Moonshot

Fundamentals of Business with Piyush Gupta, Group CEO of DBS Bank

social@peakxv.com (Piyush Gupta, Shailendra Singh) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 06:07:56 +0000

DBS Group CEO Piyush Gupta has built his reputation by transforming DBS from a Singaporean bank into one of Southeast Asia’s largest, with a market cap of over $90 billion. While he’s had a 40-year career in banking, he also had a short stint as a startup founder. We had the pleasure of hosting him at our annual growth equity conference, PitStop, in September 2023.

In this episode of Moonshot, Peak XV Managing Director Shailendra Singh speaks to Piyush Gupta about the lessons learned from his startup journey, and the approach he’s taken to leading DBS Bank.

Show notes:

On leaving Citi to launch a startup [01:18]
Speed to market is overrated [03:54]
Make technology the core of your business [05:07]
Find the right partner [05:51]
Having a safety net is not always a good thing [06:30]
Change your attitude towards failure [07:39]
The fundamentals of being a great CEO [08:29]
Focus on your strategy and learn to say “no” [14:30]
Engaging with regulators and policy-makers [18:58]

Cloudflare: Reflections on Leadership with Michelle Zatlyn

social@peakxv.com (Michelle Zatlyn, Gayatri Yadav, Chelsea Ng) — Mon, 3 Jun 2024 02:00:29 +0000

Michelle Zatlyn, Co-founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer at Cloudflare, chats with Peak XV CMO Gayatri Yadav about building Cloudflare, the global powerhouse that stops 209 billion cyber threats a day.

In this conversation, Michelle reflects on the initial struggle to garner support for Cloudflare’s offerings and emphasizes the importance of perseverance, especially in the face of skepticism from potential investors, customers, and employees. She delves into why founders should listen to their own voice and not be deterred by doubters. Michelle also talks about Cloudflare’s approach to customer acquisition as well as the evolution of the company’s go-to-market strategy. While talking about the complexities of building and scaling a company, she also delves into the importance of hiring the right people, as well as the leadership principles that guide her.

Founders, it’s ok if others don’t see what you see [04:19]
Finding PMF isn’t always a slam dunk [07:20]
Understand why potential customers don’t buy your product [12:53]
The importance of tracking progress against a goal [16:29]
Reimagining archetypes: “The world needs a new definition of leaders” [20:53]

CleverTap: A Data-First Approach to Customer Engagement

social@peakxv.com (Dewi Fabbri, Mohit Bhatnagar, Anand Jain, Sunil Thomas) — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 10:24:05 +0000

Brands rarely interact directly with customers in the digital world, making it a challenge to create personalized customer experiences and retain clients. While working at a media company in 2013, Anand Jain, Sunil Thomas, and Suresh Kondamudi, were faced with the same problem. They struggled to find a product that could leverage data to meaningfully engage with customers. To address this gap, they set out to build CleverTap, an all-in-one customer engagement platform that leverages data, analytics, and automation to empower digital brands. In this episode of Moonshot, we speak with CleverTap's Anand and Sunil about what it takes for founders to build products that can adapt to changing markets.

Show notes:

“What if it works?”: Find a spark to get you started [1:38]
Adapt your product to changing markets and channels [5:25]
What “build for the world” actually means [9:36]
Co-founder dynamics: Give each other space and establish extreme trust [12:32]
Hire the right people and then let go [16:11]
Having a good VC-founder relationship [23:02]

Pioneering Payments: Amrish Rau’s FinTech Journey

social@peakxv.com (Amrish Rau, Dewi Fabbri, Shailendra Singh) — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 08:19:23 +0000

Paying for things digitally is now a part of daily life – but this wasn’t always the case. In 2013, long before the reality of cashless payments had become the norm in many parts of India and the world, Amrish Rau co-founded Citrus Pay, an online payment provider built with a mobile-first focus. This was one of many ventures in his two-decades-long journey to pioneer India’s payment ecosystem in the digital age, culminating in his most recent appointment as CEO of Pine Labs. On this episode of Moonshot, Peak XV Managing Director, Shailendra Singh, speaks with Amrish about his early life and how it defined his approach to company-building, his transition from Citrus Pay to Pine Labs, and how building a company with a heart will help a startup as it scales.

Show notes:

From passbook printer salesman to CEO [4:04]
Focus on product-market fit and get cheesy [8:36]
Retiring at 40 and other startup exit myths [15:02]
The Pine Labs approach to digital payments [21:20]
“Be nice to everybody” and other advice for startup founders [26:30]
Stay unsatisfied [29:10]

Appier: Creating Impact With AI, One Business At A Time

social@peakxv.com (Chih-Han Yu, Abheek Anand, Dewi Fabbri) — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 09:38:27 +0000

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are transforming the world of business intelligence and marketing. But before ‘AI’ became a buzzword, it was not easy to convince businesses that the technology could be a game changer for their enterprise. In 2012, Chih-Han Yu launched Appier with a vision to make AI accessible for all. That vision was tough to sell as it was a technology the world had yet to discover. In the years that followed, Appier pivoted many times on its mission to help companies adopt AI and big data to power business decision-making. On this episode of Moonshot, we speak to Appier co-founder and CEO Chih-Han Yu about what it takes to build a global AI-as-a-service company, and how he tapped on his team’s deep technical roots to build a product focused on customer-centricity.

Introduction [00:31]
Appier’s first-mover advantage [01:26]
A race against time to find product-market fit [11:27]
Developing software prowess in a hardware kingdom [13:55]
Maintain a learning mindset and tap on the best [16:42]
Going public: The transition from startup founder to public company CEO [27:00]

Mad Street Den: Enterprise AI for the World, Built Out of Chennai

social@peakxv.com (Ashwini Asokan, Anandamoy Roychowdhary, Dewi Fabbri) — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 06:01:02 +0000

The dawn of AI is upon us and Enterprise AI is finally getting its time in the sun. With more people experimenting with the likes of Chat GPT, Dall-E, and Midjourney, companies are also moving swiftly to implement AI tools to help them drive productivity and efficiency. One person who’s been building AI tools for over a decade is Ashwini Asokan. In 2013, she left her job as a designer at Intel and teamed up with her husband, Anand Chandrasekaran, a neuroscientist, to launch Mad Street Den, a computer vision and artificial intelligence company. On this episode of Moonshot, we chat with Ashwini about the current state of Enterprise AI, how Mad Street Den is setting itself apart from its competitors, and what it takes to build a global artificial intelligence company out of India.

Introduction [00:30]
Consumer AI vs Enterprise AI [03:26]
Different industries have the same data problems [09:55]
AI automation: Freeing you up to do “the job you should have been doing in the first place.” [13:58]
Entering the era of Enterprise AI [22:44]
Do you need to raise a ton of capital to get into Artificial Intelligence? [26:59]
Raising the next generation to be AI native [31:03]

Develop Your Leadership Style: Lessons From Scaling Teams At Stripe

social@peakxv.com (Dewi Fabbri, Claire Hughes Johnson, Abheek Anand) — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 06:30:58 +0000

“The best leaders and founders I’ve worked with have the ability to have conviction about a vision and an opinion, but also the ability to open up the decision or the moment and say, ‘OK, is there something I'm not thinking about?’ or ‘What could I have done differently?’” Claire Hughes Johnson draws on her experience leading and managing teams at Google and Stripe, and reflects on all things people management on this episode of Moonshot. Delving into insights published in her book, Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building, Claire discusses the difference between leadership and management, how to build trust and set expectations with early hires, and how startup founders can effectively give and receive feedback.

Show notes:

The four operating principles of leaders and managers [03:34]
Seek feedback: “What could I have done differently?” [12:19]
How self-awareness helps you receive feedback [15:43]
Scaling: “Repeatedly being able to do something incredibly well.” [25:29]
Play to your strengths when developing your leadership style [33:16]
Build trust and set expectations with early leadership hires [35:21]

Show Them the Magic: Vymo’s Playbook for Enterprise Sales

social@peakxv.com (Yamini Bhat, Shailesh Lakhani, Dewi Fabbri) — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 07:59:03 +0000

Launching a new software product and successfully driving user adoption and retention is a challenge for many startups. According to sales engagement platform Vymo’s co-founder and CEO Yamini Bhat, the secret is to ‘go live’ quickly and show users their return on investment. On this episode of Moonshot, we take a peek into Vymo’s playbook to learn about some of the key product and sales design choices the startup’s team made to attract and retain users across large enterprise customers.

Show Notes:

The problem statement thesis: “Sellers hate any tool that is given to them.” [6:30]
Use the challenger sales approach to build credibility [11:33]
Narrow your focus: Look for indicators to hone in on a specific market [18:29]
Take a DIY approach and allow for the customization of your product [22:39]
Adapt to different cultures when launching your product internationally [30:04]
“Why not the US?: Weighing up which market to break into first [36:38]
Communicate the magic of your product and ‘go live’ quickly [39:24]

Groww: Increase Product Velocity by Empowering Decentralized Teams

social@peakxv.com (Lalit Keshre, Ashish Agrawal, Dewi Fabbri) — Tue, 6 Dec 2022 10:48:09 +0000

"If you are deciding everything, then you are limited by your own speed". That’s a belief Groww co-founder and CEO, Lalit Keshre, keeps front and center as he and his co-founders scale the investment platform. Keshre believes that by having a decentralized structure, team members are empowered to make quicker decisions around products. On this episode of Moonshot, we chat with Lalit Keshre and Ashish Agrawal, Managing Director at Sequoia India, about key design choices Groww made to take on a market with strong incumbents.

Show Notes:

Financial services is a basic human need [01:16]
When engineering and finance converge [05:20]
Set up a decentralized structure and empower your teams to make quicker decisions [14:03]
Taking a pull-driven approach to building an investment platform [18:12]
Bake customer-centricity into every product decision [ 21:44]
Don’t sell, educate instead [23:43]
Pursue long-term success over short-term gains [26:04]
Attract talent by offering purpose, autonomy, and growth [28:16]
Trust in your own convictions [30:35]

Zetwerk: Digitizing India’s Manufacturing Supply Chain

social@peakxv.com (Amrit Acharya, Dewi Fabbri, Shailesh Lakhani) — Mon, 5 Sep 2022 09:48:07 +0000

India's manufacturing sector, which contributes 18% of the country’s GDP, is on the cusp of change. This highly labor intensive sector, which is plagued with logistical and technical issues, is undergoing a transformation as workers upskill and companies start to digitize their processes to improve efficiency. In 2018, Amrit Acharya, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Vishal Chaudhary, and Rahul Sharma launched Zetwerk, a B2B manufacturing network that offers companies manufacturing solutions across a wide variety of products. On this episode of Moonshot, we speak with Amrit Acharya, Co-Founder and CEO of Zetwerk and Shailesh Lakhani, Managing Director at Sequoia India, about how the startup is taking a bold bet to bring a centuries-old industry into the digital age.

Show Notes:

Fall in love with unsolved problems (5:40)
“We built exactly what you wanted.”: The challenges of selling software in India (9:40)
The answer to how you pivot your startup lies in user behavior (11:15)
Taking on a centuries-old industry (16:28)
Finding opportunity in adversity (20:24)
Taking a software approach to building hardware (among other things) (23:39)
Running an international business without an overseas footprint (27:30)
“Done is better than perfect.” (29:30)
Showcasing India’s manufacturing potential (33:28)
Paying it forward with Zetwerk Build (34:34)

CoinSwitch: Taking the FUD Out of Crypto

social@peakxv.com (Shailesh Lakhani, Ashish Singhal, Dewi Fabbri) — Mon, 1 Aug 2022 10:23:48 +0000

In 2017, a group of hackers in India figured out a way to get the best prices on cryptocurrencies at any point in time by aggregating data from all the crypto exchanges. That was the origin of CoinSwitch, a startup with a mission to ‘make money equal for all’. The platform gained traction, went through a few pivots and soon became one of India’s largest cryptocurrency trading apps. On this episode of Moonshot, we chat with CoinSwitch co-founder and CEO Ashish Singhal and Sequoia India Managing Director Shailesh Lakhani about how the startup is taking crypto to the masses by differentiating itself from its competitors, educating users, and tracking user gains to improve their product.

Show Notes:

Start by solving a problem that you’ve encountered (1:36)
If mom can use it: The CoinSwitch differentiator [06:03]
Build user confidence: Educate them on how to use your product (9:10)
Go-to-Market strategy: Web3 vs Web2 (12:11)
Bear markets make you work harder for your users (14:52)
Track user gains to improve your product (17:23)
Be frugal, be focused (20:08)
Know that there’s a right time for your idea (23:05)
Give yourself two chances at success (28:15)

LingoAce: Accelerate Growth with Moonshot Talent

social@peakxv.com (Hugh Yao, Abheek Anand, Dewi Fabbri) — Fri, 1 Jul 2022 09:57:26 +0000

"We need to do the hardest thing. If you choose the easy things to do, many people choose that way. That route is very crowded." It’s this mindset that propelled Hugh Yao to grow LingoAce into a global startup with a team of over 4,500 teachers. The EdTech platform, which was launched in 2017, started out offering Chinese language courses for kids that used gamification to make learning fun. In 2022, the platform rolled out its English program in just three months – something Hugh credits to hiring and acquiring teams quickly. On this episode of Moonshot, LingoAce founder Hugh Yao chats with Sequoia India & Southeast Asia Managing Director Abheek Anand about how he saw opportunity in tough times, what it takes to hire moonshot talent, and how the LingoAce team rolled out its English program in such a short span of time.

Show Notes:

Differentiate yourself: Choose the hardest way to build a global company (08:00)
Be ambitious about hiring moonshot talent (10:50)
Hire and build out teams quickly (16:04)
A good hire accelerates everything (17:44)
Focus on what you can control (21:36)

A Quick Start Guide to Building an Enduring Company – In Conversation With Doug Leone

social@peakxv.com (Dewi Fabbri, Doug Leone, Rajan Anandan) — Wed, 25 May 2022 08:17:26 +0000

Doug Leone has led Sequoia Capital for over 25 years, overseeing the firm’s international expansion. Throughout his time at Sequoia, Doug formed partnerships with companies like Nubank, Medallia, ServiceNow and Wiz. He’s seen thousands of pitches and worked with hundreds of founders as they grow and scale their startups. On this episode of Moonshot, Doug chats with Sequoia India Managing Director Rajan Anandan about some of the insights he’s gained over the past two decades working with startups, common pitfalls founders should look out for, and what it takes to build a truly enduring company. The conversation took place during an AMA at Surge – our rapid scale-up program for early-stage startups.

Show Notes:

Sequoia’s culture - Spiky people with a “We, not I” mindset [7:05]
Architect your company, not just your product [14:18]
Fail fast: Why flops are better than slogs [18:06]
The gross margin line doesn’t lie [24:53]
Servant leadership starts with you [30:34]
The number one reason companies fail [33:06]
Focus on solving a singular problem [37:58]

Meesho: A No-Frills Approach to Democratising E-Commerce in India

social@peakxv.com (Dewi Fabbri, Vidit Aatrey, Mohit Bhatnagar) — Thu, 5 May 2022 11:33:45 +0000

Millions of people across India buy and sell goods on e-commerce platform Meesho every month. The platform fulfils an average of three million orders a day. Meesho, which started off as a social commerce platform helping millions of women and homemakers run businesses from their home, is now on a mission to democratise e-commerce in India for millions more. Launched in 2017 by Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, the platform is bringing down costs and lowering barriers to entry for many merchants – while helping them digitise, list their goods, process orders, track payments and manage inventory. On this episode of Moonshot, Meesho Co-Founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey chats with Sequoia India Managing Director Mohit Bhatnagar, about how bucking tradition led to the genesis of Meesho, why startup founders need to regularly talk to their users, and how taking a no-frills approach to pricing can lead to higher retention rates.

Show Notes:

Bucking tradition: How college changed Vidit’s world-view (5:30)
Affordable fashion, cheap t-shirts, and the ‘aha!’ moment (12:33)
Talking to your users gives you a competitive edge (18:33)
The path to PMF is non-binary – prepare to change your approach (20:48)
Don’t do 10 things (21:41)
Less is more: A no-frills approach to pricing and strategy (27:53)
Design your organisation around problems (35:50)
Start your year with ‘BHAGs’ (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) (32:01)
Optimising for speed: An organisational design choice (33:35)
Evaluate team members against values and celebrate them (39:46)

Lemonilo: A Community-First Approach to Building a Consumer Brand

social@peakxv.com (Dewi Fabbri, Johannes Ardiant, Rohit Agarwal) — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 09:12:06 +0000

Instant noodles may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think of healthy food, but Indonesian startup Lemonilo is disrupting the country’s consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry by offering a healthier version of Indonesia's favourite instant meal. The company is building relationships with communities to educate them on the importance of healthy living, while leveraging technology to get healthy snacks into the hands of consumers quickly. On this episode of Moonshot, Lemonilo's Co-Founder and CTO Johannes Ardiant chats with Rohit Agarwal, a principal at Sequoia India and Southeast Asia about the need to take a community-first approach when building a consumer brand, how Lemonilo is getting its products to market quickly, and why startup founders should pick the right problem before focusing on a solution.

Show Notes:

Offer a new solution to an old problem (04:05)
Pick the right problem and validate it (6:45)
Don’t forget what it takes to build your MVP (10:58)
Lemonilo’s growth strategy: Leverage communities and remain agile (18:18)
Grow brand loyalty by listening to your customers (20:58)
Leverage tech to shorten your supply chain (23:45)
Get your product to market quickly (28:40)
Bring tech and communities together to create social impact (31:05)
Not all problems can be solved by technology (34:45)
Ask the right questions (38:25)

Hangry: Finding New Opportunities in Crowded Spaces

social@peakxv.com (Aakash Kapoor, Abraham Viktor, Dewi Fabbri) — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 10:17:03 +0000

Indonesia’s food delivery sector is a crowded space - dominated by industry giants and an increasing number of startups all vying for a slice of the pie. It’s also an industry that’s rapidly growing, with more cloud kitchens opening across the country to cater to young, tech-savvy Indonesians looking for a variety of food options to be delivered right to their doorstep. Hangry, a fast-growing cloud kitchen startup that launched in 2019, is feeding this demand by offering international cuisines, along with local favourites, to appeal to an increasingly global-minded target market. On this episode of Moonshot, we speak with the co-founder and CEO of Hangry, Abraham Viktor, and Sequoia India and Southeast Asia’s Aakash Kapoor to discover how the startup is taking on industry giants, riding the K-pop trend, and creating a winning recipe for cloud-kitchens (and hungry customers) in Indonesia.

Show Notes:

A tasty way to take on industry giants (2:07)
Appeal to different palates with a wide variety of flavours (4:15)
Taste and iterate: The Moon Chicken recipe for success (9:40)
How the Hangry Academy sets outlet staff up for success (13:18)
Count Your Chickens: Deciding on quantities with the help of technology (14:25)
Be quick to respond to customer complaints (16:06)
Entice your customers by nailing the basics and riding trends (18:25)
Customer complaints for breakfast: Team Hangry’s morning ritual (20:20)
The key ingredients of building a brand (21:50)

Mamaearth: Building and Scaling Brands for Millennials

social@peakxv.com (Dewi Fabbri, Ishaan Mittal, Varun Alagh) — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 02:00:00 +0000

The quest to find safe, toxin-free, natural skincare for their baby led Varun and Ghazal Alagh to launch Mamaearth - Asia’s first MADE SAFE® certified brand of skin and body care products. In just four short years, the startup has disrupted India’s FMCG space by leveraging tech and innovation to help millennial consumers make natural, eco-friendly choices for their bodies. On this episode of Moonshot, Mamaearth’s Varun Alagh chats with Sequoia India Managing Director, Ishaan Mittal about the strengths of building a startup with your spouse, crafting a purpose-based brand through nano-marketing, and how founders can perfect their brand through purpose, quality, and consistency.

Show Notes

A personal mission behind personal care products (1:50)
Using the three Ps framework to bring your brand purpose to life (5:30)
It's much easier to live with failure than to live with regret (13:15)
The bedrock of a great founding team is trust (14:38)
The benefit of starting a conversation with potential consumers (18:10)
Be paranoid about quality (24:25)
Disrupting FMCG incumbents with data and tech (25:32)
Use your brand playbook to take on other markets (30:14)
Perfecting your brand through purpose, quality and consistency (40:25)

Kopi Kenangan: Building a Brand People Love

social@peakxv.com (Dewi Fabbri, Edward Tirtanata, Rohit Agarwal) — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 12:03:13 +0000

Indonesian coffee chain, Kopi Kenangan, serves affordable brews made with local ingredients and recipes. The company, which employs a ‘Grab & Go’ model, delivers most orders through its app, making it a convenient alternative to traditional coffee houses. In this episode of Moonshot, Kopi Kenangan Co-Founder, Edward Tirtanata talks to Sequoia India & Southeast Asia Principal, Rohit Agarwal about how he’s building a well-loved brand with authentic Indonesian flavours, a deep understanding of what customers want, and staying true to his brand’s DNA.

Show Notes

Kopi Kenangan’s sweet start (01:31)
How a ‘One Cup, One Customer’ approach and leveraging technology helped Kopi Kenangan weather the pandemic (07:09)
Growing brand equity with great service and coffee (12:48)
Stay true to your DNA to build brand love and recognition (16:24)
Commitment to your customers is hard for copycats to replicate (21:32)
Differentiate yourself based on your strengths (24:14)
Creating new brands and verticals to achieve compounding distribution (26:54)
Think big, start small, fail fast (30:45)
Build and lead from your heart (33:00)

Atlan: Leveraging Founder-market Fit to Build a Global SaaS Brand

social@peakxv.com (Anandamoy Roychowdhary, Prukalpa Sankar, Dewi Fabbri) — Thu, 9 Dec 2021 10:45:24 +0000

Prukalpa Sankar is on a quest to help ‘the humans of data’ do more. In 2019, she and Varun Banka launched Atlan, a powerful collaboration platform that helps teams made up of different people, jobs, and tools, work together to translate vast amounts of data into actionable insights. The two developed the idea for Atlan at their prior company, SocialCops, a data-for-good startup that partnered with the World Bank, and helped build India’s national data platform. In this episode of Moonshot, Prukulpa talks with Anandamoy Roychowdhary, a Principal at Sequoia India, about how her first-hand experience as a ‘human of data’ shaped the data leader she’s become today, the importance of making tough design choices early in your startup’s journey, and how empathy has been Atlan’s greatest competitive advantage in its mission to build a global SaaS brand and become the icon on the desktop for every data team.

Show Notes

Building a collaborative workspace for ‘the humans of data’ (01:23)
Unifying data teams on a single platform (04:44)
How empathy can be a huge competitive advantage (07:27)
Leveraging data to build personal conviction (11:09)
Driving impact through founder-market fit (18:50)
Having the conviction to choose long-term goals over short-term wins (23:50)
Rallying your team towards your mission with clear, effective communication (25:56)
Focus on problems that are most likely to make you fail long-term (30:09)
Building a global SaaS brand out of India (34:37)
Driving decisions with conviction (41:17)

Bibit: Building Trust In A Category That's New To Consumers

social@peakxv.com (Dewi Fabbri, Rohit Agarwal, Sigit Kouwagam) — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 09:22:45 +0000

Building trust with first-time consumers is critical for any brand - particularly where their money is concerned. In 2019, Sigit Kouwagam and Wellson Lo launched Bibit, a robo-advisor that makes it easy for Indonesians to start investing and build a portfolio. The country’s stock market, which has long been dominated by institutional investors, is now attracting more retail investors as Millennials and Gen Z look for new ways to grow their savings. The Bibit team started a Telegram group early in their product journey and invited users to share complaints, ideas and questions. Some of the app’s key features - such as a shared portfolio for spouses and an auto debit function - emerged from that customer feedback. On this episode of Moonshot, Sigit chats with Rohit Agarwal, a principal at Sequoia India & SEA, about how Bibit is empowering Indonesians to make sound investment decisions, and building a brand that first time investors trust by actively engaging with them.

Show Notes

The evolution of Indonesia’s retail investors and creating products with their concerns in mind (03:34)
Lessons from Bibit’s landlord on opening communication channels with their users (09:34)
Tapping into Indonesia’s changing investment ecosystem (13:58)
Empowering Indonesians to make sound investment decisions (21:24)
Getting your customers to become your ambassadors of trust (24:18)
Questions to ask yourself before taking the entrepreneurship leap (28:25)

Unacademy: To Create Iconic Products, Set Iconic Goals

social@peakxv.com (Dewi Fabbri, Gaurav Munjal, Shailendra Singh) — Wed, 3 Nov 2021 06:11:54 +0000

“Early on, we decided that we will play the high-risk high-reward game. We will not be a ‘good company’. Either it has to be a great company or it has to be a failure.” Unacademy, which is on a mission to democratize access to quality and affordable education in India, has helped over 10,000 educators reach more than 50 million learners since it was founded in 2015. Their subscriber base has grown by more than five times in the last year alone. On this episode of Moonshot, Gaurav Munjal, Co-Founder and CEO of Unacademy, talks with Shailendra Singh, Managing Director at Sequoia India, about building and scaling iconic products, creating a culture of experimentation, and the role that ‘Founder’s DNA’ plays in a startup’s trajectory. The conversation took place during an AMA at Surge – our rapid scale-up program for early-stage startups.

Show notes:

How crucial pivots define the trajectory of the company [6:08]
Deciding early to be great, not good, and aligning the team to that goal [11:27]
Have enough runway to create a culture of experimentation [13:40]
Build or acquire autonomous teams to drive product innovation [18:19]
Create iconic products by setting iconic goals [22:20]
Build a strong brand as a long term moat [29:07]
Improving your game through continuous learning and growth [31:48]
Be relentless in the quest for mentors [41:09]
Managing relationships with your board [47:16]
How confrontation can build trust and transparency [54:14]

Eruditus: Powering Growth With An A-plus Team

social@peakxv.com (GV Ravishankar, Ashwin Damera, Rahul Dravid, Dewi Fabbri) — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 07:03:21 +0000

Eruditus, which has partnered with prestigious universities like Harvard, MIT Sloan, Columbia and Cambridge to deliver online executive education courses, scaled by building deep relationships with universities over many years – and by making hiring a number one priority.

The company, which was founded in Mumbai in 2010, currently serves students from over 80 countries in multiple languages. In this episode of Moonshot, Eruditus co-founder and CEO Ashwin Damera chats with Sequoia India Managing Director GV Ravishankar about why playing the long game is crucial to his business, the need to have founder-startup fit, and why it's so important to hire A-plus talent.

Show notes:

Patience, faith and perseverance: The path to an enduring company [5:42]
Knowing when to let go: Lessons from Travelguru [09:01]
Go after big ideas and large opportunities [12:03]
Assessing founder-market fit at every stage of the company [21:44]
To build a great company, hire A-plus people [28:47]
Why you should never make trade-offs when hiring [34:00]
Focus on input metrics for hiring and managing people [37:28]
A great culture is key to retaining top talent [38:16]

GudangAda: Building a Business Based on Empowerment Vs. Disruption

social@peakxv.com (Abheek Anand, Dewi Fabbri, Stevensang) — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 08:37:53 +0000

Stevensang, who grew up working in his parents' shop, founded GudangAda in 2019 to connect wholesalers directly to a variety of merchants, ranging from large retail chains to independent ‘mom-and-pop stores’, or warungs. The startup has quickly become one of the country’s largest online business-to-business marketplaces. In this episode of Moonshot, Stevensang talks with Sequoia India & SEA Managing Director Abheek Anand about how he drew on more than two decades of experience in leadership roles in Indonesia’s FMCG industry to assess the market size and industry structure - and design a business model that empowers wholesalers and retailers alike.

Show notes:

Digitising Indonesia’s FMCG supply chain [1:18]
Evaluating the market size, industry structure and opportunity in Indonesia’s FMCG supply chain [6:35]
Choosing to empower instead of disrupt the industry [9:14]
How GudangAda hacked distribution [12:00]
Securing supply by building relationships and trust with wholesalers [13:52]
Building out GudangAda’s team in the early days [16:57]
What aspiring founders can learn from GudangAda’s journey [22:29]
Tips on assessing industry structure and designing your business model [27:46]

Freshworks: Dream in Increments to Create Products That Scale

social@peakxv.com (Mohit Bhatnagar, MS Dhoni, Dewi Fabbri, Girish Mathrubootham) — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 02:49:00 +0000

Freshworks, which just listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, has become the poster child for Indian SaaS startups that want to build global businesses. Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director at Sequoia India, talks with Freshworks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham about the early design choices on product, pricing and positioning that made the company so successful. The conversation took place in July 2021 during an AMA at Surge, our rapid scale-up program for early-stage startups.

Show notes:

Everything begins with framing the customer problem well [2:19]
Dreaming in increments to create a wedge [4:36]
Sharpening product differentiation to support outbound sales [6:16]
Using pricing as a weapon, and landing the first set of customers [10:33]
How churn is a killer in product-led growth [13:05]
Building a global company with its soul in Chennai [15:23]
Increasing your standard of giving [18:45]
Feeling like an Indian athlete that has a chance to run at the Olympics [21:45]