Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures, is a veteran of the Indian Venture Capital industry. This discussion spans historical context to current Unicorn mania. Great analysis!
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Haysam has built a $10M services business and alongside, he has bootstrapped a vertical CRM product for the telecom industry.
Read on to understand the nuances.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
>>>Gans Subramanian, Managing Partner at Hourglass Venture Partners, and a former 1Mby1M Premium member who has now formed his own venture fund.
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Sramana Mitra: What were the deal sizes?
Juha Lehtonen: It was very little – annual fees of €20,000. It was more like an advertisement for us. In addition to developing the platform, we did quite a lot of projects. We needed to self-finance. After the initial investment, we didn’t raise any other capital. That was the only capital we got. We ended up building up a consultation business.
>>>Naganand Doraswamy, Managing Partner and Founder at Ideaspring Capital, adds to our thesis on great investment opportunities within the sub $100 million exit space.
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European companies often follow a methodical, deliberate approach to business building as opposed to mindlessly chasing venture capital.
Juha has used the principles of bootstrapping using services to build his venture from Finland.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised and in what kind of background?
>>>Christopher Mirabile is Senior Managing Director at Launchpad Venture Group. We have an awesome conversation about a non-Unicorn chasing investment philosophy.
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Sramana Mitra: It’s true about men also. Unless you come from our kinds of backgrounds, you don’t reach this community. If you come from an average background, you don’t have much of a choice than go through the bootstrapping route. We belong to a very privileged elite class of people who have access. Most of the industries don’t have that access.
Aparna Dhinakaran: Maybe we agree to disagree on this one.
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