B2B SaaS Founders Turned VCs Discuss Indian Software Startups | Manav Garg

The Neon Show

Manav Garg is the founder of Eka and Together Fund.
Manav started Eka before SaaS was even a word. We start with Manav's journey from a small town in Punjab to founding Eka, one of India's first vertical SaaS companies. He shares all the ups and down in Eka & his life in the last 20 years. From building and selling from India to global businesses. From pivoting, which few companies survive, to coming out not just alive but highly profitable again.
We also discuss his work with SaaS Bhoomi, future of Indian B2B SaaS, Together fund and Manav’s next mission.
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
02:00 - From Small Town Punjab to International Trading
10:27 - Lateral Thinking Makes Invisible Visible
12:45 - In The Middle Of The Dot Com Boom
16:14 - Raising Funding of $1M in the 90s
19:41 - The Birth of Eka Software
22:36 - First Enterprise SaaS Company From India
24:28 - Eka’s Journey From $2M ARR to $20M ARR
32:32 - A Hard Pivot & A Profitable Company
34:19 - SaaSBoomi & SaaS Playbooks From India
38:43 - When Did Manav Decide to Exit Eka
42:25 - How To Design Your Exit Strategy
50:44 - Increasing Liquidity Events in Indian Startups
55:11 - How Global Buyers Look At India SaaS
57:57 - The Road to Many Billion+ ARR Companies From India
1:05:01 - Are We Early In AI Wave?
1:09:36 - Where Is India In The AI Race?
1:12:33 - What is India SaaS Advantage?
1:16:40 - Can Indian Startups Grow As Fast As US Startups?
1:21:21 - The Power of Relationships & Cold Calling
1:24:31 - How to Manufacture Co-Founders?
1:26:49 - Pause & Reflect
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Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journeys from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys.
Hence was born The Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.
We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings.
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