Sajith Pai
Education, Media and other miscellany...
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Reflections on one year in venture capital

September 22, 2019 By Sajith Pai in Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Venture Capital

1. Joining Blume Ventures

One morning in October 2017, and I forget the exact date now, I came back from my crossfit workout to see a series of whatsapp messages from Karthik Reddy. Karthik, briefly an ex-boss of mine at The Times of India Group, had gone on to cofound Blume Ventures, a seed fund, which had evolved to emerge as a much-loved and well-regarded player in the Indian startup …

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Some recent writings

September 22, 2019 By Sajith Pai in Miscellany, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Content, Future of Work, Venture Capital

I haven’t been updating this website as frequently as I have hoped to. But those who follow me on twitter or linkedin, would know that I have been writing regularly, with all of it being published on other websites or publishing platforms.

Here are links to some recent writings of mine, in order of recency.

  1. Reflections on one year in venture capital – I completed a year at Blume Ventures,
…

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An article on the challenges of finding product-market fit in India

May 5, 2019 By Sajith Pai in Venture Capital / Startups No Comments

I wrote a post, well over a couple of months back (mid-Feb), on the challenges of becoming a universal app or product in India. The nature of the Indian market meant few startups would attain product-market fit (PMF) across the country. Increasingly, startups would strive to attain PMF in India1 Alpha, India1 or India2.

The article also covered a broad approach to move across different layers of the stack, especially …

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An Article on ‘Appizens’ for New Indian Express

February 17, 2019 By Sajith Pai in Miscellany No Comments

I wrote the 3rd and last of my pieces for New Indian Express on ‘We are all Appizens, Not Citizens’. The link is here.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/magazine/voices/2018/dec/16/we-are-all-appizens-now-not-citizens-1911129.html

In the article, I argued how thanks to new apps / tech and wealth, ‘People like us’ can transfer between Indian cities comfortably today. Yet, if apps make settling down easier than ever, they make true citizenship of our cities tougher than ever. We increasingly …

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An Article on Vernacular Apps and Monetizing Them

February 17, 2019 By Sajith Pai in News Media, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments

I wrote an article in Dec’18 for the online tech + business site factordaily.com called ‘Vernacular Apps, English Premium, and Monetizing the Next 200m Users”. The link is below.

Vernacular apps, the English premium and monetising the next 200 mn

In the article, which I am not posting in full here, I argued for why the slew of vernacular apps that have been launching of late, catering to the emerging …

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My Favourite ‘Articles’ of 2018

December 29, 2018 By Sajith Pai in Book Discovery No Comments

I maintain an excel sheet, since 2004, where I track the books I have read annually. This year I read only 13 books, my lowest count in all these years (2016 was the highest with 39 books). That said, one of the books I read this year, and perhaps enjoyed the most, was Sacred Games, which at 947 pages, is like 3 or even 4 books in one. So …

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An Article on ‘Meritshifting’ and a Critique.

November 21, 2018 By Sajith Pai in Higher Education No Comments

I write a monthly column for The New Indian Express, a predominantly South Indian newspaper. My column titled Indo-Angliana looks at Indian society, business and culture through the prism of Indo-Anglians, the largely english-speaking, highly educated and largely upper caste Indians who dominate our markets, media and our minds.

My second column was on a concept I call ‘meritshifting’, where elite India is driving a redefinition of merit on subjective …

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The Rise of Hyperlocal Vernacular Video News Apps

November 19, 2018 By Sajith Pai in News Media No Comments Tags: Content, News, Startups

(This was published in Mint, 19th November 2018, albeit in an abbreviated form due to space constraints. This is the complete piece.)

The latest and hottest startup sector is presently invisible to ‘People Like Us’ living in metros. Over the past year, several young founders boasting impeccable academic credentials and work experience have been moving to small town India, launching hyperlocal news apps, viz., LocalPlay, Lokal, Awaaz, Circle etc. These …

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Recent Writings

November 18, 2018 By Sajith Pai in Miscellany, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Higher Education, Technology

I have been writing regularly as those of you who follow me on twitter / linkedin are aware, but I have been a tad lazy in not updating this website with the links. So here goes.

For Arre, for their special on India’s 71st Independence Day, I predicted what India would look like in 2089, another 71 years hence. I made three predictions: one each about society, tech & …

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Career Update.

August 13, 2018 By Sajith Pai in Miscellany, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Personal, Venture Capital

I have been, for long, a keen student of the startup / venture ecosystem in India and outside. I find startups particularly fascinating, because to me, startups are the most obvious signals we get from the future. For each startup is but a hypothesis about the future manifested physically. I have satiated my interest in this space somewhat partially, through my writings and occasional pro bono advisories to startups. But …

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