Abhishek Goyal, Co-Founder, Tracxn on angel investing in 130 startups in the last 10 years

The Neon Show

From investing all his savings in Sahil Barua's Delhivery in 2011 to becoming an angel investor in 130 Indian startups, the story of Abhishek Goyal, Co-founder, Tracxn is worth listening for everyone in the ecosystem. Being an Ex-Yahoo & Amazon employee, Abhishek stepped into the startup investing ecosystem with Accel Partners in 2008.
Traxcn aims to become the largest platform tracking Innovative Startups, Private Companies & Emerging Sectors globally. They track millions of companies, to enable Investors & global corporates to track sectors of their interest effortlessly.
During the podcast, Abhishek talks about how to identify founders who’ll make category-creating startups, important signals to predict a brand’s success, starting as an Angel investor in the ecosystem.
Notes -
03:06 - Background with Yahoo & Amazon, joining Accel Partners
09:58 - The story behind Accel's investment in Flipkart
16:33 - Identifying patterns and traits in successful founders
18:09 - Unlearning your existing beliefs as an investor
22:01 - Explaining Unicorn startups and the general notion of ownership amongst investors
29:47 - Importance of customer signals at an early stage
31:28 - “Capital doesn’t follow fundamentals, fundamentals follow the capital.”
36:10 - “10 years later we as Indians won’t be celebrating Unicorns.”
37:44 - Sectors he’s bullish for this decade: SaaS, EdTech, and Banking among others
46:42 - Preventing forced exits being an Angel investor
49:36 - Advice to first-time investors in Startups
55:01 - Reading and keeping himself updated with Startup news

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