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Soumitra Sharma

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An Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaBuilding A Prosumer AI Startup: The Merlin StoryThis episode delves in-depth into building a Prosumer AI startup.We cover everything from overlooked spaces in AI, how to choose problem statements as a founder, learnings on upfront market research & customer discovery, creating defensibility in Prosumer AI, managing the foundation model layer, including closed source vs open source, Prosumer GTM, particularly influencers and affiliate marketing, new usage-based pricing models, fundraising learnings and finally, specific learnings for US-India founders.Joining me for this discussion is Pratyush Rai, Co-founder of Merlin, an AI productivity assistant that you can use for everything from getting one-click answers to...
2025-12-111h 17An Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaAgentic AI Meets Compliance: Lessons From SprintoThis episode delves in-depth into building an AI Applications startup in the area of Compliance. We cover everything from how to choose problem statements as a founder including a 2x2 framework for idea evaluation, approaching building in “boring” verticals, executing an effective customer discovery process, thinking through product differentiation in the Applications layer, evolution of GTM in the age of AI, new-age pricing models, present state of AI fundraising in the Bay Area, and finally, specific learnings for US-India founders.Joining me for this discussion is Girish Redekar, Co-founder of Sprinto, a unified, AI-powered compliance platf...
2025-10-2354 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaBuilding An AI-Infra Startup In 2025: Seed-Stage Lessons From PipeshiftThis episode delves in-depth into the present market landscape, challenges & opportunities being navigated by AI infra startups in the Bay Area. We cover everything from parts of the AI ecosystem that are overhyped and underhyped, real AI infra pain points & apprehensions of enterprise customers, nuances of leveraging closed source vs open source models in enterprise infra, discovering gaps & wedges as a startup, creating differentiated products against competition, AI-first GTM, new-age pricing models and finally, lesser-known aspects of fundraising in the Bay Area.Joining me for this discussion is Arko, Co-founder and CEO of Pipeshift, a Y...
2025-09-261h 07An Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaFrom Zero to $1M ARR: Building a US–India Enterprise Dev Tools StartupThis episode goes in-depth into the key operating aspects of building & scaling a US-India Enterprise Dev Tools Startup. We cover everything from the ground reality of how AI is impacting enterprise dev tools, why engineering founders should code less & sell more, thinking through ICPs, MVP best practices, GTM approaches, including outbound and events, the importance of founder-led sales, and finally, how pricing models are evolving with AI.Joining me for this discussion is Sudheer Bandaru, Founder & CEO of Hivel. Hivel is a B2B SaaS solution that helps companies improve engineering productivity and release better s...
2025-08-0748 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaHow Skydo Found Product-Market Fit in India’s Cross-Border B2B PaymentsThis episode goes in-depth into Skydo’s journey from Day 0 to emerging as a category leader in India's cross-border B2B payments today, helping more than 6,000 Indian products & services exporters receive payments from 150+ countries & in 32+ currencies.We cover everything from the untapped cross-border payments opportunity, learnings from fintech MVP iterations, doing customer research to identify unique product & business model insights, the philosophy of "do things that don’t scale" and figuring out differentiation pre-PMF, leveraging founder-led sales to acquire early customers, building a culture of radical transparency, learnings from VC fundraising and finally, Skydo’s plans for the ne...
2025-06-181h 15An Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaFinding US Design Partners As An India-Based Cross-Border Founder I Learnings From 3 Venture-Backed Startups (Bitzer, Quolum, Redblock)This episode goes in-depth into the key operating aspects of finding & working with US design partners as a US-India cross-border founder. We cover everything from correctly defining who a design partner is, major categories and personas on the B2B side, discovering, qualifying, convincing & engaging them including navigating their organization structure, partnering with them to build early versions of the product, tension between direct sales & channel partner models, how to approach pricing discussions and finally, a rapid-fire round of questions sourced from An Operator’s Blog founder community. Joining me for this discussion is Indus Khai...
2025-05-291h 06An Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaBuilding a US-India AI startup in fintech softwareThis episode goes in-depth into the key operating aspects of building & scaling a US-India cross-border AI startup serving the US financial services market. We cover everything from customer behavior & AI adoption patterns by large US financial services enterprises, approaches & frameworks for building fintech MVPs, state-wise & country-wise regulatory & business nuances, AI’s impact on fintech product roadmaps, tactics for US-India fintech software founders to find US design partners, go-to-market approaches for large enterprise GTM, emerging AI-driven fintech software pricing models, building a US fintech GTM team as a US-India founder, and finally, learnings from fintech fundraising in the Va...
2025-05-0852 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaGrowing In The US Via On-Ground Hustle - The Goodmeetings StoryThis episode explores US GTM strategies, playbooks, and learnings for US-India B2B founders. We cover everything from the playbook for finding the shortest way to PMF with the least capital raised, step-by-step framework for building B2B software MVPs, nuances of serving customers in the US vs India, finding US design partners including the best ways to generate leads & get warm intros, and finally, the importance of spending frequent & quality time with customers.Joining me for this discussion is Srinivasan Narayan (Srini), Co-founder and CEO of Goodmeetings, an AI-powered Meeting Insights & Automation Platform designed to enhance...
2025-04-1751 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaEngineering & Navigating Through An Exit For Your StartupThis episode goes in-depth into what founders can do to engineer & navigate an exit for their startup. We cover everything from various types of exit routes (classic M&A, Private Equity buyouts, acqui-hires, asset sales, etc.), what large acquirers look for, generating acquisition interest, fielding corp dev inbounds, valuation methods, key deal terms, how to become diligence-ready, and finally, leaning on investors, bankers, lawyers & advisors to help drive an exit.Joining me for this discussion are Madhu Chamarty and Hanz Kurdi, Founding Partners of HKMC, a Silicon Valley-based advisory firm that supports early-stage founders and emerging VC...
2025-03-191h 29An Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaGround Realities Of Moving To The US As An India-Based FounderThis episode discusses the ground realities and daily challenges of moving to the US to build your startup as an India-based founder. We cover everything from the first 90 days, logistics & compliance issues, acquiring early US customers, evolving the product roadmap from Indian to US customers, setting PMF goals & KPIs, relationship-building & other US GTM tips.Joining me for this discussion is Prashant Mahajan, an accomplished product leader and founder with more than a decade of experience in product management. His most recent adventure was as the Founder of Zeda, a venture-backed startup in the space of AI-powered product...
2025-03-0545 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra Sharma[Audio Overview] Insight ArbitrageMost investors try to “slot” startups in their heads, whereas extraordinary venture outcomes lie in the “slot violations”.Source post - https://operator.blog/2025/02/13/insight-arbitrage/*Audio Overviews generated via NotebookLM.*****Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life.I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).
2025-02-1413 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaGTM Learnings For US-India B2B Martech StartupsThis episode goes in-depth into building a US-India marketing tech startup. We cover everything from finding & engaging with 0-to-1 design partners, building MVPs, using Indian customers as a springboard to global markets, US GTM best practices & case studies, how to differentiate against global competition including the value of product craftsmanship, org. design, pricing, and finally, learnings from VC fundraising. Joining me for this discussion is Srikrishna Swaminathan, Co-founder and CEO of Factors.ai, a go-to-market intelligence & automation platform backed by Elevation, Stellaris, and Emergent. Before this, Sri was Vice President at InMobi, an IIM Calcutta alumnus, and...
2025-02-041h 03An Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra Sharma[Audio Overviews] Avoiding Risk Of RuinEliminating weak links that introduce the possibility of Ruin is key to thriving in the real world. Source post - https://operator.blog/2025/01/15/avoiding-risk-of-ruin/ *Audio Overviews generated via NotebookLM. ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).
2025-01-1514 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaAI Agent Landscape I Pivoting Your US-India SaaS Startup Into The Age Of AIThis episode goes in-depth into the current state of the AI Agent landscape and how US-India SaaS founders should manage this AI transition.  In the 1st half, we cover key facets of the agentic market, including horizontal and vertical use cases, how customers are adopting them, challenges in going from zero to demo to production, and what startups can do to stay relevant in this fast-evolving opportunity.  In the 2nd half, we discuss how US-India SaaS startups can pivot and survive in the post-AI world, including thinking long-term while formulating AI strategy, leaning into trust wi...
2025-01-0846 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra Sharma[Audio Overviews] My Best Ideas Of 2024: A CompilationPresenting a compilation of my best ideas & observations from 2024. Source post - https://operator.blog/2024/12/26/my-best-ideas-of-2024-a-compilation/ *Audio Overviews generated via NotebookLM. ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).
2025-01-0634 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra Sharma[Audio Overviews] US-India/India-To-The-World: 2024 Recap, 2025 ExpectationsFrom my vantage point as a US-India venture investor, sharing what I observed in 2024 and my expectations from 2025. Source post - https://operator.blog/2025/01/02/us-india-india-to-the-world-2024-recap-2025-expectations/ *Audio Overviews generated via NotebookLM. ***** Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life. I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).
2025-01-0622 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaFundraising in Silicon Valley for Immigrant FoundersThis episode explores the playbook, mindset, and tips to fundraise as an immigrant founder in Silicon Valley. We cover everything from dealing with cultural baggage, getting warm intros and building trust, prepping your startup to be venture-fundable, storytelling to stand out amongst the crowd, leaning on peer founders and mentors, going from leads to warm conversations to money in the bank, the “right” mindset and attitude to have when pitching VCs and finally, a 5-step framework for fundraising. Joining me for this discussion is Vijay Rajendran, an executive coach based in Silicon Valley. Over a 20-year career as a...
2024-12-0443 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaBuilding a US-India robotics startupThis episode goes in-depth into building a US-India robotics startup. We cover everything from how to build robotics MVPs, acquire early US design partners, structure and manage a global supply chain, US GTM approaches, hire deep tech talent, and finally, tips and playbooks for fundraising in Silicon Valley as an Indian robotics startup. Joining me for this discussion is Abhinav Das, co-founder and CEO of Orangewood Labs, a YC-backed, US-India robotics startup that builds affordable robots that are easy to deploy and can be programmed with natural language prompts. TIME STAMPS: (01:20) Backstory of...
2024-11-0556 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaGTM Learnings for US-India B2B SaaS StartupsThis episode explores GTM strategies and learnings for US-India B2B SaaS startups. We cover everything from finding design partners in the US, scoping MVPs, figuring out what ICP to focus on, navigating the unique challenges of early PMF, GTM hiring in the US, and finally, working towards creating M&A exit options. Joining me for this discussion is Satya Ganni, an experienced SaaS founder and operator who has successfully built and sold five companies and led two acquisitions as a buyer. He is currently serving as CEO of Beamer and Userflow. Beamer is developing a cutting-edge...
2024-10-1044 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaUsing community-building to drive growth as a US-India startupThis episode goes in-depth into various aspects of community-building as a US-India startup. We cover everything from should 0-to-1 founders spend time on community-building, what type of community-building initiatives to focus on, best practices from Airbase’s ‘Off the Ledger’ community of CFOs, how to drive tangible business outcomes from community events, and finally, some learnings on relationship-building in Silicon Valley as a US-India founder. Joining me for this discussion is Anand Krishna, Founder and CEO of Inkle. Inkle is an accounting and tax automation startup that serves hundreds of US companies. Before this, Anand founded LotusPay (backed...
2024-09-2640 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaGoing 0-to-1 as a US-India dev tool startupThis episode is an in-depth discussion of going 0-to-1 as a US-India dev tool startup. We cover everything from how to identify market gaps, ways to think about dev tools MVPs, leveraging the India developer market to build global products, comparing various GTM channels like Hacker News, GitHub, Reddit, LinkedIn & open-source communities, learnings from shuttling between the US and India and finally, harnessing the power of open-source. Joining me for this discussion is Pranay Prateek, co-founder of SigNoz, an open-source observability platform that is native to OpenTelemetry and provides logs, traces, and metrics in a single pane...
2024-09-121h 00An Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaBuilding products in Silicon Valley vs IndiaThis episode goes in-depth into contrasting the product ecosystems of Silicon Valley versus India. We cover everything from similarities & differences between product leaders in both ecosystems, their product-building philosophies, what they can learn from each other, and a bonus section on how US-India founders should approach community-building and networking in the Bay Area.  Joining me for this discussion is Suhas Motwani, co-founder of The Product Folks, one of Asia’s largest Product communities with 180k+ members. In parallel, he is also a founder and builder, having built a suite of productivity apps to help folks fight digital dis...
2024-08-2956 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaUS GTM Best Practices For Founders Starting-up in IndiaI am experimenting with a new format in this episode. To surface truly helpful operating tips and insights for India-based founders looking to expand in the US, this discussion goes in-depth into case studies across a startup’s lifecycle and based on real scenarios I frequently encounter as a US-India VC investor. This episode covers everything from how an idea stage founder starting up in India should approach entering the US market, hard pivots from India to US customers, to US sales hiring and eventually, creating an exit event. We also discuss various approaches to US-India GTM th...
2024-07-251h 05An Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaLeveraging curated events to drive US-India startup GTMThis is an in-depth discussion on how US-India startups can use curated events to drive US GTM. It covers topics such as what type and stage of startups are most suited for leveraging an event-based GTM strategy, operating learnings around event design and planning, a deep dive into the CXO roundtable format, and tracking the ROI of these events. Joining me for this discussion are Nivas Ravichandran and Nitya Baskar from the Marketing team of Spendflo, a SaaS spend management platform backed by Accel and Prosus. Before this, Nivas led marketing and partnerships for seven years for...
2024-06-2035 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaWhere is the real opportunity in AI for Indian startups?This is an in-depth jamming session on how Indian startups should look at AI, including real addressable opportunities, how to differentiate and compete against global competitors, what pre-AI SaaS startups should do to stay relevant, the India domestic AI opportunity, and finally, operating learnings for US go-to-market. Joining me for this discussion is Thiyagarajan Maruthavanan (Rajan) - Managing Partner at Upekkha, an AI SaaS Accelerator that has invested in over 100 early-stage startups founded by Indian founders building global software businesses. Prior to this, Rajan was a product leader at Intuit and previously also built...
2024-05-3048 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaBuilding successful products and PM careers in fintech II Learnings from Square and MercuryThe first half of this episode covers best practices and frameworks used by best-in-class fintech companies like Square and Mercury to build products and drive go-to-market.   In the second half, we discuss insights and learnings for PM career planning in fintech, including ways to prepare for the potential impact of AI on product jobs. Joining me for this discussion is Rohini Pandhi - Product Lead at Mercury and ex-Product Lead at Square/ Block. She is also a prolific angel investor, and co-founder of both the SquareAngels alumni syndicate and Tr...
2024-05-0833 minAn Operator\'s Blog - with Soumitra Sharma
An Operator's Blog - with Soumitra SharmaDoing 0-to-1 as a cybersecurity startupThis episode covers the brass tacks of doing 0-to-1 as a cybersecurity startup. We are joined by two venture-backed founders in the space, both of whom are also experienced engineering leaders in the domain: (1) Buchi Reddy (Founder and CEO, Levo.ai; ex-Traceable AI, ex-AppDynamics) (2) Ruchir Patwa (Co-founder and CEO, SydeLabs; ex-Google, ex-Mobile Premier League) TIME STAMPS: (00:00) Intro (02:05) Choosing whether to go enterprise or SMB (06:04) Assembling the right initial team (12:02) Thinking through MVPs (17:50) Learnings from doing cybersecurity at Google (22:05...
2024-04-2339 minमुक्काम पोस्ट मनोरंजन | Mukkam Post Manoranjan
मुक्काम पोस्ट मनोरंजन | Mukkam Post Manoranjanसौमित्र पोटे | Soumitra Poteस. न. वि. वि. मु.पो.मनोरंजन च्या तिसऱ्या सीझनच्या सातवा एपिसोड मध्ये तुमचं सहर्ष स्वागत!  Join us in this week's episode where we have with us Soumitra Pote. A renowned film critic, journalist and a passionate podcaster. In this chat with Rima, he shares his thoughts on importance of "me time" amidst a busy life filled with work, deadlines, and responsibilities. How maintaining a work-life balance, self-care and nurturing personal passions are so important. Subscribe and follow the show on Bingepods, Spotify or on your favorite podcast platfrom. Follow Bingepods on Instagram for more updates. Credits: Show Producer- Varsha Sharma Sound Engineer- Chaitanya Chaudhari
2023-10-2557 minRadio Azim Premji University
Radio Azim Premji UniversityCampus Cast (Ep4) A Conversation on Mental Health - Radio Azim Premji University - 6th April 2023Mental health is so vast and layered a subject that it’s not ever possible to confine the discussion to a single episode. Yet, here we have made a start, addressing the elephant in the room. From being mindful of our moods, to understanding our emotions. From being wary of self-labelling and labelling others, from knowing how to speak about mental illness to seeking help for it, we have all the conversation starters in this episode of Campus Cast. We are grateful to our Conversations counsellors Pratik Motikar, Soumitra Saxena and Faireen Freddy for engaging with this subject in a se...
2023-04-0617 minGod Is Not Fair?
God Is Not Fair?62: SUICIDE - What you MUST KNOW, Part IToday I'm gonna talk straight to the cause I work for i.e. Prevention of Suicide amongst youth. This episode is a conversation of mine with Dr. Soumitra Pathare who is a leading psychiatrist and Director of Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy.
2020-07-2726 minSynTalk
SynTalk#TEAE (The Eras And Epochs) --- SynTalkCan you be a revolutionary? Might concrete events have causes, but not history? What drives the world? Does history develop (or progress?) in stages? Is the end there at the beginning? Are we moving from ‘less free’ to ‘more free’? Are eras and epochs merely intellectual constructs, & always retrospective? Does human mind create different visions of the same era? How did human wants increase for the formulaic economic human to emerge? What role did trade play? Is creative technology an in-born element of life? Why isn’t there progress for ever? Is each epoch about an understanding of Being? Is future an...
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