The startup ecosystem in India has undergone a remarkable transformation over the years, evolving from its humble beginnings to become a driving force in the global innovation and economic growth. Rahul Chandra, Managing Director of Arkham ventures, has been at the forefront of this evolution in India.
In Part 2 of this conversation with Devangshu Dutta, Chief Executive of Third Eyesight and Managing Partner at PVC Partners, Rahul discusses whether age or academic background matter, why founders can come across as sociopathic, and starting up in Middle India.
Highlights from the conversation
(Editor’s Note: You can jump directly to the highlight by scrolling the video to the mentioned timestamp. Or, you can watch it on YouTube and jump to any of the chapters.
Watch Part 1 here.
We recently featured an excerpt from Rahul’s book highlighting a crucial concept, the Key—the idea that even among the founding team, a few members keep the spirit of the startup alive.)
00:38 Where outlier entrepreneurs can come from
Devangshu: Does an Ivy League / IIT - IIM / under 30 age background make an entrepreneur part of the in crowd?
Rahul: There's almost an equal chance of success irrespective of the academic background…. [However] because of the networks that people have coming from those colleges, they tend to do more startups. So you will see more startups coming from those well known colleges, because it's easier for them to start to plug into the ecosystem.
06:25 Storytelling
Devangshu: While we in India have a wealth of stories in our history and culture, we are not taught how to tell stories.
Rahul: Vijay Shekhar Sharma still is the number one storyteller for me… He's so electric, and while not really relying on great English, what was coming so clearly though, was his ambition and urgency… He was pitching us for One97, which was a VAS business and you can't really make VAS very sexy… but he made it sound like it’s the biggest business he could make. The storytelling part is number one—the most important aspect of building mega businesses… mega founders [read the room], they are responsive…. Over-relying on too much data and logic—that doesn't make for a good story. A good story is a quest to solve a problem.
12:30 ‘Sociopathic’ founders and founder ethics
Devangshu: Is there much more of a personality cult which is ultra focused on the Key founders?
Rahul: When you think of startups, you think of one person. You think of Bill Gates when you think of Microsoft. Amazon, Bezos will come to mind. And same thing for India…
What kind of person is this who has built a trillion dollar outcome [at least in the US] and has continued to run it till most recently?… The minimum one can say about these people is they need to have a massive belief in themselves. They cannot be questioning their thought process. And it only gets strengthened every year of success…. That belief in yourself comes at the cost of cutting out a lot of voices, which question you….
I also think that, in some ways, such crazy outcomes, I don't think how else they can be done.
22:55 Solving for Middle India
Devangshu: There is the opportunity of building a very large number of entrepreneurs which can ensure the economic well being, economic security, is more widespread… many would need to have the same zeal that drives the founders of unicorns. Your thoughts on that?
Rahul: With 3-400 million people in Middle India, nine out of 10 successful companies will have very large, unicorn outcomes. Between founder, market, product, you’ve got market checked out completely… you see that there’s much more gap in solving one need… when you're trying to build a solution, you need to take on the onus of solving multiple problems… Having lived the problem is clearly something which makes you a much better solver of the problem… I would bet on the Tier 1 place, solving for Middle India, with a Tier-3 founder.
Watch Part 1 of the conversation here
Read an extract from Rahul Chandra’s book, 'Tightrope to the Moon: How Mega Founders Win the Startup War' here
