 Welcome to the second module of our course Handholding for Entrepreneurship. Handholding is extremely critical for startups. As you know, it's a very lonely journey there where you take your idea to the market and you believe in your idea and everybody else around you will keep on saying, oh, will this work? Will this not work? So when you have a very, very good handholding pre incubator or a handholding team, it is a real boon. So today we are going to discuss that particular aspect. We always tell you in school to get good grades, fall in line and of course, get a good job. But now we are asking you to create jobs by encouraging you to build startups. Here is the story of Perseverance, the rag to riches story of Mustafa, a daily wage worker from a remote village in Vainat, Kerala. Mustafa was just 10 years old when he dropped out of school and failed his fifth class. He had to help his father to make both ends meet and they were poverty stricken. He went back to school on insistence of his teacher and ended up studying engineering at NIT Calicut. Mustafa further went on to study MBA at IIM Bangalore and started an enterprise that sold idly and dosa batter along with his cousins while pursuing his MBA. After his engineering education, Mustafa got some very good jobs. He also worked in a startup in Bangalore and after that he got a very good MNC job abroad and that gave him a very, very fat salary. After finishing his engineering, Mustafa worked in several places. He also worked in a startup which fetched him around 6000 rupees. That also was big money for his family. But then when he got his job in Dubai at an MNC, his salary jumped and his father was in tears because he cleared all his father's debts of his studies. Mustafa was always concerned about his people back home. He was concerned about the poverty in his village and he was also concerned about the lack of jobs to all his cousins and his friends. In one of the meetings, his cousins came up with the idea of creating a trusted brand for ready to cook idly dosa batter. They decided to name it ID and things began to roll. They were providing fresh food without any preservatives and on prolonged storage in one of the shops, there was a batter blast because the batter expanded on fermentation. After the batter blast incident, Mustafa was shaken up. His computer science skills came in handy and he created a special software so that his supply chain network could be organized. This way, he started supplying the right quantity to the local stores which did not have refrigeration and also would supply to large stores which had refrigeration for a longer period of time. This way, he could increase his business and then it became a very, very large success story. As you all know from idly dosa batter, they started medu vada, they started parathas and of course now the coffee and with all this, you know, his band grew and it is still growing and it's a very, very trusted and repeated company today. Developing an entrepreneur's mindset is the key to reduce doubt, fear and anxiety. It can also help to drive action, focus and growth as we've seen in this id story. Today we will share with you the five GDC startup stories where they hand hold these budding entrepreneurs. Let me now introduce you to the two speakers from GDC. Mr. K. V. Anand, who I introduced earlier and Mr. Rajiv Jain. Rajiv Jain is the chief operating officer of GDC. Rajiv has been known for wearing many hats through the span of his professional career. For over three decades, Rajiv has played diverse roles as a business leader, startup mentor and performance coach with leading Indian and international corporates in solar modules, telecom, power, bottom of pyramid products, tires, textiles, paints and industries. As part of his sabbatical break, Rajiv also devoted a year heading a USAID South-South cooperation project focused on farmers in Kenya, Malawi and India. That shows Rajiv's passion to create value and bring social change for the underserved. Rajiv did his MBA from IMM Dabad and graduation from Sriram College of Commerce Delhi. Rajiv's love for travel and exploration has taken him to over 35 countries and even inspired him to work in Bangladesh and Indonesia for extended periods, adding depth and flavor to his course cultural and global business learnings. So let me now take you to the second lecture, Hand Holding for Entrepreneurship. Yeah, thank you. Okay, let me begin by introducing the panelists. Anurag is an alumnus of IIT Bombay. So he came to our program and he was still doing his BTEC. He started his entrepreneurial journey quite early. So even when he came to the program and he was still a student, he had already created a startup and even sold it. You know, there is a lot that we can speak about Anurag and his entrepreneurial mindset and his entrepreneurship. Thanks for the kind introduction. So as Anand sir told, I'm in my third leg of entrepreneurship right now and I'm IIT Bombay alumni. Coincidentally before IIT Bombay, actually I cleared the medical entrance examination and the JEE for IIT entrance both and come from a family of doctors who had a keen interest in healthcare and medicine. I ended up doing engineering, but that keenness to do something in medical and healthcare was always there. So just like when I joked on a memory, I had been a jack of a lot of trades during my college time, did dabble into cryptocurrencies, base disposal, like app building, website building for other seniors who are coming up with startups and all providing them a service for like building applications for them. And eventually I realized that healthcare is something that I would like to settle up on. And during my college days before graduating, I started my first startup. I started my entrepreneurial journey and it was a pregnancy care platform. It is still alive and revenue generating in a growth stage currently named care and x innovations with a product named care mother and having sales both in India and Southeast Asia and in some bits and bytes in Africa and Western countries as well. So the idea that how we came up with was like, my other two co-founders were not from IIT. I used to interact with a lot of people and network with a lot of people and that is where we realized that we have some common interest and wanted to do something in healthcare. We had a friend that whose sister had two still words in her native place in the village and that is where we, again, because of that, we realized that this is not a small problem. That is a very big problem in a country like India where care is not ample enough. So in metro cities or tier one cities, the care is doctor to patient ratio is very good. But as you move further away from tier one cities, it reduces down by a lot. And that was when we started care and x, we did not incorporate for a year. So we started developing the product. We started testing it out, trying it out with doctors. And we realized that a lot of people were willing to pay for it. And it was, I think after nine or 10 months that we decided, let's register a formal venture and start selling the software, start building it in a sustainable way because that was very important that we keep going, keep building things and keep helping other people. And that is how I started my first venture. And by 2016, when I started transitioning away from the venture, we had delivered care to 15,000 plus mothers in India during the entire nine months course of pregnancy. And yeah, by that same time, I developed the interest away from software into hardware, medical devices and started my second venture. And that was a medical device design and development company, Dinosense, where we like from 2016, last quarter to 2019, we designed and developed five devices, three diagnostic devices, two surgical tools for other people. In hindsight, it was never the aim to build a service company. We always wanted to build a product company. It eventually became a service company where it was generating revenues. And we did not have to go for funding a lot of learnings from around there. Like why not really a great idea in hindsight. And currently, around the same time, I also happened to be fortunate enough to be a part of GDC. And last year, I started my third lack of entrepreneurship with Neodox. And we are building at-home diagnostic tests where you can get instant results just using a smartphone and a wellness card that we built. And we are fortunate enough to be backed by a lot of big angels, a lot of institutional funds. And we recently were also a part of Y Combinator Incubator. Yes, and that is about myself, what I have been doing till now. So Anurag, what is your moment of truth? There were two, three factors into it, sir. So like one of the things was the problem that I started my first venture with. She was a very close friend. She herself was a doctor. And her sister having two stillbirths. And like when you know people, you are able to empathize more. You are able to understand the actual pain versus what you just get to read in like from articles or from other people. So that is where I realized like, again, one of the learnings that you need to empathize, you need to be in touch with the users or customers. So that was one of the factors. The second was having doubled into a couple of things. I realized that I have this skill set and it is very hard to like not survive if you have a skill set. So I was not afraid of not being like, I deferred my placements. I did not sit for placements and they were when batchmates were like, someone was going for higher studies to US or Europe, joining companies like Microsoft, Google having great packages and all. And I was like forgoing the placements and all. But I knew that like maybe that amount of money or quantum of money may or may not be there. But I still enjoyed what I was doing. And I knew that the skill sets that I have, I'll like survival would not be an issue. What you can do the independence and all that is something I enjoyed. Right. Thank you. We'll come back to you with the next round of questions. And then we have Amit Srivastava, the CEO and the co-founder of InfiU Labs. And he was a student at IIT Madras. And Amit also came to our program. He was part of the second cohort of the incubate program. Amit is now incubated at IIT Gandhinagar. First of all, thanks Anand sir, Raghu sir and entire GDC team for inviting me over here. It's always a pleasure to talk to you guys and working with you as well as interacting with other GDC fellows. So hi everyone. I'm Amit Srivastava, co-founder and CEO of InfiU Labs. From my academic part, I did my bachelor's in engineering physics from IIT Madras. So how we actually started working on, because to my personal affection, I had a huge interest in astronomy. So in fact, in my own college days, I'm more towards I'll be doing the astronomy and working in this. I gotten professional experiences in that, like working in an observatory in Manchester and so on. But after a point, I realized, I like astronomy, but not something like a hoarding part. I know no offense to anyone, but I don't like hoarding much personally. And that is when, more than that, I started understanding what my personal affection is. Everyone talk about creating an impact and doing something to create an impact. And same goes with me also. I'm also into the same line where we thought, okay, I'll actually work in something to create something which can have an impact in a social life. So that is where, with my co-founder Ankit, that time he was working in Germany. He was an algorithm scientist in an institute. And both of us has a huge affection towards food wastage. And IIT Madras has gave us a very enriched innovation culture where I was in my third year and working on something to be honest. Right now, I would like to say something because it was a tech thing. I can't label it as a product or anything. It was just a tech thing, which I know what is the potential. And that's why I was fortunate to talk to the GD team, Anand Sir and Lagusa and everyone that this is something I'm trying to build in. You help me out to explore the potential of it. What can be done over there? And we started working on something called a very problem called critical color shade matching in the textile industry. And even at that point, you can understand we come from a tech background. So we don't know how to even find out whether someone wants to buy it or not. Always, we always had this understanding that if our product looks good, that we can sell anything. And that's where one of our major highlighting point came into the picture that the moment we started interacting with the people and started demonstrating them something, they have a very different approach towards what they want. And that's one of the key insight I've gotten from through GDC program also that no matter how good looking your product goes in, but it's been required at the ground level is very different. It's very different, I would say. So over the period of our entire GDC we worked on, we actually find out that there is a problem and we could have a potential solution for it. But even at that point, we realized we wouldn't like to go ahead in that direction because the segment which we were working on hasn't some external influences into the picture. And that's what usually while we're building a business, people doesn't recognize that a business is not just what you are working on, what your environment is letting you to work on as well. So over there, Ben Ankit also came back from Germany to India and he comes from a farming background. And due to our mutual affection towards food wastage, we started our work. We started interacting with farmers, retailer, distributors, and so on. And by the time I already got from the GDC program, but the learning so-called pushing in a way that you're not selling the product, but rather than trying to know whether someone is going to spend one penny of it. So all of my mentors actually have gave me a collective thought that if someone is ready to give you a single rupee for what you are trying to pay, that means you can sometimes validate it. It's very difficult to get a single rupee out of someone for the thing you are trying to build in. And with that thought, we started interacting with people, pitching our solutions to the director of our companies, to even a local quality manager and working with their entire segment. Everyone has their own different things. In fact, one of the major key insight which I learned from GDC is, okay, there is something called sabotizers as well. And that time, I was in a mode that, okay, how that would enter the picture. But the moment I jumped into the field, I realized, okay, most people are actually there and how you need to work on and have to take your product in direction. So that sort of thing has helped me out. As Anand sir already said, we just recently finished our seat out on funding from Indian Angel Network. And now we are trying to scale our skills into the different domain and trying to make agricultural a bit of a digital. And yes, that's all from how our things have been. You also decided that you will not be taking up employment. Even though at that stage, you were still not clear about where your startup is heading. You had jumped in, but you got a lot of invalidation for what you were trying to validate. But you still decided to stick to the journey that you had begun and did not take up placement. So what was the tipping point for you to decide to stay the course? Here, you know, I tried to put what are my preferences. One day I sat with all my parents, my brother and everyone. I asked, are you in dire need of money so that I need to go for a job? Everyone says no, we don't like we have enough. And I'm like, okay, then don't expect me to go for a job immediately. Then they immediately thought I'm in a confused state. So peer pressure and everything came into the picture. But then I started putting on what I actually wanted and adding to what Anurag also said. Then I started evaluating at what are my skills that at any point in my life, if I need to go for, you know, thinking about earning or something, can I do it? I said, yes, I can always, you know, try out. So then let me come to the risk taking part of what I actually want to build up on and based on my skills and evaluation. And that actually motivated me that whatever, you know, I had an option that but a work I did in my mentor, I had an option to go back over there, continue the same or, you know, go to somewhere else. But then I realized whether it's all about the money part or the livelihood part or is it something about what I should be feeling happy in what I'm trying to build in and I chose the leader. Thanks, Amit. And then we have Mayuri, Mayuri Chopra. Mayuri is, she identifies herself only as a marine biologist and not as an entrepreneur. She's a passionate marine biologist. She's studied in Australia. She's worked there and she's come back to the country. She attended the 11th cohort of our incubated program. We'll go to Mayuri Chopra. MC is MB actually. She's not a, she's not Mayuri Chopra. She's a marine biologist. I keep rubbing it in every time I get it all. I would call her a reticent entrepreneur. Okay, we'll hear from her why I say that. Mayuri, over to you. Thank you so much, Anand. And thanks everyone. Thanks, GDC, for having me here. Well, yes, I am a marine biologist. But I'm just as committed to my entrepreneurial journey. So I graduated in 2017. I did my master's from Australia. And since then I traveled and I worked in various continents with various organizations. And my goal since the very beginning was to conserve and protect marine life. And I think the parts that I choose for it may be diverse, maybe different, maybe unique. But what matters is not the part. It is the goal where you want to get to the impact you want to make. And that is how actually I was steered into this path of entrepreneurship. So I was working in Ireland in 2019. And that is when I think that's what I consider my moment of truth is because I was working as a rescue and rehabilitation person who was rescuing marine mammals. We find a lot of injured, sick, or just affected marine mammals. And every day I used to see cases of plastic ingestion, plastic entanglement, injuries because of that, deaths because of that. And something that hands-on really affects you. And I think that's the first time that I realized that when I was doing all of this, I was actually working on the consequences of the plastic industry rather than the source of it. And I then decided that I wanted to become an entrepreneur or have a startup and sort of like that would target the source of the problem. Back then I didn't have an idea. I just knew that I had to make a bigger impact. My motion of thoughts actually came into action when I returned back to India the same year. And I met my team. So I am the CEO of Roha Biotech. We make biodegradable packaging and our biocomposite packaging is aimed to replace Styrofoam. And the CTO of our company is Aditya Srinivas who I met through our CEO who is Vivek Rachuri. So all three of us met in South India. We were in Bizac and we got together and we actually explored a lot of ideas. Like we didn't incorporate the company for at least like six months. We were working on a few ideas. We were doing trials. We had ranges from like bio plastics to bio fertilizer. But something that always united us was this vision. And like we are a very diverse team in terms of background, personalities, expertise. We're just very different people. But we are still all united by this one vision to build healthier oceans for the marine life to have to build a better planet. Not just so if something is affecting the marine life it's of course going to affect the terrestrial life as well. But our focus and like when we started we wanted that we want healthier oceans. And it's no secret that plastics and packaging especially is one of the biggest and one of the major polluters of it. So we targeted that and we've chosen this product and we finally settled on this product not just because of the potential of the product because other products also had the potential. But also because of the right timing, the potential of the customers that we would get, the scale of the impact that it would create. And I think all of it just added together. And even till date something that keeps us going because everybody is different. So everybody has different opinions about different things. But something that unites us till date is that ideology that should be uniformed within the team. So you know that ultimately we're working towards this and no matter what it takes we're going to get it. So yeah, that was our beginning. Okay, that's an interesting point you made about what unites the team and what keeps you going irrespective of the differences, the different backgrounds, social backgrounds, economic backgrounds, personalities and so on. So this is critical for founders. So anyone who's considering building a startup, startup is never a one-man scheme. And but at the same time it just does not work because you have three people giving a startup as co-founders. Who are these co-founders? What actually binds you together? All the three people that we have today are giving examples of how they could make it work only because they are teamed with the right people. And they all have the same passion. So it's not like one is investing money and doing what he or she wants to do and the others are trying to make the startup work. They're all in it. They're all in it together. And it's a bond that cannot be explained in words. And they fight. So if they don't fight, then they are seriously wrong. Something is going wrong in that company. They fight a lot, but they are united and that's really how startup begins. Now let me go back to Anurag and ask you the question. Having decided to pursue entrepreneurship the first time or the second time or the third time, but still every journey is unique. You know, what is the beginning of your startup journey? And each journey, it will be different. We'll talk about how each journey has been different probably a little later. Let's talk about your beginning. And in the beginning, there would have been a lot of excitement as much as doubt. There would have been equal measure of excitement building something on your own. And so just briefly talk about your beginning and then I'll have some more questions for you. Yeah, so I'll just take some words, borrow it from you, what you told the last. It all starts with a few people coming together whom you share common synergy, a common vision and that is how it all started. So having dabbled into a lot of things, if I wouldn't have dabbled, I would have still thought that maybe that was something more interesting or something. But having done multiple things, I realized that these things, like irrespective of the money that they could make or what is in it that I was doing, I still felt that I am passionate about healthcare and medicine. And yeah, so the team is how it started about met a few people. We started exploring multiple problems, talk to not exactly in an organized fashion, but kept talking to people, kept talking to people around us, doctors, people whom we knew and again, a lot of friends and all and later on, many of them left their jobs and joined us. And that is how like everything began initially. And as engineers, it was all like, I feel in retrospect, not the greatest way to go about it. It was more about building and the excitement that you get from building things versus like what you learn the hard way when you start off the actual business journey that builds something that people want and not something that you enjoy or you want to build. So as engineers, I feel that that is something I still find it challenging that there's a thrill in building things. But at the same time, you have to realize that do people need it or not? Right, that's caution. The first thing is excitement. Second thing is fortune. So having decided to work with the team, having decided to pursue your startup idea, having started developing your product, etc. Then still in the early days, I'm still in the early days of your startup. What are the most exciting moments in those first few months of your startup journey? Few months, meaning six months, it could be three months. What are those most exciting moments for you? I'll start with my first venture. So even before we incorporated, it was like the sales that people are willing to write a check and give it to us that gave us immense confidence. And probably even after that, around that time, there was only one paid employee. We all were unpaid, not on salaries. There was only one employee that we had, the salaries for him used to go from there. And even after three, four months, we decided let's incorporate now, high time. And that sales thing is actually in hindsight, very exciting. And my third leg of entrepreneurship, again, the judging that the counter is ringing and people are paying you for the product and it is getting delivered. That is very exciting. The other aspect of it is like in my first venture, when you hear in retrospect the stories from these doctors or the testimonials that how the product actually was being used and how they feel about it, that it was able to out of 100 people, if we are even able to save like one person to identify, they might go into a complication and learn the doctor, the life being saved. So that was thrilled that you cannot quantify or give a metric to. What was the most depressing moment for you? So like a depressing moment, like in my second venture, like when I was transitioning from the first venture to the second. So like with the first venture, I always made it so that because of me, things should not dismantle. So I took around six months of time to have the proper handing over and everything before exiting, starting my next venture. And like after running it for around three years and realizing that, okay, this is not something the service, though it was making healthy amounts of money for us, but not something that excites doing a project and handing it over, doing another project at that point of time. When you have to like, you're back to square one, you have to like, unfortunately I had to dismantle the team, though I helped everyone get another job. Because that is something which was like, I wanted it to take care of before venturing out again, going to the drawing board that what next in my product journey. So that was something really painful that you have to dismantle the team after working three years, four years with everyone. Okay, I'll come back to you. Amit, you talk about your beginning and talk about the most exciting moment in your journey. So, sir, like our beginning, as I said, we are always affectionate towards the food wastage that you cannot. Initially, I used to read an article, sometimes FFCCI and everyone has said, and there were certain articles which I landed upon and make me very worried. I'm like, you know, 45% of perishable food is just getting wasted. And I'm like, come on, it's literally half, like, and that's, you know, if I would say, you know, frankly, that's when I took it personally, like, if technology is there and, you know, why can't why can't we work out it in that manner? So then one of the very exciting moment, you know, which happened to me was when I was in GDC and, you know, I come from northern part of India and, you know, we were just doing our customer survey at a very, you know, remote corner of southern part in Tamil Nadu. And, you know, the guy doesn't know Hindi, the guy doesn't know English, and I don't know Tamil. And still I ended up having a conversation with the person and somehow, you know, try to get the feel of what other person is saying. So, you know, it says, right, if someone has a problem without even telling, they can, you know, interpret that. So, these two, three key factors actually motivated us. And then, like in IIT, there used to be a lot more sessions where, you know, one can, the most of the technology to various anonymous lists and so on. And I ended up talking to starting from Beishar to Krissar and probably, you know, so many people. And everyone, you know, just got a bit of an excited that, okay, you know, try to figure out these speeds, you can do that and something of that sort. One time, you know, even one of our clients, when we were just initially pitching it, and that was most happy, you know, happy moment for us that when we say, you know, look, our device can determine what's inside your food, but internal quality without cutting it. You know, like, is it seriously? How can you do that? Is it even possible? And, you know, and the joy of when you see with that, you know, surprising joy, I would say, that okay, isn't it like in, you have done this in India, so that just bringing back, that was all always our driving factor that, you know, let's have the tech over here itself. We will build up things here and something which will make people excited. So, these all are enjoying moments. Achievements, of course, once in a while, when something happens, and, you know, through at that time, we became national winner of Boeing build competition. And then that time when they were announcing the results and Ankit and me were very thrilled because we even never faced any sort of failure in our usual results in our college. But that time, the moment they said, okay, in few laps, and it was a very joyous moment. And then national and then international, and those small, small achievements keep driving us to work. We are doing it here. What is that one out moment or no moment? Not one, even in fact, a lot. You know, I would start from a very basic problem of a startup that, you know, you have an idea you want to work in. And since we are in the hardware space, and the thing says hardware is hard. And let me, you know, verify that it is hard. And initially, you know, you don't have money to pay to people or even to do something. So what can you do? So you end up selling your vision then rather than paying them and out of hunting a lot of people, you'll end up finding few people. And sometimes, for not two people also leave you as well. And those are like, what are we, you know, what's known. And sometimes, you know, you end up finding, I would say client or industry that will right away say that, what are you building? Like, you know, do you even know if there is a scope or not? And that's, those are the moments we realize, okay, you know, things happen. So such like a, let's say one day depression time, and our investment tracing journey also went like that, you know, initially some of rejection, it made us going back to our, you know, board of, where is the wrong? Is it wrong something in us or something the way we are doing it? So bit of an out moment, but more than a learning. Right. But, Mayuri, we know that you came back, you met the Aditya and Vivek and all of you, the three minds, excited about the numerous opportunities. And you got excited about what should we be building and everybody is aligned with the vision. So a lot of excitement right in the beginning. But after that excitement died, what did you do? And what were your first few challenging moments? Okay. So after we all met, like I said, that we were exploring a few ideas. And our first idea actually was again, in the packaging sector, but it was to replace soft plastics. And we were creating a biofilm, but we just kept hitting, you know, dead ends. And it was sort of apart, just from the product as well, there were a few existing players in the market. And there was already competition for the similar type of product. And it just, you know, we weren't very successful in that. And our current product, which is a bio composite, actually started as a backup plan. And we were like, okay, you know, this research is going to take very long, we need more money for this. So let's start this. And because this is also on like the similar vision. So let's start this. And once we started, and it seemed easier, but it's actually not. And once we started developing it, we started to do like intensity research on it, we actually started to recognize the real potential this product in itself had. And that's when we, you know, decided to switch to this as our main product. And of course, like, the people we shared it with their enthusiasm and their reactions to it also altered our perception of it. But, you know, like, I think switching to this was one of the best decisions that we made back then. And back then we thought that we're taking a big risk because, you know, we're, we've done so much work on this one product. And we are just, you know, moving on to something else. But we, I mean, I think we were just guided by the right people then. And we moved to this. But even when we did that, we were not able to portray exactly, you know, how do you use such a diverse material. So for those who don't know, the biocomposite that we're making, it's it can be molded into any shape, any size in any way. So it sounds amazing. But actually, when you have a material this versatile, it gets very hard to decide where you want to go first, and where you want to use it. Who do you want to sell it to? Who actually wants it because anybody could want it. And that was one of, you know, a major issues that we faced in the beginning. And it was turning out to be more of a curse for us until like we came to I incubate and we started to like discover our customers and we started the whole process. Yeah, sorry. The biggest rejections I'm not going to let this go because we have we've had a lot of them. So we actually so now we are officially bio incubatees at IAT Madras. But this is not the first time that we applied. So we've been rejected twice before. And one for a separate product, that was an older product, but one for the same product we went in and they were confused as to where we want to sell it and what do we actually want to do with it. So that clarity was missing. And right after that, and that was, you know, one of our biggest disappointments, because we went in with a product we really believed in and that just didn't go as planned and we were rejected in the screening. So that was a very disappointing moment for us. The one thing that I observed when three of them spoke is each one of them had, you know, I don't know if the word is passion or vision, but whether it is Anurag who decided that he has to do something in healthcare. Amit, it's all about food wastage and what really drives him and motivated him to jump into this journey, even to give up placements like this. And for Mayuri and the team, it is saving the planet from the menace of plastics. So startup founders do not just make it successful just because they were there at the right time at the right place and did the right thing. It is not as simple as that. We keep hearing about huge successes, these unicorns that we keep hearing about. Yesterday I mentioned, we don't hear about, we hear about 1% of the success stories, I mean, 1% stories which are successful stories and we don't hear about the 99% of the stories which are not so successful. And it doesn't happen just because you were at the right time at the right place and doing the right things. The purpose that each one of them had behind creating this venture, the purpose that drove them to give up everything else and jump into this entrepreneurial journey and the entrepreneurial mindset that they had and they continued to develop, there's a lot of hard work besides tough decisions, there is a lot of hard work as well. And hard work is not easy when you don't have a passion or a vision that is driving you because most of the times we stop and ask ourselves, do I really need to work this hard? Can I not just quit and go to Google and Microsoft? Can I not make enough money? What keeps you to stay the course is not just the excitement of building something, it is also the reason behind wanting to stay and build something exciting. So I see this very clearly. People usually don't talk about it, we don't hear about what is truly behind the startup but now it is quite evident. So and Mayuri when you ended, you spoke about the biggest challenge that you had, the disappointment you had when you got rejected because there was no clarity. It's strange that you are so passionate about something but you don't have clarity about something. It isn't strange, when you're passionate about something, you would expect it to be, you'll expect it also to be at most clear but here the clarity that was lacking was about customers, not about the idea and how even if you had an idea that is a brilliant idea but if you don't have clarity about who needs it and why, rejection is unavoidable and that is the turnaround story in your case and I would like to hear more about that. Let me first start with Anurag. There are some turnaround stories that has happened with all our startups that we have worked with and share with us your GDC experience and that turnaround story that happened for you even though you were already an entrepreneur and how GDC played a role in shaping your entrepreneurial skills, mindsets and pushing you forward to keep creating more ventures. Yes, so I do am in my third leg of entrepreneurship but the learning never ends so every time there is something new to learn, in fact, some of the GDC learnings has stayed with me for, I don't think I lose them now, I just keep them passing them on to my team as well so one of the major learnings that I still feel that was very important was talking to people, talk to customers, don't just keep building the products and turnaround moment if I have to recall, post, I think you might remember the idea that we came up to GDC with putting AI and identifying the right cosmetics for people and post that in fact I sold a lot of cosmetics as well and in that course of time though it was a learning experience, sales and marketing anyways excite me as an entrepreneur beside the research mindset but I realized okay that is not something I may be happy doing for a long period of time and identify the right point. I have been good at convincing people to leave their jobs and join me, I have done it repeatedly three times now and around that same time was fortunate enough to get my two other co-founders quit their jobs from big multinational consulting companies and joined me and we started Neodox around that same time again the COVID thing happened and all the plans that were made again remained as it is how we were thinking about and all and that time though in hindsight I feel that we did something very good, we talked to a lot of people so consciously unconsciously that thing and I like being also a part of recently international accelerator, I still feel that same learning is repeated everywhere so it is not something that as an entrepreneur I feel that I'll ever take it lightly talking to customers that has led us to a lot of turning moments in our entire journey. Talking to customers is the biggest learning for you and GDC probably have played a role in getting you to start talking to customers. You were clear when you came to the program about what you were trying to do probably too clear that you were not willing to let go of that clarity because it's frightening to let go of something that you think you're very clear about but during the program itself at least twice you had to let go of what you came with and so talk about the role that GDC played in such a short time how it taught you how to let go and what exactly did it do to you and to your startup. So for me you know as you talked about this part the major thing was coming from my tech background that I had a belief that what we built this is what has been required and the major turnaround is always when we started showing it to someone and you already had this perception you know the buzzword called AI deep tech everything you know this is what the world wants the moment you go and talk to a farmer the farmer is like what the heck is that I don't even know what you're trying to say so if I if I would like to you know term it you know the benefits you are trying to give to a customer is not the values which they are getting it so and that is what my key learning is always that you know no matter how many features we can integrate into us some man or whatever we can build upon you we can literally put some rockets over there but the customer is not going to pay for the customer doesn't want it and and trust me when we I'm talking about we had an uh like scenarios where we ask people just use it for free please like this is what we please use it for free and even that plan also you know we face no we don't have enough time for doing that as well you know either you build something which we wanted or why would we even use it for free as well and that's where we it was surprising for us as well that you know we always have this like I notice also I think everyone used to think that you know you give something for free to anyone and they'll use it but people are people are very busy they're not going to use it rather uh rather randomly you know trying to put anything to a customer rather trying to understand where their major issues are and you know that that that's what you know a major learning is always with me from the gdc part apart from even even figuring out I still remember from my initial days I think a week or two week when I attended and I always were confused that gain or benefits and values everything is same thing you know whatever I'm giving to a customer is a gain for it or or or everything is a pain for the customer so all those elemental learnings we try to put in to actually figure out you know uh like what uh thing you can integrate so that your customer is willing to pay your one rupee or one dollar that's uh that's the thing you know uh helped us throughout this to improvise it and not just then even now also we've been improvising and and this is another learning that even in the start of uh especially in the hardware of course office is also there but especially in hardware you keep improvising as the market needs something some sometimes something they'll uh want you to deliver something else but later their expectations and that's where you have to keep uh you know talking to them not even like uh you know once you sold the product this that's it the relationship doesn't end that in fact the relationship starts from there that now what else you want how can I improvise it so I think the lesson here is you don't need to build a rocket forward by AI to solve a common farmers problem the farmers this is what we don't understand but we understand AI and building rockets and we believe that the farmer needs it I think that's that's really you know well put thank you for that Mayuri what about your experience uh you know learning the customer discovery process going through the intense bootcamp uh share your experience with us yeah okay so um the first week of for gdc i incubate when we started the first week was actually very disappointing for us because all of these you know imaginary notions we have about the product about you know something we've invested a lot of time and effort in they're sort of just like broken down and because um when things are broken down into certain categories and questions are asked there is a clarity missing so uh you know it's it's it starts with a very tough learning but um the format of the program I think I really like because it's very intensive and um we had many assumptions being invalidated um week after week so we spoke to customers they invalidated it but there's no time do you know uh more about it you just like get back up on your feet make new assumptions and go and try it out with other customers so I think when we started we had a completely different set of value props and by by the time we finished we had different sets for different customers so I think that was you know a big learning for us um apart from that I think something that we really had drawn out of it was to get the problem solution fit for the customer not for a general problem because everybody knows pollution is bad but who needs it who needs your product that was something our that line of thinking was something that we weren't doing before the program because we of course know it's a big problem but um for whom was something that we only learned when we were in the program um apart from that I think uh while talking to customers it's important to understand when a customer is complaining and when they actually need something so that is also some something uh we learned um we learned to be more realistic about our assumptions and also proper organization with the the business model canvas so that you you know whenever you need to have an overlook of where you're going your progress you can take a step back and just and your just and analyze your board and I think all of these things really helped us and something we always kept saying was pivot pivot pivot or was said to us a lot of times uh because whenever we hit an end we pivoted whenever we hit an end we like had the agility in our team to you know uh take different ways to get our assumptions and that evidence validated right right so so what I'm hearing from all three of you it's coming out very loud and clear is talk to customers and talk to real customers talk to you know sometimes people take the easy way out by talking to friends who they imagine could be a potential customer at some point in time so let me talk to my friend what we really push teams to do during the eight takes is talk to strangers not just talk to customers but talk to strangers don't go and talk to people who you have uh you know a relationship with you know them already you are familiar with and yes they could be your potential customers but there's no point in talking to them so it sounds very simple and you know in outside it always sounds very simple what's the big deal just go and talk to 50 people go and talk to 60 people and if that is the only thing that you are learning then why do we need to spend eight weeks and go through this you know big drama of uh you know an intense boot camp you just tell us I'll go and talk to people if that is what is the only thing that you are teaching in this program or if you are getting startups to benefit from but truly I think you heard it from the three of them even though they did not necessarily say it in so many words but point is talk to customers talk to potential customers talk to strangers there is no substitute for talking to those stranger customers all the lessons are learned only by talking to them and what we do in the program is actually help you realize that and also get clarity about what kind of conversations you should be having you're not going and selling you're not going and giving a demo you're truly understanding customers problems and that's why you have an opportunity to pivot or you have an opportunity to say this is not going to work I need to do something else it's it's not decided in the lab that this is not going to work it's decided because the customer says this is not what I want and then you come back and say no this is not what I should be building I should be building something else solutions have changed the understanding of the segments have changed everything has changed all that happened I mean all all those things happened only because they went and spoke to 100 plus strangers who could be potential customers that's really where the lessons are so if anybody is thinking of building you know a startup you don't have to come and spend eight weeks with us if you don't want to but you certainly please go and talk to those strangers and don't talk about your product or about your idea just listen to them have half an hour 35 45 one hour conversations just listen to them and you'll know and I think may remain a very good point a lot of times we get misled by what people tell us sometimes when you go to people and ask them what problems do they have in life they pour their hearts out to you but are they really facing problems or are they simply complaining you should be able to differentiate between the two if whatever they are saying pouring their hearts over is convenient to you because it confirms your biases about your solution and why they need your solution you'll get excited and you will once again be misled you will develop something and when you actually take it to them they'll say you know what do you mean I didn't cry I don't have this problem I don't need it and you are surprised you know why do they say that because they were simply complaining they were not really giving you their pains for you to solve or problems to solve so you need to be able to distinguish all that happens in the customer discovery process now very quickly I will also get on to talk about the continuing association with lean startup not just with this GDC but they are continuing association and you know practice of the lean startup methodology and how they have repeatedly used the customer discovery process even in three three time startup it happens it's not the first time you do it and then you know everything works like that and how they are associating with us even now so Anurag you like to share how it is continuing to help you the process and the framework yeah so around the process and framework like something that was like beaten into us that talked to people like one of the things that don't feed words into like don't lead people with what you want to listen don't listen with a filter what you just want to listen and just discard everything else so that was something which I feel is good in fact like for me if I have to say a lot of the actual action became began after GDC so attending it religiously at that point of time listening to everything like getting to hear what other people are doing doing your own bit and all and that was a great experience to have but a lot of things began posted when you are again back from the bootcamp again into the practical reality of the startup you have to make it work there's no other option and where you like use this was even in fact I still I don't remember the tools name but I really like the tool that was there where you used to feed in the customer interviews and the trends so you can yeah the value prop and all to get everything out from those interviews so for example currently we do it in excel sheets or word up I like if that is something which is actually available for us still I'd be happy to get one of you here you can build it yeah so the lean startup we still follow we talk to people in fact whomever we currently sell to we have a whatsapp group that we make with those people with the founders and the other person because of the covid constraints and all we constantly talk to people what they like what they did not like what like asking them open-ended questions listening from them like whether it was useful or not in a lot of cases genuinely there are flaws in the with the product or with the fit that we imagined that okay these are the right people but once they use the product we realize that okay this there's something like very huge amiss that it is not something that is meeting the purpose to be religiously do this I have passed on the entire learnings to the new folks so who joined the team and all so we talk to people we listen to them constantly we incorporate the feedbacks and all at least listen to the feedback and develop our product pipeline one would be the right time we don't just like what has changed from previous time to now we don't just build a feature if we hear two or three people asking for that feature we don't just blindly stop everything and start building that feature that okay this is the huge thing that will be a success we we just pocket it into the pipeline so the lean startup thing yes it is helping us a lot still right right right amit what are your takeaways and how it is continuing to help you the lean startup the customer development framework and the customer the story process and how you are associated with gdc even beyond the boot camp so one thing sir since I you know did our gdc a long time before and for a good amount of time we were also you know applying the learning control and that is where I actually you know realized what are the benefits of sort of ecosystem like also sort of directed approach in startup methodology and that's where in fact you know while having all the discussions or talking in terms of I started applying into it and and probably in fact I started getting further you know advice from you and like you know this is my talk is happening with the customer and and one major thing which for the program from starting to till now while being the part of the program is you know a problem is not something which you ask to the customer and these days rather what he keep bragging about it and because one major thing we realized is you know because of the fear of rejection people tend to take a conversation and direction where you get comfortable in and throw the gdc port is you know get out of your comfort zone so you you know we started adapting that it's good to have rejection it let's let's hear what exactly has been happening and and and all these part which actually Anurag also mentioned just before that good amount of time people will just keep telling you you know can you build that can you build this at an initial stages startup all the things said okay this is something you know we should be bringing in because our customer this thing but it's not a binary approach there are different sort of people with the different thing all you can do is put the majority wants you can do it otherwise you'll end up wasting your time and you know and it's been helping with me and now as well like while having any time talking with you Rabu sir and entire gdc part that okay this is where I'm getting stuck in and where I can further improvise so that that's creating an important role good good there's been it's been a roller coaster ride for you we know that because we've been working with you and you know it's it's not it has not been easy and I'm glad you know you stuck to the journey and we have I'm also happy we played a part in that journey and we are continuing to play a part we have a program called ignite which is after incubate so teams who pursue the startup journey who continue the startup journey and who are ready to jump in with a team and with you know commitment we work with them and we work for a longer time with the teams and we actually take the startup from where we left in the incubate program where customer discovery has happened you understood the problems but now you need to start building something you need to test it you need to create an organization you need to raise money you need to you know comply with the legal and all the regulations etc so there's much more you know than just speaking to customers all this gets covered in the next program that we have we call ignite and that can go from 12 to 18 months and amid this one of our early entrance into the ignite program as well so he's he's he's signing up soon for the ignite program. Mayuri how about you you know yes you told us about the disappointments during the GDC journey but how is the journey beyond GDC and how was it helping you what you learned how is it helping you and there may be some incidents that happened after GDC's program got over it's not been very long since you finished the program it's probably less than a year close to a year yeah one year one year what has the journey been done? So since we finished the GDC program it's honestly been uphill uphill for us we cleared the IADM bio incubation screening we are now officially incubated with them we also received a virtual incubation from Riddle which is a government supported center and we also received the Nidhi Prayas grant from department of science and technology and we have recently cracked the Bayrak big grant so I think the learnings that we had in GDC really amplified our our growth as we went on and that couldn't have been done without you know the ongoing support that we had because after the bootcamp you know real life and like real base everything was there and especially like Rajeev Anand and Raghu you've all like supported us throughout the process and you've guided us to make the right decisions even when it was you know a tough call I think the incident you're referring to is the VC incident so so I'll give you an example so very early on after we finished the program a big VC venture catalyst was interested in our startup and they offered us funding as well however with everybody's guidance we were able to recognize the importance of life timing and the importance that maybe when we're still in the research and development phase having a VC on board wouldn't be the best choice for us and it was actually like an extremely tough choice for us back then because back then we didn't have IAT and we didn't have Nidhi Prayas we didn't have big we literally were really budding and we were starting off with our journey and when funding comes along at this point to say no is very difficult but we are glad that we made the decision because otherwise we would have been in a difficult situation at this point was the funding coming also and they were charging too much of you know share was it that also that yeah yes so it was equity as well and that was you know one of the toughest calls we've made because you need money for you know research and development and you're like looking for it but in fact it looks like you're leapfrogging and suddenly somebody's pulling you back no yeah yeah it's very difficult but the bad guys the bad parents the tough parents are not bad yeah yeah definitely but really they'd help us you know because eventually we did get the grants that were right for us you know at this point because right now we're still developing and you know we need that so yes in fact the way Anand was showing your background like you're so passionate about it and your you know whole issue of saving marine life I thought your company won't be able to do anything you know like even the people who sit there are opposite you know who are going to give grants and all you know it looks very philanthropic it looks very non-business like so you know like I think this whole grounding like what Arun and you know Rajeev and Raghuvan have been saying you know like you have to have your customer there and that's what your startup right if you don't get stuck you know not a startup right you have to have that passion you need to have that what do you call commitment and you have that you know ambiguity to get into business right thank you thank you Anurag you're a serial entrepreneur now okay and we have a lot of aspiring and budding entrepreneurs in this forum what would you like to tell them one of the things which has been popularized like what Mayuri also told last that like money of funding that the glamour the glamourization that has been there it is like I feel it is too overrated because this money is not the cause for startups dying majority of them it is not the cause that money money was not there that is why startups right majority of the time it is the product market fit when you have not arrived at something that people want you build something that you wanted you were good at probably without talking to customers and also like extending to professor Chakravarti that is where that like I feel the thin divide between an entrepreneur and a researcher comes in that a researcher is passionate about what he is building what he knows the skills the entrepreneur has to balance it it is now also about business so money aspect it is very popularly glamourized that funding this has happened and this much money has come in and all and I have run both moderately funded startups decently funded startup and or bootstrapped startup I now in hindsight I feel that I can say that not a lot of things change even if you have a lot of bank balance it cannot bring you a product market fit that you have to work hard for no amount of money if you if you don't have a product market fit at best that money can last you help you survive for a longer time and then eventually die off but yes you have to the money aspect is something that I like that is dealing the process that's much worse right and one other thing is that it sometimes creates an illusion that you can multiply effort you can scale the team and sales team and that will actually solve the entire issue and getting in more programmers building in more features and all sometimes like we personally we do keep cautious that that illusion does not happen so it could be detrimental as well a lot of times having more money but yes that illusion of money is helping solve funding is the entire aim is something which I feel is too overrated right right thank you thank you for that Amit you have gone through a lot of changes I just mentioned that you want to a true roller coaster ride it's not been easy for you it's your first venture and it's not been easy for you and so so you have a lot of experience even though this is your first venture I think you have experienced a lot at this venture what would you like to share with the audience here to all our aspiring entrepreneurs you know one thing I not just even entrepreneurs even to everyone I just keep saying that you know rejections are very important part of life so so it's like learn to say no and learn to hear no as well and and when we were in a dire need of money as well and you know we were raising funds from a lot of people and you know we we were receiving a lot more than rejections and each time you were just trying to understand where the rejection is coming in how can we improvise then there was a time that you know what amount of people were asking us to take money and then we had to tell them no as well no like we can't get assisted because sometimes a vision doesn't align sometimes you feel like you know that will not go in a direction where you want to take in so that's a very important aspect that like as as both of the Mayuri and Anurag also said that funding never justifies the success of a startup and it's it's it's never does that it's not you know it's just a milestone in the entire startup journey but but that doesn't justify whether you are making something big or not so that is something you know to all everyone thinking in that direction so it's like the day you someone starts building a company and I keep meeting a lot of entrepreneurs who just the way to start a company they'll be like you know from where I raise funds from where I do that but not even not about you know whom I should deliver or who is my customer so that's the most overhyped thing I'm pretty much sure both of my other panelists will also agree that there is a huge myth that in a startup you are own you are your own boss trust me that's the biggest myth I've ever seen you're never your own boss in the end you are also working for your own company but it's not like you know you can just work one day and chill out six days or so you have to have a discipline that only you can take things ahead it's a 24 by 7 work no we are very very curious to see all the three products we are the product designers communication we are also very curious about their products anyway if there's time for this you should let us see you know like amit sir you know mayuri sir you know like adrags products yeah how do they look what are they I think this is you know definitely organized that this is coming out louder clear the startups are obsessed with two things product development adding features packing the product with you know anything and everything that you think you can do and the second thing is funding so in this the real startup journey it's completely lost the customer is the number one entity in any organization whether it is a startup or a large company and the customer takes a backseat everything else takes the front seat especially product development and funding these are the two biggest reasons why startups lose sight of what they should be really focusing on and funding is overhyped I think we've heard it from two people it's not like they didn't need money it's not like they had tons of money from their families and they therefore refused to take money it was a tough decision for all three of them to say no to money and please you know make take note of this because this is critical sometimes you have the wisdom to say no to money sometimes you need the right guidance and mentorship to say no to money but don't just jump at money because money is coming your way that is not what is going to make your startup successful mayuri you know I will ask you a different question right because you're so passionate about saving the earth and you know from the minutes of plastics and so on startup idea did not align with the passion to save the planet Anand has chosen the toughest one for me but all right well purpose driven person and so it would be very hard for me to have a startup which wouldn't align with the vision I mean if I had to let my imagination run wild for a second then I would say that it could have been a different product but it could not have been a different vision and no matter the type of person you are you know you don't have to be like you know in any certain type of personality but like no matter who you are I think you need to have certain belief or passion in your product because if you don't believe in your product there's always going to be 50 external people who are telling you that oh this is not good you're never going to get anywhere with this so if you have so so many external influences it's it's inevitable that down the line you'll get distracted and you won't have the zeal to work on it anymore so just to for you to keep going and to keep working on it because it takes time nothing is an overnight process it takes a lot of time and even for us to have these little you know a few um early successes it's taken us two years to get even here um and so it's very important that you believe in it um and I don't think I would be able to work in the startup that I couldn't believe in um a lot of times I give more importance and because you know when like um like my other panelists were saying you're not uh you know you're you're not um it's a misconception that you work in Benvi and like you don't uh you're your own boss when you have your startup a lot of times I have to prioritize my startup on top of my like other tasks or works because I know like we have to do this and we have to get it to a certain point so the sort of zeal wouldn't come until I believe in it so the vision therefore it is critical right it is not that okay I find something that is probably likely to be more profitable and let me jump so Steve Blank actually talked about customer discovery and the way Steve Blank describes customer discovery in one sentence is customer discovery translates the founder's vision into reality that's how he speaks about customer discovery and it's extremely important the most founders do not even know how to articulate their vision but they do have a vision so if you have a passion or a vision in you and if you want to actually you know start up to make that vision happen that's great what we've already thought about but most of us don't even know how to articulate our own vision and therefore we get you know we get confused between a startup and a business and you know something that I need to do for my living and uh most people therefore lose out on a fantastic opportunity to jump into automation so with that I will actually now come to the last round and this is a rapid fire round and I'm going to ask all three of you the same question and very quickly you need to answer what does entrepreneurship mean to you? So like for me I think it is the getting it done attitude like figuring out the how and how why who the other questions on the go just getting it done executing stuff that's entrepreneurship for you yes what's entrepreneurial mindset for you? Entrepreneurial mindset I will say like keeping your like being an engineer it is very difficult to like there are certain things that I actually truly want to build from the science engineering perspective and there are certain things that the customers want so that is like keeping that thin line between that what is what like your actual inherent interest and what people want building the things that actually make you sustainable. Entrepreneurial mindset you know allows you to put the customer before your first interest yes fantastic Amit what does entrepreneurship meet you in entrepreneurial mindset? For me everyone is an entrepreneur it's just a different domain we have been working on or no matter if it's a researcher or if it's my mom or if it's me or anyone and when it comes to an entrepreneurial mindset it's more about how do I convert rejection into an opportunity that's what helps that's what entrepreneurial mindset helps me to you know to see our opportunity lined up everywhere no matter whichever is it fantastic. So entrepreneurship to me I think would mean the courage to bring about a change and an impact and you know along the process you can pivot but you don't have to lose focus because that's also very important and entrepreneurial mindset I think would be to have the appetite for change within yourself as well you can't be too rigid based on your biases and your you know ideas and you should also have the agility within your team to do that. Right so it's again it's very interesting it comes out very clearly that you don't have to be titled as an entrepreneur to have the entrepreneurial mindset you know a lot of times it's confusing for people you know entrepreneurship is something and everything is different you know the word entrepreneur is the title and it's only that don't get too carried away with that title but the entrepreneurial mindset is really what is making people successful is making people commit to their vision and actually get things done so that's that's really how I would conclude this I have to thank all the panelists now you know you've taken a lot of time to actually come and share your stories with us and it's been very very interactive and conversational I like it you know I'm glad I did not give you time to prepare for it. Yeah so my question is how do you find the inertia that you know your target audience might have right you know as you know even if I am somebody who needs a product I might be skeptical towards using something that's that does not have a branding that's you know new in the market so how do you deal with that kind of inertia I remember this one time when I was working we had this I don't remember the apps name but it was a brand new app and they did all their research with us itself and it's it's about right sharing but that time it was very brand new but even then even though people were giving very positive answers none of us were ready to use it right so how do you deal with that kind of mentality that your target audience might have. You have to find out the correct niche which actually for whom actually it is solving something or like is actually really helpful I had the same like doubts when I was around at the same time at GDC that why would someone like have a look at a newer brand they are already used to like age old brands and I was surprised like how much appetite there is in the market for and it is not the entire segment there'll be certain people for for instance I'll take the example exactly what I was doing so I I sold cosmetics at that point of time and it was entirely brand new label a private label and I was like surprised that there's a certain segment which will not look at new brands but there's a certain segment which is actually lapping up these new brands there is a niche that exists there and like there are certain traits of those people so like for like your product you have to either identify these initial early adopters who will be in fact very helpful in giving you feedback helpful in building the product helpful in like making it ready for the later on adopters or the mass market when it'll pick up and these people would actually be the initial influencers within the community or the initial users most likely the other users would share certain traits from these people so even if these niche does not exist then you have to critically think whether you are solving something for someone or not that that's a great question and you know you think that you have to start there but even before that there is a step of the entire customer discovery and throughout the discovery process you don't actually talk about your product so you get answers from people which are not about your product and then you navigate and make your product to suit their needs so this risk of inertia you've already reduced it to more than half because you've gone out with what they exactly need so you've already navigated these just with talking to people without actually putting yourself out there with that risk in fact if you're delivering a critical need so even sometimes big brands start you know working with you and they'll give you a chance to actually you know you can explore it and that's what even happened in our case because coming from our Indian tech aspects you know sometimes people have insecurities but then there are people who are ready to you know try out put your things on trial and that is where your product has to you know come out it's like it has to show that what you have actually developed for and once that happens so that gives you some chances. My question was to Mayuri that when your motivation behind building a startup is to create a change and when it's so driven by passion and I understand like from this course I'm understanding that when you're building a startup there's so much more involved there's a timeline there's a huge amount of like time involved so what what happens when after a lot of work the change that you might have wanted to see is not as significant as you thought or as quick or like you would have wanted it to be a person is bound to lose faith in the product or they might lose not interest the passion would be the same but there are like how do you get out of that loop of not getting like a drop in the ocean no like it's a small thing you know how do you like navigate through that issue and yeah that's it that's a really good question and that's exactly why I was talking so much about my deal to work because of course it's not an overnight process it's not even it doesn't happen in a few months it happens maybe you see some change in a few years but I think right now the idea that we have or right now the business model or the way we wanted we are going to have certain goals around it and as we change as we learn we'll keep on pivoting and that's the only way you will like progress and move to the next level of you know change so you've attained some level of change and you think that oh maybe like you know I want to do more and then you pivot around it you talk to more customers and then you design your model around it so it's a continuous process I don't think like you know you read somewhere and then you're like oh you know I wanted this change but I didn't get it and like you know I haven't gotten it in two years now and maybe I should quit this because it is a long constant process at the end of the day we are changing people's behaviors for any product you know and behavior change is an intricate science and it takes time and patience is key of course and that's why you need to be committed to it and you ultimately you need to ask like how much does it matter to you and if it is actually required these are the only two questions at the end of the day which matter and you just keep going thank you all the speakers for you know the inspiring talk and GDC my question was that let's say you have an idea for startup and let's say it's something like Anuraz in the area of healthcare or let's say it's something which has to do with e-commerce so do you restrict yourself first to the area where you have defined your user let's say you target a state first or do you go the country level or global level I personally have followed we do not keep any constraint and in fact post COVID like pre-COVID it used to be that wherever we were physically present we used to go around there and talk to people meet people avoid avoiding any telephonic call and all getting to see the like one of the things again as a part of GDC that there are a lot of emotions that you miss over calls and those aha moments that the user is actually excited upon or is frowning upon but post like post COVID it has become like all digital so we do not that constraint has like gone away a lot of people try the product like for a while considering to not the only to the customer like interviews and all so we talk to people like not like we have one beyond India as well talking to people understanding from them without telling them what we are building just we start off with we are passionate in healthcare looking at exploring a few problems would like to understand about you your daily schedule or like open-ended questions so we do not constrain ourselves but at the same time we we have to be like cautious about for example particularly in healthcare when we are building like Indian ecosystem is very different from western ecosystem because of the pair the relationship so we do not we have to take a lot of those thing elements into account so that is where like the real customer interviews we right now believe that for a year for a year or two and since we'll be in India so we focus a lot on people who are residing in India have been facing the actual infrastructure and the processes first thing so what what happens when you're launching it when let's say if we've covered the customer interviews you've got to know the user you've done the customer discovery so while launching do you specifically keep it to that area or would you go global or country the whole country so again starting off we try to be with the earlier doctors because we realize that we do not first of all we do not want to wait for the perfect product there are a lot of things that need to be ironed out in the product we already know that but at the same time we do not want to wait for long to iron out everything so we start launching the product with the early adopters people whom we know that what Anansar was telling for them it's not the brand it's not the UI UX that is something useful to them it is the functionality particular thing that you are core thing that you are solving so starting off with them these are actually the users we have realized who also help you build the product as you move along that automatically the priorities start getting set in okay this is something which needs to be built other these five things are wells and whistles and so yeah so that is how we start off with we do not like right away start off with marketing and selling the product to a broader audience thanks Anurag again and thanks the whole team Akanksha you can do the honors of thanking everybody yeah so I'd like to thank you for you know this lecture because I think Professor Chakramarthi has also been trying to divert our minds from the idea or from the design or say the product towards other processes but since we've been doing this for a while I think we've concentrated on that for too much time so it was good knowing that you know we have to let go the idea of what we are going to produce or make and work before that and around it first and then actually develop that so that's great and also you know knowing that you can drop out of placements is also I think a good insight because I this is the semester where we are all you know signing off for placements and looking for companies so and that's also one more thing that it was really great to know so thank you