The Neon Show

Today I have with me the entrepreneur who I’ve always looked up to. I consider him the Dronacharya of the Indian startup ecosystem.This man has never shied away from expressing himself freely. His company was the first tech company in India to go public and inspired a generation of companies to go public like MakeMyTrip, Zomato, and PolicyBazaar. All entrepreneurs dream of taking their companies public and the very few who reach that milestone remain busy managing that company or end up taking retirement.But this man never rested. He is responsible for many startups in India that have gone public.Today I have with me Padma Shri awardee Sanjeev Bikhchandani Sir. This episode is about the unconventional choices of Sanjeev Sir and his philosophy of making India great.I would also like to thank our sponsors Prime Venture Partners for sponsoring the Neon Show.Hope you enjoy it.Send us a text

Jigar K Shah, co-founder of 82 Degree East, shares his journey from investment manager to building a skincare brand with Deepika Padukone. They focused on creating a unique brand fulfilling real consumer needs, discussing design, marketing, and managing expectations. They also talk about skincare routines, starting the event, mistakes made by founders, and building a high-value skincare brand.

In today’s episode of the 100x Entrepreneur podcast, we're joined by our very own co-founders, Nansi Mishra, and Siddhartha Ahluwalia. Did you know that behind the scenes, these founders have been cooking up some incredible strategies? While many listeners might not be aware, Nansi will reveal how Siddhartha's passion for investing led him on an extraordinary journey. Siddhartha shares his quest of understanding the VC world from close quarters, his struggle to get into the world of VC, and his final landing at Prime Ventures Capital as the community head.  Nansi and Siddhartha also throw light on the dynamic landscape of second-time founders , Siddhartha’s preference for companies and why SaaS companies are securing funding with relative ease nowadays. Whether you're an entrepreneur, an aspiring founder, or just curious about the startup space, this episode is your one-stop resource for all things venture capital. Learn what it takes to attract VC attention and raise that crucial funding.Subscribe to the 100x Entrepreneur podcast today for more inspiring and informative episodes on the entrepreneurial journey!🚀✨Send us a text

In this episode of the 100x Entrepreneur podcast, we have Mr. Shripati Acharya, Managing Partner of Prime Venture Partners, one of India’s top early-stage venture capital funds.Throughout his career, be it as a business lead at Cisco or as a co‐founder of Snapfish, the world's largest photo site acquired by HP, or at Transarc, which was acquired by IBM, Shripati has combined his passion to build great teams, an extraordinary desire to excel and a keen eye for spotting the tales. He is known for being astute with a razor-sharp intellect and a Zen‐like devotion to data-driven decision‐making.Shripati has also worked alongside Mr. Nandan Nilekani on the UIDAI project. Having spent substantial parts of working career in the United States and India addressing worldwide markets, Shripati brings a global management perspective.During the podcast, Shripat shares valuable insights on raising funds,early stage investing, avoiding mistakes as a founder, maintaining a healthy work-life balance and missed investment opportunities too.If you are an early-stage entrepreneur, we recommend that you tune in to the podcast for a wealth of insights from the startup ecosystem. Be sure to hear the podcast to the end and leave a comment with your favorite parts! Send us a text

Welcome to this exciting podcast ep, where we will delve into the world of Prafull Billore, the most famous Chaiwala. In our conversation, we highlight various aspects of his life that have contributed to his success. From understanding how he gets his passion and self-confidence to discussing short-term versus long-term goals, we cover it all!We also talk about Prafull's journey post-COVID and how he has been able to recover after facing several challenges that helped him mature with experience despite being only 26 years old. As you listen further, you'll discover why Prafull believes that bigger struggles lead to bigger successes and how he constantly strives towards improvement every day.So come join us on this thrilling ride where we learn more about what else Prafull is planning in store for the future!Notes - 00:00 - Highlights of the conversation01:12 - Prafull Billore, the most famous Chaiwala03:05 - What makes him so confident06:58 - Having short-term goals v/s long-term goals09:25 - Opening his 2nd outlet12:33 - Recovering post COVID15:21 - Current scale of opening new outlets17:58 - Challenges while scaling21:17 - How do his thoughts become inspiring?25:42 - Emulating successful people like Jeff Bezos28:33 - Maturing with experiences at the age of 2630:09 - “Bigger the struggle, bigger the success.”32:23 - How is Prafull of today better than the Prafull of yesterday? 34:13 - Best quality - “Learning How to ask for help!”40:14 - Bias for action - Content creator vs Entrepreneur42:12 - What more is he planning for?Send us a text

Whatfix has a user base of over 10 million people and has been used to create over 1.5 million digital walkthroughs and tutorials. It has 500+ enterprise customers worldwide, including companies like HP, Schneider Electric, and Autodesk. Since its launch in 2014, Whatfix has become a go-to solution for businesses across multiple industries.The platform has also received the "Best SaaS Product for Web/App Development" at the 2021 SaaS Awards.In this episode, we have Whatfix founders Khadim Batti and Vara Kumar Namburu share the journey of Whatfix from their first offline Dreamforce event to reaching 10 Million people, their vision, clients, scale, culture and more. Notes - 00:00 - Highlights of the conversation02:06 - What’s Whatfix and how it’s unique04:07 - Strategy of CTO moving to the US and CEO being in India06:31 - Bringing Vispi Daver as an Angel Investor10:18 - Avoid falling into the trap of following someone else’s playbook as a first-time founder14:13 - Getting the first few Enterprise customers15:57 - Taking Counter-intuitive bets19:40 - Their first big event Dreamforce 25:02 - Going one step back, would they do a 10-15 member round table for their most interested CIOs post Dreamforce event?26:49 - Focusing on farming with Account Managers31:36 - Advice to SaaS founder: When to focus on Brand? 34:10 - Brand-building after their first Dreamforce36:45 - Their initial Ideal customer profile37:58 - Challenges & Hurdles in their 1 to 10 journey39:23 - Examples where the deal got stuck at IT Security or CFO-level43:55 - Enabling multiple stakeholders in a sales decision46:30 - Traditional profile of a sales person47:24 - Hiring profile of their initial senior sales team49:28 - How to deal with people’s Title expectation?54:23 - Building their culture early-on56:28 - Mistakes in their early journey58:06 - Guiding the early team in current journey1:00:05 - Time & efforts in recent rounds of fundings1:04:27 - Raising from Stellaris Venture Partners1:05:32 - Changing path amongst the founders1:06:59 - Account plan review with customers1:08:50 - Having set accounts with every leader to help the customers succeedSend us a text

Imagine a social micro-blogging platform like Twitter that allows users to express themselves in their local languages on a large scale. Well, that's precisely what Koo offers. In today's episode, we are joined by Aprameya Radhakrishna, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Koo. Aprameya's first startup was TaxiForSure, which was acquired by Ola Cabs in 2015. Since then, he has invested in over 30 early-stage startups, including Unacademy, TapChief, and Daily Ninja. During our conversation, Aprameya discusses his thoughts on Indian startups and tech talent building for global markets, his experience with VCs as a second-time entrepreneur, and much more.Notes - 00:00 - Highlights 01:47 - Aprameya Radhakrishna and Koo's story03:23 - Koo's scale in India and Brazil08:30 - Current market headwinds10:59 - Koo's positioning in the audience's mind13:17 - VC and investor perspective being a second-time founder15:13 - Going deeper in India v/s Going Global16:30 - Exiting TaxiForSure17:56 - Focus on product and traction while building a product20:29 - Learnings from TaxiForSure 22:36 - Confidence to go global as a consumer internet company from India26:50 - Self-doubt while starting Koo31:14 - Change in Aprameya's ability to read the market33:22 - Gut feeling about the recession's duration37:04 - Balancing confidence and arrogance as a founder40:17 - Relationship with VCs over time45:00 - Future bets in the next 10 years46:32 - Riskiest bets that paid off48:02 - Financial independence's impact on Aprameya as a person49:57 - Aprameya's other aspirations besides building Koo51:53 - Is the core India shining?Send us a text

A report by Deloitte and Wipro estimated that the value of B2B digital payments in India will reach $700 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 30% from 2020.The B2B digital payment ecosystem in India has been growing rapidly, driven by factors such as: # Government initiatives to promote digital payments# Increasing adoption of mobile devices and internet connectivity# Growing awareness of the benefits of digital payments among businesses and moreIn this episode we have with us Akash Sinha, Co-founder & CEO, Cashfree payments, talking about B2B Digital payments ecosystem in India. Cashfree Payments has processed over 200 million transactions as of 2021, with a total transaction value of over $12 billion. It serves over 3,00,000 businesses, ranging from small startups to large enterprises, across various industries such as e-commerce, travel, hospitality, and fintech such as Dream11, Zomato, Dunzo, CRED, Acko, and Nykaa amongst others.Cashfree Payments offers various payment solutions, such as payment gateway, payouts, auto-collect, recurring payments, and marketplace settlements. They have also launched new products like Cashgram and Cashfree AI to improve the user experience and prevent fraud.Let’s deep dive into the episode where Akash has their initial journey with heavy competition in the market, complying with RBI regulations as a payment solution provider, and much more.Notes - 00:00 - Highlights of the conversation02:07 - Intro to Akash Sinha, Cashfree Payments and Payment ecosystem in India03:09 - Journey so far & Indian payment’s landscape06:37 - Mapping the payment landscape’s online segment10:05 - Cashfree’s share in B2B payments in India11:06 - Strengths of Razorpay & Cashfree Payments13:59 - Larger customers such as - Meesho, Swiggy, Zepto, and CRED among others14:50 - SME signups and payments insights across India16:59 - Scaling with a Platform approach18:14 - Being part of YC early-on20:22 - Strengths as a CEO & Founder24:57 - Y-o-Y growth at Cashfree Payments26:01 - Plans for IPO26:31 - Emotional Journey of a founder in the last 8 years27:53 - Steering clear in a competitive market back in 201532:05 - Building multiple products to solve multiple problems34:44 - India’s growing Digital infrastructure38:03 - Advice for entrepreneurs to choose tough markets with large tailwinds39:56 - Coming from a Non-fintech background42:32 - How fast is the Digital payments market growing? 43:35 - How tough is it to be compliant with RBI regulatory changes? Send us a text

By end-2019, just before the pandemic, the market for Coworking spaces was spread over some 30 million sq. ft, with 471,782 seats across the top seven markets in India, per JLL Research data.In December 2022, the numbers grew to 50 million sq. ft and 750,000+ seats. In the next three years, the co-working space market in India is set to cross the 1-million-seats mark spread over 75 million sq. ft.WeWork India is the leading provider of flexible workspace solutions with almost 70,000+ seats across 44+ locations in India.In this episode, we have Karan Virwani, CEO, WeWork India, talking about his experience of bringing and scaling WeWork in India, over the past 7 years.Karan brought WeWork to India in a partnership tie-up with his family's Embassy Group. Starting business operations in the country with 100k sq ft, WeWork India has progressed to 6.5mn sq ft as of today. Within 6 years, WeWork India has grown from 2,200 members in WeWork Galaxy, Bangalore, to 44 locations across 6 cities in India today - Bengaluru, Mumbai, Gurugram, Noida, Hyderabad, and Pune.During the episode, Karan shares the ups and downs in their journey, especially during Covid, and how they tackled the situation which helped them build goodwill and scale back faster post things normalized. This podcast is for anyone who wants to have an insider view of India’s growing Flex workspace market.Notes - 00:00 - Highlights of the conversation01:34 - Intro to Karan Virwani, WeWork and Global Co-working phenomenon02:27 - Bringing WeWork to India09:36 - Why not start under the Embassy brand name and why start with WeWork? 12:16 - Borrowing the DNA of WeWork Global to India 13:37 - Scaling to 40+ WeWorks and 70,000+ Desks in India15:57 - Back into Growth mode post Covid17:14 - Having multiple landlords for Pan-India growth18:39 - Initial investment & roadblocks in their journey24:43 - Plans for WeWork IPO in India25:33 - Coworking customer segment in India v/s Global33:16 - Coworking as a culture amongst Traditional & Legacy companies34:05 - Operating in a certain price segment36:44 - Partner-led approach during Covid40:01 - Sector-wise demand of commercial real-estate43:07 - Hitting $1 Bn revenue in 3 years43:38 - Coworking as a % of Commerical Real Estate in IndiaSend us a text

As per Tracxn, there are 1100+ SaaS startups in Chennai as of Feb 2023. Chennai has rightfully gained the title of the SAAS capital of India, thanks to the expansion of companies such as Zoho and Freshworks. Although these two firms have recently surpassed the $500 million revenue milestone, making them the most prominent success stories in the realm of Indian-based SAAS companies, there are other companies contributing to Chennai's reputation in the market. Chargebee, CloudCherry, HappyFox, and FourKites are among the businesses that are creating a unique space in the industry.In this episode, we have with us Srikrishnan Ganesan Founder, Rocketlane. Srikrishnan's SaaS journey began with Konotor, which got acquired by FreshWorks and later became Freshchat. He has experienced scaling from 0 to 100 and is now building Rocketlane, a customer onboarding platform that reduces time to value and eliminates hit-or-miss experiences.During the episode, he talks about his inspiration behind building Rocketlane, Planning and doing GTM early on being a SaaS founder, setting up a base in Chennai, and much more.Notes - 00:00 - Highlights of the conversation01:32 - Intro to Srikrishnan Ganesan, Rocketlane and Chennai’s SaaS ecosystem02:36 - Why do SaaS founders prefer Chennai?06:09 - Advantages of building prior-product building experience09:50 - Choosing the domain for Rocketlane13:12 - Rocketlane’s Pre-Launch setup18:53 - What works in customer conversation’s Pre-Launch?22:44 - Why do SaaS founders ignore GTM?24:35 - Raising their 1st round26:32 - Choosing to become a Category creator29:08 - Investing in Brand-building upfront30:39 - Funding announcement with a Rap video34:15 - Learnings from his journey37:54 - Their strategy for Demand-Gen40:29 - His thoughts on Generative-AI45:47 - Slowness demand for Rocketlane or similar companies serving SMBsSend us a text