AI Founders Podcast

Hey everyone, and welcome to the SAS Universe podcast. In this episode, Joseph Abraham, founder and CEO of Sass Industry and Uber Saga, has a one on one with Vinayak Shipmaster CEO and founder of Video Verse. Video Verse is a video technology company that encapsulates an ecosystem. AI based video solutions for enterprises and creators, and it provides these solutions primarily through their 3 platforms which are magnified. And AI based enterprise solution stick a live streaming solution and Elasto an intuitive video editing tool. In this episode, Joseph discusses Vinayak 's journey as an entrepreneur and eventually founding video birth. Hope you all enjoyed the show.

Hi Vinayak, thank you so much for taking the time and joining us today on SaaS Founders Podcast. It's really nice nice to have you and. Happy. I mean I, I got to know a little bit about what you do at video verse. Sounds very interesting and and nice to know about this. The journey of of where you started and pivoted and where you are right now. Building an ecosystem would love to learn more about that and I'm pretty sure our listeners would also love to get to know about your product and your journeys and entrepreneurs. Welcome to the show vinak.

Thank you, thank you Joseph for having. Me on the show.

Great, so let's start straight off with the. Origin story and the genesis of video where so. How did it start? How did you guys come together and and what was that that led you to start something like our ecosystem?

So started back in 2016. Idea was always to do something in the video space. I was doing a project with one of the I would say multi national broadcaster globally where we were trying to see how we can solve for buffering of content and the low bandwidth and I'm talking about 2015 when Internet penetration was yet not that great right? So we are trying to solve for how content can buffer under low bandwidth had picked up a gig with one of the top broadcasters globally. Did that gig for 7 months while I was doing that I got 2 inclined towards you know looking at the video space so started working a little. I would say as a freelancer with musically which was then bought by Tik T.O.K. Later on so. We'll keep interest in the video space, right? I always knew I wanted to do something in the video. Space didn't have too much. Now whenever someone starts, no one starts saying that you know I'm going to become an entrepreneur or I'm going to kind of do something.

OK.

It just happens, right? Or you basically get an edge this edge for me started back in 2014. When I started working as a venture capitalist right? So I realized that you know this is something that excites me and I want to continue doing after working for a year, I realized that you know, investing in entrepreneurs is exciting, but not exciting enough for me. When you're like 25 years old and you're meeting like 2025 entrepreneurs every day with new innovate. Ideas you tend to kind of see that you know where are you in your journey? Why don't you start something by yourself? So I wanted to do something I didn't have this idea that I'll start something I had this thought that you know I'll be able to kind of come up. With a cool idea. And just sell it off to someone, but when? Started kind of. You know, talking about this with my friends. My other 2 partners also Sakit and Alok. We started talking about how deep the video ecosystem has gone right and how much more deeper it is going to go. And we're kind of I would say. Look forward into the future and said that you know video is going to be the main major way of communication, marketing, and everything that we see probably 5 to 7 years down the line and we we have proved ourselves right. Otherwise obviously it would have been a disaster in making for us, but obviously. The early days was all about kind of, you know. Trying to figure out. Karma care. So when we started kind of you know building video was back then. The thought process was. We were trying to solve for a very simple problem in the video ecosystem which is called as content moderation. How can you pick up metadata from the content and understand moderating factors in it? What that means is India is a very censorship focused country. Right nudity? Performativity alcohol smoking is termed as seems that not to be openly shown. Our censorship board has become fairly liberal about these things these days, but that's also with the disclaimer that comes on the screen all the time. So though we have started adopting these things, we're still having a lot of restrictions, right? And I'm talking about 20152016 early days where this was the biggest problem that everyone was trying to solve for he cannot have smoking alcohol scene performing. The religious conversations can't happen on. You know your. TV 's and televisions and all of that so. We were trying to solve for that at that point of time and how we were doing it as we were identifying metadata from the video content and we're using the. Metadata kind of, you know. Just create some kind of you know, synchronous understanding and pattern recognition to map to what was right and what. So early days is all about us going sitting at the clients office for hours, talking to them, trying to explain to them, but people in the media industry. It is difficult to change set processes. They had this entire manual process where they had 102 100 people sitting at the back end looking at every frame and saying what is right and what is wrong. And when you're coming and trying to change. That it was obviously dealt with a. Lot of resistance. So the early days. All about us trying and kind of, you know, figuring out what is working, what is not work. While that was happening, we were trying our hands at a couple of other things using the same technology. We told us that let's do something called a shoppable videos. Also, where we will tag video content to which shopping products and it can redirect you to that website to make a purchase. We realized it 4 months into the system that this is not going to work because there is. A fight between. What the content holders are and who the shoppers are right? And content holders care only about the money or advertising revenue was not an exciting cream pie. For them. It was not enough as a big market for winning at that point of. So then obviously we started. Kind of, you know, pivoting slowly 2017 end is when we actually started ******** pivoting into this entire video editing ecosystem. We realized after. Talking to a bunch of people in the industry that the editing ecosystem had not seen too much changes over the last decade or so had been completely manually ordinated by Adobe premiere pro. In a Final Cut Pro, have we set out to kind of see if we can do something there? We used again use the same thing that we have built as a core technology. Took it as. Kind of, you know, important factor that will fit into the editing ecosystem that is identifying important movements using. The data and us that worked brilliantly because what that means is basically you're solving the entire post production work, where you can actually create endless clips of endless formats, endless sizes for all the platforms at once. Click of a button and it also and that is a very exciting opportunity. I would say for everyone right? Like if I want to watch Virat Kohli 6 his wicket or maybe his say the runs he's. Again, as a fan now I have access to those clips specifically and I don't have to, you know, scroll the social channels where a pirated version of it. So the powerful version kind of quests are getting created where people were identifying key moments or highlights using our tool and we kind of made this pivot in 2019 in ******** and then kind of, you know, started going ahead along the journey from there, so that's been I would say a short description of how we started and where. We are today. Obviously, where we are, there's a lot more than what we are just doing by editing content and the video was under video was now we have 3 different products. One is called magnifies and it's called a stick. 3rd is called a seller. So the idea is to build a universe around broadcasting and editing tools, right? So magnify is our enterprise editing tool which uses machine learning to automatically identify interesting moments in the content and tag it and obviously publish it as well stick which is the second product is basically a defacto broadcasting system that allows you to go. Live on multiple social platforms simultaneously and collaborate with your friends and colleagues and everyone across the. The 3rd product is Elasto, which actually takes the power of your manual editing that Adobe Premiere Pro does and put it up on web so that you can edit the content. Now on web and actually collaborate with everyone across the globe and not be dependent on system complicated like an Adobe premiere pro to edit content. If I'm an 8 year old kid who wants to proto content on YouTube. My parents are not going to give me a Mac book Pro to buy and download the software or. Adobe, but they'll give me. Windows system and they'll. Whatever you want with it, they'll be very happy if they have to pay few ₹100 to use it. Also, and that's the target audience. That we're going after.

Awesome awesome I. Was actually reminded of Pied Piper when you told me about the compression, you know I'll go that you're trying to build right. Just just just. I was something as a point of reference, but yeah, I mean I love what you are doing at this point of time. In fact, democratizing video production or editing in that sense, so.

How did you actually?

I know identify this problem statement. I know we spoke about the pivot journey but. What is the moment when you realize that, hey, I think this is this is a real big problem. So was this more like interacting with with the target users or was it? Something that you really. So very, very intuitive for you to actually pick that data and understand. Yeah, this makes sense.

So our client base never changed, right? The client base was the same that we were selling the content Moderation piece 2 right? With the broadcaster right? So it was with them only when when we were talking we realized that there is a problem of where the editing is done and this was when we were actually at 1:00 of their offices, right? We spent an entire week there. We realized that they have an entire floor. Filled with video editors who used to meet at the. Lunch break and I I like. I used to just go around talking to people to understand what do. They do right, and if there is anything that they are looking as a problem at in the ecosystem that I can solve for and I was just trying to kind of you know. Also, pick my ideas from there. This is when it happened when I was actually sitting at the lunch table and I was I was actually there with my friends that were working in that office and I heard a bunch of people. Video editors in the background saying that where I am editing the same content again and again and it is not really meeting. Abne kaise edit kardo contain Jo now. The question there was how do I edit the content that my editor really wants to see? Because that means I have to watch the entire footage worth 6 hours. And how can I deliver it in the same day? That was the question that he was raising, and then I asked my friend at the lunch table and like what is he talking about? We have more than 200 different video editors whose job is to go through. For an example, a video clip, right which is long for, say 6 hours, identify moments and then create clips for every single player inside that moment was like that's tedious. He's like, yeah, it's very tedious, but that's what is today's need of the year. We are launching one of the biggest OTT platforms in the country and no one has really solved for this. If we are able to somehow use machine learning to identify or use metadata to identify what is happening inside the content, imagine the amount of manners we can save and the amount of automation that can really kick in and. The system that got me thinking that you know if there's a metadata that can solve this problem. We have solved half of the problem. The other half of the problem is now to just train the system to get to accuracy where it can identify information for this particular moment, and that got us excited. So we actually took it as a small. I would say internal experiment. We told us and said we'll try it out for 2 months. We'll try and develop this because we didn't have expertise in it. If you're even successfully developed this, we will spend more energy and time on it, because that time we didn't. Really have money so. There was no money to spend. All we had was our energy and time, so we told ourselves we will. Spend more energy and. Time on this if this. Experiment of ours goes successful. And the only request I have made to my friend and a couple of people I knew in that organization was that if I'm able to do this in 2 months, will you allow me to test it on your video clips and they said absolutely. And that was the biggest support that I have. Ever got? In my life that someone just by telling them what I'm going to try and do, they were the first ones to say that yes. I'm triggering it will immediately try. If you build it and. They gave me. A spark of confidence at the same time. It also kind of, you know, pushed me to work harder it give.

Me a confidence that.

There is someone who is going to buy this. What I'm going. To try and build. And it need to deliver. It in 2 months. Now the funny story here is we did not deliver it in 2 months, obviously took us more than 6 months to even get there, but the progress that we could show in. That 2 months. To that team was enough for them to get excited and say that this is something that will work. And the use case also was defined very well, right? That we will give you an entire footage of a cricket match and you will identify different moments with player tags into it and give us different multiple. And that was that was a very interesting use case, and luckily the IPL season had just got over so we had time on our hands. So we used all of that time then to start working on it. And obviously I I say this to everyone. If it wasn't that moment where you know a Eureka moment where it really happened, that you know wow. You can automate the workflow operative editing. I don't think we would have been where we are right now.

Awesome, so I mean just to understand, let's say there's a. There's a video or a clip, and so basically algo is able to pick a particular moment just for the metadata, right? So basically add. Phrases in and and is. That is that how it works?

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Basically, add phrases in and. And is that is that how it?

So what we do is basically we use various computer vision modules that we have actually built and we have a couple of. Kind of, you know, core understanding around data to identify movements, right? So what we do is we identify what the speakers are talking, so we'll pick out on key words.

He's got.

So you and me talking and say for example, God. It is a keyword for me. So every time you got it that means it's a trigger point for me that you have understood something. So that's. A trigger point. Or for an example, I will say that we are identifying faces, so whenever I'm talking, if my face is flashing will identify all the screens where my face is showing. The 3rd aspect was actually an object tracking, so if you and I are playing something, a guitar which is there in the background or we are playing, say football wherever the ball is moving around in the scheme it will try and identify that and the last D factor into this was the reading what the graphical text was there on screen right? Like a score card or if I put up some text on the screen that people can.

OK.

So these were the various factors how we identified core of key moments within the content and. That that we will create a short clip for you instantly.

Great, so let's switch gears here, so let's talk about Vinayak as an entrepreneur, right? So I don't see that you were heading marketing at some point of time and then went into the whole venture world. And of course you told your story about how you know you got 2. You know a place where you started thinking about, hey, let's do something. Entrepreneur so.

Let's talk a.

Little bit about, you know linak as an entrepreneur, right from where you started and where you are too. So I'm gonna ask you like a couple of questions like follow up and then you know loop it back. So what's changed for you? Majorly, you know in this last season, since you're a series B, so how is a Series B founded different from a bootstrapped founder who was trying to build, you know something? That could have a use case.

No, so I would. I would. I wouldn't say that anything has changed for me because I am still the same person colour of my blood is still red so nothing really is there more than that. Obviously there is more responsibility. I would say on me than before I.

OK.

Tell this to everyone. Raising capital is not a success matrix. We celebrate it. We celebrate it a lot because obviously define success when it kind of, you know, puts a valuation in place and it puts some kind of capital. And you're also showing to the world that there is some. You know, faith of the outside world into what you're trying to build, and that's the reason why we celebrate it. But I don't feel that it's a major milestone. It is definitely milestone, but it's not a major milestone, at least if you have raised money in the last 2 years. In the last 2 years everyone has raised money, so it was never a. Milestone for anyone. Being a bootstrap founder is the best feeling that you can ever get right, because then you're basically in control of your destiny. It's not like you know entrepreneurs that raise capital are not in control of their destiny. You can do things you can do things differently. You can do things differently when you're bootstrapped.

You're right.

And when you raise capital, obviously you have a lot of other things to take care of. It's not only about. Now you know, just running the business. There's a lot of other things that you're trying to kind of also handle. You have to handle your investors. You have to handle your public image. You have to handle your relationships. You have to handle, you know. Obviously, the growth that you really want to kind of show, so a bunch of things that really kick in right because? Eventually someone putting in money you need to also give them an exit. How do you give them an exit? Either company makes enough money to give them an exit or you have to again become venture, fund the bill for the next round so that you can raise capital and the investors can take. So in either. You're basically battling through. I would say not only pressure, but also. Then you're basically bound to do things in a certain way that's all so other than that, nothing really has changed like life has not really changed. Things have just been better for us overall as a company. I would say.

So going back my other question was like so were you always entrepreneur? I mean you don't have to be an entrepreneur to be. Open new so was that was that part of like how you started seeing things and shaped was understand the bust this myth that that you need to have an entrepreneurial DNA to be an entrepreneur. So just just trying to. Get there.

Not at all. I didn't do anything crazy or fancy when I was in college or school, right? I did not open up a, you know, I didn't start a project which I was working on or anything to be very honest event at the point of time when we started the company, even after we started the company for a year, I didn't really feel that. You know, I'm an entrepreneur.

Got it.

To be very honest and. That to be very honest at that point of time I was just feeling that I'm an operator. A term I use for myself is that I know how to operate things, and I was what I did because obviously at school I was a part of my school football team, so I was a captain of the team, so I knew how to operate. Things right, and that's something that carried forward in my college days. Also where I was actually a captain for my football team and my tennis team. So I would. Say I was always an operator. I was never an entrepreneur at my end, right? I became an entrepreneur when I started the. And starting the company also was it's not like you know, we thought that you know we want to do. Something that's let's let's start the company. Was like. Let's try and build something now to build something in India. If you want to market it, you want to sell it. You have to register the company.

Hmm so.

That's how it happened for me because I wanted to do it. I wanted to sell it as an operator. I ended up becoming an. Entrepreneur so.

Go ahead.

You have already busted the myth right? You don't have to have that entrepreneurial DNA to become an entrepreneur. And it's just about. You being excited about what you're doing, that everyone who's excited about doing what they're doing as an entrepreneur at heart, right? Because they defacto become an operator. Also it can be as simple as someone who runs a restaurant to maybe someone who runs a multibillion dollar company.

Was a.

Awesome, awesome. So let's talk about your earlier adopters, which is where a lot of them struggle. So there was an earlier adopter who believed in you gave you that chance which is. Amazing to hear.

So how do?

You go get your first 10 customers. I mean, first 10 billable customers.

I, I'll tell you how I got my first 5 customers. So my first 5 customers were actually references that came in for one single person who was basically as an advisor to me, and more than an advisor. He was someone who was. Just a well wisher. I would say the word advisor is to freely. Thrown around these days in the startup ecosystem. He wasn't an advisor, he was a. He was a good friend. I would say who is a well wisher who wanted good things to happen for me. He he was excited about my energy. He was excited about what I was trying to build, so he was like I'm gonna help you gonna help you just need some introductions and he never over promised anything. He didn't say that you know. Look, I'm going to. Introduce you to. Someone I'm going to go make you sit there and you're going to just like. Right? He did a very realistic thing with me. He said that. Look, I'm just. Gonna put you in touch with someone. Who I know in. The system I don't know influential. They are. A person who can at least listen to you, that's all. And that's all they wanted he. Didn't promise me I'm going to get my client. He didn't promise me that I'm going to be able to build a good relation. He didn't promise me that you know that they will definitely subscribe to the product. All he did was he said he will listen to you. That's all. And there was. That was good enough for us for the first 5 customers because he introduced me to the top. I would say talk people today, at least in all these broadcasting companies across India where I was able to go sit down, spend an hour and a half 2 hours with the time that they could give me at that level. Which is commendable. Because they were able to give me that. Kind of time and show me. Out the biggest thing that I learned. While I was making these first initial introductions. Just listening to people can elevate the way you, you know, learn, or you know, transfer knowledge between each. Other, and that's really. What happened that you? My my sense of kind of, you know? Thought process completely changed because I was a great I would. I would say I was a great person who could give speeches. I wasn't a great listener until then. But the first 5. Was that I converted made me a good. Listener because I realized that. No, if you listen to. Things you get good ideas. People had not heard about, you know, automating video workflows to get instant key moments and highlights, editing your workflow to be automated and all of that.

Right?

So people got people got excited, so I realized that you can get great ideas from anyone and anywhere and everyone has a story to tell which will always find me talking about it. I feel everyone has a story. To tell it just. In the moment and also someone to listen to. It, that's all, so that's. How I landed up my first 5 customers through this one single. Pressure after that it became much easier because I focused too much on my first 5 customers, created multiple case studies out of them and used them as a. I would say Guinea pig or piggy backed on their name to go out to the other side customers and make them my customers because it was much easier because usually people take. The bottom up approach I ended up taking the top down approach right so I went to the top most clients in the funnel and said that look, you will eventually become the largest clients that I would ever have. Or you might even drop off if you don't like me, but let me just. I'm going to spend the same time convincing someone at a smaller scale than convincing you guys. And it doesn't spend time with. So that's the project token. It really paid off. But again, it's it's. Company to company product to product, person to person. How you approach these?

So true, so true. So let's talk about your team. How did you meet your Co founders and how did you build a team? So where are you? At this point of time?

Sir, so I met sakita. Malok in 2015 when I was doing the entire project with. The broadcasters where we were trying to kind of, you know, see how bandwidth could be used. Low bandwidth could be used for buffering content. And I was doing one of the projects where I actually interacted with them and reached out to them and then spoke to them about this and they were trying to work on this entire metadata at that point of time and they said that look, we can't do this, but we can use metadata to do XYZ things. So since then I had them in my mind and we used to keep on and off talking and we hit it off. Really well. And and we used to keep exchanging ideas over over messages and we used to keep talking for hours at times it was actually. 2015 June, when we actually went to Goa together and it was just 2 weeks we spent. He was he was there. Kind of, you know, working through Goa and I was there actually just with my friends. So everyone had come down summer time. People were spending time together so I was in Goa. And we spent a lot of time together, and that's where we really hit it. Off so that what? Let's do this together. Kind of a. And at that point of time I had this thought, right? You know why? And I'm just doing this with someone who I know already, right? And then I realized that to do something you can't be. You know having a fall back on your comfort zone always you need to be out of your comfort zone. You need to have you need to have people that compliment your skills. You can't have people of the same skill set doing the same thing. It won't work out, and I found that very well coinciding with sakitama then. That's why that's how we started the company together.

And so, in terms of building a team, what? Do you look for? I mean, what's your culture code like? I mean, what is? What does Vinayak look for?

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What's your culture code like? I mean, what has? What has Vinayak look for?

We're still defining our culture code. That's what I tell everyone. That the definition of building a culture within the org is an ever evolving process. You cannot define it in one shot. It happens over the years. We're still defining it. What we definitely look for and what I personally kind of, you know, thrive on is the mindset, the positivity, the energy that a person. Give out right? Are they excited about what they're doing? You know? Are they excited about getting up in the morning and trying to solve a problem? Don't want to work with people who are in yes man, right do not someone who keeps saying yes challenge things right. You know you might be wrong. You might not have the entire knowledge, but if you don't question it, you'll never learn. And if you're. Scared enough to question then. Then you're never learning. You're never becoming a leader and I believe that everyone, if given an equal opportunity, can actually excel. Everyone talks about oh, we didn't get this opportunity in our career. I don't think it's true. Everyone gets a chance. Everyone gets an opportunity. You just have to realize when you have to grab it, right? So in within the company we. We do not encourage people to, you know, hold back their thoughts. We want people to talk about. It it might sound argumentative, debatable, you know you might term it, as with rude at times you know people term it as rude. It's OK, I want people to start questioning, right? You know, I want people to question me. I want people to ask me questions that they don't understand or me to ask questions that I don't understand and. There's no shame in it. At no matter what level you are, if you don't ask questions we don't keep learning, you're never going to evolve, so that's the main criteria that we look for when we are actually going out and saying that look, we're gonna, you know, close down on a couple of people. For this position and that position. The first biggest thing for us is mindset. What kind of mindset do you come from right? And that is de facto point number one and then obviously everything else becomes secondary. For us, everything else is just about you know what you have done in your previous work, and you know how diligent have you been with it. Those other few check marks that we have but. Usually the first checkbox is the most important thing, because if if you're a free flower in terms of getting things done and you love taking ownership, then. I don't have. To put someone over you to get monitored I. Know you'll get. Your job.

Got it absolutely absolutely. So let's talk about raising funds and how did you go about. I mean, how does your cap table look like? I'm not, definitely don't want to get into the details of it, but I mean is is it a? Is it a large cap table? Is it? Is it small? I mean how did you raise your first? Did you raise a seat? I'm not too sure if you raise your seat but how? How did that whole process go about?

So yeah, we obviously did see it around back in 2018. We released a couple of smaller Angel rounds as well in our journey. Obviously very happy that our Angel investors have got in except from the company because early believers are the ones that. You know, take the maximum risk while they're investing in you, and I'm glad that you know today where we are. They have been able to take a good exit from us. So I would say obviously why we raised the money right? Those years were really, I would say, good for the Indian ecosystem. You know compared to what we've seen today is very, very different. But that time was very kind of easy. You know people were excited about making Angel investments, people were. About me see the round investments and everything. We went through our own challenges. I still remember that before we raised our first round of capital, we ended up meeting more than 6070 different investors, right? So at that point it kind of became de facto listening to nose, because obviously people used to be that you know, yeah, and what are you trying to make? You know, will this eventually become that the word that I got tired of hearing over a period of time was your time is not big. I was like, what do you mean by my time? It's not big right? And it took a while to explain to people. That look a time definition is different for everything. A time definition for something that we are doing is. Going to grow you. You cannot grow in time for something that we're doing today, and I'm glad that we proved most of the people wrong, right that we were playing into a growing time. We were playing into a growing opportunity. It was just about realizing what we're trying to do. Will have eventual mark fold into it right now. Obviously this early days people were still trying to figure out what is working, what is not working for us, obviously. We were also trying to kind of test waters and experiment with a lot of things, so we were glad that you know some of the investors showed faith in terms. Of what we were trying. To build and early days was all about. Just the hustle of you know, getting them excited about talking about these ideas that we had in mind because we had very little show at that point of time. Everyone told me that your life becomes easier once you raise a Series A. The minute is a. Easy, the life did not become easier. It got even tougher because now you have 10,000 other responsibilities that you have to do. And when I raised my series, everyone told me Series B and series life is set and trust me, whoever says this is completely wrong. They either have not raised. Enough capital in their life or haven't raised the rounds that they have been talking about. Every round your responsibility just keeps going.

It's not true, it compounds, yeah.

It keeps compounding. You're basically you your responsibility towards your stakeholders towards your team. Everything amplifies right with smaller money or a smaller team with more money or a larger team, so your problems are only going to amplify. They never reduce. Nothing is going to reduce, so obviously it's a big milestone when you take the ratios of the companies that make it out of the seed rounds. To the A. To the A to the B but again. The lesser the companies that come to a bee that. Means there is a much more compounding effect that's going to be on the companies that continue growing in that space that you know the the stress is always there. It's not not, it's just that you just. Learn to how to balance. Them that's. All so obviously, raising money has. Always been a fun experiment as well as challenging experience. For us, I still remember when we tried raising the Series A most of the venture capital funds in India said no to us. This again, the question was your time is not. Big enough. And with recent business right, doing decent in terms of revenue and I still think we heard everyone say look, we like what you're building, what you guys are building. We don't understand the time and after a point I was tired of your in those things like you know we don't understand it. But I'm lucky that the investors that finally decided to say yes to us. Other guys headed there with a captive, like captive is not crowded at all. Today it's it's a much leaner, capable and and I'm so happy with the kind of guys that have come and invested in us because there are some rock solid guys that have invested on us. The fundamentals absolutely strong. They know exactly what they're looking for. The last. The last round that I raised, the only question that I ended up asking my lead investor is if a point comes in my life that I might not raise any capital after this. Would you be OK with it? The thing that he said to me was the best thing any investor has ever told me that they tell their investors their LP 's that we might be the last check in a company and that they so much amount of confidence that told me that these guys are in. It for the. Long run, they're not going to come back to me after 4 years and say that exit day. They all that. If the company does well, eventually the exit will fall.

Got it awesome.

So what's your?

Reading on the on the start of winter, I mean just just if you can just quickly comment on that, because that's that's the buzz right now, so.

I'm no expert. People ask me to go and give these expert talks and you know guide. On to them. I'm just learning, I'm still learning. I keep telling everyone so I don't usually do that. I feel good companies will continue doing good. They will continue attracting capital. There is enough capital in the market, everyone wants. So many funds are there. Everyone has raised capital in the last 2 years. Everyone wants to deploy, they've just become more cautious, which I believe everyone should have. Just done it before, right? Yeah, people should have just been cautious before. Like in in a. Country, you cannot have 10,000, you know 100 $1,000,000 companies. It's difficult and in the span of 5 years I'm talking about that right. It's going to take some time and the. Indian ecosystem is. Still maturing and it's not matured enough yet. You know it's. It's not happened overnight, it's just got balloon over the last couple of years. There was excess capital, no questions asked. People kept pumping it in. People are now asking questions because that excess capital which is supposed to give them some excess returns are not coming now out of the market.

Not true, etcetera.

And when that when that's gonna happen, obviously you're gonna feel the pinch of it across the. Industry so both companies continue doing good. There will be a good amount of filtration that will happen now. Filter will get created. You will know that the companies exist and that will continue being there in the. For the next 12 to 18 months are the companies that have been the strong holders. Early stage investments is not going to see any slowdown in our country. I feel they're going to be. Enough and enough deals that will continue happening. There will be only a slowdown in terms. Of growth stages. Very likely you know they, I hope. This, whatever we call it a startup winter for funding. Kind of, you know, just corrects the way people think about their investments, right? The way they look at deals the way they look at how to go about things. That's all. There's not going to. Nothing is going to change otherwise. I just hope that topics that change. Out of this. Is a there should definitely be a. Like a tech hiring correction that happens because obviously US startup founders are the ones to blame that have inflated everything in the market when it comes. To fight things. So I believe you and I hope that corrects itself, and the second is obviously a differentiation starts getting created towards just core fundamentals of business, right? New business fundamentals never. Change your business. Fundamental is always going to be about value creation and not a valuation creation. So if you create a value, obviously valuation is a catalyst to it. It will follow through.

Totally makes sense. Awesome so I have. I have like quick rapid fire 55 quick rapid fire questions for you so I know you're far away. But if you answer well, I'll send your gift hamper your way right. So let's start with the first one. So is there a book that you're reading or show you're watching that you can share with our viewers?

0I was watching stranger things I. Just finished it yesterday.

And is there a CEO that you follow?

Yes, definitely a couple of them I follow so I follow Elon Musk. I follow Mark Zuckerberg. I follow Sundar Pichai. These are few of the people that I follow, but too cliche for everyone to follow them. But I also enjoy following non CEOs but through founders and innovators. Like Mr Ratan Tata. Just listening to their life journey and life stories right. Inspiring enough.

Awesome, what's your favorite science app?

Don't have one yet?

OK.

I I keep exploring, I have yet yet don't have favorite one.

Rephrase that question app that you keep using.

The app that I keep using, obviously WhatsApp like my half my life is dependent on it today unfortunately.

So true, so true? How many of hours of sleep do you get every night?

I try to get in at least a 7I am surviving on a. 66 to 6 and a half. These days

Awesome, last question. How has pandemic changed your life?

For the good got married had a kid.

Her name OK?

Things have never been better and I feel I feel much more positive about things. I feel you know the changes happened for good. People have started taking their life seriously. In terms of spending more time with the family, which is a very good thing.

So true, so true. So yeah, we're almost done. This is the last question I have for the whole podcast, which is what's something that you wish you knew when you were 20.

Oh wow, something that I wish I knew when I was 20. I so I I'm going to rephrase that something I wish someone taught me when I was 20. Was managing finances and I'm not even joking about this. I I don't know why we do not have emphasis about this in our education system today. Why not we teach our kids about finances about savings about investments. Because your entire life is going to be all about it, right? It's all going to be about how you make money save money. And save money to make more money. Inflation is growing. Your FD 's are not going to help you anymore. So FD is not investments. You need smarter investment channels and routes, so I really I really hope someone taught us that in our school days and that's early early 20s.

Mm-hmm awesome awesome great so it was really nice having you Vinayak. I mean a lot of interesting stuff that we spoke about and I think I had couple of key learnings as well in this whole like talk and one was more around this whole idea. It's OK to pivot and it's OK to do that if you're closely listening. I mean and I think. It's those moments where. You're looking for, but at the same time you know it happens to you, right? So be ready for those moments. I think there is a very interesting thing that you. Were there and you? Were asking questions, but you overheard a conversation. Which changes the whole course of what you're trying to build. I mean, that's that's a very big thing, but sometimes I think we missed these moments and it's it's very very. Waffle, and I think the other learning that I had was in in terms of you know this whole constant thing about pursuing, you know around one one whole aspect like for it was videos and you actually give enough and more time. I think that's that. That's a really, really beautiful thing. Then it's a very interesting. Reservation I made so I think think these videos so it's it's it's really nice to have known you. So thanks for your time in NYC. I mean looking for staying in touch and have a great journey ahead.

Absolutely. Joseph it was a pleasure. Thank you so.

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