MindGravity: Stride.ai CEO, Vijay Nadadur On His Journey From India to the US, And His Startup Journey And Learnings

MindGravity: Simpl CEO, Nitya Sharma On Starting a Buy Now Pay Later Startup In India And The Opportunity Landscape.

Nitya Sharma [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nityasharma1/], CEO, and Co-Founder ofSimpl [https://getsimpl.com/]. Simpl is a technology company that offers Pay-later solutions in India. Simpl has revolutionized online checkout in India by creating a market-leading Pay-Later platform, empowering e-commerce merchants to offer their consumers 1-click checkout, a line of credit at POS, and full buyer protection. Before starting Simpl, Nitya worked on Wall Street for more than 10 years, where he structured, traded, and risk-managed structured credit portfolios at Bear Stearns andGoldman Sachs [https://www.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/index.html]. Before that, he was a co-founding portfolio manager at JNF Financial, a distressed credit hedge fund from 2010–2014. Nitya initially moved back to India with the objective of starting an emerging-markets focused hedge-fund. However, he experienced the shortcomings of the Indian payments and credit stack first-hand when his credit card application was declined. This experience prompted him to dig deeper into the Indian payments landscape and subsequently led to the founding of Simpl. In this episode, Nitya shares: 1. His educational background and journey as an entrepreneur 2. Views on the fintech landscape in India and his thesis behind Simple’s 3. Differences between banking infrastructure in India and theUS 4. The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Simpl 5. The importance of building the right team 6. Leaning from the mistakes and what he wished he did differently Reach out to our guest, Nitya on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nityasharma1/?originalSubdomain=in], or email him directly at nitya@getsimpl.com You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohanhanda/], or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

MindGravity: Upshift CEO, Ezra Goldman On The Importance Of Conviction And Going All In

Ezra Goldman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ezrajgoldman] is the founder and CEO of Upshift [https://republic.co/upshift] that offers fractional car leasing service for low mileage drivers. Ezra cofounded a dockless bike-share in 1999 and helped design a shared folding electric scooter at the MIT Media Lab with Piaggio in 2006 while doing his Master's in City Planning. He's consulted on innovation for HP and was managing director of a tech startup in Copenhagen, where he also was a Ph.D. candidate studying why Danish people ride bicycles. Upshift has received almost $2M in equity, debt, and project financing from the likes of Urban Us [https://urban.us/], URBAN-X accelerator by BMW/MINI [https://www.urban-x.com/], an AngelList syndicate led by Sundeep Ahuja [https://angel.co/sundeep/syndicate], co-founder of NerdWallet, and over 2,300 angels on Republic. On this episode we talk about: 1. Ezra's journey as prior to launching his startup 2. What launched him into the world of a startup? 3. What Upshift is trying to solve? And what it takes to build a startup? 4. His conviction in the idea, and why he went all in? 5. Who the right target customers are, and how to identify them? 6. How COVID has impacted his business? And how it impacted his personal life? Reach out to our guest, Ezra on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ezrajgoldman], or email him directly on ezra@upshiftcars.com You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohanhanda/], or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

MindGravity: Stride.ai CEO, Vijay Nadadur On His Journey From India to the US, And His Startup Journey And Learnings

Vijay Nadadur [https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijaykant-nadadur-2769b2b] is the founder and CEO of Stride.ai [https://stride.ai/]. Stride's AI platform enables development, deployment, and adoption of enterprise-grade, smart applications. We leverage cutting edge AI and Natural Language Understanding to build and deliver solutions, keeping in mind the pain points of a financial services organization. When these AI-powered applications are deployed, enterprises can better understand risk,  manage regulation, meet compliance, and automate mundane tasks more effectively than ever before. Our solutions are flexible, available both on our Private Cloud as well as On-Premise. On this episode, we talk to Vijay about: 1. His journey from India to the US 2. What are the challenges around building a startup? 3. When do you know there's a product-market fit? 4. What are the ingredients of building the right startup? Reach out to our guest, Vijay on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijaykant-nadadur-2769b2b], Twitter [https://twitter.com/vjkant?lang=en], or email him directly on vrn@stride.ai You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohanhanda/], or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

MindGravity: Finding The Right Financial Advise w/ Taylor Matthews (CEO), Farther Finance

Taylor Matthews [https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylormatthews] is the Co-Founder and CEO of Farther Finance [https://www.farther.com/]. He has raised over $1.6 Mn in venture capital from Cota Capital [https://www.cotacapital.com/], The Tiffin Group [https://thetiffingroup.com/], and other investors and is developing an investment advisory platform created to provide modern technology with trusted advice. The company's platform offers investment advice on allocations of exchange-traded funds based on personalized information that each client provides via the firm's platform, as well as uses a proprietary algorithm to implement model portfolios designed by investment experts with target asset allocations of equity and fixed-income, enabling clients to get access to ETFs that preserve capital and capital growth over long term horizons. based on their financial situation and risk tolerance. Taylor focuses on delivering the best in class financial advice by empowering our advisors with the tools and technology they need to help you achieve your financial goals. Prior to founding Farther, Taylor was part of the leadership at ForUsAll where he helped build the company from $25 million in assets under management to just under $1 billion in two years. On this episode we talk about: * The journey of our founder * What was the genesis for Farther Finance? * What is currently missing from the fintech ecosystem? * What are the challenges and the right ingredients for launching a product/startup? * How pandemic impact fintechs? How it forces consumers to rethink their financial decision making? You can reach out to Taylor Matthews: taylor@farther.com You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohanhanda/], or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.

MindGravity: Building And Scaling a Startup As a Couple With The Founders Of KidzJet Benny Shaikh (CEO) and Ashish Chhaparwal (CFO)

KidzJet [http://www.kidzjet.com/] was started by parents with a vision to provideSafe, Reliable, and Affordable Transportation. Breaking the barriers of transportation opens up a world of exploration and learning for children. With the students no longer limited by distance, schools can expand to new avenues to attract talent.Benny Shaikh (CEO), after the birth of her twin sons, Kabir and Ruhan, she experienced the challenge of balancing her children's schedule with her professional life. In May 2014 she started KidzJet, in an effort to simplify life for parents and kids. Soon after, seeing the passion of her wife, her husband Ashish Chhaparwal [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishchhaparwal/] decided to get on-board as well. On this episode we talk about: 1. The journey of our founders 2. Why all startups are not venture-backed? 3. The challenges and opportunities of launching a business, especially as a couple 4. How the pandemic impacts small businesses, and how to pivot? You can follow or reach out to me, your host Rohan Handa on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohanhanda/], or email me at mindgravity2020@gmail.com.