🦄 Thank you for joining us in the eChai Ventures Fundraising for Startups meetup at Draper Startup House Koramangala, Bengaluru! 🚀

I'm glad that Jatin Chaudhary was onboard when I said I'd curate and moderate a women-only panel for this subject. It wasn't a women-only event. Everyone was welcome. But the fact that I had these amazing women speakers from the world of venture capital spend their Saturday evening with us made it a wholesome gathering!

Sharing some snippets here -

Aditi Sinha believes she and her team at IndiaQuotient don't just invest in a startup but marry them! They grow together, brainstorm, pivot if need be and go beyond the boardrooms to show up in the journey.
💰Heavy on India SaaS owing to the growth potential
💰 Highlighted portfolio company FRND for their tightly knit tech team and immense learnings on consumer behaviour and power users
💰Interesting investments this year include Utsav App in the spiritual tech space and kim.cc
💰Recommends listening to The 20-minute VC by Harry Stebbings
💰Hiring: For founder office roles in Series A and Series C startups in her portfolio companies

Ashna Agarwal believes growing up in a Marwari family fuelled her curiosity since childhood. So she'd not just visit a restaurant for a family outing but also ask questions around how'd they make money to run that business.
💰In her work at Jungle Ventures, they invest in seasoned entrepreneurs and write a cheque size that's relatively bigger at that funding stage
💰Interesting investments this year include NIC Icecreams and Atomberg Technologies
💰Recommends reading The Economic Times and Inc42 Media that covers a large chunk of news without burning a hole in your pocket with all the paid subscriptions
💰Hiring: For a D2C startup in her portfolio company - Brand marketer with 7+ years of work experience

Vaishvi Bansal and her friends ran a Shark Tank style competition in college. From conceptualisation to execution, it was a three-month long rigorous learning that led to a total of eight startups raising around 25 Lacs! That was her first taste of what it takes to raise funds and "once you taste the blood, it's difficult to not go back to it", she quips.
💰 In her work at Marwari Catalysts, they are mostly the first ones to write a cheque for the startups and bring co-investors with them
💰Just the way founders look for a product market fit, they look for a founder market fit to ascertain that it's a good match!
💰Highlighted her portfolio company Turms (Bigphi Technologies Pvt. Ltd.) which has MS Dhoni promoting it
💰Hiring: Her portfolio companies are hiring. You can visit the company's website for details

We ❤️ the elevator pitches from founders along with some thoughtful questions from the audience!

Sunday Cheer: Share a picture with your pet in the Comments! The last pic has Nivin Joseph's Paris 🐶 

🦄 Thank you for joining us in the eChai Ventures Product Growth meetup at Urban Vault 1515, HSR, Bengaluru! 🚀

Recapping a few highlights:

Aditya Vikram believes nothing succeeds like success. People want to be on the winning team.
➤ Helping people in the hour of need (start of Covid) by working on contactless deliveries at Amazon was gratifying. Though it also meant cutting short paternity leave.
➤ If India eCommerce market is growing by 100, Meesho is growing by 65.
➤ Co-signs what his mentor would say, "You become a seasoned product professional - not by building products but by shutting them down"
➤ If there was a product he may have liked to work upon, it'd be eSports FIFA ⚽
➤ Hiring at Meesho for his team 📢

Alok Agrawal says he joined Microsoft because of his wife. He may have been a Chef or a Cricketer in a parallel world 🌎
➤ Loved working on a product that helped people in the refugee camps. Contributing to the social impact it had felt fulfilling.
➤Eye popping numbers - MS Teams grew from 18 mn to 200 mn users during Covid. This growth was massively fuelled by Android phone users in the emerging markets.
➤ Being a PM is not as sexy as it sounds. Go for it if you like it while knowing that it's just a role.
➤ Hiring alert: His team at Mailmodo is hiring talent.

Sumit Malpani shares a hack from his work at Porter. "Follow Your User" and think of your user occupying a chair in every meeting that you sit in.
➤ During Covid, worked on the Ola Emergency product for people in essential services. Contributing to the impact it had was gratifying.
➤ Worked on Moj for Creators and built various Gamification modules for Creators at ShareChat, acquiring ~200k high quality creators, improving creator retention by 8pp. Reference reading: https://lnkd.in/gveZWpfw
➤ If there was a product he may have liked to work upon, it'd be Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. because it is a complex product with a great user experience. It is accessible, reliable and frictionless. From its colour coding to safety-related nudges, visual cues to clear instructions, everything adds to user delight.

It's a wrap! Do share resources - books, podcasts, newsletters, courses, platforms and communities that are helping you with your journey as a product professional. ✨

🦄 Thank you for joining us in the eChai Ventures FinTech Day meetup at Urban Vault 477, HSR, Bengaluru! 🚀

Sharing glimpses from our gathering -

Mohankumar Swaminathan has seen the pivots and the growth at Scripbox in his 8+ years of being with the organisation where he is a product leader in his current role. With only 1,000 certified financial planners in India, their offering is a productised version that makes wealth management easier. So if you are not a Do It Yourself person and would like to let them Do It For You with all the years of domain expertise, then check them out now!

Nishant Prasad from Wint Wealth comes from a legal side and built his understanding of everything that goes into the business by leading with curiosity. That puts him in a position to not just interpret circulars by the regulatory bodies but also speak the language of his colleagues to decode how this affects everything else. Fintech picked up massively during Covid. People had time and money to think about investing! Investor protection Vs Progression is always a conversation to have.

Ravi K. Goyal believes there is no substitute to hard work. He is a seasoned professional in the Fintech space and started his entrepreneurial journey around 3 months ago. He is building rural-focused NBFC in secured lending. When asked about what's a major challenge in his industry, he says it has to be Recovery, among everything else.

Saloni Mehta believes that money is very personal. Everyone wants different things from their money. At Jupiter, she is working towards helping people see everything in one place and manage their money wisely. A framework she loves is - Track, Analyse, Decide, Act' in that order. If you are looking to sharpen your knowledge on finance, she highly recommends the book 'Let's Talk Money: You've Worked Hard for It, Now Make It Work for You' by Monika Halan.

It's a wrap! Do share resources - books, podcasts, newsletters, courses, platforms and communities that are helping you with your journey in becoming a smart investor ✨