From Developer to Serial Entrepreneur: Hevo Data CEO Manish Jethani (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: When you moved out in 2011, you had already transitioned from being a hardcore nerdy developer to someone experienced in sales. You had some understanding of what it takes to close enterprise deals. What happens next?

Manish Jethani: I still felt like an engineer who was trying to apply the engineering concepts to sales. The engineer in me has never left. Nothing gives me more joy than creating something. Building a product is still very thrilling.

When I was deciding to move out, I had this personal experience where we used to fetch groceries in supermarkets and it was cumbersome. I thought why can’t we have someone deliver groceries to us. I wanted to do a pilot on that. I was in my apartment trying to get this pamphlet in apartments. I would insert the pamphlet and check the demand.

Back in the day, lean startups weren’t popular. This was the simplest way of seeing if there is demand. I started getting so many calls. I was doing this small POC. Over the phone, I would take the orders. I would go to the store, segregate the items, and get it delivered. This was super exciting. I was trying to raise capital for that. This was in the 2011 timeframe. It wasn’t clear how big e-commerce in India will become.

The user behavior, in terms of online purchases, is not fully baked-in as it is today. I couldn’t raise capital for that. I met a gentleman who wanted to start his own startup. I ended up having good chemistry with him. I was trying to pitch to him. I ended up joining his startup after quitting Accel Partners in India.

Sramana Mitra: What was he doing?

Manish Jethani: That was about how to get the fashion and beauty store recreated online. In the US, you have Sephora where you could get all cosmetics online. That was the initial category. The idea was to start with cosmetics and go to fashion exclusively.

Sramana Mitra: Did that work?

Manish Jethani: We got caught up in a time when the market was not taking the whole e-commerce. In the process, we got an acquisition offer from a startup in a similar category. That’s how that journey panned out.

Sramana Mitra: Did you have to work for the acquiring company?

Manish Jethani: I was there for a few months. Creating something from scratch is my true calling. I was managing a large team of 180 people. I figured out that building products is what I want to do. I wanted to create something on my own. I was the second person in the founding team. I had seen all the journey – product management, hiring people, and setting up warehouses. Now was the time for me to start something on my own.

Sramana Mitra: What year was that?

Manish Jethani: Beginning of 2014.

Sramana Mitra: What was the idea this time around?

Manish Jethani: This is one of the key learnings that I want to pass on to entrepreneurs. I didn’t have a compelling problem that I wanted to solve. I didn’t have a specific idea that I wanted to pursue, but I knew I wanted to do my own startup. I tried quite a few things in between. Most of them didn’t work. That was my number one learning. You have to have a compelling reason for creating a startup. The reason for you to create a startup cannot be to create a startup. There has to be some problem.

I was speaking to one of the experienced entrepreneurs. He asked me, “What kind of startup do you want to build?”

Sramana Mitra: Startups are very different – B2B is different from B2C, for example. Also, how does that align to your unfair advantage?

Manish Jethani: I couldn’t really understand. I felt like I could do anything. I can write code. I have done enterprise sales. I have done consumer internet.

This segment is part 2 in the series : From Developer to Serial Entrepreneur: Hevo Data CEO Manish Jethani
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