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Off the Beaten Path: Wall Street to Startup Investor – A Fireside Chat with Me!

Who is “Pankaj Jain” besides being the founder of Invest Stream and Founder Craft What came before? 

If you’ve followed my erratic writing over the years, you might have some idea. I’ve been a risk manager at the largest hedge fund in the world, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), operator, product manager, entrepreneur, community builder at BarCamp Delhi, co-founder of HeadStart Network Foundation and Startup Weekend India

I’ve been a venture capitalist at TLabs and 500 Startups, advisor to startups, funds and platforms like AngelList India and most recently, a dabbler in startup and venture capital related video content

My friend and former colleague, Ritesh Bansal, suggested interviewing me on the show to bring out more about who I am and what my journey has been. Naturally, I couldn’t refuse an invitation to be on my own show. Get ready for a frank and open discussion between an old friend and I. This is going to be Ritesh’s first time being visible on any social media channel, so please be gentle with him. It’s an #AMA so feel free to ask me anything.

I’m looking forward to seeing you for the AMA-style chat on July 28th, 2020 at 9:30am PDT / 12:30pm EDT and 10:00pm IST. If you’d like to RSVP and have a calendar invite, click the button. Otherwise, head over to YouTube with your questions.

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Business India Startups Technology

Qualifying Startup Events in India

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Delhi New Delhi startup saturday Startups

Startup Saturday Delhi November Roundup

Startup Saturday Delhi held on November 14th, was a Food and Beverage theme this month. This was the first time we held a Startup Saturday Delhi with absolutely no connection to technology. We hope those of you in the audience found it to be a refreshing change.

Preet Saini of Mrs. Kaur's
Preet Saini of Mrs. Kaur's
Our first speaker was Preet Saini, founder of Mrs. Kaur’s. Mrs. Kaur’s makes premium American style cookies, brownies, and other confectionary items. Mrs. Kaur’s has also started a restaurant in Khan Market, New Delhi. Preet is a serial entrepreneur and has done many different types of businesses. He discussed his learnings from each and every business he started and how he was able to learn from each one to launch Mrs. Kaur’s and grow it rapidly in 3 years with no marketing budget at all. One example he cited was that even before they were ready to go, he had t-shirts, baseball hats, and delivery scooters covered in the Mrs. Kaur’s logo. As soon as they started putting up stalls at various local fairs, people immediately got the impression that Mrs. Kaur’s was a much larger company than it was.

Akhilesh Bali of Mithai Mate
Akhilesh Bali of Mithai Mate
Our next speaker was Akhilesh Bali, founder of Mithai Mate. Mithai Mate allows people to buy Indian sweets online from various distributors across India. You can buy the sweets for yourself or send them as a gift to others. Mithai Mate is run out of the bedrooms of the 3 founders. They launched the service approximately 7 months ago and are averaging 5-6 orders per day right now. Mithai Mate has developed partnerships with various confectioners across India from Jammu and Kashmir to Delhi to Jabalpur and beyond. One of the biggest challenges they faced in the beginning was the inability to get preferred pricing from their partners and logistical issues with delivery in India. As the orders have come in, some of Mithai Mate’s partners have recognized their growth and began entertaining a different pricing model, which would allow Mithai Mate to be able to make a profit on each delivery.

Nitin Agarwal of Chakhle India
Nitin Agarwal of Chakhle India
Our final speaker was Nitin from Chakhle India which has 15 locations serviced by push carts selling clean, tasty, authentic Indian food. Nitin faced different issues than some of the other entrepreneurs we’ve had come and speak at Startup Saturday. His challenges were goons and certain other people in and around Gurgaon trying to hit his vendors up for money. He also faced the problem of existing street vendors fighting with him for turf. Again, Chakhle India, began presenting an image the portrayed it as a much larger company that it was. As the corrupt and degenerate began believing that Chakhle was backed by a much larger and potentially powerful group, the extortion problem died down. Today, Chakhle has carved out a niche by servicing a large number of people (from all economic classes) around Gurgaon who enjoy street food but are afraid of getting sick because of a lack of hygiene.

Our thanks to Preet, Akhilesh and Nitin for sharing their entrepreneurial journeys at Startup Saturday.

The next Startup Saturday Delhi will be held on December 12th, 2009 from 2pm till 6pm at the American Center on KG Marg. We look forward to seeing you there.

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Business Delhi India New Delhi startup saturday Startups

Startup Saturday Delhi October 2009

Bipin Singh from MobiKwik at Startup Saturday Delhi Oct. 2009

Startup Saturday Delhi was held at the American Center on October 10th 2009. This month, we had three great talks from Bipin Singh, CEO of MobiKwik, Manish Rathi from GlobalLogic, and Rajeev Kumar CEO of RockeTalk.

Bipin Singh from MobiKwik at Startup Saturday Delhi Oct. 2009
Bipin Singh from MobiKwik at Startup Saturday Delhi Oct. 2009

Bipin, started the afternoon off with an introduction to MobiKwik and their offering. MobiKwik launched just 2 months ago and currently is focused on mobile pre-paid recharge in India. MobiKwik wants to offer the first comprehensive list carrier agnostic PULL services. MobiKwik plans to add additional features and services in the future, some of which will be comparing plans across all Indian mobile operators.

Manish Rathi from GlobalLogic was up next to talk about opportunities in the health care space in India. Manish had a great presentation and the audience was extremely vocal about a few points that Manish made. Take a look at Manish’s post for the slides and his thoughts on presenting at Startup Saturday.

Manish discusses opportunities in health care in India
Manish discusses opportunities in health care in India

IMG_0095
Rajeev discusses RockeTalk

Finally, Rajeev Kumar, CEO of RockeTalk was up to discuss his innovative startup. Rajeev’s presentation was only 3 slides but it also ran the longest. For a few minutes, I thought security at the American Center would have to walk us straight from the auditorium to the exit. However, Rajeev was gracious enough to continue the discussions in the atrium during the networking hour. RockeTalk has brought voice-based ‘chat rooms’ to smaller cities, towns, sub-urban and rural parts of India by developing a small downloadable app that allows people not connected to the Internet to use their mobile handsets to communicate with others, using voice and GPRS (sorry, no 3G in India yet and probably not for a while longer).

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Business Delhi India New Delhi

Startup Saturday Delhi – Request for Demos

To help the Indian Startup Ecosystem in some small way, we’re going to be involved in setting up the Delhi chapter of Startup Saturday which is a part of HeadStart. We’d like to use this forum to help startups in the Delhi/NCR region showcase their products to a community of peers, media, and investors.

If you or your company is interested in demoing, please complete the form below.