Two sides of a coin : Entrepreneur turned Investor - AMA Session

As part of the E - Conference held on 29th August by #TiE Delhi - NCR,  "TiE Bootcamp for Women Entrepreneurs", we got to hear from Ms. Anisha Singh. An E- Conference held for upliftment and empowerment of women entrepreneurs, giving them new ways to reform their businesses, the confidence to engage their audience and how to build networks, talking with investors needs to be a regular process and not an end of the moment process. All these things we got to learn from this session.So, here's an insight from our learning of that session:

Speaker's Profile:

Ms. Anisha Singh

Founding Partner 

She Capital

Ms. Upasana Sharma, the host for the session gave us an overview over the session. 

She said that in today's time, we all have moved online and this current session is an AMA Session with Anisha Singh who was a very successful entrepreneur with Mydala and then she switched over to start funding for women entrepreneurs. She has her business in India as well as UAE. 

Read here : Founder Story of Mydala 

She focuses on the point that "You need to have a better understanding of a person, whom you are approaching." 

This session being organised by TiE Women which is conducted by TiE Global, which has 25 thousand women applied through it's different chapters, of which one is "TiE Women Chapter", which helps them in networking, funding etc. 

Ms. Anisha Singh, who is herself and entrepreneur, took forward the discussion by sharing her own journey and she was very delighted to help the women entrepreneurs, something which she had been doing since 2014, helping women grow, giving them confidence and helping them where they get stuck i n their businesses. 

Ms. Anisha Singh said she started with her journey working with Indian Administration, raising funds for women entrepreneurs. So, this was an important phase of her life because while working here she saw single mothers giving their best in their respective work and they also had their kids with them, yet they did so well. So, that gave an inspiration to her and she became ambitious about her own life because she they were phenomenal women entrepreneurs. 

She quotes the statement 

"Different moments change your life" 

This was the defining moment in Ms. Anisha Singh's life. 

Further in her journey, she worked for an e-learning company in Boston and when she returned to India, she set up her first venture that was a Tech company. So, being able to set up a company at a very young age, she was of the mindset that she would build up and grow her company for a year and shall sell it. But eventually things happened of this kind, that it did not turned out the way she wanted the things to happen and at one point of time, she was so much depressed of not being able to pay the salaries to her workforce. Fortunately, it became as a serious matter, "a matter of survival or not", in Ms. Anisha Singh's words and Ms. Singh decided that she would put in her best efforts to survive. So, making a progress with a positive mindset, she took up a loan and started getting projects from United States and finally she sold her company around 2008- 09 and she was in US at that time and she decided to move on to "Mydala" company. She founded this another company. 

Click here : Listen from the Founder herself

She says that at that point of time, Groupon was just coming up and the speaker was in US and looking for opportunities and she said that they were not looking into that kind of model, they were actually looking into a kind of model in China where people could come together. 

So, at that point of time, she got to talk to Mr. Deep Kaalra.

Deep Kalra is an Indian businessman who is the founder and group CEO of MakeMyTrip, an Indian online travel company. 

In 2009, MakeMy Trip was an Internet company that was taking off at that time, and it was time in India, a sort of companies where people bought stuff online but had an offline experience.

So, the speaker further said that when she moved to India, she was about to give birth to a child, and she just came to India from US with  a mindset that shall visit India and shall see what happens ahead and they were fortunate enough that they never had to go back to New York. She came to India and raised money through her gestation period and she thanks those people who helped her at that time. 

She says that already seeing women entrepreneurs in Internet space in 2009, was a blizzard in itself with the condition she was in and was trying to raise money. So, she thanks to those people who came on board as her Team on that time, people who were full of zeal and passion because startups were not so common in 2009 and people were not that supportive and open minded at that time. 

The speaker adds on that they were actually recruiting out of a Dental Clinic where they were sharing space with other people. There she was in that physical condition with all those Techies around and she finds herself grateful to all the people of her Founding Team who supported her at that time and have remained intact for all these years and making the company a success where it stands today. 

She recalls from her memory that in 2014, the industry started changing and it was very heartening to see so many women entrepreneurs around and she emphasized on the point that  we should remove all the misnomers spread around and should start uplifting each other as women and be each other's support system and should not be jealous of each other and should definitely go and compliment each others' businesses. 

She says that without taking into consideration the fact that at what scale of our start-up we are, but still we should help each other and compliment each other because doing that gives us long time returns. 

Knowing the fact that it is harder for us to compliment each other and it is more challenging yet we should support and uplift each other. 

The speaker says that in our family we are empathetic towards people and we understand each others' conditions that there are for sure challenges and we need to uplift and support and complement each other. 

So, in 2014, she started off with this idea to support women entrepreneurs, to mentor them. 

Further in 2017, she did a show called "MTV Dropout". 

Since the, she had been doing shows like Cartiers and was global jury there.

Since, then they have been doing a lot of work in this direction to build up an ecosystem of women entrepreneurs because this is something that needs to be done and currently, we are not at an advanced stage in this respect. Female Unicorns will now happen in India and this is an effort to build up this. 

So, while she was doing this show in 2017, she understood one thing very clear in her mind about the need to do more funding and she started speaking about it globally in all the possible conferences she could speak about it, eg. daGhosh or Slaash . 

Everytime, they realised that there needs to be more funding  done for women entrepreneurs and study shows that to make it possible there needs to be more women sitting on the other side of the table as her. 

So, in 2017, she started telling her VCs that she would move out of Mydala  as an enterprener although Mydala was scaling high at that time and would shift herself to be a VC and people for sure asked her that how would that make an impact and she knew it would be a butterfly effect. 

She started in 2018 with "She Capital" and that was an early stage fund. So, she says she left Mydala and made "She Capital" rise and they are now currently the largest gender focused fund as of to help women entreprenuers. With a revenue of about 100-120 Cr. they are in  to fund 12-13 companies and are very delighted to see the current scenario where people as entrepreneurs in general are coming up with all sorts of ideas and great business proposals and the amazing work that TiE has been doing in this. 

On being asked by the host that Ms. Anisha Singh having gone through multiple rounds of funding as an entrepreneur, and currently she has turned into an investor, so does she have any thoughts as an entrepreneur that changed today after all the journey she has been through till now ?

To which Ms. Anisha Singh responded that she very correctly in her truest sense has some changed thoughts because earlier she was of the view of not taking the investors so seriously and she told to many of her friends who were Venture Capitalists that they were on the dark side because it's lifestyle on the richer side. 

Ms. Anisha Singh says that she is very deeply appreciative of the "Founder Venture Capitalists (VCs)" , doing a business that does not has a direct console of himself but betting on people, helping them do business, having that trust and confidence in them and doing a business of such a kind is something to be really appreciative of and it is an equally tough job. 

Ms. Anisha Singh said that her earlier thinking was that "Hearing a NO is difficult from a person and she thought it is easier on the other side because she herself has had an experience of a lot of rejections in her life and being in this industry from around 11 years and she thought it is difficult to hear a NO but she now realizes that it is equally hard to say a NO. 

She highlighted on the fact that we do no take into account that,

when we are sitting on the entrepreneurial side of the situation, we feel that when a VC does not like our idea and he says NO, we feel it is personal. But the correct thinking is that, "at that particular point of time, it is not the correct idea for that VC." This is the only reason. We don't have to overthink over that situation. 

So she tries to explain to every entrepreneur that "Just because your VC says NO, that does not mean that your business is bad, it is just that, at that particular time, it is not that, what they are looking for. It may be our portfolio or some other things that are not matching." 

She marks an important point with this for every entreprenuer, 

Build a relationship with your VC. She said that every entrepreneur has a mindset that we are approaching a VC  with a criteria of money raising. She says that this is actually not correct. People should start talking to them much earlier and should get regular feedback from them about their ideas and proposals. She says that it is very important that any person who is investing in you must know you properly. There needs to be a trust and we need to build a relationship with that person. She says that even the VCs are raising funds from LPs. 

She says that as an entrepreneur, we must try to build a relationship with a VC or many VCs much earlier than we actually need it. 

Ms. Anisha Singh marks one of her conversations with  Ibibo founder Ashish Kashyap who    launched his second venture IndWealth.

She says that it is comparatively easier for the second or third time entrepreneurs because they have had people around them earlier.  So, she focuses on the point that there needs to be a level of trust between an entrepreneur and a VC because he is investing in your business.

So, she shared her own experience that when  she started funding for specifically women entrepreneurs that "Gender" issue did arise with many people asking them "why women specifically ? " and she shared that many people from her friends and her community helped her as VCs who understood that women focus fund was needed and it was very heartening for her to see such a help coming in. She says that there are many VCs who are just cheering up women entrepreneurs in general. 

A LP or Limited Partner is an entity that manages money across asset classes, and may invest some of it in a VC or Venture Capital firm.

The host asked Ms. Singh that if it is was possible for her to build up fund for women entreprenuers, so that means there are a lot of people who are willing to help the cause and standing in support, to this Ms. Anisha Singh responded that it was an awesome experience with a combination of a lot of coffee discussions, wine meetings and a lot of stressful times and meditation relievers but she loves her team at the end of the day for all their support and getting their company at heights. 

A question from the audience was taken up by the host that, "To build up a team as an early stage entrepreneur, what all it takes, 

A) To get the right talent

B) To get the right imbursement

So, what are the speaker's learning over that ?"

To this, the speaker responded that we don't always need the high paid IITians at the front line, yes it is a matter of fact that we need technical people but what is more important and what matters is the vision, passion and zeal of the entrepreneur. 

Ms. Anisha Singh says from her experience that entrepreneurs need stability at least for the initial 2-3 years of their funding journey, people need to stick to their jobs, that trust factor needs to be there. 

Another question by the host,

For the early age Internet start-ups, what are the couple of "Work - Hats" ?

In response to which, Ms. Anisha Singh shared her experience from her journey, that at one point of time in their work journey, in around 2011-12, Ms. Anisha Singh and her team lost all their Term Sheets while were dealing with an investor who cheated upon them just two days prior to their funding. So, they all the way built up and grew their company back to a revenue of 120 Crore in 2016. So, here, she highlighted on two points:

1. Ms. Anisha Singh and her team refused to quit at that point of time.

2. They emphasized on this that what is it that would be the things that would help them to leverage. 

They focused on Partnerships. They refused to pay for "Cost of Acquisition". 

So, at that particular point of time, no body was leveraging Telcos (Telecommunication Companies). So, they actually started disbursing Mydala. So, she further shared her experience that at one point of time, she stood outside the Vodafone Office waiting to meet people and once they got that part right as they needed it, since then their growth trajectory just went high. 

Another important thing, they did was that they had to spread their name out. They had to spread a word. For this what they did was, they ended up calling in the conferences that "If a person backs out at last moment to speak in the conferences, then you can call us as backup" and she recalls her past experience of that kind and it was a part of her journey and she feels very fortunate at her part that currently she is at a good position in her life that with all the respect, she is invited by people to speak up in the conferences and events. She shares that this technique of saying that they would replace any panelist who cancels at the last moment and they would love to replace them in the panel because they wanted to spread a word out and this strategy really worked for them because at one of the events they were speaking, so coincidentally, in one of the events, while she was speaking, one of the persons' from Vodafone was sitting and hearing to her and he understood that how much Ms. Anisha Singh as a speaker, had believed in the power of Telcos, and that helped her to make her first Tie - Up. 

So, she says that as an entrepreneur, you should start looking at the "Cost of Customer Acquisition" because that is important.

Ms. Upasana Sharma concluded saying that "We need to be everywhere all the time, so that we can be somewhere at some time at the right place." 

Ms. Anisha Singh concluded saying that though she was growing up her company and had her kids growing simultaneously, so many times that #giveup feeling did come to her which pulled her back but above all this, many "chance meetings" that she had in her life, led to some important happenings and moments of her life in her work journey, so for her giving up is no option and that she expects from all of us.