3 Years of the Indian Silicon Valley Podcast
My yearly tradition of marking 16th August with a brief reflection of my podcasting journey is here again — thank you for joining! Every time I get to drafting this essay, my words tremble for there is so much to express given how transformational the podcast has been for my life. Three years is a long time, yet I clearly remember the start of the podcast like it was yesterday. Through the next couple of minutes, I try to condense what we have built, how it feels, how we got here and what lies ahead!
In the last 3 years, we have uncovered company-building learnings from 160+ Founders, 15+ VC Fund Managers & ~10 Operators. We have transitioned from an audio-only podcast to Zoom videos + audio and most recently, a video-first podcast. Our cumulative listenership crossed 100K on audio, 50K on video, 500K+ on LinkedIn, and 200K impressions on Instagram.
We have further built a parallel exponential journey on top of the podcast with — Indian Silicon Valley Capital or ISV Capital, an angel syndicate championing operator-led capital. Through ISV Capital, we have partnered with ~20 Companies, investing a total of ~$ 3 Million, committed by 90+ operators & founders in the last 18 months (essay on this soon, for now, feel free to visit — https://indiansiliconvalley.in/portfolio).
We have built two levers — content and capital. Content is built to deliver high-quality conversations decoding the depth of company building in India, which enables public knowledge transfer for many aspiring founders and operators. We strongly believe in the power of content, especially in a maturing ecosystem. Anybody seeking this specific knowledge, from any part of the world should have it readily available. The Indian Silicon Valley Podcast makes it happen. Capital is built to curate high-quality operator capital for early-stage founders. Our belief here is in the power of meaningful capital, especially when capital is available in abundance in the ecosystem. Indian Silicon Valley Capital makes this happen! We combine the India story of strong innovation and compounded knowledge, resulting in a Content + Capital.
It’s taken us 3 years to bring this to shape — we’ve reached here slowly and steadily. When we first started, I did not have the slightest imagination that the Podcast would become what it has or even know what angel syndicates were, let alone think of leading one in the future. I just knew we had to work great and enjoy every bit of it. One thing led to another, and here we are. This trajectory has made me appreciate the true impact of consistency and compounding. If I had to share one core learning, it would be the internalisation of compounding. The magic of doing something again and again, consistently, without getting ahead of oneself is beyond words.
Looking back, I only have one feeling — gratitude. Gratitude to everyone who has played a role in making this happen and gratitude for having the opportunity to live these experiences. With every new conversation on the pod, I stand amazed by the sheer privilege of being in that room. With every new partnership, I get humbled to be a part of building journeys. Thus, to everyone who has touched ISV in some shape, thank you! Words will not do justice to the impact you have had on my life and in building ISV :)
As we look into the future, we are heavily indexing on taking the podcast & syndicate to the next level and focusing on it full-time. With the Podcast, we hope to take amplify our video content and take company-building learnings to the world. We believe depth and breadth can be combined, and you will see us attempting to gather more significant mindshare from a larger audience in the upcoming episodes. With the Syndicate, we want to partner with great founders where we can add immense value. There is a lot to be done to align and bring together operators to meaningfully angel invest; we shall double down on our efforts to make this happen. With tangible headwinds in both content & capital, we are very excited to champion our model of content-led capital.
Thank you, everyone. There is a lot to be done, we will keep at it!
~ Stay Tuned & Keep Building.
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Do subscribe to our YouTube Channel — https://www.youtube.com/@IndianSiliconValley
If you have any feedback, suggestions or questions, feel free to reach out to me at — jivraj@indiansiliconvalley.in
We also run a brief WhatsApp Community where you can share direct feedback on episodes and even questions for future conversations on the podcast, join here — https://chat.whatsapp.com/CRx1tlcbiLu7RPdHU6ANSd
