The Exchanges

Q And from your town, many folks had gone before you to DPSRK Puram?

A Maybe three, four. I mean, at best, the person who would be the topper of class 10th in our school, in one out of two, three years, that person will have enough marks that they can probably get admitted into DPSRK Puram. But that was all that people knew about the future of education. I was fortunate enough to get decent marks in class 10th. And that's how I showed up, showed up at DPS Arkhiparam. It is after coming here that I realized what is IIT, ah, then I realized that, okay, if to go to an IIT, most people go to a coaching class. Then I've asked around in DPS, found a coaching class which you're supposed to go to, try to get admitted into one Vidya Mandir, right? Vidya Mandir.

AI assessment note: “Maybe three, four. I mean, at best, the person who would be the topper”

Q And solving hard problem for the sake of it, it's required or how? Because then people will, will try to attach

A No, I don't think it's required to be for the sake of the heart problem. I feel it's required. I mean, look, at the end of the day, the only thing that matters eventually is For any business, who's your customer? What do they want from you? And can you do give it to them better and most more cost efficiently than anyone else? That is by definition the business. So as entrepreneurs, sometimes this happens to us, which by the way, happened to us firsthand. And as a result, I speak from experience is that You can start solving the problem with yourself first and get to attach to the problem, not to the solution that customers are looking for, which may be completely different. Uh, and hence we actually very strongly encourage entrepreneurs to start talking to their customers as early as they can, even before setting up the company and sometimes just to get a feel for what they should be doing. And again, why I said we learnt it the hard ways. When we started our business, actually, ah, we started, didn't, we didn't even start as a e-commerce company. We started as a physical coupon booklet, ah, back when me and Kunal left our jobs. You know, and this physical coupon booklet would have many, many coupons, buy one, get one free, 40, 50% off at many of the top brands, restaurants, et cetera, in the city. So me and Kunal, we thought it's a great idea. We were 23 years old, so we thoug…

AI assessment note: “No, I don't think it's required to be for the sake of the heart problem.”

Q Yes. So how would you, if you have to give an anecdote to these investors who are coming out from outside India, how has India come a long way or how has India changed? How will you feel?

A So India has changed very dramatically. I mean, I think the, sometimes when you live in a particular place, it is not always as easy to perceive the change because it's happening very gradually. But I think for me, the most stark example of it comes when I go back to my hometown, which I left for 20 plus years back. And as a result, my memories of that town are in some ways still in that capsule of what it used to be 20 years back. And whenever I go back now, it's almost a refresher of what it has become now. As compared to when I was growing up, it's changed in many, many different ways, right? So few things, few examples that come to mind. One, as I was mentioning earlier, there used to be almost no focus on education from parents or many times from children as well. I see a remarkable focus on education now because it is becoming increasingly Socially accepted that good education can have, can change orbits and have life-changing experiences for families put together, not just individuals. So there's a lot more focus on education, which I see now. Uh, you know, back, back in time when we were growing up, this is again pre-internet, pre-social media, pre-e-commerce, et cetera. Our aspirations used to be really restricted because the whole world of what we knew when we were growing up was our small town and maybe a few towns nearby. And we rarely used to get a glimpse into wha…

AI assessment note: “most stark example of it comes when I go back to my hometown”

Q Can you give two, three examples of companies that you invested in?

A Mama Earth in itself. You know, I remember when we invested in Mama Earth, this is not that many years back, eight years, seven, eight years back, but the company was selling, you know, mosquito repellent, toxin-free mosquito repellents for kids. More importantly, at that time, the phrase D to C didn't even exist. It came up after that. And when we invested in the company, uh, after that, many of the investor friends who we know, they also called us and said, look, guys, we are supposed to be investing in tech businesses. What are you guys doing? Investing in a Sabun Tel, like quote unquote Sabun Tel ka business. Yeah. Well, how is that investor friendly business? Yeah. We had a very different point of view that look, it is a large market. These guys have a fantastic product. People need alternates, and if they do a good job, they will be able to expand the market. Honestly, they did far better than we would have expected them to do. All the credit to Varun, Gazel, and their team for having pulled it off. I don't think we could have imagined them doing so exceptionally well as they have done, but at least it was visible to us. But then it was a contrarian bet at that point of time, because very few new companies used to start in this industry. Uh, people used to only go with the existing traditional brands, uh, and that way it was a contrarian bet. Now, after that, Seeing the s…

AI assessment note: “Mama Earth in itself. You know, I remember when we invested in Mama Earth”

Q Right. But you mentioned to me, it has a population of less than a 100,000, less than one lakh people. So what are your memories that share you today from that place?

A So it's, uh, it's, it's good to go down the, go down the memory lane sometimes. So as, as I, as you rightly mentioned, I grew up in Malot, which is, Uh, before Google Maps, it was very hard to find that place also now, thanks to technology. If someone asks me where is Malot, I am able to show them on Google Maps. Uh, but you know, I grew up in a business family as in small towns. There is not much of a corporate sector, right? So most people are small business people. So similarly, my dad, uh, you know, used to run a fertilizer, fertilizer store, and that's the sort of family setup I grew up in. And everyone in the extended family was someone who will have a clothes shop, someone will have some other shop, et cetera, et cetera. And, uh, the school I went to while it was an English medium school, but All the kids were from similar backgrounds. Half of them were farmer kids. Half of them were sort of doing some sort of agri agri based business in that environment. You know, the thing that was considered very normal thing to do, uh, for most of the people and which is how all my classmates and sort of friends were also from school is to continue doing what their parents are doing, because that was the safest thing to do. This is again, more than two decades back and people didn't know what opportunities exist. This was before internet existed. And that was the standard thing that …

AI assessment note: “my dad, uh, you know, used to run a fertilizer, fertilizer store”

Q are talking about the new different kind of startups that are getting built, right? There's a requirement for investors and more as early as possible. So can people do angel investing full time and coming back to some of the anecdotes, right? If you can share, right, your first angel investor, Ken Glass, right? What was the exit for him at Snapdeal and what are some of your own hundred

A No, we've been, we've been very fortunate. Uh, we've, we've been very fortunate as an investor. Uh, you know, we've had some companies, which, you know, is out there in the media, which have done, done a great sort of great hundreds, as they say, a hundred X plus returns, whether it's an Ola or an urban company or a Credgenics, Hoff Business, Mamark. Yeah. And hopefully, hopefully a few more, hopefully a few more in the pipeline. But, I think it's great that, you know, many Indians are starting to invest in companies. Um, I think it's a great thing to do. We also started because In some small shape or form, uh, we wanted to do whatever we could to catalyze entrepreneurship in the country, because both myself and Kunal are really passionate about entrepreneurship. We feel everyone who wants to should give the, give themselves that shot. And entrepreneurship is the thing that will sort of take our country forward, uh, in terms of creating more opportunities and so many other things. So as a result, we just wanted to be participants, In catalyzing it in any way we could, which is how we started investing in companies, which then much later got institutionalized into Titan Capital, where we now have fairly sort of decently sized portfolio. We invest in over 10, 15 companies a year and sort of stayed with them for, for a long period of time. And we invest in absolutely early stage, …

AI assessment note: “hundred X plus returns, whether it's an Ola or an urban company or a Credgenics”