Masterclass: Navigating Turbulent Times

Peaks are troughs in business and economic cycles are inevitable. There is no doubt that currently we are going through a trough. This is a tough time for many entrepreneurs looking to run and/or scale their businesses. Veteran investor Shailendra Singh thinks this is the best time to build a company. This session of the IGF UAE 2022 Founders & Funders Forum invited first-hand perspectives from leading entrepreneurs building successful businesses in these times.

The discussion throughout the masterclass with prominent founders included keeping up with the start-up culture, long-term business growth, company culture and morale, industry specifics and righteous strategic planning.

The session started with Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia India & Southeast Asia, Singapore setting the scene by talking about his experience of investing in companies and witnessing entrepreneurs raising multiple rounds of funding in a year, and trying to build a solid business. Towards the same, he expressed,

I think it is a terrific time to start a business… I always ask the founders if they are planning to run their long-term business.

He also believes that a quarter of the top 100 companies in India over the next decade will be tech companies.

The conversation was then joined by noteworthy Indian founders and co-founders. They each shared their experiences of building a business in current times. Sharing his success story, Sreeram Reddy Vanga, Co-Founder, Kofluence, India said,

In the absence of capital, you have to understand there are weapons which are much stronger than that.

Ashish Jhina, Co-Founder, Jumbotail Technologies, India talked about everyday being a turbulent day in the online grocery chain business, the industry to which his company caters to.

Mohit Kumar, Founder & CEO, Ultrahuman, India said:

Health is a problem which becomes progressively more difficult to deal with… health has become more of a complex problem for everyone to deal with, so the demand has increased.

The panellists also took up a series of questions from the audience regarding team morale and culture which are often stifled with layoffs and poor morale across the world.

Answering a question about ethical business practices from the audience, Shailendra Singh said:

Every ecosystem, whether it is start-ups or last stage companies, for us to have a chance to build enduring companies, which will last decades, there will have to be very good governance… what happens in a young company is… if they are trying to scale very fast, a lot of young innovators who tend to be amazing innovators, they do not tend to like doing things which are boring, like compliance, or like financial reporting…the way we think about this is that a founder's journey is a journey from being a great innovator to eventually being a great leader, and then eventually being a leader of an enduring enterprise which has very high ethical, governance standards.

Other members of the panel included Dr Naveen Singh, Founder & CEO, INERY Pte Ltd, and Nick Horowitz, Co-Founder, Founders Makers.

Catch all the India Global Forum UAE – Partners for Global Impact action here.