Ravi Venkatesan asks people to stop looking for jobs, focus on timeless skills and become self employed
After quitting his job as Microsoft India chairman, Ravi Venkatesan spent few months working with a core team of former colleagues on a startup idea. Just before an investor was about to write a cheque, he realized he wasn’t passionate enough and backed out. It was the second time he was bitten by the startup […]
Uday Kotak keeps awake every night wondering whether he will have the bank next morning
At 59, Uday Kotak banks on over three-decades of business acumen in the financial services world to build the future, and keeps awake at night wondering if he will have his bank the next morning. For incumbent entrepreneurs such as Kotak, the forces of technology disruption are not science fiction anymore. In this episode of […]
No to social media, meetings at 7.30 am, embracing “human and interpersonal networks”
The first time I heard about Gourav Jaswal was some time in 2003-2004 when I was early in my career and working with technology media group, Jasubhai Digital Media. “You must meet him,” Maulik Jasubhai, the group’s CEO had told me while hiring me. And then there were legends about how Jaswal would turn obscure […]
Manav Garg on learning from his father’s entrepreneurial failures, building Eka
Manav Garg is clearly an outlier in the Indian startup ecosystem. Coming from Moga, a town in Punjab, Garg conquered his inability to speak English and fear of failure to set a launchpad for himself. Also, he never went to an IIT. After finishing his graduation from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Garg joined […]
Deepak Shenoy on building Capitalmind, and the impending fintech bubble burst in India
Deepak Shenoy was one of the early professionals to start algorithmic trading in India, way back in 2009. It required sifting through patterns of data and using software-based decision-making systems to trade and make stock calls. While I have been following his Twitter handle @deepakshenoy for past couple of years, some of his recent writings […]
ProductHunt founder Ryan Hoover on life with AngelList and lessons in building community
In the mad, mad world of tech, discovering the next big thing is a holy grail for everyone – from investors to startup founders looking for their next pivot and even large tech companies hunting for the disruption in their core markets. From a small email list launched in November 2013 by Ryan Hoover, ProductHunt […]
Masterclass with Jyoti Bansal
Watching Jyoti Bansal mobbed by the listeners of Outliers and listening to the questions he was being asked after the session got over was a great learning experience. So how did you actually do it? Do you need to be based in the Silicon Valley to make it big? I have an interesting idea you […]
K Vaitheeswaran on why a startup is the second important thing in life. First is family
K Vaitheeswaran’s entrepreneurial journey lacks all the fanfare, glory and gyaan that make some of the most visible startup journeys of today, including Flipkart and Ola. It’s a story that underscores how lonely it’s to be a startup founder and how ugly the lows in the journey can get. On the midnight of December 31, […]
Avani Parekh of SnapChat service LoveDoctor on pre-teen sex counselling
The first time I heard of LoveDoctor, a SnapChat-based counselling service for teenagers, women and even pre-teen kids seeking sex advice, I was blown away. Not just because it’s rare to find a savvy SnapChat user in my peer group, but the whole idea of serving such a real world need, unaddressed largely, fascinated me. […]
Anand Deshpande of Persistent on employee vs founder mindset
Anand Deshpande, 55, and the founder of Pune-based Persistent Systems has been an outlier for nearly three decades. Since he founded Persistent in 1990, he has watched lucrative opportunities in low-end software services come and go across different cycles. Over years, he’s steered Persistent away from low-end outsourcing business towards high-end software product development work […]