00:13:26 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:13:26] S0: used to [00:13:27] S1: very obsessively use the LinkedIn DM. So I would reach out to 100 people, and I know that 50 people would essentially say, fuck off. And then the remaining again again, sorry for the language. Sorry for the French there. But 10 people would say actually actually coffee being your team essentially So I think I followed that go all in strategy and met as many people as you can. So I think... And and I think there's an analogy, just to kind of drag it for a second, that analogy is super fundraising as well. So when I was raising money for the first time, people told me that there are two ways to fundraise. One is that you be that pretty guy or pretty girl who sits in the corner of a classroom and says that I won't approach anybody. Let people come to me. That will make me see more pricing and things like that. I won't go to an investor. Versus somebody who says that, yeah, mainly but I'll essentially go and at least date 100 people of sorts. So, I've always believed that there is more merit in the latter because there is more learning in the latter because the more people that you essentially do it with, you're essentially building more fundamentals for yourself And that is at least something that I followed beat while finding mentors or beat while raising funds or whatnot.
00:14:40 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:14:40] S0: And that's... I mean, I I think I I really appreciate the humility that, you know, you've you've obviously, put a lot of credit to, your parents, right? But I, I think on the other end, it still requires that initiative, right? Because you can have all the opportunity in the world, but you gotta get out there and make it happen, right? So, I mean, centuries aren't made inside the dressing room. You gotta make go outside and start hitting the hitting the ball eventually, right? [00:15:04] S1: That's it, sir. [00:15:04] S0: Thank you. But, but, you know, interestingly, like, when you got to, you got to ISB, right? And, that, I think that was a probably a pivotal moment, because many things happened post that. We'll get into that right now but you did your MBA and strategy leadership marketing, the double major, right? And like, what, what, what were you trying to gain out of that experience? Like, you said your, your friend who told you life but what were you trying to gain out out of that experience? Was there, was there an entrepreneurial strength or were you still trying to say, okay, let me do this and I want to, I want to now look at senior management in a snap deal or in a babajob's kind of a startup. [00:15:43] S1: I think also the idea of I think wasn't at all to become kind of work in an x y z company. The idea always for me was very very clear. Wanted to be part of the tech ecosystem. And to be super honest, that obsession wasn't there to be a founder per se. The obsession was to kind [00:16:03] S0: of fall
00:16:03 · Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:16:03] S1: in love with the problem and solve for that. And I, in fact, believe that my last role before ah starting leverage at babajob. I I fell in love with the problem so much. I think ah ah had we continued solving the problem I wouldn't have ever started leverage. So I think in that sense I am more missionary than mercenary. I am I am and and I have always kind of read about people who actually list on 40 business ideas and say, what are hot So I think I was always a guy who kind of got obsessed with the problem and I wanted to solve that problem as well. When I went to ISB, it was a very interesting time as well because I had done a stint with a political party just six months before that. And when I was applying to business schools, applied to six schools, three schools in The US who all told me to get lost. And then three other schools which told me to... Which gave me an ambition, one in Singapore and US, one in UK called Said Business School, and the other in ISB. So when I did this entire six months stint and I was kind of spending time in Amritsar, Varanasi, Kanpur, Nagpur, all of that, I realized that essentially India So that was a very clear fund that kind of came into my head in 2014. And that's when I kind of... I still had that political hangar of sorts. So when I joined ISB, I sort of fought the elections, and I became a director within the student board. And that gave me a great chance to kind of look at ISB. So my entire ISB experience were not just as a student, but it was also an experience from a ISB management perspective. ISB grew. ISB recruit more female students. ISB essentially more international students. ISB P and L red q black. ISB executive MBAs So I think that gave me great chance to understand higher education. So I remember even when in two thousand fourteen, fifteen, would tell people that, you know what? I'm starting a business in higher education. People tell me, why the hell are you doing higher education? And this is when I think just kind of started to sprout on the scene in a in a very small way. And people said essentially coaching That's what people understand in this country. And I think one thing that I take a lot of pride in very obnoxiously is that I stuck by my idea. I came across so many people in the first couple of years who told me that this is not the right market. We like you as a founder.
00:18:22 · Akshay Chaturvedi, Anirudh A Damani
If I don't give you 70% of the supply chain company, you go ahead and run this for us. And suddenly, I I I love what I'm doing, and I'm gonna kind of keep solving for that. So ISB, this kind of of close that loop, was a great experience for me to also learn from a great set of peers, intellectually grow to a great deal, and also at the same time get exposure to people who can kind of help me to the next part. So even when we led our angel round, and we met through professor babajob. Right? So he was one of the angels and a couple of other professors. So I had four professors as my angels and eight alumni from ISB overall. So I think I... It it it it would have been difficult to raise that angel round without the ISB alumni support as well. So I think building that network was very pivotal to everything that I did afterward in my life as well, be it in The US for couple of months and then essentially as I move forward in multiple roles as well. And even to hire a lot of people. [00:19:21] S0: Uh-huh. In fact, in fact, to be, to be honest, I I think MBA MBA school is not less about the education, more about the network, I feel, right? Absolutely. It's more about the experiences. And also,
00:19:21 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:19:21] S0: Uh-huh. In fact, in fact, to be, to be honest, I I think MBA MBA school is not less about the education, more about the network, I feel, right? Absolutely. It's more about the experiences. And also, [00:19:32] S1: that said, I would say what helped me at business school also was this ability to start thinking and structures and kind of building fundamentals. As somebody who wasn't an engineer and I kind of found this new found respect for engineers in when I was doing my MBA. That I think as an as an engineering student, you are told to think in structures and approach problem solving in a certain way. Ah which is why you see a lot of founders coming in from IITs and rightly so. Which is not true when you do a commerce degree, which is not true essentially when you do something else. But due respect to those programs as well. So I think in that sense, when you pursue a management degree, it at least one builds fascination to multiple businesses that have kind of sorted across the entire world, if you look at it from the lens of history management. And second, it also helps you start thinking in terms of breaking a problem into four different pieces and then essentially approaching it in a very first principle and then solving for it. I think at the end of the day as a company grows, realize that that's the only skill that can really be useful at scale as you go out and solve more and more problems every single day.
00:19:32 · Akshay Chaturvedi, Anirudh A Damani
[00:19:32] S1: that said, I would say what helped me at business school also was this ability to start thinking and structures and kind of building fundamentals. As somebody who wasn't an engineer and I kind of found this new found respect for engineers in when I was doing my MBA. That I think as an as an engineering student, you are told to think in structures and approach problem solving in a certain way. Ah which is why you see a lot of founders coming in from IITs and rightly so. Which is not true when you do a commerce degree, which is not true essentially when you do something else. But due respect to those programs as well. So I think in that sense, when you pursue a management degree, it at least one builds fascination to multiple businesses that have kind of sorted across the entire world, if you look at it from the lens of history management. And second, it also helps you start thinking in terms of breaking a problem into four different pieces and then essentially approaching it in a very first principle and then solving for it. I think at the end of the day as a company grows, realize that that's the only skill that can really be useful at scale as you go out and solve more and more problems every single day. [00:20:38] S0: And let's talk about Draper University. I think you're the first guest I've had that has gone to Draper University, very, very prestigious, very, very sought after program to be in. What... How did you get in? And let's talk about your experience at Draper.