The Neon Show

Amit Somani is Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners, an early stage fund investing in Technology startups in India.Amit previously was Chief Product Officer at MakeMyTrip, which went IPO in 2010. Before MakeMyTrip Amit was Head of Product at Google India.Few notable quotes from Amit Somani at 100x Entrepreneur podcast:1. "Came back to India in 2007 from Silicon Valley when I though India was a really really tall building and I am getting in the ground floor. Now 11 years later now I still feel India is going to be a really really tall building but hopefully we have now come onto the second floor."2. "Every 10 years people should take a year off on a self-imposed sabbatical or jobbatical. Take that time for self discovery, take that time to find yourself, take that time to learn about what else is happening. 3. There is Alvin Tofler who is this futurist has this beautiful quote, that people who are going to succeed in 21st century are not going to be the gyanis or the wise people. It’s the people who have the ability to unlearn, re-learn, learn all the time because you are seeing new situations all the time.4. Number 1 reason for startup success is not market, not team, not the product, nor some bell and whistle feature but TIMING. And you can’t predict it as an entrepreneur.5. If you have tailwinds behind your back, or timing is right or market is ready for your solution that is often the big difference between the companies that really break out and those that don’t.6. So really timing and getting some wind or current behind your back so you can get velocity that is often the predictor between the 100x startups and the 3-5x startups7. I have mantra called MEDS - Meditation, Exercise, Diet or Nutrition and Sleep. I try to follow daily all of those and recommend the same to all entrepreneurs because entrepreneurship is a marathon and not a sprint.Send us a text

Karthik Reddy is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Blume Ventures, one of best early stage Venture Capital Funds in India.Blume Ventures started in 2010 as $20 million fund. Today the 3rd fund of Blume is $100 million. Blume has invested in 120 startups in the last 8 years. Some of the well known startups in Blume portfolio are TaxiForSure, GreyOrange Robotics, Unacademy, Locus, Exotel, Mettl.Karthik shares very candidly in the podcast:1. "Why to build for an IPO" is the only thing Founders should aim for and nothing less2. How Focus on new behaviour creation leads to creation of incredibly large long term value in the world. 3. Why to build a very large business without the capacity to storytelling is fooling yourself. 4. How founders who build 50-100x ventures punish themselves5. Why the early exits are never phenomenal.6. Why good storytelling is must in founding teams which make it large7. The Life Time Value (LTV) of a founder8. The Purpose of Blume is to nurture really passionate entrepreneurs who are trying to solve really hard problems.Send us a text

Rajul Garg is the Founder and Managing Partner of Leo Capital, a Pre-Series-A Venture Capital Fund. Rajul has been the founder of two Billion Dollar companies Global Logic and Pine Labs. Rajul is counted among the top 10 early stage investors from India. Some of notable quotes by Rajul from the podcast:1. On purpose in life ?"My view of life is to be more in the present. I like to think here in this moment how I can be most productive. So my main focus now is how we make this conversation most productive for the listeners. So in my ideal state I would like to blank myself from everything else and be fully here in this moment. I feel if I can achieve that in every moment, in every hour that would come closest to my purpose."2. I do think when you look at any success including the companies I founded there definitely an element of topicality in the time they happened. Lot of different things come together to make a big company. There were so many points in the journey where the two companies could have totally shut down. Lot of ducks have to line up to make a company successful.3. "The quality of people you assemble in the company is really really important."4. Every big success is death by thousand cuts, it not one big thing but a combination of small things.5. Out of the three things - Market, team and traction, Market is something you can’t just fight with at all. Team you can still work with, you can hire more people, chip and chop, thought it's still difficult. Market is very very hard to fight. If you find yourself in a market which is small, hard to penetrate or super competitive or timing wise wrong, that is the number one reason why things don't work out. Number 1 predictor of success for investment has been timing.Getting the timing right of why this make sense to do it today is a very difficult part from an investment perspective and you often get it wrong as an investor.6. The magical thing which leads to scale of 50-100x? "I think it’s Product Market Fit. Product Market fit is one of those non-deterministic problems. It’s like asking - How do I fall in love or How can I be happy. It is not a problem that you can solve with money. It goes back to the timing thing, Is the market ready for the product today ?"7. "For me what I seen over the years I tend to let the process take over instead of thinking too much about the outcomes. I get into action mode and do things which need to be done instead of thinking what will happen tomorrow."8. On strengths and weaknesses “Because I am so aspired to be in the moment I am a good tactical thinker. Given 3 options I quickly able to latch on to what to do now and move forward, sort of bury the past, keep going. I am able to quickly correct mistakes and navigate my way through complex problems step by step. At the same time I don’t think of myself as a big strategic thinker like how will the market evolve in 5 years or 10 years.”9. The only way you can really judge an investor is look at their portfolio. Everything else is just talk. I can talk endlessly but you have to look where I have put my money in. That defines me more than anything else.10.Philosophy I life by:"You can’t make your happiness conditional to everything else. You can’t generally say if I do this then I will be happy. Specially for entrepreneurs if you say if I raise the next funding then I will feel happy. I feel there is an intrinsic fallacy in this. Chances are if you are not happy today you will not be happy tomorrow either. So I think happiness is something which comes from within and has to run like a fabric parallel to every thing else. Find a way to be calm, joyous and happy today because its not contingent on your business success or any other success, find that place today work on everything else alongside."Send us a text

Pawan Raj Kumar is the Founder of Supa Foods and Hoi Foods. Supa foods is known for products like Supa corn and misht which are available in more than 3,000 retail outlets in India.Pawan is also an active angel investor in 15+ startups. Some of well known startups, where is an angel investor are Qikwell(Acquired by Practo), LifCare and Leverage Edu.Pawan has an entrepreneurial experience of 24 years. He started out in his family venture of Industrial Food Equipment, supplying and servicing to Large Food Chains like McDonalds, Pizzahut and Dominos. Some key quotes by Pawan during our conversation are:“After Graduating from IIT-Delhi and IIM-Lucknow I joined my family business as a welder. Spent first 3 months as a welder.”“If I am salesman of discounts then it’s not a business I want to be in because I am not adding any more value.““Businesses have to be built without emotions. Emotions about passion in business are important, but emotions about making business like a child of yours is wrong emotion to have for a business. I stopped having those kind of emotions long time back and I think that has served me well. One of the biggest mistake I have seen a lot of entrepreneurs make is that they can’t just let it go. There is a time when an entrepreneur’s passion cannot grow the business anymore. You need either professionals to come and run your business. You need to take a backstep, you should be ready to do that. The old mentality of building a legacy out of business is over. One should look at business as generating value for the society and hence you make money out of that. And the minute you are not adding any more value to the business, you have to step out.”“Whatever has happened in the world so far and whatever will happen in future is because of entrepreneurs. Because somebody is taking a risk in innovating something, coming up with something new, trying to change something small or big. And that what keeps on improving the world. So I want to be part of that journey in my small way and that’s what drives me towards investing in startups.”Send us a text

Alok Mittal is the Founder and CEO of Indifi, SME lending platform leveraging technology and data in full loan lifecycle. Before Indifi Alok was Managing Partner of Canaan Partners India, one of well known Venture Capital firms. Alok's first startup JobsAhead was acquired by Monster.Alok shares during the podcast:1. Why he invests in startups ?2. How he evaluates the startups which reach out to him for investment?3. His schedule and work ethic at Indifi.4. What role Focus plays in his life and investments ?5. 3 advises to deliver excellence in business.6. How should startups reach out to him for the first time ?Send us a text

Anjalli Ravikumar is the Social Mission Director at Unilever, the largest FMCG company in India and one of the largest in the world. Anjalli heads Fair and Lovely Career Foundation which is making huge impact in education and career guidance for young girls.Anjalli wanted to solve big problems for which there are no easy answers. She quit corporate sector very early after doing MBA and joined development.Spent 2.5 years at Naandi foundation and went onto Harvard to do masters in development. And then came back to India to work across consulting, and in Unilever bring projects to life which are going to make a difference to people.In this podcast Anjalli shares 1. How startups can work with corporates like Unilever and understanding their pain points2. Startups can learn relentless customer focus from Unilever.3. Startups have to stand for something. Even Unilever has discovered that brands that have purpose do better in the market place. Today’s millennial and GenZ really do care. You need to stand for a cause that young people will resonate with.Send us a text

Hetal Sonpal is a well known Angel Investor in more than 20 startups in India. He has 20 year corporate technology business stint with Wipro, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Intel. In this podcast Hetal shares:1. Why he became an angel investor ?a. He has successful exits with BabyChakra, MassBlurb and AllisHealthb. His portfolio companies Vahdam Teas, Advantage Club, Impact Guru, Leverage Edu are the biggest winners in his portfolio and are doing fantastically well.2. What motivates him to help startups to scale3. He has completed half iron-man. How running has helped him set higher benchmarks for himself in personal and business life as well ?4. How taking up the challenge of reading 100 books in 2018 has transformed his life.5. Why he returned to India from Japan in 2010 ?6. His favourite books "Thank you for being late.- Thomas Freidman""21 Lessons of 21st Century""The art of Good life" Rolf Dobelli7. He considers Azim Premji and Remaesh Emani from Wipro his mentors and shares lessons which he has learnt from himSend us a text

If you want to know how Private Equity investors can help in your entrepreneurial journey you must listen to the podcast with Sandeep Aneja, Founder and Managing Partner, Kaizen Private Equity. Kaizen is the only home grown fund which has scaled across geographies.Kaizen is investor in companies like KLAY, Toppr, Varthana Finance, Insofe. Sandeep shares his thoughts on1. Why he choose to start a fund focussed only on education2. He was a very successful Investor with Outlook Ventures in USA which was early investor in Yahoo3. How he missed investing in LinkedIn in 2004-20054. How he is riding on the back finance as a vehicle to drive quality education for everyone in India irrespective of their economic strata.5. What differentiates the companies which are able to scale 50-100x and which are not able to scale ?6. Do PE Investors take control of the company once they partner with the company ?7. Working with Founders on exit strategy from Day 1 and Introducing the companies to potential buyers so companies can see the exit route 10 years down the line.8. How he sees Exit as a natural path of companies growth, and it should be viewed as process to change investor set. 9. Why Having an open conversation about financial disengagement from each other is very critical though the event happens 7 years down the line from when they partner with companies.10. How he felt lost when he started Kaizen and didn’t budge his values for the sake of money.11. 4 advises to all entrepreneurs from Sandeep:a. To identify the problem you are solving very clearly. The problem should be clearly identified at a deeper level. eg. Problem of online education is a symptom or solution. The problem is personalised education.b. Continuing to identify the problem as the world changes as you changec. Communicating the identified problem with a differentiated perspective to the investors. d. Being ready to hire and being capable of hiring people who could scare you."OMG this person could take my job". Hire the person to help you grow. Once you get such people in they stick with you through thick and thin.Send us a text

Rehan Yar Khan is the Founder and Managing Partner at Orios Venture Partners. Orios is considered among the best Venture Capital firms in India focussed on early stage startups.Rehan was the first investor in Ola & Dhruva, among the few startups in India with Billion Dollar valuation. Ola is the largest Mass Transportation company in India.In this podcast Rehan shares:1. His entrepreneurial journey of 20 years from 1992 to 2011.2. Early journey of Ola Cabs and Bhavish Aggarwal. Rehan was the first investor in Ola and when he took Ola to his fellow investors they said "we can call cabs in Mumbai by waving our hands" and passed on Ola.3. Why he became a Venture Capitalist.4. Market VCs are looking for in 2019-20205. What market thesis of Rehan have worked. 6. The Anti-portfolio companies for Rehan.7. The biggest reason why few entrepreneurs are able to scale their companies 100x.8. What Orios VC looks for in companies while investing ?9.What habits & mindset have made Rehan a successful founder and then a successful investor.10. 3 traits what makes a successful entrepreneur and a successful businessSend us a text

Girish Shivani is a Co-founder and Partner at Yournest Venture Fund. Girish started Yournest Venture Fund in 2011 and has witnessed Indian Startup evolve from infancy in last 8 years.In this podcast Girish shares:1. Why all Venture Capalists are not evi😈2. How he became a VC by accident 3. What is required from an entrepreneur to make him sign a check💰4. Why he replies to all emails by entrepreneurs, even cold ones. 💎5. What is required from an entrepreneur which can scale his startup 100x 💯🚀6. What differentiates between startups that scale 100x and those that do not scale7. His life and schedule as an investor8. The habits which make him successful as an investor9. His Anti-portfolio, the companies who went big and in which he could not invest inSend us a text