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
00:11:02 · Akshay Chaturvedi, Anirudh A Damani
[00:11:02] S1: a little No. Anirudh, I think... And and this is something that when I kind of break out the students who use Leverage Edu as well, and I can always use this nomenclature, I think I was a very small subsection of students in India who at this stage have some form of privilege. I think 97 to 98% students in this country don't have any privilege at all. And they end up kind of following the rut. But the remaining, a very small sub segment actually... And when I say privilege, I mean two forms of privilege. Privilege would either be where you were born or privilege would also be having information privilege. So I had information privilege where I had I had worked in with people. Had interned with folks who would tell me that Akshay, Yale exam, GMAT, experience company chances better MBA So I think I was... The biggest... I think my success in my early years was that I was able to get a lot of mentors for myself who would keep telling me that, okay, this is the right thing to do and this is not the right thing to do. And I think that just kind of paved the way forward for me. But I think most students aren't as lucky as I was, and hence, celebrities. [00:12:07] S0: But it's interesting you call it luck. How how are you find... Finding these mentors? Like what was your secret sauce?
00:12:07 · Anirudh A Damani, Akshay Chaturvedi
[00:12:07] S0: But it's interesting you call it luck. How how are you find... Finding these mentors? Like what was your secret sauce? [00:12:16] S1: I think, again, I would say I was fortunate. And I think that's by design in some sense, and and my privilege in some sense as well because my parents made sure I'm an extrovert because they like I said my parents biggest dream was that I should be able to have a conversation in English. So even right now I'm kind of fulfilling my parents dream. So the idea was that I remember my first mentor back when I was 17, 18 years old was this guy called who's who's like an elder brother to me even right now, Arjun Mehta, who's the CFO of American Express. And he is the guy who would essentially kind of get me to a bar and kind of help me kind of go into adulthood and tell me he was an ISB alum and he would tell me ISB life basic fundamental all of those things. So so I think my idea of kind of doing this day in, day out was... And I remember, by the way, in 2011, I got this award from LinkedIn. And this is when Deep Nishar used to head LinkedIn lead, led up into SoftBank, of being one of the most active people on LinkedIn for my age group, 20 to 23. That is because I [00:13:26] S0: used to