EP27: {Alok Mittal, Co-founder & CEO of Indifi}
Hi Stars!
I chat with Entrepreneur turned Investor turned Entrepreneur Alok on this episode of the Stars & Startups Podcast. Alok Mittal is an IIT Delhi graduate who you can say has become a fixture in the Indian startup ecosystem. Alok is currently the cofounder and CEO of Indifi, a debt financing platform for Indian SMEs.
On the episode we chat about the JobsAhead journey, making it to venture investing, some of his learnings along the way and learning how to be an angel investor. Also, we discuss the pandemic and how Indifi is dealing with the situation and how startups should approach the momentary setbacks.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
He’s also a prolific Angel investor and the founding Board member at the Indian Angel Network (IAN) that he helped set up in 2005 after his first startup JobsAhead was acquired by Monster.com in 2004.
Alok led the Indian operations of VC firm Caanan Partners between 2006 - 2015. The assets of which were sold to JP Morgan.
Memorable quotes from the episode:
“Consumers vote with their clicks”
“The disruptive effect of GST is yet to come!” GSTN would be transformative.
"Account Aggregators would change the game in the next many months"
Indifi is hiring for non sales/business roles, enablers & strategic partnership roles at the moment. Do check out their careers page.
Alok is also super approachable in case you need a supportive investor!
Stay Safe
- V {Twitter @varunvummidi }
Timeline:
01:00 - Jobs Portals were the original Internet gold rush in India
03:50 - Jobs was what people wanted, relevant for Indians
05:17 - User generated content was restricted to job boards
06:30 - Moving on from a job to start an Internet business
09:00 - Joining Aricent & becoming an entrepreneur
11:25 - Raising Angel funding
13:42 - Selling to Monster
15:55 - Becoming an investor
19:30 - Investments at Caanan Partners
21:00 - Selling Caanan to an AMC
24:35 - Naaptol moving into TV Commerce
28:55 - Angel Investing
30:23 - 60 investments in 15 years
31:10 - Dealflow to make 4-6 investments a year
34:27 - Entrepreneurs he's enjoyed working with
36:44 - Advice to entrepreneurs in times of COVID
40:04 - COVIDs impact on Indifi
42:45 - Prepping the business to succeed through the pandemic
45:42 - Outlook on lending
47:10 - Resetting at Indifi
48:54 - Impact of GST in the lending business
50:05 - Taking advantage of the GSTN
