DiscoverSeedToScale | Curated by Accel
SeedToScale | Curated by Accel

SeedToScale | Curated by Accel

Author: Anand Daniel, SEED TO SCALE Podcast Series

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Accel launched SeedToScale in August 2020 to remove information asymmetry in the startup ecosystem and make a founder's path to success as frictionless as possible. We aim to achieve this by providing the best source of knowledge and actionable insights for company building.

In the three years since, we have created over 300 knowledge pieces covering all stages of building a company. We collaborated with 80+ industry experts, successful founders, and mentors to create thematic series, reports, blogs, guest articles, podcasts, and other forms of content. Overall, we have reached 500K knowledge seekers.
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2023 is particularly momentous to Accel as we complete 40 years as a global fund and 15 years in India. As we celebrate this milestone, we hope to share insights from the firm’s shared history with you, in this riveting two-part podcast series. We begin with a look at the past, and how startups and investors evolved over the years; moving on to investing today, and why many call 2023 the year of reset in VC. Finally, we look to the future, with timeless lessons the next generation of investors must carry forward.
2023 is particularly momentous to Accel as we complete 40 years as a global fund and 15 years in India. As we celebrate this milestone, we hope to share insights from the firm’s shared history with you, in this riveting two-part podcast series. We begin with a look at the past, and how startups and investors evolved over the years; moving on to investing today, and why many call 2023 the year of reset in VC. Finally, we look to the future, with timeless lessons the next generation of investors must carry forward.
Know what is harder than pivoting when the going gets tough? Pivoting when the going is good. On the surface, most metrics were scaling efficiently for Urban Company (previously UrbanClap) at the end of 2015. The tech company mainly generated leads for at-home service providers. But founders Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, Raghav Chandra recognized that improving the experience of suppliers and customers would require deeper involvement. They needed to build a full stack marketplace with trained professionals. Eight years later, the company is valued at $2.8 billion. After proving their chops by taking the beauty industry online, Urban Company went on to digitally connect customers with a range of professional services including cleaning, repairs, electrical works, plumbing, and carpentry. When they first looked into the space, at-home services in India had been full of holes. The founders, all three from IIT Kanpur, knew that the problem had the potential to keep them busy for a lifetime. So they joined hands in 2014 to bring in organization and digitization. *** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3UnptTO *** 0:00 - Introduction 1:20 - Origin story 4:10 - Early days 9:33 - Product-market fit 14:25 - Picking the right service 16:30 - Testbed 17:40 - Zero-to-one phase 21:15 - Scaling the company 24:30 - Key strategic decisions 27:40 - Value to service partners 32:40 - Disintermediation 34:10 - Creating value on both sides 36:30 - Navigating COVID 39:50 - Leadership and culture 43:20 - The future
At their core, marketplaces are in the business of efficiency. Deeply optimized supply was the need of the hour in the world of construction, where access to materials was fragmented and unreliable. Souvik Sengupta of Infra.Market and Prashanth Prakash of Accel talk about transforming the manner in which real estate companies buy for their projects. *** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3UnptTO
What does it take to build a timeless marketplace? Time. Long-lasting marketplaces have little to do with restless hustling, and a lot to do with clear research and balancing gut calls with data calls. You can trust that bit of wisdom because it comes from Mukesh Bansal who knows the ups and downs of entrepreneurship in India more intimately than most. As founder of Myntra, head of commerce and advertising at Flipkart, and now as founder-CEO at Cult.fit, the relentless entrepreneur has sold fashion, fitness, and almost everything in between. Mukesh was one of the first startup folk to have brought the Bay Area ethos to the Bengaluru ecosystem. Over the last 15 years, he has steered companies through teething problems, pivoting and scaling missions, as well as acquisitions. In this part of a series of conversations sponsored by Accel, Mukesh shares his favourite entrepreneurial hits and misses. Joining him is Subrata Mitra of Accel who has been among Mukesh’s earliest backers. He shares wisdom not just for the benefit of founders but also for venture capitalists as they go from backing two to four to 20 companies. Over the course of chatting with Pankaj Mishra, the duo sum up their journey so far in many quotable quotes. *** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3DqT87o
When Niraj Singh started up Spinny, the used-car market in India was already crowded with cash-rich competitors. More and more Indian buyers were leaning towards buying pre-owned cars because of the better value they offered but the landscape was still full of potholes and barriers. There were few trusted intermediaries, and no convenient way for buyers to go through the sea of options or for sellers to find the right price. That is where Spinny came in. Niraj Singh founded the full-stack platform for buying and selling used cars in 2015, together with friends Ramanshu Mahaur, a fellow alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi, and Mohit Gupta, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad, who moved from Flipkart to join as operations head. A car lover himself, Singh wanted to address the pain points in the sale and purchase of a used car. “When you're buying your first car, it's a very important, very aspirational, very emotional purchase for you, and your entire family. It was very clear that we are not going just after the used-car market opportunity, but we are going to solve (an issue) of trust, experience and aspirations of people,” he said in an interview with Pankaj Mishra, co-founder of the digital media publication FactorDaily, a journalist tracking start-ups, with over two-and-a-half decades of professional experience. Sellers put in a request to sell their cars on the website. If it passes a 200-point test by an inspection team, Spinny sets a price, features the car on the site, and takes over the responsibility of selling the car. Buyers have the assurance of buying a Spinny-certified vehicle and the added benefit of a 1-year warranty. The company takes care of all the paperwork, from registration to title transfers. Among others, Spinny competes with OLX, Quikr and CarDekho in a market that was valued at $23 billion in the financial year 2021-2022 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19.5 per cent until FY 2026-27, according to a report by IndianBlueBook, an auto technology platform, and Das WeltAuto, the pre-owned car business of Volkswagen India. After starting operations in the National Capital Region (NCR), centered on Delhi, Spinny has expanded into Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Indore, Coimbatore, Lucknow and Kochi. It became a unicorn with a valuation of about $1.8 billion, when it raised $283 million last year from a consortium led by Abu Dhabi-based ADQ, Tiger Global and Avenir Growth. This interview is part of a special series brought to you by the Indian unit of Accel Partners, which has backed some of the most significant marketplaces that have come up in India including food delivery platform Swiggy, e-commerce company Flipkart, TaxiForSure, which offers ride-hailing services, and Urban Company, a provider of home cleaning, appliance repair, beauty treatment and handymen services to customers at their doorstep. Joining Pankaj Mishra in the chat is Niraj Singh, who at the time of founding Spinny, already had two start-ups behind him – TechMonkey, an Internet media company, and Locus Education, an IIT-JEE prep venture with offline and online presence. They dive into the details of going from a marketplace model to a direct full-stack model, the business of trust, and the basic rules of team building.
Conversation HighlightsIn addition to asking if the sector is unorganized, ask whether it is inefficient. Know exactly what kind of a profit pool is available there.There are businesses where a tight testbed is not possible. So find your fulcrum. It takes trial and error but look for the side where your tech intervention as a marketplace will drive the most value.Fairness is an easy sell. Both sides of the marketplace appreciate fair policies and practices. Once built, marketplaces are not static. They are in dynamic equilibrium. Pay attention to both demand and supply and balance them.Unknown mistakes are okay. Don’t make known mistakes.
Cutting out the intermediary helps many industries. Not so in manufacturing. It needed a middle layer. Suppliers routinely failed to deliver on time, and customers failed to pay on time. To improve trust and speed, Amrit Acharya and Srinath Ramakkrushnan introduced Zetwerk as a B2B marketplace for manufacturing in 2018. Zetwerk began as a hub for steel fabrication. Within six months, its business went from a topline of ₹1 crore a month to ₹10 crore a month. Since then, the company has expanded into more than 10 categories and is valued at $2.7 billion today. The company has transformed the space with high-quality products, increased transparency, and fewer and shorter delays. The backbone of its operation is technology. It uses dashboards to track each order at various stages in real time so that suppliers can stay on schedule and customers can get regular updates. Manufacturing appealed to Amrit because he had dabbled in it fresh out of college. In several ways, it prepared him for starting up – because ‘building’ things from scratch is common to both worlds. In this part of a series of conversations sponsored by Accel, Zetwerk CEO Amrit Acharya participated along with Prayank Swaroop of Accel Partners, who has backed the company right from the early days. They discuss the brass tacks of setting up a B2B marketplace with Pankaj Mishra. * Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3DqT87o
Give someone a fish, you feed them for a day. Give someone reliable access to seafood in a supply-deprived industry, you go on to create a successful B2B marketplace for fish. Take it from Utham Gowda, the founder of Captain Fresh, an investment banker-turned-fisherman, so to speak. Three years after its birth in 2019, the company has raised $126.5 million in funding at a $500 million valuation. In an industry where the average level of spoilage is 20-30%, Captain Fresh manages to minimize waste in seafood shipments to 2-5%. It was in 2015, while scouting for viable sectors as an investment banker, that Gowda embarked on an aquatic adventure. He was helping a seafood player become IPO-ready. Some years of diving deep into fisheries revealed a fragmented, underserved industry begging for scientific solutions. There was a clear entrepreneurial opportunity, but few had even touched the space. Quite frankly, the waters were muddy. There was a combination of problems: High perishability, seasonality, varying tastes by region and so on. Gowda rose to that challenge with a combination of his own: Research, resources, and people. As an investment banker, he knows the importance of due diligence. As a single founder, he knows the importance of finding the right talent. And as someone who started up a little before COVID-19 hit, he knows the importance of planning and stress-testing. In this part of a series produced by Accel Partners, Gowda was joined by Barath Shankar Subramanian of Accel, a vegetarian who strongly backs the fish-fuelled business. In July 2021, after many Zoom calls between Subramanian's and Gowda’s teams, Captain Fresh raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Accel. They talk to Pankaj Mishra, co-founder of digital media publication FactorDaily, about their journey. * Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3DqT87o
It’s essential to keep things as simple as possible initially, with a total focus on understanding the consumer problem statement. Because when it comes to subscriptions, users drop off a lot — they are commitment-phobic. In the next stage, startups must know how to decentralise well. A founder cannot go on micromanaging a hundred things. Many startups fail because while they thought they solved a problem, they had no idea about its sustainability in terms of how it would scale economically. And as far as possible, until you hit product market fit, keep things as lean as possible. If you start hiring too many people for specific roles, it gets difficult to roll things back when they go wrong. Eventually, it all boils down to two questions: Who are you building for? Do they consumers like your product? In this conversation, Nandan Reddy and Phani Kishan from Swiggy and Accel's Anand Daniel share lessons learned while building and scaling their startup in a crowded market.*** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the bazaars," shaping the future of commerce and livelihood in India. Starting November 3rd, we will share stories from the trenches about building and scaling these marketplaces, along with foundational lessons from their journeys.Learn more: https://bit.ly/3DqT87o
About TaxiForSureTaxiForSure, founded in 2011, was the outcome of a drunken conversation in a Bangalore pub between friends Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna, who had both been to National Institute of Technology Karnataka and the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad. Raghunandan was 33 and Radhakrishna a year older.      Three-and-a-half years after it started up in a 100-square-feet office in a Bangalore suburb. TaxiForSure was acquired in March 2015 by bigger rival Ola Cabs, which paid $200 million in a cash and equity deal as it attempted to fend off competition from Uber.   By August 2016, TaxiForSure was gone after Ola integrated its service with its own and fired hundreds of its employees.    Today, Raghunandan and Radhakrishna, who both worked briefly at Ola as advisors before walking away, are successful people and have funded a string of startups. The former has founded fintech firm Zolve and the latter is co-founder of Koo, the Indian version of Twitter. WasTaxiForSure a failure?. Not so if the experience and insights they gained into running a startup in a space like mobility shaped their future roles.   HighlightsResearch, research, research. When things get difficult, and they will, this user research will be your north star. There is a tendency in founders to assume the role of the customers. Stop. You were the customer when you conceptualized the marketplace, now you’re no longer a customer. Build for what the customer wants, not what you want. Happiness. The happiness of the team guarantees happiness of all stakeholders, which in turn ensures happiness of the customer. A happy customer will always reflect on the bottom line.Build a team with diverse backgrounds. If you plan to disrupt a market, try to hire from outside the market. Those within the market come with their mental blocks, and fresh perspectives guarantee innovation.Evolve to where the market will be, not where the market is currently. This will ensure that you’re ahead of the pack.
Like in most markets, India is a large but under-penetrated insurance market. While the COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp uptick in life insurance premiums, bringing it at par with the global average of 3.2% of GDP, non-life premiums - health and motor insurance - continue to lag at sub 1% of GDP, compared to 2% for developing Asian countries and 5% for developed economies. In a low-income economy, paying up premiums to protect against potential long-term downside is not a top priority for people. However, this will grow. As India’s GDP and per capita income grow, more people will begin insuring themselves and their assets. This has happened globally and India is no different.Second and more important, the state of insurance in India leaves much to be desired, both for the insurer and the insured. Improving this can be vital to changing the Indian consumer’s relationship with insurance, and building enduring private companies in the space.We spoke to Varun about his journey building an insurance company, how he approaches building a brand in an industry with established players, and what he sees in the future. He is joined by Abhinav Chaturvedi and Subrata Mitra, investors at Accel who have had a ringside view of Acko and Coverfox.Key Segments3:19 - 7:20 - Varun’s journey from Coverfox to Acko14:13 - 17:43 - Technology’s role in insurance: Underwriting Distributor vs Underwriting Customer17:44 - 20:11 - Future of Insurance: Ancillary Services21:36 - 25:30 - Learnings from the US Insurance Sector36:32 - 40:12 - Managing regulations in Insurance44:31 - 46:31 - What’s next for AckoThe Accel team wishes Varun and Acko all the best in their mission.Blog authored by Sankalpana Agarwal from AccelCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India
India, frequently referred to as the two-wheeler factory of the world, serves a tremendous market both in India and abroad. About 15M two-wheelers were sold in India in 2021 and 3.7M two-wheelers manufactured in India by the top 4 Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) were exported. By 2030, the number of two-wheelers sold in India annually is expected to reach 35M representing an about $30B market, growing at the back of limited penetration of affordable public transport (public transport only serves 7% of the total trips at present) and the ever-increasing cost of not-so affordable four-wheelers.However, with rising fuel prices and the increasing cost of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) scooters, ownership of personal two-wheelers has become financially challenging.Owing to this, customers are now looking for reliable and affordable personal mobility solutions for their daily commute. This new customer demand, along with increasing environmental concerns and favourable government regulations, has created an urgency for electric mobility and set the stage for the rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs).As Accel, we have always looked for new-age solutions that add immense value to consumers and Bounce with its dockless mobility solution presented a great investment opportunity in 2018. What started out as Wicked Ride - a luxury bike rental platform and pivoted to a dockless mobility solution has today become a full-stack EV mobility solution for the Indian masses with 3 core business verticals - electric scooter manufacturing, Battery-as-a-Service and dockless mobility. With a capacity of 220K+ scooters per annum, Bounce launched its Infinity e1 electric scooter in early 2022 and has already received 60K+ pre-orders. It completed 5M+ EV rides covering 27M+ EV mobility kilometres with 1M+ swaps by building India’s largest battery-swapping network present in 40k+ locations across India.To understand this new era of mobility which is rapidly unfolding, we spoke to Vivekananda Hallekere, Co-founder and CEO of Bounce, who has been at the helm of EV mobility adoption in India.In this conversation, Vivek talks about his journey, the various phases of Bounce, EV trends in India and abroad, the inevitability of EV adoption and the need for regulatory support.Key SegmentsBounce’s journey from luxury bike rentals to full-stack EV mobility - 1:15Battery charging, battery swapping and Battery-as-a-Service - 17:00Future of Electric Vehicles - Global and Indian - 26:06State of regulatory environment in India - 44:46Future of Bounce and Energy-as-a-Service - 50:46We thank Vivek for coming on and sharing these insights with us and we wish him and Bounce team all the best for this amazing journey of revolutionizing personal mobility for India.Blog authored by Lakshay Bansal from AccelCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India
Banking opportunity in India is tremendous, with overall banking assets expected to reach $3T by 2025, with deeply under-penetrated private credit markets which account for ~50% of GDP (vs. 150%+ for developed economies).Despite this large opportunity, customer experience and engagement in traditional consumer banking in India is broken and has been so for over a decade.With the increasing digital penetration in the country, customers armed with their smartphones are looking for an easy, seamless, quick and personalised experience and their expectations are ever-evolving.Neo-banks attempt to fix the broken customer journeys and provide a superior banking experience, serving as a layer over traditional banks. This means that customers no longer need to spend hours at their physical bank branch queues, mired in paperwork for everyday banking needs. While doing so, a neo-bank improves access to a whole suite of financial products across wealth management, lending, and insurance through a single platform.As Accel, we’ve always believed that technology can revolutionise banking and attempted to enable that ecosystem, first through our investment in Monzo in 2018, then through our investment in Zolve in 2021, and recently through a growth investment in Niyo - Niyo is a leader in the consumer neo-banking segment in India with a base of 5 million users.To understand this new era of banking which is fast unfolding, we spoke to Vinay Bagri, Co-founder and CEO of Niyo, who is a long-standing veteran in the banking industry in India.In this conversation, Vinay talks about how Niyo came into being, shares some of his reflections on the ongoing changes in the banking ecosystem, draws parallels from other fintech segments and discusses the need for regulatory support.Key segmentsThe large market opportunity for a neo-bank in India - 18:05 - 19:48How neo-banks provide a completely new banking experience - 20:22 - 22:41The success of neo-banks globally - 24:00 - 25:20Customer segmentation in neobanking - 30:25 - 32:12State of neo-banking regulations in India - 36:28 - 39:10We thank Vinay for coming on and sharing these insights with us and we wish him and Niyo team all the best for this amazing journey of revolutionizing consumer banking for India.Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India
B2B marketplaces are different. There are tremendous opportunities, but also different challenges. This arises from the business model itself. Having to cater to both the supply and demand side is one thing, the other is adjusting to the nuances of the products and commodities being bought and sold. This is different for every domain and therefore there is nothing that can be replicated. Everything had to be thought through first principles.One example of a company that did exactly this is Bizongo, the largest business-to-business online marketplace for packaging needs in India. Bizongo has been a phenomenal success story in the last few years, witnessing exponential growth during the pandemic. Founded by Aniket Deb, Sachin Agrawal and Ankit Tomar, the company is now at a significant point, poised to scale. The team raised funding of $110 million in December 2021 and now stands at a valuation of over $600 million.  As Bizongo scales, we thought this was the best time to get CEO Sachin Agrawal to talk about their First 500 days.I also have on the podcast Prayank Swaroop, my colleague, and partner at Accel, who led the seed round in Bizongo. Prayank has been a part of Bizongo’s journey from the beginning, and he will help us shed light on some of the decisions that helped Bizongo get here.We’ll be diving into the initial days, the evolution of the business model, pivots, and finally the challenges due to the pandemic and how Bizongo overcame them. With Prayank here, we will also take the opportunity to dive into how investors think about such businesses and what they look for in founders and the team when they invest.I thank Sachin and Prayank for coming on and sharing all of these stories and insights about Bizongo’s first 500 days. We wish Sachin and the Bizongo team all the best, they have an amazing few years ahead of them!Summary of the conversation:GMV versus profitable business - 17:14 - 18:31Creating a culture of trust at Bizongo - 26:14 - 27:06Building a bond as co-founders - 29:23 - 30:24What is working capital? - 32:06 - 34:18Business expansion during Covid times - 35:59 - 38:11Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India
The D2C ecosystem has truly found its feet in India. There are now a lot of great brands making niche, high-quality products for targeted audiences. The e-commerce wave has given them a channel of distribution that they own. But as the market matures, there are other needs for young D2C startups. They need marketing, sales, and brand talent, things which they can’t easily get access to in order to grow as fast as they want to.Ananth Narayanan’s Mensa aims to solve this problem for the new D2C economy. Mensa is a house of brands that invests in digital-first, D2C brands, and scales them globally. Previously, Ananth was CEO of Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart, and co-founder and CEO of Medlife, which was acquired by Pharmeasy.Remember, Mensa is not even 500 days old!Subrata’s presence is also notable here, as he has had a long relationship with Ananth. Fun fact: Mensa was co-created as a concept by Ananth and Accel working together from the start. We’ll go into more details in the podcast, but Subrata has been in the trenches with Ananth: from ideation to team expansion, and from strategy to building out their tech platform.I thank Ananth and Subrata for coming on and sharing all of these stories and insights about Mensa’s first 500 days. We wish Ananth and the Mensa team all the best, we are definitely rooting for them!Summary of the conversation:6:55 - 8:16 - The India opportunity for a digital house of brands.8:34 - 9:58 - How did Mensa achieve Unicorn status in 6 months?16:35 - 18:55 - How did Mensa use technology top scale?19:37 - 21:37 -  How did Mensa convince founders to sell their brands to Mensa?27:05 - 29:25  - Advice for founders from Ananth & Subrata.Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India
How is the world of Open Source faring in a landscape that is being overturned by Web3 and its ascendant new technologies? It’s an important question  and not just in the realm of entrepreneurship and products. Open Source was the first promise of some kind of a technological revolution, where everyone could build and use things they want to with help and support from a real, tangible community.Where is that promise now, what is being built out of it, and where does it stand with the advent of new technological paradigms?That’s the topic of the conversation I have the pleasure of bringing you today.My colleague, Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel, is talking to Abhishek Nayak, founder and CEO of Appsmith. Appsmith is a startup that provides an open-source low code tool that helps businesses build any custom internal application within hours. And the company has just raised its Series A of $8 million.There's one more Accel connection here: Abhishek was also part of the Accel team for a while.In the podcast, we try to understand from Abhishek about where the open-source world is, how far it has come, and what we can look for from it, and all of it from the lens of Appsmith.This podcast has a lot of takeaways for founders thinking about building open-source projects and companies. Thanks to Prayank for the interview and thanks of course to Abhishek for taking time away from the grind of entrepreneurship to come talk to us!Summary of the conversation 16:00 - 17:57 - Why did Appsmith take the open-source route?11:44 - 13:24 - Why internal apps & not consumer facing apps?24:50 - 25:53 - How to build an engaged community on Discord?30:03 - 31:40 - Why aren't business users adopting open source tools?35:10 - 37:08 - How did Appsmith acquire users?38:52 - 40:50 - Do developers care about design?44:18 - 46:27 - Challenges raising money for an open source project48:24 - 49:32 - Advice for founders thinking of open source projectsCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India
If you know about Crypto, you can’t have missed FalconX, I’ll still give you a brief: FalconX is a blockchain, cryptocurrency, and fintech-focused cryptocurrency brokerage and digital asset trading platform. Accel has been proud partners since the startup’s inception, and we’ve been cheering on their success loudly!Crypto is definitely here. With the slew of recent advertising and coverage around it, plus the FOMO that investments in it are generating, we are definitely overdue for a discussion on the space.And we have just the thing for you.Pratik Agarwal, my colleague at Accel has been interested in this space for a long time, and he is interviewing Raghu Yarlagadda, CEO of FalconX, one of the world’s fastest-growing companies of the last half-decade.But that’s not just why we are talking to Raghu for this episode. As reported by Bloomberg in August 2021, FalconX saw its revenue grow by a multiple of 30 times in the 12 months (up to June 2021).Evidently, Raghu and the team know something we don’t.And that’s not all.The crypto world is moving at a pace that is beguiling to even seasoned market watchers. There is just so much happening every day. Raghu and Pratik will also attempt to give us a lens into this world and how to make sense of a rapidly changing scene.This podcast has all this and more. It has been one of my favourite episodes recently and we hope to bring Raghu back for more next year.6:57-7:59: Insights that helped in starting FalconX; building a tokenization gateway for institutions8:15-10:26: Why was it critical to focus on institutions and not retail customers?16:00-18:20: Convenience in the institutional adoption of crypto assets 20:39-22:21: De-Fi(decentralised finance) explained23:15-25:35: Nuances of De-Fi; Comparing it with conventional banking system27:22-29:50: Global overview on the regulatory landscape in crypto31:06-33:01: Future white spaces that could be chased starting today in crypto33:03-33:55: Newer opportunities on the infrastructure side in the crypto marketCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India
Edtech is a category whose time has come. The pandemic and its attendant ramifications have meant that Edtech is now one of the hottest spaces for innovation and growth globally. This also means that a lot of new Edtech startups are coming up, with newer visions and interpretations of what the future of learning and education can look like.And they have a lot to navigate around and wade through in a rapidly evolving landscape.Which is why we bring to you this conversation with Bob Meese, the Chief Business Officer of Duolingo, one of the most innovative Edtech companies in the world. You know the company, of course, and we are delighted to be bringing you a glimpse into its history and workings.Bob is interviewed by my colleague Manasi Shah, Vice-President at Accel. She is deeply interested in the space and has been looking at Edtech startups for a while now.What resulted from this meeting of minds is a far reaching conversation, about the nature of online education itself, how the world is embracing it, what the challenges are, and what the future will look like.13:10-15:30: Monetization at Duolingo and it's framework; Audience growth more critical than monetization17:52-19:41: Frameworks of monetization and the key areas of focus with each approach23:15-24:52: Perception of experimentation and subsequent failure with monetization28:07-30:00: Empowering teams to come up with newer and better ideas; also taking help from the ecosystem31:10-33:24: Retention metrics and how Duolingo approaches them39:32-41:46: Approaching GTM at Duolingo; how growth of mobile devices helped them scale44:10-46:34: Challenges during Bob's early days at Duolingo; not having the right set of people; setting up ambitious goals and missing out on them consistently48:54-50:56: Future of edtech; how Duolingo saw edtech transform from being a "bad word" to a promising vertical51:55-53:50: Shaping up the product as a key source of customer delightCheck out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India
Credit cards are one of the most ubiquitous financial products in the world. We all use them everyday, they are part of our lives.But as the world changes and our spending and consumer behaviour changes along with it,  so have our needs with regard to financial products. We now have different financial behaviors and the exciting field of fintech is ready to serve us according to our own preferences.Credit cards are the first logical step in this revolution.Over the last couple of years, several startups in India are trying to disrupt and change the credit card ecosystem in India, and literally all of them are tremendously exciting.One of the foremost among them is Uni, and Nitin Gupta, the CEO is one of the domain’s most knowledgeable.  Which is why I’m delighted to present to you this conversation between Rachit Parekh, Vice President at Accel, and Nitin. It’s a far reaching dialogue on the evolution of Indian fintech, what the future holds, global trends, and challenges the field is facing.The conversation is also insightful in that it makes clear the opportunities that exist in a nascent fintech space like India’s, in which credit cards may be the first step in a boom of new and innovative products the country has never seen. But, and here’s what I think is the more important part of the conversation, Rachit and Nitin also spend time on the regulatory challenges faced by Indian fintech. This is important not just for the fintech and credit card ecosystem, but for anyone who needs to navigate the Indian system.I learnt a lot from the conversation, and I know you will too. And yes, watch this particular space in fintech. There’s going to be a lot of action here in the decade ahead0:00 - 8:00: Intro8:08 - 9:37: Why go after credit card business?11:35 - 13:36: Global trends in the financial services business26:39 - 29:11: Challenges in the Indian financial services industry31:29 - 32:10: Making customer data available  34:39 - 36:44: How to manage regulators?Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.comShare your feedback and suggestions at https://www.twitter.com/Accel_India
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Comments (6)

Kiara Roy

Insightful 👌

Jul 21st
Reply

Amar Patel

Loved this. Girish inspires all commoners. Amazing lessons in integrating life and Business vision and purpose Request to include a short summary of the the company, achievements etc for benefit of those who may not be aware of the same. Special thanks to Anand. You get the best from the best.

Aug 9th
Reply

sayinath karuppanan

Great content, but I wish mic quality would have been better

Apr 2nd
Reply

deepak maheshwari

great interviews. if possible, try to interview failed entrepreneurs too.

May 17th
Reply

ABHIRUP BOSE (IPM 2016-21 Batch)

great initiative

May 9th
Reply

Prudhvi Bellamkonda

Great episode and the lessons on product management,setting up processes upfront were on point

Mar 24th
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