Startup stories the Bollywood way – Alok chats with Naveen Tewari at TechCrunch’13

Before you start reading this post, you might first want to start out by mentally ticking the relevant bullets in the beginning. And the deal is that, if you have checked even one of it, then I promise there is priceless content coming your way. 

• I like to enjoy a quirky interviewer pulling the leg of a sportive interviewee.
• I like to know what made the ‘Japanese Bill Gates’ write a $200 million cheque.
• I like to see the founder of the world’s largest independent mobile ad platform making some honest confessions.
• I like to spend 40 minutes of my day getting edutained.
• I like to figure out about love & arranged marriage as well as relationship with in laws in the biz world.
• I like to appreciate a duo that changed drowsy eyed audience to starry eyed viewers.
• I am keen to understand what it takes to ask for a $250 million funding.

• I want to take away some invaluable lessons from the experienced DNAs.

So here’s to one of the most entertaining and delightful conversations between Alok Kejriwal and Naveen Tewari, Founder & CEO of InMobi, the mobile advertising technology maker at Techcrunch’13.

A few thought provoking tidbits from the interview

 Of Course, $200 million > $40 million

The interview begins with the ‘gossip’ of how Naveen managed to get funded by Masayoshi Son for this huge fund while rejecting a VCs almost done deal of $40 million. Naveen talks about how he had mastered the standard art of pitching to VCs but getting the golden egg opportunity was a different ball game. He says that “Unlike the VCs a lot of people in the world look for opportunities in a very different way.” And these are investors with the entrepreneurial streak. They look for opportunities to try and go after, wanting to back even the slight chance that someone might make it. 

What typically worked with the SoftBank CEO was that Naveen was absolutely confident that he wanted to play a different game to make it big in the mobile ad world. He wanted to be among the top three names in his space. The usual 30-40 million dollars wouldn’t help him get there so he had his product and numbers well prepared instead to go seeking for a $250 million funding.

The moral of the story as Naveen quips, “Ask! You don’t know when and what you will get.”

The key takeaway in Alok’s words “At times the imagination and vision that VCs of the stature of Masayoshi Son bring is something that even entrepreneurs aren’t aware of.” 

Science of Advertising

The means to get lucrative in the mobile advertising space, one is definitely to have relevant and meaningful content. But, Naveen adds that having a clear understanding of your segment market right from the beginning also holds the key to success. There is no way you would want to go wrong with this. Segmentation in his words is to be crystal clear as in saying “I only want to target the 5% of the people with in app payments. The remaining I will target with advertising of which 5-10% will click on the ads of which I’ll make significant money.”

Heavy sales low on tech or heavy tech figure out sales later??? this has a precise answer unlike egg and chicken!! 

The answer lies in as Alok repeats the words of a well known Venture Capitalist “you need to be a revenue company during the day and a product company during the night.”

So while Naveen strongly believes in technology first. And, he says there is no other way to build long term sustainable businesses without focusing completely on technology and product, but, he is quick to point out that there are no VCs who simply pump in money into core product technology companies without revenue models. VCs need to see the market traction. 

Key lesson here as Alok says “Something that you can create very beautiful and that gets consumed by millions of people will have a lot of value.” 

Also a good reminder for most entrepreneurs in Naveen’s words is to spend enough and more time to prepare yourself to say “I will create the best product and then go to VCs.” Make this your funda; works easier for both sides.

One of our Rodinhooders, Abhash Kumar, a live spectator to this event mentioned “Alok’s session with Naveen from InMobi was perfectly named ‘Star Chat’. The duo changed the drowsy-eyed audience, bored during the previous sessions, to starry-eyed viewers craving for more. The chat was peppered with one-liners, witty remarks and laugh-out-loud comebacks. All in all, it was BIG FUN.”

Guiding principle for handling VCs and Investors

Be absolutely clear who is in charge. From a relationship management perspective with the VCs/ Investors, one just needs to know who is in control and in Naveen’s case he confidently adds that he knows he is in control. It is his company and he takes every decision and runs the business.

Key point is even if you are heavily funded let the power to run the business lie with you.

Either you are one, two, three or … errr you don’t exist

If you are not there as 1, 2 or 3 in your field you are not there. Naveen bluntly admits that if you aren’t in the top 3 names then change your biz model, innovate on it, figure out your niche and do what it takes you to be there.. else you might as well close shop. Yes, consolations are rightly termed!

The “damn man, why did I do this” moment in Naveen’s life..

Naveen recollects that the biggest mistake in his start up journey was getting wrong people on board and keeping them for long. “Wrong strategic moves can be worked on but its the people centric decisions that stick with you and hamper the organization.” Between being an emotional entrepreneur when it comes to people and being a tough task master you need to find the right balance and the way to deal with and make tough decisions.