 It's wonderful to be talking with Kunal here today. Kunal is, of course, India's first generation e-commerce entrepreneur and has done some wonderful things at Snapdeal. But also probably little known is that he's also a very big venture capitalist with Titan Capital. They've made several investments in very promising startups and that's where we're going to talk to today about Kunal, about what he thinks about the Indian startup ecosystem. I mean Kunal, you started probably at a time when you were building the first startup ecosystem in India, the first level of startup ecosystem in India, where thinking of becoming a billion dollar organization or a large organization was a dream that was wanting to be achieved. But today, it's something that every startup looks forward to, plus a lot more. So becoming a unicorn will become almost like an easy thing now versus what it used to be back in 2010 or 2011. So how do you think this, particularly in the last six or seven years, how do you think the startup ecosystem has changed in the country? And what kind of startups are you betting high on? Yeah, thanks, Ritu and thanks to the IIT Bombay team for having me. You're absolutely right that we seem to be seeing a lot more unicorns being coming out of India now. But I must say that I have a slightly different view in terms of whether it's become an easy thing. It is not. I asked Kunal's who hit that milestone and you will hear of many, many stories of blood sweat and tears and asked the many entrepreneurs who want to get there and they have their own stories of blood sweat and tears. So it's not easy getting there. But I think entrepreneurship is obviously much more than just getting to a $1 million valuation. It's about creating impact. It's about creating jobs. It's about creating a better world and creating products and services that touch the lives of millions of people. Over the last, maybe I would say 10 years or so that India's not only e-commerce, but overall startup ecosystem has gone through a tectonic phase. I remember when we started over 10 years ago, startup word was not part of the dictionary. You essentially had a good job or you were a struggler and I think generally folks who were doing startups as we call them now were considered to be people who didn't have the ability to get a good job. And so there was a bit of an adverse election attached to doing a startup 10 years ago. Lot has changed now obviously, thanks to the government, thanks to the bureaucracy, thanks to industrial groups in the country, thanks to the VC ecosystem, thanks to the domestic investor ecosystem in India and obviously, thanks to the thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs who have decided to give up jobs and or not take up jobs after college and start companies. As a result now, I don't think there is any get-together social gathering party anywhere in the country where someone's not talking about startups. How much our country has transformed over the last decade when it comes to startups. Startups are now seen as the solution to building a great country. They're no longer seen as these few 20-somethings or 30-somethings year olds are going and building something on the side that nobody else understands. The solutions that startups are coming up with in India are touching lives of many of us every day and I think that is the true power of India's startup ecosystem. So I'm obviously passionate participant and proponent of the startup ecosystem and I think I'm so optimistic about the next decade was for it. Sure and since we're talking to the IIT students here in Mumbai for the E-Summit 21, today of course a lot of them would be looking to do startups but also some of them would be looking to join jobs and to get professional careers. So what are the new age skills do you think every IIT graduate should have other than what of course they are being taught in college which is like almost like compulsory it's a must to have today and that could of course take them far and probably you know have them sort of have some career set in the next 10 years because things are changing so dynamically around us as it is. Yeah I think I feel that the skills that are needed to do a job well will get picked up either in college or will get picked up through tribal knowledge of talking to friends or reading stuff up or even while being at a job. I feel that the skills that really do matter however if you want to build a large high impact company from scratch are people's skills. That is what is probably the single biggest skill that is often not taught in colleges particularly technical colleges oftentimes but those are the skills that are usually the most important. The ability to invigorate, the ability to inspire a team of one to a team of maybe 10,000 one day to you know define a vision for them and have them believe in that vision to be able to stand in front of hundreds and hundreds of people of your colleagues of your employees and inspire them to achieve great things especially if things are not going to well. I think those are the skills that if you would have asked me what are the new eight skills I would say those are the most important skills when one needs to lead a startup into a large company. The subject matter expertise can be learned can be taught can be hired also but what really makes a big difference is the ability to lead people, the ability to lead people higher and lead people who are going to be oftentimes smarter than you are and that's probably the single biggest skill that is needed to build successful company. Sure people skills that is so for all the students out there who are listening to this one you know E-commerce has changed so much particularly during this pandemic you know I see new streams of e-commerce and social commerce and this hyperlocal e-commerce and so many WhatsApp e-commerce which was recently being talked about so how do you think e-commerce has changed but particularly what has the pandemic done for it I mean you know has it given it the spurt which otherwise probably would have taken a few more years to happen? Yeah I think there has been a spurt but I feel the underpinnings of the e-commerce taking off in India have been underway for for a while. It started with companies like ourselves almost educating both the demand side and the supply side consumers and sellers online about the virtues of e-commerce it was a hard problem many years ago both neither side trusted that there was there was a possibility that you could go to a website buy things and give them money and then that that product will actually get delivered however crazy it sounds maybe eight ten years ago large majority of Indian consumers did not believe that would actually happen and large number of sellers also did not believe that that would actually happen that they could supply their products online but looking at the success of some of the companies that were early in the ecosystem we've now seen a vast number of companies open across various verticals of the economy both on the B2B side B2C side folks who are doing wholesaling of clothes folks who are doing retailing of agricultural inputs there is an explosion of digitization of commerce that is happening in our country as we speak I have the good fortune of meeting so many incredible entrepreneurs who are just starting off their journey and it is absolutely mindblowing the creativity of the problem-solving skills that they have using technology that are connecting the dots between demand and supply across different parts of our economy and in some ways either enabling the intermediaries or in some where the intermediaries actually add value or in some cases you know skipping the intermediaries where the intermediaries were primarily adding cost and not any value and both are happening and both are necessary so I but specifically in answer to your question Ritu I would say agriculture health and creation of new brands these are the three relatively new areas in e-commerce specifically that we are seeing tremendous amount of activity entrepreneurial activity and and and really high impact businesses will will get built in these three areas in the next next few years and do you think I'm in within B2B and B2C where do you see bigger scope of things to happen I think it's like picking between two children it's it's very hard to say I think both play an important role there is a consumption economy and there is a business economy and both require the enablement of technology to bring more efficiency so they are two different types of problem statements in two different parts of the economy obviously with some interlinkages however both are very critical B2C is often criticized from the perspective that it takes a lot of capital to shape consumer behavior to acquire customers B2B from that perspective is is a little more capital efficient to business model but look oftentimes it's also a personal preference of the entrepreneur as to what opportunity they are finding more exciting and passion and are passionate about many many entrepreneurs are very passionate about building B2B businesses versus others who are passionate about building end consumer brands or B2C businesses so I don't think there's a right or wrong answer or large or small I feel there is tremendous amount of asymmetry of information in the economy in any economy including us and and what market places whether they are B2B or B2C can do is reduce that asymmetry of information. Sure and I mean you know you've been particularly with your fund which is Titan Capital you've been investing in so many companies which come in both these spheres both B2B as well as B2C so you know where are you seeing bigger opportunities when it comes to investing for new startups. Yeah I think you know I'm I generally have a space agnostic view on on on the opportunities of the business model etc there are three attributes I would look for one is which may not be very different from other investors but maybe we just we're very focused on just these three attributes one is just the quality of the team right we need to we understand that there is almost no information at the early stages when we when we would invest in a company however the quality of the team the some amount of demonstration of success in their past life whether it could be professional academic somewhere they should have done something that created impact because you know that tells us whether they have that file within them to to keep going and to actually have the passion and the hustle to deliver results so I think the team is a very critical role also we we like backing dreamers we want we want entrepreneurs who can make us dream with them who can help us gaze into the crystal ball with them as to what can this business eventually become the second would be just the size of the opportunity so I the space is not as important as the size we obviously want to dedicate our resources time energy network to support entrepreneurs who are looking to build large businesses I'm not saying building a small businesses is is not a great thing it is it probably just doesn't need our participation then as much so large businesses is very pursuing large business opportunities is very important to us as it is to most entrepreneurs that we meet and and the third is the ability to generate economics we we we like businesses that at least have a viewpoint on how they will make money because that's the only way to sustain and build a lasting enduring enterprise long time in the long term because you can you can keep raising money up to a certain time but beyond that point you will have to self sustain and hence having a point of view on how will you self sustain and grow your business thereafter it's important to know from the get go so I would say those are three things but more specifically I would say you know market places whether they are b2b, b2c, fintech, computer vision you know online brands or direct to consumer brands you know some also like software companies like various SaaS companies I think we've looked at everything we've invested in everything so we are not our our philosophies we are never dismissive about the business model or the business idea we tend to spend more time on the three things I mentioned the team the size of opportunity and the ability to generate economics sure and I mean particularly the markets have been going they've been rocking in during these last few months you know we touched the 50,000 mark which is pretty historic for our stock markets do you think a lot of startups should now start looking at IPOs as a route to raise capital and also to give exit to investors I think by the time they are ready to go public or IPO I don't think we should be calling them startups but I do feel that irrespective of whether the stock markets are going up or down in the near term we've all seen that these are phases none of these you know troughs or bubbles in the stock markets last forever over a period of time if you zoom out the trend line is obviously upwards always it just as economies become more efficient and more you know more innovation than productivity increases are happening that said I do feel irrespective of the market cycles or the stock market cycles the future of any ecosystem rests in the hands of the the few companies that actually go public most large startup ecosystems around the world the enduring startup ecosystems like Silicon Valley, China have have endured and have become larger over time because they have gotten created around a few really really good high quality companies tech companies that went public already because that always gives a sense of confidence to investors as well as entrepreneurs as well as employees of the startups that there is a there is an exit here in due course they can point to something and say look this is what we will become eventually this is our outcome five years out 10 years out in the absence of that the only exit is selling to some company and oftentimes that company ends up being some overseas foreign company because they have far more resources than another local startup there and that never inspires confidence into into investors coming into a business or employees wanting to come on come into the startup ecosystem and this is the difference between the US startup ecosystem and the European startup ecosystem and not many companies out of Europe traditionally have gone public last couple of years things have changed a little bit but for the longest time that didn't happen as a result we never hear as much about you know global companies or global significance come out of the European startup ecosystem but we hear about that every few months out of the US startup ecosystem and in my view the big difference is a number of public companies coming out of their respective countries startup ecosystems and India will need dozens and dozens of technology companies going public and be being successful public companies and we will see a significant exploration even more than we see right now in the Indian startup ecosystem and entrepreneurial system sure you know India took its startup India initiative about five years back do you think the Indian government should now also allow Indian startups to list on international courses you know that that might just open up more avenues and also make it easy especially for Indian startups to be serving international markets yeah absolutely and look my view is that you know if we are building world-class companies we should be open to world-class capital and there is great capital available in India but there are pools of capital available overseas who would probably just out of their own internal restrictions not come to India specifically to invest in one company we do allow you know private foreign private equity players to come invest in Indian companies so why can't we allow other companies other investors who are purely many public market investors on global stock exchanges to invest in our companies it's great because that capital that we get raised outside India will make its way to India eventually right it's not going to stay there because if it's an Indian company that has Indian operations Indian customers Indian suppliers Indian technology built in India even if we do even if they end up raising capital on overseas stock exchanges they will bring that capital to India to to actually grow their businesses so in the end India wins and more importantly you know just the soft power that India gets out of having large successful technology companies listed overseas there's a lot of soft power attached to that for our country as well where like same way emphasis being listed abroad gives India a lot of soft power there's a lot of respect attached to Indian businesses and Indian business in general when they see such successful you know companies out of India listed on foreign exchanges with great governance great track records it raises the profile of the entire country and gives us more reasons to be proud about our country so I absolutely feel that our that we should you know we should allow the government should allow Indian startups to or Indian companies in general to list abroad if they want to and list in India if they want to whatever they feel is right for their business to raise capital company should be allowed to do that and I mean you know since you're investing so much in the Indian startups are you also keen to invest in startups which are not in India European or American startups and particularly for you know ideas like cryptocurrencies which probably in India are not legal but you know outside in the world they are almost like a legal currency so yeah I think we've been investing in both Southeast Asia as well as US startups more from more than just looking at them as a means of return but more from the perspective of learning the US market sometimes in some spaces some sub sectors of the startup ecosystem tends to be a little head of the Indian startup ecosystem at least in some areas and by being entrenched in that ecosystem as an investor as well allows us to look into the crystal ball as to what are the trends that may be coming through to India soon Southeast Asia and very similar to India oftentimes we have Indian entrepreneurs running businesses in Southeast Asia so there's a lot of you know it's almost like an extension for all practical purposes of the Indian startup ecosystem but I think particularly the US startup ecosystem we've backed many companies there investor in many companies there at the earliest stages some of them have become unicorns and have become quite large it has really helped us get into and into the into get a lens into the various trends that will likely hit the Indian shores in the coming years as well sure and you know well we're almost at the end of our time let me ask you this that you know digitization is something that sort of really emerged as the as the king during this time and I mean you know and that of course requires a very big B2B ecosystem to develop to be able to service this digitization right but honestly I mean for a lot of SMEs manufacturing businesses family businesses to change in India what would be your advice to them to really to be able to adopt digitization and to make the most of it the idea is not just to become a digital and start selling online but really to make it as a fundamental value system of your business what what needs to change for them I think having an open mind probably you know everything every every technology every many things around us that we take for granted at one point were termed as something new or what we call oh this is technology right at some point electricity was that at some point cars were that you know so at one point even computers were that not too not too long yeah but what I've seen is that there is a natural selection there obviously there is a there is a responsibility industry has governments have to create awareness amongst those who may not have access to all the information but assuming that there is wide-scale awareness about the virtues of technology there are trainings available with YouTube I mean YouTube is the world's university in some ways like if someone wants to learn something they are no longer going and searching on Google and reading something they're going on YouTube and watching something and learning right it it may not give the in-depth view on how to do something but it will give you a fairly good overview in a in a simple in a very simplified manner that anyone would understand and women would understand that said assuming that let's assume that there is a lot of availability of information and evangelizing has been done around the virtues of digitization and more will be done but I think a lot has been done from the Prime Minister down and across the industry after that I feel it follows a process of natural selection companies large or small that adopt technology tend to grow thrive tend to expand into new avenues become more efficient hire great people and companies that don't because they just don't want to recognize the the shift that is happening in the world in the world around them in their industry even they get left behind the same things happened over and over again across sectors across decades maybe even across across centuries and this is no different I feel as as industry leaders folks like us have a responsibility to evangelize to the broader nation obviously the government plays a big role there has been playing a big role with digital India and startup India but beyond the point you can't go to someone's house and tell them that look if you don't use this your business will have face an existential risk then that recognition has to come from the business itself once all the efforts have been put to create the requisite events sure and you know finally I'm in today as a lot of IIT students who look to do a lot of startups and build their own organizations what would be your final advice to them you know how to have more guarded optimism you know it's it's a great time to do a startup and you know there is a lot of capital also available to back up some innovative ideas but it's still important to be more guarded rather than being overly optimistic about building your business no I I will probably again not I have a different view I feel that there is absolutely no reason that everyone shouldn't be trying their hand at either starting a company or joining a stock if if you are a student at IIT Bombay your risk is already so low because of you know you have one of the best degrees that anyone would get in the whole world you have one of the best access to one of the best peer groups that anyone could have in the whole world you have access to one of the best alumni networks that anyone could have in the whole world not just in India your risk is already limited now you may not have a great idea right now and so don't just go head first into the first idea that comes to your mind just because you know you want to do a starter go join a startup in the meanwhile keep working on whatever idea you have or ideas you may have on the side and when you feel you will you are ready and you will know when you are ready the voice from within you will tell you that you will not be able to think of anything else from the morning when you wake up when you're in the shower all day long when you're at work you'll be only able to think about that one idea that's when you know you are ready to go and you should go start your own company but I don't see any reason that anyone who's graduating from IIT Bombay this year should be pursuing anything else but either joining a startup or starting a startup and and I can tell you that the many many hundreds of entrepreneurs I've had the good fortune of supporting and backing or investing behind they either all started very early or they all tell me or if they were older when they started they they tell me that they wish they had started early I started our company one year out of college and and you know I don't think there is beyond a point there is diminishing returns to probably just being in the workforce if what your true calling is going is going and starting a company. Sure well thanks for that Kanan that certainly gives the hopes up to all the students out there listening to this and to all people who want to do their startup you know that the time is now and of course if you have the right idea just go after it and go out and do your own business well that's it for us for me and Kunal on this chat any final words as we close this Kunal. No thank you thank you Ritu thanks so much for having me you know I'm so so optimistic and excited about the startup ecosystem in India and you know I've had the good fortune of backing dozens of really great entrepreneurs from IIT Bombay we have some colleagues who are from IIT Bombay in our company as well and and and I and I hope one day to meet some of you and and talk with you and and brainstorm with you about the businesses you're going to build and of course we will be happy to write about them here at Entrepreneur and share your ideas and innovative businesses that you're building and and hopefully next time we meet Kunal it should not be on the confines of a screen but in person as we are almost there out of the pandemic and literally looking to go ahead racing and building big organizations in big India as we go ahead thank you for this talk