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Amazing. Hope we get 2-3 great consumer companies coming out of this.

Corporate Strategist

Amazing. Hope we get 2-3 great consumer companies coming out of this.- Grapevine

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

What are some of the AI first consumer tech companies you are looking forward to ?

Product Manager

Tata Consumer acquiring major stakes in Ching's and Organic India. Real businesses acquiring real businesses!

Great to see VCs getting creative :)

Investment Associate

Welcome to Personal Finance's Private Community

Any sme investors here lets discuss some stock ideas

Software Developer

Considering Edtech, Fintech, E-commerce is done

What is the next big thing in India?

Growth Manager

Specifically for people in tech startups/tech ecosystem, what makes you hopeful about the coming year? What are you looking forward to?

Hopeful about 2024?

Consumer startup founders and employees - Listen up

Business Development Manager

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/mensa-brands-fires-200-employees-as-business-shows-signs-of-slowdown-10699211.html

Mensa brands fires 200 employees

Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s former chief scientist, is launching Safe Superintelligence Inc., an AI startup “prioritizing safety over commercial pressures”.

What’s SSI? Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI) aims to create a safe and powerful AI system, approaching safety and capabilities in tandem while avoiding distraction by management overhead or product cycles.

Team? SSI is co-founded by Daniel Gross, a former AI lead at Apple, and Daniel Levy, who previously worked at OpenAI. Unlike OpenAI, SSI will not pursue partnerships with companies like Apple and Microsoft.

What are they upto? Well, SSI’s first product will be safe superintelligence, and the company “will not do anything else” until then 🤐

Still no idea what this means but great team doing something, will be super exciting to see this pan out!

Ilya's new startup!

Journalist

From what I hear from a friend who is aware of the leadership discussions, MPL might be looking to lay off close to 50% of its workforce and shut down most of its other BU’s to consolidate by October. This would include folks even till the SVP levels. This might be one of the first pins to fall with the 28% GST rule kicking in by October. Dark days ahead for online RMG  industry in India

Massive layoffs coming up at MPL

companies like MPL should not exist in the first place. Why promote gambling?. not for any moral reasons,  if someone wants to gamble, let them go to a casino and do it. Instead, making it easier for some one to gamble at  any time/anywhere is unacceptable.

Consultant

Product Head

Believe in Blinkit. Owner and supporter of the stonk.
As players in this category become bigger, this kinda check from the govt is a great thing.

Blinkit SKUs are often dirty, damaged, covered in flour etc. But I believe they should care about the end user experience even more. Time to up the game and match global quality standards.

This is great thing for consumers

Recently, I interviewed a senior individual about their job hunting experience after 8 months, 50+ interviews, and interactions with 10+ companies. What they shared is quite eye-opening and worth sharing with my fellow Grapeviners to stay informed about the current market trends.

There's a concerning trend of false interviews or what some might call "candidate fishing." Companies seem dissatisfied with many candidates they encounter initially, leading to rejections for trivial reasons or minor interview slip-ups. This indicates an oversupply of candidates in the market.

Most companies have multiple candidates lined up for each job role, creating unnecessary backups. Consequently, last-minute job offer declines are not uncommon, even after successfully navigating through all interview rounds.

The interview process itself can be lengthy, ranging from one to two months, with interviews scheduled during weekends, late nights, and early mornings becoming more common.

Some common reasons for rejection include:

1. Diversity hiring concerns
2. Expectations of being a master of everything
3. Common interview formats with overwhelming ratios like 2:1, 3:1, or 4:1, putting candidates on the spot
4. Companies adopting a "Why should we not hire you?" mindset
5. Scrutiny over resume details, such as short job stints, despite ongoing industry layoffs
6. Negative assumptions about candidates from top tech companies (FAANG) looking for new roles
7. Rejections after multiple rounds (7-10 rounds) of interviews
8. Ghosting becoming a prevalent issue

If you're experiencing these challenges, remember that you're not alone. Many others are facing similar issues. Hang in there; the tide will eventually turn.

Job Market Reality Check

Lawyer

Hello everyone, this is Blue Panda. I recently joined Grapevine see lot of folks disappointed with current economic condition and also see lot of folks saying it will stay like this. 

Good news - I already have started seeing winter fading and we should be back to good times sooner.

Lets spread some positive energies around us. I see startups fixing their issues, VCs being more sane while deploying capital. India macro story already playing out. Govt doing better policy making etc. This has already starting to show in business returns when i analyse companies across listed corporates, SMEs and startups 
 

Though what will not change in the next bull run as well is the capitalist nature of our world wherein maximising equity return is the key goal of most leaders. I get a chance to spend time with folks who have accumulated massive wealth and none of them have done it through their regular pay cheques but equity. If you are ambitious want to create wealth make sure you get sweat equity commensurate to efforts you putting in. Thats the best way to grow! 

Few options below
- Join a startup negotiate a good ESOP deal
- Startup yourself and be the founder
- Start a side hustle. Equity trading, Insurance distribution, blog subscription/influencer, goods trading, educational content etc depending upon your past strength
- Upskill yourself earn more salary and start taking more equity position in small cap companies (consult an expert and dont do it randomly) 

You can follow me for regular dose of positivity. Thanks :)

Summer is coming!

Founder

Hi folks, 

I'm Aadit, Co-Founder & CEO at Zepto. We're one of India's fastest growing consumer internet companies and are today present across 10+ cities in the country. 

I'd love to chat with you folks about my journey in building Zepto, my thoughts on the quick commerce space, organization building, amongst other things.

Ask away!

I'm Aadit Palicha, Co-Founder & CEO at Zepto. Ask me anything!

Hey @Aadit  
I’m @salt  
  
Some questions from my side: 
1. As companies scale there are many diverging opinions on how things should run. How do you ensure that the best ideas drive the company even though they might be in direct conflict with your point of view?  
  
2. What kind of impact have you seen via use of Machine Learning to streamline operational efficiency wrt initial benchmarks? 
  
3. What is the key focus area that you are currently working on? 
  
4. How do you balance creating shareholder value versus customer value?

Let's ignore what's wrong with startups, keep this an optimistic thread. Which startups make you excited about their future? 
The ones that have cracked product, GTM, model, or something else.

Name the best Indian startups :)

One for the believers: Which startups in India do you feel are going to make it really big? 🚀

Dive into the extraordinary life of an early innovator, Anupam Mittal, as he shares the narrative of his fascinating journey. From early milestones that prop...

Shark Anupam Mittal REVEALS the Past, Present & Future of Investing in India

Brilliant podcast for people who admire Anupam Mittal

..unless either of the two mess up insanely bad

We'll probably get to the #3 spot if things go well. But it seems impossible that we'll ever go beyond that.

Internal reasons that are very hard to fix:-

(1) Our population TFR fell below standard replacement rate in 2023. This means we will not be able to follow the same economic growth trajectory required to reach developed status before population stagnation or declination. This is not a death knell but definitely very VERY bad news.

(2) Our blue-collar workforce skill levels are not only subpar but are slowly falling behind the world standards every year. Much of our youth aim to join government orgs like the Army or the Railways which train for the job later, not before. Despite a national shortage of skilled plumbers, electricians etc, our vocational training orgs have been unsuccessful in attracting people towards these careers as well as churning out skilled workers.

(3) Our bureaucratic environment is extremely slow with pathetic turnaround times on initiatives. This is not government specific and has always been the case so it seems like this will always be. This is not even a problem unique to India as many other countries have been facing this too but it is still a factor that negatively impacts our growth massively.

I wish it was just internal reasons but a large part of it also comes down to both China and US being aggressively great at ensuring their successes:-

(1) Chinese manufacturing seems nearly impossible to overcome - not just for India but also for the US. Yes, we might win over some industries and companies like the US, Vietnam, Thailand etc. have been doing but the amount of autocratic control in China allows them to crush competition easily. Case in point - the recent tussle between India and China on solar manufacturing which China won by autocratically lowering their prices.

(2) If de-dollarisation succeeds, it will benefit China the most because (contd. in comments)

Controversial: India will never overtake China or US

Let's do our part, instead FOMO, have an abundance mindset,keep building and shipping.

Some thing good in startup ecosystummm!

https://startupstorymedia.com/insights-cardekho-group-announces-5-million-esop-liquidity-buyback-reports-strong-growth-in-fy23/

Cardekho announces $5 mil ESOP buyback

Software Engineer

Budget 2024 scrapped the angel tax for all investors, creating the ultimate playground for innovation and entrepreneurship in India.

Amazing. Hope we get 2-3 great consumer companies coming out of this.

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