The Exchanges

Q And do you have an upper cap of valuation in this market? Let's see, will not participate beyond fifteen million valuation from first check?

A Yeah, we ideally, so we, we see deals in two categories. Category A is first time founders. Younger folks, you know, free product deals where the risk is significantly higher. Those deals we don't do beyond two, three million evaluation. Three is also a bit on the higher side. Usually it's around two million. Um, category two is where you have a, so if one of our venture partners say knows somebody senior, right? Somebody would say 10 plus years of experience, somebody who has built and scaled products before, or somebody who has run a company and sold it before. And for those deals, we don't bother about valuation as much. If our venture partners know the founder, right? Like we need to, if we have a strong, uh, we have a strong sort of view on the person's execution capability, right? And in that scenario, we don't, we're not too bothered about the valuation, but, um, otherwise we do care about the entry price. Yes.

AI assessment note: “Those deals we don't do beyond two, three million evaluation.”

Q And out of the hundred companies you would have done, right? How many of them came through venture partner and how many were directly, you know, first check readout or the entrepreneur read to first check?

A I would say about 70% would have come out, come through the VP network. Uh, so we also get a lot of deal flow. We, I mean, we get, I would say five to 10 deals a day, but, uh, the deals we get, there's the noise to signal ratio is very low, right? So, uh, signal to noise ratio is very low. So, uh, if a VP sends a deal, it's usually somebody they know or somebody they have worked with in the past. So those are almost, uh, you know, very quick yes for us. Uh, but if it comes to us, then it, we, we put it through a process We can introduce a person to, to a venture partner who can evaluate who has domain expertise. Then if the venture partner decides to do it, we then do the deal. We don't, we don't go out of our way to, you know, find the company without our venture partners. Um, so effectively all hundred deals have been done with a VP, but, um, I would say about 70% were sourced by them. 30% would have come from our network.

AI assessment note: “I would say about 70% would have come out, come through the VP network.”

Q And, uh, what, what's the evaluation process like at first check?

A Um, so this is very different from most other funds, right? For us at pre-seed only two things matter, size of market and quality of team, right? So, uh, because most pre-seed investments, the team pivots after a while, they'll, you know, find adjacent ideas. They'll, they'll, they won't even be doing what you thought they'll be doing when you invest. Um, so it's, it's hard to sort of, you know, uh, go by what the product is when they're starting. So we look a lot at the quality of the team. Um, in the side of the market. Now, uh, if the deal has come through a venture partner, and if the venture partner knows the founder, right, and is watching for the founder, then we will almost blindly invest. Then it doesn't even, like, as long as it's a VC fundable space, we'll go ahead and invest. If the deal has not come through a venture partner, if it has come through our network, then we will apply our sort of mind on, you know, what, what's the caliber of the team. Um, we will do some market sizing and just ensure that this is, this is a big space. Market sizing we'll do even for deals that, that VP stores, but usually they've already done it when they, when they bring the deal to us. Um, but if it's not through them, then we'll also do ref checks on the founder. Um, and then we'll get a domain expert to evaluate, which is usually one of our venture partners, right? So if it's a Saa…

AI assessment note: “only two things matter, size of market and quality of team”

Q And Kushal, uh, uh, you, uh, why do you think like the model of first check has worked? Uh, uh, it was a very new model which, uh, you and India Kushan got together and, uh, succeeded, uh, well, you have a brand, uh, right? So, so if you can, uh, distill down to the reasons, uh,

A So I think the thesis for us was that founder angels have an edge when it comes to early stage picking. Okay. Like every, in every investment strategy, right? You have to ask, what is your edge? If you're buying public stocks or private stocks, or we're buying bonds, commodity, whatever you're doing, you need to have some edge. That is where your alpha or your returns will come from, right? Our thesis was that founder angels have three edges, right? One is that because of their brand, they automatically get great deal flow. Right. So like, if you look at, for example, Farid, or if you look at Farooq from, ah, find, right. So most IIT Bombay founders, somehow pitched, end up pitching to Farooq. Because he's an IIT Bombay alum, they see him as somebody who has been there, done that, built a company, He's got his own brand, right? So anybody who's graduating from IIT Bombay, building of a payments company, a SaaS company, e-commerce company would last the right to have Farouk on board, and it's clear why, right? He'll add value to their company, right? So they get great deal flow. That is one. They see most of the deals around them. Number two is because of their operating experience, they are often able to anticipate what is coming next.

AI assessment note: “Our thesis was that founder angels have three edges”

Q Got it. And, uh, uh, how has been the journey for the last two years?

A It's been pretty epic. We've, uh, backed almost a hundred companies now through the first fund. Um, it's been very fast paced, lots of learnings, uh, you know, like, I think we've seen startups from every possible corner and every possible sector of the ecosystem, you know, right from space tech, deep tech, AI startups. Uh, e-commerce, payments, FinTech, EdTech, you name it, we have done it. So, and we've got, got an opportunity to partner with so many great founder angels, like, you know, uh, Farid from ShareChat, Vidit from Misho, Harpreet from CoQ, Farooq from Find, and, you know, learning, just learning from these guys who've already built and run businesses, working with them to support startups that they find, uh, working with our own entrepreneurs. So it's just been an awesome experience.

AI assessment note: “It's been pretty epic. We've, uh, backed almost a hundred companies now”

Q And what have been some of the rollercoaster moments, uh, in this journey?

A Well, you know, our startup life is rollercoaster on a weekly cycle. Yeah. And I think that never stops, but I think some of the more memorable ones have been in 2014 or 15 timeframe when a couple of years in, we had a fantastic product. Our app had won the best app on Google Play Store multiple times and, uh, had also actually achieved You know, 4.6 ratings out of five and, uh, we were, we were the highest rated health and fitness app in the country. And, uh, but we didn't have a revenue model. We didn't have a significant business model. And that was, that's something that we did. We discovered actually the hard way by running out of money into the, um, and, uh, fresh to the wall, we realized that, uh, you know, there's a huge demand in people paying for access to nutritionists and trainers who could guide them towards their goals. Um, and, you know, and, and therefore this amazing symphony of data and human services started in our company. Um, you know, and, uh, so that was an interesting breakthrough. The second one probably was in 2018 when we had large enough data sets with us to be able to create an AI model that could coach our customers with near efficacy of human service providers. And we launched the world's first consumer AI product called Healthify Smart. Now, It was launched as a pilot, but it suddenly took on a life of its own. It cannibalized our own high cost n…

AI assessment note: “some of the more memorable ones have been in 2014 or 15 timeframe”

Q So, so how was the journey, right? Because for a large part of time you had been very frugal. You said the, the seed round of one million was very tough. How had the journey been of organic growth? Some of the things that you, uh, push the levers for organic growth, if you can share those.

A You know, I think we don't do as good a job as we should, but our business itself leads to an organic growth piece, right? So when people lose weight, when people do a fitness transformation, they love sharing that story with others, and others join them for that. Um, and, and I think so our business fundamentals, and because we've been true to delivering our promise, an average customer loses about five kgs of weight in 12 weeks, our average HbA-C counts go down from around 8.1 to six and change within a period of six months, right? I started in a period of six months when I was talking about the weight loss as well. And I think these are the results that, that speak for themselves, that drive that organic momentum, uh, you know, but outside that, you know, there are a few sort of campaigns or growth hacks in our case, which have worked, which have not really were designed as growth hacks, were designed out of conviction, but ended up driving value. And one of the recent examples were vaccinate me, you know, we launched a tool to help vaccinate India. Built on top of the government APIs. It was a pet project by Manan, who now acts as my chief of staff and a couple of other with our head, you know, and director of engineering, Sumanu. And, you know, they kind of built it up in three, four days and we launched it and, you know, and before we know it, and then with Bertie who lau…

AI assessment note: “our business itself leads to an organic growth piece, right? So when people lose weight”

Q Uh, Tushar, uh, you know, when you were bootstrapped, you used to work, I remember, out of Prime Venture Partners office, uh, in, in Whitefield, right? Uh, so, so how, how did you build an ecosystem of these supporters, right, that, that kept you going, uh, when the funds were low?

A We were very scrappy. So our goal was, you know, why pay for stuff you don't have to pay for. And one of the things I think we took pride in is then the first two years, I don't think we paid rent, uh, or we paid nominal rent. You know, we, we were going from our, you know, mentors and friends offices to others offices, you know, begged and borrowed places. We started off with the Microsoft, we started actually with my friend's dad in somewhere near Delhi in some farmhouse for a little while. Then we moved here to Microsoft Ventures Accelerator. Then we requested actually a good friend, Ramesh from Artiman Ventures. You know, if we could, if he had some extra space, some company had moved out, we could just kind of lodge ourselves there. Then we moved to Khosla Labs with Shrikan Nadamuni, who was my, you know, ex colleague and senior person at Aadhaar and a very close family friend actually now, uh, him and Sunita. And then we moved over to the angel prime prime ventures place. So we shuttled around and in the middle, we found a flat, my flat where I was staying at, um, you know, we moved on my company there because we thought, and then, you know, so we kind of, I think we changed eight addresses in two years, uh, but effectively everywhere between MG road and Whitefield, whoever would give it for near free prices. Um, and, uh, and yeah, I think we managed to do that and that w…

AI assessment note: “we were going from our, you know, mentors and friends offices to others offices”

Q Uh, in the last nine years, there have been multiple pivots and you have been highly persistent, right? You are one of the most persistent founders that I know. How do you choose an advice for an entrepreneur listening to the podcast when to pivot and when to be persistent?

A You know, I think one should, my personal philosophy is that, um, Micro pivots are constant name of the game. You have to keep innovating and improving yourself. So if you've noticed our past also, it's a very logical sequence. It's not like we were making shoes and now we decided to, you know, sell vegetables. That's not what we did. Uh, we have been pursuing the vision of healthifying a billion people, and we've been pursuing the promise of delivering fitness via losing weight and eating better. You know, and, and I think that has not changed. So what has changed is that it, that there's an evolution there. Calorie counting took us only so far. Adding the right set of nutritionist trainers, physicians is an experiment that worked. And then the AI evolution worked. And now we're working on Healthify two point where we sort of bringing other signals in logically, uh, that makes sense. Now there are thousands of signals. One can bring in diagnostics, devices, connected meters, glucometers, you know, weighing scales. It's like, we're trying to figure out which signals make sense. Trying to figure out how else can we complete our promise better? You know, should it be food through supplements, through, um, you know, through activity tracker, through exercise, uh, devices, et cetera. So how can we promise that? So, but, but you know, how can we fulfill that? So it's always been fur…

AI assessment note: “stay persistent in your vision and your goal, um, and your customer promise, but be fluid”

Q And, uh, what has been your team size, uh, from your journey? Like if you can take us to the team size on the content creation from zero to one.

A Okay, so till I reached 300, uh, 50,000 followers, I only had one guy. Till I reached three 50 K, I only had one guy, that one guy would just edit my videos. I would record it myself and put, sit in front of a camera or in front camera, and that guy would edit for me. Sometimes he would record, it was just one guy, ok, from zero, because I don't know editing. I can't edit. I have never bothered to find out how this works. I don't want to do it because I tried once when I was in college and I failed miserably, so I don't want to do it. So I had only one guy. After three 50 K, I hired one manager. So she was doing all my scheduling, posting, finding out, taking care of brands, cracking brand deals, all of that. Then till we reached around, uh, I think, 700 K, five, 500 K. I hired one team who would focus on my YouTube and try to, so that there are two guys for YouTube. One is the copywriter. And so who would write descriptions, timestamps and everything. And one is the data that would try to find out all the data. Then we recently hired a thumbnail person who is now doing the thumbnails. These are three people. Then the fourth guy we hired is writing content for LinkedIn. So what we have now started doing is that whatever I talk, let's say this is the interview we're having. This is a podcast we're having. Um, so whatever I'll talk about here, he'll pick up a few pieces from here…

AI assessment note: “till I reached 350,000 followers, I only had one guy.”

Q Amit, uh, if possible, if you could share some ballpark metrics, like what would be the revenue of Z-Work today and how has it grown over the last three years and the number of suppliers, manufacturers you work with?

A Yeah, no. So, uh, you know, we, uh, just finished our audited numbers. So I'm happy to share those. So last year we did in, uh, the year, we did close to 900 crores of revenue. The prior year we had done close to 300 crores of revenue. So the business grew almost three X, uh, in the pandemic year, uh, today on the sub customer side, we work with close to 500 odd customers on the supply side. Uh, as of September, we transact with around 3000 suppliers every month. So that's a rough scale of the business, the nature of products. Can be very diverse. We work with, uh, industrial companies to make steel pipes. We also work with same industrial companies to make aircraft engine components. So, you know, there is one range of complexity. A steel pipe is a simpler product to make. An aircraft engine, of course, is a very complex product to make. Uh, 85% of our business is industrials. Uh, 15% of our business is consumer products. So we work with a lot of brands, uh, e-commerce companies, consumer brands. Again, the pitch to these brands is, look, you focus on building your brand. We are your backend execution partner. We can make that product for you. So we work with apparel companies. We work with electronic companies. We work with kitchen appliances companies. It's a very diverse range of customers.

AI assessment note: “we did close to 900 crores of revenue. The prior year we had done close to 300 crores”

Q And when did this pivot happen from a pure marketplace to manage marketplace?

A Yeah, it happened, uh, post our series A actually. So we, in terms of our journey, we started the company three years ago in May, 2018. Uh, our origins were actually back then was a software company. We wanted to build software to help large companies manage their supply chains better for a custom manufacturing point of view. Uh, we, uh, raised our seed round of capital with that thesis that look, there is a big, Void in this, in this part of the market. And, uh, we, we built our product also, and then we went back to our customers who are kind of guided us that this is what they needed. And, uh, what we realized was, uh, the kind of brick wall of enterprise sales cycle. Like there is these, uh, uh, all our, all the people we're talking to were the operations people. They loved our product, but the moment we had to convert that, uh, excitement to a sale, they said, look, you have to talk to my IT. And for a lot of these companies, like companies like GE, et cetera, their ITs are based out of Singapore or Switzerland. They're not based out of India. They didn't take software decisions in India. And that's when we realized that, look, it's going to take a massive amount of time to, to, uh, drive that digital transformation for a lot of these companies. And, and, but at the same time, all of these people were asking us, can I use your software to discover new suppliers? And, um, a…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, it happened, uh, post our series A actually.”

Q And, uh, currently, uh, you are serving in India and have started exploring other markets. How is your customer distribution looks like?

A Yeah, it's, um, you know, we are, uh, even today, largely an India-focused business, and, and we think there is a lot of depth in India, and, and in a way, what we are solving, some of these problems have largely been solved in, in, in Western markets. But that being said, uh, what happened last year, especially During COVID, we started getting a lot of inbound from, uh, customers outside of India, largely US. They were hit by two big things at the same time. One was, of course, disruptions due to COVID. Second was this whole trade war going on between like US and China, where the cost of manufacturing overnight have shot up to about 30%. And, uh, we capitalized on that opportunity. Today, almost 20% of our revenue comes from international markets, largely, largely, uh, US focused. Where, um, um, the demand is coming from those countries, supply is largely India. So this is real GDP addition that we are driving. These are customers who have never bought from India before. They have always wanted to explore India, but they struggle to work with a single small manufacturer. Because A, the size of the average manufacturer in India is lower than the average manufacturer in China or US or wherever. So you have to work with a lot of them. Which if you think in India is painful, just imagine a US customer having to work with 10 manufacturers in India. So they were waiting for a compan…

AI assessment note: “Today, almost 20% of our revenue comes from international markets, largely, largely, uh, US focused.”

Q And, uh, once, once you onboard a supplier, right, in the last three years, what has the delta suppliers have seen in the increase in their revenue and average across these 3000 suppliers?

A On, on average, our suppliers see at least a 20% lift in revenue. Uh, it, uh, may happen in two quarters, it may happen in four quarters, but, but that's, that's the, Uh, impact that these guys see. And, and with some of our best suppliers, they see even not the 50, 60% increase in revenue. And, and, uh, bear in mind, these are all small businesses. These are, uh, these are all, uh, family-run enterprises, largely. And, and even a 20% to 50% revenue uplift is life-changing for a lot of these guys. That, uh, you know, it, uh, we sometimes get a lot of photos from some of our suppliers that they bought a new house, they've purchased a new car. And, and nothing, nothing delights us more than to see, uh, the average, you know, small manufacturing entrepreneur be more successful. And in a way our business succeeds if the manufacturers we work with succeed. So if, if, if they are increasing higher revenue or they're seeing higher take home, somewhere down the line, you know, it, it, it benefits us also as a company because we are, we are in essentially a platform company. We are starting with generating demand for the small manufacturers, but over a period of time, we're layering logistics, we're layering financial services, we're layering raw material purchases. So there's a lot of layers which get added onto the platform. And, and, uh, in for any platform, they, the value they crea…

AI assessment note: “On, on average, our suppliers see at least a 20% lift in revenue.”

Q Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and, and moving forward, right. Where did you, did your graduation from?

A Yeah. So I was in Puna. We came to Puna, uh, in 97, did my schooling from there. Um, uh, did my engineering from NIT Nagpur, MBA from IIM Lucknow. So, uh, for six years back to back, I was in hostel, uh, which was again, character building and beautiful. Um, but for me personally, I tried to get into IIT, ended up at NIT. I tried to get into IIM Ahmedabad, ended up at IIM Lucknow. So both great institutes, but places which were not top, you know what I'm saying? Uh, I always felt that I punched below my weight a little bit. Um, but from I am Lucknow, I made it to McKinsey and Company, which was, uh, the number one recruiter on all campuses. So for five years I was at McKinsey and it was the most incredible professional, uh, first step one can make. Um, I, I found incredible bosses and mentors, 25 of them invested in Bombay Shaving Company when I left. Um, if there was a job that was made for me, it was consulting, right? Rapid problem solving, you know, advising at the very top, changing of problem statement every five, six months. I served insurance, cement, heavy engineering, zinc mines, uh, you know, uh, agricultural and chemical providers. I served the whole spectrum across a variety of problems. So for me, McKinsey was character building in so many ways. And I think a lot of who I am today, uh, I attribute to my time at the firm, but 2016, I decided that it's time to leave…

AI assessment note: “did my engineering from NIT Nagpur, MBA from IIM Lucknow.”

Q Wow. It's been a phenomenal journey for you. And where, where do you think you want to take it? Right. You have seen the, you know, the market size.

A I think, I think nobody owns hair removal the way we can in India. And you have, you have Gillette for shaving, you have Nivea, you have a VLCC and Kaya for women, you have wheat for hair removal cream, you have Venus in women's razor. No one brand owns hair removal for men and women in India as a FMCG company, right? I think that's the space we want to be in. I mean, that's the space we can really compete and have equity. We, we are at a hundred crores plus one 20 crores. I feel that in the next two years, we can build a 300 to three 50 crore equal brand between men and women. Right. Um, and then at that point, uh, uh, the, the options open up significantly in terms of scaling to thousands. Uh, I think to build a thousand crore business will require a con, you know, combination of product and service business. So it might involve salons. It might involve, uh, clinical treatments. It might involve hair treatments, um, uh, in, in, with dermatologists. So I don't know what that journey is going to look like. Uh, but I think if I were to divide and for founders and you have been one before, I think two year journeys sacrosanct after that, it becomes, you know, uh, it's kind of more ideation. So my belief is long term, we want to own hair removal as a consumer product business in the country. I think men's shaving and hair removal plus women's hair removal together. Online, offline…

AI assessment note: “we want to own hair removal as a consumer product business in the country”

Q And, uh, you know, just, uh, stepping back, right. This has been a phenomenal journey, right. As a D to C founder. So, but if you can lay some, some things, right. The, some first principles, right. When you acquired your first customers, right. What were those things?

A Uh, few things. I think, um, number one is, I think the product experience is, is crucial, right. And small and small things make a big difference. I think keeping it simple and focused on the small things is really important. For example, if you take a shaving cream, When you open the top of the shaving cream, the shaving cream should not spread on the cap. It's a small thing, but it's very important. People in the ketchup industry understand as well. You see Heinz, they do a very good job of how their cap is designed. Second, when you close the cap, the sound the cap makes when it closes is important. The tactile feedback on the thumb is important. The fact that you feel that the shaving cream is not getting wasted is important. The fragrance on your face after you wash off after shave, how long it lasts is important. So, Very important one thing which I tell to anyone who's building a brand, whether it's DTC or otherwise, get the product experience right. Everyone can make a 95% good product. Few people can make a 99% good product. Very, very, very few people can make a hundred percent cool product. And those people succeed a lot. So, founder energy, team energy should be in building out a really good, outstanding product experience. Secondly, I think, uh, figure out where to play. Like, don't, uh, don't, uh, Uh, don't play in super neat, super small category. I think it was…

AI assessment note: “number one is, I think the product experience is, is crucial, right.”

Q Got it. And, uh, you know, uh, if you reflect back, you know, in terms of other decision-making principles, which your team has built, what would they be from which other DTC founders or any founders can, can learn from, from today's podcast?

A Uh, I think one is, um, uh, stay close to the consumer. Go into, if you are in, in, in SMCG, going to the market a lot. Talk to retailers. Talk to, uh, category builders. Talk to competition. Just keep, it's a very fast evolving market. Stay close to the market. You can't do work on a laptop in your office. You have to be in the market and talk to people. It's tiring. In summers, it becomes very painful. You, you feel like you're not getting a lot, but Darshan Bhai is a fantastic example. He built fog sitting in Panwadi and figuring out how the deodorants are sold, right? That's where the insight came. Uh, so do that continuously, stay close to the consumer. Uh, I think second thing is, um, um, uh, trust your judgment, uh, and gut. Don't, don't keep waiting for data to validate what you're thinking or feeling. Entrepreneurial teams are very fast, uh, and they need to be, if they want to make big dents in categories that have big competitors, large size competitors, you can't be too slow and you can never be fast enough. So keep launching products exactly, or keep, you know, kind of, uh, uh, banking down on our communication, uh, strategy to do whatever you can to up, create upheaval in the category as much as you can. And the only way to do it is to be agile. Third thing is in any decision, Uh, be prudent, right? Uh, one, one framework that I found helpful is whether you're lau…

AI assessment note: “I think one is, um, uh, stay close to the consumer.”

Q You, you, you came from a very humble background, uh, a business, traditional business family, and now you have built an institution, which will, you know, surpass you. It has built a legacy. So first, thank you so much, sir. And would love to start, you know, by knowing before Mariko, what were you doing your family background?

A Okay. So thank you. Thank you Siddharth for inviting me to your podcast. And I'm very happy that first time for me, and I believe your, uh, your platform is doing very well. So congratulations and all the best. Let me start off by talking about myself. I'm, I'm just a commerce graduate. I finished my college from Bombay and Sydenham. And at the age of 20, I joined the family business, which comprised of my father and three of my uncles. And the office was located in the heart of commodity markets in Majid Bandar. And there were no professionals. It was a typically family managed organization. And we were all staying in one same house in, uh, at Haji Ali. And so it was a large joint family where, uh, my father, um, three of my uncles, my grandfather, and then all the children. So it was like a huge joint family. And we used to discuss a lot of I mean, the business used to get discussed at home a lot also. So that was really my, shall I say, initiation into business because, you know, when the business topics gets discussed and when you're present, then you, at least here, you may not, uh, you may not be able to add value, but the fact that the business is being discussed at home, uh, I think that's how I started getting some good understanding of business. And I was thrown into the company by my father without any guidance. And, uh, without any direction. So I started exploring,…

AI assessment note: “I finished my college from Bombay and Sydenham. And at the age of 20, I joined the family business”

Q And sir, what, what were the first seeds? If you remember that made parachute and the household names that they are current today, which is evolved over from a zero percent market share in parachute.

A We became a market leader, you know, And, um, the first phase was our quality was very good. I must say, you know, and that is something which I must credit my family that they were producing very good coconut oil. So that acted as some sort of cutting edge in the marketplace as far as the competition is concerned. So the first set of, uh, you may call it success or first success of first taste of success happened because of distribution network and because of good quality. And then we did all that, but again, you are stuck at a certain market share. At that time we realized that if If we innovate, we'll be able to increase our market share. And that's how we converted the whole market from tin to plastics, because tin is expensive, much more expensive than plastics. It's, uh, much, uh, plastic is more convenient to use. It's more attractive than tins. So, but we went through use learning curve in launching. So that plastics launch over a period of five or seven years, just increase our market share from 15% to 50%, you know. So, and I think that played a very, very important role. And we were, because we were making extra money compared to the other competitors who were packing in tin, you are reinvesting in marketing, you know, and I think that led to us becoming a market leader.

AI assessment note: “first taste of success happened because of distribution network and because of good quality”

Q And, uh, how, how do you track the metric, right? That you have impacted our lives. Is it the feedback which you receive or any other mentor?

A So for talks, it's mostly through the feedback that we receive from users and the comments that we get, um, you know, and mostly stories revolve around people who've actually either been able to grant the government exam or dropped out of, uh, you know, their current job, started their own business. Change the stream in college. Left an abusive relationship. Those are the kinds of stories that we keep getting in. Um, and it's mostly through comments, or we have something called a community tab on YouTube where we regularly interact with our, um, you know, users or subscribers. And for skills, it's mostly tracked through completion rates. Uh, so for people who actually completed the course, we track how it sort of changed their life. Were they able to get a job after that or not? We are not doing the job matching piece right now, but we want to take that up in the future ourselves. But right now we sort of track like, for example, use cases are very different for people when they're coming in to learn English. It could be as simple as a mother wanting to learn English to talk to her child who lives in the city. And that has a very different kind of an impact and extremely qualitative and emotional, but it could be someone who's in a first job trying to get a promotion and for the promotion requires spoken English. Um, and that's where we're able to see, you know, tangible econom…

AI assessment note: “So for talks, it's mostly through the feedback that we receive from users”

Q I think, ah, you know, Ankur Waripu mentions about Josh, and you, and Shobis a lot about, honestly. So how has your relationship with you been, right? Has he been an investor or a mentor?

A Yeah, so he, so he started off with actually being a speaker. So Ankur was a speaker at Josh Talks Gurgaon in 2015, and, um, and at that point of time he was in Groupon, and he used to run, like, he was active on Quora. Um, not sure if you remember, but he was one of the few people who had actually built this base on Kora, and he used to give out his email ID over there, and then I just reached out to him saying you should come and give a talk, and that's how we met. Um, and after the event got over, he actually wrote in saying that I have been a part of so many events, and I've spoken at, you know, so many festivals, college events, etc., but I have never seen something which was, Co-ordinated so smoothly end to end that it was, you know, an experience for a speaker also to be a part of that and to, uh, witness that. Um, and that's how we started talking and then, you know, we met him at nearby. He was subleaving his office space in nearby. We ended up working there for one and a half years after Innovate. Um, and that's actually where we sort of like, you know, um, used to see him. He was quite a role model for us, right? Like he would be handling such a large team. He would just be walking down in the lunch hall. We would be able to catch up with him for 5:10 minutes, um, and continue to learn from him. And then eventually he did become a shareholder in Josh.

AI assessment note: “He was quite a role model for us... eventually he did become a shareholder”

Q Farouk, we would love to know about your background, you know, before FINE journey started, where you grew up, right, your childhood, what your parents did, right? Sure. Sure.

A Uh, so I was, uh, born and brought up in, uh, Kuwait. Uh, Kuwait is this small Middle East, uh, country, an oil rich Middle East country. Uh, I was born and brought up over there. I did my schooling, uh, till 10th over there. Uh, my mom's a housemaker and my dad, uh, used to work in, uh, Hitachi. Uh, he was a general manager of Hitachi in that region. Uh, so as a kid, uh, we had, I mean, I used to hang, we studied in this school called the Indian School, Kuwait. It's one of the few schools that was there, uh, in Kuwait. Did my 10th over there. After that, I, uh, to pursue JE, uh, I, I moved to, uh, India, uh, Bangalore specifically. Uh, that's when, when I came to Bangalore, then I kind of realized, you know, the level of competition that really existed, uh, in India. Uh, when you, when you are in, uh, when you are in Kuwait, you know, it is a small country with, and it's relatively easy to, you know, uh, top that sort of a small area. When you come to India, you kind of realize, you know, there's so many more talented people, uh, than you, and you really need to put in the hard work, Do it. So the first few years, I first two years, uh, after I graduated from 10, uh, it's called first view, second view. I didn't even know what we used to perform before I came over here. So I, I, I was there and I did my first view, second view. And then the first attempt at J I didn't, I didn'…

AI assessment note: “I was born and brought up in Kuwait... my mom's a housemaker and my dad”

Q We would love to know in detail how this went, right? From the call till. Sure. Okay. Sure.

A So, uh, what happened? Let me recall this. So, uh, I think this is like, uh, June, July of, uh, 2018, and, uh, Reliance runs this incubator called, uh, Gen Next Ventures, and Harsh was, uh, invited over there to, to speak, uh, about how, how, how we, how, how we got growth, uh, uh, or how we got traction, uh, but then he decided to speak on, you know, how we, how we built the organization culture. Uh, instead of growth. And that was a presentation he made to, uh, some cohort of, uh, gen X ventures as part of the, the gen X ventures, uh, monthly update to, uh, uh, MBA, sir. They then, uh, sent the pitch that we had, uh, presented in that, uh, uh, in that session, which, uh, got them really interested in, Uh, us saying that, you know, this is exactly how we think and this is exactly how we want to build. So we should talk to these boys. And that's how we got, uh, then invited to, uh, uh, we got invited by the chairman's office to come and meet. Um, so one fine day. Me and Harsh, uh, then go to, uh, Reliance Corporate Park, which is on the auscourts of, of, uh, Bombay. And we are told that we are going to meet, um, uh, Manoj Modi, sir. And at that point of time, uh, we were working with Reliance Brand for almost like four or five years now, but we've never actually had, uh, interacted anyone with anyone at the Reliance leadership. So I said, fine.

AI assessment note: “I think this is like, uh, June, July of, uh, 2018”

Q Ashwin, so, uh, tell me about, you know, you were part of ShareChat journey, right? How you came to invest in ShareChat? Like what stage you invested? I'm interested to know. And have you taken exit?

A Sure, sure. So, um, uh, share chat is from our Uniquid Angel portfolio. Uh, I have known the IQ guys for a long time. Um, uh, both Madhukar and Anand have been friends and, uh, we do a lot of work together. Um, so, uh, there was an opportunity that they had in an internal bridge round, um, that only insiders were doing and we were able to get some allocation there. So that's about a year ago or just about. And, uh, you know, from then on that, uh, journey has been quite fantastic. They've raised, uh, multiple rounds post our investment. Uh, and obviously we've all heard about how they've become a unicorn. Uh, but you know, to be honest, that investment is all credit to the IQ guys. We are, uh, uh, more thankful to them to give us an allocation. Um, uh, but, uh, you know, we're very happy to be part of the journey. No, no, we have not sold any shares that I think, uh, um, it's too early for us, uh, in the journey, but, uh, of course it's one of those where, you know, the valuation has gone up significantly since we invested, but, I think we are very confident of the company and the performance over the next few years.

AI assessment note: “No, no, we have not sold any shares that I think, uh, um, it's too early”

Q Tell me, you know, so, so a picture cannot be all rosy, right? So what are some of the things that didn't work out for you? As an investor or in your investment journey.

A Yeah, absolutely. I think we, we all have a habit of, uh, only talking about our winners, right? No one really talks about how difficult this business is, right? Um, and, and you know well that out of 10 deals, four or five deals will not work, right? In the angel business, early stage investing business. Uh, so, um, uh, we've had lots and lots of learnings. Um, on the debt side, we've had restructurings. We've had, you know, uh, we invested, uh, in a, Uh, uh, a restaurant company, a restaurant chain, um, uh, which had pan India presence, uh, up until let's say February of last year, that company was our, uh, one of our best performing companies, not a single day's delay. We had an escrow on their receivables, uh, the first year, second year before even the landlords get the rent or the employees get salary, our money, our payment used to hit, you know, direct debit. We were there. Uh, and suddenly you see that the world has changed, you know, for six months, they had zero sales. Now, how can a business that was doing a 150 crores a year and profitable, uh, survive when you have six months of zero sales, right? Uh, you have to, uh, manage your expenses. You have employees, you know, we have 1250 employees in that business. So it was a real struggle. Um, but having said that, you know, uh, we had great founders, um, and we were lucky that in that business, we had some, uh, deep …

AI assessment note: “on the debt side, we've had restructurings. We've had, you know, uh, we invested”

Q In action, right? So I'm talking about actions like buying a house. So if, if you could go back in time, so you would have not bought that house.

A No, absolutely. I wouldn't. So, so any other, I would have not also sort of put money into, uh, debt funds, uh, early on. I think I had a portion of debt funds. Uh, I think financial advisors talk about that it should be fifty-fifty or some equity debt. I would not have, I would have gone a hundred percent equity, uh, right from, um, you know, sort of day one. Uh, and, um, I think these two broadly and, uh, never went into things like gold or other, uh, sort of, uh, instruments. And, um, uh, and I think one time I also remember I had made like a foolish mistake of just going out and buying five random stocks. I think I, I was just going by mutual funds. And one time I felt, you know, everyone talks about stocks, let me buy stocks. And my level of research was, That people will always watch movies. So let's buy PVR stock and, uh, you know, people will always have steel. So let's buy Tata steel. I mean, it was really dumb half an hour binge of buying a few stocks. I bought it and I forgot about it. And, uh, I remember after three years, uh, out of five stocks, uh, two had crashed to almost zero and three had, uh, Really increased in value. So net net, I had made some 10% return on five absolutely random choices. So I don't know whether I'll call it a mistake or not, but obviously the level of research I had put in was close to zero. So buying stocks and having that amount of risk…

AI assessment note: “No, absolutely. I wouldn't. So, so any other, I would have not”

Q Right. In inverted passion. So is there a, like a separate reading time that you have like 2:03 hours a day, which you focus on?

A So in the morning, so the way my sort of me, I mean, I don't take meetings before, um, four PM or five PM. So I, I, I think I do follow what you can call as deep work principle, where you have a block of time slaughtered just for yourself. So in the morning when I'm most energetic, I feel most productive. I slot that time to read, think and write. So from, um, say, uh, 10 or 11 AM to three or four PM is my own time. And after that, if they're meeting discussions or email or slack, that's when I go about and check it. So the best time, uh, the best sort of slot of my day is kept to exploring my curiosity.

AI assessment note: “I slot that time to read, think and write.”

Q owners and seekers save more than 90% of the transaction cost. Omid, I would like to start with, you know, before diving into how you raised one fifty, one million dollars of venture capital and build the India's largest platform in no brokerage. And this is a new concept altogether. I would like to start with your journey growing up, right? Your family, everything before, you know, starting no broker.

A Sure. Uh, so, uh, so my father is, uh, was a civil servant and, uh, he was posted in UP. And hence, because of his job, we kept on shifting, uh, cities every two to three years. So I think when you shift a lot of cities, either you become too introvert or you become too extrovert. So I moved towards becoming more extrovert because I had to change schools every, every one to three years and make new friends and just do a new school and so on. Uh, and so, uh, a lot of my schooling was done in Agra, which was 10th and 12th. And then as everybody, as it was prevalent at that point of time and to some extent even today, that if, uh, you get good marks in 10th and, uh, my 10th exam went well. So I was among the top 20 in the entire state, uh, in the board exam. So hence it was understood that, okay, because you are good in studies, which means you need to either choose engineering or be a doctor. And then I basically came for IIT and then went to IIT Kanpur. Uh, studied there for four years. Uh, and then did, uh, uh, then joined like, like everybody else. Uh, then again, there were two options either going outside and study, giving GRE or do a job here. Uh, then followed by MBA. Uh, so I gave GRE. I got into a good university in US to pursue MS, uh, because I was the class, I was the bad stopper. And again, it was quite prevalent that if you are among good in studies, then you basica…

AI assessment note: “my father is, uh, was a civil servant and, uh, he was posted in UP”

Q And what was the first version of No Broker IK? Was it an app? Was it currently or was it just a plain website or what are the yellow pages?

A So it was a plain website and you'll be surprised to know in today's age that early on we thought perhaps app is not something which will work. So, uh, it's not very well, it's what it's basically six, seven years back that we are talking, but at that point of time, uh, today app is basically, uh, omnipresent and, and you can't think of anything without an app, but at that point of time, we thought that perhaps this is something that people will use it once in a year, once in two years. So isn't a website, isn't a mobile friendly website sufficient enough? Would you have, why would you need an app? Or perhaps even if you need an app, perhaps couple of years down the line. Uh, of course, uh, thankfully we launched app and we are not late about it, but the initial version was, uh, was a simple website, uh, a very clean website, which we try to maintain even today, uh, trying to connect owners and tenants directly with each other.

AI assessment note: “So it was a plain website”