The Curious Parent. Passionate about entrepreneurship. Author of Let's Build a Company. Love Mountaineering.
Gurgaon, India
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The Curious Parent went from 300 followers to 1 million followers in 17 months (Dec 2022 to Jun 2024) on Instagram.
Here's a thread for anyone who is looking to start making content for Instagram.
ALT The Curious Parent
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Mumbai is the best big city in India for short day trips
5 monsoon places to visit around Mumbai.
Detailed travel map in the end.
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A friend whose 'start-up' is a unicorn isn't able to get flat on rent in Mumbai, coz he is a bachelor.
You can't have everything.
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India has mouth watering opportunities and eye watering challenges
- start up founder
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My daughter's 4 year old friend called. I picked it up.
She: i want to talk to Diya
Me: Diya, your friend has called
Diya: i will come, ask her to hold
Me: she is coming, hold
She: No. Till then you talk to me.
🙈🙉🙊
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I recently completed a 68 day Yoga cycle.
60 days of 4 hours of Yoga daily + 50% uncooked food + no dairy/meat/caffeine/garlic/onion followed by 8 days of silent Samyama course with 2300 people in a single hall.
Here is my attempt to explain what I experienced:
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Year 2007: The inner need of a 23 year old to put IIT Bombay on the card so that B2B clients would take me seriously
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A VC firm called to discuss founder salaries for Series B+ founders (say 30M+ raised)
My view: the FOUNDER should be able to take her family to Maldives for a few days without worrying about money. That is the FEELING the salary should give.
More below.. .
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Young Founders. Couldn’t raise capital. Bootstrapped. 12 years. IPO
We need more stories like this.
#EaseMyTrip
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Many folks wonder, what does it take to raise $100M dollar rounds?
Here's how $100M dollar rounds really happen.
A thread 👇
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“The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner”
The goal is not to become a unicorn, the goal is to be an entrepreneur.
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This photo is from a day before Diwali.
6 months ago I asked our maid, press waala, security if their kids went to school. Everyone said yes. Then I started asking if they went to English medium. Everyone said yes. Then I asked if their kids knew English?
Everyone said no...
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All of the folks without children visiting people with children, do us a favour: please don’t bring chocolates
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Shoutout to all B2B founders out there who want to build a LARGE company.
"Stop wasting time in India. Sell Abroad."
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Investor: what is your Moat?
Entrepreneur (wants to say): Sir gadda khod rahe hai. Paise de do JCB laga denge.
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'Ahh let me feed on people's insecurities and con them' - Karan Bajaj
'Yayy, he's back. Let's invest. He will surely make us money' - Blume Ventures
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A friend in VC just won't agree that entrepreneurship is harder than venture capital investing. He keeps saying, finding good companies is hard.
I have no words 😐
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First time founder’s thinking about whether to dilute 18% or 22% in the round.
If your startup fails it won’t matter.
If you build a large company it won’t matter.
Close the round. Get the money.
#letsbuildacompany
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A big reason for companies to fail is that the entrepreneur falls in love with the solution.
Entrepreneur needs to be in love with solving the problem. The solution keeps changing.
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A thread on Culture
After having seen 13 years of start-up world, having built and sold a start-up, working with unicorn founders, angel invested in 30 odd start-ups I think Culture is an underrated piece of running a company.
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FOUNDERS - don't feel guilty about taking a salary.
Don't think that you can hire another person with that money and company will be better off with that. It won't. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Your mental well being is critical for success.
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The truth is:
If IIT’s had no faculty at all, student outcomes would still remain the same.
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This is from our own Jamtara experience of selling a Sofa on OLX two days ago 💸. We caught it early but kept playing along.
This is how the QR code scam works 👇🏼
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Mom is the easiest person in the world to get upset at. May be because you know she will still be there no matter what.
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I am a Punjabi. My wife is Maharashtrian. Our nanny is Bengali.
My daughter is picking up Bengali quite well.
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My daughter has the same personality as Bill Gates. Assessed by AI and a newly minted coding teacher.
This is bull crap.
More so because my daughter didn’t attend the class.
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We are at number 2. The only thing standing between 1 is may be your order :-)
amazon.in/Lets-Build-Company…
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Friends:
Lets catch up for a beer? Yes
Lets go on a workation? Sure
Boss:
Lets open offices? No no. Covid is there. Parents are saying no.
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The ‘3 kinds of investors’
Just avoid the pain in the ass ones by doing due diligence (calling other founders in their portfolio). It is better not to take money than to have them on your cap table.
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Half a million dollars.
2008: it took CoCubes 2 years to raise a 'Series A' round of half a million dollars.
2021: a college start-up round I led as an angel closed half a million dollars in 'pre-seed' in 2 weeks.
Times have changed. Rounds have changed.
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My parents live in Chandigarh. And because of what happened last night, my sister said, let's ask them to come to Bangalore/Mumbai. And we called them and they said,
'Yeh sabb beta humne dekha hua hai'
When there was war earlier, we used to switch off lights, put dark curtains on windows, go together and stay in one small room in the house or go to the Gurudwara.
My parents didn't seem worried.
For most of us, war is new. First time. And when things happen for the first time, one takes time to adjust to the new reality.
But if you have experienced the same thing before, it can be easier or more difficult, depending on how you came out of it and what your experience of the situation was.
This is the exact way children also gain confidence.
This is also why love alone is not enough for children. What is also required is exposure to new situations safely so that the child's experience of the world is net positive.
#thecuriousparent
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A lot of start-ups fail because co-founders don't get along with each other. At CoCubes @vibhore_goyal and I learnt all this the hard way veering near the edge multiple times.
A thread on co-founder dynamics and what we did to maintain sanity and our friendship.
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Angel investing has moved to the cloud. Interestingly none of the folks running top angel funds in India are based out of Bangalore.
NCR - Kunal Bahl (Titan), Utsav Somani (iSeed)
Pune - Vaibhav (Better)
Mumbai - Kushal (FirstCheque)
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2019 was the 1st year VC investment in India exceeded $10B. Availability of capital changes everything. Wealth flows from TOP to BOTTOM.
This wealth will flow from VC's to blue collar workers.
A thread on 'flow of wealth' that will change India in the next 10 years 🧵
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Got stuck in Spiti due to heavy snow leading to rockfall closing all routes. Thanks to the generosity of the #IndianArmy spent the night in a camp before a 14 hour car drive to come out.
#Spiti was beautiful both before and after snow.
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Overheard in a chat with @kushalbhagia
NO from a VC doesn't mean NO
It just means 'not today'
#letsbuildacompany
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Finally a meal at McDonalds and drive back home! This is a comfortable 2 day 1 night trip. Or easily 2 one day trips! Have fun in the monsoons.
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Learned more about civil engineering in 2 weeks with kids than in 5 years of college.
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Vaitarna Dam.
After crossing the dam point, take any kacha right to come near the dam. Park car. Have fun. We got a flooded road upon which we could walk through with kids
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Someone’s coming to pick me at Bangalore airport. I am leaving from my home in Mumbai, they are leaving from theirs.
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Hole jumps, a cobra, waterfall, a trek, countless flowers, Russell viper, a yellow wagtail and a few crabs thrown in.
All of this in 30 hours in #Mumbai, the city for day trips.
Trip details below
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It is here! A company I have been fortunate to see from the start. Couldn't have imagined anyone else building it at this pace and scale @bhash
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In EdTech in India, working with schools and colleges will not result in a large outcome. When we started building CoCubes, it was a necessity because students didn't have mobiles, but today B2C is the way to go.
Don't waste time trying to get money from schools and colleges.
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Ogda Waterfall.
Even on the long weekend it was empty. Slightly slippery but have it all to yourself.
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I want everyone to use my product: is your ego
I want to build a product which is useful for everyone: is the entrepreneur
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A big reason we don't quit a job we don't like is because we could never quit school. We went at it day after day, even though we knew this wasn't leading to where we wanted to go. Then it wasn't a habit. Now it is.
Then it wasn't a choice. Now it is.
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The one thing that can change your mental model about success and life is to talk to someone who you think is successful but is 20 years ahead of you. So if you are 40, talk to someone who is 60.
This is one place where turning to friends of same age for advice doesn't help.
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Vaitarna Dam Reservoir
Move to the spot that I personally find as breathtaking. A thin road separating the two Vaitarna Dam reservoirs. You feel like you are standing in the middle of the sea. Don't miss the yawn at the end. That's my friend (not me)
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Seed stage investors: I have stopped taking calls from YC-backed companies coz the starting ask is $10-$15m dollar valuation.
If the money from YC does not give you enough firepower to prove something, the $10M valuation, which looks great initially, can quickly become a trap.
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Hum 40 saal ke ho ke maa baap ki sun rahe hai. Hamari 4 saal ke beti hamari nahin sunti hai.
- middle class upbringing
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Pandav Caves
Multiple beautiful caves up a short hike just outside Nashik. We had gone to Ibis Nashik for overnight stay (nothing else was available last minute). Felt like Europe. In the day nature and a comfortable bed at night before starting the next morning.
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I think working remotely pre PMF is a terrible idea. I see multiple first time founders doing it. If you have a small team trying to build a rocket, get them together in a room. And for anyone who is unwilling to come, find someone else. Don't let your mind play the empathy card.
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While running today morning an analogy struck me
If u have only seen the mild orange morning sun, u can not for ur life imagine that in time the same mild sun will be so blazingly bright u wouldn’t be able to look at it in the eye
Spotting a Unicorn early is something like this
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It’s becoming easier and easier to raise money.
Building a company still remains as hard as ever.
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If an angel passes on your start-up: don't ask them to connect you to 'others who might be interested'.
The only question 'others' will ask the angel is: are you investing?
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Must do day trip from Mumbai. Breakfast. Swim in the river. Swim in the lake. Eat lunch. Drive back.
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First 2 months = 12,000+ copies sold of Let's Build a Company.
And if you prefer to listen the audio book is out now :-)
audible.in/pd/Lets-Build-a-C…
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Gavhande Waterfall
Powerful waterfall. On this road lie about 10 waterfalls. We skipped the first two to get to one which had only few people and roaring water!
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The Curious Parent has crossed 🎉half a million 🥳listens on @kukufmofficial. One of the reasons I wanted to do this in Hindi was because of the lack of content in our mother tongue.
A reviews thread.. .
From parents who have been hitting children..
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As we refused to transfer the call quickly became abusive.
But this is an easy scam to fall for specially if you don’t understand how money transfer works on UPI!
Building a marketplace is hard.
How would you solve this if you were building this?
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Are you a UX designer? Or do you know one?
Project: Pick up ANY Bank's (HDFC, Kotak) netbanking & redesign it to solve for customer's pain. And release it publicly
#FinTech is HOT. It would be great project, will help you grow, will definitely get you a job if you want it
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My 87 year old grandmother traveled today from Chandigarh to Mumbai to spend some time with us. She got married when she was 15 but continued studying and got ‘Triple MA’ along with two kids.
Happy Birthday BigMa 🎉
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Then there are firms like CoCubes which raise Series A and then go towards profitability. We had to decide our own salaries among our ups and downs. This is what our graph looked like
2008: angel
2009-2011 - Series A
2012: layoff's
2013 onwards: profitability
#letsbuildacompany
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Leading a team doesn't come naturally to most people.. Most people failures in start-ups occur in 'First time Manager' positions.
At @CoCubesTeam we used the 'Lead Code' and lot of folks stayed on for a long time.
👇A thread on how to solve for failure of FTM's
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One of my friends just sold a company and realised that he can only buy 10,000 iPhones with the money, that too 128 GB.
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White hair no longer means you are old. It means either you are overworked or eating the wrong food or breathing the wrong air or in most cases, all 3.
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Actual course: In Coimbatore was harder than I expected. We were in a single large hall with 2300 other people. We had a 3ft*6ft space for doing everything - yoga to sitting to sleeping. This was a silent course so there was no looking, talking or signaling to each other.
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From a friend:
India should announce that they will give free vaccines only till Sept end. Then we will see the rush and queues for taking vaccine.
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So today I think I got an offer to join back as a Business Development Manager in the company @Aon_CoCubes I founded 10 years ago :-)
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Week 5: After about 40 days I wrote a note in my diary. "I feel an overwhelming feeling of calm most of the time. I need less sleep (woke up at 2:55 am feeling fresh, had slept at 10:00 pm). I also seem to feel a sense of detachment from people without the loss of love."
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