Rahul Mathur
@Rahul_J_Mathur
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Now: On a short break || Prev: Founder @VerakInsurance (acq. by ID) || Kindly DM on || Views are my own
Bangalore
Joined March 2015
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Got a small surprise in store for everyone:
For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on open sourcing the notes I’ve taken from books over the past few years.
It took some effort to migrate the notes from Google Keep to Notion & then clean up the formatting & typo’s - but I’m…
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In '21 , Truecaller published a report which stated that one company in India made 200 million spam calls in a single year - a whopping 27,000 spam calls each hour.
The identity of the spammer isn't known - was it Fabaj Binance or Bolicy Pazaar - or maybe it was another company?
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How did Taiwan's Govt increase its tax collection by 75% in a single year?
No crackdown. No tax rate hikes. No one time levy. So, you're wondering how? They launched the "Uniform Invoice Lottery" scheme to gamify tax collection:
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Fun fact: In 2013, ITC launched a devotional app called Mangaldeep. Today, the app has over 1M downloads with a 4.4* rating
Mangaldeep offers a range of online services - puja’s, devotional songs, mantra chanting & a temple locator…
Now, why did ITC launch this app?
Short…
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Met a school friend today after 4 years - they work in California for a FAANG company as a software developer.
Just realized today - their pre-tax salary is greater than the revenue generated by many Series A startups in India..
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India pt 1: College graduate willing to travel 2+ hours per day to respond to customer calls for 9+ hours per day for ₹20,000 per month.
India pt 2: College graduate not accepting offer at ₹15 Lakhs base compensation (work from anywhere) since no Macbook is provided.....
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FAANG interview coaching looks like the next IIT coaching
Dreams are sold using outlier success stories, young people spend years "cracking" something & the real winners are the coaching companies.
Same victims - different scheme.
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Hands down one of the best books I've read to date: 30 pages in - love how the college Math theory is applied to real life / relevant problems
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Big update: BimaPe is shutting down.
We've had an incredible 10 months building the Wallet product - we had the privilege of speaking with 500+ users, maintained an organic 30% MoM growth rate for 6+ months and built some industry first features.
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Some management frameworks I find useful:
1) Netflix's 5A feedback model
2) Amazon's PR FAQ for new products
3) Goodhart's Law
4) Cobra Effect
5) Andy Grove's TRM for delegation
6) Amazon's Single Threaded Leadership model
Each can take you down a rabbit hole on Google!
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I met Aryan on Twitter about 3 years ago - he was 16 (at the time) & was writing code to build a bunch of side projects from his parents house in Mumbai.
My main takeaway from our 1st phone convo was "wow, this chap is next level genius"
18 months later, he started an AI…
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Here's my list of 'must read' memos for Founders and startup operators:
1. 'Doing things that don't scale' - Paul Graham
2. 'Good PM v/s Bad PM' - Ben Horowitz
3. 'Day One' - Jeff Bezos (1997)
4. 'Only thing that matters' - Marc Andreessen
5. Netflix Culture Memo (any version)
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Huge respect for the college kids who work full time at Startups and manage their degree at the same time.
We've got 4 of these folks on our team - and I've interviewed dozens of such persons.
Very high energy, high agency and great skill set - worth investing into this talent.
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VC Investor: *Invests $1M* - 10 page blog post, TV interview & Instagram Reels
Private Equity Investor: *Invests $50M* - Sometimes forgets to even make a press release
Hedge Fund Investor: *Invests 250M+* - You don't even know they exist, they sometimes forget the company name
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The hardest thing about building a Tech startup isn't finding software developers - it is finding people who give a shit about work.
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The most popular note-taking app in India is a WhatsApp group with just yourself.
Also, one of the most versatile features by WhatsApp - you can save written, voice & photo notes (seen lots of non-Tech folks using this!)
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💥BimaPe is funded by
@ycombinator
💥
Yes, you read that right - we've kept our participation in YC's Winter 2021 programme a secret for quite a while:
BimaPe is building one hub for a family's insurance in India
'
@BimaPeBharosa
Karo'
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I've been looking for both work & casual shirts for the past few days.
Ones I've shortlisted so far are:
(1) Bombay Shirt Company
(2) House of Stori
(3) Snitch
(4) Harfun
(5) Rare Rabbit
I previously stuck to Zara / Uniqlo shirts but looking to try something different this…
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1st month of EV ownership:
Energy bill was ₹750
Petrol bill was ₹12,500
That is about ₹10K per month savings for not much difference in commuting!
Would still take about 5 years to recuperate the additional cost of the vehicle so this is a crazy long term investment!
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Some free podcasts do an incredible job of explaining businesses in depth:
1. Invest Like The Best (by Colossus)
2. Acquired (& their LP show)
3. Business Breakdowns (by Colossus)
4. Masters of Scale
Each episode can be an MBA case study - professional produced & edited too!
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Inside view of "AI" in financial services:
(hint: AI == anonymous intern using Excel)
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Got my first "salary" today after 2.5 years
This cheque is more than the entire salary I drew over the past 2.5 years of being a founder ♥️
Took some risk & (somewhat) paid off: This is WAY more than what I could have possibly earned sticking around at previous employers.
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"Indian merchants are willing to pay for services but not for software" - Shiprocket's CEO has terrific insights on building for India
1. Standalone software in India can't compete viz manual labor (cost arbitrage)
2. Software for free, charge for service (payment, logistics)
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WTF moment - the QWERTY keyboard has a fascinating history!
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There are 5 Indian startups whose IPOs I am eagerly awaiting:
(1) Razorpay
(2) Pine Labs
(3) Licious
(4) Digit Insurance
(5) Uncademy
In my experience as a user - Love the products, great management team(s) and huge scope for building enduring businesses from current products
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10 books I wish I had read before graduating:
1. Indistractable
2. Deep Work
3. Super Forecasting
4. Super Thinking
5. Thinking in Bets
6. How to Decide
7. Thinking Fast & Slow
8. Competing Against Luck
9. Measure What Matters
10. Radical Candor
Happy to justify why
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Many people in India take our payments (UPI) and identity (Aadhar) rails for granted
We may be behind in physical public infrastructure but we're leaping forward on digital public infrastructure
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Jeff Bezos operated Amazon on this basis - "if you swing for the fence each time, you will strike out sometimes"
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💥Announcing our Pre-Seed round💥
Thrilled to partner with Lightspeed India (
@LightspeedIndia
) as the lead investor in our first institutional financing!
Harsha (
@kumarharsha2212
) & Romit (
@romitme
) were the 1st believers in our big mission, small team & product-first approach.
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Classic example of Indian dhandha - we create ways to make a quick buck (taken from the book 'CEO Factory')
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We've reached a point in stock market history where the general public produces better research material on companies than finance institutions
Most of the glossy research reports are full of utter BS consulting jargon - there is so much more to learn from the Twitter threads
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My rule of thumb for startups in India - it is easier to raise $1, harder to generate $1 in revenue but hardest to generate ₹1 in revenue.
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Some blogs that I have found valuable for our startup journey:
📈Growth
- Andrew Chen's blog
- Reforge blog
🏗️Product
- Silicon Valley Product Group
- Shreyas' Twitter threads
💡General
- Paul Graham's essays
- NFX blog
Not comprehensive - just the ones I refer to often
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Listing some frameworks I find valuable as CEO:
(1) Netflix's 5A feedback model
(2) Andy Grove's TRM model for delegation
(3) Amazon's written narrative & PR FAQ
(4) Ben Horowitz's 3P model
(5) 5 Why's
(6) STEPPS framework for marketing
Each is worth a Google search & read
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I've been holding ~75% of my "net worth" entirely in cash for the last 4 months.
You can call me an idiot, but, I lack confidence in the stock market movement right now.
Returns (right now) are more linked to the next fool investing than in fundamentals of underlying assets
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Wrapping up 2023 by sharing my top 20 podcasts for the year (with links):
1. Charlie Munger interview on Acquired
2. Morgan Housel (Collaborative Fund) on Tim Ferriss Show
3. About Nubank on Business Breakdowns
4. Aswath Damodaran on Invest Like The Best
5. About IPL on Business…
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Air India HQ in Mumbai is back to its former glory with the light shows!
It has been years since I've seen this!
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A YouTube channel I've been binge watching lately is the Master's Union channel.
They send their MBA students out into the field to interview / study a bunch of well run family businesses which have scaled.
In the process - they record the students conversing with the owners;…
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4 books I would recommend to anyone interested in investing & personal finance:
(1) Psychology of Money - Morgan Housel
(2) More Than You Know - Michael Mauboussin
(3) The Most Important Thing - Howard Marks
(4) The Tao of Munger (or any book about Charlie & Warren)
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Law of Startup Bullshitting: The number of "🚀" in a statement is inversely proportional to its truth.
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Indian startup ecosystem in a nutshell:
- More aspiring PMs than startups
- Too few designers (all levels)
- Too few PMs (mid career level)
- React Native dev is rarer than a Bollywood celebrity
- Sequoia Capital has become an Angel; Tiger has become an early stage VC
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In March, Meesho's CFO reported that the majority of ₹3,000 crore revenue in FY 22 came from ad Sales (yes, you read that right)
This raises a question - can any company scale its revenue without ultimately selling eyeballs on its platform? Let's look at some other cos:
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I feel India might just have the smartest bunch of teens right now - at least the ones I interact with on Twitter & LinkedIn.
They are mature (intellectually) far beyond their years and display terrific technical skills too.
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Indian Tech Twitter in 2021:
1. Everyone is an investor (crypto, NFTs, Indian & US equities)
2. Everyone is a Co-Founder cum Angel Investor
3. Every senior engineer has a YouTube channel
4. Every 3rd person runs a cohort based course
Wonderful to learn from everyone on Twitter
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Zomato's acquisition of Blinkit in 2022 MAY go down in history as one of the best acquisitions in India:
2022 - $570M stock only purchase of Blinkit
2024 - Blinkit worth ~ $13bn per Analysts
i.e. x22 implied market cap growth in < 24 months
Deepinder wasn't joking when he said…
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One thing that isn't discussed about building a company is how terrifying it is to see your personal bank balance gradually decline
I'll share my story with you - on 30/10/20 (the day I quit work), I had ₹9L bank balance + ₹15L stock investments (saved up from work overseas)
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Someone needs to control the crypto advertisements in India
You shouldn't use words like "insured" & "build wealth by investing" when referring to an asset class that is highly volatile
Most people seeing these ads are going to be grossly misled
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The real risk takers in Indian society don't invest in stocks or crypto - they race their bikes without a helmet in full traffic (at every major junction)
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People who abbreviate their job titles unnecessary; I interviewed someone for "BDSM" role last week (i.e. Business Development - Senior Manager)
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If you’re a candidate looking for Tech roles in India right now - there is some clarity on compensation figures in Tech - courtesy great work done by the Hiresure team:
If you open the attached image - you’ll find ballpark compensation bands across various Tech roles from SDE-I…
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Investors are trying to put money into the LIC IPO to profit from listing gains
Whereas, policyholders struggle to get their money back from LIC policies (quite often at a loss)
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YouTube never ceases to amaze:
Some education channels are better than university courses
Some documentary channels put professional production to shame
Some fan fiction channels produce better stories than Hollywood
And, all this stuff is literally free!
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One of the greatest joys of being a startup founder is to witness personal growth of early team members
Example: Had a 19 year old CS student join us as intern 14 months ago - worked their way up to SDE - 1 (Frontend) & also owns > 0.1% of the company (all whilst in college).
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Amazon completes 10 yrs in 🇮🇳 today
2013 - Launch in India
2014 - Indian Post tie-up
2016 - Prime in India
2019 - Indian Railways tie-up
2023 - Amazon Air in India
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Anyone who thinks founding a startup means you'll become your own boss & find freedom is grossly mistaken.
You'll find that the real boss is the market - which doesn't care about you or your company.
You'll find most of your waking hours thinking about the company; not freedom.
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My best investment to date has been buying a book after starting my 1st job.
I had just moved in to London - no internet, not enough space for a gaming PC & nothing to do after work.
75 books & 2 years later, reading is part of my identity & invaluable for my startup journey.
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CRED has posted some solid figures:
Revenue 📈
FY 20: ₹0.5 crore
FY 21: ₹88.6 crore
FY 22: ₹422 crore
FY 23: ₹1484 crore
And, Loss 📊
FY 20: ₹360 crore
FY 21: ₹523 crore
FY 22: ₹1280 crore
FY 23: ₹1347 crore
Few points to keep in mind:
(1) Runway 📉
- CRED has raised…
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Google has become synonymous with "online search" exactly the same way that Xerox became synonymous with "photocopy"
Every company aspires to reach this level of brand recall where "product == brand"; Uber has come close to this for taxi in the past decade - any others?
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Wanted to share this message last night - the importance of learning everyday and from every experience
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After spending ~40 hours this week on recruitment, I've come to one conclusion -
At an early stage startup, the Founder needs to sell the vision, highlight the culture and stress progress to date.
Unless you're transparent about your growth & weak points, no one will join you.
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There are 5 companies whose products make running a remote company so much easier:
1. Notion
2. Calendly
3. Loom
4. Figma
5. Razorpay (India specific)
May their valuations continue to expand so that my annual SaaS bill continues to contract with their startup discount schemes
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Knowledge Management may be the new Product Management
Creating playbooks, updating documents and circulating best practices is literally a full time job at a fast growing startup!
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Apparently the most expensive housing unit in Gurgram is called Chamaila - if you speak Marathi, you know exactly what this means😂
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Read this quote - thought a bit about FinTech - only to realize that it applies to insurance too!
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Can someone create a crypto funded Indian media channel?
Legit journalists, transparent sourcing of information and non-cringe.
I'll gladly participate - make BimaPe Inc the title insurance sponsor.
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This is a well researched & interesting read on AI - has strong endorsements from Bill Gates + Elon Musk
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Rule
#5
of doing business in India:
Always refer to another person as sir or ma'am - doesn't matter who is older or younger; even better if you can use "ji" after each person's name. Will get work done.
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If you're thinking about buying Gold in India as an asset, this table may be useful to compare different options:
Couple of good takeaways:
1. Gold ETFs purchased after 01.04.23 are taxed at your income tax rate regardless of when you sell the ETFs
2. SGBs (Sovereign Gold…
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Whatever you do - please do not tie your identity to an institution (where you have graduated from, where you currently work or the venture which you have founded).
It is a recipe for disaster.
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Was reminded of a Warren Buffett quote today - "You don't need to be smarter than the rest, you need to be more disciplined than the rest."
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Announcing our $60M Series B today🔥
This round is co-led by Mitsubishi Financial Group (Japan) & BNP Paribas (France) - two leading financial conglomerates.
The Series B is a follow on to the $150M Series A announced in Feb '23.
Sharing a few pointers about the business:
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The ultimate low is when an Engineer who is supposed to join your company on Monday - calls on Sunday to say they are joining another company...
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Learning about human psychology is one of the best investments you can make for your own career
Four books - 'Thinking Fast & Slow', 'Hooked', 'Nudge' and 'Influence' - made me look at the world in a different (i.e. more informed) way
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Sharing a list of books I suggested to my school friend who's starting work soon:
1. Deep Work
2. Atomic Habits
3. Super Thinking
4. Radial Candor
5. Never Split the Difference
6. Principles
7. What You Do Is Who You Are
8. ReWork
9. Innovator's Dilemma
10. Measure What Matters
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2015 in the gym: Politics, cricket and Bollywood
2021 in the gym: Stock market, crypto and 'how to get child into coding'
Evident from the conversations & TV channel choice on cardio machines
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At this point, we should just ignore the "India Stack" & focus on the "Jio Stack"
In the last 5 years, Jio has literally built its own stack which sandwiches the India Stack (identity + payment rails).
Right from network (5G + Fiber) & hardware (mobile + laptop) to the…
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Grateful for an excellent month - hit revenue targets, delivered on Product & loved the build process with the team. Couldn't ask for more 🙏
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New job titles at Indian startups:
COO: Chief OTP Officer
CTO: Chief Twitter Officer (to write🧵)
CCO: Chief Chai Officer (to get team's daily fix)
CMO: Chief Meme Officer
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Loved this career advice from Charlie Munger - worth reading!
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Mukesh Ambani owns a minority stake in a $5bn company which most of us have never heard of..
Earlier this year, Mr. Ambani was joined by notable people including KKR Co-Founder Henry who invested ~ $175M to purchase 3.3% of Thrive Capital Management LLC valuing it above $5bn:
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Another fact: Due to the standard invoice, a biz in Taiwan doesn't need extensive accounting help - Govt & biz knows exactly what taxes are due.
This is one unique story I came across while reading the book "Actionable Gamification" by Yu-Kai Chou. Great read - highly recommend!
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Sharing 10 great books about Indian companies / entrepreneurs which I’ve come across in the past 2 years:
1. ⏱️Titan by Vinay Kamath
- How Titan was incubated inside Tata Group; many near death experiences plus insights into the watch & jewelry business
2. 🚲Making of Hero -…
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Very Important: Working professionals may be eligible for up to ₹7 Lakhs FREE life insurance cover
Yes - you read that right - FREE and it covers Covid-19 death too
How?
via EDLI - Employee Deposit Linked Insurance
Read on to learn about eligibility & cover:
(1/4)
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If you live in a joint Indian family (like I do) - the concept of personal finance doesn't exist; it is always "family finances"
This is one thing most investment products fail to understand in India - most of us invest as a family; not as an individual.
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My friend based in USA asked me why Indian startups employ so many people
I thought for a few seconds and said - "we have a guy who prints, stamps & submits paper docs as a full time gig; another to just sit at our office door to welcome inspectors/regulators"
Just India things
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Every intern and hiring manager in India needs to read this. I follow this at my end - everyone gets paid.
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There is a misconception that “company sold for $10M, founder holds 80% equity means founders gets $8M’ - I wish that was true - I’d be in the Bahamas if that was the case.
I’m going to take a super simple example to explain how you (as an employee) can get wiped out despite…
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There is a lot of buzz around GCCs (Global Capability Centers) in India right now.
The most common question I hear is "how is this different from a BPO / KPO?"
The answer lies in the fact that India is on an arc of moving up the outsourcing value chain:
(a) BPO (1990s) - doing…
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"Product business makes money while you sleep, service business does not let you sleep."
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India imports ~$15bn of petrol each month
The consensus view is that if India transitions to EVs then our dependency on Russia & OPEC (i.e. oil producing countries) will reduce.
This idea is a little misplaced ⤵️
(1) Lithium, Manganese & Cobalt are 3 key ingredients in an EV…
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If there is a successful startup in the West - a version of that company emerges in India.
However, dismissing Razorpay as Stripe for India or Apna as LinkedIn for Bharat is a poor analogy
Building for Indian users requires a different muscle & mindset which cannot be copied.
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Reading 'Deep Work', 'Essentialism' and 'Atomic Habits' - each changed my approach to work. Highly recommended for anyone who is beginning their first full time employment.
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Couple of great programs for Indian startup founders have emerged in the past few years:
1. Accel Atoms
2. Sequoia Surge
3. Sequoia Spark
4. Lightspeed Extreme Entrepreneurs
5. OnDeck India
6. Antler India
7. 100X VC
8. Entrepreneur First
9. Misfits by Orios Ventures
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Early 20s is a strange point in life - some friends are settling down while others are still acting like 15 year olds
And, then there is the occasional weirdo like me who's lost in work and unable to relate to the problems of others in my friendship group
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