There is a kind of founder who does not treat the world as finished. They do not accept the sentence “that’s just how it’s done.” They carry a calm, persistent itch to rearrange the furniture of reality so ordinary people can move through it with less friction. I think of them as iconoclast founders. Not contrarians for sport. Builders who break stale ideas and then take responsibility for what comes after.

I have met this person in small glass rooms with dry markers and weak coffee. I have met them on long walks when the office finally fell quiet. I have watched them ignore the heat of hype and keep working through the cold weeks when nothing seems to move. They are often gentle with people. They are not gentle with assumptions.

What follows are field notes on that archetype. Where they come from. The traits that keep them moving. The places they draw strength from. The places they need real support.

What the iconoclast believes

At the core there is a simple belief. The current arrangement is not sacred. Human dignity is. If a process humiliates people or wastes their time, then the arrangement is up for revision.

This belief does not require outrage. It requires careful seeing. Most of the work is ordinary. Reading the fine print. Sitting with someone while they fill a form on a slow phone. Looking at the system and noticing the one friction that creates ten more. The iconoclast is not allergic to consensus. They are allergic to unexamined consensus. They do not rebel for attention. They rebel so something works.

Traits that tend to repeat

This is a sketch, not a checklist. Every founder has their own biography. Still, the pattern shows up often enough to be useful.

Skepticism that builds. They doubt with a screwdriver in hand. “Can’t” becomes “has not been shown yet.” Their questions produce prototypes instead of posts.

Curiosity with stamina. They read the footnotes, talk to the person who actually runs the switch, and keep going when everyone else is bored. They are willing to be the last curious person in the room.

A habit of small proofs. They design experiments that are cheap and decisive. A landing page with honest copy. A fake door that tests appetite before pride walks in. A concierge version that measures real effort.

Calm with risk. They treat risk like a probability distribution, not a dare. They will risk embarrassment. They will not risk customer trust to look clever.

A sense for leverage. They see that a small change in incentives, routing, onboarding, or cash conversion can move an entire system. They hunt leverage before they hunt headlines.

Humor. They laugh, especially at their own plans. Humor lowers the fear of change and keeps the team human on long weeks.

Early life

There is no single pipeline to iconoclasm. Still, I notice three threads in their earlier years.

Outsider energy. They grew up between worlds. Between languages or economic realities or ecosystems. They learned to translate early. Translation is a superpower in startups, because the job is often to connect rooms that rarely speak.

Unsupervised projects. Someone left them alone with tools and trust. A garage. A school lab after hours. A summer job that became a small business. They saw how money moves and how responsibility feels heavier than independence yet more satisfying.

Respectful friction with authority. Not chaos. Not performative rebellion. A steady question mark. They follow a rule that makes sense. They challenge a ritual that exists to measure obedience.

Where conviction lives

Iconoclast conviction looks less like a speech and more like a structure.

A clean disgust. Not at people. At avoidable waste. At users being made to feel stupid by a bad form. At processes that only exist to protect the feelings of the process. That clean disgust points toward repair, not blame.

A private proof no one can take away. The script that saved a team an hour a day. The first customer who cried on a call because the product shaved two days off a bureaucratic loop. The onboarding that halved drop off when everyone said it could not be done. That memory funds many hard weeks.

A self authored scorecard. They track revenue and runway. They also track whether the internal tools make new hires stronger. Whether their SLA is something they are proud to sign. Whether customers can explain the product to a friend in one breath. They do not outsource the definition of winning.

A way to hold time. They work in weekly loops and decade arcs. The week is for experiments. The decade is for compounding a stance.

Chosen constraints. They pick rules that make the product better. Plain language in pricing. Fewer clicks. Open formats when possible. Constraints become fuel for taste and guardrails for ethics.

How they work when no one is watching

Product as a theory. Every feature encodes a belief about how the world behaves. They write the belief in plain text, then try to break it with data.

Pulling the thread everyone avoids. Why do signups dip on day eight. Why do refunds cluster at night. Why does one partner produce wide variance. They go down the staircase and return with a map.

Tidying the backstage. Internal tools are real products. Dashboards have owners. On call rotations are humane. Postmortems are written so the next person has less pain than the last person. They design for the second year to be better than the first.

Normalizing “I do not know.” Admitting it early saves months. It becomes a cultural trick that speeds the whole company.

Quality proof over perfect proof. Perfect proof is expensive fiction. Quality proof tilts the odds in your favor for a reasonable price.

Where they need real help

Courage is not the whole stack. The iconoclast founder is strongest with mentors and partners who make the structure sane.

People systems at scale. The jump from ten people to one hundred fifty is a species change. Support means hiring for complementary strengths without breaking the arc, writing a leveling framework early, setting clean product and engineering cadences, and building a feedback culture that is kind and specific.

Finance as discipline. Finance is not a separate room. It is the story in numbers. A strong finance partner teaches the team to love unit economics, design for cash conversion, and treat working capital as a moral obligation to vendors and staff. The mission survives because the math respects reality.

Law and regulation as design space. Many treat compliance like a wall. Good mentors treat it like a text. Read it. Interpret it. Document intent. Ask the right question at the right time. Build safer defaults. In sensitive categories this is not optional, it is the craft.

Energy management. Burnout is not a badge. It is a warning that decision quality is about to fall. Coaching, sleep, food, boundaries, and cycles of renewal sound like lifestyle advice. They are instrumentation for judgment.

Co founder hygiene. The most powerful relationship in the company deserves maintenance. Clarify domains. Write down veto areas. Run pre mortems before big bets. Decide how you will decide when you disagree. Put it on paper.

Boardcraft. A board is a tool, not a performance. Clean agendas. Pre reads that actually inform. Risks on the table without panic. Clear asks between meetings. Transparency without self harm can be learned.

The boring drumbeat. Security, data hygiene, vendor onboarding, incident reviews, procurement. The unglamorous work that makes innovation safe for customers. Operations leaders who love this work are gifts. They make boldness sustainable.

Grace with success and with failure. Success melts focus if you are not careful. Guard the calendar. Protect deep work time. Keep a weekly ceremony with the product. If the company ever winds down, honor customers and team in full sentences. Steelman your own choices. Carry the learning forward without bitterness.

Storytelling that respects the audience. Iconoclasts hate hype. A clean narrative is still required. Show the transformation from before to after. Name the category in a way that helps customers explain it to friends. This is not spin. It is hospitality.

Ethics as design review. Bring ethicists, policy thinkers, and front line users into the room early. Run harm scenario red teams. Document values so they survive turnover. When incentives and values diverge, escalate the conflict, not the marketing budget.

The culture they accidentally build

Cultures inherit the founder’s defaults. Iconoclasts tend to create workshops, not temples. Plain speech. Measured urgency. Hospitality to dissent. Documentation by default. Customer dignity. Ritualized learning through demos, assumption audits, councils, and museum tours. This is not move fast and break things. This is move with purpose and build things worth keeping.

The dark twin

Every archetype has a dark twin. Iconoclasm becomes self parody when it confuses provocation with progress. Aesthetic purity over user reality. Perma prototype culture. Monologue leadership. Disdain for operations. Cynicism as brand. The antidotes are practical. Invite an operator who loves reliability. Put SLAs on the wall. Track assumptions retired each quarter. Make finish day real. Hire for the habit of testing your favorite ideas and reward it.

The guild around the iconoclast

The right mentors amplify the iconoclast. Not gurus with generalities. A guild of specific craft. A shipper who cares about edge cases. An operator poet who turns stories into systems and back again. A finance adult who finds beauty in margins. A policy whisperer who reads the text and builds goodwill. An ethical editor who notices when incentives drift from values. A coach who protects the instrument. A historian who knows what was tried and why it failed. Mentors do not lower the ceiling. They raise the floor.

The work after the work

There is the work of building a company. Then there is the work after the work. The pattern you leave in the people who passed through. The best iconoclast founders graduate teams who carry a different posture into the world. Kinder to people. Harsher on assumptions. Less tolerant of waste. More patient with complexity. Faster to admit ignorance. Quicker to design a good test.

That is how the archetype spreads. Not through keynotes or posters on walls (icons, ironically). Through habits. Through the quiet pride of doing a thing the right way when no one is watching. The world will keep producing new idols, fresh slogans, familiar excuses. The job is not to stay angry at them. The job is to keep your hands trained for the next careful strike, to break what needs breaking, and then to build something that treats people with respect.

In the world of music, jazz bands and classical orchestras offer two distinct approaches to performance, creativity, and leadership. These differences extend beyond music, providing valuable insights into organizational cultures and how to leverage culture for different outcomes.

Jazz Bands: The Power of Flexibility and Shared Leadership

Jazz bands are renowned for their emphasis on improvisation and shared leadership. This approach allows musicians to explore and interpret music in real-time, creating a unique performance every time. Here are some key elements that contribute to the success of jazz bands:

• Shared Leadership: In a jazz ensemble, leadership is distributed among all members. Musicians take turns leading through solos, but also engage in subtle leadership by creating space for others to contribute. This fosters a sense of ownership and collaboration, allowing each musician to bring their unique voice to the performance.

• Intent Listening: Jazz musicians excel at active listening, which is crucial for successful improvisation. They must be attuned to the contributions of their fellow musicians, responding in real-time to maintain harmony and coherence. This deep communication and tacit understanding enable the band to navigate complex musical landscapes without a central decision-making authority.

• Embracing Mistakes: Unlike classical music, where mistakes are frowned upon, jazz embraces them as opportunities for creativity. Errors can lead to unexpected improvisations that enhance the performance. This mindset encourages experimentation and innovation.

• Minimal Structure: Jazz musicians operate within a loose framework that balances individual expression with collective coordination. This minimal structure allows for flexibility and spontaneity while maintaining a cohesive sound.

These elements make jazz bands successful in environments that require adaptability and innovation. They thrive on collaboration and the ability to pivot quickly in response to changing dynamics.

Are jazz bands just a bunch of misaligned people though? Arguably, they are more aligned than any other kind of band. Alignment doesn’t occur through sheet music in jazz, but, a strong, shared, and near instinctive understanding of the chord progressions, rhythmic patterns, and form that govern a performance. This sort of alignment takes trust, and months, if not years of performing together, to form.

The ultimate rule of jazz,

If it sounds good, it is good. - Duke Ellington

Classical Orchestras: Precision Through Hierarchical Leadership

Classical orchestras represent a more structured approach, characterized by precision and adherence to a written score. The success of classical orchestras can be attributed to several factors:

• Conductor’s Leadership: The conductor plays a pivotal role in guiding the orchestra. They interpret the composer’s vision and communicate it through gestures, ensuring precision, unity, and expressive cohesion. This centralized leadership provides clarity and direction, enabling musicians to perform as a cohesive unit.

• Structured Environment: Classical orchestras operate within a highly structured environment where every note is predetermined. This ensures consistency and reliability in performance, which is essential for delivering complex compositions accurately.

• Focus on Technical Mastery: Musicians in an orchestra are expected to master their instruments and adhere strictly to the score. This focus on technical excellence ensures that each performance meets high standards of quality.

• Cohesion Through Hierarchy: The hierarchical structure of an orchestra facilitates coordination among musicians from different sections. The conductor acts as a mediator, balancing contributions from each section to create a unified sound.

Classical orchestras excel in settings where precision and consistency are paramount. Their structured approach ensures that complex tasks are executed flawlessly.

Organizational Parallels

The differences between jazz bands and classical orchestras mirror those found in organizational cultures:

• Agile Teams (Jazz Bands): Agile teams prioritize flexibility, adaptability, and innovation—qualities akin to those of jazz ensembles. For instance, tech companies like Google thrive on this model by encouraging experimentation and rapid iteration.

• Hierarchical Organizations (Classical Orchestras): Traditional hierarchical organizations value consistency, reliability, and efficiency. Companies like Walmart, McDonald’s, or the Indian Railways, exemplify this model by maintaining structured processes that ensure operational efficiency.

Different Cultures for Different Outcomes

The comparison between jazz bands and classical orchestras highlights an essential insight: different organizational cultures serve different purposes. An agile, jazz-like culture may be best suited for environments that demand creativity and rapid adaptation. In contrast, a structured, orchestra-like culture is ideal for settings where precision and consistency are crucial.

What’s important for you, the reader, is to know what your organization’s purpose is, and to ensure that your culture mirror’s your purpose.

Cross posted on Substack and LinkedIn. This post represents only my personal views.

Image generated using Dall-E

The good folks at Naavik have written a deeply insightful piece on The Evolution of Hybridcasual. If you are interesting in the business of gaming, I strongly encourage you to follow their newsletter.

One thing I strongly agree with:

The article correctly points out that hybridcasual games are a natural evolution of the hypercasual genre. Hypercasual games are known for their simple gameplay and addictive hooks, but they can be difficult to monetize. Hybridcasual games combine the best of both worlds, offering simple gameplay with deeper progression systems and monetization opportunities.

One thing I slightly disagree with:

The article suggests that Unity's new pricing scheme could pose a challenge to hybridcasual developers. While it's true that the new pricing scheme could make it more expensive to develop and launch hybridcasual games, I believe that the long-term benefits of the new scheme will outweigh the costs. Unity is making a significant investment in the hybridcasual market, and I expect that this investment will pay off in the form of increased support and features for hybridcasual developers.

However, I am concerned that the new pricing scheme could disproportionately impact smaller hybridcasual developers. Smaller developers may not have the resources to absorb the increased costs of development and launch. This could lead to a consolidation of the hybridcasual market, with a few large developers dominating the space.

Here are some additional thoughts on hybridcasual as a genre:

• Hybridcasual games are well-suited for mass-market audiences. They offer simple gameplay that is easy to learn and pick up, but they also have enough depth to keep players engaged for longer periods of time.

• Hybridcasual games can be a lucrative market for developers. The best hybridcasual games can generate millions of downloads and millions of dollars in revenue.

• Hybridcasual games are a relatively new genre, so there is still a lot of room for innovation. I'm excited to see what new and innovative hybridcasual games developers come up with in the future.

So, What's the Deal with Precision and Recall?

Precision is all about accuracy. Imagine you're trying to shoot hoops. Precision is like making sure every shot you take goes in. In techy terms:

​Recall, on the other hand, is about not missing any opportunities. It's like making sure you've tried shooting from every spot on the court. Mathematically:

The Balancing Act: Precision vs. Recall

Here's the thing: it's tricky to get both precision and recall spot on. Let's dive into some everyday examples:

Ice Cream Tasting: Imagine you're at an ice cream parlor with 50 flavors. If you're super picky and only taste the ones you're sure you'll like (say, chocolate and vanilla), you're going for high precision. But, you might be missing out on a surprise favorite like lavender honey! If you taste 30 flavors, you're aiming for high recall, but you might end up with some duds (like that weird fish-flavored one... why?).

Online Shopping: Ever tried searching for a "red dress" online? If the website shows you only dresses that are 100% red (high precision), you might miss out on some cool red-patterned ones. But if it shows you anything with a hint of red (high recall), your results might include some bizarre choices (like a mostly green dress with a tiny red dot).

Startups and the Ice Cream Dilemma

Image generated on Dall-E

Now, let's chat about how this all relates to early-stage startup investments. Venture Capitalists (VCs) face a similar dilemma as you do at the ice cream parlor.

High Precision, Low Recall: Some VCs are super picky. They invest in a few startups that they're pretty sure will succeed. It's like only tasting chocolate and vanilla. Safe, but potentially missing out on the next big flavor.

Low Precision, High Recall: Other VCs spread their bets, investing in loads of startups, hoping one will be the next unicorn. It's a bit like tasting 30 ice cream flavors, including that fishy one.

Tips for VCs (and Ice Cream Lovers)

1. Know Your Taste: Whether you're a VC or just someone looking for the perfect scoop, know what you like but be open to surprises.

2. Diversify: Don't put all your eggs (or ice cream scoops) in one basket. Spread out your choices.

3. Learn and Adapt: Didn't like that fish-flavored ice cream? Don't pick it next time. Made a bad investment? Learn from it.

Wrapping Up

Precision and recall might sound geeky, but they're everywhere – from choosing ice cream to online shopping to investing in startups. The key? Find your balance and enjoy the journey, whether you're searching for the next big tech unicorn or just a delicious scoop of gelato. Cheers! 🍦🚀

2022 and 2023 have witnessed a Cambrian explosion of generative AI technologies, tools, and enterprise and consumer use cases. Today, there’s no question that generative AI tools and technologies can mimic humans in the creation of text, code, numbers, images, audio, and sometime soon, video in powerful and context specific ways. It’s therefore no surprise that we will see a disruption of the IT services industry, which relies on these capabilities - context specific analysis and generation of text/code/

numbers, images, audio, and video. This thesis examines the near term ways in which these industries will transform and opportunities for new startups in the space. We believe this is a generational tailwind. A McKinsey report estimates that IT services and customer operations will see productivity gains to the tune of close to $1T annually over the coming years.

Immediacy of disruptions

The IT/outsourced services industry’s scope ranges from outsourced use cases like contact centers, app development/QA to the discovery of new molecules for pharma companies. To understand where we are likely to see near term disruption and the creation of new startups, we have divided the outsourced use cases along the axes of complexity of service and volume of work.

• High Volume of Work: These services often require a significant amount of manual intervention or repeated tasks.

• Medium Volume of Work: These services require a balanced approach, blending automated systems and manual oversight.

• Low Volume of Work: These are usually specialized tasks that need a high level of expertise and are often not needed in large volumes.

• Low Complexity of Work: The tasks are generally repetitive and require little to no specialized skills.

• Medium Complexity of Work: These tasks require some level of technical expertise or understanding of specific domains.

• High Complexity of Work: These involve specialized knowledge, often needing advanced technical skills.

• Very High Complexity of Work: These tasks are at the forefront of technology, requiring deep expertise and significant experience.

Through interviews with large service providers, startups, and primary/secondary research, we have zeroed in on the following views about opportunities for incumbents and startups. 

Our views

Large incumbents will continue to emerge as winners in the high volume, low complexity segments

Large IT services companies have announced large investments in upskilling and  capability building for generative AI. All the IT service majors we spoke to have started building in-house teams for code and test case generation, content and digital marketing automation, text and speech generation for contact centers, and analytics automation. It’s still early for these initiatives to show impact and most of what’s happened so far has been pilot level work for marquee customers and partnerships with the largest cloud and AI infra providers, but, we expect progress to be fast. The biggest near term change will be gains in internal efficiency leading to lower cost for customers. Full/large scale human replacement will only happen, in the near term, in the lowest complexity use cases like contact centers. With globally high inflation and interest rates, the consensus among customers of IT services that we spoke to, is that generative AI creates an opportunity for them to renegotiate costs with the suppliers of services.

The near term opportunity and value pools for startups are highest in the medium complexity and medium to high volume segments

We believe verticals like data analytics, marketing services, accounting and reporting services, IT vulnerability and penetration testing, are ideally suited for startups to build in. These verticals require innovation beyond the off the shelf foundational models and don’t require large teams to build the core modules that will get used for the service delivery. Also, while independently large, these verticals are not larger than the high volume, low complexity verticals that are the largest revenue contributors for the large incumbents. Also, we found that these verticals are underserved compared to market need, by the large incumbents.

There’s an opportunity for startups to partner and enable large incumbents in the high complexity segments

Even with high complexity segments like healthcare, there are pockets of work which are low complexity, like insurance claims processing, population health analytics, etc. There’s an opportunity for startups to build solutions for these areas of work and partner with the large incumbent healthcare IT services providers. We see similar opportunities in all high complexity segments - healthcare, strategy consulting, design, real estate, etc.

Secondly, startups are ideally placed to provide core technology and infrastructure that allows the large incumbents to transform.

The rise of AI augmented managed labor marketplaces

Another trend we have been noticing (and backed) at Lightspeed is the rise of AI augmented managed labor marketplaces. We have written about how companies want to be able to change their teams easily. One way to do this is with outsourcing, but this usually involves long-term fixed contracts. AI trained suppliers of service on these managed marketplaces (like Pepper for marketing content or Gushwork for multiple outsourced services, leads to greater NPS through faster turnaround times and high quality outputs. As we have maintained before, the goal shouldn’t be to win just through lower pricing.

What startups should keep in mind

New business models can now emerge

For non contact center use cases, most services companies charge their customers for time and the number of people assigned to a project. Growing efficiencies will lead to lower use of people and greater use of compute resources. There’s an opportunity for services companies to start billing on outcomes and compute. This change will most likely be driven by startups and is likely to be well received by their customers because of greater transparency upfront on project costs and lower costs overall.

GTM for IT services and BPM companies in the new era will still largely look the same

We don’t believe there are going to be major changes in how services companies go to market and sell. The playbooks that have worked so far will continue to work. Startups would do well to build these capabilities early using experienced hands from the large incumbents.

Low error tolerance industries will take time to warm up to generative AI

In our interviews, we repeatedly heard concerns around bias and hallucinations in generative AI technologies, from leaders of companies that require low error tolerance in the services that they outsource, like medical coding and remote physician assistance. Startups starting out in these spaces will need to be ready for multiple evolutions in technology and the long journey of building trust.

Conclusion

Generative AI is changing the IT services industry, creating new opportunities for both established companies and startups. Larger companies are likely to take the lead in areas that require high volumes of simple tasks, while startups can find success in areas with medium complexity and volume. Also, as AI increases efficiency, businesses can start charging based on results rather than time and manpower, a change startups are well-positioned to drive. However, the way companies approach and enter the market shouldn't drastically change, even with AI advancements. In essence, this AI shift is a major opportunity for both existing companies and startups to evolve and grow.

As this transformation unfolds, India holds a unique position as a nursery for budding startups in this domain. With its robust IT infrastructure, vast pool of tech-savvy talent, and a proven track record in IT services, the country offers the perfect environment for nurturing innovation in AI-driven services. The intersection of these assets with a vibrant startup culture could make India a global hotbed for pioneering companies in the generative AI space.

As we have said, this time is different and the time is now!

The genesis of the hypercasual gaming industry traces back to 2013, with the publication of Flappy Bird, a game known for its short levels and simple gameplay. These characteristics set the stage for the rise of the hypercasual genre. The years 2013-2016 marked a significant shift in the industry, as hypercasual games leveraged cross-promotion campaigns and organic installs for expansion. By 2017, hypercasual games started to follow the growth strategies of other genres, using paid user acquisition to scale. Despite their lower Lifetime Value (LTV) compared to casual or mid-core games, they demonstrated profitability at scale, attracting an increasing number of publishers to the genre.

The evolution of the hypercasual genre in India has not been linear, with the emergence of sub-genres offering further avenues for growth. For instance, 2019 marked the rise of ASMR hypercasual games, while 2021 brought forward TikTok-inspired concepts. With time, the content depth in hypercasual games has expanded, with more complex levels, larger content volumes, and new progression methods. Moreover, the introduction of metagame features, like awarding skins for progression rather than default monetization, added an extra layer of depth.

As the hypercasual genre evolved, so did the processes of developing, monetizing, and marketing these games. Faster development times, better-quality execution, and more accurate marketability prediction tools are now hallmarks of the genre. Alongside these developments, monetization methods have deepened, opening up more opportunities for in-app purchases and rewarding video monetization.

Presently, the global hypercasual market garners $2-2.5 billion in revenue and records roughly 17 billion installs annually. Remarkably, the hypercasual genre now accounts for over 25% of all game downloads, showing a significant uptick of almost 20% in Q2 2022. This remarkable growth fuels the broader mobile market, underlining the symbiotic relationship between hypercasual and non-hypercasual gaming genres.

Looking ahead, the future of the hypercasual gaming industry in India revolves around two main themes: the persistent demand for short-form entertainment and the emergence of hybrid-casual games. The popularity of short-form content platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts highlights the growing demand for bite-sized entertainment, which hypercasual games are perfectly positioned to provide. I also expect ads based monetisation to not be an attractive monetisation mechanic in the future given Android and iOS’ privacy first changes a general user sentiment against interruptive ads. Bundled hyper/hybrid casual gaming experiences, along with social/multiplayer experiences, some of which come behind a paywall could provide alternative monetisation channels. 

However, as costs rise and the need for higher LTV becomes imperative, the hybrid-casual genre is set to emerge alongside hypercasual games. This new genre combines the core features of traditional hypercasual games—quick prototyping, engaging gameplay, high marketability, and short sessions—with deeper gameplay, a greater reliance on in-app purchases, and more advanced LiveOps. The hybrid monetization strategy optimizes ad revenue for quick returns and in-game purchases for enhanced retention and LTV.

Just like there’s a TikTok for short video, I eventually also expect to see a TikTok for hyper casual games that offers a deep, personalized catalog of diverse, “pick up and play” games which are also social experiences. Another area of innovation that I expect to see more of is brand engagement driven through hyper/hybrid casual games. 

With advancements in HTML5 and WebGL, I also expect hypercasual and hybridcasual games to be instant - no app download required. 

All these shifts combined mean that hypercasual games are what will make a billion smartphone users in India, gamers.

Created using Midjourney.

In the mosh pit, not the sidelines

I discovered the internet in the late 90s and was instantly transported to the superhighways that connected the world. It was empowering like nothing I’d experienced before. That moment, is still being lived daily by millions of Indians, across ages, geographies, and income/affluence levels. Unconnected users are getting lit up, and connected users are discovering new ways to transact, consume, be entertained and delighted, daily. This tide is also birthing very large businesses, from zero. There was no way I could watch this transformation from the sidelines. I needed to be a part of this, in it’s messy glory. This was my original motivation to start investing in startups.

An insatiable hunger

I have always been insatiably hungry to learn and have been unashamedly curious. In my circles, I have usually been the first to try a new app, eaten strange foods, known strange facts about esoteric subjects. One of the phrases I hear most often from my spouse is “how and why do you know that?”

Talking to founding teams feeds this hunger like few other things do. Almost always, I leave meetings with founders highly energised and bursting with optimism about possibilities. This is why I keep investing.

Gardener

The first step in making a dent in the universe is to know thyself. Through two failed attempts at launching a startup, I now believe that I am best when I am working with founders and founding teams, on early problems that I have experience/insights on. I am also eager to constantly solve. This makes me far better as a gardener, than a fruit bearing plant.

These three motivations candidly and unabashedly capture why I invest in startups, and why this is something I envision doing for a long long time.