June 19, 2025 • 55 mins
What happens when a founder builds and exits four companies, including a multi-million-dollar edtech company, before India even started talking about startups?
In this episode, K. Ganesh (Author & Partner at Growth Story) - the man behind BigBasket, Portea, Bluestone, and more breaks down the hard truths, lucky accidents, and pivots that shaped his journey.
🎙️ Hosted by Sanjay Swamy | Prime Venture Partners
📘 Featuring: Mastering Disruption by K. Ganesh
🧠 What you’ll learn:
How he went from engineer to entrepreneur by accident
The pivots that saved his companies during the dotcom crash
The GrowthStory model vs. traditional venture capital
His take on AI, relevance after 60, and learning to reinvent yourself
👉 Don’t just listen - learn, reflect, and share. This is founder wisdom in its purest form.
📌 Follow us:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/primevp
Twitter: https://twitter.com/primevp_in
Website: https://primevp.in
🔔 Subscribe for more founder-centric content from Prime.
#SerialEntrepreneur #KGanesh #StartupIndia #FounderStories #MasteringDisruption #BuildInIndia #BusinessWisdom #ConsumerTech #VCIndia #PrimeVenturePartnersPodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
But today you're going to know a little bit the
shop floor.
So my second venture started.
I ran it as CEO and then soldit to ICICI.
Then started my third venturecalled MarketX, sold it to
Listed WNS.
Then did my fourth serialventure, tutor Vista.
She sold to Pearson.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Talk a little bit about your book.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
How to create a brand , consumer brand, from India or
the US market.
Why is Zomato being valued somuch?
Why is Paytm being valued somuch?
How do we utilize new ageprinciples, platform principles,
network efforts?
Those are the moments that youreally live for.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Never bite the hand that feeds never spit on the
plate you eat from.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Most of the time you feel why the hell am I doing
this?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of the Prime
Venture Partners podcast.
I have a superstar friend,business colleague and just an
amazing gentleman with us today,k Ganesh.
And if you don't know about KGanesh, that's okay, because you
(01:31):
have certainly used productsthat he has started and services
that he has launched.
But today you're going to knowa little bit more about the man
behind several of these products.
I'm just joking, I knoweverybody knows K Ganesh.
But, ganesh, welcome to ourshow.
It's a pleasure and a privilegeto have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Thanks, Sanjay.
Great meeting up again and wego quite a while back, but happy
to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Thank you, ganesh.
So look, ganesh, every singlename has got you as a part of it
or behind it in some way oranother, whether it's a big
basket, whether it is abluestone, whether it is a home
lane all of these names that allof us have, you know, used and
continue to use on a frequentbasis.
But you've also had, of course,your early days and then, of
(02:18):
course, your days as a directentrepreneur yourself and
subsequently co-creatingcompanies with founders, being
an angel investor, very prolificangel investor and now recently
released your book MasteringDisruption.
I would love to cover some ofthis and, along the way, hear
(02:39):
some of your insights and someof your experiences.
Our audience here are primarilyentrepreneurs, who would
benefit a lot from your journey,so maybe we can start with the
early days, your background andwhat led to this amazing journey
in entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, so I'm an accidental entrepreneur really
and I started back in 1990.
So at that time theentrepreneurial ecosystem, or
the word entrepreneur, orventure capital, or risk capital
, angel investor, all these didnot exist.
So obviously it has to beaccidental.
So 1990 was the time when Indiawas just liberalizing.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Can we talk a little bit about your younger days,
growing up, leading up to?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
1990?
Little bit about your youngerdays growing up, leading up to
1990.
Yeah, so I was born and broughtup in Delhi.
My mother was a governmentservant so I stayed in
government quarters.
I lost my father when I wasnine years old, so my mother has
brought me and my two sistersup, studied in a government
school and, very surprisingly, aTamil government school in
(03:44):
Delhi and Delhi had this wherethe medium of instruction was
Tamil.
Government school in Delhi andDelhi had this where the medium
of instruction was Tamil tillthe 5th standard, so I could
read Tamil courtesy despitebeing in Delhi because of the
school.
And then I went on to doengineering at Delhi College of
Engineering, delhi University.
I did try IIT but couldn't getthrough it and after that worked
(04:06):
for one year in Tata Motorswhat was at that time called as
Telco Jamshedpur on the shopfloor.
Because I was a mechanicalengineer and it is a natural job
, realized within the year thatI'll never be a good mechanical
engineer and I was in Jamshedpuron the shop floor, which was at
45 degrees temperature.
I said I can't do it.
Went on to do management fromIIM Calcutta because I didn't
(04:29):
want to be an engineer on theshop floor.
Then joined HCL.
I was working directly withShabnadar.
I was his executive assistant,handling customer support role
later and then sales role later,and that was what got me into
entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Got it Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I always credit Shiv Nadar and HCL.
At the time HCL was a smallcompany about 20 crore company
and I was interviewed directlyby Shiv Nadar and given a lot of
responsibility and that reallytaught me that I could take
decisions as a 24 year old andsee that actual decisions worked
.
Okay, right, that gave me theconfidence to start my first
(05:12):
startup when there was noconcept of first generation
entrepreneurs.
I had the other two jobs I hadfrom IIM Calcutta was Unilever
at the time it was calledHindustan Lever and Citibank,
and I always say that if I hadjoined either of those two jobs
then I would not have become anentrepreneur.
That's why I say accidentalentrepreneur and HCL was a very,
(05:36):
very great place to learnbasics of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Wonderful wonderful.
So then 1990 came about, andyou said india was just starting
to liberalize yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So, uh, I had worked five years in hcl and india was
just liberalizing at the time.
The reason I said that wasbecause, uh, it was still a
license raj, very difficult tostart businesses.
There is no capital available.
Only you could only projectfinance was available.
But we did not think aboutcapital and all that stuff.
While working in HCL handlingcomputers, selling computers to
(06:09):
corporate, one of the thingsthat came up aha moment that
came up was that at that timethe computer vendors used to
maintain their own computers,the computers even though they
were IBM compatible at the startthey were still proprietary
chipsets, and Wipro used tomaintain their computer, hcl
(06:30):
used to maintain their computer,epson used to maintain their
printers and all that.
So we saw an opportunity thatcorporates used to struggle.
They used to typically havecomputers and printers from 10
different vendors and wheneverthere was a problem they had to
call everybody because theydon't know where the problem is.
The computer vendor will sayit's not my problem, it's a
printer problem.
(06:50):
Printer vendor will say it'snot a printer problem, it's a
computer problem.
Maybe the problem is in thecable that connected the two.
But who supplied the cable?
Nobody knows.
Okay, right.
So that is where we saw thefirst opportunity that if you
are able to provide a singlepoint stop for computer
maintenance, it's a greatopportunity to start a business.
(07:11):
And so we started the businessas a computer maintenance
company.
People used to call us computermechanics Used to charge an
annual maintenance contract.
Go to a corporate and say giveme upfront money I'll take care
of a computer for the next oneyear.
So that is the.
That is the genesis of thefirst, first first venture.
It was bootstrapped venture,totally.
(07:34):
We put in about 84 000 rupeesacross multiple uh, five of our
founders, wonderful and startedthat.
Scaled it, scaled it, scaled itand then, uh, sold it to igate
got it, got it good.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So this would have been mid 90s yeah, so we started
it in 1990.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I ran it as co-founder and ceo till 98.
Then I moved to bangalore andwe sold it in 2000 time frame.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Uh to igate got it, got it, got it.
And then what came next?
Because you've been a serialentrepreneur, started multiple
things.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So my journey was my family had moved to Bangalore
because Meena was with numbertwo in Microsoft and Microsoft
shifted the head office fromDelhi to Bangalore.
So for one year I was there.
My daughter and Meena and mymother were here.
So I had a compulsion to moveto Bangalore and so two of my
co-founders started running IT&T.
So I was looking at what to donext and then the opportunity
(08:33):
came.
I was looking for a job orsomething to move to Bangalore
and the opportunity came withBharti British Telecom.
Bharti's had just taken overWipro share in Wipro British
Telecom.
That's why it was headquartered.
Wipro British Telecom washeadquartered in Bangalore.
They were into VSAT services,satellite communication services
(08:54):
using VSAT.
Then I met, coincidentally,sunil Bharti Mittal in one of
the events there.
He says oh, you're from IT, youwant to go to Bangalore.
We have just acquired stake.
At the time Airtel was only inNorth.
They were not there.
They were not running telecomservices here.
He said we have a small companythere.
We need somebody to handle itbecause we have just taken over.
(09:15):
We don't know anything about IT.
You know about IT, why do youtake over?
So I moved to Bangalore as CEOof Bharti British Telecom which
is great.
For two years I ran it but theentrepreneurial bug will not
stop.
So after one year I startedselling.
Sunil Bittal said that I wantto start.
I want to start, I want to go.
He says hold on, hold on, holdon.
(09:35):
So in two years started in2000,.
Customer Asset what is nowknown as First Source.
First Source I see Very asset,what is now known as First
Source.
First Source, I see Very largeBPO company part of the Sanjeev
Goenka group and Listek and it'sour first source as an email
support company in 2000.
But you know what happened in2000.
Dotcom boom and bust happened.
But before we could even getour first few clients,
(09:57):
fortunately we had a money of $3million, but dotcom bust
happened.
So we did not have a businessmodel.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
We million dollars but dot-com bust happened, so we
did not have a business model.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
We didn't have it.
We had money, so we discussedwith a discuss with the investor
, saying that what to do is whatis.
Then we transitioned into voicecall center, which was not what
we started.
We wanted to provideasynchronous email support to
dot-com companies in us fromindia, which was very simple.
Running a real-time live voicecall call center from India in
(10:27):
2000, when we were talking aboutlease lines and dial-up
connections and all of those wasa big challenge.
That is what we transitioned to.
Fortunately, we survived thecomplete pivot, thanks to our
investor and thanks to the factthat we had 3 million raised.
Otherwise, nobody would haveraised.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
that's how my second venture started.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I ran it as ceo and homeowner.
Then uh sold it to icici, whichis why it's called icici.
One source took it but theytook it public and now it's uh
listed.
Um then started my thirdventure called marketx, which is
into high-end data analytics.
The concept of high-end dataanalytics, the concept of KPO
and data analytics was not eventhere at that time.
(11:09):
It was very similar to the BPOmodel, very similar to the
customer asset first sourcemodel, but this was high-end
data analytics support forFortune 50 companies out of
India.
That also happens to be,incidentally, in Indira Nagar.
We took a residential apartmentand hired PhDs or MSTAT people,
statisticians and MBAs fromFMCG a sector, put them together
(11:35):
and did statistical modelingfor coke and procter and gamble.
Now, of course, the industry iswell known as kpo and other
stuff.
That was one of the first thing.
Sold it to listed wns becausethey wanted to get into the kpo
space.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Uh then started that was with shankar marwada.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, that was yeah, you know shankar very well.
So ramki, unfortunately hepassed away ramki, shankar
marwada and Vinay Mishra threeof the things I had worked with
them earlier of sorts in thatprevious venture called
Intercept and which then withthat, so MarketX.
I was the chairman and the soleinvestor when we sold it to.
(12:14):
Till the time we sold it toDubliners never raised VC money
In customer asset.
We did raise VC money a coupleof rounds.
Then did my fourth serialventure, tutorvista.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
That was when I first met you actually.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, which we sold to Pearson.
Later we were teaching kids inthe US from India and we had an
India edtech business Againindia, and we had a india edtech
business again.
The word edtech was not thereat that time, right?
Uh, sold it to psn, that's.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
that's the four serial ventures and serial the
tutor vista was somethingdifferent, though, in that you
started it along with uh srinu,and uh your wife was also a
co-founder, right.
So that was sort of the startof this team, that uh did a
variety of things together postthat, so maybe you can talk a
little bit about how that cametogether.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, srini was two years junior to me at IIM
Calcutta, so I had known him forall this while and he had built
Elance, what is known as, andthen became Odesk, and he had
come back to Bangalore from theBay Area, just like you did.
That was the wave, yeah, thatwas the wave we used to call it
B2B gang Bay Area to Bangalore.
(13:26):
All the people moved AdarshPalm, meadows and Golden Enclave
and places like this.
Now of course it's prettycommon Shikhaan, nadamudi and
all the teams, you, sripati,Acharya, all of you came back.
So Srinath had come back, butwith Meena I had done one
previous venture.
(13:46):
So the four ventures I talkedabout, two of them I did
independently and two of themwith Meena as a co-founder.
So in Customer Asset, meena wasa co-founder, I was the
co-founder and CEO.
And that's an interesting storyin itself because that was the
time when I was CEO of BhartiBritish Telecom.
I was working well.
(14:06):
I did not intend to get intoentrepreneurship at that time
but I was keen on it because Iwas doing exceedingly well.
And Sunil Bharti Mithil waskeen on me to become the ceo of
the mantra online.
That was the bharati's internetservice.
Okay, they had just applied andgot internet service.
He wanted to merge the two.
He said you'll become, see, acombined entity.
Don't go anywhere.
Uh, okay, right.
(14:28):
So that is the context.
But meena wanted to, was workingin microsource number two, she
was teaching to start a businessand this entire customer asset
customized opportunity idea camethat because dot-com boom is
happening, you require emailsupport and you can do email
support from India and that is agreat new idea.
Nobody had done it.
Only IT software developmentfrom India was there.
(14:48):
Support was not there.
The concept of name BPO and allwere not even heard of call
centers.
So she was, and I, because Ihad done entrepreneurship, I
helped her to make a businessplan and was part of the
brainstorming with anotherfounder called Ajay Rao.
Okay, right, so I was trying tohelp them.
I was part of the think tankand making it and all that.
(15:09):
And that is also the time whenmy son was born, so there is a
small baby at the house.
So I needed help.
And suddenly a call came fromBombay saying that from
eVentures at that time, neerajBhargav you might be familiar
with saying that why don't youcome to Bombay and pitch to
Ardaswan?
He said we are not ready.
He says no, no, no, it's okay,this idea is fine, we want to
through a common friend.
So I mean I said then they said, listen, you have worked on the
(15:38):
model so much, why don't youalso come along?
Come along for the meeting,just as an advisor, mentor,
because I'm legitimate right.
I'm Meena's husband, so it'snothing wrong.
I'm an entrepreneur, so I wentthere for the meeting and so
some questions were there in themeeting with the partners of
eVentures.
So they liked it.
They asked some question andwhich they answered and I
(16:00):
answered and all that stuff.
Then suddenly Neeraj says whois going to be the CEO of this
venture?
Okay, now we are not preparedfor the thing because it's the
first meeting first ever.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
VC.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
First ever VC, second VC in my life I have ever met.
First VC.
They have met.
First VC meeting.
That is there.
We are going to see you.
So Meena looked at Ajay Rao,ajay Rao looked at Meena.
We had another gentleman calledSanjeev Dalal who was also….
First time we met during theBombay trip, all of us, meena
and I met.
He was also co-founder.
He was a technical guy guy.
(16:33):
So listen, look at how the teamgot formed.
The only interaction withSanjeev Dalla, the co-founder,
was in the car journey to FortMumbai and he was the techie he
was not going to.
So then they all looked at meand Azharov said Ganesh is going
to be the CEO.
Okay, I said done.
(16:54):
Okay.
They said done and we'll giveyou a term sheet.
And we came out.
I said where did this come from?
He says no, I had to take acall because they were ready to
fund.
I could sense that they werewilling to fund.
They needed an answer to thequestion.
I said okay.
I said okay, okay, right.
Also, to be fair, meena was aco-founder, sini, while he knew
(17:16):
him for 20 years, he had comeback and the idea of Twitter,
vista, came in, which really hadme brainstorming but how to
create a brand, consumer brandfrom India for the US market Now
?
Today you have so many SaaScompanies and others that it's
no longer suppressed.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
But still for a US consumer base, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
So for 2000,.
Yeah, so in 2000, for example,there are only IT services
companies.
They were all B2B.
It's not for US consumer.
Okay, right, completelydifferent game.
Excel was there, bipro wasthere and Infosys was there.
The only offshoring was B2B.
There was no B2C that leveragedIndian resources was b2b.
(17:59):
There was no b2c that leveragedindian resources, and I was
very keen to create a consumerbrand, so that was one then.
Education is an opportunitythat came without, before any
tech or anything was known.
So that's how it started andit's been a nice partnership.
After you sold it, we startedgrowth story wow.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's interesting because my introduction to you
because I had lived in the usfor several years came back when
I was, I think, early days ofmy running.
Mcheck is when I met you in2006.
And so all of this is new to mealso.
So it's really amazing.
But what's really interestingis also two, three things you
touched upon, right.
I mean, sometimes we tend tooverthink things, at least
(18:37):
nowadays, because we are sort ofin this information age and we
have now chat, gpt andperplexity also helping us go
into deep research mode andthings like that and yet some of
the most astounding decisionsand opportunities happen so much
by serendipity and withoutoverthinking some of these
decisions.
And they worked out awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
No, absolutely.
I'm sure you would have seen itin your life too.
Of course, you alsoentrepreneur, came back here,
worked with the Aadhaar and thisand started a venture capital
firm.
There are very few cases ofoperators actual operators
starting entrepreneurs, startingventure capital firm, and yours
is a great example I oftenquote of the model working
(19:17):
wherein the entrepreneurs whohave been there, done that
before and that actually shows.
I mean Prime Ventures is knownas a very entrepreneur friendly
organization because you havelived in the shows.
That's not to snigger at theothers, but it's a very, very
unique perspective.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Okay, you can snigger at the others we don't, no,
never, never.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
We still have companies that are raising money
.
Never bite the hand that feeds,never, never, and not in public
forum like this now, but Inever spit on the plate you eat
from.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So so, ultimately, I've also capitalists are great.
Okay, right, so let me I alsolearned that I think everybody
has to figure out what gamethey're good at and play that
game, and I think there arecertain things that many VC
peers of mine do that we cannever do.
We're not just set up for it.
And then there are probablythings we can do that we can do
best, and I think it's also animportant thing of not just
(20:12):
founder market fit but alsofounder investor fit.
That matters as well, becausesome founders may work very well
with us and others may not.
We may not be the right fundsas well.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
That is what I've admired.
I've seen your journey becauseI remember when you just first
started that angel prime, it wassupposed to be a small fund.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
We lived in the same community and community we
discussed.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
We went to walk, we discussed all that.
I liked the idea of small fund.
I mean and you're not, yourfund is not in a hurry to invest
, there is no FOMO with you,which is something which I
really like.
Also helps because the fundsize is not large and you're not
running after deals.
Okay, right, and one secondthing I've seen you support the
(20:54):
companies.
We are investors and theco-investors in such companies.
I've seen your support during agood time and bad time, so
which which I think partly comesfrom being most of the time we
are in bad times this is what Itell statistically yeah 360 days
of frustration and five days ofglory is all you get every year
(21:15):
.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So so look we, so that that started sort of the
next phase of your journey,right where you move from being
an entrepreneur with, you know,extraordinary outcomes all along
, and of course you could haverepeated that, uh.
But you sort of got into thismodel of saying let me share the
wealth in some ways, I wouldsay the wealth, expertise, for
(21:37):
the most part in a co-creationmodel with the whole growth
story journey, right.
So tell us about how that cameabout and why that versus, say,
a venture capital model.
And how did that?
I mean, obviously we've hadstellar hits along the way and,
you know, is there anotherparallel anywhere else?
So it's completely designed bythe three of you, you know, you,
(22:00):
meena and Srini.
And how did that come about andwhy was that the right thing
for India at the time?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, so I don't really know whether it was the
right thing for India.
So I had just turned 50 when wesold Tudor Vista to Pearson and
I had done four serialGreenfield ventures, acted as
the CEO in three of themMarketing I was not the CEO, I
was the chairman and the soleinvestor and only investor and
advisor and all that.
But three of the four venturesall of them were Greenfield, all
(22:29):
of them as founder and CEOhandling P&L.
And at 50, having done four, Iwas feeling slightly jaded or
tired.
Okay, right, too much of fourexits, and also, I think,
rightly so.
After four Greenfield serialbenches and four successful
exits, it's almost like a run.
The probability of the next onewas questionable.
(22:51):
No, seriously, that is not thereason.
But we said we want to dosomething different.
I didn't want to, so two things.
So I didn't want to so twothings.
So I didn't want to be the CEOand run this after this.
I want to see what makes to doit, and I do this every 10 years
.
Okay, right, so you can lookback and say what do you want to
do?
I want to repeat the fifth one.
I didn't want to do it, sothat's one.
(23:12):
So what are the optionsavailable?
I mean, the option is venturecapital, raising money.
It's a 10-year commitment andit's too much of a
responsibility.
Okay right, I did not want totake on the responsibility of
raising money from LPs andrunning a fund.
That's too much of aresponsibility.
(23:32):
Fortunately, I had done somemonetization, I had made money.
I said I don't want to do that.
At the same time, I don't wantto hang up my boot, be on the
boards, be an angel investor,mentor, advisor, because there
there is no skin in the game.
Okay, right, I mean, they'lltake advice, but you're really
it's like being a board memberor an angel investor our good
friend Sanjay Anandram hasanother word for that.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, there's this mentor, and then there's
tormentor.
Yeah, mentor and tormentor.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You could be mentor, tormentor and all the stuff is
nothing there and at 50 it istoo early, yeah, detrimental
mentor.
Yeah, okay, right.
So at 50 it is too early toretire, and not only this.
So we wanted to do somethingmore uh, hands-on.
So that is when we came up withthis particular model of
venture builder model, which isthe growth story model.
(24:17):
There are no really parallelsthere.
We also did not do it, butbecause we're not raising money
from any LP and all that, if itdoesn't work, it's fine.
It's not something which isthere, it's not creating legacy.
So we said closest parallel wasRocket Internet in Germany,
sambar Brothers.
But their model was not exactlythe same.
(24:38):
They controlled the full thing.
They gave a small equity toentrepreneurs.
We said we will look at wherethe broad areas of next 10 years
are, do some initial researchor business plan, see if this is
something we want to get into,and then find teams who can
actually come and run it asco-founders.
(24:59):
Each one will have a strongco-founder team and give them
50% equity upfront, 50% with us,then raise money and value and
the initial capital also Initialcapital to be able to do it.
So the idea was if it works out, we'll go quickly and raise
money from top venturecapitalists.
Reason is that each one willhave a life of its own, will
(25:23):
have its own governance, willhave its own capital.
It will not be seen as a familycompany, family office company
and we'll be able to attractgood talent with this and we'll
be able to build a company ofits own.
We never wanted to control it,so we obviously diluted
immediately and do that.
And if it doesn't work out, ifyou are not able to raise money
(25:46):
or if you think that it's not agood idea to raise money, then
shut it down at some point oftime.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Okay right.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
We have shut down companies after two months or
three months of starting.
We have shut down companiesafter six years of funding it
and starting because it didn'twork out.
It did work out.
Some of them did RBC moneydidn't work out.
Some of them did not have RBCmoney.
We funded it and do that stuff.
So that is the way we ended.
I think it's been a good run.
(26:12):
We have had multiple failures.
We have also had Big Basket,blue Stone, homeland, portia
Medical, verloo, hungerbox,fresh Menu all these companies
coming out of this particularmodel and whether it's the right
model don't know, but for us ithas been satisfying because it
(26:32):
has been not a full-fledgedfounder, ceo, entrepreneur, not
an investor board member.
We are the founder of the lastresort.
We still have companies whichhave shut down.
The founders have moved on.
We are handling the tax noticesand we are handling all the
challenges.
All of it is ours, got it.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
No, and I think you're being very humble when
you say we've had some successes.
There've been likeextraordinary outcomes here with
Big Basket and home lane thankyou.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You're being kind.
As always, you're being morekind than right okay.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
But I think in this business you know, most of the
things won't work out right.
But the few that do uh are theones that really uh, and one may
put in the same effort orsometimes more effort.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, effort is I mean I mean for every company,
every entrepreneur, everycompany that fails.
I don't think it is lack ofeffort.
I mean most of them work harderthan I have ever worked and do
work, and it's amazing to seeentrepreneurs the kind of
passion and determination theybring, including in our own
companies.
I mean, whether it's Big Basketor Bluestone or Homeland or
(27:36):
Portio Medical to all the upsand downs and you know this,
sanjay, ups and downs is a given.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
We all go through huge.
Downs are given, ups are not.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, ups are ran and we go through huge euphoria and
gloom and doom many times onthe same day.
Yes, okay, right, and come outof it.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
You know, the other day I was a guest on the podcast
and they were asking me what'sthe day in the life of a venture
capitalist?
Said, I wake up and I look atmy phone.
If there's good news, I'mreally very unhappy because now
there's only bad news cominglater in the day but if some bad
news has come in the morning,I've said okay, I've got
something to look forward to,maybe some good news will come
and um but um, you know, look at, I think even as venture
capitalist I'm in an early stageand our model is kind of a
(28:20):
reactive engagement, so probablythe closest battle from a VC
angle to what you build.
but we're still sort ofdistanced and enough, because
for you, you know, ultimatelyyou have to handle all the legal
notices and stuff like that andstuff like that.
So was there ever a time whereyou felt, wow, this is, you know
, this is becoming too much.
(28:41):
Or, you know, is the pain is,you know, a lot more than
perhaps the fun part here?
Or was the fun so amazing thatit really didn't matter?
And these are all smallerthings.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No, no again.
Statistically, most of the timeyou feel why the hell am I
doing this?
Okay, right, right.
So in terms of time, 80 percentof the time you'll be handling
fighting fires.
It's like having six childrenif you have six children, you
can be guaranteed one of them.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Somebody's got a cold and somebody's got a stomach
one of them always be in trouble.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
one of them will always be sick.
You cannot have a peaceful daywith six children.
All the six will be out oftrouble, doing great and fully
healthy.
Not having a problem thatrequires you to attend every day
is unlikely, okay.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
We have almost never looking after each other.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, we have 10 companies.
Yeah, it's a given so number isyou sign up for.
But the other way to look at itis, when you have six children,
that's what you have signed upfor.
Okay right, you knew that it'snot that, so it is there.
What satisfies me more than thesuccess of it is that these are
(29:56):
huge pain points that you havetried to address.
The fact that there arecustomers willing to buy your
product, swear by it, thankingyou for it, gives a huge amount
of satisfaction.
Take, for example, portiaMedical, the largest home
healthcare company.
I'm sure you have experiencedit.
(30:16):
So the amount of comments thatwe get that because of this
service, I'm able to live mylife, I'm able to go to my
office, I'm able to work, I'mable to do that.
Okay Right, and this did notexist before.
Right, a branded caregivingservice for this which you can
(30:38):
rely upon.
That is so much satisfying.
Or during the COVID or pandemicbig basket, for example, okay
Right, the way they stepped upto be able to, to be able to do
it.
I mean those are the momentsthat you really live for that,
that that is worthwhile tocreate a brand, no and, as you
said, you know you'd alreadyachieved, you know, fairly
(30:58):
strong financial success already.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
So getting into it, that was certainly not the
objective here.
Right, it was perhaps anoutcome, but the, the real
success was in both the journeyas well as the, the value that
people see in the, in theproduct and at scale.
I think that's, and it's sortof a gift that you have to be
able to recreate this over andover again and almost a
(31:22):
responsibility that you have tomake sure that these things
happen right.
I mean, you could certainlyhave, you know, put up your feet
and you know been at the golfcourse.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Sanjay, let me ask you the reverse question.
Okay, right, you've had AngelPrime and Prime Venture Partners
.
You're doing this.
Venture Capital business is a10-year plus business at the
minimum and a lot ofresponsibility Till the time the
last money last at the minimumand a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Till the time the last money, last rupee is
returned it's a pendingresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It's not like raising money in a company.
A company you can shut down andsay sorry and do stuff there.
You can shut down whatmotivates you to raise next fund
?
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Why would you do it at this particular site?
Okay, my LPs are going to belistening to this.
Look, I think, ganesh, for usit's been an extraordinary ride.
We wouldn't have seen a lot ofthis stuff.
Of course, in this business, youwill always have a wall of
shame where some company willcome to you and you don't back
(32:19):
them and you look back later andsay what the heck did we miss?
What were we thinking?
But ultimately, our outcomesare only driven by the ones we
do choose to back right, and sothat is one.
So I think I've always, veryearly on, made my peace with
saying look, it's not about it's.
If your logo makes it to mywall, then I have to do
everything to, because theothers don't really matter,
(32:41):
right in some ways.
And so when you, when you dothat, I think one of the things
we have found, and I think youhave also seen entrepreneurship
in India is a means of reallyjust making life livable for the
masses and making the world abetter place.
It is an outcome of it, in thesuccessful case, that one does
(33:02):
make financial outcomes here,but it's really never, never the
goal, and I think we have toenjoy the journey right, and I
can't think of a more excitingplace and exciting journey right
now.
Right, if, if I was to stopdoing this as a profession, I
would still want to be involvedwith this.
Right, I would still want to bemeeting.
I keep thinking about it.
I'm really fortunate to have mypartners as my best friends in
(33:22):
our team around.
It's a little bit of a uh, insome ways a little bit of a
family.
I luckily managed to situatethe office very close to my
house so I don't have time tocommute, yeah right, um.
And so now I look at it and say,okay, this is exactly what I
started telling people, this ismy retirement.
My retirement is exactly whatI'm doing, because I'm just
having so much fun.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
It doesn't feel like work so the pressure of raising
money for next 10 years plus,and all that stuff, despite your
having achieving financialsuccess and you're in the same
place.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I love it when LPs challenge us, because those are
the most stimulatingconversations, right.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
That makes you, that gets you, that's more exciting.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
right you start the conversation and say, okay, fine
, of course we're in for yournext fund.
No, that's more exciting, right?
You start the conversation andsay, okay, fine, of course we're
in for your next fund andthankfully, all of our LPs have
actually put us through theringer every single time oh, I'm
sure they do and challenged uswith all the assumptions.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It's not easy to raise money for fund after fund,
however successful you are.
Because they've got choices andthey've got One more question
for you.
I know why did you not comeback and start another venture
as an?
Speaker 1 (34:27):
entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
As an entrepreneur, what made you and your
partnership, what made youdecide this?
And I asked you that questioneven earlier, because when I
started Growth Story, I came andtook your advice.
This is what I want to do.
I don't want to be PC, I don'twant to be entrepreneur, I want
to do a halfway venture buildermodel.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
What is your motivation?
I think so.
My motivation on that wasactually it's very hard to be an
entrepreneur and it's a verylonely journey and I have the
craziest amount of respect forentrepreneurs, right, and I just
didn't see myself doing itagain and again.
Similar.
I was approaching 50 when westarted Prime and now a senior
(35:07):
citizen, so I get half percentextra in the bank, you know, and
my FDs are very proud of that,you know.
But I think for me, I thinkit's really, really tough.
I think we are kind ofvicariously living our
entrepreneurship dreams.
This is like you know the crudeanalogy I'll give is sort of
like grandparents versus parents.
You know, the crude analogyI'll give is sort of like
(35:28):
grandparents versus parents.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
You know when the diaper needs to be soiled.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
You hand it over to the kid, but you enjoy all the
pleasure of it.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Absolutely.
I think very, very, very, very,very valuable, I think,
vicariously living having thetouch and feel without some of
the pressures of running it, andwe've structured our model to
be that way, right by doing fourto five new investments a year
as a VC fund for early stage.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
That's actually a very concentrated portfolio, but
it gives me time like I blockThursdays on my calendar to say
this is my portfolio.
Only day I will not meet anynew startups, I will not meet
any outsiders, but it's my time.
If I don't have meetings withthe portfolio, I will go and
harass the founders or I will goask them some questions.
I'll sit down and do likeproduct discussion, which have
nothing to do with how thecompany is performing and things
(36:10):
like that right.
So those things we have thefreedom to do in our model, and
I think that's the part that Ienjoy the most in the
brainstorming with founders andI hope they enjoy it as well,
and your next fund?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
you'll continue the same philosophy.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
We will continue the same model right, so our model
remains the same.
You know we've raised 100million again and we will do
four to five new investments ayear.
Obviously, we now have a largerteam, and so a lot of my time
is also going in mentoring theyoungsters and building this.
I think the big thing for ushere is how do we turn what we
started off with into asustainable institution at Prime
(36:43):
.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
So you're institutionalizing the practices
that you have learned, so that,instead of just being a fund by
successful serial entrepreneurs, it becomes an institution on
its own too.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
And part of that is bringing in more serial
entrepreneurs into the fundright, and whether it is a new
partner whom we just added,bridge who was the co-founder of
Magicpin, and even some of thenext generation folks may not
have necessarily been foundersbut worked.
You know, gaurav had workedwith Homeland and really
understands early stage verywell and I think there's a lot
(37:13):
more exposure.
So you know the philosophy ofworking side by side with
founders and being hand-holdingthem through the tough times.
I read somewhere and I thinkAndreessen had quoted you know,
you make your money from your,your winners, but you make your
reputation on the ones I neveruse the word losers, but on the
ones where you don't make yourmoney, and that's also very
(37:33):
important and very early on,we're trying to get people
exposure into the board mattersright.
So our investment team is notjust hunting for new deals, it's
after the investment happens.
They're sitting alongside mesaying wait a minute, what did
we miss?
We thought the revenue wasgoing to go like this, but it
has actually not gone that wayand hopefully that's the
feedback loop for picking youknow the next set of
(37:55):
entrepreneurs as well.
So that remains our model and,you know, as long as health
supports it.
You know I'm not thinking Iwould do anything else.
I can't think of what else Iwould do.
I'm sort of pretty narrow setof you know hobbies and things
lovely, lovely to hear that so.
So that's been our journey.
But speaking of hobbies, youknow I've seen you on the squash
(38:15):
court, I've seen you on thetennis court or in the certainty
.
So what are some of your thingsthat you do on the side?
You know to stay, you knowamazingly fit that you are yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
so I have been playing tennis for the last 25
years, and when the covid stuck,I started learning bridge.
So now I'm addicted to onlinebridge, right so so so that's
something that I do, but I playtennis every day, and after I
turned 60, which is a couple ofyears back, I said I'm going to
(38:47):
start learning something newevery year.
Covid helped in learning bridge, so I started playing badminton
, so now I need to pick up onemore sport this year, so I
regularly play tennis andbadminton.
That keeps me fit.
In addition to I'm fanaticabout intermittent fasting and
(39:10):
low carb diet, which really hashelped me lose 14 kgs, stay fit
and be able to have all theenergy for for my also.
After 60, I said I need to giveback in certain ways, because I
do every 10 years.
I do this.
At the time when I turned 50, Isold Twitter Vista to Pearson.
(39:33):
I said growth story, venturebuilder model.
So at 60, I said I want to getinto academics.
I want to teach, formally teach.
So I teach one course at IIM,bangalore, I designed a course
called New Age Business Models,and a couple of courses at
Indian School of Business,hyderabad and Mohali.
So almost one third of my timegoes into teaching right,
(39:57):
wherein I design the course, Ioffer the course.
It's a full credit course inteaching.
Other than that, I have mytennis and this.
Meena and I also have a familyfoundation called the Bahar
Foundation, where I spend sometime and Meena spends a lot more
time, where we are trying touse some of the things that we
(40:18):
have learned over the last 40years in giving back.
So what we do is a programcalled Community Healthcare
Entrepreneurs wherein we saidcan we make tribal women in
rural area self-sustainingentrepreneur by giving her the
(40:39):
ability to provide healthcareservices in the remote areas?
So, with point of care devices,with market connects, with
market connects, with training,the local tribal woman is able
to do basic healthcare testingand diagnostics in her community
Right and charge a bit for itand earn money.
(40:59):
So we fund the whole thingthrough the foundation for the
first one year, the viabilitygap funding.
At the end of one year sheshould be an entrepreneur,
self-sustaining, earninganything between three thousand
to six thousand rupees per month, which is substantial in a
tribal area which is 25 to 40percent of that monthly income
(41:20):
and that is it.
We have done this.
Initial cohorts have been verysuccessful.
We have done this in the Bastararea, naxalian Invested area in
Chhattisgarh.
It has worked out well.
So that takes a bit of time.
So tennis, bahaar, teaching ofmonetization.
(41:44):
The BigBasket of course I nolonger sit on the board of
BigBasket.
We still have some sharesTata's own two-thirds of
BigBasket and they control theboard.
So I have no role to play otherthan selling my shares whenever
they make a good offer or theytake it to IPO.
Bluestone we just filed theDRHP, got the SEBI approval and
hopefully it will do that.
(42:04):
I'm not on the board, but wehave independent directors on
the board and hopefully we'llmonetize.
We have Homelane, which is justacquired, design cafe and I'm
sit on the board and likely totake it to public in the next 12
to 18 months.
Portia Medical, where we haveVibhav Tiwari as CEO running it.
I'm a board member.
(42:26):
Do that.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
So those responsibilities take the
balance two-thirds of the time.
I heard the bell ringing in thepuja room just as you were
talking about taking all thesecompanies to their next
milestone, so that's a greatomen.
Before we close, we'll talk alittle bit about your book,
right?
You recently published a bookon new age business models, you
know, which is also the classthat you're teaching yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
So this book, the need for this book, came about
because a lot of queries camefrom potential entrepreneurs,
wannabe entrepreneurs, studentsand even general public saying
that how are these new agebusiness model working?
Why is zomato being valued somuch?
Why is Zomato being valued somuch?
Why is Paytm being valued somuch?
One was they were stunned atthe valuation when the people
(43:12):
are struggling to raise money.
Okay right, what makescompanies, new age companies get
valued so much?
One, two, from a retail investorbecause people have invested in
the new age IPOs.
Many of them have lost money.
There has been challenges.
And also they said how do wereally evaluate?
Because traditionally for aretail investor, evaluating on
(43:35):
PE ratios, earnings per share,is quite well known, but when
you're loss making, there is noPE ratio, no earnings per share.
How do you evaluate it?
So this question came up andgeneral interest on saying what
drives this and do that?
And many traditionalbusinessmen running traditional
business say that how do weutilize new age principles,
(43:57):
platform principles, networkeffect, virality, how do we use
those in our business to scale,not to be.
Have our lunch eaten?
Not to be left behind, not tobe.
Have our lunch eaten not to beleft behind not to be disrupted,
all this.
So I found a common threadacross this right.
So, and of course, this is alsothe topic which I was teaching
(44:17):
at IIM, bangalore.
So that is how this book came up.
It's meant for a general reader, not just for entrepreneurs,
anybody who is fascinated by allthe new age business model,
fintech or creator economy,digital transformation,
disruption, all of this.
So that's that's how it came it.
Penguin was, and I, kind enoughto publish it and happy to say,
(44:37):
first few weeks it was numberone bestseller on Amazon and
it's in its category.
It has just gone for a reprint,which I'm very pleased about.
So, like maybe, we also talkabout vanity metrics in the book
.
One of my vanity metrics isdoes it go for a reprint in a
short period of time?
So that's a vanity metric, andas is being number one on Amazon
, but I must have wanted to bragabout it here.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
So absolutely, that's hardly a vanity metric, that is
an earned metric by the bookitself, right by the, the review
.
So congratulations on that.
And uh, one last thing to close, and then we talked a little
earlier.
You know this whole newexciting world of ai that has
come about.
Um, what are you doing about it?
You know, is this another wavethat you're going to jump into?
(45:20):
And uh, if so, any earlythoughts on where you see the
opportunity or what you'retrying to figure out here?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Frankly, sanjay, I'm a bald old man.
Okay, right, I'm trying to getto grips.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
The bald part I can verify, but the old man part
hardly.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Thank you.
You're again being kind, then,right, but the real this one is
I'm really trying to learn.
There is so much happening Okay, right, every month there is
something is so much happening.
Okay, right, every month thereis something new that is
happening.
New release that's being forget.
The release of technology, justthe use case.
Latest now is agentic AI and howworkflows are getting disrupted
(45:57):
.
Forget about investing or doing.
I'm trying to get my gripsabout learning about it.
Okay, right, it simply isfascinating because, almost like
internet or at olden times,that steam engine or transformed
, or the invention of the wheel,transformed this is completely
(46:18):
transformative and unlimitedpotential to be able to do it.
I mean, I thought I had goodunderstanding of LLM Okay, right
, I was clear about where it wasgoing and it's fine.
I even wrote a chapter for thebook, for the next edition of
the book, okay, but within twomonths now we are talking about
(46:39):
how workflows are gettingcompletely disrupted using
agenting, and you must have seenthis in fintech also, right, I
mean absolutely.
I mean because you are anexpert on fintech.
When we talk to banks, we aretalking about earlier, about
banking as a service, bass,embedded finance, banking as
service, which was great.
We were just scratching thesurface.
(47:01):
Adoption was less single digitpercentage of banking as a
service, all of that stuff.
Suddenly, now you're talkingabout agentic bass, where you're
talking about agents replacingfull workflows yeah, yeah, okay,
and doing it.
The same thing is with sassoftware.
Sas has had a great run.
Now you're saying why do youneed a sas software?
(47:22):
Why can't I use autonomousagents to be able to, to be able
to do so?
Short answer I think this isgoing to be big, transformative,
great opportunity forentrepreneurs and any case,
whether you are a marketer,whatever you're doing, unless
you are using generative andagents, you cannot be
competitive.
It is like saying if you're notgoing to use automation, if
(47:44):
you're not going to use internet, you cannot be competitive.
It's a fact.
You can't if you don't have awebsite, if you're not sending
online, you can't be you to beable to provide that.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
It's both a survival and an opportunity is what
you're saying.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Both survival and a great opportunity For me
personally.
I think I'm still trying tolearn how to decipher it and I
look forward to discussions withpeople like you who are
actually evaluating.
I'm sure you are the inflow ofbusiness models you're seeing
must be phenomenal right.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
No, absolutely.
I think it's true and I thinkone of the things I have been
trying to do is actually justuse all the products that come
out and to give you an exampleof what was never possible that
is suddenly likely to bepossible I never wrote code in
my life.
I could never.
And then I always correctmyself.
I wrote I could never get HelloWorld.
Same here, I could never.
And then I always correctmyself no, I wrote I could never
get Hello World to compile, Iwas just so bad at it.
(48:35):
Right.
But today, with tools likeLovable and stuff like that, you
can get up in the morning andin 30 minutes you can whack out
a nice looking, professionallooking.
You know at least mock-up andyou know if you things with it
over the last two three weeks.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
So give me an example .
What did you do?
What was the first thing thatyou tried on?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Lovable, so the first thing I tried was a health
tracker.
Right, and not to say that I'vebeen great help or anything but
just tracking all theactivities around a health
tracker and you basically justgive it an instruction, you know
, saying design a health trackerfor me.
And it says, okay, I'll look athealthify, I'll look at this
app, I'll look at that app, I'llI'll take what I think are the
best thing, and the firstversion it gives you itself is
(49:21):
something that looks like aproduct that's been built right
by a professional and in allthis, done by five seconds, in
30 seconds, right, and then youinteract with this.
Okay, can this?
Can you subtract this?
And so this whole idea of onesize fits one, which is my new
mantra, is I think there used tobe a restaurant in New York
that said we give suchpersonalized care.
It's a one size fits onestrategy.
(49:42):
I think that's where the worldis going.
So to your point earlier aboutagentic flows and stuff like
that, how you and I interactwith something might be very,
very different.
The functionality at the endmight be yes, we press a button
and buy the air ticket, but Iwant to have the experience of
talking to my travel agent.
You may like the e-commerceexperience, you may only want
this category of flights, etcetera, and once there's enough
(50:04):
personalization on that, this isthe K Ganesh experience, that
is the Sanjay Swami experience,and there might be a different
one for someone else.
And I think we are going tomove into this extraordinary new
world where it's going to beone size fits one, and how I do
things, how you do things, mightbe really tuned to ourselves,
but with the same functionalityand the same business process.
(50:25):
Right, so it it is.
Sky is the limit in terms ofwhat's possible.
There's also the.
So I look at it as, at least inthe financial services and
certainly in health care, thereis the core product itself that
one is talking about, which iswhich can use AI a lot, and that
could be lending algorithms,that could be, you know, you
(50:45):
know diagnostic algorithms, forexample, and so on.
Those, I think, are verysensitive, right, and there one
has to be very, very carefulbecause explainability and all
these other issues will arise.
But all the scaffolding aroundit of how you interact with the
customer, how you interact inthe post care, in the customer
service, et cetera, that can beattacked immediately.
(51:07):
So to me, the first order ofopportunity is what I call the
scaffolding around the business,which is very, very domain
specific and customer specificand use case specific.
And then there's the corebusiness itself, which may or
may not come immediately, butthere also we're starting to see
some extraordinary innovation.
So it's definitely anopportunity to be both excited
(51:29):
and scared at the same time, andthat's always the perfect
mantra for me, for for a newfund.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Will that be a focus area?
I mean, obviously leveraginggen a is uh is a given.
Yeah, talking about gen anative business models yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
So I think, um, it obviously is a core part of of
everything we're to do, I thinkeverything everybody's going to
do, but I actually think thatwhat does it enable that wasn't
previously possible is also avery exciting thing to think
about.
So there are things of you know, for example, edge AI models.
We recently funded a company,off-the-shelf cameras and AI at
(52:07):
the edge to do industrialautomation to the extent of like
fault detection.
Right, it's already being usedby cement manufacturers, already
being used by.
So predictive it is.
No, it's actually looking atthe product and saying, okay,
this is a faulty product right.
So if you look at, a scooterassembly line near Bangalore,
there's one that manufactures ascooter every 90 seconds, right?
(52:31):
So a false positive is veryexpensive because it stops the
manufacturing line.
A false negative is even moreexpensive because now we have a
recall problem, right, butthings are possible now at scale
and at speed at the edge.
So, one thing after the other,I think every use case, but
anything which has an IoTelement to it, an iot element to
it or a regulatory element toit, or a digital element to it,
(52:55):
combined with the digital piece,I feel very comfortable about,
because there are enoughinherent modes that get built.
Anything which is pure software, only I'm scratching my head
saying do I have the guts to beton how this is going to proceed
over the next five years?
Speaker 2 (53:08):
right, it's a hard call no, that's a very, very
interesting perspective.
You combine robotics, iotsensors, analog digital devices
with software and with gen a.
It looks like a morecomprehensive model and
something I as a old person old,bald, old person can relate to
much better.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
But pure, pure llm or pure software is something I
mean, of course, we'll haveseveral of those also in our
portfolio, but it is quite scaryright to be to try to say you
know, if you're going to build agenerational company, a lasting
company is going to be around10 years from now.
Who knows what the world isgoing to look 10 weeks from now?
So, in termsheet and sha, themodel may have changed, but
(53:49):
that's, I think, also wherebacking the right entrepreneurs
who have the right mindset andare not wedded to the solution
but are wedded to the problem, Ithink is very important, right?
And if they have that insanedesire to solve this problem and
not claiming that they have gotthe perfect solution, I think
those are the instincts that welook for.
(54:11):
Anyway, ganesh, look, we can goon and on and on, and I would
like to, and we'll probably comeback and do part two of this
soon, perhaps with Meena as well.
But thank you so much, both foryour time today as well as for
the extraordinary contributionsyou've made, both in the for
profit world as well as on thegiving back world and the
(54:32):
inspiration you are for everyone.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Thank you very much.
Thank you for being so kind.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (54:41):
Dear listeners, thank you for listening to this
episode of the podcast.
Subscribe now on your favoritepodcast app for free and you'll
be the first one to know whennew episodes are available.
Just search for Prime VenturePartners Podcast in Apple
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You get your podcasts, Then hitsubscribe and if you have
(55:02):
enjoyed the show, we would bereally grateful if you leave us
a review on Apple Podcast.
To read the full transcript,find the link in the show notes.
But today you're going to know a little bit the
shop floor.
So my second venture started.
I ran it as CEO and then soldit to ICICI.
Then started my third venturecalled MarketX, sold it to
Listed WNS.
Then did my fourth serialventure, tutor Vista.
She sold to Pearson.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Talk a little bit about your book.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
How to create a brand , consumer brand, from India or
the US market.
Why is Zomato being valued somuch?
Why is Paytm being valued somuch?
How do we utilize new ageprinciples, platform principles,
network efforts?
Those are the moments that youreally live for.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Never bite the hand that feeds never spit on the
plate you eat from.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Most of the time you feel why the hell am I doing
this?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of the Prime
Venture Partners podcast.
I have a superstar friend,business colleague and just an
amazing gentleman with us today,k Ganesh.
And if you don't know about KGanesh, that's okay, because you
(01:31):
have certainly used productsthat he has started and services
that he has launched.
But today you're going to knowa little bit more about the man
behind several of these products.
I'm just joking, I knoweverybody knows K Ganesh.
But, ganesh, welcome to ourshow.
It's a pleasure and a privilegeto have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Thanks, Sanjay.
Great meeting up again and wego quite a while back, but happy
to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Thank you, ganesh.
So look, ganesh, every singlename has got you as a part of it
or behind it in some way oranother, whether it's a big
basket, whether it is abluestone, whether it is a home
lane all of these names that allof us have, you know, used and
continue to use on a frequentbasis.
But you've also had, of course,your early days and then, of
(02:18):
course, your days as a directentrepreneur yourself and
subsequently co-creatingcompanies with founders, being
an angel investor, very prolificangel investor and now recently
released your book MasteringDisruption.
I would love to cover some ofthis and, along the way, hear
(02:39):
some of your insights and someof your experiences.
Our audience here are primarilyentrepreneurs, who would
benefit a lot from your journey,so maybe we can start with the
early days, your background andwhat led to this amazing journey
in entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, so I'm an accidental entrepreneur really
and I started back in 1990.
So at that time theentrepreneurial ecosystem, or
the word entrepreneur, orventure capital, or risk capital
, angel investor, all these didnot exist.
So obviously it has to beaccidental.
So 1990 was the time when Indiawas just liberalizing.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Can we talk a little bit about your younger days,
growing up, leading up to?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
1990?
Little bit about your youngerdays growing up, leading up to
1990.
Yeah, so I was born and broughtup in Delhi.
My mother was a governmentservant so I stayed in
government quarters.
I lost my father when I wasnine years old, so my mother has
brought me and my two sistersup, studied in a government
school and, very surprisingly, aTamil government school in
(03:44):
Delhi and Delhi had this wherethe medium of instruction was
Tamil.
Government school in Delhi andDelhi had this where the medium
of instruction was Tamil tillthe 5th standard, so I could
read Tamil courtesy despitebeing in Delhi because of the
school.
And then I went on to doengineering at Delhi College of
Engineering, delhi University.
I did try IIT but couldn't getthrough it and after that worked
(04:06):
for one year in Tata Motorswhat was at that time called as
Telco Jamshedpur on the shopfloor.
Because I was a mechanicalengineer and it is a natural job
, realized within the year thatI'll never be a good mechanical
engineer and I was in Jamshedpuron the shop floor, which was at
45 degrees temperature.
I said I can't do it.
Went on to do management fromIIM Calcutta because I didn't
(04:29):
want to be an engineer on theshop floor.
Then joined HCL.
I was working directly withShabnadar.
I was his executive assistant,handling customer support role
later and then sales role later,and that was what got me into
entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Got it Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I always credit Shiv Nadar and HCL.
At the time HCL was a smallcompany about 20 crore company
and I was interviewed directlyby Shiv Nadar and given a lot of
responsibility and that reallytaught me that I could take
decisions as a 24 year old andsee that actual decisions worked
.
Okay, right, that gave me theconfidence to start my first
(05:12):
startup when there was noconcept of first generation
entrepreneurs.
I had the other two jobs I hadfrom IIM Calcutta was Unilever
at the time it was calledHindustan Lever and Citibank,
and I always say that if I hadjoined either of those two jobs
then I would not have become anentrepreneur.
That's why I say accidentalentrepreneur and HCL was a very,
(05:36):
very great place to learnbasics of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Wonderful wonderful.
So then 1990 came about, andyou said india was just starting
to liberalize yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So, uh, I had worked five years in hcl and india was
just liberalizing at the time.
The reason I said that wasbecause, uh, it was still a
license raj, very difficult tostart businesses.
There is no capital available.
Only you could only projectfinance was available.
But we did not think aboutcapital and all that stuff.
While working in HCL handlingcomputers, selling computers to
(06:09):
corporate, one of the thingsthat came up aha moment that
came up was that at that timethe computer vendors used to
maintain their own computers,the computers even though they
were IBM compatible at the startthey were still proprietary
chipsets, and Wipro used tomaintain their computer, hcl
(06:30):
used to maintain their computer,epson used to maintain their
printers and all that.
So we saw an opportunity thatcorporates used to struggle.
They used to typically havecomputers and printers from 10
different vendors and wheneverthere was a problem they had to
call everybody because theydon't know where the problem is.
The computer vendor will sayit's not my problem, it's a
printer problem.
(06:50):
Printer vendor will say it'snot a printer problem, it's a
computer problem.
Maybe the problem is in thecable that connected the two.
But who supplied the cable?
Nobody knows.
Okay, right.
So that is where we saw thefirst opportunity that if you
are able to provide a singlepoint stop for computer
maintenance, it's a greatopportunity to start a business.
(07:11):
And so we started the businessas a computer maintenance
company.
People used to call us computermechanics Used to charge an
annual maintenance contract.
Go to a corporate and say giveme upfront money I'll take care
of a computer for the next oneyear.
So that is the.
That is the genesis of thefirst, first first venture.
It was bootstrapped venture,totally.
(07:34):
We put in about 84 000 rupeesacross multiple uh, five of our
founders, wonderful and startedthat.
Scaled it, scaled it, scaled itand then, uh, sold it to igate
got it, got it good.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So this would have been mid 90s yeah, so we started
it in 1990.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I ran it as co-founder and ceo till 98.
Then I moved to bangalore andwe sold it in 2000 time frame.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Uh to igate got it, got it, got it.
And then what came next?
Because you've been a serialentrepreneur, started multiple
things.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So my journey was my family had moved to Bangalore
because Meena was with numbertwo in Microsoft and Microsoft
shifted the head office fromDelhi to Bangalore.
So for one year I was there.
My daughter and Meena and mymother were here.
So I had a compulsion to moveto Bangalore and so two of my
co-founders started running IT&T.
So I was looking at what to donext and then the opportunity
(08:33):
came.
I was looking for a job orsomething to move to Bangalore
and the opportunity came withBharti British Telecom.
Bharti's had just taken overWipro share in Wipro British
Telecom.
That's why it was headquartered.
Wipro British Telecom washeadquartered in Bangalore.
They were into VSAT services,satellite communication services
(08:54):
using VSAT.
Then I met, coincidentally,sunil Bharti Mittal in one of
the events there.
He says oh, you're from IT, youwant to go to Bangalore.
We have just acquired stake.
At the time Airtel was only inNorth.
They were not there.
They were not running telecomservices here.
He said we have a small companythere.
We need somebody to handle itbecause we have just taken over.
(09:15):
We don't know anything about IT.
You know about IT, why do youtake over?
So I moved to Bangalore as CEOof Bharti British Telecom which
is great.
For two years I ran it but theentrepreneurial bug will not
stop.
So after one year I startedselling.
Sunil Bittal said that I wantto start.
I want to start, I want to go.
He says hold on, hold on, holdon.
(09:35):
So in two years started in2000,.
Customer Asset what is nowknown as First Source.
First Source I see Very asset,what is now known as First
Source.
First Source, I see Very largeBPO company part of the Sanjeev
Goenka group and Listek and it'sour first source as an email
support company in 2000.
But you know what happened in2000.
Dotcom boom and bust happened.
But before we could even getour first few clients,
(09:57):
fortunately we had a money of $3million, but dotcom bust
happened.
So we did not have a businessmodel.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
We million dollars but dot-com bust happened, so we
did not have a business model.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
We didn't have it.
We had money, so we discussedwith a discuss with the investor
, saying that what to do is whatis.
Then we transitioned into voicecall center, which was not what
we started.
We wanted to provideasynchronous email support to
dot-com companies in us fromindia, which was very simple.
Running a real-time live voicecall call center from India in
(10:27):
2000, when we were talking aboutlease lines and dial-up
connections and all of those wasa big challenge.
That is what we transitioned to.
Fortunately, we survived thecomplete pivot, thanks to our
investor and thanks to the factthat we had 3 million raised.
Otherwise, nobody would haveraised.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
that's how my second venture started.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I ran it as ceo and homeowner.
Then uh sold it to icici, whichis why it's called icici.
One source took it but theytook it public and now it's uh
listed.
Um then started my thirdventure called marketx, which is
into high-end data analytics.
The concept of high-end dataanalytics, the concept of KPO
and data analytics was not eventhere at that time.
(11:09):
It was very similar to the BPOmodel, very similar to the
customer asset first sourcemodel, but this was high-end
data analytics support forFortune 50 companies out of
India.
That also happens to be,incidentally, in Indira Nagar.
We took a residential apartmentand hired PhDs or MSTAT people,
statisticians and MBAs fromFMCG a sector, put them together
(11:35):
and did statistical modelingfor coke and procter and gamble.
Now, of course, the industry iswell known as kpo and other
stuff.
That was one of the first thing.
Sold it to listed wns becausethey wanted to get into the kpo
space.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Uh then started that was with shankar marwada.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, that was yeah, you know shankar very well.
So ramki, unfortunately hepassed away ramki, shankar
marwada and Vinay Mishra threeof the things I had worked with
them earlier of sorts in thatprevious venture called
Intercept and which then withthat, so MarketX.
I was the chairman and the soleinvestor when we sold it to.
(12:14):
Till the time we sold it toDubliners never raised VC money
In customer asset.
We did raise VC money a coupleof rounds.
Then did my fourth serialventure, tutorvista.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
That was when I first met you actually.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, which we sold to Pearson.
Later we were teaching kids inthe US from India and we had an
India edtech business Againindia, and we had a india edtech
business again.
The word edtech was not thereat that time, right?
Uh, sold it to psn, that's.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
that's the four serial ventures and serial the
tutor vista was somethingdifferent, though, in that you
started it along with uh srinu,and uh your wife was also a
co-founder, right.
So that was sort of the startof this team, that uh did a
variety of things together postthat, so maybe you can talk a
little bit about how that cametogether.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, srini was two years junior to me at IIM
Calcutta, so I had known him forall this while and he had built
Elance, what is known as, andthen became Odesk, and he had
come back to Bangalore from theBay Area, just like you did.
That was the wave, yeah, thatwas the wave we used to call it
B2B gang Bay Area to Bangalore.
(13:26):
All the people moved AdarshPalm, meadows and Golden Enclave
and places like this.
Now of course it's prettycommon Shikhaan, nadamudi and
all the teams, you, sripati,Acharya, all of you came back.
So Srinath had come back, butwith Meena I had done one
previous venture.
(13:46):
So the four ventures I talkedabout, two of them I did
independently and two of themwith Meena as a co-founder.
So in Customer Asset, meena wasa co-founder, I was the
co-founder and CEO.
And that's an interesting storyin itself because that was the
time when I was CEO of BhartiBritish Telecom.
I was working well.
(14:06):
I did not intend to get intoentrepreneurship at that time
but I was keen on it because Iwas doing exceedingly well.
And Sunil Bharti Mithil waskeen on me to become the ceo of
the mantra online.
That was the bharati's internetservice.
Okay, they had just applied andgot internet service.
He wanted to merge the two.
He said you'll become, see, acombined entity.
Don't go anywhere.
Uh, okay, right.
(14:28):
So that is the context.
But meena wanted to, was workingin microsource number two, she
was teaching to start a businessand this entire customer asset
customized opportunity idea camethat because dot-com boom is
happening, you require emailsupport and you can do email
support from India and that is agreat new idea.
Nobody had done it.
Only IT software developmentfrom India was there.
(14:48):
Support was not there.
The concept of name BPO and allwere not even heard of call
centers.
So she was, and I, because Ihad done entrepreneurship, I
helped her to make a businessplan and was part of the
brainstorming with anotherfounder called Ajay Rao.
Okay, right, so I was trying tohelp them.
I was part of the think tankand making it and all that.
(15:09):
And that is also the time whenmy son was born, so there is a
small baby at the house.
So I needed help.
And suddenly a call came fromBombay saying that from
eVentures at that time, neerajBhargav you might be familiar
with saying that why don't youcome to Bombay and pitch to
Ardaswan?
He said we are not ready.
He says no, no, no, it's okay,this idea is fine, we want to
through a common friend.
So I mean I said then they said, listen, you have worked on the
(15:38):
model so much, why don't youalso come along?
Come along for the meeting,just as an advisor, mentor,
because I'm legitimate right.
I'm Meena's husband, so it'snothing wrong.
I'm an entrepreneur, so I wentthere for the meeting and so
some questions were there in themeeting with the partners of
eVentures.
So they liked it.
They asked some question andwhich they answered and I
(16:00):
answered and all that stuff.
Then suddenly Neeraj says whois going to be the CEO of this
venture?
Okay, now we are not preparedfor the thing because it's the
first meeting first ever.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
VC.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
First ever VC, second VC in my life I have ever met.
First VC.
They have met.
First VC meeting.
That is there.
We are going to see you.
So Meena looked at Ajay Rao,ajay Rao looked at Meena.
We had another gentleman calledSanjeev Dalal who was also….
First time we met during theBombay trip, all of us, meena
and I met.
He was also co-founder.
He was a technical guy guy.
(16:33):
So listen, look at how the teamgot formed.
The only interaction withSanjeev Dalla, the co-founder,
was in the car journey to FortMumbai and he was the techie he
was not going to.
So then they all looked at meand Azharov said Ganesh is going
to be the CEO.
Okay, I said done.
(16:54):
Okay.
They said done and we'll giveyou a term sheet.
And we came out.
I said where did this come from?
He says no, I had to take acall because they were ready to
fund.
I could sense that they werewilling to fund.
They needed an answer to thequestion.
I said okay.
I said okay, okay, right.
Also, to be fair, meena was aco-founder, sini, while he knew
(17:16):
him for 20 years, he had comeback and the idea of Twitter,
vista, came in, which really hadme brainstorming but how to
create a brand, consumer brandfrom India for the US market Now
?
Today you have so many SaaScompanies and others that it's
no longer suppressed.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
But still for a US consumer base, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
So for 2000,.
Yeah, so in 2000, for example,there are only IT services
companies.
They were all B2B.
It's not for US consumer.
Okay, right, completelydifferent game.
Excel was there, bipro wasthere and Infosys was there.
The only offshoring was B2B.
There was no B2C that leveragedIndian resources was b2b.
(17:59):
There was no b2c that leveragedindian resources, and I was
very keen to create a consumerbrand, so that was one then.
Education is an opportunitythat came without, before any
tech or anything was known.
So that's how it started andit's been a nice partnership.
After you sold it, we startedgrowth story wow.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's interesting because my introduction to you
because I had lived in the usfor several years came back when
I was, I think, early days ofmy running.
Mcheck is when I met you in2006.
And so all of this is new to mealso.
So it's really amazing.
But what's really interestingis also two, three things you
touched upon, right.
I mean, sometimes we tend tooverthink things, at least
(18:37):
nowadays, because we are sort ofin this information age and we
have now chat, gpt andperplexity also helping us go
into deep research mode andthings like that and yet some of
the most astounding decisionsand opportunities happen so much
by serendipity and withoutoverthinking some of these
decisions.
And they worked out awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
No, absolutely.
I'm sure you would have seen itin your life too.
Of course, you alsoentrepreneur, came back here,
worked with the Aadhaar and thisand started a venture capital
firm.
There are very few cases ofoperators actual operators
starting entrepreneurs, startingventure capital firm, and yours
is a great example I oftenquote of the model working
(19:17):
wherein the entrepreneurs whohave been there, done that
before and that actually shows.
I mean Prime Ventures is knownas a very entrepreneur friendly
organization because you havelived in the shows.
That's not to snigger at theothers, but it's a very, very
unique perspective.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Okay, you can snigger at the others we don't, no,
never, never.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
We still have companies that are raising money
.
Never bite the hand that feeds,never, never, and not in public
forum like this now, but Inever spit on the plate you eat
from.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So so, ultimately, I've also capitalists are great.
Okay, right, so let me I alsolearned that I think everybody
has to figure out what gamethey're good at and play that
game, and I think there arecertain things that many VC
peers of mine do that we cannever do.
We're not just set up for it.
And then there are probablythings we can do that we can do
best, and I think it's also animportant thing of not just
(20:12):
founder market fit but alsofounder investor fit.
That matters as well, becausesome founders may work very well
with us and others may not.
We may not be the right fundsas well.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
That is what I've admired.
I've seen your journey becauseI remember when you just first
started that angel prime, it wassupposed to be a small fund.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
We lived in the same community and community we
discussed.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
We went to walk, we discussed all that.
I liked the idea of small fund.
I mean and you're not, yourfund is not in a hurry to invest
, there is no FOMO with you,which is something which I
really like.
Also helps because the fundsize is not large and you're not
running after deals.
Okay, right, and one secondthing I've seen you support the
(20:54):
companies.
We are investors and theco-investors in such companies.
I've seen your support during agood time and bad time, so
which which I think partly comesfrom being most of the time we
are in bad times this is what Itell statistically yeah 360 days
of frustration and five days ofglory is all you get every year
(21:15):
.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So so look we, so that that started sort of the
next phase of your journey,right where you move from being
an entrepreneur with, you know,extraordinary outcomes all along
, and of course you could haverepeated that, uh.
But you sort of got into thismodel of saying let me share the
wealth in some ways, I wouldsay the wealth, expertise, for
(21:37):
the most part in a co-creationmodel with the whole growth
story journey, right.
So tell us about how that cameabout and why that versus, say,
a venture capital model.
And how did that?
I mean, obviously we've hadstellar hits along the way and,
you know, is there anotherparallel anywhere else?
So it's completely designed bythe three of you, you know, you,
(22:00):
meena and Srini.
And how did that come about andwhy was that the right thing
for India at the time?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, so I don't really know whether it was the
right thing for India.
So I had just turned 50 when wesold Tudor Vista to Pearson and
I had done four serialGreenfield ventures, acted as
the CEO in three of themMarketing I was not the CEO, I
was the chairman and the soleinvestor and only investor and
advisor and all that.
But three of the four venturesall of them were Greenfield, all
(22:29):
of them as founder and CEOhandling P&L.
And at 50, having done four, Iwas feeling slightly jaded or
tired.
Okay, right, too much of fourexits, and also, I think,
rightly so.
After four Greenfield serialbenches and four successful
exits, it's almost like a run.
The probability of the next onewas questionable.
(22:51):
No, seriously, that is not thereason.
But we said we want to dosomething different.
I didn't want to, so two things.
So I didn't want to so twothings.
So I didn't want to be the CEOand run this after this.
I want to see what makes to doit, and I do this every 10 years
.
Okay, right, so you can lookback and say what do you want to
do?
I want to repeat the fifth one.
I didn't want to do it, sothat's one.
(23:12):
So what are the optionsavailable?
I mean, the option is venturecapital, raising money.
It's a 10-year commitment andit's too much of a
responsibility.
Okay right, I did not want totake on the responsibility of
raising money from LPs andrunning a fund.
That's too much of aresponsibility.
(23:32):
Fortunately, I had done somemonetization, I had made money.
I said I don't want to do that.
At the same time, I don't wantto hang up my boot, be on the
boards, be an angel investor,mentor, advisor, because there
there is no skin in the game.
Okay, right, I mean, they'lltake advice, but you're really
it's like being a board memberor an angel investor our good
friend Sanjay Anandram hasanother word for that.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, there's this mentor, and then there's
tormentor.
Yeah, mentor and tormentor.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You could be mentor, tormentor and all the stuff is
nothing there and at 50 it istoo early, yeah, detrimental
mentor.
Yeah, okay, right.
So at 50 it is too early toretire, and not only this.
So we wanted to do somethingmore uh, hands-on.
So that is when we came up withthis particular model of
venture builder model, which isthe growth story model.
(24:17):
There are no really parallelsthere.
We also did not do it, butbecause we're not raising money
from any LP and all that, if itdoesn't work, it's fine.
It's not something which isthere, it's not creating legacy.
So we said closest parallel wasRocket Internet in Germany,
sambar Brothers.
But their model was not exactlythe same.
(24:38):
They controlled the full thing.
They gave a small equity toentrepreneurs.
We said we will look at wherethe broad areas of next 10 years
are, do some initial researchor business plan, see if this is
something we want to get into,and then find teams who can
actually come and run it asco-founders.
(24:59):
Each one will have a strongco-founder team and give them
50% equity upfront, 50% with us,then raise money and value and
the initial capital also Initialcapital to be able to do it.
So the idea was if it works out, we'll go quickly and raise
money from top venturecapitalists.
Reason is that each one willhave a life of its own, will
(25:23):
have its own governance, willhave its own capital.
It will not be seen as a familycompany, family office company
and we'll be able to attractgood talent with this and we'll
be able to build a company ofits own.
We never wanted to control it,so we obviously diluted
immediately and do that.
And if it doesn't work out, ifyou are not able to raise money
(25:46):
or if you think that it's not agood idea to raise money, then
shut it down at some point oftime.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Okay right.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
We have shut down companies after two months or
three months of starting.
We have shut down companiesafter six years of funding it
and starting because it didn'twork out.
It did work out.
Some of them did RBC moneydidn't work out.
Some of them did not have RBCmoney.
We funded it and do that stuff.
So that is the way we ended.
I think it's been a good run.
(26:12):
We have had multiple failures.
We have also had Big Basket,blue Stone, homeland, portia
Medical, verloo, hungerbox,fresh Menu all these companies
coming out of this particularmodel and whether it's the right
model don't know, but for us ithas been satisfying because it
(26:32):
has been not a full-fledgedfounder, ceo, entrepreneur, not
an investor board member.
We are the founder of the lastresort.
We still have companies whichhave shut down.
The founders have moved on.
We are handling the tax noticesand we are handling all the
challenges.
All of it is ours, got it.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
No, and I think you're being very humble when
you say we've had some successes.
There've been likeextraordinary outcomes here with
Big Basket and home lane thankyou.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You're being kind.
As always, you're being morekind than right okay.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
But I think in this business you know, most of the
things won't work out right.
But the few that do uh are theones that really uh, and one may
put in the same effort orsometimes more effort.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, effort is I mean I mean for every company,
every entrepreneur, everycompany that fails.
I don't think it is lack ofeffort.
I mean most of them work harderthan I have ever worked and do
work, and it's amazing to seeentrepreneurs the kind of
passion and determination theybring, including in our own
companies.
I mean, whether it's Big Basketor Bluestone or Homeland or
(27:36):
Portio Medical to all the upsand downs and you know this,
sanjay, ups and downs is a given.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
We all go through huge.
Downs are given, ups are not.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, ups are ran and we go through huge euphoria and
gloom and doom many times onthe same day.
Yes, okay, right, and come outof it.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
You know, the other day I was a guest on the podcast
and they were asking me what'sthe day in the life of a venture
capitalist?
Said, I wake up and I look atmy phone.
If there's good news, I'mreally very unhappy because now
there's only bad news cominglater in the day but if some bad
news has come in the morning,I've said okay, I've got
something to look forward to,maybe some good news will come
and um but um, you know, look at, I think even as venture
capitalist I'm in an early stageand our model is kind of a
(28:20):
reactive engagement, so probablythe closest battle from a VC
angle to what you build.
but we're still sort ofdistanced and enough, because
for you, you know, ultimatelyyou have to handle all the legal
notices and stuff like that andstuff like that.
So was there ever a time whereyou felt, wow, this is, you know
, this is becoming too much.
(28:41):
Or, you know, is the pain is,you know, a lot more than
perhaps the fun part here?
Or was the fun so amazing thatit really didn't matter?
And these are all smallerthings.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No, no again.
Statistically, most of the timeyou feel why the hell am I
doing this?
Okay, right, right.
So in terms of time, 80 percentof the time you'll be handling
fighting fires.
It's like having six childrenif you have six children, you
can be guaranteed one of them.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Somebody's got a cold and somebody's got a stomach
one of them always be in trouble.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
one of them will always be sick.
You cannot have a peaceful daywith six children.
All the six will be out oftrouble, doing great and fully
healthy.
Not having a problem thatrequires you to attend every day
is unlikely, okay.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
We have almost never looking after each other.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, we have 10 companies.
Yeah, it's a given so number isyou sign up for.
But the other way to look at itis, when you have six children,
that's what you have signed upfor.
Okay right, you knew that it'snot that, so it is there.
What satisfies me more than thesuccess of it is that these are
(29:56):
huge pain points that you havetried to address.
The fact that there arecustomers willing to buy your
product, swear by it, thankingyou for it, gives a huge amount
of satisfaction.
Take, for example, portiaMedical, the largest home
healthcare company.
I'm sure you have experiencedit.
(30:16):
So the amount of comments thatwe get that because of this
service, I'm able to live mylife, I'm able to go to my
office, I'm able to work, I'mable to do that.
Okay Right, and this did notexist before.
Right, a branded caregivingservice for this which you can
(30:38):
rely upon.
That is so much satisfying.
Or during the COVID or pandemicbig basket, for example, okay
Right, the way they stepped upto be able to, to be able to do
it.
I mean those are the momentsthat you really live for that,
that that is worthwhile tocreate a brand, no and, as you
said, you know you'd alreadyachieved, you know, fairly
(30:58):
strong financial success already.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
So getting into it, that was certainly not the
objective here.
Right, it was perhaps anoutcome, but the, the real
success was in both the journeyas well as the, the value that
people see in the, in theproduct and at scale.
I think that's, and it's sortof a gift that you have to be
able to recreate this over andover again and almost a
(31:22):
responsibility that you have tomake sure that these things
happen right.
I mean, you could certainlyhave, you know, put up your feet
and you know been at the golfcourse.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Sanjay, let me ask you the reverse question.
Okay, right, you've had AngelPrime and Prime Venture Partners
.
You're doing this.
Venture Capital business is a10-year plus business at the
minimum and a lot ofresponsibility Till the time the
last money last at the minimumand a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Till the time the last money, last rupee is
returned it's a pendingresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It's not like raising money in a company.
A company you can shut down andsay sorry and do stuff there.
You can shut down whatmotivates you to raise next fund
?
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Why would you do it at this particular site?
Okay, my LPs are going to belistening to this.
Look, I think, ganesh, for usit's been an extraordinary ride.
We wouldn't have seen a lot ofthis stuff.
Of course, in this business, youwill always have a wall of
shame where some company willcome to you and you don't back
(32:19):
them and you look back later andsay what the heck did we miss?
What were we thinking?
But ultimately, our outcomesare only driven by the ones we
do choose to back right, and sothat is one.
So I think I've always, veryearly on, made my peace with
saying look, it's not about it's.
If your logo makes it to mywall, then I have to do
everything to, because theothers don't really matter,
(32:41):
right in some ways.
And so when you, when you dothat, I think one of the things
we have found, and I think youhave also seen entrepreneurship
in India is a means of reallyjust making life livable for the
masses and making the world abetter place.
It is an outcome of it, in thesuccessful case, that one does
(33:02):
make financial outcomes here,but it's really never, never the
goal, and I think we have toenjoy the journey right, and I
can't think of a more excitingplace and exciting journey right
now.
Right, if, if I was to stopdoing this as a profession, I
would still want to be involvedwith this.
Right, I would still want to bemeeting.
I keep thinking about it.
I'm really fortunate to have mypartners as my best friends in
(33:22):
our team around.
It's a little bit of a uh, insome ways a little bit of a
family.
I luckily managed to situatethe office very close to my
house so I don't have time tocommute, yeah right, um.
And so now I look at it and say,okay, this is exactly what I
started telling people, this ismy retirement.
My retirement is exactly whatI'm doing, because I'm just
having so much fun.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
It doesn't feel like work so the pressure of raising
money for next 10 years plus,and all that stuff, despite your
having achieving financialsuccess and you're in the same
place.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I love it when LPs challenge us, because those are
the most stimulatingconversations, right.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
That makes you, that gets you, that's more exciting.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
right you start the conversation and say, okay, fine
, of course we're in for yournext fund.
No, that's more exciting, right?
You start the conversation andsay, okay, fine, of course we're
in for your next fund andthankfully, all of our LPs have
actually put us through theringer every single time oh, I'm
sure they do and challenged uswith all the assumptions.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It's not easy to raise money for fund after fund,
however successful you are.
Because they've got choices andthey've got One more question
for you.
I know why did you not comeback and start another venture
as an?
Speaker 1 (34:27):
entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
As an entrepreneur, what made you and your
partnership, what made youdecide this?
And I asked you that questioneven earlier, because when I
started Growth Story, I came andtook your advice.
This is what I want to do.
I don't want to be PC, I don'twant to be entrepreneur, I want
to do a halfway venture buildermodel.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
What is your motivation?
I think so.
My motivation on that wasactually it's very hard to be an
entrepreneur and it's a verylonely journey and I have the
craziest amount of respect forentrepreneurs, right, and I just
didn't see myself doing itagain and again.
Similar.
I was approaching 50 when westarted Prime and now a senior
(35:07):
citizen, so I get half percentextra in the bank, you know, and
my FDs are very proud of that,you know.
But I think for me, I thinkit's really, really tough.
I think we are kind ofvicariously living our
entrepreneurship dreams.
This is like you know the crudeanalogy I'll give is sort of
like grandparents versus parents.
You know, the crude analogyI'll give is sort of like
(35:28):
grandparents versus parents.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
You know when the diaper needs to be soiled.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
You hand it over to the kid, but you enjoy all the
pleasure of it.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Absolutely.
I think very, very, very, very,very valuable, I think,
vicariously living having thetouch and feel without some of
the pressures of running it, andwe've structured our model to
be that way, right by doing fourto five new investments a year
as a VC fund for early stage.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
That's actually a very concentrated portfolio, but
it gives me time like I blockThursdays on my calendar to say
this is my portfolio.
Only day I will not meet anynew startups, I will not meet
any outsiders, but it's my time.
If I don't have meetings withthe portfolio, I will go and
harass the founders or I will goask them some questions.
I'll sit down and do likeproduct discussion, which have
nothing to do with how thecompany is performing and things
(36:10):
like that right.
So those things we have thefreedom to do in our model, and
I think that's the part that Ienjoy the most in the
brainstorming with founders andI hope they enjoy it as well,
and your next fund?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
you'll continue the same philosophy.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
We will continue the same model right, so our model
remains the same.
You know we've raised 100million again and we will do
four to five new investments ayear.
Obviously, we now have a largerteam, and so a lot of my time
is also going in mentoring theyoungsters and building this.
I think the big thing for ushere is how do we turn what we
started off with into asustainable institution at Prime
(36:43):
.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
So you're institutionalizing the practices
that you have learned, so that,instead of just being a fund by
successful serial entrepreneurs, it becomes an institution on
its own too.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
And part of that is bringing in more serial
entrepreneurs into the fundright, and whether it is a new
partner whom we just added,bridge who was the co-founder of
Magicpin, and even some of thenext generation folks may not
have necessarily been foundersbut worked.
You know, gaurav had workedwith Homeland and really
understands early stage verywell and I think there's a lot
(37:13):
more exposure.
So you know the philosophy ofworking side by side with
founders and being hand-holdingthem through the tough times.
I read somewhere and I thinkAndreessen had quoted you know,
you make your money from your,your winners, but you make your
reputation on the ones I neveruse the word losers, but on the
ones where you don't make yourmoney, and that's also very
(37:33):
important and very early on,we're trying to get people
exposure into the board mattersright.
So our investment team is notjust hunting for new deals, it's
after the investment happens.
They're sitting alongside mesaying wait a minute, what did
we miss?
We thought the revenue wasgoing to go like this, but it
has actually not gone that wayand hopefully that's the
feedback loop for picking youknow the next set of
(37:55):
entrepreneurs as well.
So that remains our model and,you know, as long as health
supports it.
You know I'm not thinking Iwould do anything else.
I can't think of what else Iwould do.
I'm sort of pretty narrow setof you know hobbies and things
lovely, lovely to hear that so.
So that's been our journey.
But speaking of hobbies, youknow I've seen you on the squash
(38:15):
court, I've seen you on thetennis court or in the certainty
.
So what are some of your thingsthat you do on the side?
You know to stay, you knowamazingly fit that you are yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
so I have been playing tennis for the last 25
years, and when the covid stuck,I started learning bridge.
So now I'm addicted to onlinebridge, right so so so that's
something that I do, but I playtennis every day, and after I
turned 60, which is a couple ofyears back, I said I'm going to
(38:47):
start learning something newevery year.
Covid helped in learning bridge, so I started playing badminton
, so now I need to pick up onemore sport this year, so I
regularly play tennis andbadminton.
That keeps me fit.
In addition to I'm fanaticabout intermittent fasting and
(39:10):
low carb diet, which really hashelped me lose 14 kgs, stay fit
and be able to have all theenergy for for my also.
After 60, I said I need to giveback in certain ways, because I
do every 10 years.
I do this.
At the time when I turned 50, Isold Twitter Vista to Pearson.
(39:33):
I said growth story, venturebuilder model.
So at 60, I said I want to getinto academics.
I want to teach, formally teach.
So I teach one course at IIM,bangalore, I designed a course
called New Age Business Models,and a couple of courses at
Indian School of Business,hyderabad and Mohali.
So almost one third of my timegoes into teaching right,
(39:57):
wherein I design the course, Ioffer the course.
It's a full credit course inteaching.
Other than that, I have mytennis and this.
Meena and I also have a familyfoundation called the Bahar
Foundation, where I spend sometime and Meena spends a lot more
time, where we are trying touse some of the things that we
(40:18):
have learned over the last 40years in giving back.
So what we do is a programcalled Community Healthcare
Entrepreneurs wherein we saidcan we make tribal women in
rural area self-sustainingentrepreneur by giving her the
(40:39):
ability to provide healthcareservices in the remote areas?
So, with point of care devices,with market connects, with
market connects, with training,the local tribal woman is able
to do basic healthcare testingand diagnostics in her community
Right and charge a bit for itand earn money.
(40:59):
So we fund the whole thingthrough the foundation for the
first one year, the viabilitygap funding.
At the end of one year sheshould be an entrepreneur,
self-sustaining, earninganything between three thousand
to six thousand rupees per month, which is substantial in a
tribal area which is 25 to 40percent of that monthly income
(41:20):
and that is it.
We have done this.
Initial cohorts have been verysuccessful.
We have done this in the Bastararea, naxalian Invested area in
Chhattisgarh.
It has worked out well.
So that takes a bit of time.
So tennis, bahaar, teaching ofmonetization.
(41:44):
The BigBasket of course I nolonger sit on the board of
BigBasket.
We still have some sharesTata's own two-thirds of
BigBasket and they control theboard.
So I have no role to play otherthan selling my shares whenever
they make a good offer or theytake it to IPO.
Bluestone we just filed theDRHP, got the SEBI approval and
hopefully it will do that.
(42:04):
I'm not on the board, but wehave independent directors on
the board and hopefully we'llmonetize.
We have Homelane, which is justacquired, design cafe and I'm
sit on the board and likely totake it to public in the next 12
to 18 months.
Portia Medical, where we haveVibhav Tiwari as CEO running it.
I'm a board member.
(42:26):
Do that.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
So those responsibilities take the
balance two-thirds of the time.
I heard the bell ringing in thepuja room just as you were
talking about taking all thesecompanies to their next
milestone, so that's a greatomen.
Before we close, we'll talk alittle bit about your book,
right?
You recently published a bookon new age business models, you
know, which is also the classthat you're teaching yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
So this book, the need for this book, came about
because a lot of queries camefrom potential entrepreneurs,
wannabe entrepreneurs, studentsand even general public saying
that how are these new agebusiness model working?
Why is zomato being valued somuch?
Why is Zomato being valued somuch?
Why is Paytm being valued somuch?
One was they were stunned atthe valuation when the people
(43:12):
are struggling to raise money.
Okay right, what makescompanies, new age companies get
valued so much?
One, two, from a retail investorbecause people have invested in
the new age IPOs.
Many of them have lost money.
There has been challenges.
And also they said how do wereally evaluate?
Because traditionally for aretail investor, evaluating on
(43:35):
PE ratios, earnings per share,is quite well known, but when
you're loss making, there is noPE ratio, no earnings per share.
How do you evaluate it?
So this question came up andgeneral interest on saying what
drives this and do that?
And many traditionalbusinessmen running traditional
business say that how do weutilize new age principles,
(43:57):
platform principles, networkeffect, virality, how do we use
those in our business to scale,not to be.
Have our lunch eaten?
Not to be left behind, not tobe.
Have our lunch eaten not to beleft behind not to be disrupted,
all this.
So I found a common threadacross this right.
So, and of course, this is alsothe topic which I was teaching
(44:17):
at IIM, bangalore.
So that is how this book came up.
It's meant for a general reader, not just for entrepreneurs,
anybody who is fascinated by allthe new age business model,
fintech or creator economy,digital transformation,
disruption, all of this.
So that's that's how it came it.
Penguin was, and I, kind enoughto publish it and happy to say,
(44:37):
first few weeks it was numberone bestseller on Amazon and
it's in its category.
It has just gone for a reprint,which I'm very pleased about.
So, like maybe, we also talkabout vanity metrics in the book
.
One of my vanity metrics isdoes it go for a reprint in a
short period of time?
So that's a vanity metric, andas is being number one on Amazon
, but I must have wanted to bragabout it here.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
So absolutely, that's hardly a vanity metric, that is
an earned metric by the bookitself, right by the, the review
.
So congratulations on that.
And uh, one last thing to close, and then we talked a little
earlier.
You know this whole newexciting world of ai that has
come about.
Um, what are you doing about it?
You know, is this another wavethat you're going to jump into?
(45:20):
And uh, if so, any earlythoughts on where you see the
opportunity or what you'retrying to figure out here?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Frankly, sanjay, I'm a bald old man.
Okay, right, I'm trying to getto grips.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
The bald part I can verify, but the old man part
hardly.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Thank you.
You're again being kind, then,right, but the real this one is
I'm really trying to learn.
There is so much happening Okay, right, every month there is
something is so much happening.
Okay, right, every month thereis something new that is
happening.
New release that's being forget.
The release of technology, justthe use case.
Latest now is agentic AI and howworkflows are getting disrupted
(45:57):
.
Forget about investing or doing.
I'm trying to get my gripsabout learning about it.
Okay, right, it simply isfascinating because, almost like
internet or at olden times,that steam engine or transformed
, or the invention of the wheel,transformed this is completely
(46:18):
transformative and unlimitedpotential to be able to do it.
I mean, I thought I had goodunderstanding of LLM Okay, right
, I was clear about where it wasgoing and it's fine.
I even wrote a chapter for thebook, for the next edition of
the book, okay, but within twomonths now we are talking about
(46:39):
how workflows are gettingcompletely disrupted using
agenting, and you must have seenthis in fintech also, right, I
mean absolutely.
I mean because you are anexpert on fintech.
When we talk to banks, we aretalking about earlier, about
banking as a service, bass,embedded finance, banking as
service, which was great.
We were just scratching thesurface.
(47:01):
Adoption was less single digitpercentage of banking as a
service, all of that stuff.
Suddenly, now you're talkingabout agentic bass, where you're
talking about agents replacingfull workflows yeah, yeah, okay,
and doing it.
The same thing is with sassoftware.
Sas has had a great run.
Now you're saying why do youneed a sas software?
(47:22):
Why can't I use autonomousagents to be able to, to be able
to do so?
Short answer I think this isgoing to be big, transformative,
great opportunity forentrepreneurs and any case,
whether you are a marketer,whatever you're doing, unless
you are using generative andagents, you cannot be
competitive.
It is like saying if you're notgoing to use automation, if
(47:44):
you're not going to use internet, you cannot be competitive.
It's a fact.
You can't if you don't have awebsite, if you're not sending
online, you can't be you to beable to provide that.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
It's both a survival and an opportunity is what
you're saying.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Both survival and a great opportunity For me
personally.
I think I'm still trying tolearn how to decipher it and I
look forward to discussions withpeople like you who are
actually evaluating.
I'm sure you are the inflow ofbusiness models you're seeing
must be phenomenal right.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
No, absolutely.
I think it's true and I thinkone of the things I have been
trying to do is actually justuse all the products that come
out and to give you an exampleof what was never possible that
is suddenly likely to bepossible I never wrote code in
my life.
I could never.
And then I always correctmyself.
I wrote I could never get HelloWorld.
Same here, I could never.
And then I always correctmyself no, I wrote I could never
get Hello World to compile, Iwas just so bad at it.
(48:35):
Right.
But today, with tools likeLovable and stuff like that, you
can get up in the morning andin 30 minutes you can whack out
a nice looking, professionallooking.
You know at least mock-up andyou know if you things with it
over the last two three weeks.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
So give me an example .
What did you do?
What was the first thing thatyou tried on?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Lovable, so the first thing I tried was a health
tracker.
Right, and not to say that I'vebeen great help or anything but
just tracking all theactivities around a health
tracker and you basically justgive it an instruction, you know
, saying design a health trackerfor me.
And it says, okay, I'll look athealthify, I'll look at this
app, I'll look at that app, I'llI'll take what I think are the
best thing, and the firstversion it gives you itself is
(49:21):
something that looks like aproduct that's been built right
by a professional and in allthis, done by five seconds, in
30 seconds, right, and then youinteract with this.
Okay, can this?
Can you subtract this?
And so this whole idea of onesize fits one, which is my new
mantra, is I think there used tobe a restaurant in New York
that said we give suchpersonalized care.
It's a one size fits onestrategy.
(49:42):
I think that's where the worldis going.
So to your point earlier aboutagentic flows and stuff like
that, how you and I interactwith something might be very,
very different.
The functionality at the endmight be yes, we press a button
and buy the air ticket, but Iwant to have the experience of
talking to my travel agent.
You may like the e-commerceexperience, you may only want
this category of flights, etcetera, and once there's enough
(50:04):
personalization on that, this isthe K Ganesh experience, that
is the Sanjay Swami experience,and there might be a different
one for someone else.
And I think we are going tomove into this extraordinary new
world where it's going to beone size fits one, and how I do
things, how you do things, mightbe really tuned to ourselves,
but with the same functionalityand the same business process.
(50:25):
Right, so it it is.
Sky is the limit in terms ofwhat's possible.
There's also the.
So I look at it as, at least inthe financial services and
certainly in health care, thereis the core product itself that
one is talking about, which iswhich can use AI a lot, and that
could be lending algorithms,that could be, you know, you
(50:45):
know diagnostic algorithms, forexample, and so on.
Those, I think, are verysensitive, right, and there one
has to be very, very carefulbecause explainability and all
these other issues will arise.
But all the scaffolding aroundit of how you interact with the
customer, how you interact inthe post care, in the customer
service, et cetera, that can beattacked immediately.
(51:07):
So to me, the first order ofopportunity is what I call the
scaffolding around the business,which is very, very domain
specific and customer specificand use case specific.
And then there's the corebusiness itself, which may or
may not come immediately, butthere also we're starting to see
some extraordinary innovation.
So it's definitely anopportunity to be both excited
(51:29):
and scared at the same time, andthat's always the perfect
mantra for me, for for a newfund.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Will that be a focus area?
I mean, obviously leveraginggen a is uh is a given.
Yeah, talking about gen anative business models yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
So I think, um, it obviously is a core part of of
everything we're to do, I thinkeverything everybody's going to
do, but I actually think thatwhat does it enable that wasn't
previously possible is also avery exciting thing to think
about.
So there are things of you know, for example, edge AI models.
We recently funded a company,off-the-shelf cameras and AI at
(52:07):
the edge to do industrialautomation to the extent of like
fault detection.
Right, it's already being usedby cement manufacturers, already
being used by.
So predictive it is.
No, it's actually looking atthe product and saying, okay,
this is a faulty product right.
So if you look at, a scooterassembly line near Bangalore,
there's one that manufactures ascooter every 90 seconds, right?
(52:31):
So a false positive is veryexpensive because it stops the
manufacturing line.
A false negative is even moreexpensive because now we have a
recall problem, right, butthings are possible now at scale
and at speed at the edge.
So, one thing after the other,I think every use case, but
anything which has an IoTelement to it, an iot element to
it or a regulatory element toit, or a digital element to it,
(52:55):
combined with the digital piece,I feel very comfortable about,
because there are enoughinherent modes that get built.
Anything which is pure software, only I'm scratching my head
saying do I have the guts to beton how this is going to proceed
over the next five years?
Speaker 2 (53:08):
right, it's a hard call no, that's a very, very
interesting perspective.
You combine robotics, iotsensors, analog digital devices
with software and with gen a.
It looks like a morecomprehensive model and
something I as a old person old,bald, old person can relate to
much better.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
But pure, pure llm or pure software is something I
mean, of course, we'll haveseveral of those also in our
portfolio, but it is quite scaryright to be to try to say you
know, if you're going to build agenerational company, a lasting
company is going to be around10 years from now.
Who knows what the world isgoing to look 10 weeks from now?
So, in termsheet and sha, themodel may have changed, but
(53:49):
that's, I think, also wherebacking the right entrepreneurs
who have the right mindset andare not wedded to the solution
but are wedded to the problem, Ithink is very important, right?
And if they have that insanedesire to solve this problem and
not claiming that they have gotthe perfect solution, I think
those are the instincts that welook for.
(54:11):
Anyway, ganesh, look, we can goon and on and on, and I would
like to, and we'll probably comeback and do part two of this
soon, perhaps with Meena as well.
But thank you so much, both foryour time today as well as for
the extraordinary contributionsyou've made, both in the for
profit world as well as on thegiving back world and the
(54:32):
inspiration you are for everyone.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Thank you very much.
Thank you for being so kind.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (54:41):
Dear listeners, thank you for listening to this
episode of the podcast.
Subscribe now on your favoritepodcast app for free and you'll
be the first one to know whennew episodes are available.
Just search for Prime VenturePartners Podcast in Apple
Podcast, Spotify, CastBox orhowever.
You get your podcasts, Then hitsubscribe and if you have
(55:02):
enjoyed the show, we would bereally grateful if you leave us
a review on Apple Podcast.
To read the full transcript,find the link in the show notes.
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