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.
00:20:57 · Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:20:57] S1: Sure. So Anirudh, in fact, hinges on the previous piece only. So when I was writing to a lot of people when I was applying for my MBA I ended up writing to a lady called Heidi Roizen. Ah who is a Stanford MBA and ah she is a Harvard Business School case study on her. Ah as ah one of the most networked people in the world and she was great friends with both. She was only person in the Valley who was best friends with both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. And she she was kind enough and she wrote back to me and told me that, hey, you know what? I can't be a mentor. I'm super busy. She was a partner at DFJ. So DFG Ventures used to run... Tim Draper used to run Draper University. And so I I told her that, hey. You know what? I know you're super busy, but can I just write one simple email to you every month? And I think... And and she talks about it, in fact. I'll share that link with you sometime. She spoke about this at another event that she was speaking at in 2016 or '17. She's like, hey. On a whim, I said yes to this guy because just he was just very polite in his email. And I literally put that on the calendar, and I used to kind of write on every single fifteenth. Hey. This is... You know what? This is what is happening in my life. I'm trying to make the shift. Now I've got to business school. Now I'm reading this case study. Now I'm doing this. And one fine day in two thousand fourteen, September, when Leverage was in its very initial, was just discussing it with a professor called professor Anirudh Aghos, who's a director at NYU Stern. And that's when Heidi reached out to me and said, hey, you know what? You've always wanted to be in Silicon Valley. You keep sharing all these stories. There's a fellowship which has come in. Why don't you apply for it? And I'll kind of put in a word for you. And that's how it happened. And I finished ISB on April 10. On April 11, I picked up the first flight to go to San Francisco. It was a big deal in my extended America satch of liberty and all of those things. Right? And also... It it it was very funny for me when I went to SF that I realized that SF is no different than. It's like America is going to be super fancy. Figure difference Not until I got to New York Times Square did I really realize what that US is like slightly different when I saw all those dazzling billboards.
00:23:05 · Akshay Chaturvedi, Anirudh A Damani
But anyway, so I think Draper was great again from a fundamental structure building perspective. They gave us a chance to hear from people like great founders, like the founders of Airbnb, Elon Musk in a in a larger classroom session, and a lot of other series b, series c, series b founders. Himself kind of used to spend time with the entire group. And I also realized that Silicon Valley is magical because there's this amazing attitude. I think parts of it, we have already started to experience in the Indian ecosystem as well. But still, we haven't got there. Silicon Valley Silicon Valley because people are so... They go out there to kind of help you, and hence, that overall environment nurtures the entrepreneurial spirit in some sense. So I remember writing with Tim Draper, who's essentially such a senior guy. He has invested in companies like what? Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, all of that. And I tell him, hey. You know what? Like, I'm an Indian. I was a big fan of Sabeer Bhatia. Can I just go in and meet Sabeer Bhatia as well? He immediately writes a email to Sabeer in the next two minutes, and I'll land [00:24:06] S0: up in [00:24:08] S1: Palo Alto meeting Sabeer in a very fancy restaurant. He comes in a very swanky car. And, I think that, I think just a lot of those introductions, meeting a lot of those, fancy people in the valley, and, I remember meeting a bit Oh, wow. [00:24:23] S0: Akshay looks so different in this. I was like,.