Prasanna Naik

Shashank Bijapur co-founder and CEO of SpotDraft, our portfolio company, ran a terrific panel at the Arkam Innovation Summit. He covered a lot of ground with Manish Jethani Co-founder and CEO of Hevo Data Data, and Gaurav Sharma Founder, and CEO of SaaSLabs .    Here are some key takeaways that stayed with me: Initial journey of identifying the problem statement and figuring out the solution during the early days at SaaS Labs and Hevo Data After selling his first company in the US, Gaurav returned to India. All he wanted to do was make $4-5 K living in India, so he started out by building tools for Shopify users. But when those tools rapidly grew to half a million in recurring revenue, Gaurav realized that he could build anything, be anywhere in the world, and sell it worldwide. Manish believes that your product has to solve a personal problem in addition to an industrial one. Once you start the journey as an entrepreneur, financial success will not satisfy you. “What one problem can you solve even if the financial outcome is not that great?” Deciding whether to validate the product in India and move to the US versus taking a US market-first approach Selling in India is hard, especially in the early days. As Gaurav said, "if you sell a $10 product, you must create an invoice, and then they’ll make the payment in 60 days. So, it became very hard to make a profit. From this, I realized that India is not ready to buy software yet, so the best model would be to build it in India and sell it across the world" Manish believes customer needs and expectations are completely different across India and the US. It's quite challenging to build a product for India and expect it to succeed in the US. So, from day one, he focused on the US market-first approach. Establishing product differentiation during the early days of growing in the US market? Initially, the number one challenge for Manish was to sell a product that their target audience could build themselves. Hevo Data needed needed financial and operational data from companies, which nobody shares easily. Most companies prefer to build a product in-house and work with that tool. So, Manish decided to find initial customers who meet three criteria: they should not want to build a product in-house, they should be fine with sharing the data, and they should be from the US. Aspects of the business that changed from 0-1 to 1-10 journey and beyond To get initial customers, Gaurav decided to integrate his product into larger companies to get more eyes on it. To sustain this growth, Gaurav bet on excellent customer service, which is “an unfair advantage for Indian SaaS,” as he says. His customer service and fast responses became the talk of the town amongst his customers. Here’s the full video video. Well worth your time to listen to three $10M+ ARR SaaS founders at the top of their game.   Arkam Ventures https://lnkd.in/gP_YT-gV

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Like to order deliveries from the comfort of your own home? Zepto's recent $665 million funding will now allow the company to set up even more store across India to serve you better. Read all about it only in my new article at Entrepreneur India. . . . Follow and connect for more industry news and updates . . . #News #Update #Zepto #Funding #Investment #EntrepreneurIndia #AdityaPranMahanta https://lnkd.in/gYvATrUE

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**Founders & GTM leaders ** -- only 2 days left to sign up for Lightspeed India'a #MastersOfSaaS session with the creator of MEDDIC - John McMahon known widely as the BEST salesperson in the world. John is a board member at companies such as Snowflake MongoDB ThoughtSpot and more! This will be an online session on JUN25th 8-9PM IST / 730AM PST. Please RSVP early to reserve your spot: https://shorturl.at/ZPLxH We'll discuss: - common mistakes in setting up sales teams - learnings from being a CRO at multiple 100M+ ARR businesses - how to hire A+ talent, every. single. time. - and much more!

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Freshworks has to be one of the great Indian success stories of the past 15 years. 🚀 $5.27BN Market Cap 💸 $597M Annual Revenue 🇮🇳 1st Indian SaaS to feature on the NASDAQ My 6 key takeaways with CEO & Founder Girish Mathrubootham 👇 1. Why Indian Companies Have to Win Globally Before Winning India Doing business in India is extremely difficult & customers will hijack your product roadmap. Winning globally first will give you a higher chance of success. It is easier to make a dollar than a rupee. 2. Price Low and Move UP We first targeted SMBs with limited budgets. Our cheapest product is 1/3 the price of our competitor’s. You can always build more & move into enterprise later. 3. Why Start High and Go Down Does Not Work   No single SaaS company started in enterprise & won in SMB. Freshworks, Salesforce, HubSpot… Companies always start small then build their way up. 4. Why Freshworks Lost to Slack We created FreshConnect as a Slack competitor. But we were late & took more than 2 years to launch. Slack & Teams have already dominated the market. 5. One of the Most Important Lessons for CEOs Your #1 OKR for new management hires is to get them to succeed. Be hands-off but closely involved in big decisions. Observe they are treat their people. 6. What This Billionaire Looks for In Founders He Invests In Three things 👇 - Right to win the market: They need to spend considerable time in the problem domain. - Craftsmanship: They can’t be world-class without a world-class product. - Ability to hire: You need to build a great team to go far. (links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup #seed #funding #SaaS

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I participated in a “SMART MANUFACTURING” panel with Gayathri Radhakrishnan, Rohini Chakravarthy and Abhijit Supekar (moderator) last week at TIECon 2024. The coolest part of the panel was 3 Women VCs talking about a topic that has not traditionally been discussed by women. I never imagined I’d see this in my lifetime. Things have indeed changed! We had a very lively discussion of whether we can expect lights out factory in 5-10 years. Automation is happening in all stages but full automation manufacturing is tough because it requires human like adaptability. It is not converting text into instruction or code - it is about precision. Robotics + AI is making this happen and we will get there. AI is going to bring the cost down for complete solution for example: there are robotic arms that can do more tasks and learn like a human and not just some specific tasks. Also check out our portfolio companies Micropsi Industries and RGo Robotics that are making it happen in this space. Thanks to Anshu Bahadur Hrishikesh Sathawane Nilesh Dixit for organizing the panel and Anita Manwani and Surbhi Kaul for making this happen! #TiECon2024 #AIUbiquity

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🌟 Thrilled to unveil the journey of building a global SaaS company from India! 🇮🇳🚀 In this engaging podcast with Rohin Dharmakumar from The Ken, I share some of the core mental models that have been instrumental in my entrepreneurial path: 1️⃣ Risk Taking: Embracing and navigating risks has been key to our success. 2️⃣ Mental Toughness: Insights into how my early life experiences shaped the resilience needed for the entrepreneurial journey. 3️⃣ Opportunities Ahead: Discussing the exciting opportunities that lie ahead for Indian SaaS companies. 4️⃣ Choosing a Co-Founder: Essential criteria and insights on selecting the right partner. Building global companies from India is not just a goal—it's a lifelong mission. Join me as I discuss the lessons learned, the challenges overcome, and the promising future of building a global company from India. 🎧 Listen here: https://lnkd.in/grehUQQ9 #Entrepreneurship #SaaS #India #GlobalBusiness #Podcast #MentalModels # AI

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If you're an entrepreneur venturing into building SaaS for a global audience, heed the wisdom of those who have successfully navigated this path.

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📣 Announcing: Fastrack to Residency through a Warm Intro If you are an exceptional founder (individual or team) that’s just starting up, Nitin Sharma & I are spending 2 full days next week at the Antler India Residency office (in Bangalore) on Aug 1st & 2nd to directly talk to you!    The only twist - you need to reach us through someone who knows you - and knows us too! Why are we doing this - we announced last month that we are investing $500k in 20 companies (amounting to $10Mn in the next 6 months). This is our endeavour to deliver faster and bigger on this promise!  What we promise - is a decision into the Residency within 24 hours of us meeting you (over one of those 2 days). Here’s how it will work -  (1) Find someone in our networks (cue: some of them would have shared this post on their LinkedIn / Twitter) or would have engaged with us in the past   (2) Show us you are super resourceful :) Ask them to email us / Whatsapp us / tweet to us / message us on LI - any of the Antler team members that they know (there’s 18 of us!) - to give a warm intro to you. Convince them to write at least a good line or two about you :)   (3) Send us your best pitch deck once we connect with you (4) All shortlisted individuals and teams (best of the best) will get a direct slot with Antler India on Aug 1/2 to meet us IRL  (5) You will get a decision to get into the Antler India Residency (for a $500k commitment) before Aug 3rd! What about the other cities - Rest assured, we plan to do this in NCR and Mumbai very soon! Looking forward to meeting many of you exceptional builders next week!

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AI's hype in Board Rooms = "Hire, CAIO." AI's hype dents the P&L = "Ciao, CxO!" #D_Funda If there's anything that every Industry Revolution, All the tech.-waves & now AI, has taught us... Is that making the most of the human capital, Is often the best way to scale with tech. More so, when tone that's been set around the hype is driven by the cost-arbitrage of AI eventually replacing humans. So in the backdrop of rising AI-induced layoffs, How soon before we get to "Ciao, CxO"? _ #ai #futureofwork #cxo #caio #layoffs #jobs #employment #worDplay #iykyk

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if you know, you know Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures. nerd. founder. wise. man. been there done that sv. wisdom. it's missing. let's face it. it's always been missing over time. for.ever. so it's a blessing truly to have an o.g. that keeps it for reals. yes we are a fan. much like Jensen Huang Fei-Fei Li ilya sutskever ...and other good people in sv. they are the ones who make this place so special. indeed they do. here https://lnkd.in/exWqey9K we have sam i am that's all that i am sam (alt)man having a 1-1 with the man. this is a must watch to provide a foundational (no llm required here) mindset as to how sv is at it's best (and worse). caution. watch out for the truth bombs. vinod is (in)famous for this style and we <love> him for it. thank g-d he exists. if you meet the dbags in sf/bayarea your experience you will be quickly lonely, dazed and confused. best to listen to these wise words from vinod and from that determine your spot in the sv landscape. with an insight on the sv playbook from a master. well. need i say more. it's about the very spirit of sv that makes it so special. and this is indeed embodied in a few who are masters. deserve our attention. yeah. yeah. i know attention is all you need. although what happens if your attention is being distracted from building. being in the company of those who will join your mission ala brian chesky of Airbnb. missionaries. search for the good missionaries in sv. keep away and keep in mind of the mercenaries. they are there. pg. he's another gift (as opposed to the grifters) paul graham wrote about this too https://lnkd.in/eEYmQwqZ - being a chesky-esque missionary. these are good things to follow on the path of achieving escape velocity as an (ai) startup. oh. hollywood has entered the ranks of sv. yes it has. so there is a bit of performance art that is required. not enough that you've created something that's novel (truly, novel). also requires a bit of showmanship. audacious in fact. it's a well known sentiment that audacious ideas motivate people. sun microsystems. audacious. juniper. audacious. OpenAI. vinod as an early investor. audacious. Vinod Khosla was born audacious. so fitting he found a place in this world where many have benefitted from this sentiment. perhaps years ago a bit on the abrasive side. now with those white hairs. the elder statesman. non-diplomat. rules, the roost of that which allows for others to flourish. note if you manage to thread the needle of vinod means that it's a very very very good beginning. nothing is guaranteed of course. as my lawyer 'friends' like to say. * buyer beware. be aware. Vinod Khosla is. are you (ai)? are you?? perhaps yes. perhaps, non. < . >

To all founders, CTOs, Vp Engg... if any company/individual approaches you with the following claims 1. We will build ML solution even if you don't have enough data {data synthetic will not work unless you have enough evidential data to create} 🛑 2. We have built LLMs or we will help you build LLMs 🤥 3. We will provide AI solution for very cheap 😥 4. We will improve efficiency/ROI/CR by 50% from day 1 using our AIML solutions Then please RUN 🏃‍♂️ 🏃‍♂️ 🏃‍♂️ .... All these are nothing but diet pill ads 💊 #CTO #CIO #VP #AIML #GENAI

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Tomorrow, I’m joining Saurabh Agrawal and Apurv Bansal of Zenskar to discuss SaaS pricing. Learn how to: - Turn "value" from corporate jargon to a concrete input for your SaaS pricing - Identify the best value metrics and pricing metrics for your product - Stop guessing about your customers’ willingness to pay to inform your pricing decisions We go live on May 22nd at 4 p.m. (ET).  See you there! Registration link in the comments below. #SaaSPricing #PricingStrategy #Webinar

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5 Biggest Changes in Fallout 4's Next-Gen Update Fallout 4 Wasteland Remastered: Top 5 Upgrades in the Next-Gen Update Learn more - https://lnkd.in/grje8n2B The Wasteland Welcomes a Makeover! Fallout 4 blasts onto next-gen consoles with a significant update, breathing new life into the post-apocalyptic Commonwealth. But what exactly awaits Vault Dwellers venturing back into the irradiated wilderness? Here's a look at the top 5 changes: 1. A Sharper, Smoother Wasteland: Get ready for a visual feast! The next-gen update brings Fallout 4 to a stunning 4K resolution on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Paired with a silky smooth 60 frames-per-second option, you'll experience the wasteland's beauty and brutality in unprecedented detail. From the towering ruins of Boston to the irradiated forests, prepare to be re-immersed in the Commonwealth's atmosphere. 2. The Enclave Returns: Those who crave a deeper lore dive will be thrilled. The Enclave, remnants of the pre-war American government, take center stage with a new questline: "Echoes of the Past." This addition delves into their activities within the Commonwealth. Players can also snag new Enclave Power Armor and weaponry, allowing them to patrol the wastes in true Enclave style. 3. Get Crafty with Makeshift Mayhem: The next-gen update isn't just about aesthetics; it injects excitement into combat with the Makeshift Weapons Pack. This pack introduces a variety of cobbled-together weapons, like the Grenade Launcher and the ever-satisfying Baseball Launcher. With these unique additions, your wasteland arsenal will be more creative and deadly than ever before. 4. Spookify Your Settlement: Who says the apocalypse can't be festive? The Halloween Workshop lets players unleash their inner decorator. Craft spooky decorations to transform your settlements into haunted havens. You can even craft spooky costumes and jack-o'-lanterns for a truly terrifying (or delightful) wasteland Halloween experience. 5. A Bug-Squashed Wasteland: The update goes beyond new content and visuals. Bethesda has taken this opportunity to address a number of long-standing bugs that plagued players since launch. This includes the infamous Vault 111 door glitch, ensuring a smoother gameplay experience for returning and new wanderers alike. These are just a handful of the exciting changes in Fallout 4's next-gen update. With these improvements, it's the perfect time to revisit the Commonwealth and conquer the Wasteland in a whole new way. https://lnkd.in/g3S6KWYg

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Have been a startup person for almost 8+ years. Its always the culture that gets built by the people and for the people which drives people take the same culture along when they move ships. It doesn’t matter post startup where you join whether it’s a large organisation, mid size setup or a startup again it’s the culture that will drive you and the team and trust me the culture is infectious and results will come positive or negative doesn’t matter but you will learn and relearn. Thus making you a better person who believes in results and tries to reach the North Star in practicality !! #startups #people #culture #hustle #learn #relearn

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This value-sharing advice from Manish Jindal is such a gem for companies going from 0-1 , 1-10 , 10-100 and beyond!

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Finsire has recently started its learning series - Ideally by chatting with the best folks in the Industry. Here, with Siddharth Shetty, Co-founder and CTO of Account Aggregator (AA) from DigiSahamati Foundation, we speak about the data exchange's inception, growth, and future in India. - We use AA for various reasons, including pushing boundaries in India's data exchange layer with various use cases. - It's been about three years since it went live, and over 70 million cumulative Indian accounts are linked. - One-of-a-kind data sharing network from India that is not seen anywhere across the globe, baring Singapore with https://lnkd.in/gyrCQtVQ - Different approach to protect consumers as compared to the previous models that existed to attain consumer data by various methods used by Plaid or Salt Edge Onemoney Finvu (Cookiejar Technologies) Protean eGov Technologies Anumati by Perfios AA NADL - Account Aggregator Computer Age Management Services Limited KFin Technologies Ltd. Enjoy - Please click on the link below and watch the video!

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Another special go-live for us. When you start your startup journey, the first big step is to validate your idea. Bipin Shah from Titan Capital connected us with two brands to discuss the original idea. One of them was SuperBottoms. Pallavi (founder of SuperBottoms) was eager to share her ideas and feedback around what makes a great customer experience for her customers. Little did she know that her pain points would serve as the cornerstone of our company and the LimeChat product. They were adamant about trying out the market before working with us because they saw us before we were a company. Well, things have come full circle, and we couldn't be happier to have them on board. Our solution was always built with SuperBottoms' use cases in mind. Four years ago, Aniket and I spending hours manually adding data and FAQs about baby diapers to show the SuperBottoms team. We have come a long way since then. Pallavi, thank you for your trust and support. We will ensure that we enhance your customer experience, bringing smiles to all moms and treating them as gently as your products treat their kids. #babiesrock #startupjourney #Earlyadopters #innovation #customerexperience

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Vidya Dinamani from Product Rebels is helping Cohort 10 founders to think differently about product-market fit In a recent session, she challenged founders to be obsessed with uncovering problems their customers are facing and shared methods on how to pinpoint the real (and often unseen) pain points customers might be experiencing Vidya, thank you for bringing your expertise and energy to OCEAN Accelerator! Check out Product Rebels’ free templates and detailed help for product market fit for early-stage founders and teams: https://productrebels.com/ #productmarketfit #startupaccelerator

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Our choices Make Us: Do they? Today, while voting for India's general election made me reflect about privilege of democracy and what an incredible year 2024 is for the world with ~50% of global population undergoing elections including 8 of top 10 most populous nations (India, US etc). Modern democracy, for ~3000 years starting from Greeks/Indic regions, has evolved as a range between limited-franchise/fragile combine of state-institution-electorate to generally available franchise/active and balanced state-institution-electorate combine. Democracy symbolizes not just choice (to self-determine), but in essence a freedom to live a dignified life necessary for humans, communities and nations. It represents a cohesive contract where people willingly subjugate some of part of their will and freedom and enshrine that collective power and trust in the state, run by fair institutions, bound by a fair code (constitution) and checked by a robust justice system. Using tech-analogy, democracy evolution is a gradual transition from monolith to distributed state. Successful democracies devolve, decentralize the power while also broad-basing their franchise constantly. e.g. Magna-Carta in ~1200AD triggered devolution of power from monarchs to few barrons, but it took UK nearly 700 years to give franchise to women (1918). Similarly, US took ~180+ years to broaden the franchise to all its citizens in 1960s. Through a constant healthy tussle and dialogue, mature democracies construct, maintain a "Narrow Corridor" ( refer to Acemoglu, Robinson), between a mighty but non-restrictive, non-intrusive state and relatively free society. Struggling democracies, regress towards monolithization and maintain a "Broad corridor" between state and electorate. Using tech-analogy, India successfully deals with the highest possible scale of democracy, e.g. more than 2X of US/EU combined. Overall, India manages to be a beacon, a proud bouquet of diversity of languages, cultures, heritage, religions, sects, castes, creed, communities, regions, customs, tribes . There is no parallel in the history of world for a civilization to be able to deal with this level of scale and diversity. We all should keep in mind, that chaos, noise, disagreements are at the heart of a democracy. Just like we humans exercise to self-inflict pain and stress to build muscle and endurance, induced chaos is that necessary exercise to build endurance in democracies. In India's democracy, we participate constantly to build a stronger democracy, a more perfect harmony and this continuous participation is necessary to shape our today, mould our tomorrow and influence our future. #ThinkOriginal #India

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