1947 Rise

Akshay Kothari is the co-founder of Notion. The connected workspace for your docs, projects, and knowledge. Notion is currently valued at $10 billion dollars. 00:00 - Top moments 01:22 - Intro 02:18 - Experiences during upbringing in India led to the move to the US. 05:24 - Detailed account of the founding journey. 12:02 - Emotions felt when selling the company. 15:30 - Current state of Notion and vision for its future. 20:44 - Key reason for joining Notion. 23:54 - Pivotal story or experience that impacted the career in the US. 27:55 - How ambitions are set and managed. 32:56 - Excitement about the developments in the Indian technology ecosystem. 37:49 - Plans for involvement in the Indian tech ecosystem and consideration of future ventures in India. 41:44 - Strongest obsession outside of work. 43:56 - Known among friends for specific traits or activities outside of work.

Romita is the founder and CEO of Foxtale, a D2C skincare brand that offers targeted solutions for a variety of skin concerns. It’s considered one of the fastest-growing D2C brands in India. 00:00 - Top Moments 01:08 - Intro 02:36 - Influences that shaped the guest during their formative years. 23:16 - The guest's decision to move back to India. 41:21 - The founding story of Foxtale as shared by the guest. 53:41 - Advice from the guest for those considering moving back to India. 58:24 - The guest's current obsessions outside of work. 01:01:00 - Potential projects the guest would pursue with sufficient resources outside of work. 01:03:39 - Three people the guest would invite for dinner and the reasons behind their choices. 01:08:07 - What the guest is known for among their friends. 🔗 CONNECT WITH Romita Mazumdar 👥 Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/romita-ma... 🐦 Twitter - https://x.com/romitamazumdar 🔗 CONNECT WITH SHIVA 💌 Sign up to my weekly email newsletter - https://1947tech.substack.com/ 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfiQ... 🐦 Twitter -   / shivassangwan   🐦 Twitter -   / 1947rise   👥 Linkedin -   / shiva-sin.  . 🎙 ABOUT THE PODCAST Our purpose is to help startups go mainstream in 🇮🇳! 1947 Rise Podcast is helping in accelerating the speed of reverse brain drain and 1947 Operators Podcast is helping in increasing the number of operator-angels in the startup ecosystem. 🎧 LISTEN FOR FREE Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3KI3bZi Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3AEO5z5 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW

Abhijeet is the co-founder of Knya. Knya is India’s largest apparel company for medical professionals. Knya is protecting the protectors. 02:12 - Influences during upbringing 05:49 - Reason for joining Knya, invited by co-founder and wife 07:04 - Initial idea and the journey so far 11:42 - Memorable customer feedback that instilled pride 14:11 - Current scale of Knya 16:00 - Significant experiences shaping founders as builders 19:55 - Vision for Knya's future 22:17 - Perspective on the health care system and its evolution 28:19 - Typical daily routine 30:16 - Recent sources of happiness 31:16 - Known traits among friends 32:22 - Relationship with health 33:55 - Essential life hack 🔗 CONNECT WITH Abhijeet Kaji 👥 Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhijeet-... 🐦 Twitter - https://x.com/abhijeetkaji?lang=en 🔗 CONNECT WITH SHIVA 💌 Sign up to my weekly email newsletter - https://1947tech.substack.com/ 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfiQ... 🐦 Twitter -   / shivassangwan   🐦 Twitter -   / 1947rise   👥 Linkedin -   / shiva-sin.  . 🎙 ABOUT THE PODCAST Our purpose is to help startups go mainstream in 🇮🇳! 1947 Rise Podcast is helping in accelerating the speed of reverse brain drain and 1947 Operators Podcast is helping in increasing the number of operator-angels in the startup ecosystem. 🎧 LISTEN FOR FREE Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3KI3bZi Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3AEO5z5 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW

Amit Damani is the co-founder of StayVista, the largest villa rental company in India. StayVista is India's largest luxury villa rental brand, with a collection of over 800 handpicked holiday homes across 60+ destinations in the country. 00:00 - Top moments 01:13 - Intro 02:00 - Influences During Childhood 03:44 - Moving to the US 04:20 - Learnings in the US 06:46 - Decision to Return to India 11:42 - Inspiration for StayVista 19:21 - Turning Point in StayVista 25:14 - Vision for StayVista 26:22 - Evolution of Travel Hospitality in India 30:35 - Favorite StayVista Property 32:19 - A Day in the Life 33:59 - Advice on Returning to India 35:44 - Skills from the US Applied in India 38:27 - Recent Joys 39:32 - Ideal Dinner Guests 41:10 - Relationship with Sleep and Health 43:57 - Essential Life Hack 44:39 - Setting and Controlling Ambitions 47:14 - Acts of Kindness 48:39 - Secret to Being Zen and Relaxed 🔗 CONNECT WITH Amit Damani 👥 Linkedin -   / amitdamani   🐦 Twitter - https://x.com/am_damani 🔗 CONNECT WITH SHIVA 💌 Sign up to my weekly email newsletter - https://1947tech.substack.com/ 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfiQ... 🐦 Twitter -   / shivassangwan   🐦 Twitter -   / 1947rise   👥 Linkedin -   / shiva-sin.  . 🎙 ABOUT THE PODCAST Our purpose is to help startups go mainstream in 🇮🇳! 1947 Rise Podcast is helping in accelerating the speed of reverse brain drain and 1947 Operators Podcast is helping in increasing the number of operator-angels in the startup ecosystem. 🎧 LISTEN FOR FREE Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3KI3bZi Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3AEO5z5 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW

00:00 - Top moments 01:23 - Intro 02:56 - Investing in space and defense 06:03 - Raising the first fund and learnings 08:41 - Key introduction that changed trajectory 10:25 - Evolution of portfolio construction 12:27 - Evaluating startups in space and defense tech 15:52 - Sourcing, picking, and winning investments 20:23 - Pros and cons of being a solo GP 22:18 - Mistakes and changes in Fund Two 25:25 - Valuable lesson learned 27:14 - Biggest industry myths 30:16 - Investment in Indian startup Pixel 32:51 - Current obsessions outside of work 33:52 - Recent sources of happiness 34:33 - Essential life hack 35:42 - Persona outside of work 🔗 CONNECT WITH Jonathan Lacoste 👥 Linkedin -   / jonathanlacoste   🐦 Twitter - https://x.com/lacostejonathan 🔗 CONNECT WITH SHIVA 💌 Sign up to my weekly email newsletter - https://1947tech.substack.com/ 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfiQ... 🐦 Twitter -   / shivassangwan   🐦 Twitter -   / 1947rise   👥 Linkedin -   / shiva-sin.  .

Ruchit Agarwal is the co-founder and CFO of CARS24. CARS24 is a leading AutoTech company streamlining and revolutionizing the sale, purchase, and financing of pre-owned cars in India, Australia, Thailand, and UAE CARS 24 is currently valued at $3.3 Billion. 00:00 - Top Moments 01:03 - Intro 02:10 - What were few things, that shaped you while you were growing up? 19:41 - What were some company dying experiences? What has helped you overcome those challenges? 27:32 - What's the magical outcome, you as a team hold for Cars24? 29:50 - What was the topmost milestone you had set early on? 33:53 - How do you think people should look at the possibility of moving back to India? What are the opportunities that you see in India? 42:55 - How do you, set and control your own ambition? 46:17 - What was the realisation? 48:25 - What's been, making you smile lately? 49:30 - How have you been sleeping, lately? 50:47 - What's the next metric that you're working on in terms of health? 53:36 - What do your friends know you for? 🔗 CONNECT WITH Ruchit Agarwal 👥 Linkedin -   / ruchitagarwal   🐦 Twitter - https://x.com/ruchitagarwal1 🔗 CONNECT WITH SHIVA 💌 Sign up to my weekly email newsletter - https://1947tech.substack.com/ 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfiQ... 🐦 Twitter -   / shivassangwan   🐦 Twitter -   / 1947rise   👥 Linkedin -   / shiva-sin.  .

Leo is a co-founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures and Humba Ventures. He writes $1m-$3m checks via Susa, mostly in B2B SaaS companies, and $250k-$500k checks via Humba, mostly in deep tech and in critical sectors (manufacturing, energy, defense, etc). Humba is a new early stage fund in the Susa fund family. 00:00 - Top moments 01:09 - Intro 02:30 - What led you into investing? What was the founding story of Susa Ventures? 04:43 - What was the portfolio construction and the thesis of Susa Ventures? And has it evolved over time? 07:30 - What’s the thesis around Humba and What’s the portfolio construction around it? 10:12 - What’s the most overrated advice that you’ve heard about fundraising for funds? 12:03 - How would you go about, sourcing LPs, building relationships, and closing LPs? 13:49 -What was the the hardest lesson or the biggest mistake, that you did as a group when you were fundraising and you realized later on? 15:40 - How have you, improved over in each segment, around sourcing? 19:37 - What’s the best way to build a great deal flow? 21:23 - How one can think about building a brand? 22:45 - What’s your take on picking? 25:26 - What do you think are the biggest lies out there? 27:50 - How much do you think, investing is random and luck? 29:47 - What’s the hardest thing, about building Susa Ventures and Humba Ventures? 31:40 - What’s making you smile lately? 32:49 - Is there a hack that you can’t live your life without? 34:18 - If you’re hosting a dinner, and could invite three folks, dead or alive, who would they be? 35:18 - What do your friends know you for?

Prashant is the co-founder of EaseMyTrip. Ease my trip is among very few consumer-startups in the world, that bootstrapped all the way till IPO & later even became a unicorn. Raghu is the founder of Zolve. Zolve is world's first cross-border Neobank. Before Zolve, Raghu built and sold ride hailing startup Taxi for sure to Ola for $200M dollars 00:00 - Top Moments 01:25 - Intro 03:41 - How are you both sleeping these days? 08:40 - What were the scariest moments while building your company? How did you persist through it? 30:37 - What’s been your relationship with health? 49:34 - What’s been your relationship with desire? How do you set and manage your ambition? 🔗 CONNECT WITH Prashant Pitti 👥 Linkedin - www.linkedin.com/in/prashantpitti/ 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/ppitti?lang=en 🔗 CONNECT WITH 👥 Linkedin -   / graghunandan   🐦 Twitter -   / raghugnandan  

Vinny Pujji is the Managing Partner at Left Lane Capital. Left Lane Capital is a global venture capital firm that invests in high-growth internet and consumer technology companies. Notable investments include GoStudent, Jackpocket, Bilt Rewards and many more Before Left Lane Vinny was at Insight Partners - where he led insights investments in India 00:00 - Top moments 01:32 - Intro 03:16 - How did you get into the world of investing and What is the founding story of Left Lane Capital? 07:56 - Founders were telling you, "hey, there's something that you're doing. Not many people are doing out there" What is that really specifically?" 10:31 - How did you arrive at that portfolio construction and thesis? 12:53 - Do you think being a global firm gives you an edge? If so how does it give you an edge? 15:53 - What's been the hardest thing for you in terms of building the fund? 19:26 - Do you remember, an inflection point in your investing career that just changed your trajectory as an investor? 22:54 - How has your relationship to investing in India started? How has it evolved over time? 26:41 - How did the investment oppourtunity of AstroTalk come about? 29:59 - What's been the biggest learnings for you through working with the founders in India? 32:52 - What needs to be true for founders in India to get funded by Vinnie and the team at Left Lane Capital? 34:28 - What's been making you smile lately? 35:07 - What's your relationship with health? 37:18 - How's tennis, going for you? 38:27 - What was like your most favorite thing about India? 39:26 - Who are you outside of work? 🔗 CONNECT WITH Vinny Pujji 👥 Linkedin -   / vpujji   🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/vpujji?lang=en 🔗 CONNECT WITH SHIVA 💌 Sign up to my weekly email newsletter - https://1947tech.substack.com/ 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfiQ... 🐦 Twitter -   / shivassangwan   🐦 Twitter -   / 1947rise   👥 Linkedin -   / shiva-sin.  .

Aditya Agarwal is the Partner at South Park Commons. SPC is a community of technologists and builders dedicated to helping each other explore, learn, and get from -1 to 0. Prior to SPC Aditya was the CTO of Dropbox and he was one of Facebook’s first engineers. 00:00 - Top moments 01:22 - Intro 02:41 - What is the founding story of South Park Commons? 13:26 - What is the thesis and the portfolio construction of the fund? 15:12 - What type of check sizes are these and what is the portfolio construction like? 16:30 -What are some examples of companies that have gone from -1 to 0 under SPC? 19:09 - What are some examples of companies that got incubated or took a bigger route? 23:03 - What has been the hardest thing about building SPC? 25:17 - What are your learnings from backing these top founders? What are some similar patterns? 28:45 - What is your relationship with India? What are your learnings from working with Indian founders? 31:36 - How can Indian companies apply for SPC? 32:35 - Are you looking to spend more time in India and what is your view on India? 35:44 - What's been making you smile these days? 36:22 - What's your relationship with health? 39:27 - What is that one hack, that you cannot live your life without? 40:01 - What's on your techno playlist these days 🔗 CONNECT WITH Aditya Agarwal 👥 Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityaagarwal3/ 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/adityaag 🔗 CONNECT WITH SHIVA 💌 Sign up to my weekly email newsletter - https://1947tech.substack.com/ 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfiQ... 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/shivassangwan 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/1947Rise 👥 Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiva-sin...