Shows
SaaSBoomiA masterclass in bootstrapping, learning and staying happy with Kumar VembuPankaj MishraKumar Vembu’s journey with Zoho during its early foundational years and later building his own startup, GoFrugal, offers some deep insight into India SaaS’ building blocks. Kumar's ability to spot and mentor talent such as Girish Mathrubootham, who is now the founder of Freshworks, India’s most valuable SaaS company, offers lessons in grooming leaders. In this episode of SaaSBOOMi podcast, I am thrilled to share this masterclass with Kumar in bootstrapping, spotting talent and matching them with their true purpose, and lessons from three different entrepreneurial journeys--Zoho, GoFrugal and Freshworks. 2020-10-061h 04
SaaSBoomiAditya Rao of Kaapi on making peace with $1000 MRRWhat if the real key to a richer and more fulfilling career was not to create and scale a new start-up, but rather, to be able to work for yourself, determine your own hours, and become a (highly profitable) and sustainable company of one? Suppose the better—and smarter—solution is simply to remain small? via Company of One”Pankaj MishraSounds quite a playbook, doesn't it? Amid all the talks of finding a product-market fit, growth hacking revenues from $0 to $1 million, $10 million and beyond, a rare breed of entrepreneurs are finding a path to inner...2020-09-0931 min
SaaSBoomiSakshi and Ashish Tulsian share their playbook for surviving the pandemic with hope and compassionBy Pankaj Mishra"These are not days for unbridled optimism, but this is the perfect time to allow hope to arise in our spirits.” Donald T IannoneEntrepreneurial optimism can be dangerous and suicidal. Overconfidence and confirmation biases can blind founders from getting a realistic assessment of any situation. But the undying sense of chasing the glimmer can also be inspiring, and perhaps the single biggest source of strength for surviving an existential crisis like the ongoing pandemic. When the first wave of Covid pandemic hit India in early March this year...2020-08-121h 06
SaaSBoomiWhen to hire your first VP of sales?Pankaj MishraIt’s amazing how just this one question can make or break a company. What makes it even more frustrating is that there’s already too much noise and clutter of answers on this question. From founders, investors, to startup mentors, media and so on, almost everyone has their perfect answer to this question. And still, many founders hire VP sales too early, or too late. A rare few, Google for instance, get it right. Many others including GitHub, which got acquired by Microsoft eventually, didn’t get it right. So how to s...2020-07-2851 min
SaaSBoomiStartup is a rollercoaster ride; your team is the seatbeltPankaj MishraOver 30 million kids use SplashLearn to play games that help them learn math, practice better.Arpit Jain, Umang Jain, Joy Deep Nath, and Mayank Jain, the co-founders of SplashLearn, were batchmates at IIT Kharagpur.The biggest tipping point for SplashLearn was when it decided to shift from $10 as a lifetime fee for using the app, to $10 as a monthly fee."We were nervous," Arpit tells me in this podcast.Today, with over 100K+ paid members, SplashLearn has navigated that transition well.As Umang adds, listening to...2020-07-1553 min
SaaSBoomiRushabh Mehta of ERPNext on how he's building a community, not just a companyPankaj MishraGreat ecosystems are built on building blocks that are diverse and bring different communities and ideologies together. Homogenous building blocks create commoditised environments with absolutely short-lived differentiation and a common race to the bottom.India's SaaS ecosystem brings enough diversity in terms of business models and products, even ideologies, to keep storytellers like me excited and interested in people who make it.Rushabh Mehta, this week's guest on the SaaSBOOMi podcast, underscores the diversity in India SaaS as I mentioned above. In a world focused on B2BSaaS products joining the...2020-06-1731 min
SaaSBoomiWingify founders on a decade of bootstrapping, surviving profitably and staying togetherWingify founders on a decade of bootstrapping, surviving profitably and staying together
Pankaj Mishra
What makes a company great?
What does it take to build companies that outlive "startup valleys of death"?
In this episode of SaaSBOOMi podcast, Paras Chopra and Sparsh Gupta share candid lessons on not just survival but building a culture that lasts, profitably.
"We've been lucky to share a substantial part of our value system, together. There are fundamental values that we both agree together, and that helps us have a lot of disagreements. But because we share the value system, we know whatever disagreements we're h...2020-06-0349 min