Sep 2017 – Sep 2019 · 2 yrs

• I head Product at Hike across the Messaging, Social, Content & Payments and Platform products as well as New Initiatives and bets (and do whatever else needs to be done).
• We're building some really awesome products to become the only app any Indian will ever need - to connect with people, content & services in the easiest way possible.

Aug 2016 – Sep 2019 · 3 yrs 1 mo

• I run Mergers & Acquisitions at Hike, among other things.
• Here are some deals I've led:
• Acquired ZipPhone in 2015 to ramp up Voice calling features within Hike
• Acquired Creo in 2017 and integrated the team to launch the ‘Total’ initiative within Hike
• Acquired the Pulse team in 2017 and integrated the team to ramp up the Camera & Multimedia initiatives within Hike
• Led an investment in WinZo in 2019 to make a bet on the gaming space (with real money gaming) for Hike
• Led more than 100 evaluations and discussions from 2016 to 2019 with potential startups to acquire / invest in to further the Hike vision.
• I'm actively looking to invest in or acquire potential startups who we can partner with to achieve our vision of bringing a billion Indians online together by being the only app any Indian needs.
• If you're a startup founder who wants to go big and solve user problems at massive scale with a bunch of really smart guys, please ping me.
• We've raised total funding of more than $260M and are valued at $1.4B as of August 2016.

Aug 2016 – Aug 2017 · 1 yr

• I led the Payments team at Hike. We launched a Wallet with UPI enabled Payments as well as a set of basic services like Recharge and some cool social payment features like Blue Packets - aiming to become one of the first Indian super apps with the full spectrum of offerings ranging from communication, social, content, payments and services.
• It was one of the most complex products we’ve built so far involving multiple partners comprising of banks, wallet stacks, service providers and required a lot of legal, regulatory jiujitsu during one of the most exciting and turbulent periods in the history of the Indian payments space, right in the middle of the launch of UPI, demonetisation, random KYC guidelines and a payments gold rush. They say when you're offered a seat on a rocketship, just get on it. I say - fuck rocketships, try rollercoasters. This was definitely one.

Aug 2016 – Feb 2017 · 6 mos

• I run the Hike Labs team at Hike, among other things, working on product moonshots and experiments across Hike - messaging, social, platform & other areas. We're always trying to build the next big thing!
• We're the biggest Indian app with over 100 million users in 3 years since launch (Jan 2016), making us one of the fastest growing startups globally. Our goal is to bring every Indian online and enable them to connect with their closest friends, express themselves freely and consume content and services in the simplest way possible.

Aug 2012 – Jul 2016 · 3 yrs 11 mos

• I run the Growth team at Hike, working on growth, product, strategy, analytics and marketing.
• We're the biggest Indian app with over 100 million users in 3 years since launch (Jan 2016), making us one of the fastest growing startups globally. Our goal is to bring every Indian online and enable them to connect with their closest friends, express themselves freely and consume services in the simplest way possible.
• Awesome stuff I've been fortunate to have driven at hike:
• 1. Taking hike to 100M+ users (Making it the biggest Indian app)
• 2. Setting up the Growth team at hike (the best growth team in India; I may be biased, but the numbers speak for themselves)
• 3. Launching the first scalable mobile growth hack in India (talk time rewards)
• 4. Building multiple core features of hike
• Hidden Mode (one of hike's most popular features)
• Hike Caller (know who's calling you)
• Match Up (a dating microservice)
• Hike Direct (chat and share files offline)
• Natasha (India's first, most loved bot)
• Hike Daily (your daily update)
• Hike Smell (no wait, that was an April Fool's joke)
• 5. Setting up the Data team at hike & helping set up the whole data/analytics infrastructure.
• 6. Raising Hike's first big funding round ($65M in 2014, led by Tiger Global, Softbank and Bharti)
• 7. Acquiring our first startup (ZipPhone, which now powers Hike Calling)
• 8. Driving hike's biggest marketing campaign to date in 2015.
• 9. Setting up the Labs (Moonshots & Experiments) team at hike to drive radical innovation (WIP)
• 10. Setting up the M&A team at hike (WIP)
• 11. Lots of other insane shit I can't talk about yet (or I'll have to kill you). War stories that'll either go in my autobiography or with me to my grave.

Jul 2011 – Jul 2012 · 1 yr · India

• I led research and coverage for the TMT sector at Trefis covering multiple companies in the Internet and Mobile space like Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Apple, Alibaba, Zynga etc.
• I also helped run the India team operations in the second half of my stint there.
• Fun times, great learning, but eventually, not my thing. I wanted to build shit, not just write about it.

Aug 2010 – Jun 2011 · 10 mos

• I joined Merrill Lynch (acquired by Bank of America) right out of college to be a cog in the wheel and help build/run the technology powering the Great American Bubble Machine. I was a young, impressionable kid (and for some weird reason, quite influenced by Liar's Poker and Wall Street thinking I'd make a difference in the way the system works.)
• One month in, I was selected to be part of a special training program around Investment Banking, Capital Markets, Equity Research and Risk Management. I was very curious and learnt a lot about the way money works at scale. Aced the program.
• Quit in a couple of months after the program ended. Not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Jan 2010 – Jun 2010 · 5 mos

• I was my college representative for Mozilla (the guys who made Firefox, the coolest browser 10 years ago).
• Did a lot of cool shit, learnt a lot, made a lot of new friends, but that's about it. Not much to say here.

Nov 2008 – Oct 2009 · 11 mos

• I was my college representative for the Microsoft Student Partner program.
• Did a lot of cool shit, learnt a lot, made a lot of new friends, impressed some girls, but that's about it.

Jan 2005 – Jan 2011 · 6 yrs

• Started a small setup with the very noble, world changing motive of earning a shit ton of money and retiring by the time I turned 25. (I was 16 then).
• Disillusioned by all the time I'd spent in school learning nothing (yes, not a very big fan of the Indian education system) while insanely cool people were dropping out and creating billion dollar companies (Yes Bill, Steve, Larry, Mark, you made me hate my childhood -- but also inspired me), I set up my own company (don't think I ever registered it) to mark the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey.
• Formed my own little internet conglomerate
• Set up a computer hardware mod shop (helping other kids assemble and pimp out their own gaming rigs)
• Set up a web development gig (creating websites for non tech savvy adults who wanted an online presence for their businesses)
• Set up a blogging network (couple of tech blogs, my own personal blog, some syndicated content and a shit ton of SEO) and maxed out on Adsense earnings there
• Freelanced, hustled a lot and practically did everything my little mind could figure out which could bring home the $$$ (I was a very ingenious little asshole back then)
• Shut all of it down in a raging fit because while it was lucrative, it couldn't scale as product businesses could (Yeah, fuck services startups. Not cool).
• Defining quote during my life then: "A million dollars isn't cool, you know what's cool? A billion dollars!"
• PS: The name is like one of the email IDs you set up when you were a kid, and then that haunts you for the rest of your life.