The Neon Show

Imagine a social micro-blogging platform like Twitter that allows users to express themselves in their local languages on a large scale. Well, that's precisely what Koo offers. In today's episode, we are joined by Aprameya Radhakrishna, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Koo. 

Aprameya's first startup was TaxiForSure, which was acquired by Ola Cabs in 2015. Since then, he has invested in over 30 early-stage startups, including Unacademy, TapChief, and Daily Ninja. 

During our conversation, Aprameya discusses his thoughts on Indian startups and tech talent building for global markets, his experience with VCs as a second-time entrepreneur, and much more.

Notes - 

00:00 - Highlights 

01:47 - Aprameya Radhakrishna and Koo's story

03:23 - Koo's scale in India and Brazil

08:30 - Current market headwinds

10:59 - Koo's positioning in the audience's mind

13:17 - VC and investor perspective being a second-time founder

15:13 - Going deeper in India v/s Going Global

16:30 - Exiting TaxiForSure

17:56 - Focus on product and traction while building a product

20:29 - Learnings from TaxiForSure 

22:36 - Confidence to go global as a consumer internet company from India

26:50 - Self-doubt while starting Koo

31:14 - Change in Aprameya's ability to read the market

33:22 - Gut feeling about the recession's duration

37:04 - Balancing confidence and arrogance as a founder

40:17 - Relationship with VCs over time

45:00 - Future bets in the next 10 years

46:32 - Riskiest bets that paid off

48:02 - Financial independence's impact on Aprameya as a person

49:57 - Aprameya's other aspirations besides building Koo

51:53 - Is the core India shining?

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A report by Deloitte and Wipro estimated that the value of B2B digital payments in India will reach $700 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 30% from 2020.

The B2B digital payment ecosystem in India has been growing rapidly, driven by factors such as: 
# Government initiatives to promote digital payments
# Increasing adoption of mobile devices and internet connectivity
# Growing awareness of the benefits of digital payments among businesses and more

In this episode we have with us Akash Sinha, Co-founder & CEO, Cashfree payments, talking about B2B Digital payments ecosystem in India. 

Cashfree Payments has processed over 200 million transactions as of 2021, with a total transaction value of over $12 billion. 

It serves over 3,00,000 businesses, ranging from small startups to large enterprises, across various industries such as e-commerce, travel, hospitality, and fintech such as Dream11, Zomato, Dunzo, CRED, Acko, and Nykaa amongst others.

Cashfree Payments offers various payment solutions, such as payment gateway, payouts, auto-collect, recurring payments, and marketplace settlements. They have also launched new products like Cashgram and Cashfree AI to improve the user experience and prevent fraud.

Let’s deep dive into the episode where Akash has their initial journey with heavy competition in the market, complying with RBI regulations as a payment solution provider, and much more.

Notes - 

00:00 - Highlights of the conversation

02:07 - Intro to Akash Sinha, Cashfree Payments and Payment ecosystem in India

03:09 - Journey so far & Indian payment’s landscape

06:37 - Mapping the payment landscape’s online segment

10:05 - Cashfree’s share in B2B payments in India

11:06 - Strengths of Razorpay & Cashfree Payments

13:59 - Larger customers such as - Meesho, Swiggy, Zepto, and CRED among others

14:50 - SME signups and payments insights across India

16:59 - Scaling with a Platform approach

18:14 - Being part of YC early-on

20:22 - Strengths as a CEO & Founder

24:57 - Y-o-Y growth at Cashfree Payments

26:01 - Plans for IPO

26:31 - Emotional Journey of a founder in the last 8 years

27:53 - Steering clear in a competitive market back in 2015

32:05 - Building multiple products to solve multiple problems

34:44 - India’s growing Digital infrastructure

38:03 - Advice for entrepreneurs to choose tough markets with large tailwinds

39:56 - Coming from a Non-fintech background

42:32 - How fast is the Digital payments market growing? 

43:35 - How tough is it to be compliant with RBI regulatory changes? 

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By end-2019, just before the pandemic, the market for Coworking spaces was spread over some 30 million sq. ft, with 471,782 seats across the top seven markets in India, per JLL Research data.

In December 2022, the numbers grew to 50 million sq. ft and 750,000+ seats. In the next three years, the co-working space market in India is set to cross the 1-million-seats mark spread over 75 million sq. ft.

WeWork India is the leading provider of flexible workspace solutions with almost 70,000+ seats across 44+ locations in India.

In this episode, we have Karan Virwani, CEO, WeWork India, talking about his experience of bringing and scaling WeWork in India, over the past 7 years.

Karan brought WeWork to India in a partnership tie-up with his family's Embassy Group. Starting business operations in the country with 100k sq ft, WeWork India has progressed to 6.5mn sq ft as of today. Within 6 years, WeWork India has grown from 2,200 members in WeWork Galaxy, Bangalore, to 44 locations across 6 cities in India today - Bengaluru, Mumbai, Gurugram, Noida, Hyderabad, and Pune.

During the episode, Karan shares the ups and downs in their journey, especially during Covid, and how they tackled the situation which helped them build goodwill and scale back faster post things normalized. 

This podcast is for anyone who wants to have an insider view of India’s growing Flex workspace market.

Notes - 

00:00 - Highlights of the conversation

01:34 - Intro to Karan Virwani, WeWork and Global Co-working phenomenon

02:27 - Bringing WeWork to India

09:36 - Why not start under the Embassy brand name and why start with WeWork? 

12:16 - Borrowing the DNA of WeWork Global to India 

13:37 - Scaling to 40+ WeWorks and 70,000+ Desks in India

15:57 - Back into Growth mode post Covid

17:14 - Having multiple landlords for Pan-India growth

18:39 - Initial investment & roadblocks in their journey

24:43 - Plans for WeWork IPO in India

25:33 - Coworking customer segment in India v/s Global

33:16 - Coworking as a culture amongst Traditional & Legacy companies

34:05 - Operating in a certain price segment

36:44 - Partner-led approach during Covid

40:01 - Sector-wise demand of commercial real-estate

43:07 - Hitting $1 Bn revenue in 3 years

43:38 - Coworking as a % of Commerical Real Estate in India

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As per Tracxn, there are 1100+ SaaS startups in Chennai as of Feb 2023. 

Chennai has rightfully gained the title of the SAAS capital of India, thanks to the expansion of companies such as Zoho and Freshworks. 

Although these two firms have recently surpassed the $500 million revenue milestone, making them the most prominent success stories in the realm of Indian-based SAAS companies, there are other companies contributing to Chennai's reputation in the market. Chargebee, CloudCherry, HappyFox, and FourKites are among the businesses that are creating a unique space in the industry.

In this episode, we have with us Srikrishnan Ganesan Founder, Rocketlane. Srikrishnan's SaaS journey began with Konotor, which got acquired by FreshWorks and later became Freshchat. He has experienced scaling from 0 to 100 and is now building Rocketlane, a customer onboarding platform that reduces time to value and eliminates hit-or-miss experiences.

During the episode, he talks about his inspiration behind building Rocketlane, Planning and doing GTM early on being a SaaS founder, setting up a base in Chennai, and much more.

Notes - 

00:00 - Highlights of the conversation

01:32 - Intro to Srikrishnan Ganesan, Rocketlane and Chennai’s SaaS ecosystem

02:36 - Why do SaaS founders prefer Chennai?

06:09 - Advantages of building prior-product building experience

09:50 - Choosing the domain for Rocketlane

13:12 - Rocketlane’s Pre-Launch setup

18:53 - What works in customer conversation’s Pre-Launch?

22:44 - Why do SaaS founders ignore GTM?

24:35 - Raising their 1st round

26:32 - Choosing to become a Category creator

29:08 - Investing in Brand-building upfront

30:39 - Funding announcement with a Rap video

34:15 - Learnings from his journey

37:54 - Their strategy for Demand-Gen

40:29 - His thoughts on Generative-AI

45:47 - Slowness demand for Rocketlane or similar companies serving SMBs

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Imagine you’re part of an NBFC, how would you lend to a person running a Kirana business? Without any proper credit score, current account or other standard checks. 

Finding it difficult to evaluate the credit worthiness of the shop owner. Right? In the age of the internet, UPI, net banking, Jan Dhan Bank account and almost all transaction-related data available with transparency, it seems possible.  

Now imagine dealing with the same issue, back in 1984. Seems impossible right? 

Well, that’s when Five Star Business Finance, ventured into small business financing.

In this episode, we have with us, Rangarajan Krishnan, CEO, Five Star Business Finance.

Dive into this episode as Rangarajan shares the journey of Five Star, their experience of going IPO recently, how RBI regulates NBFCs, what differentiates them from other NBFCs, Banks Fintech, and more. 

This episode is a must-listen for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and anyone looking to learn more about the working, valuation, and scaling of NBFCs in India.

Notes - 

00:00 - Highlights of the conversation

01:28 - Intro to Rangarajan & Five Star Business Finance

02:38 - Valuation for NBFCs while going IPO

03:14 - Their IPO journey over three phases

10:29 - Private round valuation Pre-IPO

13:33 - History and background of Five Star

22:03 - RBI’s regulations around deposit-taking NBFCs

23:26 - How does the lending market in India looks like? 

26:29 - The simplest way to define a customer of Five Star

31:51 - Branch presence across major geographies in India

37:10 - RBI scale-based regulations for 10,000+ NBFCs 

39:45 - What differentiates them from other NBFCs? 

42:41 - Do they aspire to be amongst the Top 10-15 NBFCs in the next 2-3 years?

44:11 - Prerequisites from RBI for starting an NBFC

46:16 - Do they want to become a Fintech eventually? 

49:20 - Being a CEO and a Non-founder

51:39 - His interaction while joining Five Star

56:53 - Managing his & promotor's responsibilities 

57:46 - Things he has changed & retained in the company in the last 7+ years

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In this episode, we talk with Mithun Sacheti, the founder of CaratLane, who has disrupted the traditional jewellery industry in India by leveraging technology and innovation. He started CaratLane in 2008 with the vision to provide access to beautiful jewellery designs at an affordable price. 

Mithun Sacheti comes from a Marwari family and joined the family jewellery business, Jaipur Gems, after graduation. He started its stores in Chennai. Later, he founded CaratLane in 2008 after being inspired by the online jewellery retailer, Blue Nile. CaratLane aims to solve the problem of limited access to beautiful and affordable jewellery designs for the middle class in India.

The conversation dives into his entrepreneurial journey, his insights on the Indian D2C startup ecosystem, and the challenges he faced along the way. Mithun recalls the struggles he had in convincing Bluedart to be their shipping partner and how it took them almost a year and a crore to build their website. 

Tune in now to know Mithun’s journey of building CaratLane from scratch, his belief that in life, the harder thing is not to find answers but to find the right questions and what are the next questions for him in life.  


Notes - 
00:00 - Highlights of the conversation
01:45 - The idea & Need of CaratLane
01:55 - Disrupting the underserved jewellery market in India
03:19 - The first one to bring jewellery at low prices
03:33 - The designs should be democratised 
03:55 - Becoming the Market Maker 
04:04 - The reality of the Jewellery Market in India
06:08 - Why 25% of your wealth should be in form of gold?
06:47 - The effect of the Ukraine War on the purchase of gold
07:05 - Quitting family business to start Caratlane
08:30 - Life of kids born in families running big businesses
08:58 - Inspiration behind starting Caratlane
10:36 - First few pivots in their product journey
13:38 - Initial phase of building and growing Caratlane
17:57 - Raising funding & building for Titan
21:57 - Journey after Tiger Global’s funding
24:12 - Getting advice from Raamdeo Agrawal at Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s dinner
31:48 - Why do people really buy jewellery?
39:13 - Tata group being able to marry the Entrepreneur to the business post-acquisition
43:03 - Learnings while working with Tata
46:15 - What are the next questions in life for him?

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Manish Mundra is an Investor, a film producer, and a man whose story is an inspiration for all the small-town people with big dreams.

Manish was born in a Marwadi family based in Deoghar, Jharkhand. He along with his family experienced a difficult time when his father’s business suffered a setback. From selling sarees to cold drinks, he had done it all to support his family. Manish later on focused on his education and did his MBA from a college in Jodhpur. He, later on, moved to Nigeria to join a multinational Petrochemicals firm and rose up to become its CEO.

In 2013, Manish responded to a tweet by actor-director Rajat Kapoor, offering to produce a movie based on his script—Ankhon Dekhi (2014).

After that, Manish founded Drishyam Films to back socially relevant films like Masaan, Newton, Ankhon Dekhi and more becoming one of the most promising filmmakers of Indian cinema. Recently, he also released his first movie Siya as a director.

In our conversation with Manish, he shares his journey from his early days in Deoghar to moving to Nigeria and then finding a way to produce and direct movies.  

He also opens up about his passion for promoting diversity and inclusivity in cinema and why it's so important to give a voice to underrepresented communities.

Manish's infectious energy and inspiring story that he has will definitely make you think that when it comes to dreams, the sky's the limit for him.

Notes - 

02:08 - Intro to Manish Mundra

05:48 - Moving out of India

10:33 - Initial life in Middle-class families 

20:34 - Working hard early in career to scale faster

23:50 - His experience with his first film - “Ankhon Dekhi” with Rajat Kapoor

35:33 - Slow compounding throughout his journey

39:18 - Being a filmmaker who has no background of movies

42:47 - More screens for independent film-makers

52:02 - Dealing with your inferiority complex? 

56:35 - More evolved and More Spiritual 

57:14 - What’s the purpose that’s driving Manish at the age of 49? 

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In the recent episode of Shark Tank India which went viral, we saw Ganesh Balakrishnan, the Co-Founder of Flatheads Shoes, pitch his sustainable and ethically-made footwear brand to the Sharks. 

Although Ganesh faced some initial skepticism from the Sharks, he didn't give up and continued to present his vision with confidence and determination.

And through his pitch, he made everyone realize that entrepreneurship is not only Unicorns, fundraisers, and large secondaries for the founders. It's mainly about the fight that goes on within an individual and with the outside world.

Ganesh's tenacity and perseverance in the face of rejection are an inspiration to all entrepreneurs, and his story is a reminder that success doesn't come easy and entrepreneurship is a long journey. 

In this episode, we talk to Ganesh about his journey as an entrepreneur, the inspiration behind Flatheads Shoes, and the challenges he's faced along the way. 

Listen to the full episode to learn more about Ganesh’s new Mantra for Entrepreneurship "Down but not out" 

Notes - 

01:22 - Intro to Ganesh

02:42 - Getting into Shark Tank

05:02 - What happened once the episode aired? 

07:32 - The Joy of Creation

14:12 - Emotional Journey with family as an Entrepreneur

20:51 - Impact of Covid on Flatheads

28:44 - What’s next for Flatheads?

33:15 - Pandemic-driven thought process: Offline vs Online

35:28 - What else was discussed in the Shark Tank pitch that wasn’t aired?

38:12 - Why didn't he take the Shark Tank offer? 

39:45 - What brings humility to an entrepreneur? 

43:50 - Knowing what he got to know after Shark Tank, what would he have done differently in Flatheads' journey? 

47:11 - His focus in 2023

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The Indian Grocery market was at 396 Billion Indian Rupees in 2022. 

Over 95% of Indian grocery stores are made up of Kiranas or small grocery stores. 

While supermarkets account for about 4% of total grocery shares, online groceries are not even near one percent. 

Which stands as a huge potential market for companies like BigBasket, Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, JioMart, and Dunzo to scale.

Zepto pioneered 10 min grocery delivery In India. It’s a phenomenon that took India by storm. And this is a unique Indian offering. Nowhere in the world has 10 min delivery been pioneered and scaled like in India.

And there are very few businesses born once in a decade that change consumer behavior permanently. Flipkart pioneered e-commerce in India, BigBasket pioneered grocery in India delivered in 3-4 days and Zepto has pioneered grocery delivered in 10 mins.

In this episode, we have Aadit Palicha, Founder & CEO, Zepto sharing his journey so far with us.

During the conversation, Aadit also mentioned about his first startup, moving back to India during Covid, dropping out of Stanford, and starting Zepto.

Notes - 

00:00 - Intro

01:36 - The life story of Aadit before starting Zepto

02:36 - First startup at age 16

08:18 - Dropping out of Stanford

10:21 - First round of funding from Y-combinator and Nexus

12:30 - Growth & Challenges in Zepto’s journey so far

17:35 - Is grocery a big enough category to build a large enough business? 

20:54 - Is it possible to become profitable in this space? 

25:50 - Headwinds in their business

28:46 - Going public in India at $10 Bn

34:00 - Where does 99%+ of his learnings come from?

37:45 - Avoid taking a hit on culture as you scale 

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SaaS startups in India have seen significant growth in recent years. The country's SaaS market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 22.5% from 2020 to 2025, reaching a value of $6.3 billion. 

A few of the factors driving this growth are:

• Increasing adoption of cloud computing
• Availability of advanced tech infrastructure in India
• Support from the Government of India for funding, mentorship, and other resources to entrepreneurs. 

In India, there are Investors and founders who have witnessed the evolution of SaaS in India. With his notable investments like Whatfix, LimeChat, GTM Buddy, Alok has built his own thesis for SaaS over the years.

Tune in to hear Alok sharing about the top SaaS companies in India, what all has changed in his investing thesis, the categories he’s most bullish on, and why SaaS sector is only going to rise in the coming years. 

Notes - 

01:53 - How Alok got into investing

02:44 - Evolution of SaaS in India

08:16 - Definition of global category leaders in SaaS

10:02 - Is there a known pattern in the US for his portfolio companies in India? 

13:23 - SaaS investments in 2022

14:02 - Next 3-4 years for SaaS in India

19:03 - Building a GTM engine in the US with a seed round in India

23:00 - Focus on reducing burn

24:51 - Growth in more & more $100Mn ARR companies in India

29:14 - The Edge India has in creating successful SaaS startups 

31:28 - Major shift in his thesis in the past years

38:21 - His focus on AI automation startups

43:55 - Thesis on Developer-Centric Softwares

48:50 - Backing founders at Idea Stage

58:34 - What he looks for in founders?

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