Hi Grapevine,
I’m Utsav, Founder of Offline and Partner at iSeed. My journey has taken me from launching AngelList India alongside Naval Ravikant to leading it as a Partner, and now to building Offline, an invite-only network where seasoned startup founders and leaders can truly connect, collaborate, and thrive.
I’ve always been passionate about empowering entrepreneurs, whether it's through investing, scaling businesses, or fostering communities. Today, I’m excited to dive into these topics with all of you!
Have questions about venture capital, startups, building impactful communities, or my experiences along the way?
Ask me anything. I'll be back at 7 PM to begin answering! :)
Did you get to work with Naval extensively? How is he in real life?
He seems like one of the most wise people of our times, what did you learn from him most?
Is one of the greatest privileges of my career so far -- having a direct line to the Naval Ravikant.
We speak less about work and more about life. The work stuff takes lesser time anyway and can be figured out. I want to utilise my limited time with him on the stuff that you don't hear on podcasts, read in books / tweets nor ask anyone else.
For me -- I picked up the fact that always choose to work with high integrity people.
Why -- As the startup ecosystem grew and along with it the access to capital -- we lost some of our morals and ethics along the way.
Why did you come online to promote offline ?
Jokes apart - Is offline a serious business or a passion project for you, asking this noob question because I dont know how the business model would work for such an offering
I think this question will come up a lot today so thanks for asking this first and giving me a chance to get to this early on.
It's a very real business :) Having been an investor and now a founder, I understand the responsibility of raising external capital.
On Offline -- Imagine having the trust of 500 of the best tech founders of the country under one single community, with the highest intent, as paid users. Things that you can build on top. This is the 1% of the top 1% as they convert paper wealth to real wealth in this new economy era.
Most companies go from product then figure out a community play with their users — I am going to do that in reverse. Build trust, distribution and then build out services and products for them, by being on their side.
Hey Utsav, really nice to meet you here Why Offline? With the 1000s or 10000s of startups/sectors/ideas you had exposure to, what made you want to build something fundamentally non tech?
When it got announced, my hunch was you're doing it because you're uniquely placed in the ecosystem to pull it off. Is that true? :)
Good to hear from you.
Who says Offline is non-tech. Everyone who is asking a question about Offline here is assuming that we're just a community business. There is more to come -- what you see is just one single website / press article and assume that I will be doing that for next 10 years of Offline.
Our team is solid, drive and velocity is great, member love is real -- watch out for the next steps on our vision to build the most trusted network for top founders and then some more.
Also, yes -- start businesses when you're uniquely positioned to do them. Always look for some competitive advantage else that uphill task becomes even tougher to climb.
Naval - "Productise Yourself"
Hey Utsav, glad to see you here on Grapevine!
I'd love to know about your early journey to get into startups/angellist. how did it happen?
Also I saw the Dubai Offsite Offline event was super cool. Do you have some experience pulling off events from the past? Brcuase I am sure making something like this happen is quite hard.
The Office -- what a show so great choice of avatar.
It's been very well documented on a few podcasts. Just head on over to Spotify / YouTube and search for some of them with my name. First 20 mins will get you there.
Angel investing 1.0 (Indian Angel Network, Mumbai Angels) --- > Angel investing 2.0 (online platforms that match made investors - founders) --- > Angel investing 3.0 (syndicates, solo GP). Basically one thing led to another, realised problems with each version of angel investing and looked to upgrade myself and the ecosystem.
Oh yes, Dubai offsite was a blast. Big thanks to our sponsors, team and the members for the support. Hope you liked our after movie (on our Instagram).
Sir, we are generating a revenue of ₹35 crore with strong profitability. However, we are facing challenges in fundraising, possibly due to being from a Tier-3 city and not having a background from a prestigious college. We would appreciate your guidance and support in overcoming this.
So many factors could be at play here. Never blame the city.
Growth rate, team and executive bench, growing market, competition etc.
Most of the times its a combination of the above but a few times it's just being unlucky as well.
Thank you for you're advice, we are also not good at storytelling what VC's love
Hi @UtsavSomani Thanks for doing this AMA
Have few questions :
What kind of startups do you mentor/invest in India?
Does India has potential to keep getting investments after seed round? as Starups are tough and most of them fail
How’s the vibe around investing-mentoring AI startups? Once Naval said AI means Anonymous Indians, do you feel the same that in India real AI startups are less and mostly gimmicks
Lovely to have you here and thank you for giving this AMA some attention.
All kinds of startups. Few spaces that I have stayed away from - dating, hiring and manufacturing (that's changing now). I do not mentor startups as I am looking to learn from the founders I back rather than them getting anything from me #ReverseUno.
Good startups + founders will always have access to capital (cyclical but almost always true).
Lol on Anonymous Indians. AI startups have been far and few in India. I hope that changes.
@UtsavSomani I'm building something in the consumer brand athleisure space - our product is about to launch within this month. I have personal savings to help me build till the first 3-4 months of inventory and sales which I'm footing myself
I'm confused about fund raising. Is it more sensible to raise angel first, or directly go for a pre seed round. How would you advice someone in the brands space to think through this?
Both things can happen in parallel. Never too early to start having investor conversations. Fundraising market is tough for things that are not differentiated -- so if you can show that your product is 10x better then don't wait.
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