09 – A Little Bit of Discipline and a Little Bit of Patience – Abhishek Goenka – Chief Investment Officer at RPSG Capital Ventures

• Spending his entire career as an investor in India
• The experience gained through investing in multiple cycles
• Investing into fundamentals and ignoring FOMO
• The importance of research and knowing one’s target market in depth
• The core belief that Founders should be treated well
• The excitement around building global brands from India

1. It Has to Happen, and It Has Started Happening
2. Brands Are on Eternal Mode
3. It’s Okay to Commit an Error
4. Getting 6 Out of 10 Correct Is a Great Job
5. India Is a Country That Keeps Exciting Me

Read the best-effort transcript below (This technology is still not as good as they say it is…):

Michael Waitze 0:31
Hi, this is Michael Waitze. And welcome back to India GameChanger. Today we are joined by Abhishek Goenka, the Chief Investment Officer of RPSG Capital Ventures. Abhishek, thank you so much for joining the show. How are you doing today?

Abhishek Goenka 0:49
I’m very good. Michael, thank you so much for having me over.

Michael Waitze 0:51
It is my pleasure. And thank you for all of the intense preparation. I really appreciate this. It’s really great. Oh, gosh, okay, before we get to the main part of our conversation, can we get some of your background for context

Abhishek Goenka 1:06
Sure, Michael have spent close to two decades, investing professionally in India started my journey with JP Morgan, in their principal investments team from their move to a buyer private equity fund called True North. And from there, I joined RPG capital ventures to start their venture capital practice. So through and through an investment like a private equity and a VC investor in India.

Michael Waitze 1:35
So what got you interested in investing? I mean, 20 years ago, boy, the landscape was so different back then. Right?

Abhishek Goenka 1:42
That is true. That is true. I think, India saw it as a country that actually keeps exciting me, you know, keeps interesting, me, I have seen close to, I would say three business cycles in, in my career, you know, from the time so let’s say, for example, during the 2005 2006, right, that was an infrastructure boom, you know, a lot of capital flowing into the country, you know, a lot of projects getting executed across the infrastructure cycle, right. And that’s when 2008 hit us, right? There was a correction and thinking, you know, people, all the stories in terms of, you know, GDP growing by double digits, etc, kind of came down to either a flattish, or a no growth, you know, sort of scenario. And then, you know, the confidence started coming back. Because the fun, eventually, I think, post 2008, I think India was one of the key beneficiaries. I think the strength of the entire financial system, and the backbone, right, I think that that was one of the key things that kind of learned, you know, to grow to the Indian economy. I think the next decade or so, was pretty much kind of driven by that team. And now what we’re seeing over the last five or so years is kind of the entire boom, I would say, or that Thrift, on account of, you know, New Age businesses, startups, you know, the entire consumption story being played out, you know, really, really well.

Michael Waitze 3:22
Do you think, do you think you have an edge? Because you’ve seen all these different business cycles? Do you know what I mean? Like, if you were just starting investing today, even if you’ve been running your own business for the last 15 years, right? But because you’ve invested through different cycles, I love the way you said, I’m gonna I want to use your words, a correction and thinking that it’s beautiful. By the way, I may use that from now on instead of saying a global financial crisis. But because you’ve seen all these different cycles, do you think it gives you an edge in investing? Right, because all of this is sort of cyclical? Yes. Sorry. Go ahead.

Abhishek Goenka 3:56
So, Michael, absolutely. I think the way I, you know, I, I kind of put that edge is, you know, just, you know, a little bit of discipline and a little bit of patience. Right. I think these are the two things that we knew the last 20 years have taught me. Right. It’s typically I’m not sure if you would have heard the word FOMO. Right. The fear of missing out, that has been actually quite prevalent, you know, the space for, you know, multiple years. I think, what, you know, what this teaches you is just to kind of stay away from FOMO. Yeah, right. Yeah. Once the things are on an upturn, you know, that’s the time to actually relax, it’s time to take it easy, you know, be continued to be patient continue to be disciplined, and that the same thing when things go down to spell?

Michael Waitze 4:48
Yeah, so I’ve come up with this new term that I want to use, and it’s called a chaser. And what it means to me is somebody who, you know, started in space number one, then they moved into blocks shame they moved out of blockchain when it went out of favor in 2017, and 2020. They came in 21. They came in, and now all they want to do is NF T’s. And they’ll just chase the next thing. Do you know what I mean? But this gets back to this idea you talked about with FOMO. Right? If you learn, and I think I want to make this the title of this episode already, right, a little bit of discipline. And a little bit of patience is maybe the best thing to have when you’re investing because you realize, I don’t have to get into this exact thing right now. Because if I’m disciplined about it, I’ll get into the right thing. Does that make sense?

Abhishek Goenka 5:32
Absolutely. Michael, I couldn’t agree more.

Michael Waitze 5:35
Yeah, but you know what I mean, right. Like, if you’re only investing in the current trend, you’re already too late, I think. Yeah,

Abhishek Goenka 5:40
absolutely. Absolutely. I think look, one thing, you know, one thing that I’ve kind of learned about investing is you always invest behind fundamentals. Right. And as you pointed out, if you’re investing behind a trend, you’re already late, right? Like a typical VC investor, you know, you kind of invest ahead of trends, and you assume that you hope for the best, right?

Michael Waitze 6:08
If you’re good at investing in if you’re bad, you’re exactly to a trend that’s already existed. Sorry, I interrupted you. But I completely agree with you go ahead.

Abhishek Goenka 6:15
True. True. So Michael, I think that brings us to the point. You know, I think if you invest behind fundamentals, yeah, right. That is one thing, which I have seen is, you know, a much longer lived or a more eternal sort of a concept, as you know, as opposed to kind of investing behind the current trend.

Michael Waitze 6:34
I agree. Look, I like to think about secular changes. And what those secular changes mean, for the long term changes in an economy, right, or in an economic system. And I’m curious what the thesis is, and I love this to RPS GE Capital ventures. To me, the capital, makes it feel like a private equity fund. Right. But the venture is part of it makes it feel like a VC fund. And I’m curious what people can learn from private equity, because I think this is super important, actually, for my thesis in investing into investing in venture companies, if that makes sense.

Abhishek Goenka 7:13
Absolutely. So Michael, let me give you a small instance, right, or better small example. So what happens sometimes, you know, on a on a, let’s in a typical BCT, right, you have the stage at which the company gets funded, right? There is very little data to kind of backyard analysis. Yep. Right, you’re kind of following your gut, you’re following, let’s say, the founders background, and you’re following your understanding, you know, at a micro at a macro level, saying, you know, there’s a certain trend that’s going to play out, right. If the founders really capable, or has a really solid background, that person’s going to deliver, right. And then what you’ll end up doing is you end up taking multiple bets in a particular front, right? Let’s say that number of bets is 2530 35. Right? Assuming that at least few of your trends actually play out. And that’s how you make money. Now, the flip side of that is, it’s only going to be few of the trends that kind of play out and you get a, I would say, Product Market Fit in fewer of them, right, but the others actually kind of render in between all kinds of Fallout, right? And that’s why we, we you’re about a large mortality rate when it comes to, you know, venture capital investing, right? As, as opposed to, you know, the way I put put our private equity sort of mindset is, in a nutshell, I would want each and every portfolio of mine to click. Right. Which means that, you know, there is a lot more work that’s kind of done, you know, before making an investment, and after as well, okay, you do, no matter, you know, which industry that you know, you are investing behind, there are certain key KPIs in all of them. And then, you know, you actually do work to kind of underwrite all those KPIs. And at the same time, you know, you do take a call on the founder, you to take a call on the trend, you do take a call on the macro factors. But it’s the other things as well to give a equal amount of weightage. To do

Michael Waitze 9:15
you do your own, and not you personally, but does your firm think about doing your own sort of company agnostic research? Just sort of big wave, big trend Economic Research? And then try to find companies that fit in there? Or is it vice versa? Or some combination of both? You know what I mean? Because if you understand, you know, we can talk about food or eating or health as a perfect example of this, right? Like, if you believe that people are going to change the way they eat over time, then you’ll look for companies that are building into that, or do you say, Wait, a bunch of companies are building into this sector? Maybe that is a long term trend, or is it some kind of combination of both? You know what I mean?

Abhishek Goenka 9:51
Yes. So Michael, I think it’s a combination of both. But at the same time, I think I would give a little bit more weightage to the former I think one advantage of being a sector focused fund is, you know, pretty much all your 24 hours kind of ruined researching one sector. Okay, as opposed to, you know, let’s say covering, you know, multiple, eight or 10 sectors, right? When my time gets divided by eight. Now what happens? And that’s the beauty of the investing business, you you’ll end up meeting founders on a daily basis, you land up uring new ideas, new execution, new new ways of distribution on an everyday basis. Right. And this is what keeps holding you’re learning. Right? You keep seeing, okay, fine. This is something that, you know, I never thought of, oh, this is a new way of doing it. Right. This is something that it’s being done in this market, you know, can it be replicated over here? Okay. I know that this is a problem that the customers are facing. Now. There’s a startup, okay. They’re trying to they’re trying to solve this particular problem. And I think that is the fun part of it,

Michael Waitze 10:59
is in a way. So do you have your own research team that goes out? And does that obviously? Absolutely. So you’ve decided and this RPSGT stand for something like is it just everybody’s last name?

Abhishek Goenka 11:10
Okay. No. So rpsc is actually one of the top 10 Business conglomerates in India, it stands for RP Sanjeev Goenka group. They’ve got multiple business interests in India, including power speciality black retail media. In fact, you know, the, the people make the Fortune magazine in India is actually, you know, run by the rpsc group

Michael Waitze 11:36
interesting in the country. Interesting. That must give you an edge as well. But does that that must mean that you’ve then put your minds together, done some research and thought, Okay, here’s our overall thesis, do you want to dig a little bit deeper into what this thesis is? And why you all thought this was the right way to go?

Abhishek Goenka 11:54
Sure. Absolutely. So, Michael, if I look at it, let me let me, you know, divide my answer in two parts. Number one, um, I’ve always been a big believer of the Indian consumption story. Okay. So at a very, very high level, even if I look at, you know, whether it’s a per capita income in India, you know, it’s all it’s, it’s almost a fraction of some of the more developed nations, right? If I see the demographic profile, in India, almost 70% of the population is actually, you know, below 40 years of age, right? And the way this population actually shops or thinks about consuming, right is very, very different from what let’s say our parents would have done or for, for that, matter of fact, given how I would have done, right, I would say, the preferences, the knowledge, the awareness, even up, let’s say, some of the younger members of my team, I see how different it is, you know, then compared to what I used to do probably 20 or 30 years back. And that, that actually led me to believe that India secularly is a very, very growing, you know, strong consumption nation. That’s Part A, Part B, I think this entire trend has, you know, been catapulted probably multi fold. Number one, because of, you know, the penetration of internet in India over the last, you know, decade or so. And second is because of COVID. You know, amongst, I would say, you know, one of the positives that I’ve seen from a COVID perspective is, you know, the entire rise of digital adoption in India. And which has kind of catapulted growth, especially for, you know, online first businesses,

Michael Waitze 13:42
but so how does that impact the consumption part of this right, the consumption thing I completely understand, I spent a lot of time talking across the Michael Waitze Media Network about how GDP per capita growth and GDP per capita expansion definitely changes the way the economy is read. To me, that’s one of those secular trends that I’ve been talking about, which is why Fintech is important, right? Which is why I’m sure all these kinds of things are important, which is why insurance penetration is low, but it’s going to hit a it’s going to hit an inflection point, then it’s going to just spike higher because it always does whenever GDP per capita goes higher, but how does it change the food or the brand sorry, okay, part of this right, why does that matter so much?

Abhishek Goenka 14:21
Okay. Let me give you let me give you a basic household example. Go ahead right. Till I would say till about seven or eight years back, right. So chord chord is letter food, you know, it’s it’s certain food dish, which is consumed in almost every Indian household, okay, right. till about seven or eight years back code was essentially, you know, made at home. Right. So people used to ferment many people using our homemade culture. They used to set it and they used to consume code the next day, right. Now then there was a product which is essentially gave, which was either a postcard or a set card. Okay, now, and this was all it was the same cost, and a much, much better product, okay, much more convenient product, then what you could have paid at a household right? Now, the moment a customer gets a fair, right, and even right now, I would say, I mean, if I were to put a number to it, I’m guessing more than 60 or 70% of India still makes CodeTwo. Right? Because, either, you know, they have never been exposed to a product like this, or they’re not even aware that a product like this exists. But the moment you know, both these two barriers, you know, get kind of overcome, and there is an availability of a product you need to consume on a daily basis. Right? Customers actually switch is, this is one of the example.

Michael Waitze 15:52
Yeah, this one is, I’m just now I want to ask you another question, too, because this is super interesting to me. In a country like India, right, what’s the population 1.31 point 4 billion people? That’s right. But India is also a very diverse country, right. So multiple states, a lot of people that I talked to in India, not my opinion, but what I’m told is you go 100 200 kilometers away. And it’s like being in a completely different place with a slightly different culture, a different language. It’s great, though, right? Which is different than stroke. But it’s kind of different. In other words, if I go from Massachusetts, to Maine, or from Massachusetts to Vermont, it’s kind of the same kind of people. But to be fair, if I go from Massachusetts to Tennessee, I may as well be like on another planet, right? So I get that. But is there a bias internally? And do you think it changes over time to kind of homegrown brands? Do you know what I mean? Like, yes, after five to 10 years, will there be a development of a brand in India? That’s so amazing, like Nike or something that not only is it locally loved, but globally love to? Can that happen?

Abhishek Goenka 16:52
Absolutely. Mica, let me put that absolutely. in capital letters.

Michael Waitze 16:58
You in a way, don’t you? Because it’ll make first of all, make the world a better place. But also, it almost has to happen, doesn’t it?

Abhishek Goenka 17:05
It does, it has to happen. And Michael, it has started happening in town, right? From our fans perspective, I can say, you know, this is one of our KPIs, right? We want to actually take Indian brands globally, right. I have already seen a lot of brands kind of doing that. So if I, you know, if I look at Forest essentials, if I look at kama Ayurveda, right, or whether is is a concept, which is a very, very Indianized concept, right? This was I mean, I read, I was born in India, right? And it’s got a lot of goodness around it. And this is what, you know, let’s Indian brands are actually taking it global, even, let’s say if I look at one of our portfolio companies called basics, right, which is, which is like more of a modern AI or whether, you know, personal care goodness brand, which is actually now being sold in about six countries already. Even, you know, even if I look at, you know, some of the other brands in India, if I look at, you know, there’s another company called Iveta experience that’s doing the same. There are a lot of personal care brands, including the likes of M caffeine, or mama skin craft as well, right, which are actually being, you know, sold in multiple geographies. And if I were to kind of crystal ball, I would, you know, I would feel, you know, I would actually see that in probably in the next five to 10 years, there’s not going to be five or 10, there’s going to be at least hundreds of brands, you know, from India, which are, you know, made in India, which are gonna be available everywhere.

Michael Waitze 18:38
It almost has to be right, in a country that large and that diverse, the idea that there can’t be a brand that’s going to be global is silliness, I think at some level,

Unknown Speaker 18:46
right? Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s true, because this is something

Michael Waitze 18:49
that’s been really important to me, you said earlier, right? That, you know, when you invest at the earliest stages, and this is a theory of mine to you kind of don’t know what you’re gonna get, right? Because it’s really in my mind, it’s an experiment, you’re really funding an experiment, right, which means you’ve got to fund which means you’ve got to fund a bunch of them. I don’t know what the optimal amount is, but it’s more than one for sure. Right? Sure. Absolutely. But here’s my question. Do you care and I can I wish I had a I wish I had a better analogy for this. But forgive my Americanness here. Like every investment doesn’t have to be a homerun does it? Like we used to say like singles and doubles, singles and doubles, if you hit enough of those, right, you score enough runs and you make enough money, I think, and that’s good enough. Are you tired at some level of hearing about like, you know, one company in my portfolio returns 40 times my portfolio. So the other companies, I don’t care if they live or die, and I want to dig a little bit deep. And I’ll tell you why. Because I used to have this theory about the movie business to write that movie companies would say, oh, we’ll make 10 movies a year nine of them will be terrible. One of them will make enough money so that our whole year is fine. And then Pixar came along and said we’re only going to tell the best stories. Every single one of those movies made a billion dollars, whether you like them or not, it’s a different story. But but it’s a different way to invest. And I think investing is kind of the same way. Like if you’re happy to get $100 million, or $200 million companies, and just like 1015 20 of these, aren’t you way ahead of the game?

Abhishek Goenka 20:17
That is true. That’s true. So, Michael, let me let me answer this question slightly differently. Right. The moment the moment you try, and, you know, as you hope that there’s going to be one or two portfolios, you know, amongst the entire fund that actually do well, inherently, inherently, you are taking a very, very high risk, high return sort of a call. Yeah, right. And funds have done well, you know, the strategy has actually worked well in, in the country, okay, or even globally. Okay. But again, it’s a question about, let’s say, for any investment for you to make 40x 50x, there is something disruptive about that company, right? The company has to be, you know, doing things in a much more disruptive manner as compared to a certain incumbent. Right, which inherently comes to the question that, you know, the company has to take risk, which is much, much higher. Right. And at some point of time, you know, this, this almost becomes like a binary situation. Yeah. And also, and also dependent on, let’s say, future action. So let’s say, for example, you know, if there’s a, if there’s a funding winter, right now, or let’s say, you know, COVID accurate in 2020. Right, then, typically, you know, many times the story actually kind of, you know, takes a pause, right? There is actually a question on the existential risk, the way we look at it is inherently, let’s say, for something, let’s say, if we invest in consumer brands, right, I act, right, I hope, you know, at least few of my portfolios, you know, give me 30x 40x. But I don’t underwrite that, right? For me, what I underwrite is, if bulk of my portfolio, and let’s say 60% 70% of my portfolio, actually gives me like above average sort of a return or maybe maybe the top, not the top decile, but maybe at least the top quartile returns, okay, then the risk that I have to take or undertake undertake is, you know, a lot lower right, with the probability of success being much higher.

Michael Waitze 22:25
Yep. Yeah, I mean, you’re just doing a completely different risk return calculation. I would also say this to, you know, some of these companies, whether they’re global or local or regional, right, that have made a ton of money in individual companies that, like you said, were completely disruptive. There’s a part of me that feels like, first of all that that’s super cyclical as well. But second of all, that may be that time period in venture investing is kind of over because I look at everything from an arbitrage standpoint, right? In the sense that if I see a mispricing of any kind of asset, and I start buying that mispriced asset early, at some point, everyone’s going to notice it, it not for the least of which reasons because they see me buying it. And the more people that see me buying it, which is what a startup or a venture investment is, the more the higher those prices are going to get over time, and then the more silly investments are going to get made to shouldn’t get made. Is that fair?

Abhishek Goenka 23:20
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. That’s your classic Jesus story, right?

Michael Waitze 23:24
Yeah, I mean, I just think it’s, I just think it’s so over broke right now. And then you get get situations like Klarna, or we work or god forbid, Theranos, right, where everyone just is like, even if you don’t believe the story, you believe that more people will believe the story. So you invest in it anyway, kind of thing. I get the sense, you’re not No,

Abhishek Goenka 23:42
that’s true. That is true. We actually stay away, we have not to a large extent from that, right. So if again, going back to the same thing each since, you know, we pay a lot of weightage to fundamentals with a particular company, right? Since you know, we are in bed, like we are brand investors, we pay a lot of weightage to, you know, what the strength of the brand is, right? Because it’s an eternal mode, right? We’re assuming that the company actually spends on brand buildings actually building a brand brand is a tunnel mode. Right? If I mean, if I look at it, you know, there are brands, which I have kind of used in my childhood, right, and I still look up to them. Maybe I do not consume them today. But I do always have a recollection that okay, this is a brand that kind of stood for, you know, XYZ

Michael Waitze 24:32
right? Yeah, like, I don’t know for me like Coca Cola. It’s just never gonna go I don’t drink a lot of coke, but I know it’s there. I

Abhishek Goenka 24:40
truly, absolutely. is one of the top brands.

Michael Waitze 24:45
So I can ask you about this too, though. There’s there’s been a mismatch always right, from an investor standpoint, into the investment company standpoint, rather into the investment company standpoint where it felt like those that had the money and the those that were good You know, giving the money to the founders and stuff hadn’t had more leverage. And again, to me, it’s like the same arbitrage at some point it evens out right? As as it becomes harder to invest, the founders kind of get more leverage or just have higher status. What’s the view, from your perspective and from the company’s perspective about just like how important it is? To find the great founders, but also to treat them? Super? Well? Do you know what I mean?

Abhishek Goenka 25:24
Absolutely. Michael, I think you’ve touched upon a great topic, I think, see, from Okay, firstly, we don’t look at founders as money making machines. Right, which I think is it end of the day, you know, you are dealing with a human being? Yeah, I think it’s super, you know, by definition startups are, you know, going to be certain organizations, which are crunched on resources. Yeah. Right. As you know, as opposed to, let’s say, a large MNC, or, let’s say, a corporate, right, they don’t have, you know, as many, you know, little deep pockets or, you know, resources. So, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s the same set of founders, you know, who are probably doing the job of probably 20 other people. Right. And it’s, and I think one has to kind of realize that it’s okay to commit an error. Right, it’s okay to kind of miss your targets. The moment I think that understanding kind of kicks in, you know, with you being on the other side, okay. I think a lot of things changes your the way you kind of approach a certain problem the way you deal with founders. I think those that changes, right, I think so I think that’s really important.

Michael Waitze 26:36
Do you do as a team do mentoring as well. In other words, if you’re bringing these founders in, and you’re treating them more thinking about them in the way that you’re categorizing right now, you know, some people are really great at x, but not great at why and I do find that there’s this hubris among humans, that if I’m really good at something, I must be good at everything kind of thing. But business itself, like growing a business, building a business, scaling a business is a very unique skill. And it’s different than engineering and different than even understanding what’s important for our brand, right? Do you have a systematic way of teaching people? Or is there more like an ad hoc way? Do you know what I mean?

Abhishek Goenka 27:12
So, Mike, I won’t say there’s a, there’s a systematic mentoring process for let’s say, an organization like, you know, ours, but what we try and do is, you know, there are certain, there are certain basic tools, and there are certain pitfalls, right? What we encourage and advise our founders is to kind of stick to basics consistently and be disciplined about it sooner, rather than later, you will be successful. And I think that’s the recipe that’s kind of worked for us.

Michael Waitze 27:41
And what do you think he’s, you know, a lot of venture funds, or a lot of not P funds, so much, right. But a lot of venture funds will require their founders to send them reports every month and do all this kind of stuff. What do you think about that as a policy? Is that something you expect you demand? Like, how does that work?

Abhishek Goenka 27:56
Okay, so, okay, Michael, I think there are, there are various degrees of information or approvals that, you know, you as an investor can ask for, you know, from a company’s perspective, but look, end of the day, I think, you know, even you as an investor, since you’re managing multiple portfolio, there’s only, you know, there can only be like certain lead indicators that are, you know, that you’re kind of, at least supposed to outgrow responsible to kind of track, you know, on a periodic basis. Now, whether it, you know, it could be monthly, it could be weekly as well, right. Now, you know, that kind that kind of varies, but I think for, let’s say, some of the younger companies, it’s important to, you know, at least in short, that, you know, they stay disciplined, or they kind of, they don’t lose the, you know, the larger picture of the site, or the larger picture, right. And hence, it’s important sometime, you know, for funds to keep, you know, watching those key metrics, whether it’s eight of them, or 10 of them, you know, at a much, much shorter frequency, as opposed to maybe, you know, the, some of the more later stage companies where you can take a little bit more backseat, right? Because obviously, they’ve kind of matured a lot more, they’ve learned a lot more, right. And in which case, maybe, you know, this kind of frequency increases.

Michael Waitze 29:14
What do you do, internally, to maintain this because it sounds to me like the culture that you project, not just to your founders, but just externally about your fund and your investment thesis. In a way it’s like kind of caring and empathetic this is what it feels like to me. How do you when you bring people in? Like it’s a really it’s in a way? It’s a weird question, right? But how do you ensure that like, they fit into that process as well, right that you know, you said earlier, we don’t think of founders as money making machines are human right? Because you’re going to you want to make sure that when they’re hiring as well, that they’re hiring people that care too, but that also make money and you know, do good business, but internally, you have to have that same mindset to write because you can’t make every decision you can’t analyze every deal kind of thing. How do you ensure that internally as well, yeah.

Abhishek Goenka 30:05
Okay. So Michael, I think firstly, you know, as I, you know, maybe at the cost of repetition, you know, our, our advice to founders is, it’s okay to make mistakes. Yep. Right. So unless and until, you know, you’re taking the right amount of risk, which are not putting the business at, you know, the existence of the business or Jeopardy, it’s fine. Right? And unless and until, you know, you keep for anything, like, even if it’s a marketing campaign, even it’s on hiring, right. I think if you’re, you know, if you’re kind of correct, you know, six to seven times out of 10, I think you’ve done a great job.

Michael Waitze 30:40
We used to say, so I just interrupt you, we used to say in the trading world, I can I used to ask people that we were hiring, like, what kind of win ratio do you need to win? And everybody wouldn’t be like, I don’t know. 7080 90%? And I’m like, really? And do you have that percentage in the rest of your life, like in the rest of your life, you’re winning 80 90% of the time, in trading, right? You’re sitting on a trading desk, if you win 51% of the time. You’re winning? I’m just saying like, Absolutely, yeah. Sorry. I answered. Oh, that’s

Abhishek Goenka 31:08
interesting. No, no, that’s a that’s an interesting data point. But, again, if I kind of draw an analogy to that, I think that’s how typical businesses, you know, would operate. And especially, let’s say, for a country like India, right. Where, you know, obviously, there is friction of doing business. And as you pointed out, you know, India’s not only one country, but it’s probably, you know, multiple references of multiple consumers thinking differently, and, you know, consuming differently. So it becomes all the more challenging for something like this.

Michael Waitze 31:39
Yeah, but it’s fun to in a way no, right.

Abhishek Goenka 31:42
It is. It is, it is. So that’s why it was I remember, you know, one of one of the people, you know, they kind of asked me, Do you invest in India only right. And I said, you know, it’s sort of question about being India only India itself is, you know, more than 12 countries put together.

Michael Waitze 31:59
Sorry, I’m laughing because do you invest in India only? Like, is that not enough for you? It’s more than one seventh of the world’s entire population. GDP per capita growth is growing. The government is actually pretty smart about the things that they do to encourage like investment in growth and technology. Frankly, UPI alone helps drive growth. Because if you believe that the movement of money is key to the movement to the growth of business, right, UPI alone is a transformational thing. Right? Yeah, I don’t know. I think if someone says Do you only invest in India, I think your response should be do you only eat food it’s just like doesn’t have enough. Anyway, look, I really appreciate your time today. I don’t want to take up any more. This was awesome. Hopefully you had as much fun as I did. Chief Investment Officer. Abhishek Goenka of RPSG Capital Ventures thank you so much for doing this today.

Abhishek Goenka 32:55
Michael, thank you so much for the for the pleasure being here and thank you so much for having me. I had a lot of fun.

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