Z47
April 16, 2026

Building a $70M AI company from India and almost killing it | Sanket Shah Unstarted Ep 8

Sanket Shah started thinking about business at 17. His first idea was putting ads on Mumbai's auto-rickshaws. The government said no. He went to Mantralaya three times, met the Chief Minister, got sent to the transport commissioner, and received government letters at home for four years. He got 4 rickshaws approved.

Twenty-something years later, he's the founder of Invideo — a video creation platform operating at serious scale, with under 100 people. And right now, he's stopped looking at his revenue numbers entirely. He has two people running the existing business. He is fully allocated to what comes next.

In this conversation with Avnish Bajaj, Sanket talks about why you can't optimise your way through a ceiling — and what it actually costs to do something drastic. He talks about the one conversation he had in San Francisco where he and his co-founder both knew they had to change course, chose not to, and paid for it all year.

Founder questions tackled in this episode:

1. What's the difference between an L1 insight and the insight that actually can't be copied?

2. When does persistence become stubbornness? How do you know which side you're on?

3. How do you talk to customers without asking leading questions — and what do you do with what you hear?

4. When everyone's going agentic, how do you actually stand out?

For more information, write to us: namaste@Z47.com.
Stay connected with Z47.

Watch more such podcasts

Z47
April 9, 2026

150 rejections, a government ban and starting over | The Dream11 story | Unstarted Ep 7

Z47
March 26, 2026

He shut down his first company and built a bigger one | Anil Goteti, Scapia | Unstarted Ep 5

Z47
April 2, 2026

15 years. 3 startups. Here's what Utkrishta learned | Unstarted Ep 6

Z47
April 16, 2026

Building a $70M AI company from India and almost killing it | Sanket Shah Unstarted Ep 8

Article
Listen to article

Sanket Shah started thinking about business at 17. His first idea was putting ads on Mumbai's auto-rickshaws. The government said no. He went to Mantralaya three times, met the Chief Minister, got sent to the transport commissioner, and received government letters at home for four years. He got 4 rickshaws approved.

Twenty-something years later, he's the founder of Invideo — a video creation platform operating at serious scale, with under 100 people. And right now, he's stopped looking at his revenue numbers entirely. He has two people running the existing business. He is fully allocated to what comes next.

In this conversation with Avnish Bajaj, Sanket talks about why you can't optimise your way through a ceiling — and what it actually costs to do something drastic. He talks about the one conversation he had in San Francisco where he and his co-founder both knew they had to change course, chose not to, and paid for it all year.

Founder questions tackled in this episode:

1. What's the difference between an L1 insight and the insight that actually can't be copied?

2. When does persistence become stubbornness? How do you know which side you're on?

3. How do you talk to customers without asking leading questions — and what do you do with what you hear?

4. When everyone's going agentic, how do you actually stand out?

We are excited about the innovation and growth opportunities in this sector.

If you are considering building in the footwear space, we’d love to chat.
Drop us a line at consumer@matrixpartners.in

Learnt something new? Follow us!

Read Previous Article On Land & Expand
Read Next Article On Land & Expand