Cloud Stocks: IBM Realigns its Portfolio to Focus on AI and Hybrid Cloud

The Big Blue (NYSE: IBM) recently reported stellar fourth-quarter results. IBM’s performance had been declining for a while. But it appears to have made a rebound with the company delivering three straight quarters of positive growth.

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Solo Entrepreneur Building a Venture Scale EdTech Company from India: Cuemath Founder Manan Khurma (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The $4 million round got you the teacher scaling process. In that advertising process, what did you learn? What were you advertising for?

Manan Khurma: We were looking for women. That was the initial set that worked for us. At that point, our teacher base was almost entirely women. Because we were home-based learning centers, we were looking for individuals who had some degree of stability. We were essentially looking for married women. If they had kids of their own, that was an added bonus.

Indian Unicorns 2022: Acko Helps Indian Masses Get Insured

Non-life insurance market in India is expected to grow 14% in fiscal 2022 from INR 1.98 trillion (~$27 billion) in fiscal 2021 driven by the influx of private insurers in the sector. But despite the market size, currently, only a fraction of the nation’s 1.3 billion people have access to affordable, sizable policies. Acko is a leading non-life insurance player in the country that recently entered the unicorn club.

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Building a Global HR Tech Business from India: Adit Jain, CEO of Leena AI (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the 2018 timeframe when you were ending the year with 20 customers in that HR use case. What happens in 2019? Help me understand how your HR business is growing and what is the next use case that you go after.

Adit Jain: We wanted to focus on HR. We didn’t want to go out of HR right now. In 2019, we started talking to customers globally. We are in the business of providing a great experience to the end-users who, without Leena AI, would have called or emailed someone and waited for a response. The second biggest ROI is that we save a lot of HR time. On the other end of the table is an HR who gets the same request 500 times a day. They’re bored and have better things to do.

561st Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M

Today’s 561st FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, January 27, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 p.m. India IST. Click HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

561st Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting In 30 Minutes: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M

Today’s 561st FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, January 27, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 p.m. India IST. Click HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

Solo Entrepreneur Building a Venture Scale EdTech Company from India: Cuemath Founder Manan Khurma (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How were the teachers acquiring students from the neighborhood?

Manan Khurma: Mostly the teachers were relying on their personal networks.

Sramana Mitra: Word-of-mouth.

Manan Khurma: Yes, or you go to your complex and do an event. It was mostly organic stuff. This is how we grew on the demand side for the first few years. We now spent money for acquiring demand. We were getting teachers on board and they were getting students on board.

Building a Global HR Tech Business from India: Adit Jain, CEO of Leena AI (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Did you raise money through the YC process?

Adit Jain: Yes. We raised a $2 million seed round from Elad Gil. Then a bunch of seed funds joined in. Funder’s Club was one of them.

Sramana Mitra: Where did you locate the company?

Adit Jain: I shifted to New York because we were getting a lot of manufacturing customers who were based on the East Coast than on the West Coast. We have a huge presence in India as well for development and product.