From Developer to Successful Machine Learning Entrepreneur: Aparna Dhinakaran, Co-Founder, CPO of Arize (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: So did you quit Uber?

Aparna Dhinakaran: The reason I left Uber was to go to a PhD program. No one in my family had ever gone through higher education. When I had applied to Uber, I had an offer from a PhD program in Computer Vision. I had a ton of debt, so I had to first go to work for a couple of years. I’m really glad I did because nothing beats real-world experience. I left Uber to do a PhD at Cornell.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Deepak Gupta, Founding Partner at WEH Ventures (Part 1)

Deepak Gupta, Founding Partner at WEH Ventures, discusses his fund’s pre-seed and seed funding strategy for Indian startups.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about yourself as well as WEH Ventures.

Deepak Gupta: I had been part of the venture ecosystem over the last 20 years off and on. In the last six or seven years, I have been running a fund called WEH Ventures. We are now on our second fund. We do pre-seed to seed investments which are primarily focused on the Indian market. We have a few companies that are facing overseas. We are fairly sector-agnostic.

From Developer to Successful Machine Learning Entrepreneur: Aparna Dhinakaran, Co-Founder, CPO of Arize (Part 1)

We have a huge audience of developers, engineers, and programmers who want to transition to becoming successful entrepreneurs.

This conversation explores the journey of such a developer. Fantastic story!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? What kind of circumstances?

Video FAQs

Catching Up On Readings: 397 Startup Failure Post-Mortems

It is important to not just learn the secrets of success but also understand the reasons for failure. This feature from CBInsights is a compilation of startup failure post-mortems by founders and investors. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

13 Udemy Courses On How To Raise Seed Funding in India

Risk tolerance in Indian professionals has risen significantly. It is no longer a goal to seek fat salaries at multinational firms. Finally, in India, like in the US, the idea of creating something new entices people, even if it means entertaining a high chance of failure.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Eva Yazhari, General Partner at Beyond Capital Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: My observation is that the higher end of the market is extremely active. I wouldn’t say crowded, but there’s a lot of competition. There is concept arbitrage. There have been successful companies built by copying models from elsewhere and then innovating on top of that. That’s happening in the global tech space.

Then there’s the higher-end B2C space where there is this large population of internet users who are quite affluent. The market that you’re talking about, is it as crowded? Is it as active?

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Eva Yazhari, General Partner at Beyond Capital Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You are investing post-revenue. What benchmarks are you using to gauge whether you can build a venture-scale company?

Eva Yazhari: Because we’re a multi-sector fund, a lot of our metrics relate to specific sectors. Often, we’re looking at the growth of average order value. If it’s more of a services company, we’re looking at the growth of their contracts, the relationships that they have, and the booked contracts that they have. A lot of it is centered around the ability of the company to take what it is doing now and take that to scale.

February 17 – 564th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 564th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, February 17, 2022, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 p.m. India IST.

If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.

You can learn more here and register to pitch or attend here. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!