Founder Thesis

About Arjun MalhotraArjun Malhotra is the General Partner at Good Capital, an India-focused, seed-stage venture capital fund that he co-founded with his late brother, Rohan Malhotra. Before becoming a full-time investor, Arjun co-founded Investopad, a startup incubator that became a vibrant community hub for entrepreneurs. The 12 angel investments made during this time, including in the future unicorn Meesho, formed a portfolio that generated a 138% IRR and has since returned over 50 times the initial capital. Recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30, Arjun has led Good Capital to build a portfolio of over 25 startups, achieve successful exits like Simsim's acquisition by Google, and is now deploying a fund targeting over $50 million to back the next generation of Indian founders.Key Insights from the Conversation The Contrarian Thesis: Good Capital's strategy is a direct rebuttal to the Silicon Valley playbook; it focuses on empowering India's massive network of intermediaries (agents, resellers, local stores) with technology rather than trying to replace them. The Power of Constraints: Capital constraints in their early days forced a highly disciplined, high-conviction investment model, which Arjun now sees as a strategic advantage against the "silent killer" of making too many low-conviction bets. Founder-Problem Fit: Arjun prioritizes founders who are "deeply entrenched in the problem statement" and on a "journey of learning," often preferring them over seasoned experts who might be constrained by conventional wisdom. Betting on Unique Behaviors: Instead of top-down market sizing, Good Capital looks for unique, counterintuitive user behaviors that, if extrapolated, could unlock massive, previously unseen markets, as was the case with Meesho. AI as an Augmentation Tool: The firm's focus is on startups that use AI to "supercharge" human intermediaries—handling tasks they aren't good at—thereby combining human trust with technological efficiency.YouTube Chapters & Timestamps[00:00] - An "Accidental" Journey into Venture Capital[02:29] - The Investopad Experiment: From "Terrible Ideas" to Community Hub[10:02] - Becoming Angel Investors & Building a 50x-Return Portfolio[14:14] - The VC Playbook: Good Capital's Network-Driven Strategy[25:06] - The "Silent Killer" of Optionality & The Launch of Fund I[33:19] - The Art of Fundraising: Pitching LPs on a "Blind Pool" of Capital[38:39] - The Contrarian Thesis: Why Good Capital Bets on Middlemen[54:15] - How to Build High Conviction: Evaluating Founders, Ideas, and Markets[1:04:16] - Learning from Mistakes: The "Anti-Portfolio" & Borrowed Conviction[1:09:15] - The VC Mindset: How to Stay Sharp and Keep LearningYouTube Hashtags#FounderThesis #ArjunMalhotra #GoodCapital #VentureCapital #StartupIndia #IndianStartups #Entrepreneurship #FounderJourney #StartupFunding #InvestmentStrategy #Meesho #ProductMarketFit #AngelInvesting #SeedFunding #MakeInIndia #StartupPodcast #VC #TechIndia #Investopad

Regular listeners of the Founder Thesis podcast would have heard so many stories of young founders who build their venture straight out of college and keep at it for a decade until they find success.This episode is the exact opposite of that kind of Story.Rajesh Shet had more than two decades of experience in the corporate world when he started SahiBandhu, and that is the reason why in just 4 years SahiBandhu has overtaken much older and better funded rivals to become the gold loan aggregator with the largest monthly disbursements. In fact, their closest competitor has raised almost 200 million dollars over the last nine years.This phenomenal achievement is on the back a hyper focussed strategy that was executed to perfection by Rajesh and his team.This phenomenal conversation is a deep dive into the market of gold loans in India, the gaps in the market, and how SahiBandhu hyper scaled by smartly filling those gapsStay tuned and subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast for more such deep dive conversations

There are two types of entrepreneurs that we celebrate. The first one is the founder who raised a lot of money and built a highly valued startup on the back of investor money. The second type of entrepreneur - which we think is really the more special type of entrepreneur, is one who started from scratch and built up a business brick by brick on the back of his hustle and grit. HP Singh is a great example of the second type of entrepreneur. He was a CA who accidentally got a chance to start a lending business in the nineteen nineties and has since then built up Satin Creditcare into one of the few listed micro finance companies in India - which today employs about 12 thousand people and has a market capitalization of 2,000 crores.This is truly a story of the old-fashioned approach of building a business using grit, resilience and a bit of luck and HP Singh shares tons of lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.Stay tuned and subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast on any audio streaming app.

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I tell you that in this episode, we are featuring a Patel who built a business in the US? The stereotype says that he would be running a motel or a convenience store - but this Patel has built a b2b SaaS company that is almost a unicorn. Nishant Patel moved to the US when he was just 14, and then went on to become a techie in the San Francisco Bay area at the peak of the dot com bubble in the year 2000. He was there when the term cloud was coined, and he was so fascinated by the promise of the cloud that he quit his job and started Raw Engineering - which was helping companies adopt cloud technologies. He then achieved the rare feat of building not one but three product businesses within that services business, and the biggest of them is Contentstack. Contentstack is a fascinating business - it’s a pioneer in the space of the headless CMS, and this episode is a deep dive that will help you understand the content space and how it has evolved over the last decade, and what is the secret sauce behind Contentstack because of which it has raised almost 180 million dollars and is near a unicorn valuation.Subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast for more such deep dives with tech leaders.

Amit Koshal’s entrepreneurial journey began while working on a groundbreaking product at Intuit. Now, at TWID, he’s disrupting payment networks by turning reward points into a currency for transactions—an idea refined over five years of experimentation and failures, eventually leading to the product-market fit. This conversation delves into his path as a founder and his vision for a "happily ever after."Get notified about the latest releases and bonus content by subscribing to our newsletter at www.founderthesis.comRead more about Twid:-1.Twid Unveils Industry-First 'Reward Mandates' to Revolutionise Subscription Payment Setups, Anticipates 15 per cent-20 per cent Reduction in Payment Failures2.From Points To Payments: Transforming Loyalty Programs For The Digital Age3.How rewards-based payment app Twid lets you use loyalty points to shop, eat out, and travel

After a career in U.S. investment banking, Nikhil returned to India to build Imarticus, offering offline-focused boot camps to upskill fresh graduates. Unlike many in the space, Nikhil views Imarticus as an education business rather than an edtech company, with a fundamental focus on delivering real learning outcomes. This approach has helped the company grow and reach an annual revenue of 300 crores with very little outside funding. In this episode, Nikhil talks about how he built a successful education business and discusses the future of offline learning in today’s digital world.Get notified about the latest releases and bonus content by subscribing to our newsletter at www.founderthesis.comRead more about Imarticus Learning:-1.Success Stories: How Data Science and Data Analytics Courses Have Transformed Careers?2.Winning Stroke: Interview With Nikhil Barshikar, MD, Imarticus Learning3.MY STARTUP IDEA: Imarticus Learning founder on his Eureka moment4.Bridging the industry-academia gap: Minimizing wrong career choices5.Celebrating a decade of excellence in professional education: Imarticus Learning completes 10 years6.Imarticus Learning the first and only approved provider for world's top 4 accounting certifications

Every year millions of young people migrate for jobs or education, creating a big market for hostels and paying guest accommodations. However, succeeding in this business depends on managing the operational complexities and getting the small details right. Zolo, one of India’s largest co-living companies, has mastered this challenge, currently managing living spaces for 60,000 people. In this episode, Nikhil shares the management mantra that helps him lead Zolo’s 2,500 employees and explains how he made operational excellence the company’s core strength.Get notified about the latest releases and bonus content by subscribing to our newsletter at www.founderthesis.comRead more about Zolo Stays:-1.Zolo Stays redefines living experience for students and singles2.How Zolostays is using customer experience to create its niche in the crowded co- living market3.We provide 60-70% more value to the stay compared to local PGs: Dr. Nikhil Sikri, Co-founder and CEO of Zolo Stays4.Handling large teams across multiple verticals, we need to ensure that they are involved and know they are part of the team: Nikhil Sikri, Zolo Stays5.A fresh take on urban living

Neeraj Khandelwal is a passionate Indian who aspired to serve his country as a civil servant. When his initial plan fell through, he channelled his determination into exploring new ways to fulfil this objective. He saw the transformative potential of cryptocurrency and invested in building India's crypto infrastructure, leading to the creation of CoinDCX. In this episode, he decodes how crypto will change the world and how CoinDCX is paving the way for this future.Read more about CoinDCX:-1.Blockchain critical for India: 40u40 2024 Neeraj Khandelwal, CoinDCX2.Revolutionising Web3 integration: CoinDCX’s Neeraj Khandelwal reveals Okto Web3 SDK's game-changing role in India's Web3 mass adoption3.CoinDCX’s money minters4.Revolutionising Finance- AMA with Neeraj Khadelwal5.Regulation, conducive environment among top factors to fuel crypto trading among Indian investors: Sumit Gupta of CoinDCX6.Celebrating 6 years of building the future of Internet in India.7.4 observations on India’s booming crypto sector from CoinDCX co-founder Neeraj Khandelwal

Anand Mahurkar is an IT veteran and founder of Findability Sciences, dedicated to improving data retrieval in enterprises. He discusses how AI is revolutionizing large companies, enabling better decision-making and operational efficiency. Anand reveals the struggles organizations face with data integration and the limitations of traditional search engines. He also highlights the importance of specialized AI solutions for managing structured and unstructured data, showcasing advancements in large language models and their applications in various industries.

Deepak Sahni shares his remarkable journey of building one of the largest diagnostics companies in the preventive space. Starting his entrepreneurial journey as a teenager, Deepak has consistently dared to dream bigger with each venture over the last two decades. In this episode, he reveals the secrets behind scaling Healthians to a revenue run rate of over 500 crores and raising 80 million dollars. This conversation is nothing short of a masterclass in entrepreneurship—perfect for anyone looking to take their big leap.Get notified about the latest releases and bonus content by subscribing to our newsletter at www.founderthesis.comRead more about Healthians:-1.How a College Dropout Fought Back, Completed His Degree, and Built a Rs 240 Crore Turnover Health Lab Chain2.How One Man’s Dream is Making India Healthier3.Once A College Dropout, Now The CEO Of India's Leading Diagnostics Firm, Healthians, Meet Health-Tech Veteran, Deepak Sahni4.COVID 19 – How a Crisis is Nudging us to Reinvent