The Startup Operator

Solving big data engineering problems, scaling an engineering team, and building core technology products - that's Pankaj's forte.  

With 19+ years of experience, Pankaj co-founded Zendrive with Jonathan Matus and established the R&D centre in Bangalore in 2014. He leads the data science, engineering, and product teams at the centre which has 85 employees at present.   With a knack for solving hard problems in computer science and generating valuable IP for the company in the process (16+ patents filed), Pankaj spoke at length about some of the most fundamental engineering questions of a scaling startup.  

Tune in!  

- Pankaj's journey thus far (01:12) 

- The common engineering problem (03:12) 

- Application of AI / ML (04:54) 

- What makes an ideal engineer? (09:46) 

- Building an engineering culture (14:50) 

- Problem-solving in Zendrive (25:57) 

- Structuring an engineering team (30:01) 

- Setting the right expectations (35:26) 

- Growing in an engineering role (42:36) 

- Working with other stakeholders (45:56) 

- Hiring the right person for the role (56:55) 

- Advice for founders on working with engineers (01:02:45)  

Connect with Pankaj -  

LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/risbood 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/risbood 

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Found this episode informative? Let us know by hitting the like button & subscribing to our podcast.   

You can also Tweet or DM us on - 

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/startup-operator 

Twitter - https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup

Welcome to another episode of The Startup Operator Roundup, where Roshan Cariappa and Gunjan Saha discuss -   

👉🏽 Startup fundraise over the past week 

👉🏽 Hot takes and news from the week that was in the Startup world   

👉🏽 Razorpay's ESOP buyback and more...  

Key points discussed in this roundup are:

Roshan's take on Recent episode 
GROWW in talks to raise $100Mn with Tiger Global 
Pristyn care raises $80-$100Mn from Tiger Global 
Cashify raises $15Mn 

Razorpay ESOP buyback 
RedX Delivery growth story 
Flipkart listing: US SPAC or Traditional IPO 
Vembu's Wisdom: https://tinyurl.com/fuvvmtm

Welcome to another episode of The Startup Operator Roundup, where Roshan Cariappa and Gunjan Saha discuss -   

👉🏽 Startup fundraise over the past week 

👉🏽 Hot takes and news from the week that was in the Startup world   

👉🏽 Razorpay's ESOP buyback and more...  

Key points discussed in this roundup are:

Roshan's take on Recent episode 

Razorpay ESOP buyback 

Sujay Koduri heads engineering at Vymo which is one of the fastest growing enterprise tech startups in the world. Prior to working at Vymo he was the senior engineering manager at [24]7.AI. In this episode Augustus and Roshan talk to Sujay to find out how he manages engineering in a fast growing startup and more.

Some Key points discussed in this Episode are

 What Makes a great engineer?

 Importance of facing customers, importance of being a team player

 Alignment between engineering and other teams

 Solving high level challenges

 How WFH has changed the way engineers work

 What goes into a large scale deployment to enterprise

 Balancing freshers' autonomy

 Key skills to transition from engineer to engineering manager

 What's special about Vymo?

 How do you work with existing systems and scale them later?

If you liked this episode, don't forget to like, share and subscribe.

Sujay Koduri heads engineering at Vymo which is one of the fastest growing enterprise tech startups in the world. Prior to working at Vymo he was the senior engineering manager at [24]7.AI. In this episode Augustus and Roshan talk to Sujay to find out how he manages engineering in a fast growing startup and more.

Some Key points discussed in this Episode are

 What Makes a great engineer?

 Importance of facing customers, importance of being a team player

 Alignment between engineering and other teams

 Solving high level challenges

 How WFH has changed the way engineers work

 What goes into a large scale deployment to enterprise

 Balancing freshers' autonomy

 Key skills to transition from engineer to engineering manager

 What's special about Vymo?

 How do you work with existing systems and scale them later?

If you liked this episode, don't forget to like, share and subscribe.

An update from The Startup Operator

An update from The Startup Operator

Welcome to another episode of The Startup Operator Roundup, where Roshan Cariappa and Gunjan Saha discuss - 

👉🏽 Startup fundraise over the past week

👉🏽 Hot takes and news from the week that was in the Startup world

👉🏽 India's Tech Unicorns  

👉🏽 Twitter's new features and more...

Enjoy the week's summary with a cuppa as Roshan & Gunjan talk about,

-  Top Fundraise of the week: Zomato, Zetwerk, Doubtnut, Inframarket, Jio & Kalaari

-  Orios' Indian Tech Unicorn Report

-  Sachin Tendulkar's Appointment as Unacademy's brand ambassador

-  Twitter's Super Follow & Spaces features

-  IndiaGold's aim to disrupt the national loan market

-  Sachin Bansal's take on competition analysis

-  Vembu's Wisdom

Hit the like button if enjoyed this roundup, and do not forget to share among your operator friends! 

Listen to our interviews and conversations with investors, operators, and founders on your favourite podcast platforms.

Welcome to another episode of The Startup Operator Roundup, where Roshan Cariappa and Gunjan Saha discuss - 

👉🏽 Startup fundraise over the past week

👉🏽 Hot takes and news from the week that was in the Startup world

👉🏽 India's Tech Unicorns  

👉🏽 Twitter's new features and more...

Enjoy the week's summary with a cuppa as Roshan & Gunjan talk about,

-  Top Fundraise of the week: Zomato, Zetwerk, Doubtnut, Inframarket, Jio & Kalaari

-  Orios' Indian Tech Unicorn Report

-  Sachin Tendulkar's Appointment as Unacademy's brand ambassador

-  Twitter's Super Follow & Spaces features

-  IndiaGold's aim to disrupt the national loan market

-  Sachin Bansal's take on competition analysis

-  Vembu's Wisdom

Hit the like button if enjoyed this roundup, and do not forget to share among your operator friends! 

Listen to our interviews and conversations with investors, operators, and founders on your favourite podcast platforms.

To learn more about the nuances of early-stage startup investing, we have with us today Prayank Swaroop, a Partner at Accel, who invests in B2B, Consumer Brands, and Fintech. He has invested in multiple startups solving problems specifically for Indian Businesses across sectors.  He focuses on cybersecurity, developer tools, marketplaces, and SaaS investments. Some of the investments led by him are - Aavenir, Bizongo, Maverix, OnsiteGo, Securden, Sintel, Skeps, and Zetwerk.  

Prior to Accel, he worked at Adobe and Standard Chartered Bank in India and Singapore. He held positions across engineering, product marketing, pre-sales, and product management.  

In this episode, we talk about - 

- How has early-stage investing changed? (02:35) 

- Entrepreneurship as a career choice (05:45) 

- Attracting top entrepreneurs (09:10) 

- Mentoring entrepreneurs (12:12) 

- Institutionalising knowledge (15:56) 

- Identifying the right partners (19:23) - Overcoming challenges (27:53) 

- Tackling small market sizes (32:43) 

- Prayank's investment thesis (43:15) 

- SaaS wave in India (48:44) 

- SaaS Valuations (52:12) 

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Found this episode informative? Let us know by hitting the like button & subscribing to our podcast. You can also Tweet or DM us on - 

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/startup-operator

Twitter - https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup