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{Karthik Venkateswaran, Co-founder & CEO of Jumbotail} Karthik served with the Indian army in hard combat and had successful stints with marketplaces such as eBay in the US and Flipkart in India before launching Jumbotail along with his Stanford University batchmate Ashish Jhina. On this episode I chat with why Karthik & Ashish united behind this problem, and we deep dive into the business & the inspiration for Karthik to leave the military service and pursue entrepreneurship. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Jumbotail was founded with the objective of enabling the Kiranas or corner stores by envisioning a full stack experience; creating a wholesale marketplace and new retail platform to help retailers with inventory management, a digital PoS, working capital and retail as a service to make them modern convenience stores. Jumbotail’s endeavour to build products, platforms, and services for the next billion people of India has landed them in over $55 million in funding from Venture Capital funds such as Nexus VP, Kalaari Capital & Heron Rick fund. Enjoy another classic episode! Jumbotail is hiring massively across verticals, reach out to Karthik & the team via [email protected] Stay safe! — V {i’m on Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline: 00:00 - Introduction to Jumbotail 03:45 - Moving to Entrepreneurship from Military service 06:38 - Challenges building Jumbotail 10:20 - Battling competition in the food & grocery market 15:46 - Distribution is king? 20:28 - Differentiating in a supply rich market 26:45 - Post pandemic user behaviour 31:24 - Managing many business under the umbrella 37:22 - Hiring 39:10 - Learning from combat applied to business

{Jitendra Chouksey, Co-Founder of FITTR} The latest episode is with Jitendra Chouksey, aka JC, Founder & CEO of FITTR. FITTR has a highly engaged 2 million strong community focused on getting healthy and transforming themselves with the help of FITTR coaches, using the resources available. On this episode we chat about the journey from a small WhatsApp group that was created to assist a few friends and colleagues to becoming the platform it is today. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Founded in 2016,  JC a software engineer transformed himself while working a 12-hour a day IT job. He created and shared a training methodology through his free book “Get Shredded” to prove that anyone can get fit with the knowledge of Quantified Nutrition. Now that has spawned into a fitness company that has a vision of making millions of people across the world fit and to create meaningful career opportunities in the fitness industry. We discuss: Building Fittr’s highly engaged community Growing the user base & finding the missing pieces in achieving fitness goals Choosing Sequoia’s Surge program over Y-Combinator Please do share the episode, and do spread the word! Hope you and the family are well. - V { Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline: 01:15 - Introduction to FITTR 05:10 - Journey to getting FITTR 08:39 - Transitioning from a Hobby project to a business 12:10 - Transitioning Groups to the mobile application 15:25 - Managing FB groups 17:00 - Engaging users 27:45 - 60% of coaches were clients of FITTR 33:25 - Joining an accelerator program having positive cashflows

EP54: {Ashish Singhal, Co-Founder of CoinSwitch} Hi Stars! Apologies for the sporadic episodes and the long gap between the last episode! Hope you and your family are safe and well during this crazy time. Go get vaccinated, please don’t wait. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Founded by 3 friends Govind, Vimal & Ashish, friends from NSIT in 2017, CoinSwitch is now backed by bluechip fin-tech investors like Ribbit Capital, Paradigm and Sequoia India, raising $15 million in their Series A round. In April 2021, they raised another $25 million ( ₹181 crore) from Tiger Global - valuing Coinswitch at more than $500 million. Buoyed by the massive interest amongst Indians for cryptocurrencies, the platform has witnessed 350% growth in its user base since January this year. The most actively transacting age group on the platform is between 25-35 and the platform is witnessing a huge demand from Tier 2 and 3 cities. Investors from Tier 2 and 3 towns account for as much as 54% of Coinswitch’s user base. Do spread the word! - V { Twitter @varunvummidi }

EP53: Pivots and the story to selling a majority stake to Reliance {Harsh Shah, Co-Founder of Fynd} Are you enjoying the new episodes of S&S? Do write to me! Also, do recommend amazing founders & stories that are worth spreading from the Startup scene in India. On the episode, I speak with someone I have known a while from the early days of ecommerce. I chat with Harsh Shah, an alumnus of the IIT, Bombay, and a co-founder of FYND. Harsh is also an angel investor with over 19 investments. In this conversation I chat about the many pivots FYND made to find their mojo, the business models in retail commerce for Indian retailers and what brought FYND to Reliance. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — FYND offers a technology solutions to retail merchants that helps them manage their inventory and sales across various demand channels. Founded by Farooq Adam, Harsh, and Sreeraman MG, Fynd had raised more than $7 million from investors including Google, Kae Capital, IIFL, Singularity Ventures, and GrowX, among others. FYND has pivoted and made major changes since its launch in 2012. Initially, it was called Shopsense, which provided brands with different products to improve customer experience. Some of its clients included Lee, Satya Paul, Anita Dongre, Flying Machine, and Being Human (along with other 330 brands, these are still FYND’s clients).  In 2019 Reliance acquired a majority stake in the company buying out all investors.  Spread the word! - @varunvummidi  Timeline: 01:00 - Intro to FYND and Harsh 06:01 - Shopsense, the solution 12:30 - Why did retailers adopt Shopsense, what were they buying? 19:19 - The second pivot 23:01 - Choosing to go down a specific path vs supporting retailers with technology 30:30 - Evolution of FYND into pure tech Ominchannel stack 35:02 - Choosing the type of client to go after 38:15 - Supporting Reliance brand stores & the future with Reliance 46:20 - Explosion & democratisation of e-commerce 50:10 - Angel investor

EP52: 600k users & creating a Brand for Generations {Ankit Garg, Co-Founder of Wakefit} Ever wondered what the deal was with foam mattresses? Is it better that coir? Listen in. Ankit Garg of Wakefit is on the show this week, Wakefit is a mattress brand that has been offering Indian customers the ability to buy a mattress online and have it home delivered at a very affordable price. Bringing down the cost while making it convenient to upgrade old mattresses. In the conversation we chat about the size of the mattress market, building a brand for  generations & a lot more about mattresses! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel → Avail a Wakefit.co discount using code: WFSTARS27 for a 27% discount on MRP and applicable to online orders on their website website only [terms: discount applicable 3rd March to 31st March only on orders above INR 1000] — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Wakefit identifies itself as a sleep and home solutions company, and has raised ₹185 crores as a part of its Series B funding in 2020 with investments from European investment firm Verlinvest & existing investor Sequoia Capital India. The company has been profitable since inception with its revenue growing from ₹80 crore in 2018-19 fiscal to ₹199 crore in 2019-20 fiscal, as per audited financial statements. With almost 35% of the demand from tier 2 and tier 3 markets. Wakefit is playing in the furniture segment in India that is currently worth $17 billion and is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 15-17%. Do spread the word! - V { Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline: 02:07 - Reviews on Amazon 05:36 - Iteration process 10:54 - How does customer interactions translate into products? 16:54 - When does one diversify? 19:40 - Selling a touch-and-feel product via the Internet 24:00 - What’s special about foam tech? 29:40 - Is foam mattress better than coir mattresses? 39:01 - Do mattresses need to be replaced? 40:24 - Raising funds for Wakefit 45:02 - Does depending on Amazon carries a platform risk?

Yes, been a while but we're back with a packed episode! On this episode, episode 51, I speak with Rajiv Srivatsa a co-founder of a well loved consumer brand in the digital age, UrbanLadder.  — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Youtube links: https://anchor.fm/stars-and-startups — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Super fun chat with Rajiv on building a consumer brand in India. UrbanLadder was likely the big daddy of the Direct 2 Consumer trend in India. No retail stores, creating a brand, selling only private labels with only UL branded products. We discuss how using NPS in different areas of the business can help retain customers, the UL journey & solid advice for brands starting up now.   Rajiv has recently joined the Singapore-based early-stage venture capital and private equity firm Antler as head of India and local partner. Do reach out via Linkedin, he's extremely helpful! Do share the episode, would be awesome if you did! — Varun {host is on Twitter @varunvummidi } Timeline:  00:15 - Intro to Rajiv & UL  07:17 - Early days of building a customer centric brand  09:02 - Using new channels for creating low cost marketing   12:40 - Scarcity & authenticity to drive user demand  13:30 - Genesis for Urban Ladder  15:40 - Keeping NPS as the North Star for Urban Ladder  21:48 - Tracking & setting up NPS  24:22 - Aligning & setting Brand values  26:43 - Learnings from the downswing of UL  32:00 - Is India ready to buy furniture online*  37:00 - Reflecting on experiences and getting into the habit of writing & being vulnerable  40:24 - Real Reasons to Startup  43:46 - Intro to Antler    47:40 - Closing thoughts Urban Ladder had raised Rs 770 Cr since 2012 and was acquired by Reliance for Rs 182 Cr in November 2020.  Urban Ladder had raised capital from likes of Steadview, Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners and Kalaari Capital. The company had been struggling for the last two years of existence to find new backers whereas existing investors had not backed the company in follow on rounds. Urban Ladder and Pepperfry promised to disrupt the unorganised furniture and home decor market during the 2012-13 period. However some believe that Urban Ladder struggled for several reasons including challenges in supply chain management and believe that Ikea’s entry had dried up the investors’ confidence in the segment. With the acquisition of Urban Ladder, Pepperfry is the only independent large player in the online furniture segment, recently raising a $40 million round led by Pidilite at a valuation over $460 million.

EP50: {Rahul Bhardwaj, Co-Founder & COO of Junglee Games} On the blockbuster 50th episode, we chat with my friend and mentor Rahul of Junglee. Junglee Games has seen tremendous success in eights years since founding in 2012, with millions of users across multiple skill based games on Web and Mobile. Junglee today has over 25 million users and clocks more than $600M GMV Prior to Junglee Games, Rahul was the co founder and Product Mango at TwoMangoes.com, a leading dating site for South Asians, and Vayyoo, a web to mobile solutions company, both of which he successfully exited. This episode is full of interesting nuggets about gaming, biohacking & Naval Ravikant.  — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast will be available on my YouTube Channel → Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STAR to get a discount on your order! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Stays Safe  - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 01:00 - Gaming's place in the world 03:50 - Growth of gaming in the last 8 years 12:00 - Business models for mobile gaming 18:51 - Neuroscience & feedback loops in gaming 21:20 -  Should India building games for India? 26:30 - Importance of familiarity in building popular games 32:19 - Naval Ravikant as an advisor 37:10 - Biohacking advice for founders 44:29 - 5 things to change your life 47:45 - Learnings from exiting 2 startups

EP49: {Rohan Bhargava, Co-Founder of CashKaro} I speak with Rohan on building a business offering cashbacks that works with over 1500+ e-commerce websites. Famously, Cashkaro is a Ratan Tata backed startup.  Rohan shares why he & his wife Swati gave up lucrative jobs in finance, moved back to India from London in the early days of starting up, how affiliate businesses operate and a lot more on this extremely intriguing conversation! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel → Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STAR to get a discount on your order! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — As a category leader, CashKaro has made cashbacks an attractive way to save money for online shoppers, while offering marketers a high ROI acquisition and retention channel. Other Cashkaro properties includes Pouring Pounds, one of largest player in the UK, and Earnkaro which enables its users become entrepreneurs to make some additional cash by sharing deals. CashKaro is India’s largest Cashback & Coupons site. The only venture capital backed Cashback site, funded by Kalaari Capital and Mr. Ratan Tata. More recently received $10 M in a Series B funding round led by Korea Investment Partners (KIP).  Hope you enjoy another S&S special. Have a listen, share feedback and share the episode! Stay Safe! - V ( @varunvummidi ) Timeline: 1:00 - Introduction to Cashkaro & starting up 09:07 - The Cashkaro journey 12:45 - Convincing the wife to join the journey 15:40 - Starting off as a B2B service 19:21 - Transitioning Cashkaro to the Indian audience in 2014 23:15 - Raising money for Cashkaro & moving to India from London 26:24 - How has affiliate marketing budgets have changed since 2015 31:15 - Choosing Affiliate marketing vs Performance marketing 34:43 - Does affiliate marketing cannibalise an existing user? 36:00 - Can you build a moat in with cashbacks 41:40 - Launching Earnkaro - enticing entrepreneurs 47:03 - Biggest challenge of building CK 49:20 - What’s the future for deals platforms?

EP48: {Sudarshan Lodha, Co-Founder of StrataProp} On the episode I have Sudarshan to chat about Strata. The startup is bringing a new innovative approach to investing in real estate, one that is data-driven and allows the investor to own a fraction of a highly desirable asset and also a way to make it the most accessible real estate investment you could have.  — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel → Checkout Beandeck.com to discover a range of curated Indian coffees & brewing equipment, use code STAR to get a discount on your order! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Strata is based out of Bengaluru and has raised $1.5 million funding led by SAIF Partners and Mayfield India, including a strategic investment from a real estate data analytics platform, PropStack.  150 investors participated in the first investment opportunity on the platform. The transparent and a data-driven approach to investment in real estate was so well received that their first investment opportunity was sold out within 7 days of going up on the platform, for a total of INR 26 crore from 74 investors.  What sets this apart is the exclusive CRE intelligence and analytics from PropStack and the ability for investor to commit small sums of money, which is a huge deal for real estate investments. Have a listen, share feedback and share the episode! Stay Safe! - V ( @varunvummidi ) Timeline: 00:00 - Introduction to Strata 02:55 - Affordability of property in India 06:22 - Why 2nd home owners make best clients for Strata 09:19 - Commercial Real Estate vs other asset classes 13:00 - Fractional ownership of assets 18:35 - Data in Real Estate 20:45 - HavingPropStack as a Strategic 23:32 - Small CRE owners should rather invest in Strataprop 26:15 - Building a business in a segment that is not regulated 30:36 - Operationalizing Strata 33:54 - Getting Venture Investors into a business

EP47: {Nishith Rastogi, Co-Founder of Locus} Nishith is a BITS Grad and was an engineer at Amazon where he met his co-founder Geet, an IIT grad. They set out to launch a chat network that morphed into what is today Locus. Locus is a tool that plugs into the supply chain of an enterprise and starts automating all human decisions in the process; they automate route planning, traffic management, address correction, network planning, etc.. Locus is backed by some stellar investors and also service some of the top CPG companies in the world. Locus has become so integral to the operations of their clients that they had been offered hard cash by those who wanted to ensure Locus survived when COVID19 struck. Hope you enjoy my super intriguing session with Nishith. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Go Subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — About Locus: The Locus platform uses deep machine learning and proprietary algorithms to offer smart logistics solutions like route optimization, real-time tracking, insights and analytics, beat optimization, efficient warehouse management, vehicle allocation and utilization. Locus also helps companies optimize their end-to-end supply chain network with its strategic consulting offering. Locus works with top clients across Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, and India, with offices in the USA, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The company has so far raised $29 million from Tier-1 investors including Tiger Global, Falcon Edge, Blume Ventures, Exfinity Venture Partners & GrowX ventures. Stay Safe & do share the episode! - V { @varunvummidi } Timelines: 00:00 - Introduction 05:45 - Finding the path to Locus 11:28 - Creating decision making systems for Big Basket 13:45 - Learning from Partners while building for them 18:02 - Complexity between geography & business types 24:21 - Pricing based on Total Cost of Ownership 27:55 - Building & Selling Enterprise SaaS 32:45 - Build vs Buy decision 35:06 - Challenges building logistics SaaS 38:15 - Having Falcon & Tiger as part of the journey 41:50 - BITS vs IIT & hiring 45:50 - 100M ARR

EP46: {Beerud Sheth, Founder of Elance & Gupshup} On this episode I speak with Beerud Sheth, who was the co-founder & CEO of the poplar freelancing work platform Elance in 1998, that is now Upwork. Beerud went on to found Gupshup a could messaging platform that has seen its share of twists and turns in the messaging and communications space since 2004 and now processes over 4 billion messages a month. Beerud joined us from his home in California for this chat. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Elance was co-founded by Beerud who moved to the US after graduating from IIT Bombay, to pursue his Masters at MIT followed by a stint in investment banking on Wall Street. Elance was the poster boy of the freelancer economy. Beerud was the CEO and top executive till 2007 and later a board member until the merger with Odesk in 2014. Gupshup is among the cloud messaging platforms in the world with revenue upwards of Rs. 600 crore and has over 39,000 businesses including  Ola, Flipkart, Zomato, HDFC, Google, Paytm. Processes over 4.5 billion messages a month and recently expanded their services to South East Asia, Middle East and Europe.  Hope you enjoy the episode! Stay tuned & stay Safe! - V @varunvummidi Timeline: 00:00 - Introduction 05:08 - Founding Elance 08:00 - Solving for supply 10:33 - Managing challenges building a marketplace 12:45 -  Solving for Remote Work 14:20 - Took 6 months to build the business case for Elance 16:02 - Meeting co-founders & raising money 17:51 - Stock Markets were irrational in the 2000s that helped with fund raising 18:23 - Raising over $ 62M for Elance & the Odesk merger 19:50 - Transitioning out of Elance 23:28 - Reasons Gig Work is gaining popularity & the moment is now 27:23 - Gupshup - messaging & communication 30:21 - Messaging is the original super app 36:01 - iMessage Vs RCS 38:45 - Gupshup IP messaging 40:51 - Resident Message apps on OEMs 45:40 - Next phase of Messaging 48:30 - Mobile SPAM 51:25 - Plans & Hiring

EP45: {Shruti Kapoor, Co-founder & CEO of Wingman} Wingman offers a virtual assistant that assists sales reps close deals faster, guiding the rep with exact information they need in real-time. Shruti Kapoor, an IIM alumn, chats with me about sales and ofcourse Wingman.  We discuss how Wingman is humanizing the sales process, where the sales person can focus on listening rather than being distracted with other aspect of a sales call How the AI tool enables a sales team play offence Enhancing all human conversation with AI might be the way ahead — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Bengaluru HQ'd Wingman was founded by Shruti, Muralidharan and Srikar in 2018. Wingman enables real time assistance to sales folk by telling them what to ask and say to a prospective customer. The tool records, transcribes and analyses calls, and picks out trends on what’s working and what’s not in pitches made by salespersons. Allows managers to set up cue cards to automatically coach the people when they are on the call. A bot will show a cue card if a prospective customer asks a question on how a product is different from a competitor’s. The company is currently targeting B2B clients who sell to the US market. It has on-boarded a few SaaS companies such as Chargebee, Synup and Capital Number. They have raised $2.2 million in the seed round, led by Venture Highway, Speciale Invest and Y Combinator. Shruti & team are hiring and can't see a reason for you not to explore the opportunities in a fast growing startup! Checkout their careers page. Stay Safe & Spread the word! - V @varunvummidi Timeline: 00:00 - Intro 02:35 - What ails sales in India 07:24 - Training for outbound processes 10:20 - Salesman are born not made? 13:00 - Intro to Shruti from moving from Analytics to Sales 16:18 - Feedback loops & importance of Voice of customer for marketing 18:45 - Origin of Wingman & meeting co-founders 21:54 - Graduating from the IIM 25:15 - Intro to Wingman 19:15 - the Wingman Note-taker 32:02 - Evolving playbook ensures the product will not hit a plateau 36:45 - Consulting for SaaS success 38:45 - Making every human conversation better 40:50 - Challenges of building Wingman 44:15 - Monetizing & pricing 49:23 - Traction, growth & hiring