My guest today is Prukalpa Sankar, co-founder of Atlan. Atlan is one of the most exciting SaaS businesses in India and PK was the perfect guest to dive deep into what's going on in the Indian ecosystem. When we think about startups, consumer startups at large have experienced a major shift over the years, going from low-hanging-fruit services businesses to more challenging X for Y companies, to building natively for India's use cases. SaaS and Enterprise have taken a different motion. SaaS companies in India are not just building for the domestic market, but for the global market. In this conversation, we covered all things SaaS, why India's hit an inflection point, and what the downstream implications of building great SaaS companies for Indian society are. Please enjoy my conversation with Prukalpa Sankar.

 

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. 

 

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Show Notes

[00:02:37] - [First question] - Defining what India SaaS is writ large

[00:04:27] - The macro forces that are driving the inflection point in India SaaS today 

[00:07:55] - The evolution of SaaS in India and what the landscape looks like now

[00:11:07] - Differences between building SaaS for India versus the world and why there’s such a focus on global SaaS

[00:14:09] - What the west is uniquely good at that India SaaS companies could learn from

[00:18:03] - Unpacking the 120% concept 

[00:20:45] - Distinct characteristics of global SaaS companies built in India

[00:23:18] - Thoughts about efficiency when building from India versus the west

[00:26:06] - Whether or not the high level of hospitality in India is also found in company-building 

[00:28:36] - Learning what countries do well from a cultural perspective and integrating key takeaways from them into her own business 

[00:32:12] - The founding story of Atlan and the downstream societal implications of creating a company like that

[00:36:23] - Things that could go right or wrong for India in the next ten years

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