The Neon Show

Did you used to get pocket money before the age of 18 to manage your expenses? I personally used to get a fixed & tiny pocket money after 10th, thanks to my parents.When I was in college, I stayed away from my hometown, in a PG with a roommate, unlike me, he didn’t had a fixed or tiny pocket money, he used to get an X amount from his father whenever the previous X amount got over. I was always a bit envious, as to why he has a free flowing pocket money, whereas I have to manage everything (Travel, Accommodation & Misc expenses) in a fixed amount. Fast forward 7 years, I’m a lot thankful to my parents for both -# giving me pocket money, and # keeping it fixed (mostly) on a monthly basis.This helped me in learning how to manage my finances better, which definitely helped, once I got into a job. Btw this is exactly what Sambhav Jain, guest of our today’s episode is trying to do with his company Fampay. Fampay, being a virtual card prepaid card for teenagers, enables them to do online transactions and manage their finances, eventually educating them to be more financially aware down the line as grown-ups. Recently after adding 2 million+ registered users on platform Fampay raised USD 38 million in funding from Elevation Capital and others.During the podcast, Sambhav shares with us how he came across the idea behind Fampay, what were the initial challenges when they approached several banks with this concept and more. Notes - 02:02 - Graduating from IIT Roorkee and working in Product roles06:28 - Concept of pocket money in western countries09:14 - Problem statement of financial literacy among kids in India16:25 - Initial discussion with Elevation Capital & achieving PMF 20:05 - Driving hyper-growth with campus ambassadors 28:14 - Building the product like a community rather than a transactional app30:02 - Initial response from traditional banks32:53 - Working of a Fampay wallet34:48 - Adoption of technology among teenagersSend us a text

Data access for App development for startups and enterprise is very complex and has a lot of security concerns. It gets even worse when you plan to scale the product.This has vastly changed since Hasura came into existence. Founded by the guest of our today’s episode, Tanmai Gopal, Hasura provides an open-source engine for developers to streamline data access in a secure and scalable way to make app developments easier.Started in 2018, it has seen adoption from thousands of developers across fast-growing startups and Fortune 500 companies.During the podcast, Tanmai shares with us how they ideated Hasura as an open-source engine, and when did they realize the right opportunity to monetize it by launching a commercial model. Notes - 01:22 - Hasura in layman’s term03:56 - Early childhood and graduating from IIT Madras10:21 - “Until you build a product and take it to market, you actually don’t know anything.”13:11 - Launching Hasura as an open-source engine; 2 Mn+ downloads in first year & 100 Mn+ downloads in the second year14:34 - Changing perspective from being bootstrapped to raising VC funding21:23 - Shifting from free open-source to a commercial model25:38 - Milestone around Mission Critical Adoption34:02 - GTM strategy - Free adoption followed by commercial conversion38:50 - Hiring for the Non-dev team41:33 - His advice to entrepreneurs building open-source productsSend us a text

Venture Capital or Angel investments aren’t a must have, to make your startup successful. This has been demonstrated again and again by several bootstrapped startups which have been very successful, namely - GrabOn, Zoho, Zerodha, Wingify & others.The guest of our today’s episode Rajdip Gupta, CEO & Founder, Route Mobile, similarly has an exquisite journey of taking his company from being completely bootstrapped to getting listed in the share market and growing to a market share of Rs.11,000 crore+. Just to understand the faith amongst retail investors in Route Mobile's strong growth potential, you must know that in September 2020 its Rs 600-crore IPO was oversubscribed 74 times. It made a stellar debut with a 105% rise on day one of listing.As a niche player operating in an extremely dynamic, high-growth segment of the cloud-communications space and catering to the digital user engagement needs of enterprises, Route Mobile has a limited number of competitors and no publicly listed rivals. During the podcast, Rajdip shares with us, what are the various offerings Route Mobile has for its enterprise customers, where it stands against its Indian competitors and how he personally tackles things to bring a work-life balance in his daily life. Notes - 01:53 - Creating a story & value from India04:17 - Solutions for enterprise customers10:02 - Scale & revenue breakup across geographies12:25 - Benchmarking against Indian competitors16:07 - Challenges during the early phase of building Route Mobile22:19 - Work-life balance and unavoidable circumstances in a startup journey36:11 - Future plans for Route MobileSend us a text

Today most companies around us follow two approaches to presenting their user data via Ads - # Company A - We have 60% of our users coming from Tier-I cities with greater than Rs.50,000 monthly income. # Companies like Uber - Rahul & Rashmi, a couple from Gurgaon take an Uber to their office everyday and get a background verified driver, with a well-sanitized car, at an affordable price. # Companies like Meesho - Sarah, a housewife from Lucknow wanted to support her family, she started her online store with Meesho and now earns Rs.25000 from home. Now which of these companies will you feel more attracted towards? Very like towards Uber & Meesho right, because they showcase real people instead of just numbers.  Well, this is exactly what the guest of our today’s episode, Roshan Abbas also tries to emphasize upon.Throughout his career he has focused on being best at storytelling for various brands. As per him, in order to be a good storyteller, you need to wrap your data with a real person’s journey & life experiences, rather than making it less life-like and treating people like Cohort A, B & C.Roshan has been a radio jockey, theatre actor, TV anchor, writer, director, angel investor & entrepreneur over his career.He credits this to his attitude to - “Listen, Assimilate & Action”.During the podcast, he shares with us how he kept successfully surfing across multiple roles throughout his career, how he picks the companies he wants to invest in, and how he enjoys life along with constantly achieving his goals. Notes - 03:23 - Mastering multiple skills; Creators are curious people05:37 - Scale & opportunities from Radio to Television06:10 - Identifying the next step11:21 - “You can’t have every skill, then you hire for the right skill.”13:17 - Importance of accountability in creativity17:53 - Being a seller of dreams22:34 - Be interesting or be interested26:46 - Building Kommune for young creators28:56 - Being militant with removing distractions42:15 - Future & the change in media consumption48:12 - Importance of having a great hook in storytellingSend us a text

During the pandemic & lockdown since last year:# Initially people weren’t able to visit a doctor personally;# And, currently both the patient & the doctor try to avoid meeting physically unless it's absolutely necessaryDuring this period, Telemedicine has grown silently and rapidly, revolutionizing Indian healthcare.Recent report by EY, has predicted robust growth in the country’s telemedicine (e-consults & e-pharmacy) sector between now and 2025 – at a 31% compound annual growth rate, securing up to $5.5 billion.And today we have Prasad Kompalli, CEO & Co-founder Mfine, which is acing this tailwind with an over 8x growth in users, and adding 250 hospitals to its platform, taking the total partner hospitals to over 550, in just the initial months of lockdown.Mfine, which was started in 2017, is enabling doctors to diagnose more number of patients, with higher accuracy, thanks to its AI & ML integrations.During the podcast, Prasad talks about their learnings of a customer’s journey on product, his view on the future of telemedicine in India and his advice to first-time entrepreneurs entering this sector.Notes - 02:23 - Growing up in Vijayawada; Engineering background at family10:06 - Key learnings from working at Myntra13:59 - mfine thesis: Power of mobile & healthcare being a data-driven business16:54 - Current Scale: Monthly transactions & Customer journey18:36 - Early investments from Stellaris & Prime Venture Partners29:42 - What worked: Primary care & Digitizing specialist care32:39 - What didn’t work: You can’t inflate the demand37:55 - Advice to first-time health care entrepreneur46:34 - Being a Calm vs Aggressive startup CEOSend us a text

How often do you see an entrepreneur’s last employer putting equity in their idea? Well, this is exactly what happened with the guest of our today’s episode, Shantanu Deshpande, Founder - Bombay Shaving Company.In 2015, when Shantanu decided to dominate the men's grooming space and he was quitting his job at McKinsey, then his peer’s and seniors didn’t just allow him to leave but decided to back him up with an initial Seed funding.Last year when the country went into lockdown, the company’s revenues increased by 3x. One of the interesting driving factors behind this was the women employees at the company. Their perspective was very straightforward: # Problem Statement: During the lockdown, there was a shortage of women's hair removal products and razors. # Opportunity: They were working for a company, which made razors for a living. # Solution: These women employees then decided to coordinate with the product designers, test the product on themselves, put in their inputs, and get their own women’s razor out in the market.With this the Bombay Shaving Company, which earlier had 27% women customers buying their products for the men in their life (i.e. partners, father, brother) as a gifting option, now had 50% orders coming in from women with a major share of them buying women’s hair removal products. During the podcast, Shantanu shares with us what other tailwinds he leveraged during last year’s lockdown, how he believes in enabling his investors to partially exit from the brand from time to time, and how he derives the best value from his large institutional investors. Notes - 01:38 - Growing up in Florida (US) and moving back to India06:50 - Leaving McKinsey & starting Bombay Shaving Company09:18 - “The richest source of information is a conversation with people who are in it all the time.”17:13 - Tailwinds which enabled 3x revenue post-lockdown in Mar’2019:50 - Channel-wise revenue break-up21:47 - Raising initial seed-round from McKinsey23:30 - “My belief was always, that we should never raise money to buy revenues, we should always raise money to build a brand.”26:24 - Core-target metrics since launch30:02 - 3 Crucial things to winning customers early-on33:07 - Enabling exits for early Angel investors39:57 - “Having good organic traffic is a proxy for brand strength.”44:32 - Deriving best value from financial investorsSend us a text

# Saffola - Cooking Oil# Parachute Advansed - Hair Oil# Nihar Naturals - Hair Oil# Set Wet - Hair Gel# Livon Hair Serum and many more... You must have seen or used at least one of these names in your house, on TV, or in Newspaper Ad right? Do you know what connects all these names? Its Marico Ltd, one of India’s leading consumer products companies operating in the global beauty and wellness space. Marico touches the lives of 1 out of every 3 Indians, through its portfolio of brands. In today’s episode, we have with us Harsh Mariwala, the man behind building Marico over 30+ years, with a Market Cap. of 68,000cr+ and making it a common name in every Indian home.During the podcast, he shares with us how he experienced the Ins & Outs of business from childhood at family’s dinner-table discussions and how he joined the family business - Bombay Oil Industries at an early age, and built Marico, a Fortune India 500 company. Notes - 02:02 - “When business topics get discussed in your presence, then even if you may not be able to add value, you’ll get a good understanding of the business.”04:15 - Early exposure to the brand & business at the age of 2006:02 - Forming Marico as a separate entity in the 1990s11:27 - Building the team at Marico13:50 - “Involvement brings in commitment, and you have to involve people in some organizational issues if you want their commitment.”17:46 - Thought process behind Brand-Building19:54 - First taste of success with Parachute & Saffola oil22:15 - Personal Social Responsibility initiatives by Marico26:19 - Reduction in entry barriers for consumer brands27:47 - Levers of growth as an individual30:11 - Treating your employees as Brand Ambassadors34:33 - Advice to entrepreneurs to pioneer in their segment36:11 - Source of learnings: Books & Thought leadersSend us a text

In a recent report as per KPMG, “Online gaming industry in India is going to be worth Rs.29,000 crore by FY25.”Have you heard about Nazara Technologies?Probably Yes, when its IPO came in March 2021, as it was very well highlighted in the News, being one of the portfolio companies of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.Nazara’s founder and the guest of our today’s episode, Nitish Mittersain probably saw this coming much early, almost 20 years back.With its IPO, Nazara gave 80%+ as listing gains to its IPO applicants, this reflects how well the Indian stock market has reacted to a gaming company, and also highlights the potential of India’s gaming industry in years to come.During the podcast, Nitish talks about his journey of building a gaming company in India, when no one believed that gaming as a domain was properly monetizable. He also shares how Nazara got listed in NSE & BSE and how it impacts the company's future growth plans.Notes - 01:14 - Textile business family background; coding games in BASIC02:33 - Started Nazara in 1999 while he was 1st year in college04:27 - 2000 Dot-Com Bubble - “I often say, I did an expensive but enriching MBA, sitting here in Bombay.”06:54 - Focus on Cash Flows; not chasing vanity metrics07:13 - Raising funds & Friends of Nazara07:59 - Acquisition since 2015 - NODWIN Gaming & Nextwave Multimedia among others08:44 - Synergy between the acquirer & the acquiree company10:14 - “Over a 20+ years journey gaming always looked like a mirage in the desert.”13:10 - “Just trying to run a profitable business today may not be good enough.”14:56 - Advantage of being the only listed gaming company20:09 - Source of Revenue: In-app purchases vs Advertising20:51 - What convinced Rakesh Jhunjhunwala to invest?24:53 - Getting listed in Indian markets being a startupSend us a text

Would you dare to create a TEDx version from scratch for the Indian audience-Right out of college? -Without any good-paying job?-And living on a shoestring budget?Well, that's the story of Supriya Paul, Co-founder, Josh Talks, and the guest of this week’s episode of 100x Entrepreneur. She along with her Co-Founder, Shobhit Banga started Josh Talks in 2015, with a vision to bring access to the right role models for the audience in Tier-II & Tier-III cities. She wanted to create an Indian version of TEDx, that could be accessible in multiple regional languages and bring such stories on the platform which could be easily relatable by their Indian youth.Today Josh Talks has grown leaps and bounds and some of its milestones include -# 2000+ stories# 10 vernacular languages# No-cost career-guidance under Josh Kosh to 500000+ people/month# 1 Mn+ app installs & 100k+ paid users of their e-learning platform, Josh SkillsDuring the podcast, Supriya talks about her journey of building and growing Josh Talks over the years and also shares her insights on what keeps her team aligned and focused on delivering their best.Notes - 02:18 - Starting Josh Talks straight out of college05:27 - Revenue growth over time10:13 - “I think vulnerability & purity in storytelling is what has gotten us this far.”11:52 - What works on YouTube: Consistency, Authenticity, & Packing as per its algorithm14:55 - Moments of self-doubt20:11 - Core metrics for Josh: Talks, Skills & Kosh24:12 - Business targets over the next 2-3 years25:23 - Hiring & retaining quality talent26:01 - All You Need is Josh: Inspiring Stories of Courage and Conviction in 21st Century India27:58 - Defining work-culture & core values at Josh Talks29:25 - Strengths & weakness of both the co-founders31:26 - Connecting with Ankur Warikoo as Mentor & InvestorSend us a text

Have you ever heard about Infotel Broadband Services Limited (IBSL)? Even if you haven’t, I’m very much sure that you can’t deny that you don’t know its current rebranded form. I’ll give you a hint; this company currently has the largest market share in terms of wireless subscribers (i.e. telecom) in India, even greater than Airtel. Yes, you’ve got it right, it's Jio. Before getting rebranded as Jio, the original company IBSL, was the only company that won broadband spectrum in all 22 circles in India in the 4G auction in 2010.And later that year Reliance Industries acquired the company. After Jio’s official launch in September 2016, it gained the first 50 million customers in just 83 days of launch and currently has an overall subscriber base of 414.9 million customers. “That’s the Reliance way of doing things”, quoted by Farooq Adam, during the podcast. What he means is that at Reliance, just the sheer scale at which they launch and operate their product and make their marketing strategy, ensures the success of the product.And when Reliance approached him in 2019 after he had raised the Series-C led by Google, this is exactly what convinced him to combine Fynd with Reliance and support the rollout of JioMart.During the podcast, Farooq talks about the early days at Shopsense (rebranded as Fynd), getting rejected by investors during the first round, and his experience being an Angel Investor. Notes - 01:18 - Early childhood in Kuwait; getting into IIT Bombay 05:01 - Initial stint with Adsale; adding another sale by recommendations & coupons10:12 - Visiting Diesel (clothing store) on Juhu Tara Road (Mumbai)14:58 - Problem statements solved by Shopsense17:24 - Getting benchmarked against Capillary Technologies by investors22:40 - Rebranding Shopsense as Fynd to cater to hyperlocal marketplace31:26 - “How & when you collect your NPS is very interesting.”32:08 - Acquired by Reliance after getting Google-led Series-C funding51:39 - Experience as an Angel investor52:10 - Co-investing with First Cheque VC57:47 - Advice to his portfolio companies59:44 - Book recommendations for foundersSend us a text