 In this panel exclusively with me we have a diverse group of individuals all have more than almost two decades of experience in their own fields and that makes them very apt for a panel that wants to talk about creating the billion dollar business with a billion dollar valuation in mind. The panel will talk about four crucial things today centered around funding but the first important point that we are going to be dissecting is how to really build a business of this generation like Mr. Katiaal said that today businesses have to be built with certain expectations in mind. I will first take his comments on how businesses of today are being made and what kind of business vision one needs to build before really creating these businesses of today of digital India. So you know digital is the key word right everybody wants a digital business there can be other businesses and there are people on the panel who do far better businesses than digital businesses but unfortunately you know digital is the darling of the day. You know when we look at at building businesses one of the first things that you know all of you must look within yourself to say that whether you have the passion to do what you want to do. I think it's it's easier to want to do it but if you really have to get down and get your hands dirty what will come between you and and your success will be the quantum of passion you have and that really defines not only the the success of the business but success of you as an individual. What happens sometimes that you have a great idea you have you have passion for some years you kick it off quite well and then you lose the passion the idea becomes really big over the period of time but you don't own the idea any longer because you lost the passion the perseverance and the resilience to stay with it and like you said the top the first thousand users are critical you'll also get to the first hundred thousand and the first million but then the million to ten million to hundred million to that billion journey requires a serious amount of resilience and perseverance. Also I think the the other big deal about all of this is how much you're willing to put yourself into it and how much you're willing to dirty your hands around what you do. We want great funding we want angel funding we want you know series A series B so on and so forth right but the one thing that everybody looks for is your ability to navigate the circumstances yourself right you will you will move from series A to to whatever on only if the investor can see the passion and the commitment that you bring to the table and that comes down to your obsession with your users and your customers I think that in today's world is extremely extremely critical users are very very unforgiving and they have seriously low patience you can be a startup but the user doesn't care right you can you cannot put a scroll over they're saying I'm a startup I'm just starting off please treat me well right unfortunately it doesn't work like that anymore there are too many options there are too many you know multiple choices that users are living with and so your obsession your obsession and use the word obsession with your users will get you somewhere and it also lets you create newer and new white spaces newer and newer use cases because the other thing that happens is that and like in our business in any other business is that if you come up with a great idea it only takes about 12 to 14 to 18 not months but weeks for somebody to do to replicate that and you're back to being equal with everybody else and so your ongoing obsession will keep you far ahead than the other. It's an important point in building businesses when we speak about the passion and this passion can easily be filtered by an angel investor or an investor who's sitting on the other side of the table who like very aptly Mr. Katiyal said that in the cycle of the business the founder or the creator really forgets what the business was being built for it's a long journey of course we understand that but in your view how does a startup or a startup tenure need to look at their business keeping their passion in mind because we hear a lot of jargon around passion but businesses are not built on passion they are built on money and consecutively on customers. I think you have predicted me being staying. No but that's a very valid point because two three points one is passion is needed and passion is needed not just for the idea or the original idea but to actually look at depending on the facts of the day how you need to modify it tune it then continue and relook at the whole passion whole idea again and again and again so the morning I was saying it needs quite a bit of perseverance I completely echo what the two gentlemen have said but I think for me something much before the passion is the compelling vision what is that need which you have what is that problem you're trying to solve what is the need you're trying to fulfill and is it going to be transitory nature or is a long-term need which will not get faded away with time I think to me that's the most important followed by passion absolutely important you got to be mad for that and then also getting a critical mass of a few people who share your aspirations so unless these three things are combined which is the need which you're trying to fulfill followed by the passion and creating that aspiration and a critical team of people critical mass of those people who really set the ball rolling I think that is something very very clear the second part is authenticity there has to be authenticity people do not want anymore to hear only stories and lip service people want authentic leaders I think these are the two things which have to come across very very clearly and then to say what Gulzar is saying don't look at the billion look at the first thousand customers first hundred depending on which industry you are first hundred first thousand first hundred thousand everything else will follow I think the vision right we often hear in journalistic circles investors tell us that well the idea is great but nobody that startups are trying to solve problems that don't exist and that's where the vision comes into picture but how do you make your your vision compelling enough for an investor to believe in it or a global companies it is Google to agree in on the idea mr. Azad I would like your comments on that sure this is very very interesting discussion and I'm hoping you were paying attention to what everyone said here because it's important in you know different aspects of your life so I think the point on passion was made and that's very important the point of differentiating passion and vision was made that's also very important I think there's a question of how do you translate your vision and idea and take it forward so the the one thing that I would like to say there is and and that's where I think the point that Campbell was making on you know having a vision is to be able to separate your your interests or things that you would love to do from the things that is needed to be done right and even even when you come up with an idea I think the most important thing is to think about what you can do the doing part is the most important part of it is you know there are things that I would say I would rather go on the go on a different note and say there are things that you should not do like for example I said don't focus on the whole billion dollar thing don't focus on even on investing like this whole thing about you know you have to get angel funded and you have to get series a and series b you will soon understand when you get to the market actually that's also all staged you know there is an entire ecosystem that actually wants you to believe that is all required actually if you at the beginning at the beginning of your journey of an impactful journey if you bring everything down to just one and that one P is not pricing is not promotion is not positioning is not marketing is not how you communicate is actually product if in in a word in and this is a different world right from the one that used to exist you know few decades back this is the world of technological movement this is a world of technology transformation of everybody having access to technology and resources I think in that world you have to think about you know bringing it down to that single B and you know of course if your idea applies to a service you know it stands for the service but you bring it down to the product and everything else will follow and you know whether you're creating that product as I said you know for some first thousand users or first hundred thousand users you know this was actually a very interesting conversation that happened in the early days between Google and you know I think Samiran will help me with that who's the person who invented the four-piece gotler was there in one of the conferences and actually a Google person who was a early-day product person walked up to me and said that you are flawed in your police by this discarding every other being and getting to the product it did not worry about positioning and that is why it was able to reinvent its industry it did not worry about packaging or pricing that's why pricing and investments and dollars followed Google's products not other way around and and I have come for India and start thinking differently from what our books are telling us and start thinking differently from the late from the already existing models and think about the product because now we have enough technology innovation to think