In this final episode on fundraising, we hear from a master story-teller — Ashish Hemrajani, co-founder and CEO of BookMyShow, India’s leader in entertainment ticketing.
Ashish recaps his journey from founding the company in 1999 all the way to 2018 and the various phases of the business ups and downs he has seen over this time period.
In particular, we discuss the following topics in great details:
- Early days of BookMyShow including launching India’s first cash on delivery (COD) service
- The tough years post the 2001 dotcom bust and how they survived those tough years
- How to pick your investment partner — and the importance of that in the battle called entrepreneurship
- How to think through valuation while fundraising
- Hiring bankers or not while fundraising
- How to become a good story teller as a founder
- Difference between building a good company vs a great company
- Having an empty chair that represents your consumer in every meeting
- Why Ashish appreciates being known as a mongrel more than being a Unicorn
- And most importantly how to run this marathon called a startup while still enjoying your life and coming back every Monday energised to build your startup!
Hope this podcast was helpful as you figure out your startup journey . In the next set of podcast episodes, we are going to focus on something Ashish touched upon — the importance of execution and how to get that right as a startup founder. If there is any feedback on this podcast or questions for the next set of episodes, please do share as a comment below or tweet us at @Accel_India
Accel shares such interesting entrepreneurial stories, with informative nuggets to run and scale your startup. Follow the links below and subscribe to our #Accel #INSIGHTSPodcast Series using the following links: iTunes, Twitter@Accel_India, Google Music: (US & Canada Only)and the RSS feed
We’re looking for the next generation of successful Indian marketplaces. If you’re an early-stage marketplace founder, apply now here or learn more about the #DecodingMarketplaces Startup Hunt.
We’d love to hear about your experiences with marketplaces. Let us share our learnings and build a better and stronger ecosystem. Write to us at seedtoscale@accel.com to be a part of the Accel family.
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We’re building Passionfroot 1, an operating system for creators to manage their business.
We’re based in Europe and raised our $ 3.4m pre-seed round from Creandum and US angels such as Vlad (Webflow) and creators like Ali Abdaal.As we’re creating a new category and as the creator economy is global and mostly online, we’re building from Day 1 a global company and product that helps creators monetize around the world.
This brings a lot of complexities especially in terms of payments and taxes as our early users are based both in Europe and the US and deal with cross-border transactions.What are Do’s and Dont’s for European startups who have a global ambition and build products for a global customer base from Day 1. Anything you would do differently?
Thanks @pjbouten! Love how you’ve thought about incrementally shaping a category with a focus on product and service, and only then thinking about getting the message out there vs the other way around.
And totally agree on the distinctions and overlaps both self-serve and enterprise motions share.
Thanks, PJ, for taking the time to address questions from the great vantage of shaping Showpad into a global, enterprise SaaS brand!