 Thank you Sonali and welcome friends and welcome to the fourth edition of a business X series. This is a special series we've started and we talk about three different subjects. We talk about investment, we talk about how do you scale and also we talk about how to value your business. So we have already done three primary series of all the three subjects. We've talked about what is the ways of investment. We talked about how do you scale the assets, whatever investments you've done, how do you scale your investments and also we've talked about the building value in enterprises and building values in businesses. So before I start further, because every time we have a lot of fresh people joining apart from a lot of people returning back, I would like to summarize my last first talk when we did the investment. So I'll give you some 10 golden rules which we call for investment. As it's a very starting point, so let's start with the 10 golden rules which needs to be done. One rule which I always say is that there is no investment called passive investment. So first, never think that you are a passive investor. There can be only difference you can have that you are an operator or a non operator, but there is nothing like a passive investment. So every investment you do is an active investment needs your time, needs your attention and you need to monitor your investment. That's point number one. Second, when you invest, always marry your financial and personal goals. If they don't marry together and not for now, but next five years or 10 years from now, how are they going to be coming together? Your personal goals and your financial goals are coming together. Third, always create a balance between your current liabilities and savings. How do you stack up? If your liability is too much, then maybe time is not right for you to invest and you need to really balance your liabilities and savings and so forth. Unless you are in a comfort position to invest, don't do that. Especially in these times, these are very challenging times, stretching yourself to thin or getting into more investment where you are cash flow trap and a lot of other things are happening. That would not be a good suggestion. But if you are on the other side sitting on a lot of savings and your business is still, your incomes are still thriving, then this is the best time to invest. There would be no better time to invest like this. So you need to really first balance yourself where you are in terms of your current liabilities and savings. What is your fallback plan? If you invest and you don't get returns on investment or you're not able to liquidate your investment back in a certain time frame, what is your fallback plan? Sometimes people invest with the expectation that three years from now or five years from now, I would like to exit out of this investment. And if that exit is delayed, like this year, a lot of exits would get delayed because nobody would be able to exit in this year. A lot of investments, it can be large institutional investors, pension funds. A lot of people who have invested and thought that 2020 was a time they won't like to have an exit. Maybe they would have to delay that exit if they don't want to take a strong haircut on their value in build because you might be building value for last three to four years and this was an exit here for you and certainly this has happened and the valuations would significantly change and a lot of people would not like to call for an exit this year. So exit if you get prolonged, what is your fallback period? Is this money required for something which you want to do that? A lot of people invest with some kind of forecast when they need money for that. Fifth, which is very important and I always question investors and say money everybody can bring in, especially when you are an early stage investor, what extra you bring on the table? What is the extra thing you are bringing in the table? That's something which is very important. Sixth, which is the rule which we follow at a group level and we advise companies, we call master what matters, MWM, which means that how do you really go into deeper analysis on the business model? A deeper analysis on the financial performance, deeper analysis on the overall market performance, industry performance and so on. You need to go very, very strongly deeper into and master what matters. That's very important. Another seventh point which is important is what we call the consumer insights plus the balance sheet. It's not either of that. Sometimes the balance sheet is very attractive and continue to look very attractive but we stop looking at consumer insight. Consumer is changing faster than you know and suddenly and what would happen then they would get into a situation like Tesla. Tesla is a very clearly a consumer insight scenario where people were shifting or they were looking to shift to a lot of even governments were encouraging electrical and a lot of these conventional technologies were not able to do that. While the market share, the balance sheets would continue to see a lot of promising value in that. They're still improving their sales. They're still improving their margin. They're still selling more cars but they're not understanding how the consumer is going to shift and if this shift is very predominant then suddenly this whole thing would change and there would be a large market shift to happen. So if you're not able to really see through in a business is that what is the consumer insight telling you and what is your balance sheet telling you. Both are important. It's not that either of that you need to do. You cannot be fooled around by just consumer insight. Eventually the balance sheet has to play a role. It has to say some kind of a sense of profitability. You've seen in modern retail a lot of companies in the rush of modern retail in Russia for a lot of things have not performed because fundamentally they were obviously talking about a lot of consumer insight but balance sheet was not stacking up. The balance sheet was not stacking up. So I have not seen many great examples of performance in modern retail because fundamentally the business model financially never really be very attractive and a lot of failures we saw. I mean we saw companies like Lilliput, Genie and Johnny many of these companies which were there at one point in time good companies but they were not able to really do that because they were looked from an outside viewpoint looked very attractive and a lot of good private equity investors I remember Lilliput was able to attract Bain Capital which was one of the top most funds to do it but the business model was very very weak and even if you attract the best of the investors if your business model is very weak, your balance sheet is very weak you will not be able to survive. Eighth point is be optimistic and a critic at both ends and you need to switch roles sometimes as an investor you always look at being very optimistic on asset and you need to switch a role and look at it as like a critic and obviously optimism has to play because that gives you a reason to invest but you need to also see through as a critic change roles, change roles whenever you are looking at investment look at from both eyes and you need to flip the coin and see where you are coming from and ninth is create your own personal board you need to have few people who really take any investment which you are trying to make you are taking to your personal board and asking them what needs to be done so that's very important and finally how do you do tenth which is point is how do you plan your exit is a planned exit and are you also looking at being an opportunist both has to be very clearly defined what is your opportunist idea which means that you define yourself as this trigger happens my valuation hits this and if I get this level I would call for an exit so you need to redefine what is the level you are looking at where level you call the opportunist call and what is your planned exit, what is the time frame you have given for an investment and you would like to do that so this is my summary of what I gave on the first presentation so I quickly make the ten golden points of investments Sonali would be more than happy to share these points with you over the notes or if you need to do that so today's discussion is further going on the investment side and we will now every episode go into different classes of investment and talk about this in detail so today I will talk about largely two aspects one is a mindset and culture how do you really create a mindset and culture and today deep down we will go and understand this word which we have been hearing for last 10-15 years particularly called angel investing so what is angel investing, how people invest in that what should be the do's and don'ts of that angel investing and who should be the right investor in this who should be the right asset which you need to really look at to invest and we will talk about that but before we start the two very important things for being an angel is you need to really understand your mindset what is the mindset you need to come with when you are an angel investor and second what is the culture of that investment so these are two very important aspects to frame yourself and see that journey where you are going in because a lot of times this startup and investing in startups has become so to say a fad and a lot of people get into that without even understanding deep down why they want to invest and are they really cut out to be an investor and are they cut out to be an angel to invest into promising startups or promising early stage companies and so on and I am not a big believer of companies at an ideation stage I am not too big believer I feel that you might have to give a little more valuation that's fine but there has to be a commercial performance of a business already happened I personally have invested into businesses which were purely on an ideation stage and I know if the commercial trial is not done sometimes you can get strong financial losses and I have said that in couple of people I really felt that they had a very promising idea but they were not able to commercialize so to say that idea so you have to really and now as a principle I personally have made that I don't want to go into any company which has no commercial success which means they are not commercialized I mean if they are not starting trading I don't go to a business that's my rule well I mean some people who have very strong capability to see through especially I see a lot of successful technology entrepreneurs invest into disruptive technologies because they come from a background of technology they can see through that what is the disruption really coming through I cannot understand that because I don't come from technology so I don't want to attempt that at an ideation stage I would like to invest into that's my own personal call that can change with a lot of people but I see today angels are family offices doctors and lawyers and people who have relatively lesser experience in businesses and I would say the same suggestion for them that they should not really jump on investing into which is something which does not have a commercial performance already happening you know unless and until you are absolutely from the same business and same kind of industry and you can see through then only you can really go to a you know what I call drum room or board room ideas and or maybe an ideation stage where you want to invest so first let's understand the mindset what is the mindset of an investor how you should look at an investor first a mindset is that you have to be a coach not a captain when I say this I say this very clearly that you're not driving the business there is somebody as a captain out there driving the business the max you can do and sometime that also is not an opportunity for all the angels when they invest into businesses they are not able to even coach but the max you can do is coach but you cannot run the business you cannot involve yourself as an operator and so on so mindset is very clearly that you are sitting outside the playground and somebody is playing you just coaching or asking or reflecting you know and most of the time most positive way that's the mindset you need to really come from culture is about your investment style an investment style I've really realized this has to have three very strong things we call RDD which means it has to have rationality it's very strong rationality why this investment and you know like Warren Buffet always says that I never invest into businesses which I don't understand so which means that in the last 20 or 25 years of the whole technology boom he was not he missed this boom because he never invested into that because his understanding of those businesses were not so what is your nationality of your making that investment decision second is that you have to have a certain discipline of investment unless and until you come in a very strong discipline of investment that also doesn't work and third never invest all x into one basket diversify your portfolio unless and until you diversify your portfolio it would not work so just for repeating yourself in a mindset keep yourself that you're a coach not a captain on a culture side we rationalize on your rational rationalize your investment put a strong discipline discipline on terms of follow through post investment cycle reviews and so on and also diversify your investment portfolio I know investments are also done in the in some forms I mean you can also get into a convertible debt structures which can be converted into equity at a certain level and you can also straight away own the equity in the in the business of these are two kind of investment positions now another thing which is a lot of people ask it says you know how risky and how performing angel investment can be and and so and so what should be the expectation I mean we have we hear stories of people making 100 acts 1000 acts of their investments in their invested at least and not every company is going to become a Google right not every company is going to become even flip top not every company is Ola and not every company is Google so this is this is some they're very very exceptional companies and and people who invested and got an opportunity to invest in the company I would say they were they've made the right decision the right time but also I would say they were they were fortunate there was a huge value of these companies while they were similar companies or even better companies sometimes don't get through the whole life cycle and there are many reasons for it it's it's a it's rich founders performance a lot of other things really multiplied but when you're coming as an angel investor don't start thinking that you every opportunity is becoming Google for you that's not going to happen I'll give you some statistics only point two percent of assets which you which actually go to night view so which means that it's a very very small percentage of businesses which attract angel investments actually go for an idea so point two percent from a fundamental percentage viewpoint would look very small from from a realistic wealth creation viewpoint this number could still be very very big and what it can do for the angel investment overall ecosystem one point five percent of companies actually get acquired right which means that they they are able to get a bigger investor coming in if it's more of a time sophisticated investor and private equity or a large fund who comes and inquires that that's where you can unlock it well but saying this this is this is what I call good situation to be in you know one point five percent situation is a good situation but other companies other investors also don't lose so to say money almost about ten percent of assets when you invest into the businesses logically give you a certain amount of performance if I have to do averaging out of the investments largely people look at if you diversified portfolio some of the assets would perform better some would perform middle and some would not perform also that's why I encourage doing diversification but anything from a twenty percent to thirty percent are kind of a return structure if you keep in mind and if you are if you are fortunate investments can go much much higher and and one one good investment can cover all your pieces but that's something which you cannot predict today when you invest if the mindset of say twenty to thirty percent are our kind of a structure mindset or maybe up to that level then you will see that you are better placed and sometimes people over expect from their investments don't over expect from that plan yourself well but you really find that there might be there must be somebody who's a really you know this underdog and just goes up and and creates and changes the portfolio and the overall portfolio performs much much bigger valuation but that's something which you should keep it not as a firm mind don't put in your expectation cycle and don't even go there second point which I always advise that don't invest alone if you invest alone it can be very very difficult both from understanding of asset viewpoint and second also from a post investment analytics always invest in a group business x which is our platform also is a group which encourages collective investment we bring couple of investors together showcase them in them the opportunity and they can collectively go and invest so whenever you invest with the structure or maybe a angel angel group or some kind of structure which is available and now with a lot of technology platforms like business x is there a couple of other platforms are also there your deal floors are larger and you are also able to get a higher quality of deals because anybody who raises up would present to a company like a business x or any other company that look I have this opportunity available so your D flow becomes bigger and good quality assets first reach out to these platforms and then they start going to individual investors and so on so always be in the group now going to a very specific point and this is my again my own personal viewpoint on that a lot of people ask me what is your investment style and what do you look at in the investment so I make it very simple I whenever you look at a company which is commercially proven but it's still a very early stage company early stage which means that they are the five six seven months in their commercial proven and they have started seeing them trading some kind of traction at that stage if I have to look at a company what should I look at before I want to really first thing I would always look at and I give 50% marks to this is the founder what is the founder what is his pedigree what commitment he has next five to ten years in the business and what is his last if I see these three things in a founder I see pedigree which means his education his file is professional experience or whatever it is his commitment level that he will not be into multiple things he's committed to this piece and also is crack record if I'm able to see these three things then I will give 50% marks on my investment cycle on the founder itself or the founding team you know it can be multiple people who are there structure second is a proprietary product or a service I'm fan of this I'll probably give 25% on this but I'm really fan of anybody who really comes with a strong proprietary product or a service and it cannot be not necessarily to be disrupting technology or disruption in any form to business market but there has to be a certain proprietary product I mean look at a company like a subway very basic sandwich and nothing but add a category like this they're a market leader there's no second no third no fourth no fifth they create whatever they create is absolutely proprietary to them now that's a function of how businesses become very large and global because they're able to find something which is very extremely proprietary and I like to give a business growth potential how the business growth potential in given market dynamics market dynamics keep changing keep changing but even a market dynamics of different situations can arise and I can do some permutation on that market dynamics I can still see the business which we are investing is commercially on now is commercially trading from this position in 36 months can we see a 10x growth 10x growth revenue view point is this expected is this can happen if these three things to me fit in 25% of business 25% on anything which is proprietary or and I think and 50% marks on the overall so if I rate a founder and I found that founder was good maybe not the greatest which I was looking at maybe I give 30% marks on that all the 50 and then I go on the second proprietary product or service and this and anything which fits into me which is less than 60% or 65% less than that and then I don't see is a investment space for me that's my own structure a lot of people have their own way of looking at it where in their investment structure but my looking at is always very simple three things look at the founder look at a product product or a service and look at you know business growth predictability in the structure now a lot of people who invest always ask question in terms of what are the couple of risks you need to do apart from the business performance business performance we'll take it later how the business performance and your equity growth that's probably the bigger risk which you carry but there are two other risk which you have and relatively these are two risk one is equity dilution right so you invested at a certain value and that then they go out and raise another capital and sometimes at a reduced value and you not safeguarded your position in that so I invested at a valuation of 5 crores in a business and the founder runs out of money and then he goes back and raised from his another friend some money and he's now reduced the value taken into that thing so my equity gets diluted my equity has a risk on that so how do I really protect that even if I want to protect my further dilution a couple of things you can do there are a lot of ways to really hang on second you really want to tag along you need to really go along with the next investment cycle also so there are multiple areas which where you need to really bring protection to your equity investment in terms of your the valuation being intact you are not further diluting the value of what you invested and second you're holding in the stake is also being so you have to really see through how you create a bright kind of a legal structure the second big risk you are having is your what I call personal liability now this is becoming very tricky these days because if you are invested in a personal capacity sometimes you also can get involved if the business is not formed and there are potential liabilities being built on the business you can also suffer and these are all things which come from my own experience sometimes you invest in the founder or somebody who is not done well so you can also be part of investment themselves so my learning says always invest through a limited enterprise so that your investment is limited to the capital you have deployed so what you can do is lose that particular capital which you have deployed but doesn't come beyond that so you need to be very clearly that your personal liabilities are not really linked on this now let's understand investment now let's say angel understand what are we going to do if we are as angel investor going into the business what are the two areas which we need to do so investment is a combination of what I call science and art science is what I call financial fundamentals never ignore that obviously look at the future look at 3 years, 5 years, 7 years but also look at today what is the real financial fundamentals telling you what are the financial fundamentals telling you if the founder is saying that look this is going to be very very profitable 3 years from now but today what is the balance sheet telling you is it is making some sense and is there a compelling reason for whatever we changes needs to be done to have that changes 3 to 5 years what is the financial fundamental that's a very scientific way of looking at it art is very qualitative factors of the business qualitative factors are you know sometimes the the opportunity you know the opportunity itself sometimes can be very compelling and things of that nature like this this the digital life because of people not moving and so forth there are a lot of qualitative fundamental factors which are coming out which has to be done so unless you create a combination of science which is a financial fundamentals and quality factors or qualitative factors if you don't combine these two you never would be having a right combination of investment structure whenever you look at investment always do diversify you know and create your portfolio and portfolio should be further divided into three parts one how do you design your portfolio very importantly how do you place your structures different baskets of investment and how do you optimize your portfolio so that's fun first part how do you design and optimize your portfolio second how diversified your portfolio is which mean that you invested into some future technologies and future businesses and you also what I call very stable business model and so forth like very clearly when you do in stock market you you also look at what I call market efficiencies what kind of efficiencies are telling you and investments investors can also be further divided into two parts one I call the strategic strategic ones are people who just not bring the capital but they bring a little more on that you know so if you are somebody like a you know if say Sanjeev Kapoor wants to invest a chef Sanjeev Kapoor then obviously he can bring in a lot of strategic value to any asset he can bring in his obviously brand he can obviously bring in you know his PR he has a very strong PR and also he has a lot of network he can open up a lot of doors for you through his business so he invested into a say a cookware company called Wander Chef and I feel a very very strong strategic investment viewpoint while he would have invested capital but more than capital I think he would have invested with his brand and his capability and so see where you are you have a strategic viewpoint on that and making some sense second if you are a financial investor then don't over expect yourself just bringing in capital and as I said talk about 20 to 25 30% IRR kind of a return cycle so that's our investment structure now three things which you should really look at in a company which you want to invest asset which you are selecting to invest first what is the founding team telling you what is the mindset of this founding team very important to understand what is the mindset are you coming from a very closed mindset with closed objectives very short of mindset or they are very infinite so we are very proud of this company while they have challenges now because of the businesses and hospitality going here and there but that's a separate debate but OU is a great example so Ritesh Akarwal comes with a very clearly infinite mindset so he is not locked with business models he is not locked by geographical territories he was only Indian startup who went to 80 countries so people like that I love because they fundamentally come with a very infinite mindset otherwise a founding team you are able to see through that they are not restricted on boundaries they are not people who are restricted on that you will not be able to really see a bigger growth and bigger valuation and that's something which is very important for the founding team understand maybe 3-4-5 hours maybe 2-3 days spend time with the founding team understand what are they telling you how far they are able to see through so if they are not able to see further 3 things one continuous breaking orbit and create growth which means that every time they would get into orbit they would know how to break that orbit and find another growth cycle because every time you will hit something and then you need to break that and go to another cycle capability and very structured design and orbits go to next growth it will not work second their mindset is very clearly wealth creation for stakeholders rather than just drawing dividends if they have personal goals they tell you sometimes they are very honest and they have some personal objectives and so on so they are short lived they will not see through the overall value creation wealth creation for all the stakeholders and perpetual growth is the third point how to create a perpetual growth cycle in the business how it creates a self multiplier effect and the business moves when you are not even working business is moving and making money for itself so how do you get into that perpetual growth cycle it creates its own multiplier effect and that's where the real market share are developed now let's go to a little bit on personality personality of these angel investors what they come from and how they behave and I have seen professionals are becoming very good investors now these days a lot of professionals are investing because if you are somebody who is running a CTC of 1 crore or 1.5 crore a year you don't mind putting 25 lakhs outside and invest into every year as a separate on early investment companies and a lot of successful professionals have been very very good investors the larger community of investors now are senior CXO level professionals who come out some money from inside and they start doing it I am not talking about the top ones they obviously know where to invest but even reasonably senior people are also investing very clearly so I divided them into two really big points one is a method of action which we call how you invest how you take your actions further divide them into two parts they take very carefully they are very careful and conscious about their investment and second are very impulsive on investment so how do your method of I think that one division clearly comes in they are too extremist one is very careful very conservative and very conscious of the investment and second is very impulsive they go out and take decisions faster on the call second is overall level of confidence where are you you might make a decision on investment but you are extremely confident of that investment and second is you are more anxious while you invested but you are still anxious about that investment you are still not too very sure how this money would go in you are more anxious on investment and then further out of these four characteristics on terms of being careful, impulsive confident and anxious we would find four different kinds of investor groups one are the individualistic individualistic are people who are very careful but they are also very confident they do their own study they believe on themselves they have a very strong their own opinions and they go deep down into everything they study because they are careful so they will go deep down into studying that business model understand the business model and spend a lot of their own time to understand that so they become they are well researched and as they are well researched they are very confident on that investment so they are very individualistic second are more adventurous they are more volatile as entrepreneurs but they are also very confident because you will not be able to make that investment because you are not confident because confidence brings them and I think they believe in this they believe in the founder they say let's go out and do it but they are very volatile they just go and invest very fast so they are very impulsive and confident so they take that other grade then you have little more what I call celebrity investors which are more driven from what is new, what is the fad what is the next big thing if everybody is thinking about real energy I would like to be there people are talking about plant protein I want to be there so a lot of people who just observe world changes and they follow trends they are very trend followers to me they are more impulsive also and they are very anxious also because they they don't know the subject well so they have not done because they just follow the trend because everybody is going there let me also go there so you never be very clearly confident on that investment because you not as research yourself and then there are the fourth category which are more what I call guardians they are very careful and they are conscious also so this is the fourth grade so technically the first one which is the individualistic to me is the most best form of investor the rest three have a little bit of some problem you know adventurous would be impulsive because he is not really done research but he believes in that business he wants to conquer so all three other three are well so you need to really see where you are and how you really change these four dynamics how do you really balance between that but my best combination is being very careful and also confident that's my best combination and guardians are not suited for angel investor they might be investors for a mutual fund or places like that because they are very careful and very anxious also they would not be good for active enterprise or early stage investment cycles to do it so really see through where you are you know and be honest about it if you investments are as I always say the multiple assets which are available in the market which you can choose to invest I mean if you if you are anxious and guardian maybe property long I mean 7 years cycle at least in India it will give you some returns it might not give you more returns it might give you 10, 11 12% returns but not give you very large returns sometimes startups can give you so one has to really see the risk reward kind of a cycle and place yourself in what kind of investor you are angel investor is is like a marriage when you already expect a happy divorce over 5 years so it's very unique you know you get into a marriage and you already decided that 5 years from now you will get into a happy divorce and that's where the angel investment really starts or any form of investment really starts from you have a time frame where you want to really be invested and what kind of now final part for for today which is also very important at these times for us to understand is that what happens when you are invested into business and there is a down market or there is an under performing asset and now these times almost every startup which was relatively early is very very nervous very nervous because markets are tight cash flow is broken business demand is broken everything is broken so if I was a investor in angel into this and I have say 4 of these assets invested what am I thinking you know so there is so 2 questions come to your mind and first question is how do I exit and I feel that this question should not be at the absolutely at the times of downturn and you know there's not so much of predictability in structure so because this is not time to exit the second question is how do you really survive this company how do you really survive so that your equity erosion is not happening so you are not really losing entire whatever you invested as an equity is not going out so second point to me becomes more important you know so one you need to really do what I call post investment health checks continue to go and visit your investment and see how your asset is performing how healthy it is and how ready it is for any kind of adversity second up now if I have to come down solution the solution can be only two one you create the people who invested together they wrap up their investment and one of the lead investors also comes and starts taking a little bit control over financial governance that's very important that's very very important aspect of this second second option is one is wrap up your investment and somebody out of the investor group takes the lead and becomes a little bit of now financial governance because you don't want now to lose the ship because you're now going extending your investment you'll be risking yourself even more you already invested now you just save the board even for the investment so it's now needs more attention more more supervision so to say and sometimes founders don't like it but that's the answer you don't want to you know I've seen assets which were as good as last month and next month they were packed up because they just run on the edge they had no cash flow they were talking to a couple of big funds and their township was signed and the township dropped and something happened and they have no money to pay so the company was not able to raise any kind of money at that moment and just businesses were packed up in three months there was a company out of Bombay called Local Paneer you know it's very surprising to me for good business building structure good marketing good brand everything has been built but in just about three months the business collapsed and and it actually takes up the entire erosion of the entire investor's money into the business so so those kind of answers should not happen so sometimes the investor should not shy away to ramp up and take control of their asset and try to do that otherwise you erode the entire asset second is to really find out a strategic partner and just quickly shift the asset to another you know group and most of the time this would be a strategic investor who would come and give you very realistic some time value and you can do an equity swap and I always see having a small of something bigger is not a bad idea so like if you feel that you cannot run that go to approach a strategic buyer who can take the business and you can take an equity swap maybe at a very realistic valuation or even a undercut valuation is not a bad idea because your equity will be saved and the future valuation of the new asset which you are parked in can still bring back your capital back so these are only two realistically option third option can be there there can be some unlock value sitting in that asset how you can unlock that value also so this is where today's session was this today's session was about you know clearly the mindset of a investor deep diving into being an angel how do you as a angel think through what kind of assets you do how you should invest type of investors which are out there and also talking about if this you know difficult times comes in what should a investor think through how to safeguard your assets and investment so this is from my side I would now like to invite Sonali if you have any questions which you need me to answer otherwise thank you so much sir for your wonderful insights and for the practical knowledge that I'm certain would help all the attendees present yes he would now jump up to the Q&A round we already have quite a few questions lined up with us so the first question is from Mr. Anup Gopal he says what is the current sentiments post COVID pandemic in India on retailers in terms of investing or franchising new international brands sir am I audible what is the sentiment of a COVID pandemic in India on retailers in terms of investing on franchise franchising new international brands am I audible sir your voice is breaking up now yes sir please continue sure so I would say India would eventually in a 6 to a month to 12 months would become a very strong marketplace for international retailers to come to India and so that's not my worry but I feel that overall retail environments would find big changes they need to adapt digitally a lot of delivery and a lot of other things would need to be done so that's something which is extremely important for one has to really look at so but I don't see that's a problem but made in India opportunity is also very strong so we will have a lot of opportunities and Indian businesses would shine and they would be able to see through and I think the larger consumer behaviour would also appreciate a lot of made in India business any other questions Anali yes sir we have one more question that says what are the sectors that you are personally most interested in investing right now so I'm I'm announcing one investment maybe I think as early as 2-3 days which would be in the e-clinic space so I'm very very excited about healthcare through technology that's one space I really feel India wouldn't have to lead because I feel that healthcare is a huge demand under service not so much of penetration of quality healthcare in the country I'm very bullish on that I'm very bullish on the entire circular economy which means that recycling energy and things of that nature are very interesting my my first love is for franchise assets so I always invest into emerging franchise ideas so that would always be my 80% of investment portfolio because I feel that there I'm more strategic I'm strategic because I can I can really help those assets to wrap up so I always look at franchisable businesses so I I'm not going wide at this stage I'm going to be really looking at only few opportunities I'm very clear in the strategic side I would like to be more actively involved and in advisory side and things which are not something which I understand so well I would like to be more as a very small minority investor in the business because I don't want to really have my you know and I I've not made a rule that I don't want to invest more than a percentage in a company and stay there and but I'm a long term investment mindset I don't want to rush into investments and and I play with the founder because I feel that the founder has a very important role to play and founder is strong and then I'm very comfortable on doing it so so that's where my investment is there currently wonderful sir so I think I'll just take up the last question for the day so the question is should I consider investing in a startup with a single founder is this reason enough to not invest in a good company and also is it right to only favor young founders from IAMs and IITs or should we be more open to entrepreneurs from all areas of education and not judge them by the top you know these schools that they are studying from so you know I take this as a very very important and delicate question to answer one when we say this boys who come from IITs and IAMs are great they also tell you a lot of things about themselves when they are IIT and IAMs because obviously they were the brilliant slot they are very hard working they are very disciplined so everything they follow is to 2T so there are a lot of personality functions really come out of these people which are from IITs and IAMs and so on so we should not really this is a good side of it so that gives you a lot of knowing somebody where it comes from so when you hire somebody from a national institute of drama you know some form of acting he knows so if somebody was a topper in national school of drama like Anupam Kher or people of that nature you already know that they have some discipline so there is some background to it and most of the time they would stand by what they stand for but that doesn't mean that I discount people who have who have phenomenal skills and something they believe in and there are many entrepreneurs and actually dropouts and people who came from different backgrounds and they started some ideas and recently Ratan Dutta invested in one of my clients which I am extremely working on he is 18 year old and Ratan Dutta invested into his Jantik Athar he is 18 year old and very disciplined, very very focused he is not from IIT, NEI, IAM and Mr. Dutta thought that he is the guide to invest and we are also very proud at franchise India that he is our client and we are working very aggressively with him so sometimes you really have to take a call it's a deep down but spend time with the founder, spend time spend a couple of days with him and see his journey his life read through his life where he is coming from, what is he looking at don't impulse your decision to invest Thank you so much once again sir I think we just wrap up the session here and to all the attendees out there, thank you so much for your valuable time and we really hope to see you next time, next Saturday at 3 o clock for another session with Mr. Mariah and that session will be on how to scale up your business so please make sure you join us then and anything else you would like to say sir Yeah, so if you anything you want where franchise India or business acts or equity India can help, we are a platform of growth, we help companies to raise money, we also help sometimes you to sell your existing assets all three things we do as a company, so if you have any questions or anything which you want to discuss or anything which you want to really reach out to me also I will give you my email id, it's gm at gauravmariah.com and we also have a hotline number which also sends all the information you send a whatsapp on what information you require on anything, I will give that also this is our business hotline and I put in on the chat box so you can note down both so just send a whatsapp if you need any information and Sonali would be more than happy to share you the minutes of this discussion which we had and even the past discussions if you want to see they are all available on the facebook you can go and review that and if you have feedback for me or anything which you want to share with me please reach thank you very much Thank you so much sir and yes to all the attendees please reach out to me in case you have any questions any concerns any doubts regarding the session or regarding our upcoming or past sessions I would be more than happy to take up your questions and we will see you next time thank you so much