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

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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

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Solo Entrepreneur Building a Venture Scale EdTech Company from India: Cuemath Founder Manan Khurma (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What is the sweet sauce of your curriculum? In the market, we have Khan Academy. There’s a lot of curriculum out there. What is it that you bring to the table in your methodology that is different? Manan Khurma: The biggest underlying trait is what we call learning by reasoning, which is understanding

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Building a Global HR Tech Business from India: Adit Jain, CEO of Leena AI (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You were doing this in Delhi? Adit Jain: Yes, we spent some time trying to figure out which of our customer segments are using and paying us the most. Sramana Mitra: There were a few customers that were paying you.

Solo Entrepreneur Building a Venture Scale EdTech Company from India: Cuemath Founder Manan Khurma (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Why would another test prep player buy this business if you were not going to come with it? Manan Khurma: We spent a little bit of time there. We essentially managed to build a good brand. We had a lot of good curriculum and study materials. I didn’t start the next business right

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Building a Global HR Tech Business from India: Adit Jain, CEO of Leena AI (Part 1)

Adit and his cofounders started Leena AI in India, bootstrapped to validation, applied to YCombinator, got in. Since then, they’ve built a fantastic, venture-funded global HR Tech business that is successfully competing with Salesforce and ServiceNow. Superb story! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were

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Solo Entrepreneur Building a Venture Scale EdTech Company from India: Cuemath Founder Manan Khurma (Part 1)

Manan’s professor parents in Amritsar didn’t want him to be an entrepreneur. Now, he is changing the trajectory of Math education around the globe by leveraging an underused workforce: stay-at-home moms with strong mathematics background in India. Brilliant story! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where

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Building a Mid-Market Cyber Security Company from Utah: Peter Bookman, CEO of Guard Dog (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: In that funnel, you’re leading with audits? Peter Bookman: Often. When you know the consultants are saying, “It’s $25,000 to come in and take my laptop and walk through your halls. I’m going to connect to your network and produce a report that you’re going to do something with.” The report is going

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