Founder Thesis

Those of you who came of age in the 90s and early 2000s would recall - drinking beer meant choosing between a regular strength beer or an extra strong beer. There was no such thing as choosing a beer for its taste and flavor. But the Craft Beer Revolution changed that and made beer more of a lifestyle choice. Dive deep into the Indian beerscape and learn how Prabhtej scaled up India’s coolest craft beer brand with no external funding. Listen on but remember to get yourself a cold glass of beer first!Know about:- Brewery is good for local community Learning the trade Coining the name “Simba” India’s beer distribution system

Prerna was just in her twenties when she decided to start a playschool. Over the next five years, that playschool dominated its category in Singapore, and was eventually acquired for almost 35 mn dollars - Prerna did all of this with almost no external funding. She is now running her second startup through which she aims to impact the lives of millions of children in India and Southeast Asia.Know about:- Starting a pre-school in Singapore Launching the app Gaining traction through performance marketing Future roadmap

Higher education represents more than half of the Indian education industry, which has been estimated at the US $135 billion in FY20. India has more than 50,000 colleges and students often find themselves in utter confusion while choosing the right course and college. Ruchir Arora was working in the education division of Hindustan Times where he hit upon the idea of building a digital-first, content-led platform that would make it easier for students to research, shortlist and apply to the right course and college for them. This idea grew into a full-stack business that today has an admissions division, a learning division, and a study abroad division.Know about:- Classifieds in education Buying the domain name Acquiring Scholarship Facilitation Services Revenue model

"You need to find out what the pain areas are and what customers are excited about."This simple yet profound insight from Murthy Chintalapati is the cornerstone of his multi-decade journey as a serial entrepreneur. In this episode, he explains how this relentless focus on solving real customer problems—not just building exciting tech—allowed him to identify a massive gap in the market and build Ozonetel, India’s first cloud telephony company.About the GuestMurthy Chintalapati is a serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience building deep-tech companies. After the successful acquisition of his first Silicon Valley venture, Intoto, by Freescale Semiconductor , Murthy returned to India to found Ozonetel in 2007. He pioneered the country's first cloud-based customer experience platform , scaling the company to support over 80,000 agents globally and achieving an annual recurring revenue of approximately $12 million.Key Insights from the Conversation Solving the SME Problem: Ozonetel was born from the insight that Indian SMEs were locked out of the market by expensive and complex legacy systems from giants like Avaya, which they couldn't afford or manage. The US "Wedge": Ozonetel entered the crowded US market by offering a dramatically faster deployment time—going live in 24 hours versus the 2-3 months required by competitors—and providing seamless, out-of-the-box CRM integrations. A 50% Cheaper TCO: A key competitive moat is offering a 50% reduction in the total cost of ownership, not just through lower license fees, but by eliminating months of expensive system integration effort for the customer. Pivoting from APIs to a Product: Ozonetel initially launched an API platform for developers named "KooKoo," but quickly pivoted to a full, browser-based application when they realized their target SME customers didn't have the IT teams to build their own solutions. COVID as a Growth Catalyst: The pandemic served as a massive tailwind, forcing enterprises to adopt remote work overnight and rapidly accelerating the shift from on-premise hardware to agile cloud solutions, causing Ozonetel's business to take off. Owning the Tech Stack: From the beginning, Murthy's philosophy was to have full control by building the entire system in-house, including their own hardware cards, to ensure they could fix any issue quickly without relying on external vendors.YouTube Chapters00:00 - Intro & The Founding Thesis: Spotting the Gap in the Call Center Market04:32 - The Zero-to-One Journey: Building Hardware & Finding Product-Market Fit10:38 - Early Wins & Getting the First Angel Investment14:19 - Cracking the US Market: The "Wedge" That Displaced Industry Giants17:19 - Scaling Up: How Deep CRM Integration Became Ozonetel's Moat22:16 - The Business of SaaS: Ozonetel's Revenue & Growth Strategy24:35 - Investing in the Future: Building In-House AI and Voicebots32:12 - Market Dynamics, COVID's Impact, and CPaaS vs. CCaaS40:22 - The Founder's Role in Scaling a Global Tech Company43:08 - Murthy's Core Advice for Aspiring EntrepreneursYouTube Hashtags#FounderThesis #StartupIndia #SaaS #CloudTelephony #Ozonetel #MurthyChintalapati #Entrepreneurship #MakeInIndia #B2BSaaS #CustomerExperience #CX #TechStartup #VentureCapital #Bootstrapping #BusinessPodcast

How did Srikrishna Swaminathan transform his journey from scaling InMobi to $100M revenue into building Factors.ai, a SaaS analytics startup disrupting the future of B2B marketing attribution and pipeline generation? In this episode of the Founder Thesis Podcast, we dive deep into the rise of Factors.ai and how it is positioned as a Google Analytics alternative for SaaS and B2B companies.Srikrishna shares his career journey from FMCG sales at Dabur to investment banking, then scaling global adtech at InMobi, and finally co-founding Factors.ai. The startup helps SaaS GTM teams turn scattered marketing data into actionable signals that drive pipeline and revenue. He explains why dashboards fail, how AI is changing B2B marketing, and why privacy-first data strategies will be the moat of the future. This conversation with host Akshay Datt offers rare insights into scaling SaaS efficiently in a post-cookie, post-funding-winter world.Key Highlights: How Srikrishna Swaminathan scaled InMobi’s affiliate business to $100M revenue Founding story of Factors.ai and its signal-based approach to pipeline generation Lessons on building efficient SaaS growth during India’s funding winter Why Google Analytics is losing relevance in the privacy-first era The role of Explain AI in decoding buyer journeys and marketing ROI Macro trends shaping the future of B2B SaaS and marketing analyticsSubscribe to the Founder Thesis Podcast Follow us on LinkedIn (podm.in/ad) for exclusive content Visit founderthesis.com for more founder stories00:00 - Srikrishna Swaminathan’s journey from Dabur to InMobi 06:15 - Scaling InMobi’s adtech business to $100M+ 13:40 - Founding Factors.ai to fix broken attribution 20:25 - Signal based pipeline generation explained 28:50 - Why Google Analytics is outdated for SaaS 36:15 - Surviving the funding winter with efficiency 44:30 - Explain AI and the future of marketing 53:05 - Building global SaaS from India#SrikrishnaSwaminathan #FactorsAI #B2BSaaS #MarketingAnalytics #GoogleAnalyticsAlternative #SaaSMarketing #AttributionModel #AccountBasedMarketing #SignalBasedMarketing #SaaSIndia #InMobiAlumni #FounderThesis #AkshayDatt #B2BMarketingTrends #SaaSDisruption #FundingWinter #PrivacyFirstAnalytics #ExplainAI #PipelineGeneration #GlobalSaaS

Cashflow is the lifeblood of business. Lack of it means one has to choose between paying salaries, stocking up on raw materials, and meeting customers' demands. KredX helps businesses get paid on their invoices within a few days instead of months. This practice is called invoice discounting, and KredX has made the procedure frictionless with the help of technology. From working in HSBC and Capital One to building KredX, Manish speaks about his journey with Akshay Datt.Know about:- Stint at HSBC KredX score Fundraising Journey Becoming an operating system for supply chain finance

In an individual’s lifetime, the majority of medical expenses are incurred on diagnosis, doctor consultation, medicines, etc. Kenko Health is aiming to build the country’s first Health Management Organisation (HMO)- a health insurance plan that focuses on overall patient wellness and preventive healthcare while keeping plan costs low. Listen on to know how Aniruddha, an ISB alumnus and insurance industry veteran, built this health check-up platform with almost no external funding!Know about:- Convincing investors- the biggest challenge Financing healthcare expenses, not insuring Identifying target market Future roadmap

"The good thing about starting for the fourth time is that you know what things you should not be doing."This powerful insight from Anubhav Jain captures the essence of his journey. Unlike first-time founders focused on what to do, this serial entrepreneur has built a formidable "negative knowledge" playbook, using lessons from past failures to de-risk his current venture and scale faster.Anubhav Jain is the Co-Founder & CEO of Rupifi, a B2B fintech platform radically changing how small businesses access credit. A serial entrepreneur and a credit risk expert from IIM Indore, Anubhav honed his skills for a decade at American Express. His previous lending startup, Qbera, was acquired after building a loan book of over ₹250 Crores. At Rupifi, he is on a mission to empower India's underserved SMEs, having already disbursed over ₹5,000 Crores in credit to more than 150,000 businesses across 500+ cities, backed by global investors like Tiger Global and Bessemer Venture Partners.Key Insights from the Conversation The "Anchor-Led" Growth Model: Rupifi's genius lies in its B2B2C strategy, partnering with large marketplaces ("anchors") like Flipkart Wholesale and Zomato's Hyperpure to acquire SMEs at near-zero cost. Underwriting the "Un-bankable": Rupifi uses real-time transaction data from its marketplace partners to underwrite businesses, allowing it to provide credit to the 45% of its customers who had no prior formal credit history. The Outsourced-Tech Trap: Anubhav shares a critical lesson from his previous startup, Qbera, which faced a forced acquisition because its core technology was outsourced to a partner on an equity basis, crippling its ability to scale and raise funds. Collections as a Core Competency: To solve for the long-tail SME, building a powerful, multi-channel collections capability from day one is non-negotiable. At Rupifi, nearly half the team is dedicated to collections. The Power of Subvention: Rupifi's "Buy Now, Pay Later" product is typically free for the small retailer. The cost is borne by the marketplace (a "subvention"), which in turn sees significant growth in sales and customer stickiness.Chapters(00:00) The Biggest Lesson from a 4-Time Founder(01:36) Building Risk Fundamentals During the 2008 Financial Crisis(02:37) My First Startup Failure: What I Learned from Building an EdTech (05:25) The Second Venture: Building Consumer Lending Platform Qbera(11:15) The Operational Hack for 24-Hour High-Ticket Loan Disbursal(17:41) Why We Were Acquired: The Critical Mistake of Outsourcing Tech(24:02) How 500 LinkedIn Messages Helped Me Find My Co-Founders(28:14) The Rupifi Thesis: Solving the Real Credit Gap for Indian SMEs(33:41) The Anchor-Led Model: How We Partner with Flipkart, Zomato & Others(37:32) The Science of Underwriting SMEs with Zero Credit History(49:43) Our Secret Weapon: Why Half Our Team Works in Collections(55:31) How Rupifi Makes Money with a 0% Cost Product for Retailers(01:04:46) The Key Challenges to Scaling B2B Embedded Finance in IndiaHashtags for YouTube#FounderThesis #StartupPodcast #AnubhavJain #Rupifi #Fintech #SME #B2BLending #EmbeddedFinance #StartupIndia #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #FounderStory #BusinessPodcast #StartupLessons #RiskManagement

"Most entrepreneurs think that insufficient capital goes against them. You die due to indigestion, not due to hunger."Sandeep Aggarwal's powerful insight challenges the "blitzscaling" mentality prevalent in the startup world. In this episode, he explains why having too much capital can be more dangerous than having too little, leading to a lack of discipline and inefficient spending. It's a hard-won lesson on the importance of capital efficiency, forged from the experience of building two unicorns.About Sandeep AggarwalSandeep Aggarwal is the only tech entrepreneur in India to have founded two unicorns back-to-back: ShopClues, India's first managed marketplace, and Droom, India's largest automobile e-commerce platform. After a successful 14-year career as a top-ranked Wall Street internet analyst covering giants like Google and Amazon, he moved to India to launch his entrepreneurial journey. Despite losing his first company amidst a personal and legal crisis, he founded Droom in 2014, scaling it to a $1.2 billion valuation. His first company, ShopClues, became India's 5th consumer internet unicorn and achieved that status having spent only $70 million.Key Insights from the Conversation The "Real India" Thesis: ShopClues’ initial success was driven by a visionary strategy to target the millions of small sellers and buyers in India's Tier 2 and 3 cities, a market completely ignored by competitors at the time. The Viral Growth Hack: Sandeep reveals how a simple but brilliant marketing campaign—selling an Adidas deodorant for just ₹9—led to an explosion in user growth for ShopClues, taking them from 18 to 200 orders per day almost overnight. Engineering Trust with Tech: Droom’s entire business model is built on creating trust in the highly fragmented used-car market through a proprietary tech stack, including an algorithmic pricing engine  Orange Book Value  and a digital inspection service  ECO . Resilience as a Superpower: The conversation highlights how Sandeep turned a career-ending crisis, including his arrest and the loss of his company, into the clarity and motivation needed to build his second, even more resilient, unicorn.Chapters02:23 - Surviving the Dot-Com Burst & Landing a Top Wall Street Job07:07 - The "Real India" Thesis: Why We Ignored Cities to Win the Heartland09:46  - How We Onboarded Our First Sellers  And Created Digital Catalogs from Scratch15:00  - The ₹9 Deodorant Hack That Got Us 30,000 Users Overnight22:58  - Understanding the Insider Trading Allegations29:48  - The Comeback: Analyzing 52 Ideas to Found Droom32:00  - The Droom Thesis: Fixing Trust in the Broken Used Car Market38:52  - How Droom's Transaction Model Actually Works41:09  - Engineering Trust: Building OBV, ECO & Droom History45:41  - Droom Credit: Fixing the Used Car Loan Problem53:30  - Path to Profitability & The Economics of DroomHashtags#FounderThesis #SandeepAggarwal #Droom #ShopClues #StartupIndia #Entrepreneurship #Unicorn #Ecommerce #FounderStory #StartupJourney #Resilience #Comeback #GrowthHacking #Marketplace #IndianStartup #VentureCapital #BusinessPodcast #MakeInIndia

"I told students, 'Please break our system. If you break it, the product is free for you.'"This counterintuitive approach reveals the genius behind Madhusudan Ekambaram's early strategy. Instead of avoiding failure, he gamified it, turning his first users—students—into a dedicated team for stress-testing and fraud detection, building an incredibly robust platform from day one.Madhusudan Ekambaram is the Co-founder and CEO of KreditBee, one of India's leading digital lending platforms. He has scaled the company to serve over 70 million users , disbursing ₹21,000 crores in loans in FY24 alone. Under his leadership, KreditBee has underwritten over 40 million customers and achieved significant profitability, with profit after tax growing nearly 200% in the last fiscal year.Key Insights from the Conversation: The Co-lending Model: KreditBee scales capital efficiently through a "skin-in-the-game" co-lending model, where its own NBFC takes a portion of the loan risk alongside partners, building immense trust in the debt ecosystem. Winning "Middle India": The company's core strategy focuses on the massive, underserved market in non-metro cities, with over 77% of its customers coming from this demographic. The Data Quantum Moat: The true competitive advantage is not just the algorithm but the sheer volume of data from underwriting over 40 million customers, which makes their risk models uniquely powerful. Regulation as a Strength: By operating with its own NBFC license from the start, KreditBee built a resilient business that was well-prepared for India's evolving regulatory landscape for digital lending.Chapters: (01:34) - From Corporate Life to a Fintech Insight (06:28) - The "Zero-Cost" Go-To-Market with Students (11:26) - How We "Hacked" a BNPL Product (17:52) - The "Skin-in-the-Game" Co-lending Model (28:27) - The Fundraising Journey: From Xiaomi to Premji Invest (35:54) - Navigating the COVID-19 Crisis (45:45) - The Underwriting Moat: Why Data is King (54:59) - Customer Acquisition Beyond Google & Facebook (1:05:03) - Why Regulated Fintechs Still Need Equity#KreditBee #MadhusudanEkambaram #FounderThesis #FintechIndia #DigitalLending #StartupPodcast #NBFC #Lending #RiskManagement #Underwriting #StartupIndia #Entrepreneurship #VentureCapital #Fundraising #Scaling #Profitability #BNPL #IndianStartups #BusinessStrategy #Leadership