E25: Ankur Warikoo (Angel Investor & Ex-CEO, Nearbuy)

Ankur Warikoo is an angel investor, entrepreneur, mentor and public speaker. He co-founded Nearbuy.com in 2015, where he served as the CEO from 2015-2019. Ankur was previously the CEO of Groupon India + APAC, MD of at Rocket Internet India, Co-founder at Accentium Web, and a management consultant at A.T. Kearney. He also holds an MBA degree from The Indian School of Business, an MS Physics from Michigan State University and a BS from Hindu College, Delhi University. Ankur has 1M+ followers across social media is known to share videos where he often talks about entrepreneurship, leadership and is known to inspire the youth.

Follow Ankur (@Warikoo), host Akash Bhat (@bhatvakash) and our podcast (@thedesi_vc) on Twitter.

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In this episode, we will cover:

1. How has Ankur dealt with the COVID period? (3:39)

2. What does Ankur make of the pandemic –– an inflection point or an uphill battle to restore economies? (5:54)

3. How does he feel about industries hard hit due to COVID? (8:45)

4. Ankur’s story and how it unfolded (11:50)

5. When and how did Ankur take to angel investing (15:13)

6. What made Ankur buyback Groupon India’s business and put ‘everything’ on the line? (17:15)

7. How difficult was it to champion the move to buy back Groupon India? (19:53)

8. What is Ankur’s relationship with risk and is there a personality to his investments? (23:53)

9. Why does Ankur say he’s a bad investor? (27:21)

10. What was Ankur’s (angel) investment thesis? (31:22)

11. How much of Ankur’s personality will you see in his investments? (37:38)

12. Where does Ankur source his deals from? (39:35)

13. What does Ankur’s diligence process look like? (42:12)

14. How long does Ankur take to make an investment decision? (44:40)

15. Underrated and overrated qualities in founders today (45:48)

16. How important is it for founders to sell their story and how can do they so effectively? (48:51)

17. Because Ankur is a very public figure and vocal across social, does he feel people find him intimidating to speak with? And if so, how does he make them feel at ease? (52:57)

18. Rapid fire (55:24)