Shows
Stars & StartupsEP56: Jai Jawan to Jai Dukan. Serving the country via corner stores {Karthik of Jumbotail}{Karthik Venkateswaran, Co-founder & CEO of Jumbotail}
Karthik served with the Indian army in hard combat and had successful stints with marketplaces such as eBay in the US and Flipkart in India before launching Jumbotail along with his Stanford University batchmate Ashish Jhina.
On this episode I chat with why Karthik & Ashish united behind this problem, and we deep dive into the business & the inspiration for Karthik to leave the military service and pursue entrepreneurship.
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2021-07-0741 min
Stars & StartupsEP55: Creating a Multi-Million $$ Fitness Business with a Whatsapp Group {Jitendra of FITTR}{Jitendra Chouksey, Co-Founder of FITTR}
The latest episode is with Jitendra Chouksey, aka JC, Founder & CEO of FITTR. FITTR has a highly engaged 2 million strong community focused on getting healthy and transforming themselves with the help of FITTR coaches, using the resources available. On this episode we chat about the journey from a small WhatsApp group that was created to assist a few friends and colleagues to becoming the platform it is today.
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→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel
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2021-06-2840 min
Stars & StartupsEP54: World of crypto & the path to 5 Million Users in 6 months {Ashish of CoinSwitch}EP54: {Ashish Singhal, Co-Founder of CoinSwitch}
Hi Stars!
Apologies for the sporadic episodes and the long gap between the last episode! Hope you and your family are safe and well during this crazy time. Go get vaccinated, please don’t wait.
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→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel
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Founded by 3 friends Govind, Vimal & Ashish, friends from NSIT in 2017, CoinSwitch is now backed by bluechip fin-tech investors like Ribbit Capital, Paradigm and Sequoia India, raising $15 million in their Series A round. In April 2021, they raised another $25 million ( ₹181 crore) from Tiger Global - valuing Coinswitch at more than $500...
2021-05-2543 min
Stars & StartupsEP53: Pivots and the story to selling a majority stake to Reliance {Harsh of Fynd}EP53: Pivots and the story to selling a majority stake to Reliance {Harsh Shah, Co-Founder of Fynd}
Are you enjoying the new episodes of S&S? Do write to me! Also, do recommend amazing founders & stories that are worth spreading from the Startup scene in India.
On the episode, I speak with someone I have known a while from the early days of ecommerce. I chat with Harsh Shah, an alumnus of the IIT, Bombay, and a co-founder of FYND. Harsh is also an angel investor with over 19 investments.
In this conversation I...
2021-03-1054 min
Stars & StartupsEP52: 600k users & creating a Brand for Generations starting on Amazon {Ankit of Wakefit}EP52: 600k users & creating a Brand for Generations {Ankit Garg, Co-Founder of Wakefit}
Ever wondered what the deal was with foam mattresses? Is it better that coir? Listen in.
Ankit Garg of Wakefit is on the show this week, Wakefit is a mattress brand that has been offering Indian customers the ability to buy a mattress online and have it home delivered at a very affordable price. Bringing down the cost while making it convenient to upgrade old mattresses.
In the conversation we chat about the size of the mattress market, building a...
2021-03-0348 min
Stars & StartupsEP51: Building a Customer Centric Furniture Brand {Rajiv of Urban Ladder}Yes, been a while but we're back with a packed episode!
On this episode, episode 51, I speak with Rajiv Srivatsa a co-founder of a well loved consumer brand in the digital age, UrbanLadder.
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→ Youtube links: https://anchor.fm/stars-and-startups
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Super fun chat with Rajiv on building a consumer brand in India. UrbanLadder was likely the big daddy of the Direct 2 Consumer trend in India. No retail stores, creating a brand, selling only private labels with only UL branded products. We discuss how using NPS in different areas of the business can help retain customers, the UL journey & solid advice for brands starting up now.
2021-02-2348 min
Stars & StartupsEP50: Future of Gaming & Biohacking for founders {Rahul of Junglee Games}EP50: {Rahul Bhardwaj, Co-Founder & COO of Junglee Games}
On the blockbuster 50th episode, we chat with my friend and mentor Rahul of Junglee. Junglee Games has seen tremendous success in eights years since founding in 2012, with millions of users across multiple skill based games on Web and Mobile. Junglee today has over 25 million users and clocks more than $600M GMV
Prior to Junglee Games, Rahul was the co founder and Product Mango at TwoMangoes.com, a leading dating site for South Asians, and Vayyoo, a web to mobile solutions company, both of which he successfully exited.
This episode is full...
2020-11-0355 min
Stars & StartupsEP49: 5M users, ₹ 150 crore in Cashbacks and Affiliate marketing {Rohan of CashKaro}EP49: {Rohan Bhargava, Co-Founder of CashKaro}
I speak with Rohan on building a business offering cashbacks that works with over 1500+ e-commerce websites. Famously, Cashkaro is a Ratan Tata backed startup. Rohan shares why he & his wife Swati gave up lucrative jobs in finance, moved back to India from London in the early days of starting up, how affiliate businesses operate and a lot more on this extremely intriguing conversation!
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→ Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees...
2020-10-2753 min
Stars & StartupsEP48: Affordable Real Estate Ownership & Fractional Assets {Sudarshan of StrataProp}EP48: {Sudarshan Lodha, Co-Founder of StrataProp}
On the episode I have Sudarshan to chat about Strata. The startup is bringing a new innovative approach to investing in real estate, one that is data-driven and allows the investor to own a fraction of a highly desirable asset and also a way to make it the most accessible real estate investment you could have.
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→ Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!
→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel
→ Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STA...
2020-10-2041 min
Stars & StartupsEP47: 100M deliveries and building AI for Logistics {Nishith of Locus}EP47: {Nishith Rastogi, Co-Founder of Locus}
Nishith is a BITS Grad and was an engineer at Amazon where he met his co-founder Geet, an IIT grad. They set out to launch a chat network that morphed into what is today Locus.
Locus is a tool that plugs into the supply chain of an enterprise and starts automating all human decisions in the process; they automate route planning, traffic management, address correction, network planning, etc.. Locus is backed by some stellar investors and also service some of the top CPG companies in the world. Locus has...
2020-10-1347 min
Stars & StartupsEP46: Freelancer Marketplaces & Building Gupshup for over 16 years {Beerud of Elance & Gupshup}EP46: {Beerud Sheth, Founder of Elance & Gupshup}
On this episode I speak with Beerud Sheth, who was the co-founder & CEO of the poplar freelancing work platform Elance in 1998, that is now Upwork. Beerud went on to found Gupshup a could messaging platform that has seen its share of twists and turns in the messaging and communications space since 2004 and now processes over 4 billion messages a month. Beerud joined us from his home in California for this chat.
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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!
→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel...
2020-10-0752 min
Stars & StartupsEP45: Humanizing the Sales Process using AI {Shruti of Wingman}EP45: {Shruti Kapoor, Co-founder & CEO of Wingman}
Wingman offers a virtual assistant that assists sales reps close deals faster, guiding the rep with exact information they need in real-time. Shruti Kapoor, an IIM alumn, chats with me about sales and ofcourse Wingman.
We discuss how Wingman is humanizing the sales process, where the sales person can focus on listening rather than being distracted with other aspect of a sales call
How the AI tool enables a sales team play offence
Enhancing all human conversation with AI might be the way ahead
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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your...
2020-10-0551 min
Stars & StartupsEP44: Consumer & Fintech Investing, and 54x returns from angel investing {Vikram of 8i Ventures}EP44: {Vikram Chachra, Co-Founder of 8i Ventures}
We’ve had 4 of Vikram’s portfolio companies on this show already. Madhu of YAP, Ankit of Signzy, Rajan of Slice and Matt of BlueTokai!! Vikram’s in the process of launching his $ 50 million fund and took the time to have a chat with me about his investment philosophy and the journey being a founder.
Vikram is a SRCC, XLRI & NYU grad who started up a mobile shopping startup in early 2000's and later went on to run the mobile division @ Snapfish ( acquired by HP ). He invests in India...
2020-09-3046 min
Stars & StartupsEP43: Pre-owned Car Business in India, a $ 32Billion opportunity {Amit of OLX CashMyCar & OLX Autos}EP43: {Amit Kumar, BusinessHead of OLX CashMyCar}
On this episode I catch up with Amit to discuss the state of the Used Car business in India and its increasing relevance to the audience while organizing an unorganized segment.
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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!
→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel
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OLX Group is a Naspers company, a global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world! Take a look at CashMyCar, who offers one of the many services in India that uses a structured approach to assisting those who want to sell their cars.
Would love to hear from you on how you liked the...
2020-09-2838 min
Stars & StartupsEP42: RegTech & Moving on from Blockchain {Ankit of Signzy}EP42: {Ankit Ratan, Co-Founder of Signzy}
Regulation is probably one of the key pillars of banking. Sometimes it does become an excuse for being the thing that ails the experience. All that is changing now with the emergence of Reg-Tech. The use of Video KYC, Aadhar authentication layer, digital lockers & the India Stack is enabling a lot of that change. One of those companies that is quietly enabling the BFSI sector is Signzy.
Ankit, a silver medalist from IIT Delhi (2011), had worked in New York deploying fraud analytics solutions at Citi Bank and Metlife. In 2013...
2020-09-2353 min
Stars & StartupsEP41: Serving the the Millennial Customer {Rajan of Slice}EP41: {Rajan Bajaj, Founder of Slice}
On the episode I speak with Rajan Bajaj, the founder of Slice, an IIT grad who spent a few months in Flipkart before wanting start out on his own. He went on to start a business that morphed into what is today Slice - a credit line that caters to first time job seekers.
Slice is targeting 5 million first time credit seekers every year who have little access to credit products designed specifically for them. We chat about how India’s first payment card startup focussed on the millennials is d...
2020-09-2144 min
Stars & StartupsEP40: Investing in InsurTech & Early Stage Investing {Shwetank of Leo Capital}EP40: {Shwetank Verma, General Partner of Leo Capital}
Shwetank Verma is a General Partner and co-Founder of Leo Capital, an early-stage venture investor operating in India and SouthEast Asia. Leo Capital focuses on Digital Health, InsurTech and FinTech. Shwetank, prior to founding Leo Capital he headed open innovation at MetLife Asia, where he created and led (Collab), and was entrepreneur who created a healthcare and education ventures in India.
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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!
→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel
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2020-09-1656 min
Stars & StartupsEP39: Telemedicine in India & taking it to 101 countries {Dhruv of iCliniq}EP39: {Dhruv Suyamprakasam, Co-founder & CEO of iCliniq}
I speak with a founder who moved his company from Bangalore to his hometown Coimbatore to start health care venture iCliniq. We talk about Telemedicine, starting up in Coimbatore, the struggles of to signing up the first doctor in India and convincing thousands of doctors from across the world to embrace their platform. More recently, COVID has helped with a massive upsurge with over 5x growth post lockdown.
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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!
→ Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel
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2020-09-1450 min
Stars & StartupsEP38: Electric Vehicle Opportunity for India & the Whatsapp connection {Bharath of Bounce}EP38: {Bharath Devanathan, SVP of Bounce}
On this episode, EP38 of the podcast we chat with Bharath about Electric Vehicles and how India is on the path to start seeing a lot more action in the EV space as governments have now stepped in to accelerating the switch from ICE to EVs. We also chat a little about Bharath’s time at Yahoo! On the email team as well as as playing Ultimate frisbee.
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2020-09-0952 min
Stars & StartupsEP37: Making Trekking Accessible in India & Making a Difference {Sandhya C. & Arjun M. of IndiaHikes}EP37: {Arjun Majumdar & Sandhya Chandrasekharayya, Founders of IndiaHikes}
On this episode, I’m changing it up a little as I catch up with the founders of India Hikes. India’s premier hiking company that started way back in 2008. With the hope of making hiking accessible to more Indians so that they can enjoy the nature that India has in abundance, right from the western ghats to the mighty Himalayas. Yes, this is not much of a tech conversation but a story that I wanted to share. Hope you enjoy it.
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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!
...
2020-09-0751 min
Stars & StartupsEP36: ₹ 350 Crore Profit, 3M users & Rainmatter Investments {Nithin of Zerodha}EP36: {Nithin Kamath, Co-founder & CEO of Zerodha}
0 + rodha = Zero Barrier
Nithin is an avid poker player and a CEO who still blogs and interacts with his customers to stay in touch and stay on the pulse of the customer. Recently Zerodha been in the news for being a bootstrapped Unicorn along with the likes of ZOHO, homegrown tech companies that have inspired many. The scale and profit numbers for this bootstrapped company is mind boggling. More recently they have been in the news for making some very interesting investments as part their Rainmatter initiative.
2020-09-021h 06
Stars & StartupsEP35: Re-Commerce, 1M Refurbished Mobiles & Chinese Investors {Mandeep of Cashify}EP35: {Mandeep Manocha, Co-founder & CEO of Cashify}
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ALERT: Remember to participate in Donate your Old Phones initiative run by Cashify - https://www.cashify.in/donate-for-education; save the planet and support kids who are unable to participate in online classes.
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Have you ever wondered what to do with that old phone that you have sitting around? Or have you ever wanted to buy a second phone as a backup but didn’t know how to get a reliable one. That’s where this startup comes in. Cashify has seen deman...
2020-08-311h 15
Stars & StartupsEP34: Zynga, 1MG & making healthcare affordable and accessible in India {Gaurav of 1MG}EP34: {Gaurav Agarwal, Co-founder of 1MG}
Healthcare is a coveted space for tech startups in India, not because it’s hard but because of the enormity of challenges you could solve. And the sheer size of white spaces that are available to be solved. 1MG is probably at the forefront of really understanding Indian health data with over 90 million users on their platforms.
I have a super fun chat with Gaurav Agarwal, the CTO & co-founder of 1MG on his time in the Valley, and how 1MG is working towards making healthcare affordable and accessible.
G...
2020-08-261h 02
Stars & StartupsEP33: Neo Banking & the Evolution of Banking {Vinay of NiYO}EP33: {Vinay Bagri, Co-founder & CEO of NiYO}
On the episode we discuss Vinay's fascination with Salary Accounts, banking and its evolution and what’s Neo about Niyo.
We chat with Vinay Bagri, the co-founder & CEO of NiYO, a Fintech that was founded in 2016 offering a digital banking solution for salaried employees. NiYO started off by digitizing the entire payroll and benefits process for contract workers in manpower supply companies - the atypical blue collar worker who earns Rs 15,000 per month. Today NiYO has over 5k clients servicing over 2 million or 20 lakh customers via their Salary ac...
2020-08-241h 04
Stars & StartupsEP32: 100M users, 400k apps and the Vernacular OS journey {Akash of IndusOS}EP32: {Akash Dongre, Co-founder of IndusOS}
I chat with Akash Dongre, the CPO and cofounder at IndusOS - the creators of the largest App Store outside of the play store with over 100 million users and thousands of apps created for the vernacular audience. They currently power the App Store on many of the Samsung phones and have been through quite the journey from starting up to meandering their way to a vernacular mobile device manufacturer, to a Vernacular Operating System for other OEM and now becoming the go to App Store for Samsung.
We chat...
2020-08-191h 01
Stars & StartupsEP31: One Billion devices, Nokia & the 8 C's of Entrepreneurship {Sreevathsa of Servify}EP31: {Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Founder of Servify}
This startup likely covers the premium smartphone on which you’re likely listening to or watching this episode of the Podcast!
Very few companies give service capabilities much thought. Indians too are not very demanding of service and service requests arise for less than 3% of all mobile handset sales. Servify saw as an opportunity to solve for globally from India. A large opportunity to support brands manage customer interactions & expectations using technology. We chat with Sreevathsa on his journey working with Indian & global brands and taking that learning into bui...
2020-08-171h 02
Stars & StartupsEP30: Chatbots, 2 Billion Conversations & Reliance Industries {Aakrit of Haptik}EP30: {Aakrit Vaish, Co-founder & CEO of Haptik}
We chat with Aakrit on the conversational AI space, his startup journey and the sale to Reliance Industries in April 2019, in a very candid conversation.
The conversational AI, chatbot space has seen a lot of action across the world after messaging services like the Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have started enabling such interactions at scale. One of the leading players from India has been able to reach over 100 million devices, and process over 2 billion conversations.
More recently Haptik supported the Govt of India’s My Corona Hel...
2020-08-1238 min
Stars & StartupsEP29: Gig economy & the Future of Work {Niranjan of Futwork}EP29: Gig economy & the Future of Work {Niranjan Nakhate, Co-founder of Futwork previously called Frapp}
On the episode we speak with a founder who has built a company in a space that has now been coined as the "Future Of Work." A space that means the future is driven by the gig economy, an array of jobs offered to those willing to perform it at their convenience. We dig into this concept, how this is playing out for the millions who are out of work or are ready to work.
Niranjan also shares how the b...
2020-08-1055 min
Stars & StartupsEP28: Building Growth teams, Scaling & Marketing for Startups {Daman, Marketing at WeCash, MilkBasket, Mobikwik}EP28: {Damandeep Singh Soni, Marketing at WeCash, MilkBasket, Mobikwik}
This episode is going to be a little different from other Stars & Startups Episodes. Think of this episode as a Growth Masterclass for Startups.
Startups all too often don’t identify how to grow their users, plan acquisition and do things that help them scale during the early days. We explore a few concepts to help build the growth function, build trust with customers, demystify and think through concepts that could be thought of as hard. I learned a lot from this episode, hope you do too...
2020-08-051h 23
Stars & StartupsEP27: Venture & Angel investing, and Navigating through times of Uncertainty {Alok of Indifi}EP27: {Alok Mittal, Co-founder & CEO of Indifi}
Entrepreneur turned Investor turned Entrepreneur Alok is 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. 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 lead th...
2020-08-0353 min
Stars & StartupsEP26: Value SaaS, Indian SaaS landscape and why its the best time to build SaaS {Prasanna of Upekkha}EP26: {Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Partner & CEO of Upekkha}
My guest from EP04 Krishi Fawani had spoken highly about Upekkha Accelerator that his company Hashtag Loyalty was participating in. Had a chance meeting with Prasanna and loved what they had to say and invited him to be on the Podcast.
We talk about what it means to build a Value SaaS business, Pricing for SaaS, exploring some concepts of Effectuation as popularized by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy, and also what it is to be a startup in itself. There is a lot one can take away from this...
2020-07-291h 04
Stars & StartupsEP25: 2 Unicorns, 1 Decacorn and the process of building the muscle to pick a winner {Sameer of NexusVP}EP25: 2 Unicorns, 1 Decacorn and the process of building the muscle to pick a Winner {Sameer Verma, MD of NexusVP}
Sameer has been an early-stage investor in over 38 companies that include 2 Unicorns & 1 Decacorn. On the episode I speak with Sameer Verma of NexusVP about some of his investments, the startup ecosystem, and we get a chance to dig deeper into how he thinks about investing. More recently though, Sameer’s investee company, Postman, was in the news for putting India on the map for creating a category creating unicorn!
Do listen to this episode in its ent...
2020-07-271h 22
Stars & StartupsEP24: {Varun & Anand of 91 Springboard} Co-working & Remote-working will be the new normalEP24: Co-working & Remote-working {Varun Chawla & Anand Vemuri, Co-founders of 91Springboard}
For the first time on the Stars & Startups show I host 2 guests, it was a lot more complex than I expected but I think we did quite well to pull this off!
In the conversation with the co-founders of the contemporary co-working pioneers in India - 91 Springboard, we cover a lot of ground.
We chat about:
- The Goa vibe & how the 91Springboard team set the trend among businesses that moved their HQ to Goa
- The co-working business, h...
2020-07-221h 05
Stars & StartupsEP23: {Rahul of Arkam Ventures} on solving for the needs of Middle-India via a Rs. 700 Crore FundEP23: {Rahul Chandra, Co-founder of Arkam Ventures}
On the latest episode of Stars & Startups we have Rahul Chandra, who was earlier the Managing director at Helion Ventures, a USD 600 million India focused fund, where Rahul led investments into some popular internet investments including Toppr, MoEngage and some of the others he discusses on the show.
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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!
→ We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Lin...
2020-07-2055 min
Stars & StartupsEP22: {Raghav of UrbanClap} Services-at-Home segment, 10 million downloads and $175M fundEP22: Solving for the services at home segment, 10 millions downloads and $175M fund {Raghav Chandra, Co-founder & CPO of Urban Company}
On this episode I chat with Raghav Chandra, co-founder of Urban Company, formerly called Urban Clap, where we discuss building products for millions of engaged users and creating a unique platform that now serves major markets in India and globally. We chat about
1. Building a product for the clients and service providers,
2. Owning the supply by standardizing service & vertical integration
3. The 5 pillars of the products to creating value, and
4. Learn...
2020-07-151h 02
Stars & StartupsEP21: {Girish of Magzter} on 55 million app downloads and the business of digital magazines and newspapersEP21: 55 million app downloads, business of magazines & newspapers and starting with apps early {Girish Ramdas, Co-founder & CEO of Magzter}
If you’ve had a smart phone since early days you’d likely recognise Magzter. Along with Zinio they were they apps that you could find your favourite magazines from across the world to access and read. They have over 55 million downloads of their apps and Girish speaks off how they hit 1 million downloads a months recently and likely greater than normal downloads due to COVID. On the episode I speak with Girish Ramdas, the CEO of Magzter. We h...
2020-07-131h 13
Stars & StartupsEP20: {Matt - Blue Tokai Coffee} COVID, Coffee, Cafés and the Third WaveEP20: Coffee, Cafes and the Third Wave {Matt Chitharanjan, Co-founder of Blue Tokai Coffee}
With Episode 20, we’re ending week 10 on the podcast with the story of a popular coffee shop and coffee company that has seen demand for premium Indian coffee grow and capture the mind space of Indians looking to consume GOOD coffee.
With that they have also seen competition rise and their cafe business gain popularity . On the episode I chat about their 8 year journey and the business of coffee with Matt Chitharanjan, who along with his coffee co-founder and wife Namrata have...
2020-07-0851 min
Stars & StartupsEP19: ItzCash journey, Mindfulness & GetVantage {Bhavik Vasa, Founder of GetVantage}On today’s episode I chat with Bhavik Vasa , he’s the Ex - Chief Growth officer at ItzCash and managed the business after the acquisition by EBIX. He was instrumental in the ItzCash journey to acquisition. Bhavik & I discuss his journey, the acquisition, mindfulness & his latest venture GetVantage.
----- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!
--> We also have a coffee giveaway as we approach EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me...
2020-07-0557 min
Stars & StartupsEP18: Building a sports league in India, first with Futsal & now in racing {Abhinandan of X1 Racing}Abhinandan (Abhi) is a Vellore Inst of Tech & Warwick grad who has built 3 businesses, Altflo, Chefhost & Liquity right from the moment he graduated. He also launched Premier Futsal prior to X1 Racing.
In his latest entrepreneurial venture Abhi has teamed up with 2 young racing drivers Aditya Patel and Armaan Ebrahim to launch the league X1 Racing League and Ultimate E . The league is not only very innovative but has gone about creating a moat from the beginning to capitalize on the growing interest in entertainment I.P being built out of India. We’re witnessing e-sports gain pop...
2020-07-0151 min
Stars & StartupsEP17: {Aloke of IXIGO} 170 million users and a 14 year journey building the Google for travelEP17: {Aloke Bajpai, Co-founder & CEO of IXIGO}
On the episode I chat with Aloke Bajpai, CEO of IXIGO, a business that can be called a Travel industry veteran. Aloke & Rajnish have been in the travel ecosystem since the time they graduated from IIT in 2001, first jobs working at the Spanish travel major Amadeus and then building IXIGO as a travel search player in India even before flying was commonplace like it is today — at least prior to COVID19.
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2020-06-2956 min
Stars & StartupsEP16: {Mukul of Classplus} on Power of teachers in a coaching centre, raising US$ 9M to support offline EdWe have a deep conversation with Mukul Rustagi of Classplus, and IIT Roorkee grad who had the intent to solve problems right through college, just like his co-founder Bhaswat.
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We explore the world of coaching institutes, how a teacher at the institute influences a child’s ability to learn and get better. We delve into building the Classplus business model and understand how Classplus has been able to carve a niche for itself and raise 9 million do...
2020-06-2446 min
Stars & StartupsEP15: {Vikas of Social Beat} on Social commerce, an award winning digital agency, and launching 4 businessesWe speak with Vikas Chawla a friend of mine from my time at Loyola College - Chennai , who founded digital agency called Social Beat. He along with his brother Suniel Chawla have built a sought after agency that has won numerous awards as a Premier Google Partner & as a recommended Facebook agency.
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In the conversation we talk about the origin story, how an ecomm website became an agency and how an agency is looking at building p...
2020-06-2253 min
Stars & StartupsEP14: {Sarvesh of Sarva} on IPL cricketer to Yogi and taking yoga to the world - 130k downloads in 75 daysEP14: Cricketer to Yogi and taking yoga to the world — 130k downloads in 75 days {Sarvesh Sashi, Co-founder & CEO of Sarva}
Sarvesh Sashi was a cricketer from Chennai who was picked in 2 IPL squads. Yep, he put IPL fame aside to pursue his love for Yoga.
Sarvesh talks about how he met his guru and how he took up Yoga. He also shares how the app has a star studded investor list including celebrities like Jennifer Lopes & her husband, baseball legend, Alex Rodriguez. We get chatting about yoga of course, and a lot lot more.
Sarva...
2020-06-1836 min
Stars & StartupsEP13: {Prasanna of Hipbar} on building a "bar on the cloud" to enabling payments & deliveries for wine-shopsOn the EP13 we explore the world of alcohol and how an app from Chennai making it possible to buy alcohol from neighbourhood wine shops as well as enabling deliveries for these shop owners. Prasanna Natarajan & Prashant Adurty are the founders of Hipbar. Prasanna and I chat about the state of country spirits, and the business of delivering alcohol.
“Without knowing the extent of govt oversight, the naivety helped me become successful”
Prasanna is a first generation alcohol beverage industry entrepreneur. Trust me, there are a very few of these in India. Hailing from a fami...
2020-06-1543 min
Stars & StartupsEP12 : {Jitendra - Citrus Pay} on exiting for $130M cash & raising $26M to launch Jupiter on an ideaEP12 : {Jitendra of Citrus Pay & Jupiter Money} Exiting to PayU for a cool US$ 130 million cash deal, Angel Investing and on raising US$ 26 million to launch Jupiter with only an idea
On this special episode of Stars & Startups I chat with my ex-boss and mentor Jiten Gupta, Founder of Jupiter Money.
Jiten was the co-founder of Citrus Payments an online payment company that sold to its rival PayU payments in 2016 for a mammoth $130M cash deal, post which Jiten went on to run PayU’s consumer play LazyPay.
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2020-06-1048 min
Stars & StartupsEP11: {Aneesh of Svami} on putting Indian Tonics on the map & dabbling with an app for Wines & BeersOn the episode I catch up with award winning photographer Aneesh Bhasin of Svami drinks. Svami is a beverages brand that’s part of the latest wave of Indian consumer brands that is catering to a premium audience and offers variety in a segment that has long lacked innovation.
Aneesh and I chat about coffee, his experience building his earlier startup HipCask and how he’s taken that experience to build SVAMI - a brand that’s built up quite the fan following.
Aneesh has graciously offered a 15% discount on orders placed on SvamiDrinks.com and shou...
2020-06-081h 13
Stars & StartupsEP10: {Bala of Kawa Space} on creating applications for enabling easy use of satellite data and Space techEP10: Writing code at the age of 12 to now creating applications that enables easy use of satellite data {Bala Menon, Co-founder of Kawa Space}
Bala Menon is a tech entrepreneur who started writing code at the age of 12 and has built products across various industries and now, space. As the co-founder & Chief Product Officer he speaks about how Kawa Space aims to make space technology accessible to everyone; enabling the intelligence from space consumed at scale by businesses.
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The opportunity provided by Space, especially in L...
2020-06-0549 min
Stars & StartupsEP09: {Jaspreet of Visual AI} on hacking drones to having three-fourth of all Indian solar businesses as clientsJaspreet talks candidly about how he started hacking together quadcopters for the fun of it in the college lab & sold those crude copters to make some pocket money. When quadcopters started becoming accessible and extremely powerful there were very few who knew how to monetize and even fewer who went ahead and tried their hand at it.
Now Visual AI manages over 35% of Indian solar assets, with a set of impressive client - comprising of 27 of the 35 companies in the solar space. The data science solutions help monitor geographical areas using its proprietary software. Clients include Adani...
2020-06-0157 min
Stars & StartupsEP08: {Sanna of The Wedding Brigade} building a content business, Zoom & the future of 12m annual weddings in IndiaEP08: Building a content business, Zoom weddings and the future of the ~ 12 million annual weddings in India; and the commerce around the occasion
We speak with Sanna, CEO of The Wedding Brigade, a platform that has carved a niche for itself by gathering a highly engaged audience and produces high quality content to stay connected and relevant to its customers. Sanna discusses how she looks at content, how it drives commerce, why very few have been able to have the same success as they have.
We also talk about the future of Zoom weddings and wha...
2020-05-2656 min
Stars & StartupsEP07: {Amit of InnerHour} on Mental Wellness using technology & supporting half a million users in IndiaAmit Malik, founder of InnerHour, speaks about how Indians are taking to mental health, the stigma around it and how technology is playing role in bridging the gap.
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This week we speak about something that’s become the topic of discussion during the pandemic, given job losses, economic slowdown and the many reasons for anxiety. Some estimates that at very least 150 million Indians are in need of intervention for mental health but only 30 million Indians have access to mental health facilities currently.
InnerHour wa...
2020-05-2451 min
Stars & StartupsEP06: {Hitesh of Nykaa} on creating unique brand IP & marketing for D2C brandsHitesh chats about marketing now, marketing before and his journey from e-comm to real estate and back to e-comm. Hitesh also shares words of advice for Direct to Consumer (D2C) brands on how to approach marketing in the early days and launch their brand. Hitesh Malhotra is a management graduate from UC- Berkeley, prior to Nykaa he was at Jabong.com, MakeMyTrip.com, and an agency — MSL.
We may have have misquoted some facts including that about RedBull and Louis Vuitton, feel free to correct us!
Hitesh’s social media handles: Instagram & LinkedIn
Pl...
2020-05-211h 06
Stars & StartupsEP05: {Snehil of TrulyMadly} on the journey from founding team to CEO, dating in new India & building productsSnehil, shares his journey from being college student to being a part of 3 successful stories. His story is that of starting early, and the universe doing the rest.
On this episode we catch up with Snehil Khanor, currently the CEO of TrulyMadly a dating app where he was a part of the founding team. Snehil in the interim went on to do other exciting things including founding FindYahan which was acquired by Zimmber, consulting for other popular internet brands — Printland.in, Freecultr, Kimaya — and creating an app that currently is used by . Snehil shares his journey right from the begi...
2020-05-171h 12
Stars & StartupsEP04: {Krishi Fagwani, co-founder of HashtagLoyalty} on running a marketing SaaS business in India and starting Save Local to help stores during the COVID19 lockdownEP04 of Stars & Startups : Krishi has a very candid chat about what it is to run a SaaS business for Indian brick & mortar businesses in the hospitality & retail industries.
He also discussed the journey of selling to restaurants in India over the 5 years of running HashtagLoyalty, the future for the business and shares what it like being a part of the Upekkha accelerator cohort for SaaS startups.
Today, Hashtag Loyalty offers an engagement and loyalty marketing tool for over 1500 businesses across the country incl. brands like Smaaash, Naturals Ice Cream, The Belgian Waffle Co, Massive Hos...
2020-05-1345 min
Stars & StartupsEP03: {Manuj, co-founder of MyUpchar} on serving half a billion users of vernacular India, hitting 150 million views on their content and creating the healthcare platform that Bharat needsEP03 of Stars & Startups : Manuj shares the incredible rise of MyUpchar from an obscure platform for health content in 2016 to being at the forefront of startups that prioritized the vernacular web in India. The story behind monetizing a content service and having offered 1 million FREE consultations offered by the 50,000 doctors who have signed up for no cost.
"As per our data 80% medical queries can be solved through tele-consultation, of the remaining 15% can be solved through video consultation. There are only 5% queries which need a physical checkup" say Manuj.
"We live in a nation where people love...
2020-05-101h 06
Stars & StartupsEP02: { Madhu, co-founder of YAP } on powering over 80% of Indian fintech startups, being ZOHO & working at VisaMadhu, CEO & co-founder of YAP shares his incredible journey from being at Visa to raising almost $6M to build the fintech platform of the future, using leverage & bank partnerships to create a moat.
Show Notes:
2:08 - Introduction
4:38 - Learnings from working at Visa
7:05 - What I learned from working on financial inclusion & the UID at Visa
8:50 - Opportunities to make a difference inside of large companies
10:18 - Prioritizing between 2 products; choosing the Star and de-prioritizing the Dog
14:25 - Creating trust with banks & financial institutions, becoming close partners by adding value
28:07 - Resurgent opportunity for a new age fintech plus consumer business
3...
2020-05-061h 12
Stars & StartupsBONUS: {Krishi of Hashtag Loyalty} on SaveLocal & supporting small businessThis is a clip from my chat with Krishi Fagwani (co-founder of Hashtag Loyalty), talking about some of the things Hashtag Loyalty had done once the lockdown has started, how they've supported the businesses that they work with. Also, he shares the launch of SaveLocal (https://savelocal.in/) as a Hashtag Loyalty initiative to allow patron of independent restaurants and stores to support their neighbourhood small businesses by buying gift cards.
2020-05-0506 minStars & StartupsEP01: {Pranav Ahuja - Xeno } Marketing 2.0, bootstrapping and building company culture + a lot morePranav is a graduate of Vellore Institite of Technology who loves building products and has spent over 5 years building Xeno - a digital personalization platform for physical retailers. He along with Ayushmaan Kapoor co-founded Xeno. They've scaled 13x in the last year (as of March 2020) and work with brands like GANT, US Polo, Forever New, Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts & Forest Essentials.
This episode was recorded originally in 2019 and a lot of the numbers and "hiring" segment may be a bit dated but do reach out to Pranav if you're interested in what they're up to.
Show notes:
01:15 - Introduction to Xen...
2020-05-0129 min