Sajith Pai
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‘Exhaust Fumes’, or, Understanding Startup Valuations

June 9, 2021 By Sajith Pai in Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Startups, Valuation, Venture Capital

“Early stage valuations aren’t really valuations. They are the exhaust fumes of a negotiation about two things – the amount raised and the amount of dilution.” – Fred Wilson; source.

“Those guys are morons,” 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. “Today, when money has no value, because we’ve essentially …

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Network States and Nation SPACs, or Westphalia Redux

April 14, 2021 By Sajith Pai in Miscellany No Comments Tags: Balaji Srinivasan, Neostates

The Ratification of the Treaty of Munster, Painting by Gerard Ter Borch (1648)

The title of this piece is of course a play on The Peace of Westphalia, the name for the two treaties signed in 1648 between various delegations representing the micronations and provinces of Europe. The Peace of Westphalia brought into being the concept of the sovereign nation state. One that has a monopoly on state violence and …

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How founders should think about product-market fit

February 27, 2021 By Sajith Pai in Venture Capital / Startups 3 Comments Tags: Founders, Startups

Product Market Fit or PMF is amongst the most discussed and evergreen startup topics. Popularised by Marc Andreessen in a celebrated post titled ‘The Only Thing That Matters’, 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 …

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How the best founders drive learning at their startups

February 27, 2021 By Sajith Pai in Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Founders, 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 …

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I joined Amit Varma on ‘The Seen & The Unseen’ podcast

February 27, 2021 By Sajith Pai in Miscellany, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: India, Startups, Venture Capital

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 …

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The Indus Valley Playbook

February 7, 2021 By Sajith Pai in Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: India, Startups, Venture Capital

In this long essay, in fact my longest ever at ~7k words, I set out the evolution of the Indian startup ecosystem, or ‘Indus Valley’, and the emergence of the Indus Valley playbook — 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 …

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Bandra in a box

December 20, 2020 By Sajith Pai in Education, Miscellany No Comments Tags: Coliving, Education Unbundling

I heard from a friend who is attending the present batch at ISB Mohali that they have all moved to campus. Classes had begun in May’20 but were online. So, this is the surprise; he tells me that classes are still online (at least for a bit). But they are all staying on campus now, and hence all the interactions are in person, socially distanced or not I dont know. …

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Good Rupee, Bad rupee – A Thought Experiment

November 24, 2020 By Sajith Pai in Miscellany No Comments Tags: Economics, Thought Experiment

What if liquor and other sin goods had to be purchased with a different currency called B(ad) Rupee?

Similarly the government could depute other goods – some not desirable (say imports) or those that cause environmental damage or have negative consequences, such as fuel – to be purchased solely via B rupees.

There could be a small tax or fee to convert A rupees (or rupees; those to be spent …

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The 3 Jobs of a Startup CEO

November 3, 2020 By Sajith Pai in Venture Capital / Startups 1 Comment Tags: Startups, Venture Capital

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 …

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Personal Information Management Assistants

September 14, 2020 By Sajith Pai in Miscellany 3 Comments Tags: Reading, Summarizing

A quick post, led by the relentless pileup of ‘reading for work’ articles and podcasts, on a new role / career option waiting to be created.

***

It is common for CEOs / CXOs in Indian or international companies to have assistants / secretaries who do scheduling + travel bookings largely along with some office management or personal chores. They are typically many paid anywhere from 5 to 10% of …

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Recent Posts

  • The Three (or More) Products Founders Have to Keep in Mind
  • PMF Convo #6 – Asad Khan, LambdaTest
  • PMF Convo #5 – Pulkit Agrawal, Chameleon
  • PMF Convo #4 – Nishchay A G, Jar
  • PMF Convo #3 – Sheel Mohnot, Better Tomorrow Ventures

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