Team Building Lessons with Ashish Kashyap

Ashish Kashyap needs no introduction. The first country head for Google in India, before he turned entrepreneur, Ashish is a serial founder. He's founded and scaled marquee Indian internet startups PayU (ibibo Pay), GoIbibo, redBus, before starting his most recent FinTech venture, the super app, INDMoney.

Ashish was a guest on Matrix Moments People First with Rupali, where he shared startup and team-building learnings from his journey across the companies he's built.

Here are some of the highlights:

One question founders must ask themselves when deciding to start a tech company: Can I bring a proof-of-concept product or an MVP in the market in 2 months? One doesn’t need a very large team for that. If I can do that and get momentum, next I can aim to get PMF and start getting a strong team in place.

Ashish's framework for hiring early teams: Ashish says that early teams need to believe in the mission, and founders need to hire for energy & attitude far more than skill-set. People with the right mindset and motivation will be able to pick up the needed skills. When starting up, it's important to get the right idea and the right team in place. Early teams need to execute fast, often in ambiguous circumstances – so get people who can execute in ambiguity. Asked about his management style in the rapid fire, Ashish was quick to say "quick decision making".

Build vs. Buy vs. Borrow: Ashish is firmly on the side of Build – because that's the only way you can learn. Teams should build, scale, fail, then build better. Micro-failures are very important.

Ashish was our host, Rupali's skip manager during her stint at redBus and their easy camaraderie got Ashish sharing his convictions & learnings about the right way to build technology businesses in India. Tune in to the learnings-packed episode from someone who has built successfully multiple times and don't miss the rapid fire round.