The Startup Operator

Deepak Abbot is the Co-founder of indiagold, a gold based lending platform that aims to solve credit access in India. Deepak has been a product manager at several companies and has been in charge of growth and has witnessed scale at first hand. In this episode he spoke about the journey of growth, balancing the quantifiable v/s qualitative, what changes at scale and more with Roshan Cariappa!

Key highlights:

(00:00) Introduction

(01:45) Deepak's startup journey so far

(04:14) The Growth journey

(23:13) Getting people to work together

(30:08) Setting up a growth function in the consumer internet sector

(40:52) Balancing the quantifiable v/s qualitative

(45:30) How customer acquisition and retention truly change at scale

(52:03) Idea to product to company  

(1:01:44) Nuances of building for these users

(1:08:42) Building trust with customers

(1:13:40) Retaining passion to learn new things 

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Connect with Deepak:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dabbot/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/deepakabbot

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Connect with Us: 

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

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If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode!

Suresh is the co-founder of CoCreate ventures, a microfund for preseed investments. He also participates in building products in the companies. In this episode he spoke about his 2 decade journey in startups, getting customers to adopt innovative tech and more with Roshan Cariappa.

Key Highlights:

00:00 Introduction

01:23 Suresh's 2 decade journey in startups 

06:02 Pros and Cons of being early in a space

08:18 Getting Customers to adopt innovative tech

14:03 Making the best of personal biases

16:16 Founding journey of CoCreate

21:45 Talent in engineering colleges

28:42 Harmful startup advice to watch out for

30:19 Impact of alternate financing options

33:32 Advice to young founders

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Connect with Suresh:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cocreator

Twitter: https://twitter.com/narasimhasuresh

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Connect with Us: 

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

​Twitter: https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup​​

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If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode!

If you're a passionate listener of our podcast, then please do share your feedback with us - https://tinyurl.com/sopfeed (takes 5 mins or less). Help us publish more of your favourite content every week! 

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

Kumar Vembu is a product manager and a serial entrepreneur and has founded multiple startups over the past 3 decades. He founded GoFrugal in 2004 to provide services for the Indian Retail industry with the aim of getting Indian businesses to go digital. In this episode he spoke about Building SaaS for the India market, the nuances of building and selling to Indian retailers, advantages of scaling from India and more with Roshan Cariappa.

Key Highlights:

(00:00) Introduction

(01:52) Founding Journey of GoFrugal

(06:46) Building with the customer

(12:37) Building SaaS for the India market 

(16:48) Advantages of scaling from India

(19:18) Digital Transformation for SMBs

(27:31) Improving customer experience through digital 

(34:05) Impact on business with gofrugal

(40:33) Evolution of the retail market & pandemic impact

(45:17) Nuances of building and selling to indian retailers 

(48:40) Bootstrapping v/s Fundraising

(51:56) Optimisim for future of B2B SaaS

(55:08) Closing Remarks

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Connect with Kumar:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kumar-vembu-a0a45710/

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Connect with Us: 

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

​Twitter: https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup​​

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If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode!

Ajay Kumar is a serial entrepreneur. He founded Cozee Homes and sold it a brokerage firm and then went on to found TheHouseMonk, a service that provides a growth and management platform for the rental real estate industry. In this episode he spoke about the challenges and the opportunities in the real estate market, the nuances of building for this market and more in his interview with Roshan Cariappa.

Key Highlights:

(00:00) Introduction 

(01:41) Going from Idea to Product to Company

(05:41) Trends in the real estate space

(09:24) Use cases TheHouseMonk solves

(10:57) Nuances of building for Real Estate

(12:02) Impact of covid on the Real Estate industry

(17:08) Challenges and Opportunities in the Real Estate Market

(21:42) Being relevant to multiple personas

(25:14) Nuances of working with the Real estate industry

(31:30) High Level Challenges & Next stage of evolution

(37:22) Advice for Founders on discovering problems to solve

(43:02) Building a lifestyle business in SaaS

(47:40) Closing Remarks

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Connect with Ajay:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajay-kumar-thehousemonk/

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Connect with Us: 

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

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If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode!

If you're a passionate listener of our podcast, then please do share your feedback with us - https://tinyurl.com/sopfeed (takes 5 mins or less). Help us publish more of your favourite content every week! 

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

Kaushik is a product leader and has worked at some of the world's largest tech companies. He is also an investor/advisor at several firms. In this episode he spoke about building scalable products, his pet peeves for products and how to influence communities with authority and more in his interview with Roshan Cariappa. 

Key highlights:

(00:00) Introduction 

(01:52) Kausik's career journey 

(03:00) Moving from B2C to B2B

(06:00) Guiding principles to build scalable products

(09:33) Maintaining holistic end product experience 

(14:14) Prioritising less obvious, more realistic things

(17:20) What is the benchmark for a product release?

(20:23) Focussing on the big picture

(23:19) Differences from B2B and B2C

(32:04) Kaushik's favourite products 

(36:03) Kaushik's pet product peeves

(38:39) Making products more intelligent

(41:10) Zero to One of product building

(45:21) Influencing without authority 

(49:10) Product talent in the ecosystem

(52:30) Hiring Great talent 

(53:12) Kaushik's advice to The Startup Operator community

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Connect with Kaushik:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaushikpsub/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheHolyKau

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Connect with Us: 

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

​Twitter: https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup​​

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If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode!

Suresh is a two time founder, podcaster and more. He first founded RedPill solutions in 2000 and then Crayon Data, a big data and AI company. He also hosts a podcast called "Slaves to the Algo". In this episode he talks about building affinity models, impact of AI and the nuances of building and selling to large enterprises and more in his interview with Roshan Cariappa. 

Key Highlights:

(00:00) Introduction

(01:33) Going from idea to product to company

(04:31) The story of the Chinese Bamboo Tree

(09:03) Building Affinity models 

(19:19) Working with Data teams

(24:14) How can large enterprises offer a Netflix-like experience?

(36:18) How will Banks and Fintechs partner in the future? 

(38:30) Impact of AI 

(43:23) Nuances of building and selling to large enterprises

(49:00) Hacks to break into large enterprises 

(53:37) What do you do differently as a second-time founder?

(56:58) Closing Remarks

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Connect with Nagraj:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sureshshankar/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sureshshankar

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Connect with Us: 

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

​Twitter: https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup​​

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If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode!

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

Nagraj is a banker turned entrepreneur, he created FSS in 1991, envisaging a phenomenal growth of the payments industry in India. FSS is a one stop entity for payment products, development & support services and third party processing expertise across all payment delivery channels like ATM,PoS,Internet ,Mobile and IVR. In this episode Nagraj spoke about how the payments industry has evolved, working with banks, future of fintech and payments and more in his interview with Roshan Cariappa.

Key Highlights:

(00:00) Introduction

(01:19) Lessons from a 3 decade journey

(05:15) Getting the first customer

(10:30) Journey of building IP 

(12:44) Having Banking domain knowledge

(16:00) Lessons from working with banks

(19:19) Evolution of payments 

(22:48) Future of fintech & payments

(26:22) Experience with regulators and policymakers 

(27:30) Making decisions in a balanced way

(29:49) Future plans for FSS 

(32:37) Advice for founders to build a sustainable business

(34:23) Closing Remarks

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Connect with Nagraj:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nagarajmylandla/

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Connect with Us: 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/startupoperator

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If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode!