The Neon Show

Venture debt was introduced in India 15 years ago. However, it has gained traction in the last decade.In the last 6 years itself, approximately $4 bn of debt has been deployed across 150+ deals in India. But, not very often you come across an investor talking proactively about both debt & equity investments in the startup ecosystem! That’s why in this episode we’ve brought Ashvin Chadha from Anicut Capital. During the podcast, Ashvin talks about the various debt funding deals he came across at Anicut, and while he considers debt funding to be lucrative over equity investments over a short period, but for people who are willing to stay invested for over 10-15 years, he points out how we are in the golden age of early-stage investing.He also talks about how a lot of VCs in the Indian Startup ecosystem are already getting 100x returns on their equity investments, we shouldn’t be surprised to see 1000x returns becoming normal in years to come.Notes - 01:56 - Setting up Anicut Capital03:24 - Initial equity & debt investments04:51 - Structuring debt investments by setting up an AIF in 201506:04 - Investing in Sharechat during an internal bridge round09:19 - Exits & thesis with debt investments10:52 - “In my view it takes 10-15 years to build brands in India and if you don’t stay the course, your compounding doesn’t happen.”13:55 - Parameters & mental models while making equity investments15:56 - Learnings from portfolio companies hitting a roadblock24:12 - “We are in the golden age of early stage investing.”26:56 - “A good company will last even in a bad market.”27:07 - Backstory & thesis of investing in Bira 9130:51 - Backstory & thesis of investing in Wingreen Farms42:02 - Backstory & thesis of investing in NeemansSend us a text

“We don’t think of ourselves as fund managers. The fund manager is someone managing 100s of millions of dollars, your job is largely doing money management. Our job is not to do money management, our job is to look at the new trends, try to meet the smartest of the smartest guys, and somehow try to convince them to take out money, and be a good part of the ecosystem and make other good people within the ecosystem come and talk to us.”Can you ever imagine someone who has been an NGO worker for a long time, suddenly switch careers and;# Setting up a VC firm# Raising $120.9M+# Investing in 102+ companies# Getting 11 exitsWell, that's the story of Madhukar Sinha, Co-founder, India Quotient, and the guest of this week’s episode.Most of us get comfortable in our jobs post the age of 30, let alone the thought of setting up a VC firm. But that’s exactly what Madhukar, along with his Co-founder Anand Lunia did, back in 2012.During the podcast, Madhukar talks about his first experience with 3G, how he didn’t let his NGO background limit his career choices, and much more. Notes - 01:12 - Early life: Growing up in Jamshedpur to working in NGO06:14 - Understanding what India really is, not only in metros, but in terms of Tier-II & Tier-III cities06:47 - NGO background stereotyping & limiting his career choices07:12 - Completing his MBA and joining Aavishkaar10:55 - Experiencing the potential of smartphones after getting his first 3G phone in 201112:32 - Co-founding India Quotient in 2012; at the age of 3515:51 - Being more of Entrepreneur, less of Fund manager26:18 - Not continuing what you aren’t comfortable with32:35 - Making investment decision for early stage companies43:05 - Talking about portfolio companies - Sharechat, Lokal & BharatAgri50:28 - Fund return expectation in 5+ year period57:54 - First Cheque: Investing in unique ideas that don’t directly match India Quotient’s thesis1:02:34 - Getting personalised deal flow via founders of portfolio companiesSend us a text

Paras Chopra discusses achieving financial independence, making money-related choices, and warning about bad investments. He explores the benefits of financial freedom, shares personal money mistakes, and emphasizes the importance of sustainable income for a flexible lifestyle.

In this episode, we chat with Amit Kumar Agarwal, NoBroker. NoBroker, as the name suggests eliminates the middle-man/broker most of us have to go through when we look out for our buy/rent a property. NoBroker handles $2 billion worth of transactions on its platform every year and claims to have helped save brokerage worth Rs 1,100 crore last year.During the podcast, Amit shares how he built NoBroker while facing troubles from local brokers and brought it into realization as a broker-free platform at a time when larger competitors like Housing.com and Commonfloor still had brokers on their platform.Notes - 01:39 - Family background & childhood, shifting cities too often06:36 - Challenges while beginning with your Startup in your 30s09:54 - Ideating the concept of NoBroker13:25 - Approaching VCs for initial funding14:37 - Investors seeking the existence of a US/China counterpart22:18 - Choosing BTL advertising over ATL considering the ROI at a premature stage26:02 - Not expanding too fast to multiple cities37:43 - Listening to what your customers want42:58 - Bringing premium Add-on services47:01 - Changes in his personality as a founder in 0 to 1 & 1 to 100 journeySend us a text

In this episode, we chat with Sanjeev Kapoor, the famous Indian celebrity chef, Padma Shri-awardee, entrepreneur and television personality.He rose to fame after hosting Khana Khazana (an Indian cookery show) in the early 90s. It was the longest-running show of its kind in Asia with over 649 episodes over 19 years.He also holds a Guinness World Record for cooking 918 kg khichdi live at World Food India 2017. In 2017 he was the only chef in Forbes ‘top 100 Indian celebrities’.Sanjeev’s business ventures range from premium cookware and appliances brand Wonderchef to TV channel FoodFood and 65 chain restaurants under different brands in nine countries.During the podcast, Sanjeev talks about creating the content that he personally enjoys and running multiple ventures with partners he trusts and is comfortable with. This conversation is pure gold for someone who’s either currently in or planning to enter the food industry to get a top-level perspective of how things work and what all should you consider and various stages in your journey.Notes - 02:30 - Getting nostalgic with the Khana Khazana show04:54 - Being a content person at heart via books, website, social media, & TV channel07:48 - Working with Pharma companies to bring nutritional foods of medicinal value08:21 - KitFresh via Amazon: Ready to cook fresh meal kit09:19 - 4000+ employees under Sanjeev Kapoor’s Brand 11:12 - Family background & early career16:38 - Being comfortable with discomfort18:57 - Drive to start working on something new23:45 - “If you continue to do things that give you pleasure, satisfaction, & purpose then it's not work, it's something that you’re enjoying all the time.”26:34 - Deciding ownership of actionable in a partnership33:43 - Understanding numbers and building scalable businesses36:55 - Building comfort & trust prior to entering into a partnershipSend us a text

In this episode, we chat with Karan Bajaj, Founder, WhiteHat Jr. From being the CEO at Discovery, to being an author with Penguin Random House & HarperCollins Publishers, to curating his Edtech venture Karan has donned many hats.Founded in November 2018, WhiteHat Jr is focused on helping children between 6 to 14 years in developing commercial-ready games, animations, and apps online using the fundamentals of coding. In August 2020, Whitehat Jr was sold to Byju’s in a $300 million all-cash deal. During the podcast, Karan talks about how he took 3 breaks in his professional career and how they impacted him as a person, he also talks about what roles should a founder play at various growth stages in a startup’s journey.For anyone looking to make a planned approach & setting outcomes for sabbaticals, or for any founder confused with prioritizing the impactful things in their journey at various stages, this conversation can be of great value.Notes - 01:03 - Early childhood & career prior to WhiteHat Jr03:49 - Taking breaks in a professional career04:10 - Becoming consistent with writing - “Natural consequence of living what I thought was a very interesting adventure, an experience that I thought that many people should do.”07:04 - Major career sabbaticals throughout his journey14:24 - Impact of 1st Sabbatical: Understanding that the world is very boundary-less15:06 - Impact of 2nd Sabbatical: Productivity as an individual 15:41 - Impact of 3rd Sabbatical: “If I pick up something, I just have to keep at it every day.”17:00 - Growing leaps and bounds in corporate career after 2nd sabbatical 18:30 - Self-doubts while writing and publishing his books22:04 - Accepting and realising that growth isn’t linear28:43 - Ideating and pursuing WhiteHat Jr34:46 - Initial scale, revenue, and metrics tracked at WhiteHat Jr38:17 - Top mistakes at WhiteHat Jr while blitzscaling41:45 - Being mindful as a founder while facing criticism 43:15 - “The founder in a blitzscaling phase has to let some fires burn.”45:41 - Byju’s & WhiteHat Jr deal: Startup economics for Acquirer, Acquired & Investors51:19 - Enabling 11000+ women teachers on the platform52:07 - Karan’s perspective on the Wolf Gupta’s Ad1:00:14 - WhiteHat Jr’s journey in a book & chapter names for each phase1:04:32 - One major personality change while building WhiteHat JrSend us a text

Ranjeet Pratap Singh is the Co-founder & CEO of Pratilipi. Prior to Pratilipi, he worked at Vodafone with stints in Marketing, Retail, and Channel Sales. Pratilipi, is the largest vernacular Indian story-telling platform with over 320,000 writers in 12 languages and over 25+ million Monthly Active Readers. There are several sub-categories and sub-products within the brand such as - Pratilipi Literature, Pratilipi Comics, Pratilipi FM & their latest acquisition IVM Podcasts.During the podcast, Ranjeet talks about simplifying the creation of online consumer internet companies, creating their own definition of growth, giving ownership to employees to define their plan of action, and set their individual North star metrics amongst other work culture practices followed at Pratilipi.Notes - 01:03 - Pratilipi - Vernacular self-published content platform02:53 - Problem statement behind starting Pratilipi05:04 - Onboarding first set of users & building traction on the platform06:11 - Current scale in terms of authors, stories, & readers07:19 - Revenue model: Brand advertising for IVM Podcasts08:34 - Revenue model: Subscription & Virtual gifting for Pratilipi Literature10:22 - Revenue model: Early access model for Pratilipi Comics11:45 - Optimising your odds based on a long-term future as a founder12:49 - Challenges while raising initial funding16:12 - Transparency & Ownership amongst employees19:10 - The thought process behind hiring: “We don’t look at people as dots, but we look at people as journeys.”21:22 - Adopting things from work culture at Freecharge, CRED & Flipkart amongst others25:31 - Setting product-wise North-star & check metrics28:44 - Not following the general Growth Playbook31:22 - Future goals as a platform: Democratizing Storytelling32:33 - Thesis behind Audio Content: IVM Podcast & Pratilipi FM39:24 - Things that didn’t work out at PratilipiSend us a text

In this episode, we chat with Malika Datt Sadani & Mohit Sadaani, The Moms Co. which deals with toxic-free products for newborns and mothers.The Mom’s Co’s journey started from a personal experience. Both the couple’s daughters had skin conditions which made them scourge for natural products that were free of toxins and artificial fragrances.During the podcast, they talk about how to build trust amongst customers in D2C products, what are the things a first-time entrepreneur in D2C should consider, and how they’ve built a closely knit community to stay connected with their customers, amongst other things.Notes - 01:12 - Background of The Moms Co.02:32 - Family & career background prior to The Moms Co.03:27 - Meeting each other as life partners & co-founders05:22 - Mindset prior to the launch of the first product07:47 - Raising initial funding for a D2C brand in 201710:22 - Life-changing conversation & insight for Malika in the early days of The Moms Co.16:12 - “How do we change the definition of what mom’s skin, face & hair care look like and allowing us to play into a lot of other very large categories with a very different proposition.”17:32 - Consumer journey over the past 5 years19:04 - Close touch with customers over Whatsapp & Facebook community22:27 - Brand advocates, including Genelia D'Souza to build brand trust24:55 - Challenges while setting up distribution channels29:35 - Advice to D2C entrepreneurs31:36 - Malika’s experience shifting from a home-maker to an entrepreneur38:43 - Founders & Mentors they reach out to for brainstormingSend us a text

In this episode, we chat with Pravin Agarwala, founder BetterPlace. Blue-collar workforce management is one of the biggest industries in the Indian economy.Urbanization and deeper penetration of the internet have helped players like QuikrJobs, LinkedIn, Just Jobs, Aasaan Jobs, and Google to make inroads into this segment.BetterPlace is India's largest technology platform delivering digital solutions for blue-collar workforce management, throughout the entire value chain. Pravin started Betterplace in January 2015 as a background verification company. However, they eventually realized the need for an enabler to bridge existing demand and supply gaps in the ecosystem, thus moving to a B2B2C business model and creating a digital platform to enable the ecosystem.During the podcast, Pravin talks about defining and solving the challenges for the blue-collar workforce in India and also shares the company's vision to go global soon.Notes - 01:26 - Coming from Dibrugarh (North-east India), working with SAP India03:15 - Backstory behind starting BetterPlace05:20 - Defining Workforce Management Solution for blue-collar employees07:04 - Solving for improving productivity, attrition, time & attendance among other challengesFt3 - First step in the product - Onboarding solution with background verification14:39 - Current key customers, metrics & milestones16:09 - Challenges while raising funding for a SaaS startup impacting blue-collar workers19:58 - Global expansion plans for BetterPlace23:28 - Approach behind the valuation of early-stage SaaS startups26:35 - Focus on: Customer value, Step-by-step approach, Team building among other elements30:18 - Bringing an Angel Investor within the company full-time to build on core principles30:31 - Value addition from investors34:01 - Things he’ll do differently if he got another shot at building BetterPlace37:25 - Starting early in your startup journey as a founder39:40 - Why a founder shouldn’t have a Plan B while starting up?Send us a text

From investing all his savings in Sahil Barua's Delhivery in 2011 to becoming an angel investor in 130 Indian startups, the story of Abhishek Goyal, Co-founder, Tracxn is worth listening for everyone in the ecosystem.  Being an Ex-Yahoo & Amazon employee, Abhishek stepped into the startup investing ecosystem with Accel Partners in 2008.Traxcn aims to become the largest platform tracking Innovative Startups, Private Companies & Emerging Sectors globally. They track millions of companies, to enable Investors & global corporates to track sectors of their interest effortlessly.During the podcast, Abhishek talks about how to identify founders who’ll make category-creating startups, important signals to predict a brand’s success, starting as an Angel investor in the ecosystem.Notes - 03:06 - Background with Yahoo & Amazon, joining Accel Partners09:58 - The story behind Accel's investment in Flipkart16:33 - Identifying patterns and traits in successful founders18:09 - Unlearning your existing beliefs as an investor22:01 - Explaining Unicorn startups and the general notion of ownership amongst investors29:47 - Importance of customer signals at an early stage31:28 - “Capital doesn’t follow fundamentals, fundamentals follow the capital.”36:10 - “10 years later we as Indians won’t be celebrating Unicorns.”37:44 - Sectors he’s bullish for this decade: SaaS, EdTech, and Banking among others46:42 - Preventing forced exits being an Angel investor49:36 - Advice to first-time investors in Startups55:01 - Reading and keeping himself updated with Startup newsSend us a text