Every other week, I get at least one, sometimes two, introductions or inbounds from senior corporate leaders wanting to ‘pick my brain’ around startups / venture, or wanting to have ‘open-ended conversations’. Not all of these are around exploring job opportunities, though about half are. The rest are split between offering advisory (to startups) and investing in them, or both.
I can understand the motivation for this. Startups are an …
Strategy is amongst the most ill-used terms in business. Its ill-use is, if anything, even more pronounced in the startup world. There are multiple reasons for that. This essay won’t cover those reasons; that is for another time. Instead, this essay will suggest a universal definition for strategy, and relate it to the startup landscape. I will also share how strategy interacts with the concept of culture, another ill-used term. …
Link to podcast page and audio. Link to transcript (organised by me; not finely edited). 9th January 2024.
Sajith Pai: 776 is a differentiated VC fund in that it approaches venture from the perspective of a tech company, building and deploying tools that are usually found more in the portfolio companies of VCs than VC funds themselves. They have a platform they call Cerebro, which is the operating software …
Shubham cofounded Affinity along with his Stanford collegemate (and roommate), Ray Zhou, in ‘15 when they were still students. Since then they have built it into a ‘late eight figures’ ($ m) revenue business in the crowded CRM category. They have a strong foothold in the investor community, or indeed any sector where relationships are the key source of revenue. In our convo, Shubham speaks about Affinity hit product market …
Ranjeet is one of the more interesting figures in Indian startup twitter. I have, for long, enjoyed his tweets and thoughts on the challenges and learnings from building a content platform in India, Pratilipi; one that paved the way for a wave of vernacular language apps to inspire and follow and expand the market. Hence, I was excited to get him aboard for a PMF Convo. And he didn’t disappoint. …
The term ‘CM2+’ (pronounced CM2 positive) is frequently used in startup conversations, but often its true meaning and significance are misunderstood or not apparent. In this note I explain it significance and why becoming CM2+ is a key goal that early stage startups should strive for, and why it is integrally linked with getting to PMF (product-market fit).
In the essay I have used CM2+ as a shorthand for ‘CM2 …
Vinay Hiremath is the first tech leader I have had a chance to interview through all these episodes of PMF Convo. Vinay and I were connected by Jai Relan, an impressive young builder / hustler who is presently an Associate at The Council Fund. Now, I have always been curious as to how tech looks at PMF (product-market fit), and this talk did help in getting that perspective. Now, …
In this essay, I reflect on my past five years in venture, my learnings and evolution. My evolution, of course, echoes the evolution of the Indian venture and startup landscape too, and cannot be seen in isolation. So we will take a deeper look at the Indian startup and venture landscape too. In addition, we will try and cover a few questions I (and perhaps other venture capitalists or VCs) …
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, …
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 …