Lessons I learnt from steering 2 Unicorns to Profitability
Past decade of my life, amidst the roller coaster rides of building 2 Unicorns, I’ve walked a path uniquely my own. It’s an ensemble of resilience, dreams, moments and learning innumerable valuable lessons that define me today.
Born with a business-building DNA, and a childhood marked by running multiple businesses with Dad , the formative years taught me invaluable lessons about how customer obsession is crucial in order to add a real, differentiated value to one’s customers. Working in a hardcore manufacturing & industrial environment soon after not only helped me learn processes & practices but also why people are such a strong centrifugal force to building successful large businesses. And exposure to Tech early in my career gave me a clear insight into what the Future holds. Transitioning into a decade long experience in large Tech companies (Wipro, IBM, Dell) helped me learn the importance of revenue growth at healthy profit margins and why a great balance of both is critical to add value to your stakeholders. This decade of my career showed me the non-negotiable importance of customer obsession, focus on team and people, how the future is Tech, and a business needs to be profitable in order to thrive and sustain. The next decade entailed running and building Two Profitable Unicorns, and really understanding how to build startups at multiple stages.
My operating career helps me truly understand the startups to scale up their journey well. I bring this knowledge and expertise every single day to our fund — Paradigm Shift Capital. We’re India’s first truly global VC fund! We’re a team of Operators and Entrepreneurs — we back Founders building products for the World.
I first dove into the startup ecosystem when I joined the Leadership Team at InMobi, India’s very first unicorn and Softbank’s first investment in India! I had the privilege of working with a stellar team and Naveen Tewari, and experienced the thrill of startup to scale up, die a million times over in the journey, and yet rise like the Phoenix! InMobi was one of the pioneers of building a new-age tech startup from India focused on Global markets. I spent time across India, China, and the US growing various businesses, unlocked newer revenue streams, built efficient cost and tax structures, worked on moonshot projects (Glance which went on to become Unicorn later), and a bunch of acquisitions fuelling inorganic growth, all of which were instrumental in steering InMobi as the country’s first profitable unicorn. Innovation as a core philosophy, building a world class team and culture, and the importance of thinking BIG were some of the key learnings I had on this journey.
Later in 2018, Surabhi (who was heading HR at WeWork, now my partner at Paradigm Shift Capital), gave me a call when they were looking for a CFO with a strong business acumen at WeWork India early in their India launch stage. WeWork India runs as a completely independent entity, owned and controlled by one of India’s largest real estate conglomerate Embassy Group. I joined WeWork India as their CFO, where I donned hats of not just Finance (a mammoth responsibility in itself), but was entrenched in every aspect of the building business — Sales, Marketing, People, Product, Customer! We built WeWork in India from 1 Unit to 50+ now, from early days of revenue to a monstrous 1000Cr+ business, and most importantly a profitable healthy EBITDA — we ran things very differently at WeWork in India — strong focus on core business fundamentals and unit economics profitability from Day 0.
I understand fundamental tenets of building a business, have built two profitable startups at scale, can quickly switch between scale and growth/process and efficiency dependent on what’s important at that stage, and get the 0–1, 1–10 and 10–100 journey with experience across three of the largest startup ecosystems in the world — US, China and India.
I play sports regularly and have many observations & learnings on and off the court about similarities in Sports and Entrepreneurship. Thanks to the roller coaster experiences of building two startups & being a mentor to many more, and being a Tendulkar fan — the Master Blaster I draw immense inspiration from, now as Founding Partner at Paradigm Shift Capital, I always tell our portfolio Founders to:
Let the bat do the talking: Maybe you fundraised when the markets were on the upswing, maybe you had great product traction early in the journey — but nothing can replace dedication and focussed hard work in the long term. Temporary gains fall short before larger than life goals — Dream BIG and Work bigger — let your work (bat) do the talking.
Perform despite compelling pressure: Every day in a Founder’s life entails pressure, from customers, from investors, from the team, from yourself. Don’t crumble under pressure, very few have the art to use it to your advantage, that’s the game! When you thrive under pressure, know you’re on the right path.
Remain focused to deliver despite reaching the peak of success: Unicorn or IPO is not the end goal. Identify that undying hunger to solve a large problem and continue to improve your craft. Never let go of the final destination by being distracted by short term success or milestones. It’s temporary!
And still, do it all over again: Past is past, and no one talks about the past, every new day starts with a zero, so be ready to do it all over again. Every day is a new day, and that’s the beauty of it. The journey isn’t easy, but no great thing ever comes easy. Build for the long term and play a BIG innings, no matter how many storms one needs to weather for it.
In this brief glimpse of my 2-decade long career, I hope you’ve discovered a connection or insight that resonates with you. I love chatting with Founders or to-be-Founders, or anyone with a love and zeal for Business. Feel free to reach out to me.
Learner for Life. Cheers!
Paradigm Shift Capital is India’s First Truly Global VC Fund! We invest in Founders building products for the World!🌎🚀
This thesis is a very deliberate and natural choice — all 3 GPs have worked at the intersection of the India-US tech ecosystem all their professional lives and worked directly with the Founders of 3 large unicorns (InMobi, Segment, WeWork) — We truly understand the 0 to 1 and 1 to 100 phase of startup building and work hand in hand with our Founders to create Global startups from India. Pitch us here.
