Sajith Pai
Writings on VC, Tech & Culture
RSS
  • About Me
  • Begin Here
  • Venture Capital / Startups
  • Product Market Fit / PMF Essays
  • PMF Convos
  • Podcast Notes
  • Book Reviews
  • Miscellany

Podcast: Elizabeth Zalman and Jerry Neumann on The Logan Bartlett Show

October 9, 2023 By Sajith Pai in Podcast Notes, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Startups, Venture Capital

15 September 2023 | Link to podcast episode

Really candid episode where a founder Liz Zalman, and her investor Jerry Neumann discuss the challenges of being a startup founder, fundraising and venture capital from their distinct perspectives, as a founder and as a VC. Liz doesnt hold anything back, talking abt her investors who dont get into the nitty gritties with her, or dont really come prepared to board meetings, …

Read More

Podcast: Nikhil Basu Trivedi, Footwork Ventures, on 20VC w Harry Stebbings

September 20, 2023 By Sajith Pai in Podcast Notes, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: product market fit, Startups, Venture Capital

6 September 2023 | Link to podcast

Enjoyed this wide-ranging chat between Nikhil (NBT) and Harry Stebbings. Having enjoyed Nikhil’s writing previously, this was a concentrated dose of NBT that I was happy to have. What stood out for me from the convo – his perspectives on how he prioritises traction (or early signs of PMF) over the market when it comes to picking, how he tries to avoid getting …

Read More

Podcast Transcript: Mark Suster, Upfront Ventures, on Venture Unlocked w Samir Kaji

September 10, 2023 By Sajith Pai in Podcast Notes, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Venture Capital

Link to podcast | 30 August, 2023

If you are a GP or an aspiring GP (or even just a venture nerd) you will enjoy this podcast episode. There was so much I learnt from this one; a lot of it being very tactical advice around fundraising from LPs, such as on how to segment the LP market, how to construct your top of funnel, and ensuring that your discussions …

Read More

PMF Convo #13 – Arindam Paul, Atomberg

September 2, 2023 By Sajith Pai in PMF Convos, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: product market fit, Startups

Arindam Paul has emerged as one of the most insightful marketing voices from the Indian startup ecosystem over the past few years. His practical posts and threads on various aspects of marketing and growth are chock full of advice for founders and operators covering diverse topics such as brand marketing for D2C brands, advertising strategies for Amazon marketplace vs Flipkart etc. 

Arindam joined Atomberg Tech in 2015 as one of …

Read More

Podcast Transcript: Sheel Mohnot, Better Tomorrow Ventures, on 20VC w Harry Stebbings

August 29, 2023 By Sajith Pai in Podcast Notes, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Startups, Venture Capital

14th July 2023 | Link to podcast

Good fun chat between fintech investor Sheel Mohnot, also one of the more colourful personalities on startup twitter, and 20VC host Harry Stebbings. Sheel is forthright with his takes and perspectives covering topics such as why he thinks there is no right way in venture (many paths work per him), why the venture industry would be better off with reduced fund sizes …

Read More

Podcast Transcript: Rob Go, NextView Ventures on 20VC w Harry Stebbings

July 30, 2023 By Sajith Pai in Podcast Notes, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Venture Capital

23 June 2023 | Podcast Link

Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView, investors in Attentive, Devoted Health, Whoop etc. Before co-founding NextView, Rob was a VC at Spark Capital and a PM at ebay.

This is a terrific podcast giving you the inner mechanics and dynamics of raising a venture fund. It goes behind the scenes of what it is to raise a VC fund from LPs …

Read More

Interview Transcript: Christina Cacioppo, Vanta & Andrew Reed, Sequoia – ‘Zero to One: From Idea to Product’ | Slush 2021

July 25, 2023 By Sajith Pai in Podcast Notes, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: product market fit, Startups, Venture Capital

Link to interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=545HHo4Z79U 1-2 Dec 2021

This is an edited transcript of an onstage chat between Christina Cacioppo, founder & CEO of Vanta, and Andrew Reed from Sequoia, who led the Series A into Vanta. Covers a bunch of useful themes around product-market fit (PMF) and early phase of launching, including how they worked with design partners and didn’t start coding till they saw strong resonance with the MVP …

Read More

PMF Convo #12 – Shreya Mishra, SolarSquare, prev Flyrobe

July 16, 2023 By Sajith Pai in PMF Convos, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: product market fit, Startups, Venture Capital

Shreya Mishra now runs SolarSquare, a B2C rooftop solar panel installation company. Our conversation however was around her previous startup, Flyrobe, which was a fashion rental startup that however struggled to find product market fit or PMF. Flyrobe was a company we tracked closely, as it competed closely with a Blume portfolio company, Stage3. Both struggled to find PMF, and have now been acquired. 

In our convo, Shreya talks about …

Read More

Podcast Notes + Highlights: Jennifer Hyman, Rent the Runway, on 20VC, with Harry Stebbings

July 2, 2023 By Sajith Pai in Podcast Notes, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: E-Commerce, Startups

Link to podcast: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/jennifer-hyman/ | 28th June 2023

Sajith Pai: Relevant excerpts & highlights from the transcript I helped organise below (the podcast publisher didn’t have a transcript for this episode). Loved her observations on hiring for strengths (and not worrying about their weaknesses), how going public (and the process of doing so) helped her relook at her business in the right light and reorganise the costs, why she …

Read More

PMF Convo #11 – Abhishek Kejriwal, Kutumb

June 25, 2023 By Sajith Pai in PMF Convos, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: product market fit, Startups, Venture Capital

I first heard of Kutumb when their monster Series A was announced sometime in June’21 (about two years ago). Consumer social apps weren’t our strong suit then at Blume, and we hadn’t tracked the team actively, even though an ex-colleague had shared this as a potential opportunity with us. In recent times, I started hearing about Abhishek Kejriwal, the cofounder and CEO of Kutumb, from multiple sources, as someone with …

Read More
«‹ 6 7 8 9›»

Get the latest post by email


 

Recent Posts

  • The best VCs are long, preloaded, context windows for their founders
  • Interleavings: Notes & thoughts on recent reads, 25 May ’25
  • The Four Routes to Starting Up
  • Interleavings: Notes and thoughts on recent reads, 27 April ’25
  • Interleavings: Notes & thoughts on recent reads, 13 April ’25

Tags

Admissions Advertising Advertising Revenue Advertising Revenues Amazon Ashoka University Book Review Circulation Revenue Classifieds Clayton Christensen Content COVID-19 Curation DB Corp E-Commerce Fitness Higher Education IITs India Indo-Anglians Jagran Prakashan Metered Model MOOCs News Online / Digital Online Retail Paywalls Podcasts Preprints product market fit Social Media Startups Strategy The Guardian The New York Times The Times of India Twitter UGC Unbundling Universities USA Newspapers Valuation Venture Capital Venture Investing Washington Post

Archives

  • May 2025 (2)
  • April 2025 (4)
  • March 2025 (4)
  • January 2025 (1)
  • December 2024 (5)
  • November 2024 (6)
  • October 2024 (4)
  • September 2024 (2)
  • August 2024 (1)
  • June 2024 (1)
  • May 2024 (2)
  • April 2024 (10)
  • March 2024 (3)
  • February 2024 (2)
  • January 2024 (1)
  • December 2023 (6)
  • November 2023 (2)
  • October 2023 (5)
  • September 2023 (3)
  • August 2023 (1)
  • July 2023 (4)
  • June 2023 (4)
  • May 2023 (3)
  • April 2023 (5)
  • March 2023 (3)
  • January 2023 (3)
  • December 2022 (1)
  • November 2022 (2)
  • October 2022 (3)
  • July 2022 (1)
  • December 2021 (4)
  • November 2021 (3)
  • September 2021 (1)
  • July 2021 (1)
  • June 2021 (4)
  • April 2021 (1)
  • February 2021 (3)
  • January 2021 (1)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • November 2020 (2)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (4)
  • July 2020 (2)
  • May 2020 (3)
  • April 2020 (3)
  • March 2020 (2)
  • January 2020 (2)
  • November 2019 (1)
  • September 2019 (2)
  • July 2019 (1)
  • May 2019 (1)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (3)
  • November 2018 (4)
  • October 2018 (1)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • June 2018 (1)
  • May 2018 (1)
  • April 2018 (1)
  • January 2018 (1)
  • November 2017 (1)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • April 2017 (1)
  • March 2017 (1)
  • February 2017 (1)
  • November 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (2)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (2)
  • January 2016 (1)
  • December 2015 (3)
  • November 2015 (3)
  • October 2015 (5)
  • September 2015 (4)
  • August 2015 (6)
  • June 2015 (2)
  • May 2015 (3)
  • April 2015 (6)
  • March 2015 (5)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • January 2015 (1)
  • December 2014 (2)
  • November 2014 (1)
  • September 2014 (3)
  • August 2014 (4)
  • July 2014 (5)
  • June 2014 (2)
  • December 2013 (1)
  • October 2013 (2)
  • August 2013 (1)
  • June 2013 (1)
  • April 2013 (1)
  • February 2013 (2)
  • December 2012 (2)
  • November 2012 (1)
  • October 2012 (3)
  • September 2012 (4)
  • April 2012 (1)
Sajith Pai
© Sajith Pai 2025
Powered by WordPress • Themify WordPress Themes

↑ Back to top