Sajith Pai
Writings on VC, Tech & Culture
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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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PMF Convo #10 – Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan

June 10, 2023 By Sajith Pai in PMF Convos, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: product market fit, Startups, Venture Capital

Prukalpa was one of the first founders I thought of speaking to, when I conceived this series of talks. She was one of the few founders who had tweeted about PMF (Product Market Fit) and her take on it. I had also heard her speak on the topic, on an audio talk where we were fellow panelists. Nonetheless I hesitated, for I wanted to be better prepared for our conversation. …

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Podcast Notes + Highlights: Bessemer’s Jeremy Levine, Kent Bennett and Brian Feinstein, on Colossus w Patrick O’Shaugnessy

June 4, 2023 By Sajith Pai in Podcast Notes, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Podcasts, Startups, Venture Capital

Link to podcast + transcript | 30th April 2023

Sajith: Bessemer Venture Partners is one of the OGs of the venture industry. Lots here to learn for a venture nerd like me, from this podcast where Patrick O’Shaughnessy hosts three of the senior partners at Bessemer including the legendary Jerermy Levine. I got to learn a lot about how they work together and the Bessemer OS. What i found particularly …

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A VC’s Perspective on a Legendary Public Market Investor’s Book

June 4, 2023 By Sajith Pai in Book Reviews, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Public Market Investing, Venture Investing

Pulak Prasad, founder of Nalanda Capital, is one of the giants of public market investing. Based out of Singapore, Pulak Prasad has built Nalanda into one of the most respected public market investors operating in India, presently overseeing around $5b in assets under management. Now, Pulak is known as much for being super-reclusive as for his track record. So ever since the book was announced, it was keenly awaited by …

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Recent Posts

  • Interleavings: Notes & thoughts on recent reads, 17 August ’25
  • Solo founders are battling Silicon Valley’s biggest bias
  • PMF Playbook: Chapter II – The Pick
  • PMF Playbook: Chapter I – Understanding PMF
  • Interleavings: Notes & thoughts on recent reads, 26 July ’25

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