Journey from being a startup founder to one of the Top VC ! Ft. Pratik Poddar, Nexus Ventures EP16

you adopt this philosophy now do you say things these things a bit more blunt so that you can be that person you wanted so it's actually amazing uh I I want to do that and I and I am more blunt

but I have realized that the entrepreneurs I have been most blunt with buddy what you are saying does not make sense and it decides this is challenges those people have built the largest companies

and I can afford to do it better than the founder as well because founder has only one company I have so many companies wow that it's worth it for other people to talk to me better

because by the virtue of the role that you play in terms of Nexus specifically I if someone wants to understand what is your approach

what is the mindset that you bring what are the questions that you ask these people I want to get a sense of how you think and how your first interaction with the founder looks like but you know that you want to work with someone

because when you meet him you know that he's a force of nature he is a force of nature that's how you would describe someone like what is the first meeting with the founder look like

what this what should they have Clarity on and what is it okay to not have Clarity on it because the reality is it will be at a flight and why would he continue

when the time stops so sometimes it's not just the static picture of who he is today it is also about what potentially what is the growth curve of that guy

hi guys this is nivedan here again from coffee and startups where we bring you the most amazing Founders uh and other people from the startup world this time we have someone very unique we've not

had an investor on our uh playground so far and we have today Mr pradeep podar he happens to be a senior of mine from college and he's the partner at Nexus Venture Partners it's one of the biggest

VCS in the world it's a venture capital fund and they've had phenomenal success with a lot of their previous Investments portfolio companies so far some of them are names that you've heard of so

companies like zepto Postman Whitehead Junior delivery and so many more we're going to learn a lot more of these companies the successes they've had and even you know what is considered a

failure in the we see what we're going to explore all of those topics too and uh pratik is at the helm of it he's leading a lot of things in their India strategy and he's investing in a lot of

very promising upcoming companies a lot of startups in the tech Commerce space and many more that we're going to learn today so uh pratik has himself had a very amazing journey a very early journey of

you know graduating you graduated in 2010 yeah right and uh since then you've had a bunch of startups yourself you were probably in the early pioneers of social commerce and content-based

businesses and uh when I was kind of going through them I felt like were you a little ahead of your time that's what the feeling I got and I would love to learn from you today right uh in terms

of uh how has your journey been in from being you know a graduate of IIT Bombay and then having your own stints at different companies you've been a

consultant as well having your own set of startups and then Landing up at one of these you know top-end uh VCS and growing your career in this over the

last seven to eight years right yeah so pratik I'm very curious to learn like what has your journey been and you know uh uh and I would love to take away some lessons and insights from what you heard

awesome very excited to tell you about it and thank you for for having me here um you know I'll take a step back uh

when I was entering IIT I actually wanted to be a mathematician only so I only wanted to do math I I did internships which was Matthew

internships I published I published a paper I did only research internships the intent was to do only math and nothing else it so happened that during

the campus as well I made a few friends who were very super seniors of ours who were doing startups then and I would code for them over Summers and Winters

and if I did something well someday I'll get a Subway sandwich it was a bad day then I'll get a CCD 7 rupee coffee

it was a CCD Cafe Coffee Day Express one damn okay so so that was the inflation so I I used I I genuinely used to work for them because it was just fun and I

learned a lot but intent was only to be on the math side and never think of a startups uh and I ended up and I was applying for

for for apps key I'll just go abroad and do PhD but for some personal reasons I just felt that I did not want to go outside India then and I ended up deciding that we'll decide on PhD later

but I'll join mogas daily Quantum group everyone almost there everyone there was either a math Olympiad guy or a math PhD

so it felt like it is my type of a thing when I was at Morgan for two years I realized in those days uh Facebook IP

was about to happen movie social network had come in and uh and and you knew that you felt that Tech is the future and you want to be on the tech side right I went

to my folks and said well I want to do a startup and people told me that you should get some business experience you don't think business first you only think Tech and people had that inside

back then I feel like almost a long time ago in 12 years yeah but it was actually more obvious then because the most entrepreneurs then or most people were trying on a ship then were from consulting firms so it was more obvious

that I was different and so I should it was it was it was even more obvious for people then that I did not have it to do it uh experience and where do you get business experience you get it at

consulting firms or private Equity firms so I ended up joining Blackstone private equity which was just ended up joining Blackstone and again just another company of course for great for

fantastic people I learned a lot but but in those days lots of Acquisitions were happening hola so just give us a little bit on what Blackstone does sorry the Blackstone is a private Equity Firm

uh is it is it one of the biggest it's yeah amongst the top four five largest private Equity pumps of the world and they're a very small India team 12 remember their team and uh because they've invested a lot of money and made

a lot of money uh in the process but but in those days maybe it was arrogance of a kid I really wanted to be on the tech side it felt that is the future it just

I I I distinctly remember I was like iPad was launched and you knew ah this is Future and you knew everything that was happening in Facebook was the future like you just felt it uh and it was

arrogance of a young kid where I was like well money does not matter career we'll figure it out right as a young kid you can you can do whatever you want to this is great actually you know that delusion is actually a nice thing to

have I agree I think when people say to them so so I don't remember repented but I knew my dis my my framework was wrong uh when I took that decision uh so started

my first startup in a social commerce space uh then social commerce was not the social commerce today it was uh I was actually building a social network around around products it was more

closer to Pinterest uh with some Commerce angle Etc uh but it was too too early it was 2012. e-commerce was not large enough what do you build how do

you build a community layer on top of Commerce so did not make any sense and of course there was no there was no Capital available for such ideas someone point to that pratik this is a bad idea

uh people are too polite so most most well well I correct myself people who pointed it out I don't think

I listen to them so did they okay I want to just out of curiosity did they say this is a bad idea or pratik this is too early these are two very different feedbacks uh this

is too early is a very mature statement to make I don't think anyone is I'm not sure people who are mature but they would be very polite and it's just difficult huh

it's just difficult next time so do you adopt this philosophy now do you say things these things a bit more blunt so that you can be that person you wanted so it's actually amazing uh I I

want to do that and I and I am more blunt but I have realized that the entrepreneurs I have been most blunt with okay buddy what you are saying does not make sense and it decides this is

challenges those people have built the largest companies so so so if so the reality is level of humility there we're setting with the top we see who's saying that that every

time he stopped someone that person has gone on to become successful so when you face a rejection not every time not every time but but a few times and and that's why it's very difficult for me to be very

confident as well like even my best friend I'll be I I'll tell them that hey very challenging but hey I said this to these two guys as well and these two guys have built multiple dollar

companies so you're being holistic with your Viewpoint that I right now think something else but I can be wrong I can be wrong I can be wrong and in best companies I have to be wrong because if it was obvious and everyone understood

it then then it was not it was not logical it was not unique anyways so you have to believe in something that no one else believes in so and hence be contrarian and be right exactly and it's

very so it's very complicated I I don't know what's the right answer so looking but I don't I I don't have any grudges against people who did not share anything share things directly with me

fair enough because it was difficult it's why would anybody so I I I still remember I went through a product lead product leader in those days to take to to get feedback on my product and when I showed it to him he

was like uh you're just building it out right this is not the final version and and I hated him for for a few months but he was right

well and you are building right so everyone is and there's so many stories right you don't you should not once if only if you fight with everyone then only you will win so there are many many

reasons for you to believe some two or three starters so so yeah you know the reality is whenever everyone is feeling whenever anyone is feeling he does multiple startups that's the reality uh

people don't say it uh you're doing multiple at the same time no no first time he failed then you started the second one then second field is Right third one right and money was money was challenging in between so you do it

freelancing as well so romantic entrepreneurs exactly and if I would have been successful then the story would have been I tried something for two years and then I built this community very large so that would have been a simpler story but it was

everything failed then everything becomes significant so you say well I did this I did this I did this I did this so three years I did a lot of things and at that point of time five

years after graduation I had done Quant I have done I've done risk modeling I've done algo trading I had done private Equity I wouldn't start up as a CEO I didn't start up as a CEO a CTO I'd done

freelancing but I had not really succeeded in anything and I had just tried everything for a few months or a few years so you felt lost so that was that a point of inflection

it was a terrible time I I felt I felt like the actor in that Aashiqui room movie that life is over now and nothing can be done now and and thankfully I had

a few seniors friends who supported me at that point of time helped me get out of that negative mindset and that's how I joined Nexus by the way so I thought well I need to do something now and we see seems like the

right fit and I applied to a few companies as well uh a few large startups then and then they said that we don't hire people who are not mbas so most PCS rejected me because they said

we have only mbas in in post analyst role uh so so Nexus gave me a shot at interviewing and in during exercise interview I felt that people were nice

people were homely and that's how I that's how I ended up joining access so on this before we go on to the Nexus story you said uh you had a time where you felt lost and you

felt like and you felt like the Aashiqui actor for my for a while uh what rank in IIT Bombay did you have like you are in computer science you

were in top 100 right you got some of the best uh jobs that one can Aspire for I want to get a take from you that no after having some had some initial

success in your career having you don't need to prove to anyone that I I can do a lot but there was a time when you had failed and in your mind at the very least you were evidently failed right

and interestingly or the reason for failure was being quite ahead of time which is probably a little better kind of failure right but I want to know that

like this is a very important point because uh as a Founder people are going to go through tough times and all your previous glories would not matter so much so what in that moment apart from

your support system what in your head went on then that let you say that okay let me continue let me keep fighting what there was there some self belief was it broken for a while

it was broken it was it doesn't matter that you had some accolades from the past it actually hurts you more despite this and people had expectations I know there was a quora post where

someone where someone asked who are the best entrepreneurs out there and amongst all the top ones there was a comment key we believe in pratik he'll do something

and wow and and again in those days there are not many entrepreneurs out there right it was just a very small community uh so so it felt it was even more pressurizing in fact when funding

articles would come because the ecosystem was not mature so it was actually very depressing and again Young Young Person's challenge uh

I actually you know I I said this to like like so Kunal Bal I met him once and I said success

it's just you have to accept that uh and and that humility of the reality check needed to happen so in my head I

think I was completely broken I was very very unhappy I was actually very I felt that the world was lost

but I've continued for three years only because there was no other option and we couldn't have spoken about this back then right that now I can look back it's a detached someone else definitely

but must be really tough to just talk about it yeah it is terrible you know you could not hang out with friends because you would think about again I say this to a lot of people that

cash and cash flow are different so it's not that I was poor I had money but because you're not you didn't have cash flow you just you just live life differently and looking back was stupid

and I advise friends not to do that yeah that just because you're not making money right now that does not mean you should be in that situation multiple times and I am the one usually pushing people here tomorrow

you know I also say that all of us try all of us get this feeling like this is the path to success pain is good but pain is unnecessary

pain is not good right I I could afford to have I had led a better life and hence the probability of My Success would have been higher yeah you were paying attention to things which were actually

distracting you even though you had the resources essentially you were creating a mental distraction by saying no I must be conservative I must live a certain way I must hang out with a certain set of people these are unnecessary

conversations you put on yourself which are all mental and this is stress this leads to uh but no you said your support system helped you a lot and then eventually you decided I'm going to take an action Nexus gave you a shot what

happened then so I didn't plan to be here for so long that's a reality of course I would not say this in an interview an interview it was always like yes I'll I want to be a busy

forever uh but in my head it was a two-year thing yeah yeah I'll make something I'll make some money I'll get stable again and then I'll start again that was a mindset when I was when I was

interviewing uh when I talked to the farm award now the firm says of course we knew that uh and and of course by that huh

but but the the shot is that once you come here you like it so much that you might want to continue but even if you're not about it's okay but but you wanting to

explore this is okay and and that's that's good enough yeah so so join the firm uh I remember because I had quit so

many things so so much so fast I actually had a three month deadline there are six month deadline then a one year deadline in what sense that I'll

not run away I had run away from so many things in five years I had done two startups three two jobs three startups and freelancing I was worried whether I can stay at one place for some time I okay I understand that feeling it was a

stupid feeling now but then it was a very real feeling in my one year anniversary we actually got friends actually sent cakes to the office that I had celebrated I had completed one year at Nexus wow

friends view it I knew it of course no one else did uh so so uh but but thankfully

The Firm let me grow over time what did the scene you back then I mean people for someone who's not done an MBA I mean you had a great background otherwise but someone who's not done in mb it was a

big deal for VCS to go with that with someone without an mdn you were more on the tech side a bit yeah instead of even the business side too we were distant from MBA further

yeah what did they see new that you felt that so looking back and I I would also hire for those traits now it was just I think it's just the

curiosity and the hustle wow so I it sounds stupid but I actually would meet and learn about everything out

there you just go to Every like every tea shop out there on this road every tea shop where we just meet people and talk to

everyone and learn what they are doing and I just want it to be around people and I just felt alive when that was happening wow so that is why friends were saying here

you're more like a VC than an entrepreneur and and that was a trigger point very interesting but uh but but I think

curiosity and hustle hustle is the key word it sounds that we see job is a comfortable job maybe maybe it is maybe

it is not as as emotional and as sonocital as entrepreneurship is but it's not comfortable you would work there are days they are

weeks when you would sleep for 25 hours that week 30 hours that week because a lot of things are happening and you'd continuously hustle you'll make you'll knock as many dose as possible just for that one chance that this partnership

for a portfolio company will be cracked or you'll win that deal or or you'll get that deal or you'll learn that from from from from that founder and so on you just knock as many rows as possible as a

VC as a vce this is interesting okay so and I would like to go a little deeper into what a VC does and I think that'll from a more internal perspective

perception like there there is an image key that you know Venture capitalists by the name capitalists are the most capitalists of all right in the sense

that you've got money and with basically you've got money that you multiply and um Founders are Pawns in this game I've

heard this negativity around the VC ecosystem and I personally do not align with it I think I I see that like I would use the word partner right and I think you use the word Partners in that

so I want to understand first what does a VC fundamentally do and how is it critical for the startup ecosystem

so you know there was a time when so for any Innovation capital is needed

and if only rich people or corporates could do Innovation there is a challenge fair enough so is there a role for VC in the world yes now what we do day in day out I think 40

50 of my time is spent by in talking to new companies or companies that have been tracking for new Investments uh and if I do that that would mean I'm talking to four or five families a day

so personally I would have talked to a thousand companies a year 12 1200 companies a year and in seven years that means I would have talked to ten thousand companies ten thousand unique well maybe maybe some of it will be repeat conversation

the 10 000 meetings for new Investments ten thousand meetings for new Investments which is which is somewhere between one two two because most are going to not go to the second

meet or third meet sorry most meetings that you have in the first one probably won't end up yeah of course of course of the time is mostly working with

companies and now I'm not actively working with companies in the sense that I'm not operation involved but you're involved at a higher level yeah okay what is happening in this space in general

what is happening come up with a bird's eye view of things so that the founders have a context because they're too entrenched and a narrowly and Founders also can use us better because see in

most things we don't have functional expertise but I can connect the founders to the right guys because I have built those networks and tentacles in the ecosystem faster and better and I can afford to do it better than the

founder as well because founder has only one company I have so many companies wow that it's worth it for other people to talk to me better because by the virtue of the role that you play your viper

connected in this role for example a normal founder would interior exactly for example if if a Founder is starting up in a Content space he would talk he would would he get the access to the cxos of the largest

uh Global content companies no but I would have it because I have five content companies wow and it's just easier for them to spend time because this is a piece that probably is not

visible to people from the outside what is visible is a headline Nexus Founders always have multiple options like working with the founders to win

those deals so that's why it comes across as key we see we have BC passes and by the way you can really most deals we win is

because of the entrepreneurs that are working with us great partners so it has to like it's a very very deeply entrenched system and it has to

work out in that manner no no this is great so okay so we understand what a VC does we understand what is the importance in the entire

ecosystem of uh startups right um now like in terms of Nexus specifically I if someone wants to understand

what is your approach what is the mindset that you bring what are the questions that you ask these people I want to get a sense of how you think and how your first interaction

with the founder looks like I'll first come up with the framework on the three things that we are looking at we are looking at Market we are looking at the team and we are having the approach

Market is the market large enough a lot of good businesses good Founders because the markets are very bad sometimes it does not work out so that's a getting Factor so only small or large not like

that's it the size of the market is enough or what is the other competitive Dynamics Etc comes in but a lot of them times that come in the approach part okay and and Market also that you

brought it up it's also what I said was also practically not 100 correct because best companies expand the market as well so what do you so if you tell me what was the market size and the market is

small but should I invest maybe yes because if such a solution comes in then the market will expand so so one of our Founders tells it right that if you increase the accessibility and affordability then you increase the

market size so whenever a startup is doing that then I should keep my market size haters it's a hygiene checks it can't be a

tricky Market at least fair enough uh second is team this perhaps is the most important and every VC says it but very difficult to put it

in practice let's be real uh so so so the questions that you are trying to get an answer to Is Why is the founder doing this what is his motivation because the reality is it will be at a flight and

why would he continue when the time set off so does he associate the problem deeply does he know something that most people don't does he believe in something that most people don't does he want to create this world passionately

can he build a team around himself can he can he can he grow as a Founder as a leader as a person so sometimes it's not just the static picture of who

he is today it is also about what potential what is the growth curve of that guy now these are you know these sound great in

theory what does it mean when you put it in practice I'm I'm not kidding it is genuinely about getting Goosebumps you when you meet the guy you get goosebumps

so you let your physiology decide and by the way that's true right based on all the data points that we collect over time it just so happens that our like these are all very soft things these are

all soft things the soft things answer will come in a soft thing only it cannot be wow but but you you but you you know that you want to work with someone because when you meet him

uh you know that he's a force of nature he or she is a force of nature that's how you would describe someone it's just amazing like let me like first company I invested in

uh what's happening to be oh so on paper the book publishing market India is small the total number of books published is

like peanuts like you cannot build a very large Company by by doing that uh and uh and in those days vernacular word did not exist

people are not talking about vernacular content India content Bharat those things did not exist it was this is what year this was 2015 November okay

so those things did not exist and logically like you should not be investing if you just look at the document

but when you meet the founder you know just he just wants to create this world it just he just he just passionately

stupidly in love with the problem so he said he starts with this he starts with the story by saying I wanted to read books I read all the books and I did not have access to more books then I

had to read English and like why am I have to why do I need to read English why why is more content not available then I went to the authors and authors are like well uh this is because we there's no way to distribute like

there has to be a better answer let me build it and you just started building it with all humility it was not that he wanted to build a company really but

even then here a point of view that once such things get created then stories are valuable and IPS are valuable they understood the impact of distribution on the core value being offered itself

exactly hamara ecosystem entirely fosterous he understood that he understood that intuitively and it must be new insight for you I mean it would not have a theory like this it was crazy I actually

sent an email of questions before the meeting these are the questions I have and I was just going through those questions number one in the call and uh and it was like dude those questions were all invalid because once you change

the framework like oh wow this makes sense it's true across the board uh white hat this I the if you think about it people

paying 500 for coding education for kids uh like I come from idea doesn't sound very appealing honestly like now now we know it worked out exactly

but again the ways I founded knows how he'll create the world and how he explains so essentially you let so when it comes to market we've spoken about

your third objective metric uh you can be a little liquid lenient also okay but when it comes to team you'll literally let your letting your intuition work which is where your

experiences VC probably comes in more because you have feedback exactly Concepts explaining their business and there are mentors who'd help them out with industry connects and I saw a Common Thread all of them

were like yeah um uh yeah I'm well not all of them actually some of them were key I'm not very comfortable in front of the camera um so is that okay because I was pushing

them and they were like yeah I'm not sure if I'm a great great in communication this is something I've seen in a Common Thread a lot of formulas are just nerds

okay proudly nerds I'm not sure how big a deal is it for you so it's my job to figure it out if I'm not figuring it out then I'll lose on the deal and

I'll lose out on the opportunity this is the fear that happens it's a problem and that's why in some spaces it is much more required okay

it's not it's not every across the board so in and we have done a lot of mistakes by the way in that situation that we have invested in Founders that we thought are better builders

but they were not better fundraisers and those companies lost better fundraising is sometimes required in some spaces we actually there are a few instances where I've invested in the

founder where we have actually said made this statement that he will not be able to raise in future on storytelling he will be only able to raise if he

delivers on numbers okay and it's okay some Founders not every founder yeah I mean not a very special charismatic Steve Jobs and not every

space needs that yeah okay some spaces need that why as a thumb thumb rule b2c companies

can I say that no because uh SAS memory communication GTM figure out everything is so competitive everything is interesting it's just impossible for you to break through the

Clutter so you're just saying saying it very clearly and getting the community aligned behind you is a very important aspect so it's and by the way it's not selling just to investors right selling

to employees absolutely selling Community customers so you're selling to so many people you do care about that as an important in some spaces you don't in

some spaces you do and I would argue 20 25 of our portfolio and we talk about it in front of with those Founders as well

that we are we are our company is bigger and better than our valuation because we are not overselling which is okay wow okay some people have the conviction

to come up and say this way yeah people want people understand see first year of your entrepreneurship you are very insecure about these things over time I think entrepreneurial I used to say

this key startups because because then you know who you are better it's okay to admit it right and this is my strength this is my weakness it's basically a punched enough in the face

you don't need to lie to yourself it's okay this is my weakness you don't need to lie together when you are when you are just in the beginning of your journey you lie okay okay so you said you look at three considerations there

is a market at least minimal you had the team key on like the simplest way to describe it was that intuitively you get some sort of

Goosebumps gear this person is a force of nature right that is what I took away and there was another thing you said which was approach so so you and this is

more logical and more uh more defined in terms of discussion key how do you win how would you compete against uh different players how what is

your sharp GTM what is your sharp entry point that's a more relatable discussion but but there as well again it just tells you who the founder is and how he's thinking about it so Market team

approach are the three things and and you also asked about the type about the questions like what is the first meeting with the founder look like what dish what should they have Clarity on and what is it okay to not have Clarity

online so so really why did the founder started this what is the problem statement that why did he pick that and how does he think about solving it of course these

are the import these are important questions in some cases I think we have also uh We've also figured out this question helps key of course every startup has risk

right so risk a risk B risk C and when you ask the founder someone was like that's not true there are risks some boundaries are like okay yes these are the risks and this is

how I try to mitigate it and then you ask them well if this does not happen then what and then they would have thought three steps ahead so give me an example what

does this risk look like because I don't want to keep it theoretical so when we were talking to zepto which was then kirana caught

so the founders knew that they had to operate in the grocery space and they knew that the existing Solutions were not good enough and we talked about all the problem

statements such a key would you deliver from dark stores or from uh stores nearby and how do you keep inventory

would you want to be a unique product a delivery company or would you want to be a mass Market delivery company what

is the GTM is it Housewives or is it a young Bachelor bachelors and the founders had deep point of view on all

the things now now you might argue that hey uh and and all these verticals had some risks so you when you were debating that hey why would this not how would you do this this is this there well yes

we plan to mitigate it this way otherwise this is the answer and you just usually thought of it way more before like you prompted them

essentially because it is they have to think about it they are building because that means they're deep into the problem deep into the problem and they truly truly want to solve the problem and they are comfortable being in a position

where well we our hypothesis was wrong let's let's change and one of my Founders says this uh that he thinks of

Life as a he he thinks of every decision as a probabilistic decision so at no point of time one can say that I know this will happen there's a 99 percent probability that this will

happen one person it will not happen true nerds would say that but but if you have that one person probably that did not happen you have to account for it because you know that there's a

property that will not happen and and and and counterintuitively many people say that entrepreneurs are Risk Takers they are actually risk mitigators they are very discussing they would actually

want to get away from risks and that is why they would actually plan most things so it's counterintuitive but but that's how best entrepreneurs have been have

been very very interesting so you we've covered basically what you look for in a startup and what does an interaction within with a Founder look like especially in the first meeting yes now

that you've known that okay this is a person whether or not you want to go ahead and understand their worldview more or not then the next step step of this process is kicked off

now typically there are I mean now there are hundreds of VCS out there first of all uh I want to understand what is different about

Nexus and uh and Howard typically feces different from each other in general but then also specific to Nexus yeah

so by the way you don't plan for it when you started you you just wanted to work with highest quality entrepreneurs and you you went ahead and worked with people where there was chemistry and and

camaraderie and you just there must be something about the team in their worldview that you became a bigger VC over time yes and that's how now we think about it that type of entrepreneurs we liked and some others

didn't like or rival entrepreneurs we didn't like While others liked and those companies sometimes became good companies uh looking back we think that we have liked more product focused

entrepreneurs products focused entrepreneurship so many of our companies ah the founders had a deep Obsession about the product and the consumer so whether it's

interesting Postman or hasua or prathilipi or an academy or quizzes or repto or uh or or Turtle Mint or Rapido even in operation heavy companies the

founders just were maniacal about about the product experience and in most cases they would not throw people at the problem they will throw money they will not throw people at the

problem they will not throw money at the problem they'll solve the problem using product thinking and probably that is why these people scale the most well I

mean is that a fair hypothesis is that if I'm constantly thinking of productizing something yes I'm planning for in a way maximum scale with minimal costs constantly that's what we like that's what we would like to believe but

hey there have been companies that are where where it has not been product focused but still Founders have succeeded uh but but this is this is we we have we are we are still evolving but

this is one place where we think we have been able to do a better job uh than others and in and for uh winning deals or which type of Founders work with you

at the end of the day it's really a partnership and there is no Set uh rule it's really wherever the founder and you really want to work with each other it happens our hope is the founders we want

to work with choosers over others uh and and and our hope is we are doing enough enough things right that the ecosystem will will allow us to win deals but but

but it's really a very personal choice for the founder because it generates his one company and he needs for you they're probably one of the many portfolios from their vantage point they need to

partner with people who they truly trust who they are comfortable calling at 2 am at night because it's it from from their vantage point it's it's the thing and and we

hope that we have been worthy partners for a lot of these entrepreneurs we've spoken about all these things I want to know you know you've been in this for a while

what are the top companies that you think are like the shining stars of your portfolio and the ones which technically is called an anti-portfolio cash my name is

we want to know some names and you know which ones you have you enjoyed and which ones did you regret the most yeah yeah so so of course you learn from successes and you learn from failures as well you learn from successes more by

the way people say you learn from failures but no if you learn from successes because I don't want to learn 100 ways a thing will not be done I want to learn the one way it will be done so you don't have successes more but uh but

of course I I have I have seen some companies grow while I have been a part of Nexus team

and Postman hasura infra market and Academy Turtleman Rapido are some of the companies that have that have scaled reasonably well zepto very fast growth

recently all these companies have scaled very fast companies have been actively working with uh from from day one some of them have been have been have also

grown well Newton's School pathology so so so so good experiences and and some of these companies are are promising or have proven success

and the what is the criteria of success by the way here ah so the way I think about it is is company building as stages of risk mitigation wow so you

start by saying well what was the risk well team building was a risk product Market which was the risk scaling up was the risk one risk was mitigated so second discourse mitigated the third risk was mitigated so if if risks are

being mitigated then you're moving ahead in some direction that is further in the success ladder exactly wow of course there's a possibility that at the end there's a big risk and everything fails

but but are you are you are you mitigating risks at every step if you are then you are the right uh out of the companies that I had a

opportunity to talk to learn from but I could not I would argue misho and share chat misho and sharechat are perhaps the biggest

and shirts are very interesting they are Mega Giants now Mega Giants now both of them started in my tenure both of the spaces were spaces that I really liked

uh social commerce Solutions but it was just I could not think beyond the obvious did you have had prior experience in social commerce as well as content uh uh

platforms did having prior context and then that prevent you from Clear thinking not at all it was so it was not because of my

experience at all but so many failures have had existed in those spaces knowledge of them was a different for sure I see that

it does not work so many other people have tried it and so basically you were averse to taking a bet on the space more than the company itself is is that

the thing yes you were a little like I'm not sure if this is the one with it's not been working out so well and now that you reflect now that you know that they've achieved a certain degree of success probably very high degree of

success for most standards um what do you think what worked out in their favor so well which was kind of blind was a blind spot

to you for misho once and then maybe share chat also so for me show I did not imagine that the seller Market is so large oh and I always assume that it's a feature

on on large platforms wow because in my head Logistics payments procurement everything else is being done by large platforms as well

foreign so why would a nuclear win now I'm thinking now I've been in me show I know that it works but it's not easy to imagine in

advance what do you know now that made you now that you can say is the reason for them succeeding given this so so two things I would add to my framework one

I should have seen that the founder would make it I have to look beyond the obvious second the argument that large player will do it is a very false argument at

all points of time large players have their own battles to fight and it was a wrong argument to make so whenever I make that argument I think about it not that I will not make the same mistake again I I think about it

often but it's very difficult because if you start removing them then then then you just can invest in most things so it's just very difficult to create that fine line uh but hopefully I'm learning

and I'll not repeat the mistake uh so so me showed it was the case share chat I think I think they were building a Content

platform which was growing fast I didn't imagine that the content categories would evolve as fast as the founders made it evolve so to begin with

it was a cost commodized content it was something like a WhatsApp status thing good morning good evening of course to begin with it feels that how would it scale from here right but what I could

not imagine well then it was the same content format eventually if the founders are thinking about it right they will change the

depth of the content and it will become mehndi designs from from Good Morning evening and then from mehndi design to wedding shoots and like just the quality

the the the depth of content over time increases but again there had been so many failures before this I get it uh yeah so if now

I'm thinking about this um you were looking at these companies when basically they were in their very early stages they didn't have solid proof of scale or anything so you were of course

forced to imagine things which had never happened before which is a very hard thing to do right um that is why this job is difficult and rewarding if someone is able to do it

it's great yeah and I'm thinking it's yeah there is no nothing like an expert we see in that case if someone kills I'm an expert we see you know they're full of fat in fact we actually say the word

say this internally that if you're an expert of a of a space then Almost sure you will not be able to do any anything in that space not knowing is actually good uh and and most of the misses we

have had have been because we thought you knew too much yeah yeah we thought we knew too much and I'm curious about this because at that stage even these Founders they were I mean they were in their early phase probably they had

their own early stage some good struggles and uh and I know about me show that it was not easy to raise funds in the first round that I know subsequently they proved numbers and you

know within Sanjeev they cracked a great game of course now it's all history but um did they have this Clarity of vision themselves or um

yeah I would think that Founders have an Inkling and then they are seeing things but they are also not able to articulate it as well then

uh and even if they articulate I don't encount so much and I don't think I'll have the humidity too listen to it right because if you tell me that I'll I'll do this and then I'll do that and then I'll

do that it's very difficult for me this is the first time I'm able to appreciate the degree of uncertainty you deal with day in day out yeah and then

every day exactly every day is stressful because one one call one day could change could change the lives I I

mean I thought so I'm kind of feeling humbled I thought they are buying an opportunity the founder is also you know getting funds and whatever to scale uh and now I'm

thinking the degree of 170 of the phase every day is much higher than most rules will ever require and like high uncertainty high stakes you can have higher uncertainty low

stakes that still normalizes you well I'm sure there are other jobs with higher ends and realistics but yeah it's one of the highs we're not saying it's probably nobody's trying to compare it yeah right the guy who's probably mining

under the uh under the surface let's just give them their due respect right um so there are a lot of people I meet again who are looking to raise funds and

when I ask them okay uh you know when I try to ask them is there a way I can help you and for to understand the problem statement they send me Pitch decks sometimes and which I try to as a

small little angel investor of my small ticket size I try to evaluate that and it is often unclear to me

and if this is useful to anyone who's watching this is key uh I often feel like you're you don't seem investable and ready for fundraise right now

but some there are some multiple things at place but it seems like not everyone is ready for fundraising but they're still looking for funds so what I want to know from you from your experience is

when should a company raise funds and what are the good reasons to raise fund yeah I think I I don't associate the first part of your first part of your comment I have to do the second part the first

part of a comment is they don't seem investable it is your perspective yes so so and and at the end of the day from the founders perspective it's a top of the funnel game there are many people

like Wendy they'll talk to many people like you you and me and they need to convert one person correct and then they go investable and some of them will become very very large so there are many

non-investable companies that have become very very large so so that is that is a personal perspective now when should I found a raise

see in my so Angel investment is different than we see investment engine Investments Founders can raise by promising uh that that this is the part of their attempt

and this is what they would do so in my opinion the founders should raise from VCS when they are willing to commit their next at least two three four years

on the problem statement or problem statements close to the problem statement that they are pitching and why is that because we see money once you take the money the reality is they you have obligation

to work on the problem statement for some time and you just put a better face on you and you know it's easier to it's easier to fire most people but you can you cannot

hire fire a board member so once you have someone on board then you will not be able to kick him out really so it's important that you have alignment that these are

the problem statements I will work on and this is the experimentation path and this is what will be my honest attempt to solving that problem failure is okay but but the expectation is that

after six months will not say well I don't know what to do anymore and I am moving on because that is not expected and hence VC money should be taken only when you know that this is the problem statement or this is the broad problem

statement you are going after and you are willing to commit your time once you are willing to commit your time the realities you are giving you more than the money we see is providing then the marriage is easier to make it to make to make happen this is new one but yes this

is very useful yes and so this was one I mean so we were talking about I went to raise funds and what are the good reasons to raise funds

so this is this is the second the when what are the good reasons see if you don't need Capital they don't raise because at the end of the day activities are Equity raising is a highest cost of

capital out there so you are promising much more uh so if you can raise if you can build the company without raising Capital build it some companies require

Capital because it requires you to prime the pump for some time before they rectified results and sometimes it's important to build the product to do RND and it just takes time and you need

money for that in such cases good to raise VC Capital so so what are these good reasons okay hiring a team is that a good race building the product is um

doing r d you said built-in technology and development uh that you need to do for that right or a simpler thing iterating to figure out product Market

fit good enough reason oh that I am raising Capital this is my hypothesis this is the how I'll test it with this Capital I'll be able to prove that this

Market exists or maybe prove that it does not exist okay now I'm just very very weird I'm thinking says I don't have the solution but I have a hypothesis

does not work this will work if this does not this will work and hence I'll try and solve this problem this is the broad area I am operating in this is a large enough problem statement and I'll

figure out how to solve these problems so are you saying that as an investor you're not just looking at ideas and solutions to invest in you're looking at

problem spaces which may be solvable yes invest in and of course and a Founder who really wants to uh dig his teeth and

solve that problem so does that means and of course by definition late stage means that you have probably arrived at more conclusions and insights and more

risk has been mitigated so you you expect those things right probably giving me lesser Equity also in return for it so in always it makes sense that you have need to have a

bit more clarity there got it got it so these are some good things what are some bad reasons to raise funds um BMW um bad reason to raise funds is because

everyone else is Raising bad reason to raise funds is is is to raise on an idea which you don't believe in or you don't believe is scalable

but you are raising uh but you are raising because that is the that is what everyone else is doing this is a cool new thing there are many

businesses which are fantastic businesses and Founders will make money and if they create a lot of cash flow it's all great but uh but VCS might not be the right investors for

those businesses the company is great but the investors may not be right why is that I know for example because they might not be as scalable okay like in most cases not a

few containment would not be a very clear exit path maybe well exit parts will come if the businesses are real because foreign business

uh interesting many coaching institutes were not as scalable because it was teacher-led businesses and once you you cannot just scale from one coaching history to five coaching institutes as

as easily good businesses uh but might not be new understood understood so I think this makes it very clear what is fundable what is not and when to raise funds I think we have some insight on

that with this I want to move on to the you know conclusion part of our conversation here so there are a lot of young entrepreneurs out there who are

doing things for the first time they have a lot of passion and uh with all that hustle that they're putting in um things does not always necessarily move

in the ways they want that's just how the world is what advice would you give to these early stage entrepreneurs that you know in this journey what can they

do so that they have a you know higher odds of success and they also do not burn themselves off in this process yes so

one would be think big most people think very small when you are younger actually you can actually afford to think bigger so think big so be naive be naive okay be hungry it's

okay second would be don't burn yourself be happy it's it sounds cool to be unhappy when

you're building a business don't do that I'm saying this by being that on that don't do that third build the team right have

co-founders to begin with have co-founders you trust and build a long-term trusted relationship with your partners most people think very short term but long-term compounding happens on

relationships well if you if you if you invest in it from day one so we've got and so we've got people who want to be entrepreneurs and for them

this is valid and then there are people who probably find the school or not cool that's up to them there are so many different career paths to choose I think there is a concern that I've recently

developed is that being a Founder is the cool new that's what it has become right now and uh and it's just it's just funny that when I scroll through Linkedin I mean

there is no one who's looking for a job anymore everyone is basically hiring okay just just as a as a side note but it seems

like everyone is a founder or at least wants to be a Founder it it's I or maybe I'm now too biased with the surroundings that I'm in yeah that could also equally be the case but I definitely know that

there is an uptrend in people who aspire to be entrepreneurs and a lot of that is now because of social approval that being an entrepreneur has now which

wasn't the case 10 15 especially 20 years ago they're definitely not 10 years ago it was starting to you know come up to the surface and now it's everywhere it's frothing yeah right so

uh I want to know what would you if I had reached out to and said you know what do I do I I I mean this is startup and always cool but what do I do like I don't want to start up I want to pursue

my own path what does that mean in this new world yeah so first of all I don't think it's wrong at all that many people are becoming Enterprise so first of all we have to realize that our network is

really just point one percent of the real world right so even if 0.1 percent of the people are experimenting and in the simulation that the world is running

ah everyone fails the world is still not not everyone can fail and and even if everyone fails the world is not a very bad place yeah so there's net progress there's net progress so we are we are in a very very position that we are

connected to this point one percent of the world and we think that everyone is doing it everyone's still not doing it uh and but but but I but I but I get where you're coming from

uh not because it's the cool new thing where I'm coming with my concerns some people will some people will do it for because it's a cool thing and it's okay because after some time

the market is revolved people will know about it people don't know that you get punched in the face you get punched in the face you will know it's not it's not easy and it's all settle down so it's all okay

if so you don't want to be a Founder uh and if you are a young guy right now um someone gave this advice to me a few months back which I thought was perfect that

there's there are three considerations that you should have when you are finalizing a job slash career first plane terms of plane innings

that take take the job or whatever assignment you are picking up as a three to five year inning and just go and play your best Innings of that Innings but it's not about

long-term goal here I want to become this I want to become that now just it does not matter because the reality is you cannot know what long term is sitting here 10 years from the world the

world will be a very different place but but but plain Innings and next three to five years you can imagine better and whatever it is just just go and Win Second work with people

who push you to do your best and third work in spaces that are at the edge

what are those pieces so well this is a more macro statement so technology we are at the edge right most things it acknowledge is The Edge but don't be in spaces which are

which are lagoids right but I think this framework was was bang on it's simplistic yeah but but if you have these things going for going on for you and you play

the game right eventually you will win I think this is very smart so even if let's say I'm a graphic let's take something I'm a graphic designer yes do you recommend I work in a tech company

versus let's say a non-tech company does that apply to me uh I I again I'm not I I'm not the right guy for this for for for making comment on that space But but

but maybe if you're a graphic designer worth learning um UI ux design of the new age apps so

the possibility of exposure is in a tech company or any Edge company would be such that you will grow more exactly that's more than sufficient a reason

forget like like what do you do exactly with it exactly yeah but but hey this is this is just a hypothesis and and we are all we are all uh evolving it uh

you know got it got it no so I think that's uh I had a lot of these questions and you've answered them really well so thank you so much my pleasure I had a lot of fun thank you and just for people who are watching

we're like technically he's the ghost uh sorry I'm the first he's the guest in this podcast but right now he's sitting at his home this beautiful looking chair is

definitely not mine this plant has green my plants die sooner this is definitely not mine again and only because uh pratik's wife is taught here that we're

able to do this no I'm just kidding she's made a most like most beautiful possible house and we just started off complimenting this place when we met uh

so she's been very kind to give this space for this podcast today and we've had a lot of fun coffee like we got free

food also amazing salad Moroccan salad so that went really well uh but uh most importantly all of that I think uh you

were very uh you know very easy for me to approach and you gave me this one and a half hour slot my pleasure which was which was the most I could have asked for so thank you so much for that I learned a lot and anyone who's

interested in figure learning more about the VC world and how it fits in in the startup ecosystem and what do they need to do if any of us are in the middle of that decision making of what's right for

me in this context I hope it helps them out so that's the thing so thank you so much prathy again it was nice meeting you thank you for your time and have fun bye okay thank you so much guys this was

nivedin from coffee and stardust again and uh we're going to bring in many more guests like pradeep who going to share such deep insights from their specialized fields of operation and

interest like we are going to talk about so many more things so stick around and I'll see you in the next one