Anand Sanwal’s Post

Here are 3 things you may NEVER do if you've got a new idea, advice from Y Combinator 1. Never dive deep into implementation - the biggest time trap for the technical founders is that they work on the implementation immediately once they feel excited about the idea. Instead, spend time on PMF early validation. Check out how Doordash validates the PMF in the early days https://lnkd.in/ecAAEd-z 2. Never talk about the idea - pull a large spectrum of people to talk to, post on Reddit, post on LinkedIn, share with friends and family. If your idea is about food delivery, bump into restaurant employees, if it's about pet merchandise, talk to a Hollywood star v.s a student you'll hear complete different answers, validate like hell. 3. Never stick with one idea - the benefit of a startup is the agility, move fast to learn and validate the idea, pivot when you have enough data points to prove you're wrong, if you have look out for Amplitude PMF story, their 1st product is nothing like Amplitude. https://lnkd.in/e_kCQYRC #startupadvice #inittogether #ycombinator

Blinkit: A New Game Changer!🛒💰 💡 Goldman Sachs experts suggest that Blinkit's value now surpasses Zomato's food delivery business. 💸 Initially, investors were a bit hesitant, but now, Blinkit's value has soared to a whopping $13 billion! 📈 🚀 Looks like the future of quick commerce is shining bright! Did you expect this exponential rise of Blinkit? Tell us in the comments! 💬 Follow us for more updates now! 🔔 #Blinkit #Zomato #InvestmentInsights #QuickCommerce #choice #deliveryapp

Excited to launch Capital Max, a major upgrade to our Capital product. I promise that I didn’t bribe anyone for this name! That being said, I’m afraid the finmid team will have to come up with Capital AI as well now to make things even for Alexander Talkanitsa. Whatever it takes to drive product innovation, I guess. On a more serious note, our Capital product has been key in meeting financing needs of thousands of merchants on platforms like Wolt, Just Eat Takeaway.com or Your.Rentals with an average NPS of over 80. With Capital Max, we now offer the best of both worlds for our platform partners to better support their merchants: 1. Pre-approved limits based on existing sales data for seamless funding access 2. Increased limits for merchants who connect additional data sources, such as bank accounts and financial documents Learn more about the update in our announcement – link in comments.

Have you heard of DoorDash? 🥡 Most people in 2024 have. But most people don’t know that in the earliest days, the founders of DoorDash didn’t know what they were going to build. But their approach to find out was a good one. Here's what we can learn: 💡 Find a problem to solve. Stage one for the DoorDash founders was discovering what real world problem they were setting out to solve, and they took their time with this. They spoke with more than a hundred small business owners in their home town of Palo Alto and listened carefully to learn about their pain points. Through these conversations they identified a problem that they wanted to take a swing at - delivery was painful, particularly for small business owners who didn’t have the resources or the brand recognition of larger chains. 💨 Move fast to release your MVP. They put their coding hats on and built the initial prototype in a few hours. This was the genesis of what was at the time called Palo Alto delivery. 🔧 Do things that don't scale. During those early days and weeks, they were just trying to validate that a market existed. They were literally making the deliveries themselves. This meant that they were perfectly positioned to pickup more learnings along the way that would ultimately help them build out a more complex dispatching system. Suhail Doshi, founder of Playground, recently tweeted: “If you’re behind, the simplest thing to do is focus as narrowly as possible on the one thing that users care about the most.” 👉 There are plenty of opportunities to get distracted in life and in business. Staying laser focused on what problem you’re solving and what matters most to your customer is a superpower. https://lnkd.in/gT36RFbR

Competing on a Global Stage with a Small but Mighty Tech Team: #observation One of the most impressive stories in the world of food tech is that of Instacart. Despite having a relatively small team in its early years, Instacart managed to build and scale a complex logistics platform that could compete with giants like Amazon and Walmart. What made them successful was their hands-on approach - founder Apoorva Mehta personally delivered groceries to understand customer needs and the operational challenges. This deep operational involvement helped the tech team design an app that catered perfectly to both customers and drivers. Their success is a testament to the fact that it’s not the size of the team that matters, but how well you can align your technology with real-world operations. At Snoonu, our ops tech team is 10 times smaller than the global players we compete with in the GCC region, but we’ve found our own formula for success. A key part of this is making sure our team is not just writing code, but is deeply involved in the daily operations. Whether it’s being a driver, acting as a LiveOps manager, or joining weekly syncs with our operations team, our developers experience first-hand the challenges our drivers and operations staff face. This real-world involvement creates a 200% sync between tech and operations, allowing us to build solutions that truly address on-the-ground problems. This approach sets us apart from larger competitors, where tech teams often operate in silos, disconnected from day-to-day realities. By having our team intimately involved in operations, we ensure that every line of code reflects what’s really happening in the field. In your experience, how important is it for tech teams to stay connected with operations? Do you think this kind of involvement makes a difference in the quality of the product? Zaryab Shahzaib Temirlan Yergaziyev Joshua Albert Zeeshan Ali Khan Khaled Mribah #foodtech #operations #tech

An insightful #longread from Sangeet Paul Choudary that speaks to an argument I have been making for certain sectors, pushing back on the much-beloved asset light frameworks that have become the darling model for #privateequity and #venturecapital. "To create barriers to entry, economies of density should be accompanied by high fixed costs." "#NetworkEffects have become the fallback ‘how-we-win’ argument, often applied indiscriminately to any platform connecting producers and consumers. More producers bring more consumers, creating a nice, little flywheel. Local market players like Uber, DoorDash, Zomato, Zepto are often explained in terms of network effects. Or in terms of data-driven learning. Gain enough users and the data will be invaluable. But what if these theories don’t apply to local markets at all? What if adding users actually creates inefficiencies? What if more data leads to diminishing returns? And how do you create advantages when your network doesn’t create defensible network effects and your data isn’t useful beyond a point?" - (https://lnkd.in/dTbJ4EiC)

This is pure idea re-validation. The circumstance that surround how big idea can be executed is obviously highly flexible! What works for Mr A might not work for Mr B. The general do it mechanism that derive every idea to reality are the grit the owners put in irrespective of all the ever-changing volatile immeasurable parameters.

Another brilliant example of the power of #execution. DoorDash’s journey highlights the importance of thorough market research and direct engagement. The founders' commitment to hands-on validation turned a simple idea into a $45B success story. This underscores that effective execution, grounded in deep market understanding, is key to achieving long term, sustained success. #Management #StartUps #Innovation #Leadership #Technology #Creativity

🚀 Blinkit recently was valued at $13 billion according to analysts at Goldman Sachs, more than its parent Zomato 🚀 The key driver behind this shift is Blinkit's impressive growth. Goldman Sachs estimates Blinkit's valuation to be around $13 billion, a staggering 6-fold increase compared to March 2023 But what exactly is behind this surge? I tried to deep-dive inside Blinkit and bring hidden insights from the quick commerce behemoth. Let me know what you think is the reason for Blinkit's success and whether its profitability approach will be enough to beat Instamart & Zepto. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stay tuned for more such deep dives coming for you. What do you think would be the next in this series? #blinkit #productmanagement #quickcommerce