Return on India is a deep dive investing series covering one of the most populous and promising economies in the world. Through conversations with central figures in Indian business, Return on India investigates the past, present and future as we explore India’s investment case. This is a country filled with nuance, contradictions and ambition for the future and we are excited to share why the next decade looks so promising for India. Visit joincolossus.com to find more episodes, transcripts and a library of content to continue your learning.
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Romeen Sheth - Reviewing India’s Opportunity - [Return on India, EP.11]
Episode 11
Thursday, March 16, 2023 • Duration 43:27
This is Matt Reustle, and for this season's final episode we decided to flip the table and interview Romeen. We talk at a high level about our favorite lessons in the series, some great behind-the-scenes moments across the project, and what Romeen will be monitoring from here. Please enjoy this conversation with Romeen.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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Return On India is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Return On India, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @RomeenSheth | @joincolossus
Show Notes
(00:02:04) - [First question] - Three concepts on the series that stood out most to Romeen
(00:07:25) - How India reflects the US in surprising ways
(00:09:32) - The effects of US and global venture slowdowns on the Indian startup economy
(00:13:48) - The importance of the India Stack and other infrastructure
(00:18:06) - Key takeaways from individual startups on the series
(00:22:16) - Major changes, trends, and constants in Indian consumer behavior
(00:27:27) - How Indian companies build trust and longevity in their consumer bases
(00:31:10) - Ways in which startups can address India’s largely untapped consumer market
(00:37:25) - How he thinks about tracking and studying the rapidly growing Indian ecosystem
(00:39:23) - The bull case and bear case he projects for the Indian economic engine
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Nishchay Ag - Gold: India’s Secret Asset Class - [Return on India, EP.10]
Thursday, February 23, 2023 • Duration 43:47
My guest today is Nishchay Ag, founder and CEO of Jar. In the last conversation we had on Return on India, we spoke with Nithin Kamath, the founder and CEO of Zerodha. In that conversation, we focused on how tier-one India is advancing up the maturity curve with respect to financial literacy. Today we explore the opposite. We explore the rest of the Indian landscape. How do non-tier one Indians think about investing, spending, and saving? And there's nobody better than Nishchay to help us understand.
Jar was founded two years ago and has over 10 million users today. The product is super simple and has a unique characteristic that resonates with mass India: when you use Jar, you invest in gold. We covered a bunch of topics in this one. Why gold, how a simple product is actually incredibly complicated to build, the psychology of India's consumer class, and the fast-changing behavior patterns of India's next generation. Please enjoy my conversation with Nishchay Ag.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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Return On India is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Return On India, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @RomeenSheth | @joincolossus
Show Notes
[00:02:40] - [First question] - What the financial products landscape in India looks like
[00:04:15] - The opportunity set for financial products in the hundreds of millions
[00:06:32] - Describing the average Indian consumer’s relationship with money
[00:08:04] - What rich looks like in India compared to the West and how American media influences cultural norms in the East
[00:12:34] - An overview of what Jar is and why he started it
[00:16:38] - Thoughts about changing behavior in a product like Jar
[00:19:02] - Designing a product for one country that houses thirty smaller countries
[00:21:48] - How purchasing gold happens today writ large versus with Jar
[00:23:41] - Building a product on top of the philosophy that 99% of people are good
[00:27:10] - Getting their first five thousand users
[00:31:06] - Thinking about investing as a consumption experience
[00:33:49] - Creating trust in a low trust ecosystem
[00:35:24] - Business model arbitrage and what happens when Indian businesses expand beyond their borders
[00:37:58] - Outsourcing from versus to India is the next coming trend
[00:39:47] - Indians are hungrier than ever to build the next global company
[00:41:15] - The bear and bull cases for India over the coming decade
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Sajith Pai - Frameworks to Understand India - [Return on India, EP.01]
Episode 1
Thursday, December 1, 2022 • Duration 56:55
Welcome to the first episode of our new series, Return on India. I’m your host, Romeen Sheth. India is a country filled with nuance, contradictions, and ambition for the future. And throughout this podcast series, I’m excited to share why I believe the next decade will belong to India.
The first few episodes will focus on the macro story. The technological and demographic building blocks that lay the groundwork for future success. Then we’ll explore individual sectors, from e-commerce to gaming to fintech. All throughout, we will speak with investors, founders, and executives contributing to the next generation of Indian businesses.
My guest today is Sajith Pai, a general partner at one of India’s leading early stage venture firms, Blume Ventures. Sajith and the team at Blume put together a fantastic report recently on the rise of India’s start-up ecosystem, and it gives us the perfect entry point into this series. We discuss the right way to segment India’s consumer class, the tech trifecta enabling economic growth, and why the start-up playbook for India is so different to the United States. Please enjoy my conversation with Sajith Pai.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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Return On India is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Return On India, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @RomeenSheth | @joincolossus
Show Notes
[00:02:54] - [First question] - What he means by India being a country of contradictions
[00:04:37] - The right framework for segmenting and understanding India’s consumer class
[00:08:24] - Evaluating companies who are primarily attacking India 1 and extrapolating to the other tiers after establishing themselves
[00:11:09] - Unpacking the idea of building “X” for India and expanding to India-first use-case products and services
[00:14:33] - Whether or not it’s possible for a company to build for all Indian consumer classes and co’s who’ve done it successfully
[00:16:55] - Drivers that stand out to him when evaluating the Indian ecosystem
[00:20:29] - The rate of change in bandwidth, smartphones, and frictionless payment systems
[00:23:32] - Breaking down the concept of leapfrogging and how it applies to India
[00:26:59] - India’s low trust economy and public digital infrastructure
[00:30:45] - Being a data challenged country and thinking about the rise of public infrastructure from the outside in
[00:33:50] - Key phases the Indian startup ecosystem has gone through
[00:37:14] - How the numbers look in the ecosystem today compared to a few years ago
[00:39:37] - The main sectors in their startup ecosystem and why capital pools behind them
[00:40:59] - What’s going on in SaaS in India and unique circumstances given their geography
[00:44:12] - Differences for the playbook in launching successful SaaS companies in India compared to the US or other countries
[00:47:23] - Thoughts about India becoming one of the biggest English speaking countries in the world and the implications of that for their economy
[00:50:20] - Counterintuitive things about India that most people might not consider
[00:53:15] - Why he’s long on Indians but neutral on India
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Welcome to Return on India
Thursday, November 24, 2022 • Duration 02:11
Welcome to Return on India, a new Colossus podcast hosted by Romeen Sheth. Through conversations with central figures in Indian business, Return on India will explore one of the most populous and promising economies in the world. We will examine the unique cultural dynamics behind emerging demographic trends and we will drill into key sectors by talking to the business leaders driving change. We plan to investigate the past, present and future as we explore India’s investment case. This is a country filled with nuance, contradictions and ambition for the future - we are excited to share more insight on the underpinnings for why we believe the next decade will belong to India.
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Nithin Kamath - Zerodha: Building India’s Biggest Stockbroker - [Return on India, EP.09]
Episode 9
Thursday, February 16, 2023 • Duration 47:56
My guest today is Nithin Kamath, founder and CEO of Zerodha. The last 10 years in the Indian startup ecosystem have been flushed with venture capital, especially from the West. The country, understandably, has hit an inflection point and capital allocators are bullish on the potential to build world-scale businesses in India today. One of the most fascinating businesses in India that's not as talked about and has taken no outside investor capital is Zerodha - India's largest stockbroker. Its scale is staggering. Today the company is 13 years old, has over 11 million users, and last year did over 250 million in profit. It's a story of building the right way and for the long term. I was thrilled to chat with Nithin today to explore the step function growth in the business, market, and country that enabled Zerodha’s rapid ascent. Please enjoy my conversation with Nithin Kamath
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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Return On India is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Return On India, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @RomeenSheth | @joincolossus
Show Notes
[00:02:36] - [First question] - Overview of Zerodha and its size and scale today
[00:07:15] - What informed their best case outcome and thoughts on mobile penetration
[00:14:16] - Short positions and contours of hedge funds in India compared to the US
[00:20:04] - Relatively low levels of leverage in the Indian ecosystem
[00:23:12] - Why areas of the Indian ecosystem are underdeveloped compared to the US
[00:27:03] - Lucking out by not getting professional investors in their company
[00:35:07] - How the recent flood of capital into India affected their business
[00:38:34] - Thoughts about operating outside of India and transferable principals
[00:41:49] - Unpacking the framework of seeing India as a series of clusters and villages
[00:44:35] - The bear and bull case for India over the next decade
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Prukalpa Sankar - Building for the World from India - [Return on India, EP.08]
Episode 8
Thursday, February 9, 2023 • Duration 41:02
My guest today is Prukalpa Sankar, co-founder of Atlan. Atlan is one of the most exciting SaaS businesses in India and PK was the perfect guest to dive deep into what's going on in the Indian ecosystem. When we think about startups, consumer startups at large have experienced a major shift over the years, going from low-hanging-fruit services businesses to more challenging X for Y companies, to building natively for India's use cases. SaaS and Enterprise have taken a different motion. SaaS companies in India are not just building for the domestic market, but for the global market. In this conversation, we covered all things SaaS, why India's hit an inflection point, and what the downstream implications of building great SaaS companies for Indian society are. Please enjoy my conversation with Prukalpa Sankar.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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Return On India is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Return On India, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @RomeenSheth | @joincolossus
Show Notes
[00:02:37] - [First question] - Defining what India SaaS is writ large
[00:04:27] - The macro forces that are driving the inflection point in India SaaS today
[00:07:55] - The evolution of SaaS in India and what the landscape looks like now
[00:11:07] - Differences between building SaaS for India versus the world and why there’s such a focus on global SaaS
[00:14:09] - What the west is uniquely good at that India SaaS companies could learn from
[00:18:03] - Unpacking the 120% concept
[00:20:45] - Distinct characteristics of global SaaS companies built in India
[00:23:18] - Thoughts about efficiency when building from India versus the west
[00:26:06] - Whether or not the high level of hospitality in India is also found in company-building
[00:28:36] - Learning what countries do well from a cultural perspective and integrating key takeaways from them into her own business
[00:32:12] - The founding story of Atlan and the downstream societal implications of creating a company like that
[00:36:23] - Things that could go right or wrong for India in the next ten years
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Nitish Mittersain - Nazara: Gaming for 1 Billion People - [Return on India, EP.07]
Episode 7
Monday, January 30, 2023 • Duration 48:12
My guest today is Nitish Mittersain, founder and CEO of Nazara. One of the longest-standing and most exciting consumer businesses today in India is gaming. The ecosystem is ripe with venture capital, over $2bn has been infused in the last few years, developer talent and an influx of customers with the rise of Jio. But the gaming story has been around for the last 25 years and Nazara’s been a participant since the beginning. I enjoyed getting Nitish’s perspective on the industry at large, how it’s evolved, and why now is the inflection point for India to make an impact at a global level. From a business model that originally planned for 6 million mobile users at its peak to one of India’s successful consumer IPO’s with an aspiration to build a multi-billion dollar revenue business over the coming decade, the Nazara story is filled with lessons applicable for anyone looking to understand the Indian startup ecosystem. Please enjoy my conversation with Nitish Mittersain.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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Return On India is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Return On India, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @RomeenSheth | @joincolossus
Show Notes
[00:02:40] - [First question] - The evolution of the video game market in India
[00:04:13] - How Value Added Services (VAS) via TelCos propelled Nazara in its early days
[00:06:04] - The impact of Jio’s high-quality data service on the mobile gaming industry
[00:08:02] - The landscape of gaming in India today
[00:11:58] - Unpacking the notion that gaming in India is like it was in China 10 years ago
[00:12:59] - Creative video game monetization strategies for Indian consumers
[00:14:38] - Factors driving recent growth in terms of willingness to pay for games
[00:16:33] - Distinct characteristics that are unique to the Indian gaming market
[00:19:54] - Why locally relevant content is important to Indian consumers
[00:20:50] - The explosion of India-native gaming companies
[00:23:32] - The heterogeneity of archetypes across pan-Indian gamer demographics
[00:26:29] - How Nazara’s structure addresses every corner of the Indian gaming market
[00:30:58] - How he thinks about the spectrum of diversification and focused scaling
[00:32:37] - The operational strength of their Friends of Nazara ecosystem model
[00:35:08] - Cutting out the middleman and creating a direct B-to-C empire
[00:36:43] - Nazara’s bootstrap DNA focused on profitability and sustainable margins
[00:40:07] - Where he imagines profit pools will emerge in the future
[00:41:18] - What Indian consumers are willing to pay for in terms of game design
[00:43:39] - His outlook on India’s potential video game market over the next ten years
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Kunal Shah - Exploring Consumer Psychology - [Return on India, EP.06]
Episode 6
Thursday, January 12, 2023 • Duration 48:23
My guest today is Kunal Shah, founder and CEO of CRED. When you think of India as a society, the motivations and psychology of consumers and how they interact with brands is fundamentally different than Western societies. There's a different philosophical value attributed to collectivism versus individualism. Trust finds itself aggregating in large entities and institutions and the Indian society often function in spite of itself versus with the same efficiency and structure in the west. But understanding these elements is critical to understanding what types of businesses succeed in India.
And in today's episode, Kunal and I unpacked each of these philosophical elements amongst others, and applied them to different topics in Indian markets. Namely, why is the consumption class aggregated in approximately 1% of the population, why has credit been historically underutilized in India, and what are the characteristics needed to build a platform company for next generation India. Please enjoy my conversation with Kunal Shah.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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Return On India is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Return On India, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @RomeenSheth | @joincolossus
Show Notes [00:03:05] - [First question] - Applying Maslow’s hierarchy to collectivist Asian societies
[00:05:30] - How cultural conceptions of time and efficiency affect Indian markets
[00:08:32] - The influence of status-based values on spending patterns in Indian culture
[00:11:42] - How Indians tend to invest in shared spaces and luxury goods
[00:13:49] - Why Indian consumption favors soulfulness over standardization
[00:18:16] - The importance of trust in Indian society and commerce
[00:21:23] - The success of aggregated super-apps in the East as opposed to focused apps
[00:23:54] - Heterogeneity of consumption in India across classes, genders, and subcultures
[00:27:06] - How CRED is targeting the India 1A market for financial services
[00:31:11] - His perspective on the history of credit use in India
[00:34:58] - How Indian software platforms are built on utility and trust
[00:37:49] - Layering on financial services onto trusted and free non-finance platforms in India
[00:40:26] - Infrastructural deficiencies that continue to hold back the Indian tech market
[00:43:27] - Business models from outside India that can work well within India
[00:44:51] - His predictions on which Indian ideas will succeed internationally
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Ravish Naresh - Khatabook: Transforming SMB’s in India - [Return on India, EP.05]
Episode 5
Thursday, January 5, 2023 • Duration 49:39
My guest today is Ravish Naresh, founder and CEO of Khatabook. The Indian economy is set up structurally differently to the West. While the US has big box retail and all the benefits that come with it - efficient supply chains, readily established infrastructure, and access to credit - India largely operates in the backs of the MSME segment; micro, small, and medium enterprise. Understanding the MSME segment is critical if you want to understand India. It's the heartbeat of the Indian economy and it represents over 60 million businesses, largely in tier two and tier three cities. The limiting factor for growth for most of these businesses historically has been access to credit. They're underbanked and operate on a cash basis, and it's why this week I was excited to have Ravish on Return on India to help us better understand the segment and how to build for it.
Khatabook is helping merchants in India digitize their bookkeeping and is bringing them from the offline world into the online economy. Today, Khatabook has over 10 million monthly active users, and the platform records a staggering 250,000 transactions per hour. In this discussion, we chatted through how to understand the nuances of the MSME segment, the challenges of building for this segment, and the second and third-order effects of including MSMEs in the formalized Indian economy. Please enjoy my conversation with Ravish Naresh.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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Return On India is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Return On India, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @RomeenSheth | @joincolossus
Show Notes
[00:03:17] - [First question] - Overview of the MSME segment in India with examples
[00:10:16] - How the retail market structure in India differs from the West
[00:15:58] - The role of Kirana stores and Khatabook in local Indian economies
[00:21:13] - Potential challenges and upsides of selling software to MSME businesses
[00:25:50] - Khatabook’s use of a free software wedge to leverage credit business
[00:31:08] - How Khatabook uses bookkeeping data to make lending decisions
[00:35:53] - The network effect enabled by Khatabook’s platform
[00:42:36] - Projected second-and third-order effects from Khatabook’s foundations
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Anand Chandrasekaran - Understanding India from The West - [Return on India, EP.04]
Episode 4
Thursday, December 22, 2022 • Duration 46:44
My guest today is Anand Chandrasekaran, Partner at General Catalyst. While India has become a popular investment hub in recent years, it wasn't the case just shy of a decade ago. Even more rare were investors that spent equivalent amounts of time in India and the Bay Area. Anand has a unique perspective, and it's why I wanted to bring him on to Return on India. He's operated and invested in both the East and the West. He has spent time at formidable players in both countries, such as Facebook, Yahoo, Bharti Airtel and Snapdeal, and coalesced those perspectives into over 80 investments prior to joining GC. For that, Anand is widely recognized as one of the top seed angel investors in the Indian ecosystem. Today we went wide and deep. We unpacked the different phases of India's growth, the challenges of building in India, and how India compares to the US ecosystem with some insight for the outlook ahead. Please enjoy my conversation with Anand Chandrasekaran.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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Return On India is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Return On India, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @RomeenSheth | @joincolossus
Show Notes
[00:02:50] - [First question] - The Cowboy, Jio and Growth phases of India’s startup ecosystem
[00:06:18] - Moving from basic infrastructure to a creative hub for entrepreneurs
[00:11:04] - How we should appropriately think about India
[00:14:54] - Startups are seen as the solution for building a great country in India
[00:17:47] - Thinking about the size of the opportunity set that sits beneath each of India’s innovation archetypes
[00:19:55] - Characteristics of companies that are building natively for India
[00:23:32] - Why differentiate between India’s consumers using the english and hindi word for India
[00:25:47] - How to build successful companies depending on which Indian consumer you’re addressing
[00:28:59] - Reacting to the US statement that Indians make great employees but not leaders
[00:32:57] - Why the west erroneously refers to India as the developing world
[00:34:46] - What the US ecosystem can learn from India
[00:36:30] - Bullish factors about India that the rest of the world doesn’t understand
[00:39:27] - The bear case for India that people may not be aware of
[00:41:46] - What will have to go right or wrong in the future to elevate or hurt India’s success
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