00:03:46 · Anirudh A Damani
[00:03:46] S0: What's it gonna be? And I think on that queue, because I think long form migration is something we talked about earlier, I think your life is all about long form migration as well. So think I on that, Kim, we're gonna get into a little bit about, you know, you started off in Delhi. And you, you know, after graduating, you you, you know, did not do your MBA right away. Right? You decided to go in for some experience. You would join, joined, I believe, KPM, AIESEC first and KPMG, a private private equity pro partners, then KPMG, and then EY before, you know, returning back to school at ISB. So, and and that usually was not a very common journey at that time. Know, people used to just think that, you know, let's finish our college and immediately get us go to MBA, right? But you decide to take, take, take, take a break and get into the professional world for a pretty good period of time. Why take that different kind of a journey? What was, what was the role AIESEC played?
00:04:40 · Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:04:40] S1: So, so Anirudh, so there's a background journey that was happening to everything that you've described as well. So, I was always, I'm, I'm, I would, and the next time we meet in person, I think we should do that. So I'm a startup nerd, and I kind of take a lot of pride in saying that. So I think at least before starting Leverage till 2016, everything that has ever happened in the startup ecosystem, be it in the rally, be it in this rally, be it in India, that's something that I would kind of really be able to kind of call upon in like to one degree. And be it in nineteen fifty five, fifty six what was happening in the VC space in the valley, be it something that was happening in the late 1990s for the Indian tech ecosystem like Rajesh Yen coming in and building a company which was kind of sold for 400 crores or Red Dev going all the way to $10,000,000,000 and then unfortunately crashing down. So I was I was a kid who in very... In my early years... My parents' biggest dream was that I should be able to have a conversation in English. So I read a lot of books. So I read a lot of... I I caught up my Oliver Twist and Jane out of the way by seven or eight. And then started a lot of nonfiction specifically focused on Silicon Valley. So those are those are those are are topic about what happened in the dot com boom bust when I was in in my early teenage years of sorts. And that is when I kind of developed this fascination with the startup ecosystem. So my... The parallel journey which is happening in my life, which is not there on the resume that you kind of spoke about, is in two thousand six, seven, I started I started helping host this event called Startup Saturday. This used to be an American cylinder in Delhi. And my simple job back then was that... So entrepreneurs used to come in, chat with a bunch of very small set of startups hopefuls of sorts when the ecosystem was kind of very... It was very naive in some sense. And I remember hosting Sanjeet Beach and Nandi sir, Deep Kalra sir, Ankur Singla who later went on to kind of start tabzo. And my job was that So I had developed this fascination of thoughts startup all of those things from a very early age. And I did a bunch of entrepreneurial things even when I was growing up in school, college. There was always a side hustle.
00:06:44 · Anirudh A Damani
[00:06:44] S0: What was the first entrepreneurial stint that you had?
00:06:47 · Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:06:47] S1: My first entrepreneurial stint was in class three when my dad was journalist. I used to some as part of being a journalist, he used to go to a lot of five star hotels. And he used to get these writing pads. So Shangri-La writing pad, Taj writing pad, writing pad. Writing pad, actually school qualities So that was the first one. The next year, I ended up... I used to live in a government house in Delhi. And if you've seen Delhi government houses public spaces So, what I did was I realized that my parents, of course, I think I was privileged in that since they overspent to ensure that I have a better quality of life. So, I was the only guy in my entire colony who had access to a computer. Computer essentially monitor, the CPU, all of those things. So I realized that here, I am now kind of played my prince of Persia. I have now read all these books. I've now kind of read all my Akshay's. How do I kind of make money on this? So when I was in class four, I started a small club of sorts. I used to make 100 rupees. Six to 8PM people used to come in balcony. Somebody was playing a computer game. Somebody was reading a book. Somebody was watching Disney on TV, which used to come on ZTV, I remember back in the day. And I would make 100 rupees. So in fact, when I think back in hindsight, I could have dropped out, of course, and continued this business. I could have a very beautiful LTV chart as well. But... So those are things that were essentially happening through and through. And in two thousand nine, ten, I remember, I... And because I was a BCom from Delhi University. So I met Praveen Sinha from Jabong. I met Rohit Bansal from Snapdeal from Snapdeal in two thousand ten, eleven. And I said, hey. You know what? I want to be part of the startup ecosystem. Give me a job. And everybody would tell me engineers engineers. Thankfully, I think I'm I'm also kind of proving that wrong as we go out and kind of hire our working right now, but it was very, very fixated towards that mindset. We can't communicate with an engineer in a very specific language. You you can't essentially make a product manager. And... So everything I was doing that you mentioned, this kind of flows out that loop, be it that small internship with private equity partners where I learned how to build financial models, do a couple of other things.
00:09:06 · Akshay Chaturvedi, Anirudh A Damani
But with I was kind of serving technology clients. It was all fixated towards how do I do something which can help me move to the startup world. In the end, I realized that nothing can. So hence, I ended up being an MBA, that's when I kind of [00:09:20] S0: But you know what's very interesting is that you were trying to it seems that you were trying to say, Okay, what the elements that I need to become a founder? And then start building those, you know, start going to different jobs and making sure those elements were fulfilled. Is, is that something that, you know, obviously may not have thought about it at that time, But when I look at the journey, it seems like that's what you were doing. Like, this is, so this is what a founder needs to be. And this is where I'm at, and I need to fill this gap. Right? So let me just figure out the jobs that I can do that. [00:09:49] S1: In hindsight, I think it makes for the perfect story, Anirudh. So, of course, I did not think that deeply as I as I went through the journey Yeah. [00:09:55] S0: Like like I said, it's always... It... You never see linear. Right? It's never linear. It's always it's always linear in the... When you look back. Right? Oh, this all makes sense now. [00:10:03] S1: I mean, I... But I think the next time the next time I meet an investor who asked me about my journey, I'm gonna tell them that, boss, actually, and I was just figuring out all these and I was just making the check marks. [00:10:13] S0: So whenever I tell the team edit edit this part out when whenever this gets posted.
00:10:13 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:10:13] S0: So whenever I tell the team edit edit this part out when whenever this gets posted. [00:10:18] S1: No. But thank you. Thank you. [00:10:21] S0: No. But I I... I'm I'm I'm really impressed. I I think, you know, it's it's a very... So... Because, you know, when I I obviously was in The US in 2,010. So I I was... But when I came here, I started realizing, especially because of my cousins and stuff, know, that the whole thing was I... If IIT immediately, IIM And then I was like, what's the use? Like, you have no experience when you're doing an MBA. When you graduate, you're just gonna be a bookish MBA like any... And everybody else. But that was the the mindset. And I think I don't know if you did it by design, but but it but it it really worked out by design for you. Right? That that you took some time, got yourself situated in the market, then went to an MBA with a relevant experience, almost five years of WorkX, and then got