Disclosure certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Makkar: Bessemer evaluates vertical SaaS entirely on metrics, not domain expertise

Divyanshu Makkar · How He Built India's #1 SaaS for Manufacturers? Ft. Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder-Sourcewiz · Aug 23, 2022 · at 14:34

Divyanshu Makkar reflects on his investing tenure at Bessemer Venture Partners, explaining how investors evaluate vertical SaaS businesses in unfamiliar industries.

0:00 / 0:18exact quote · 18.5s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“And at Bessemer, at least we were very, very metric driven. And I think we published like a good, better, best of SaaS, global SaaS out there. So pretty much that's how I'm going to evaluate. So there were companies in oil and gas. I have no idea about oil and gas, but if it hits a couple of those metrics, right, I am intended to learn more about the company.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Divyanshu Makkar

Insight
Indian B2B SaaS founders must embrace field sales over remote selling
“Do not be scared of building like field sales. Like a lot of people in the beginning told me that, you know, don't do field sales. And a lot of SaaS founders, by the way, hate field sales, right? Like they don't like it. SaaS is usually thought of as a clean b…”
Divyanshu Makkar Aug 23, 2022 ▶ 1:09:11 How He Built India's #1 SaaS for Manufacturers? Ft. Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder-Sourcewiz
Insight
Makkar: VC skills do not translate to early-stage startup operations
“The skills that you learn in VCs are not really applicable to what you will do as an entrepreneur. And that became very clear to me very quickly. It was clear to me when I did consulting because none of what I did as an entrepreneur You know, outside of like, …”
Divyanshu Makkar Aug 23, 2022 ▶ 8:33 How He Built India's #1 SaaS for Manufacturers? Ft. Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder-Sourcewiz
Insight
Makkar: VCs demanding five-year projections pre-product are unfit for seed stage
“Asking for projections for a pre-product company five years out. It's, yeah, it's, you know, I'm just going to do some art there. And I felt like, you know, that like almost all VCs, like no, 99% of the VCs didn't ask me for it only one or two hours. And I, th…”
Divyanshu Makkar Aug 23, 2022 ▶ 30:22 How He Built India's #1 SaaS for Manufacturers? Ft. Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder-Sourcewiz
Insight
Charging Indian factory owners monthly creates severe payment collection problems
“Charging Indian factory owner monthly is the worst thing you can do to yourself. And it's like collections will become a huge problem in India. You just keep following up, right?”
Divyanshu Makkar Aug 23, 2022 ▶ 42:42 How He Built India's #1 SaaS for Manufacturers? Ft. Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder-Sourcewiz
Insight
Indian Tier-2 manufacturers require in-person sales due to burned trust
“Like people don't convert digitally. This is a segment which is burnt by technology so many times that they will not trust you if you're not, you know, if they don't have a face for it.”
Divyanshu Makkar Aug 23, 2022 ▶ 45:19 How He Built India's #1 SaaS for Manufacturers? Ft. Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder-Sourcewiz
Insight
Indian manufacturing lacks China's consistency because export products are handmade
“India is not known for a lot of consistency in their products. Compared to China, which is very mechanized as a setup, right? So, you know, the products are going to get out with a certain quality fail rate, and it's going to be largely the same, what you're e…”
Divyanshu Makkar Aug 23, 2022 ▶ 1:00:51 How He Built India's #1 SaaS for Manufacturers? Ft. Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder-Sourcewiz
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 300 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.