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From Street Smarts to Smart Hiring: Madhu Basu on Grit, Failure & Reinventing Recruitment with AI
Episode Summary:
In this episode of Start. Scale. Exit., Ivan Galvez sits down with Madhu Basu, founder and CEO of Unnanu, to unpack a powerful journey from humble beginnings in India to building a cutting-edge AI recruiting platform in the U.S. Madhu shares how his early ventures—including a childhood vegetable packing business, taught him resourcefulness, resilience, and the importance of people over paper.
Together, they explore how rejection, self-doubt, and industry disillusionment led Madhu to develop a radically new approach to hiring—one that uses AI to uncover not just what candidates have done, but why they’ve done it. Madhu delves into how Unnanu mimics human understanding to eliminate guesswork, bias, and inefficiency from the recruiting process.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
- Why failing college was a gift and how it taught Madhu to rethink success
- How bootstrapping built more discipline than chasing early VC money
- The symbolism of water, a pen, and money in Madhu’s entrepreneurial mindset
- Why resumes don’t tell the full story and how AI can read between the lines
- The hidden bias in traditional hiring pipelines and how Unnanu addresses it
- How to lead with purpose while building with precision
- Why hiring is broken—and how trust, data, and design can fix it
- How to protect your “why” even when others don’t believe in your vision
- What Madhu learned about business from watching life in motion in India
- Why transparency and timing matter more than titles and funding
💡 Golden Nugget:
“Failure gave me the clarity that success never could. When you strip everything away, what remains is your why. That’s what you build from.”
Mentioned in the Episode:
- 🌐 Unnanu.com – AI-powered talent platform for modern hiring
- 🌐 PMCSservices.com – IT & staffing solutions for enterprise clients
- 🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/madhubasu
Listen Now & Subscribe:
- Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-scale-exit-by-sintesys/id1821116362
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/67vlE6A7nyoz7imV97qhqK
- Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/ffad99ff-f3b7-4ac5-85e8-b85cde4a1c8d/start-scale-exit-by-sintesys
Or find us wherever you get your podcasts.
Powered by Sintesys.us
Sintesys helps SaaS founders scale their platforms and customer experiences with high-performance development and support.
View all episodes
By Ivan GalvezEpisode Summary:
In this episode of Start. Scale. Exit., Ivan Galvez sits down with Madhu Basu, founder and CEO of Unnanu, to unpack a powerful journey from humble beginnings in India to building a cutting-edge AI recruiting platform in the U.S. Madhu shares how his early ventures—including a childhood vegetable packing business, taught him resourcefulness, resilience, and the importance of people over paper.
Together, they explore how rejection, self-doubt, and industry disillusionment led Madhu to develop a radically new approach to hiring—one that uses AI to uncover not just what candidates have done, but why they’ve done it. Madhu delves into how Unnanu mimics human understanding to eliminate guesswork, bias, and inefficiency from the recruiting process.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
- Why failing college was a gift and how it taught Madhu to rethink success
- How bootstrapping built more discipline than chasing early VC money
- The symbolism of water, a pen, and money in Madhu’s entrepreneurial mindset
- Why resumes don’t tell the full story and how AI can read between the lines
- The hidden bias in traditional hiring pipelines and how Unnanu addresses it
- How to lead with purpose while building with precision
- Why hiring is broken—and how trust, data, and design can fix it
- How to protect your “why” even when others don’t believe in your vision
- What Madhu learned about business from watching life in motion in India
- Why transparency and timing matter more than titles and funding
💡 Golden Nugget:
“Failure gave me the clarity that success never could. When you strip everything away, what remains is your why. That’s what you build from.”
Mentioned in the Episode:
- 🌐 Unnanu.com – AI-powered talent platform for modern hiring
- 🌐 PMCSservices.com – IT & staffing solutions for enterprise clients
- 🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/madhubasu
Listen Now & Subscribe:
- Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-scale-exit-by-sintesys/id1821116362
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/67vlE6A7nyoz7imV97qhqK
- Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/ffad99ff-f3b7-4ac5-85e8-b85cde4a1c8d/start-scale-exit-by-sintesys
Or find us wherever you get your podcasts.
Powered by Sintesys.us
Sintesys helps SaaS founders scale their platforms and customer experiences with high-performance development and support.