Ep. 8: Akash Gehani of Instamojo: Finding Founders thru Twitter, Failing to Scale and 3rd Time Lucky

Jag Chima is a second-generation businessman of a different kind. He has built multiple businesses, from mobile retailing to real estate to celebrity fitness companies. The interesting thing about each of these companies is that he has timed them well and made a success out of them

Jag has scaled them to meaningful heights within the confines of the market that he was working in. A chance discussion led him to launch and scale a celebrity fitness company that has literally trained all Bollywood A-Listers

His latest venture is again timed well, focusing on the creator economy. Jag is bringing the same zeal to the world of creators and influencers as he did with his other ventures. This is an episode very different from what we have had in the past

Emotion is at the heart of everything that we do as humans. As the adage goes and what we are witnessing with modern day Twitter wars, the pen is mightier than the sword. However, using the right words to evoke the right emotions seems more like an art than science. Can technology help us write as well as Kalidasa or the Bard? This is the place where Sharmin Ali is focusing her energies.

Sharmin traces her origins to Shantiniketan, the hallowed place of Rabindranath Tagore. Being a Bengali, Sharmin spent the first few years of her professional in high growth environments such as Mu Sigma and Fortune 500 companies in Biz Dev. However, her literary origins and Bengali roots did not go away.

Sharmin eventually branched out to build India's Netflix writing as many as 70 scripts on her own. She saw the writing on the wall and sold her scripts to launch Instoried. With Instoried, Sharmin Ali is hoping to change the way people write. Infusing their writing with emotion and empathy is something Sharmin is envisioning. Interesting episode with lots of twists and turns. 

Mention the name Sabeer Bhatia and it evokes memories of startups, the excitement and frenzy of the dot-com era and more. Sabeer Bhatia is a well known name for pre-millenial Indians who all grew up on the dreams of having a startup and exit like Sabeer did with Hotmail.

Sabeer and his co-founder arguably kicked off the dot-com boom. The $400+ Million acquisition of Hotmail by the then pre-eminent company Microsoft opened the eyes of entrepreneurs, investors and industry watchers to the possibility of what the internet could bring.

Sabeer was the first in a long line of entrepreneurs that tasted success with the ventures they built. Having tasted this success, they went on to try their hand at various other ventures. Sabeer did the same. He tried to recreate eBay in India calling it Aarzoo and he tried at other ventures.

Ever the dreamer, Sabeer is back with a bang with an idea that on paper is likely to give goosebumps. He is in a mission to unleash millions of entrepreneurs just like the millions of email accounts that he unleashed with Hotmail 25 years ago. The vision is audacious but seems practicaly and timely. Listen to the episode to understand his story and how he plans to achieve this daring vision.

What does it take to build a D2C brand? How can we become successful at it? We live in the age of individual and local brands. Not a day passes without us discovering a brand in cosmetics or food or another consumer product introduced to us. The advances made by industries make it possible for anyone to launch brands and products with a bit of work. In this in-depth episode, Co-Founder of the successful spa chain Four Fountains De-Stress Spa and Co-Founder of Pilgrim Cosmetics Anurag Kedia takes us thru his journey, how he spotted the opportunity for a D2C brand, how they succeeded in launching during Covid and other aspects. If you want to win with your D2C brand and in online commerce, listen to Anurag here.

Insurance is a very interesting business. Nobody thinks they need one until they face a certain situation. For a country with chronic illnesses and perennial under penetration of healthcare facilities, systemic solutions have not necessarily kept pace with the needs of the people.

People in MSMEs or in the unorganized sector don't have access, let alone the right pricing. The result is a large number of uninsured and underinsured employees with no health insurance benefits. This problem begged for an intervention and that's a problem Abhishek Poddar of PlumHQ is solving.

Abhishek Poddar is a serial entrepreneur. Having tried his hand at building a couple of startups in the past and having attended Stanford, he knew he had it in him to make it happen. How did Plum come to be and where is it headed? Its in this episode

LoanTap's Satyam Kumar enjoyed a cushy life as a senior banking executive. By the mid-2010s, he experienced a glass ceiling and felt that he had plateaued. In addition, the growing Indian vocal and connected millennials, the black swan event of demonetization, and the startup wave pushed the market in a new direction. Users who wanted better products and the Indian Government's Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile (JAM Trinity) greatly aided LoanTap's Satyam Kumar's push towards better digital products.

Driven by the ability to authenticate users electronically and the millions of young users online, LoanTap made a mega push. Backing this mega push was Satyam's ability to raise funding on the back of his experience and the market opportunity. This episode is full of insights into how LoanTap has grown at such a fast pace.  

Anshoo Sharma joined Bain Consulting in Boston and cut his teeth in the world of management consulting. Anshoo moved to India when Bain opened an office and soon moved to the emerging world of Venture Capital. After watching startups rise and fall, he was itching to start one himself. He teamed up with one of his buddies and soon they launched Magic Pin in the world of Hyper-Local in the year 2015.

Why is Magic Pin still standing where others have disappeared?

Magic Pin's Anshoo Sharma and his team had a clear agenda and goal from the beginning. Their goal was to build a startup in the hyperlocal space. One that would help users and customers discover new and exciting places. Their scientific and growth-oriented approach is the key success ingredient. They launched a series of growth hacks that helped them gather accurate data that enabled them to drive traffic to offline stores. One of their first growth hacks - selfies in front of coffee day stores garnered 100K responses. Tasting first blood early, they went for the kill and methodically implemented their growth plan. Today, Magic Pin has emerged as an exciting player in the Hyper-Local space and one of the few in its categories to be standing. How did Magic Pin's Anshoo Sharma pull this off? What were their growth hacks and tactics? We go deep in this episode and bring it all to you on a platter

Jumbotail's Karthik Venkateswaran is an interesting man. He came from a middle class background and rose to the rank of a major in the Indian Army. After a decade of serving in the army, his heart bled for something else.

That something else was a larger goal - a goal of makings people's lives better. Making people's lives better is a common thread we see across a variety of entrepreneurs who are working on goals and problems that are very large. Karthik wanted to work in India's large retail sector and on large problems but had no credibility. He chose to get some credibility since he had no entrepreneurial experience. He enrolled in Stanford where he met his future co-founder. 

Organizing the $883 Billion Indian Retail sector made up of 12 Million Kirana stores was the target. Jumbotail today has outgrown its roots in Bangalore and is spreading its wings across the country. How big can it get? What were the initial challenges? This and more in this episode

Viraj Bahl of Veeba sauces is an interesting man. Upon graduation, his father told him that he would have to earn his way into a life of prosperity. His father told him that he would have to earn outside the family business. He would have to establish a basic lifestyle before participating in the family business.

Once he established a basic lifestyle, his father was good for his word. Viraj joined the family business - Dr.Oetker's fun foods around the year 2003. Amidst the back of the IT Offshoring and India's decade of growth, Oetker took off. It became a massive success, and Viraj likes to quip that it succeeded despite him.

His family business was sold and Viraj tried his hand at a restaurant chain which failed. Not one to stop at failure, Viraj set about starting up again. However, this time around, he was going to do something familiar with. Only, he was going to do it bigger and better. He founded Veeba. As he likes to say and we totally, the sauce is the unsung hero of the Indian palette, kitchen, dishes, and Indian cooking. Without the sauces, the dish is just a skeleton of things.

The next time you try your favorite Bhel Puri or Chicken Tikka Masala - imagine the dish without the sauce, and you'll understand. Today, Veeba has grown into one of India's largest foods companies, especially in sauces. They have recreated every imaginable amazing flavor on the planet and brought it closer to us.

How did Viraj Bahl of Veeba do it bigger and better? Where do new flavors come from? How do they bring out new sauces? What is their secret ingredient? It's all in this episode.