Founders Unfiltered

A famous World War II term ‘Blitzkreg’ was used to describe scenarios where armies moved very fast, surprised enemies, and won. You either won big or lost big. ‘Blitzscaling’ in the startup world, while on a positive note, has a similar perspective. Companies find their space in a market and move extremely fast to expand their user base and revenue. Like the armies, this is often done on unfamiliar paths in spite of lurking risks and adversity!  Such an approach led CoinSwtich Kuber to become the largest crypto trading platform in India with 10M+ users in just 15 months. Stay with us until the end as this promises to be an engaging conversation for anyone observing the crypto or startup space! https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

In today’s episode, Prashant talks about this journey of navigating a web of regulatory hurdles, riding through the pandemic, and most importantly -  building trust into the DNA of 1mg! We also learn about his transition into the TATA group and how this cements his aspiration of building India’s largest and most admired healthcare brand! As always, we leave you with a gem of unfiltered advice at the end!   For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Last fortnight Chargebee appointed its Chief Financial Officer, a few months after turning unicorn in an incredible year for Indian SaaS For more details: https://ajuniorvc.com/chargebee-saas-unicorn-india-startup-revenue-zuora-chennai-case-study/

When Pandemic struck in 2020, the banking industry was ready for disruption- the act of physical visits to bank or ATMs had to be done away with - which gave a golden opportunity to a new form of Banking to emerge- known as Neo Banking. Jitendra Gupta- our guest for today -is the one of the most known faces in the Fintech space – he is also the co-founder of Jupiter- a mobile first neo banking platform targeted at millennials. In todays podcast we discuss the Jitendra's journey so far- and get insights on how he managed to bring Jupiter from Ideation to reality. For more visit - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Last fortnight, Paytm opened India’s biggest IPO. Join us for a behind-the-scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece - Will Paytm’s Rollercoaster hit IPO Gold? Link to article - https://ajuniorvc.com/paytm-ipo-fintech-rollercoaster-mall-wallet-business-unicorn-startup-india/

Jaynti was born and brought up in a small town in Ahmedabad. He studied at a local college, where students’ ambition was limited to getting a job at TCS. Jaynti too followed a similar path and took a job at an Indian corporate. A friend introduced him to YC’s Hacker News - a website focusing on technology and budding startups. Desiring to work with great people, he tried cold mailing people at top US startups - even offering to work for free, but didn’t receive any response. He worked at a couple of startups, and learnt more about the zero to one building journey. He was always working on multiple side projects, waiting for something that really clicks. Jaynti came across bitcoin and was drawn to the endless possibilities the technology offered. Diving deeper into blockchains, he discovered the limitations of existing tech. Ethereum had made it possible for anyone to make apps on blockchain, but as the network grew transacting on ETH became increasingly slow and expensive - with cost of 1 transaction rising even higher than $80. To solve the problem of scaling blockchains, Jaynti created Matic - a layer 2 solution that augments Ethereum and drives its scalability. Using Matic brings the transaction cost to less than 1 INR, while also making it 20 times faster. Today, Matic’s worth more than $10B and is used by companies worldwide for applications including NFTs, DeFi For more details - https://ajuniorvc.com/podcast/

Last fortnight, Zee and Invesco continued their major tussle, hot on the heels of Disney+Hotstar breaking records with the IPL and Facebook rebranding itself to Meta.   Join us for a behind-the-scenes peek at the A Junior VC piece - Who will win Media’s Game of Thrones.   For more details - https://ajuniorvc.com/media-google-zee-invesco-ott-netflix-winner-tech-startups-inshorts-dailyhunt/ More info on: https://ajuniorvc.com/

Raghav went to study in the US not knowing what to expect. Living there was an entirely new experience for him. Even simple things like purchasing groceries had some technology involved for increased convenience. He worked in the Bay Area as a software engineer at emerging startups including Yelp & Twitter. After 2 years, he realized the world outside SF was full of opportunities, with many problems yet to be solved, and decided to come back to India. Having witnessed the era of emerging marketplaces like Airbnb, Uber transforming the US service sector, Raghav wanted to do something similar. He started his first business in the ride-hailing space which didn’t work out. After a few months, he met Abhiraj & Varun at dinner through a common friend. The 3 of them discussed startup ideas late into the night and arrived at creating a marketplace for gig workers. Thus, Urban Company was born. Being in a highly competitive space with 60+ startups at one point in time, UC eventually emerged as the leader owing to its focus on quality user experience and mission to empower the workforce. Today, UC has 32000+ trained professionals and has served over 5M happy customers. For more visit: ajuniorvc.com/podcast

Last fortnight, India added 500 more “Tech Crorepatis” as Freshdesk Inc IPOed at a valuation of  $13 billion making it the first Indian SaaS company to get listed on Nasdaq. For more details - https://ajuniorvc.com/freshworks-india-saas-zoho-unicorn-ipo-story-history-girish/

Jaydeep grew up in a Bengali household that loved food. While working in Pune, he missed the Kathi rolls he loved growing up and decided to start a restaurant as a side project. The two launched Faasos, a restaurant serving rolls, and outsourced its operations. Jaydeep then went to pursue his MBA at INSEAD and landed a job at McKinsey London. After 5 years, he returned to India and had to choose between joining the firm’s rapidly growing India office or growing Faasos. Faasos started from a single restaurant in Pune and eventually expanded to 10 across Mumbai and Bangalore. It offered doorstep delivery, a novel concept back in the day! In spite of the customer love, Faasos struggled to make unit economics work due to the high cost of real estate - a common problem for Indian restaurants. A shift in strategy was driven by a customer survey insight - 74% of customers had never visited a Faasos restaurant! This epiphany led them to adopt a 'delivery only' model and cut down costs. Rebel Foods eventually pioneered the concept of 'cloud kitchens' - a single physical kitchen serving as multiple brands. Today, Rebel Foods is the leading internet restaurant company globally with 15+ brands and 3500+ restaurants across 10 countries. For more details visit: ajuniorvc.com/podcast