The Wisdom Wall

“Hardly any good deal has happened where there was complete consensus. So, because outlier outcomes will only come when there's no consensus. So one person has to truly, truly, strongly believe in it, and then of course debate, fight it out, get other people feedback, but it has to be one or two people liking it much…”

“comparing with US is wrong, because US is 15 years ahead of us. And when you, when you have one hundred billion dollar company, Uh, being created, then for the next 10 years, that firm is, is very, very aggressive.”

“Real deals only happen after continuous engagement because that's when the founder also knows you. That's the only time. Otherwise it's a FOMO investment.”

“it is really the paradigm of education then changes that the lecturer is different from Uh, from, from, uh, doubt solver to is different from mentor, uh, which, uh, which, uh, which is effectively unbundling of the different roles that the teacher standing, uh, on the podium in the offline coaching institutes who are…”

“in U.S. Uh, the tech companies are catering to a very thin sliver of the market because of the existence of public and private infrastructure of education. Uh, in India, the entrepreneurs are creating, are really creating their infrastructure from bottoms up, uh, full stack. Uh, and, and that is, and that is why…”

“bookish market size is perhaps the wrong number to look at, uh, when you're evaluating education companies”

“it's important to have focus and be the winner in your category, because number two will almost always surely get poorer quality customers and would have it more difficult to build a company.”

“I thought that large companies can do a lot And so startups, the startup will fail, that startup will fail, and that was a stupid mistake that I did for many companies. Um, I think large companies move at their own pace, and that's why entrepreneurial energy is important, and that's why entrepreneurs are able to create…”

“market size matters a lot more than people, than, at least as an entrepreneur, I gave importance to. You can change everything, but you cannot change market size really. Um, best entrepreneurs can create the market, but still market size has to be there. There has to be profit pools.”

“You know, at every meeting you are having, this could be the career creating meeting. Or career killing meeting.”

“I think that is a clear trend that the world has changed around us, and India is a unique market where this is happening because, ah, because customer expectations are high, And because of density and availability of, ah, labor force, it is just possible to do quick commerce in India, right?”

“And, and I would argue as a consumer VC, you are betting on behavior changes.”

“A biggest mistake you can do Is we think we know. Because every five years you don't know. It will, the market will change completely. And, ah, and just being, being young and curious at that point of time is actually very critical.”

“Sometimes, very good founders, when they are operating in bad spaces, that bias comes in, that why is this founder operating in this space? And that is why the judgment on the founder becomes mixed.”

“Then the right process as a VC firm, Is if you like the founder, then you have to track the pivots as well.”

“Storytelling is more important in categories where fundraising is important in future as well. So there have been many good founders who have good, been good execution guys, but they have not been able to raise capital later. And so the company has not done very well.”

“education fundamentally is a high margin business. Uh, because at the end of the day, you are selling aspiration. You are selling hope.”

“people do not pay for content as much, but people pay for learning. People pay for the package.”

“it was a confluence of, uh, smartphone penetration increase, uh, uh, faster internet, uh, because of Jio, uh, payment infrastructure being large enough, uh, and, and, and, and payment penetration in the country being large enough. Uh, so because of these reasons, there was, there was already Uh, there's already a set…”