The Neon Show

Suppose you're a marketer or have a marketer friend/colleague. During an event like IPL or Diwali, you need to get 100+ variations of creatives with 20-30 sizes for each, within a few days and not weeks, so that you can test campaigns on multiple platforms at the earliest. 

However, traditional software is time-consuming, especially if you have a small design team with limited bandwidth. 

Our guest, Satej Sirur, Founder & CEO, Rocketium, solves this for 1200+ brands like Bigbasket, cult.fit, Groww, Meesho, Supr Daily, Urban Company, and many more across 95+ countries.

During the episode, Satej talks about how customers differentiate between them and Adobe, the fundamental principles he focuses on to include in Rocketium's culture, and much more.

Notes - 

00:52 - Initial Intro

05:13 - Pivoting in early years of Rocketium

09:50 - Metrics around ARR & Customer base

11:31 - Customers comparing Rocketium to Adobe

18:07 - Company building: Attracting the best talent

22:36 - Principles in Rocektium's work culture

25:51 - What's 8-4-5? 

28:02 - Framework while setting internal metrics

30:07 - Playbook behind International expansion

33:45 - Importance of deeply knowing who your users are

39:08 - Fundraising journey: Finding the right investor

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"You never know when and where you can be "bitten by the entrepreneurship bug." 

Something similar happened with our guest Shashank Bijapur. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he was working with a New York-based top-tier law firm; when he came across the news of Elon Musk launching Self-driving cars. He realized his manual work on Legal contracts was easily replaceable by AI automation soon.

This led him to start SpotDraft, an end-to-end contract automation platform for companies of all sizes.

In this episode, Shashank talks about his initial hiring struggles, getting new clients, some of his mistakes as an entrepreneur, the future plans for SpotDraft, and much more.

Notes - 

01:19 - Starting SpotDraft and meeting his wife for the 1st time

04:51 - First few years of struggle

07:28 - Timeline of Shashank & SpotDraft's Journey

10:34 - Switch of TG: From Enterprise to Startups

12:58 - Early customers: Unacademy & Chargebee amongst others

14:36 - Hiring A+ talent: Referrals from existing employees

17:01 - Mistakes in 0 to 1 Journey

22:18 - Competitive edge over large competitors

25:23 - "Let's get SpotDrafted."

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# Marketer of the Year 2018 and 2019 by IAA Leadership Award held by International Advertising Association (IAA)

# Most Influential Youth Marketing Professional by Global Youth Marketing Forum 2019

# Top 30 CMO's in India 2020 by IAMAI

#" Marketer of the year" by The Economic Times ET Brand Equity 

#SharkAwards2021

All of the above recognitions have honored our guest Karan Shroff, Partner & CMO at Unacademy, for his marketing strategies and the stellar brand campaigns time and again.

Before joining Unacademy, Karan was Heading Marketing at Xiaomi, and in this episode, he shares his decade-long experience in the marketing domain.

During the episode, Karan also talks about his first meeting with Unacademy Co- Founder & CEO, Gaurav Munjal, keeping his learners' emotions at the heart of all his campaigns, and much more.

Notes - 

03:19 - Early career journey

04:39 - Story behind joining Unacademy

07:32 - Marketing campaigns close to his heart

10:30 - Learnings from Gaurav and Unacademy's culture

14:45 - Finding creativity, ideas and tapping into it

18:17 - Audacity of ambitions & goals

20:38 - Secret Sauce: Keeping the sentiments of the users at the core of the campaign

23:24 - How to build an iconic brand?

27:24 - What has Karan Unlearnt?

31:24 - Changes in marketing strategy as per the dynamic needs of the customers

35:36 - His timeless marketing advice for startups

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Do you know about the most interesting headline of all Indian business newspapers on 30 November 1999?

It was India's most prominent Internet deal at the time - a $115Mn acquisition of IndiaWorld, founded by our guest Rajesh Jain. 

After this successful acquisition; Rajesh started Netcore. Yes, the same company is responsible for 75% of India's email traffic and 50% of Asia's email traffic through its Cloud network.

During the episode, Rajesh explains how they've been one of the Proficorns at Netcore, all his learnings and experiences over the last two decades, and much more.

Notes - 

03:17 - Early career and failures

09:42 - Learning entrepreneurship from his father

11:32 - Starting and scaling IndiaWorld

22:04 - "More important than knowing when to enter a business, is to know when to exit a business."

24:26 - His perspective about businesses in India

31:46 - "StarTech: Great Golden Era of Indian Entrepreneurship."

34:33 - Building Netcore after the previous acquisition

38:45 - Pivots and growth of Netcore

43:45 - What is Proficorn, and why has Rajesh strongly advocated for it?

51:48 - 25% ownership by employees

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# Does the word 'Compounding' excite you? 

# Have you always wondered what 'Value Investing' is and how can you follow this approach?

# Are you biased in your investment decisions? 

Then, this is an episode you shouldn't miss. Our guest, Gautam Baid, CFA & Founder at Stellar Wealth Partners, and Founding Creator at Chapter talks about his journey in the stock market from his early days, learning through great books on investing to eventually becoming a writer and fund manager himself. 

During the episode, Gautam talks about his personal experience of gaining and compounding knowledge, his recommendations (in terms of books, checklists, biases) for first-time investors entering the stock market, and much more.

Notes - 

03:46 - His family background and childhood

09:21 - Compounding of Knowledge: Spent on hours of learnings

14:28 - "Nothing teaches you the biggest lessons of life, more than an empty pocket and empty stomach."

21:19 - His thoughts about 'Value Investing.'

31:35 - Checklists in his investing decisions

33:15 - 3 biases every investor should know

49:28 - "Time is the new status symbol."

50:35 - His book recommendations

Additional links:
Link to Gautam Baid's smallcase: www.stellarwealthpartners.com

Link to Gautam Baid's Chapter: https://getchapter.app/@gautam

Link to Gautam Baid's book: www.TheJoysOfCompounding.com

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As per the recent data by Tracxn, there are 1338 AgriTech startups in India. However, with 118.7 million farmers, who contribute to a mere 17-18% of Indian GDP, many problem statements are left to be solved at a larger scale.

In March 2020, we interviewed Vaibhav Domkundwar from Better Capital, where he mentioned their then-recent investment in Bijak - their first interaction with the founders and their thesis behind the investment. 

In today's episode, we're interviewing Nukul Upadhye, Co-Founder at Bijak, where he talks about how and why he started Bijak. Bijak is a one-stop agriculture marketplace where sellers and buyers can find trustworthy, reliable, and transparent counterparties. Bijak processes transactions worth more than Rs 1.5 billion on a monthly basis. 

During the episode, Nukul also talks about their initial challenges, leveraging the pre-existing offline supply chain, and much more.

Notes - 

01:48 - Creating a B2B marketplace - Bijak

05:55 - Alternate ideas while starting Bijak

09:24 - How does Bijak differentiate itself from traditional offline marketplaces? 

17:33 - Challenges during the initial journey

31:42 - How has he personally evolved over the past two years?

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Since early 2020, we've noticed numerous startups becoming Unicorn one after another. 

But something a bit unnoticed by the wider audience is the valuations of startups at Seed-stage, which has grown multiples in the last two years. 

Bipin Shah, Partner at Titan Capital and this week's guest, says, "Till 2019, a great startup idea with an awesome team would be valued around $2Mn to $3Mn, which has now gone up to $10Mn+."

So far, Titan Capital has made more than 250+ investments in early-stage startups. Bipin shares his experience and the thesis around identifying, mentoring and investing in seed-stage founders.

Notes - 
01:18 - Joining Titan Capital
06:10 - Finding Soonicorns and Unicorns
08:27 - How did they manage to make 90+ investments in a year?
12:02 - What support does Titan Capital offer to portfolio companies?
15:58 - Thesis: Focus on bottom 50% of companies
28:10 - Change in valuation at the Seed stage
31:20 - Learnings in the last six years as an investor

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When you hear the word Startups & Angel Investing, which cities do you most commonly think they are based out of? Bengaluru, Delhi / Gurugram, Mumbai, or Chennai. 

The guest of our today’s episode, Abhishek Rungta clearly breaks this stereotype. 

Back in 1997, when he was still in his graduation, he had two options post college - 

- Join his father’s family business in Jute Trading

- Start something totally unexpected

And that’s exactly what he did, he founded Indus Net Technologies from Kolkata, completely bootstrapped, which today has 200+ active clients across Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, Retail, Publishing, Media, Government, Healthcare and Entertainment sectors in five continents.

Today his company has an ARR of $11Mn, and offers services in verticals such as:

- Integrated Digital Marketing Services

- Cloud Application Development (CMS, CRM, E-Commerce, ODC, OPD)

- Enterprise Mobility

In parallel to this, he also started as an Angel Investor and later as an LP. 

During the episode, Abhishek talks about the crux of his journey as an investor, his learnings along the way, what mindset he currently carries as an investor and much more.

Notes - 

01:07 - Family Business Background - Jute Trading

03:48 - Acquiring a global client base from Kolkata

06:50 - His journey in Angel Investing

12:13 - valley of despair in investing

15:14 - Thesis: Investing in 2nd time founders

22:05 - Diversifying your investments

33:01 - Learnings to intake as an LP

35:11 - Investors’ whose thesis he looks up to

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Habits! Our habits make us who we are as a person. Since an early age we’ve been told by our parents and mentors, the distinction between a good and a bad habit. 

But how often do we skip to the good one’s? 

Specially as grown-ups, can you confidently say that you have the best habits in terms of - 

1. Managing your finance & expenses

2. Managing your work life balance

3. Having a fruitful & fulfilling day

Something similar intrigued Rajan Singh, the guest of our today’s episode, to start HabitStrong in early 2020.

Prior to HabitStrong, Rajan served as a IPS officer, as a McKinsey consultant, and as an investment professional with a private equity fund.​

HabitStrong started with him inviting people to join him on YouTube sharp at 5 am, for a 30-day challenge. And the next morning, he was surprised to see several people already waiting. Over the next few months, through several bootcamps, thousands of applicants and several hundreds of volunteers, HabitStrong was on its journey to positively create an impact in everyone’s life.

During the episode, Rajan talks about how people run after work, money and luxury lifestyle and how it can lead to a deterioration of mental peace over time, and much more.

Notes - 

01:18 - Journey to starting HabitStrong

05:02 - “Things that sound the simplest are often the most powerful and most overlooked.”

11:15 - Why did he make the choices he made? 

19:48 - Current scale of HabitStrong

29:15 - What does Financial Independence mean for him?

33:33 - His definition of happiness - “Ability to step back from what is not making your life meaningful.”

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# 5M+ Shopping Moments Personalized

#400M+ Monthly Active Users Engaged

#30B+ Messages Sent Monthly

#$10B+ Additional Revenue Delivered

These are some of the metrics driven by WebEngage, which caters to 400+ global brands as a robust customer data platform, personalization engine, omnichannel campaign manager, and an analytics engine. 

In today’s episode we have Avlesh Singh, WebEngage’s, CEO & Co-founder, sharing insights on how they’ve built a seamless full-stack Retention OS.

During the episode, Avlesh talks about how companies can reach out to their own users, reducing churn and increasing retention, instead of reaching out to third-party ad platforms, and much more.

Notes - 

01:45 - Intro to Webengage

05:06 - “Marketing will only put a certain amount of value to the software, only if we are able to bring more users back to the platform.”

13:20 - Current scale in terms of revenue & customers

36:51 - Learnings from his experience as a founder

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