The Startup Operator

Veena Somareddy is pioneering efforts to bring virtual reality to healthcare. She is the co-founder and CTO at NeuroRehabVR, a VR healthcare start-up aimed at building virtual/augmented reality training exercises for patients with neurological disorders.   Today, Roshan talks to Veena about how virtual reality can be used for therapy and her journey to inspire women in tech.

While working with Google India after college, Vargab would write to the exec team at Shopify to express his admiration for the company, Soon later, he went on to become Shopify's first Indian hire. From 2010 to 2014, Vargab has helped hundreds of small and medium scale businesses take their business online and guided them in the digital space.  Join Roshan in conversation with Vargab as we unravel the expansion story of one of the world's best known online marketplace platform.

Ganesh and Utkarsh had earlier started MomoE, a fintech startup, which was acquired by Shopclues in 2016. In 2018, the duo started a D2C brand - Flatheads -  poised to revolutionize the footwear industry in India. In this episode of The Startup Operator, Roshan talks to Ganesh & Utkarsh on how they are bringing Flatheads to the masses, their learnings from a successful exit, and building a D2C brand in India.  

We are back with another great interview with none other than Pradeep Soundararajan of Moolya Testing. An author, evangelist, and founder, Pradeep brings the X-factor to software and quality testing.   Today, Roshan talks to Pradeep about his journey as a testing guru over the last 2 decades. Amazing insights for every programmer and tester out there, in this episode of The Startup Operator Podcast.

Abhishek leads strategic initiatives at India's India's largest Co-Living platform - Zolo Stays. He was a full-time trader with Deutsche Bank for 5+ years before transitioning to become a startup operator.  In this episode of The Startup Operator, Roshan talks to Abhishek regarding this transition and his perspectives on executing at hyper-growth startups.

In this episode, Roshan invites Thiyagarajan Maruthavanan, or Rajan, to The Startup Operator Podcast. Rajan has been an engineer, CEO of an early-stage startup, product manager & head of product & innovation in multiple successful startups.   In 2018,  he co-founded Upekkha to help founders build Value SaaS business. Value SaaS means capital-efficient from the start. These businesses get to the first million in revenue with tiny or no investment. Listen to this episode of The Startup Operator to understand more about how Value SaaS differs from Vanity SaaS, relevant metrics for startup journeys, SaaS ecosystem of India, and much more.

Santosh is the co-founder & CEO of Explara.com - India’s leading experiences marketplace. An operator turned founder, turned mentor - he founded Explara with a shoe-string budget, and now the company serves millions of customers around the globe. Currently, he leads customer success & growth for Thrivly.  In this episode of The Startup Operator, we talk to Santosh about his journey from being an operator to a coach, and what startup founders should be mindful of to create a profitable venture.

Co-founder & CEO of Aim High Consulting, Ravi has led some of the best-known PR campaigns for startups in India, ranging from the likes of Flipkart and Ola, to Blackbuck and Livspace. Seven different industry associations have recognized Aim High Consulting as the ‘Best Communication Consulting Company / PR Agency of the Year’, in just the past five years. In this episode, we talk to him about why should a company prioritize its PR efforts and how to go about building journalist relations. 

We had to talk to Aakash after hearing rave reviews from Sidu Ponappa. He joined Gojek in 2016 as Chief Product Officer with the acquisition of C42 Engineering -  a startup he founded in 2010. Aakash oversaw the launch of 18 products in 18 months, each product worth millions of dollars in valuation. Who better to talk to about the key ingredients of building a super-app?

One of Asia's leading SaaS startups, Capillary Technologies has rapidly expanded its footprint across the Asia Pacific. Abhijeet has assisted the company in achieving 200% YoY growth and establish Capillary as an emerging market leader in the Omnichannel Customer Engagement & Commerce space.  In this episode of The Startup Operator, we talk to Abhijeet about scaling sales function.