Sramana Mitra: You would invest in somebody who has great talent and great domain knowledge if that person is proposing something in that domain where the problem is identified. Isn’t that a concept stage investment in a very talented person?
Cameron Kramlich: Sure, it would be. Looking at somebody who has a general area they want to work in and has enough neuroplasticity to realize that whatever is on the pitch deck is going to change 15 times. That’s why if it’s just a 10-slide, that’s great. It needs to be more than that. What we’re looking for is people that we can coach and help grow.
>>>Sramana Mitra: I’ll give you a bit of my comment. We see a lot of investors and we see a lot of entrepreneurs and their needs. One thing that I really like about what you’re saying is there’s a tremendous bias in the industry against solo entrepreneurs. The truth is a vast majority of entrepreneurs start solo. Along the way, they build teams and products. Even the founder of ServiceNow started as a solo entrepreneur.
I don’t believe that solo entrepreneurship doesn’t work. Of course, you have to bring in all the skills and resources around you, but you can do it step by step. The fact that you are open to working with solo entrepreneurs and building the team around them is actually a very interesting angle.
>>>Sramana Mitra: You said you invest mostly in enterprise software. Can you elaborate more about what is your enterprise software investment thesis? Let’s talk about your enterprise software strategy.
Cameron Kramlich: Our core strategy has to do with the shape of our team. Our deepest background is in software. Software is quite complicated. You have everything from platform plays to applications. When you look at our team, we have a whole bunch of experts that are part of companies of all sizes. We’ll look at a company that needs a good CMO. We’ll take a public company CMO who’s looking for a new project for a couple of months. We’ll put him in that job. We get a company that needs a CTO or an engineer.
>>>In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:
During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Mohanjit Jolly, Partner at Iron Pillar, and a long time player in the Indian startup ecosystem. Among other topics, we had an interesting discussion about Exit options for Indian startups.
Interamplify
As for our entrepreneur pitch, we first had Natalia Aldama from Mucia, Spain, pitching interamplify, an SEO service.
You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:
Sramana Mitra: Let’s do some case studies. Pick your favorite companies that have come together in this fashion. Tell us some stories of what did they start with. When they came to you, what did they have? What did you see that prompted you to get involved fully?
Cameron Kramlich: One company that we’re excited about is Cycle which is a container management platform. There, we have an unbelievably gifted serial entrepreneur who’s the CEO. He’s done an incredible job building a great business with incredible metrics. We’re helping him build out his team and a better sales organization.
>>>Cameron Kramlich, General Partner at Angelneers, offers a rare perspective in support of solo entrepreneurs.
>>>Sramana Mitra: You mentioned earlier that the Indian startup boom has happened in two cities – Bangalore and Delhi NCR. We’ve had a lot of success in Chennai as well. Some of the bigger successes came out of Chennai. What are you seeing in other places?
We are seeing companies coming out of Chandigarh and many other places. That’s part of the vision of One Million by One Million – to enable not only all corners of India but all corners of the world. We have companies from Tanzania. We have companies from Chandigarh. I’m from Calcutta, so I’ve always had a soft corner for Calcutta. It is a different India. It is a different world. How is that impacting the startup ecosystem?
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