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.
I wrote a post, well over a couple of months back (mid-Feb ’19), 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, …
I recently met the founders of a quasi-dating app enabling friend discovery via meeting strangers at events. We passed on them, primarily because while we could see that it had the potential to ‘take off’ in metros, or at least the affluent parts of our metros, we couldn’t see how it would work in India2 i.e., the non-english speaking less affluent India in Tier 2/3 cities, and thus expand to …
This was originally published in The New Indian Express.
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Around 20 years ago, my father, a South Indian working in a South Indian bank, received his obligatory North India posting to Delhi, something he and my mother had been dreading. Those first days in Delhi were incredibly trying, as my parents negotiated with plumbers, electricians, maids, milkmen and every person you interface to set up a home. Each of …
This was originally published in FactorDaily.
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Over the last few years, we have seen a new crop of attention harvesters spreading across Tier 2 and 3 India spurred by cheap smartphones and cheaper bandwidth. These are all mobile apps, some Indian-born such as Sharechat, Clip, and Roposo and some Chinese including Helo, TikTok, Vigo, Bigo, Kwai, and others. But all of them try to fashion an addictive feed …
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 & …
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 …
Recently, Rehan Yar Khan, who runs Orios Venture Partners, an early stage venture firm tweeted
Starting with Zomato, then Ola in Australia and now Oyo in China, looks like Indian start-ups have found the answer to beating India's 50M only "real consumers" market: Get out of the box
— Rehan Yar Khan (@rehanyarkhan) May 24, 2018
Rehan Yar Khan wasn’t being sarcastic. He was, in fact, complementing the promoters of …
Sometime in 2013, I restarted my dormant twitter account, treating it akin to a RSS reader, curating a mix of interesting people to follow and learn from. Some of these were writers, some politicians; others included philosophers, flaneurs and a few executives. Consistently I began to find that the most interesting tweets were from (Valley) VCs – Marc Andreessen, Benedict Evans, Paul Graham, Chris Sacca, Fred Wilson (NYC though) etc. …