237: How TeleportMe rejected Google & Disrupted the Digital Map | Vineet Devaiah (CEO, TeleportMe)

[00:00:00] 10X or 100X real innovation that happened in India is the payments thing.

[00:00:04] Yeah, big thing.

[00:00:05] The other and the UPI and all that stuff.

[00:00:07] And a lot of companies are just built on top of it.

[00:00:10] Yeah, consumer website and everything.

[00:00:12] Fraud company.

[00:00:12] Fraud company.

[00:00:13] Fraud company.

[00:00:14] Dude I'm not trying to steal your 700 bucks you know.

[00:00:17] You're just like telling everything yeah we do this we do that.

[00:00:20] I was like yeah yeah tell them everything.

[00:00:23] This is like the the Apple and Zerok so yeah yeah yeah.

[00:00:26] We basically like told them literally how we do it.

[00:00:30] Right and we thought all that's a great meeting I mean I'm sure they learned a lot.

[00:00:33] If you're trying to sell us off you have to come in a car this is this is Delhi.

[00:00:38] You can't show up in a victim with your helmet.

[00:00:42] You can't do this.

[00:00:43] We got featured on the PlayStores.

[00:00:45] We were number one rated forever.

[00:00:48] I think maybe once or twice we went to number two and I was pissed.

[00:00:52] I went to Google I said what the hell this number two guys not even I just because

[00:00:57] we rejected your acquisition.

[00:00:58] Yeah I was pissed I was so pissed.

[00:01:02] Hello and welcome to another episode of the Startup Operator Podcast.

[00:01:05] I'm Roshan Karyapa.

[00:01:07] It was very unusual in 2012-2013 for an Indian founder a product to make it a tech crunch.

[00:01:14] It was even more unusual that the said founder had rejected

[00:01:19] an acquisition offered by Google after a couple of years of founding.

[00:01:23] Now I remember reading about Vinith and teleport me way back when around 2012

[00:01:28] and I followed his journey since and he sort of embodies that tinkerer spirit that kind of existed

[00:01:36] in those days.

[00:01:37] It was just a bunch of naive sincere enthusiastic passionate engineers trying to hack away at

[00:01:44] a problem that you know we thought was cool to solve very very different from the sophisticated

[00:01:50] ecosystem that we have today very different from the sort of maturity that you know we see

[00:01:55] right now with founders.

[00:01:57] So this was a trip down memory lane for me.

[00:02:00] We speak about various aspects of how building then and building now are different

[00:02:05] how these various ecosystems Vinith has been part of whether it's in the India ecosystem

[00:02:10] or SF or Europe and so on are different about product and aspects of engineering about growth

[00:02:18] product led growth specifically and so on and so forth.

[00:02:21] This was a lot of fun as you will see in the conversation and there are some amazing gems

[00:02:27] that you will find here.

[00:02:29] So I hope you like it.

[00:02:38] Hey Vinith welcome to the startup operator podcast thank you so much for making the time.

[00:02:42] Oh no problem man no problem thanks for inviting me I mean it's an honor

[00:02:47] No I mean it's my honor entirely.

[00:02:51] I mean I told you right I mean I discovered you around 2012 when on Twitter right teleport

[00:02:58] me made news that time for a lot of people and of course I mean we'll talk about all of those

[00:03:03] things but you know fundamentally right I don't meet a lot of people around from around then

[00:03:09] 2012 2013 time who's still like at it.

[00:03:13] So it was just a different circumstance right I mean you've seen 2012 when now in 2024 right

[00:03:20] when you contrast both of these like environments right what is it like starting up in 2012-13

[00:03:26] versus now I mean could you just take us back and give us a flavor of yeah absolutely I mean I

[00:03:31] think we started actually in 2010 so that was so much you've been building pretty much all

[00:03:37] of your professional career and before that also yeah so we started in 2010 and I don't know if you

[00:03:44] know this but my co-founder is the founder of postman oh yeah Abhinav wow so I and Abhinav

[00:03:50] we started teleport me together he was a student at BITS I was working in the US we came up with

[00:03:57] this idea to create a website for like exams like you know GRE and people asking okay which

[00:04:08] college to go to all that because that was the problem we were facing at that point right we just

[00:04:12] had graduate of college you was trying to get and that's how we started off so then I mean

[00:04:18] the environment is obviously very different I have not been in touch like I told you with

[00:04:23] Indian startup ecosystem for a while now but I think back in back in the day

[00:04:30] I was the first ours was the first company Indian company that actually got like a startup that got

[00:04:36] published in TechRange and next web and all of these places no one else was getting over there

[00:04:41] I think I was the only one at that point of time you know this is times of like Mike

[00:04:47] Harrington Sarah Lacey Paul Carr all the OGs of TechRange the old days the old days and they had a

[00:04:55] lot of value like when they wrote a post like it could make or break the company yeah and I was

[00:05:01] actually invited to TechRange studios for an interview back in like 2011-2010 and I think no

[00:05:08] other Indian founder had gotten there so it was it was everything was like a first I think at

[00:05:14] that point there were only two companies Indian companies that were in in the valley in the accelerators

[00:05:21] so there was Interview Street in YC oh yeah of course we were yeah and it was as Infanted

[00:05:27] so these are the two only two Indian Indian founders from India companies in those so it was

[00:05:32] it was a lot of fun I think because nobody had any clue there was not there was no professionalism

[00:05:39] now when you talk to people in the startup ecosystem they're all throwing like you like

[00:05:43] you know buzzwords cack LTV this that at that point it was just like hey you know I built this and

[00:05:49] people are using it and we think it'll be big can you give us some money yeah that was that

[00:05:53] that was kind of the whole thing and people were like really betting on like nobody's right

[00:05:58] at that point of time and today I think it's much more professionalized I think the I call them

[00:06:06] like the investment bankers and consultants have come into the startup world for good reason

[00:06:11] you know I think there's a lot of money to be made right and a lot of people want to make money

[00:06:15] and so this seems like a like they have they have professionalized it to a certain extent where even

[00:06:20] if you fail you still end up very rich yeah right and back in the day if you failed you were very

[00:06:26] poor yeah I mean you yeah you were just talking about your experience so like you know at that

[00:06:33] time if you fail you really really failed yeah like there was no you know VC money there's

[00:06:38] no like small soft exit nothing you just had to go get a job yeah so that was one of the things

[00:06:44] second is they weren't in India there weren't any angel investors like literally zero there was the

[00:06:49] only angel investing community was the Indian angel network I don't know if they're still there

[00:06:54] yeah they're still there yeah and I remember there was this lady called Padmaja Ruparel she was

[00:07:01] the head at that time I don't know if she's still there but and she invited me for to pitch

[00:07:07] to a bunch of angel investors I remember this was like the fanciest like place I'd gone to at that

[00:07:13] point of time I was like oh wow like this is amazing this was in the the Goldman Sachs office which

[00:07:19] is for the place name but between Korma and Indira Nagar there's like a big tech park somewhere

[00:07:27] oh okay and that's the ideal basically easier exactly easier easier golf links right yeah exactly

[00:07:33] and it was very very fancy it was a breakfast and I go and I start pitching and then I see the names

[00:07:39] and like nobody's a techie evidence like a real estate you know like someone's like you know it's

[00:07:44] just like no one's built or sold a technology company and I was like oh this is this is really bad

[00:07:49] and we were you know teleport may have always been a very tech focused company like everything

[00:07:55] we've built has been very technology focused none of the none of this like

[00:08:01] SAS stuff is like you know so very product very tech I think more tech than product based more

[00:08:08] vision based so it's very difficult to convince the angels here because they're all like okay you

[00:08:14] know what's the ROI blah blah blah what's the business model so they didn't have that kind

[00:08:18] of sophistication here and I don't think they still have it I think still the investors

[00:08:22] here are I'm the way I look at the quality of companies that are doing well I mean I'm sure there

[00:08:26] are companies that are doing deep tech that have gotten like some amount of funding here and there

[00:08:31] but I think generally the copycats or the the ones that have like the arbitrage of you know

[00:08:38] cheap labor they keep getting the bigger bigger bigger bigger checks because they're able

[00:08:42] to execute at a very high level with these kind of sort of perks I would say and so I think

[00:08:50] that I don't know I mean you can you can you can correct me because I'm not very familiar but

[00:08:54] I think that sort of 10x tech thing has gone out of at least the Indian ecosystem I think around

[00:09:01] the time that you talked about right I mean there were a lot of me to businesses right

[00:09:05] like an Indian Amazon an Indian Uber so on and so forth right obviously you know it's

[00:09:10] hard to build those businesses as well I mean it's not right so at that time I

[00:09:14] agree with you and that there are a lot of me to businesses but that time to build a flip

[00:09:18] cart was like 10x very difficult to build a flip car it was very difficult to build a red bus with

[00:09:24] like shit payment infrastructure almost absent yeah so even though it was a copy it was like a

[00:09:32] 10x better experience for an Indian yeah right so I think that's like I never looked at them

[00:09:37] so I think at that time there was like common floor and flipkart and red bus and these people

[00:09:45] really like what they built was so far ahead and what existed yeah right but now it's just like

[00:09:52] okay I have a chat app in the US I'll have five copycats here I have like a fresh desk and like

[00:09:57] you know what's that what is a zen desk and then I have a fresh like at least change the name

[00:10:00] you know like all right the startup is off to a glorious start we can cut things right

[00:10:08] no I think we should leave them you know I I often remind people that the hottest startup around

[00:10:18] that time red bus right yeah got acquired for 120 or 120 million yeah right and it was fabulous stuff

[00:10:25] I don't think the founders made that much money also possible I know the leadership team I mean some

[00:10:31] of those folks didn't really end up making money no not a few of them I mean moved to free charge

[00:10:36] after that and then they made bank but it was it was crazy that time you know I remember being at

[00:10:41] nascom product conclave I was organizing a session or something and then funny in the

[00:10:45] samar just walking around and like total rock star rock star yeah people taking like you know the

[00:10:52] first version of a selfie right I don't even know if you had a front camera at that time

[00:10:57] right I mean and like no we didn't know getting autographs and stuff like that it was crazy

[00:11:02] um yeah I mean you know the I'm so happy to meet you because also you represent that

[00:11:09] you know that tinkerer spirit you're saying I'm old that's what I said I'm happy to meet you because

[00:11:14] you're very old contemporary so I mean that the experience we call it we call it experience right

[00:11:21] but we don't have the tinkerer spirit anymore I mean sadly yeah I mean there are great things

[00:11:26] about being a lot more sophisticated I think people are founders are a lot more mature

[00:11:31] there's a lot more precedence right now to build things I mean whether it is like you know how to

[00:11:37] how to do your zero to one you know across like us asia whatever or you know how to go about

[00:11:43] building your engineering or product team etc because at that point of time there was so little

[00:11:49] like knowledge I mean everything was pretty much like we had to listen to Dave McClure or like

[00:11:54] Paul Graham or whatever the essay hasn't been like what does he say

[00:11:58] maybe this is this maybe this exists this world exists and then like contextualize all of that stuff

[00:12:03] for India right I mean it's uh yeah it was it was crazy it was such a wild time I mean nice time

[00:12:10] also I mean it was it was very difficult in India though like I think funding was was very very

[00:12:15] difficult I think all of the startups that got a little bit of funding I think had good exits

[00:12:22] not great exits but good exits because that was such a moat at that point of time like getting

[00:12:27] a five million dollar round was such a moat flipkart so five million was like talk of the town basically

[00:12:32] and I'm not even kidding you know you could probably name I mean it would probably be

[00:12:38] single digit number of deals right for a year or something very little anything of significance

[00:12:42] I'm not talking about like the 50 lakhs that you know I remember having this conversation with

[00:12:49] this guy who is I think he has a resort like a really big resort in Andhra and he calls me

[00:12:56] for a coffee I'll invest and he said how much you want I said I mean like I'll take like a crore

[00:13:03] and he's like okay what if I pay you 25 lakhs now and then like he and just ranch it out

[00:13:11] for like 40% of your company right that's not how Paul Graham said it's gonna work

[00:13:21] but but he genuinely wanted to help so I don't think that he he it's not like he didn't

[00:13:25] want to help and I don't think he had a bad intention but he just came from a background at

[00:13:29] that point I mean you know like there are a lot of very successful telegroup businessmen in Bangalore

[00:13:36] who are doing really well have a lot of money so he came from that he was not really the guy

[00:13:42] he was like the guy who represented the guys yeah I mean to be fair right and again I mean

[00:13:49] I think you know like what was what was startups actually at that time right I mean you're thinking

[00:13:56] about it's not like maybe like 60 70 million internet users if that right no payment infrastructure

[00:14:01] as a mean no payment infrastructure absolutely nothing I remember the I remember like you

[00:14:06] know having to do support on some of these the products that we're selling and the most

[00:14:11] irritating thing was like while that payment page was loading someone will click refresh okay

[00:14:16] and that refresh it would just annoy the hell out of me because people even if you put it in

[00:14:22] big bold do not refresh right that somehow get like anxious for that like waiting three seconds

[00:14:29] whatever and the banks would refund the money like in five working days right oh I don't know

[00:14:34] yeah five to seven working days you know and in the meanwhile you check Glassdoor and some you

[00:14:40] know consumer website and everything fraud company fraud company fraud dude I'm not trying

[00:14:45] to steal your 700 bucks you know oh my god so I think I was having this discussion with someone

[00:14:51] the other day and I think you know this this is what I kind of you know the 10x or 100x

[00:14:59] real innovation that happened in India is the payments thing yeah the other big UPI and all that

[00:15:04] stuff and a lot of companies are just built on top of it like and I think that's kind of

[00:15:11] what is needed in a lot of things and India is very capable have very capable engineers

[00:15:17] to do a lot of good stuff like we were able to build a software product that even till today

[00:15:22] no one has ever been able to build right like people have tried Google has tried Facebook has

[00:15:27] tried no like everyone has come and licensed our software right because they're like okay this

[00:15:31] is too difficult also maybe it's not too very important for them that's also a caveat there

[00:15:36] but still they couldn't build it they tried it they couldn't build it they couldn't sustain it

[00:15:40] and I think that unfortunately or fortunately like now you know the salary deserves skyrocketed

[00:15:47] it's very difficult to get very good talent who are passionate about like a vision like I don't

[00:15:53] know who would be really passionate about like sending emails quickly like from a techie perspective

[00:15:58] right like the really smart guys you know like the team that we had created at that point

[00:16:04] of time I mean I don't know I think that the highest salary was was up in now but he also never

[00:16:11] took the salary which is like 20k the lowest salary was 15k I mean that's how I didn't take a salary

[00:16:18] for like you won't get maybe half an intern now exactly so and they were like super and these

[00:16:24] are not coming from like bad colleges surat girl bits bits goa triple it and like one guys now

[00:16:32] like a professor phd from CMU wow so and other guys two other guys are phd's now in Germany so like

[00:16:38] the quality of people that you could have gotten at that point of time because there was not much

[00:16:42] like money competition because like people were either going to oracle or I don't know all these

[00:16:47] like infosys yeah and they were like oh my god this is this is crazy that we're not getting

[00:16:52] paid I mean there were people who came to our company leaving jobs that were like 2x 3x

[00:16:56] because they were like we want to do work in image processing it was the only company

[00:17:00] that we can find that's doing work on image processing right so like if you are that company

[00:17:04] that's really doing that kind of 10x work like really smart people will come and join you and

[00:17:09] you don't need that many people like recently there was this company that came out with

[00:17:16] the the coding thing the AI thing I forgot the name um Devin oh yeah of course right right

[00:17:23] and uh if you look at the team it's like 10 people sure right open AI started with like 12

[00:17:28] people right right so like that's why the the premium on talent is very high in in the valley

[00:17:34] like you know because to to build those 10x or you know 20x technologies that will give you

[00:17:41] that kind of return you need to have extremely good talented concentrated in one place and

[00:17:49] I think what has happened here now in sort of the startup ecosystem here is that

[00:17:55] it people raise a lot of money then they hire a lot of people but the quality of people they'd hire

[00:18:01] are not really good because you don't really need very good technology people to build stuff

[00:18:05] and slowly it becomes sort of a trend where you can't find these 10x guys because they go to abroad

[00:18:11] they and then you sort of have that brain drain yeah yeah so it's uh it's difficult to find those

[00:18:16] kind of talent also I think yeah I don't know no so I mean that's a fair point uh I do think

[00:18:23] a lot of this is changing right I mean so we've focused a little more on the deep tech and

[00:18:28] manufacturing folks on the podcast for instance right I mean there are people doing some cool

[00:18:32] stuff as well and I do see like a vibe shift of sorts uh for engineers saying hey boss I mean

[00:18:39] I'm not going to build the email faster or like you know check out faster or whatever I'm going

[00:18:43] to do some stuff with some more forms oh man 50 different types right yeah uh I'm gonna I'm going

[00:18:53] to make like robotic arms for instance I'm going to like you know do some computer vision yeah I saw

[00:18:57] that guy you're you're bought on your part because the robot is pretty cool yeah yeah so the people are

[00:19:02] doing cool stuff um you know going back to uh you know around that time right 20 30 20 14 maybe

[00:19:09] so the reason I got to know of teleport me and you was that you guys rejected a google offer right

[00:19:16] and Tecran said that you know the the range was about 15 or 20 million right right um and so on right

[00:19:23] and you've had acquisition offers after that as well yeah right and I was just like I was just

[00:19:28] simply like in my middle class mind I was just trying to do the conversion around that and

[00:19:33] I was like thinking oh okay how many 60 40s can you know or in bangles how many plots in

[00:19:40] how much acres can I buy and core you know and that right but uh man that's like a ballsy move right

[00:19:47] because you're in your 20s at that point of time very early 20 right I mean like 15 20 is like for

[00:19:53] all effective purposes like and we have not raised any money by that exactly right this was pre 500

[00:19:58] startups also the final startups yeah I mean it's crazy like yeah what made you like so confident

[00:20:03] hubris I think yeah I think um no I think at that point and even today I think that uh

[00:20:13] you know you have sort of I mean this goes slightly philosophical but uh I'd sold my first

[00:20:19] company when I was 15 wow for a million dollars so I and I never had this fascination for money

[00:20:27] right so even like you know I went to the US I've studied at Cornell very good school had a good job

[00:20:33] and I quit it without even thinking twice because for me it was never like

[00:20:38] I always knew I could make money like money was the easiest thing I could do like it's just

[00:20:42] it's too easy because there are too many dumb people that's okay that's one way of putting it

[00:20:49] no I mean you pay someone who is better than the others in doing something right and I always

[00:20:54] thought okay I'm above average right and so I'll definitely be in the you know in the top percentile

[00:21:01] in whatever I do so I'll always make money what I won't have is freedom what I won't have is my youth

[00:21:06] what I won't have is uh like I don't want to be on my death bed so and so regretting that I did not

[00:21:15] use what God has given me I mean you know you you're born with certain intellect and certain

[00:21:21] yeah certain intrinsic stuff and if I didn't use that I would feel some kind of regret

[00:21:29] so when that offer came in I the mistake I did in that is that I didn't really consult the team

[00:21:38] wow how did that conversation go it went really bad because I did not I did not

[00:21:43] I did not tell them about I did not tell TechRange about the acquisition I didn't tell anybody

[00:21:49] about the acquisition they came we went I had a meeting in Google they called us they saw the tech

[00:21:55] and then after that they tried to ask us questions about the tech because they were trying to build

[00:21:59] a street view app and oh yeah this is a google street view right I mean that's when I mean yeah

[00:22:06] and they tried it and they shut it down they shut down the program yeah they couldn't get it done

[00:22:11] and so we didn't know we were you know like oh google like you know google offices android

[00:22:16] you're so you're so pumped my guy said you know bless his soul like he's going to be an amazing

[00:22:22] game developer um he was just like telling everything yeah we do this we do I was like yeah

[00:22:27] yeah tell him everything this is like the the apple and xerox yeah yeah we basically like told

[00:22:34] them literally how we do it right and we thought oh that's a great meeting I mean I'm sure they

[00:22:38] learned a lot

[00:22:46] and then you know and then I you know I just came back and then one of the engineers the

[00:22:52] the guy who was the head of the engineering he reached out to me and he didn't even go through the guy

[00:22:58] who was the guy who got us there so we went there for the meeting through google play the

[00:23:03] guy who was running how was he running he was in the google play team and so you kind of saw your

[00:23:10] he saw yeah yeah yeah and then he was like wow the fact that you guys can make this on like

[00:23:15] because people forget in 2000 from android was launched in 2009 right and the kind of phones

[00:23:24] that were launched with shit absolute trash

[00:23:29] worst as a as a former samsung galaxy s user I can attest to that yeah just really bad right

[00:23:38] and we were able to build a camera capture on those kind of devices and it worked on all

[00:23:44] like devices even to like this the cheapest device right and all this is like sills

[00:23:50] you know if Sid ever watches this like his brilliance and so they were like wow you guys

[00:23:57] built it like you know we are struggling with our own camera apis how did you do it so that's

[00:24:02] why they invited us you know and that was a good thing and then and so he reached out to us

[00:24:07] and he said hey listen like if you're interested like because it would be a tech it would be a

[00:24:10] tech acquisition wouldn't be like a people acquisition and or like a user based acquisition

[00:24:17] right because we didn't have that many users so you know we had that discussion on the phone

[00:24:21] he sent an email said hey you know this is how much it's gonna be just let me know and then I then

[00:24:25] I'll bring in the business guys because if you get the business guys then it's like okay there's

[00:24:29] that there's a lot of discussion but if you're ready I can I can approve because he's the

[00:24:33] engineering manager I can approve to a certain extent and get you guys in and I don't know

[00:24:39] what what yeah please please tell me at least that you did the conversion right yeah yeah

[00:24:45] I did obviously I did the conversion and like I owned 70% of the company so it was like oh it was a

[00:24:50] lot of money and the 20 million was the was like in google stock and so on so forth right right

[00:24:59] and and then I had another conversation with him and then he said okay you know you'll have

[00:25:03] golden handcuffs for three years blah blah blah I said oh that's not too bad

[00:25:07] and then when I slept over it I said okay now this is where the hubris comes it's like

[00:25:11] we just started we just started you know 20 million dollars

[00:25:20] you know like maybe in a year you might be like 100

[00:25:27] that was hubris that was hubris I think that and we I knew and I knew that we were almost

[00:25:34] going to get into 500 um and I didn't tell anyone I didn't tell anyone because I didn't

[00:25:40] want it to be a big deal because I hate publicity I absolutely hate it I hate when people know me

[00:25:46] like this is the thing that I really really hate which is I kind of like disappeared I was like okay

[00:25:51] I'm done I'm out um I absolutely hate it like I was on like every times of India everything

[00:26:00] I was everywhere and the guy who rejected the google offer my mom didn't know this

[00:26:04] because I made sure like the newspaper never came home right

[00:26:10] there was this big dhamal in the family because like my mom goes for a walk and one of our neighbors

[00:26:16] is like oh Vinit came on the paper like she has no clue she comes home crying she's like how can

[00:26:24] you do this how can you not tell your own mother and she like her friend had given her the

[00:26:29] paper of her face I was like oh my god it was like a whole drama right and that's when I kind

[00:26:35] of realized I don't really enjoy like I don't end because at that point what had happened was

[00:26:40] suddenly I was elevated to this oh my god he's this guy you know like like that's when I thought man

[00:26:47] like one Tecrans article can make me from going from a nobody to like a somebody

[00:26:51] so then there is like a lot of like stupid value over there being created right

[00:26:56] and not only that I did a mistake also like what happened I don't know how long this podcast

[00:27:02] but there's a yeah go on no no time limit okay so there's a there's an article about me in the

[00:27:08] next web and the way it worked out was this is even before the google article this is before

[00:27:13] Tecrans and everything I was I was hustling in San Francisco trying to get funding and

[00:27:20] I was going from meeting to meeting and obviously I didn't have money to like

[00:27:24] get take the bot or whatever so I had taken my friend's cycle so for a year I was sleeping under

[00:27:29] my friend's bed oh wow in stanford he he was a PhD student you know shout out to Irwin Krishna

[00:27:36] and I went there saying dude I'll be there for two weeks

[00:27:43] ended up staying for almost nine months nine nine to nine to ten months and I had no money so I

[00:27:49] was using his credit card $9000 I still remember I had I paid him back full at that point of time

[00:27:55] so for that 10 months I used that 9000 all on his credit card everything so I didn't have his money

[00:28:00] I had his bike so everywhere I was going I would just bike and I don't know if you've been to

[00:28:03] san francisco all hills yeah yeah yeah so by the time you go from one meeting you're just sweating

[00:28:08] you know just dead inside and then this this this her name is Jolie I think she's also left the text

[00:28:20] in like every other report at that point and she put out a tweet saying that I'm sitting in a coffee

[00:28:26] shop and I'm bored whoever comes here first I'll write an article and she was like kind of at

[00:28:30] the Sara Lacey level okay I said let's go let's take that bike yeah let's go and at that time

[00:28:37] obviously I didn't even have internet on my phone right so I looked at it once before in the coffee

[00:28:43] shop in Starwark I said okay because in Google Maps it doesn't show you the hills

[00:28:52] it's not a problem I was just like then I saw the hills I was like oh my god and I thought okay by

[00:28:58] the time someone else would have come and taken that off because she was such a famous reporter

[00:29:01] that someone would have showed up and I should have very late obviously because I didn't know there

[00:29:07] were so many hills and no one showed up and she was just sitting there I said I showed up and I was

[00:29:12] like sweaty then she said okay you know what just come to my home like I'll get to something

[00:29:18] like I was just I was drenched I was just drenched right and no one like even my one of my

[00:29:25] employees he went to san francisco recently old employees and he said dude how

[00:29:29] were you doing it because he's like he didn't realize yeah like how how the hills are it's crazy

[00:29:35] it's crazy it's like how are you going around like I like it's crazy you know and so she wrote an

[00:29:40] article and at that point of time it just slipped out of my mouth that like I had sold out the

[00:29:44] company I'd never told this to anybody I'd like we had kept it under wraps and it was because

[00:29:48] I was tired you know and she was really nice to me and I didn't know she would write it

[00:29:51] this was my first article I didn't know you had to say this is off the table like you

[00:29:56] didn't know all of that I was just telling her the story and then she said okay you know we'll

[00:30:00] write it about like end of this week and at that time like you know there was no like I

[00:30:06] shouldn't even like give a first draft or anything because I wasn't that important right you know yeah

[00:30:12] and so that's how it came out and they still don't by the way I mean they just say that

[00:30:16] hey FYI this is going to go up I mean let us know if there are any factual errors or

[00:30:20] something on that side yeah but that that also they didn't nothing there was nothing

[00:30:23] it was just like okay it's gonna come on this date I said yeah great you know and I didn't

[00:30:27] know what she was gonna write there was a lot of like factual inaccuracies in what you wrote but

[00:30:33] but fine I was like okay that came out and then I got into find out startups and so at that point

[00:30:39] I was just like okay everything is going you know going like this exponential you know let's

[00:30:45] let's see where it goes so that's that's kind of how I decided so there were two parts of one

[00:30:50] was the hubris which is like hey you know like 20 this year 200 next year and the other was also

[00:30:57] like I didn't want to like I didn't want to sell I just didn't I just felt like you know like

[00:31:02] let's see where this go I had a good team you know I mean great guys right start okay let's go

[00:31:08] with us you ever regret it do I regret it no I don't really regret it I don't regret it

[00:31:14] I think that what I do think is I could have played it a little bit more smarter

[00:31:21] right I could have taken that and maybe raise the series a or something like that I wasn't

[00:31:24] smart enough there I just I kind of just thought okay this is what happens here yeah

[00:31:31] yeah so but to be fair man I mean it was such a rare thing to have very very good app at

[00:31:38] that point of time yeah right that wasn't one of your social network type of you know

[00:31:43] yeah I mean we were called the Instagram from Bangalore

[00:31:47] I kid you not this is headlines on some paper Instagram of Bangalore yeah can the next Instagram

[00:31:52] come out of Bangalore like that was how it was that's like dude no

[00:31:58] yeah yeah yeah it was and you know credit to the team at that point of time like so at that time

[00:32:04] right now you have play stores have country-wide apps right so every country has their own

[00:32:10] play store and everything that time you didn't have that you had international like everybody got

[00:32:14] the same play store and we were featured almost all the time on the banner amazing right yeah and

[00:32:21] that was really bad for us to be very honest it was great like because a lot of wrong people

[00:32:25] were downloaded app lot of churn and so a lot of churn and so it was very demoralizing in

[00:32:32] that way but it also nice to see that kind of you know great yeah yeah but you've been

[00:32:37] at it for what 10 12 14 years now I mean it's it's 14 years yeah it's it's pretty crazy man I mean

[00:32:45] I think you know we spoke about how founders and startups are a lot more sophisticated right

[00:32:49] now and you know you have a bunch of these build to sell kind of startups yeah I mean like start

[00:32:54] something in this X or Y will get you know will acquire you at some point of time

[00:32:59] or you could be a good complimentary product for this one legacy company in your space and so on

[00:33:04] right I mean it is what it is no judgment I mean there is like a no we can totally just why not just

[00:33:17] I think I'm going to get a lot more DMs after this episode I think for sure right but

[00:33:22] yeah cut wherever you want to go there's no problem so yeah I mean so it's it's such a contrast

[00:33:31] it is a big contrast yeah I mean so what does it take for you to like build a long term sustainable

[00:33:37] startup be at it for so long and like still be so kicked about it I think I think for me it's really

[00:33:47] like for me my personal thing I can say is that I'm sort of like a dog with a bone

[00:33:55] you know I'm very very persistent and I think it's just like a quality in me like I honestly

[00:34:03] teleport me should have shut down if I was like business smart in like 2014 right we were we weren't

[00:34:10] burning money we don't want to have and raise that but we were unprofitable not profitable

[00:34:15] I think final startups was about what 200 300k no no no no um oh no you're right yeah

[00:34:22] about that much yeah you're right you're right they they followed on where 100 came off so 50 plus

[00:34:27] 100 okay 50 and we had raised 400 as a plan we were the like we raised it in like a day oh and

[00:34:35] again another mistake I should have gone I should have gone I was like I'm gonna be like

[00:34:42] I mean you're paying 15,000 20,000 salary service points yeah it was it was you know and

[00:34:48] like credit to the guys man like they you know like the funding happened in 2012 right so 2010

[00:34:55] 2009 and 10 11 we literally like were building websites stuff like that I don't know I think

[00:35:03] they're there India Innovation Fund yeah they're still there they're there we built their first

[00:35:07] website we went on for funding I said you know what why don't you build a website

[00:35:12] I said okay

[00:35:16] oh man so random I mean it is kind of funding but not really

[00:35:23] oh that was good look at this we'll fund you but yeah can you also build us a website

[00:35:30] so we did a lot of the stuff we did I was basically we had our office in Noida so Abhinav's

[00:35:36] dad had an office had an apartment in Noida and we couldn't afford office space so we all moved

[00:35:41] to Noida all of us and we were living all together and I tried to do so BD at that time

[00:35:48] the business that and so I would I would take my Victor from good go no I don't go to go almost

[00:35:54] like on a daily basis selling virtual tours right and so this I remember once this Bangalore guy

[00:36:00] who was a part of one of the real estate companies right I go in and I'm pitching him

[00:36:05] and all the stuff and then he just says just come out and I come to Sesi I know you're from Bangalore

[00:36:12] I know you're from the south but you can't come in a bike if you're trying to sell us off

[00:36:17] you have to come in a car this is this is Delhi you can't show up in a Victor with your helmet

[00:36:24] you can't do this he said yeah this is all this is all okay in Bangalore you know we're

[00:36:30] Delhi this is not gonna work

[00:36:38] maybe this is not what I have to do

[00:36:40] you know there were a lot of good stories over there yeah there's a lot of good stories and a lot of

[00:36:47] learning of business but I remember this very clearly because he just like we were sitting in the

[00:36:52] we were sitting this is I think

[00:36:54] I forgot the name of the company but it was the it was the Dhoni company Lodhi or Lodhi

[00:36:59] Lodha right yeah and one guy had seen our product and he said okay this is really good come present

[00:37:07] to like the marketing team I show up with a helmet in my hand

[00:37:15] jeans you know I mean you know in Bangalore that's fine it's totally fine not even in Bangalore

[00:37:21] okay I'll tell you this I mean I used to do a bunch of freelance work and anytime I mean I had a

[00:37:26] few of these real estate clients as well that is the only pretty much the only time I wore like

[00:37:30] formals proper formals right I mean no one would be so hung up on it but I guess it's like the

[00:37:35] nature of the industry and so on yeah yeah yeah so he I came I pitched they liked the product

[00:37:40] they didn't really say anything I mean they bought it at the end of the day but he just

[00:37:44] after that he got up like I didn't know who he was he just got up he said can I talk to you

[00:37:49] you say I'm from Bangalore he said I'm from Bangalore this is you know you have to come at

[00:37:54] least in a car get a taxi do something you can't show up in a bike

[00:37:59] but yeah I mean anyway I forgot the question but how are you how you've been at it for so long

[00:38:06] what does it take to build like a build for the long term how to build for the long

[00:38:10] the one is you have to have a very very good team a team that is in it for the long term right I think

[00:38:19] there are a lot of decisions to work with as well fun to oh my god you honestly don't work with

[00:38:24] people you don't like yeah that was a big thing in my hiring process is like I'm not going to hire

[00:38:30] anybody that is not fun to work with however good I mean however good they are whatever it is

[00:38:37] they have to be fun to work with they have to be curious intellectually very curious

[00:38:43] and sort of have a fire in the belly even if they're super eccentric and all everybody

[00:38:49] know my team was super eccentric like some of the stories are crazy including Abhinav and said

[00:38:56] all of them just very like like the stuff they do is you know no normal person would you do

[00:39:02] I mean you're going to be with these people for about 12 hours a day right I mean you have at least

[00:39:07] that is the key yeah I mean you should really enjoy the company not just barely tolerate them I would

[00:39:12] say and the guy so right now you know we do about a million to two ARR and we're two people

[00:39:20] wow so and the guy who's the CTO or you know with me right now is is my friend that used

[00:39:26] to play basketball with in 12th standard you know and so we enjoy each other's companies our wives hated

[00:39:37] can you do something different

[00:39:40] but I think that yeah that's that's the key I think long term you should have good co-founders

[00:39:46] you should have good people to work with your team should be really passionate about what you're

[00:39:50] doing and the only way you can do that is if you're building something that has a vision

[00:39:54] that they all are bought in if the vision is you're going to like flip the company or we're going to

[00:39:59] do get the next series so that you can get more salary people will leave for the next

[00:40:03] and it's really hard you know one thing I've realized about startups is that

[00:40:07] however hard you think it is it's going to be probably like at least 10x harder 10x right every

[00:40:13] you know in its every stage it's not just yeah exactly yeah exactly right and and even the

[00:40:18] larger startups I mean even you can count the listed startups have I've probably had like

[00:40:23] two or three near-death situations easy easy right easy so I think if you know your motivation is like

[00:40:29] hey let's just flip this you're going to give up at that point right because it's not going to make

[00:40:32] logical sense for you to continue then yeah yeah yeah so I think that that's that's the thing but

[00:40:38] you know I think it's changed it's really really changed and you know the the market salaries

[00:40:47] are so high for startup people like I meet my friends now and they're all like doing one CR

[00:40:53] two CR I was like wow that's you know when we were in college like Karod Pati was a thing yeah

[00:40:58] and now everyone's like you know making that much money so how does a startup even hire someone at

[00:41:04] like let's say 20 lakh let's say right 20 lakh and not 15,000 but 20 lakh when you're getting

[00:41:12] like two crores right it's very difficult it's very difficult and so I see why they have to raise money

[00:41:19] because the talent is really really difficult to get having said that I really believe that if you

[00:41:27] have a strong vision especially a technical vision you can find people who are passionate about

[00:41:33] that particular problem and they will find you you know they will find you because

[00:41:40] I don't know about you like sometimes things that I'm interested in I'm just like constantly reading

[00:41:44] about it right like if if I want to invest in a company or in climate or something that and

[00:41:49] I have this idea and I'm like thinking okay this is a cool idea like who's doing this you know I can

[00:41:53] just like google it and you'll find companies that are doing this stuff so my hypothesis

[00:41:59] is that the most talented people in any market are always severely underpaid

[00:42:04] yes yes always always because a I don't think people can really estimate how much outcome these folks can

[00:42:11] deliver and b I mean they frankly don't give a shit about the money all of the other stuff

[00:42:16] right I mean they just want to do good meaningful work yeah right so yeah yeah and it's always the

[00:42:22] the the least talented person that's making the most amount of money yeah yeah like it's that

[00:42:27] whole median I feel like like from okay to somewhat like you know yeah somewhat yeah I mean

[00:42:34] at a certain level it's not like what you know but who you know right and sometimes like you know

[00:42:39] like you have this whole cult over here about the IITs and the IAMs it's just it's nauseating

[00:42:45] and I mean like they are really smart I mean no doubt about it like you know I have a lot

[00:42:49] of friends who are not but just because you're smart doesn't make you like more valuable to a

[00:42:55] certain startup to a certain startup that has to be some kind of fit right like there's got to be

[00:43:01] proof of work also there's got to prove of work also initially when I was younger I always thought

[00:43:06] that they were better because they had work ethic because like to get into IITs or the unit

[00:43:13] slog as often that's what companies are looking for so I totally get it when like big companies

[00:43:18] want to hire them like the BCG's and the Mackenzie's because if nothing you know they

[00:43:23] have work ethic right with guys like us who are like you know borderline decent college

[00:43:30] it's tough to say okay they are smart but maybe they're lazy right but for startups

[00:43:35] it's not really like that skill doesn't really translate. Yeah because it's not like

[00:43:45] you have to clock out an X amount of work every day and then you'll get to some predictable

[00:43:49] outcomes right I mean whatever it is like work ethic is really you have to slog but work ethic is not

[00:43:55] really like you like for example like my favorite programmer of all time is John Carmack the guy

[00:44:03] who created Quake and all that stuff and you know he's legendary for like just working for 24-48

[00:44:08] hours but then he would not work for weeks because he only worked on the most important

[00:44:15] problems and he was so focused on that one important problem that he would find solutions

[00:44:19] for it and the rest of the people will say okay just do the other stuff right and I think

[00:44:24] that's the kind of people you want to find a nurture and I hope you know like startups are

[00:44:30] doing that at this point of time but it doesn't look like it because everyone's like building forms.

[00:44:37] No offense to anyone who's building forms. No please please edit it I'm just

[00:44:40] not this is how I speak. We need all kinds of products right so yeah no no I mean

[00:44:45] so you are a product guy right and I think you are an everything guy but I mean let's say I mean

[00:44:51] you have a passion for product right. Yeah I mean I think I do have a passion for product but

[00:44:55] I know that I'm not the best at it because I work with Abhinav who is a phenomenal product guy

[00:45:00] like it just is very intuitive yeah like he would come up with something like huh okay like

[00:45:06] I didn't think about that so I know that there are much better product guys but in the in the

[00:45:13] large you know in the in the general skill of things yeah you could call me a product guy.

[00:45:16] Right I wanted to ask you about product led growth right I mean which is kind of a thing

[00:45:22] you know it was a thing I would say I mean a year and a half back I mean now people are back

[00:45:26] to hiring SDRs and like you know calling people to use their product and whatnot but

[00:45:31] I would say Teleport me had that product led growth right I mean it's not like

[00:45:35] you guys were running paid ads at that time or you know doing some fancy SEO stuff or

[00:45:39] you know holding placards and banners at events and stuff like that right but you guys like got

[00:45:44] like many tens of thousands even like hundreds of thousands of downloads like very organically

[00:45:49] right I mean there was some intrinsic pull in the product that you know attracted people to it

[00:45:54] and kept them using it right. Having seen that right what do you think are like those principles

[00:46:00] for product led growth what do you have to get right what do you have to bake in your product

[00:46:05] for people to for your product to sort of become eligible for something like that.

[00:46:13] So first of all like I think product led growth has nothing to do with the UX or UI or any of

[00:46:18] that stuff your product has to be at least 3x what is there in this market like the reason

[00:46:24] our product did well was not because we had great screens we did have all of that the

[00:46:29] fact that we could capture panderamas on an android phone was ridiculous at that point

[00:46:34] so like it felt like magic it's like chat GPT which is the most recent example it's not like it has

[00:46:40] a great interface and you know that it's just what it does is kind of magic right functionality over

[00:46:45] form right and like I mean a good example of PLG is actually postman right when postman came out

[00:46:52] I didn't understand what it was right but it what it did was something that was maybe 10x

[00:46:57] what was there in the market nothing else did it yeah right and so a product led growth starts

[00:47:01] with the product and that product has another example is Figma right and so Figma they took

[00:47:08] like four years or five years to build the product but when the product released it was so much better

[00:47:14] yeah just so much and better than like there was another product that was very similar to it

[00:47:18] which we were using I forgot the name I know what you're talking about wait sketch yeah

[00:47:24] very similar yeah right sketch was awesome actually sketch was very like yeah it was

[00:47:28] awesome but Figma was so much better I yeah because Figma did browser yeah Figma did browser

[00:47:35] Figma also built for teams teams collaboration and also so that's the 10x thing so that's how

[00:47:40] product led growth goes which is your product is so good not in UX and UI and what are these

[00:47:47] these things those are parts of it but in terms of its utility it's like almost 10x

[00:47:55] better than whatever is in the market so how do you build that kind of a product I mean do you just

[00:48:00] organically stumble into that idea or do you think that you know two or three things have to happen

[00:48:06] for you know that product to like be that good well you need to have a good team right you need

[00:48:12] to have people who can execute on a vision quick enough right like

[00:48:22] and you need time so like if I was say let's say let's let's take a product right let's take

[00:48:28] product that is really bad say Slack right okay no when Slack came out it was 10x better than what

[00:48:39] is there yeah right yeah but now it's not it's slow it's clunky it doesn't work it's enterprise

[00:48:45] basically it's extremely yeah anything that goes into slack is slowly trying to become one of these

[00:48:50] SAPs or oracles of the world basically yeah so so now you know that this is not the future

[00:48:56] now let's say you know you have a inclination that something else is the future I don't know what

[00:49:00] it is if I if I knew I would have built it but it's something you know then you get like 10 guys

[00:49:06] or girls who are extremely talented and you say okay if we can build this in three years

[00:49:12] not like MVP Dallow that is also a part which is like you take the feedback the problem is

[00:49:17] it's like taking it's I don't know who said was that Ford or somebody who said it like if you ask

[00:49:21] faster horse is yeah right was that for classic yeah it's the same thing it's like if you ever

[00:49:25] take an MVP that's not a product let grow that's basically you're building a 1x or

[00:49:31] you know maybe 2x better product than what is existing and people say okay these are my problems

[00:49:36] can you fix it and you fix it and then they pay that's not really product like it's like you have

[00:49:40] this vision okay like this is how people should interact right like postman he thought okay this

[00:49:46] is how people should be using curl right chat chat gpt could have done a lot of different things

[00:49:51] but they said no we're going to build a chat interface where people are going to do this

[00:49:54] and they're going to do that so this is the vision we have how AI is going to take over

[00:49:58] the world right they could have built an enterprise product they could have built so many different

[00:50:02] they could have built a a stack for google and they sold it to google something they could have

[00:50:07] done a lot of different things but this is how they thought the AI should be introduced to the

[00:50:12] world right and that was that that to go from what they had or how they started I think

[00:50:18] they started in 2015 I think they released in 2023 oh open air yeah okay right so eight years

[00:50:27] they just built built built they had a lot of money right they had a vision and they had

[00:50:32] really smart guys so but when it goes out then obviously sometimes it's a flop or whatever it is

[00:50:39] but that's product-led growth now how do you manufacture it it's very difficult that's where

[00:50:43] like those visionaries come where like your vision is correct your team is able to execute

[00:50:49] and you have the you have certain amount of money and certain amount of risk capital

[00:50:53] that is saying okay we want to kill slack but we want to build something it's bigger than this I'll

[00:50:58] give you like 20 million dollars you don't have to give them like these companies in India there is

[00:51:01] like 100 200 like ridiculous amount of money right and they put it in like ads

[00:51:09] you know like find 10 guys and give them 10 15 million and all of that is like some conspiracy

[00:51:14] to make google and facebook rich or it i'm never giving them money i haven't run a single ad for

[00:51:23] yeah but basically have like a strong perspective strong the problem that it has and have a have a

[00:51:30] killer team pay them well find an investor give them significant equity anywhere between 20 to 30

[00:51:36] percent get that check in say this is what the future is and then you build that future now

[00:51:41] sometimes the future is easy to build whatsapp it's a product-led growth there's nothing

[00:51:47] it was just better than sns yeah right but it was so much better so much better right so it's very

[00:51:53] difficult like instagram the product itself is not that great like it's a photo sharing it's a photo

[00:51:59] sharing but what existed before that yeah and what existed after that like 100x better than flicker

[00:52:05] and yeah all of those yeah so that's all like so I would say if if you are a product person

[00:52:10] and if you have any kind of technical chops that you think you're good at not some like

[00:52:16] I can take some tailwind and boilerplate stuff but if you can like truly build something great

[00:52:22] like have a vision and just find two friends who are also technically great and like try to sell

[00:52:30] that to them and build it and that's how generally it works right I'm very curious about how you

[00:52:39] um built the app which which almost seems like it should have been a native app by one of these

[00:52:47] OEMs right I mean Apple I mean has an app but you know not full 360 right full 360 is only

[00:52:52] teleport right even on Apple and plus like the dependability on the devices itself right I mean

[00:52:58] like you said I mean it has to work almost the same on all of your interfaces on all of your

[00:53:04] devices and stuff right I mean I think that's like a massive technical problem right so could you

[00:53:09] share some insights on you know what problems you faced there and how you went about solving it

[00:53:14] people I know that could be like a whole two hour conversation but yeah in that it's just like

[00:53:18] you've got to find people and these are not like I'll tell you so the guy said that's Sivraman

[00:53:27] he built our capture on android the guy never built anything on

[00:53:31] once this is a good story but basically we wanted to we quote unquote we said we had the first online

[00:53:41] photo stitcher which is you would upload the photos it would stitch them online and it would give you

[00:53:46] the output and I had to do the demos right and sometimes it works sometimes not work

[00:53:52] so what Sid did was he wrote a script that would take the photos put into another software

[00:54:00] and stitch it and show it back wow we didn't even know this

[00:54:06] oh wow this is amazing and he's like yeah this is my good

[00:54:11] then secretly he was building the actual thing which he managed to do

[00:54:16] wow so but he slogged he really really slogged to build it right and then when

[00:54:24] I don't think any of us maybe even Asthan I don't know maybe he knew it but like we

[00:54:29] didn't know how we built it he would just close himself in the room for like hours

[00:54:33] they'll come back have a cup of tea eat something go back sleep wake up like just go up and that

[00:54:40] shitty phone he would just keep turning turning it's like for hours he would do it

[00:54:47] we were like he's doing something you know we're paying him like 15,000

[00:54:51] and then someone's salary also would not come and yeah it was good stuff so I really think

[00:54:59] it's about the people you have to find even for iOS we found two guys who just graduated from school

[00:55:05] super passionate about what they wanted to do in image processing one is Chitra this Chetan

[00:55:10] Chetan is doing his PhD in Germany I think Chetan is also doing his PhD in Austria

[00:55:15] and young out of out of school like out of college

[00:55:22] Shishir was an IT Bhopal and Chetan was some college in Bangalore I don't remember

[00:55:29] and you would never think that they would build a product that nobody in the app store can build

[00:55:36] right but they did it they've slogged absolutely slogged right because they really wanted to do

[00:55:44] it and then now this is the big breakthrough what happened was there was this Chinese dude

[00:55:50] who who worked for I forgot which company and he had built a a selfie panel a panel selfie

[00:55:56] which is you just like you could just take like you take a selfie of a panel

[00:56:01] and as panel was the other side but his capture was really good like the way you capture

[00:56:09] it and so we thought we need to get this guy on so we hounded him hounded him hounded him

[00:56:15] he's like no no no I won't tell you I won't tell you and finally we said okay we'll give you some

[00:56:19] equity blah blah blah can you help us he said fine I'll talk to you and I'll help you this is

[00:56:24] some random Chinese dude you know and he and he has a full-time job very very smart guy

[00:56:31] and I remember the first time we had a call he was without his shirt

[00:56:34] and I was like first call with this dude and me and these two guys are sitting this

[00:56:40] this Chinese guy without shirt it's like yeah yeah yeah we can and I don't know if he knew or

[00:56:44] didn't know that the camera was on that guy saw potential in what Chetan and

[00:56:52] and Shishir were doing and he's like okay these guys can do it you know because they

[00:56:58] were so interested in it and then he like they would do something they would send him the

[00:57:01] results he would say try this try that and so like if these people didn't have that passion to do it

[00:57:08] this other dude this Chinese dude who's working somewhere you know who built a shirtless yeah

[00:57:15] he wouldn't have that like I think that okay these people can do it let me help them right

[00:57:21] and we didn't see an app come out for like almost two years on iOS because it's so difficult

[00:57:27] to do right but when it came out it was the fastest capture it did a full 360 it had the highest

[00:57:34] resolution yeah right so it's like we killed it in the market insane yeah yeah so again the solution

[00:57:42] is hire really passionate people and then point them very less stop them stop them point them at

[00:57:50] the hardest hardest problems you know because you should you should feel like they should feel

[00:57:56] like you know this is this is it this is our thing you know like I mean think about it like they both

[00:58:00] I can I can tell you in about like 250 plus I don't think anyone has given this advice right

[00:58:10] but but yeah man I mean I kind of get the thinking right because I do feel

[00:58:19] you know since we've gotten sophisticated right I feel like we put everything in our process now

[00:58:24] x y and then z will happen it's a total banya right it's like it's the it's the but some things are

[00:58:32] I feel like something like I'll give you an example right I mean uh was working for a company

[00:58:38] we sold something to the Japanese right right a Japanese client and obviously right I mean

[00:58:45] you know your apps whatever it is we'll have a bunch of writers like it'll work in this this

[00:58:50] this this conditions right but that's not how they think about it right I mean

[00:58:56] Japan I mean they like their software like they like their bridges basically they like it done yeah

[00:59:01] right you don't you don't say that hey this bridge I mean you know if you stand here it can

[00:59:06] creak a little bit right you might want to like don't press that button there don't press that

[00:59:10] button or don't like stomp or whatever right I mean it's done it's done that's it's gonna do

[00:59:14] this it's gonna do this and I remember obviously like you know we had kind of assumed but then we

[00:59:21] realized that there are a bunch of these iOS limitations and stuff right and they were like oh

[00:59:28] okay solve it right and they're like hey iOS limitation right this is like this is out of

[00:59:34] our hands right and they're like okay get the Apple engineer to do it you know but but it took

[00:59:41] like one dude yeah right and he knows if he's listening right say give a shout out to to basically

[00:59:49] I mean he's he's like the humble kind so you won't like like it but to basically like work weeks on

[00:59:56] end to kind of fix that's what that's the only way you can build right great stuff yeah now I don't

[01:00:02] know how you can kind of put this in a like predictable process I don't know I don't know

[01:00:07] actually right I mean because some of these things are so outrageous I mean it's not something you expect

[01:00:12] anyway right but now that you've done it I mean it just unlocks such a big lever for you right I mean

[01:00:17] now you're like that one app that's got all those capabilities yeah and no one can compete with

[01:00:22] you because you can compete with you because most huge more most reasonable people will say hey

[01:00:27] screw this yeah right I mean let's find something more meaningful to do it some more forms to

[01:00:32] something more rewarding to do right I mean why do this yeah exactly so I do feel the kind of craziness

[01:00:38] the kind of passion is very underrated it is it is and I think seriously and I think that that's

[01:00:45] that's where like I think you know I really wish I would have seen I mean very few product companies

[01:00:52] like real product companies come out of India because I think everyone's just like there's

[01:00:58] a difference between an like an inventor an entrepreneur and a businessman and I think a lot

[01:01:04] of startup founders now are businessmen right they look at okay this company is selling it at $29

[01:01:10] per month maybe if I hire instead of 10 people I had five people I can sell it for $15 a month

[01:01:15] right and that's kind of how they build their products and softwares I think it's like

[01:01:19] various curves of innovation man the way I look at it right I mean I think in the

[01:01:24] initial days it was just simple for us to do an arbitrage right I mean hey you are spending

[01:01:30] x amount of dollars I'll spend x minus like or x buy some number of dollars and and build this

[01:01:36] and like give you the same product and then it was like oh okay this product I mean let me just

[01:01:40] translate that into my context here and sell it but we're finally getting to a point

[01:01:45] where people are like oh you know what I can actually build something for the world you know

[01:01:50] and I can look at problems from my perspective I'm the greatest example is all these developer tools

[01:01:58] solutions right whether it is you know postman hasura oh right that's hasura that's the name of

[01:02:03] the company I was trying to remember right bunch of these guys right I mean because it kind of

[01:02:07] makes sense I mean India has a highest number of developers right and what you build here will

[01:02:11] be relevant for anyone else right so they're absolutely killing it yeah and so much of it

[01:02:17] is like all product led right I mean like browser stack for instance amazing company I heard this crazy

[01:02:22] story that you know they didn't have a marketing guy until they were like 50 or 60 million no that's

[01:02:26] an amazing company this is insane great product as a marketing guy I mean that was an afferent to me but

[01:02:32] yeah yeah I mean and that's that's what I'm kind of trying to say is like I think India can

[01:02:36] build many more of these products many more of this person because our engineers are the

[01:02:42] our guys that come out of engineering colleges they don't learn anything in engineering

[01:02:45] but they're really smart yeah right very well they figure it out they will figure it out it's just

[01:02:49] you need to give them the opportunity to figure them out don't like you know

[01:02:53] tangle a two crore salary and just say ah why don't you join us yeah yeah yeah so you have about

[01:03:00] 10 million plus downloads I think right now right I mean 20 wow insane insane number

[01:03:08] what did you do to get this growth man because I mean I understand like the first level of growth

[01:03:12] was organic I mean like it was purely product lead and so on but beyond that right I mean what are those

[01:03:18] channels that kind of kicked in for you because it can't just be accidental right I mean obviously

[01:03:23] there were some deliberate decisions made on like x y or z things that kind of led to you know 20

[01:03:28] million hmm yeah I mean there's a lot of decisions but I think the insane growth

[01:03:38] is really attributed to just building something that did not exist in the market at that

[01:03:42] point of time and then had a lead basically we had a lead we got featured on the play stores

[01:03:47] we were number one rated forever I think maybe once or twice we went to number two and I was pissed

[01:03:54] I went to Google I said what the hell this number two guy is not even I just because we rejected

[01:04:00] your acquisition yeah I was pissed I was so pissed and I was like how I downloaded their reviews

[01:04:06] ratings I've said how is it even possible we have higher ratings we have more ratings

[01:04:12] they have less ratings there less reviews how are they rated number one I was so pissed

[01:04:16] even though they were up only like a month right so obviously you have to have that competitive

[01:04:21] drive to like want to be very very good now uh then once you once you get there

[01:04:29] then if you've built something that is just so much more ahead people have to work really hard

[01:04:34] to catch up with you right and then people try and they give up so all the users that tried

[01:04:39] and got that app they'll just come to our app so a lot of that has happened because like Street View

[01:04:43] tried tried tried and they said okay screw it so all the street you guys came to us right now we

[01:04:49] could have we didn't really monetize them because we are now going into like doing the the SaaS stuff

[01:04:54] but that part also could have monetized so but how are these people finding you they're

[01:04:58] all finding on the play store yeah play store and like anytime someone wants any panorama app

[01:05:03] there's we are the only one it's like where it will they go so you own the category basically

[01:05:08] we own this a very small category that no one cares about yes we do on that awesome I mean 20 million

[01:05:13] people so 20 million download download yeah yeah yeah act is about two million right right that's not

[01:05:18] bad absolutely not right so uh but this also means that you know you are really building with the

[01:05:26] users right I mean you're like taking their feedback very seriously kind of understanding

[01:05:30] their life and their journey how they want to use this app and so on and so forth right

[01:05:36] now as you scale that becomes a little more difficult right because there are just so many too many

[01:05:40] use cases yeah to like you know uh talk to and also people are using it for like god knows how many

[01:05:47] reasons crazy reasons yeah you can't even fathom I mean we really thought we hit like total market

[01:05:53] penetration when people started using it for porn you're like now this is we have reached this

[01:06:00] we would see something like this is real porn like why people are like on our side

[01:06:05] they're like okay now how have you reached that's like the peak that's the peak when people start

[01:06:09] coming to your app and start uploading use it for porn that's when you reached yeah the pinnacle

[01:06:14] and then you made this pivot from B2C to B2B right you want to be a serious business right and

[01:06:20] started to enter prizes right so well I think we never wanted to be like a sass our vision was

[01:06:28] to build a Wikipedia and a street view so our thing was so if you go to our deck in 2011 to 2012

[01:06:35] it was like there's going to be a revolution where there's going to be a VR and AR world coming in

[01:06:41] and for that you need data for like now what they call as LLMs and the only company that has

[01:06:48] any kind of visual date of the world is Google at that point of time now Tesla has it and we

[01:06:53] said similar to the internet where the best information that you can get is Wikipedia

[01:07:03] which is crowdsourced and just well organized instead of giving all the information to Google

[01:07:10] and that's why Google wanted to because that was a vision it's like can we build a crowdsourced

[01:07:15] street view because then like for example inside buildings inside places like not the roads

[01:07:27] if you try to imagine like a glass like a Google glass like we were the first company to get the

[01:07:32] Google glass in Asia that was also like a big deal you know so if you search Google glass in

[01:07:38] India you'll see my photo with the glasses right nice right so if you want to if that

[01:07:45] reality has to exist which it will exist right because the camera is the most powerful information

[01:07:52] source you can ever find right and so if that reality has to exist there has to be this

[01:07:59] massive database of like if I'm sitting over here I need to be I need to know that I'm

[01:08:04] looking at this part or I'm looking at this part or I'm looking at this part that kind of

[01:08:08] awareness has to be there so you need a database out of which you can build and model and all that

[01:08:15] stuff and I think was we will crowdsourced it so that crazy vision in 2012 right yeah that's almost

[01:08:22] like a Google level vision like yeah I mean that's the data of the world basically right I mean

[01:08:26] yeah right so that that's that was kind of what like I said there were two reasons why

[01:08:29] I rejected one is I thought that the vision was kind of crazy enough that I could build it and

[01:08:34] otherwise you would risk so

[01:08:41] yeah so I think that was the that was what we wanted to do but unfortunately that didn't make

[01:08:47] enough money right and we tried a lot of things we tried a lot of things in 2016 2017

[01:08:55] when VR had its first boom we were the third largest

[01:08:58] product for VR experiences so the first was Google second was Facebook third was us

[01:09:05] right and we made a lot of money at that time because a lot of companies wanted to use our tech

[01:09:10] this that you know that was one year we made a ton of money but obviously that crashed

[01:09:16] unfortunately we took all that money and invested it back into the tech

[01:09:20] oh so we had this tech and it just crashed and then you know it was it was a nightmare so

[01:09:27] like at around 2017 2018 we were broke like broke broke broke and like I think like $3,000 in the bank

[01:09:37] kind of broke wow yeah so no salary for everybody for three months I think so that's when we decided okay

[01:09:45] let's just sell and so then we moved we built the first version of our SaaS

[01:09:53] and started selling it started growing a little bit and then when it was like we thought oh this is

[01:09:58] growing this is amazing business then COVID hit and when COVID hit we told everybody please

[01:10:02] four fine jobs because most of them had that was working with us were had been with us for like at

[01:10:08] least four or five years and I was like I can't I cannot in good faith tell you that this

[01:10:15] company's gonna survive this and I don't want you to be broke so go find jobs so like everyone

[01:10:21] left except for me and my co-founder I'll see you at this point of time and then the only thing that

[01:10:28] we could do was do nothing and so we both did nothing and then people started buying you know

[01:10:34] and then it just grew that way so wow okay so today the use cases yeah so right now yeah so right

[01:10:44] now real estate folks real estate folks marketing agencies that are building for real estate folks

[01:10:50] so they're building like they're doing stuff for big events so those are kind of like our big clients

[01:10:56] at this point right you also have some other interests right I mean like I see that you're

[01:11:02] interested in climate for instance right right you want to talk about what you're doing there

[01:11:07] particularly I mean I'm just investing right now okay in climate tech companies I wanted to

[01:11:13] sort of have my own fund for climate tech but then because of covid we had raised some money

[01:11:21] but then we decided to like not go forward because we didn't know what what is going to happen so

[01:11:27] so I think in the future you know if everything goes well that's kind of what I would like

[01:11:33] so one thing also is that you've been exposed to different cultures and startup ecosystems

[01:11:39] right I mean Bangalore, Noida, SF, Luxembourg now and then I saw that you were at oh Chile and

[01:11:46] Puerto Rico yeah crazy how does it impact you as a builder as a founder? I think as a founder

[01:11:54] we had an existential moment in 2013-2014 where we clearly saw that this was not going to be

[01:12:03] the rocket ship that we wanted to see right because even though we were getting a lot of

[01:12:07] downloads we got a lot of people work like we weren't seeing the kind of use case that we wanted to see

[01:12:13] and I took a trip to Antarctica at that point I asked my mom for some money I said I really need to

[01:12:20] I need to do this so I went to Antarctica and when I came back I was like okay

[01:12:27] I thought a lot about like life and you know what is important to you and

[01:12:32] and I think for me I realized that the most important thing for me is freedom

[01:12:39] I think nothing else comes above it maybe health to some extent but at that time I was in good health

[01:12:45] now I'm in bad health but that time I was in good health and so freedom was very important

[01:12:50] and so I then started structuring my life around maximum freedom right

[01:12:55] so anything that if it was not clear that this was going to be something I would not do it

[01:13:04] I would just stick to what is doing what is working and sort of that took me to a lot of places

[01:13:09] because then I said I thought about it I said the only thing that I cannot do when I'm older

[01:13:14] and enjoy life is travel because when you travel as a young guy or a girl single

[01:13:22] all around the world it's a very different experience than when you travel when you're

[01:13:24] much older and even if I make a lot of money and I'm very successful I won't get that

[01:13:31] you know 25 to 32 time where you can backpack and hitchhike so then I started looking at

[01:13:39] places where I could get what you would call as like equity free funding

[01:13:45] so my first stint came in startup Chile so startup Chile had a program where they would

[01:13:50] give you equity free funding so I could have like at that point I could have gone to the valley

[01:13:54] and raised around you know but I didn't do it I said okay let's let's extend the runway

[01:14:00] trying to preserve optionality as much as possible till we till we were not sure that's what we

[01:14:05] want to do see fundraising is very easy it's really really easy like I don't know why people are so

[01:14:12] like bent up about it it's like you just have to lie it's like straight up lie you know and

[01:14:19] not in like in a deceiving way but like you have to be able to paint a picture of something that is

[01:14:29] going to happen and and make it show and show like incremental steps of it being possibly done by

[01:14:35] you as a company essentially paint like an extravagant sort of a yeah yeah picture yeah yeah

[01:14:42] and then then also you need to convince the person that you're the person that's that can't

[01:14:45] do it so you need to have some amount of like proof in the pudding and then you can just like it's

[01:14:51] like you show them like a cup of coffee and it'll am I can build Starbucks because look at how this

[01:14:57] amazing coffee I did right so you need to be able to extrapolate that but you know most investors

[01:15:05] want to give you money they are incentivized to give you money they don't want the money

[01:15:10] to be sitting invested yeah you just have to convince them that you're the guy it's big vision

[01:15:18] 10x 100x IPO it's not that difficult right it's like you go to when you go to a magician show

[01:15:25] the reason you believe the magician is because you want to be fooled

[01:15:29] right and that's how investors are like investors want to be like whoa they want to

[01:15:34] go to their party and say oh invest in this guy who is going to like change the world like

[01:15:38] that's all they want that's all they want see they are not going no one is going to know if an

[01:15:41] investor is good or no for 10 15 years till them is until then he's rich right all he wants to

[01:15:47] there I'm telling you I'm not joking like you ask them you I mean there are a lot of

[01:15:55] investors are my friends like they'll tell you like listen we have raised money we're getting

[01:16:00] a 2% cut whatever whether you're successful or not successful we're at 2% cut so you're going to be rich

[01:16:07] now all you need to do is convince me to give you money

[01:16:13] right and if you can convince me in a good way and it's it seems possible I'll give you money

[01:16:19] and that's all you have to do you people make it too complicated because they think

[01:16:23] they have to show too much proof you don't have to show too much proof

[01:16:26] hmm so fundraising is now I don't know how fundraising in India is I have never raised

[01:16:31] funds here that's how it goes in the valley valley is all about just change the world

[01:16:38] we want to change the world that's it you know like I'm going to make khakras and it's going

[01:16:43] to change the world I gotta go from there to there this in many ways this feels like an extension

[01:16:48] like a you know of Silicon Valley the series yeah yeah that's how it is you know it's exactly

[01:16:53] like that Ross Hanuman scene where he says you know revenue kills valuation it is exactly

[01:16:59] how it like there is it's it's too real yeah what happens in the the series is too real that's

[01:17:06] exactly how it is right the people that are rich in the valley are crazy people they're not investment

[01:17:15] bankers they're not like some you know I am I you know IIT guy these these guys have like

[01:17:21] built some small little thing and that's totally $100 million you know right they're crazy people

[01:17:29] they're not they don't care if you're making two two cents per not one point two cents per one

[01:17:35] other they don't care yeah they just want to go home and tell their wife oh you know I'm

[01:17:40] a just Indian guy oh what a smart guy they don't care so you have to have that perspective like

[01:17:50] they just don't care right and obviously once you reach like series AC that's a different thing I'm

[01:17:55] talking about like seed precede and and series A right that is the mentality right so right now

[01:18:05] you're a two-person company two-person company right with a bunch of remote folks yep and you're

[01:18:10] clocking like a couple million dollars of revenue right what's that like you know because I think

[01:18:17] like for a lot of people that would be like a dream right running a lifestyle company like that

[01:18:22] yeah right but what does it actually take to do that I don't know man what's your day like I mean

[01:18:28] my day is really chill like you know I just I wake up I mean the most amount of time I spend

[01:18:36] is on the support right so like our thing is like yesterday I had a call with a with a potential

[01:18:42] client which is a big aircraft company they want to do training videos it's huge it's a big app

[01:18:48] and he called me up and I didn't realize it that the call was there I was with my friends I go

[01:18:54] I go to like the stairs and I'm taking the call it's like a lot of music I said dude I'm really

[01:18:58] sorry he said no problem in eight years we know you and blah blah blah and so the reason why he chose

[01:19:06] our company is because the support was great he said like I reached out to all the other

[01:19:10] competitors and they're like they took two days three like you were instant I sent a question

[01:19:15] instant like you know and our company like we tried to do really well it's sometimes I'm

[01:19:19] the support guy and some other guys who are it's sometimes so simple right I mean keep your customers

[01:19:24] happy yeah that's it basically you build a great product you have to build a great product and

[01:19:30] then you have to just keep them happy don't fuck it out I don't know if you can bleep it out no

[01:19:36] that's okay just that's it like most of most of our growth is because I compared it as a

[01:19:42] fucked up shit right they do something wrong and people move to our product right that's it just

[01:19:50] if you have a decent product that's building decent revenue let's say you cross your 5k 10k

[01:19:54] whatever it is like small which is where we all started off right just keep doing things really

[01:20:00] well find and keep at it and just keep at it and just give great customer support when I mean

[01:20:06] great I mean like exceptional customer support and the only and I

[01:20:14] like the people that have money care about customer support Indians don't care about

[01:20:18] customers about at all we have like we almost have like a sort of a shadow ban

[01:20:26] which is like because they'll ask thousand questions then they won't buy so it's like

[01:20:30] only if you buy we will answer your question but every other customer they love customer support

[01:20:36] they they're just like I have converted so many people from the lowest plan to the highest plan

[01:20:45] just by giving them good customer support and I will just ask them hey you know like you really

[01:20:49] don't need to buy the higher plan but if you buy the higher plan like you'll get these features

[01:20:53] and they'll be like oh yeah okay you know we really don't need it right now but

[01:20:57] this seems like a great company and they just buy it yeah yeah there's a couple of

[01:21:04] resources I would recommend right so one is the Zepia guy wrote about this where

[01:21:08] he said basically that you know the product the marketing everything aside customer support

[01:21:14] is the biggest mode that you can have yes and it's a fantastic article we'll probably link to

[01:21:18] it in the description that is one thing it's bar none yeah bar none and the second is I would

[01:21:24] recommend this how I built this podcast with the Atlassian guys I forget the founders names

[01:21:30] but basically like exactly what you mentioned right which is just a couple of guys right answering

[01:21:36] calls at odd hours of the night because they're based in Australia right um yeah those two very

[01:21:42] very inspiring fantastic support human support not some you know person based in Philippines

[01:21:48] or something which is not bad but I'm just saying like yeah you know you you you cost cut

[01:21:53] but like if you have the founders writing email like making sure everything's good yeah I think

[01:21:57] I got that little things I got I got this from like the base camp guys like the base camp guys

[01:22:01] where they said they talked about example yeah they talked about this like when they initial like

[01:22:05] four or five years they were bootstrapping yeah like DHH used to answer all the emails

[01:22:09] he said like I should answer literally every support email yeah yeah right and I just thought

[01:22:13] okay if DHH can do it yeah I can do it yeah you know and so my my focus has been like

[01:22:18] giving exceptional support and thankfully Varun is also very obsessed about like he's even more

[01:22:24] obsessed than me like he'll say Vinit why don't you respond to this this is how you respond

[01:22:28] he would respond ask me to respond so okay sorry sorry sorry so like we both are very obsessed

[01:22:33] about getting the customer happy even if they're paying us like $25 a month right we have this

[01:22:38] customer from Canada who is just the absolute worst like he has so many questions he's always

[01:22:45] screwing things up and like he'll send like an email oh I can't find this and then and then

[01:22:50] like five in two minutes it's ah found it but like when I told him hey you know we have this

[01:23:00] thing where we can build your custom skins he said oh yes I don't need a custom skin but what

[01:23:04] can you build me I know we can do this for you it'll cost you like $2,000 like oh yeah sure

[01:23:09] I have some ideas that's it paid awesome he didn't need it but he was like these guys

[01:23:13] are helping me out you know they're responding to all my stupid stuff I'll give you some money

[01:23:18] so yeah so that's how kind of like you know you build it out yeah man this has been such a real

[01:23:24] conversation I should say right one of the most fun conversations I've had ever perhaps on the

[01:23:30] podcast before we kind of wind down I mean what are some books or podcasts that you would

[01:23:35] recommend I think the best podcast for anybody in India is the startup operator

[01:23:40] whoa whoa whoa that was totally not rehearsed not really absolutely not yeah and then I think

[01:23:51] I'm getting into this was that my first million oh that's a good power Sam Parr and

[01:23:58] I think they're very entertaining yeah and I mean they're a little a little broy a little fratty

[01:24:06] but you know it's fine yeah it's very entertaining I think that they show you ideas that you can

[01:24:12] kind of think of and you know it's cool it's a cool podcast that's come out

[01:24:18] then obviously the how I built this you know economics

[01:24:25] for startups honestly man just my whole thing is like don't listen to what people say like

[01:24:29] don't listen to Gyan you know just like have some vision just have a vision right even if that

[01:24:35] vision is to make money just like have something that you can like really see very crystal clear

[01:24:43] and if you can't do the what that guy did what's his name

[01:24:50] that guy could be anyone from Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg

[01:24:54] what's the name of the guy who gives a lot of money the Japanese guy

[01:25:00] Masayoshi yeah that guy he said you remember how he said how he gets ideas

[01:25:07] Masayoshi is the funniest dude have you seen his presentations crazy his decks are awesome

[01:25:14] like awesome and you know I mean if you didn't give the context that this guy is actually like

[01:25:19] you know funding people with billions of dollars you'd think that's like a high

[01:25:23] school student or something right I mean this is what he said this is how he said

[01:25:27] the way I get ideas is I go to a room and I say idea come

[01:25:33] I'm telling you his definition it's like idea I need to come with the idea idea idea

[01:25:40] I'm not joking and it works right you really have to have like a crystal clear thinking like

[01:25:50] spend hours and just like I mean he said it like I spent 10 minutes but I don't think it's that

[01:25:54] standard like obviously but the idea is that you have to put yourself in a thing where like

[01:25:59] I have to come up with this right this thing I have to come up with this clear vision of

[01:26:05] like where this needs to go how it needs to go obviously you're never going to get there

[01:26:10] it's going to be like a lot of like that is the only thing you need to have and then everybody

[01:26:15] if you have a clear vision what you want to get to people will come and help you get there

[01:26:22] you just have to tell people this is what I want and make it sound possible enough

[01:26:27] and there are going to be other crazy people that are going to join you yeah

[01:26:30] yeah as simple as that all right man it's been real fun thank you so much for joining us on

[01:26:39] this thanks for reaching out I was I really you know like I was telling you that I'm out of the

[01:26:44] whole startup thing so I just I was kind of pleasantly surprised someone recognized me it's

[01:26:49] like oh someone knows me yeah I mean I think like seriously right for us around 2012-2013

[01:26:57] you kind of like don't know what it meant to see like an Indian startup like an Indian product right

[01:27:03] being written about in like such high praise and stuff right I mean it was it was awesome

[01:27:09] it kind of showed that okay it's possible yeah right so yeah so amazing work man and I really

[01:27:15] love everything that you've done and wish you all the best for everything coming up thanks

[01:27:19] thanks thank you awesome all right all right folks thanks so much for joining us on this podcast

[01:27:25] if you did like the content don't forget to share subscribe do all of the good stuff

[01:27:29] and I'll see you soon on another episode of the startup operator with another fantastic content