Varun Sheth Ketto Talks to Maharajas of scale

Episode 18: Varun Sheth of Ketto – The Boy Who Harnessed The Internet to solve people’s problems

Posted 1 week ago Tagged

Varun Sheth is the co-founder and CEO of Ketto(@ketto). As a young lad with a […]

Varun Sheth had a normal childhood. Growing up in Mumbai, he spent his younger years as any boy about town would. When he grew up, he worked in investment banking, the hallowed career option for many. Yet, he felt a hollowness. He saw the internet and e-commerce grow in India exponentially and decided that this would apply to crowd funding as well. Although the start was shaky and it took several years to find product market fit, the team that also had Kunal Kapoor of Bollywood fame as a co-founder eventually scaled in helping people who could not fund their medical treatments thru crowd funding. Now the team is poised for another phase of growth. Check out this episode!

Episode 17: Jimit Bagadiya of Social Pilot – Making the scary switch from IT services to Product and Scaling from Ahmedabad

Posted 3 weeks ago Tagged

There are dreamers, there are doers and then there are dreamers who are doers. Jimit […]

Episode 17: Meghna Agarwal of Indiqube – Starting from a small town in Rajasthan to scaling Indiqube

Posted 4 weeks ago Tagged

Meghna Agarwal graduated as a Company Secretary and a CFA around the same time 9/11 happened. It was not a great time for jobs or starting up. Yet, coming from a business family, she dug into her entrepreneurial instincts and teamed up with her soon-to-be husband Rishi. Together, they started a company in recruitment that has eventually led them to start up Indiqube, one of India’s well known emerging scale stories in the Managed Workspaces or Coworking sector. It is a witty look at a lady who is driven by passion and has a rare clarity in what she wants to do to and accomplish. Does clarity beget success or success beget clarity? If that sounds like a rhetorical question, it is intended to be. Clarity of thought & strategy and a vision to scale and build something together with her partner in life and business – Rishi has taken Indiqube and Meghna to business success. Listen to this!

 

Ep. 16: Mahesh Murthy of Seedfund – From Copywriting to leading Channel V, India’s Best seed Fund and the Space Race

Posted 1 month ago Tagged

Mahesh Murthy is a name that most entrepreneurs who started up in India between 2000 and 2012 know. Mahesh went from being a copywriter in Silicon Valley who helped Jeff Bezos with the “Everything Store” campaign to leading Channel V and founding Seed Fund, one of India’s best-known seed funds that funded storied names such as Red Bus, Chumbak, Carwale, Voonik etc. Both his Seed Funds won the best fund award, a rare feat. Having funded some of India’s storied startups and seen good exits, Mahesh is now trying his hand at Space, a new and exciting frontier. In this episode, he shares his wisdom on what makes ventures work, the strategies that entrepreneurs need to employ and what the space race is all about. He knows a thing or two about scaling startups and should we add that the episode is full of rare insights and pointers on how to make your venture tick, succeed and scale. A must listen!

Abhishek talks about Cricheroes

Episode 15: Abhishek Desai of Cricheroes – Unlikely Cricket Success Story, Creative mind, Failed attempts, Scored Digitally at scale

Posted 2 months ago Tagged

A creative techie, a fount of ideas goes from IT services to Social Tech Product success. Abhishek Desai filled the gap for cricketers and came up with CricHeroes to keep tabs on their neighbourhood and local league matches. It also became a platform to showcase the talent of young aspirants. He started with “Gully” cricket and Digital Scoring. Cricheroes now has a user base of more than 4 million cricketers in over 50 countries. It is an unlikely success story coming out of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. His journey is one of passion and perseverance. This is his story.

Episode 14: KNM Rao of Quick Ride : Farming to Tech Entrepreneurship and putting a dent in India’s Urban mobility problem

Posted 3 months ago Tagged

A farmer by genes became a programmer by accident. K N M Rao observed his colleagues facing problems with their commute and believed carpooling was a way to solve that problem. It is a thought that has perhaps crossed our minds but he went a step ahead and took action. Since several startups had already attempted and failed, Rao not only had a chance to do one better but also fix what was wrong in earlier attempts. It is a master class in entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneur, he believes that one should connect to the problem, be persistent and never give up. This is his story.

Episode 13: Pratik Shah of Specsmakers – Expanding with House Maid’s Loan, Scaling with Chakra Management style and loving Retail

Posted 3 months ago Tagged

An educated MBA working in corporate world US, accidentally jumped into his family business. Pratik Shah’s determined thinking to get into his family’s retail business caused conflict between father and son. He started enjoying retail along with his equity research. Together with his wife, they planned to give SpecsMakers a shot and raised funding from angel investors. With his chakra style of management, they scaled from one store to 300 plus stores and implemented the idea of franchising. As an entrepreneur, he believes that success should not get into your mind, it should be in your heart. This is his story.

Aditi Balbar talks to Maharajas of Scale

Episode 12: Aditi Balbir of VResorts | Pivoting, Scaling, Creating Impact and Profitability in Local India

Posted 4 months ago Tagged

Aditi Balbir on Maharajas of Scale talks about pivoting, scaling, creating impact and profitability in […]

Passion for travelling turned Aditi, a professional, into an entrepreneur. ‘V’ stands for lush green ‘view’ in V resorts. Aditi gave life to small properties. They hired local talent, trained them in hospitality and got women to work to make gift packs like squashes, hand made goods and licensed them for sale. Initially, they started with 5 resorts and scaled through their network and word of mouth and now are proud managers of 125 resorts. UN has recognized V Resorts as the First model coming out of a developing country which looks at using the local resources and is perfect in creating a circular economy.

Abhinav Sinha talks about Financial Inclusion

Episode 11: Abhinav Sinha of Eko |Meeting Bill Gates, Missing the SmartPhone Wave and Scaling to 50 Million Users

Posted 4 months ago Tagged

The story of Meeting Bill Gates, Missing the SmartPhone Wave and Scaling to 50 Million […]

Episode 10: Ranjeet Pratap Singh of Pratilipi – Story Telling at Scale by Solving Access Problem for Indian Language content

Posted 4 months ago Tagged

Ranjeet Singh could barely afford to pay for his education. Coming from a not so well to do family, reading was a luxury. He satisfied his passion to read by making deals with shopkeepers who sold books to watch their stores while they were away, borrowed books on Teacher’s library cards so he could borrow more and hustled his way to read. Ranjeet who mostly read Hindi books at that time and counts Nirala as one of his favorites realized that Indian Language content suffered from an access problem both in publishing as well as in reading. Pratilipi is Story Telling at Scale

He opined that it should be readers’ choice to read in whichever language they want but not simply because of lack of access. His friends suggested he create a digital platform with content in different languages. He quit his job and gave it a shot and Bravo! it worked. His journey has been interesting and fascinating. This is his story.