The Neon Show

In this episode of 100xEntrepreneur Podcast, we have interacted with Mohan Lakhamraju where he shared his journey of building Great Learning and Great Lakes Institute of Management.Mohan initially worked with Tiger Global Management for 3 years, setting up their India office. During this period one of his focus areas was the education sector in India and South-east Asian markets.This was how he developed an inclination towards the education sector and decided to set-up a B-school specifically catering to management professionals in the Energy sector.Notes - 01:20 - Journey from IIT Bombay, UC Berkeley & Stanford University to joining Tiger Global06:19 - Realising himself to be more of an Entrepreneur than an Investor07:13 - Taking insights for online learning from the early journey of Coursera08:56 - How has high-quality education impacted his journey?10:15 - “Most people never experience excellence”17:05 - Learnings while building Great lakes & Great learning?23:33 - At what scale Great learning is currently operating in terms of enrollments & programs31:09 - What is the opportunity cost of not learning or not doing something new?38:50 - How is Great learning helping colleges & universities conduct effective online classes with their platform?43:36 - His viewpoint on the future for Edtech in India49:22 - His advice for entrepreneurs looking to build Edtech startupsSend us a text

In this episode, we are in discussion with Amit Somani, Managing Partner, Prime Ventures. Also bringing to you an entirely new format, in this episode, we discuss what goes behind building a successful podcast.Some of the key points which Amit & Siddhartha discussed and their experiences during the podcast were -01:07 - Idea to start a podcast and how has the journey been so far?05:19 - What have been their learnings being the host at a podcast?06:25 - How to go about and solve core problem statements like content creation & distribution while running a podcast?13:25 - What were the memorable moments while recording the podcast?15:43 - How did they improvise themselves and became a better podcast host overtime?18:04 - How to differentiate between open-ended & close-ended questions during a podcast and make the conversation more open & free-flowing?19:35 - How has being a podcast host helped them in their personal & professional life?23:21 - How to be an interesting guest?29:29 - What are some of their recommendations to someone who wants to start podcasting?Send us a text

After having an elaborate educational and career background in finance, right from becoming a CA & CFA to working at Morgan & Stanley and Citi, Ankur decided to join BlackSoil Capital.BlackSoil, growing fast into the Venture Debt fund space, has so far disbursed over Rs.450crore+ to VC backed start-ups & growth companies.Some of the notable startups under its portfolio are EarlySalary, Vogo, & Nearbuy among others. In this podcast, Ankur seeks to help our listeners understand the entire Venture Debt fund ecosystem and its working in a better way.Notes - 00:38 - Founding BlackSoil and initial focus areas02:39 - How is BlackSoil and its working structure different from other VC firms?03:30 - Value propositions which BlackSoil brings to the table while funding its portfolio companies06:54 - What are the interest rates, loan tenure, repayment modes which they currently offer as a working capital to Startups?09:06 - Which family-offices is BlackSoil currently backed by? How did they build that credibility?15:57 - How is Venture Debts different from traditional Bank loans for businesses?17:30 - How do warrants work in case of Venture Debt funding?18:59 - How’s the future of Venture Debt in India?Send us a text

Shruti is one of the few Indian-origin VCs in US who invest in Enterprise focused Startups globally.After spending 9 years of her career at IBM as an Engineer, she joined Samsung Next as a Principal, where she spent the next 2 years investing in early-stage startups. This was probably what worked out as a perfect mix of (a) Her understanding of Enterprise focussed SaaS businesses & (b) Venture funding ecosystem, which helped her start Array Ventures.Some of her notable investments are CasaOne, Blumira & Modal among others. In this podcast, Shruti shares her experience of supporting founders building early-stage SaaS businesses focussed on solving problems for Large Enterprises.Notes - 00:57 - Her journey from Mumbai to the US and transitioning from an Engineer-cum-Founder to a VC02:35 - How and why did she choose to start a fund to cater to startups selling to Enterprises?05:20 - Changing growth & opportunities for SaaS startups focussed on Enterprises in India & the US08:19 - Her thesis of investing in Blumira based on how their automated threat detection can benefit companies09:53 - Is the recent IPO of 6 Enterprise companies including Palantir, Snowflake, Sumo Logic, Bentley Systems, creating real value or is it a bubble?11:20 - Her learnings from Array VC exits: Passage AI, Hivy, & Simility13:10 - What would be an ideal exit for her - Large Acquisition (in 5-6 years) or IPO (in 10 years)?14:13 - What value does Array VC bring to its portfolio companies?16:10 - How’s the growth trajectory for her portfolio SaaS companies from 0 to $10M and then from $10M to $100M ARR?19:02 - What are things which worked for her portfolio companies for exponential ARR growth?Send us a text

Baskar’s journey is very similar to what classic Product-driven Tech entrepreneurs have, i.e. a college drop-out built several tech solutions from an early age, founded a fast-paced startup growing multi-folds over years.He co-founded Amagi Media Labs, in 2008 with the intent to revolutionize global content delivery & monetization of the Media Industry. Amagi is one of the few startups which experienced constant growth even in the Covid-19 circumstances and has no plans of slowing down its growth engines anytime soon.In this podcast, Baskar shares his experience of building tech solutions and his learnings from being a Tech entrepreneur for over two decades.Notes - 01:09 - Enabling end-to-end global virtualization of content delivery and monetization in Media Industry03:22 - Major emerging trends in Media & OTT platforms for broadcasters08:50 - Evolution of OTTs in the US and how Amagi helps them as a one-stop-shop!11:59 - His journey from dropping out of IIT Bombay (during MTech) to starting Amagi?21:12 - Transiting from an Advertising sales model to a Technology platform25:44 - Growth in Revenue from 2012 to till date28:35 - How was the fund-raising experience being in the Media industry?32:32 - What’s his end goal with Amagi? Going Public, achieving a $200 Million ARR or something else?36:34 - What are the processes which helped him as an entrepreneur & the company to grow exponentially?38:25 - How “letting go” is a very crucial part of the growth process?40:36 - How being open, vulnerable, and accepting your mistakes openly within the team can help a company grow?Send us a text

Naren is probably one of the earliest VCs in India’s startup ecosystem. He co-founded Nexus Venture Partners in 2006. He has also been mentoring early-stage entrepreneurs and supporting them since 1990.With investments in over 200+ companies in India and the US, Nexus Venture Partners have some of the most notable startups in their portfolio - Postman, Rapido, and Unacademy among others.In this podcast, Naren shares his experience of investing in early-stage product startups for over three decades.Notes - 01:16 - His journey from moving to the US being an IIT Gold Medalist 02:10 - Lessons from his first venture - Integrated Systems Inc.05:45 - Starting Nexus Venture Partners and deciding upon sectors it won’t invest14:25 - Building a cross border teams18:50 - Uniqueness among entrepreneurs and growth journey of portfolio companies24:52 - Being an early-stage investor and also being consistent through the follow-up rounds29:25 - What are the metrics of success upon which early-stage founders and VCs should focus?35:13 - At what stage do things like - go-to-market, building stronger organization & sales, become a part of board-meeting discussions?Send us a text

From working at PwC, while pursuing his CA to starting a Venture Fund which invests in Early-stage disruptive Tech startups, Vishesh has experienced it all.He started his investing career at VenturEast in 2007. This was where he understood the Ins & Outs of Venture investing. From its Fund-I, Speciale Invest has invested in a total of 10 portfolio companies, some of which are Scapic, Agnikul, and Kawa Space among others.In this podcast, Vishesh shares his experience of investing in seed-stage Hardware & SaaS startups.Notes - 01:10 - His journey from a CA to becoming an Early-Stage Investor07:41 - Starting Speciale Invest aiming to invest in disruptive tech startups09:30 - Developer Tools companies in his portfolio - Scapic, Kawa Space, TotalCloud, and iauro10:44 - Conversation AI startups in his portfolio - True Lark & Wingman 12:35 - Investing in Cynlr with a vision to evolve Visual AI and Industrial Robotic Arms14:47 - Investing in Agnikul - India’s version of SpaceX16:27 - His experience Investing & Exit from Vogo19:48 - Is the Indian startup ecosystem mature enough for early-Exits within 5-6 years of investment?24:31 - What are some of the recent tailwinds for Hardware & SaaS startups in India?28:19 - How are B2B founders different from B2C founders in terms of Go-to-market strategy, customer acquisition, and other parameters?31:18 - His learnings from being a VC-cum-Fund Manager and managing LPsSend us a text

Ashmeet started his career at HP in 1989. He founded Sidana Systems in 1995 (later sold to Doclinx in 1999).He started his stint as a VC at Foundation Capital in 2004. Eventually, he founded Engineering Capital in 2015, which focuses on investing in Tech startups, based on Technical insights. He is one of the few VCs to have been to the base of Mount Everest. In this podcast, he also shares his experience of climbing mountains, one step at a time.Engineering Capital is based in the US and majorly in the San Fransico Bay area, some of its notable portfolio companies are Robust Intelligence, Concentrix, and vFunction among others.In this podcast, Ashmeet shares his thesis of investing in Tech Startups and the approach he follows while evaluating them.Notes - 01:24 - His journey from growing up in Rural India to becoming a VC dedicated to Engineers02:43 - Purpose of starting a fund focussed on engineers04:04 - Difference between Market insight, Technical insight & Consumer insight06:43 - Investing in SignalFx based on its use case - “Enabling cloud-based monitoring and analytics.”08:18 - Investing in Robust Intelligence based on its use case - “Solving the issue of User Data contamination.”10:51 - Investing in vFunction based on its use case - “Allows users to take any legacy applications and break them into micro-services & benefit from the cloud.”12:35 - Is Technical insight alone a sufficient reason for a VC to back a Tech Startup?15:49 - Making an early seed-investment in Azure Power (India) as an Angel Investor20:50 - His perspective and view-point on Postman & potential of Tech Startups in India24:55 - Learnings about Market size with future entrepreneurs in B-schools29:36 - “Even though Venture Capital attracts the brightest and smartest minds all over the world, but still most VCs are not successful.”36:12 - “The magic of making a startup successful is to focus on an incredibly narrow problem, that has a wide application.”Send us a text

Nikhil is one of the most Tech & Product-centric VCs in Asia. This probably comes from his early career with Microsoft, and later with Pie (acquired by Google).He also founded a company called TommyJams, a tech-enabled Artist management platform.He has been with STRIVE Ventures for over 5 years. STRIVE’s portfolio includes HASURA, Classplus, and Saleswhale among others.In this podcast, Nikhil shares his experience of investing in SaaS startups in Asia and helping them achieve Product-Market Fit.Notes - 01:03 - Two major SaaS buckets for STRIVE - (1) Global SaaS (US, European, & Asian markets) and (2) Local SaaS (India SaaS / Indonesian SaaS and similar others.)04:48 - How does STRIVE focus on such segregated SaaS markets?09:28 - Not only monetizing Local SaaS startups through the typical Subscription-Business model (Example - Classplus) but also through transactions17:34 - What was the thought process at STRIVE while coming up with a Non-subscription model for monetizing their portfolio companies in the Indian market?20:27 - Indonesia SaaS market in terms of product adoption, willingness-to-pay & market penetration26:21 - Portfolio of Global SaaS - Healint, HASURA, Saleswhale29:18 - Investing in HASURA with a vision to simplify backend development 33:10 - Investment Thesis - “Founders & Teams who Do More with Less”36:10 -Common early-stage mistakes in SaaS startups40:05 -Crucial changes in GTM strategies for SaaS startups in Pre-COVID vs Post-COVID market48:22 - Emphasizing on portfolio companies to build user engagement and reach an initial $1 million+ ARRSend us a text

Sheel is a Fintech-Entrepreneur turned Fintech-VC investing in Pre-seed & Seed rounds.His first startup was FeeFighters in 2010, which was acquired in 2012 by Groupon.In this podcast, Sheel shares his experience of being an entrepreneur twice and becoming an Angel Investor and later starting his own VC firm. Notes - 01:03 - His journey from a Fintech Entrepreneur to a Fintech VC04:50 - Starting “The Pitch Podcast” (acquired by Gimlet, Gimlet was later acquired by Spotify)07:55 - What does he look for in founders while investing in startups at Seed/Pre-Seed stage?09:57 - Brief about his game-changing fintech portfolio companies13:29 - From hating working at a company that made software for hospitals to investing in a startup which makes software for hospitals14:50 - “Majority of companies in the future will be Fintech companies”22:15 - How did he spot his first Angel Investment?Send us a text