Shows
Top of the MorningSEBI’s ‘Mitra’ Helps Investors | India’s Steel Industry Faces Tariff FalloutIt's Wednesday, March 5th, 2025. This is Nelson John, let's get started. India’s Steel Industry Faces Tariff FalloutIndia’s steel industry was on a growth path—until US tariffs disrupted global trade flows. With Washington slapping 25% tariffs on steel from Mexico and Canada and doubling duties on Chinese imports, China’s steel exports to the US have become unviable. This surplus steel now threatens to flood India, driving prices down and squeezing margins. “India becomes the natural target for Chinese steel at the worst possible time,” warns Karan Pahuja of ISSDA. While some see opportunity—l...2025-03-0509 min
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 15: Meet the founder of founders! This man invested in 165 startups. Ft. Rajesh Sawhney, Founder, GSFIn this episode of the ACLR8 podcast, we host one of India's most iconic startup investors: Rajesh Sawhney. Rajesh has invested in 165 companies over the last 15 years and sits on the board of many listed companies and unicorns. In today's episode we will try to cover 3 topics:Trends and opportunities for young founders as we become a $10T economyFundraising 101 for early stage foundersThinking long term about company buildingWe hope you enjoy the podcast today and it inspires you to kickstart your journey. Do drop a note in the comments section about...2025-03-031h 12
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 14: The Indiamart story! Building a ₹14000 crore listed tech company. Ft. Brijesh Agrawal🚀 Coming from a small town in India to build an INR 14K crore company.🚀 Being the first Indian B2B marketplace to list publicly.🚀 Building profitably and building the technology backbone for 70M SMB’s in India.This is the IndiaMart story...Had a wonderful chat with Brijesh Agrawal, Co-Founder, IndiaMart on how they are building the technology layer for Bharat enabling millions of MSME’s to become more efficient and scale.. ❤️We talked about:✅ The initial IndiaMart thesis and how it has evolved over the last 25 years.✅ Building the business profitably, being persistent and being customer focussed.✅ Identifying categories where you ca...2025-02-041h 02
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 13: The Dressfolk Story! Building an Ethnic Wear Brand from India to the World! Ft. Nitin MehrotraShot a super episode with Nitin Mehrotra, Founder & CEO, DressFolk on his journey of building India's most loved ethnic wear brand. We talked about:- Nitin's growing up journey and how his family background inspired him to startup in the fashion space- DressFolk evolution over the last 8 years and finding PMF- Building and scaling a D2C fashion business in India today, profitably- Raising funding from people like Ghazal Alagh and some of India's best angel investors and funds. - Way forward, future of India's handlooms and dreams of going globalDo check it out and let us know how...2025-02-011h 07
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 12: How to build a career in content & marketing! Ft. AyushWadhwa, Founder & CEO, Owled MediaLearn content, marketing & advertising from Ayush Wadhwa ( @AyushWadhwa ) the founder of one of India's best media companies, Owled Media ( @owledmedia9296 )
At just 26, in a short span of time, Ayush has accomplished a lot. He is a creator, runs Owled Media, and has done done advertising campaigns for some very large brands. He is a super active angel investor and recently also started LIT school.
His career is an intersection of content, marketing and technology.
From this podcast our goal is to help young people understand how can they build a career in content, marketing and advertising.
Catch the full epis...2024-09-1245 min
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 11: @ixigo 's journey to IPO! 🚀 Building Travel for Bharat. 🇮🇳 Ft. Aloke Bajpai98x oversubscribed! This was the crazy demand for the ixigo stock at their recent IPO. But what many don't know is the 17 year old journey of grit, determination, never giving up in the face of innumerable challenges and always building for Bharat.
Had the immense pleasure of hosting Aloke Bajpai, Co-Founder & Group Chairman, Ixigo, to the ACLR8 Founder Academy Podcast, hosted by Karan Jindal. Aloke shared his and Rajnish's journey of getting inspired by the movie Swades and coming back to India to start Ixigo.
We talked about:
✅ buildi...2024-08-021h 00
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 10: How to build a D2C brand in 2024. Ft. Jatan Bawa, Co-Founder, PerforaIf your goal is to build India's largest consumer D2C brand then this is the episode for you. 🚀 In this episode, our guest, Jatan Bawa takes us through his journey of building Perfora. 🔥
Perfora is one of the fastest growing D2C oral care brands in India doing revenues of 70 crore / year and disrupting a boring and traditional FMCG category like oral care. 💯
In this Jatan breaks down:
✅ How to find your ideal co-founder
✅ How to identify the right categories to build in
✅ How to crack product development
✅ How to...2024-07-211h 16
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 9: Building India’s largest cleaning products brand. Ft. Simran Khara, Founder, Koparo CleanWhat does ₹15 crore worth of free publicity do to the scale and trajectory of a D2C brand? 🚀
Hosted the awesome @simrankhara2 at the ACLR8 Founder Academy podcast and talked about her vision of building India’s largest cleaning products company with a focus on sustainable and clean ingredients and honest claims. ❤️
We talked about:
✅ The home cleaning market in India and opportunities for young founders.
✅ Simran’s 0-1 journey, her tool kit to scale D2C, how to listen to the customers and keep innovating on products.
✅ Measuring repeats and marketi...2024-06-251h 33
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 8: Building a ₹500 crore Beauty & Personal Care Brand! Ft. Malika Sadani, CEO, The Moms CoBuilding one of India’s largest Beauty & Personal Care D2C Brand. 🚀
Hosted the amazing Malika Datt Sadani, Co-Founder, The Moms Co, at the ACLR8 studio and discussed what it takes to build a large and loved consumer brand in India today! 🙌 🇮🇳
Malika shared her insights on:
✅ Building a brand in competitive categories and creating a niche.
✅ How can founders do deep consumer research to identify their TG.
✅ Thinking customer backward, understanding consumer needs and launching honest & clean products at good price points.
✅ Thinking about bra...2024-05-271h 12
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 7: Disrupting the home & kitchen market in India! Ft. Aditya Agrawal, Co-Founder & CEO, P-TALBuilding a large business, while reviving a cultural legacy, and providing social impact.❤️ Raising funding from some of India’s top investors, getting an all Shark Deal at Shark Tank India and all of this while just being 24 years old! 🙌 🚀
Hosted the super amazing Aditya Agrawal, Co-Founder, P-TAL, on how founders can use story telling to build large consumer brands and stand out! 🇮🇳
The kitchen and dining market in India is worth 30K crores and majority of the market is fragmented with larger brands doing about 5K crores in revenue. 💯
2024-03-291h 22
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 6: Investing in consumer brands for Bharat! Ft. Arjun Vaidya, Co-Founder, V3 VenturesToday’s guest at the founder academy, is someone who has been a founder and investor.
As a founder, Arjun founded Dr. Vadiya’s. Scaled it to one of the fastest growing Ayurveda D2C brands in the country and sold it for 100 crores in 4 years.
As an investor, Arjun founded V3 ventures and raised over $100M to invest in some of India’s best consumer brands.
In this episode we discussed:
Arjun's personal journey while growing up and what inspired him to entrepreneursh...2024-03-1349 min
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 5: Building the operating system for D2C brands in India! Ft. Akshay Ghulati, Co-Founder, ShiprocketHad an amazing conversation with Akshay Ghulati, Co-Founder & CBO, Shiprocket, at the ACLR8 studio! ❤️🙌
Shiprocket is building the OS for D2C brands to launch , scale and grow their business in India and go global. It is truly a made in India innovation, that is helping brands from Bharat conquer the world. 🇮🇳🚀
Super excited to share this episode with our community. ❤️
Akshay is a also a visiting partner at ACLR8 and works closely with our portfolio companies to help them scale! 👏💯
Building the next big thing from India ? Apply to our cohort today. www.aclr8.vc/apply
Content Timelines:
00:00 - Pre-cap
01:01 - Shiprock...2024-02-291h 08
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 4: E-commerce for Bharat! Ft. Swati Bhargava, Co-Founder, CashKaroFrom growing up in Ambala to building a company with annualized sales of INR 4000 crores! 🚀 Meet the woman who co-founded one of India’s largest e-commerce companies. 🙌 Raising money from Ratan Tata, going through a kidney transplant, supporting young founders and breaking multiple stereotypes along the way, this is Swati Bhargava's story!
Swati grew up in Ambala and was always a bright student. She secured a 100/100 in Maths in the 10th grade. 💯 Seeing a bright spark her parents encouraged her to apply for a scholarship program in Singapore which only took 25 students from all over India.
Through pure hustle and a never...2024-02-181h 20
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 3: Building India's fastest growing consumer appliances brand. Ft. Bharat Kalia, Co-Founder, Lifelong OnlineBuilding an INR 500cr D2C consumer appliances brand for Bharat! 🇮🇳🚀
Had an amazing conversation with Bharat Kalia, Co-Founder, Lifelong Online, on his journey of building one of the most disruptive D2C brands in the country. ❤️🔥
We talked about:
✅ How to think customer backward and identify large categories
✅ Selling to the value conscious Bharat consumer! Lifelong reaches 1cr+ households in the country.
✅ 3R’s (Reviews, Ratings, Rankings) of building demand on marketplaces.
✅ Optimizing for “Acha Product , Acha Price, Exceptional Service”
✅ Hiring influencers like Milind Soman who live the brand
✅ Scaling on modern trade and of...2024-01-311h 16
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 2: Fintech for Bharat. Ft. Ankit Agrawal, Founder & CEO, Insurance DekhoFinancial Inclusion for 100cr Indians with Ankit Agrawal, Founder & CEO, InsuranceDekho 🇮🇳🚀
Insurance Dekho is one of the fastest growing insurance companies in India solving for “Bima, Bharosa, Berozgari, Bimari,” 💯
Some of things we discussed were:
✅ How it is important to not celebrate fund raise and really focus on your business, team and providing long term value to your customer. 💯
✅ How to build products that reach millions of households and solve real problems. ❤️
✅ Systems, processes & people training required to setup organisations that last a 100 years and churn out amazing leaders. 🚀
✅ Importance of being on-ground and focus on execu...2024-01-1954 min
ACLR8 Founder AcademyEpisode 1: Fundraising 101 for early stage founders. Ft. Apurva Chamaria, Head of Startup & VC, Google IndiaRaise fast, raise effectively and raise from the best! Learn the secrets of fundraising from one of India's best early stage investors, Apurva Chamaria. Apurva heads Startup & VC at Google India, and has invested in 100+ companies over the last 10 years.
In this episode of the ACLR8 Founder Academy, Karan Jindal and Apurva Chamaria discuss everything that a founder needs to raise fast, raise effectively and raise from the best.
Some key concepts discussed in this podcast are:
Mindset of a founder while building a Billion dollar company.
Understanding wha...2024-01-101h 18