00:00:00 – 00:00:08 Nitin Bajaj

Welcome to The INDUStry Show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj, and joining me today is Vish Rao Dumpeti. Vish, welcome on the show.

00:00:08 – 00:00:10 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Thank you, Nitin. It’s a pleasure.

00:00:11 – 00:00:13 Nitin Bajaj

It’s great to have you here. Let’s start with who is Vish?

00:00:15 – 00:00:33 Vish Rao Dumpeti

That’s a great question. Yeah, how do I put it? I think part, I guess, I’m a son, grandson, husband, and a dad to a dog at this stage, I guess. And then part, a technologist, an entrepreneur, and an investor.

00:00:34 – 00:01:04 Vish Rao Dumpeti

I think it, I guess, your family, your people really define who you are, maybe, right? And that’s how I see it. And I think I’ve been grateful for an amazing grandpa who moved to the States in the ’60s as a librarian and eventually became a technologist. So maybe that’s where the technologist came in, even though we never really talked about technology per se, beyond him getting me on AOL back in the day, right?

00:01:05 – 00:01:33 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And then my dad, who’s been a technologist, served as a scientist in India for 20 years, and then we moved to the States in the early ’90s where he wanted better education for his kids and then worked at one company essentially for 20 more years. So such a mission-driven, service-driven technologist, right?

00:01:33 – 00:02:00 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And then my mom, like more maybe on the entrepreneurial side, right? She came to this country, reinvented herself three different ways, three different careers, and just always figured out through the immigrant family challenges. And so I think a lot of that kind of combined with, obviously, my wife, who’s very much more, I would say, mission-driven as well in terms of global public health, right?

00:02:00 – 00:02:06 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And I think all of this kind of brings together who I might be and not just professionally, but personally.

00:02:06 – 00:02:25 Nitin Bajaj

Yeah, I love how you’ve imbibed all of the influences, the people around you, and allowed that to shape you and drive you. Which brings me to my next question, which is, I’m always curious about why people do what they do.

00:02:25 – 00:02:42 Nitin Bajaj

So amongst the many other things you have done and you could have continued to do, why ForwardShare Ventures? And I know we’ve talked about this in terms of the name and how the mission aspect of it has always shaped and influenced you.

00:02:42 – 00:02:47 Nitin Bajaj

So tell us more about what ForwardShare is and why you started it.

00:02:48 – 00:03:13 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Yeah, I think, so in a way, I think I took a bit of a sabbatical after 20, 25 years of, if you will, back-to-back startups and scale-ups, almost like 10 different places. Name, you name the different stages, the domains, right? The different chaos, if you will. But ultimately, like every so often, it always brought me back to this mission statement.

00:03:13 – 00:03:38 Vish Rao Dumpeti

I was grateful to write down in my school days, I call it my life script, and it kind of flows as my life script is to enhance the lives of people around me, my family, and myself through what I then call scriptful values. So being supportive, constructive, respectful, inspiring, positive, and trustful.

00:03:39 – 00:04:05 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And in a way, when I look back over those past 25 years, I’m a big believer in ikigai, the Japanese philosophy. And I did my thing there. And one of the things I reflected on is, like as a technologist or an operator or a leader, the key thing that really drove me is, professionally at least, shaping people’s careers, right? People who are the product.

00:04:06 – 00:04:41 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And again, 20, 25 years in, I was thinking about, okay, what do I want to do the next 25 years? It’s really then, like enabling, in this case, ForwardShare, which is a venture studio, is essentially a way to kind of enhance or enable the first-time entrepreneurs’ lives, right? And I think, obviously, this kind of also helps me bundle in all the different things I really enjoyed doing over the past 25 years of being this technologist or entrepreneur, entrepreneur, this leader, this investor and advisor.

00:04:41 – 00:05:06 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And I think this venture studio model essentially helps to kind of like bundle that together and then kind of derive the best experiences for these first-time entrepreneurs. And I think when I look back, look around too, and look back at a lot of the founders I’ve been in touch with or advised or invested in, I think we need more models or differentiating models.

00:05:07 – 00:05:36 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And I think, yeah, I think this is like the mission here with ForwardShare, right? Where I can be a bit more than maybe just a typical capital allocator. It could have been to a point of where I graduate into a VC, like a lot of my fellow peers have, but I think it gives me more meaning and I think it derives more enhancing of lives by being a little bit of this hands-on co-founder, right? That’s essentially what the studio model is.

00:05:37 – 00:05:38 Nitin Bajaj

I love that.

00:05:38 – 00:05:39 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Yeah. Yeah.

00:05:40 – 00:05:59 Nitin Bajaj

Tell us a little more about ForwardShare. You’ve been doing this for a short while now. What kind of impact, what kind of companies, what does the portfolio of founders look like? And any numbers, any particular people you’ve worked with that you want to call out?

00:05:59 – 00:06:33 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Yeah, I think the way I think about it is there’s really two things or two theses here. One is the future of work and future of venture. And I think with ForwardShare, we’re trying to enable both of them in that I think with everything that’s going on in the world, like we have a lot more tools, technology, AIs all over the place as well. And there’s a lot of disruption as well in terms of what’s happening in the market, job market, otherwise.

00:06:34 – 00:07:07 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And I’ve been thinking a lot about this in terms of where do humans kind of lean into in terms of work? And I think I’ve formed this thesis around portfolio careers, if you will, slightly different than, say, the corporate, typical corporate career. And I think as we get more and more experience and become this expert, if you will, we’re leaning into this age of agency. And I think humans will lean probably into a little bit more of a flexible way of approaching work.

00:07:07 – 00:07:29 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And that might mean not just one job, one typical job, right? It might mean, for example, in our case, thinking about how do we leverage expertise and advise an entrepreneur, right? Or a leader. How do we maybe co-build or co-found? How do we co-partner and co-invest, right? Essentially this notion of co-achieving, right?

00:07:30 – 00:08:10 Vish Rao Dumpeti

So from that perspective, to answer your question, I think the biggest thing that we invested for the first couple of quarters is, like, where are these expertises? How do we enable this future of work and build a meaningful enough expert network, right? So we kind of looked around, especially first and second degree, if you will, folks, and had thousand-plus conversations, right? And then we wanted to kind of make sure we built something meaningful for the founders that we wanted to enable and the leaders we wanted to enable. And we narrowed that down to 100, right? And helped unlock these types of opportunities.

00:08:11 – 00:08:51 Vish Rao Dumpeti

So that network, if you can imagine, matchmaking them and bundling that expertise in the right model to the entrepreneurs and the leaders in various situations and stages. That said, in terms of the scale of the studio, I think the one key big difference with this model is it’s not about scale, really. It’s about going deep and maybe focusing on just three to five ventures, right? If anything, it’s a big contrast to like mega funds, if you will, where there might be hundreds of bets, right? And that hope for that unicorn or bust kind of situation.

00:08:51 – 00:09:28 Vish Rao Dumpeti

But in our case, it’s like, in order to derive the best outcomes and best impact and experiences for the founders, we want to kind of pair that expertise with the right capital, the right support over not just three conversations, over the six, nine, twelve, eighteen-month journey. And so this, yeah, the portfolios then and the founders that we focus on are, in our case, and again, every VC or every venture studio has a different thesis. In our case, we’re betting on first-time entrepreneurs who happen to be domain experts.

00:09:29 – 00:09:58 Vish Rao Dumpeti

So imagine these could be experts horizontally, functionally speaking, head of sales, marketing, risk operations, but maybe then cross-section that into any vertical niche domain, right? So we’re betting on these domain experts, expert operators. Now they’re obviously looking at future work and maybe thinking about their entrepreneurial journey, and maybe they don’t have the right model, right? And this is where we want to actually come in.

00:09:58 – 00:10:28 Vish Rao Dumpeti

So we’re working with a head of training at Domino’s, for example. We’re working with a head of security that wants to tackle Alzheimer’s sort of long-term care situation. So these are, I think, where they’re underserved in my view. And I think this is where the future is in terms of how do we solve some real-world problems and provide the right platforms and support systems to enable wherever the future is going.

00:10:30 – 00:10:41 Nitin Bajaj

I love that. Now, as you go through this, I’m sure there are many challenges. I’d love for you to call out the one that’s the biggest.

00:10:43 – 00:11:08 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Yeah, I think there’s so many, obviously, challenges in entrepreneurship. And from my seat, it’s, in a way, not just zero entrepreneurship, right? I could have been doing another startup. It’s very much like parallel entrepreneurship, right? Like how do you think about supporting multiple founders with the right sort of player-coach kind of thinking, right? And you have to provide the right balanced support there with that expertise and capital in mind.

00:11:08 – 00:11:33 Vish Rao Dumpeti

But I think the biggest challenge, if you will, for me is I’m learning and I’m a big believer in obviously learning and growing. And so one of the reasons I got into this is capital allocation. So that means becoming a VC. That means becoming a general partner, right? So I went through a bit of a Y Combinator, but for VCs or emerging managers.

00:11:33 – 00:12:06 Vish Rao Dumpeti

But I think the key challenge with what I’m tackling is the studio model itself, right? It is, in a way, an emerging asset class, right? From an investor’s perspective, it’s also an emerging model because it’s almost like an institutional co-founder. So I think the typical sort of advice when you’re raising a fund as a VC is not drive education. But in this case, you have to invest in driving education. So it’s one of those big things that’s top of mind.

00:12:06 – 00:12:32 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And the good thing is we only need to be working with five founders. And hopefully, if we target the right type of what we call LP or limited partner investors, hopefully these are sealer entrepreneurs. They understand the pain, they understand the value, and the de-risking element of it, the better returns even element of it. I think it becomes an easier conversation, but it is a big challenge.

00:12:32 – 00:12:36 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And I’m hoping to kind of drive that awareness because we need a lot more venture studios out there.

00:12:37 – 00:12:45 Nitin Bajaj

So true. Now, on the flip side of challenges come opportunities. What’s the one you’re most excited about?

00:12:47 – 00:13:01 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Yeah, I think I briefly touched on this in terms of it is definitely this notion of age of agency and how do you do that as an expert-turned-entrepreneur or otherwise.

00:13:01 – 00:13:23 Vish Rao Dumpeti

I think building is a lot more easier now in terms of tech ventures, but I think building the wrong thing is a lot more expensive, right? And so if anything, if we can find the right balance and enable the right experts, the opportunity is massive, right?

00:13:23 – 00:13:41 Vish Rao Dumpeti

I think we can solve a lot more real-world problems. And there’s, I think, enough capital out there as well. And hopefully, yeah, we can just enable more and better venture opportunities for everyone out there.

00:13:42 – 00:14:07 Nitin Bajaj

I agree. Now, as we look forward, I’d like to take this moment to pause and reflect. And I would love to invite you to share two moments. One where things did not work out as you had expected. There was disappointment, failure, lessons. And another where things exceeded your expectations and became a success beyond your imagination.

00:14:12 – 00:14:14 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Yeah, I think so. Let me see.

00:14:26 – 00:15:00 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Yeah, I think one of the key sort of challenges or lessons is, again, from that venture studio sort of operator perspective, a lot of the learning around how the fund and fund economics works, right? And what I’ve learned the hard way, and this is why I think the venture studios are hard, is there is this component of having a fund, but then there’s also the operational side of the studio.

00:15:00 – 00:15:20 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And the typical fund can only, if you will, cover the right level of resources for the fund operations, but not so much, if you will, the co-founding operations, the studio operations. And so that’s, I think, going to be a continuous challenge in terms of how do we become default alive.

00:15:21 – 00:15:51 Vish Rao Dumpeti

But I think this is a challenge and an opportunity because if you can figure out that, in my view, like I call it the default alive, that sustainable future for the studio, it also helps you to kind of not be driven by the fund economics and the incentives, which I think sometimes is driving the wrong type of support and behaviors in the venture ecosystem. So I think that’s one thing.

00:15:51 – 00:16:09 Vish Rao Dumpeti

I think what’s really beautiful, though, is I kind of mentioned about the thousand-plus conversations. These were part founders, part expert operators, part investors, and everyone, right? They really understand the need for this. They really validate the need for this. And I think

00:16:13 – 00:16:27 Vish Rao Dumpeti

the bit around building out the network and having the right expertise in place, if you will, the one-sided one side of the marketplace or the platform really gained a lot of confidence internally.

00:16:27 – 00:16:33 Vish Rao Dumpeti

It gave us a lot of conviction that this makes sense because our expertise is behind us, right?

00:16:34 – 00:16:43 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Now’s the time for us to kind of connect the dots and help bridge over, if you will, then the demand side with the founders and the investors.

00:16:44 – 00:16:55 Vish Rao Dumpeti

So if anything, yeah, there’s plenty of reception for this, which makes me very confident that there’s something over the next five, ten, fifteen years, if you will.

00:16:56 – 00:17:00 Nitin Bajaj

True. Now, switching gears, what do you do for fun?

00:17:03 – 00:17:25 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Yeah, I think honestly, lately it’s entrepreneurship in a way, it’s a lot of fun, right? You’re always thinking through different problem sets and domain spaces and talking to such aspiring founders and leaders is always fun because I’m learning all the time. The learning is fun for me.

00:17:25 – 00:17:42 Vish Rao Dumpeti

But then honestly, it’s all about Dougie, maybe, our dog. He keeps us busy. He’s such an explorer, maybe similar to me. Like I think, frankly, he’s flown just as many flights as he’s been on every road trip.

00:17:43 – 00:17:56 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And he keeps us out there, all the hikes, all the outdoorsy explorers, explorations. So I think, yeah, he gives us the most fun beyond, obviously, the friends and family over the weekends.

00:17:58 – 00:18:08 Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Now, onto my favorite part of the show. We call this the one-line life lessons. And I would love for you to share your life lessons with us.

00:18:11 – 00:18:41 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Yeah, there are a bunch. I think one of the maybe the simpler, but the hardest ones, and I keep going back to this, is this notion of kiss it, right? Keep it simple, right? And just get it done. It’s such an easy thing to kind of aspire towards, but it’s such a hard thing to kind of do. But kiss it is one of those things that I keep repeating myself. It’s like that go-to hashtag, right? When I’m talking to the team and everything.

00:18:42 – 00:19:10 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And I think I briefly touched on this other one, which is always be learning and always be growing. And you only really do either by sharing, right? So always be learning, always be growing through sharing. And I think that stuck to me. And I think it’s almost always this notion of if you’re not sharing what you’ve learned, you haven’t completed that loop, the learning loop.

00:19:11 – 00:19:40 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And then I think if there’s another one, who do you serve is one way of thinking about it. And I think this might be my father’s never-written leadership book, right? Who are you really serving? And this kind of translates to this notion of customer obsession, maybe, or my personal mission statement, the lives I’m trying to enable and enhance. But I think, yeah, who are you serving grounds you in any situation.

00:19:41 – 00:20:12 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And I think another one is people are the product or careers are the product. That really helped me become, I think, a good, well-rounded leader and operator where you always want to hire and grow the best people around you. And they’ll always build the right product, right? But your goal as a leader is really to enable them through their own sort of career.

00:20:12 – 00:20:36 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And in a way, I think this served me very well, even to the point of, like, I think I have about 100-plus endorsements on LinkedIn all around people that really trusted me with their careers. And it’s a constant reminder of, okay, that’s what I’m known for. And that’s what drives me towards whatever I’m doing right now. And what else?

00:20:42 – 00:20:53 Vish Rao Dumpeti

There’s so many out there. If, yeah, if there’s a one-liner that really is my mantra, it’s the my script, my life script that I mentioned earlier, the mission statement.

00:20:53 – 00:21:06 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And I think everyone should have some notion of a mission statement or a mantra. It doesn’t need to be something you create. It could very well be something that’s already out there that speaks to you.

00:21:06 – 00:21:11 Vish Rao Dumpeti

And I think it’s just one of those where my script is ultimately the one-liner that drives me.

00:21:12 – 00:21:34 Nitin Bajaj

Love that. Vish, thank you so much for making the time to be with us, for sharing your journey, your story, but most importantly, having that mission and helping others become the best versions of themselves. I really appreciate that. And you’re just getting started on this journey, and there’s a lot more to come.

00:21:36 – 00:21:42 Vish Rao Dumpeti

Thank you, Nitin. This has been a pleasure, and I’m super grateful for our friendship as well.