A twitter theme I have noticed of late in Valley VC tweets is the self-deprecating VC tweet, where VCs make fun of themselves, for wearing Patagonia vests (!), or spouting philosophy, or the way they interact with founders.
Take these two tweets.
Venture Capital / Startups
Nailing Capital v Scaling Capital
Thoughts and reflections inspired by the frenzied pace of investing and dealmaking we are seeing in the early stage in India, and specifically the trend of traditionally later stage investors playing early.
Two, or maybe three types of capital
All money in venture capital is not similar. We can distinguish between
- Nailing Capital: money required to get you to nail your product proposition + GTM (Go To Market) approach and
What startups can learn from India’s fastest growing edtech startup, Classplus
One of the startups I lead, and manage, Classplus, has been on fire of late. It is seeing a lot of customer and investor love. I wrote out a tweet thread, to explain, their secret sauce; at the heart of which is an obsession with customer feedback, and ensuring everyone in the company is continuously talking to customers. Later, as the tweet got popular, I converted the thread into …
Unbundling Humans, or, Unbundling Human Creation
âThere are two ways to make money in business: You can unbundle, or you can bundle.â – Jim Barksdale, cofounder of Netscape
As frameworks for identifying opportunities in startupland go, unbundling / (re)bundling is amongst the most seminal ones out there. Here is an example of how it works.
Visualize a product that helps you read (for a fee) any magazine / newspaper story â effectively you have unbundled or …
‘Exhaust Fumes’, or, Understanding Startup Valuations
âEarly stage valuations arenât really valuations. They are the exhaust fumes of a negotiation about two things â the amount raised and the amount of dilution.â â Fred Wilson; source.
âThose guys are morons,â says Palihapitiya of many value investors. The historic way of determining value by looking at balance sheets and discounted cash flow no longer works, he asserts. âToday, when money has no value, because weâve essentially …
How founders should think about product-market fit
Product Market Fit or PMF is amongst the most discussed and evergreen startup topics. Popularised by Marc Andreessen in a celebrated post titled âThe Only Thing That Mattersâ, PMF has become a keen topic of study and analysis in the startup community. Not a year or a quarter passes by without a celebrated article or twitter thread offering a new take or slant on it. After all PMF …
How the best founders drive learning at their startups
The best founders ensure that their startups learn continuously, and iterate + improve their strategy, tactics and playbook constantly. They ensure this learning through three routes. These are
- learning from customers, enabled through speedy product iterations
- learning from external talent / interviewes, via the hiring process
- learning from VCs / investors via the fundraising process or investor meetings.
In that order. Customers / product iterations are the most important source …
I joined Amit Varma on ‘The Seen & The Unseen’ podcast
I joined Amit Varma on his acclaimed The Seen & The Unseen podcast to talk about venture valuations, the VC playbook, the evolving media sector, my productivity hacks + stack, and lots more.
It is long podcast (Amit’s signature style) but certainly the most interesting + important one I have done. Do give it a listen! Link below. (The wonderful illustration that appears on the Seen Unseen page is by …
The Indus Valley Playbook
In this long essay, in fact my longest ever at ~7k words, I set out the evolution of the Indian startup ecosystem, or âIndus Valleyâ, and the emergence of the Indus Valley playbook â a distinct set of hacks and business models that help startups win in the unique Indian market.
I have been thinking of writing this essay for a while now. Many of the individual elements of the …
The 3 Jobs of a Startup CEO
TL;DR: There are 3 core jobs of a founder-CEO in a Series A+ startup. They are prioritization, hiring and fundraising; in that order. Communicating, meetings or reviews which is how the founder-CEO spends her time, are only enablers of the above jobs. They should not be confused with the 3 core jobs. The article below unpacks these 3 jobs at length. As always feedback and criticism welcome, and I would …