The Pomp Podcast - #1085 Shiva Singh Sangwan On If India The Next Silicon Valley

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

Shiva Singh Sangwan is an Investor and Founder at 1947 Rise Fund. In this episode, we discuss the country of India, population growth, why more tech companies are being founded in India, and the reve...rse "brain drain" of talent choosing to work for India-based tech companies. ======================= The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. Even better? Eight Sleep recently launched the next generation of the Pod. The new Pod 3 enables more accurate sleep and health tracking with double the amount of sensors, delivering you the best sleep experience on Earth. Go to eightsleep.com/pomp for exclusive Labor Day savings through September 11th. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia ======================= Compass Mining is the world's first online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware and hosting. Compass was founded with the goal of making it easy for everyone to mine bitcoin. Visit https://compassmining.io/ to start mining bitcoin today! ======================= Exodus is leading the world out of the traditional financial system by building beautiful and user-friendly blockchain products. With its focus on design and user experience, Exodus has become one of the most popular and loved cryptocurrency apps. It’s supported on both desktop and mobile, allowing you to sync your wallet across multiple devices so you can have access to your funds anywhere. You can instantly exchange around 100 different cryptocurrencies straight from your wallet. Interactive charts let you view an asset’s price history and your portfolio’s performance over time. And maybe the best part, Exodus is integrated with the Trezor hardware wallet - making advanced security easy for everyone. Visit exodus.com/pomp for your free download or search Exodus on the App Store or Playstore. ======================= LMAX Digital - the market-leading solution for institutional crypto trading & custodial services - offers clients a regulated, transparent and secure trading environment, together with the deepest pool of crypto liquidity. LMAX Digital is also a primary price discovery venue, streaming real-time market data to the industry’s leading analytics platforms. LMAX Digital - secure, liquid, trusted. Learn more at LMAXdigital.com/pomp ======================= Amberdata provides the critical data infrastructure enabling financial institutions to participate in the digital asset class. We deliver comprehensive data and insights into blockchain networks, crypto markets, and decentralized finance. Download our Digital Asset Data Guide at https://www.amberdata.io/pomp =======================

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Starting point is 00:00:00 What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Shiva Singh Sangawan is an investor and founder at 1947 Rise Fund. In this conversation, we talk about the country of India, the population growth, the demographics, why so many tech companies and so many investors are finding it interesting and also the idea of reverse brain drain. Shiva continues to be one of the loudest proponents of the Indian ecosystem and I enjoyed learning from him in this episode. Before we get into this episode, I first want to talk about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by FTX US. They're the safe,
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Starting point is 00:01:29 out compassmining.io today. This episode is brought to you by Exodus. Accessing Web3 across multiple networks just got a hell of a lot easier. Exodus is one of the most popular crypto wallets for mobile and desktop, and they just added Chrome and Brave web browsers to the lineup. The new Exodus Web3 wallet is a multi-chain browser extension that lets you safely navigate Web3 and DeFi apps on Ethereum, Solana, and Algorand from one wallet. Manage, mint, and sell NFTs on multiple networks in one wallet. You can swap Solana and ETH tokens natively right within the extension. And if you ever hit a snag, world-class customer service is available 24-7. More of your favorite chains are on the way.
Starting point is 00:02:08 So run, don't walk, over to Exodus.com slash Pomp to download the Exodus Web3 wallet right now. Again, Exodus.com slash Pomp. Go check them out today. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments.
Starting point is 00:02:28 You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Shiva here with me.
Starting point is 00:02:44 I'm very excited about this, and I thought a great place to start is just the country of India in general. Obviously, most people know it's a very large country, 1.4 billion people. Talk to me a little bit in terms of the culture of India, and why is entrepreneurship kind of having this renaissance or this resurgence within the country? Yeah. so let me start by palm giving you a maybe let me start with the you know global world view on the tech in general right uh us pioneered china came along china started seeking inspiration from us
Starting point is 00:03:22 uh they started in the beginning they were mostly copying and carrying ideas from from us and building it and then you know china reached an inflection point where they had bunch of uh you know, massive companies like Alibaba, Tencent and all that stuff. And they could really build the entire ecosystem moving forward, meaning they had capital and they had talent. Then, you know, Chinese entrepreneurs started building ideas and companies really unique to themselves, solving China-specific problems.
Starting point is 00:03:55 And then India has been there. India has been seeking inspiration from US and it's been taking inspiration from China. and uh and and you know now india is also reaching that inflection point where you know india has about i think it's about 105 unicorns now india has capital both basically talent and capital and moving forward i think you know the rest of the world which is emerging world uh they will be seeking inspiration from us china and india and india will play a massive role uh and i'll tell you why in a bit. So let me talk about Indian technology because it's now how it has evolved
Starting point is 00:04:36 over the years. We'll go back in 1990s. In the beginning, it was mostly about call centers. It was about BPO, meaning small jobs that were not really core to your business. And then TCS enforcers came along. They started providing IT services to US companies. And then a lot of companies, for example, Microsoft, Facebook, a bunch of these companies, they started opening up tech centers in India because they could tap into the tech talent. The real technology ecosystem or the startup ecosystem, I would say, started in 2008. That's when the companies like Somato, Flipkart, a bunch of others got founded. And I would say I would view startup ecosystem of India just like a startup. From 2008 to 2013 or 14, I would say, was really can India find product
Starting point is 00:05:38 market fit? Meaning, can you really build companies? Can you build startups in India? That got proven right. And then the second phase was from 2014 to 2020-21, which is can Indian companies scale? And I think the first inflection point was when Flipkart got funded. It was valued at a billion dollars. So that kind of story got kind of really proven. And in 2021, we saw about 39 billion right into the Indian startups. 44 unicorns got minted. Overall, we have 105. So that means it has an inflection point. And then moving forward, why I'm saying India would play a massive role moving forward is if you look at other emerging markets, the demographic and the problems are very similar to India versus if you compare that to US and China.
Starting point is 00:06:33 And I think a good benchmark is YC. If you look at YC, you'll see we're building Misho for Africa, we're building Udaan for Pakistan or Bangladesh. And talking about the reverse brain drain bomb, I think it's very inevitable once a country reaches inflection point and what that means did happen in China. I think it was David Wee. He said, we should be thankful of Microsoft and what that means. 70% of CTOs of Chinese companies were once Microsoft alumni, meaning they moved back and built massive tech companies. Similar thing is happening in India. Out of, I think, yeah, we have 105. Out of 105, around 40% is again founded or co-founded by returnees. And this speed is only going to accelerate moving forward. So in a nutshell, right now,
Starting point is 00:07:29 if you think about it, there's a lot of unicorns, meaning founders and operators, they're getting some liquidity. They're helping their co-workers and friends starting new companies. That's basically smart capital, or the early employees are leaving and starting companies. And meaning moving forward, the ideas would be much more related to India, sophisticated, and the speed of execution would be faster. So it's interesting times ahead. So when you talk about, let's call it 105 unicorns in India, that's the third highest anywhere in the world for a country. There's about $39 billion. To put that in context, In 2019, I think there's only $11 billion, so kind of a forex increase over a two, three-year period.
Starting point is 00:08:13 When you start to think about that, is that capital coming from what I'll call India-native venture capital firms, or is this venture capital firms and angel investors coming from outside of India and now recognizing the opportunity in the country, and they're either setting up offices or they're just coming and visiting and deploying capital in the country? Yeah, good question, Pom. So the late stage has been mostly overseas fund, meaning Tiger, O2, and a bunch of others, SoftBank. But as the ecosystem is evolving, I think someone tweeted recently, they were talking about, given the market dynamics right now, I think emerging markets are going to have a tough time. But I would say it's not true for India.
Starting point is 00:08:55 The reason is because we have about seven, eight funds just this year. Combined, they have raised over $10 billion. So meaning the good capital or the capital is available. It's available for great companies. And I think it's only going to evolve. To give you context again, it's going to get difficult. It's going to get really hard and competitive in India. And what that means, when I moved back to India in 2019 from US, I joined AngelList.
Starting point is 00:09:25 to lead business development for them and really build out the early stage investing. You know, in the beginning, we used to, in fact, give deals to people, you know, to lead syndicates and help them raise capital. Fast forward to today, now deals are happening within a day or two.
Starting point is 00:09:42 So you can see the scale. And again, moving forward, you know, it's going to get competitive in India, which is a great thing for the ecosystem. When you think about the types of companies, obviously Silicon Valley was built on a very specific type of company. now it's expanded. If you fast forward to modern day, you see this rise of kind of AI or machine
Starting point is 00:10:01 learning type businesses, you see a rise in American dynamism. There's kind of these themes that play out. If you look at the Indian ecosystem, what are the types of companies that are really finding success for the consumer or the enterprise software? Do you have a mix of these different industries? What are you seeing in terms of kind of the vertical popularity? Yeah. So in the beginning again it was very similar to any other emerging market you'll copy an idea that has worked somewhere else and it's easier to get funded and once you reach a scale again this capital this talent then you start building companies or you start solving problems that's very specific to India and in terms of you know to answer your question
Starting point is 00:10:42 so what the trend that we are seeing right now again like you know let me step back a bit in In the beginning, it was IT services, right? We were giving technology services to companies outside, then we were building software for companies outside. And then, you know, now companies, global companies are actually building products in India so they can utilize the same product in other emerging markets.
Starting point is 00:11:10 But what we are seeing next moving forward would be there'll be a lot of B2B SaaS companies going global. That's been happening. You know, Freshwork is a great chance. that recently went public, Zoho, Chargebee, a bunch of others, like 10, 15 now. And we're also seeing consumer companies going global, meaning very, you know, ready from India, like Cars24 is one of them. LensGuard is, you know, similar to, again, Warby Parker, but they're dominating the Asian
Starting point is 00:11:37 market. And it's, again, it's evolution. As the markets get deeper, there's more capital, there's more talent, then you go after really, really hard problems because the risk capital would increase over time. When you think about your exact activities, you've got 1947 Rise Fund. Talk a little bit about what the strategy here is. And you're backed by a just glitterati list of investors and operators and American-based VC funds. How exactly did you go about putting together that LP list and raising the capital? Yeah. I think I raised the entire fund through
Starting point is 00:12:16 cold tweets, cold emails. But let me give you a quick background bump. So, you know, early life was all about tennis. I would say the best decision in life was picking up tennis. Played professionally in India, won the nationals, used to be one or two in the country, represented India on a few occasions, then I ended up moving to San Diego on a tennis scholarship. And I Googled San Diego for the first time. And I was like, okay, man, this is it. I love the place. So went there, had a fantastic time, played college tennis, you know, my teammates were from 15, 16 different nationalities. And then introduction to Twitter was really a turning point in life, both professionally and personally. And I think that was 2013 or 2014. And that's when I started following
Starting point is 00:13:00 smart people and just just start learning from them it's there right there and all you need to do is you should just have a desire to learn and implement things um wild luck pump i came to know about this event called stocktober fest which is organized by uh the guy named howard linson uh i went there i couldn't afford the pass i was in the restaurant trying to figure out how to get in someone had forgotten the name tag took the name tag went in introduced myself and i tweeted at him saying, thanks for organizing the event. I have no idea why he responded to it. He gave me his email address. I emailed him saying, how about me as a professional tennis player, give you a tennis lesson in exchange for your expertise in venture capital. He took a shot on me. Still,
Starting point is 00:13:43 I don't know. But anyway, there on fast forward to 2018, I started writing a newsletter called 1947 Tech. Back then there was no newsletter on Indian technology ecosystem. The idea for me was to, if I were to move back to India, I should know what's going on in India. It gave me enough data points because, you know, you can kind of learn from things. I was in the US, I could see what's happening. And then again, like I got super convinced, okay, this is the time, this is when you should be moving back to India. Let's move back to India. And again, with Utsav who heads AngelList India, we became friends in 2017. I was literally cheerleading for him on Twitter for him and for AngelList.
Starting point is 00:14:22 And when I came back, joined AngelList, started leading, started, I joined the AngelList. And then 2021 is when a lot of diaspora started asking me, how should we plan
Starting point is 00:14:34 and how to move back to India? And I've been talking about reverse brain drain since 2018. It's not something new. And then, yeah, so for me, the idea was I moved back to India because I wanted to be part
Starting point is 00:14:47 of the growth story in India. why not have others move back and be part of the india growth story as well so that's when i started interviewing people who have moved back and built massive tech companies uh it's been fun uh and by the way pomp if uh you know if you come on my podcast whatever that you need to be in india you get a free tennis lesson uh and you still hang out but yeah and then yeah so what's the next step right we've been i've been creating content i've been helping uh these folks understand what india is about how you know what frameworks these folks have used to move back and build companies uh what's the next step next step for me was okay how about i you know give capital
Starting point is 00:15:28 as well not just content and uh and yeah so again like um for me literally from day one was i you know this is something i asked myself by whatever i do uh career wise uh you know you have to really basically have to you know i think we spoke about it uh where you said like almost everything is a noise you just need to figure out what's something just for you and you know no one else can compete with you so for me it was very authentic to what i was doing you know reverse brain drain i moved back i've been you know trying to be you know part of the story and then uh and then yeah i mean for for me the fund was okay i want to raise capital from people that i've admired over the years i started pinging him started gold emailing literally every person on this planet is
Starting point is 00:16:09 one email away from you. All you need to do is you need to be smart. You need to be thoughtful when you're sending an email. And yeah, so that's how the fun came along. This episode is brought to you by LMAX Digital, the number one institutional crypto exchange. They offer clients the deepest pool of liquidity and they have 100% uptime track record through all the volatility spikes. LMAX Group's liquidity relationships and ultra low latency technology means that LMAX Digital is the market-leading solution for institutions across crypto trading and custodial services.
Starting point is 00:16:43 LMAX Digital, secure, liquid, and trusted. Go learn more at lmaxdigital.com slash POMP. Again, that's lmaxdigital.com slash POMP. This episode is brought to you by Amber Data. If you're a financial institution entering the digital asset class, you'll need access to granular on-chain and market data from multiple venues to power research,
Starting point is 00:17:03 trading, risk management, and compliance. Amber Data delivers comprehensive data and insights into blockchain networks, crypto markets, and decentralized finance, empowering financial institutions to apply traditional finance methods to digital assets. Amber Data eliminates the infrastructure setup, integrated challenges, and maintenance headaches to access digital assets data, reducing cost and time to market to enter the digital asset class. Learn more and download their digital asset data guide at www.amberdata.io. slash Pomp. Again, that's amberdata.io slash Pomp. Go check them out today. This episode is brought to you by 8sleep. Good sleep is the ultimate game changer, and the 8sleep pod is the ultimate sleep machine. The pod is the only sleep technology that dynamically cools and heats each side of the bed to maintain the optimal sleeping temperature for
Starting point is 00:17:51 what your body needs. With the pod, you can start sleeping as cool as 55 degrees Fahrenheit or as hot as 110 degrees Fahrenheit. What is the result? Clinical data shows that 8sleep users experience up to 19% increase in recovery, 32% improvement in sleep quality, and up to 34% more deep sleep. How do I know it works? I sleep on it every single night and it works so well that I begged the founders
Starting point is 00:18:13 to let me invest in the company. Go check them out today at 8sleep.com slash POMP to start sleeping cool this summer and save $150 on the pod. Again, 8sleep.com slash POMP and you get $150 off when you use code POMP. And you keep mentioning reverse brain drain. Explain that concept a little bit more to folks in terms of what that exactly means and how you're seeing this play out on the ground.
Starting point is 00:18:36 Yeah. So anyone who has moved to a different country for education and then work for a bit and then you move back and apply those learnings in your country. So I can give you a quick analogy here. So let's say country A started tennis. I'm from country Y. I moved to country A. I train practice with the best people. When I move back to my own country, to a certain extent, I will have an edge. And that's what I've meant. I meant about the reverse brain drain. Yeah. And what is the value of that in India? Obviously there's an education component. There's a work experience component, but is there also a kind of a knowledge transfer that you're seeing when somebody comes back? Is it just simply being applied to their own companies? One of the statistics that I saw as I was doing a little bit of research, which I almost never do for
Starting point is 00:19:23 conversations, but I said, I feel like I got to make sure I'm prepared for this one, is 40% of the unicorn companies in India have actually been founded or co-founded by somebody who's gone through this kind of reverse brain drain. So 40% is a pretty big number compared to maybe where I would have thought it would come in at. Yeah. So I think few, I would say few reasons. One is when you move to a different country, you are just exposed to people from different cultures, you know, someone from a different country or different geography and all that. And I think the experience that you get, it really opens up your own worldview. And when you start something, you know, from scratch, I think culture is very, very important. And I think that's where that
Starting point is 00:20:10 skill comes in. Secondly, I would say, you know, there's a bunch of companies actually, you know, in India, our funds that were, you know, so I'll give you a quick example. Now I was chatting with, you know, a fund, a GP named Saloni. She came back and she founded the first gaming and entertainment fund in India. And the way it all came down was she was already, she founded a company in England in gaming space. she worked at a firm that was focused only on gaming. She saw the opportunity, similar things are going to happen in India. And she came and she was literally the best person to do that.
Starting point is 00:20:55 And then that's how she's doing great. So I think these are the few learnings I would say that I've seen. Give me an example of kind of the quintessential Indian startup today and kind of what that path looks like. Is there one that sticks out in your mind that you can kind of help people not in india actually understand how this is working um again spomp i i didn't get the question can you give us an example of like uh uh indian startup that you're like this is the uh perfect you know kind of uh company story that we're seeing so a founder leaves they go and get education or work experience somewhere else they come back they start a business it specifically solves a problem in india and then it scales to a large size like is there one story that
Starting point is 00:21:37 sticks out to you as a great example? Yeah. So there's a couple, actually. There's one, he moved back. And for him, the reason was he didn't get his visa approved. His name is Kunal Behl. And he's definitely one of the most influential founders in India now. He came back and he built this company called Snapdeal. Again, the learnings from the US. And he's been also enabling the ecosystem through investing. There's another guy who came back, you know, he went after building, I would say, SoFi in India. I had him on my podcast recently. Again, like the learnings, he saw those patterns in US, came back and went after these problems. These are the few that comes to mind. And when you see that kind of story happening,
Starting point is 00:22:29 the employees that work at that business, are they mostly from India or are these global workforces and they're going outside of India to hire talent as well? Yeah. So they're mostly India because you have to have talent from India. I think it's, it works the best once you have, there's a combination of someone coming back, you know, applies learnings back home and someone who has always been in India. So that's their, you know, most of these, you know, employees are from here. But what I see is many times the talent that has moved back, they still have connections overseas that could help them raise capital, that could help them hire good talent. They can come back. I've seen this play out here. What's going on with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the
Starting point is 00:23:17 country? I think, you know, you got to have JD on your podcast. He's the founder of Polygon. But I really don't know. It's mostly about wait and watch. Personally, I'm bullish on the technology and the talent. The talent density is a lot. Another thing I would say, something interesting that happened to India in Web3 spaces is really JD and Sandeep building Polygon. And they're really, really enabling the ecosystem. And what that means, they are funding other companies.
Starting point is 00:23:57 You know, they have funds now lined up. They've been investing. They've been helping. So it's really, again, the ecosystem that's been building. And it's there to stay. And Web3 is global, right? You could be anywhere. You could be hiring anywhere.
Starting point is 00:24:09 And when you think about something like Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, how important is it for there to be one example? You mentioned Polygon as, okay, there was one example. all the other entrepreneurs see that this is possible to happen in India? And then do you see a big rush of kind of entrepreneurs fast following into an industry? Yeah. So in fact, Pomp, I was having a conversation with one of the investors where there was a trend that I was seeing, I would say, you know, the last three, four months, the good talent was actually migrating to Web3. And what that means, either they were founding companies in web three, or they were joining web three companies. So to me, that's just a
Starting point is 00:24:50 validation. And again, like you should be just following the smart diet, what, you know, where they're headed to. And then that's where you can really, you know, kind of have a sense and go after it. And then talk to me about this conversation, there's gonna be a lot of Indian entrepreneurs, or even folks who work in the tech industry from India, maybe they live there, or maybe they are still kind of abroad. What's your message to them as to why maybe they should either come home or start a business in India? Yeah. So, you know, again, like I was interviewing one of the guys, he's moved back and he's built a billion dollar company. He said, you know, India is a movie, not a picture. And one should stay at it for long enough and you'll get what
Starting point is 00:25:38 you deserve. So it hasn't even started. With his business, he told me, Shiva, when pandemic hit, we thought it's going to be bad for the business, but it was actually the opposite. What ended up happening from 400K users to, I think, within a few months, they got to, I think, about three to four million users. And we were just in general talking about, okay, if people are thinking about moving back to India, the traditional advice is it's either now or never, but the reality is India is only getting better.
Starting point is 00:26:20 And what that means, so he said, the digital revolution that we saw in the last two years was probably more than what we've seen in the previous six years, and the next two years would be even faster. And the foundation has already been laid, right? These technologies have been built. So at a base level, I'll talk about the levers, you know, how it all happened. So one is Jio.
Starting point is 00:26:45 Jio came in and it literally just brought India to the internet. Now we have about almost 800 internet users. UPI came along that really digitized the payment system in India. It's actually the most sophisticated payment system in the world right now. And then Aadhaar came along. It really digitized the identity, your digital identity. So the point is the foundations are laid and there's talent, there is capital. So now it'll be easier to come back and build companies and they'll be scalable.
Starting point is 00:27:21 They'll be faster. And yeah, I mean, I think I'm pumped. It's going to be interesting times ahead. Talk to me about 1947 Rise Fund. When are you trying to meet founders? Is it Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A? What size checks are you looking to write and any specific types of companies you're looking for? Yeah. So I'm focused on reverse brain drain talent and highly ambitious Indian founders. I come in at Pre-Seed and Seed. I'm sector agnostic. For me, it all comes down to the team and then the big market. And team is really about back to that thing. Like you just
Starting point is 00:27:57 have to have that thing. Okay. This is just for me and, and just no one can compete against me. And that's, you know, really the kind of people that I'm looking for. Got it. And then in terms of how people can get in touch with you, where should we send them to find you on the internet? So I'm there on Twitter. Shiva S Sangwan, DM is open. Feel free to, I love sliding into other people's DM. So feel free. and on the newsletter what should people get from that is that just uh something that you're putting out in terms of trends and it'll be valuable to investors that aren't based in india as well if they want to know what's going on within the country or is it specifically targeted
Starting point is 00:28:36 for folks that are in the country of india yeah so it's anyone who's looking to keep updated with the indian technology ecosystem it's a five minute read and i curate the top news that happened in that week uh in tech ecosystem basically got it uh before i let you go you mentioned my friend howard lindsen earlier and i wasn't going to let you get away with uh can you say one good thing and one bad thing about howard so i can cut this clip and then send it to him and make fun of him you know i think one thing that i learned from him is you know i had only read about it which is you know many times high performers uh there's nothing crazy crazy about them but i think one thing which is very hard to do is what i see in him is it doesn't matter how he's feeling
Starting point is 00:29:28 uh he's gonna just show up he's gonna be there he's gonna do the work and that's something that i've picked up from him and then i think uh on the other side yeah i think he just needs to get better at tennis i was gonna say he's not funny because i know that will actually hurt his feelings but not being good at tennis is probably the second best thing uh no howard is amazing he tries to being funny but but yeah yeah he is the uh the funniest not funny investor uh that we have so we'll we'll take it um is there anything that uh uh anything else that i missed or anything you think people should know about the Indian ecosystem? Again, I think it's a very, very exciting times in India, especially if you're looking to build from India. And not just that,
Starting point is 00:30:18 even if you're looking to expand to India, this massive market. But another thing is POM. I think my friend Alfonso is asking me, he has a question for you. He's saying, what needs to be true, uh, for, for Pong to come to India? So people, I think most people know, uh, I came to India in, uh, I think it was 2015, uh, if I remember correctly. And, uh, I spent two weeks in the country. Absolutely loved it. Uh, my brother and I went to, I think five different cities and, um, we did, uh, we did everything, man. It was, uh, an absolute blast. And, uh, folks always say like, what do you mean you did everything? And I'm like, look, we went and we saw some of the tech scene in, uh, Bangalore. Uh, we went and, uh, we spent new year's Eve in Goa
Starting point is 00:31:07 on the beach. Uh, we were, yeah, exactly. Right. Like we, we had, we had a, we had a plenty of fun. Um, we were up in, uh, in Delhi. Uh, we went to, uh, the monkey temple. We'd literally got motorcycles. This is a great story for you. We got motor, we rented motorcycles and we were driving. And for anyone who's never been to India before, if you think that New York city traffic or somewhere else is bad, there are places in India where traffic is absolutely, uh, uh, just unbearable. But the thing that's crazy is if you're on a motorcycle, traffic does not work the same way it works in the U S. And so, uh, you're kind of like, you know, okay, I'm supposed to be enjoying this, but I'm also trying not to die right now. Uh, but it was this amazing experience because
Starting point is 00:31:50 that we went to all these different places. And it's a country that if I had to kind of just like pull out a couple of themes, I think one from demographics, very young country, right? There's a lot of young people and they're very ambitious. But the energy within the country is just incredible. Like it was a place where there's only two times that I've really gone on a trip and spent a lot of time meeting with founders and entrepreneurs and walked away with this feeling. One time was in India. One time was in Nigeria. And they both have a lot of similarities in terms of demographics and, and, uh, kind of hitting an inflection point. But, uh, in India specifically, uh, it just felt like people were there, uh, uh, building companies. And there was this feeling of
Starting point is 00:32:36 inevitable success. Like we, as a group are going to be successful. Some companies will work, some companies won't, but like we, as a group will be successful. And I took it away. Uh, and when I came back to the United States, I remember saying to myself, like a special place. Right. And, uh, I think that that was probably, uh, a trip that it's like, why would I not go back? So it's less about like, will I come back? And it's more about when will I come back, but I need to set up now I'm like, feel more educated. So I need to set up kind of a whole little trip throughout the country, uh, so that I can actually see people that I know, uh, at the time I only knew one person, uh, which was, uh, uh, kind of crazy to go there and not really know
Starting point is 00:33:15 anybody. But now I feel like the trip would be even more fun than the first time I went. Yeah, no, absolutely. A lot has changed, Pomp, since 2015. It'll be a different country that you'll be seeing. And I agree with you that, you know, again, I think the median age is 27 year old and highly, highly aspirational. Another thing is, I think, you know, a story or a theme or now it's a slogan can really change a country's mindset altogether. I think the Prime Minister of India has done a great, great job. He started the slogan Startup India. And I think that's helping India really, I would say that's helping startups go mainstream in India. And if you combine all of these things, which is highly aspirational, young, and tech talent, that becomes
Starting point is 00:34:02 very powerful. So yeah, it'll be interesting. And to your point to traffic, I think the folks in India are very patient. Uh, it, uh, uh, it is one of these things that, uh, every place at traffic in LA sucks. Traffic in Miami sucks, right? Uh, New York city sucks. Uh, you go anywhere in Europe, traffic sucks. Like it, it is a universal experience of sitting in traffic. Nobody likes, but that is one of the downsides to, uh, to growth. And, uh, you know, where there's no traffic it's where people don't want to live right so at some point uh traffic is actually a sign that uh something's going right um listen this is a fantastic conversation i really enjoyed it uh i feel like to some degree uh in a positive way it feels like you know it's india versus the
Starting point is 00:34:52 world right and india is still obviously very collaborative but uh uh there's a ton of great stuff going on there so uh for those that are listening uh or watching that have not done kind of work on on the indian ecosystem i highly suggest that you do it i think that your twitter and newsletter are a great place to uh to get started and then folks who obviously are in india uh which is actually i don't think you know this one of the top three countries uh that consume the podcast uh but for those that are um uh in india uh and they're building company they should reach out to you and uh hopefully you know you'll be raising more money over time and uh and continue investing in the ecosystem. Yeah, no, absolutely. And one last thing,
Starting point is 00:35:34 if someone is new and they're traveling to India, this is how you should be thinking about India in terms of technology. If you are looking to hire talent, just go to Bangalore. That's where the talent density is. If you are looking to build a SaaS company, go to Chennai. That's where Freshworks came out from, Zoho, ChargePay, a bunch of others. Now the network effect is kicking in. if you're looking to sell products and markets or trying or looking to set up a shop for sales or business development, Delhi NCR is the place. And then the Mumbai, Mumbai is, you know, it's a blend of LA, which is again, the culture or the movie Bollywood, amazing music. And then the New York. So it's a combination of LA and New York. I love it. All right, my friend, I appreciate it
Starting point is 00:36:22 very much. Thank you. And we definitely do this again in the future as India continues to progress. Absolutely. Thanks a lot, Pomp. I had a great time. live interview prep and resume review. Our students have been hired at over 75 of the world's best Bitcoin and crypto companies. Go to thecryptoacademy.io to learn more. Again, that's thecryptoacademy.io. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with your friends and I'll see you all for the next episode.

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