The Neon Show

What are those 5 key decisions Siddhartha and Nansi took to building 100x Entrepreneur?

The new episode with our duo is out now! Tune in to hear their journey, learnings, and the hard work they put into bringing the best startup podcast to you all! 

We hope you enjoy this podcast. 

Make sure to watch it till the very end and share it with your friends!

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The number of retail grocery retailers across India in 2022 amounted to about 13 million. 

Grocery retail account for about 65% of India's overall retailers.

And the most common problems faced by these retailers on a financial front up until a few years back were - 

1. Accepting digital payments such as UPI or Cards
2. Easy & Quick access to loans for expanding business or in the form of working capital for buying new stock.

In 2018, BharatPe was started to cater to these problems faced by every day retailers in India. 

Since then the company has grown to enable 10 million merchants in 400+ cities, processing US$ 20 bn of annualized TPV in payments.

During the peak of Covid, they also joined hands with ICICI Lombard to launch Coronavirus insurance cover for shopkeepers. To enable hands-free checking of transactions they also launched Speaker. 

To know how digital payments turned out as a big break for them, we’ve got BharatPe founder Shashvat Nakrani  & CEO Suhail Sameer on our guest seats this time.

In this episode we discuss-

• How they’ve scaled BharatPe over the past 4 years?
• Does the age gap between them affect the decision-making at the top level?
• What do they keep in mind while building or scaling any new product?
• And much more

Notes - 

01:35 - Expectations with BharatPe’s current scale

03:17 - Joining a Rocket Ship as a CEO

05:10 - Changes in culture and customer offerings in the last 2 years

12:19 - Very less attachment to a particular role amongst founders & CEOs

16:30 - Dealing and coming out the challenging times at BharatPe

18:17 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?

19:33 - Helping the team innovate faster and plan Go-To-Market strategy

25:37 - Strengths & Weakness of Shashvat

29:33 - Strengths & Weakness of Suhail

31:03 - Handling the firing decisions

35:17 - What are the things they bond over? 

36:38 - Processes v/s Hustle in 0 to 1 and 1 to 10 journey

40:49 - Secret recipe behind success at 0 to 1 on a product-level

44:02 - Idea behind building distribution network

47:33 - Suhail’s top priorities while joining BharatPe

49:29 - Biases and things Suhail had to unlearn

55:21 - Listening to Younger v/s Older Team members while decision making 

58:39 - Next Chapter of BharatPe

01:01:00 - What is being IPO-ready? 

01:07:39 - Things which they could have explored outside of Fintech?

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As per Statista, Market size of the cosmetics industry across India which was at $3 Bn in 2010 is expected to grow to atleast $20 Bn by 2025.

In today’s episode, we talk with Manish Taneja, Co-founder and CEO, Purplle, which was started back in 2012.

During the podcast Manish talks in detail about - 

• How he along with his Cofounders have always thought for the long-term?
• Problems they faced back in 2012 in Vertical Ecommerce.
• How MOATs against competitors are mostly in the minds of the founders? rather than being actually relevant to Indian customers, who are most price and value sensitive.
• What’s unique about their culture that has helped them retain as well as hire new talent? 
• And more…

Lastly before we dive deeper into the podcast, something that Manish mentioned during the episode - “Our 2nd part of the journey has been about, believing in yourself, doing things that are contradictory to the world but at the same time, we think could create massive value in the future.”

Notes - 

03:19 - Intro to Manish & Purplle

04:57 - Being from a Finance background what got him to start his 2nd venture in Online Beauty space? 

10:32 - Challenges in Vertical Ecommerce back in 2012

12:29 - Challenges in delivery, cash flow and more in the first 5-6 years

17:30 - Two defining characteristics in their fund raising journey

2!:52 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?

22:55 - Learnings while his exit from Avendus Capital

24:18 - Major changes in the 2nd part of their journey from 2016-17 onwards

28:34 - Launching their own brands with 65%+ Gross Margin

31:08 - How has he evolved as a founder during Purplle’s journey? 

33:21 - Shaping Purplle’s culture over the years

38:34 - “MOATs aren’t as relevant for consumers, as they are for founders against competition.”

42:23 - Opportunity to build a $20-30 Bn FMCG company from India

45:26 - Not succumbing to external pressures around Growth

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Thinking about Entrepreneurship or Startups which of the following do you think really matters -  

# Having Degree from a Tier-1 college?

# Having or finding the right Co-founder?

# Sky-rocketing your scale up as soon as you secure funding? 

# Pouring in your resources to get as many customers as fast as possible via Ads?

Well the short answer to all the above questions is, IT DOESN’T.

In today’s episode we’ve with us Vaibhav Sisinty, Founder, GrowthSchool. And in this episode, while sharing his experiences of building and scaling GrowthSchool, he busts all the above myths one-by-one.

For all of you, who’ve been active on Linkedin, in the past few years, especially around themes like marketing and growth hacking, you would have surely noticed a post or an Ad by Vaibhav, or his perfect case of personal branding and self-curated courses on Sisinty.com.

During the episode, we talk with Vaibhav about how he learnt and grew his marketing skills during his job at Uber and Klook, how he used a brilliant growth hacking method even while raising his first round and much more.

Lastly before we dive deeper into the podcast, something that Vaibhav mentioned during the episode - “True Product Market Fit is, If I shut down my product today, will 25 people line out of my office, requesting to please turn it ON.”

Notes - 

00:54 - Intro

01:55 - Starting in Growth Journey: From his 1st Venture to Uber

05:24 - Helping other startups: His playground to learn

06:29 - Building Organic v/s Paid Channels of Growth

12:02 - Founder-Market Fit towards starting GrowthSchool

16:02 - 0 to $1 Mn ARR before first round of funding

20:36 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?

22:33 - Running Lean & Shrewd to achieve profitability

23:58 - Scale & format of courses before and after the funding

29:00 - Growth Hacking his way to raise funding from Sequoia, Owl & 80+ Angels

36:15 - “Blitzscaling right after funding will break things.”

39:17 - Focus & Internal goals in near future

41:46 - What’s his definition of PMF for GrowthSchool?

49:15 - Managing his time as a Solo Founder

52:55 - Various process which he has built in his life

Also, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!

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As per Statista, globally there are more than 2.6 Mn Apps on Google Play Store, and when you’re building in today’s age of internet, you need as much as visibility possible around - 
# Accurately measuring the impact of your marketing initiatives

# Actionable insights on your user behaviour

# Potential Competitors & on what metrics do they compare with you and where do you & your team needs to focus more.

To understand mobile marketing analytics better in this episode we’ve with us Oren Kaniel, CEO & Co-founder, AppsFlyer.

Founded in 2011, AppsFlyer has grown leaps and bounds and is currently amongst the top choices of marketers to mobile marketing analytics.

In today’s episode, we talk with Oren about how they built and grew AppsFlyer where there was almost a free option like Google Analytics available to the masses, also what’s their focus triangle about Privacy, Users Value and Safety.

Lastly before we dive deeper into the podcast, something that Oren’s mentioned during the episode - “Do not fall in love with your product, fall in love with the ecosystem, with the problem-statement.”

Notes - 

03:09 - Intro to AppsFlyer

03:55 - Starting with Entrepreneurship

05:53 - Identifying the opportunity and starting AppsFlyer

09:18 - How well positioned is Israel for capturing Asian and Global markets? 

12:55 - $300 Mn ARR from the US & rest of the Global market

13:46 - Journey from 0 to 1 and 1 to 10

20:13 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?

22:25 - Ensuring faster growth by balancing pricing and revenue model

27:53 - Evolving of Go-To-Market insights over time

38:19 - Building the team and culture

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Today being an entrepreneur and starting with a new idea, you can take either of the two approaches - 

1. You can build on top of an existing category in the market and bring your unique offerings

2. You can take the riskier bet and create an entire category. 

In India, companies like Flipkart, Oyo, Ola etc. are the ‘Regional’ first movers. Although their concept was inspired from the global companies, however, being the first mover in the Indian subcontinent region gave them an advantage.

In today’s episode we have Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director, Arkam Ventures, who has a great focus on identifying and investing in such Category Creators for Middle India.  

Prior to Arkam, Bala, was part of the founding team at Vistaar, which in simple words helps companies like Cisco, Dell, GE, Ford, and Hitachi to make better, faster, and more profitable business decisions.

Post that he became one of the founding members of Amba research, which was acquired for $100 Mn by Moody’s. 

After Amba, he was also with Kalaari Capital for over 3 years, post which he co-founded Arkam Ventures, a Venture Capital firm with a focus on “Category Creators for Middle India” and “Enablers for the Global”.

In today’s episode, we talk with Bala about key ingredients of building a Category Creator, Solving for the pricing problem in SaaS startups, taking SaaS to the mass audience in Tier-3 cities and towns and much more.

Notes - 

02:01 - Intro

04:05 - Essential ingredients to build a $10 Mn ARR company

06:29 - Why focus on category creators for Middle India? 

18:38 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?

20:08 - Evolving from a single problem statement to a platform with multiple offerings

22:23 - Razorpay’s gameplan for trust building for Small town customers

24:06 - His thesis around investing in enablers like Signzy and Spotdraft

30:26 - His thoughts on India-focused SaaS with regards to pricing

33:24 - Themes and Thesis which didn’t worked out

38:42 - What gave him an edge into the middle India consumer?

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How can an experience being a VC come handy while starting up? To answer this today we’ve with us Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder, Sourcewiz.

Prior to starting Sourcewiz, Divyaanshu had already tasted entrepreneurship with his first venture in EdTech space, Connect2Teach in London. Post that after working with EY-Parthenon for a brief period of time, he joined Bessemer Venture Partners in California, United States.

At Bessemer he focused on EdTech, Consumer Tech for India/SEA and Enterprise/SMB SaaS being built from India/SEA for the world. 

In today’s episode, we talk with Divyaanshu understanding his journey from being a Entrepreneur to becoming a VC and then going back for Entrepreneurship, his learnings and networks from his VC-period which came handy while starting Sourcewiz and more. 

Notes - 

02:24 - Intro

03:53 - Early Career and background in Venture Capital prior to Sourcewiz

07:35 - After VC what made him come back as an entrepreneur?

09:38 - Learnings from Mistakes from his previous venture

13:02 - Mistakes he observed other founders make while being a VC

15:04 - Key criterias for him while selecting a market from a VC’s lens

20:03 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?

21:58 - Quitting at Bessemer Venture Partners to starting up Sourcewiz

31:10 - Connecting with Sajith Pai from Blume Ventures

35:02 - Identifying and Focusing on the problem statement within SaaS

41:08 - Getting their first paying customer

44:45 - Figuring out a scalable GTM for Tier-II customers

47:34 - Acquiring 400+ Paid customers in within first year

49:20 - Building a marketplace and its current traction

53:59 - His path to a $1Mn ARR and then for $10Mn ARR

56:16 - Building mechanism for scale 

1:00:34 - Unknowns in the market they are still figuring out

1:02:12 - Closing their second round of Seed funding with ​​Matrix Partners India

1:05:02 - Selection criteria for Angel Investors

1:06:44 - Key pointers of Do’s and Don’ts for new founders

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The Indian market is seeing several startups offering innovative products in the D2C & FMCG segment. 

One such innovative brand is Rage Coffee. 

Founder Bharat Sethi launched Rage Coffee in the year 2018. It offers a variety of vegan-friendly, vitamin-infused instant coffee flavours. The brand is currently present in 2,500+ retail outlets pan-India and plans to expand its offline presence 5X within a year by strengthening its distribution channels.

In today’s episode, we talk with Bharat Sethi who has been a serial entrepreneur about his entire journey so far and how does Rage Coffee stands out as a brand, the mistakes he made being a founder and what are his future plans for Rage Coffee. 

Notes - 

02:02 - Intro

02:47 - Family background & what led him to entrepreneurship?

06:35 - Conceptualising PosterGully in 2012

11:09 - Exit from PosterGully

11:50 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?

12:59 - Mistakes and learnings from iDecorama

18:45 - Ideating for Rage Coffee

25:55 - Milestones & Growth over the years

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Founded in 2013, Portea Medical, India's Leading Home Health Care Company employes over 4000 people and covers 40+ cities in India doing 1,50,000+ home visits every month.

Portea has also helped about 5,00,000 COVID-19 patients, working with seven different cities and state governments, including Delhi, Mumbai, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Chennai, Bengaluru and all of Karnataka. 

Meena Ganesh, Chairperson and Co-Founder, Portea Medical is one of India’s most celebrated entrepreneurs and business leaders.  She sits on the boards of numerous firms like Axis Bank, and has a string of start-up successes to her credit. She co-founded her first company, Customer Asset, in 2000 and later on sold it to ICICI. Then came TutorVista, which she ran successfully till it was acquired by British publishing giant Pearson. 

Before founding Portea, Meena also served Pearson India as the chief executive officer and managing director. 

With her incredible career and achievements, she also became part of Fortune India’s ‘50 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business’ from 2015 to 2021.

In today’s episode, we talk with Meena about her entrepreneurial journey so far, learnings from building a healthcare startup in India and why even getting two large exists previously, she still thinks that journey with her third venture Portea is the most satisfying in terms of learnings. 

Notes - 

01:36 - Intro

02:04 - Family background & what got Meena into entrepreneurship

08:02 - Brainstorming Ideas during the conception of Portea

12:46 - Milestones after Series A till date

17:53 - Her thoughts on the notion that - “It’s difficult to create money from healthcare & health-tech startups”

21:36 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?

22:37 - How has the pricing model evolved at Portea?

24:06 - Learnings from building in healthcare in India

27:14 - How has she grown as a founder during her entrepreneurial journey?

30:04 - Her fundraising journey at Portea

30:33 - Balancing investor-founder relation over the course of a startup’s journey

32:07 - Managing her time between GrowthStory, Portea and home

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In today’s episode we are talking with Vijay Arisetty, Founder, MyGate, i.e. a category creating startup in its space. 

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