Off to the Valley

Prateek Sharma: The acquisition was done.

I had actually spent a couple
of years with MakeMyTrip.

Leading a new products division there so
had spent some time in kind of that big

like public company in that event as well.

And that was also part of like a
contributing factor to saying that,

okay, I've done the startup life.

I've done this big company life.

There is this natural moment to transition
and maybe take a step back and figure out

like what the next chapter
is going to be like.

Prateek Panda: Right, hello everybody
and welcome back to Off To The Valley,

a podcast that brings to light the
incredible stories of those who left the

familiarity of home for new horizons.

I'm your host Prateek Panda, always
curious and eager to share these

journeys of courage and determination.

Today, we are delighted to have
another Prateek, Prateek Sharma, join

our podcast, a perfect example of the
values and spirit that we cherish.

Prateek's move from India to San Francisco
is more than just a change in location.

It exemplifies his bold
entrepreneurial spirit as well.

Starting as an engineer building
early telecom equipment in India,

Prateek went on to start Mygola,
a travel startup in Bangalore.

During the early years of
the Indian startup ecosystem,

eventually selling it to MakeMyTrip.

His journey didn't stop there and he
transitioned to becoming an active angel

investor, backing successful startups,
and is currently the founder and

managing partner of Ahead VC, an early
stage VC firm based in San Francisco.

Prateek, it's a pleasure
to have you on the show.

Prateek Sharma: It's a
pleasure to be here, Prateek.

It's going to be a surreal
conversation where both of us keep

referring to each other as Prateek.

But very excited to be here.

It's a great topic to talk about
and discuss the cross border off

to the valley lives, have their own
moments of exuberance and challenge

happy to yeah, dig into all of that.

Prateek Panda: Yeah.

So let's jump straight in.

What got you to San Francisco?

Prateek Sharma: Yeah.

The straight answer is that my
wife brought me to San Francisco.

And the expanded version of
that story maybe necessitates

a little bit of context.

So I was born and brought up in India.

Landed up in Bangalore in very early
days of the technology ecosystem, the

technology product ecosystem, let alone
the startup ecosystem in Bangalore in 2002

started off as an engineer as you share.

And then in 2009, jumped onto
kind of the startup life, which

was for the younger viewers

of this podcast, 2009 was a time
when India had zero unicorns because

there was hardly any venture capital.

And we probably got our
first one into 2010 or 2011.

It was very early days
for the startup ecosystem.

So started a company in online travel with
my co founder and then built a company,

raised venture capital, which
took like a whole lot of this.

There's a lot of stories there.

We can talk about that.

And then eventually sold
the company to MakeMyTrip.

So while I was on this founder journey,
something else was happening in my

life my wife also we are kind of
college sweethearts from IIT Bombay.

We've been in each other's lives forever.

She had started off on her
startup journey as well.

As I was exiting my startup, she was in
the early days of her startup journey.

She had started the company
the company called Springboard.

It's an education startup
now doing very well.

The company was born in India.

In fact, the MyGola office was
probably like the incubator for

the first six, eight months or a
year of the Springboard journey.

But then Parul was starting to see a lot
of growth for her startup in the U.S.

And so as a family, we were in this
moment where I had sold my company.

Now I'm inside this large, publicly listed
technology company leading like a new

products division and Parul is navigating
her early stage startup life trying to

manage the Bangalore to Bay Area commute.

So she would spend a month in
the Bay Area and doing business

there, then come back home.

We had a young child, we had
a four, five year old then.

So there was that kind of
additional level of complexity.

Of course, had a lot of family support
as is always the case in India.

But really, that was the kind of moment
for us, for me as an individual, and

then also for us as a family to think
about like what the next chapter of

life is going to be and just because
like Parul's company was so early

and yet in such an exciting phase, we
said, okay let's make that bet as a

family where we move ourselves to the
U .S to this completely new market.

Exciting space both creatively as
well as entrepreneurially and build

the next chapter of our lives there.

Prateek Panda: So I have a few follow
up questions, but before the follow

up questions, I'll give you a piece of
trivia that maybe you don't know about.

So back in the day, I was in engineering
school when you started MyGola

and I use write articles for MyGola
to get paid like 50 rupees, 100 Rupees.

Prateek Sharma: I have no idea about this.

This is amazing.

Prateek Panda: You remember you used
to have this thing where You would

let contributors write articles?

Prateek Sharma: Yeah.

Yeah.

We had a big community at that point
of time of freelancers, a big chunk in

India, but then also across the board,
they were like a few thousand people

who would work with MyGola at that point

Prateek Panda: in time.

Yeah.

So that was probably you can say
the first few rupees or dollars

that I made thanks to you.

Prateek Sharma: Small
contribution, but I'm glad.

Prateek Panda: That's a trivia out
of the way, but tell me this right,

as a founder and you had a successful
exit to MakeMyTrip, you were also

in that zone where you really didn't
know what do you want to do next?

As you were moving towards San Francisco,
more often than not, people have some

sort of a vision and they're like,
okay, yeah, I want to do this, which

is why I have to be in San Francisco.

How easy or difficult was that
decision for you that, okay, maybe

I'm guessing here and you can correct
me if I'm wrong, but maybe the exit

helps you take a step back and say
that, okay, I'm comfortable, I can

take my time to figure out what's next.

There's also this pressure as
founders who do well or provide

a good exit are also always under
pressure to continue to do again.

Were you dealing with all of that?

Was that going on in your mind
and then coming to a more high

pressure situation in San Francisco?

How was it?

What was happening behind the scenes?

Prateek Sharma: Yeah, that's a
great question Prateek and lots

and lots of players here.

Interestingly It was an easy decision
in the short term, but it was a

tough decision in the long term.

And easy because for many reasons
that you lay out like having sold the

company gave us as a family, a little
bit of cushion to really step back and

say, okay what does life look like?

And again in the family, like Parul's
journey was fairly straightforward.

It was said and we realized that for
her to really pursue springboard and

accelerate that we needed to be here.

But there were enough reasons
as a family to be here for me

personally, there was flexibility.

The acquisition was done.

I had actually spent a couple of
years with MakeMyTrip Leading a new

products division there so had spent
some time in kind of that big like

public company in that event as well.

And that was also part of the, like
a contributing factor to saying that,

okay, I've done the startup life.

I've done this big company life.

There is this natural moment to
transition and maybe take a step

back and figure out like what kind
of the next chapter is going to

be like, so in the short term.

I actually looked forward
to the transition.

It was like this clean slate
which you often don't get in life

because you're always running
and always on the treadmill.

And because of these, a bunch
of personal choices I got this

opportunity to like start from a
clean slate, which is very exciting.

So the first year we landed up here,
I intentionally did not take on

any professional responsibilities.

I actually didn't even think
about taking on a professional

responsibility because I knew that as
soon as I started making plans, then

there'd be like like a dashboard.

I'll get a major progress.

I'll get stressed out.

I said, okay, this is like a clear time.

I don't have any responsibilities.

I'm not even going to plan to take
on responsibilities professionally.

And instead I said, okay, let
me be like a full time dad.

So first year of the U.S was
the time when my son was five,

five and a half and extremely
fulfilling and positive experience.

I think that was a moment when I
realized from a personal level, like

what being present for your family
really means, because as a founder,

you might be present in the same room.

But you're carrying so much in your minds
and your heads and you're thinking about

the future, you think about strategy,
you think about the fire that you're

putting out today, that even though
you're physically present in the room,

you're not quite present and having a
clean slate, gave me the opportunity

to really be present with family, which
was quite an eyeopening experience.

I used to think I was very
present, but I realized that maybe

I was like 30 percent present.

That's a big level improvement.

So short term, extremely
positive experience.

Long term, the next few years of when
I started thinking about work and

professional life and kind of building
the next chapter that was a really

challenging time because in lots
of ways, founder life just forces.

Your personal identity to get so tied
up with your professional identity.

But when that loop or that connection
is severed, like after an exit,

it's a really challenging moment.

Like I remembered that in the first
few years of moving to the U.S,

I would actually think hard about
introducing myself to people who

didn't know me because I didn't
have a clear sense of who am I like?

Am I a founder?

Yeah, sure.

I can talk about it, but I
don't really run a company.

I'm not like, I don't have any other
like professional responsibilities.

What slash who am I?

So like that really rewiring and
rebuilding of your own identity.

It's a fairly like stressful process,
not easy because like in a particular

environment, in a market, you know who
you are in a company, you know who you

are, but when you land up in a new market,
you're in a new set of people, rebuilding

that, that was, yeah, quite strenuous.

Prateek Panda: Yeah, while you were
talking it reminded me of my move.

That was also similar.

Like I moved here because my
wife and she helped me move.

It was a no brainer.

Like we got married and I kept
doing what Parul was doing.

I used to spend, my
entire team was in India.

And my wife was here in the Bay Area and
I would spend a couple of months with

her and then go back to the team a month.

I would travel sometimes five to
six times between India and the U.S

and I did that for three, four years
and then it started to get tiring.

But also I struggled a fair
bit in the early years.

I think probably this is the first
time I'm saying this out loud that

there was a fair amount of time
where I didn't really know whether

I'm doing a good enough job or not.

And people around me, like all my
friends who studied the same program

that I did, but went on to work
for, these larger FAANG companies.

Yeah.

So they were doing a lot better
financially or that's what I thought.

And that used to, I made it a
lot more difficult on myself.

So there was a phase when I used to
have a drink every day and without

which I couldn't function, right?

I didn't realize then that I'm showing
signs of like depressive behavior,

but I would limit myself to one
drink, not that's any better, but it

became like a thing that I cannot get
through 4 pm or 5 pm unless I have

a drink and then get started with my
work again with the team in India.

Did you have any sort of community
in San Francisco or around San

Francisco that you could count on?

Prateek Sharma: So very crucial.

Thankfully the IIT community,
my undergrad class.

Because yeah all engineers, at least
people who are in the U.S I concentrated

on the two courses and Bay Area
is like the bigger concentration.

So that was like a very natural.

A staging community for us for
me and for Parul as well and

that was like really crucial.

So very important in the first
few years continues to be

super valuable now as well.

And I think there's
something to be said about.

And the value of community that we
carry having grown up in India of like,

how you show up for people like my
undergrad friends who had not seen for

15, 16 years, uh, just welcome me to
the Bay Area, we never missed a day.

That was very warm.

I think a big part of us
kind of feeling or finding.

Our kind of space here.

Interestingly there was another
community, which was very valuable for us.

And that was the community with my
son's school because like, when you

have kids like their parents whose kids
and your kids are in the same school,

they become, at least a community,
it's not the community for you.

And so we landed up in
San Francisco in 2016.

And we found this really progressive,
interesting, creative school in

San Francisco called Brightworks.

The founder of BrightWorks actually is,
he's a fascinating character, Gabor Tali.

Gabor's given a TED talk and the title
of the TED talk is 50 dangerous things

that you should let your kids do.

Prateek Panda: Okay.

Interesting.

Prateek Sharma: And he has like a
whole expansion of that philosophy

into a whole education program.

And that's where we landed up at school.

It was a small school and I think
being this small school kind of gave

us another community to ease ourselves.

As a family into the U.S that also in
some ways was a non Desi community.

So the IIT group was the Desi community
and there's lots of shared values and

lots of experiences, but the school
community was like the non Desi community

and yet very warm and welcoming.

That was our at least for me,
like onboarding into the U.S

culture and the Bay Area culture.

So that was also like a fantastic
community that helped us settle down here.

Prateek Panda: Tell me I'm switching
gears a little bit and tell me a

little bit more about your path
into VC and how Ahead VC started.

What was the planning in progress and
tell us a little bit more about that.

Prateek Sharma: Yeah.

So I'll maybe start in reverse
gear, let me give you a quick

snippet of what Ahead VC is.

And then I'll also talk
about the path into Ahead VC.

So Ahead is a fairly new fund, which
I started just over a year ago.

This is a cross border fund.

We focus on founders and
startups who are able to.

Essentially Essentially span India
and the U.S And take advantage of the

unusual abilities that both the markets
offer So what I specifically look for

is founders of companies who are able
to build in India and sell in the U.S.

At a high level, that's the thesis for
the fund In terms of translating this

into specific categories, I look at
a lot at all kinds of B2B software.

So whether it's for large
enterprises or SMB SaaS.

Dev tools and across all of these
categories, AI is like a fairly present

and significant theme, which is changing
playbooks across all of these categories.

This is the, these are the spaces that
I look at and I invest very early.

So really, the focus is to come in at
the pre seed and seed stages, oftentimes

when there's just a slide deck In some
cases, there's maybe a product and maybe

like a proof of concept, potentially
one or two early pilot customers,

but really early in the company's
journey and then work closely with

founders to support their U.S Journey.

The U.

S.

Like the U.S Journey is a non trivial
one for founders who are not super

connected here and anything which
kind of needs access for that.

It's The capital here
are potential customers.

Eventually talent takes a lot of time.

And those are really the pieces
that are Ahead solves for So quick

nutshell, that's what Ahead does.

My path to Ahead was part of it.

I talked about already was
through this like founder life.

And then several years of fairly active
angel investor life and again, through

dozens of conversations and insights in
the angel life to to launching Ahead.

And here, maybe I'll step back.

So when I landed here in the
U.S, Because I had a lot of time

there was, and I had these deep
relationships from my Bangalore days.

The 2002, 2015-16 period in Bangore was an
explosive time for the startup ecosystem.

That that was a time when.

India saw like massive amounts of venture
capital kind of flow in our first massive

pool of like large scale hyper scaled
companies show up And that was a great

period to be building relationships and I
had those because I had lived that life.

So a combination of me having time India
startup ecosystem continuing to grow well.

And it was fairly natural to
start doing angel investing.

There wasn't a lot of
thought or planning into it.

It was like I was meeting
interesting founders.

So I said, okay, I like you.

Let me write you a small check That's
how the angel investing journey started

probably wrote the first check in 2016
or 2017 or those but then over the past

seven eight years that i've been here.

I Ended up investing in almost 27
companies over this period, almost all

in kind of the India startup ecosystem
that was really like the focus.

About half of these companies
were India for India.

The other half were
India for the US market.

And this was really the
first, almost contact with the

opportunity and the challenges.

Off the, off to the valley
journey for these founders.

And again, through lots of these
conversations, I realized that

something, there is an opportunity in
the ecosystem to build a meaningful

venture capital business to actually
support founders in this journey.

And and hopefully accelerate
the next decade of the India

to U.S corridor in kind of the
broader India startup ecosystem.

Yeah.

Prateek Panda: So one of the things
from my past founder journey and raising

money you've answered this a little
bit, but for all the founders who are

listening, who might be interested to
work with you, money can be sourced

from a lot of different places.

So more often than not, like when I was a
first time founder, I was really chasing

who would write the biggest cheque.

But over time, like I learned it with
experience that it's not really the money.

There is a lot more value that
a VC potentially brings in.

And you talked a little bit
about the whole assimilating

from India to the U.S and so on.

Can you tell me a little bit more on
that and how you are really helping

founders from India break into the
U.S market and grow here, which is,

of course, way beyond just money.

Let's talk a little bit about that.

Prateek Sharma: Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a great question.

You can, I think.

Only a founder whos kind of been
through this journey and done gone

through a few of these fund raise cycle
like this kind of really appreciates

what fundraising is about and it's
let me take this in two parts.

One is like how I advise founders to
think about capital and then also about

like, how do I kind of work specifically
with founders and supporting them, etc.

Your very first point that kind of
mention about capital is actually dollars.

are a commodity, like anyone's
dollars are interchangeable.

If you can get a hundred dollars
from this person versus the other

person is the same hundred dollars.

And that's actually in some ways true
of the VC business model at some level,

like VC is a fairly commodity business,
because all VCs are trying to sell

dollars to to, to startups at one level.

So the way I.

Advise founders to think about their race
is to think of dollar and function the

brand name VC like the one who can write
a large check etc they might serve a

function for a startup or they might not.

So like founders, like really
have to think about it of what,

how much capital they need.

What kind, what do they
expect this capital to do?

Do they expect this capital to
only be, play the role of capital?

Do they want support?

Do they want access?

Do they want expertise?

Do they want intros?

There's many things that the investor
and I'm including both the angel

investors as well as VCs into this pool.

There are many things that
this broader investor.

Universe can do for founders and if
founders are able to connect that

I need this amount of capital and
these are the functions that I need

solved or that I need support from.

That's a great place to start in
terms of almost curating their

capital saying that this is what
I want my capital to look like.

So that's advice to founders
now jumping to ahead and like

how I Engage the founders.

I realized again, through my angel
investing time conversations is founders

have a lot of gyaan Like they get
a lot of knowledge and advice about

building your product and strategies.

Is that whatever?

That's great.

Fantastic.

Like really the struggle, especially
in the India-U.S corridor is of access.

Like anything which needs
you to build a relationship.

Before you can unlock that
thing takes a lot of time.

Like venture capital is like the
classical, like example of that, that

if you have to raise a big amount of
capital here in the U.S or actually

any amount of capital in the U.S
you have to build relationships.

You can't just show up to a
VC and they kinda write you a

cheque in the first meeting.

You have to build a relationship, you have
to build credibility, you a trajectory.

That takes time.

And this is exactly the same case
when you have to land, say, like a

large customer like no one's kind of
going to sign up like a new startup,

no enterprise is going to sign up a
new startup on day one, you again need

to show trajectory and relationships.

So the insight for me was that
I have to solve, because I'm

physically based here in the US.

I am much better placed
to solve for access.

And there's three types of
access that I think about.

One is capital.

Second is customers, which is either
potential customers or advisors who can

open doors to these potential customers.

And the third is talent.

When founders have moved here, they want
to build, start building their teams here.

That's the third piece, which again needs
some access to local community and talent.

So these are two or three access pieces
that I'm building out which I end up

working fairly actively with founders.

Of course I have been a founder myself.

So there's like always plenty to talk
about everything from like strategy

to team to co-founder dynamics.

All of those are fair game.

And I've had multiple conversations
with different founders about different

topics, but really the differentiation
or like the hard pieces of support

that I'm structurally building
for Ahead VC is all about access.

Prateek Panda: I think that's extremely
valuable and you're doing some amazing

work because, I can relate to this.

As a early stage founder, when I moved
to the US in 2016-2017 it was so much

more difficult for me than it is now.

I know the right people.

I know who to ask for help for
introductions and so on, and I

can almost imagine so many other
founders who are trying to move

and don't have that access, right?

And that can immediately charge
you up as well because it

helps you move a lot faster.

So thank you for doing all
of this for the ecosystem.

Tell me this at what point
do you think a founder should

consider moving to the Valley?

If they do have business here, they've
established some sort of market, what

is the right time for a founder to move?

Prateek Sharma: As soon as
possible without like killing

serious relationships or your company
because, and I talk about both.

I think both are crucial because if a
serious relationship is in jeopardy,

then, and you move here, that's going
to drain a lot of your energy and focus.

And even though you're physically
here, it might not work.

So thinking about them is crucial.

And so is the company like you have to
have enough dollars, whether a venture

dollars or revenue dollars to support you.

And often like founders, if they've
not lived in the U.S, Don't quite

realize how expensive things get here,
even if you are being super frugal.

And so those are the two constraints
to think about, like your personal

situation relationships being one.

Second is do you have enough Money in
the bank to support at least one founder

being here, but if those constraints are
solved being here, and of course, third

one is a visa or like the immigration
complexity, let's not even get there.

Hopefully, it's like
magically solved somehow.

And I have actually have some
references for that as well.

That's the other constant question
that I get from founders, but put all

of that aside constraints are solved.

The more the quickly they are
here in the US, the more time

they are able to spend in the US.

It generates enormous returns in
how quickly the company can grow

or how quickly the founder can
realize that, Oh, this is actually

not a great area to be building in.

And hence I need to change things.

Both of those insights of figuring
out how to grow or figuring

out that this is a dumb space.

This is like a dead end.

I need to pivot.

They are worth their weight in gold.

And you don't want to be away from your
market and your customers and imagining

like this great day of product market fit.

Then there's some crucial insight, which
kind of actually present the market,

which you can unlock this by being here.

So as soon as possible without
having stuff break down,

Prateek Panda: Yeah, and I've met
a few founders that are, counting

on hiring this amazing VP of sales
that's going to make them successful.

Yeah.

Tell me a little bit more about
that from your experience, right?

What do you think should be the
path when a founder is starting

to think about moving here?

Or more often than a lot of times I've
also met people who are like, they are

still with their team, maybe in India or
in other countries, but they try to hire

a VP of sales or a VP of marketing in the
US while they are not present in the US.

What

Prateek Sharma: I've almost never,
I've never seen that being successful.

It's hard to hire and be successful
with your first few kind of GTM

hires in the U.S even when the
founder is physically present here.

Even with kind of the local
presence, it is hard to hire

if you're not present here.

It's almost I can, I don't know.

It's definitely not going to work.

The challenge is that, especially
like in early stages, um, the company

itself, and we are talking about, and
maybe even as far as series A, series

B onwards, I don't know, the company
start like coming here at series B stage.

Maybe there's a different path.

That's not my kind of day
to day stage of engagement.

I usually work with founders of pretty
early and in those early stages.

Everything is changing, like the
product is changing, your, the founder's

thesis about the opportunity, that
is changing, the go to market motion

is changing, everything is in flux.

And an external exec is not
set up to succeed in flux.

External execs work well in stable
environments, they are, that's

why they're called executives
because they can execute.

They are not entrepreneurs
like you are the entrepreneur.

You are the founder You have to deal
with this chaos and you have to pull

out an insight in and find the golden
land of PMF the exec makes sense only

after the playbook for Whatever you
kind of going after that is clear.

Now that said Founders should get
support in terms of bandwidth.

Like you can't do everything on your own.

But really you have to own the function.

You have to own sales.

You can get junior people to help write
your email or kind of manage your CRM, put

in data, maybe set up meetings for you.

You can potentially get advisors who
can make warm intros for you, etc

But founders have to Lead the go to
market journey till that day, like

playbook is extremely settled and clear.

And my anecdotal sense is that even
after that, like the first few hires

that you will get will not work.

So you go through several people
before you find the right fit.

Even after the playbook, before the
playbook, it's just like burning money.

Yeah.

Prateek Panda: Yeah.

And I think that is consistent with
a lot of stories that we've heard

firsthand from people who've moved here
and started to build or grow teams.

But even then, as founders, we come
here with an overt sense of optimism

that The first few hires are going
to, they are the ones who are going

to be the moonshot for us and so on.

And that rarely ever happens.

You've now come to this sort of a VC role.

It's busy.

Days are busy.

You have to meet a lot more
founders and, keep this rolling.

How is that affecting your personal
life and do you miss you know

those That nice break sort of a
phase that you had at some point?

Prateek Sharma: 100 percent but
yeah, of course no, no comparison

to that, but I think don't think I
there's lots of ways to look at it.

I definitely missed that.

period.

That period was special.

And I think sometimes, Things
are special because they exist

at a particular point in time.

If I was living in that phase
for the last five, seven years,

I would probably be depressed.

So there's definitely something
special about that particular moment.

To be honest, it's a struggle.

Investor life is So operationally
heavy and like also so external

facing that it's easy to it's
a very multi threaded business.

You constantly are thinking about like
their portfolio companies, the like

journeys for them, intros for them.

You're thinking about your own investors.

You're thinking about potential
collaborators, etc This yeah, many

things all happening at the same time.

And hence it is tough to create mind
space more than like actual time.

There is flexibility in VC life, like you
can move your meetings around and create

some space, etc But creating mind space
is a much harder balance and combined

with that the extra complexity of.

Me choosing to work in the cross border
space, which means that as I'm sure you

lived living in two different time zones,
like the US time zone is for US people and

US kind of business and the mornings and
late evenings are for the India people.

So that always has a tendency to encroach.

On personal time, but I think
really what has worked for me is

like treating personal commitments as like
a first class block on the calendar when

I put like a family block on the calendar,
like meetings don't overlap with it.

Like that's something like that's
a discipline that I'm building

for myself and there's no other
way to like really carve out time.

Mind space is still a challenge,
but at least having hard discipline

around time and time boundaries.

That's the best approach to that
I know so far to yeah, make sense

of otherwise chaotic schedules.

Prateek Panda: great I know that you are
also a avid reader and you stay up to

date with a lot of things what are what is
something that you are reading right now

that you find interesting or fascinating?

Prateek Sharma: I read a lot I like
everything from Twitter threads to

like fat novels or like books on
history and philosophy and all of that.

Extremely curious, which is also
something that you realize that

takes a lot of time as well.

So that's another contention for a time.

What am I?

Actually, there's like maybe three.

And in terms of books, actually,
I've realized that audio

books work the best for me.

I often don't have enough time to sit on
a chair and kind of flip through pages,

but there's always time and I'm out for
a walk or a drive, etc So there's like

these pockets of time where I can fit in
an audio book and kind of read through.

I am actually of late reading a lot
of Sci-Fi Which is quite fascinating.

Interestingly,

I feel both a pull towards
history and a pull towards Sci-Fi,

which is like a great contrast.

You read about the story of the
world as it's unfolded and you

read about like potential futures.

Which can unfold ahead a couple of Sci-Fi
books, which have been very fascinating.

I don't know if the audience are
into Sci-Fi there's this fascinating

author called Vernor Vinge And I'm
happy to share some links, etc..

He's written this trilogy called zones
of thought, which is imagines this

universe where laws of physics are
slightly different in different zones

of the universe and how different
technologies emerge and then all kinds of

both potential examples of intelligence
which kind of show up in different ways.

As well as other conflicts and Sci-Fi
actually is also quite fascinating

because our world is changing so
quickly that Sci-Fi is almost like

a case study where you can get a
picture of, or get a taste of like

how our current futures might evolve.

Yeah that's

Prateek Panda: It's interesting.

You mentioned history and Sci-Fi.

Just yesterday I read a quote that
said More people should read history

because it'll tell you how terrible
the past was and You should also read

Sci-Fi because it'll give you hope for
the future, but at the same time the

past History is going to help you stay
grounded that things are always terrible

or things are always bright, right?

You know depending on where you place
yourself, The past will always be there.

And which means that even today
we are going through so much in

the world, not to discount the
fact that it is difficult times.

So going, if you compare it with the
past, we are still better off, but as

we go ahead into the future, these are
going to be some of the worst times

and that's just cycle of life sadly,
but the Sci-Fi part also gives you

the optimism that there's always going
to be something brighter as well.

Prateek Sharma: I also think that
it, like both of these, history

and Sci-Fi help you see things.

Did they kind of balance
things out for me in some ways?

As you said, like there are lots of things
which are really bad in the past, but you

realize that, oh, maybe human motivation
is very similar to how it was in the

past to it is now I was after seeing
the Hamilton musical, I got inspired

and read the biography and it made me
think that Oh, like this desire to create

something new being entrepreneurial.

It's like a fairly, like a few hundred
years ago, people were doing this.

People are doing it today moving to a new
country, building something from scratch.

So maybe there's lots of
humanity, which is the same.

And similarly for the future,
you realize that, oh, like

people have all these shiny toys.

And yet unless humans.

Like our biologies change we might
still have the same motivation.

So you might still care about status
and being superior than the other person

or accumulating lots of resources.

So it's interesting.

Prateek Panda: Yeah, on that note.

I know we are Quickly running out of
time as much as I would love to continue

to keep this conversation going i'll
ask you one last question, right?

You're spending time understanding
the markets and you know

A lot of founder journeys.

Are there any trends that you are
seeing which is worth noting that

can help enable Founders from India
to be more successful in the U.S?

Prateek Sharma: So I'll first give
you the cliche answer, which is AI.

And it's kind of cliche because of
course, there's so much creative

energy kind of putting in here.

It's trivial to say that founders from
India should focus on AI but I want to

double down on that a little bit because
so I was in India in March at this big

SaaS conference, SaaSBoomi a fantastic
event, and I recommend it to everyone.

who's listening or watching.

There were 1700 people at
the conference this year.

So very well attended and
two dozens of founders.

So lots and lots of founders who are
thinking of AI, building AI but I also

got a sense that in India, maybe there's
a little bit of skepticism about Oh, is

this AI is this kind of a real thing.

Let me put like a quick layer of
AI and maybe get a little bit of

sale but like founders like didn't
feel fully bought in to how deeply

transformative this could be.

And so the especially for cross border
founders are not quite here in the

valley, who are not seeing all the
cool demos being built here, not seeing

enough of how much entrepreneurial
energy is going into the space here

in the Bay Area and the Valley.

I would say that lean
deeply into this new way.

Don't go into it blindly.

You don't have to just follow the
trend blindly, but really understand

what's possible in technology, really
think deeply about the space that,

that is of interest to them, how this
technology might change what they're

building, because I do think that like
massive disruption is coming here.

And founders don't want to be caught
up in living in a paradigm which is

going to be disrupted completely.

They should lean deeply into it,
even if it's uncomfortable, even

if it's new, even if it feels new.

a little bit like, like a bubble
which maybe it is in the short

term, but in the long term very real
and founders should really deeply

think about it and building here.

Prateek Panda: That's amazing.

Thank you so much, Prateek I think
you've shared lots of nuggets of

information, lots of your learnings
and experiences that the listeners

are going to find very helpful.

Thank you so much for sharing your journey
and taking out time to speak with us.

Prateek Sharma: Yeah.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah.

Super fun conversation.

And yeah, we'll do more
online and offline.

Prateek Panda: Yes, definitely.

Thank you so much, Prateek And
that wraps up today's episode.

Before we sign off, I would like
to thank you for your support

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