Nithin aur Bhai ko dhanda ata hai. I wish people put money on people like him and not lodus like the whole EdTech industry, and 99% of stories.

Brand Marketing Manager

https://twitter.com/Nithin0dha/status/1674417311535751175

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Such nuanced thread by Zerodha founder on delusion fueled by founders & VCs reg. over estimation of Indian market

Software Engineer

Such nuanced thread by Zerodha founder on delusion fueled by founders & VCs reg. over estimation of Indian market- Grapevine

Unlike many times dick and harry startup founders who have gone crazy chasing Unicorn and decacorn tag with no numbers to back up the claim

In spite of such stellar profits and revenue year by year, Zerodha CEO values his company at modest 3.6 billion dollars.

It feels like a trend now...CEOs/founders of profitable startups are making BANK. Just look at Zerodha

Data Scientist

During the bull run folks were investing in all kind of creator companies right from merchandising, community platforms, audience management to payments. 

Interesting to see only a few creator focused companies globally succeeding. 

What went wrong?

Creator economy rocketsip went down pretty quick

Software Developer

I have evaluated a lot of startups as part of my work. My approach has changed from being optimistic to being suspicious of a lot of founders, even before the process starts. 

The sheer number of founders that I come across that try to game metrics/play around with data to make the startup look good. 

Most commonly:
1) Completely changing the definition of margins, repeat rates, etc. and never clarifying that they are using different definition. 
2) Often giving rebates/discounts to key stakeholders but finding ways to hide it from their P&L so that it’s not visible. THIS IS SO COMMON - lot’s of them start showing revenues, and then you will see another cost item rising at the same pace, and lot’s of times it will just be money moving around
3) Sometimes completely giving the wrong picture of how their product works on ground. You then speak with their customers, and they describe something completely else.

Things like these are eating up the ecosystem. These founders also end up fooling some VCs, and then capital get’s kept away from actually good founders who have good intentions.

There was a recent major investment in the commerce space, and that is another one such example of a startup doing this. Needs to stop.

RANT: Founders who fake metrics

Product Owner

https://youtu.be/cY1uzrhdRhY?si=YTE8FMJhStt1kjQq

Super insightful podcast of Nithin Kamath ,CEO of Zerodha, on AI and Indian startups. He is the person I respect the most in Indian startup ecosystem.

Welcome to Get Motivated's Private Community

Saw this on X, absolutely spot on!

Two months ago I posted this rant on Grapevine (https://share.gvine.app/CLkpBuEqcCvrzKvx6) which I think is one of the most viral posts on the platform.

Since then I took a break, learned Vipassana, went to the mountains, read, and reflected. Here are some truth bombs that have been exploding in my head

1) There is a leadership crisis

Is it me or do today's self-proclaimed leaders just suck? Look around Grapevine: insecure toxic managers forcing people back to the office, overhiring CEOs who don't know WTF to do, and founders just abandoning ship. 

"Leaders" and founders today are about as disconnected from reality as the political class, because like politicians most of them are privileged, sheltered, and already wealthy.

2) Technological innovation doesn't mean progress. 

I couldn't laugh harder when I saw the Indus Valley report basically saying that maybe all of us VCs overestimated how much money we could make funding lending and consumer apps. 

Maybe funding lending apps that "open up credit for the poor" isn't sustainable when the rate of interest is >18%?

Technological innovation doesn't always mean real-world progress. A lot of times, it just ends up perpetuating and amplifying pre-existing inequality. 

3) Endless growth toward nothing 

Most of India's startup money comes from the West. Most of that money was just printed to repeatedly get out of an economic crisis. That's it. There was no great vision to fund the future of humanity behind all this new capital. Just Central Bankers and Presidents pressing the "Create Money" button to delay the inevitable.

Most of us here owe our wealth to Easy Money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpMLAQbSYAw

PS: A book, that completely flipped my worldview during this time is this: https://www.amazon.in/Debt-First-Years-David-Graeber/dp/0143422715. I urge all fellow foot soldiers of capitalism to read this.

Until the next rant, stay sane, safe, and debt-free!

Follow-up to the most liked Grapevine post ever

Product Marketing Manager

Of late, with Koo shutting down, Unacademy in the rafters, I've seen really intelligent, logical folks stand behind the founders of such moronic companies. Is the act of building shit, money burning companies with no use , more important than not building something in today's time?

Why do we lose common sense when it comes to successful founders?

Product Manager

Know a cousin who is a founder. Tells me with experience that VCs in India only operate in FOMO. Unless you tell them another VC is looking to invest in you, they will NEVER invest in you. 

They need fomo to operate 

Only exception is ex CXO founders (high profile), where they know they'll get funded so it's fastest fingers first!!

People should call this out more. What are examples around you where VCs have done something bad to a startup?

Growth And Strategy

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

[Thread] Why does every founder I know hate VCs to the core?

If he gives me ESOPs worth the CEO's shares then sure I would have an entrepreneurial mindset.

According to him we shouldn't care about money

Putting Zypp Electric in Never Apply list

Consultant

Analyst

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

- 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.

Some observations after 10+ years of being in the system

Cred is truly a topic of surprise for me. Yes, I understand it has created a community of top spenders/credit worthy people in India. I also understand that they can use the information on such people for creating value for themselves.

Being a cred user, I only use it to pay the bills. I really wonder if they have built any b2b business or alternative source of income beyond what's seen to the end user. What's the game plan for the cred? 

I also applaud the fact that cred hasn't laid off people having paid them better than most companies. I really wonder if the business is really that strong or the conviction is. Would you join cred if given a chance to work there?

Cred

I feel cred is doomed and just trying to increase its value. 
 And the end goal is to sell the cred to someone with higher value and make money.

I had heard Waycool was also talking to raise at unicorn valuation, but they've fired like 300 people on Monday, so that's pretty uncertain. What to make of Zepto, though?

India's 109th unicorn?

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.

Rant on Indian Startup

Business Development Manager

Kya dikat hai bhai, udane do paisa. Tumhare thodi hai. 

Good firms genuinely perform well and return money. The ecosystem is not forgiving -- you don't survive very long if you don't create any big wins. It's an extremely high stress job with very little WLB. You do make money but it comes at a cost.

Layoffs are sad but at least those jobs existed in the first place? They wouldn't without VC money. India's VC scene is extremely young and it'll take time before we produce a Google. Entrepreneurs are not always right, they are not always nice either; but they definitely are courageous.

Unpopular Opinion: VCs get a lot of crap for no reason

VCs kill many startups with unrealistic targets that the main problem. Not every business is designed to give ultra quick returns VCs want . They ruin well potential startups

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

Came across a scenario multiple times while searching for senior engineer jobs. I felt that in majority of the cases if the interviewer was from IIT, no matter how much experienced they are they always have a particular style of putting you down during coding or system design type of interviews where they have high acceptance to bookish answer rather than having an open mind to other solutions which can be discussed in details and probably has a far more chances of evaluating a candidate on core thinking and logical skills rather. What do you think? Have you also faced similar scenario?

Why do many IITians do dick measuring contest during interviews?

Hero has revenue of Rs. 35,000 crore & profit of rs. 4000 crores.Ola Electric has revenue of Rs 373 crore and loss of Rs  784 crore... OLA Electric (OE) aims 7-8 Bn $ IPO Valuation while Hero has 10 Bn $ valuation

" but ola has innovation" , " kya matlab founder ke IIT se hone se valuation multiple jayada nhi hona chahiye" , " ola full indian saar. Support ola IPO saar. Lose your money while investors and founder make a lot saar" , " bro but ola founder ne Sanskrit waala chatgpt banaya hai. He sapports indian culture. So higher multiple to Banta hai" . 
  
  
 Prepare to hear this in coming days

Growth Manager

How does zerodha hire at all? Heard they are a team of 35 .how are they even doing it?are there any zerodha employees who can answer?

Such nuanced thread by Zerodha founder on delusion fueled by founders & VCs reg. over estimation of Indian market

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