Innovative ways you've seen a company/startup pump up their metrics?

Any industry, any product or service. Something that you've seen happening in India. I'll start with one : Fogg appealing to the mass market by marketing their value for money products (x number of sprays), literally beating axe out of market share in 3 years.

What questions would you ask to evaluate if you should join an early stage startup in this market? The objective is to ensure job longevity, avoid getting laid off and experience a reasonable amount of growth. Is there anything else that we can do apart from asking questions to the company folks?

Whenever you a call PM fraud here, they come & put justifications like you don't know business, products built by Engineers are shyt, only PMs can build good products, engineers don't prioritize business needs bla bla. A data scientist/analytics perspective: 1. When we call a PM fraud, we refer to mainly those who come without a background in either of tech or business. Cool wannabes straight out of college & learnt nothing but attitude over years. If a PM was an engineer, or analytics, or business or ops, then others first see him/her as engineer/etc & then a manager. That's the right way it should be. 2. 'Business won't be prioritized' is such a complacency: Business is bread & butter of Analytics and AI. It is the primary thing we check in interviews, a large portion of the interview focus' on the problem statement and prioritisations. End note: PMs are hot, but only when they have a solid foundation in stuff they are building. They need to know depths. Anyone apart from this breed are worthless & Indian startups are filled with this shyt A best PM would be a senior engineer/analyst with penchant for business practicality & customer perspective. Why of 1st Point? Because how can you manage a team when you don't even know what that team does? For eg: I can tell my PM any random blabbing about why model is working/not & she has no idea to judge my words. Leave AI, with tech pipelines too I can give any deadlines & justify it how would she know? Besides if they don't have tech background they bring in random expectations which is far away from feasibility. Why should any tech guy respect them? They can understand business req, connect with business teams and build better. That's the exact role of a project manager.

Lately, I’ve been at a bit of a weird place at work. I’ve been working at a startup for the last 1 year. This is my first startup experience. It had been a pretty good experience thus far, as I’ve started doing well, the trust on me has increased, and the kind of asks have become weird. I’ve increasingly started doing founders office work, which includes helping with the MIS, build projections. As I’ve started working on this, what I’m realizing that a lot of it is hogwash. A lot of the transaction that is reported is not meaningful. Additionally, we are reporting unachievable projections, even though it is evident it won’t work out. It’s kinda on the fence, and I don’t feel like doing it. But then again, this might just be how most startups work. Have you guys faced this? If yes, what would you do in my position?

Go for it :)

Everyone is raising questions about why startups are losing money so heavily But on the other aspect, do people see that the sectors which are the highest loss making have become a crucial impact of our lives? Example Hospitality, Ed-Tech,Food Tech, Logistics and Ride hailing Can we imagine our lives to go back where we were 10-12 years ago without such services? I think the bigger game is going to be get more people to use the platform, make them high intent users and get them so used to to the platform that it becomes a necessity Hence I feel they are spending money to grab the audience and then build on it I am quite sure a lot of companies are going to fall, but that is how a the world of business behaves Would love to know thoughts

Let's say i m noob, observing startups or mnc. I want to evaluate, understand how is the company doing. I don't want to go into to much technicality. What are those metrics i can achieve this? Also would love you to specify resources to start journey of learning such nitty gritties about businesses.. Thanks in advance

willl try my best to be honest, ask me anything

Been spending way too much time on Grapevine lately - absolutely loving it @Micheal_Scott! Posted the Prosus report takeaways yday - lots of you DMed asking questions. Then I saw NewsAnchor break down the entire Prosus Annual Report - great stuff. I was an Associate at one of the largest VC funds in India, so I enjoy going through new reports and summarising them - found my notes from Bain's India Venture Capital Report 2024. Thought of sharing the unedited summary that I shared with the Partners at the fund, have a bunch of these - can share more if of value to any of you here (ofc removing the confidential parts) Notes: 1/ India's maintaining its gravitational pull despite the global funding crunch. Sure, overall funding nosedived 63% to $9.6B, but we're still the #2 destination in Asia-Pacific. Might not necessarily be a crash, it's a necessary course correction. 2/ Early-stage investing is showing remarkable resilience. Seed deals now comprise 70% of all deals, up from 60%, with average check sizes holding steady at $1.4M. Smart money is quietly positioning itself for the next wave of innovation. 3/ The tech-only playbook is being rewritten. While consumer tech, fintech, and SaaS still command 60% of funding, traditional sectors like BFSI are gaining ground, with average deal sizes jumping from $8M to $15M. We're witnessing the birth of tech-enabled, not just tech-centric, growth stories. 4/ The unicorn factory has hit pause, with only 2 new billion-dollar valuations vs. 23 in 2022. Mega-rounds ($100M+) plummeted from 48 to 15. This isn't a drought; it's a return to fundamentals. The era of grow-now-profit-later is firmly behind us. 5/ Generative AI isn't just hype; it's reshaping the landscape. Funding exploded from $15M to $250M, with 80% flowing to existing companies integrating AI. India's quickly becoming a laboratory for practical AI applications, not just speculative moonshots. 6/ Electric mobility is rewiring itself. While overall funding dipped slightly to $600M+, charging infrastructure investment surged 50%. The real opportunity isn't just in vehicles; it's in building out the entire EV ecosystem. 7/ Exits are defying gravity, leaping 1.7x to $6.6B. Public market sales led the charge at 55%, even as IPOs cooled. LPs are getting liquidity, and the secondary market is proving surprisingly robust. There's still appetite for quality assets. 8/ PE is no longer just watching from the sidelines. These players doubled their share to 25% of investments, going toe-to-toe with traditional VCs. The lines between growth equity and venture capital are blurring, and it's changing the game for late-stage rounds. 9/ We're watching natural selection in real-time. Yes, 35,000+ startups shuttered and 20,000+ layoffs hit the headlines. But companies like Groww and Indifi turned profitable. This isn't a bubble bursting; it's an ecosystem strengthening its foundations. 10/ Domestic VCs are coming of age. While overall fund-raising halved to $4B, homegrown VCs led 90%+ of raises. They're not just following; they're specializing, with thematic funds like Omnivore's $150M agritech vehicle. The ecosystem is bootstrapping its own future. 11/ Regulation isn't just tightening; it's evolving. Angel Tax expanded and lending norms got stricter, but we're also seeing innovative policies like UPI for foreign travelers. India's crafting a uniquely balanced approach to fostering innovation while maintaining stability. Topics we can discuss during our standup: 1/ Can India produce global tech giants if it's primarily adopting rather than pioneering in areas like AI? How do we enable this? 2/ How will the shift towards profitability impact India's ability to foster truly disruptive innovations? Implications for us, how should we be evaluating deals differently? 3/ With domestic VCs leading the charge, how will this change India's startup narrative on the global stage? 4/ Is this maturation setting the stage for more resilient, globally competitive Indian startups, or are we risking our innovation edge? How do we look at thesis driven investing v/s fomo investing? Link to Bain's report - https://www.bain.com/insights/india-venture-capital-report-2024/ P.S. Do note that this is 6+ months old - data points mostly look diff now but sharing it anyways. Will post more as and when I get time :)

VC here. Doing this for fun. Don't take all views seriously.