Founders First

About Founders First

India’s largest founder conclave by India’s largest early-stage investor.
Founders First brings together the who’s who of the startup ecosystem from unicorns, marquee investors and leading operators under one roof to help founders get domain & stage-specific insights from experts in the ecosystem.
Connect, learn and grow with seasoned founders & get to know what it takes to build a successful
startup.

30+

Speakers

1000+

Attendees

150+

Founders

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Discussion points

1

Product driven growth

2

The latest trends in user experience

3

Lessons in building a company by first-time founders

4

Navigating hiring, talent and ESOP

5

Creating a scalable ESOP policy

6

Startup exits

7

Journey from startup to IPO

8

The hard truth about building a startup

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Speakers

Balaji Srinivasan

Angel Investor & Entrepreneur

Anupam Mittal

Founder & CEO, People Group

K Hari

CBO, National Stock Exchange

S Ramesh

MD & CEO, Kotak Investment Banking

Tarush Bhalla

Assistant Editor LiveMint

Chandra Srikanth

Editor: Technology, Startups and New Economy MoneyControl

Shuchita Baranwal

Head of Design Gameskraft

Suhas Motwani

Founder The Product Folks

Rahul Mathur

Founder & CEO BimaPe

Anirudh Singla

Founder & CEO Pepper Content

Sidu Ponnappa

SVP Engineering, Internal Products Gojek

Sahil Bhagat

Kaushik Mukherjee

Co-founder & COO SUGAR Cosmetics

Vineeta Singh

Co-founder & CEO SUGAR Cosmetics

Sourabh Gupta

Founder & CEO Vernacular.ai

Agenda

9:30 - 10:15 am

Opening Keynote

The power of decentralisation and India's place in the world. A free wheeling conversation with an entrepreneur, investor and futurist.

Balaji Srinivasan, Entrepreneur & Angel Investor & Shanti Mohan, LetsVenture (Moderator)

10:15 - 11:00 am

Product Led Growth

How do you reconfigure the marketing & sales mix to let the product lead the way? Learn how your product itself can be used as the main vehicle to drive growth.

Sidu Ponnappa, Gojek
Suhas Motwani, The Product Folks (Moderator)

11:00 - 11:45 am

Trends in UI and UX

Trends and current issues around digital products and design for Indian tech startups.

Ashish Toshniwal and Stephen Clements of Y Media Labs

12:15 - 12:45 pm

Campus to Company

What have been the steepest learning curves for these 1st time founders as far as company building is concerned?

Anirudh Singla, Pepper Content
Sourabh Gupta, Vernacular.ai
Rahul Mathur, BimaPe
Mrinalini Arora, LetsVenture (Moderator)

12:45 - 1:15 pm

Hiring, Talent & ESOP

The most underrated, but most important part of any business - figure out the best practices to retain talent and make ESOPs go beyond paper money

Siddharth Sangwan, Lightspeed
Hari T.N, Big Basket
Srikanth Iyer, HomeLane
Sanjay Jha, MyStartupEquity.com
Tarush Bhalla, Mint (Moderator)

1:15 - 1:45 pm

ESOP: Let's Get Practical

How do you create an ESOP policy that scales with your startup?

How much ESOP should you give out at various stages?

How should you approach ESOP liquidity & buybacks?

Varun Khaitan, Urban Company
Sanjay Jha, MyStartupEquity.com

2:15 - 2:45 pm

Ask Me Anything

Anupam Mittal, Angel Investor Founder of Shaadi.com

2:45 - 3:15 pm

Why I Sold My Startup

What are some of the important things to think about before selling your startup?

Raj Neravati, Hug Innovations
Shilpa Sharma, Jaypore
Sahil Bhagat, Vebbler
Syna Dehnugara, LetsVenture (Moderator)

3:15 - 3:45 pm

Road to IPO for Indian Startups

What will it take to get Indian tech startups to list in India? A 360 degree view from founders, regulators & key stakeholders

Prashant Tandon, 1mg
Hari K, NSE
S Ramesh, Kotak Investment Bank
Nimesh Kampani, LetsVenture Plus
Chandra Srikanth, MoneyControl (Moderator)

3:45 - 4:15 pm

Some Hard Truths

From starting up to crossing the valley of death and from fundraising to scaling - it's definitely a school of hard knocks

Vineeta Singh & Kaushik Mukherjee of Sugar Cosmetics

Who should attend?

Early-stage and aspiring founders building out new ventures

Founders looking to connect with operators, investors and seasoned founders

Founders keen to decode the latest trends in their domains

Why should you attend?

Engage with top investors, founders, operators across networking sessions and knowledge discussions

Understand key challenges, trends and opportunities in the startup ecosystem for founders

A glimpse into the past editions

For sponsorship and partnership

Sonam Khurana

Head Brand & Marketing

sonam.khurana@letsventure.com

Gurudutt Biswal

Associate Digital Marketing

gurudutt.biswal@letsventure.com

Build Together. Scale Together.

About Founders First

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Discussion points

Speakers

Agenda

Opening Keynote

Product Led Growth

Trends in UI and UX

Campus to Company

Hiring, Talent & ESOP

ESOP: Let's Get Practical

Ask Me Anything

Why I Sold My Startup

Road to IPO for Indian Startups

Some Hard Truths

Who should attend?

Why should you attend?

A glimpse into the past editions

When to take a SaaS company cross-border?‍Priya Ranjan, Silicon Valley Bank

How do you sell cross-border?‍Anand Jain, Clevertap

Getting to $10 M in sales‍Manav Garg, Eka Software

Do’s and dont’s of community marketing‍Suchita Salwan, LBB

What are the COVID-19 positive sectors?‍Anjali Bansal, Avaana Capital

For sponsorship and partnership

Founders First

When to take a SaaS company cross-border?
‍Priya Ranjan, Silicon Valley Bank

How do you sell cross-border?
‍Anand Jain, Clevertap

Getting to $10 M in sales
‍Manav Garg, Eka Software

Do’s and dont’s of community marketing
‍Suchita Salwan, LBB

What are the COVID-19 positive sectors?
‍Anjali Bansal, Avaana Capital