Roundtable Recap: November 11 – Discussion with a Veteran Angel Investor in Indian Startups

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, Founder of Malpani Ventures, an active angel investor in Indian startups for the past decade. Wonderful conversation.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Featured Videos

From Teen Student Entrepreneur in Australia to a Mature Global E-commerce Entrepreneur: Mike Rosenbaum, CEO of Spacer (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What worked?

Mike Rosenbaum: It’s hard to say when we started getting product-market fit. Over time, we just got better and better at targeting the right customers whether that was through Google or Facebook or offline channels. Eventually, it was word of mouth. Now, most of our new supply is people telling other people about the positive experience that they’ve had.

Catching Up On Readings: Apple, FB Rivalry

This feature form Bloomberg analyzed the brewing rivalry between Apple and FB around wearables, AR/VR headsets and home devices. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Video FAQs

From Teen Student Entrepreneur in Australia to a Mature Global E-commerce Entrepreneur: Mike Rosenbaum, CEO of Spacer (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Did you launch with your own money?

Mike Rosenbaum: We made a lot of mistakes as well. We did okay. I put in some of my money. I had a new co-founder, Roland. He came from private equity background and had a very complementary skillset. He was more of a finance and strategy guy. We had met over the previous 12 months or so. We kept in touch. We put in some money. We raised some money from our network. 

Sramana Mitra: Give me more specifics. What did you raise money with? Did you do an MVP?

Validating B-to-C Business Ideas and Building to $40M Run Rate: Shaunak Amin, CEO of SnackMagic (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What happened in 2020 when the pandemic hit?

Shaunak Amin: At that time, we had two hubs. We had plans to open up five more. Then in March, nobody was in office. That business went to zero overnight. It was unfortunate. I remember it was the second week of March. We said we are going to take a pause. We all went home. We were thinking we’ll come back in a few weeks. By the second week, we realized that this is going to be longer.

From Teen Student Entrepreneur in Australia to a Mature Global E-commerce Entrepreneur: Mike Rosenbaum, CEO of Spacer (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about customer acquisition? When you’re selling on eBay, eBay provides the foot traffic.

Mike Rosenbaum: It was the early days of e-commerce. There was a much smaller number of people shopping online. We had built this large database off eBay which we used to sell direct. We would send emails to them. Initially it was one email a week. Then it was two. Eventually it became one a day.

November 18 – 554th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 554thd FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, November 18, 2021, 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!

Validating B-to-C Business Ideas and Building to $40M Run Rate: Shaunak Amin, CEO of SnackMagic (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Customer acquisition was all Facebook ads?

Shaunak Amin: Initially it was. We built the waitlist using Facebook ads. Then when we launched, the whole idea of group ordering means that there’s some virality in the product itself. We had this concept where one person could share a link. Those other people could become customers. Just to remind you, it was still centered around dinner at that time. There was no lunch. We launched, but the business wasn’t growing the way I’d like. It didn’t make sense for me.