, of raising funds, and the insights he got along the way about how to solve healthcare challenges for India. This episode is really a masterclass in finding product-market fit.

Know about:-

• The relativity model of healthcare
• Competitive differentiation- data-first approach
• Target market
• Strategy for blitzscaling

Did you know that only 4% of Indians have a Demat account? Compared to that, 40% of Americans have a Demat account. This is the massive opportunity that Raghu Kumar is chasing with his second venture - Rain Platforms. The goal is to make the intimidating world of trading more comfortable. Raghu talks about some of the innovative platforms that Rain is building to help more Indians become active investors, including a platform for copy investing and a real money gaming platform for mock trading.

Know about:-

• Hedge funds
• Social investing platform, Trading Rooms
• Guaranteed price pool
• Capital raising strategy

"After raising millions of dollars, the first thing we did was shut down our most profitable division." This was the pivotal, contrarian decision that put Upstox on the path to becoming a unicorn. In this episode, co-founder Raghu Kumar reveals why killing their "golden goose"—the proprietary trading desk that funded the company's early days—was the secret to building a trustworthy, scalable fintech empire.

Raghu Kumar is the co-founder of Upstox, one of India's largest stock brokerage firms, valued at over $3.5 billion. A trader at heart, he started his journey by turning a personal stake of just $10,000 into more than $2 million in two years using sophisticated algorithmic trading. He then co-founded and scaled Upstox to over 13 million users before moving on to his next ventures, Rain Platforms and Tylt Money.

In this conversation with host Akshay Datt, Raghu Kumar unpacks the foundational thesis behind Upstox's massive success.

• Trading to Build: Raghu's first venture was not Upstox, but a proprietary trading firm that turned a small stake into millions. The profits from these trading strategies, first in the US forex markets and later by arbitraging Indian stocks, provided the seed capital for the brokerage.
• Strategic Sacrifice: A critical turning point was shutting down their profitable proprietary trading desk after raising their Series A funding. This eliminated any potential conflict of interest with their clients and forced the entire company to focus on the scalable retail platform.
• Tech-Driven Disruption: Upstox was a pioneer in using technology to solve core friction points. It was the first brokerage in India to offer a completely paperless account opening process using Aadhaar and one of the first to provide a retail API for users to build their own trading algorithms.
• India's Unique Algo-Trading Culture: At the retail level, more individuals are building and deploying their own automated trading algorithms in India than in any other country in the world, including the US.

00:00 - From a $10,000 bet to a $3.5 Billion Company

01:19 - The Forex "News Trading" Strategy that Made Us Millions

02:56 - Why We Moved to India: The Arbitrage Opportunity

11:41 - The Secret Sauce: How We Traded India's Inefficient Markets

20:58 - Why We Started a Brokerage: The Birth of Upstox (RKSV)

25:39 - Disrupting the Market with Unique Pricing & Growth Hacks

35:25 - The Engine Room: What it Really Takes to Run a Brokerage

40:14 - Building Upstox Pro: From Third-Party Software to In-House Tech

48:18 - India's Unique Edge: The Rise of the Retail Algo Trader

52:57 - The Tiger Global Investment & The Future of Indian Investing

#FounderThesis #Upstox #RaghuKumar #IndianStartups #StockMarketIndia #Fintech #AlgorithmicTrading #Entrepreneurship #StartupPodcast #InvestingForBeginners #TradingStrategy #MakeInIndia #Unicorn #StartupStory #AkshayDatt

Shipsy is like the operating system of logistics - helping companies run logistics operations efficiently, with minimal paperwork and information loss. Soham is an investment banker inspired by Bloomberg to build a platform business and has had a fascinating journey of discovering product-market fit and building Shipsy into a global Saas business.

Know about:-

• Starting off as aggregators for last minute
• Pitch to investors
• Tackling local nuances in building a global product
• Generating inbound leads