“My Journey & Learnings - Zettata" was a highly interactive session and lived more from the discussion than the slide-deck. Here are the Lounge47 key takeaways: 1. At the beginning, it is good for founders/the team to do whatever it takes to get the Startup on the road. As the Startup matures, team members should focus on their areas of expertise and have defined roles 2. Early understanding of your strengths vs. that of your cofounder gives clarity and speed to your Startup 3. Hire for attitude. A “dating” period gives both sides time to get to know each other and make an informed choice about working together 4. Do not get distracted by seeking funding at the MVP (minimum viable product) stage. Seek funding when you need to scale. e.g. to grow into new markets 5. Keeping focus is key. Don’t focus on the competition, it could prove to be a distraction. Focus on the customer instead 6. Managing expectations be it that of the customer or your team is important to keep stability. 7. Customer feedback should not send team into a panic. Stay calm and choose features or aspects that need to be addressed 8. As a Startup grows, communication becomes more and more difficult. Build a transparent and flat Startup culture 9. At first, Startup days could be chaotic however with time, planning and goal-setting becomes a vital activity 10. Recognize that each system ticks differently, figure out the habits that lead to success and follow them through. Avoid burnout 11. Processes need to be thought through and set. It is when a Startup begins to scale that the early work put into processes begins to pay dividends 12. Measure. Measure. Measure. Build, iterate and measure again. In summary, don’t get carried away by buzzwords or Startup mantras. Simply solve the problem you have set out to, find paying customers and scale. www.lounge47.in

1. Lessons as an
Entrepreneur
Vikram Srinivasan, Founder Zettata

2. Who We Are
Founders:
●Sesh Seshadri - PhD Wisc Mad->IITB Prof-
>Bell Labs->Serial Entrepreneur
●Vikram Srinivasan - PhD UC San Diego-
>NUS Prof->Bell Labs->Zettata

3. What?
Connect
Users To
Products

4. How?
Navigation
Personalized Targeting
By Dynamically Ranking Products on All
Pages of Your Site

5. Why?
Repeat
Customer
Revenues
and Margins

8. Life Before Zettata

9. Hiring
● Hunger
● Attitude
● Date if
possible

10. Measure Measure Measure
• Have a Hypothesis
• Create a metric to determine if hypothesis is
correct
• Build a solution that can be measured
• Iterate
If you can not measure it, you can not improve it - Lord
Kelvin

11. Perfect is The Enemy of Good
Correctly read:
●Build MVP
●Fail fast

12. Initial Stage

13. Growth Stage
● Hire and delegate
● Else don’t see forest for trees

14. Habits (Processes) Build
Sustainable Success
● Culture
● Communication
o With customers
o With employees
● Accountability
● Processes

15. Culture
● Foosball tables + massages
not culture!
● Transparent
● Flat
● Ok to make mistakes
● Respect
● Accountability
● High bar for excellence

16. Setting Expectations and
Accountability
● Set appropriate expectations with customers
● Set appropriate expectations
with employees and hold everyone
accountable (including yourself).