In this episode of the ACLR8 podcast, we host one of India's most iconic startup investors: Rajesh Sawhney.
Rajesh has invested in 165 companies over the last 15 years and sits on the board of many listed companies and unicorns. In today's episode we will try to cover 3 topics:
We hope you enjoy the podcast today and it inspires you to kickstart your journey. Do drop a note in the comments section about your feedback on the episode. Content Timeline:-----------------
#startup #funding #entrepreneurship #fundraising #startupindia #accelerator #incubator #aclr8 #aclr8vc #GSF #RajeshSawhney
🚀 Coming from a small town in India to build an INR 14K crore company.🚀 Being the first Indian B2B marketplace to list publicly.🚀 Building profitably and building the technology backbone for 70M SMB’s in India.This is the IndiaMart story...Had a wonderful chat with Brijesh Agrawal, Co-Founder, IndiaMart on how they are building the technology layer for Bharat enabling millions of MSME’s to become more efficient and scale.. ❤️We talked about:✅ The initial IndiaMart thesis and how it has evolved over the last 25 years.✅ Building the business profitably, being persistent and being customer focussed.✅ Identifying categories where you can solve a high value need for a customer.✅ Critical elements for running and scaling B2B marketplace business.✅ How a founder’s role evolves as they grow from 0-1 to 1-100 to finally listing their company.🙌 The IndiaMart journey is truly inspiring for any early stage founder building in the SAAS / B2B space in the country. Building the next big thing? Apply to the ACLR8 program today! www.aclr8.vc/apply#startup #msme #smb #entrepreneurship #founder #aclr8 #aclr8vc #indiamart #ipo
Shot a super episode with Nitin Mehrotra, Founder & CEO, DressFolk on his journey of building India's most loved ethnic wear brand. We talked about:- Nitin's growing up journey and how his family background inspired him to startup in the fashion space- DressFolk evolution over the last 8 years and finding PMF- Building and scaling a D2C fashion business in India today, profitably- Raising funding from people like Ghazal Alagh and some of India's best angel investors and funds. - Way forward, future of India's handlooms and dreams of going globalDo check it out and let us know how you like the podcast!
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Learn content, marketing & advertising from Ayush Wadhwa ( @AyushWadhwa ) the founder of one of India's best media companies, Owled Media ( @owledmedia9296 ) At just 26, in a short span of time, Ayush has accomplished a lot. He is a creator, runs Owled Media, and has done done advertising campaigns for some very large brands. He is a super active angel investor and recently also started LIT school. His career is an intersection of content, marketing and technology. From this podcast our goal is to help young people understand how can they build a career in content, marketing and advertising. Catch the full episode now and let us know what you think! Content Timelines: 00:00 - Pre-cap 00:55 - Intro 02:37 - Ayush's Personal Journey 05:23 - Why Content 11:15 - Building Owled Media 16:30 - Challenges in running an agency 18:52 - Learnings from Chris Cox (Meta, Chief Product Officer) 22:11 - Career Opportunities in Content 26:10 - Creator Mindset 29:40 - How much do creators earn 32:05 - Creator led brands 34:50 - Rapidfire with Ayush 43:42 - Feedback on ACLR8 44:40 - Advice to young founders building in content Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aclr8.vc/
98x oversubscribed! This was the crazy demand for the ixigo stock at their recent IPO. But what many don't know is the 17 year old journey of grit, determination, never giving up in the face of innumerable challenges and always building for Bharat.
Had the immense pleasure of hosting Aloke Bajpai, Co-Founder & Group Chairman, Ixigo, to the ACLR8 Founder Academy Podcast, hosted by Karan Jindal. Aloke shared his and Rajnish's journey of getting inspired by the movie Swades and coming back to India to start Ixigo.
We talked about:
and so much more 🙏
This episode is a gold mine of insights for any founder building a large consumer tech business in India today. Watch the whole episode now and let us know what you think. ❤️
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If your goal is to build India's largest consumer D2C brand then this is the episode for you. 🚀 In this episode, our guest, Jatan Bawa takes us through his journey of building Perfora. 🔥
Perfora is one of the fastest growing D2C oral care brands in India doing revenues of 70 crore / year and disrupting a boring and traditional FMCG category like oral care. 💯
In this Jatan breaks down:
Catch the full episode today and let us know if it's helpful in your journey of building a D2C brand. ❤️
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What does ₹15 crore worth of free publicity do to the scale and trajectory of a D2C brand? 🚀
Hosted the awesome @simrankhara2 at the ACLR8 Founder Academy podcast and talked about her vision of building India’s largest cleaning products company with a focus on sustainable and clean ingredients and honest claims. ❤️
We talked about:
🙌 We discussed Koparo’s amazing Shark Tank episode, getting funding from Aman and Vineeta and the growth the brand saw after the episode.
🙌 Simran also shared her journey of being a solo woman founder and how it is important for founders to manage their personal and work life.
Full episode out now!
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#sharktankindia #koparoclean #amangupta #vineetasingh #brandsforbharat
Building one of India’s largest Beauty & Personal Care D2C Brand. 🚀
Hosted the amazing Malika Datt Sadani, Co-Founder, The Moms Co, at the ACLR8 studio and discussed what it takes to build a large and loved consumer brand in India today! 🙌 🇮🇳
Malika shared her insights on:
✅ Building a brand in competitive categories and creating a niche.
✅ How can founders do deep consumer research to identify their TG.
✅ Thinking customer backward, understanding consumer needs and launching honest & clean products at good price points.
✅ Thinking about brand and marketing from a community first POV.
✅ How can founders be personal brand ambassadors for their brands.
We also talked about how challenging it is for new moms to start-up and the importance of building a network.💛 Malika shared insights on her angel investing journey, her favourite home grown brands from India and the sectors she is excited by in the consumer space for Bharat over the next few years. 🇮🇳🚀
Full episode out now!
✅ YT
✅ Spotify
✅ IG
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#brandsforbharat #themomsco #mohitsadani #malikasadani
Building a large business, while reviving a cultural legacy, and providing social impact.❤️ Raising funding from some of India’s top investors, getting an all Shark Deal at Shark Tank India and all of this while just being 24 years old! 🙌 🚀
Hosted the super amazing Aditya Agrawal, Co-Founder, P-TAL, on how founders can use story telling to build large consumer brands and stand out! 🇮🇳
The kitchen and dining market in India is worth 30K crores and majority of the market is fragmented with larger brands doing about 5K crores in revenue. 💯
There is lack of trust, lack of awareness and lack of quality products - which means a massive opportunity to build a large brand in this space. 🙌 🚀
Super excited to share more about Aditya and P-TAL’s journey on how they are looking to build a large brand and revive India’s only UNESCO listed art form. ❤️
Checkout the full episode now. 🙌 ✅
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Building the next big consumer business from India, apply to the ACLR8 cohort today. www.aclr8.vc ❤️
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Today’s guest at the founder academy, is someone who has been a founder and investor.
As a founder, Arjun founded Dr. Vadiya’s. Scaled it to one of the fastest growing Ayurveda D2C brands in the country and sold it for 100 crores in 4 years.
As an investor, Arjun founded V3 ventures and raised over $100M to invest in some of India’s best consumer brands.
In this episode we discussed:
Catch the full episode and let us know what you think.
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Had an amazing conversation with Akshay Ghulati, Co-Founder & CBO, Shiprocket, at the ACLR8 studio! ❤️🙌 Shiprocket is building the OS for D2C brands to launch , scale and grow their business in India and go global. It is truly a made in India innovation, that is helping brands from Bharat conquer the world. 🇮🇳🚀 Super excited to share this episode with our community. ❤️ Akshay is a also a visiting partner at ACLR8 and works closely with our portfolio companies to help them scale! 👏💯 Building the next big thing from India ? Apply to our cohort today. www.aclr8.vc/apply Content Timelines: 00:00 - Pre-cap 01:01 - Shiprocket intro and our goal at ACLR8 03:52 - Akshay's personal journey and why he decided to join Shiprocket 07:40 - Shiprocket's evolution over the years 16:50 - Expanding from logistics to multiple solutions for D2C brands 22:00 - Optimizing for Profitability while scaling 25:00 - Akshay's advice to D2C founders 26:30 - Understanding PMF for D2C brands 30:53 - Challenges that SMBs face and exciting opportunities for founders to build in 40:20 - Trends in D2C in India 46:23 - D2C brands going global & Akshay's own D2C brand 52:40 - Collaboration v/s Competition. How can tech companies work together to build the ecosystem 56:10 - Creators building global brands from India 58:10 - Indian brands like Good Earth, Forest Essentials and Himalaya doing well globally 59:10 - Building Shiprocket to a Decacorn over the next few years 1:01:37 - Akshay's collaboration with ACLR8 1:05:30 - Whatsapp commerce in the country with @grod2c and BusinessOnBot 1:07:36 - Ending remarks #podcast #podcasting #podcasts #podcastshow #trends #shiprocket #reels #reelsintagram #aclr8 #aclr8vc #reelsdaily #cashback #india #startup #entrepreneur #startupindia #entrepreneurship #business #founder
From growing up in Ambala to building a company with annualized sales of INR 4000 crores! 🚀 Meet the woman who co-founded one of India’s largest e-commerce companies. 🙌 Raising money from Ratan Tata, going through a kidney transplant, supporting young founders and breaking multiple stereotypes along the way, this is Swati Bhargava's story! Swati grew up in Ambala and was always a bright student. She secured a 100/100 in Maths in the 10th grade. 💯 Seeing a bright spark her parents encouraged her to apply for a scholarship program in Singapore which only took 25 students from all over India. Through pure hustle and a never say never attitude, Swati got selected for the program and excelled in her 2 years in Singapore. She then applied for her undergrad at London School of Economics and got a full scholarship there as well. ✅ It was at LSE that Swati met the love of her life Rohan Bhargava. ❤️ Always having an urge to build something of their own the duo started Pouring Pounds in the UK and launched CashKaro in India.🙌 The business saw immediate product market fit and Swati & Rohan started scaling the business sustainably. 🚀 CashKaro raised an initial investment from Vani Kola at Kalaari Capital and then also got the legendary Mr. Ratan Tata as an investor in the company. 💪 On his thesis of why Mr. Tata invested he said “in a country which loves to save, you are giving people cash back. What’s not to love about the business” 😎 Over the last few years CashKaro has scaled to become one of India's largest e-commerce companies doing annualised sales of INR 4000 crores, serving 20M users and working with 1500+ partner brands. 🚀 With India’s e-commerce market at 6% of overall retail, compared to 16% in the US and 30% in China, there is huge scope for CashKaro to grow. There are $B cashback sites all over the world and CashKaro is positioned to be that company for India. 🇮🇳 Swati's story is one of being persistent, never giving up, taking every opportunity and always smiling along the way! On the podcast Swati also shared how she bounced back from her Kidney transplant, and how it is important for founders to take care of their health and be measured in the face of success and failures. ❤️ If you are building the next big consumer business from India, apply to the ACLR8 program today. www.aclr8.vc / hello@aclr8.vc ✅ Content Timeline: ------------------ 2:45: Growing up in Ambala 04:00: 100% in Maths in Class 10. From Ambala to Singapore to LSE 09:00: Importance of supporting young girls in their education and career. 11:30: Life at Goldman Sachs 13:30: Meeting Rohan and starting up in London 16:00: Launching Pouring Pounds in UK 17:00: Getting an acquisition offer for 1 million pounds 18:43: Launching CashKaro in India 20:20: Raising $750K in 72 hours 21:00: CashKaro's business model 29:30: Scaling to INR 4500 crore annual sales. CashKaro's current metrics 34:00: Growth of e-commerce from Tier-2/3 cities 37:00: Launching EarnKaro and 3 other brands in the CashKaro umbrella 37:45: Building a billion dollar business over the next few years 40:45: Tapping 150K Kirana Store network to scale assisted shopping 42:00: Selling a luxury brand product through Kirana stores 43:30: Scaling profitably and sustainably 47:30: Trends in D2C ecosystem in India 52:15: Raising money from Mr. Ratan Tata 1:00:00: Scaling from good to great 1:03:00: Hiring the best founding team 1:05:50: Advice to couple preneurs 1:07:10: Importance for founders to build a personal brand 1:09:40: Bouncing back from Kidney transplant and striking a balance between work and health 1:12:30: Rapid fire with Swati Bhargava 1:17:10: Where can ACLR8 add value to founders 1:18:18: Partner Testimonial Ft. @grod2c . #podcast #podcasting #podcasts #podcastshow #trends #cashkaro #swatibhargava #aclr8 #aclr8vc #cashback #india #startup #entrepreneur #startupindia #entrepreneurship #business #founder
Building an INR 500cr D2C consumer appliances brand for Bharat! 🇮🇳🚀
Had an amazing conversation with Bharat Kalia, Co-Founder, Lifelong Online, on his journey of building one of the most disruptive D2C brands in the country. ❤️🔥
We talked about:
We also talked about importance of focussing on one’s health while running a buisness 🙌🧘♂️ and the importance of being measured in the face of failures and keep executing. 💯👌
Bharat is a visiting partner at ACLR8 and works closely with our portfolio companies to help build large consumer brands from India. 🇮🇳🚀 Apply to the ACLR8 S24 cohort today and skyrocket your business. Application Deadline: 31st Jan 📝 ✅ Website: www.aclr8.vc
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#funding #enterpreneurship #aclr8 #aclr8vc #startup #startupindia
Financial Inclusion for 100cr Indians with Ankit Agrawal, Founder & CEO, InsuranceDekho 🇮🇳🚀
Insurance Dekho is one of the fastest growing insurance companies in India solving for “Bima, Bharosa, Berozgari, Bimari,” 💯
Some of things we discussed were:
Thank you Ankit for your time and sharing your learnings of building one of the most disruptive companies in India. 👏 You have inspired lacs of founders to dream big and never give up. ❤️
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#startup #funding #entrepreneurship #fundraising #startupindia #accelerator #incubator #aclr8 #aclr8vc #insurance #insurancedekho
Raise fast, raise effectively and raise from the best! Learn the secrets of fundraising from one of India's best early stage investors, Apurva Chamaria. Apurva heads Startup & VC at Google India, and has invested in 100+ companies over the last 10 years.
In this episode of the ACLR8 Founder Academy, Karan Jindal and Apurva Chamaria discuss everything that a founder needs to raise fast, raise effectively and raise from the best.
Some key concepts discussed in this podcast are:
If you are building the next big thing from India, and need support in raising funds, mentorship from unicorn founders, access, route to market, partnerships then apply to our cohort today.
Website: www.aclr8.vc
Application Link: www.aclr8.vc/apply
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#startup #funding #entrepreneurship #fundraising #startupindia #accelerator #incubator #aclr8 #aclr8vc