Latest / The Neon Show / How A 23-Year-Old Solo Founder Is Disrupting India's On-Demand Labor Market | Anjali Sardana, Pronto

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How A 23-Year-Old Solo Founder Is Disrupting India's On-Demand Labor Market | Anjali Sardana, Pronto · The Neon Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Pronto, which is the real-time household health app, has just raised$11 million in a Series A funding bank.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: When we raised the Series A, the team was five people and max age was 24.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: We had to build a team.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's extremely important that the people we hire are missionaries and not mercenaries.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Anjali Sardana, a biology student from Georgetown University, worked with Bane Capital and HBCN saw how the world's best companies are built and funded.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: She then came back to India and launched Pronto in April 2025 from a single hub in Sector 56 Burga.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: How were the first 30 days very, very, very jugard?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: So Kapil, who is on our team, he rents a car and he buys a white button-up shirt and like 120 rupee gold chain and he like stands on the car and says, Everyone listen up.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hiring for a huge company, jobs available.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next day he showed up to the hub with 30 people.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: That was our first set of professionals.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: We just begged the guy.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, please, please, we need 70 uniforms in literally like 72 hours.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, okay, fine.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: He like charged us an arm and a leg, but we needed it.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: What began with 170 bookings a day is at 26,000 daily bookings today.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: For a company that's just over a year old today, Pronto is at a$200 million valuation and has raised$60 million in funding.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: I see people online who are criticizing us and being like, oh, you're taking away this like relationship between a customer and a house help.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, what are you talking about?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: What is this relationship?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: When anything goes missing in the house, the first person you blame is the household.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hi Anjali, welcome to the Nuance Show.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Very excited to chat with you today.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just so amazed with the journey you have had in the last one year.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: You guys completed one year on April 1st, right?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, April 2nd.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just start with Pronto's introduction for our audience who are not aware about uh what all you do, what is Pronto all about?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um the simplistic form is that you know we are on-demand home services, starting with you know house help.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um the broader vision I think we can talk about later in this podcast, but um, I think the idea is the offline world for you know a lot of house help is very broken, both for the consumer and more so for the service workers in this segment, or we professionals as we call them, which is you know, customers find it very difficult to access services.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um you need someone to come and um just for an hour and you're it's totally offline.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're going on MyGate, talking to neighbors, talking to the guards of the society, and and then you're just calling a bunch of phone numbers and you know, someone comes, they're they're late, they they do a bad job and they haggle you for money and end-to-end very high friction.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then the even larger problem is on the supply side where workers face um kind of consistent underemployment or unemployment, lack of income stability, and lack of dignity, safety, and respect in the workplace.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so this was the problem that we set out to solve.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And today we are operating um, you know, in in in largely in in the major metro areas, but we're completing over 22,000 bookings a day, and and we have over 5,000 professionals on our platform.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just go back to the uh first 30 days, let's say.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, go back to Sector 56 Gurgaon, where it all started.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: How were the first 30 days looked like and the original business model that you started working on?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it was very, very, very Juggard.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like very Juggard.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was, I I remember our first set of professionals.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so Kapil, who was on our team um from Daisier, he joined on March uh March 18th or so, 2024.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So so a couple weeks before launch.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he was tasked with recruiting our first set of professionals.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And what's his profile and how did you meet him?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: So he he's he's a year older than me, and he was working at Of Business, and he's very Haryanvi, like very, very Haryanvi.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew, okay, I'm I'm not at all.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we need someone who's local in order to recruit the supply.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So like I knew my own limits, and I was like, we have to, we have to get someone who can who can do this job much better than me.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he came to meet me at like the place where we were using as a makeshift office.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I I spoke to him and and then I said, like, when can you start?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he's like, Oh, like I can give my notice, whatever.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I don't have we don't have time for that.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you start today.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and like we'll deal with the consequences with business later.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like we'll we'll we'll we'll I'll we'll we'll cover the salary for this month and we'll like deal with whatever whatever issues they have later.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um he came and then the first day he went to Gata, which is a nearby um like some area near sector 56, and he went there and he was just wearing like a t-shirt and nobody would talk to him.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they're like, Who's this guy?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so he's like, Okay, okay.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what do I do?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: So he goes and he rents a car and he buys a white button-up shirt and like 120 rupee gold chain, and he drives to S Block, which is you know, in in like not near Not the Poor in Gorgal, and he like stands on the car and he says, Everyone, listen up.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hiring for a huge company, like jobs available.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next day he showed up to the to the hub with 30 people.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we we that was our first set of professionals, which he which he managed to get through through um through interesting means.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: This was week one.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is yeah, this is like two weeks before launch.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then we had to figure out, okay, um, like how do we get like uh you know, how do how do we get training done?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: But we we no one no one knew anything.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So then we went and found like very local people who who could who could find us.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So um we found someone who works as a bathroom deep cleaner uh on another platform, and they came and taught like you know how to how to like you know clean the washroom.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Then we got the like local presswalla to to teach how how to do ironing, and we were all learning as well.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so we we we came up with a bunch of different methods, and then we needed to get uniforms, and this was during Ramadan.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of factories were closed and a lot of vendors were not open.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we were like, okay, we found one guy, uh like Gita Fabs in Gorgal, which is in with Yog Bihar.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we went and we just begged the guy.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, please, please, we need 70 uniforms in like in literally like 72 hours.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like, please help us.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, okay, fine.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: He like charged us an arm and a leg, but we needed it.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we um we we had to also figure out how to pay our professionals and we had no trust back then.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, by the way, we only were able to finish the incorporation of our company like three weeks before we launched.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: So like we we jet and we just barely got the like razor pay integration done in time because after after you incorporate your company, you then have to open a bank account, and that took way too long.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we almost launched without like being able to collect payments, but um, we also didn't have a way to pay our professionals and no one trusted us.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so our first payroll, I still remember we didn't even know how much we owed until like the the that day, and it was the day before we launched and uh or two days before we launched, and I had to go and like find random cash in order to pay people.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember just driving around, I like extract, I like hit my limit of how much cash I can extract from my bank account, and then I was like sending money through Remittly, which is like a remittance app to our like team members.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I was just like borrowing cash from friends.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So one one very good friend like dropped off one lakh cash, and that was how we made the payroll happen.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then before the launch, how big the team was?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: How many people were there?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was like four or five people.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Four, five.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And how many pros?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: 30.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: 30.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: We also didn't have a way even post-launch.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we had like no tech built.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the only tech was we had a customer app that worked around 30% of the time.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that's being a little generous.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we would receive a Slack message which had some like basic information about the customer, their address, what time they had booked.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the only tech we had.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like the tech stopped at that Slack message.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I I sometimes I wonder like what our customers thought in those very early days was like happening after they placed the booking.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I wonder if they thought we had some like very fancy system built, but we had nothing.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just a Slack message.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that continued for a few months after that.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that also showed or gave you a very clear signal that the pain was really real to solve for.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: If the things are broken, the process is not in place.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Still people are somehow figuring out how to actually book the service, and that message gets delivered and you see it, that means the pain was real.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very surprised that people put up with us uh and put up with that app.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't think I would have used it after a certain amount of time.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and it actually got progressively more broken over time and not less, because like after we reached like 500 users, it just entirely broke down.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was not built to scale beyond 500 users.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that original V0.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is because you were more focused on on-ground execution, right?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: We just wanted to launch.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like we are just like, you know, launch fast.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we like entirely rewrote.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a single like line of code that is the same as it was back then.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so we also so we didn't have a way to track with like really high fidelity how many bookings each professional was doing.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, variable pay was like impossible in the first few months.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so we were just paying like a like based on the number of hours that come, they would like we would, we would pay a fixed pay.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: But we also didn't have a really great attendance system.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we got a lot smarter over time.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: There is an interesting quote from um the DoorDash founder.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think he like wrote this in the letter, um, past a like Citrini um like report.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he said that um they built the writer app first or like the delivery partner app first uh instead of the customer app.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I 100% understand why they did that.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if I were to do it all over again, that is something I would have done as well.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like we would have built the app for our professionals first before the app for our because um okay.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um we'll take the example.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: So like I think the the only thing I've learned about product, I guess, so far, is that like you should like you have the the only thing that you need is what like what's absolutely necessary.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um like let's say you're running pronto and you have like your customer app, and no, there's like three three sorts of like three tech stakeholders.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: You have your professional, you have your customer, and then you have operations in the middle.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if I could only build one, I'd actually build operations.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I could only build two, I'd build operations and and professional.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I would build customer app third.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Reason being, um like your customer app, um, while it's is a nice to have, um, but you can figure out workarounds if you don't have it.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um your operations tech is not a nice to have, it's a must-have.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And any workaround won't scale very far before it completely breaks.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So for now, there are three apps: one for customers, one for pros, and other for operations.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Operations, we don't have a mobile app built, it's all like web-based uh applications.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And for uh pros, they have the app, and there is a five-day training program for them, and one day spent on uh training them how to use the app.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what do we do in the remaining four days?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so those days are spent on hard skills, so actually how to dust, sweep, mop, everything.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there is a big difference between someone who knows 90% of things and someone who knows 100% of things when you don't know what they're going to be asked in the customer home.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very critical that they know 100% of what the customer is going to ask for.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Second is they're taught a specific SOP on how to do something very efficiently and done well, right?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that makes a like very big difference in the output quality.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we did a lot of conversation with our customers on um like what does quality mean?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a little bit redundant, but the number one factor that you know customers care about for quality is quote, actual work quality, right?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Which is like what does that mean?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's how well do they dust sweep mop.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So customers do perceive actual differences between, you know, different, you know, different providers in terms of how well they actually complete the task, right?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have soft skills, which are communication with the customers, grading, all of that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have, you know, grooming and hygiene standards, uniform, hair, all of that.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then there is how to use Google Maps, how to use the Pronto app, how to use you know your phone, all of that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then how do you like you know, and then different trainings on like, okay, um, if X happens, you should do Y.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then they should already know how to drive, right?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: So if they are going to be so we call um riding a Uluba or riding a two-wheeler self-transport, um, and as as contrast to walking, and if they choose to to opt into that, then there's an additional two-day training where they're taught how to do that and and they're taught how to they're they're they're tagged then in the system as ST.
• 13:38
  unknown: Okay.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this is just one step of the process, like five-day training.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I just want to understand the whole process that runs in the background.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we have um as in onboarding or performance management from the scratch, like um like from lead comes in.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um if when a lead is generated in our system, it'll come through our onboarding app, which is actually a separate app.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and when someone is um registered in our onboarding app, they'll receive you know information where they'll they'll they'll upload their documents and then they'll receive information about a screening and if if they qualify.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so then they'll go to a screening center or they'll be in a location where a screener will will come there.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this is just screening for basic qualifications in terms of um you know behavioral intent and and um just basic characteristics, right, which are qualifications to the job, like ability to do the job.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then post that they enter training.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's five days.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: In parallel, we're running all the background checks.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then post that um they uh choose to do ST training or not, and then they'll graduate.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then post-graduation, they're in the pool.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens is they um there's now a performance management function which runs.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll do daily hand holding with their trainer for the first um, you know, you know, couple months on the platform.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then post that they there is again performance management function which runs, and there's quality audits.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, if any quality incident were to arise, then um that gets flagged immediately, and and uh, and uh, and someone from the quality team will then investigate that and either recommend retraining or saying, okay, nothing was at fault here.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and based on that judgment, um, like the the course of action is taken.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to cover the demand and supply aspect of pronto because to make pronto succeed, you have to get both things right, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been one year.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have done more than five lakh bookings in March alone.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: In March.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: In March alone, yes.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and how many bookings we get daily?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: So as of this week, we're getting around on weekdays, around 21,000, and weekends is around 15 to 20 percent bump on top of that.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, very interesting.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we are present in all these tier one cities, uh, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Very interesting.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh the largest part of our business is in NCR, but uh that's uh that's an artifact of where we started.
• 16:14
  unknown: Okay.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, Anjali, if you can just share your insights about uh both demand and supply sides.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you started, what were the expectations and the understanding at the very start was directionally correct, but had about 1% of the depth that the understanding I have today or we have today is.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um in terms of customer profile, I think the from the outset people assume it's largely bachelors who are using this.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Our initial pilots told us that actually that wasn't the case.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's families, and that has been validated in where we are today.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the vast majority of our customers are usually married, sometimes with kids.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing is the number one driving factor um for whether you know a certain area will have high demand is actually like what percent of the women who live there are working.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think what we've realized over time, and and we we understood at the start, okay, it's largely women who are handling this for the household.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And this is largely their stress that we are taking away.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we become that management layer between someone and their house help.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's largely driven by, you know, if the women in the house are working, then you'll see much, like much, much faster uptake, um, much, much faster adoption.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so you also see, um, I think when we started in Gorgan, we saw a very clear demand pattern for the day and like by hour of the day.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we assumed that that was going to hold true for every city.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, I was thinking about like, how do we shape our operations around this demand pattern of the day?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very glad we didn't like make moves towards that because as we expanded into new cities, what we found is that, and this is like obvious in hindsight, that people in different cities actually have a different cadence for their life.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: So Mumbai and Delhi, like Delhi proper, for example, um, have less of a culture of going to office.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll see that demand is relatively spread through the day.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: So morning or like late morning, early afternoon, like late afternoon, you'll see demand basically from around 10 a.m.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: to 5 p.m.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you won't see demand too late and you won't see demand too early.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the inverse is true in places where people are going to office.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So Bangalore and Gergale, you'll see a lot of demand comes in the morning, right?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: So before work hours, and that's where you'll see the majority of your demand, and then you'll see it in the after work hours, and the afternoons are a bit of a lull.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I think we I'm I'm I'm glad we didn't start to shape our operations too much around the the like patterns that exist in Gergal.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we we held off on those things because obviously, again, obvious and obvious in hindsight, but um life is very, very regional, um, both on the demand and supply.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we had a lot of assumptions even on the supply side that were true in Gorgal, um, but were not true uh in other cities.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'll I'll there's like we'll talk about Gurgal, Mumbai, and Bangalore, how supply behaves differently.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: So in Gurgaon, um everyone there is migrant, almost all the labor is migrant and largely coming from West Bengal and Bihar.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the um everyone there is hustling to pay rent um and and is like highly, highly elastic to making the amount that they need in order to pay that rent, um, and is willing to work to work quite hard and will also adapt to more rule changes and is less resistant to, you know, okay, um, as we evolve our operations, things change how how they're done.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people in the the pros we have in Gorgao are are are usually pretty adaptable to that.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Versus you'll see in Mumbai, um, a lot of the supply is not really migrant from another part of India.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're from a different part of Maharashtra, but largely they're actually like living in Mumbai.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing that's true is in the the the like some areas in in Mumbai, the government uh does these development projects.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when they do development projects, they actually give ownership of that land to the people who live there.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so the people who are uh like who are living in these some areas are not necessarily uh hustling to pay rent because they actually own that land, and that colors significantly the dynamic um and the adaptability um of professionals in Mumbai, right, and their behavior.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they're just in general on festivals, um, they're less likely to be migrating to another region.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, after the festival is over.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: How does it all affect pronto?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, here's the thing.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: If there's a festival in let's say, like that there's a festival, uh, in Gorgal, um, people will leave for their hometown and they will come back, um, but there'll be a significant lag to when they come back because their hometown is quite far.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so um they won't they won't um they they uh won't miss a festival, but they'll also be a lag by the time they come back.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so it can end up being a one-day festival, someone is gone for 10 days, right?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um versus in Mumbai, uh, because there's less distance between where people are from and where they're living, um, or perhaps this is the one and the same, um, they'll still leave for the festival, but there isn't that like one day doesn't become 10 days.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: It just You're talking about customers here or pros?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Pros.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Fully just pros.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um you'll see in Bangalore, um, a lot of the supply, the professionals are from extremely far.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're from the northeast, right?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so often for festivals, they don't go, right?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: They stay in Bangalore.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when they do go, they're likely not coming back.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you see three different patterns.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: So Mumbai people are relatively local.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: They they'll go, but they'll only be gone for that day.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Gurgaon, our professionals will go, but one day becomes 10 days.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then in Bangalore, they'll either not go or they'll go and they'll never come back.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: How would you solve this?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: So this is for Gurgaon?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um a couple things we do.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: One is for most festivals, we run festival bonuses, which people then stay because they they they and then and then they'll take time off maybe you know after the festival in some staggered manner.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um so for anyone who who wants to stay, they'll they'll stay.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um second is like we also proactively try to like we we we try to maintain diversity, right, in our in our professional pool for many reasons.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: One is that it means you're never overexposed, right, to any given festival.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um the third thing is um ultimately you have to just reduce capacity for demand.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: So uh oftentimes on festivals you'll see slots are booked out.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe supply is, you know, we we add new supply, but some some professionals are leaving and therefore we'll net net zero uh on on professional growth, and then caps will be limited and you'll see everything's booked out, right?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so um largely when you think about how does like how does what I'm talking about affect you as a customer, it's that it affects your ability to to to to get a booking, like to get a slot.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because ultimately we we are a business that um like we can only service demand if we have if we have professionals who are working that day.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, makes sense.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what about the demand side?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um we are supply constrained, not demand constrained.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that we don't work too hard on on demand, and on any given day, you know, all of our slots end up getting getting booked out.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Our our utilization on the platform is well north of 60%, and that's a blended across very new geos where we're running at lower utilization and and places that are quite mature.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and for us, the frontier is reducing travel time, which allows us to um you know increase utilization.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: But in terms of the patterns we see is there's three primary use cases.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: One is, you know, ad hoc, my house help is missing for the day.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and this is like an emergency backup situation.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, second is supplementary.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, someone who already has house help who doesn't have time to do everything.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: The example I'll give is is there's like a auntie in Mumbai who who I've spoken with, and she used to get her fans cleaned once every two to three weeks.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: But now that Pronto is available and it's easier, she gets her fan cleaned every week because it's it's just randomly available and it's easier.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of like the Uber thesis of um the TAM actually expands based on how easy it is to access.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the net number of people who are taking a taxi or Uber ride now versus we're taking taxi rides back then, uh like per capita, um is much higher, right?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: So people are simply transiting more, so people are simply accessing services more because it's easier to access.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's very like it's it's the convenience that allows for the TAM to ultimately expand.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: You also see people who, you know, they have full-time house help.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know many, many people like this where you know they they they live in like a uh multi-generational family home and and they have a couple people who who are already helping out, um, but there's just so much work and their offline house help are largely taken care of in things like taking care of the kids or cooking.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so then tasks like cleaning don't get done, and then they they book pronto for that.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then there's primary, which is we are your only house help service.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: The second two use cases of supplementary and primary are what we focus on, and those are ones where quality matters more.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think in the emergency backup use case, that's only one to three times a month.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And because it's an emergency backup, availability matters more than quality.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is, you know, anyone who's any any platform who's available, and those are gonna be also your price shoppers, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So someone who's gonna check every app, see who's available and what's the lowest cost, and then book that, right?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And versus supplementary and primary, those are people who uh are using this for a voluntary use case, right?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just emergency backup, and therefore quality matters more than just availability, and therefore um they're they're less likely to just be you know price shopping, plus the frequency is much higher.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you think about what does India spend on house help, and then you think about what percent will ever shift online to a platform like this, call it 10, 15% at max.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you're only going after you know the my house help is missing for the day market by focusing on availability rather than quality, you end up being TAM restricted, right?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: You'll you'll be in someone's home on average, you know, two days out of 30.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: So 150.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, uh Pronto would want to replace the regular uh house help, right?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the frequency is more.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh uh for the supply side also, it is a good sign because then for the house help also, when she is part of Pronto, it's more regularized uh platform, right?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: She won't, she will never be out of work.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is a function of like demand and supply balance and shaping of the two, right?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't think any professional on our platform is worried about not having enough work.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's definitely not the case.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: That being said, what having a primary use case does is it provides a lot of stability.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're purely a voluntary platform, you'll have like very spiky demand, right?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Even within like, let's say like sector 56 Gargallon, you might have very spiky demand based on what's happening.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by voluntary?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh as in if you're just um if you're just an emergency backup platform, right, there's very little predictability as to when people are going to need the platform.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, uh you might see spiky demand.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: I will say in aggregate, it probably smooths out, right?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because it it will over a large enough N.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but on a micro market basis, you could have end up seeing a lot of demand spikes.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And either you have um more professionals on the platform to be able to service the spikes or you lose out on a lot of demand.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and what being in a primary or supplementary use case does is it provides more, uh more uh like regular uh patterns of demand, which allow you to have much more stable demand, like stable and growing demand in a certain micro market.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so professionals who are working in that micro market don't see too many random spikes or troughs.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And with so many bookings now done through a pronto and presence in top four uh cities in India.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: So what have you learned about Indian consumers?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously, when you started, you had some notions, and then when the you know platform was live, and in the next one year, a lot of things uh would have happened.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is the number one problem we have, where you know, um we have to, this is like what I think like part of our like biggest part of our mission, which is we have to change the culture and the way we think about the type of work that our professionals do, right?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like lesser than work, right?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is just as dignified as every other job.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel very passionately about this, and it's part of why, you know, you'll see like you know, we give a uniform to our professionals and they have an ID badge and they go home and for the first time they feel like I'm part of this company, right?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I work a real job.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Look at my uniform, look at my badge.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm part of this company and I have a real job, but there should be no sense of real job versus not.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And another thing is I see people online who are criticizing um us and being like, oh, you're taking away this like relationship between a customer and a and a house help.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, first of all, what are you talking about?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: What is this relationship?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: When anything goes missing in the house, the first person you blame is the house help.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Would you would you blame your family member if something went, would you fire your family member and kick them out of the house if you and just like randomly accuse them of stealing something, if something went missing?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, you don't, right?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: They're not a family member and you don't ultimately treat them that way.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And every person you ask or talk about this with always says that they treat their house help well.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh yeah, other people treat them badly, but not me.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, we don't make them use some other cup or and like plate.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's like that's not what that means.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that is not what treating someone well means.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: There, that's such a like baseline thing that you're like not treating them like an animal, right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's it's terrible that the people aren't able to reflect and look in the mirror, and no one wants to be the bad guy.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: No one wants to think that they're a bad person, but ultimately, like, how can you say that?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: How can every person tell me that they treat their house help well, right?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: That cannot be the case, right?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the other part of it is like, why, why are you resisting?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why why do you why is there resistance and why do you want to deny, you know, people who are like our professionals or this this segment of workers from the the protections and dignity of formal, like formal labor, right?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh these people cannot access formal credit because you pay them under the table and they don't have a pan card.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they they they don't have they're not depositing this in a bank account.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: So they have to take loans from a CHIT fund, right?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they store their money in a CHIT fund and then they get robbed, essentially.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like the person just takes their money away, or they're stuck in some like 80% interest rate loan, right?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they don't have health insurance, they don't have safety, like basic safety protections that we have in the workplace, right?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Where, you know, if something happens to your uh like someone who's working in a home offline, what happens, right?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: If they walk out, they lose their income.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now they have no income stability.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um if something happens and they go to the police, the police will never take their side.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: They'll always take the side of the customer, right?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: So why is it?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Why are people saying you're taking away this relationship when what they really mean is you're taking away the ability to exploit these people, right?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, why are we denying them the protections of formal uh formal labor and employment, right?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which you would never deny to a corporate worker, right?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like I could say the same thing.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why do you work at why do you work at your company formally, right?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you need an employment agreement?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: You should just show up every day and like handshake you have a relationship with the guy who owns the company and like don't worry, um, like everything will be fine.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and you should you shouldn't ask for an employment agreement because why are you trying to deny the relationship and bond you have with the CEO?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: That makes no sense, right?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: No one would ever agree to that.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we have you know like and like a like a workplace safety, you know, you know, like government agencies, right?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's for a reason.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and why are you denying that for our for for for people in this segment?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it doesn't make any sense to me.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's this weird sort of like like patronizing, like pay like just like truly like patronizing way of looking at these, these, these, the, this segment of workers or like infantilizing them as if they're they're like, you know, they they they they don't deserve to have formal labor where they should just be in this like weird, like familial relationship with their employer who might also just screw them over.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Very often what happens, and no one talks about this, um, people will uh work for a month at you know a home and the home has already decided they're gonna fire them, and at the end of the month, they just don't pay them and they're just screwed.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Their entire month's income is gone, right?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's no protection for them because they're not working in a formal, in a formal environment.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Versus, you know, for us, whatever number it shows on the app, that that's how much you're gonna get paid.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it will come into your bank account, right?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we will make sure that we will help you get a pan, right?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so that you can actually access formal credit.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're not having to go take a loan from a chit fund or store your store your money and and somewhere where it might get stolen, right?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: If something happens to you at a home, you should walk out.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: You should walk out and immediately call us.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we, this is a huge part of our training, which is you know, in the offline world, you don't have agency.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: On on pronto, you do have agency and we want you to use it.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: We are not okay with you being mistreated.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you feel uncomfortable, you should, you should not do the booking.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: You should not enter the home, you should leave the home, you should call us immediately.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: We will have someone there in minutes, right, to respond to you.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And like, and and and we we will give you health insurance, all of this.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's it's very important to me that we formalize more and more of the labor market because it's the only way for India to progress from the like the the the rut it's been stuck in, right?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you resist formalization, so many people will always be unprotected by by the system, right?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and so many people will be denied the ability to actually progress, right?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and so this is like super, super important to me.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and I think the number one mission is we have to change the culture and the way we think about work.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like every job has dignity, every every every type of work is equally dignified and and equally equally work.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: This frustrates you the most.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I I'm I I think I'm like visibly irritated by this, right?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the vision for Pronto, which is like the 30-year vision, and obviously like very far from now, is to organize and formalize all unskilled or low-skilled informal labor in India.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that means going across not just B2C, but also B2B retail, construction, manufacturing.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Every part of the economy where informal labor touches is where we want to go.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: So earlier, VCs would only back businesses that were you know replicated in India.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: They already existed in other markets.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: So uh would you be raising another round from India?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or we like it's a totally opposite situation, right?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: American investors are truly understanding the Indian problem.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think obviously early investors just took a bet on me.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like they don't, they're agnostic to the problem or the geography.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a bet on me.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think like our later investors uh understood the problem.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And largely it's around labor organization rather than like you don't need the cultural context necessarily of house help.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can understand that okay, hey, most of the most labor in India is informal, most labor in India is unorganized and also unskilled and low-skilled.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is a problem to be solved.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Inefficient markets, which become efficient uh over time can generate value for the person who does that, or for for whoever catalyzes that.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's like a very basic principle, which which people can get behind.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a super large TAM.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I mean ultimately at the end of the day, what who we raise from is based on who we think the right partners are.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think we've been extremely lucky so far to have amazing partners on board, and I uh that is the most important metric for me.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And do you see real excitement about Indian market uh in different markets?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'd say no.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I don't think most investors in the US are like interested in India at the moment, given that the opportunity cost is high, not investing in AI, and almost all AI companies are in SF, right?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: And anyone who starts here ends up moving there.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I I also want to talk about uh the hiding uh side of things at Pronto.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I was watching this interview um with Snabbit founder, and he very interestingly shared that uh he had worked with Zepto before starting uh Snabbit.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: So uh this is how he would pitch to all the early employees that uh I have worked with Zepto, and uh I I like that confidence gave a lot of confidence to early employees to join him, and then once he raised funding from Nexus, uh he would tell that Nexus has backed Rapido and Zepto, and now they're backing Snavid, so there is clearly something they can see.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how he hired um other bunch of folks.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: So this was the his pitch after funding.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: So just want to understand from you what was your pitch to early uh uh team members, how many team members you had before funding, and then what changed after funding?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: So before funding, uh I had one team member.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: One team member?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um he he he was an intern.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um this this was this off-business guy.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: He he came shortly after now.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll talk about the early employees.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Amun.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um I hired him.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like he he he was on the journey for a very long time before funding because he joined from like day zero.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: The pilots happened with him.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um the pitch to him, I think he just wanted to learn.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and and like I was gonna pay him.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: And like he I just talked to him about the vision, and he was sold and he joined, and very low stakes for him because he wasn't full-time.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Our first full-time employee came.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I before we had funding, I wanted to hire people.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wanted to hire one more person.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I interviewed a ton of people.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I I had the cheapest headhunter of all time, this one kid from DU who I messaged on LinkedIn.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he was like, I'm I'm not interested, but I run this group chat of kids at DU who are looking for internships and jobs.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and I was like, okay, how much is it to post?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, 400 rupees.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, okay, bet, I'll pay you.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and and it's like a it's a success fee, right?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Only if you get a hire do you have to pay 400 rupees.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I was like, okay, bet, let's do it.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then I interviewed a whole bunch of people.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: I hired one more intern from that.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I I interns were only 260 rupees.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I paid that.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then I I had offered a full-time job for this one person.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then he he had a consulting job at ZS.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, I got a consulting job, but you should meet my my best friend.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he's interested.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he also could have gone and done consulting.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he wanted to do a startup.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I talked to him, and there's nothing I can say other than just telling people the vision and why I want to do this.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd love to, I I've asked him several times.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: I I honestly don't know why he he like took a bet on me.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And there was no, there was no reason to.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't work anywhere.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: I went to a college, which no one in India would have heard of, wasn't from there.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we had nothing.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: At the time, we had no money, right?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and still he took a bet on me, but he asked me for for for a salary which was out of my budget.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, okay, I'm gonna raise funding in a couple weeks and and then we'll talk.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: But no, it's for now I can't afford you.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then a couple weeks later, raised our first round, and he he was emailing me several times during that during that period, and he followed up, and it was my first conversation post um post that fundraise.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Okay, we got money.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I can pay you this salary.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: And but I was like, okay, it's your final round interview.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um I told him, okay, he lives in in Rohny right now in that and he was in GK that day, and I I got on the call and I said, Okay, uh, take the metro to Gorgal, Sector 56, and go onboard one professional.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like get her, get her Ada, get everything on board and and onboard her.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I told him you have you have seven days to do this.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Okay, okay, I'm on it.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he cuts the call.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like in the in the middle of the conversation, he cuts it.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then like three hours later, I I get a call from him and he's like, I did it.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Onboarded.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he sends me the adhar, he sends me all the information.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: And now I was like, You're hired, like on the spot.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he's been with us now for over a year.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I honestly like I'm I'm not sure what caused him to take a bet.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was his full-time job, he could have gone and done consulting or something instead.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he just took a bet on me.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have credentials.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he wanted to join before we even had money.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there was no track record, it was just a bet on me.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then like the off-business couple, the person you're you were referring to.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I think it was just you know a bet on me and and you know believing in me and the vision and wanting to build something and wanting to be part of a mission, and that was it.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think over time we've we've built a very solid team with very tenured folks on the on the team.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't sell them on credentials.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't say I worked anywhere.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't talk about you know who's valuable.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe like 26, 27, 28, maybe.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think I'm on within the corporate team, I'm probably like one of the five youngest people, maybe like or so.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's a few people that are younger than me.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um the oldest person would be like 38, 30 or so.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, like maybe 28 is the average.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't sell people on like, you know, I used to work here.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: What would I even say?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I used to be in college, right?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Or I used to I work for six months at Bane Capital, uh, which no one cares about.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um is it difficult for you to hire?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I just talk about my vision.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: I I talk about why we are building what we're building, where we want to go, and people who are aligned with the mission and believe in the vision join.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's built a very distinct culture where people are very missionary and not mercenary, which is one of the like the first things they learned.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: So so after we raised our series A from Glade Brook and General Catalyst, um, there's an operating partner at Glade Brook, Sharish, who's amazing, incredible.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he's one of the best like people at talent, I think, in the in the world.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even though like it's it's not it's not his like it was never his full-time job.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: He he used to be in product at Uber.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he taught me uh as we were like drawing out the org structure, because at the time when we raised the Series A, the team was five people, including myself, and Max age was 24, right?
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we had to build a team.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he told me, like, Anjali, it's extremely important um that the people we hire are missionaries and not mercenaries.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Mercenaries are People who optimize for their self-gain.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're just there for money and they don't care about the mission.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: When things go things are hard, they'll leave, right?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, versus missionaries are people who uh are not optimizing for themselves, they're trying to grow the company, they're bought in, and they'll be there when things are hard and and and and they'll be the ones to get us out of that.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's why I I've never tried to sell someone on our investors have backed these other companies, or I used to work at here on some sort of credentials and pedigree, nor are we selling people on really high comp or something.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've never done that, right?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um people who join are there for the mission, they're there because they believe in the vision and to an extent believe in me and believe in the team.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that has led to just building a culture that's very missionary and not mercenary, and I think ultimately that's how you win because everything's about the team.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, everything's about the team.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: But funding made a difference to merit least senior leaders.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say yes.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like it made it easier.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: One is like we had the money to at least like afford having a team.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: That was the biggest thing.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um the second thing is like more conviction in founder because I think it's more than that.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was just there was more publicity about the company, and that made it easier to hire than anything else.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's like employer branding in a sense.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think there's, I guess, more credibility towards the future of the company as you raise more funding, like people can can more credibly see.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: That being said, I like most of our like a lot of our senior leadership was hired before the series A was even announced, right?
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we had only like announced, you know, 2 million in seed funding by the time a lot of people kind of signed on, and and almost no one has been hired post the like series B announcement, right?
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of, I mean, like who was sold on that?
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I think broadly, um it makes it easier because you can pay people, you can, and and there's more publicity about the company, but I will never be the one to sell anyone saying, hey, you should come work at Pronto because our investors backed uh all these other companies, right?
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll never be the one to say, I used to work at these places, therefore you should you should come work for me.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean anything, right?
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, there are many, many, many people who work at those companies, right?
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: There are there are many, many companies which are backed by these investors.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, this person doesn't have like if this person doesn't have the same ability to diversify the way an investor would, right?
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't have the ability to hire many, many people the way you know your previous company would.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're taking a bet on you.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, if they're just there for for for money or or for some sort of pedigree, um, they're not people who are gonna stick during the hard times.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so Anjali, you guys started this company on April 2nd, 2025.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's been one year, uh, have raised$40 million at$100 million valuation.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is clearly a capital-intensive business, right?
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, how would you make sure in coming years that you don't compromise with uh like you would always want speed, but street uh level understanding you would never want to compromise with.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, how would you do that?
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: How would you balance it out?
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think those two things are are like at odds, right?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like street level understanding and speed.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I spend a decent portion of my time at our hubs on ground, talking to folks, talking to pros, hub managers, cluster managers, all of that.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's super important as we continue because a lot of insights can only be gained from being on ground, right?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in an operations business, metrics will only tell you so much.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: They tell you what you're trying to measure.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: They don't tell you how that that like metric was achieved, what what was game.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: They don't even tell you, they don't tell you the full picture, right?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have full visibility of why things are happening, what's going on, what's going on behind the metrics, right?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or or in between the metrics, right?
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and therefore being on ground is actually even more important if you want to move fast because your ability to detect problems is much, much, much faster if you are actually spending time you know on ground.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking to Matt from Rippling, he was CEO at Rippling, and uh he was telling me that uh Rippling founder Parter uh uh Peter Conrad.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he still runs the payroll every single month.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so that's because he wants to understand uh and he wants to be very close to the problem they are solving as organization.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, is there anything that you would always want to do it pronto that's very close to your heart that gives you a lot of understanding about the groundwork?
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: I always want to work from our hubs.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's like we we spent the first um six or no, like seven months of the company without an office.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: We worked from our hub in sector 56, square ground.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: Then we moved to Bangalore, and that was the first time we had an office.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: I never want to stop working from our hubs.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: One is I actually feel way more energy to work when I'm at our hub on ground rather than sitting in some corporate office.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I just feel a lot more energy, but I think it also like you learn so, so much in every hour at the hub, right?
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: And going to different hubs.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, another thing I do is like, you know, someone's going on a booking and I'll I'll like trail behind them, right?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll note down, you know, okay, at this second they did this, and then like this many seconds later, this happened, and this many minutes and seconds later this happened.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you learn a lot from that, right?
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you were able to discover a lot of problems, a lot of inefficiencies in the way we operate, and a lot of things that we can just do better, ways we can make the pro experience better, right?
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what are we doing that that doesn't make sense?
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's the most interesting problem you have solved being at Hub?
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: Take your time and think about it.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good question.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so this is a problem we haven't solved, which is like it takes a long time to get MyGate entry um from customers.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is a big problem.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we haven't solved this, we're still figuring it out.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it affects a lot of on-time fulfillment metrics, but also it's like um time is money for us, and like 10 minutes is 10 minutes that could have been revenue generating time on a different booking.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we're actually still like figuring out how to solve that.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and why does it take time?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: People just don't do it on time.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like the person arrives, they don't answer the call, or they didn't do the pre-approval, or they just like are doing something else, and like, yeah, I'll do it in a few minutes.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and on what what part of pronto are you most proud about?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: Our professionals, right?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and how we've been able to scale our number of professionals um while maintaining high quality and really great experience for them, right?
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: Our retention is actually only getting better for our professionals, right?
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Month three is 70 plus percent, right?
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: And NPS is high, and we've been able to do that with really high quality, and we've been able to scale our number of professionals.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: We started um you know, November with with with only like 857 professionals or so.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: And in the last um, call it five months, we have been able to to them like 6x, you know, our our 7x, our number of professionals.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: And in the same time, we've our demand has eight 9x, right?
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I'm very proud of the way that we've been able to scale with quality and be able to do that without compromising the experience for our professionals.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is your first time building the business, you're a first-time founder.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's just been one year.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, a lot of things have happened in this one year.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: What's that one value that you started the business with?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you would always want to keep that value alive within the company.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Urgency.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like move the pace is pace is everything, right?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's it's we've only been able to accomplish so much in one year because we moved really, really fast.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: And if we slow down, then like what I want it to be that every year we accomplish significantly more than we did in the previous year.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's only possible with keeping the urgency very high.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the question should always be like, Why, why is it like why why will this be done tomorrow?
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why can't it be done today?
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: Why can't it be done in in one hour?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and if you think about it, most things are sequential.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you do something, you'll either unlock the next step or you'll just learn something that allows you to action and solve a problem faster or solve a problem you didn't even know you had.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, every every day, hour, minute, second is very, very precious.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: And an increment doing something incrementally one hour faster, one minute faster allows you to just do the next thing or understand something or realize something or discover something one minute, hour, you know, day faster.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that allows you to just progress much faster and build much faster.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I'm very afraid of the default timeline slipping right within pronto.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um the default timeline, like if the default timeline is next week, why is it not like we we can't let that become you know next month, right?
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or if the default-I think pronto's success depends a lot uh on this factor, right?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think of absolutely I think of every month for us is like is like you know, one year, right?
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: A week is our like our fiscal year is the month.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um our our fiscal quarter is the week, right?
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think keeping that as like the central way we orient is super important.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if we don't do that, then the default timeline will slip.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's no next quarter.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Next quarter is like some other lifetime.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: For you, who are the other companies that have value uh urgency as the as one of the core values and who are doing it so well?
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think Uber in the early days did this extremely well.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they scaled extremely fast, they expanded to many, many, many cities at once.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: And people told them that it didn't make sense.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: Why are they doing that?
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and they wouldn't be able to do it.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then they just rigorously questioned why not, right?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: They figured out a way to get it done.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then when even more interesting, when Uber Eats launched, right, they were benching mark benchmarking themselves against you know, Postmates and Grubhub and all these others.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they were going at a certain rate and they were growing faster.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: But rather than comparing themselves to benchmarks, right, and saying, okay, um, we're growing way faster than let's say Postmate, they said, okay, at the same time, you know, Uber, Uber, like the core rides business was growing like 300% week on week.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like 50% is not good enough.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: We have to grow 300%.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they had a culture of a pushing what's possible and raising the bar of what people understood to be possible in terms of urgency and speed of scaling.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they also then held themselves to that.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: These like really, really high standards.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's really easy to compare yourself against your direct competitors without understanding that like maybe your direct competitors are just like not very good companies, right?
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore you should benchmark yourself against the very best.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the very best might just be another version of yourself, right?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why one month can you grow 80% month on month, and then next month you can only grow 50% month on month?
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't accept, like, yeah, 50% is much better than what other other people are doing.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: You should say, why not, why not 100%?
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I really respect Travis and and Uber, especially in the early days, for the culture they had.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it was it was very much what I tried to emulate of like being very like in some senses like swashbuckling, but more so of just like move extremely fast, do whatever it takes, find a way to do it.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, I believe execution is as two things.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's caring that something will get done and doing whatever it takes to get it done, right?
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: And pushing the pace of execution is everything that matters, right?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: In in building a company.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and Anjali, I was reading one of your posts on LinkedIn.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'd really like all your posts, uh honestly.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you should accept my LinkedIn request also.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh shoot, sorry, wait.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, just kidding, just kidding.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I was reading this recent post of yours, and uh you mentioned that uh privilege is the word that's used for you uh and pronto and uh now for your customers also.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think about it?
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: How do you see that?
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, I I want to clarify the earlier point, which is uh I have like 30,000 LinkedIn requests.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not that I am trying not to accept someone's requests.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and if anyone I know is watching this article, uh watching this podcast and wondering why I didn't accept the request, I literally have 30,000 connection requests and I get like literally like hundreds every day.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not it's not me trying to be rude.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um but on privilege, I mean it's it's the way I wrote in the post, which is um ultimately we are building a win-win-win business, right?
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: We were trying to uplift everyone.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is that this market is broken for customers, sure, but it's even more broken for workers in this segment.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: And our only hope is to be able to solve this inefficiency and build a system that works for everyone.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that gets labeled as I don't hope that gets labeled as privilege, but I do think relative to the offline world, it it is, it is, it is a significant um uplift to everyone involved.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that um people always say different things.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, I know what I know what we're building.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: People I care about know what we're building and and know why we're doing it and know where we're coming from, and that's all that matters, right?
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, like everyone can say the people can say whatever they want, but the output metric is all that matters to me.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what's that output, Petri, for you, if you can just tell us in one sentence?
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: We are building a win-win-win business, right?
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: We want to make it so that workers don't suffer from income instability, underemployment, lack of dignity, safety, respect.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: We want to make it so that's easy to access services that are reliable and high quality.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, us in the middle build a build a profitable business.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the goal.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, this is a broken market, right?
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um why nobody else was solving for it, like till very recently.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have two, three players.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, was there a lack of intent, or it was just so difficult to do it?
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think a few things.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: One is I I will say like people who try this very early on, let's say before even pre-COVID, let's say, but like especially pre-GEO.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people didn't have mobile phones, and even if they had a mobile phone, they didn't have data.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Geo made data cheap, made all of this, made all of this possible, right?
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't think any of these businesses would exist if it weren't for reliance.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um but second class of it were were people who started after when it was possible and then didn't take off.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's largely because they weren't approaching the problem the right way.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: Where it's like really easy to be, uh, and everyone wants to be like an Uber cycle matching platform, like very, very sexy business, and versus doing what we do is like very, very hands-on, very operationally intense, and not the like sexy and easy thing to build, and therefore I think even if people realize what was required, they they didn't take that step.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I don't want to sound rude, but and I wish all the best to you in Pronto.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but if pronto fails, what do you think would be the reason?
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: We won't fail.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: Love, love, love the energy.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: But execution, I hoped you would say yeah.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: So ultimately the company that wins in this segment will be the one that provides the best quality service, that most reliable service, right?
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and losing would mean failing on the parameters of quality, safety, reliability.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: Losing would mean poor pro retention and experience because ultimately the only way to provide high quality, safe, reliable service to our customers is by scaling and retaining our like the a very high quality supply pool, right?
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore retention is super important.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: So losing would be a function of poor execution on both the customer and and supply side.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what's next for pronto?
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you how do you split your day, like uh solving existing problems and you know, figuring out uh how to pick the new problems because you're a solo founder also.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this is operational intense business.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was given this advice um now I guess like four or five months ago, um, which was like you as a founder, um whatever you focus on is what you will see progress in and movement in.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if you don't pay attention to something or you don't actually spend time on it, um, then it will never progress.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: It'll never get any better.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so what I think about is like, okay, what are the parts of the business, you know, this week, right?
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and I mean like literally the number of hours you're spending.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like look at your calendar, see where you're spending the hours, that's where you will see progress.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about like, okay, what are usually like the the one to two things which really need to see progress or movement or improvement?
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where I will spend my time, right?
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: And those priorities change over time, and therefore I spend my hours differently.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: But that's literally how I think about the number of hours that I spend.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I know it's just been one year, but you have solved pretty big number of problems in the in this last one year.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_00: What are the most challenging problems?
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, learnings you had, like the problems you solved, hence the learnings came from solving those problems.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, that you talked to one of your investors, closely worked with him, and learned how and why you should be hiring uh missionaries, not mercenaries.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are the other learnings?
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because um uh at Newon also we invest in a lot of young researchers, data scientists who are 24-year-old, 23-year-old, and we're very excited about that, uh, about them and the problems they are solving and the kind of energy they have, right?
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so if you can just tell us some learnings you have had recently, and what are the advantages you have being a young founder?
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have heard from our founders, would love to listen from you.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_01: You have a lot of advantages to being a young founder.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: You don't, you're not, you're not bogged down by any biases or the way things like should be done.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's an advantage and a disadvantage, like you make more mistakes that maybe would have been avoidable.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you can from first principles figure out um how you things, how you think things should be done.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think I'm also in a market where um existing structures and way things have been done like ultimately do not work.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's why nothing worked in the past, and things have to be done differently.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why not having any biases or priors of the way things should be done is actually super, super important.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't take decisions based on what other people are doing, other people are doing.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: We we we just take decisions based on first principles, and we're as a company not very reactive.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_01: We we march to the beat of our own drum, and I think that largely comes from being a young founder, and that's led to our success.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people have told me along the way, like well after launch, that you know, why the hell are you doing things the this way, or like you're doing things the wrong way, or you know, like very obviously look at what everyone else is doing, you should be doing it that way.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I am very thankful that we never I never like listen to that.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we I'm always open to new ideas, and if someone questions things, like we try a lot of different things, we experiment with a lot of different things, and I'm like, but based on those experiments, we're taking decisions, not based on what other people are doing, other people are doing.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_01: I one one of the biggest lessons which I carry with me and has sort of become central to my life philosophy is something that that Glade Brooke told me um when I was going through who told you?
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: Gladrook, um our one of our series A investors.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um back when we were going through kind of a tough time, um, just like internally, um last last fall, um, was we're going through this like tough period, and rather than like yet on me for for for decisions that were taken, um they just asked me like, what did you learn from this experience?
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I like talked about it.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the takeaway was like, um, in company building, there'll be a lot of ups and downs.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but if you keep beating yourself up about uh or getting too bogged down in the things that you made mistakes on or your losses, uh, you'll never move forward and and you won't be able to execute.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately the mindset became you either win or you learn, which I believe is some like quote, which some like random like cricketer said or something like some in recently, which was like a mistake, but that has become like very central to my life philosophy is you either win or you learn.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I now see basically everything that happens through that lens of like either a really great thing happens or it's a learning opportunity.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was the same thing that that was true in college, where the thing, the the things that pushed me and ultimately led me to grow the most and learn the most were things that were really difficult and challenging and negative, right?
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like I'd say in college I didn't really learn too much academically.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just grew a lot as a person.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that personal growth happened after like very, very bad, like just like very negative experiences.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the same is true in company building, where where you learn the most is um when challenging things happen, when when when you don't win.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_00: What was the hardest uh like one learning that you heard really hard to be?
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um can be people.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a it was a people thing.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_01: I there was someone on the team who I'd hired um like decently early on.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um we had to wait a while for this person to end up joining.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then like another person joined, and then there was like a conflict between the two, and then the person who I'd hired ended up leaving, and that hit me really, really hard.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I like really, really hard.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, like if if they I I think like very often, even today, like I'll I'd love for them to be back on the team.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like it'd be it would be incredible.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as a founder, your job is to like assemble like the Avengers, right?
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're you're assembling an amazing team, and I was very high conviction on this person, and I was right about this person being an incredible fit for the team, and then for them to leave was very, very difficult for me.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and today I don't like beat myself up about it anymore.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think I like have learned that, and and the same situation has come up actually several times since.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we've we've navigate I've navigated it very differently um as a result of that experience.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that even today, I'm like I would say I'm still like quite sad that it happened.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um, if that person like is watching this, like I would I would love for them to come back.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you so much, Anjali, for this wonderful conversation.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a lot, and I feel anyone who would watch this conversation will feel the same.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: We recorded this part two uh today.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, thank you so much for uh sharing one more day with me.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_00: Really grateful for that.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.