In this episode of Millionaire Mondays, featured in Startup Spotlights, an initiative by Google Play, we sit down with Anshul Kamath and Rohan Arora, founders of Evolve, a mental health platform, with a special focus on the LGBTQIA+ community. Since its inception in 2017, Evolve has helped over 1 million people across the world, in the uplifting and well-being of their mental health. 00:00 Intro 03:51 Story of Anshul 08:47 Rohan's Story 12:36 How Both of them Met 17:32 Evolve's Early Days 21:28 ...
Jul 10, 2024•1 hr 5 min
In this episode of Millionaire Mondays, featured in Startup Spotlights, an initiative by Google Play, we sit down with Tito Aby Idicula and Nigel Crasto, founders of Programming Hub, one of the largest apps to learn programming. Since its inception in 2016, Programming Hub has taught coding to more than 40 Million people, reaching almost every single country in the world. 00:00 Introduction 03:41 Inception at L&T 04:34 Transitioning from Employment to Entrepreneurship 08:21 Financial Struggl...
Jun 18, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Today's episode of Millionaire Mondays is extra special - because it's also the first episode being featured in #StartupSpotlights, a Google Play initiative, where inspiring startup founders share their untold growth stories. In today's episode, we're in conversation with Yannick Colaço, co-founder of FanCode, a one-stop destination for sports fans in India. FanCode has more than 100M lifetime users, making it one of the largest sports streaming platforms in the country. 00:00 - Introduction 04:...
Jun 04, 2024•1 hr
It all began in late 2008, amidst Abhinav Das' GATE exam. In a pivotal moment of realization, he abandoned the exam midway, recognizing that pursuing a master's degree wasn't his true calling. Instead, he crafted a business plan on the spot, birthing the concept of 'Evomo - Evolving Mobility'. The objective behind Evomo was straightforward: to replace the ubiquitous jugaad vehicles prevalent in rural India with Rural Utility Vehicles (RUVs). These RUVs were envisioned to be cost-effective, modul...
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 1 min
00:00 Intro 02:52 Building Ather S340 and 450 09:15 Indian EVs vs Chinese EVs 19:29 Can India become the biggest electric vehicle exporter? 28:10 Indian EV industry (wave 1) 33:30 Struggles of building an EV company 40:40 How Ather almost shut down 52:09 The hardware wave 58:10 How to take feedback 1:04:48 Asteroid mining is the future 1:09:59 The future of the energy industry 1:15:45 Outro
Nov 13, 2023•1 hr 17 min
00:00 Intro 01:50 From a Bedroom, to a Basement 05:53 Hiring in 2005: a Big Challenge 10:26 Building Culture, Organically 11:10 Running a Global Company in India 14:16 Being Profitable and Bootstrapped 16:16 Three Near-Death Experiences 22:40 Milestones and the Path Ahead Pallav Nadhani founded FusionCharts at the age of 17 in an effort to earn himself some extra pocket money. He succeeded in doing so, and now, 17 years later, he has more pocket money than he knows what to do with. The data visu...
Oct 09, 2023•26 min
Pravesh Pandey is one of the most renowned faces in India's Hotel and Restaurant Industry. He started his career with ITC Hotels back in 2002, where he was a Guest Service Coordinator. He spent the next decade of his professional career in senior positions at key companies like P&O Cruises, Lizard Lounge, Henry Tham Lifestyle Restaurant, and Hard Rock Cafe. In 2020, Pravesh started Bissi Bissi Oota, which is India's first QSR brand serving home-style meals that are 'Shuddha', 'Aarogya', and ...
Oct 02, 2023•55 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Candice Lock's journey from her upbringing in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, oto her tech career in New York is a tale of cultural fusion and culinary passion. Growing up in a Cantonese family, she later found herself at the Copacabana salsa club in New York, where the Latinos affectionately referred to her as "Chinita," meaning "little Chinese girl" in Spanish. Her love for Latin American cuisine, especially Mexican food, blossomed during her time in the city that never sleeps.When Candice moved to B...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 10
When Anubhav was a kid in school, he used to flip phones. That's the start of his business venture even though he didn't know that's how business worked. During his teenage, his parents wanted him to do his UPSC exam and become an IAS Officer but he chose entrepreneurship without his parent knowing about it.He moved from Delhi to Indore to start his entrepreneurial journey and decided to start selling chai. They came up with a business plan to start selling chai and decided to open their very fi...
Sep 18, 2023•57 min
Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ When Nicolas moved to India from France for an internship, he was struck by nostalgia for the sandwiches from his homeland. And so, he embarked on a culinary journey. In 2015, he took a bold step and launched a food truck called Paris Panini in Bengaluru, with the aim of introducing gourmet French street food to the city.Paris Panini was among the pioneering food trucks in Bangalore, housed within a converted old-school van. Its weekly route quickly gaine...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 24 min
Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ Ankit got his start building an online community called YouthPad, with the tagline “Have your say” - the website’s goal was to bring together the youth of Delhi NCR onto common platform, and he ran this platform from 2007 to 2010 when he got a job working at Flipkart.By 2015 Ankit had proven himself to be a formidable intrapreneur, and was promoted to the position of Chief Business Officer - everything was going well for Ankit, but in 2016, after more t...
Sep 04, 2023•57 min
00:00 Intro 04:04 How Matt started a coffee business 07:13 Challenges while roasting coffee in India 08:58 Blue Tokai's marketing strategy 09:49 Blur Tokai's ₹40 lakh roaster 11:19 The raise of Blue Tokai 15:25 Opening their first location 21:25 Challenges faced while expanding 24:28 How Shivam Shahi joined Blue Tokai 27:01 Becoming a cafe 28:39 Delhi Police seals Blue Tokai locations 32:03 Evolving coffee culture in India 32:43 Blue Tokai during the pandemic 34:56 Blue Tokai post pandemic 36:30...
Aug 28, 2023•57 min
Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ When Bert Mueller first visited India in 2010 he never could have anticipated that he’d spend the next decade of his life building a business there. Today he runs a profitable 50+ location QSR chain called California Burrito - they did ₹110 crore in FY22. Bert Mueller started California Burrito with two American co-founders, Dharam Khalsa and Gaelan Draper. They each put in $15,000, and were able to raise an additional $250,000 from family and friends usi...
Aug 21, 2023•51 min
Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ 00:00 Intro04:26 How Samosa Party started10:27 How Samosa Party got it's name11:25 From B2B to B2C18:58 Expanding the brand30:12 Diksha joining as a co-founder33:03 Samosa Party during the pandemic44:54 Expanding to different cities50:47 Outro Amit Nanwani and Diksha Pande started Samosa Party in 2017, with an aim to provide a hygienic yet authentic alternative to India’s favourite snack.Before starting Samosa Party, Amit was a developer at INTEL, and whi...
Aug 14, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Book a free demo with Explorex here: https://share.hsforms.com/1wdxFNOxpQZ29F9MpD48e7Acyk5y Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ 00:00 Intro 1:52 Vijayawada - Barkaas' First Location 7:57 Hustle - The Struggles of Running a Restaurant 10:16 Mangalagiri - Barkaas' Second Location 12:05 Money - The Financials of Barkaas 17:09 Bengaluru - Experiences in Marketing 20:39 Expansion - The Challenges of Franchising 25:05 Scale - Managing 10 Locations 27:29 COVID-19 - Barkaas During the Pandemic 33:1...
Aug 07, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Book a free demo with Explorex here: https://share.hsforms.com/1wdxFNOxpQZ29F9MpD48e7Acyk5y Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ There’s an Indian burger startup that is stealing market share from Burger King and McDonald’s. Its founder hadn’t tasted a burger before 2010. Now he’s running a ₹100 crore ARR burger chain with 100+ locations. This is the story of Biggies Burger: Biraja Rout is from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. He comes from a regular working-class family. In 2010 he got a job at Infosys...
Jul 31, 2023•56 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Book a free demo with Explorex here: https://share.hsforms.com/1wdxFNOxpQZ29F9MpD48e7Acyk5y Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ Sohrab Sitaram began his career as a manager at Taj Hotels. In 2000, he started his first business, No Escape, a nightclub in Connaught Place, New Delhi. Over the next 14 years, he would go on to start numerous restaurants in multiple cities across India, including Tabularasa, Chi Kitchen & Bar, Shalom, and Italic. Then, in 2013, Sohrab Sitaram was approached b...
Jul 24, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 1
Book a free demo with Explorex here: https://share.hsforms.com/1wdxFNOxpQZ29F9MpD48e7Acyk5y Explorex’s website: https://explorex.co/ Mainak Sarkar and Pritam Khan started Eatables in 2016 while they were studying at IIT Kharagpur. This startup was their answer to a problem they had discovered while visiting restaurants in Kolkata, wherein many of the restaurant menus that they’d discover online while on campus at IIT Kharagpur were inaccurate and contained incorrect prices or items that were no ...
Jul 19, 2023•58 min•Ep. 10
Learn more about Plivo here: https://www.plivo.com/ In this podcast, we sat down with Venky Balasubramanian to talk about the story of Plivo, a cloud communications platform that simplifies and personalises businesses’ customer communications. Every kind of business, from startups to public companies, can benefit from Plivo’s enterprise-grade communications platform, which includes a premium carrier network with connectivity in more than 190 countries, an API platform for messaging and voice cal...
Jul 10, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 9
In this episode of the Backstage With Millionaires podcast, we sit down with Awis Ahmed, founder of Pixxel, to discuss his entrepreneurial journey. 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:41 Building the pod 00:06:25 Working at SpaceX 00:07:31 Why Awais chose asteroid mining 00:14:11 Why no one got into hyperspectral commercial space 00:22:23 Raising funds to build a satellite 00:32:58 Building the first satellite 00:43:54 Raising funds during the pandemic 00:49:41 How Pixxel generates revenue 00:50:21 Launching t...
Jun 14, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 8
Download the OctaFX Trading App at https://bit.ly/OctaFX_Backstage100 and get 5,000 USD on your demo account! Enter promo code - BACKSTAGE100 and double your deposit! 🎁 Listen to this podcast as audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/5rGPalovc6AKsfbOyjh32p?si=0e633f31f7e64d77 In this episode of the Backstage With Millionaires podcast, we sit down with Avnish Anand, founder of CaratLane, to discuss his entrepreneurial journey. 00:00 Intro 02:50 How Avnish Got into CaratLane 08:15 First customer 13...
Jun 07, 2023•47 min•Ep. 7
Download the OctaFX Trading App at https://bit.ly/OctaFX_Backstage100 and get 5,000 USD on your demo account! Enter promo code - BACKSTAGE100 and double your deposit! 🎁 Listen to this podcast as audio: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh... In this episode of the Backstage With Millionaires podcast, we sit down with Arjun Vaidya, founder of Dr. Vaidya's, to discuss his entrepreneurial journey. 00:00 Intro 02:50 Foreign adoption of Indian concepts 06:00 Why Indian brands aren't going global? 0...
Apr 26, 2023•44 min•Ep. 6
In this episode of the Backstage With Millionaires podcast, Caleb Friesen sits with Akshay Singhal, founder, and CEO of Log9 Materials, to discuss his entrepreneurial journey. 00:00 - Intro 03:10 - Inefficiencies in Fuel-Cells 05:01 - Disruption during the Pandemic 06:52 - Idea for Corona Oven 14:58 - Getting Back Stronger 28:30 - Tech Behind Log9 Efficiency 33:06 - Log9's Market Share 34:25 - Transition to two-wheeler Batteries 38:51 - Concept of Day Zero 42:42 - Outro Akshay Singhal started hi...
Apr 18, 2023•44 min•Ep. 5
In this episode of Backstage With Millionaires podcast, Caleb Friesen sits with Abhishek Nayak, founder and CEO of Appsmith, to discuss his entrepreneurial journey. Abhishek started his entrepreneurial journey in 2011, when he built 'GharPay', a platform to let e-commerce companies collect cash payments. He then started 'Clink', a product in the transaction marketing space with the Gharpay team and investors. After Ezetap acquired Clink, Abhishek worked as director of products at Ezetap before m...
Mar 13, 2023•44 min•Ep. 4
In this episode of Backstage With Millionaires podcast, Caleb Friesen sits with Tushar Vashisht, founder and CEO of Healthifyme, to discuss his entrepreneurial journey. 00:00 - Intro 02:21 - Time at Aadhaar 04:26 - 100 Rs a day experiment 08:00 - Seed for Healthifyme 10:40 - Early days of company 11:58 - Sponsored Segment 13:06 - Initial Money to start 13:49 - Moving To Bangalore 14:55 - Raising Angel Round 17:20 - Meeting co-founder 20:58 - Running out of money 26:18 - $1 Mn Seed Round 30:18 - ...
Mar 09, 2023•45 min•Ep. 3
In this episode of Backstage With Millionaires podcast, Caleb Friesen sits with Rajiv Srivatsa, Partner and Investor at Antler India, to discuss his professional journey. 00:00 - Intro 02:13 - Leaving Urbanladder 03:27 - Moving on to Antler 09:42 - How Antler India started? 15:04 - Meeting co-founder(s) 16:46 - How to start a VC firm? 21:39 - Antler's Business Model 26:38 - Founder Hat to Investor Hat 28:33 - Antler India's sectoral focus 30:27 - India: Building for the world 34:01 - Being flexi...
Feb 27, 2023•47 min•Ep. 2
Download the OctaFX Trading App at https://bit.ly/OctaFX_Backstage100 and get 5,000 USD on your demo account! Enter promo code - BACKSTAGE100 and double your deposit! 🎁 In this podcast, Caleb Friesen and Gagandeep Reehal, co-founder and CEO of Minus Zero sit down to chat about self-driving vehicles, the journey of Minus Zero, and their future plans. Minus Zero is India's first startup building fully autonomous vehicles. It was started in 2020 and the team moved their operations to Bengaluru in ...
Feb 14, 2023•42 min•Ep. 1
In this episode of the Backstage With Millionaire Podcast, Caleb and Pankaj sit with Riten Debnath of Fueler.io to discuss his journey of building his startup, Fueler. Fueler is an online platform to help you showcase your work on the internet. It's like Github but for Generalist individuals.
Dec 13, 2022•1 hr 8 min
Permissionless, a deep-tech startup founded by Roshan Vadassery, is building open-source public infrastructure on the internet. Backed by ex-General Partner a16z Balaji Srinivasan, their viral Gen Z startup culture is attracting some of the brightest minds in India. Check out Permissionless here: https://prmsnls.xyz/ Roshan Vadassery's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roshan-vadassery-951708138/ Roshan Vadassery's Twitter: https://twitter.com/roshanvadassery Merch: https://merchter.com/stor...
Nov 21, 2022•43 min
Will Poole started Capria Fund as a fund-of-funds, with a network of more than 15 managers and a collective AUM of more than $1 billion and presence in the leading tech hotspots in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and India. Capria's second fund is structured as a conventional venture fund, investing in individual early-growth startups selected from the 350-company portfolio of their partners across the global south. Will Poole first came to India in 2003, leading Microsoft's Windows globa...
Nov 16, 2022•42 min
