2 decades of Amit Kumar’s journey | CA | Management Consultant| StartupCFO | VC at Ah! Ventures

2 decades of Amit Kumar’s journey | CA | Management Consultant| StartupCFO | VC at Ah! Ventures

2 decades of Amit Kumar’s exciting professional journey https://www.linkedin.com/in/amit-kumar-30436a10/

About him I am a Venture Capital Investment Professional, CFO, Business Scalability Expert and a Finance Consultant focusing on Small & Medium Enterprises (SME). Currently, spearheading investments at ah! Ventures, advising companies on VC investments in the startup and SME space. Previously, Partner at A&A Business Consulting and Indian Institute of Learning and Development.

Q1. Before we plunge into the professional part, could you guide us through your early life about your family, schooling, college, what prompted you to take CA and why not MBA?

Ans: From a very young age I have travelled quite a bit so I was born in Delhi, hardly stayed there, then went across to the continent of Africa for five years, was in Kenya for five years, I had the most amazing time as a child there with a big house and a nice big car and a big garden in front of the house which was luxury in a country like Kenya. Then in about 5 years’ time we came back, then stayed in Ludhiana for some time which is in Punjab and that’s why a lot of people call me a Punjabi but that’s not the case, I am a Multani, which means my grandparents were from Pakistan and they migrated to India during partition. Then we shifted to Gujrat Baroda and that is where my majority of the education happened. It was in a convent school, from standard 4 till about college I was there and loads of opportunities were there during that time because of what we really learnt in school. I think school today and school at that time were very very different.

I decided to become a CA when I was in ninth standard because somebody asked me what do you want to become and I never liked science so I was like okay I’ll become a CA and I had no clue how to go about it till standard 12 when they introduced the foundation course. I was the first batch of the foundation course in 1995 or 1996. I filled in the form like my other friends it was great seeing 7 people going to class and having fun and enjoying themselves but then reality check happened when 6 of my friends failed and I was the only one who passed the foundation test. I panicked what will I do now that all my friends wouldn’t be there with me but I stayed put there and the intermediate was a breeze but then the bigger reality check came in the final examination when the first accountancy paper was there where all six questions were compulsory questions. I didn’t know any of the answer of the questions at that point of time but I was a very fun-loving guy all the time. I never thought it would be very difficult because I was a school topper in my 12th standard, a gold medalist and I thought its very easy but you need sometimes the reality check. I came home and told my dad about the exam and at that moment I realised I wouldn’t clear my exam and then I took second attempt and that also didn’t click and then I figured out its high time I go back to my old school days where extreme discipline, dedication, sincerity was required to really ensure that I have to pass the examination at one go. At third attempt I cleared both the groups at the same time and for me it was a Eureka moment and that’s the day I opened a big champagne bottle at my house.

I have been a national level tennis player, a state level badminton and a table tennis player so sports have been a very very integral part of my life. I walk everyday even in this lockdown; I go to my terrace and walk like four kilometers. I also do some breathing exercises and some push-ups.

So that’s a little bit about me married with one daughter and one wife as I always say. My daughter is nine years old and my wife works as a cost accountant with Castrol.

Q2. You always had this consultant bent of mind then why did you not go for an MBA then because consultants usually want to showcase the MBA stamp. So tell us about that.

Ans: It’s a very valid question and I have been hearing this from people for a while and I think I became a CA more by chance or an accident than anything else. Once I start something I don’t leave it in the middle and that’s why I completed my CA. It’s not that I didn’t try for an MBA but whenever I wanted to do my MBA I had to go to an IIM so again I typically took the CAT and figured out no I am not made for the IIMs. The only way I could learn the tricks of management consulting is to get into management consulting. I couldn’t go to management school to learn quite a few things. Today how chartered accountants are learning things have changed dramatically and drastically what has happened in the past as well. In the past a chartered accountant was an accountant but today the role has completely changed off the CFO or maybe into analysis. In fact CFOs are becoming CEOs, that’s what the trend is showing because they know finance so well. That is precisely the reason I got into management consulting. When I joined Mahajan and Aibara, I was in the audit division which was doing internal audit. I was there for 3 months and then it came to mind that I should try bank also; it is exciting trading money, wearing a fantastic Italian cut suit and being a banker, I wanted to be that. So I went to bank, racked the exam, cracked the interviews and day 1 I went to the headquarters of IDBI bank and then they told me now you are going to be in corporate accounts, you’ll be doing RBI reconcilations. I thought I’ll be given the department that fare the best treasury department but they said no that’s what the management had decided. So in the afternoon I called my dad and told him that I was put in the accounts department and he said you do one thing, you come back. I was like “Wow. That is the validation from a father you generally want.” So I talked to the HR guys and took all my original papers and around 4.30 I left the office and so I joined the bank on the same day and quit the bank on the same day. Next day I went to Mahajan and Aibara like nothing had happened and then they said maybe audit is not the right cut for you so why don’t you go the management consulting division and speak to the partner and they were the most dynamic guys I have ever worked with in my entire life. I learnt my management tricks from there that if you want to become a management consultant, you have to start from the bottom and that’s what my dad had also taught me. My dad was from IIT Delhi and he taught me that if you want to be a good management person, you have to start from the shop floor. If today also I had to do any job for me, it’s not small or big, if I have to do it I have to do it. Even if you want to get into entrepreneurship, you have to start from the bottom and then go upwards, else you will always see a bird’s eye view and not really get what is happening in it.

Q3. What were those big-ticket assignments which you really remember?

Ans: I think today’s generation is unlimited with the new age companies coming. The Unicorn startup had around 27 of them around the corner so the opportunities are galore. For management consulting, all we need is one key client as a hook and for me that opportunity was given by one of my clients. I might have visited his office 16 times sitting outside and waiting for a meeting, and all they said was that they didn’t need the service but I persisted on meeting the CFO and finally I met the CFO and he said I am not giving you the job because you really need it but because of your sheer persistence shown of getting this job. We started another function in their department on compliance services which we had never done and that’s how we built the compliance practice. So you need the first push in life, you also need to push yourself and push the other person also by saying I’m giving you the chance. I am thankful to that person for giving me the chance of starting the first management consulting big-ticket assignment which made us extremely successful consulting organization in the risk management and the compliance space.

Q4. Around 2015, you had a major career transition where you went as the CFO of the startup “Just by Life” and you raised nearly 30 million dollars for them. Please tell us about your experience.

Ans: What I think is that when things get monotonous, you are not able to give your best to those things, and I believe a lot in change. My father was very scared when I was getting married because he thought I loved change so how would I be able to stick to that one persona all my life. It’s not applicable to my personal relationships, but it’s like I love changing my car every 3 years and if I buy some clothes and I don’t wear them, I throw them in 3 months’ time. I like new things, gadgets and in terms of career also I did the same thing. After 10 years of doing consulting, I thought I have to do something new. It’s always about redefining yourself or re-experiment with yourself and I think your family, especially your spouse plays a very important part in something like this. If you have strong support systems at home, then I think you can take such risks that I had also taken in my career. In 2015, I was appointed by “Just by Life” who set up the company to standard operating processes, to make the business plan, to do the financial modelling, everything that was there and I was the fourth guy in the organization except the two founders and one more person looking after HR and administration. They just showed me the plans and I said fantastic, I am taking on the assignment, we decided on the retainer for about 3 months’ time because to set a lot of things right. I was the lead consultant on that so a partner from our firm had to lead an assignment because this was a big-ticket assignment on a monthly retainer basis. I started interacting with the CEO and the managing director on one-to-one basis, we gelled very well and the model excited me because the model never existed in our country. It was a disruption that was bound and waiting to happen.

It was brand to retail. The retailers could buy stuff directly from the brands without any distribution layer in the middle so that is disruption. That is exactly what Udaan is doing today. After 3 months the entire team was being built, because the person who was heading it was already a very successful entrepreneur and he said that we don’t have a finance person per se so why don’t you become our CFO and I said fair enough. So we started selling it in the month of August and by God’s grace we signed our agreement on 30th October and that was the fastest fundraise I had experienced personally in my life. When you tell anybody you are supposed to raise 30 million they will be taken aback and they will think this something crazy but as I said I love taking risks so I was quite okay with it and didn’t blink an eye. If you have planned something then only you can execute it, if anything is on paper then only can it be in reality so we planned it on paper and said we will raise 200 crores. If we were able to crack this, this would be the highest series of this year and more importantly it would be the third or fourth series raise of Asia. We finally signed the agreement and for us it was ecstatic moment, but in my mind I had the learnings of this middle-class boy and so I said no my dad had taught me one more thing that till the money doesn’t hit the bank, don’t celebrate, before you take the cash. I was cool and composed but from inside I was happy. In fact we didn’t do any press announcement until January of next year because we wanted the full money to come into the bank account.

Think big. I think that’s the biggest learning I had from “Just by Life”. The world is absolutely unlimited if you have an opportunity you can achieve anything. More importantly I wore every hat you could think off- chief people officer, chief logistics officer. I used to work 6 days a week, even on Sundays we had calls on strategy to disrupt something extremely big. Unfortunately, it couldn’t sustain the second fundraise. So if today somebody talked about 2 thousand, 5 thousand crores, I know it is possible because its business and we have seen that kind of money come into the bank account.

Q5. You were first a management consultant, then you became a CFO for startup and now you are on the other side helping startups raise funds. How did this shift happen?

Ans: Again an interesting story. When I was raising funds, I met a lot of VCs and I loved the way they got to evaluate so many startups, deal with investors of one side and startups on the other side and I love to communicate. Luckily, I feel that I have a decent analytical set of mind and I could analyse and evaluate businesses pretty well at least from the financial angle more than anything else. Our ventures are owned by two friends of mine. So I thought I wanted to do something exciting because I liked to work more independently so I suggested to start a fund. Starting a fund wasn’t easy, you had to convince somebody that give me the money, I’ll invest on your behalf and then the profits happen I’ll take 20% of it. We all came together and decided we’ll start “Ah! Ventures” fund. While this was happening, “Ah! Ventures” used to do investments which were about half a million dollars per startup. The exciting part of it was owning something and making it big and then making wealth out of it. If you are a first-time fund manager, it itself is a very difficult thing, it takes about one and a half years to get your first fund in place. While we were doing so I had a lot of friends who had a lot of startups, and they wanted to raise money, ranging anything from 2 million to 10 million dollars. We started doing it. We are running at least six mandates of about 4–7 million dollars which we are raising for various startups. This was quite planned and did not happen by accident. I think I feel this is my calling but only time will tell and god has to be kind in this.

Q6. If someone wants to be an entrepreneur, as fundraising what should be the focus on? A lot of people think fundraising is more difficult than business idea itself. So what are your thoughts on that?

Ans: People think having a startup means raising funds but that is not the case. Having a startup means you should have a solid idea with solid ability to do that and execute the same. That is what you should be focusing on. The time you think you are going to be raising funds, I think that’s the first block you have already hit. Most importantly, have a great idea, have it validated, and remember you have to invest some money of your own in your own startup because if you haven’t done it then I don’t think anyone else will do it. So there is a clear structure of fundraising for any startup. If you have the idea, you have the team, your execution capabilities then you should put in some money, let your friends and family put in some money and then you go and get outside. Seed funding doesn’t happen anymore in today’s world. So when we evaluate an entrepreneur or his idea I think we evaluate his business idea first and then the entrepreneur but then in very early stage there maybe a business idea which is very common, then we bet on the founder himself.

Q7. What are the broad parameters that VCs like you look at before supporting someone in the fundraise?

Ans: “Ah! Ventures” get about 15 plans a day so its pretty crazy deal pipeline. So we have a 3 level curation process: deal sourcing — the one which actually filters 70–75% of the pitch decks that come to us. So we are an early stage investment platform. So somebody whose idea is there, who has already built the MVP (Minimum Viable Product), they have already done the POC in the market and you are generating some kind of revenue, so early-stage revenue generating companies is that what we see. So I would say about 50–60% of the 200 ideas get filtered and about 25–30 ideas come to the partners for further evaluation. So we are given an objective checklist to our team who will go through the checklist and say whether this idea is meeting the criteria or not. Then the ideas come to us and we look at those ideas what we feel is viable and which we think that can go through with the investors. Every business that wants to raise funds is not a fund worthy business. Once the idea ticks all the boxes, that is when we decide to launch it on platform, then it goes to the investors for further processes.

Q8. In a post COVID situation, what will be your advice to budding entrepreneurs? Since a lot of people believe recession is the best time for startup, what’s your take on that?

Ans: What Dr. Radha Krishnan Pillai said and even you mentioned, a lot of big companies like Airbnb, started startup during 2008 recession or the financial crisis. I think why it’s said id because once the recession is over there is a crazy amount of demand that happens and it’s not for the current products but for new products as well because people didn’t have the money and now they have it so they want something new. Since it’s lockdown and you can’t go out in the market so this is the time for you to plan. Select and decide on certain sectors that may do well in the coming times. So I was talking to a lot of Chinese VCs in a webinar the other day and we were discussing about what are the sectors that will go through post-COVID 19 — education technology, health sanitation hygiene, B2B enterprise SAS will do extremely well. We realised this very important thing that we need G2C companies, government to consumer cum startups also which will help both consumers and government. Those are the companies that will do extremely well. The beauty of an entrepreneur or especially the startup ecosystem is that they love to pivot. They understand that we have taken somebody else’s money, it is our fiduciary responsibility to return the money with interest with returns so they are always very budding and enterprising and that is what the word ‘entrepreneurship’ stands for. So if you want to start 3 months down the line, you need to start now. So there is a concept of positive procrastination, procrastination is not always bad. So sit back, relax and talk to people about your idea, come up with new inputs. The kind of time people will be able to give you now, they won’t be able to give you 2 months down the line. So plan now and execute later.

Q9. If you had to retrace doing something differently, what would that be?

Ans: Honestly, I have one policy in life: no regrets, so whatever I have done in life I will never regret doing that because it has given me a learning and opportunity to do something new. My life has always been pretty exciting so I will never say I should have done my MBA or I should have tried hard. Every day I wake up, for me it’s a brand new beginning. I don’t go into the past and think a lot. I don’t plan for the future at all although if I have a certain long-term vision of a certain amount of money or wealth that I should have that is logged into my head, only a couple of people in my life know about it. It seems to be the correct path but as you know only time will tell whether I have chosen the correct path or not but anything that I do, today, tomorrow or in the future will be full of passion and excitement that will never go down and that is very clearly reflected in my favourite colour ‘red’, which is extremely bright and I always want to see my life full of reds.

Q10. One piece of advice you would want to give to students, to youngsters, professionals.

Ans: I have this 3P principle that I have and it is applicable to everybody, but more for people who want to become entrepreneurs because once you become an entrepreneur you spend 13 hours at your work. So the 3Ps are : Passion, Persistence, Patience. If you have these three, there is no doubt you will be successful in life, not only in your professional but also your personal aspects of life.