Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bhushan: Goyal and Majety will replace Tata and Reliance as role models
“I think, 50 years from now, we'll not talk about Reliance Starter. We'll probably talk about Dipinder and Harsha. I hope that happens, but they would be the next role model.”
Insight
Bhushan: Monetization usually degrades initial customer retention curves
“Then you realize retention curves don't matter, finally you need to make money. You start building business models on top of the retention curves, then you realize the retention curve will drop the moment you put money on top of it.”
Insight
Bhushan: Indian small merchants will not pay for software that does not generate demand
“So if you don't generate demand, and if you say, I'll give you a tool, it's an operational improvement tool. Most of the Indian businesses are anyways very tightly run. They're not having large man for, ah, manpower that they will need to cut people. One perso…”
Opinion
Bhushan: Ten years is not enough time to evaluate a VC
“I think even 10 years is not enough to say that I have done as, done well as a VC.”
Opinion
Brij Bhushan: Writing Checks Within a Week Is Avoidable FOMO
“It will only be a FOMO investment if you're writing a check in one week of meeting a guy. It's a FOMO investment which I think is best avoided.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bhushan: A wave of high-quality Indian AI companies will emerge within a year
“So I think probably for a few more months, we'll see this messy sort of situation where VCs are also not sure, Indian founders are also not sure, but a year from now, you'll suddenly find a wave of companies, because as Prateek said, finally Indians are very h…”
Opinion
Bhushan: Building a cutting-edge AI company requires being in the US
“If you have to build a company in AI, it's very difficult to build out of India because you are constantly not sure if you are in the local maxima or the global maxima. Right. Are you at the cutting edge of tech, understanding, implementation? So you have to b…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2035
Bhushan: Two to three multi-billion-dollar Indian tech acquisitions will happen within 10 years
“But hopefully two, three of this should happen in the next 10 years, and I'm guessing that one of the Indian companies that are going public, or have gone public, would be the ones leading the charge.”
Insight
Bhushan: Investors must avoid operating portfolio companies alongside founders
“Eventually the founder is in the command of the ship. Right? And if there are more than one commanders, you will likely end up Having an accident, so you need to step away, but that's part of, like, my transitioning also to make sure that I'm not stepping into…”
Insight
Bhushan: Only three out of ten venture portfolio companies succeed
“All your companies, you want them to succeed, but the reality is not all of them will. Three out of those 10 will actually become successful, rest will go through the tough phases.”
Insight
Bhushan: AI lowers distribution and tool costs for Indian small business software
“With AI, there is a macro tailwind also on small businesses in India. I've built a company trying to help small retailers, and it was very hard, but now if I have to build the same company again with AI available, it is actually easier, because you can actuall…”
Insight
Bhushan: Portfolio failure is usually apparent within two to three years
“Failures are many a times very,
Quickly apparent.
Like, within two, three years, you will know, with reasonable confidence, and not so high confidence, that this is unlikely to be the blockbuster return company in your portfolio.”
Disclosure
Bhushan: A $120M fund does not need multiple blockbuster exits
“So let's say a fund like us, a hundred twenty million dollars, we don't need multiple blockbusters to generate returns, right?”
Disclosure
Prime VP Takes 4–5 Weeks Per Deal and Avoids Trophy Founders
“The fund where I'm part of now, actually because we don't do a lot of investments every year, and we take more measured approach to investing, we need four to five weeks. And I think four to five weeks in most deals you will get. Unless you change what we inte…”
Insight
Bhushan: Right fund sizing is crucial to target 5-6x net returns
“We believe that the best play to venture cap, play the VC business, is to have the right size fund, right, because at the core of a VC, our first job is to be money managers, which is that we take money from someone, and our obligation is to return multiple of…”
Insight
Bhushan: Storytelling is a founder's most crucial trait in winner-take-all markets
“In some spaces, as Prateek mentioned, where it is winner takes all or winner takes most of the market, and thus you need to attract capital, it is a, it is probably the most important spike you need as a founder. Because the reality is you will need to sell th…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bhushan: I fired 400 people in one week during COVID-19
“We were hit on our face by COVID, right, so we had almost 304 hundred people being let go in a week, and so I had to do that on four calls, asking people to go, people who have, I have hired like three months before saying that, You know, we'll make a life-cha…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bhushan: Founders used to give up 20 percent for a $500k seed
“Raising an angel round of three to four crores is far easier now than 10, 12 years ago, there was no concept of an angel round of four crores. You will straight away go to a VC and say, give me 500 K, and you'll take 20% ownership of 500 K.”
