“Early on, we decided that we will play the high-risk high-reward game. We will not be a ‘good company’. Either it has to be a great company or it has to be a failure.” Unacademy, which is on a mission to democratize access to quality and affordable education in India, has helped over 10,000 educators reach more than 50 million learners since it was founded in 2015. Their subscriber base has grown by more than five times in the last year alone. On this episode of Moonshot, Gaurav Munjal, Co-Founder and CEO of Unacademy, talks with Shailendra Singh, Managing Director at Sequoia India, about building and scaling iconic products, creating a culture of experimentation, and the role that ‘Founder’s DNA’ plays in a startup’s trajectory. The conversation took place during an AMA at Surge – our rapid scale-up program for early-stage startups.Show notes:How crucial pivots define the trajectory of the company [6:08]Deciding early to be great, not good, and aligning the team to that goal [11:27]Have enough runway to create a culture of experimentation [13:40]Build or acquire autonomous teams to drive product innovation [18:19]Create iconic products by setting iconic goals [22:20]Build a strong brand as a long term moat [29:07]Improving your game through continuous learning and growth [31:48]Be relentless in the quest for mentors [41:09]Managing relationships with your board [47:16]How confrontation can build trust and transparency [54:14]

Eruditus, which has partnered with prestigious universities like Harvard, MIT Sloan, Columbia and Cambridge to deliver online executive education courses, scaled by building deep relationships with universities over many years – and by making hiring a number one priority.The company, which was founded in Mumbai in 2010, currently serves students from over 80 countries in multiple languages.  In this episode of Moonshot, Eruditus co-founder and CEO Ashwin Damera chats with Sequoia India Managing Director GV Ravishankar about why playing the long game is crucial to his business, the need to have founder-startup fit, and why it's so important to hire A-plus talent.Show notes:Patience, faith and perseverance: The path to an enduring company [5:42]Knowing when to let go: Lessons from Travelguru [09:01]Go after big ideas and large opportunities [12:03]Assessing founder-market fit at every stage of the company [21:44]To build a great company, hire A-plus people [28:47]Why you should never make trade-offs when hiring [34:00]Focus on input metrics for hiring and managing people [37:28]A great culture is key to retaining top talent [38:16]

Stevensang, who grew up working in his parents' shop, founded GudangAda in 2019 to connect wholesalers directly to a variety of merchants, ranging from large retail chains to independent ‘mom-and-pop stores’, or warungs. The startup has quickly become one of the country’s largest online business-to-business marketplaces. In this episode of Moonshot, Stevensang talks with Sequoia India & SEA Managing Director Abheek Anand about how he drew on more than two decades of experience in leadership roles in Indonesia’s FMCG industry to assess the market size and industry structure - and design a business model that empowers wholesalers and retailers alike.Show notes:Digitising Indonesia’s FMCG supply chain [1:18]Evaluating the market size, industry structure and opportunity in Indonesia’s FMCG supply chain [6:35]Choosing to empower instead of disrupt the industry [9:14]How GudangAda hacked distribution [12:00]Securing supply by building relationships and trust with wholesalers [13:52]Building out GudangAda’s team in the early days [16:57]What aspiring founders can learn from GudangAda’s journey [22:29]Tips on assessing industry structure and designing your business model [27:46]

Freshworks, which just listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, has become the poster child for Indian SaaS startups that want to build global businesses. Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director at Sequoia India, talks with Freshworks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham about the early design choices on product, pricing and positioning that made the company so successful. The conversation took place in July 2021 during an AMA at Surge, our rapid scale-up program for early-stage startups.Show notes:Everything begins with framing the customer problem well [2:19]Dreaming in increments to create a wedge [4:36]Sharpening product differentiation to support outbound sales [6:16]Using pricing as a weapon, and landing the first set of customers [10:33]How churn is a killer in product-led growth [13:05]Building a global company with its soul in Chennai [15:23]Increasing your standard of giving [18:45]Feeling like an Indian athlete that has a chance to run at the Olympics [21:45]