Insights

I want to talk candidly about a couple of important considerations for founders in today’s environment. [Permalink to post on Medium] Making tough decisions Some founders I spoke to this week are preparing for headcount reductions of 30–35%, renegotiation of vendor contracts and customer relationships. This is fun for nobody. The best advice I can give … Continue reading Tough decisions for founders

While reading a report on startup funding in India, I came across this chart of growth-stage startup data. And while funding amounts point to a growing, healthy investment ecosystem… [Inc42 Indian Startup Funding Report] … The number of deals getting funded at growth is essentially flat since 2016/17. It’s clearly odd for the deal count to … Continue reading The Series-B cliff

“Enable the middlemen” A recurring theme for us has been investing in companies that enable intermediaries – Meesho, simsim, Wealthy, etc. Given last-mile challenges (i.e. customer acquisition, trust-building, conversion and delivery, etc.), we found this approach pretty suitable for the Indian consumer across sectors. Turns out, there’s one sector I hadn’t thought of: murder. Yes. Here is a … Continue reading Contract-killing-as-a-service

For those of you that are old subscribers: I’ve been a little quiet since our launch, but I’m back for Good™️ now…For those of you who are new: Welcome! And yes, I totally stole the Investopad email list so you may recognize me from there. Either way, help me out so the algorithms don’t think I’m spam: … Continue reading I feel quite vindicated today

Entertainment is just the beginning While entertainment providers (Hotstar, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video) have seen a significant jump in content consumed, the first real mobile-native experience to arise from cheap & fast data is live-streaming. The way I see it, the recent emergence of platforms like Tiktok, Bigo, Helo, etc. demonstrates that the “next wave” of digital … Continue reading Cheap data will change the way India shops online. Here’s how.