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Are recessions actually the best time to start your company?  Aneesh Reddy, the founder of Capillary Technologies, believes that economic downturns are the ultimate filter for identifying products that have a "right to exist”,which is only earned when a product solves a deep, non-negotiable pain point for the customer. This idea has shaped Capillary’s journey that led to a 4500 Crore IPO, 250 million consumers and 100,000+ stores worldwide. We explore the internal culture at Capillary that has not only retained 20% of its core team for over a decade but has also served as a launchpad for 50+ startups. Aneesh offers a contrarian view on leadership that founders should micromanage their teams for the first six months to instill the right DNA before scaling.  We also discuss expansion into the US market, detailing the "Risk vs Reference" framework that defines how sales strategies must pivot when moving between continents. He shares what went wrong in Capillary’s early attempt to enter the US, the lessons from that experience, and what eventually helped them succeed in the market the second time around, leading to the US now contributing over 50% of their revenue. If you are a founder building in SaaS or looking to scale from India to the world, this episode with Aneesh Reddy is for you. 00:00 – Trailer 01:50 – What to build that has not been commoditized 05:20 – Customer-facing or fast-changing products will survive 09:08 – How Capillary hit early PMF 13:54 – Risk vs Reference in the US & Asia 18:10 – How Capillary won the US market (after failing first) 24:56 – Outbound & partnerships that work better in the US 30:30 – Right to exist differs in startups vs large companies 35:34 – Micromanage in startups for the first 6 months 40:47 – How Vipassana changed the founder 49:57 – How 1/5th of the team stayed for 10+ years 55:29 – The culture that created 50+ startups 58:24 – The right metrics to go IPO in India 01:01:53 – The choice to build a product company 01:05:24 – Pioneering acquisitions of US startups 01:09:18 – Why not build a roll-up to get $200 million ARR? 01:10:43- 5 major decisions behind Capillary’s journey 01:14:46 – Why are top SaaS stocks down? ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

From employee #16 to $1B ARR at Nutanix, then scaling ThoughtSpot to $150M ARR and a $4B+ valuation now building for a world where agents will drive the internet. Sudheesh Nair joins the Neon Show. The internet as we see it today was optimized around human strengths and weaknesses, using algorithms to monetize our greed and fear. But as agents take up more of the internet, that playbook starts to break. We are moving from a web of discovery to an outcome-driven internet, where agents care only about the destination, not the journey. As an operator who has scaled companies, Sudheesh believes sales is a noble profession where there is no middle ground. You are either a hero or a zero. Sales is not a function at the edge of the company, it is the primary job of every employee in a company. When that happens, teams stop acting like mercenaries chasing targets and start behaving like missionaries focused on customer outcomes. Beyond agents, we also discuss building companies and whether there are right or wrong reasons to start. Sudheesh’s view is simple. There are no right or wrong reasons, but you have to be brutally honest with yourself about why you are doing it. This episode is one hour of clear thinking on agents, sales, and the realities of company building. 00:00 – Trailer 01:49 – What % of the internet is agents today? 10:25 – How far are we from trillions of agents? 12:47 – Why isn’t the internet ready for agents? 18:31 – Consumer is a tough game 19:49 – Selling to enterprises = high value / low risk 22:14 – A noble profession with only heroes or zeroes 24:41 – Only 3 reasons why people buy anything 26:14 – How we got Fortune 500 customers in just 18 months 27:28 – The wrong reasons to start a company 31:05 – Cursor vs Claude vs Codex 34:30 – Do investors prefer failed founders over first-time founders? 35:06 – 3 reasons why an enterprise will sign your startup 39:52 – PMF has to be proven every day 41:21 – What’s the play b/w OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic? 45:12 – Drivers vs passengers in companies 47:17 – The muscles you build as an operator 50:45 – Hire one person when you actually need four 51:41 – Why is marketing the most in-demand skill? 53:50 – Nutanix: from 0 to $1B ARR in 26 quarters 54:55 – The hardest choice Nutanix made 59:25 – Talent is universal. Opportunities are not 01:04:08 – Selling is everyone’s job 01:05:58 – Passion comes from value creation ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

Can AI Rebuild the $1 Trillion Construction Industry? Construction is one of the largest industries in the world, yet most projects still run on Excel sheets, fragmented tools, and disconnected workflows. Sneha Kumari (Co-founder, Merlin) and Graham Blake (CPO, Merlin) break down why construction has remained one of the least digitized industries and why that is finally starting to change. We explore why traditional ERP systems like NetSuite or Dynamics fail construction companies, how Merlin is rethinking enterprise software for builders, and why AI may finally make it possible to coordinate the massive complexity behind modern construction projects. Sneha also shares her journey from industry operator to first-time founder, how Merlin found early product-market fit, the power of word-of-mouth growth in construction, and what it takes to build a vertical SaaS company in a “non-sexy” but trillion-dollar industry. If you're curious about how AI can transform deep, complex industries this conversation is for you. 00:00 – Trailer 00:40 – Merlin x Neon  02:07 – Software for construction 04:37 – What convinced Graham to join 06:25 – Founder insights that discovered the pain points 08:43 – The team behind Merlin 10:15 – Challenges of building tech in construction 11:51 – Biggest pain points for Merlin’s customers 17:16 – Does ERP need a revolution? 17:55 – Merlin’s end-to-end ERP approach 20:39 – Why customers aren’t happy with existing solutions 24:36 – Why an AI-native approach makes sense 28:23 – What % of construction budget goes to tech 30:37 – How Y Combinator changed a first-time founder 31:50 – The role Neon played in Merlin 33:34 – Current players that excite the founders 36:43 – What it takes for Merlin to reach $10M ARR 39:57 – How to build with zero sales constraints 43:06 – Why become a founder? 45:56 – Build only for an industry you truly understand 47:41 – Why construction over manufacturing 48:38 – When customer called previous software a “black box” ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

What if the biggest mistake you can make as a founder is signing Apple as your first customer? Manish Jindal spent 10 years at Cloudflare as employee #45, helping take the company from $10 million revenue to a $60 billion public company. Manish breaks down the Cloudflare playbook: why they intentionally said “no” to Fortune 500 companies early on to protect their product, and how a single phone call from a CIO birthed their entire enterprise motion. Throughout his career, Manish has joined companies that already showed early product–market fit in large markets, allowing him to spend a decade helping scale them. Now as the President at Arize, he is building the “plumbing” that allows giants like Walmart and Uber to move from building AI agents to real-world production. We discuss why “boring” infrastructure is a more durable bet than flashy AI apps, and why owning the data remains the ultimate competitive edge. Manish also shares insights on building Go-To-Market (GTM) teams in the Cloudflare era and how that strategy has shifted in the AI era. If you are a founder or leader trying to scale a startup, this episode with Manish Jindal is for you. 00:00 – Trailer 01:00 – How Manish chose companies with early PMF 03:45 – Founder’s belief is most important 04:35 – Entering dev tooling when it wasn't popular 08:20 – Never leave a Co. you believe in for wrong reasons 09:45 – The “boring” industries that do well in Long run 12:40 – It’s easy to build an agent, but hard to scale one 15:06 – Why infra won’t be winner-take-all 18:02 – The keepers of data will win 20:20 – From million to billion in Cloudflare’s journey 21:32 – The “holy sh*t” moment happens fast for Cloudflare 24:30 – The CIO call that led to Cloudflare’s enterprise plan 27:04 – $50M and $100M ARR path of Cloudflare 28:33 – Build enterprise motion slowly or aggressively? 29:51 – Why Cloudflare didn’t want Apple as customer 32:10 – Early PMF at Splunk, Cloudflare, and Arize 35:40 – Choosing only decade-long stints 39:01 – Why Manish didn’t start his own company 43:37 – How GTM has changed in the AI world 54:25 – What agents need to work well in production 01:00:51 – Which enterprise use cases qualify for AI? 01:03:52 – What went wrong with Air Canada Agent? 01:04:52 – How customers are discovered 01:09:01 – Claude & Cursor are the most powerful agents today 01:10:55 – How Manish chooses companies to invest in 01:15:15 – Why acquisitions will become the Norm 01:18:35 – Technology is not a moat anymore ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

What does it look like to run the same playbook across five venture funds? That is the bet Ashmeet Sidana has made at Engineering Capital. From Fund One to Fund Five, he has written the first check into founders solving problems with Technical insight. His portfolio includes Rubrik, now a public company, SignalFx which was acquired by Splunk for $1 billion, and CodeRabbit, last valued at $550 million. Ashmeet runs Engineering Capital as a solo GP and the fund has been oversubscribed since Fund One. Ashmeet says that the most common way technical founders fail is by “playing house.” Founders who build beautifully organized systems and clean processes, but don’t obsessively seek product market fit. His view is that founders should ruthlessly prioritize finding PMF above everything else. Ashmeet is an investor who has seen enough cycles to know what actually compounds, and is still early-stage enough to care about the details that most people have moved past. 00:00 – Trailer 01:15 – Where does Engineering Capital place its bets? 10:07 – How the VC landscape has evolved 11:20 – Are technical founders the norm in AI? 16:23 – Why the name Engineering Capital? 16:50 – What every VC looks for in a founder 21:34 – Why Founders Choose Your Term Sheet 26:26 – Rule of 1-2 in-person meetings daily with founders 31:42 – Does AI give younger founders an edge? 32:59 – Founders must ruthlessly prioritize 35:58 – The trap of “playing house” 37:40 – PMF can change overnight, Ex: Facebook 40:13 – 1 in 10 companies fail due to lack of PMF 43:17 – The most valuable skill a founder can have 44:19 – Why have a Chief Engineer at a VC firm? 45:44 – The job of every CEO is to learn 46:09 – Solo founders are much riskier 48:15 – An accidental entry into VC 49:52 – Solo GP: risks and rewards 53:34 – $250M across funds 54:43 – Why solo GPs work better in the US 58:25 – Where Ashmeet’s portfolio companies are located 01:00:57 – Be very careful of vanity metrics 01:02:15 – Vibe coding will change the face of software 01:03:36 – Don’t chase trends in how companies are built 01:05:58 – $100M ARR is the outcome of a strong package 01:06:35 – How affordable is Bay Area for young founders? 01:11:32 – AlexNet, not ChatGPT, was the real AI inflection point 01:12:57 – US Public Companies Are Down 50% in 40 years ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

Over 1 Trillion AI tokens pass through Portkey every single day. Every AI product eventually runs into the same problem. The prototype works, but once it goes live the system has to manage multiple models, rising token costs, unpredictable latency, and infrastructure that was never built for AI workloads. That is the problem Rohit Agarwal is solving with Portkey, an AI gateway that sits between applications and the models, whether that’s GPT-4, Claude, or Gemini. With 24,000 companies routing their AI through Portkey, Rohit sits on ground-level data on how AI is actually being used in production. Which models enterprises are betting on. Where costs are quietly climbing. How usage patterns shift as companies move from pilots to real products. When AI spend surpasses cloud spend, and Rohit believes it will, the infrastructure running underneath it becomes one of the most important bets in tech. This episode explores what it takes to run AI systems at that scale. 00:00 – Trailer 01:05 – 500 billion AI tokens every day 04:05 – First to call an "AI gateway" 07:26 – Where did the Gateway insight come from? 12:08 – How Portkey is winning this space 13:05 – Picking the right gambles over wrong ones 14:16 – What are LLM endpoints? 15:21 – AI will 100% surpass cloud spend 19:00 – Hype is coming from people still in Q&A mode 19:33 – AI employees over humans in customer support? 23:00 – For AI startups, traffic > revenue 24:43 – The bubble is in valuations, not utility 26:05 – How Rohit built his personal automations 28:38 – Costliest model is most used now 33:21 – What's going right and wrong for AI companies 37:49 – Hiring a VP of sales after $15M is possible today 39:57 – What edge does Claude have over other models? 43:35 – Founders need a "why me vs. why Anthropic" story 52:56 – What if Anthropic or AWS builds a gateway? 55:41 – Predictions for the next 12 months 59:40 – How big is the opportunity in Agents? 01:00:48 – Startups now have to prove it's not a weekend project 01:01:54 – Is Build v/s Buy no longer a Debate? 01:03:50 – What would Rohit build if starting up today? 01:05:58 – How Portkey is different from an API gateway 01:08:26 – MCP / tool calling enables agentic workflows 01:12:00 – Portkey's Community-driven early GTM 01:13:34 – Startups have only 2 reasons for Open core ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

Is the best grocery platform one that decides what it WON’T sell? That is the bet Ayyappan is making with FirstClub. Fewer products. Stricter rules. While most quick commerce apps are trying to deliver orders faster, he is asking a different question. What if consumers need not “faster or cheaper”, but a retail platform where they can trust every item listed on it? A place where you do not have to read every label, check multiple reviews, or wonder if the top result is there because a brand paid for it. FirstClub is trying to solve a harder problem. It is trying to define what “quality” means for everyday products we consume, starting with groceries. India has received the highest quick commerce funding of any country in the world, at $9.24B over the last 10 years. Yet only 1% of Indians use quick commerce services today. With a large market still open for expansion and the possibility of better unit economics over time, FirstClub is building a countertrend to the hype around Indian quick commerce. Ayyappan brings eleven years of experience at Flipkart, and has also served as SVP at Myntra and CEO of Cleartrip. This episode is the story till here and the plans ahead for Firstclub. 00:00 – Trailer 01:01 – The Costco of Indian quick commerce 04:32 – Building a counter-trend company 06:15 – What consumers say v/s what they actually want 09:37 – The only retail platform to Ban 200 ingredients 12:34 – Why can’t the big players solve this? 13:21 – A simple rule of thumb for food 16:03 – Brand stories from FirstClub 19:20 – Is the problem access or income? 21:29 – Who are the 20 million FirstClub consumers? 24:14 – Only 1% of India uses quick commerce 26:04 – What does “quality” mean in grocery? 32:34 – How will FirstClub monetize without brand sponsorships? 34:53 – Do consumers behave differently across categories? 39:30 – Why is Myntra so powerful in fashion? 42:24 – What Myntra taught Ayyapan that Flipkart didn’t? 43:53 – Unlearning to build for Quick commerce 48:25 – Why Indian consumers are very experimental today 50:59 – Is India one country when it comes to quality? 52:43 – If Ayyappan was a product, what would he be? 54:47 – The hardest belief to defend while building FirstClub 56:26 – Akshayakalpa & The Whole Truth 57:48 – Not niche, but premium ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/neon-fund/ X: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Nansi on: LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/nansi-mishra X: https://x.com/nansi_mishra ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

Will smaller AI models win over large language models? Sudarshan Kamath grew up in Mumbai, taught himself AI before most Indian companies were even hiring for it, and bought the domain "smallest.ai" for $100 in 2022, two years before the company existed. Today, he runs Smallest AI, a startup focused on real time voice AI. He started with self-driving cars, training large models and compressing them to run on vehicle hardware in real time. That's where he first saw what small models could do: a hundredth of the size, almost no loss in accuracy. Two years later he put in his own $150K, got some GPUs, and started training. Eighteen months later he had a seed round, a Series A, a seven-figure enterprise deal, and a $150M acquisition offer he turned down. Most of the data that goes into large models is noise. Strip it out, train small, and you get a model that matches a giant at a fraction of the size and runs in real time. That insight is what Smallest AI is built on. 00:00 – Trailer  00:51 – Sudarshan's journey before Smallest AI  05:00 – Arjun Jain & Yann LeCun  08:20 – Why build in voice AI in 2024?  15:09 – Why move the company from India to the US?  17:25 – Hiring talent via LinkedIn and X  18:49 – What large US funds actually bring to startups  21:03 – Raising a seed round with zero revenue  26:06 – Strong intros from US VCs  28:23 – What the first enterprise customer teaches you  31:50 – Raising Series A with Seligman Ventures  32:19 – The $150M acquisition offer  34:32 – When should founders sell secondaries?  36:24 – Who are Smallest AI's customers?  38:28 – What are state space models?  40:16 – Are GEPA models closer to AGI?  41:23 – Growing 10× in three months  48:03 – This is not a winner-takes-all market  49:32 – Why this is a trillion-dollar market  50:08 – Why large AI labs are not building in voice  51:26 – What it takes to reach $100M ARR  54:21 – The biggest goal for 2026  57:11 – Voice costs 1000× more than text  01:02:04 – How Smallest AI cracked large enterprises ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

What if AI can learn the “why” behind decision making of humans? Ashu Garg and Jaya Gupta recently wrote one of the most discussed articles on AI this year. Their idea drew public responses from Dharmesh Shah, Aaron Levie, and Arvind Jain. Enterprise software has always captured what happened. It records the order, the ticket, and the approval. But it has never captured why it happened. It does not store the reasoning, the exception, or the past decisions that shaped the outcome. Ashu argues that this missing layer is the biggest opportunity in enterprise AI right now, and that the startups that capture it will be the biggest winners in AI. In this episode, we go deeper into what context graphs really are, how they get built, why startups have an edge over incumbents, and how close we are to seeing this work in practice. 00:00 – Trailer  00:32 – What are context graphs?  02:48 – Why agents haven't lived up to the hype?  05:18 – The "why" of Decision Making  08:17 – How agents will store data for context graphs  10:38 – What will be possible for Digital twins?  14:02 – Can context graphs reveal a company's moat?  15:50 – Guardrails on Access for agents  19:50 – Managing agents vs being managed by agents  23:01 – Will winners be vertical or horizontal players?  25:56 – The future is agent swarms  28:43 – Finding PMF is what makes a great CEO  31:40 – What will set apart successful enterprises of 2030  33:44 – Where Foundation Capital is investing  35:16 – Why AI won't be winner-takes-all  37:38 – Where will the context graph reside?  40:45 – Will systems of record be replaced?  42:42 – Human in the loop → hands-off execution  44:46 – A reality check on where we are today  46:43 – Where startups will win in orchestration ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

Samay Kohli spent 12 years at GreyOrange, scaling it to over $100 million in revenue and a $3 billion valuation at its peak, making it one of the world’s largest warehouse robotics companies. Two years ago, he started again with Budy, this time in the US senior care industry. In this industry, decisions are emotional, sales cycles can run for years, and multiple stakeholders are involved. While the market sits at the intersection of real estate, healthcare, and hospitality, most sales still depend on manual follow-ups and scattered tools. Budy builds digital workers for sales teams: AI teammates that handle follow-ups, scheduling, and lead management across CRMs, calendars, and inboxes. Instead of adding another layer of software, Budy went zero UI-UX and focused on enabling sales teams in an industry with 99% inbound leads to manage their cold leads better. Today, Samay joins Siddhartha (Partner at Neon Fund, and a proud investor in Budy) and shares his journey from building robots to building digital teammates for a very non-traditional industry. 00:00 – Trailer 01:00 – What Budy is building for senior care 05:15 – Real Estate × Healthcare × Hospitality 06:25 – Zero UI UX technology 10:09 – AI teammates not assistants 12:03 – How sales teams operated before Budy 12:51 – A ninety nine percent inbound industry 13:45 – The real cost of senior care homes 15:35 – Can a CRM alone solve this 17:55 – Direct benefits of a digital worker 20:49 – Two founder archetypes 22:06 – Can lights out operations become real 24:49 – What Samay underestimated about the market 25:58 – The largest players in the industry 29:07 – Treat your customer’s company like your own 30:52 – Entrepreneurship as a profession 35:36 – Unlearnings as a second time founder 37:30 – What digital workers actually are 39:47 – The original promise of SaaS 42:04 – The next decade of digital workers 45:25 – Digital workers that read best selling books 47:26 – Will Claude build CRMs 49:38 – Business etiquette across the world 55:18 – How a second time founder chooses investors 01:01:00 – Why every team member should track the P and L 01:02:14 – How Samay’s view on growth evolved ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

Do startup valuations today make sense? Umesh Padval, an early investor in Cohere, now valued at about $7 billion shares why Cohere stood out at the time of his investment. He shares what he saw early that made him believe this was not just another AI model company. Umesh is the Founding Managing Partner, Seligman Ventures and previously at Thomvest and Bessemer Venture Partners. He brings experience from investing across multiple tech cycles, from chips to cloud to AI. Umesh talks about how deals are really done in venture capital and what he looks for when everything feels noisy and crowded in AI. He also shares why many strong companies are choosing to stay private and what has changed in the IPO market. Public markets now demand cash flow and durability, not just fast growth. Umesh talks about why open source has become a powerful sales funnel for modern AI companies. Developers become the first users, and community adoption turns into long-term enterprise revenue. After four decades in Silicon Valley and 20 years as a VC, Umesh shares what keeps him in building and investing. 0:00 – How big is the scope for investing in AI startups? 04:04 – Do unit economics justify large AI valuations? 06:00 – Thomvest’s LLM investment thesis (Cohere case study) 09:18 – Are CTO roles changing in AI 11:21 – Traits of the best AI founding teams 13:40 – Timeline to find the best founders 16:52 – Partnership with Jyoti Bansal 19:07 – Where is the IPO market headed? 23:40 – Salesforce–Clari acquisition 25:18 – Is profitability a prerequisite to go public? 26:00 – Can the India–US corridor beat US–Israel? 28:53 – Umesh’s investment philosophy 31:08 – Open source as a sales funnel 33:38 – IIT → Stanford → Startups 41:45 – The only CEO with 60 direct reports 43:43 – Why Jensen never does 1-on-1s? 48:23 – What ultimately drives Umesh Padval? ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

Matt MacInnis spent 6 years as COO at Rippling and now leads as CPO. He joined Rippling in 2019, when there were only 70 people, and has led the company across multiple stages. Before that, Matt was a founder for 9 years, building Inkling after 7 years at Apple. These three chapters of his career shape this conversation. We focus on how to build and operate teams as a company scales. Matt explains how he thinks about speed versus real progress, and which parts of building a company should move fast and which should move slowly. He shares how he decided when to introduce processes at Rippling, when to keep things informal, and how to recognize when a process that once helped the company had started to slow it down. We discuss how his role changed as Rippling grew from around 70 people to 100, then to 500, and now to thousands. He explains what he paid attention to at each stage and which metrics he deliberately did not obsess over. These are practical lessons for founders, from the earliest days of a startup to the challenges of scaling a large organization. 0:00 - Trailer 01:11 – One thing people get wrong about building a business? 04:01 – Great founders find markets that already exist 06:36 – What does a “death march” mean at Apple? 10:11 – How to build a good team in early-stage startup? 12:33 – Learnings from Apple to Inkling 18:11 – Processes to set up in startups 25:20 – Humans always optimize for comfort (and why that’s bad instinct) 33:09 – Why success teaches you more than failure 36:01 – How should processes change as company scales? 42:11 – How is AI changing the software industry? 54:03 – If Matt were starting up today, how would he do it? 57:07 – How would Next-gen PM roles look like? 01:01:51 – Matt shares about Rippling CEO Parker 01:04:32 – Founder instinct vs Data 01:06:06 – Over-optimizing for employee comfort 01:07:27 – If building a startup feels comfortable, it’s probably dead 01:08:36 – One thing only CEO’s should do forever 01:11:15 – One piece of startup advice Matt doesn’t trust ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

This is a special episode from the Neon Fund. In 2025, the US saw $1.8 trillion worth of M&A deals, around 25× more than India. But India’s startup ecosystem is much younger, which makes every acquisition a playbook for founders on process, pricing leverage, and stakeholder management. Neon backed Zenduty in 2020, when the founders had been bootstrapping profitably for two years and were already growing at a pace many VC-backed startups aspire to. Today, founders Ankur Rawal and Vishwa Krishnakumar join Siddhartha, Partner at Neon, to discuss one of the most untalked acquisitions of 2025. Over a 10-year journey, Zenduty pivoted to SRE in 2020. Vishwa and Ankur also share insights on the future of the DevTools space, which they believe will always be a strong choice to build great products, because engineers are among the hardest end users to please. This episode is a founders’ view on how acquisitions work in Indian SaaS. 00:00 – Trailer 01:00 – Initial years of a decade-long journey 07:12 – How Zenduty chose its investors 11:04 – How much should founders dilute? 12:24 – Building with profitability before & after fundraise 14:45 – Six years of survival before the pivot 17:01 – Why the pivot to the SRE space? 18:39 – How Zenduty differentiated from PagerDuty 19:12 – End users are the toughest to please in engineering 20:39 – Is market attractive if biggest player is valued only $1.5B? 25:22 – Why acquisition and not a Series A? 27:18 – The process before acquisition 29:23 – How pricing negotiations work 31:51 – Should devtool companies build from India or US? 34:58 – Three types of connects at physical events 37:06 – What physical presence at events signals 39:06 – Founders’ feedback on Neon Fund 41:41 – “Don’t build in silence” 43:50 – How to build a core AI-native company today 47:54 – Do first-time founders have an edge in the AI era? 52:08 – Cost to PMF has drastically gone down 54:48 – What hard problems are startups solving today? 55:37 – Why are acquisitions rare in India? 1:00:20 – How US investors are facilitating M&As 1:01:14 – How to make your brand visible to potential acquirers ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

Kanwal Rekhi first came to the US in the 1960s. He took his company public on Nasdaq in 1987.  As a young Indian in the US, he was laid off from his first three jobs. That experience pushed him towards entrepreneurship. At the time, Indians were known and hired for technical and mathematical skills, not as founders building companies on US soil. But Kanwal and his co-founders decided to bet on themselves. They faced rejection from nearly 50 investors before one VC agreed to invest $2 million for 50% of the company. In just five years, the company went public. From being appointed CEO overnight to being removed by the board two months before the IPO for a more “wall street-acceptable” CEO, this is a story of many firsts. After Excelan, Kanwal co-founded TiE in 1992 and has mentored tens of thousands of entrepreneurs. Beyond a personal story, Kanwal Rekhi is a turning point in how Indian founders came to be seen in Silicon Valley. 0:00 – Trailer 01:11 – How TiE was formed 07:11 – DoT Hatao, Desh Bachao 11:31 – Career opportunities in the 70s 13:41 – When Indians weren’t trusted to build companies 15:44 – Pioneers in computer networking 16:51 – Finding an Investor after 50 rejections 20:31 – Becoming CEO overnight 23:29 – Spare the story, show the numbers 24:17 – The “Wall Street acceptable” CEO for IPO 27:30 – Founders have to be financial thinkers 28:14 – How Excelan could go public in just 5 years 29:27 – Cost is unrelated to pricing in software 31:12 – Do Indian companies need Americans to lead? 34:05 – Benefits of registering in the US 36:53 – $1 trillion to solve India’s problems 40:49 – Policies for India’s startup ecosystem 42:01 – Enabling entrepreneurs in villages 44:41 – India in the 80s v/s today 50:36 – US vs India vs China 01:04:52 – How did IITs start allowing donations? 01:07:25 – AI investments of Silicon Valley Quad 01:18:29 – What Kanwal Rekhi looks for in founders? ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us Fan Mail

Where did the journey of iD Fresh start? It began when a 19-year-old Abdul Nazer decided to run away from home to Bangalore with ₹100 in his pocket. He did any job that came his way: cook, cleaner, conductor and sold anything he could, from clothes and vegetables to spices and peanuts. Along the way, he brought his three brothers to Bangalore. Even with huge losses in business, they never stopped looking for new opportunities. Their first real glimpse of success came from a tea stall run out of a rented room that cost ₹80 a month. Despite strong demand, the tea business was still running at a loss. The turning point came when they started opening the stall at 2 in the morning: a disruptive business model, says PC. Those ₹2 cups of tea taught them lessons they would carry forward. Abdul Nazer and PC Mustafa together share these stories for the first time. Their journey reminds us that no success is overnight, especially not for these brothers. It was at their kirana store in Indiranagar that the idea of iD Fresh was born. Five brothers with no background in food technology spent six months experimenting with recipes before finding their hero product.  This is the story of five founders who pushed past their circumstances. Today, iD Fresh is at a scale the founders never dreamed of growing up in Wayanad.  00:00 – Trailer 00:55 – Dropping out of studies 02:32 – 19 Year Old that Runaway to Bangalore 04:35 – First job as a cook 11:25 – When Nazer decided to become an entrepreneur 14:01 – Huge loss in Vegetable business 16:15 – Starting the kirana store that led to iD 18:00 – On the verge of shutting down 20:10 – How Lambu Tea Stall became profitable 24:16 – When PC decided to do business with Nazer 25:14 – All the (failed) businesses that led to iD 27:04 – Why PC decided to come back to India 28:23 – The origin story of the idli batter idea 31:40 – The first $50k investment 32:57 – Cracking the batter without any food tech expertise 34:38 – The first recipe that became iD’s hero product 35:35 – Why iD failed to sell 100 packets in 6 Months 41:15 – The first customer approval 43:06 – Building awareness was the biggest challenge 44:35 – Lack of cold storage in supermarkets 45:22 – The inventory model of iD 46:25 – How the initial team was built 48:35 – Story of team spirit 50:15 – When iD Fresh Chennai & Mumbai Failed 52:27 – How the chemistry worked between the five brothers 56:52 – The buyout offer of ₹20+ crores 57:35 – How founders build the mindset to hire experts 1:00:50 – Did the runaway child achieve his dream? 1:03:09 – How Nazer’s choices directly led to iD 1:04:45 – Building within value systems 1:07:26 – Summary: what really worked for iD Fresh ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed Send us Fan Mail