Vineet Taneja

Vinod Khosla, a renowned Indian-American billionaire and influential venture capitalist, is a key player in the industry, with a remarkable track record that includes founding Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures. His investments in companies like Square, Stripe, DoorDash, and Instacart have been pivotal. Mario Gabriele shares valuable insights from Vinod: - Remember, you may be closer to a yes than you think. - Focus on getting the goose, not just the golden egg. - Be prepared for resistance to innovative ideas. - Your ultimate task is to sell. Delve into top resources from Khosla to boost your entrepreneurial journey: 1. Pitch the way VCs think: [Link] 2. Master how to solve the Pitch Problem: [Link] 3. Explore "Plausible Tomorrows 2035-2049": [Link] 4. Read "Letters to a Young Founder" by Vinod Khosla: [Link] Leverage these insights to thrive in the realm of venture capitalism and entrepreneurship. #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #Innovation

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🧠 So many pearls of wisdom in this Vinod Khosla interview, for both entrepreneurs and VCs. I've pulled out some of my favourites for you below. 1️⃣ On making contrarian bets "Here's a philosophy, whether you're a venture firm or an entrepreneur. You have to bet on something that you believe in - that the market doesn't believe in - and then stick with it through the ups and downs. You can't predict the timing of most innovations." 2️⃣ On new innovations "I can't think of a big new innovation that came from a person who was in the area they disrupted. Most board members advise founders to 'get somebody who understands the domain' - that's really bad advice generally. You want someone who can think from first principles, and can learn the business rapidly in 6 months. If Elon Musk had been in the automotive industry, I guarantee you we wouldn't have Tesla. When people who came from healthcare tried to do digital health, they generally failed at it." 3️⃣ On risk and failure "There's no one in the venture business who has failed more often than I have failed. I've just tried many more things and screwed up more often than most people. Then a tiny percentage have become the big visible successes. People need to understand that venture is really asymmetric, so you don't want to take low risk. You want to take very high risk - it's not IRR investing. We are buying an option in a great team, and then helping them succeed." 4️⃣ On taking advice as founders "Ask yourself: how many billion dollar companies has the person built? From scratch - not joined Google or Facebook and were given an internal business. When you worry about your pay check, or you struggle to hire someone because you can't offer them a large enough pay check... that's pain. That's when you learn empathy for entrepreneurs." 5️⃣ On thinking long term "Ukraine, Covid and AI are massive turbo-chargers for venture. This is not how the world looks at it. They're looking at short term interest rates, or what's happening with GDP growth. I'm looking at it in terms of what companies will be built over the next 20 years given the changes in the world. I'm not investing in crypto one year, then AI the next. It's a long term approach to venture." 6️⃣ On future predictions "Today's 30-year-olds, take note. In twenty years, jobs won't be the key criteria for education. In twenty years, the world's 50-year-olds will have a hard time adjusting to the fact that they generally won't have to work. As robots and AI do much of the labour-intensive work, they'll be able to lean into their passions and be more creative. Human selection, human preference and taste will become highly valuable. Human's will always prefer human uniqueness."

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PE - 3 ideas for the next 3 years - just like every traditional company needs to be a SaaS company, every SaaS company needs to ultimately be an AI company - ramp up revenue growth but always protect the profits - today is the time to innovate (i.e. not re-invent) your business model & strategy - importantly, this applies not only to PE portfolio companies but also to PE firms to get the best IRR --- #pe #privateequity #business #strategy #saas

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OpenAI's Sam Altman interviews serial founder and legendary VC investor Vinod Khosla. Sam asks "What percent of investors are good company builders?" Vinod responds with 3 powerful statements: 1️⃣ 90% of VCs add no value 2️⃣ 70% of VCs add negative value 3️⃣ If you haven't built a company before, you haven't earned the right to advise an entrepreneur #VentureCapital #Fundraising #Founders

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Vinod Khosla is considered as one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists ever. He's an indian-american billionaire founder of Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures, with investments like Square, Stripe, DoorDash, Instacart and more. Mario Gabriele's Lessons from Vinod: 1. You may be closer to a yes than you think. 2. Get the goose, not the golden egg. 3. Expect resistance to innovative ideas 4. Do not forget: your job is to sell. Top resources from Khosla: 1. 1. Pitch the way VCs think: https://lnkd.in/dVQ95uc5 2. How to solve the Pitch Problem: https://lnkd.in/dFKdTABy 3. Plausible tomorrows 2035-2049: https://lnkd.in/dGQdtA4b 4. Letters to a Young Founder: Vinod Khosla: https://lnkd.in/dX22Hxx7 Ilustration by Eleanor Taylor -- Subscribe to my newsletter for more content about Startups & Venture Capital: https://lnkd.in/dczX2bya

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YC is an accelerator. Faster networks, faster fundraising...it's about getting back to what you do best: BUILDING. Laduram Vishnoi isn't just talking the talk. Proof? He raised $6.5 million in his seed round, topping his entire YC batch in both funding and valuation. 💪 Could he have raised even MORE? Absolutely. But his focus? Scaling smart, with the resources to drive growth for years. YC success stories are inspiring...but THIS is the kind of outcome that gets founders REALLY paying attention. Want to hear the whole story? Watch the full episode here - https://lnkd.in/eqawwxcX . . . . . #startup #startups #founderstory #ycombinator #ycrejects #funding #seedfunding #venturecapital #entrepreneurship #techstartup #software #microservices #monitoring #observability #cloudcosts #saas #devops #cto #techfounder #middleware #lobstertalks

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Woke up to seeing Arjun Vaidya's post on deck hygiene (link in comments) and, while agreeing with everything mentioned, felt compelled to add a few points. 🖥 Yes you need a deck: It may not be fun, you may feel that you're the brightest star in person or over a call, but them's the rules of the game. It makes it easier for funds to have a reference point to look back to, quickly assess whether you're a fit within fund mandates and current thesis, as well as gauge your abilities. After all, if you can't pitch your own company for investment, sales will be a VERY uphill task. ❗ Deck hygiene matters: We actually do read decks, and if you end up contradicting your deck in your pitch, we will catch it. Poorly formatted decks showcase a lack of attention to detail, which, once again, acts as a signal that this is the founder mindset (hint: no one wants to invest in a founder with lack of attention to detail) ⚖ Mandates exist: Most funds are very very open about what they are looking for, on their websites, blogs, Partner/Principal's LinkedIn etc. If you choose to ignore all of these and pitch to a fund completely unaligned to your business, it's probably going nowhere. 🤝 Outreach works: The biggest reason why people cry that they don't get responses from VCs is because you're ignoring any good form of engagement. A LinkedIn message saying "Hi, I'm building the next Airbnb, would you like to join me and make so so much money" will likely get ignored. A message like "Hi, I'm building XYZ to solve ABC, which I realized was a problem while working across 123. We currently have 10 paying customers generating $$, with a pipeline of 20 more. I'm looking to raise $100 to help expand and hit Y metric, I'd love to share more about what we are doing. I've attached my deck with more details", this I reply to 100% of the time ✅ ✅ ✅ A few more rules of thumb: 💲 - Have a financial model ready. If you don't know how to make one, we have the length and breadth of human knowledge available via devices we're reading/typing this on 💥💥 - Traction wins, followed by experience, followed by hope. If you don't have traction, showcase your experience. If you don't have traction or experience, fundraising will be hard, bet on hope. 🙌 🙌 🙌 - The market is always right. This doesn't mean VCs, it means paying customers. Phil Knight funded what today is Nike by working a full time job at PWC to get to scale. VC funding is one way to grow, NOT the only way. #funding #fundraising #venturecapital #startups

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Open-source models can be a strong lever for increasing gross margins at AI companies, especially those that have hefty cost structures (e.g., enterprise sales orgs that require significant customer success or implementation resources, as well forward-deployed AI services models common in healthcare and life sciences). One of many reasons to maintain a modular and flexible stack with minimal dependencies when building an AI company. More on the importance of flexibility in the AI stack: https://lnkd.in/eA2XATRk h/t Delip Rao #ai #artificialintelligence #generativeai #healthcare

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In the true spirit of embodying one of the defining leadership principles of Haas, "Student Always", I went back to school last week to learn more about how the combination of right strategy and culture can drive great outcomes for the organization. Prof. Jenny Chatman is the best in distilling the intricacies and challenges that executive leaders face today in an ever changing work environment. She gave us very valuable, actionable insights on how to become better leaders. I hope to employ these insights and awareness to help my organization achieve even better outcomes.

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Founder to VC transition as a mother of two super active kids has been an incredibly amazing journey for me. Has it been demanding? Yes. But it’s been equally rewarding in terms of learnings, growth and new fun challenges. Thus, thought I would share my experiences and insights on balancing these dual roles and what I've learned along the way. .. First up, managing time effectively has been crucial. Balancing investor meetings, due diligence processes, and strategic discussions with school runs, homework help, and playtime requires meticulous planning and prioritization. I've learned to be present in the moment, whether I’m at a pitch meeting or attending my kids’ PTMs. .. Also, raising young kids, especially a teenager and a young child, teaches you patience and empathy. Especially because children are unpredictable. But, so is the startup world. The ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances has been a valuable skill in both my personal and professional life. Flexibility and resilience are key to navigating the ups and downs of both parenting and investing. Thus, as they say, I’m exploiting synergies :) .. But, most important thing of all? Setting clear boundaries and priorities. Knowing when to step back from work to focus on family and vice versa ensures that neither role suffers. This balance is a continuous process and requires constant adjustment. And here, having a strong support system has been invaluable. My husband, family, and a network of supportive friends have played a critical role in helping me manage my responsibilities. .. However, my biggest motivation has been my kids. Being a role model for my children is important to me. Demonstrating that it’s possible to pursue a demanding career while being there for them sends a powerful message. It’s about showing them the value of hard work, dedication, and the importance of pursuing one’s passions. .. No doubt, there’s immense joy in watching my daughter navigate her teenage years and my son’s boundless energy. Similarly, there’s a unique satisfaction in helping startups grow and succeed. Embracing and finding joy in both aspects of my life has been incredibly fulfilling. And, the transition from founder to VC has been a transformative journey, enriched by my role as a mother. .. All of that said, we at Dexter Ventures ($50k-$500k early-stage investments) and Dexter Capital Advisors (advise $3MM-$100MM) are always eager to work with like-minded founders, angels and other members of the PE/VC/Family Office ecosystem. Do reach out to us at deals@dexter[dot]ventures keeping anuradha@dexter[dot]ventures in CC if there is anything we can help you with :) Best, Anuradha Tags: Devendra, Jayant

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When the theme's a delight, we double our insight! We covered a lot of topics on creating a differentiated and winning GTM strategy for AI companies in this conversation with Poorvi Vijay. - Positioning and differentiation - Building a brand beyond the product - Focusing on ICP - Marketing channels - Hiring the right talent - Pricing to balance value and cost - How to get POCs going - and more.. :)

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🌊 THE COMING WAVE OF INDIAN SAAS IPOs 🌊 The global SaaS landscape is in flux. After a period of irrational exuberance where U.S. software valuations soared to 20x median Enterprise Value / Next Twelve Months revenue (EV/NTM), the market has corrected to 5-6x median EV/NTM over the past two years. This has caused a Flight to Safety—investors flock to premier names like CrowdStrike, DataDog, ServiceNow and CloudFlare, leaving lesser-known players to struggle with lower multiples. The consequence? Sub-scale US IPOs no longer make sense. As Jamin Ball, Tomasz Tunguz, and Meritech Capital all note (see carousel): 📉 Companies with $100-200M revenue can still go public, but at paltry 4-5x revenue multiples. 💸 This is often below their last private market valuations, especially if they raised funding in 2020-22. 🏢 In software-saturated markets, investors want Snowflake-esque gala IPOs. At $100M ARR, you’re just another of 500-1000 software stocks they can buy. India 🇮🇳, however, narrates a different story. With a scarcity of software stocks having trademark recurring revenue, global footprints, reliable FCF generation, and consistent growth, the market is ripe for new entrants. Take RateGain, for instance. IPO’d in 2021 with just $35M LTM revenue. Has grown to ~$120M in FY24 at 55-60% 3Y CAGR, with >$20M EBIT, trading at ~9x revenue (>$1B Mcap). KFin Technologies Ltd. is another solid example, combining software and services. India is full of SaaS companies with such characteristics: 🌟 $10-30M revenue (today) 🌐 Global customer profile 📊 Steady & compounding growth (50%+ CAGR) 💰 Clear path to profitability They're sub-scale from a U.S. POV, but primed to list in the Indian markets as they scale to $50-100M revenue with profitability. Just as PhonePe, Groww and other Indian fintechs have re-domiciled to India, I expect many Indian software companies to follow suit and find a home in the Indian public markets. A whole new asset class of software will soon open up for Indian retail investors with characteristics that we love—reliable, recurring, compounding, and (for a change) asset-light! I, for one, will be buying. What about you? #SaaS #IPO #India #Investing #IndiaIPO #SaaSIndia

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Spending time with Ravit on THE Ravit Show is always a pleasure! #AI #GenerativeAI #GenAI #ResponsibleAI #datascience #machinelearning #ml #mlops #enterpriseAI #AIatscale #leadership

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In the next three to five years, India has the potential to become a $50 billion AI market. Realizing this potential will require us to nurture talent, build relevant solutions, and democratize technology for non-English-speaking communities. Hanooman, supported in 12 Indian languages and based on a foundational model, is poised to play a crucial role in the coming years. Keeping the core technology and source code within the country, we can develop solutions that are uniquely adaptable to India’s diverse needs. Vishnu Vardhan 3AI Holding SML https://lnkd.in/dJYsPhF5 #Hanooman #3AIHolding #GenerativeAI #ResponsibleAI #TechForGood #AIForAll #AIInnovation

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Spoke to Techstars (SF & Oakland) yesterday on building a growth machine. 13 takeaways to get to PMF & scale faster -   1. Growth is optional: Post-PMF, growth is hard, but the roadmap is simple (and mostly in your control).   2. Even the best startups get punched in the face (and often): But they find ways to not get demoralized, will things into existence, and take bad news well.   3. Sustainable growth is about scale AND unit-economics: You need both.   4. It’s easy to fake growth: Total Actives is a vanity metric. Understand the health of its inputs i.e. New, Resurrected, and Retained. The same concept applies to revenue, MRR, etc.   5. Marketing’s purpose Pre- and Post-PMF are different: When Pre, only spend to bring enough people back to validate PMF; when Post, go for scale.   6. A strong marketing mix has Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion: They’re all a hedge with unique pros and cons i.e., time to results, cost, effort, defensibility, etc.   7. You don’t need a Growth Team: The whole company is the Growth Team.   8. There’s 4-stages of growth: Know where you’re at b/c it’ll tell you where to focus, and focus is the lifeblood of a startup.   9. There’s various frameworks to hypothesize models for growth: AARRR, Growth Loops, The PLG Flywheel, and Network Effects are my favorite.   10. ICE is a great way to prioritize (Impact, Confidence, and Ease). Nothing easier than being busy in a startup, but it means nothing. Be effective.   11. Build great process to get through The Growth Flywheel fast: More tests > more learnings > better tests > higher success rates > faster path to growth.   12. When you find things that work, double down: Finding winners takes time; don’t take them for granted.   13. Make time to think and play offense: "Time to think” is 100% in your control; you have no excuse; when in doubt, do less.

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🚨Announcement alert 🚨 SaaS Insider is thrilled to announce Giriraj Daga, Director of Solutions Architecture at Affinidi, as a speaker at DEVCON24! Giriraj is Director of Solutions Architecture at Affinidi. He leads a global team of solutions architects who help customers take more control of their data using decentralised technology and well-architected products and solutions. With over 17 years of experience in software development, cloud computing, enterprise architecture, and business transformation, working with clients from various industries such as insurance, retail, and entertainment, Giri is passionate about solving hard problems, getting things done, and creating value for customers and stakeholders. His goal is to change data ownership for good and enable new business models and opportunities with emerging technologies. Thank you for coming onboard, Giriraj! If you are interested in gaining insights from Giriraj, register interest using the link in the comments below. #devcon24 #b2b #investor #founder #saas #community

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🎙️ Exciting New Episode Alert! 🎙️ Join us on the LetsTok Podcast for a deep dive into the future of AI in sales with industry experts Sukumar Rajagopal, CEO of Tiny Magiq and Kumaran Anandan, CTO in the same firm. In this thought-provoking episode, we unravel the challenges and opportunities in selling engineering products, while shedding light on the impact of AI on job displacement and transformative healthcare solutions. Key Takeaways: Learn about the concept of "performance under supply" and its significance in effective solution selling. Discover strategies for qualifying sales leads and focusing on the right customers for maximum impact. Gain valuable insights into cutting-edge innovations and the importance of swiftly providing innovative solutions to stay competitive. Understand the unique challenges and risks in selling to medical and pharmaceutical companies. Explore the transformative impact of AI in healthcare, from ambient health documentation to streamlining hospital processes. Tune in to gain a wealth of knowledge and stay ahead in the ever-evolving landscape of AI! 🚀 Links in the comment section. #AITechnology #SalesStrategies #AIHealthcare #SalesInnovation #LetsTokPodcast

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We're launching the inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks, a deep dive into the metrics and trends observed across the early-stage enterprise cloud market. This is the first look at some of the business data around GenAI in SaaS. Some initial observations: 1) 60% of SaaS companies have already integrated GenAI into their offerings (60% of these as part of their current product and 40% as a new product), and an additional 20% are planning to do so this year. Almost half aren't monetizing these features. Those that are are primarily experimenting with both usage-based and flat fee pricing models. 2) Most companies are utilizing OpenAI as their primary LLM, but many are experimenting with multiple models - and we are noticing an early trend towards intelligently routing GenAI inference requests to different models based on cost, performance, and security. 3) Though we are in the initial innings of GenAI, we are seeing some positive signals - companies that implemented GenAI had 7% higher NDR than those that did not. Still early days, but we'll be doing this benchmarking report regularly to track and share how things progress in this new era. Link to report in comments.

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