The Neon Show

AI is changing how companies build and scale. But most pitch decks haven’t caught up. Karthik Chakkarapani, CIO of Zuora, has heard plenty of startup pitches but only a few stand out. He shares why most pitches fall flat, how to fix them, and how to present both the founder and the company in a way that drives real interest. We unpack what should go into your 30-second elevator pitch, why “Time to Value” needs its own slide, and how to bring up AI without sounding like everyone else. SaaS is changing fast and it’s no longer just about features, but about speed, clarity, and proof of value. We explore how the next wave of SaaS companies can truly differentiate themselves. Building a startup is different in a post-UI world, where users don’t click through screens but simply prompt systems to act. We discuss what it takes to build in a world of API-driven AI agents, along with real lessons on what most founders get wrong about working with large companies. If you're building SaaS in 2025, this conversation is for you. 0:00 – Trailer 1:05 – How the CIO Role Has Changed 3:21 – How Zuora Enables the Subscription Economy 5:45 – Is SaaS Becoming Headless? 7:55 – Are We Entering a Post-UI World? 10:37 – What’s the New Competitive Advantage? 12:31 – Will Entry-Level Jobs Be Replaced by Tools? 14:05 – What Metrics Will Matter in an Agentic AI World? 15:55 – How to Measure AI Adoption in Your Company 18:38 – What’s the Hype-to-Reality Ratio for AI? 20:19 – What Is the Biggest ROI AI Has Delivered? 23:53 – How Startups Can Get Deployed in Enterprises 27:10 – How Founders Should Use AI in Their Pitch 28:45 – Bolt-On AI vs. Built-In AI 32:26 – Most Common Myth About CIOs 35:03 – Why You Need a Prompt Library 36:04 – What to Avoid in Your Pitch Deck 37:21 – How Atomic Work Came Onboard 42:47 – The Underrated Soft Skills Founders Need 47:55 – 3 Examples of Killer 30-Second Elevator Pitches 51:59 – The “Time-to-Value” Slide Explained 53:46 – What Founders Get Wrong About Enterprises 54:58 – Top SaaS Misconceptions About Enterprise 57:00 – Where Enterprises Adopt AI the Fastest 59:45 – How the Next SaaS Companies Will Differentiate 1:00:33 – Bay Area vs. Bangalore vs. Chennai 1:03:33 – Rapid Fire Round ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1601695/open_sms]

Three failed startups. One of India’s biggest B2B exits. Then returning 75% of investor money in the next venture. An entrepreneur who’s lived that arc is bound to have insights for anyone building or thinking of building. Paras Chopra, founder of Wingify (sold for $200 million), Nintee, and now Lossfunk, joins us this week. We discuss the small decisions that quietly define your startup: what product to build, how to structure your team, and why setting the right communication culture early can help. Paras shares what most founders overlook early on : Pricing isn’t about effort you put but about the value you create, why having competitors might actually be better than having none, and how financial metrics often distract from what really matters to customers. Paras talks about what changed between each attempt of building his startups, and why some lessons only reveal themselves the hard way and what shifts after you’ve seen both failure and success.  Whether you're launching your first company or planning your next, this conversation will give you the clarity needed to tilt the odds in your favor. Check out The Book of Clarity by Paras Chopra. [https://www.amazon.in/Book-Clarity-Building-Principles-Thinking/dp/9369898824] 00:00 – Startups Should Be Like Cults 02:25 – Building a Founder’s Value System 03:25 – Bet on What Won’t Change in 10 Years 05:15 – What AI Can’t Do Well (Yet) 10:00 – Do Humans Even Want Accuracy? 10:57 – What Founders Should Not Build or Sell 13:35 – Are many competitors better than none? 19:47 – Why Repeating Success Is Hard 21:20 – Customer Value Metrics > Financial Metrics 23:35 – Why Paras’s Startup after Wingify Didn’t Work 27:00 – What Is Micro Communication? 30:41 – Writing Culture in a Startup 32:50 – Obsess Over Organisational Design 37:15 – Is Luck in Our Hands? 41:24 – Why Bias Is Risky for Entrepreneurs 42:35 – Great Startups Look Like Toys at First 44:00 – Why Deep Tech Startups Struggle to Succeed 46:09 – Paras’s New Venture Lossfunk 49:23 – Why Uncertainty Is a Startup Moat 55:56 – What Most Founders Get Wrong About Pricing 57:36 – Should Price be on Effort or Value? 59:23 – Wingify Innovated on Just One Metric 1:00:25 – What Is Failure for Paras? 1:04:08 – Diversify Your Self-Worth Like a Portfolio 1:05:21 – The Startup Game Is a Mental Game 1:06:43 – Did Wingify Create Wealth or Just Money? --- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. --- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 --- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1601695/open_sms]

50% of products and features built are never used. To build the right product, every founder must answer two questions: Are you solving a real problem? And are you solving it the right way? Technology has rarely been democratic, it’s often elitist. So at times, it ends up solving made-up problems that don’t really exist. Yet, some companies have built truly great products. What sets them apart? Do they share any similarities? Are there lessons for entrepreneurs? We have with us Krishna (Vasanth) Namasivayam who has previously worked on AI products at NVIDIA, Meta, and Dropbox. Vasanth is founder of Featurely.AI [http://featurely.ai/]. Featurely is fixing how products get built. It does it by simulating users — not as bots, but as human-inspired digital twins. 0:00 – Trailer 02:10 – Why I chose NVIDIA in 2015? 03:55 – Working on integrity at META 04:23 – Rethinking AI for Dropbox 04:51 – NVIDIA builds for the future 05:45 – People loved working for Jensen 08:16 – What makes META so special? 10:57 – Decision-making at META was democratic 11:41 – Dropbox was once the most VIRAL product 12:55 – The power of founder-led companies 14:28 – Tech is Elitist, Build for a Few 16:43 – Silicon Valley trend of Solving Made-up problems 19:27 – A magic wand that Finds the right problem 22:17 – Synthetic users vs. perfect AI agents 25:00 – Why synthetic users can fail (and why that matters) 25:35 – What is the Future with AI agents & synthetic humans? 26:30 – Why openAI can’t/won’t choose User research 27:16 – The simplest explanation of LLMs 28:36 – Why ChatGPT succeeded like no other 31:04 – Bite-sized Info for 6-second attention span 31:37 – The Next Frontier in AI: Predicting Human Behavior 33:55 – Uses of Synthetic Humans from Product to Policy 35:55 – The biggest surprise of building a startup 37:00 – One Mistake Product folks make 38:24 – One emotional truth about startups 39:04 – What does Featurely do? 42:51 – How Featurely will measure success 46:36 – All future software will be hyper-personalized 50:24 – 3 AI companies to admire (one not built yet) 52:28 – How will Work be in 2025? 53:59 – How AI gets things (almost) right every time 57:02 – Why Featurely chose Neon Fund 01:02:51 – What the Bay Area does differently 01:04:54 – Learnings from Fundraising 01:06:49 – The vision to Build a Category defining Company ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1601695/open_sms]

Geopolitics is now measured in Nanometers. Anything with a battery or a plug has a semiconductor inside. But these chips aren’t just tech anymore, they’re shaping who becomes the next Superpower. In the 1980s, India was just two years behind the world in semiconductors. Today, we’re 12 generations behind. What went wrong? India’s top semiconductor expert, Raja Manickam, returns to The Neon Show to break it all down. We discuss how the U.S. lost the chip race it started, China’s strategic rise, and how one visionary turned Taiwan into the most valuable island in the world. Raja Manickam dives into what the $10B India Semiconductor Mission is getting right and where we may fall behind. He explains why <$5 chips might be India’s best shot, and how founders can enter semiconductors with just ₹1 Crore. This episode isn’t just about chips, it’s about who gets to shape the next decade of tech, trade, and power.  From the role of the government to private capital and Mr. Raja’s own vision through his company iVP Semiconductor, this episode tells you how semiconductors are deciding India’s Future. 0:00 – Trailer 1:26 – Masters of Chips will rule the world 8:24 – Why US is falling behind despite its head start 11:22 – Does the US have the talent to win? 12:54 – How Taiwan became World’s most valuable island 18:51 – The US vs China dilemma for Taiwan 22:21 – China’s rise is strategic, not accidental 29:09 – Will India only be a chip-outsourcing hub? 32:41 – Does India want to build for itself or others? 34:07 – Why the US wants to kill the Chips Act 38:21 – US-China chip war for global power 40:16 – How can India win in <$5 chips? 43:31 – Should the Indian govt give grants or take equity? 45:05 – Semiconductor will not create jobs 47:50 – What went wrong for India post-80s? 50:11 – Why Mr. Raja returned to India 52:04 – Can India democratise chips too? 55:23 – How India’s govt is supporting chip startups 58:06 – India’s $10B Semiconductor Mission 1:03:19 – Why Raja is disappointed with Private sector 1:08:48 – iVP’s ambition to be a chip giant from India 1:10:47 – What’s India still missing? 1:16:39 – Is India not ready for 3nm Chips? 1:21:43 – How can new founders enter semiconductors? ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1601695/open_sms]

There are No Checklists or Frameworks on HOW TO BE A VC? So how do you even know if it’s the right path for you? Unlike most jobs, venture capital comes with an extremely long feedback loop. It can take years before you know whether the bets you made actually worked out.  That’s why most seasoned VCs say: only choose this path if you're in it for the long haul. This conversation will help you think through that choice. Whether you’re considering VC as a career, love building businesses, or just want to understand who really calls the shots on a cap table. On The Neon Show, we have with us two operators turned investors: * Gaurav Ranjan, Principal at Prime Venture Partners, has led deals including Dozee, Hitwikcet, Poshn and Gallabox. * Naman Lahoty, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners has been part of investments like Zouk, Nestasia, Dashtoon and Lumio. They share lessons from evaluating thousands of startups - what they’ve unlearned about pattern-matching in investing, why Excel projections mostly fail and why founder empathy might be the most underrated edge in venture capital. It’s truly a conversation between three VCs on what it really takes to be a VC today. 0:00 – Stellaris Partners X Prime Ventures 0:43 – How Founders Turn Into VCs 4:19 – Do VCs Need an MBA or Consulting Background? 6:32 – Why Startup Projections Rarely Come True 8:43 – Are VCs Naturally Good Founders? 11:19 – Startups we Evaluated & Founders we Met 14:51 – From First Pitch to Deal Close 19:02 – Why VC Feedback Loops Are Extremely Long 21:00 – No Checklists. No Frameworks. 25:27 – Why On-Demand Rebranded as Quick Commerce Won? 29:20 – The Stellaris Framework to Evaluate Founders 35:53 – Why Indian VCs Must Think Independently 38:28 – Rapid Fire: The Big One We Missed 39:16 – The One We Loved But Didn’t Back 42:23 – Startups We Wish We’d Invested In 43:55 – Investors We Admire the Most 47:20 – Do We Believe Peter Thiel’s Theory? 52:35 – Startup Stories: Slack, Flickr, Dozee, Rupicard 57:15 – The GTM Hack That Led to Product Discovery 58:15 – Babygogo & Atomic Work 59:55 – All-Nighter Code Sprint for the Demo 1:00:55 – Lessons Founders Taught Us 1:06:30 – What We Miss About Being a Founder 1:10:28 – When Do You Decide If You Are a Good VC? 1:13:28 – Building a Fund V/S Building a Startup ------------- India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it. This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India. What is Neon Fund? We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before. Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon. ------------- Check us out on: Website: https://neon.fund/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/ Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww Connect with Siddhartha on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/ Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7 ------------- This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1601695/open_sms]