1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mohit Gulati of ITI Growth Ventures (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: That’s not a common practice in the US by the way. That is a practice that is more unique to India. Because of the proliferation of micro-VCs , people are starting to think. The other side of the equation of this unicorn mania is that the larger funds are doing very large series C’s and series D’s.

Now the concept of seed-stage, preeseed funds exiting into series C or series D is happening more or at least, coming to the surface. In India, it’s been happening for a while. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tod Francis of Shasta Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Not all of e-commerce has the mobile characteristic. For example, if I want to do fashion shopping, I am absolutely not interested in doing it on my mobile. I want it on my cinema display. I want to have as much information as possible. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: At the same time, the cash is tight. How do you put one foot before the other? I saw that in your portfolio, there are some SaaS companies that are related to enterprise HR. What’s the thinking behind that?

Warren Weiss: One is a company called SilkRoad Technology. It’s a mini-Workday for small businesses with as little as 50 people that don’t have access to a full talent management system with a system of records and performance compensation management. It’s simple and easy to use. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mohit Gulati of ITI Growth Ventures (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: That actually gives me a segue into my other question. India stupidly fell into the unicorn mania as Silicon Valley did in that period. All this unicorn-chasing valuation and this kind of mania around being an entrepreneur took off.

My original thought was India is a more conservative country. People are frugal. People don’t have this crazy, excess-driven mindset and we’re going to develop a little bit slower. We’re going to develop more sustainably. But boom! In 2014, all that changed. It went exactly the same kind of unproductive destructive way that it went here. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tod Francis of Shasta Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Where in the grand spectrum of possibilities, in which markets, which segments do you see venture-scale brand opportunities in?

Tod Francis: I hate to dodge this question, but I think it’s actually hard to sit here and say this category and not that category because it’s about how the entrepreneur sees the execution and how they provide great value to the customer.

I’ll give you an example. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra:  I hear a theme in what you’ve described – creative ways of playing the gaps or issues in the financial services market. I want to ask you for your thoughts on the small business financing market. I know OnDeck, to some extent, plays in that market for a particular category of companies. Lending Club even borders on a little bit of that market although it’s primarily consumer lending. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mohit Gulati of ITI Growth Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: So your hypothesis is that a lot of these surplus IT workers with different levels of IT expertise will get absorbed by, at least a portion of them, the startup ecosystem – the technology startup ecosystem.

Mohit Gulati: I would refrain from using the word will get. I would use the word should get if they are open and willing to be absorbed. An older person typically carries a lot of baggage about his expectations in life. When you work with younger people, you need to come with a clean slate. Only when you have a clean slate do you grow. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tod Francis of Shasta Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: One of the things that I’d like to point out is we work with people at a very early stage. It’s not always viable to start with your own product. This is where the parallel with the department retail business comes in. If you look at the P&L’s of department stores like Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s, they sell other people’s brands. Then in the basics category, they sell their own brand. I have been in this business, so I know this inside out. This is how a lot of people start – acquiring customers and then building their own brand.

In the Internet, there’s a company that’s doing a good job at this. That’s Nasty Gal. They started as an eBay seller. She was selling sassy vintage clothing. She started doing that on eBay. Now, she’s doing her own brand.

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