Snapdeal | AceVector Group’s Post

Transcript

And because Titan now gets like what 506 hundred 700 applications right every year, every month, every month at the first investment we made was Hola when all of us just starting out lavish, right. So I started investing back in 2011. I'll give you an example, Mammar, when it started, when we met them, we were there for sort of first investors. They were making toxin free mosquito repellents for kids. Right now that is as narrow as it gets. The total market would probably be 100 crores. Somewhere in between also came Titan, I think 1112, right? So we started, so you started investing in companies. 2011, I think the first investment we made was Ola, when Ola was just starting out. Rubbish, right. So started investing back in 2011 that. So what was? So Bhavish met Kunal first, Kalimat Kural first at a conference in Mumbai. Right. And he was actually just, I mean simple. He was doing 6 rides a day. I very vividly remember 6 cab rides a single day. And his picture was, you know, I just, I think back then the incumbent cab companies, there used to be cab companies, but it wasn't me who I think there were a couple of others at that point. There were a few and you couldn't get to get a cab, but it was one very expensive. Secondly, if you remember again this long back. Call them. You'll be waiting, waiting on the phone for 30 minutes to get into the queue to talk to someone, to book a cab for tomorrow. Yeah. And is it going to change that? I'll make it instead. You call me, I'll pick up the phone, or you go to my app. You sort of book on the app and the cab will come in sometime. We thought it was kind of interesting. Isn't it cheaper, faster, better. And I mean. The person was absolutely exceptional, but as proof of concept was so insignificant, I mean, just six, yeah, Yeah. And that's how everything is, everything is right. That's the whole point in being an early stage investor is that. I mean, if you wait for too much to be already done, then that is really early stage investment, right? So you have to listen to the idea and look at the entrepreneur, but at least make up your mind that I feel the person can pull it off and just at least prima facie seems to fit together. And because Titan now gets like what 506 hundred 700 applications, right, every year, every month, every month, 12,000. And these are 12,000 unique businesses, I mean over a period of 12 months every year. So the question is for all of those people out there, if Rohit is to get Rohit and Kunal interested in your company, what are they looking at? So if you were to list out those three or five things for sure, yeah. So just in 2015, sixteen somewhere is when we set up tighten capital. You started doing it more formally earlier it used to be only a hobby, now it is a hobby as well as sort of a full time, full time role in some ways. So that's how we started. We've now invested in over 250. Companies 7-8 have become unicorns, so overall I think they're good thing away. What we look for in entrepreneurs is 2 three things. One is obviously, I mean it has to be an exceptionally smart team, which everyone would say their ability to learn. Because entrepreneurship. You are perpetually learning, you know, I mean you've seen from our own experience as well as the experiences of others this durability to learn, try something, whether it works, doesn't work. But for did you learn how to improvise, improvise, improvise that Similar to and #3 I mean three and four the idea. Whatever idea you have, we feel actually many investors care about how large your target market is, is it a big dam, can you build a large business, etcetera. We actually don't think like that at all. We are actually completely OK and maybe even prefer a small, small target market. But whatever service or product you're building should be exceptional for that time. I'll give you an example, Mammoth when it started when we met them, we were there for sort of first investors. They were making toxin free mosquito repellents for kids. Right now that is as narrow as it gets. The total market would probably be 100 crores, right? That's it. But the product that they had made was exceptional, which means people for that small TG absolutely loved it. We've seen over and over again that once you're able to dominate a certain market or create absolutely fantastic experience in one product line. And created brand love for yourself. Being able to replicate that brand love across more categories is easier than going after a very large market and building a product which is only marginally better than what already exists.