Had a chat with a Unicorn Founder

Fast learning and fast paced growth aside, after 15 years of MNC experience I joined a startup to get some ESOPs.. and hopefully a good buyback .. I have worked in 2 startups now.Both of these were already Unicorns when I joined . While I love the culture and dynamic pace of a startup i feel my chances of getting a payout are slim... My personal learning is to get a good reward you have to be in top 10 employees for sure ... otherwise it's not worth it .. There is no point joining a Unicorn in middle management...or second in command in any function... Happy to hear your thoughts !

Been long since I wrote here. A casual post to discuss anything startup/VC related. Which startups are doing good, which ones not too good. Especially if you're a founder - how is the market feeling? My pov: despite the excess capital with VCs, funding is still very much dry. For a bit during the last year, there was a flurry of investments in SaaS and AI. Even that has dried up now. Slowest I have seen. Why: I think there's no push factor to invest, there's a lack of people starting up (vs. previous years). Awaiting some inflection point, so that things kickstart again.

Hey everyone, excited to be doing this AMA! A brief about me, I work currently as a Director of Product at an Indian unicorn startup About my career: - Did my undergrad from IIT and then masters from an Ivy league school - Have been in product for almost 10 years now - across 2 Indian unicorn startups and a publicly listed company Would love to take questions on what it means to be a PM, growing within the role, building your career, and other things :) Will be back here at 4 pm and start replying Shoot away!

When will founders learn that it is almost impossible to make a profitable consumer oriented startup in India. India is NOT USA. In India, people are not easily going to pay for your service. It is just a matter of time before most of them packs their bag.

Whats your thought about tech boom is over? I personally think tech promised a lot much things and it failed. I may be wrong but people who are calling chat gpt is the future was the ones who supported web3 and crypto mania. So what will keep moving the tech industry? One of which is I think is digital automation, rest please enlighten us, so that we can research, read and learn about it.

As we can see only 3-5% Indian startups become profitable and rest of are still in the loss. But Cred , Zomato, Paytm and many more loss making companies are still in the market with tag of "Unicorn". Ye kaise possible ho paa rha hai.. investors ab bhi Paisa lagaye chale Jaa rhe hai .. Why ????????

I am Thankful to the funding winter it has revealed true colors of so called Founders, who would not stop talking about culture, Growth, scale etc on Twitter and LinkedIn Take Byjus, for instance, they claim to be revolutionizing education, it's all a facade! All they care about is squeezing every penny out of parents' pockets. Putting large amount of people in debts they didn’t even signup for. And let's talk about Dukaan, shall we? The absolute 🤡 of a founder with zero empathy( 90% staff laidoff and the guts to project it as some AI ML innovation) These startup founders have lost touch with reality. They've become obsessed with valuation and funding rounds, completely forgetting the essence of why they started in the first place. It's all about becoming the next "unicorn" and impressing investors, while the customers and sellers are left in the dust. Gone are the days of genuine innovation and passion for solving real-world problems. It's all about the money now, and they don't care who gets hurt along the way. The startup ecosystem has become a rat race, with everyone trying to outdo each other and sacrificing ethics and integrity in the process. It's sad to see the true colors of these startup founders shining through, and it's high time we demand more transparency, accountability, and genuine value from these so-called "disruptors." Enough with the facade, At the end all these founders will get an exit with generational wealth, the employee and people who have built it will be left in Dust. My laanat to all such founders and company. May the boat sink and hopefully someday we have accountability in place for these people.

- Most VCs are fraud, they never make any money and keep shifting from one fund to another to hide that they never made anyone any money. They also have usually no real input to add. They are no subject matter except negotiations which too mostly they just prey upon any founders. It's a thankless asset class. Most founders will always hate it as they will never get a dollar and most investors hate it as they will never net a dollar. Never chase VC, they are supposed to find opportunity .. Chasing them is useless, they judge you for it. So treat them from first day like your ex. Gf/bf. - Most tech startup founders are fraud, they never make any money and keep shifting from one idea to another to hide they never made anyone any money. it usually takes 20 years to make a real $100 million dollar revenue company, but 20 months to be a unicorn. Any unicorn today is priced according to what they would make after 5-10 years... Yeah right. - Making real money is hard. Making fake money is easy. 99% of startup Esops are fraud If the company is homerun, then they won't get you stock easy. If the company is maybe homerun, they won't give you cash easily. If you get free cash and esops, just imagine it's an 18 month project. - Most of the humblebrags are fraud as half of them don't even understand the fine print of what they think is real money but not. - Most of the people who usually ask for change have no intention for it. They want to be seen as leaders, change is hard, negotiated and cried for. - you only live once. Go hard.. No one like people who have too much to talk but nothing to show.