In The Moonshot Game – a book dedicated to ‘the founders who have been, the founders who are, and the founders who will be’ – Rahul Chandra, the co-founder of Helion Ventures, gives us the behind-the-scenes story of a VC’s journey, right from the beginning of the second start-up revolution in India in 2006 until the end of the funding frenzy in 2016.
We have picked out some tips for you on how you can go about impressing a VC – straight from a VC’s mouth!
Keep the business model simple!
The best part of BookMyShow’s model was its simplicity. It was a low-margin business but the number of people who would eventually buy movie tickets on the Internet was projected to grow by many thousands in the future. The tough times that followed the founding years of BookMyShow were not just due to lack of money, but also competition. Eventually, BookMyShow won both battles. Many competitors perished. BookMyShow was more or less the last company standing, and like MakeMyTrip, it dominated the online movie ticketing market.
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Timing plays a Massive Role- make sure it is correct for your business!
In another decade, a Graycell could have grown like WhatsApp, a JiGrahak like Paytm, but there is such a vast difference in outcome in seemingly similar concepts. The constant analysis of what makes some start-ups successful while some equally smart founders fail shows that timing has a massive role. This one factor is a huge determinant of success and is hardest to determine.
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Have a Product Head
The product head was the bridge between the customer and the engineering team. The role required the product manager to translate between these two functions. This ensured that engineering built great features that made production adoption easy. This role had still not appeared in consumer Internet companies in India.
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Keep the audience on the edge while giving a presentation
Vijay’s voice was high-pitched. Unlike pitches which ramble on to produce a soporific effect, Vijay’s incantations kept my brain on edge…. Vijay was speaking in a curious Hinglish. He punctuated every sentence with an ‘okay’. But damn, he had some energy. I could tell that sitting down was too passive for him. Given a chance, he would stand up and walk all over the room while explaining himself. His hands had a life of their own. As he moved them, the vision of Vijay Shekhar Sharma started getting painted in my head. He had me in goose bumps during the course of this first meeting.
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Make it clear what help is needed from the VC
Like Deep Kalra, Saurabh also made it clear what help he needed from his VC firm. He wanted help with finding quality businesspeople to join his lean team of engineers. There were lots of partnerships to be done. This meant we were playing out our promise of being active investors.
Get your hands on the book today to get more insights into the secret world of a VC!
