March 2019 was when we published our first episode of 100xEntrepreneur.

So far we’ve covered 150+ VCs, Angel Investors and Entrepreneurs from the Indian startup ecosystem.

Alongside 100xEntrepreneur podcast we’ve so far invested in 30+ portfolio companies via like Airmeet, PlumHQ, Zencastr and Neeman’s.

In today’s episode we share our journey so far. We are Siddhartha & Nansi, a husband-wife entrepreneur-cum-content creator duo who started their podcast journey with a purpose to make behind the screen conversations, thought process, and mindset of VCs, Investors and Successful entrepreneurs accessible to thousands of early-stage entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts like you.

We really hope that we have been able to serve you with great content so far and would really appreciate your feedback. How can you share your feedback with us?

1. Reply to this email
2. Comment on our Youtube, iTunes, Castbox or Spotify Channel

 

Notes –

01:09 – How 100xEntrepreneur was born?

09:44 – To Unlock Growth: Start reaching out to people who are better and bigger than you

14:19 – What went in the background while recording a podcast?

21:01 – Joining AWS to setting up 100x Fund

23:33 – Building the team at 100xEntrepreneur

27:46 – Our favourite episode so far

 

Read the full transcript here:

 

Nansi 0:04

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the 100x Entrepreneur Podcast. I am Nansi.

 

Siddhartha 0:08

And I’m Siddhartha

 

Nansi 0:11

We are the founders of 100x Entrepreneur podcast. And this is the first time I have also become part of the podcast. It’s been three years, our team members and few of our listeners have been asking us if we should tell the story of 100x Entrepreneur and how the 100x Entrepreneur podcast was started. And what’s the story behind it? And they also want to know about behind the scene stories. And what’s next for 100x Entrepreneur? So today’s episode is dedicated to our listeners and our team members.

 

Siddharth 0:46

And as you know, in most of the episodes, Nansi is the producer, she is the one who brings the guest, she’s the one who is responsible for managing the team, which edits and distributes. I’m just the face.

 

Nansi 1:08

So, let’s start with how we started 100x Entrepreneur, because a lot of people on my LinkedIn keep asking me, what is 100x Entrepreneur? What do you do? What’s your role? So let’s start with our journey, how the 100x Entrepreneur podcast was born.

 

Siddharth 1:25

So I have to go back in time. Almost 10 years back in 2012, I found my first company, which was not AddoDoc. And fast forward, me and my co-founders in a team of 20 sold that company in 2017, it was a SAS solution, a CRM solution for doctors. And we added a child product to it, which was called Babygogo, which was how me and Nansi met. Nansi joined the Baby Gogo team initially, direct from college as an intern, that’s how me and Nansi met and we had huge, mutual respect for each other. That’s why we decided to become life partners, as well, in 2017, we got married in 2017, and at the same time, just three to four months after marriage, it was a very stressful time, because the company was getting acquired. And fast forward to 2017, October, that’s when we finally signed the papers and sold a company. Me and Nansi and I joined the acquiring company called Sheroes. And I became a co-founder and head of business, Nansi became the community head at Sheroes.

 

So, after one year, I have always been an entrepreneur, and what I really appreciate about Nansi is that she’s a very high growth, mindset personality. So she’s always looking for a non-traditional path, which can help her grow. And she doesn’t like so-called Career tags, that she wants to become a VP in Facebook or anywhere else, she is looking for her own personal growth, as well as self validation that she’s doing something which her parents, especially her mother inspired her to become a really, self made person.

So, at that point in time, one year down, we both were really not satisfied. Because,it was somebody else’s company and when you’re working in somebody else’s company, as an entrepreneur, and you’re not getting an exponential growth curve, that pinches you and, I was extremely frustrated and Nansi used to see me frustrated in the office,

 

Nansi 03:47

And I was double frustrated to see him.

 

Siddhartha 03:49

And at that point in time in 2018, I thought, let’s do whatever is in our control. So I started shooting videos on LinkedIn, sharing my experiences, a very popular video on YouTube, called How to start from a tier two city. Back then, not many people were starting from tier two cities, they thought starting up is only meant for Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and only IITs.

 

Nansi 4:16

So, I still remember that Siddhartha used to shoot these videos at home. I used to shoot these videos and these were poorly shot videos and he used to upload it on his social media, on LinkedIn right? And I used to tell him,”Siddhartha, please don’t upload these videos. Let’s record once more”. And he’ll be like No, no, no will with each video, I’ll improve. So let’s post.

I used to get irritated that you’re looking so bad and the background is looking so bad, and I don’t want you to post this video and he’ll be like, no, no, no, I have to upload because I want to focus on the quality of the content, not the quality of the video, that I will improve with each video we’ll be publishing next.

 

So, when I look back, I really admire this thing about Siddhartha that he has this bias for action, that he doesn’t wait to start something next to execute his ideas. I totally love this thing about Siddhartha. And a little correction. You said I joined Sheroes as community head, but I joined as community manager. I was managing their health community when I joined them. And I was laughing initially when you were talking good things about me, because before shooting this video, I told you that now you can talk about my role because people keep asking me about my role specifically, like you are the face of a podcast. People hear your voice and the people see you on YouTube. And they’re like, when I post or promote our podcasts on my LinkedIn, people ask me, what’s your role? What is 100x Entrepreneur?

 

So, Siddhartha, you have to tell in this podcast, what is my role, and you can appreciate me so Siddhartha started appreciating me and my qualities, but thank you so much for doing that. So let’s just tell how the startup 100x Entrepreneur was born.

 

Siddhartha 6:15

So, in 2018, we didn’t even know what a podcast was. So the goal wasn’t to start a podcast, the goal was to become better. And when it was clear, in my journey, as a five, six year old entrepreneur, that you can become better by talking to people who are much higher in their growth trajectory than you are. Much higher in their learning than you are, and maybe have accomplished more in life than you have. So I remember the first few episodes, I started going to my investors in my company because we had a decent exit and our investors at least got their money back.

 

So we went to them. For example, I went to Dr. Andrud Malpani. He’s in Mumbai. So, I told him after a meeting, I want to shoot an audio with you. And here’s my Samsung phone, let’s record our audio. And listen, I’ll ask you about your journey, your learnings, how some of your startups failed, whatever learning from them. And this, let’s make it so that at least I come back with five to ten Super learnings which I have not had the chance to talk to you about, because we were never sitting in that kind of a conversation. And the second thing is that, the other entrepreneurs, it took me five years to reach where I was. Can this conversation reduce this trajectory?

 

So we started recording it on the phone, then, one day I was meeting Priya Krishnan, who is the founder of Klay preschools. She founded Klay back in 2012,2013 and by 2017, they had 100- 200 branches, the largest preschool chain in India. So she told her about our journey on the podcast. That’s one after four to five episodes. In the first four or five episodes I used to publish on my LinkedIn on Google Drive. So somebody after five episodes said that you should make it a formal podcast. And then I started looking at how to start a podcast. So I had five audio recordings. Then, what I did is I uploaded that on SoundCloud. And initially, Nansi used to make fun of me. Because at home, I was trying to make my equipment better than a phone, and I got a Yeti Blue mic.

 

Nansi 8:32

I was more frustrated with the fact that you used to upload poorly shot videos on your LinkedIn. Like even before publishing, you know that these videos are not good enough. Still you’re publishing and it’s not like you’re looking back and thinking that such bekar podcast videos are these, we could have done a little better. You knew that these videos are not good enough, in terms audio and video quality wise, not content-wise. I have always appreciated the knowledge I’ve gained over the last few years.

 

Siddharth 9:05

That was because, the minimum viable product. I’m a big fan of minimum viable products. And I always want to give it in the hands of the audience, the listeners and the users, for them to judge how it is. And I knew that with each iteration I learned something better. So rather than waiting for the perfect moment, having the perfect crew to shoot my video, I thought let’s just do it. Whatever resources we have. So yeah, the first five episodes got like this. This way we started getting appreciation as they started sharing that on LinkedIn I used to travel and It started the growth process that it took me on. So, for anybody who is listening to this episode, one way you can unlock growth for yourself is start reaching out to people who are better than you, or are bigger than you, and see if they can give you their time with a certain perspective. Meet them without an agenda, but obviously offer them some value. Why should they meet you, but have kind of a goal of having such conversations, at least sometimes a year, because an external perspective always helps.

So after five such conversations, which we published on SoundCloud, I thought This is something which I’m really enjoying doing . Let’s just make it and Fast Forward one year, we had 40 episodes done. During one of the episodes, I flew to Bangalore. I was recording a podcast with Mr. Amit Somani, who is managing partner at prime. And after the podcast, I asked him that I’m interested in venture capital. Is there a position in prime that I can take, because being a second time entrepreneur, it will be a good learning curve for me also to see how the VCs do their business.

 

And it can be helpful for them, right? To have somebody who has seen the entrepreneurial journey in the last five years, who can better empathize and connect with entrepreneurs. And I kept on waiting for three months. And one day, Amit called me saying when I was shopping for our son Kabir, He was just born, that hey, d hey Siddharth, I spoke to Rajat who was your lead investor in baby Gogo, and he said that you would be really good fit for Head of Community at prime. And I thought, let’s just jump the ship and go into Venture capitalism and checkup or whatever opportunity I have.

 

Nansi 11:30

This is one example how our podcast 100x Entrepreneur has helped us in the last three years.

So this is one opportunity we got through the podcast. So, by the end of this video, we will also be sharing how this podcast helped us in many ways.

 

Siddharth

Dear listeners, before we dive further into the podcast, I would like to thank our sponsors, prime venture partners. Prime is the first institutional investor in the category creating tech startups like Mfind, Dozy, planet sparks. Prime is now investing out of its fourth fund of $120 million. Today, I have with me Sanjay Swamy, Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners. Sanjay congratulations on the 10th anniversary of prime and do let us know how the next 10 years of the Indian startup ecosystem will be like.

 

Sanjay 12:23

Thanks, Siddharth, for having us on the show, the last 10 years has just been an amazing ride in India, and it has sort of started getting exponentially more exciting as days go by, and clearly you’re in a podcast is itself an example of that. But what we’re seeing in India are the benefits of three big trends that have been foundationally laid over the last 10 years.

The first one was Aadhaar, India stack and of course, UPI which has made movement of money, friction free and basically free and in real time.

 

The second is, smartphone and internet penetration along with 4g, that is now pervasive across the country.And the third is the entrepreneurial spirit of India, as well as the aspirational youth that we have in India, that has created markets of extreme depth in India itself.

This is something that was not there 5-10 years ago, and getting to five $10 million of revenue was itself a big achievement, But now we’re seeing that happening, in 12 to 18 months, in some cases.

Having said that, I think they’re only getting started, the best is yet to come. And what excites us, as investors or as early stage entrepreneurs ourselves, is really the massive opportunity because what we’re seeing in India is not something that’s been seen in the rest of the world, the western model, the Chinese models, Israeli models are not what’s going to solve India’s problems. And the entrepreneurs in India have a unique opportunity to get down here, you know, and just focus on solving India’s problems first, which may very well be solutions for others of the world, And we’re seeing some of that starting to happen. And that’s where we think there is a spectacular opportunity here. So clearly, for us and for this ecosystem. We are off to a great start, but the best is ahead of us.

 

Siddharth 14:18

Moving a little forward.

 

Nansi 14:19

So, I will give you a brief of what was going on in the background, like when Siddhartha was doing these podcasts in the year 2018. We started the podcast in 2017. But in 2018 I used to, go with him to record all these podcast episodes because during that time we used to shoot in person so we used to visit all these guests offices because we didn’t have our own studio so we used to go to these interface office and we’d brainstorm how we will conduct two podcast in the same office.

 

We needed space, so I still remember that we visited Alok Mittal’s office and we asked him if we could do the podcast of his friend Pavan at his office only. So we used to travel Metro with our laptop mic and all the setup. And we’ll take just 10-15 minutes and we’d set up in their office, and then we will call them and we’ll, after they’re like they’re done, we’ll try to, you know, maintain a good relationship with them and also figure out how for the next episode we can record it at their place. Or maybe if two people are friends and we want to bring them both on our podcast, how we can record it at one place and many conversations like this we used to have in the Metro while traveling.

 

So, I used to go with him to record these podcasts. And then I found out that I was pregnant. So I stopped going. But I started helping him with other things. So like when Kabir was born, we shifted here to Bangalore. And he told me that he’s going to record a podcast of Gaurav Munjal who is the founder of unAcademy. I got very excited and I said no, no, for this separate episode, I want to join you. And that time was not very good for me. Considering my mental health, because Kabir was born and I was always, most of my time was going to Kabir only because Siddharth had joined a full time job and he was doing podcasts also. So I was managing Kabir but then there came a time where I wasn’t feeling very good physically and mentally. So I thought that maybe like earlier I should go with him. And we were still recording in person podcasts only at that time because it was before the pandemic. So I went with him and that was one of the best times of my life. We were sitting with Gaurav Munjhall And that is my favorite podcast of 100x Entrepreneur for many reasons for not just one reason. We’ll talk about this later in this episode. So I was there in that room. So that was recording the podcast. And before we were, we started recording the conversation Gaurav was asking Siddhartha what he does, because they were friends with them I think they were part of some..

 

Siddharth 17:34

We’re part of the Morpheus gang. It was India’s first accelerator in 2014. Our past overlapped.

 

Nansi 17:41

Yeah, so he was talking about that and I was just sitting in the background listening to the conversation, pre-recording the conversation, and he just randomly asked me, what do you do?

And, I’m being very honest here. I was not at all confident at that point in time. So I couldn’t even tell him that I am the co-founder of 100x Entrepreneur, Because I was so under confident at that time Ialways had doubts, like what am I even doing in my career and I am just helping him here and there. And most of my time is going to Kabir and I don’t know if I’ll get out of my four walls, if I do something meaningful, if I will be able to add value, if I’m able to get back to my work.

Most women go after their maternity leave. So that was not a very good time. But 100x Entrepreneur helped me specifically to, generally get out of my four walls and meet others.

If not meet then, atleast, listen to these passionate people every week while working on the

podcast but in the background.

 

So we were in Bangalore, and the pandemic happened and we started recording online podcasts. And that time we felt that, and Siddharth specifically because he used to record these conversations, he felt that it’s not as much fun now because, apart from the recording part you can’t really get to talk. So let’s just put this on a small hold, let’s resume after the pandemic.

Then since, it didn’t look l anything was on the horizon anytime soon, we kept on recording online only and after a few weeks, few months we realized that we will be recording online only because it saves a lot of time and energy and again if you have a lot of energy, let’s use that time to fix our audio video quality and other things on 100x Entrepreneur because our listenership was growing. People were writing back to us.

 

So, we started building our community for 100x Entrepreneur. We have a newsletter, which goes to 20,000 people every Monday. So we thought, let’s use this time to improve our audio video quality and other things for 100x Entrepreneur, let’s keep doing online podcasts only.

So we set up two calls, one where Siddartha,one where Siddhartha will have this pre podcast call with a guest, and they talk about their backgrounds, and they’re just being comfortable with each other and their backgrounds. And then we have this main podcast call. So that’s how we record all our podcast episodes. And that’s the little backstory in 2020.

 

Siddharth 20:42

And that kept on going right, so once I left prime in early 2020, I joined Amazon Web Services, because there was only one reason for me, I think Primus is the most wonderful venture capital firm by culture. It’s just that I had never worked in a very much scaled organization, and AWS is the world’s biggest SAS company, with last year’s revenue of $62 billion. Let me learn how to scale with this. And with that the last two and a half years have been fantastic.

 

And also what I started doing is, we had very little savings and our exit from selling Babygogo was not that huge, whatever money we had, I used to discuss with Nansi that will not buy any house and would not buy any car. Let’s just put it in startups, because this is the money that we earned through our startup and see where it goes. Thankfully, now we have invested in more than 30 companies. We have built a formal structure also called 100x Entrepreneur. And today we have one exit, which was EbikeGO, it was a company that we invested in 2019. And before I just joined prime.

 

And recently, we got a 7x exit from that company in the series, and we were the first seed investors . It’s been a wonderful journey for me, Iand what we have kept, ourselves very frugal. So Nansi often jokes that you haven’t bought me any gold, or any fancy things. But I think the journey has been very fulfilling, because we have seen other startups which we are part of as investors grow into such beautiful organizations.

 

Nansi 22:36

So these are not serious complaints. Complaining is part of my role being a wife, I have to complain. So this is one of the silly complaints. But I really, really love the ways Siddhartha pursues things in his life, in our life. The way he wants to add value to these startup founders, the way he supports and contributes to our podcasts, 100x Entrepreneur. He always takes out time for the recordings. And I don’t think he ever has any weekends. It’s a seven day week for Siddhart. So I don’t think I need anyone else to inspire me. By seeing Siddhartha giving his 100% to the podcast to the fund we have, to his job, and still manages to be so helpful, it’s just amazing. So we would also like to talk about how we built our team at 100x Entrepreneur. So there’s a small story I want to share. So why don’t you share Siddhartha? How Amit joined us.

 

Siddharth 23:46

So Amit Kumar, was a bright student studying in Delhi University. And he applied for an internship in 2016 in my company called Babygogo. And I don’t know what spark that we saw.

We gave him an internship for three months. And after three months, he had an offer in the Amazon team. And we also gave him an offer and he said that he didn’t want to pursue the Amazon offer back then because it was a backend office that Amazon was offering to Him. And He joined us full time. And once we had an exit, he told me that, Siddhartha, you have played a huge role in shaping my career.

 

And I’m grateful to Amit for that. And he has been a huge contributor in all my companies I can say today. So, at that point in time, he asked that if you’re starting anything new, just let me know. And one year later, when we started the podcast, I asked him if he wanted to be a part of, anything? And he wrote a huge email on whatever we want to start, he would like to be part of it. Would you like to take ownership of any part of it?

 

Nansi 25:02

And without thinking twice he said yes. And he has played a very important role in the podcast 100x Entrepreneur and we really respect him. I have never seen someone so consistent, so driven, so consistent. I think he jokingly said once that he is responsible for the newsletter and the content for the newsletter. He shares the newsletter every Monday at 2pm. So he jokingly once said while he was traveling so, I asked him,“ Will you be able to manage sending the newsletter this week and he jokingly said to Nansi, I’ll send these newsletters even during my marriage, and we laughed at this. Because when it was his marriage. I think it was his wedding the day before the wedding and he managed to send the newsletter.And we really respect him and it’s not like we forced him but he always manages to do that.

 

Siddhartha 26:06

He has a really high degree of ownership.

 

Nansi 26:08

Yeah, we really love him for his dedication, consistency. I don’t think whatever we have achieved would have been possible without him and similarly the same is true for other members of the team of 100x Entrepreneur before joining us. And, we are very grateful for all the team members we have. And everyone is working part time, except me. So like they all are passionate driven people who take out time on their weekends and still manage to contribute because they also believe that because of 100x Entrepreneurs they get to hear these founders who are the most passionate set of people in the world. So they get to hear them every week. They learn from them while working on their respective jobs where they get to hear these stories, and they learn from their journey.

 

So this is something I find very amazing. And whenever I pick someone for a job, or internship, I always tell them that no matter what work you are going to do here, no matter what skill you will be working on, you will be learning like 100x and you will realize that after working two, three months or even six months or one year, and you look back, you’ll realize that you have, learnt so much about the startup ecosystem, so much about the human psychology. you will get so much inspiration from these people you have been hearing for the last one month, two months, six months. This is my pitch. When I’m pitching people to join 100x Entrepreneur.

 

Siddharth 27:44

I would like to share one of my favorite episodes, and then I would ask Nansi to share what her favorite episode is. My favorite episode is with Jay Vijayan, who is the founder of Tekion and was ex Chief Information Officer of Tesla. He was the right hand man of Elon Musk. And his journey is so inspiring at 30 years of age. He had done a master’s from a college in Chennai. He was working in Chennai. His dad has huge loans. And at that point in time he did a course in computer from NIT. And that job got him posted to the US in a services company. From there, he took multiple jobs, grew the ladder, and finally, his role landed in Tesla. And Tesla was unknown in 2011-2012. And from there to 2016 17, he grew into the CIO of Tesla. He shared his story of working with the challenging Elon Musk.

 

And then he started Tekion. And in three years today, Tekion is a $3 to $5 billion company with like $30 million of revenue, approximately, I believe, And he’s 40 to 50 years old. But his story is so inspirational because if you talk to him, he is not an IITian, and he didn’t do an MBA.

And for 30 years, he was in Chennai, he had huge debts, and how he transformed his life. This is amazing. So, that episode, if anyone listens to them, they can do whatever they aspire to. And they can become whatever they desire to. because there’s nothing stopping you,

No degrees stops, no IIT tag stops you, no funding stops you if you aim that big.

 

Nansi 29:37

And the episode with Jay Vijayan is one of our best performing episodes from 100x Entrepreneur and we’re totally grateful for the opportunity to have him on the podcast, because it takes a lot of effort to have these people join us as guests. So it feels amazing when people like him join us because, there’s so much to do there, they work with Elon Musk, and they have their own projects. He’s building this company and, then they, join the podcast and, they will share their story and everything in depth. It’s not like they’re just giving this money to you. They’re so comfortable sharing their stories in so much depth. It’s just amazing. And We are really thankful to Vijay for being part of 100x Entrepreneur.

 

So let me talk about my favorite podcast of 100x Entrepreneur. I already mentioned about recording day with Gaurav Munjal. The episode with Gaurav is my favorite episode from 100x Entrepreneur. The day we were recording a podcast episode with Gaurav, that day changed me. It brought a lot of change in me. It was so inspiring, listening to the conversation happening there. And the way he conducts himself and he was not at all, he didn’t have any fear. That okay this is what i tell and this is not to be told. These numbers are to be shared and these are not to be shared, it was such a raw episode. He was not at all shy from sharing any numbers, any stories. And he said that he is very obsessed about building this company. And he shared about his love for learning, and why he’s building unacademy, what impact it is creating and what he wants to create in future. It was just an amazing conversation with him.

 

And it is also one of the best performing podcast episodes from 100x Entrepreneur, but it is my personal favorite to tell now, because from that day, I started taking more responsibilities. I said, I requested my mom in law, to to to help me more with Kabir because I wanted to give more time to 100x Entrepreneur, and I wanted to bring a routine in my life from that day onwards, because I first hand saw him, on a Saturday, giving so much attention to the most important works of the week. And he told us that he doesn’t take a break. No founder takes a break. But he shared that on Saturday’s he does the most important work and that he also shared that at that point of time, he had 6000 notes in his iPad.

 

So, he’s so dedicated to his learning. So that episode brought a lot of change in my life. So thanks to Gaurav for joining us and for helping me grow and be more mindful about my career.

So I think that’s it for now. And because it’s been three years since everyone in the team asked me to record this episode, and we were just delaying it, postponing it, because of my self doubts. Siddhartha told me that we needed one video for our YouTube channel, we would put it in the about section, I was like, we’ll do it, we’ll do it. And for days and months I did have the realization that I am the only person who’s responsible for this delay. So I should step out of the four walls, I should do it and Siddhartha will be there. So I think it went Fine? So today’s that day, and I think it went fine.

 

Siddharth 33:45

Yes. And we produce these episodes with a lot of love, a lot of passion. If you could give us a subscribe on the channel that you’re listening to, whether it be Spotify or iTunes, if you’re listening on watching it on YouTube, give us a like button, share, in comments that if you’d like to see us both more in such episodes, and what would you like to learn from us what we could share that could add value to you?

 

Nansi 34:12

Tell us that we love listening from you. Whenever you share any feedback, we get so happy we share in our WhatsApp group that we have received this comment from this listener. So please tell us what guests you would like us to bring in the next episode. And also tell us if you want more podcast episodes where there is only the two of us and we are sharing our journeys. And what’s the next thing we want to do for 100x Entrepreneur?

 

What’s the next thing we’ll be focusing on in the next one year, two year, five year and any stuff you want from 100x Entrepreneur? Please let us know in the comments. And thank you so much for being part of our journey. We are totally grateful for this opportunity of building 100x Entrepreneur and connecting with so many passionate people who want to grow 100x of themselves. So, thank you so much!

 

**Sponsor**

Prime is a high conviction, high support investor, backing star teams with differentiated ideas. All partners at Prime work actively with the entrepreneurs post-investment to accelerate building a great company. Prime focuses on building differentiating companies whose solutions are 10X better and are powered by technology and product. Prime is now investing from its fourth fund of $100M and is often the first institutional investor in category-creating tech startups such as MyGate, HackerEarth, Mfine, Wheelseye. To know more about Prime visit primevp.in

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