Nitin Bajaj: (0:00:00) – Hey everyone, welcome to the industry show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj. And joining me today is Yamika Mehra. Yamika, welcome on the show.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:00:09) – Thank you so much, Nitin. Absolute pleasure to be on the show and look forward to an interesting, very interesting conversation.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:00:16) – Pleasure is all ours. So let’s start with the big question. Who is.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:00:23) – I mean, I get get asked this question very often these days and my first answer for the past six years has been that I’m a mother. I’m a mother first. And that brings a couple of things to me. Someone who naturally nourishes or nurtures people and things around her and who’s looking at a goal basically to achieve in terms of shaping people, shaping personalities, shaping businesses. So that’s who I am.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:01:01) – That’s such an important and crucial perspective to have, especially as a founder who’s dealing with two sides of very important ecosystem, founders and investors. So with that in mind, tell us more about what is Favcy and the mission, the vision. And then I have a couple more questions around that.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:01:26) – Okay, perfect. So I’ll actually continue answering the previous question before jumping onto this. I took a very emotional shot at that first question. But while, yes, in my personal life, I’m a mother and I continue to be so in my professional life as well, because I work with a lot of founders at Favcy. Fafse is India’s largest venture builder. I’m a partner at FaFSI. And we start working with founders right when they are at an idea stage. So when it is a seed in their heads, that’s when we start interacting and working with them. And it requires a lot of nurturing, it requires a lot of work to convert those ideas into actual products that are in the market, that are doing traction and so on and so forth. So that’s what we do at Favcy, venture building in the truest sense. Onboarding startups. Onboarding founders at such an early stage and then taking them through everything that it takes to build a startup, whether it is brand positioning, whether it is product development, whether it is growth, and of course whatever fundraising is required to take them from that point a to point b, all of that we do as safe c co ideating, co building and co investing with the founders. So that’s what we do at safety. We’ve been at it for about two and a half, three years now, have about 25 startups on the portfolio. So there’s a playbook that we follow. I won’t say ensuring, but with the intent of preventing these very early stage founders falling off the grid somewhere in that journey from idea to product and traction. So that’s the whole idea, to bring down the risk which is typically associated with early stage startups for all stakeholders involved. So whether it is founders, whether it is angel investors, whether it is us, we’re trying to bring down the risk for all the stakeholders involved in the early stage journey of a startup. So in essence, that’s what we do at first check and faith. See, so I think Nitini also mentioned what first check does. If you hear the name, sounds like, sounds financial, sounds like money, I mean, it is what it sounds like, but it is. So it is a first check is an angel network of about 3000 od people. 95% of those people are first time angels. But first check is not a pure play angel investor network. First check is very much a part of safety and just about one of the things which becomes part of the end to end venture building process while building a startup. So while a startup is being built, what is important for us in the first place is to evaluate the idea thoroughly, to evaluate the business model thoroughly, to evaluate the founder market fit thoroughly before deciding whether or not to start venture building a particular idea, and that this evaluation, et cetera, gives way to our thesis. So why are we onboarding a particular startup? Why are we going forward with venture building it? What it does is while it gives us a thesis, we won’t test that thesis. So what we do is we put it in front of our network of angels and if they are ready to back it with some money, that’s when we are absolutely comfortable to go ahead and embark on the venture building journey. So that’s what first check takes care of. And that’s how it is ingrained in the end to end journey of pension building that we take care of at phase makes sense.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:06:19) – It takes a village to raise a child and a startup. And I see you put that village together really nicely and you’re nurturing it. So tell us, why do this and why do this now?

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:06:34) – Right? So Nitin, I’m sure people are hearing great stories about the indian startup ecosystem days. In 7810 years, startups have reached IPO levels in India and there’s a whole lot of funds that are flowing in. You hear the biggies of the VC ecosystem come in and make these big bets, et cetera. But that’s just on the surface. I mean, if you look deeper, you’ll see that all of that is just on the surface and it’s a very minuscule percentage of activity that gets noticed via media, et cetera, et cetera. But we all know that when these things happen, I mean, this is a first good. Anything that gets talked about is good, because then more number of people get to know about it, more number of people would try to take a shot at it. And that’s what’s happening in India today, where more and more people are becoming cognizant to the fact that they can begin a business, they can begin a startup, and they can work on it, and they can succeed at it. At least that’s the hope. But obviously the path to building a successful startup is difficult. You are literally building something from scratch and you’re hoping to take it to greater and greater heights. So of course it requires a lot of support. And when there isn’t that kind of support available, things falter. People falter, companies fall down, there are failures, which anyways would be there, but because it’s unavoidable, when you’re trying, large number of people are trying something, there are failures become unavoidable, but the best ones shouldn’t fail for lack of support. That’s the kind of idea that we had when we started working as a venture builder. So we are possibly the first and the only and the largest venture builder in the indian startup ecosystem. Because what the indian startup ecosystem has, and no offense, kudos to what it has, it has a good number of incubators and accelerators that work on a mentorship driven advisory model. It has a good number of angel networks today that help young founders get their initial checks for building up their businesses. But sometimes just advice from afar or just a check in the bank is not enough. I mean, I am saying sometimes, but that’s what the case is. In 99% of the cases, it’s not enough to avoid the pitfalls that come with the early journey. So that’s where a venture builder plays its role, and we specifically aim to work with. I mean, I don’t know, you must have heard, or our audience must have heard of instances where a majority of the fundings in India go to founders from IIT and IIM and tech founders who can build a tech product, et cetera. But we realize there’s a huge gap in terms of helping the non tech founders who are great at their business, know their domain, know how to sell, how to build a business from scratch, but maybe don’t know how to do it with a digital tech product startup, which of course is highly scalable, and you can build a recurring revenue model around it, and that’s how you scale exponentially with a startup. But the non tech founder doesn’t know how to do it. So we have a very strong thesis of working with these non tech founders who are looking to build a digital tech product startup. And we work with them and we support them with everything that it takes to go from idea to product to attraction to further growth.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:11:17) – Tell me, as a venture builder and as a community of investors, what is the biggest challenge you’re facing as a business?

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:11:30) – So, I mean, as it would seem, the job that we are doing is not easy. It’s difficult because it’s easy to just identify startups and founders that are doing well and offer them a check or offer them some advice. I won’t say it’s easy, but it’s easier. But it is definitely very difficult to identify startups and founders at an idea stage and to be able to see clearly that what is the kind of potential that this idea or this founder can have in the next four or five years. So we are literally visualizing it way ahead in their lifecycle and then to maintain the kind of discipline that is required to take the startup from that idea kind of stage and to have that kind of understanding with the founding team, with our teams, and to take them to the product traction, vc ready kind of stage, that’s the most difficult part of this journey because you do get people who are looking to back the ideas with money, et cetera. So if I talk about investors, if I talk about funds for doing something that’s still available, but what is difficult is to handhold the startups, these founders, and prevent them from falling off the grid somewhere in that initial journey, that is difficult. And it took us some time to fine tune our playbooks so that we can minimize this. So while we say that the way we are working, we are mitigating risks and we are handholding and all of that, even we are not able to eliminate risk, which is associated with this asset class, startups as an asset class, and even we are only aiming for maybe a 30% to 40% success out of our entire portfolio. Just for context, the industry average is 5%, but even we are only aiming at 30% to 40% of that.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:14:07) – On the flip side of this challenge is the opportunity. What’s the one most exciting opportunity that makes you get up and take on all of these challenges you face.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:14:22) – Right? More than opportunity, it is what motivates us is the section of people that we are helping or the section of people that are getting inspired or motivated with whatever we are doing. And here I’d like to highlight that there are actually two sections of people that we are working with. One is, of course, these young founders. And when I say young, I actually mean young in their startup building journeys, not necessarily as per their age. So these founders who are wanting to begin their startup journeys, et cetera, they are the first lot who is. I would like to believe that learning from whatever we are doing, whether it is with us on our venture building journey or even outside of it, because when you’re building something, you obviously are able to affect a larger number of people with whatever you’re doing. And the other set of audience that we are able to work with and make a part of this ecosystem are new angel investors, people who are looking to begin their angel investment journeys, who don’t have a very big purpose yet, are looking to build a diversified portfolio, get a taste of this asset class, because traditionally angel investing has been touted as something that only the hnis can do because it requires that kind of corpus, it requires that kind of patience, and that it requires that kind of understanding of the ecosystem. So that’s the mold that we are trying to change, especially with first check. So that really is the opportunity to involve this new set of people into this asset class which is unexplored and unlock the true potential that lies within. I mean, imagine so many people on one side that are getting inspired to get up, start up, build their own businesses, and the other set of people who maybe are not building those businesses directly but are contributing to it. So the kind of potential this kind of synergy can unlock is immense. It’s very motivating. It’s very inspiring. And that’s the opportunity that we are.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:17:06) – Motivating, inspiring and exciting to be at the crux of all of this. So really happy for you. And the volumes you have achieved speak to the impact you’ve been able to create. As we look forward at the opportunity, let’s look back a little bit in your own career. And I’m interested and curious to know about a moment in time when things did not work out as you had expected.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:17:37) – That’s interesting. So let me give you a glimpse of, very quick glimpse of what my professional journey has been so far. So I have today some 15 plus years of experience, professional experience, which I’m very happy to say is mostly in and around startups. But it did not start. You know, I’m a B tech computer science graduate, graduated out of college and joined this MNC. And I was sitting in front of computers and I was coding, et cetera. And that was something that I was like, I’m not enjoying this. I would like to sit in front of people. I would want to interact with people rather than machines. So a few years into the job, I got up and I said that I want to move towards sales and business development where there’s more people interaction. It was difficult, but I managed to get my way around. And then I also managed to be hired by this data analytics product platform as their first sales hire. And it was very interesting because they had just launched in India and everything had to be started from scratch. It was a huge responsibility. I just put my head down for the next five, six years and we just worked ground up. And it is very interesting as to how much can you learn while you’re actually doing things. I was someone with no educational background in selling or any of that sort, or marketing for that matter. And when you are in a startup, you’re wearing so many different hats all the time. So that really shaped whatever I know about building businesses today. And after doing that for five, six years, I was like, enough of this now I’ve done this. Let me now start something of my own. And that actually, when I tell you, would be the time when things did not turn out the way I had planned them to. And that’s something that I keep telling to a lot of new founders as well, that you should try. It may not work out and sometimes it will, but you have to try and you have to keep pivoting. So what I did, I left this sales job that I was in and I started off a blockchain product startup. This is some time back. Blockchain enterprise products really did not have an adoption, especially in India, but we wanted to give it a try. And we tried for about a year. We built a team of about 20 people and we won some awards for whatever we had conceptualized that we were wanting to do, et cetera. But sadly, we weren’t able to inspire the enterprise leaders to get into blockchain products just yet. So we had to give up that dream, because after a point of time, you’ve got these people on your team, you have to pay their salaries, et cetera. You’ve got to get business. And we couldn’t pursue the entire blockchain product thing. And that’s where I thought that this isn’t working. Maybe it was a bad decision to leave a job and start up and all those things, but then something interesting happened. So while we were building this blockchain product, one of the family offices had approached us for funding us, but we weren’t sure of where this product is really going and what’s happening with it. So we were skeptical of taking someone’s money and then not being able to follow through, so we had rejected that offer. Then when the family office came to know that I have left that startup, we’re not no longer building it the way we were planning to, and I might have some time at hand, they approached me to join them as someone who would be building or helping them build their own portfolio of startups. The idea was that since I have experience of building startups now, however far I was able to take it, it does count for something, it seemed. And I also had experience of building up revenues, et cetera, in my previous avatar. They brought me in to help them build the portfolio for the family office. And that really was, I would say, a turning point in my career, because I literally found, I feel my true calling, where I got an opportunity to interact with so many interesting founders and inspiring founders who are toiling day and night to build such interesting business models, to build in spaces where nobody is building and they’re just not giving up. And I got the opportunity to work with these founders and to help them achieve their goals one day at a time. And I got an opportunity to work with so many of them on a day to day basis, help them grow, et cetera. So that really inspired me, and I’d never had to look back from there. After helping this family office build this portfolio, I was able to move on to faith c, which is what we are talking about today. And it was literally a step ahead in whatever is happening, because as the family office incubator, we were able to help founders with words, with advice, maybe with connections, maybe with some money. That’s about it. And I could see firsthand that there are so many challenges that these founders are facing in their early journey, which cannot be solved by money, which cannot be solved by just advice or mentorship. It required more, it required very close handholding and maybe actually sitting beside them and working with them. And that’s what I found in mean. I was literally blown away when I got to know about the business, whatever is happening, whatever FaFSI is doing as a venture builder in the first place. And I was like, this is exactly what is missing in the ecosystem. And it was a no brainer to join hands and start contributing to what phase was actually building. And I was very fortunate that when I joined, we were just about starting off by building the first check platform. Before that, idea stage fundraising was really unheard of in the indian startup ecosystem, except for maybe back in 2008, 2010 when startups had just started off and people were just putting in money on ideas. Post that post, the ecosystem matured. Even today, there are no platforms that are enabling idea stage fundraising, obviously, because it’s too risky. But the way FFC operates, it kind of brings the risk down, even at such an early stage. And it’s a beautiful ecosystem that I got an opportunity to be a part of and contribute towards. Sometimes you’re able to turn around your darkest times or your most difficult of times into something beautiful. So we should always, I mean, I feel that, not look down upon our failures, but they are really stepping stones to something better, something greater.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:26:06) – So very well said and really happy for your journey so far. And I know for a fact that there are greater heights to be achieved as we talk about the moments that teach us. I would love to transition this into my favorite part of the show that we call one line life lessons. And I would love to hear some of your life lessons and take that to our audience.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:26:37) – So there’s this one thing that I always tell people that if you want to start up, just start up. And you don’t have to think too much, you just have to do. And as you go ahead, challenges will come in and you’ll find ways to overcome those challenges. You just have to keep doing. And that’s the most important thing. Unless you try, you won’t know what’s possible, what’s not. So please do, and if you want to build a business, please start off and you’ll find your way.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:27:22) – And obviously we have you. And if anyone has challenges, they know where to go.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:27:32) – Absolutely. If you’re not able to help people via the ecosystem on a personal level as well, I’m always very happy to interact with people who are trying out new things and who are looking for support of any kind to build those things. Because sometimes at our level, we feel that, oh, this is common sense, everybody would know it. But there are so many people who are starting out every day, each day, and it’s the beginning of their journeys, and maybe they have not had enough experiences to have that kind of learning as a common sense yet. And even the very basic of things can be very helpful for them. So I certainly believe that. And I keep sharing. I mean, although sometimes I feel that I am being repetitive and I’m saying the same things over and over again, and this is so basic, people would know it. But then I tell myself that there could be a lot of people who are starting off today and who wouldn’t know this. So it’s always good to put it out. And like you rightly mentioned, we’re always there to help people, especially founders and people looking to begin their angel investment journeys. These two set of stakeholders are very close to our hearts, so always there to help and support them.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:29:00) – Yamika, thank you so much for sharing your journey and your story, and congratulations again on your many successes. We’d love to stay in touch, bring you back on with more of your success stories. And once again, thanks for making the time to be with us today.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:29:18) – Thank you. Thank you. Nitin, the pleasure is all mine.eaker A (0:00:00) – Hey everyone, welcome to the industry show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj. And joining me today is Yamika Mehra. Yamika, welcome on the show.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:00:09) – Thank you so much, Nitin. Absolute pleasure to be on the show and look forward to an interesting, very interesting conversation.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:00:16) – Pleasure is all ours. So let’s start with the big question. Who is.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:00:23) – I mean, I get get asked this question very often these days and my first answer for the past six years has been that I’m a mother. I’m a mother first. And that brings a couple of things to me. Someone who naturally nourishes or nurtures people and things around her and who’s looking at a goal basically to achieve in terms of shaping people, shaping personalities, shaping businesses. So that’s who I am.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:01:01) – That’s such an important and crucial perspective to have, especially as a founder who’s dealing with two sides of very important ecosystem, founders and investors. So with that in mind, tell us more about what is Favcy and the mission, the vision. And then I have a couple more questions around that.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:01:26) – Okay, perfect. So I’ll actually continue answering the previous question before jumping onto this. I took a very emotional shot at that first question. But while, yes, in my personal life, I’m a mother and I continue to be so in my professional life as well, because I work with a lot of founders at Favcy. Fafse is India’s largest venture builder. I’m a partner at FaFSI. And we start working with founders right when they are at an idea stage. So when it is a seed in their heads, that’s when we start interacting and working with them. And it requires a lot of nurturing, it requires a lot of work to convert those ideas into actual products that are in the market, that are doing traction and so on and so forth. So that’s what we do at Favcy, venture building in the truest sense. Onboarding startups. Onboarding founders at such an early stage and then taking them through everything that it takes to build a startup, whether it is brand positioning, whether it is product development, whether it is growth, and of course whatever fundraising is required to take them from that point a to point b, all of that we do as safe c co ideating, co building and co investing with the founders. So that’s what we do at safety. We’ve been at it for about two and a half, three years now, have about 25 startups on the portfolio. So there’s a playbook that we follow. I won’t say ensuring, but with the intent of preventing these very early stage founders falling off the grid somewhere in that journey from idea to product and traction. So that’s the whole idea, to bring down the risk which is typically associated with early stage startups for all stakeholders involved. So whether it is founders, whether it is angel investors, whether it is us, we’re trying to bring down the risk for all the stakeholders involved in the early stage journey of a startup. So in essence, that’s what we do at first check and faith. See, so I think Nitini also mentioned what first check does. If you hear the name, sounds like, sounds financial, sounds like money, I mean, it is what it sounds like, but it is. So it is a first check is an angel network of about 3000 od people. 95% of those people are first time angels. But first check is not a pure play angel investor network. First check is very much a part of safety and just about one of the things which becomes part of the end to end venture building process while building a startup. So while a startup is being built, what is important for us in the first place is to evaluate the idea thoroughly, to evaluate the business model thoroughly, to evaluate the founder market fit thoroughly before deciding whether or not to start venture building a particular idea, and that this evaluation, et cetera, gives way to our thesis. So why are we onboarding a particular startup? Why are we going forward with venture building it? What it does is while it gives us a thesis, we won’t test that thesis. So what we do is we put it in front of our network of angels and if they are ready to back it with some money, that’s when we are absolutely comfortable to go ahead and embark on the venture building journey. So that’s what first check takes care of. And that’s how it is ingrained in the end to end journey of pension building that we take care of at phase makes sense.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:06:19) – It takes a village to raise a child and a startup. And I see you put that village together really nicely and you’re nurturing it. So tell us, why do this and why do this now?

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:06:34) – Right? So Nitin, I’m sure people are hearing great stories about the indian startup ecosystem days. In 7810 years, startups have reached IPO levels in India and there’s a whole lot of funds that are flowing in. You hear the biggies of the VC ecosystem come in and make these big bets, et cetera. But that’s just on the surface. I mean, if you look deeper, you’ll see that all of that is just on the surface and it’s a very minuscule percentage of activity that gets noticed via media, et cetera, et cetera. But we all know that when these things happen, I mean, this is a first good. Anything that gets talked about is good, because then more number of people get to know about it, more number of people would try to take a shot at it. And that’s what’s happening in India today, where more and more people are becoming cognizant to the fact that they can begin a business, they can begin a startup, and they can work on it, and they can succeed at it. At least that’s the hope. But obviously the path to building a successful startup is difficult. You are literally building something from scratch and you’re hoping to take it to greater and greater heights. So of course it requires a lot of support. And when there isn’t that kind of support available, things falter. People falter, companies fall down, there are failures, which anyways would be there, but because it’s unavoidable, when you’re trying, large number of people are trying something, there are failures become unavoidable, but the best ones shouldn’t fail for lack of support. That’s the kind of idea that we had when we started working as a venture builder. So we are possibly the first and the only and the largest venture builder in the indian startup ecosystem. Because what the indian startup ecosystem has, and no offense, kudos to what it has, it has a good number of incubators and accelerators that work on a mentorship driven advisory model. It has a good number of angel networks today that help young founders get their initial checks for building up their businesses. But sometimes just advice from afar or just a check in the bank is not enough. I mean, I am saying sometimes, but that’s what the case is. In 99% of the cases, it’s not enough to avoid the pitfalls that come with the early journey. So that’s where a venture builder plays its role, and we specifically aim to work with. I mean, I don’t know, you must have heard, or our audience must have heard of instances where a majority of the fundings in India go to founders from IIT and IIM and tech founders who can build a tech product, et cetera. But we realize there’s a huge gap in terms of helping the non tech founders who are great at their business, know their domain, know how to sell, how to build a business from scratch, but maybe don’t know how to do it with a digital tech product startup, which of course is highly scalable, and you can build a recurring revenue model around it, and that’s how you scale exponentially with a startup. But the non tech founder doesn’t know how to do it. So we have a very strong thesis of working with these non tech founders who are looking to build a digital tech product startup. And we work with them and we support them with everything that it takes to go from idea to product to attraction to further growth.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:11:17) – Tell me, as a venture builder and as a community of investors, what is the biggest challenge you’re facing as a business?

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:11:30) – So, I mean, as it would seem, the job that we are doing is not easy. It’s difficult because it’s easy to just identify startups and founders that are doing well and offer them a check or offer them some advice. I won’t say it’s easy, but it’s easier. But it is definitely very difficult to identify startups and founders at an idea stage and to be able to see clearly that what is the kind of potential that this idea or this founder can have in the next four or five years. So we are literally visualizing it way ahead in their lifecycle and then to maintain the kind of discipline that is required to take the startup from that idea kind of stage and to have that kind of understanding with the founding team, with our teams, and to take them to the product traction, vc ready kind of stage, that’s the most difficult part of this journey because you do get people who are looking to back the ideas with money, et cetera. So if I talk about investors, if I talk about funds for doing something that’s still available, but what is difficult is to handhold the startups, these founders, and prevent them from falling off the grid somewhere in that initial journey, that is difficult. And it took us some time to fine tune our playbooks so that we can minimize this. So while we say that the way we are working, we are mitigating risks and we are handholding and all of that, even we are not able to eliminate risk, which is associated with this asset class, startups as an asset class, and even we are only aiming for maybe a 30% to 40% success out of our entire portfolio. Just for context, the industry average is 5%, but even we are only aiming at 30% to 40% of that.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:14:07) – On the flip side of this challenge is the opportunity. What’s the one most exciting opportunity that makes you get up and take on all of these challenges you face.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:14:22) – Right? More than opportunity, it is what motivates us is the section of people that we are helping or the section of people that are getting inspired or motivated with whatever we are doing. And here I’d like to highlight that there are actually two sections of people that we are working with. One is, of course, these young founders. And when I say young, I actually mean young in their startup building journeys, not necessarily as per their age. So these founders who are wanting to begin their startup journeys, et cetera, they are the first lot who is. I would like to believe that learning from whatever we are doing, whether it is with us on our venture building journey or even outside of it, because when you’re building something, you obviously are able to affect a larger number of people with whatever you’re doing. And the other set of audience that we are able to work with and make a part of this ecosystem are new angel investors, people who are looking to begin their angel investment journeys, who don’t have a very big purpose yet, are looking to build a diversified portfolio, get a taste of this asset class, because traditionally angel investing has been touted as something that only the hnis can do because it requires that kind of corpus, it requires that kind of patience, and that it requires that kind of understanding of the ecosystem. So that’s the mold that we are trying to change, especially with first check. So that really is the opportunity to involve this new set of people into this asset class which is unexplored and unlock the true potential that lies within. I mean, imagine so many people on one side that are getting inspired to get up, start up, build their own businesses, and the other set of people who maybe are not building those businesses directly but are contributing to it. So the kind of potential this kind of synergy can unlock is immense. It’s very motivating. It’s very inspiring. And that’s the opportunity that we are.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:17:06) – Motivating, inspiring and exciting to be at the crux of all of this. So really happy for you. And the volumes you have achieved speak to the impact you’ve been able to create. As we look forward at the opportunity, let’s look back a little bit in your own career. And I’m interested and curious to know about a moment in time when things did not work out as you had expected.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:17:37) – That’s interesting. So let me give you a glimpse of, very quick glimpse of what my professional journey has been so far. So I have today some 15 plus years of experience, professional experience, which I’m very happy to say is mostly in and around startups. But it did not start. You know, I’m a B tech computer science graduate, graduated out of college and joined this MNC. And I was sitting in front of computers and I was coding, et cetera. And that was something that I was like, I’m not enjoying this. I would like to sit in front of people. I would want to interact with people rather than machines. So a few years into the job, I got up and I said that I want to move towards sales and business development where there’s more people interaction. It was difficult, but I managed to get my way around. And then I also managed to be hired by this data analytics product platform as their first sales hire. And it was very interesting because they had just launched in India and everything had to be started from scratch. It was a huge responsibility. I just put my head down for the next five, six years and we just worked ground up. And it is very interesting as to how much can you learn while you’re actually doing things. I was someone with no educational background in selling or any of that sort, or marketing for that matter. And when you are in a startup, you’re wearing so many different hats all the time. So that really shaped whatever I know about building businesses today. And after doing that for five, six years, I was like, enough of this now I’ve done this. Let me now start something of my own. And that actually, when I tell you, would be the time when things did not turn out the way I had planned them to. And that’s something that I keep telling to a lot of new founders as well, that you should try. It may not work out and sometimes it will, but you have to try and you have to keep pivoting. So what I did, I left this sales job that I was in and I started off a blockchain product startup. This is some time back. Blockchain enterprise products really did not have an adoption, especially in India, but we wanted to give it a try. And we tried for about a year. We built a team of about 20 people and we won some awards for whatever we had conceptualized that we were wanting to do, et cetera. But sadly, we weren’t able to inspire the enterprise leaders to get into blockchain products just yet. So we had to give up that dream, because after a point of time, you’ve got these people on your team, you have to pay their salaries, et cetera. You’ve got to get business. And we couldn’t pursue the entire blockchain product thing. And that’s where I thought that this isn’t working. Maybe it was a bad decision to leave a job and start up and all those things, but then something interesting happened. So while we were building this blockchain product, one of the family offices had approached us for funding us, but we weren’t sure of where this product is really going and what’s happening with it. So we were skeptical of taking someone’s money and then not being able to follow through, so we had rejected that offer. Then when the family office came to know that I have left that startup, we’re not no longer building it the way we were planning to, and I might have some time at hand, they approached me to join them as someone who would be building or helping them build their own portfolio of startups. The idea was that since I have experience of building startups now, however far I was able to take it, it does count for something, it seemed. And I also had experience of building up revenues, et cetera, in my previous avatar. They brought me in to help them build the portfolio for the family office. And that really was, I would say, a turning point in my career, because I literally found, I feel my true calling, where I got an opportunity to interact with so many interesting founders and inspiring founders who are toiling day and night to build such interesting business models, to build in spaces where nobody is building and they’re just not giving up. And I got the opportunity to work with these founders and to help them achieve their goals one day at a time. And I got an opportunity to work with so many of them on a day to day basis, help them grow, et cetera. So that really inspired me, and I’d never had to look back from there. After helping this family office build this portfolio, I was able to move on to faith c, which is what we are talking about today. And it was literally a step ahead in whatever is happening, because as the family office incubator, we were able to help founders with words, with advice, maybe with connections, maybe with some money. That’s about it. And I could see firsthand that there are so many challenges that these founders are facing in their early journey, which cannot be solved by money, which cannot be solved by just advice or mentorship. It required more, it required very close handholding and maybe actually sitting beside them and working with them. And that’s what I found in mean. I was literally blown away when I got to know about the business, whatever is happening, whatever FaFSI is doing as a venture builder in the first place. And I was like, this is exactly what is missing in the ecosystem. And it was a no brainer to join hands and start contributing to what phase was actually building. And I was very fortunate that when I joined, we were just about starting off by building the first check platform. Before that, idea stage fundraising was really unheard of in the indian startup ecosystem, except for maybe back in 2008, 2010 when startups had just started off and people were just putting in money on ideas. Post that post, the ecosystem matured. Even today, there are no platforms that are enabling idea stage fundraising, obviously, because it’s too risky. But the way FFC operates, it kind of brings the risk down, even at such an early stage. And it’s a beautiful ecosystem that I got an opportunity to be a part of and contribute towards. Sometimes you’re able to turn around your darkest times or your most difficult of times into something beautiful. So we should always, I mean, I feel that, not look down upon our failures, but they are really stepping stones to something better, something greater.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:26:06) – So very well said and really happy for your journey so far. And I know for a fact that there are greater heights to be achieved as we talk about the moments that teach us. I would love to transition this into my favorite part of the show that we call one line life lessons. And I would love to hear some of your life lessons and take that to our audience.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:26:37) – So there’s this one thing that I always tell people that if you want to start up, just start up. And you don’t have to think too much, you just have to do. And as you go ahead, challenges will come in and you’ll find ways to overcome those challenges. You just have to keep doing. And that’s the most important thing. Unless you try, you won’t know what’s possible, what’s not. So please do, and if you want to build a business, please start off and you’ll find your way.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:27:22) – And obviously we have you. And if anyone has challenges, they know where to go.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:27:32) – Absolutely. If you’re not able to help people via the ecosystem on a personal level as well, I’m always very happy to interact with people who are trying out new things and who are looking for support of any kind to build those things. Because sometimes at our level, we feel that, oh, this is common sense, everybody would know it. But there are so many people who are starting out every day, each day, and it’s the beginning of their journeys, and maybe they have not had enough experiences to have that kind of learning as a common sense yet. And even the very basic of things can be very helpful for them. So I certainly believe that. And I keep sharing. I mean, although sometimes I feel that I am being repetitive and I’m saying the same things over and over again, and this is so basic, people would know it. But then I tell myself that there could be a lot of people who are starting off today and who wouldn’t know this. So it’s always good to put it out. And like you rightly mentioned, we’re always there to help people, especially founders and people looking to begin their angel investment journeys. These two set of stakeholders are very close to our hearts, so always there to help and support them.

 

Nitin Bajaj: (0:29:00) – Yamika, thank you so much for sharing your journey and your story, and congratulations again on your many successes. We’d love to stay in touch, bring you back on with more of your success stories. And once again, thanks for making the time to be with us today.

 

Yamika Mehra: (0:29:18) – Thank you. Thank you. Nitin, the pleasure is all mine.