I'm Vaibhav Vardhan, Co-Founder & CEO of Inc42. Ask me anything!
Hey Everyone, I'm Vaibhav Vardhan, Co-Founder & CEO at Inc42. We are India’s #1 startup media & intelligence platform that informs, educates and empowers startup leaders & operators through our incisive reporting and industry-leading executive programs like FounderX. I'd love to chat with you folks about my journey in building Inc42, why we’ve built FounderX and more! Ask Me Anything :) I’ll be back at 5PM and answer all your questions!
How has Inc42 shaped up as a business? Given subcriptions in India is tough, how have you folks personally navigated through the hurdles to be where you are?
Also, have you ever raised funds?
@Siba Haha! That’s quite a loaded question, I’ll try to answer it as specifically I can
Inc42 as a business took many pivotal steps in being where it is today! We recently concluded our 10 years of being in business and 3rd consecutive year of being profitable.
Coming to Subscriptions, they are a tricky game to be a part of! We launched subscriptions in Feb 2020, a month later, one of our ongoing funding rounds took a halt, and were left with the next day’s money in the bank.
It was a turning point that a) made us resilient and b) helped us focus on subscription revenue along constructing 4 parallel revenue streams.
And lastly, yes, we have had backers in the last 10 years of our journey, you can read more about it here: https://inc42.com/features/the-story-of-inc42/
@Vaibhav_Vardhan 10 years is a milestone. Many congratulations to the team.
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Inc42 is a great media house, but I haven't see a lot of audio and video content from Inc42, do you have things planned or are you working on it?
Would love to see podcasts from Inc42 with legacy founders or startup founders which are not active in public domain; like Shreeharsha, Asish Mohapatra and a lot more!
@Acid On purpose, we have delayed the gratifications of launching these channels. While launching these channels is easy, maintaining and scaling them consistently is a tough nut to crack.
Our core philosophy is to strengthen our journalism and product. Having said that, never say no right, something is brewing ;)
1. In the world of Your story, entrackr, morning context, the Ken and many more...What's the usp of inc42?
2. With onset of AI and media groups already using midjourney and similar tools, how do u see media industry shaping up in long term?
Best of luck 🍀🤞🍀
@Sherlock007 Our core DNA at Inc42 has always been to carefully build everything that is backed by data and insights – so rather than focus on competition, we focus on doing what we do best and at the end of the day, all of us want to resonate with the right people and readers who read us.
Having said that, 10 more publications have a huge room to come and grow exponentially as the ecosystem expands.
As for AI, this is just a start, and we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg as I believe next 3 years will see whirlwinds of new tools and technologies that will emerge in the world of ai.
Change the way businesses and industries will operate at large including media, it will be a while before we as a media industry, learn how to operate sustainably using new AI tools.
But in general, from image designs to landing pages to creative marketing, to the editing of copies and even the creation of content will be largely automated in various forms and shapes.
Btw, we are coming to Bangalore soon with our GenAI Summit 202 as more and more conversations are needed around it.
Shameless plug but do check it out :) https://inc42.com/genai-summit/
Hi Vaibhav
Big fan of Inc42’s reporting
Reporting on the ecosystem for so many years, how do you look at it now? Are you optimistic on Indian startups?
@Careermode Well, we have come very far from 1000 odd startups to more than a lakh today, from 0 unicorns to 112 unicorns, more than $145 Bn funding the ecosystem has witnessed so the startups at large have become an established norm!
At the same time, we are going through a course correction and in the next two years, we will see the impact of it and I'm super bullish and optimistic on the Indian market.
The next five million jobs will come from startups!
e s
The next 5 million jobs will come from startups 🚀
Thank you for responding
Hi @Vaibhav_Vardhan
I'm @salt
Just wanted to ask about what do you think about other similar companies in this space that tend to get very negative and sensational with their coverage?
I have noted that Inc42's coverage tends to be more factual than others and I really appreciate reading articles with more balanced PoVs. Just want to congratulate you on the company you're building.
There's more to achieve obviously. Stay on the right path and I'm sure Inc42 might be the next Bloomberg in the making.
@salt Well, media is a tough business where on one hand you strive to generate constant pageviews and readership. On the other hand, you are trying to balance between journalism and sensationalism and lastly topping it up on your wisdom of what's right and wrong and usually as a journalist and as a newsroom you tend to dabble between all three, to find a perfect balance.
Cheers!
Hey Vaibhav, congratulations on completing a decade-long journey at Inc42!
How do you think the current period of record-high global drypowder will conclude? Will it conclude with another huge funding "summer" like 2021? Or will all this waiting make LPs pull their capital and start exploring other asset classes?
@AITookMyJob Not anytime soon but in the second half of this year we will see an equivalent growth of 2019 and funding will be back.
However, investors will be more cautious this time and will be more selective and choose companies and startups that are actually innovating or creating economic value.
Largely I don’t think LPs will pull money and deploy elsewhere because they play on long horizons and anticipate such nuances as part of their investment thesis.
But, I’m not a VC so take this with a pinch of salt :)
That makes sense, thank you for answering! I now understand a bit more about how LPs might perceive this period.
What are your thoughts on how we can improve the entire startup ecosystem?- esp focussing on the fraudulent actors (founders/vc) that came out during funding winter
@Rizzy I think highlighting it is important to know what can be done better and discussing more fundamentals rather than vanity metrics.
At the same time focussing on bringing forth innovation and good work done by so many amazing startups and companies will make the Indian startup ecosystem better and a mature one at that.
@boolean_badshah FounderX is our flagship cohort based program where we equip aspiring entrepreneurs with the right skills, mindset & network to become a successful startup founder!
Cohort 2 applications are ending soon though, so if you or anyone is interested, you can learn more here: https://joinfounderx.com/
With Inc42, it is becoming extremely difficult to decide which article is paid PR with you and which one is original independent research. How to distinguish?
Whats the ratio of paid vs organic?
@Eyeswideopen Firstly, I appreciate the feedback and definitely, we have to do a much better job in building this awareness.
Second, any paid content we do is mentioned as sponsored or "powered by" so to highlight the same. Lastly, at Inc42, the organic editorial stories vs branded content – ratio would be 95:5.
Amazing. The ratio itself is enough. Paid is of course necessary for monetisation. I am amazed with the level of organic stories. Keep it up!
Hi Vaibhav,
Have been following journey of Inc42 very closely, found the news/reporting to be very neutral unlike Ken and morning context which usually have bias for rising companies. Congratulations on that.
Have seen this as a media house becomes big enough they try to pick sides and have biased news as we have already seen that with main stream media.
What are your plans on avoiding this?
How do you compete against ken, morning context, live mint reporting on startups? What gives you real edge?
Hi Vaibhav
1. What are your learning building your own startup and the hardest part of it?
2. Could you suggest any foundation courses to understand about startups?
All the best 👍
hehehe
Stealth
7 months ago
Hey Vaibhav 👋!
would a new tech startup survive without AI in 2024 or 2025?
@hehehe Sadly, no. Every startup would have to adopt AI in some form and shape to stay afloat
PresidentBiden
Student
7 months ago
Hi Vaibhav,
As a student who loves following about startups, Inc42 is my go to website.
Just curious what it would take if I want to invite you at my college?
Thank you:)
Just a suggestion:
I consume a lot of content (Shorts/reels), I follow a lot of creators in this space
I know for the fact that Inc42 has a great team who can shoot and record visual content.
Why don't you guys start making a lot of short format content;
Like FinTech42, Ecomm42, Edtech 42
Share stories + news and analysis, I feel that can be a great source of distribution
Sawal puchne se pehle dekh liya karo atleast ki repeat toh nahi ho raha! Basic courtesy 🤷🏻♂️
Read a great saying polarizing thoughts/speeches/medium creates influence and readership.
As a content creator on other mediums I found this true and working for the most part, would really love to know what do you think about this phrase!
How do you feel about the sudden dip in fundings in year 23-24, as opposed to year 21-22? Is it going to be a new normal or are you bullish over it?
@FreshlyBrewed I answered a similar question above. I believe we are observing a course correction currently, the funding will bounce back, may or may not be at the same levels of 21-22 as the ecosystem in general has become more cautious these past few years
Hi Vaibhav
It's so great for founders like you to take out time for AMA's
I am a working software developer and I am working on a product on the side which I feel might scale, currently building MVP. I get very limited time for this because of my job so I need some helping hands.
Two questions:
1. It's hard to find people who are motivated enough for your goal which is understandable given it's a high risk time-investment
2. It's at a very early viability check stage, should I offer equity/esops/stipend?
One question and a bit sensitive,
We saw Media celebrating a doom like Byju's when the company was chasing growth tremendously, and we saw same media abusing and dissing Byju's after the downfall, and if Byju's succeeds same media will celebrate him
I see a lack of loyalty overall, is this how the industry work, just curious and trying to understand what usually happens in background!
Hey Vaibhav, good to meet you.
Wanted to check? Is startup journalism in India freely done?
Do you ever feel any pressure from startups/investors?
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