How Kunal met Ratan Tata: The Changing Face of Angel Investor.

next session is changing face of angel investment. I'd like to call the present of India and the future of India a man we are so proud of the man behind snap deal ladies and gentlemen Kunal Bell please on stage while Kunal comes up ladies and gentlemen this man oh yeah great to have you on stage thank you Kunal I request you to please take your seats wow there was a strong whistle for you you're a married guy was it a lady who made the whistle or the guy whichever he's married he's taken all right ladies and gentlemen here is a man we are very very inspired a man who's done so much for the country a man we look up to the living legend the Padma Vibhushan ladies and gentlemen Ratan N Tata keep the applause louder let the whole of India know that Ratan N Tata is with us this evening Taekwondo Mumbai 2016 is truly truly privileged enriched and inspired by this living legends presence keep it going everyone ladies and gentlemen the man who we love so much mr. Ratan N Tata side request you to please take your seats and as you can see we're all so excited to see you and we love you so much sir Kunal I'm gonna leave you with sir thank you give it up for both of them ladies and gentlemen what a session is gonna be so I definitely have to say I never thought growing up this day will ever come where I'd be six inches away from someone I feel not every Indian but every human being ever born and to be born should take inspiration from you one day about a year and a half ago I was going from home to office and I got a call from someone I know he said someone really wants to talk to you about potentially investing in your company and I said okay who is it say I can't tell you the name are you interested or not it was a very generic I said yes which entrepreneur says no and and and you know a few conversations later I got a hint that it was mr. Tata and I just got the next flight and went to Bombay and my first meeting with mr. Tata I was so nervous I just didn't know what to expect I you know I remember I was walking up towards his office and I saw him standing in his office it's like you're meeting someone you've seen over the years seen on TV seen in newspapers never thought you would meet in flesh and blood let alone shake hands with and I was extremely nervous I walked into mr. Tata's office and and contrary to what we all think today about big traditional businessmen in India who sit on big chairs behind big tables and you know the guys who come to meet are somewhere back there mr. Tata actually just pulled a chair and just came and sat next to me I asked me a question so your growth story is amazing how do you do logistics and that was the first question I remember you asked me what I'd love to know now in retrospect what got you even thinking about investing in young startups like ours or others as well as you know maybe even about our company or our meeting that got you interested thank you first of all thank you for putting me at ease I'm I've been as nervous about sitting six inches from you is you know basically after I retired it it seemed to me that there was a whole new world up out there which was a digital world driven by a marketplace that was basically had a huge potential driven by handheld devices which would one day become the virtual retail store of India and I didn't know your your company or others in the business other than I was struck by the name and it was a learning experience still is a learning experience for me to to learn this new world which is like a virtual world of the business I've been in for 20 years the the virtual part is replaced or overshadowed by my impression of the founders and our meeting when you left my office I confirmed in my mind that I would invest in your company and to that extent we made it we made of I made you a promise which I haven't kept was to come and sit with your people in and chat and we haven't done that as yet but I'm still looking forward to doing it so it was fortuitous it could have gone another way and it was the start of a new journey that I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of unfortunately I don't have billions of dollars maybe you do to do investing I'm I'm the less fortunate investor with with less capital than you have at your disposal learning how to how to catch up yeah I you know the only difference is this one is not our money but but but you know I I remember one of I knew I could answer most of the business oriented questions the question I was most nervous asking you that day was can we take a selfie and I remember I think there was you know to my dismay there was like a fraction of a second pause because I know mr. Todd has probably asked this question every day 20 times a day can I take a selfie with you and I think he's probably conditioned to take a pause and decide whether he should say yes or no but he instantly said yes and I remember that was that's probably one of the most memorable photographs I have had since my in my lifetime I remember I showed it to my mom and she was like okay you seem to be on the right track you should let him invest say same applied to my wife then she understood why I was not showing up at home for most of the time sir what when you look at entrepreneurs you meet what are one or two things that you are looking for in them I'm sure you meet many you met many throughout your career but at least in these new generation companies which are young often very green what do you what what are the few I know you don't spend hours with them while making an assessment you make a quick assessment in that quick assessment what are you generally looking for first first of all and I say this sincerely even when I was chairman of Tata's I was always very intrigued and enthusiastic of interacting with younger people because there's a future of the country and and new startups in fact embodied the creativity and the innovation of young people and and so for me it it was and is a very worthwhile experience to to interact with them I've I've learned a lot probably more than you believe so the thing that that I'm intrigued by first is a startup that has an interesting concept which which excites me if it doesn't excite me I I really don't need to make an investment in in that company the second is what I feel about the founders and that's his first impressions as such a founder that that is only in for for the short term is no passion for the sector that he is in or the business he's building doesn't give me a great deal of comfort and lastly I in my small way if I can be of help in supporting or lending my support to a founder who either has an interesting business or who doesn't get funding from others because his business is not a sexy business that the investing public or investors feel satisfied I feel that if that founder has the passion and has the innovation he needs to be supported so those are some of the issues underlying all of that I'm more intuitive than a numbers person and I also recognize that not all investments are going to be positive some way fail and some may have problems for different reasons but that's that's life so how many people here are entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs how how many want mr. Tata's investment I think then you'll need Kunal's money because I think you're by far probably the most sought-after investor in India and I think entrepreneurs like myself and others you've backed and others you have not backed are all benefiting from your blessings for the entrepreneurial ecosystem and we are all very thankful to you for that thank you I'm thankful to you too thank you very much so I'm gonna call Anand and Mr. Javeri now to just join us and we'll have a little more chat here give them a round of applause please should I go first mr. Tata two questions one is I think that everyone over here would like to understand your perspective of an entrepreneur's value system which I think today if you look at you know where this country is going and what we need to be doing over the next you know ten years if you don't build the right value systems you could potentially get lost somewhere down the road and the second question to you sir is really a more about a transformational question and that is really that if you you know having run a large corporate conglomerate you're seeing a lot of disruption happening globally the recent example you know which is in my view quite startling is General Motors going and investing in a car share company called Lyft five hundred million dollars which at some point in time two three years ago one wouldn't have thought possible so yeah I think any any business we go back in history has had a small number of people in that sector who want to be disruptive not in a destructive way but want to move to a new plateau of they see an opportunity they see something that has not been tried and more often than not in traditional businesses certainly the areas that I have been involved in there have been progressive companies that are willing to bet on the future and that there are large segment of companies that protect their investment in the sector in the process and the business area and that large sector is negative say they're not disruptive they're destructive because it they fight the new maverick business that comes in and so it is in the transformation we're seeing today you have you have companies that are heavily invested in brick and mortar or heavily invested in a traditional form of doing business and the virtual or the digital world is the disruption to them they would like it to go away they would like it to fail they would like it not to succeed and the fact that it is sort of knocking their feet out from under them makes them bitter and makes them aggressive whereas in fact they ought to see how best they can adapt to the given times if we look at changing times we tend to respect people who can adapt themselves at that time and others that don't so you have 60 year old people who think like 40 year old and 30 year olds and you have 60 year olds who think like 60 year olds and defend their turf we are going through a transfer transformation in India we have almost a billion cell phone owners many of them are smartphone owners and they carry in their pockets a virtual retail outlet for goods and services that they need is that disruptive no it's it's evolutionary or even revolutionary because it it addresses a section of the population which could never be addressed with with the connectivity physical connectivity we have so my my attitude is why would we fight it we we should see whether we can employ the mindset to run a similar business because the opportunities there sir I have a question small rejoinder then I'll go to canal you bought chorus you talked about investing just using the intuition was it even intuition at that time also is it different now no it was not it was somewhat strategic okay we were the second largest SUV manufacturer we Range Rover was a company that fitted well on top of that we certainly I had several meetings with Ford to separate Jaguar from Land Rover because I didn't know what I would be able to do with Jaguar right and finally there was no choice but to accept both of them right as far as chorus was concerned at that time I think we were stuck in in delays in mining licenses and various things and we couldn't grow and and I thought that this would be a way to get in an international capability the address markets the thing I didn't know and I I think fairly I couldn't be accused of of being flamboyant about was I wouldn't know what that the European economy was going to collapse nor nor did many others that should have sir what do you enjoy more what would you enjoy the chorus and Jaguar experience more or did you enjoy do you enjoy investing in canal and caps more once the straight investment the other was a more involved so two different things both of them equally enjoyable everything good that happens to Kunal is very very pleasant for me anything that so there is a there is a reason Kunal is smiling a lot today congratulations thanks for sharing the moment with us on Twitter we wouldn't have found out so soon so I mean you've been investing a lot in 2015 especially well you will probably have less time now and will you will you see the world differently more clean take more sustainability or it'll be the same things so for those who are wondering what he's referring to I posted a photo of our our baby who was born just five days ago so quite excited and sleepless but I never thought how much sleep I will lose now I do even in sorry no even investor even investors didn't give this much sleeplessness but sorry to your question I think look for at least from my perspective it's more to keep why I do angel investing along with Rohit my partner he it just to keep our thinking fresh the the most cutting-edge entrepreneurship is being done by the entrepreneurs yeah right and we can't start living in a silo or a bubble thinking everything that we are doing is the most cutting-edge thing as a company so we don't we have some principles though in what we will invest what we will not invest we mostly for the most part invest in marketplaces that are reducing the asymmetry of information between demand and supply because India is a country that's been completely ravaged by middlemen over the years and if you can cut out one two three four middlemen in the middle our economy benefits people benefit sellers benefit so whether it was all our cabs or others it was all that was the principle I think the other is of course just you know I want to keep benchmarking our company versus the new entrepreneurs I don't want us to fall behind in terms of talent quality so I'll come to you the question is do you sometimes worry that you're now like seven eight years old e-commerce at least is five years old four years four years old right do you think that you know four years hence somebody will young startup will come and disrupt you do you get that feeling I think the we will not build by our current competitors if we are going to be killed it's gonna be we're gonna be killed by someone who doesn't exist today and that actually keeps us Kunal I think that kind of is a good segue into a point in time where you felt yourself that you may not exist tell us about that rollercoaster I tell us what happened and you know I think a lot of people out here would kind of want to know right if they do get that point in life how do they move forward I think if you haven't seen that in the journey of being an entrepreneur you haven't seen anything it's extremely character building it's of course stressful when it's happening but if you stick with it you stay sincere and you come out of it you become a stronger person stronger organization and more confident if it doesn't work it doesn't matter anyways right so either way it's important to stay sincere in those situations I think one such cases the multiple such cases mostly mostly with entrepreneurs it's about running out of money right most entrepreneurs face that so in our case about two and a half years ago we were down to a hundred thousand dollars in the bank we had to pay a million dollars of salary it wasn't a fun place to be because we had over a thousand employees we were responsible for them and their team members and their and their family members and we somehow the other were able to get a loan from our investors from others we were able to pull it through but farther back back in 2009 I remember we were small company but we had to pay five lakhs of salaries and which is more similar to companies in early stages we were left with five lakhs and you know we had to pay five lakhs of salaries and me and Rohit were left with about five lakhs in our bank account that was a moment of truth for us where we could have walked away we could have or we could have said let's just go all in nothing left we decided to do the latter and him and I were left with a total of about twenty five thousand rupees in our bank account so when a VC would call us and say come pitch to us we would say let's do a Skype and you know sometimes you got to show that confidence and they feel they feel that okay these guys must be working on something useful and you know there are many such situations they're more operational ones also where you know oftentimes and entrepreneurs run into the problem of people not taking them seriously I remember in our earlier Aftar where we were selling coupon books we started as a publishing company we you know people would not take our calls because we of course we are hustling and harassing and so the realization would dawn that just don't pick up these guys phones we we would try Rohit would try one day then I would try one day third day we would give what is called a standing ovation you just show up right and those are tough times also when people would not respond because that's also very demotivating one time I remember I don't know why I'm saying this so publicly but what I when I moved from the US I got a Vonage phone for those who know is a voice over IP phone where you actually get a US number you know where this is going so when one gentleman marketing head of a barrel company did not pick up my phone actually called him from the Vonage phone sitting in Kirtinagar office and he picked up the phone instantly so I think there are many such examples and he said come meet me I said I'm in the US but if you'll meet me tomorrow I'll fly back right now so but I think there are there many such examples of course where you know heart-wrenching denials of from investors or potential partners but you have to just you know you have to steamroll through you just have to keep going at it a little bit of white lies don't matter right in the long journey of wasn't a lie Ratan Tata investor has become the most popular headline in newspapers these days you know probably less often than sequoia invest in something or matrix invest in something what next can we expect from you I mean is this going to be a formal program or will it continue how long and you know I'll be like are you going to expand the ambit of what you are doing currently you know I have I have a view one's personal investment should remain their personal investments unfortunately the media seems to make one's personal idea of investing one's funds an issue being in the public domain which is I I think unfortunate but that being what it is I I'd have to say that you don't need to ask me you just need to read it in the media because they seem to be more interested in letting everybody know other than myself so are you going to increase the number of startups or you is there a plan or is this like you know mr. be driven by intuition there's no plan is driven by as I think I said before you came on the stage and driven by one's view of founder if you the excitement that you get from a sector that somebody is in the level of innovation that strikes you and if all those things are met one makes an investment because you're very happy and proud to be a part of it and if it doesn't you you stay out I think you know you and Rohit obviously have built a very successful business and I think a lot of entrepreneurs one of the biggest challenges they face is that do they come in single as a founder do they have a co-founder is that a group of people who get together how do you manage the dynamics how would you kind of look at your journey and then kind of suggest what's the right path how does one manage that if it's more than one you know I actually don't know of many companies that was started became very successful in a relatively short period of time with a single founder or it's someone super exceptional right and obviously possible but I at least I never had that much faith in my own I didn't have supernatural faith in my abilities that somehow I can do everything also it's about who do you want to do the journey with right Rohit and I were best friends since high school I could never imagine doing anything business in business without his partnership and I think in the early days while we were great friends and there's always you know people will caution entrepreneurs don't do go into business with friends or family or whatever doesn't matter if you get along with the person you can tolerate each other through thick and thin it's fine we had we had great personal equation in the early days we had a lot of friction around professional decisions with the company we always talked it out over a period of time what happened was we both strong willed strong-minded individuals are opinionated as entrepreneurs generally are but even if we go into a room even today with two different opinions when we come out it will be one opinion and it won't matter whose opinion it was and that's what the company will then execute so it's very important I think it's very important to have that calibration at all it all stems from mutual respect for your co-founder I don't think there is a smarter person than I than Rohit that I have met in my life right and I don't know what he says about me but at least I all in all decisions that require tremendous intellectual horsepower I just go to him say Rohit can you tell me what we should do and whatever he says we apply our minds mutually and we do it there's no family war room where you go into and lock up and bash each other up and decide that who's winner no nothing like that mr. Tata I actually asked the question earlier maybe just to the value system how do you and what should be the value system entrepreneurs should you know adopt going forward because that seems to be somewhere in this journey of creating wealth and which is not a bad thing but you know how does one kind of keep that compass correct of course values you can only value system or ethical standards you can only determine as you watch somebody go through their working careers look at their organization but intuitively you can you can make your judgment you could be wrong but you make your judgment about one's values as to how how they operate their business one must not confuse ambition and aggression or bad values if they're if they're done in with with a value system in mind but it's something that I think everyone will agree you really find out about a person's values when you have a crisis and earlier you asked about what you do if you are being threatened of being non-existent that's also crisis and that's a mark of leadership in the terms of how you deal with it and it's happening in the business world you look at a company like Apple if you consider it akin to a startup as it was in those days did some very interesting work but was eclipsed the founder was thrown out the company subsequently almost went bankrupt they brought the founder back Steve Jobs made it the most profitable in the most certainly the largest company in the world those are all all marks of the fact that things change in and your ability to lead rather than to follow or to follow in in a successful company's footsteps or shadow is eclipsed by your your willingness to take the lead to share the risk and to make your company excel in what it does so ethics and values come part and parcel of the same thing and maybe a one question then we should establish what 10 companies I believe right so far some large some some some like likes free charge some small ones for technology and team how is that worked out and should we expect to see more in the next few years I I don't think we have the best ideas neither do I think we have all we have a monopoly on the best people I feel the best people are going and starting their own companies and the only way for us to be a really good long-term sustainable company is to have a good number of really really high quality people and oftentimes that means you have to bring them in with their companies and with their extended teams and then give them a larger canvas and a larger role so that their entrepreneurial ambitions also come to fruition so out of our 12 senior team members actually 7 or 8 are former entrepreneurs yeah and and not a single one has left our company since we acquired so you have to just you have to put your hand into what is the motivation for why they start the company it's to create impact and if you can provide them a canvas that enables them to create that big impact then I think the what they can achieve is absolutely mind-blowing so we've done about 15 deals till now you know again I don't think we have a we don't have a target that this month we have to do for right it's very opportunistic it's very circumstance driven sometimes it's strategy driven that we feel we have a gap in our portfolio and we have to go find something just last one question just a comment 2015 I think you're the fastest growing valuation revenue even transforming the experience that your consumers get right you are you you are from becoming a follower you like the leader in in everything every every aspect of consumer experience numbers fundraisers and all know what was Mr. Tata the good luck charm that happened is there a doubt but I I mean I'm not I'm actually not not kidding at all so you're talking about good luck good luck charm mr. Tata's investment happened last August I think give or take 95% of the capital we've raised as a company we raise after that I think much much more than a good luck charm we'll take some questions now sorry sorry just a second yeah all right here you go this gentleman yeah what's your name my friend my name is Rajan my question to Mr. Tata you know I don't want to monopolize Mr. Tata's time because he's also very busy but you know oftentimes we actually end up meeting more at such occasions and I make sure that when I meet him I take you know oftentimes you have to be in the company of greatness to absorb some of it and I think that's you know I you guys should actually anyhow I mean before I met him just to acclimatize myself to meeting him in person I watched every YouTube video of his and you know just to reduce the nervousness that's how I prepared and it's just his way of his style as you saw today very simple there's nothing complex about what he's saying but it all makes a lot of sense and oftentimes as entrepreneurs we tend to you know turn ourselves into a pretzel with our convoluted logic oftentimes life is much simpler than that and as are the solutions to problems all right we have another young man here he's a entrepreneur himself he was here for a pitch you want to come closer to me I won't bite you I promise all right what's your name hello a very interesting talk and it does give us entrepreneurs a lot of courage after hearing you guys also have faced the bad situations which we are facing right now so coming to my question right when we'll buy more related to snapping that sword I think right when you buy apparel online personally we've faced a lot of sizing issues return issues right let's say there is a company who can scan a person convert them into a 3d model you can watch it try on apparel how would you approach that company or how can that company approach you I think my email is the easiest email to find on the web and so you just write to me and I will respond and we will meet and we will discuss I'm so sorry audience but the runner has to do it doesn't matter I like the way you pitched but it's only the email not the phone number right Siddharth can we have there are five sections two questions all right on the extreme left-hand side the gentleman there can you throw your voice please can I have the volunteers there yes ma'am the gentleman there all right sir throw your voice we can hear you the lady's gonna take some time all right there you go past the mic lady sorry mr. Tata I think you took up the reins of Tata company in 1990 and I was born 1993 so you can excuse the immaturity of my question but I'd like to thank icon for letting me get this opportunity to talk to you and to talk to mr. Bale mr. Bale it's a standing ovation you can consider this because I could not get you on Twitter or on mail so basically I was the question is that see my introduction I'm a seller on your channel and you started my Indian journey into Indian e-commerce and Indian detail my question to mr. Tata is that in any organization what is the importance of a supplier creditor because he is giving more investment than any capitalist and mr. Bale do you take lessons from mr. Tata that how to manage your creditors how to manager your manage your suppliers apart from that apart from that mr. Bale use one one small question you said that your competitors will not be able to kill snap deal but would internal challenges like sellers or loss of trust of sellers that's quite a googly yeah absolutely look I think we as organizations have to keep evolving keep learning keep improving and being open to feedback so and I don't think I don't think any we are anywhere perfect as as companies different companies do different things better some do some things worse but that doesn't mean we should we should stop learning from either our competitors or even other industries or other icons so if you have suggestions please let me know we'd like to do your views also how should a company treat their suppliers I don't quite know how to answer that I think it would be much the same as Kunal's answer you have to be open to what's happening around you we often talk about stakeholders not shareholders alone there's a whole ecostructure around you that you have to be aware of be the customer be it your creditor your supply chain source to build a successful company you can't ignore one or the other but views on what you're doing with any one of them may differ so it's a difficult question to specifically answer all right Kunal and Mr. Tata we have a lovely lady here who wants to ask a question yes ma'am good evening good evening my name is Aditi and my question is for Mr. Tata so it's an honor to be speaking with you you know we all know Tata's is one of the most ethical companies and conglomerates in the country and you've done so much for the communities of employees and their families etc in Jamshedpur through Tata Trust how are you inculcating these values and encouraging the entrepreneurs that you're investing in to serve and give back to the communities their employees and their families as early as possible in their journeys I think one has to accept that when you are investing in a portfolio of different startups they're going to be different styles it's not one it's not one part of a single group and there may be hopefully not but there may be companies that do things a different way I think if that were to happen I would want to bail out of that company very very fast it reminds me of the time I was when I was in Tata's where I was put on the board of a company that dealt in pesticides and the sales manager came to the board meeting and and talked about what a bad year it had been there were no pests the crops were the crops were fine and his sales were down and I left the company the next day alright I'm gonna move to the extreme right-hand corner please lift your hand up I'm coming to you running okay who's it gonna be any questions from this side yes ma'am that lady there I'm zooming into you who's your question gonna be for yes ma'am give it up for the lady as well Wow ma'am you can come to me okay here pass the mic yeah hi so not so much of a question I just want to say thank you this whole bit which actually was gonna not stay for has been really inspirational and motivate motivational and really happy to be part of this whole startup revolution and Kunal I'm sure when you guys had started up every bit of motivation and every inspiring thing that you guys heard from anyone in the same space really pushed you to work harder and happy to go back to work now and tell everyone all the awesome things we've heard and yeah I just want to say thank you Wow she's speaking on behalf of each one of us all right do we have time for two more questions yeah one more all right there's one more lady here hi good evening I was studying in London and my question for mr. Tata in London when I was there a lot of corporate supported students in the art industry and eventually I want to do art appreciation so I'm studying art criticism and I was working at Sotheby's I wanted to understand if you feel corporates in India will ever support in in support of the art market I think this basically has been the the manner in which the corporate world has been giving back to the pleasure of the public viewing art and having access to art I think it's happening more and more in India today I don't know what the question is is it basically asking whether the startups contribute to this yeah see a corporate viewing art as a CSR activity I think the corporate sector is contributing to accessing and exhibiting art and I think this will grow in course of time months it'll be many years before it equals what happens overseas all right do we get greedy with one more question what is it all right ladies and gentlemen give it up for all our dignitaries on stage and on behalf of everyone here Kunal we are so proud mr. Tata we are all very nervous but the audience would love to have a selfie with you if you permit so everybody keep clapping sir can we look this way please sir all right selfie with the audience here goes mr. Tata this way thank you sir thank you let's make it louder for sir come on all right ladies you know a very important announcement network need people and remember every time you fall down get up grab your glass and start drinking this is me Siddharth saying hasta la vista baby and I see you tomorrow morning bye-bye give it up come on