251: The Winning Formula to Build Billion-Dollar Businesses | Ganesh Krishnan (Serial Entrepreneur)

Speaker A: How have you stayed relevant for as long?

Speaker B: In my opinion, it's a dull, boring way to look at it. Focus on the core sectors, big pain points, do something there and you would have lot higher probability of success. Failures are normal and it is extremely stressful. You are doing a control, alt, delete and starting from zero again. Entrepreneurship is like that, multiple failures and um, some small hits.

Speaker A: So if you were, let's say 25, 26, 20 today, what sector would you start up in?

Speaker B: I would say green energy, climate tech, space tech are ah, all potential areas where there's going to be huge pressure and huge opportunity. It's important for you to be passionate. At the same time, you need to be stupid enough to believe that the idea will work. Nish Krishnan, founder of growthstory.in is a serial entrepreneur behind BigBasket, Courtier, Medical, Bluestone and Homelane. He is also an adjunct professor at IIM Bangalore and a, uh, visiting professor at the Indian School of Business. His ventures have shaped India's startup ecosystem, bringing expertise in building and scaling innovative businesses.

Speaker A: Hello sir. Welcome to the Startup Operator podcast. I am absolutely delighted to have you. I have followed your journey for a long, long while. I've been in startups for about 16 years and you were one of the early inspirations for all of us. Uh, so as I mentioned, I was operating uh, in an adjacent space to Tutor Vista at that time and we used to look at Tutor Vista to figure what else we could do. Uh, so amazing. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker B: Pleasure is mine. Uh, one of the problems of being old person is everybody has known for a long time.

Speaker A: That's a good thing. It's amazing. Um, especially I think in the startup space where trends come and go, fads come and go, uh, waves come and go. I mean, it's good to uh, you know, see that, you know, you've operated almost since 1990, I would say, right? So almost three decades. Um, I guess, I mean that's a good place for us to begin. Right? How have you stayed relevant for as long? Because I think, you know, you can start with your first source story, or it&t, I should say, and then for Source, uh, and then Tutor Star, and then of course with Growth Story, being a promoter for uh, Portia, BigBasket, Homelane, um, and some others as well. So how have you stayed so relevant for, uh, as long?

Speaker B: Uh, uh, firstly, I think, uh, while we talk about all the nice brands and success stories, uh, in full disclosure and caveats, uh, there have been a lot of failures and challenges we don't talk about it, we talk only about the success. And you know, you've been a startup entrepreneur. So uh, entrepreneurship is like that, multiple failures and some small, uh, hits. So what I have really found working for me, and by no means it's the last word or the only word, uh, it's colored by the biases, uh, is that if you look at large, big problems, core sectors, it's far easier in my opinion to, than to create new things, than to create new stuff. So uh, Facebook or Twitter, TikTok, those are all revolutionary. You need to be a genius to come up with that. Outliers, outliers you really introduce. I mean when I, when I first heard about Facebook, I never thought why would somebody want to be on Facebook? Okay, right. And this was back in 2005, they had opened it out only to Harvard. I mean things like Snapchat or Snap even now I don't understand what's the greatness about taking a selfie and sending it. But look at, look, look at the business but coming back. I think in my opinion it's a dull, boring way to look at it. Focus on the core sectors, big pain points, do something there and um, you would have lot higher probability of success. More importantly, you don't have to be a genius. You need to have a magic band. So if you look at our businesses, Roti, Kapra Makan, education, entertainment and healthcare, these six are core sectors. Everybody needs it. You will need it, I'll need it, uh, the prince will need it, the pauper will need it. So that has been one, uh, underlying principle that we believed in.

Speaker A: Right. Uh, one thing is very interesting that you mentioned, which is to stay at the game. Right. You will have some failures along the way, but it's important to come back and try again and, and fail forward, uh, so to speak. Right. But you know, having once been through the journey, I realize how much it takes out of you, uh, right. In terms of energy, resources and so on, how do you keep motivated, uh, with that and how do you look at an idea or a startup? Very dispassionately that, you know, I'm going to try this for X amount of time. Uh, and if it works, it works. After that I move on to something else.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think it's important for you to be passionate. At the same time, you need to be stupid enough to believe that the idea will work by nature. New ideas or disruption have to be something that's slightly wonky or crazy. Otherwise lots of people would have done it.

Speaker A: Correct.

Speaker B: Okay. Right. You would be one of the many. So you need to have certain streak of eccentricity or a foolish belief to be able to do that. That's what I uh, keep having on one or the other. Uh, that's one, two, uh, failures are normal. I wish I was wiser this way. And it is extremely stressful. A lot of times people ask me, I ask myself why am I getting into another startup? Having been through this, having made some money, some success, why do you need to put yourself through this wringer again and again and again. And when you start afresh and new you are doing a control, alt, delete and starting from zero again. So it's extremely, can be extremely traumatic. But I guess this more like uh, the guy who uh, is an uh, addict. Right?

Speaker A: It's an affliction.

Speaker B: It's an affliction or addiction. You get used to the nasha. Okay.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You don't want to give it up and you know it is not good for you but you again go and do, go and do it so that I think 1, 2. It is very stressful and um, at one point of time I used to be as handsome and had as much hair as you have now this, all these uh, 25 years of 35 years of startups, uh, has uh, taken all the hair out I used.

Speaker A: But you're still as energetic maybe because of the startups.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that is true because uh, working with uh, founders, working on new ideas, uh, keeps your brain active. I work with uh, obviously almost all the people I work with are younger than me. So young mindset keeps me happy and the opportunity every day to wake up to a new challenge and now suddenly you're talking about generative A.I. uh, agentic uh solutions and you keep learning. I think that that addiction or Nasha of something new and the ability to learn, be with young people keeps uh, you, keeps you up.

Speaker A: Right. Uh, one thing that uh, strikes me about your journey is that how you always said that you have to build with an exit in mind, right. To understand what the path forward is for the business. Um, and you've done it not once or twice, you've done it multiple times. Right. I mean um, it and T forsource, Tutor Vista and Now recently with BigBasket getting acquired by Tata as well. Right. So um, there is definitely like a principle or a framework that you have that you implicitly or perhaps I mean you codified it also um, that you follow. Right. Can you just like give the broad framework like what is it? How do you start and exit a business.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, uh, I mean, obviously my first business it&t was, uh, back in 1990 when the concept of venture capitalist or startup or entrepreneur, we weren't liberalized.

Speaker A: Also.

Speaker B: Yeah, we were not liberalized. So none of it was there. And at that time, uh, there is no concept of entrepreneur. First generation entrepreneur, venture capitalist, uh, seed, uh, capital, angel, investment, extra. None of it existed. Uh, 1990, the only businesses were really factory or manufacturing businesses. And there's a license, Raj. It was not liberalized. Like you mentioned, uh, you needed to have a license, you need to have contacts. And business really where business families, you need to be part of a business family. You buy a land, you apply for project financing, um, you need to have a factory with a chimney. That used to be the standard, standard business. Okay, Right. So that was a different, uh, world completely altogether. Okay, Right. So between then and now, things have changed substantially.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So you had, uh, various ecosystem players coming up. So I think it would have been a fascinating journey across the board. Was that a question that you.

Speaker A: So let me, uh, ask a specific question. Right. So now for us, when we look at 1990s, you know, okay, 91 liberalization. And also, I mean, when we look back and say that, you know, how much of how prominent computers became. Right. It would have been. But obvious for us to. Yeah, you know, computers are going to increase. Right. So hardware maintenance, for instance. For instance, with it. Right. Would have been an obvious thought for us. Now, looking back. Right. Again, first source, you know, with the business, um, process, outsourcing and so on. Yes. I mean, with the world opening up, it. It seems like a, uh, uh, obvious thought. Tutor Vista. Also, I tell people that it was edtech before edtech.

Speaker B: Edtech word was not there.

Speaker A: Exactly. Now it's so obvious. And we saw a huge amount of funding come into the ecosystem. How do you have this knack for finding obvious ideas ahead of time?

Speaker B: Yeah. So let me answer your previous question first. I had missed the thread on this, which was about exit, how to create exit. So My first business, IT&T as was mentioning 1990, took 10 years. We did not start it at the time. Like I said, the ecosystem was not about venture capitalist. It was bootstrapped with, uh, entire 90,000 rupees from five of us. Uh, that was not started with the exit in mind. It was started, uh, like a bootstrapped business. Because at that time the concept of exit was not there every month. The challenge used to be, can I meet the payroll?

Speaker A: Cash flow. Okay, Cash flow.

Speaker B: Okay. Right. That is When I learned my first principles, even though I had gone to I.M. calcutta, uh, had an MBA. But profit and loss, P and L, all that is meaningless for an entrepreneur. Only thing matters is cash flow at the end of the month, if there's enough money to pay the rent and pay the salaries of your employees, you are a king. Okay, uh, rest of the metrics just don't matter. If you don't have that salary to pay the employee and you have to look the employee in the eye and say, I'm sorry I'm not able to pay you, then that's the worst thing possible. So first business was not started with exit in mind, that is, and we grew it for 10 years. We had a good exit, reasonable, ah, exit. We uh, uh, took it public in the Indian market, then sold it to, um, Igate. I was not there at the time, but my two of my, uh, partners did that. That is when I realized the importance of right from day one, building scalable, exitable businesses. Okay, right. And real money can be made in most of the cases. I'm generalizing a bit. If you are able to exit a business, exit could be to your trade sale. Exit could be taking it public for the founder to take dividends from the company. Unless you're Zerodha or unless. Unless those rare exceptions are there is very difficult. So my second venture onwards, which was customer Asset, which is now listed as first source, part of the Sanjeev Goenka Group, we said, how do I plan for the exit right at the beginning. And again, I have seen excellent entrepreneurs far, far more successful than I am. Whether it is, uh, Infosys founders or Sanjeev Bichchandani who have done a great job of starting a company, scaling it, staying with it, uh, insanely successful. So, uh, I'm just putting a caveat that my way is not the only way. And there are a lot more successful people to look at it. The way I looked at it is, so how do I build for an exit right from day one? M. And there's a subtle difference. A lot of people ask me this. It's your passionate business. It's like your baby. How can you think about exit from beginning? And other people say that exit will come later. You build a good, valuable company. M. Exit will come later. I actually tend to disagree. I mean, let me give an analogy. This is like you are buying a house or a home or an apartment or a flat. Now it is your apartment. It is your hard earned money. M. You definitely are going to be very, very careful you will choose the place, you will do all that stuff. But the point I'm trying to make the analogy is depending on what you want to do with the apartment, M. How you build that apartment or what you do in that apartment will vary. For example, if you are planning to stay there, if you are planning to move in there, you will have things that you really like. Granite, marble, white marble and all of that stuff. And interiors, beautiful the way you would like to wake up every day. That's one example. It's your. If you're planning to rent it out, then it's a different example. It's still your apartment, your money, you're bothered, you're invested and all of that stuff. But you're not going to put the best marble. Why? The person who rents it is not going to value that. M. What does he want? He will want certain minimal thing. He will want certain area, certain, uh, facilities, but he's not going to pay extra because you have got an Italian marble, uh, or a special this way. So you will build differently. Third example, you are buying the apartment, but you want to sell it after two, three, four years because it's upcoming area. Then what you do, you will not even do the interiors. Because if you do any interiors like the way you would have done for rent, the person who is going to buy it, going to pay you crores for your apartment is not going to accept your interiors. So he will not value any of the investment that you made. So this is a great analogy of saying that based on what you want to do, even though it's your money, your apartment, your investment, you would do that. I would see the same way when, um, you're building a company, are you building to do a trade exit? Are you willing to flip it at early stage to some other big buyer? Are you planning to take it to IPO at SME? What are you going to do? It's important you build all elements like that. So that's, that's the analogy. And I've followed that worked reasonably well in many cases. Like I said, a lot of cases not.

Speaker A: You're being very humble when you say reasonably.

Speaker B: No, I've never been. I've never been accused of humility in my life. But thank you and take it as a compliment.

Speaker A: Um, few different things vary, right. When you, when you build a business like that. Um, one is perhaps, I mean, you look at a large market where perhaps, I mean, there are larger incumbents who can potentially acquire you. Second, I think maybe this is what you could talk about is like you will privilege asset value. Right. I mean, because if you're looking at valuations per se, you will build a business differently than if you're looking at, let's say, you know, I need to be profitable enough to take something out of the business. Right. So these are two different parts. So what are some of the choices you will make in the first case?

Speaker B: Yeah, so, and that's a very important point because while whether it is podcast or newspaper, uh, or media, uh, we uh, glamorize valuations, we glamorize scale. But entrepreneurship is not only that, that's what gets into the front page news. The real entrepreneurship, 99% of them are lifestyle businesses. Yes, businesses entrepreneurs start, they scale, it becomes profitable, it does that, which is perfectly fine. And that's most of the SME businesses are, they may not be within, quote, listable or they may not be acquirable by uh, large company, but they're extremely profitable. Yeah, very satisfying for the entrepreneur. So one of the things I do want to tell all the young entrepreneurs, while you look at the valuations and listing and all the glamour that is there, don't get carried away. That's, that's, that's one way of doing the business. But 99% out there are good lifestyle profitable business that can also be built based on, based on what you want to do. And how do you want to play the entrepreneurship game? That very much, uh, is possible. Coming back to the question, if you choose to build a exitable, monetizable business. Right, right. Then one of the fundamental importance is it needs to be scalable. Okay, Right. So look at scale. If you're going down that particular path, which means the sector has to be large.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Okay. Right. If you want to do that, you can start a small business, be profitable, be satisfying, do it for your life, uh, entirely as a lifestyle business, which is perfectly fine. It may be very rewarding and satisfying, but it will not get acquired. So scalability is important. By scalability will come. If you are talking about large sectors.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Okay, let me give an example. When we started Bluestone in the first, I think second year, somebody came to me and said he wanted angel investment. Uh, he said he was doing ah, online jewelry for pets in India. Okay, okay. He was very passionate about pets. He knew I was passionate about pets. I was already into jewelry online. Right. So it's been that. So I listened to him. Okay, Right. Excellent entrepreneur. Right. Very smart. But I asked him only one question. If you are really passionate, want to do it, do it out of your own money or do it out of your family money and run can be profitable but it will never be a vcable business or a professional investor investable business. Okay, right. So look at it. How many people in India have pets? Out of those people who have pets, how many of them would like to buy jewelry for their pet? How many of them would like to buy jewelry for their pet online? And how many of them you'll be able to reach? You have been in marketing. How many of them you'll be able to reach and how many of them after reaching you'll be able to actually convert and making them um, pay. So can this become a UM 100 crore business finder crore business? Because at that scale only you will find any monetization for somebody to acquire you. You need to have size or scale or you need to have uniqueness. There is no uniqueness in this. Um, so that is the way we, I look at it that for exit scalability is important. For scalability large sector is important. Potential to go large.

Speaker A: Right. The other facet of your startup building per se is the fact that you privilege disruption. Right. Um, you say you've, I've heard you say that you don't want to out execute, let's say a vocard or a money pile in healthcare you don't want to out execute. Um some of the larger Manipal in education also. Right. Let's say. Um, but you want to look at these large traditional sectors and bring something new there, right? Disruption. Um, what goes into disruption? Um, you know, um, like how do you figure it's a significant enough disruption that you know you can take business away? Um, right. But at the same time not so different that people cannot relate to it at all.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's a good question. There is no unique answer, no unique answer to it. I firmly believe that uh, I don't have a special capability or smartness to be able to out execute. Like I mentioned, uh, anybody else, whether it's education or hospital, healthcare or grocery and all that stuff now during cocktail conversation or uh, otherwise I may criticize uh the current execution. Why is Spencer's not doing good job Reliance retail is bad and all that stuff or Infosys can do better. Why is cognizant flying? I have lots of views on it. I can comment and critique but if I were honestly to do it I would do as many mistakes or more.

Speaker A: Maybe few others, few others additional also

Speaker B: because they are all leaders. They are not stupid.

Speaker A: Okay, right.

Speaker B: They are sitting and doing this and they're done decades and sitting for cash. And I, I have no special magic wand to be able to do any better than them, right? Most likely lot worse than them. And it'll. They have taken 25, 30, 40 years. I would take them. Ah, I would take. Even if I'm the smartest, I would take another 15 years to learn that much. On the other hand, I firmly believe if you are able to use some of the latest developments, whether it's technology, whether it is AI, whether it is online, whether it is that something to change the status quo, then there are multiple benefits that an entrepreneur can get. Um, one, it's a new way of doing it. It's a disruption. It's difficult for incumbents to catch up and do that stuff. Two, because I am relatively more technology savvy, I understand technology better. I can do it better and faster than this. And this has been proven multiple times. The existing large incumbents cannot leverage new models as good as newer entrants or startups can do because we have nothing to lose. Yeah. IBM did not start Microsoft. Uh, Microsoft did not start Facebook. Facebook did not start Twitter. Twitter did not start TikTok or this. They're all copying, trying to uh, create something. They did not do it because they're for multiple reasons. They are busy with existing stuff. They have existing DNA is different. The thinking is different. All of this makes it very difficult. So as a new entrant I can come and do that. Now is it easy for Godrej or Reliance to start a big basket? No, it's for BigBasket to be able to do it. And even BigBasket is getting disrupted. See, look at Q Commerce.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Zepto. For Zepto to come in. Okay. Right. And do this to a big basket or to a large retail store is the stuff that's happening. So disruption is a weapon ah, that you can use as a uh, new startup or entrepreneur to come in. Especially in today's world. M Because it is democratized opportunities for entrepreneurs. Lot of technological change are happening. You don't have the problems of legacy investments or legacy mindsets to be able to do it. Look at Kodak. Kodak was in into films. They had huge investment in films. They could not get into digital.

Speaker A: I think I'm the last generation that perhaps uh, used a Kodak or recognizes a Kodak.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And it's uh, uh, people do not understand uh, how big a company it was.

Speaker B: Yeah. It had 90% market share.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: 90% market share. Okay.

Speaker A: Right, yeah.

Speaker B: Imagine from 90% market share and we have seen this in disruption. And I talk about it in my book on mastering disruption and a practical grade to new age business models. Where, uh, take BlackBerry, for example.

Speaker A: Yeah. Again, huge.

Speaker B: Take Nokia. Okay. Between Nokia and BlackBerry, they control the film market. Or Internet Explorer, uh, vis a vis Netscape. Netscape was dominant, listed public, separate, had 90% market share. Microsoft Internet Explorer came in, it was not better product by any means. And, uh, they took away 90% market share. Then slowly you saw Android, you saw Edge coming in, and, uh, Internet Explorer has got minority market share now.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Um, one of the things that you also talk about is that your tech innovation or business model innovation cannot change the consumer behaviors that people will do what they're doing anyway. Can you just shed a little more light on that? Because I think that's a very interesting point.

Speaker B: Yeah. So the hardest thing is to be able to change consumer behavior.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Right. Costliest thing.

Speaker B: Costliest thing. And it's very difficult to change. Okay, Right. So how do you change consumer behavior? Can you change consumer behavior at scale is something that's very important for scalability and growth of a business. The management jargon used, and we teach this at IM and isb, is crossing the chasm. M. Okay. You will always have early adopters who are technology savvy or who are willing to try new things who would try out. Entrepreneurs get a false sense that this is growing and there's a huge product market fit or a demand that is there when actually it is not there. But the number of people who are actually adopting it will not be large enough to build a large business. In fact, in startup circles, we call it the Koramangala crowd. We are sitting in Koramangala. You launch an app, uh, people in Koramangala will download the app and will buy. Okay. Right. But India is not Koramangala crowd. So that is the biggest challenge in terms of trying to cross the chasm or build something which is large, scalable. Does that answer your question? What is it?

Speaker A: Right. I mean, so going back to the. Let's say the jewelry for pets per se. Like, how many of them really, um, uh, you know, buy jewelry for their pets. Yeah. You have to spend money convincing people that it's a good idea to buy jewelry for pets.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then why you are the choice?

Speaker B: Yeah, you're talking about consumer. Yeah, that's true. Let me give another example. Bigbasket. When we started, my mother refused, uh, to buy from BigBasket.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. For one year, she refused to buy. The reason she refused to buy is because she wanted to touch, feel and all that stuff. He says, it's something I feed my family and therefore, uh, I need to choose personally and you know, press the tomato or break the bindi, uh, at the, at the back to be able to see it's. It's a good quality. And she ref to buy. Okay, right. Then, uh, something happened. One day, I think the shop was closed, uh, due to some bund or something I got from Big Basket. And she saw, she says, oh, this is better than what I purchased. Then I would have selected. I said, yeah, somebody else is doing the, doing the, doing the selection. Okay, right. So that was a turning moment because again, consumer behavior will not change. That's one. But fast forward, not just that Big Basket. We had Shah Rukh Khan as a brand ambassador. High profile television advertising. M M. Okay, right. Still, the penetration for Big Basket or E Grocery, even if you take other competitors put together, was less than 3%. Because people are buying from Kiranas. They're used to, they used to go and walk and buy. They used to buy from the Reddy, uh, Vala.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: All of that stuff. Behavior did not change. M. Despite Shahrukh Khan, despite high decibel advertising. Look at the amount of investment Flipkart and Amazon had done on television. Creating trust, cash on delivery, ensuring no questions asked, refund. So much of investment and amount of money, they still are not profitable. Billions and billions of dollars in the Indian market. Consumer would not change. But Covid happened, okay? Shutdown happened, lockdown happened. So there was no choice but to change. Right after that, the adoption has skyrocketed. BigBasket stopped using Shahrukh Khan. They don't need to create the trust because that's the consumer. Now, um, fortunately or unfortunately, based on which side you are, these are black swan events which will not happen. And again and again, that is what is required to change consumer behavior. It takes a lot of time and effort to change. Unless the pain point you are solving is deep. Railway tickets, for example, Airline tickets, for example. It's a very clear cut. Pinpoint upi, for example, even though it got accelerated, digital payment got accelerated because of COVID But that is such a sweet, frictionless way of doing it. That kind of behavioral change. Other than that trying to change consumer behavior again, you will also lose all your money.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Um, and I also realized that it's very difficult for people to go back also. Right. Uh, the same case with my mother. I mean she, even now she begrudgingly like, um, uh, you know, uses the one that I Order and everything. But she knows that I can get multiple brands, right. Which may not be available, uh, at the thing. And I can get in like immediately. Right. 10 minutes or whatever it is, or almost as much as going to the Kirana and coming back.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's like, ah, a, that's like a prediction or a, you know, bad habit. You will not be able to change.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How many of us will be willing to go and wait in queue to buy a railway ticket or airline ticket or withdraw money from a bank?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: We are not going to do it. And how many of us are going to wait to uh, pay money, get change, count and shopkeeper will not have change. It's upi because there's no issue. And even from the shopkeeper's point of view, there's no issue. That ship has sailed, which is why you find these business models are valued so high. And that is really the opportunity for entrepreneurs today. And whether you're entrepreneur, whether you're a manager, whether you're a management professional or a student, learning how these changes are going to affect and generative AI, whether it's ChatGPT or this is taken it to a completely different level.

Speaker A: Right, right. Um, since you mentioned valuations, right. I mean, how do you tell that story for an investor, right? That uh, you know, the person looks at it and thinks that, okay, this is, this is a bet that I can take, uh, because I think a good story goes a long way in terms of like getting a good valuation. Right? Because you can tell the same story two different ways and to have two different outcomes. Um, how do you tell a good story, uh, an investable story to an investor?

Speaker B: See, uh, what again, I have found, uh, in, uh, I raised money from, uh, 26 different investors. Okay. Right. At various points, some of them again and again. Storytelling, uh, is most important because on a paper, paper plan or at early stage series A, or even pre series A stage, uh, there is no data, there is no metrics to evaluate on. There is no earnings per share. There is nothing that you can.

Speaker A: There is no track record.

Speaker B: There is no track record. It's completely about story and the projection. Okay? Right. In fact, there's a joke that says there is more fiction in the Excel spreadsheets and the macros that, uh, entrepreneurs present than the entire English literature. Okay?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So there is a full story in fiction. Okay?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And a lot of times it doesn't work out. That's why it's a story. And I'm not saying it in the, in the wrong sense. Okay? Right. You believe in, believe in the story. So the way I look at it is that you need to choose whom you pitch and present to. You need to uh, choose your potential investor with some level of homework and due diligence for it to work. Even after that it doesn't work because

Speaker A: all investors may not be relevant, all

Speaker B: investors may not be learned. Even after that you have to keep on doing it. I mean the average, it takes 20 to 25 pictures before you get one investor. Even for me with all this uh, pre work. Okay, right. So how do you choose one? Obviously you see if the investor invests in your sector, there are people who invest in real estate, there are people who don't reinvest in real estate. So sector is important. Two, the timing for the investor is important. The fund that he's investing from, if it's already in the fourth year or fifth year, they're not going to be investing in early stage businesses because you will take another 10 years to exit. So is the sector relevant to the investor? Is the fund life enough for you to invest in that stage? Three, what is the ticket size of the investor? If you are 100 million fund, you want to invest not more than 2, 3, 4, 5 million in a company. Okay, right. That is over the lifetime. So if you are raising 1 or 2 million you go there. If you are raising 10 million, you can't go to 100 million dollar investor and vice versa. Ah, you don't. If you're raising on the paper plan, you're, you're planning to raise 2 million 3 million. You can't go to a billion dollar fund or a 600 million dollar fund unless uh, unless they have a special vehicle for early stage do that stuff. So this fitment and doing the homework would help a lot. Unfortunately I find even today entrepreneurs, because they get a list of investors, they will do a cold email to about 200 investors, 300 VCs from my email list. That really does not, does not help. And the other one, speak to friends, ecosystem advisors, mentors, fellow entrepreneurs to find out for your business, your kind of business model and sector which are uh, the investors who are hot Ultimately you ah, have to. What are you playing? What do investors put yourself in investor shoes and see what will make them move, what makes them move. Greed. Okay. They need to believe fomo fear of missing out. They do have a herd mentality. If it's a hot sector that everybody is investing in, um, across the world, they want to have a tick box in their portfolio in that use all that to your advantage.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Okay. Momentum, um, herd mentality, the greed FOMO that you would be one of the leaders in that particular space and you need to show exponential hockey stick return scale possibility. They themselves know that 9 out of 10 of their bets will not give them that return. But when they are investing, they want to see each of the 10. They see it as a hockey stick return because then only one will succeed. So you need to be able to show them that.

Speaker A: Right. So when you look at the India story over the last, let's say 20, 30 years, where you know, um, exits have been few, I would say. Right. I mean significant exits. There's, let's say a flipkart, maybe like few others. Right. Um, but investors, I mean obviously they are continuing to uh, pour in money because obviously where else will you invest? You cannot ignore India at this point of time. It's large enough, um, and people see potential. Right. Um, do you think that going forward, what will it take for us to have these kind of exits? Uh, the kinds that you see perhaps

Speaker B: in us or elsewhere see us is an outlier. I don't think we need to benchmark it against us. But the fact is that our exits have been few and far between. In us, the companies are a lot more risk taking. Large companies, big tech giants, will keep acquiring. They acquire for multiple reasons. They acquire because of ip. They acquire because to prevent competition. They don't want a startup growing big and eating their lunch. M. So they would rather acquire and even shut it down before. Okay, right. Unfortunately in India almost all companies don't think that way. They think that we can do it better than the startup. They can't. Okay, right. 0 to 1 is very different than 1 to 100, but they don't realize it. So whenever in all my companies I have had early stage conversations for exit with Indian large. This one we've had a situation where they don't realize the value of 0 to 1. ICICI was a, uh, and Mr. Um M. Kamath was a greatly different example. When we sold, we sold it very early customer asset to icici, what is now listed as First Source and part of the Sanjeev Goenka Group. Uh, when I met him I said, why do you want to acquire? We're a two year old company. He says, Ganesh, he didn't use zero to one. But what I essentially said was we are icici. We know how to scale, we know how to bring the brand, we know how to bring the capital, we know how to do this. But what you have done we're very small at that time. M Right. It's not something our culture can do. Now um, those are rare exceptions. Otherwise you see there is no reason why a Flipkart could not have happened inside a large Indian organization, Birla or Tata. Why a big basket could not have happened within Tatas. Right. And you see this, I mean and not just new age businesses. Even earlier HCL computers, Wipro Computers came up when Godreach was very big into typewriters.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Okay. Goddard Electronics was there. They could have done it doesn't, it didn't happen that way. So that's a very, very, very normal and known uh phenomena right.

Speaker A: That incumbents in India don't take that

Speaker B: kind of incumbent don't take the risk. There are multiple reasons for it that they are more worried about their quarterly returns. They are more worried about earnings per share. Okay. If you do a startup, if you invest money in a startup, you burn. Non risk startups have taken risk capital. They are not worried about EPS. Um existing companies listed net is worried about EPS. So if they lose 100 crores it'll hit their bottom line and EPS directly that market cap will go down. Now there lies the dichotomy that you are not able to uh handle the losses that accrue the business because you're there. Also there is mindset issue also that I can do it better here. All of that prevents them from taking that risk which comes out of risk capital.

Speaker A: Right? No, I think the public matter, uh, public market uh pressure is real. I mean if you look at Zomato Blinkit for example, uh, the stock price hit um, was negatively affected in the short term. But today if you look at it, Blinkit is doing really well and the share prices have also gone up.

Speaker B: No, I'm very happy uh that that's happening. But again even this is the last three year phenomena that startups loss making are able to list and people are able to appreciate the last three year phenomena. Hopefully that will spur large companies to be able to. Just take the case of Infosys for example. They have so much of cash in their balance sheet. Okay. If they had taken 100 crore, 200 crore, 300 crore invested in Flipkart right at day one or invested in other company.

Speaker A: So why do they not do that? What I don't understand is like for example let's say Infosys you mentioned they're at the forefront, right? They're building for customers. They understand very clearly you know what customer wants. Um, why don't they carve out, let's say not 100 crores. They can carve out 100 million only. Right. And invest in a few of these uh, ventures.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Um, A.I. for example, I know Mr. Sikha tried to do something to that regard. Uh, but uh, you know was uh, was not very successful let's say um, in the U.S. if you look at it, they have this magnificent seven right. The large tech companies, ah. That perhaps acquire these startups that are also funding um, you know, ventures and so on. Why don't our tech incumbents, why don't our Infosys Wipro and so on, why don't they set aside cash for some things like that?

Speaker B: Is.

Speaker A: Do you think it's like a um, mindset thing or do you think it's

Speaker B: a combination of all of this? No. Resources are like you said very much that if Infosys takes hundred million puts in there, it's not that their market cap is going to come down. Okay.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Uh, they don't have to consolidate into balance sheet if they are worried about eps it's possible to do. Hopefully that is changing now after you've seen outsized returns. It goes back to your earlier thing. The reason why I did not do it. They did not see outsized returns. Now after seeing Flipkart, um, after seeing paytm, Zomato, all of these Swiggy. Okay, right. I'm hoping that Indian corporates sitting on large pools of cash will realize that it's a great optionality to have. If I take part of my cash which will not affect my business, it's not going to affect my EPS. But actually put it, even if one out of the 10 becomes a Swiggy or a uh, Zovato or a big basket, the returns will be high. Hopefully that will change because we have seen outsized returns. Now it's in only last few years before that people talked about large Indian markets, large Indian middle class. Um, okay. But the fact was the propensity to pay was low. A lot of money was coming in. There is no getting out.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Okay. Before the Flipkart thing people never saw. Now it's demonstrated that Indian startup ecosystem or Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem can take in billions of dollars, can deploy billions of dollars productively may not be profitably, but productively billions of dollars can create value valuations most importantly can create exit. M Look at amount of money Tiger Global has made from Flipkart. Now Tiger Global is not an Indian fund. This was Indian entrepreneurs, Indian market, Indian consumers, Indian needs by any logic Indian large business houses, uh, Infosys Tatas Birlas should have seen the same opportunity that Tiger Global saw, invested that same small amount of money, which would have made no difference. They would have been sitting in huge billions of dollars of return. It took a, uh, foreign fund which did not have a presence in India to see the India opportunity and pour in that money into that. But hopefully now that people have seen multiple, multiple, uh, profitable exits of large amount.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Okay. We will see things change.

Speaker A: No, now may be an ideal time for also. Also for these folks. Right. I mean, because they have seen some proof right now. And so it's not too much of a leap, uh, for them to make the case internally that why they should probably set this aside.

Speaker B: Yeah. What has also happened is a couple of other things in India for we talked about, uh, Flipkart, bigbasket, Etc, which are, um, Indian consumer stories for the Indian market. What has also changed is the entire SaaS space. Whether you see Zoho or whether you see Freshtesk, which is listed Freshworks, all of them are shown that in India you can create a product for the world market. You can do sell from India for the world market. And that is again, I think, a defining moment in change. So one is the large Indian markets, large Indian middle class. The large market. The fact that we have 1.4 billion people, right. Which is, which is there is very, very positive. And the other thing is the fact that from India we can create it for the world.

Speaker A: For the world. Right. Um, let me talk about, you know, being at the other side of the table, right? You are an entrepreneur. You're running a reasonably successful business. Let's say three years or four years into the business, metrics are growing positively. When do you decide to sell?

Speaker B: So when do you decide to sell is a very.

Speaker A: Because you can't also shop for an acquisition, right? So you can't list yourself in a market and say, I'm open to acquisition. Somehow people perceive that negatively and think that, okay, maybe something's wrong. Uh, so when do you attract and how do you attract an offer and when do you sell?

Speaker B: Yeah. So there's no one unique answer to it. Um, obviously, uh, you have to keep an eye while you are focused on your business and building value in the business. You have to keep an eye out on what are the potential possibilities of an exit. What kind of exit can happen? It's not easy. It's not always obvious. But the way I look at it is it's like. Actually, the best analogy is like having a mango. Okay, Right. You have a mango. Uh, mango is raw. It will not have value. It will slowly ripen, ripen. It will have reached the right stage, it will have best value. After that it's not going to ripen further. The value will decrease. So you as an entrepreneur have to see where is the fine balance that it has reached. A ripeness at which the value is maximized. That's one, two. When do you exit is if you find the risks are high.

Speaker A: Execution risk.

Speaker B: Execution risk, competition risk, any other risks, uh, are high, you are better off served by exiting. Okay. You need to treat as an entrepreneur your passion distinct from a owner. Okay?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: As a shareholder. And I can give you several examples uh, of this in uh, customer asset. For example, when we sold to icici what is first source now the business was doing well. We were having large Fortune 50 clients from US and UK as clients, initial days, first two years. Suddenly the dynamics of the market changed. Let me explain what happened. We are in the boring low end call center, uh, business. Okay, right. I had gone for a partnership with Infosys. Okay, right. And wipro both. We said you have clients, you are doing software services. Can we partner and all that when we are starting in 2000. They said absolutely not. This is low end, like a medical transcription, low end business, commoditized business. Okay, right. Uh, shitty business. But they didn't use the word shitty. But that's what it is. And if we do this business, our average margin will come down. Our valuation will come down because the billing. While the billing will increase because of call center, the average margin will come down because low end business. Okay, right. They said no, we don't even want to be seen near you. Okay? Forget about any partnership and all that. My idea was please sell this. We'll give you your uh, existing customer itself or Sony that we can do that within two years. Because of dot com bust because of challenges in the market, severe pressure came in software services competition. Then all of them wanted to get into this business. Wipro acquired Spectra Mind. IBM acquired Daksh. Right, okay, right. Suddenly now when we are trying to pitch for business earlier, we are competing with three other startups, all of us for the same mintage. There's one called 24 base one customer. Um, Spectra Mind, Daksh. Okay. Which all of us are plus minus 6 months some have slide this one. Suddenly you are competing with the might of Wipro and Infosys. Okay. They are saying that we will give you this guarantee. That guarantee you come and visit our facilities. So our client used to come and visit our One building in Bangalore and then go to Infosys campus in Mysore. Whom will they decide? So we said immediately we decided this is not a business for startup enterprise client, large clients, you need large capital, disaster recovery investment and all that stuff. So we had to sell. So you could, you could, you could, you could have multiple reasons and motivation for sell. But really speaking there is no one unique answer. And many times I do feel regret that I sold the business.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Okay. Sometimes I feel happy because things have changed. The businesses are not done well. Okay. Uh, lucky we got out at the top. There are also cases where the business has done so well. If you had just held on for two more years, the results would have been phenomenally high. And especially uh, because we were early entrants, we are the first movers in um, Tudor Vista in EdTech space in call center and the customer asset first source space in KPO with marketing space. So each of these businesses. Yeah, okay.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Where pioneers and many of them they've created sectors. So there is a bit of regret but it's okay.

Speaker A: Due to Vista being acquired for 200 million m at that point of time 200 million felt like a lot of money. Right. I mean uh, just like unreal. I hadn't ever heard about it at that time. But I mean of course now when you look at the last four or five years of you know, what EdTech has been, has been like where people have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, it might feel small but that time I think it's very difficult to walk away from.

Speaker B: Things have changed. Things have changed tremendously. Now 213 is like a funding ground. It's not people don't talk about it. It's just ah, a funding round. So the numbers have phenomenally changed. It was 213 million at the time. It was the largest acquisition.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But we're now 213 million funding round.

Speaker A: It will be reported the largest bus aggregation service, Red Bus was sold for 100 something. 120 million or something.

Speaker B: Which is also a great.

Speaker A: Yeah, we celebrated that.

Speaker B: Very, very celebrated. But now uh, which is good for the ecosystem. I'm very happy because again one of the key questions people ask is where is the exit going to come from? Now at least you can talk about uh, the flipkarts and big baskets of the world and also the IPOs of the world. It's great. Startup IPO is impossible now. We are having so many lined up with the DRSP and so many companies have gone public and doing exceedingly well. Which is, which shows the Maturity of the market.

Speaker A: Right. So if you were, let's say 25, 26 today, what sector would you start up in? You have only one option.

Speaker B: No, I will start up in all sectors. No, I think, I think given my bias for large sectors changing the status quo and not trying to out execute anybody, I would say look at what is different now, what is new, what is changing, what will not change. 15 years. Okay, right. So some of the tectonic shifts or the way things are going. Okay, catch the wave. Okay. I would say green energy, climate tech, space tech are all potential areas where there's going to be huge pressure and huge opportunity. So I would say these sectors, um, which are underserved, going to be huge. One, two is entire electric vehicle for example. These are, these changes will create so much of downstream opportunity that each one of them is an opportunity. Take electric vehicle for example. Electrical is important. Battery is critical. Charging stations, charging station is critical. Battery is critical for battery, for example. Components for batteries are critical. Recycling of battery is critical. Waste management, evs, management of batteries, critical. No. So if you believe electric vehicles is going to increase the market share substantially, which I think it will, then the amount of opportunities throws up for entrepreneurs downstream itself is phenomenal. So I would encourage that letter. Some top players fight for electric vehicle supremacy whether it's Ather or Ola. But if Ather and OLA are going to be public along with Bajaj and others are going to create this and fast forward 10 years later, you're going to see electric vehicle is going to be 75, 80%. Um, what are the various sectors and industries that will fuel it? It's like the typical cliche they talk about when there is a gold rush. Shovels, people who made money were not the people who are looking for gold, but people who are looking for uh, making shovels. So what are the shovels derived demand. It's very important because it's at the top of the funnel. It becomes very competitive to make money. And we talk, I talk about this in the book about pricing and monetization strategy. How do you make money? Paytm for example. You use PAYTM because it's the almost friction free way, one of the best ways of making easy digital payments. But they don't make any money on the digital payment. When you pay me on paytm, I pay you on PAYTM of all derived demand. So that is the beauty of these new age business models that unlike earlier traditional pipeline business models M where you have to set up a manufacturing plant, make a product, sell a product and make money on the product. You can make money from derived demand. You can make money from your platform business models where you make people exchange value and you make money m money in between. And PhonePay has shown that. So all of these are potential possibilities where I would do, I would do that and other third one I know uh, you wanted only one other third one is can you use the disruptive generative AI which is still new. I still have not figured out one of our companies does do generative A, uh leverage it effectively. Can you use gen AI in traditional existing sectors to disrupt the status quo, become a gen A company to be able to do that. So that's. Those are the three.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think uh, um one of the things that I also heard was let's say gen for larger corporates who want to adopt something like this. Right. Bring them into the new way perhaps. So I think there's a whole lot of services work that opens up anytime there's a new technology per se but.

Speaker B: Absolutely true. But just a word of caution there don't become like when Internet started people were making websites for corporates. People are making companies E enabled people are making E commerce sites. Don't do that because that is a uh services non scalable low margin business. You will automatically get it. So website I remember first websites were done at a huge price. After that so many people started offering website Today you want a website I'll get you to run for 5,000 rupees.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So, so it's got commodities. Same thing will happen here too. Especially with no code. And the generative way being used to create the generative solution will be there. The real thing is can you use generative AI to disrupt the business model M. You can offer this as a service. Go to a large corporate saying that I will help you increase your profitability by X. Can I get half of X for you? You okay, I will do all of that stuff. Earlier uh, you had to have a huge infrastructure to do it. Now you don't want to have. Now you can use, use generative A. So you need to redefine the business models.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But definitely offering as a service generative AI for corporates.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: As a solution is a good opportunity.

Speaker A: Right. It's also perhaps a good uh hunting uh ground to figure out like what ideas could actually be productized and you could scale it. Right. I mean when you work with these folks as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Because they have a large scale. They are already customer base. They're already executing thousands of crores of business now even if you can do a small difference, which you can do, for example automation, um, using Gen A, whether it's customer service, whether it is sales. And one of our companies called Verloop IO actually does that. It works with BFSI clients uh, in the Middle east and in India to reduce substantially the customer support and sales cost. In fact we were talking about collections earlier. One of the things they do is uh, help automate collections. M. Okay, right again at a fraction of a cost. And we'll see that continuously happening.

Speaker A: So um, coming to your book, uh, Mastering Disruption, which is uh, going to be released end of January I suppose, um, how did the, how did the book come about and what are some three or four key takeaways from the book for folks who want to read it?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's very interesting because what uh, has happened over uh last three, four years we have seen these new age businesses coming. Disrupting is a cliche but more importantly scaling very well. Right? And when I used to meet people, whether they are practicing managers or general, uh, people who are not in startup or entrepreneurial ecosystem or in business ecosystem, they are wondering what makes this new business model works. One is valuation or companies getting listed without being profitable. And other usual question will be how is Flipkart valued so much, right. When they are losing money every order, right. And that used to be uh, wonder and awe at what drives this. You must remember this traditional business model have been around for centuries. Everybody knows concept of ebitda, uh, profit after tax, earnings per share, growth rate and all of this stuff. Now here you have a company which does not have any assets which is losing money month on month, losing money per order, right? Okay. Scaling growing people value getting valued high, employing hundreds of people while people are happy because they are getting excellent service at a discounted rate. So that was major challenge. 2 I was also teaching new age business models at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and also in Indian School of Management of Business Hyderabad wherein uh, we are trying to deconstruct what is the difference in these models which have a traditional models. So both these, you know prompted me saying that why don't I write a book meant for the general reader, whoever is curious about how do these business models work, what are the disruption? The other driver was traditional businessman industries, corporate saying how do they leverage the principles of new age business models in their existing legacy businesses. Because there is a genuine fear among the owners as well as the employees, professionals, managers that they will get disrupted, somebody will come and eat their lunch the way it has happened with Borders and bookstores for example, or uh, in many, many industries across the board because of new businesses coming up. So how do they stay up to date, not just for survival, but also how to capture the new opportunities uh, given by this? Because if you look at it, an existing large enterprise has got major strengths which if it's able to combine with the principles of new age business models, can give them disproportionate returns as compared to a startup starting from scratch. I think. So all around there was uh, uh, this question was beginning to come up. That's when I thought of Write the book.

Speaker A: Wonderful. Yeah, I mean it uh, constantly surprises people and people uh, are still trying to grapple with this idea of like what is a startup and why is it looked at differently versus like a regular business like a juice shop or a dry cleaner or whatever it is. Right. So um, what are some two or three takeaways from this book? What can people hope to learn uh, about on this book?

Speaker B: So uh, one is the book discusses platform business models and differentiates it from traditional pipeline business model. If you look at a pipeline business model, there, there is a linear flow of value from the manufacturer to the consumer through the distributor, dealer, service organization, all of this stuff. That's something all of us understand. That has been the businesses. What is different now is the platform business where there is no ownership of the asset, there is no linear flow of value. But what happens is there are two sides of the platform. One is the supplier side, other is the consumer side and the platform business model or platform stands in between, exchanges value between these two sites and captures a portion of the value. Take for example Zomato or Swiggy. You have restaurants on one side, you have you and me, the consumers on the other side. Swiggy Zomato does not own any restaurant, does not decide the pricing, just facilitates the transaction. In case of Swiggy Zomato, they do the delivery also and exchanges value and makes money now valued at multiples of billions of dollars, much more than the restaurant. So one key takeaway is the platform versus pipeline business model. The second is that how do we incorporate some of the unique platform principles in traditional business models so that they can also leverage, grow and capture the value because of these disruption. Okay, think asset light. For example, can we create network effects? That's another topic that we discuss in the book book. Network effect has become one of the most important drivers. If you look at traditional business model, it was driven by economies of scale. M Can I increase production? Can I increase sales? So That I get economies of scale, which typically means the fixed cost get amortized over larger number so it becomes profitable. Whereas here there is no fixed cost. Therefore here you work on network effects demand economies of scale.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Okay, right. Can I incorporate these principles? And there are examples of companies like ge, examples of companies like Schneider and companies like traditional Indian banks, State bank of India which have incorporated many of these principles in their traditional legacy businesses. Interesting. Either by changing the product lines, acquiring companies. Take the example case of tatas for example. Example they acquired tata one mg, what was called one mg earlier.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Big basket, they acquired two thirds 66%. Uh, yet along with the traditional Chroma businesses, other retail business that is there. Okay. Through that they are trying to build a super app or as a ecosystem M. Okay, right. So that's another takeaway. The third thing we talk about is how not get carried away by vanity metrics lot m of times. And we entrepreneurs are culprits there that we choose metrics that shows us in the best light and project those metrics and raise money at good valuations and ignore core metrics. And here I balance out the fact that traditional metrics are still important. Profit is important, contribution margin is important, gross margin is important. Don't get carried away by say number of views.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Okay, right. Or traffic to the site.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Look at core metrics. So core metrics vis a vis new age metrics and metrics like ah, net dollar retention, net retention rate which are not existing in earlier business models also come into play. We talk about virality coefficient, how to make a product viral, how to embed virality and network effect into your core product. And Dropbox has done very well. When Dropbox came, they launched. So that anybody, if you refer another person to join Dropbox, both the referee and referral will get additional storage space. It's a great example how they built Facebook also built into the business. So the concept in UI business of virality network effect, can I incorporate it in my existing current business? So we discuss these uh, factors also we cover about how can existing companies leverage the developments so that they don't get disrupted and capture the opportunity.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Sounds like a very interesting book. And I'm waiting to pre order mine and uh, get my hands on the copy. Um, before we wind up. Sir, if you were to recommend one book other than your own, uh, to our audience, uh, what book would that be? What has had the most impact in your life?

Speaker B: No, I think, uh, there are several, several books that have had uh, impact on my life. Are you Talking about a business book or are you talking about, uh, anything?

Speaker A: So our audience is, uh, founders, operators, uh, so anything that could be relevant for this entrepreneurial journey?

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think. No, firstly, uh, I think it's important, uh, to keep. To keep learning. Okay, Right. So, uh, uh, and in today's context, for entrepreneur, mental health is something which is very, very important. Okay, Right. So before I get into the book, I think, uh, having a very strong core, being able to handle all the pressures of entrepreneurship. Right, okay. Uh, in. Especially in today's time, because everything is on social media, is something that's very important. The books that I liked really was Zero to one, of course. Okay, right.

Speaker A: The most recommended book on the podcast.

Speaker B: Most recommended book on the podcast. I think Zero to one. Zero to one is something which is very, very, uh, interesting. I like that. Um, the, uh, A to Z podcast by Anderson Horowitz.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: A16Z podcast. A16Z podcast, um, by Anderson Horowitz is something which is, uh, which I like, has got a lot of tips, uh, in India. Nitin Kamas podcast. Right, okay. Right. It's, again, something which is really worth reading. I would recommend, uh, this book and podcast in addition to, of course, your own podcast.

Speaker A: Oh, thank you so much. Right. Um, sir, thank you again, uh, you know, for being on the podcast. Like I said, I've followed you for many years, and it's, um, it's an absolute pleasure to have finally met you and had this conversation. Uh, and all the best with the book and everything else that's coming up.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you so much, uh, for joining us on this podcast. Uh, we'll be back again with another founder or operator or investor and see you soon.