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Entrepreneurship

Here you will find the things that inspire me in my daily life as a venture capitalist. Whether it is something I read, someone I meet or somewhere I go, if it makes an impression I would like to share it with you so that maybe you can be inspired too!

All that Glitter is NOT for a Startup Founder

  • Category: Business, Entrepreneurship, Investments, opinion, Thoughts, Venture Investing
  • Posted: 1 day ago

I find it extremely hard to empathise with founders who want to “maintain” a certain lifestyle with a large team and a swanky office to “feel” like an entrepreneur. Founding a start-up is a messy and dirty affair and there is no amount of sugar coating that can change that fact. Founders who find motivation

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Venture Idea: A Vendor Backed Credit Rating System for Corporates

  • Category: aDisms, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Investment Ideas, Pitch, Venture Ideas
  • Posted: 2 days ago

It is hard to gauge the independence of a rating provided by a rating agency, since the company being rated is the one who pays the agencies’ fee. So, any agency that gives a company a rating that negatively impacts the company’s business bears the risk of losing the client to a competitor willing to

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The Journey from 500k to 5 Billion Demolishes 5 long-held Startup Myths

  • Category: Entrepreneurship, Exits, Inspirational, Investments, Thoughts
  • Posted: 1 month ago

It has been over a week now since the news of OYO’s $1 billion round and ascent to unicorn status became official. This is a huge accomplishment for Ritesh and the entire Indian start-up ecosystem as the new round’s purpose is primarily to expand OYO’s reach outside India, something very few Indian start-ups can boast

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Keep the Fundraising PPT, Simple

  • Category: Entrepreneurship, Fundraising
  • Posted: 2 months ago

I sat through a pitch call today that went on for 35 mins (it seemed much longer). The founder kept going through slide after slide of information which harped on the same point (the business model). To move things along I valiantly attempted to summarize the business model for the founder and indicate that I

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Video of the Week: The Undisputed King of Bollywood

  • Category: aDisms, Business, Entrepreneurship, Learning, Movies, Plaudits, Thoughts, Videos
  • Posted: 2 months ago

I must be honest that I was not a big fan of Akshay Kumar through most of my teens. His movies centred around his martial arts abilities and he had typecast himself into a brand of cinema which I did not identify with. Then something happened 10 years ago that altered the actor’s career and

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I am looking for a Recruitment Specialist

  • Category: Artha, Entrepreneurship
  • Posted: 2 months ago

With a growing portfolio and 5 internal companies, someone or the other is always looking for new hires. So far we have been managing this position ourselves, in an ad-hoc manner or handing it over to the existing HR manager. The list of people we need to hire is getting unmanageable and I need professional

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The Investment Banker Pandemic

  • Category: aDisms, Business, Entrepreneurship, Fundraising, Learning, Thoughts
  • Posted: 2 months ago

Time and again, I have warned early-stage founders to steer clear of using the services of a banker to help raise money but unfortunately, that pandemic has overrun our ecosystem. Many bankers have made a comfortable lifestyle out of fleecing unsuspecting founders. The false dream that these 1-star bankers promise founders makes my skin crawl,

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High Valuations are a Thorny Issue!

  • Category: aDisms, Entrepreneurship, Fundraising, Investments
  • Posted: 3 months ago

Yesterday at a luncheon, a fellow angel investor and I were discussing deal flow when the senior editor of a respectable news house introduced herself to us. As many journalists do, she brought up the “high” valuations that are accorded to Indian start-ups and inquired as to whether they are “sustainable”. My fellow angel investor immediately

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When is the Right Time to be Acquired?

  • Category: Business, Entrepreneurship, Exits, opinion, Thoughts
  • Posted: 3 months ago

Yesterday I met a startup that I have been mentoring for the past 18 months. The founders have developed a deep tech product that has a niche in the B2B space. While their sales have not managed to light up the startup world, I can ascertain that they have developed a robust product that services

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Choose Your Termsheet Battles Carefully

  • Category: Business, Entrepreneurship, Fundraising, Learning
  • Posted: 3 months ago

Since there is a limit to the amount of negotiation that will take place on any deal, founders that intend on fighting to win every point of the battle will rarely ever win the war. Founders should enter negotiations for investment with a clear understanding that things are bound to change and that it is

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