Some founders are born lucky - and some founders are born to fight against tremendous odds and adversities. 

This is the story of Vinod Singh who was born in a village in UP which did not even have electricity, and yet through sheer grit and willpower - ended up becoming the CTO of a startup in the UK. 

And you might think that this is the happy ending of the story, but like they say - picture abhi baaki hai. 

Vinod then started a business that was initially built around leveraging the potential of IOT technology, and which eventually pivoted to selling software to speciality insurance companies. And that was the birth of Concirrus which went on to raise more than $40mn over the next couple of years. 

But that is when things fell apart and the founders realised that they had diluted so much of their equity that they no longer had any control over the future of Concirrus and they were on the verge of declaring bankruptcy.

Stay tuned to learn what happened next as your host Akshay Datt speaks to Vinod Singh about his amazing journey as a founder and don’t forget to subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast.

The odyssey of truly becoming a founder | Vinod Singh @ Concirrus

If there is one takeaway from this conversation, then it’s simply this - Boring is beautiful.

ProcMart is in the boring business of managing non-core indirect procurements for manufacturers. And by taking care of this simple but time intensive task for companies, ProcMart will cross 1000 crores in turnover this year. 

The credit for this massive achievement goes to Anish Popli - the founder of ProcMart who loves all things boring. In fact - he shares that their profit margins are actually much higher on simple boring products than on complex products.

This episode is proof that as a founder, you must have the maturity to not get distracted by shiny new things and sexy ideas but just keep your head down and execute well. 

Stay tuned for this insightful conversation and subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast for more such counterintuitive insights from successful entrepreneurs.

The B2B Procurements platform | Anish Popli @ ProcMart

It is rare for D2C startups to be bootstrapped because they need to burn cash to acquire customers initially. But the Just Herbs story is proof that there are clever growth hacks that can help you grow your D2C brand while remaining bootstrapped.

Arush Chopra was an aspiring actor who stumbled into a role in private equity which led to the start of his journey in the world of startups. He started Just Herbs with his wife and mother in 2014 out of his family home in Chandigarh. Today, Just Herbs outsells brands like Maybelline and Lakme in the lipsticks category and counts Marico as its primary backer.

This conversation is a gem for D2C founders and Arush shares some amazing insights around product channel fit, co-building with customers and running a profitable D2C startup.

Stay tuned for tons of insights and subscribe to the founder thesis podcast on any audio streaming app

How to build a profitable bootstrapped D2C | Arush Chopra @ Just Herbs

Inspired by his Gujarati family's business background, Kulin Shah of Onsurity, shares his entrepreneurial journey. His journey began during his college days, where he and a colleague attempted to start a business in exporting wedding cards and an EdTech platform, both unsuccessful.

In this episode he shares how he pivoted  from the early business ventures and his roles at Aditya Birla group and Reliance, Free Charge and Acko to create Onsurity, a holistic platform for health and wellness, including mental wellness plans, gym memberships, and insurance options.

Kulin shares his key learnings that helped him to understand the financial realities and  how he differentiated in a competitive market by adopting unique positioning strategies.

Listen to the episode to learn more about how Kulin built Onsurity.

Building the medical safety net for corporate India | Kulin Shah @ Onsurity

Some of the best interviews on the Founder Thesis podcast have been ones in which we feature founders of VC funds, and this one is no different.  

Arjun Malhotra is the founder and general partner of Good Capital - a high conviction early stage VC fund. Arjun has gone through his own journey of pivots in building Good Capital, with some unexpected turns along the way.  

In this candid chat with Akshay Datt, Arjun not only shares how they built up Good Capital, but also explains the strategic choices in front of VC funds which ultimately determines the kind of companies they invest in. He talks about his process of building conviction in a startup and some of the hits and misses in his journey as an investor.   

Stay tuned and subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast if you want to learn some of the best kept insider secrets of the startup ecosystem.   #For more such interesting founder journeys, subscribe to our newsletter https://www.founderthesis.com/

The Accidental VC | Arjun Malhotra @ Good Capital

Regular listeners of the Founder Thesis podcast would have heard so many stories of young founders who build their venture straight out of college and keep at it for a decade until they find success.

This episode is the exact opposite of that kind of Story.

Rajesh Shet had more than two decades of experience in the corporate world when he started SahiBandhu, and that is the reason why in just 4 years SahiBandhu has overtaken much older and better funded rivals to become the gold loan aggregator with the largest monthly disbursements. In fact, their closest competitor has raised almost 200 million dollars over the last nine years.

This phenomenal achievement is on the back a hyper focussed strategy that was executed to perfection by Rajesh and his team.

This phenomenal conversation is a deep dive into the market of gold loans in India, the gaps in the market, and how SahiBandhu hyper scaled by smartly filling those gaps

Stay tuned and subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast for more such deep dive conversations

Building India’s largest gold loan aggregator | Rajesh Shet @ SahiBandhu

There are two types of entrepreneurs that we celebrate. The first one is the founder who raised a lot of money and built a highly valued startup on the back of investor money. 

The second type of entrepreneur - which we think is really the more special type of entrepreneur, is one who started from scratch and built up a business brick by brick on the back of his hustle and grit. 

HP Singh is a great example of the second type of entrepreneur. He was a CA who accidentally got a chance to start a lending business in the nineteen nineties and has since then built up Satin Creditcare into one of the few listed micro finance companies in India - which today employs about 12 thousand people and has a market capitalization of 2,000 crores.

This is truly a story of the old-fashioned approach of building a business using grit, resilience and a bit of luck and HP Singh shares tons of lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Stay tuned and subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast on any audio streaming app.

The journey of building a 2000cr MCap MFI | HP Singh @ Satin Creditcare

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I tell you that in this episode, we are featuring a Patel who built a business in the US? The stereotype says that he would be running a motel or a convenience store - but this Patel has built a b2b SaaS company that is almost a unicorn. 



Nishant Patel moved to the US when he was just 14, and then went on to become a techie in the San Francisco Bay area at the peak of the dot com bubble in the year 2000. He was there when the term cloud was coined, and he was so fascinated by the promise of the cloud that he quit his job and started Raw Engineering - which was helping companies adopt cloud technologies. 



He then achieved the rare feat of building not one but three product businesses within that services business, and the biggest of them is Contentstack. 



Contentstack is a fascinating business - it’s a pioneer in the space of the headless CMS, and this episode is a deep dive that will help you understand the content space and how it has evolved over the last decade, and what is the secret sauce behind Contentstack because of which it has raised almost 180 million dollars and is near a unicorn valuation.



Subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast for more such deep dives with tech leaders.

A masterclass on the services to product pivot | Nishant Patel @ Contentstack

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I tell you that in this episode, we are featuring a Patel who built a business in the US? The stereotype says that he would be running a motel or a convenience store - but this Patel has built a b2b SaaS company that is almost a unicorn.

Nishant Patel moved to the US when he was just 14, and then went on to become a techie in the San Francisco Bay area at the peak of the dot com bubble in the year 2000. He was there when the term cloud was coined, and he was so fascinated by the promise of the cloud that he quit his job and started Raw Engineering - which was helping companies adopt cloud technologies.

He then achieved the rare feat of building not one but three product businesses within that services business, and the biggest of them is Contentstack.

Contentstack is a fascinating business - it’s a pioneer in the space of the headless CMS, and this episode is a deep dive that will help you understand the content space and how it has evolved over the last decade, and what is the secret sauce behind Contentstack because of which it has raised almost 180 million dollars and is near a unicorn valuation.

Subscribe to the Founder Thesis podcast for more such deep dives with t

Amit Koshal’s entrepreneurial journey began while working on a groundbreaking product at Intuit. Now, at TWID, he’s disrupting payment networks by turning reward points into a currency for transactions—an idea refined over five years of experimentation and failures, eventually leading to the product-market fit. This conversation delves into his path as a founder and his vision for a "happily ever after."

Get notified about the latest releases and bonus content by subscribing to our newsletter at www.founderthesis.com

Read more about Twid:-

1.Twid Unveils Industry-First 'Reward Mandates' to Revolutionise Subscription Payment Setups, Anticipates 15 per cent-20 per cent Reduction in Payment Failures [https://www.aninews.in/news/business/twid-unveils-industry-first-reward-mandates-to-revolutionise-subscription-payment-setups-anticipates-15-per-cent-20-per-cent-reduction-in-payment-failures20240903111026/]

2.From Points To Payments: Transforming Loyalty Programs For The Digital Age [https://www.outlookmoney.com/outlook-money-spotlight/from-points-to-payments-transforming-loyalty-programs-for-the-digital-age-9009]

3.How rewards-based payment app Twid lets you use loyalty points to shop, eat out, and travel [https://yourstory.com/2019/12/rewards-payment-app-loyalty-points-twid]

The platform supercharging your reward points | Amit Koshal @ Twid

Dickens said, it was the best of the times, it was the worst of the times. The words have never been truer.  Best because there’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur.  Worst because the clutter is mind-numbing. Founder Thesis breaks through the noise to bring you stories of success & failure, grit & struggle, bouquets & brickbats from some of the most brilliant entrepreneurs in India. 

Founder Thesis

Saurabh Garg talks to investors and venture capitalists about what it takes  and
how start-ups to get the funding that they need

Investor Thesis

India Booked is a podcast that uses literature as a lever to bring multiple
facets of India alive. A perfect podcast for bibliophiles, trivia junkies and
people interested in learning more about India. Every episode focuses on a
different theme and takes place via a conversation between the host with
celebrated authors.

India Booked

किस्से कहानियाँ हमारी ज़िंदगी का उतना ही अहम हिस्सा हैं, जितना शायद खाना और पीना
। कहानियाँ हमें हँसाती हैं, रुलाती हैं, सिखाती हैं। वो बचपन में सुलाती हैं,
बड़प्पन में रुलाती हैं। कहानियाँ हमें वहाँ ले जाती हैं, जहां हमें गाड़ी या जहाज़ भी
शायद न ले जा पाएँ । तो चलिए हम भी चलते हैं दूर कहीं, कुछ कहानियों के साथ । आप का
तहे दिल से स्वागत है इस पॉडकास्ट पर, जिसका नाम है ‘कहानियों का गुच्छा’। इसमें आप
सुनेंगे हिन्दुस्तानी ज़बान के प्रसिद्ध लेखकों की कहानियों की कई शृंखलाओं को,
जिनको चुना गया है किसी न किसी विषय वस्तु के आधार पर। तो सुनते रहिए ‘कहानियों का
गुच्छा’। We are the stories we tell! Stories are as important in our lives as
probably food and shelter. Stories make us laugh, cry, and learn. They carry us
to the mysterious worlds of our imagination. So here we are, ready to take you
along with us on a ride with some great stories by some great writers. We invite
you to this podcast ‘Kahaniyon ka Guccha’ where you will hear carefully curated
series of stories written by some of the greatest writers in Hindustani
language. Stay tuned to some of the greatest stories with us in ‘Kahaniyon ka
Guccha’.

Kahaniyon ka Guccha

At The Spotlight, we go behind the scenes and identify and highlight the
upcoming disruptors from the startup space!

The Spotlight

Welcome to the podcast where all stories are welcome. This is a podcast with no
agenda. Hidden or otherwise. In a freewheeling conversation over coffee, Sheba
gently nudges people to shake off their masks and share their real selves. Hear
what keeps people ticking, what helps them make sense of the world, and what is
the inner, most private conversation people have with themselves. Hear people
being, well….human. Expect to hear from the quiet introverts, because Sheba has
a soft corner for them.

SoulBrews with Sheba

Marketing is often considered a nice to have, not a must have. “Let’s get business first”, is what one has often heard. However, MARKETING WHEN DONE RIGHT, GETS BUSINESS. In this show marketing stalwarts talk about how marketing works in the real world. In this show you will learn how marketing will help you to - win business - acquire new consumers - grow the brand - build defensibility - command higher pricing power. Vani Dandia is an award winning marketeer who has spent over two decades in advertising and marketing with Unilever, PepsiCo, Reckitt Benckiser, Henkel, BBDO and Leo Burnett. Her claim to fame includes turning around Kurkure and successfully launching brands like Quaker, Veet, Sunsilk Colour, Fa in India and Asia.

Marketing with Vani

Hosted by Nakul Kumar, this podcast will feature some interesting personalities
from various domains of life. From sportsmen to artists and entrepreneurs, we'll
speak to a line-up of unconventional people. What will always remain constant is
our focus on how technology shapes their lives and their go-to hacks & tricks.
We will explore their unique relationship with technology and try to soak in all
that can enhance our and our listeners' relationship with technology. Hacks,
tricks, insights, upcoming tech or innovations, you name it and we'll have
covered it in this stream. So sit back, relax, plug in your earphones and let
the fun begin. About Your Host When not coming up with killer ideas to help the
users of his co-founded app, Cashify, Nakul Kumar is a full-time tech
aficionado, a cook, a proud dad, and a gaming geek. Of late, his super-honest
"2-minute reviews" on the latest smartphones on YouTube have turned him into a
tech influencer to be reckoned with. Through his new podcast on The Podium,
Nakul aims to change our general view of the world of technology and disruption.
Lend him your ears and we're sure you'll go back with your own tech eureka
moment.

Upgrade with Nakul

The minds behind brands, the minds behind ads. 

 

Tune into Marketing Connect as Saurabh Garg, a marketer, startup enthusiast, and filmmaker, gets up close and personal with some of our most celebrated marketers in India. Watch him pick their brains on the method and madness that is marketing, as art and as a discipline. And so they answer the most important question: what does it take to succeed as a marketer in this day and age?

 

Bringing you the first season of the Marketing Connect Podcast, where Saurabh chats with marketers from real estate, to fashion, content, food, retail, and just about any industry you can think of.

 

Hear, learn, and get inspired from the marketers handling the brands you and I consume each day!

Marketing Connect

We get up close and personal to some of the most celebrated marketers in the country. We understand from them the method and the madness behind how they look at marketing as a discipline and what it takes to succeed as a marketer in this day and age. In the first season of Marketing Connect Podcast, we speak to marketers from businesses ranging from real estate to fashion to content to food to retail, and a lot more! These marketers manage some of the largest brands in the country today!

Akshay Datt

Shows