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
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