Gautam Shewakramani
@gshewakr
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Founding Partner @inukacapital . Prev: Partner @beondeck fund, product x international @Skillshare @Quora . Founded & failed. Aviation & scuba geek.
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Joined November 2008
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Pinned Tweet
Mega-thread of my popular threads, in no particular order
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Are you a non-US citizen who doesn’t live in the US but invests in US markets?
At death, your US situated assets, including funds, ETFs, cash in US-based brokerage accounts, and 401k accounts are subject to upto a 40% tax.
Think this doesn’t apply to you? Think again.
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Has anyone in south Mumbai noticed that Swiggy instamart has basically gone to sh$t. Orders taking forever, delivery area unserviceable all the time etc.
People may be quick to blame
@swiggy
but it’s actually not their fault
Buckle up, I actually know why.
🧵
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India needs more founders.
If you're ready to build, we'll commit in 48 hours.
If you're still exploring, we'll give you the personal runway while you build conviction.
Introducing ODX:
Announcing ODX, a $100M accelerator to back the next generation of founders.
• $125k for 7% from us + the community
• Access to our network to hire, fundraise, or find customers
• 100% customized for you
Apply (or invest) today 👇
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In <2 years,
@Quora
-more than 2x ed India usage to 70mm monthly unique visitors
-became available in 8 Indian languages (from 0), and
-grew India revenue to be meaningful enough to decide to open a sales office
With only 1 person whose core focus was India (me!)
How? 🧵
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My 6 year old daughter drew a picture that she called “friendship”.
It’s a laptop with a zoom screen with other children in boxes.
I think I have underestimated the long term impact 2020-21 will have on children.
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Flying international with no check in luggage is a super power
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If you have invested in a syndicate via
@letsventurein
in India, I think they're trying to pull a bit of fast one with their LPs and leads 👇
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Our first cohort of ODX founders just got onboarded into the
@beondeck
slack.
Everyone is introducing themselves in our introductions channel
Absolutely and completely 🤯🤯🤯 at the level of global ambition and talent.
This is a group that is going to change the world.
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Today I am traveling from London to Mumbai. Here’s more about my COVID protocol (theatre) experience - it will help illuminate… a lot of stuff.
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After 40+ angel investments, I’ve decided to share my angel investing philosophy with the world 👇
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It's been 3 months since I joined
@beondeck
and 1 month since we announced ODX.
Super excited to unveil our plans for India; we're taking a first principles approach to increase the number of successful founders building in India 👇
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If I had to give 20-something year old me advice, it would be:
“Work at early to growth stage companies where the people you work with are really smart, intelligent, ambitious and driven, and don’t compromise on this standard for anything. Good things will follow.”
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Second, people are quick to judge tech companies that are backed by “irrational VC dollars”. But this really has nothing to do with the competence (or lack of) of those working in these types of companies.
The reality is that running an ops heavy business in India is tough.
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If you're a heavy WhatsApp user and are on iOS, this is for you.
It annoys me tremendously that I can’t initiate a message to someone that isn’t in my address book. So I built iOS shortcuts to get around this restriction.
More context below 👇
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My first week at
@beondeck
has been amazing.
I (re)connected with many amazing founders and angels in the Indian tech ecosystem.
But, there have been very few women founders on my calendar.
Who are the most ambitious women at the *early stages* of building companies in 🇮🇳 ? 👇
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The real killer use case for ChatGPT in travel is presented below
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So they complained to “local authorities” who basically roughed things up and shut them down, even though they’re not really doing anything wrong.
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How do I know this? It’s not a result of investigative reporting, it’s much more banal than that. I literally asked the landlord of the dark store, who I happen to know.
But I do think it’s worth a serious publication (IYKYK who I’m talking about) to build a story around these
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Turns out, they didn’t want to. They’re still paying rent for the dark store, just not fulfilling any orders from it. That’s because residents of the surrounding building got annoyed with the number of delivery guys & bikes parked there and going in and out 24x7.
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I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all banks, fintech cos, brokerage firms, custody agents, mutual fund houses, distributors, and wealth advisors for letting me know by email and SMS that SEBI has revised the NAV cut off time for mutual funds effective today.
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This lane is and was a clusterf*ck even before Swiggy, it’s a main pedestrian thoroughfare because it’s a shortcut to get from Mumbai Central to Haji Ali, Tardeo, Nana Chowk etc.
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Earlier, most of south Mumbai was fulfilled through a dark store in tardeo, near a lane near Mumbai central. I would imagine that this would be one of their most profitable locations imaginable. Short distances, high AOVs, (relatively) price insensitive SoBo customers.
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My annual order growth (by number of orders) on Amazon India:
2014 - 31 orders
2015 - 72 orders
2016 - 88 orders
2017 - 140 orders
2018 - 130 orders
2019 - 141 orders
2020 (19th Dec 2020) - 301 orders
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In the meantime, I’ve moved my business to Blinkit. Life goes on. But it has reminded me that literally every action has downstream consequences.
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How do you avoid this?
Non-US investors who want to access the US markets should invest in Ireland Domiciled ETFs, also called UCITS schemes. Every major ETF has an equivalent LSE listed one.
e.g. $IVV => $CSPX
Fees are higher, but they pay for themselves. Here’s how:
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It isn’t fulfilled from that location any more. SoBo orders are now fulfilled from a location much further away - in lower parel or dadar iirc.
Why would they do that ?
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Why am I sharing this? For one, I’ve been personally inconvenienced.
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The shutdown probably has affected the livelihoods of all the riders servicing that store - they all probably lived relatively close by. Will they find other work? Maybe. But these micro-cuts all add up and drag per capita gdp growth and progress. And there are millions of these.
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Today I visited a grocery store in Mumbai where avocados were priced at ₹500/250g. That’s $12/lb. According to my calculations, that’s 5x the price of Bay Area avocados. Not everything is cheaper in India.
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I am a small investor in
@CraftedByBinks
- the memo that
@_aamnakhan
sent me is by far the best investor memo I have ever received in 10 years of angel investing.
This was echoed by everyone I introduced her too as well.
Hopefully someday she will redact and make it public!
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Why don't all series A/B companies do this?
I'm exploring this topic in a series of essays kicking off my newsletter, "Half-Cooked”: — highlights are in this thread…
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I am willing to handhold 1 founder that is resident in India with the end to end process of setting up a Delaware C corp.
If you're interested, please fill out this form and I will get back to you soon:
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Lots of nostalgia at Blume Day today where they celebrated Fund 1 founders.
@BlumeVentures
invested in me in 2012 - that literally started my career in tech and this ecosystem - everything I did after was built from that trust.
Will always be grateful to the OGs
@BKartRed
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Reading between the lines. It’s a great time to start building a generational VC firm.
Many young people have joined India VC industry last 4-5 years. Some have anxiety about where to find the next set of career-making home-runs. Here are a few realities/learnings from mistakes I have made, that may help navigate this market:
1. We are between platforms now - the
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This tweet is worth whatever they paid for Air India.
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Pancakes with my 2.5 year old:
She asked me to cut her pancake
Now she’s crying because her pancake is broken.
How’s your Saturday morning going?
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I believe that with the right "founder-mentality" individuals, and the willingness to commit less than $1-2 million companies can easily create an "always in the money", long-dated call option on India that will serve them well
Note: $1-2 million is a typical seed round in 2020!
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At immigration, flying BOM DXB.
Many GCC flights clustered at this time. Lots of blue/grey collar travelers.
Sad to witness a lot socioeconomic profiling - very notable & noticeable difference in how immigration officers spoke to and treated me vs others.
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Sorry but is the font on this notice comic sans ms?
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I am so excited to be part of
@beondeck
ODF4. The fellowship starts in June, but things like this make me feel like I am already part of an amazing community.
We think a lot about how to "unlock" talent at
@beondeck
.
For everyone founding or working on a startup today, there are hundreds more who should be but can't.
We're developing something we hope will help them.
Excited to share more about "Runway" and the "Convertible ISA"
👇
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The team that built the tds payment tool at RazorPay should work on rebuilding the front end of this form. They will be doing the world a favor.
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@mahaniok
I think there’s a difference between “come back to us when you have a lead” and “we are committed to invest $100k regardless of who else you bring in to stitch up the tohnd” The former implies that your investment is contingent on who is leading.
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So this got more distro than I thought - I’m building something to help people with cross-border asset holdings -> if you’d like to stay updated on progress please subscribe to
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I feel really strongly about this.
It feels unethical and sneaky. More so because I am in the industry, and also have a fiduciary responsibility
@inukacapital
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Are you considering raising money from an
@AngelList
or
@AngelListIndia
syndicate?
I’ve had the same conversation with 3 founders in the last week helping them think through it, so I wrote up a short post, where I try to provide a founders perspective:
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Yesterday I turned 39.
Today, I packed my bags and left SF to go to Miami.
Here’s why 🧵
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UPDATE: This blew up so I did some more homework.
What
@letsventurein
is proposing is a “material change” under AIF regulations.
If you have invested in a syndicate via
@letsventurein
in India, I think they're trying to pull a bit of fast one with their LPs and leads 👇
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Let’s assume that you used to live in the US (like I did) for many years, and your brokerage account in the US holds > $60,000 of the S&P 500 via an ETF. When you die, your brokerage is forbidden from transferring your assets until the IRS has concluded its estate tax audit.
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This isn't about how amazing the Quora team is (they are) or how impactful my contributions were (although I'd like to think so).
Rather, it is to call out a structural opportunity that exists for many US, venture-backed companies that is being ignored or underpriced
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You’re welcome
You either die a founder or live long enough to become a startup meme? 😂
Grateful nonetheless 🙏
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Can’t find reliable benchmarks on pmt failure rates in India. PMs @ internet cos in India that charge consumers, please reply with:
- Failure % (i.e. “click pay” > txn success), inc fails + drop-offs
- AOV
- Bonus - split by pmt method (CC/DC/UPI)
Will share a public summary!
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IMO, every venture-backed company that is not selling to enterprises and that has achieved product-market fit should ask themselves:
(i) how they can leverage India for growth, and
(ii) what they need to do to efficiently create this long-dated call option on India
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How many likes/retweets will it take for
@sajithpai
to validate and/or modify this framework for the Indian tech ecosystem?
Our ecosystem is still young, criteria (1) likely doesn’t hold
@ThEbmr
— any thoughts? Given that the “Pratilipi mafia” is real
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I get emotionally more bought into crypto every time I visit a bank. It’s just so clear why crypto is going to explode in India.
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Pretty much anyone who has joined a
@beondeck
fellowship can relate to this - the imposter syndrome was real.
Is there anything called binge slacking!?
Hooked to slack since last night reading about all the AMAZING people who are part of
@beondeck
#ODF7
- looking forward to the kickoff tonight
@julianweisser
@eriktorenberg
Amazing energy in the group!
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My last BLR trip in Feb 2020 was the first time I met
@nyAnimall
($ from Sequoia),
@ankitpansari_
($ from Accel),
@shrey_goyal_
(acq by Unacademy)
Correlation ≠ causation.. but I’m in BLR next week, so who should I meet for the first time?
Happy to jam w/ founders. DMs open.
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Travel tech about to be broken. Throwback to my time brainstorming these problems with the OGs like
@bapnaa
Cc
@SatanAtWink
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Who are some of India's best "small check" angels?
I have something interesting in the works for them.
Tag them in this thread.
Strongly endorse this.
Small angels often punch far above their check size in help for companies, yet can be hard to manage (herding cats to sign docs is annoying).
Putting them all into the same SPV solves this.
We've done this for our portfolio companies before.
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4 of our first 5 investments
@inukacapital
play into a very specific theme -- what
@whoisraj
and I call "empowering agents". Here's a little more on our thought process 👇
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US citizens and resident aliens that are domiciled in the US get an $11.2 million exemption (i.e. only US situated assets above this amount are subject to estate tax).
The equiv amount is $60k for non-resident aliens. The marginal rate grows to 40% at $1M
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Apparently the best time to start a company is during bear markets / recessions
But "best time" ≠ "easiest time" because there's less:
• Capital
• Talent
• Press hype
• $ from customers
How do bear market founders increase their odds of success?
🧵👇
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@deepakshenoy
They weren’t shut down due to traffic snarls. They were shut down because the neighbors complained about the drivers presence. See below tweet.
Also disagree in general w/ this POV.
A popular cafe causes traffic snarls shouldn’t be shut down. A school, or place of worship in
This lane is and was a clusterf*ck even before Swiggy, it’s a main pedestrian thoroughfare because it’s a shortcut to get from Mumbai Central to Haji Ali, Tardeo, Nana Chowk etc.
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Countries where in flight internet coverage is not available due to satellite coverage issues or government regulations are in grey.
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Due to inflation I now need 8.5 hours of sleep every night.
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If you're
• thinking about starting up
• starting up, or
• heads down building your startup
please join me & On Deck founders
@sidvaderos
and
@amritxyz
tomorrow for a Q&A session on ODX x India
Sign up 👉
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Is it mandatory to comment how great the weather is in Bangalore when I land?
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I'm no expert with SEBI AIF rules, but my guess is that it's also probably violates them - silence cannot be deemed as consent to change terms for a regulated investment scheme.
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My favorite word in all of Indian English is “updation”
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I was part of ODA3 - it was one of the best "investments" I made as an angel.
@samhuleatt
and
@andrew__rea
have built a world class community and program
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The talent density of the On Deck team is incredible. If you’re hiring, please DM me — we have an opt in list of people affected and that are looking for new roles.
Today is a sad day. We let go of 72 great people who helped build On Deck into what it is today.
Our focus in the next few days will be supporting our team – particularly those departing the company.
If you’re looking to hire incredibly talented people, DM or email me.
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Oh, and if you didn’t do it the first time, subscribe to"Half-Cooked" if you haven't already!
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Ireland the US have a tax treaty, so dividends are taxed at a reduced rate of 15%, instead of the default withholding rate of 30%.
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A lot of time as a venture investor is spent talking to founders, potential founders, and collaborators. These convos crystallize insights, many of which are unsaid, but obvious
Sharing some from this week as I build
@inukacapital
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Today I visited the manufacturing facility of our portfolio company,
I am among the rare breed of VCs that can, say with a straight face that I have not only given capital, but also my own blood to one of my portfolio companies.
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I spoke to
@vedicakant
a bunch over the last few months. We talked about so many things - the pre-seed/seed investing scene in India,
@beondeck
's plans, and growing the 🇮🇳-tech ecosystem
She captures it in her article:
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I had to fill out a “passenger locator form” both ways. In India we call this the Air Suvidha form. The UX of the form is TERRIBLE - it requires uploads of documents where (wait for it) the file names cannot have spaces and need to be <1MB. (MoHW). Some have to be JPG, others pdf
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