Sanjay Swamy, Prime Venture Partners

Sanjay started his career in Silicon Valley in 1992 & spent over 7 years at his first company, working in different roles across - Sales, Customer Support, Engineering & Marketing. He then worked with Xerox & Portal Software in US before coming back to India in 2003.From 2003 to 2011, he had several experiences most of which revolutionized entire ecosystems they were part of, right from mCheck, ZipDial, Ezetap & Aadhar Team (at UIDAI).Finally in 2011, he started Angel Prime (now Prime Ventures) which invests in early-stage entrepreneurs to build great companies.Some of his portfolio companies are Moneytap, Ezetap, Happay, and Kredx among others.In this podcast, Sanjay shares his experiences & learnings from being on both sides of the Startup ecosystem - An Entrepreneur & A VC. Notes - 00:38 - His journey from a small town in Karnataka to Silicon Valley & finally becoming a VC04:04 - Part 1- Experience & Learnings in Silicon Valley (from working in Sales, Customer Support to Engineering)05:55 - Working with Xerox 08:40 - Coming back to India and working with mPortal & mChek11:20 - Realizing of being Ahead of Time at mChek 14:08 - Successful Startups which Controlled their Ecosystem like Paytm & those which rode the Ecosystem changes like PhonePe & GooglePay16:49 - Part 2 - Working with Aadhar (UIDAI Team) & Experiencing the formulation of Aadhar19:56 - Part 3 - Bringing together previous learnings & starting AngelPrime (currently Prime Ventures)22:51 - Conceptualizing ZipDial while being on a flight25:10 - Validating Market Fit in less than $100 at ZipDial28:45 - Building Ezetap - Being on the Merchant Side30:45 - Being the First Sculptor of the Company34:16 - Formulating Market Specific Preferences as a VC40:00 - Importance of being Honest & Open with your VC Partners44:57 - There’s No Completely 100% Right or Wrong situation being a VC47:59 - Being a Founder in Late 30s or 40s50:37 - Having 360 days of Frustration & 5 days of Glory as an Entrepreneur

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