Nitin Bajaj

Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Industry Show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj, and joining me today is Sarthak Ahuja. Sarthak, welcome on the show.

Sarthak Ahuja

Thank you so much for having me, Nitin.

Nitin Bajaj

Pleasure is all ours. Let’s start with the big question. Who is Sarthak?

Sarthak Ahuja

Well, what people would know about me is is, I’m a chartered accountant. I also did my company secretary, cost and management accounting, went to ISB for my MBA. So at one point, people used to know me as the youngest Indian to have completed degrees of CACS, CMA, MBA, undergrad, all by the age of, 23. A couple of years after that, people knew me as, the best humor blogger of the country by Blogger Duck for a blog I used to write. A few years later, which is now, I think people know me as a content creator for for all the content I create on finance and business and startups in India. So I believe there have been multiple hats at all times, but one has definitely outshone, the others at each point in time.

Nitin Bajaj

And you’re an author too, so let’s not forget that. And you’re just getting started. So so you do of course, you’re you’re a man of many talents, and, you’ve had many different shades and phases. And as I said, you know, you’re just getting started. Tell us what do you do for a living?

Sarthak Ahuja

So, actually, an investment banker. I help startups raise funds, which is mostly series a and beyond. I’m based out of Gurgaon. I’ve been in this industry for for, now over 10 years. But when I started my career, I was into tax advisory, risk advisory, audit and assurance, which I I kind of grew out of very, very soon because it did not challenge me enough or did not fulfill me enough in terms of work. And I think after my MBA, I realized that, everyone wants to get into consulting, in India, and they want to be a part of the McKinsey’s and the BCG’s and the Bain’s. But I wanted to set up my own consulting practice, and I chose to not opt for placements, not sit for the process, and think of how I could set up my own entity. Came back and started with consulting for MSMEs in India.

Nitin Bajaj

mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

And a bunch of startups who I was lucky enough to be introduced through the ISP network of founders. And soon after, investment banking was a very natural progression to the kind of businesses I was advising. Mhmm.gh

Nitin Bajaj

I love your humility. I have gotten to know you over the past few months, and you’re so relaxed, so down to earth. You have so many accomplishments under your belt, but you are so calm, composed, and have no ears whatsoever. I love that about you. Tell us about the no. I I really love your humility and, you know, the fact that the I believe you’re one of those people that the more you accomplish, the more humble you get. And, it’s it’s really a great quality to have, especially in the kind of work you do. People can get a little hung up about, the successes and and the numbers that come attached with it. So love love love your attitude and and the humility. Tell us the just, you know, in terms of the impact that your work has created maybe through the size and scale of your operations or the number of companies that you’ve helped over the years?

Sarthak Ahuja

So, there is a I’m I’m actually part of 2 organizations. 1 is an accounting practice, which has been in operation for 36 years. Both my parents started it together back in the day, and I joined them about 11 years ago. It’s also joined in by my sister who’s also an accountant, and we have a team of about 27 people as of now in that accounting entity. And the second entity is the consulting and investment banking entity where we also create a lot of content that has a total team of about 4 people. And, in terms of clients in the accounting entity, we if you were to remove individual accounts, you know, which which of course would add to a massive quantum.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

I think in terms of corporates, we’ve we’ve easily served upwards of 2 50 corporates because 36 years is a is a long time. And in the investment banking entity, which is now about 4 years old, we’ve I think we’ve helped at least about 36 startups with their fundraisers. Initially, of course, a lot of the raises were of smaller check sizes closer to $500,000 and so on and so forth. But lately, in the past 2 years, we realized and, of course, with with a lot of money flowing into India and the startup ecosystem, we started doing larger check sizes. So the, in the past 2 years, the smallest that we’ve done is a $2,000,000 round.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

And the largest that we’ve done is close to about a $15,000,000 round.

Nitin Bajaj

Those are amazing and pretty impressive numbers, especially given the fact that, you know, this is still relatively early days. And, yes, you know, India is at the center of a lot of attention and attraction and action. But for you to be in the midst and heart of all of that is really amazing. Kudos to you and your team

Sarthak Ahuja

Thank you. Thank you.

Nitin Bajaj

As you’re going through this journey and, you know, as you’re mixing in with a lot of the experience through the the firm that you already had with your parents and what you have done over the past few years, What’s the one big challenge you would like to call out?

Sarthak Ahuja

I think the biggest challenge in in say any business which is which is older than maybe 15 years or so, I feel is the agility is a lot of times lost and to bring about change in the mindset of people who have been older employees, older team members. And not to say that it’s it’s not possible. It’s just that a lot of times people who’ve joined the workforce maybe 20, 25 years ago, 30 years ago came from a different type of India. And they’ve been wired in a different way for their motivations to be different. And a lot of times they’ve also lived their life to the extent where their children have grown up, are now educated, are now almost at the cusp of, you know, taking care of themselves financially

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

Which is why maybe the drive to keep creating more, as per new technologies or to learn as per new technologies kind of goes away. Mhmm. Which is why in my experience, I think, in India, smaller entities or medium enterprises don’t really have an l and d department. And I think where we’ve seen biggest change to start is for people to actually have 1 or 2 dedicated resources just focus on learning and development Mhmm. And making it their responsibility to pick up the best things that are out there, the best trends, what is happening in the environment and what all steps does a company need to do to upscale its talent as well as change their vision. Because changing of their vision or aligning it with the present actually starts from upscaling them to the right skills which are relevant today. Because if that doesn’t happen, there will always be a mental block in in changing. So I think that’s something we’ve seen and personally out of my own interest I am a very active part of the l and d team that we’ve set up here. Mhmm. And I think at least half of my workday, goes into just the reading, picking out new trends. So even though my work is used to be easily 10, 12 hours, 12 hours at at at the office daily. I think I’ve tried to bring it down to no more than 10. And out of those 10, at least try and devote 4 everyday to reading, identifying trends, and then passing it on to my assistant who helps with l and d activities and, making them compile the right kind of notes for the entire team to study and go through and do some kind of meetings around it. So I think to set up that system has been a a little bit of a challenge, but that’s also been the most fulfilling.

Nitin Bajaj

I love the discipline. Right? I’m sure it’s not easy to kinda step away from what has to get done to be locked away from all of that and focus on the reading, the learning, and also then transitioning all of that to the rest of the organization.

Sarthak Ahuja

Yeah. Clyde. But, I think more than saying the discipline, it’s it’s become a function of, I figured I really enjoy doing it. So I’m I’m intrinsically I’m intrinsically motivated towards doing it. And I think the content journey

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

If I may add, is is very aligned to this because I started creating content on social media about a year and a half ago. And it started because a lot of my clients would end up asking very similar questions on a daily basis. So I felt that there has to be a way to automate and productize it. And my answers to those frequently asked questions have to be put together in one place, not in the form of text because then people will feel he’s just sending us an article. Right. But in the form of me actually speaking it out, which is why those videos began. And, I encouraged my team also to watch those videos so that even they would be aligned with my vision on what are my thoughts and probably build on top of it. Gradually, I realized after about 90 days or so, after about 3 months of creating content daily that, I was actually not left with any more topics to speak about. And that I think for me was a very hard hitting realization because for any person who considers himself an expert in a field to know that your, you know, body of entire body of knowledge can just be distilled down to, you know, no more than 100 insights Means that you are very easily replaceable and the mote or or, you know, to to to there’s there’s the moat is not strong enough.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

And I think that was the moment, when I realized that and my focus was that content creation should not take more than 20 minutes of my day because if it does, it’s going to be eating away from all of my other business activities. By that time, I’d gotten substantial numbers of about 30, 40000, followers on on a platform like Instagram. And I was in touch with a bunch of other creators, and I got to know of their process and they batch process a lot of videos Mhmm. For the entire week and then push it out. And while that’s definitely more efficient, I realized that that wouldn’t make a habit of learning Nitin insight daily for me because you don’t really have the meal for the entire week on a Sunday. You don’t really work out for the entire week on Monday of the week. So which is why I think daily 2 hours of reading a lot of newsletters that I enjoy reading on business and startups and 2 hours of trying to read a book Mhmm. That I enjoy reading, to get deeper insights. And that’s been the process. And I think the fact that I need to churn out a content piece every day without diluting the quality of the content that really goes out has been a fuel or a catalyst to push me towards reading. And because I intrinsically enjoy it, it’s it’s become easier, and I think it’s I feel more fulfilled at my work, really. So while content is a content marketing engine to get us more leads for our business Mhmm. But I feel more importantly, it feeds more into the l and d function.

Nitin Bajaj

And I can tell being a reader of the content you create, I can really tell that you truly enjoy creating it. It’s the business is more an after effect, but it’s really the joy of writing and and creating that content and sharing the learnings that you have, it truly comes across from how you write. So thank you for doing what you do.

Sarthak Ahuja Thank you.

Nitin Bajaj

On the flip side of challenges come opportunities, and I would love to hear about that one most exciting opportunity you’re chasing.

Sarthak Ahuja

For me, as of now, it it has to be AI. Mhmm. There’s a lot happening in AI. And, of course, the amount of capital and resources and effort it would take to develop an AI product is is gonna be massive. I think my focus right now is to figure out whatever are the no code open tools available in AI and how can we quickly, put them to some use cases in our client companies

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

To just ease the process? For example, in publishing, if we could just, you know, convert someone’s book of 200 pages

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

Into, you know, summarized into, 5 to 10 minutes per chapter worth of script. Mhmm. Use deep fake technology. Use DALL E to create a person’s image. Mhmm. Have them speak out that script and convert textbooks into, you know, short form video content for learning for people who are supposed to consume those textbooks. I think it’s a project which is really exciting me, and I’m working on it with a friend as a purely as a pet project to see if we can build something out of it. So that’s something which is very exciting. And I being a creator, part time creator, I feel there are a lot of use cases for the creator economy also, which I’m very excited to explore.

Nitin Bajaj

Looking forward to what you create. Yes. Sounds really exciting. Now let’s as we look forward in in what you’re, going to work on, let’s take a step back and look in the rear view mirror, and I would love for you to share 2 experiences. 1, that blew your own expectations and became an astounding success that, you didn’t even comprehend. And on the other end, something that did not work out as you had expected and was a failure and became a lesson learned.

Sarthak Ahuja

Sure. So I think all through growing up there has been if I think of one same maxim, which has which has pushed me at all times, and I’ve kind of used it as a tool to take decisions whenever I’ve been at an inflection point or or at a fork in decision making, which has been face your fears. And I used to be horrible at writing. So much so that Bajaj in school, I was a part of the editorial board for the school magazine.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

And throughout the year, it was just I was I was one of the editors. And throughout the year, I was pushing people to submit articles. But when the time came for me to write my own editorial for the magazine, I remember I was so scared of putting something out there for public display that one of my friends had written a bunch of pieces and I said, can I just borrow one of these and submit it in my name? And I did that, and I think the guilt for that really stayed with me for a very long time because I still have that school magazine with that piece with my name in the editorial section, which is actually not mine. So at one point I realized why am I so scared? I’m actually scared of judgment. Mhmm. So let’s just start a blog and start writing whatever it is out there for public display. And if there’s gonna be feedback for improvement, we’ll take it in the right stride and, you know, take it from there. So I think I I kept writing my blog for 6 years. And when I got the best humor blog of India award, that blew me away because I could never imagine that would happen. And such kind of instances over different parts of my life for different aspects have happened. For example, studying for for 4 degrees at the same time, which was bachelor’s in finance, CACS, CMA. And while there was a news report on it, I think the real highlight of the news report had to be if I had to because without any, coaching. It was all self study based. I think at that time, it really did intimidate me, but I was like, if it does, let’s let’s try it out once. So I think at every point, whatever I’ve been most scared of, I’ve tried to give it one attempt to see if we can figure it out, which has pushed me in the right direction and has shown results. And I think if I were to take it into my personal life, while it may sound very superficial, but I started losing a lot of my hair Bajaj when I was in school in the 11th 12th grade. And I think the amount of mind space that was occupying Mhmm. For me as a 16 year old, constantly worried about, oh, I won’t really be attractive enough to women or I don’t look good and what’s I’ve got this receding hairline. And sometime, in the middle of my MBA, I just picked up the razor and, you know, shaved it off. And then I looked at myself in the mirror, and it just couldn’t relate to the character I saw. And, that I think took took easily about 6 to 9 months to come to terms with.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

It wasn’t easy. It it it was a very difficult period, I feel, for multiple reasons.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

But, I think later on, I realized that it made me so much more confident as a person because now there was nothing at the back of my mind constantly holding me Bajaj.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

Saying that, oh, is my head looking okay? Is someone looking at it? Or so I think this one maximum facing your fears is something which has definitely helped me. And in terms of failures or things that I’ve I’ve tried to really learn from is I feel I probably should have exposed myself to a lot of learning, reading much earlier than I actually did. So and I’m glad that content creation pushed me in the right direction

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm. To

Sarthak Ahuja

do it on a daily basis. But I also remember times during my MBA where, you know, people would be able to contribute in such beautiful ways to case studies and have so much more general knowledge about business in my classroom. And I absolutely felt like someone out of place where despite all my academic, background in education, I felt I probably wasn’t skilled enough with the right practical insights from business to be able to contribute to my class. And, I think that kind of fueled the underconfidence in a lot of ways. So I think, thankfully, that failure made me realize certain things about myself that I wasn’t doing and pushed me to building systems around me which would make it a routine of learning. Like, how can we make it more efficient as a process daily so that it’s not a burden. It just seamlessly fits into everyday process. So I think that is a failure where I’ve not been able to contribute to my groups during the MBA, in case study competitions, in in a lot of the group project work where I would just feel I’m not capable enough despite how much I tried. And people from the IIT being able to teaching me finance, and certain topics, which were very quant heavy. And I’m feeling like having studied finance, myself in my degrees, I couldn’t explain those topics. I think a lot of those failures were were heavy realizations.

Nitin Bajaj

I think it takes a lot of courage, and it takes a lot of, let’s say, the right attitude to be able to bounce back from all of these different experiences that you’ve had. You are, let’s say, a relentless person who does not stop, who does not fall, or if if you fall, the ability for you to jump back on is amazing. So kudos for becoming who you have become and for helping others do the same. I wanna transition to my favorite part of the show, which we call the one line life lessons. I’d love for you to share some of your life lessons with us.

Sarthak Ahuja

So so I think the the most important, like I said, is facing your fears. That’s that’s something which has just pushed me all through. Another life philosophy I kinda live by is no regrets. Yes. So I think it’s so important because we just get trapped in thinking, had I done this, this would have turned out differently and stuff like that. I feel at every point in my life, I give myself the decision making power and also the freedom to say that I trust that at this point, you will collect all possible data to take the decision which you think is in the best interest of yourself and maybe some other stakeholders around me, my family, and people who are important for me. And if life turns out some other way, I am willing to cut myself slack because, of course, me from the past could not have been able to see the entire future. Mhmm. And I think just just this constant reminder to myself at all times that no regrets has helped me, you know, at each point navigate slightly better without going back into the past and getting into self pity and a mindset of misery, so to say. So that’s definitely been number 2. 3rd is something which, shows on my desktop wallpaper. And I’m looking at it right now. I read this somewhere which said, hold the vision, trust the process. Yes. Yeah. So Okay. It says hold the vision, trust the process. And below that, I’ve added a one line, which is create value every day. So this is what I look at daily while working. This is a constant reminder on how a lot of the big results in life actually compound and come at a later time. So there’s a long tail associated with and the fruits really come. But the idea is to enjoy the journey, enjoy the process, and, create value every day because that’s what pushes me to stick to the process.

Nitin Bajaj

Love it. Sarthak, let’s take a minute and talk about your book. I would love for our audience to hear about it. It’s it’s a best seller. Give us a a one minute clip on it.

Sarthak Ahuja

Sure. So the book is called, daily coffee and startup fundraising.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

And how it came about is that I saw that the two most common questions that people would ask me on Instagram and on LinkedIn is, 1, can you help us raise funds for our startup? And the second was, can you recommend a book where I can learn about everything that you talk about in your content? And I have recommended easily close to about 40, 50 books on my social media channels consistently. People who want to see it can see it in the read highlight on my Instagram account. But I realized to to recommend 40, 50 books to someone is a little too overwhelming. It doesn’t really serve the purpose. And second, owing to the limitations of our business, which is still not completely automated, there are only so many mandates we can take on helping people to raise funds. Plus a lot of times founders are not ready and not at the right stage where an investor would be interested in them. So I felt there was definitely this need in the market because constantly these two questions were coming up. The idea was to give a product to this community which would help at least answer these 2 top most questions. Mhmm. So I got down to writing the book, and it’s written in 3 parts. It has 3 sections in it. The first one is called, startups 101, getting the house in order. Mhmm. And it essentially talks about everything that a founder must do, which is, idea validation about how to measure, evaluate, you know, product market fit, how to go about hiring the right kind of people, how to think about equity split amongst cofounders, Where to register the company? Should they be doing it in India? If in India, in which state or in Delaware in the US or in Singapore or in Estonia? So as to ensure that before they get to an investor, they’re at least aware of their own self, of their start up to be able to evaluate whether they’re investor ready. Mhmm. The second part is, on finance and fundraising where we speak about valuations, where we speak about financial models, about types of investors and investor fit, how to look at how much equity to dilute at each stage in your company, how much to raise, how to build financial models which a founder himself can run, how to look at transaction comparables, and things like that, investor outreach. The 3rd section is more on legal, which has how to understand the term sheet, how to negotiate the term sheet, what is the data and documentation and the process required to go through in India at the time of fundraise, what all forms would have to be filed, what all documents would have to be created, what are the different checks a founder has to put in place to ensure that the process is running smoothly? Because it’s mostly the professionals who would be doing it, and the founder is either trusting them to do it well or has absolutely no idea. Mhmm. So checklists to help him do that, and the book ends with links to various resources which can help people. It lists about 200 investors in India linked to their websites, incubators, accelerators for each stage, for each industry. That’s the kind of information I’ve I’ve really attempted to compile. And there have been a lot of books on the subject, which have been written in Silicon Valley, in the Silicon Valley context. So I think the big idea was to ensure that we pick up the best things that apply to India Mhmm. Add those which are very India specific, And the 3rd part, which is the legal process Mhmm. Is entirely related to India, which so far is only available as we see in blogs and certain websites. And, you know, with changes, they’re probably not updated.

Nitin Bajaj

Mhmm.

Sarthak Ahuja

So the idea was to just put together this primer. And luckily, the the young girl, Ankita, who was transcribing all of this while I would speak it out, is actually a girl who’s just completed her undergrad in psychology. So no background in finance or entrepreneurship. And the idea was that if she can understand it Mhmm. Then maybe any entrepreneur would also be able to. So that’s how the book’s been Nitin. And luckily enough, last month, it got on the Amazon, bestseller in India tag. It was number 2 in India in the entrepreneurship category, which was quite good to see.

Nitin Bajaj

Yes. And well deserved.

Sarthak Ahuja

Thank you.

Nitin Bajaj

Thanks again for putting that book together. It is truly well deserved as a bestseller. Sarthak, once again, thank you for sharing your journey and story with us and your life lessons. We really appreciate it. And also congratulations on the successes and good luck for the continued, many more successes to come here in the near future. Thanks a lot.

Sarthak Ahuja

Thanks so much, Nitin. Very kind of you to say that. Thank you.