Pratik Khandelwal

Good points for business decision makers on GenAI to focus on. Cut the clutter and think straight... Both extremes of uncritical euphoria and inexperienced dismissals are likely to lead to bad decisions. The former is when you think it is already great and easy to adopt. It is not... The latter is when you think it was a bubble and somehow Nvidia share price going up or down is going to determine your attitude to whether one should adopt GenAI. 😀 #genaiadoption

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Kunal Shah-led fintech unicorn CRED reported a revenue of Rs 2,473 crore in FY24, marking a 66% increase driven by higher product adoption and the growth of monetised users. The startup also reduced its operational loss by 41% to Rs 609 crore. However, net loss—after accounting for employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) expenses and taxes—stood at Rs 1,644 crore, reflecting a 22% year-on-year increase. The Bengaluru-based startup achieved a 58% growth in its monetised user base, while significantly cutting costs. Marketing expenses were reduced by 36%, and customer acquisition costs (CAC) dropped by 40%, largely due to a greater number of customers joining the platform organically. “Our focus is on creating deepening relationships with our customers and on many things from UPI to Garage and other products that we have launched in the last year," said Shah. #cred #fintech #unicorn #business #startup #creditcard #news #Indianstartupnews

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India’s Oyo, once valued at $10 billion, is finalizing new funding at a $2.5 billion valuation. This marks a steep decline from its $10 billion valuation in 2019. The startup, which has raised over $3 billion from backers like SoftBank, Peak XV Ventures, Lightspeed, Airbnb, and Microsoft, has struggled to attract institutional investors. In recent months, it has aggressively pitched to high-net-worth individuals after withdrawing its IPO application twice in the past four years. Once a red-hot Indian startup active in markets including the U.S. and Europe, Oyo has now scaled back its international presence. #venture #downround https://lnkd.in/gE2GjYnM

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Kaun Banega CTO?! Shocking insights via The Mint - Highly valued Indian startups are opting out of hiring new executives at exuberant packages to lead tech innovation. This comes when a persisting funding downturn has pushed them to put a lid on hiring and venturing into new growth verticals to control cash burn. - Several new-age companies, including Zomato and Healthify, that have relied on tech to drive disruption are now opting out of hiring replacements for the once-prized C-suite role. - Companies retaining their high-cost CTOs are pushing them to take on additional roles such as “IT management, product oversight, or broader organisational responsibilities", it said. Why? “Over the last year or so, there’s been a lot of focus on profitability and making the business viable. We are now emphasising the right mix of talent and cost, and honestly, titles don’t matter," Mota Moti: It seems the “overpaid, over-hyped, over-marketed, overvalued” CTO is coming back to becoming just another #dhandhekibaat row item :)) If you have views, please share?! My view: if you are a promoter that doesn't know Tech, then this is not an option. Article link in comments!

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Swiggy’s $1.4 Billion IPO vs. Zomato’s $1 Billion Fundraise! While Swiggy is preparing for one of the largest IPOs this year, Zomato is also getting ready to stay competitive. The Gurgaon-based food delivery giant recently announced a $1 billion raise through a qualified institutional placement (QIP), to strengthen its balance sheet in rising competition. This is what is happening in the quick commerce space: —> Despite a market correction that led Swiggy to adjust its valuation, investor interest remains intense. Major global players like Norges Bank and Fidelity have placed bids worth over $15 billion, 25 times more than the $605 million allocated for institutional investors alone. —> While Zomato and Swiggy are the dominant players, this space also has new entrants like Zepto and BigBasket. To compete, Zomato’s CEO Deepinder Goyal emphasized that their latest fundraiser will help "level the playing field" with competitors who continue to attract fresh capital. —> This IPO and Zomato’s capital raise highlight the opportunity in India's $100+ billion e-commerce sector. Swiggy’s IPO shows its intent to expand tech capabilities and optimize logistics. Zomato’s move shows a strategy to maintain financial flexibility to explore avenues of growth. Both companies recognize that staying competitive in this space will require capital reserves. While they are competing, it will be interesting to see how they innovate and expand the future of instant delivery. So, are you team Zomato or Swiggy? #quickcommerce #IPO

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Getting much love for my Rockset Internals Series ⚡ In the series, I touched upon the inner workings of Rockset - a real-time analytics database, how it is designed, and how it scales. To create this series, I went through 18 of their blog posts and whitepapers and compiled my learnings. I am sure this series will help you understand how Distributed Databases are designed, built, and scaled. Watch the series if you are interested to know distributed databases better. Here are the following four videos on the series. 1. Architecture deep-dive - youtu.be/I4eEEAgoCig 2. Converged Indexes - youtu.be/xGaUJTHuehQ 3. Query Execution - youtu.be/HWeTVy5i9vE 4. Zero data latency at scale - youtu.be/DF8BbwtEa7k #AsliEngineering #DatabaseInternals #Rockset

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We asked users why they chose us over Elevenlabs. Top answers: 1. Great Indian Accents 2. Extremely reasonable pricing 3. Quick Support 4. No restrictions and high transparency (we don't ban accounts) 5. Faster API (100 ms latency) 6. Higher throughput for all plans Do try smallest.ai and let us know if any of these reasons resonate with you! Keep in mind that in under 6 months, spending less than 100K, we have amazing quality voices on our platform on par with companies that have spent millions. We have a very active discord community where we discuss how we do this + latest developments in speech AI - do join if this is something that interests you [Link in comments]

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A little mortified Ajay Bulusu posted my tweets on "Cab Company CEO" here. Twitter & LI are like Oil & Water - they don't mix well. But to summarize my thoughts, the attempt by the Cab Company CEO to package Cloud and AI as a "nationalistic" venture, is dubious & unworkable. Very soon it will turn into an attempt at regulatory capture in the name of patriotism & national security (he has already called for data localization using the CrowdStrike outage as an excuse - never mind that these have no relation). I have seen Gaurav and Ajay build NextBillion.ai into a viable alternative to Google maps for enterprises. Krutrim is welcome as well - but no special favors because it's 'Indian'. The world of digital products & ideas is global. More innovation lies ahead than behind - and it will come from talented people - not legacy factories or fertile land. Countries that do well in this will be the ones who attract the best innovators. Technologists tend to cluster around these leading innovators. Capital too is globalised and will fund these innovators wherever they are. Digital innovators are nomadic - they only need an internet connection as a tether - & the world's leading and wannabe tech hubs are all competing to attract them. Our benchmark for success should be how many innovators setup companies in India, work from here, patent their IP here, bill their clients from here. Today, most of our innovators incorporate abroad & emigrate at the first chance. News of relaxed entrepreneur visa norms in the US gets a million views and likes. Many of our best engineers are always looking for emigration opportunities. If the Indian Govt. is interested in capturing more of the value of this ecosystem - it should try to align governance to attract this crowd. That means low and predictable regulation, economic and social freedoms, moderate taxes, great livable urban spaces and so on. This is a far far cry from the India of today - with it's urban hells, parasitic taxation levels in certain areas, ridiculous and high friction regulation around global currency movement and securities transactions, and lack of a trustworthy judicial and L&O system. Hucksters step into this lack of an internationally competitive environment - and claim that "protectionism" in the name of "nationalism" is the answer. It is most definitely not. We won't get our own Facebooks and LinkedIns by erecting walls. Such walls will only help give these hucksters' ventures a leg-up - so their otherwise shoddy goods and services are not exposed to international competition. And in fact such walls will only drive further emigration of genuine innovators. To the contrary - we should be tearing down walls like FEMA laws - that harass economic freedom today. We are the kids of 1980's India. We don't want to go back there. We don't want our internet captured by reincarnations of the Bajaj Auto regulatory capture model (the sheer irony). Compete fairly in the global marketplace and win.

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🚀 Swiggy IPO is providing 30X type of return to many VCs. And media is going gaga over it. A 30X return in 9-10 years is 40-45% IRR which is very impressive. Now look at it another way ----If I set up a VC fund with an expectation of 25% IRR over a 10-year fund, then the final value needs to be 9-10X for the entire fund. And I will not invest more than 10% in one deal typically. Let’s look at numbers: 1️⃣ Total fund size - 100 rupees 2️⃣ Required final value @25% IRR - 930 rupees 3️⃣ Swiggy - 10% or 10 rupees 4️⃣ Swiggy exit value - 300 rupees 💰 I still need the balance 90% or 90 rupees to deliver 630 rupees. This is not easy at all. Knowing most of the investments in startups will fail, I still need 2 more Swiggy's in the portfolio to be an average performer. 📊 On top of that, there are several small-cap mutual funds that are giving 25% return over several years. VC is a tough business. 🎢 #startups #swiggy #VC

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In 2014, India's average data consumption per user was just 0.3 GB/month at ₹269/GB. Today, thanks to Modi Govt's push and players like Jio, users consume 30.3 GB/month at ₹10-13/GB. Remember when we rationed data usage to stretch it for a month? Now, everyone's a legal expert, taxation guru, election analyst, military strategist and more! 😆 We've come a long way from just worrying about onion and tomato prices to debating complex tax issues like Indexation. Cheers to progress and thanks to Modi Govt for making us a more developed nation!

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In the recent Maharashtra elections, most parties used tele caller bots to ask for votes. But a couple of them did something clever, they used AI to add the receiver’s name in the call. Suddenly, it sounded like the politician was personally reaching out. For someone in a city, this might not be a big deal, we know it’s tech. But for someone in a village, it feels personal and genuine. A small change, but a huge impact. While it’s great to see such innovative use of AI, it also highlights the importance of creating awareness about it. People need to understand how AI works and how it’s being used in everyday life. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Startups #VC

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Monolithic CeAI 🐇 vs Modular DeAI 🐢 👇🏻 #CeAI 🐇 Early out of gate & rapid tech gains (with resulting shock & awe media hype) from centralised & closed decision making, masked malpractice & ethical shortcuts.. but whose negative monopolistic outcome stalls broad ecosystem engagement, where product outcomes eventually plateaux leading to UX theatre 🎭 and equally creating a regulatory backlash #DeAI 🐢 Early tech dev slowed by fragmented and decentralised decision making, building in public, auditable infra… However which, when combined with better incentive alignment, network hardening, eventually kick in to catalyse an ecosystem flywheel with better regulatory fit and buy in. This is not theory. I’ve bet the farm on this outcome. Tell me which approach is the most likely to coordinate the $7.5 trillion in funding Sam Altman thinks he needs to reach AGI? And if I’m wrong we are all screwed anyway because CeAI can not ever produce Sovereign AI… if users don’t feel comfortable with it watching their most personal of life moments they will always hold back the stuff that makes it truly our best of best friends Sam’s @OpenAI approach is Web2 move fast and break things 🔥 with Web3 (Worldcoin) bandaids 🩹 #ChatGPT4o

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How do people see founders from IIT? 1. Raises investment People: "It's easy to raise money when you are from IIT" 2. Burns money People: "Investors should look beyond IIT's founders. Founders from non-IIT/IIM backgrounds would better utilise the money." 3. Build a successful company/unicorn People: "Valuation is still high. It won't sustain and will fail" 4. Shuts down after raising money People: "I told you it won't work" Meanwhile, Founders, the real ones, don't care whether they are from IIT/IIM. They keep building, keep pushing, and keep changing the world. ******* Follow Shubham Bansal for unfiltered life stories and learnings.

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Our vision at Niti AI is to empower the next billion (non) developers to build and ship products with AI! Whenever I reflect on ambitious goals like this, I'm reminded of the below quote from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Hari Subramanian | Aravind R. | LoopX

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For founders who say - “If I get investments, I will gain volume in B2B. I will keep margins low. But overall will have good profits daily.” - 1. Don’t just look at volume and margin. Look at barrier to entry too. If money is your moat, there are much larger money-whales out there to push you out 2. You are probably reaching out to the wrong investors. You should create some traction and apply for a cheap bank loan. Check for collateral free / susbsidised schemes. An Angel investor will expect 60%+ returns, a bank - 10-12% returns. Even if your ROCE is 30% (which is great), the Angel will always be dissatisfied, while the bank will be more than happy to help you grow. 3. For businesses where capital is generating 30% free cashflows YoY, look at 7-10 years of organic growth. I have not seen anyone who has stayed long enough in their game not do well. 30% compounding over 10 years gives you a 12-13 times return. Over 30 years? 2000+ times 😬 4. Figure out products that have shortest cashflow cycles, and products with highest margins. A healthy mix of these two will improve your annual rotations and help compound at 2x speed. It will also ensure you have regular cash flows to pay your staff / team. 5. If you are optimising for cashflow by keeping margins low, make sure you only sell to the most trusted customers who pay on time. Also, it will really help if you mentally consider only “cash received” as “sales done” for low margin products. For B2B product businesses, capital erodes faster because of rotation issues than product issues per se. 6. Once you have figured out the market and spent enough time, you might just figure out a white space where you would want to double down and create a product / service to serve that need. You will already know the right vendors / players in the supply chain to partner with. And who to sell to. You can self-finance it, or raise institutional capital to grow. This could then become what we call an “investible business” for angels/VCs etc. P.S: Recommendations based on auditing tons of B2B businesses, evaluating pitches from founders who are trying to figure B2B, and watching my own family members run B2B product businesses. As boring as B2B product businesses are, especially trading businesses, they compound wealth at 30-40% p.a. when starting capital is less than Rs. 1cr. Great way to create generational wealth. Slow, patient game. Feel free to add to / challenge the above points. #enterprise #business #cashflowmanagement

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HSR Founders Club is doing an AI for GTM Fireside this Friday. Where? Most probably HSR :) If you're in a 5km radius and looking to do something before you step out, drop by. Look forward to meeting Rapti Gupta Piyush Agarwal and Akshay Hangloo. #GTM #AI

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Can technical founders become effective CEOs? Srinath Sridhar knew he needed to step out of his comfort zone when he founded Regie.ai four years ago. Now he and cofounder Matt Millen have raised more than $20 million and landed on G2’s list of fastest-growing software products of 2024. My full conversation with Sri is in the comments.

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The Decision That Doomed a Dream 📽️ 🎬 What if your most hyped product idea became the reason your company collapsed? This is the untold story of a decision that sent a $2 billion startup spiraling. Priya: “Remember Quibi? The short-form streaming platform that raised $2 billion only to crash and burn in six months?” Amit: “How could I forget? But wasn’t their whole idea—quick bites of content on mobile—a good one? People are obsessed with short videos now.” Priya: “Exactly! The concept was solid, but the product decisions? Not so much. One of their biggest missteps was locking all their content behind a paywall with no free tier.” Amit: “Wait, they didn’t offer even a single free episode? Not even ads-supported content?” Priya: “Nope. They banked on the idea that people would pay $5–$8 a month upfront for content they’d never seen before from a brand they didn’t know. Add to that the fact they launched during the pandemic, when people were glued to their TVs—not mobile phones.” Amit: “Oof. That sounds like a classic case of not reading the room.” Priya: “It gets worse. Their product didn’t allow screenshots or sharing clips on social media. Imagine trying to launch a video platform in 2020 without virality built in.” Amit: “So, they made themselves invisible on the platforms where their audience hangs out. That’s a killer mistake. Did they try to fix it?” Priya: “Too little, too late. By the time they introduced features like TV support and extended free trials, their subscriber numbers had tanked. They shut down just six months after launch.” Amit: “Man, all that money and talent—and it was decisions, not the idea, that sank them. Makes you wonder how many product decisions are make-or-break moments in disguise.” Sometimes, the right product decisions aren’t about flashy features but about understanding your audience’s needs. #QuibiStory #ProductManagement #LessonsFromFailure #StartupJourney #InnovationGoneWrong #PMJourney Photo Credits: https://lnkd.in/gtg33zHu

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How we built an EdTech platform for a large influencer: Our client is a well established LinkedIn influencer. His challenge? Continue monetising his audience in a very scalable way. We decided the best way to do this is by building a test preparation platform for the GMAT exam that all of his audience members have to take. Here are the problems we needed to solve: 1. Every student has a unique skill profile -> generic course won't work 2. Students have limited time to study 3. Math is boring Here is what we did: - Designed the user experience to be addictive and feel like a game - Developed the brand of this EdTech to stand out from competitors - Built the platform on bubble.io - Created a bespoke AI algorithm that tailors learning to every individual student - Continued working with client post launch to iteratively improve the platform, leading to a 3x in revenue. Result? 3000 users in the first hour after launch. Additional revenue stream to the client. A potential to exit for multiple 7-figures in the next couple of years. Here is what they said about our collaboration: "I was really impressed by Deca's ability to think ahead independently without us having to stress about results." And if you are interested in us helping you with software for your business, send me a message.

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