Next Big Thing

Proud Moment - Next Big Thing launched its own Shark Tank. And it’s working🔥 NBT is a private community for early stage entrepreneurs. Many of our members had the same problem. They DM investors. They send pitch decks. They wait. But no reply… or very generic replies like ‘too early’ / ‘not a fit’. No real feedback. No idea what investors actually think. So we fixed it. Every week, we bring one external investor on Google Meet. 4 founders pitch live. The investor gives honest feedback - What they like, What’s risky, What needs to improve - no sugarcoating. The rest of the NBT community joins in as spectator. They learn what a real pitch looks like. And what investors really care about. We’ve already had Investors from PointOne Capital, Ankur Capital, and Resurgent India join us. And these sessions are quickly becoming the most loved thing at NBT. If you have a founder friend who is fundraising or planning to raise soon - share this with them 🙏🏽 Link to join Next Big Thing is in the comment below.

A US court has ordered Byju Raveendran to pay $1B. A fresh filing in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court said most of the $533M that went to Byju’s US based subsidiary was ‘round tripped’ back to Byju Raveendran and people linked to him. In simple words: Money went from India -> to Byju’s US subsidiary -> to a London company -> and then to entities linked to Raveendran. This story is very different from what Byju’s has been telling lenders and media for months - that the money stayed within the group and was used in the normal course of business. Honestly… from everything I’ve heard over the years - the way they treated customers, employees and stakeholders, I wouldn’t be surprised if these allegations turn out to be true. I sincerely hope there are real consequences this time. Because if fraud on this scale gets ignored… we’re teaching an entire generation of founders that nothing matters. #HarshRealities

This is the wildest startup story of 2025 - in a category that’s almost impossible to crack. A company just raised ₹500 Cr. Valued close to ₹2000 Cr. Just by… cleaning homes on demand. That’s Snabbit - a home services startup that helps families find trusted cleaning experts. They started last year. Now they’re live in 5 cities, Serving over 3 lakh families. Grown 60x in a year. And raised funds 3 times in less than 9 months from the top most investors. That’s insane. On paper, home services sounds simple. But it’s actually one of the hardest categories to scale. Most marketplaces fail because quality drops as they grow. Customers stop coming back, and margins disappear. But Snabbit figured it out. They took it slow in the beginning, Trained their team well, kept services consistent, and expanded one city at a time. And the part I love the most - they built trust with a 100% women led workforce. In a world obsessed with AI, they proved that solving real problems can still break the internet. Big respect to Aayush and the team - they’ve always been super focused, clear in their thinking, and amazing at getting things done. While everyone’s chasing the future, you’re cleaning up the present - literally.

I had another call with a VC who’s never built anything… He spent 30 minutes asking me random buzzword questions - ‘What’s your moat?’ ‘What’s your five-year plan?’ ‘What’s your AI strategy?’ And I was just sitting there thinking - has this guy ever even built a landing page? Every founder i know has had this question - ‘Why are we being judged by people who’ve never built anything?’ We spend nights fixing bugs, chasing customers, selling our dream to family who thinks we’ve lost our mind. And then someone with a safe job, steady salary, and a spreadsheet, gets to decide if what we’re building is ‘worth it’. Sure, not all VCs are like that. Some truly get it. But I still can’t get over the fact that people who’ve never built a startup, are deciding which founders will change the world. How does that even make sense? It’s time builders start funding builders. That’s how we fix this broken game. #HarshRealities

People think OkCredit copied Khatabook. Let me tell you the truth… We were in YCombinator - same batch as Khatabook founders. Back then, they were building an SMS spam filter app called Kyte. It didn’t take off. So they copied our idea. Told the story louder. Marketed harder. Made more noise. And somehow, the world believed we were the copy. Wild, right? That’s how powerful narratives are. At first, it used to piss me off. But over time, I made peace with it. Because that’s just how this game works. Competition is fair. If you’re building something meaningful, people will copy you. It’s proof you’re onto something. But here’s what most founders miss - Building a better product is NOT enough. You also have to OWN the narrative. Because if you don’t, someone else will. And you’ll end up becoming the copy in your own story. #HarshRealities

I want to publicly apologize to the nation for what happened yesterday. I made a post that offended a lot of people. It said that Zoho’s messaging app ‘Arattai’ won’t replace WhatsApp. Because it’s just another WhatsApp copy. There’s no real innovation. Except the emotion that - ‘It’s made in India’. I also said that it isn’t about beating WhatsApp. It’s about staying in the news to push Zoho’s other money making products. And boom. The comment section & my DMs blew up with hate. People called me anti national, stupid, and a traitor. So, as a responsible citizen, I’m here to apologize. Publicly. I now see my terrible mistake - believing PMF and network effects matter more than patriotism. I somehow completely forgot about the time we all switched to Hike. We loved it so much. Those 2 WEEKS of patriotism were wild. And of course, sorry for forgetting Koo - the Indian twitter we used ONLY to tweet that we’re leaving Twitter. So to fix my mistake, starting today, I will uninstall WhatsApp, sell my iPhone, and only send messages through Arattai on a Micromax. And I’ll keep using it proudly - till we delete this one too. #HarshRealities

Sridhar Vembu’s Arattai will NOT replace WhatsApp in India. In the past few days, Zoho’s messaging app Arattai blew up. 100x jump in traffic. From 3K to 350K signups a day. Looks big. But it’s not. Arattai is just another Whatsapp copy. Nothing new. No real innovation. Except the emotion - ‘it’s made in India’. People don’t switch apps for emotion. They switch when the product is 10x better. Let’s be real. This isn’t about beating WhatsApp. This is about staying in the news. It’s a PR play. Every headline, every tweet, every ‘Made in India’ cheer - pushes Zoho’s brand up. And that feeds Zoho’s real businesses - B2B products like HR, Mail, etc - that actually make money. So yeah, Arattai’s traffic may crash servers. But it won’t shake WhatsApp. Because It’s not a revolution. It’s a marketing campaign. And no matter how strong the hype gets, patriotism can’t beat product-market fit. #HarshRealities