Founder Thesis

How did Rajiv Srivatsa go from building one of India’s most beloved furniture brands, Urban Ladder, to backing the next wave of founders at Antler India? In this episode of the Founder Thesis Podcast, we explore his journey through IIT, Infosys, Yahoo, Urban Ladder, and finally into venture capital, while uncovering timeless lessons for entrepreneurs navigating India’s startup ecosystem.Rajiv Srivatsa’s story is one of resilience, customer obsession, and reinvention. As the co-founder of Urban Ladder, he pioneered India’s online furniture revolution before steering the company through a brutal funding winter. Today, as Founding Partner of Antler India, Rajiv is betting early on founders building across AI, consumer, fintech, and deeptech. In this candid conversation with Akshay Datt, Rajiv reflects on his early failures, the product insights he carried from Yahoo, the hard pivots at Urban Ladder, and why India’s next unicorns will come from capital-efficient, contrarian founders. For anyone building, operating, or investing in India, this episode offers a masterclass in founder mindset and startup survival.Key Highlights: How Rajiv built Urban Ladder into India’s top omni-channel furniture brand Lessons from steering a startup through India’s funding winter Why Antler India is betting big on AI and pre-seed founders Insights on product management, culture, and customer obsession The future of India’s startup ecosystem and Rajiv’s contrarian takes👉 Subscribe to the Founder Thesis Podcast 👉 Follow Akshay Datt on LinkedIn for exclusive content 👉 Visit founderthesis.com for more founder stories00:00 – Rajiv Srivatsa’s startup journey begins 05:15 – Lessons from IIT, Infosys & IIM Bangalore 12:40 – Yahoo years and the decline of a giant 19:10 – Founding Urban Ladder and scaling furniture e-commerce 27:45 – Surviving India’s funding winter & tough pivots 36:20 – Urban Ladder’s exit to Reliance Retail 43:05 – Launching Antler India and early bets on AI 51:50 – Future of Indian startups & Rajiv’s adviceRajiv Srivatsa, Antler India, Urban Ladder, Akshay Datt, Founder Thesis Podcast, startup funding winter India, India VC ecosystem, AI startups India, consumer tech India, Indian unicorn stories, Urban Ladder Reliance acquisition, furniture e-commerce India, pre-seed VC India, Antler India investments, product management lessons Yahoo, capital efficient startups India, contrarian founder insights, Indian startup podcast, building unicorns in India, venture capital trends India

Online content creation saw a drastic boom when the pandemic struck. This made content creators spend more hours with their gadgets.In a candid conversation with Akshay Datt, Raj Kundra, Founder and CEO, JL Stream, shares his journey.Born and brought up in London, Raj started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 18. After running multiple businesses, he became an entrepreneur in India. In 2020, he launched JL Stream with a mission to enable social media users to grow their outreach, broadcast their talents, and monetize their content. And within four months it has garnered more than half a million downloads and 150,000 monthly users.Tune in to this episode to hear Raj speak about how JL Stream is revolutionizing the online content market in India.Key takeaways:How to become an operator founder?Monetization strategy.Importance of networking.

"Today's D2C brands will become FMCG giants of tomorrow." Shantanu Deshpande shares his conviction that the direct-to-consumer wave is creating the next generation of major Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies, challenging established players by building brands directly online.Shantanu Deshpande is the Founder and CEO of Bombay Shaving Company. He left a successful consulting career at McKinsey & Company to launch his venture, building it into a 100 Cr+ D2C brand in the men's grooming space. Backed by strategic FMCG giants like Colgate-Palmolive and Reckitt, Shantanu aims to build Bombay Shaving Company into a 1000 Cr hair removal business for both men and women. He holds an MBA from IIM Lucknow [cite: Page 2 of Profile (5).pdf].Key Insights from the Conversation: The Leap: Why Shantanu left a stable consulting career, inspired partly by his father's entrepreneurial journey. D2C Strategy: Building a brand online involves relentless experimentation and "a thousand small passes" rather than silver bullets. Customer Focus: The humbling journey of realizing you must build products customers want and be present where they shop (online marketplaces, offline stores). Strategic Funding: How Bombay Shaving Company secured investments from McKinsey partners, Fireside Ventures, Colgate, and Reckitt, leveraging these partnerships beyond capital. Omnichannel is Key: While starting online, building a truly large FMCG brand in India requires a strong offline presence. CEO's Role: Focusing on setting mandates, communicating vision, ensuring financial stability, and building culture. Future Vision: Expanding aggressively into women's hair removal and the strategic considerations around potential acquisition.Chapters: 00:00:25 - Meet Shantanu Deshpande: Founder, Bombay Shaving Company 00:01:20 - Early Life: Growing Up Abroad & Returning to India 00:04:06 - Engineering, IIM Lucknow & College Life 00:06:52 - Journey into Consulting: The McKinsey Story 00:19:13 - Why Leave Consulting for Entrepreneurship? 00:24:55 - The Idea & Founding of Bombay Shaving Company 00:34:21 - Early Strategy, Naive Optimism & Learning Crucial Lessons 00:40:30 - Fundraising Journey: Fireside, Colgate & Reckitt Partnerships 00:53:52 - Building the D2C Stack & Capabilities 00:57:31 - Defining the CEO's Role & Setting Mandates 01:04:14 - Product Expansion: Men's Grooming to Women's Hair Removal 01:08:09 - Future Vision: Aiming for 1000 Cr & Acquisition ThoughtsHashtags:#FounderThesis #ShantanuDeshpande #BombayShavingCompany #D2CIndia #FMCG #StartupIndia #Entrepreneurship #IndianStartups #DirectToConsumer #Branding #MarketingStrategy #ScalingBusiness #VentureCapital #StartupFunding #MakeInIndia #MensGrooming #BeautyTech #Ecommerce #BusinessPodcast #Leadership #Strategy #IIMLucknow #McKinseyAlumni

All of you must be familiar with the phrase silver lining. Where the pandemic forced us to maintain social distancing, it has also enabled entrepreneurs to come up with innovative and disruptive business ideas.In a candid conversation with Akshay Datt, Shailaz Nag, Co-founder and CEO, DotPe, takes us through his amazing journey of working in top corporates to building ventures like PayU and DotPe.Shailaz fondly remembers his father’s principles and how this has guided him throughout his life and work. He co-founded PayU India in 2011, which at present, is one of the leading payment gateways in the country. He quit PayU in 2019 and started DotPe in the subsequent year with a vision to provide digital transformation and commerce solutions to brick-and-mortar stores. And within a year of launch, this offline-to-online commerce platform has raised USD 27.5 million in Series A funding from prominent investors like InfoEdge Ventures, Google, and PayU.Tune in to this episode to hear Shailaz speak about how DotPe is disrupting and transforming the offline to online segment with its impeccable product experience and innovation.What you must not miss!Three most important life lessons.Significance of going digital.O2O business model.

"I asked my wife if we could sell our house to fund something new. She said yes without blinking."At the lowest point in his entrepreneurial journey, financially ruined by a failed business, Viraj Bahl made the ultimate bet—he sold his family home to fund one last dream. This single act of courage and conviction laid the foundation for one of India's most successful new-age food companies.About The Guest:Viraj Bahl is the Founder and Managing Director of VRB Consumer, the parent company of Veeba. After a major failure with his first venture, he started Veeba in 2013 by selling his house for ₹50 lakh. Today, he has built a food brand that is projected to cross ₹1,000 crore in revenue, with a presence in over 700 towns across India. A former marine engineer, Viraj is now also a judge on Shark Tank India, inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs.In this conversation with your host Akshay Datt, Viraj Bahl unpacks the contrarian playbook he used to build Veeba from the ground up.Key Insights from the Conversation: Failure as a Blueprint: The collapse of Viraj's restaurant chain, "Pocket Full," provided the exact lessons on frugality, quality control, and unit economics that became the foundation for Veeba's success. The B2B-to-B2C Pivot: Veeba deliberately started as a B2B supplier to giants like Domino's and KFC to build stable cash flow and perfect its manufacturing before entering the volatile consumer market. Offline Distribution as a Moat: While many new brands focus on D2C, Veeba's biggest strength is its vast offline distribution network, which reaches over 150,000 shops in more than 700 towns, especially in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. "Loss-Making by Choice": Viraj reveals his unconventional financial strategy of reinvesting nearly all profits back into advertising and expansion to deliberately maintain a near-zero EBITDA margin and fuel aggressive growth.Chapters:[00:00] - Introduction[01:33] - The Father's Challenge & A Rebel Youth[05:41] - From Food Tech Dreams to Marine Engineering on the High Seas[11:13] - The Painful Lessons from His "Naked Public Failure" with 'Pocket Full'[18:21] - Frugality: The Billion-Rupee Lesson Learned from Failure[20:51] - Selling His House: The High-Stakes Bet to Launch Veeba[27:22] - The Grind: How Relentless Persistence Won Domino's as the First Client[30:37] - The B2C Pivot: Building a Loved Consumer Brand from a B2B Base[45:12] - The Real Moat: Winning India's Kirana Stores & Tier-2/3 Cities[59:43] - The Funding Philosophy: Choosing the Right Partners Over the Highest ValuationHashtags:#FounderThesis #StartupIndia #VirajBahl #Veeba #Entrepreneurship #StartupStory #FMCG #B2B #D2C #MakeInIndia #BusinessPodcast #FoodBusiness #AkshayDatt #VentureCapital #BusinessStrategy

Ever thought of starting a venture from a tier 2 city? I’m sure the majority of you haven’t. It was the love for his family that brought our guest back to his hometown Jaipur and started a venture which is soon going to be a unicorn.In a candid conversation with Akshay Datt, Anurag Jain, COO & Co-Founder, GirnarSoft, takes us through his amazing journey. He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and has worked with eminent software companies both in the US and India, before starting his entrepreneurial journey.Anurag reminisces about his early days and how a life-altering moment led him to quit his lucrative software job, come back to Jaipur and start a venture with a vision to establish in the consumer internet space. He started GirnarSoft in 2007 with his brother Amit as an IT outsourcing company.After experimenting for a year or so, the duo visited an international AutoExpo which sparked the idea of an auto portal and CarDekho came into existence. Since then, CarDekho has expanded into the South-East Asian markets and is currently valued at around USD 800 million.Tune in to this episode to listen to the fascinating story of how these strong-willed entrepreneurs from Jaipur succeeded in building a venture based on sheer hard work and determination.What you must not miss!Fundraising journey.Acquisitions and subsequent global expansion.Significance of customer experience.Secrets of managing people.

Scaling start-ups is not new to Amit Lakhotia. So, the choice of starting his venture came naturally to him.In a candid conversation with Akshay Datt, Amit Lakhotia, Founder, Park+, takes us through his amazing journey. This IIM-A alumnus has worked with various start-ups before charting his path towards entrepreneurship.An independent decision-maker at heart, Amit chose the companies where he can take decisions without any interventions, and the results are evident in the growth stories of MakeMyTrip, Paytm, and Tokopedia.Stemming from his experience of not being able to find a parking slot at the Paytm office, Amit started Park+ in 2019 with a vision to solve the parking-related woes for daily commuters and B2B establishments. Tune in to this episode to hear Amit talk about Park+ is working towards solving this hyperlocal problem by providing digital solutions, leading to a hassle-free customer experience.Key takeaways:What a B-School teaches us!Experience of working in a start-upJourney as an investor

"In enterprise sales, the best product doesn't automatically win."This powerful insight from Rohit Chennamaneni dismantles a common startup myth. In his conversation with Akshay Datt, he explains that winning high-stakes enterprise deals goes beyond features and requires a deep understanding of client politics, internal power dynamics, and solving strategic business challenges.About Rohit ChennamaneniRohit Chennamaneni is the Co-founder of Darwinbox, the Hyderabad-based HR tech platform that has become a dominant force in Asia. A graduate of IIM Lucknow, Rohit leveraged his unique experience at both Google and McKinsey & Company to build Darwinbox into a global challenger. Today, the company is a SaaS unicorn valued at over $1 billion, serving over 3 million employees at 1,000+ enterprises—including giants like Starbucks and Nivea—across more than 130 countries.Key Insights from the Conversation The Contrarian Enterprise Playbook: Darwinbox deliberately targeted large, complex enterprises from day one, a strategy most startups avoid. This was possible due to the founders' deep understanding of enterprise needs from their time at McKinsey. The "People OS" Vision: The core insight was to reframe HRMS not as a passive database, but as a dynamic "People Operating System" that every single employee would use, driving unprecedented adoption and data quality. Architectural Moat: The platform's foundation on a graph database gives it superior agility and configurability, a deep technical advantage that legacy competitors like SAP and Oracle cannot easily replicate without a complete overhaul. The Power of Founder DNA: The fusion of Google's data-driven, product-obsessed culture and McKinsey's top-down, strategic thinking created a unique founding team capable of both building a superior product and aligning it with enterprise-level business goals. Solving for User Experience: A primary reason for their success was creating a mobile-first, consumer-grade user experience that solved the core issue of legacy systems: extremely low employee adoption. This approach led to adoption rates of over 90%.Chapters00:00 - Podcast Intro00:50 - The Making of a Founder: Forged at Google, Sharpened at McKinsey15:06 - The High-Stakes Career Bet: Choosing McKinsey Over a P&G Offer22:47 - Key Lessons from Solving Problems for the World's Biggest Companies37:58 - The "Aha" Moment: Identifying the "People System" Opportunity in a Crowded Market44:06 - Deconstructing The Problem: Why Legacy HR Tech (SAP, Oracle) Was Failing51:59 - The Brutal Early Days: Bootstrapping & Facing Investor Rejection1:01:11 - The Enterprise Sales Playbook: How Darwinbox Sells to Global Giants1:13:39 - Scaling Globally: The Playbook for Expanding an Enterprise SaaS Company in Asia1:21:58 - The Future of HR Tech & Building a Global Product from IndiaHashtags#FounderThesis #RohitChennamaneni #Darwinbox #EnterpriseSaaS #SaaS #StartupPodcast #IndianStartups #Unicorn #HRtech #Leadership #B2BSales #VentureCapital #ProductManagement #AkshayDatt #MakeInIndia

India is on the cusp of a new fintech revolution. Post demonetization, where the sector has witnessed a surge in digital payments and lending, there have been very few fintech companies that focus on resolving the debt recovery opportunity.In a candid conversation with the host Akshay Datt, Rishabh Goel, Co-founder and CEO, Credgenics, takes us through his inspiring journey. He is an alumnus of the prestigious IIT Delhi and has worked with companies like Deutsche Bank and BlackRock before taking the entrepreneurial plunge.Rishabh harks back to his days at BlackRock which gave him a better understanding of the lending process, specifically from the collections perspective. This inspired him to dig deeper into the subject leading to the birth of Credgenics in 2019, which is already valued at USD 110 million.Tune in to this episode to hear Rishabh talk about how Credgenics is resolving India’s $200 billion+ bad debt problem by delivering customized strategies and legal routes to improve the collections of financial institutions.What you must not miss!Effect of COVID and RBI moratorium on collections.Funding and subsequent expansion of Credgenics.Scope of global expansion for the business. 

“There are always two roads which will emerge for an entrepreneur, and you have to take the one less travelled.” – Dr Ritesh MalikOur guest today is a person who has donned many hats – an entrepreneur, an investor, a public speaker, and a doctor.In a candid conversation with Akshay Datt, Dr Ritesh Malik, Founder, Innov8 Coworking, takes us through his amazing journey. Hailing from a family of doctors, his career was pre-decided. He studied medicine and started practising as a surgeon at Sir Gangaram Hospital in Delhi.It was in 2012, he decided to quit his medical profession and took the less travelled entrepreneurial route and ventured into an augmented reality start-up AdStuck as its co-founder, an experience that made him learn the art of entrepreneurship in a hard way.He also founded Guerrilla Ventures, an angel fund, in 2013, with an aim to create a self-sustaining ecosystem of entrepreneurs and has backed 70+ start-ups to date.Irked by the office conditions in India, Ritesh came up with an idea of coworking spaces and started Innov8 Coworking in January 2016. Soon after the launch, Innov8 was selected by Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator, where he was guided to expand to larger campuses. This attracted investors and since then Innov8 has expanded to 42 campuses across 8 major cities in India.Tune in to this episode to hear this medicine professional turned entrepreneur and angel investor speak about how Innov8 Coworking is transforming the office going experience in India.What you must not miss!A great product is everything.Treat consumers like God. The power of community.Acquisition by OYO Rooms.What he looks for in a venture as an investor.