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) …
Startups
Podcast: Elizabeth Zalman and Jerry Neumann on The Logan Bartlett Show
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, …
Podcast: Nikhil Basu Trivedi, Footwork Ventures, on 20VC w Harry Stebbings
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 …
PMF Convo #13 – Arindam Paul, Atomberg
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 …
Podcast Transcript: Sheel Mohnot, Better Tomorrow Ventures, on 20VC w Harry Stebbings
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 …
Interview Transcript: Christina Cacioppo, Vanta & Andrew Reed, Sequoia – ‘Zero to One: From Idea to Product’ | Slush 2021
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 …
PMF Convo #12 – Shreya Mishra, SolarSquare, prev Flyrobe
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 …
Podcast Notes + Highlights: Jennifer Hyman, Rent the Runway, on 20VC, with Harry Stebbings
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 …
PMF Convo #11 – Abhishek Kejriwal, Kutumb
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 …
PMF Convo #10 – Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan
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. …