How can an experience being a VC come handy while starting up? To answer this today we’ve with us Divyaanshu Makkar, Co-Founder, Sourcewiz.

Prior to starting Sourcewiz, Divyaanshu had already tasted entrepreneurship with his first venture in EdTech space, Connect2Teach in London. Post that after working with EY-Parthenon for a brief period of time, he joined Bessemer Venture Partners in California, United States.

At Bessemer he focused on EdTech, Consumer Tech for India/SEA and Enterprise/SMB SaaS being built from India/SEA for the world.

In today’s episode, we talk with Divyaanshu understanding his journey from being a Entrepreneur to becoming a VC and then going back for Entrepreneurship, his learnings and networks from his VC-period which came handy while starting Sourcewiz and more.

Notes -

02:24 - Intro

03:53 - Early Career and background in Venture Capital prior to Sourcewiz

07:35 - After VC what made him come back as an entrepreneur?

09:38 - Learnings from Mistakes from his previous venture

13:02 - Mistakes he observed other founders make while being a VC

15:04 - Key criterias for him while selecting a market from a VC’s lens

20:03 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?

21:58 - Quitting at Bessemer Venture Partners to starting up Sourcewiz

31:10 - Connecting with Sajith Pai from Blume Ventures

35:02 - Identifying and Focusing on the problem statement within SaaS

41:08 - Getting their first paying customer

44:45 - Figuring out a scalable GTM for Tier-II customers

47:34 - Acquiring 400+ Paid customers in within first year

49:20 - Building a marketplace and its current traction

53:59 - His path to a $1Mn ARR and then for $10Mn ARR

56:16 - Building mechanism for scale

1:00:34 - Unknowns in the market they are still figuring out

1:02:12 - Closing their second round of Seed funding with Matrix Partners India

1:05:02 - Selection criteria for Angel Investors

1:06:44 - Key pointers of Do’s and Don’ts for new founders

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