Sanjeev Barnwal can come across our typical IIT Grad. Coming from the small town Jharkand where the dream is to crack IIT, he did not just that but went on to work for Sony in Japan. But a chance discussion with his old buddy led him to pursue entrepreneurship and found Meesho. And he has never looked back. Listen to this small town boy who is going places!

Maharajas of Scale

Episode 30: Jharkand to Japan and Entrepreneurship: Sanjeev Barnwal of Meesho

Gotama is a very unlikely entrepreneur. His father, career inspired him to tread a different path - one of Journalism, only to be later smitten by entrepreneurship early on. Gotama had a very different start. He tried his hand at a Quick Service Restaurants and a bakery. One failed to launch and the other succeeded but with a series of twists and turns that led him to launch and succeed with an IOT startup. Listen to him talk about How he launched and scaled an enterprise IOT with almost no sales or entrepreneur background? This story has it all!

Ep.29: How to Succeed with an IOT Startup: Gotama Gowda of OpenApp

PC Mustafa or PC as he prefers to be called had to walk miles to go to school. At a certain point, he considered dropping out as he was a below average student. He continued this streak of being a below average student into adulthood. Smitten by the IIM Campus in Bangalore and being unable to summon the courage to request the security guard to let him take a peek, he swore he would get in right royally. He eventually got into the hall of fame. Around the same time, he was throwing around ideas with his cousins in Bangalore to start something. One thing lead to another and they ended up starting a business manufacturing and distribution of Idly batter. But the road was not an easy one. How did PC overcome challenges and make ID the largest fresh food distributor in the world? This is the story

Episode 28: PC Mushtafa of ID Fresh : Being unable to have 3 meals a day to breakfast to millions

Akshay Chaturvedi's entrepreneurial journey is a story of humility and persistence.  An entrepreneur at heart, Akshay is excited about the impact a startup can have. He begins a venture putting students and mentors together. A few thousand downloads and a few months later, he realizes that he needs something much bigger. Something that will bring in revenues and is monetizable. He shuts down the venture and embarks on a journey of learning, working at Snapdeal and doing an MBA at ISB. In the process, he realizes that what he was personally doing - helping other potential students get into ISB could be the right angle to put on top of his erstwhile mentor network idea. He dives in and begins LeverageEdu and LeverageEdu picks off well garnering a lot of users in a matter of months. So much so that, when it comes to funding, he is in the position of choosing investment firms that match his value ethos to help him realize the larger goal of creating something big. What failures did he encounter on his first journey, how did he meet all of his awesome advisors and how does he see the education landscape? All in our episode. Fascinating listening!

Ep. 27: Akshay of Leverage Edu: Giving flight to thousands of student's dreams of studying abroad

Toilet - A Love story - but of a different kind. In the movie Toilet - Ek Prem Katha, Akshay Kumar builds a toilet for his wife who refuses to live with him because his home lacks a toilet. Deep Bajaj went a step further and helped millions of women. Deep realised on a road trip with pregnant wife the complications women face with personal hygiene and toilet cleanliness or the lack of toilets.  Deep's start-up Peebuddy and Sirona- hygiene products for women, was a result of several bad experiences all the women around him faced including his mother, wife & female friends. He did this by exiting his secure events career and helping his wife with stabilizing the business of making Handmade Carpets. Listen to Deep Bajaj explain his product development challenges and the thousand days scaling strategies for an innovative product designed to help women avoid dirty toilet seats.

Ep.26: Deep Bajaj of PeeBuddy: Toilet - A Love Story - Of a different kind

An inventive young entrepreneur breaking the conventional myths of start-ups with his zealous attitude. On a journey to finding solutions and emerging trends, Nischal self-taught organic growth hack and founded start-ups that are today lashing definitions in the ecosystem. A passionate coder, realised his IT corporate job did not let him understand the impact he was making to the end-user.  This quickly lead to a career switch at BURRP - One of India's earliest restaurant discovery platforms. After learning the ropes of start-up Burrp, he launches CrowdFire which notches up millions of users. Using a simple formula called ETC, Nischal goes on to repeat his success of scaling at his next startup WazirX now owned by Binance, the world's most pre-eminent Crypto Organizations. What is ETC? What Growth Hacks did they apply? You definitely want to hear Nischal Shetty's insight and the start-up story that has an abundance of wisdom to offer.

Ep.25: Nischal Shetty of Wazirx: How we used a simple formula called ETC to scale two startups to millions of users

Shrijay Seth came from a reputed business family that was into the business of offset printing for generations. He followed the trodden family path of acquiring a management degree from the US. However, working in the US for Legalzoom and his own inner entrepreneurial spirit prompted him to jump headlong into entrepreneurship. Most of us work at a job and imagine either changing jobs or growing in the same organization. Shrijay took the awesome things that Legalzoom stood for and set about to replicate the same for Indian entrepreneurs by founding and setting up LegalWiz on the path to scale. Four years hence and having served thousands of entrepreneurs, he still feels like he is just starting up. A tale full of humility and excitement. A great story!

Ep.24: Shrijay Sheth of Legalwiz: An Entrepreneur who helps entrepreneurs avoid heavy lifting on legal matters

Alex Lazarow comes from the small city of Winnipeg in Canada. Coming from this small town, having a first hand view of m-pesa's growth and working in Venture Capital with the likes of Omdiyar network gave him a perspective about startup playbooks. The strategies and tactics and playbooks that entrepreneurs outside Silicon Valley employed fascinated. They fascinated him so much that he decided to dive deep and chronicle their stories. 200 interviews and numerous discussions later, this fructified into the book - Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs from Delhi to Detroit Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley. We are always interested in new scale play books that are taking the context around them and putting a startup on the path to scale. We are even more interested if they are from around the world where the context is varied and dynamic. Our hope is that some of those tactics become relevant to our entrepreneurs who are trying hard to scale their ventures in India. Listen on and read the book!

Ep.23: Out-Innovating Silicon Valley: Scale Stories from Delhi to Detroit

Anindita is a pragmatic entrepreneur. She loves to trek and travel and it was during her jaunt in the US that she thought about delivering Tasty and Healthy Breakfast options to Indians. When she looked around, she realized that there were hardly any Tasty and Healthy eating choices and she decided to jump head long into entrepreneurship along with her Sister Suhasini to start Yoga Bars. When they started, no one was making breakfast bars in India. And India's varied temperature conditions meant that recipes and manufacturing processes that worked overseas would not work in India. It was similar to what Sam Pitroda faced while designing telecom solutions for India. Anindita and her sister brought a pragmatic approach to figuring out how to make the bars, what to put in them and were also smart in taking advantage of the digital commerce trend to scale their reach. Even though she is not from an entrepreneurial family, it feels like she knows the basics and like a good startup, their focus and clarity has helped them scale to where they have. They are well positioned to scale further from here. Great story! Give it a listen!

Ep. 22: Anindita of YogaBars - Delivering Healthy Breakfast at Scale to millions

Is one exit of $17 Billion (Flipkart) good or 300 exits of $50 Million good? In case you are wondering if this is a trick question, the answer is no. If you think it's the one $17 Billion exit, you're wrong! We think that it should be both. We need both . Now, let us ask a different question. What do you think about SaaS? If you thought SaaS is boring, think again! Prasanna runs Upekkha and he calls Upekkha a catalyst. He might have as well defined SaaS as Startup Success as a Service. Why? Because that is what he seems to be doing at Upekkha. Listen to Prasanna talk about how SaaS is the future of innovation, employment, wealth creation in India and about his unique approach at Upekkha. Prasanna is a speaker unlike any other who may have heard before. A person with strong views and insights, he is putting his money where his mouth and is enabling the next 1000 multi million $ SaaS startups come out of India. And he is playing a huge role around that. Listen to him talk about the Indian SaaS scene, the playbook and the companies you should watch out for.

Ep. 21: Prasanna of Upekkha - SAAS: Startup Success as a Service

Dr. Sonal Verma, a Medical Doctor by profession found herself become an entrepreneur, courtesy of her marriage with Kunal. She channeled her medical background and her analytical ability into building and scaling their first successful venture - Healthcare Magic which was acquired by a US based Health Insurance company - Ebix. Back on the success of this exit, the same team parlayed into Social Commerce, driven by Sonal's desire to help women better their livelihood. What sounds like a scandalous work from home opportunity was turned into a dynamic social commerce platform. The team achieved 100 times growth in a span of a year and is helping lakhs of women earn an alternate source of income. An incredible story of humility, scale and success, Dr. Sonal has some amazing advice to women and entrepreneurs in general. This story is unlike anything you've heard before! Go ahead! Listen and SHARE!

Ep. 20: Sonal Verma of GlowRoad - From Accidental Entrepreneurship to Scaling Twice in different domains.

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!

Ep. 19: Varun Sheth of Ketto - The Boy Who Harnessed The Internet to solve people's problems

There are dreamers, there are doers and then there are some who are dreamers who are also doers. Jimit Bagadiya of Social Pilot falls into the third category. Jimit had built a fairly successful IT services business which involved developing and maintaining programs, platforms, products and tools for Clients. Yet, he was hankering for more. Sooner or later, the treadmill nature of the IT services business gets to one running it. Many dream of building a product that would relieve them from the tyranny of the revolving door nature of revenues from IT services. Making the switch from being a services company to that of a product is fraught with failure and uncertainty. Yet, once the chasm is crossed, the going gets better. The IT services business on the other hand is the direct opposite of a product business. How did Jimit make switch from services to products successfully? What were the challenges he faced? How was the journey? Can Indian SaaS companies compete with the rest of the world? Is he out of the woods yet? In spite of having scaled, no. This and more was what he faced and that is what we cover in this episode. Give his story a listen!

Ep. 18: Jimit Bagadia of Social Pilot - Making the scary switch from IT services to Product and Scaling in Ahmedabad

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 starting 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 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. 17 - Meghna of Indiqube - Starting from a small town in Rajasthan to Scaling IndiQube

Mahesh Murthy is a name that most entrepreneurs who started up in India between 2000 and 2012 know. Mahesh went from being a copy writer 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!

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

Maharajas of Scale is a Podcast focused on Indian Entrepreneurs. It is hosted by Krishna Jonnakadla, Co-founder of Mango Mobile TV and Flit. Over the years, India has been home to many stellar startups. These startups have scaled, have travelled the world and created a pathway for others to follow. We, at Maharajas of Scale, celebrate the creative mind. We will take you on a journey to understand, to dissect and to learn from the masters who have scaled it Big.

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Maharajas of Scale

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