Moonshot

In 2017, a group of hackers in India figured out a way to get the best prices on cryptocurrencies at any point in time by aggregating data from all the crypto exchanges. That was the origin of CoinSwitch, a startup with a mission to ‘make money equal for all’. The platform gained traction, went through a few pivots and soon became one of India’s largest cryptocurrency trading apps. On this episode of Moonshot, we chat with CoinSwitch co-founder and CEO Ashish Singhal and Sequoia India Managing Director Shailesh Lakhani about how the startup is taking crypto to the masses by differentiating itself from its competitors, educating users, and tracking user gains to improve their product.

Show Notes:

• Start by solving a problem that you’ve encountered (1:36)
• If mom can use it: The CoinSwitch differentiator [06:03]
• Build user confidence: Educate them on how to use your product (9:10)
• Go-to-Market strategy: Web3 vs Web2 (12:11)
• Bear markets make you work harder for your users (14:52)
• Track user gains to improve your product (17:23)
• Be frugal, be focused (20:08)
• Know that there’s a right time for your idea (23:05)
• Give yourself two chances at success (28:15)

"We need to do the hardest thing. If you choose the easy things to do, many people choose that way. That route is very crowded." It’s this mindset that propelled Hugh Yao to grow LingoAce into a global startup with a team of over 4,500 teachers. The EdTech platform, which was launched in 2017, started out offering Chinese language courses for kids that used gamification to make learning fun. In 2022, the platform rolled out its English program in just three months – something Hugh credits to hiring and acquiring teams quickly. On this episode of Moonshot, LingoAce founder Hugh Yao chats with Sequoia India & Southeast Asia Managing Director Abheek Anand about how he saw opportunity in tough times, what it takes to hire moonshot talent, and how the LingoAce team rolled out its English program in such a short span of time.

Show Notes:

• Differentiate yourself: Choose the hardest way to build a global company (08:00)
• Be ambitious about hiring moonshot talent (10:50)
• Hire and build out teams quickly (16:04)
• A good hire accelerates everything (17:44)
• Focus on what you can control (21:36)

Doug Leone has led Sequoia Capital for over 25 years, overseeing the firm’s international expansion. Throughout his time at Sequoia, Doug formed partnerships with companies like Nubank, Medallia, ServiceNow and Wiz. He’s seen thousands of pitches and worked with hundreds of founders as they grow and scale their startups. On this episode of Moonshot, Doug chats with Sequoia India Managing Director Rajan Anandan about some of the insights he’s gained over the past two decades working with startups, common pitfalls founders should look out for, and what it takes to build a truly enduring company. The conversation took place during an AMA at Surge – our rapid scale-up program for early-stage startups.

Show Notes:

• Sequoia’s culture - Spiky people with a “We, not I” mindset [7:05]
• Architect your company, not just your product [14:18]
• Fail fast: Why flops are better than slogs [18:06]
• The gross margin line doesn’t lie [24:53]
• Servant leadership starts with you [30:34]
• The number one reason companies fail [33:06]
• Focus on solving a singular problem [37:58]

Millions of people across India buy and sell goods on e-commerce platform Meesho every month. The platform fulfils an average of three million orders a day. Meesho, which started off as a social commerce platform helping millions of women and homemakers run businesses from their home, is now on a mission to democratise e-commerce in India for millions more. Launched in 2017 by Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, the platform is bringing down costs and lowering barriers to entry for many merchants – while helping them digitise, list their goods, process orders, track payments and manage inventory. On this episode of Moonshot, Meesho Co-Founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey chats with Sequoia India Managing Director Mohit Bhatnagar, about how bucking tradition led to the genesis of Meesho, why startup founders need to regularly talk to their users, and how taking a no-frills approach to pricing can lead to higher retention rates.

Show Notes:

• Bucking tradition: How college changed Vidit’s world-view (5:30)
• Affordable fashion, cheap t-shirts, and the ‘aha!’ moment (12:33)
• Talking to your users gives you a competitive edge (18:33)
• The path to PMF is non-binary  – prepare to change your approach (20:48)
• Don’t do 10 things  (21:41)
• Less is more: A no-frills approach to pricing and strategy  (27:53)
• Design your organisation around problems  (35:50)
• Start your year with ‘BHAGs’ (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) (32:01)
• Optimising for speed: An organisational design choice (33:35)
• Evaluate team members against values and celebrate them  (39:46)

Instant noodles may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think of healthy food, but Indonesian startup Lemonilo is disrupting the country’s consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry by offering a healthier version of Indonesia's favourite instant meal. The company is building relationships with communities to educate them on the importance of healthy living, while leveraging technology to get healthy snacks into the hands of consumers quickly. On this episode of Moonshot, Lemonilo's Co-Founder and CTO Johannes Ardiant chats with Rohit Agarwal, a principal at Sequoia India and Southeast Asia about the need to take a community-first approach when building a consumer brand,  how Lemonilo is getting its products to market quickly, and why startup founders should pick the right problem before focusing on a solution.

Show Notes:

• Offer a new solution to an old problem (04:05)
• Pick the right problem and validate it (6:45)
• Don’t forget what it takes to build your MVP (10:58)
• Lemonilo’s growth strategy: Leverage communities and remain agile (18:18)
• Grow brand loyalty by listening to your customers (20:58)
• Leverage tech to shorten your supply chain (23:45)
• Get your product to market quickly (28:40)
• Bring tech and communities together to create social impact (31:05)
• Not all problems can be solved by technology (34:45)
• Ask the right questions (38:25)

Indonesia’s food delivery sector is a crowded space - dominated by industry giants and an increasing number of startups all vying for a slice of the pie. It’s also an industry that’s rapidly growing, with more cloud kitchens opening across the country to cater to young, tech-savvy Indonesians looking for a variety of food options to be delivered right to their doorstep. Hangry, a fast-growing cloud kitchen startup that launched in 2019, is feeding this demand by offering international cuisines, along with local favourites, to appeal to an increasingly global-minded target market. On this episode of Moonshot, we speak with the co-founder and CEO of Hangry, Abraham Viktor, and Sequoia India and Southeast Asia’s Aakash Kapoor to discover how the startup is taking on industry giants, riding the K-pop trend, and creating a winning recipe for cloud-kitchens (and hungry customers) in Indonesia.

Show Notes:

• A tasty way to take on industry giants (2:07)
• Appeal to different palates with a wide variety of flavours (4:15)
• Taste and iterate: The Moon Chicken recipe for success (9:40)
• How the Hangry Academy sets outlet staff up for success (13:18)
• Count Your Chickens: Deciding on quantities with the help of technology (14:25)
• Be quick to respond to customer complaints (16:06)
• Entice your customers by nailing the basics and riding trends (18:25)
• Customer complaints for breakfast: Team Hangry’s morning ritual (20:20)
• The key ingredients of building a brand (21:50)

The quest to find safe, toxin-free, natural skincare for their baby led Varun and Ghazal Alagh to launch Mamaearth - Asia’s first MADE SAFE® certified brand of skin and body care products. In just four short years, the startup has disrupted India’s FMCG space by leveraging tech and innovation to help millennial consumers make natural, eco-friendly choices for their bodies. On this episode of Moonshot, Mamaearth’s Varun Alagh chats with Sequoia India Managing Director, Ishaan Mittal about the strengths of building a startup with your spouse, crafting a purpose-based brand through nano-marketing, and how founders can perfect their brand through purpose, quality, and consistency.

Show Notes

• A personal mission behind personal care products (1:50)
• Using the three Ps framework to bring your brand purpose to life (5:30)
• It's much easier to live with failure than to live with regret (13:15)
• The bedrock of a great founding team is trust (14:38)
• The benefit of starting a conversation with potential consumers (18:10)
• Be paranoid about quality (24:25)
• Disrupting FMCG incumbents with data and tech (25:32)
• Use your brand playbook to take on other markets (30:14)
• Perfecting your brand through purpose, quality and consistency (40:25)

Indonesian coffee chain, Kopi Kenangan, serves affordable brews made with local ingredients and recipes. The company, which employs a ‘Grab & Go’ model, delivers most orders through its app, making it a convenient alternative to traditional coffee houses. In this episode of Moonshot, Kopi Kenangan Co-Founder, Edward Tirtanata talks to Sequoia India & Southeast Asia Principal, Rohit Agarwal about how he’s building a well-loved brand with authentic Indonesian flavours, a deep understanding of what customers want, and staying true to his brand’s DNA.

Show Notes

• Kopi Kenangan’s sweet start (01:31)
• How a ‘One Cup, One Customer’ approach and leveraging technology helped Kopi Kenangan weather the pandemic (07:09)
• Growing brand equity with great service and coffee (12:48)
• Stay true to your DNA to build brand love and recognition (16:24)
• Commitment to your customers is hard for copycats to replicate (21:32)
• Differentiate yourself based on your strengths (24:14)
• Creating new brands and verticals to achieve compounding distribution (26:54)
• Think big, start small, fail fast (30:45)
• Build and lead from your heart (33:00)

Prukalpa Sankar is on a quest to help ‘the humans of data’ do more. In 2019, she and Varun Banka launched Atlan, a powerful collaboration platform that helps teams made up of different people, jobs, and tools, work together to translate vast amounts of data into actionable insights. The two developed the idea for Atlan at their prior company, SocialCops, a data-for-good startup that partnered with the World Bank, and helped build India’s national data platform. In this episode of Moonshot, Prukulpa talks with Anandamoy Roychowdhary, a Principal at Sequoia India, about how her first-hand experience as a ‘human of data’ shaped the data leader she’s become today, the importance of making tough design choices early in your startup’s journey, and how empathy has been Atlan’s greatest competitive advantage in its mission to build a global SaaS brand and become the icon on the desktop for every data team.

Show Notes

• Building a collaborative workspace for ‘the humans of data’ (01:23)
• Unifying data teams on a single platform (04:44) 
• How empathy can be a huge competitive advantage (07:27)
• Leveraging data to build personal conviction (11:09)
• Driving impact through founder-market fit (18:50)
• Having the conviction to choose long-term goals over short-term wins (23:50)
• Rallying your team towards your mission with clear, effective communication (25:56)
• Focus on problems that are most likely to make you fail long-term (30:09)
• Building a global SaaS brand out of India (34:37)
• Driving decisions with conviction (41:17)

Building trust with first-time consumers is critical for any brand - particularly where their money is concerned. In 2019, Sigit Kouwagam and Wellson Lo launched Bibit, a robo-advisor that makes it easy for Indonesians to start investing and build a portfolio. The country’s stock market, which has long been dominated by institutional investors, is now attracting more retail investors as Millennials and Gen Z look for new ways to grow their savings. The Bibit team started a Telegram group early in their product journey and invited users to share complaints, ideas and questions. Some of the app’s key features - such as a shared portfolio for spouses and an auto debit function - emerged from that customer feedback. On this episode of Moonshot, Sigit chats with Rohit Agarwal, a principal at Sequoia India & SEA, about how Bibit is empowering Indonesians to make sound investment decisions, and building a brand that first time investors trust by actively engaging with them.

Show Notes

• The evolution of Indonesia’s retail investors and creating products with their concerns in mind (03:34)
• Lessons from Bibit’s landlord on opening communication channels with their users (09:34)
• Tapping into Indonesia’s changing investment ecosystem (13:58)
• Empowering Indonesians to make sound investment decisions (21:24)
• Getting your customers to become your ambassadors of trust (24:18)
• Questions to ask yourself before taking the entrepreneurship leap (28:25)