Startup Fridays S4 Ep12: Why Rishi Navani seeks founders he can’t help, and what he means by that

I would say you will see people taking risks all both we don't want to be risking either because we want to be in the nifty-fifty companies right now of course we also surprise you don't know exactly how these markets develop but ultimately we find that a product which strong pool for the consumer and strong business model innovation with underlying unit economics are the early indicators of a very large part and so the combination of the exceptional entrepreneur and a very large market build that nifty-fifty company right and so that's what Epic is focused on. Hi wherever you're listening to us I hope you're doing well. Welcome to start up Friday's weekly conversations with accomplished entrepreneurs and VC investors. I'm Harirakli and in this episode Rishina Vani founder and managing partner at Epic Capital a growth stage VC firm. Talks about never losing sight of the core idea of venture capital which is to make substantial returns on the money his investors entrust him with. Over the 25 years that he's been backing ventures including previously co-founding metrics partners India Rishis way of doing this is to not spend time on how he can add value to an entrepreneur or start up he says. Instead his expounders who are so good that they don't need his help just the capital. Rishis also talks about a less spoken about aspect of entrepreneurial success which in his view is about how successful founders behave day after day for years together ok I'm going to dive into this. Awesome look forward to it. Yeah so I mean in the start up scene I don't think you all need any introduction folks know you many well-known start ups have been backed by you early on and so on. I think for a more general audience you know just tell us a bit about yourself give us a quick snapshot of math distinction to VC investment metrics and Epic yeah give us an overview we'll go from there. Sure so I grew up in Mumbai both my parents are business people one was in real estate one was a lot of services and I did my undergrad at Northwestern University studied honors math there was a specialty program called mathematical methods in the social sciences combined with economics I had a great student at Northwestern what a bachelor's with distinction and then worked for a year at a consulting firm in Chicago where I graduated called ETC and was then very fortunate in 1996 moved back to India and a gentleman called Pradeep Shah who I'm eternally grateful to gave me my first job in the business analyst in Mumbai at Indosha so that's how I started in the business did that for a couple of years went to Wharton for my MBA somewhere in McKinsey and you know I'll tell you probably one of the things I'm most proud of finish first in my class at Wharton and one the Ford Ford Fellowship award so so I'm a Wharton MBA did US investing for one year but you know didn't have any passion for that and joined what was then a new effort called Westbridge Capital Partners and Hari was very fortunate over the next four years got to see the emergence early emergence of venture capital in India and was also fortunate got promoted every year and so at age 30 made managing director from the outside I mean essentially I was hired and then the following year the entrepreneurial bug bit me and I left to start matrix partners in India so and recruited my partner niche to join me he's obviously was an entrepreneur who started Bazi and a niche wanted to start a hedge fund but convinced him that venture capital was the way to go and that's how matrix India started right and did that for 10 years a lot of how we built matrix India was investing in exceptional entrepreneurs very early days for India obviously and I would say you know big challenge was we just didn't have market size for a long time and in 2012 2013 that changed because the mobile internet came came came came I mean effectively smartphones came came right and then every in 2016 I realized my passion is growth lead stage investing and there's an opportunity to build a matrix like form in that at that stage so I ventured out to start my own brand called Epic Capital and so that that's how Epic Capital came about same focus on exceptional entrepreneurs and so yeah I would say matrix India was built on investing in exceptional entrepreneurs and a very hard working ferocious team which I built from the ground up and then Epic Capital is you know applying a lot of the learnings you learned over 10 years and doing it at a growth stage which which frankly I enjoy more and so I've been building up Epic Capital for the last five years and now I feel like we've reached scale also at Epic Capital what is your definition of growth stage typically what kind of entrepreneurs startups yeah yeah so I would say bread and butter series C and D but you know the alphabets can be confusing we do we do series B we don't do series A and we've done a series I on the other side so yeah but generally not series A and not pre-I view okay okay all right yeah so the Epic the name the etymology that you sent me was really fascinating and I think something worth highlighting for our listeners as well I mean tell us a bit about how you thought about the name and you know what do you want it signifies yeah so look I'll just take a second and you know just say it in a very simple way right we invest in exceptional entrepreneurs I have always wanted to build exceptional things right so whether it was matrix from day one we want and I'm a perfectionist by personality so we want to you know want to build something that is truly exceptional and stands out and so Epic obviously then you know we've got a Durham Chakra in the in the symbol you know an infinity sign which obviously hopefully bodes well for returns and you know that's why we've generated close to industry leading rates of return and so the focus has always been to generate very high return on capital limit as an investor you know as core card is returns we can talk about whatever else but ultimately as core card is returns so that is about being able okay yeah it's refreshing to speak with an investor who just comes right out and says this is what we stand for you know when an investor says this is our focus it's at the end of the day it's how much money we make for our investors I think it's makes for a very refreshing opening to a conversation very nice that you put it that way no if I were to be even more direct hurry an investor gives you money to get back more with the high return I mean what is the other what is the other goal so what are we what am I as a managing partner the firm I'm a return generating machine that's that's why that's why people give you money I mean that's the reality of course we do a lot of good work we have impact we invest in extraordinary companies we help them scale all of those good things happen as part of this process but ultimately you know if I tell an investor hey look we invested in great companies we build a great team but within generate much of a return that's that's not a success case yeah sure fair enough I mean you started an investment focus journey and even your VC journey fairly early on can you look back at what gave you the clarity of thought in terms of how you always wanted to be a VC investor in your career yeah So, it's interesting, I just celebrated my 50th birthday and I started in the investment business when I was 23 years old and I was in business school for two years. So, basically, I am 25 years out of the last 27 I've been doing this, right? I think right after I graduated college, essentially, I got interested in investing, I started reading about it, all those types of things, and then was very lucky to get an opportunity at induction when I was 23, right? Now, I think the higher order question is, why am I still doing this? And why did I not consider other paths or whatever else? So, I think it's just a great fit for my personality. So, ultimately, why didn't I not become a tech entrepreneur? I don't know, managing large rooms of people, I don't like doing, you know, the different functions that go into building a company, I'm just being honest, I don't, I like variety of what venture investing gives me, right? So, so we are constantly dealing with change and there's constantly new opportunities. It keeps you young and fresh, right? Number one. Number two, we're dealing with very smart people. In the epic business model, you know, I get to work with Piyush Bansal, Mukesh Bansal, Umang Beidi, Horsimhar, we're seeing, you know, fabulous entrepreneurs, right? It's a privilege to work with these people. It's also intellectually very stimulating. Work with a very smart group of people within the firms, right? So, within our firms. So, the engagement that you have is really fantastic, and I like diversity of work. I don't like to be doing the same thing. And so, those are the reasons, you know, this is great for me. And frankly, I've always been highly ambitious to generate a lot of wealth. And clearly, this profession affords that opportunity also. But ultimately, Hari, I'm also an entrepreneur. I just happen to be in the investment business. I don't know. I want to, I will get back to the personal journey again down the line a bit more. One of the things you said caught my interest. I mean, how the whole startup scene we see, seen in India has changed. You know, since you started earlier on, when you said there was no hardly any market, you know, kind of walk us through from your perspective, some of the most important changes you've seen, you know, along the way. Sure. So, look, if I go back to 1996, the first big change is the IT service is showing, becoming significant. Because if you think about that, that told us that global companies that can be built out of India, Infosys with Pro, TCS, others, right? So, large global companies that can be built out of India, probably the first steps towards scale was why it was okay. It also brought money into the hands of people to spend it. So, it was, it actually created the first consumer market, right, in India. That inflection point was 2004, 2004 through 2007 was a fantastic period in India's economy, right? But all of this was still early then, you know, seeing all this excitement, too much money came into the business in 2007 and 2008. And the desktop internet is a very shallow market. So, we are drawing all these charts against the US and China, but we have no users. And we don't have much per capita income. That changed with mobile telephone. And essentially, there's more importantly, the smartphone. And so, 2012, '13, the mobile internet really catapulted India, because that's something everyone in the country could have, right? And so, the desktop internet was a shallow market, but the mobile internet became a large market, right? Now, that brought phase one of growth and excitement. Then, the rollout of reliance, geo-broad cheap data. So, suddenly, that was the next wave where essentially data penetration grew and everyone was using it in significant measures. So, engagement came with that, right? And now, I think the last pieces of this are, we just need to be a larger economy. And now, we are three plus trillion going towards six trillion. So, I keep saying, 2030, this decade is about the $5 trillion India digital opportunity. We went, we've grown 20x to 500 billion in the last decade, and we'll grow 10x to 5 trillion in this decade. So, that's a very large increase. But let's see, also, what's changed on the ground, the quality of entrepreneurs, the development of the ecosystem, venture financing, new entrepreneurs starting companies, wherein they've been at the leading companies, the Lenscarts, the Petiums, the Olas, the Flipkarts, and other companies, they've had experienced then, then they are now coming to start their own companies, right? So, before, the people who started Flipkart and Lenscarts didn't have any ecosystem to get any experience, they had to kind of figure out everything on their own. And so, now, a lot of the entrepreneurs are coming with this experience built in, right? So, what is the result? In 2010, at Matrix, we used to say 100 million in ADOs is success. We have three companies in our portfolio that have reached 100 million in three years, 100 million over revenue. Market sizes changed, and entrepreneurs know how to scale fast. Otherwise, you're not going to have both these things. This will result in greater billion dollar company creation and higher IRRs by masters, ultimately. So, these are the things you can see. There's a maturation all around. In whether it is the size of the market, how people attack the market, how people hire people, the experience of the people, experience of the venture capitalists, different modes of funding available. We've gone through various trials and tribulations with that also, but even that is matured. It just occurred me, would the next way be now that some of these entrepreneurs that you spoke about and you're back and others in the ecosystem as well are now ready to make money as well. I mean, PTM's a classic example, right? I mean, there's no doubt that they've created massive value for millions of users across sort of society. I mean, having put in all the hard work, built a lot of the underlying infrastructure that was not there, so they had to spend the money, take the time, make the effort to build it. Are they now ready to make money? Yeah, so I think again, so I'll just tell you, six companies recently have gone public, so what have started this way and we know all the others, delivery, PTM, NYCA and others, the public markets, and by the way, I believe 30, 50 of them will be public over the next three to five years. So this is just the wave one, right? The public markets are demanding profitability and higher return on capital, right? This will be forced down into the into the late stage market automatically, right? Because you'll have secondary markets and you'll have public markets, but you know, essentially to go public, you need to follow the rules of the public market at some level. Right? I think we are not, you know, as mature as the US public market, where we'll allow a lot of unprofitable lack of profitability to persist for a long period of time. Our own portfolio, we start selecting companies with strong Uniti economic models. Lenscard is on track to be billion dollars of revenue next year. It's an EBITDA positive business today significantly. It's a free cash flow positive business. I say, you know, it could be a public company today. They just closed a 500 million dollar secondary transaction. Why could that be an IPO? A 500 million dollar share sale is definitely the size of an IPO, right? But I'm seeing across the board in heavy times like 2021 profitability is forgotten in times like 22 and 23. I think this is part of the maturation of the ecosystem now that we have scale and size and that's coming. We are now focused on building healthy businesses and I think it's the process is well underway and you'll have better and better Prepared public companies coming in the future Okay, so tell us more about epic itself. I mean explain your Investment philosophy the epic model and I think you're currently putting together your next fund as well So just tell us about all of that Yeah, so across Two funds we have over three hundred million dollars of assets under management AUM and We have eight portfolio companies across the across epic. We are in the process of closing a ninth investment and I would say you know some of our most prominent companies length start daily hunt Curfew pristine care and others right park plus and others right now What is the epic philosophy? so Epic is built to invest in the next next tech nifty 50 So your first question will be what does that mean? The five trillion dollar digital market means that if you look at the nifty 50 which is the index of the 50 largest companies in India I think some significant majority of these companies are going to be tech companies company 30 The driver of the nifty 50 is going to be tech companies right so we want to be in those companies that are 50 billion dollars of more right and ultimately Walk so we are not interested in the billion dollar company or three billion dollar company We want to be in the really large companies, right? So that's how you think now The really large companies have two main elements the first is An absolutely exceptional founder and I'm saying a very high bar. So, you know, Pius Bonser Mick Mukesh Bonser. These are very high quality founders, right? You could argue to all the 10 best in the country, right? now So those are the types of people Epic wants to invest in right? Second, you need a very large market because without a very large market You cannot build a very large company right and so I would say you'll see people taking risks on both We don't want to be risking either because we want to be in the nifty 50 companies, right now Of course, we also surprised you don't know exactly how these markets develop But ultimately we find that a product with strong pull for the consumer and strong business model innovations with underlying unit economics are the early indicators of a very large market and so the combination of The exceptional entrepreneur and a very large market built that nifty 50 company, right and so that's what Epic is focused on long-term investment in very significant companies Epic score is investing in exceptional founders That's what we focus on as a business With the end goal of generating a very high return on capital. So You know, I mean our first fund after Three plus years, we are you know closer to 40% Iraq my career track record in growth stage investing is 56% Iraq And so we are looking to generate high returns on capital And how does that compare with is there a like a VC industry average? Does that make sense? Yeah, so sure so I think You know if you look So VC industry average may be a misnomer so what you'll find is the VC industry is Has very high returns for a small select group of firms and then the rest of the industry doesn't do as well So it's all about investing in the very best companies And investing in the very best fund managers. So Everyone thinks the VC is a very lucrative business. It's a very lucrative business for a few people For a few for a few firms for a few fund managers and so Yeah, I would say Generally an investor in VC would want to see a 30% internal rate of return and a three-h return for an early stage fund I mean, I would say that's a minimum but how many actually do that? And you know, obviously, it's even harder to do that at a growth stage, but we have You know early stage bar in general Okay, the exceptional entrepreneurs that you have backed so far and the ones that you want to identify Can you dive into that a little bit more in the sense? What stands out about these guys? Sir Hari, you're Basically addressing my favorite subject, but Look, this is cold to epic. So I would say Um, the first thing is they have a multitude of skills. I mean, you don't become build a large company because you do one thing well second They have very smart and pick up things very fast. So they can pick up almost anything very fast, right? so Many years ago I designed something called the psc framework and I'll start with that and tell you more Passion self-confidence and critical thinking three parameters that you want to see the really great ones have all three, right? Now let's initiate a bit further Deep passion to solve a problem deep insight into a problem Phenomenal recruiters of people product and customer obsessed ultimately digital companies solve a customer pain point with a product and need to be customer obsessed, right strategic thinkers who can see around the corner visionaries they can they have a view of that industry that is just fundamentally different, right? um Strong commercial sense and then I would say hard work and persistence And people underestimate this to build multi-billion dollar companies the next 50-50 It's 10 years 15 plus hours a day six days a week five to six days a week. How many people have that kind of drive? How to sustain motivation for 10 plus years at those levels Uh, think of how much they are sacrificing in their personal life to reach there So I would say those are the main attributes and never to forget that entrepreneurship Uh, you know, you generally start from financial or emotional insecurity Uh, so that's the that's the that's the psychological angle, but I gave you a good sense of what are the types of things that we are looking for and then You know, we are trained Hari, we talk about, you know, the 10,000 hour rule you become good at something, right? I've been Trying to identify and work with the entrepreneur for 75,000 hours Uh, so a lot of this is like Being a good doctor. I saw a patient and I um, you know, saw that these symptoms existed in one minute and I can say what's wrong with the patient Uh, it's it's not that different for a venture capitalist What is the thing that you said about Entrepreneurships stemming from financial, emotional insecurity? I mean, I get that in the sense of, you know, pro people Uh, desperate times, desperate measures, those kinds of things would, you know We'll find really innovative ways of trying to make a living In the context of uh, you know, the digital era internet era Tech enabled entrepreneurs in India. What is it that you're saying? I mean, where does burning desire come from? Burning desire comes from insecurity. Where does insecurity come from? Financial and emotional hardship amongst other things Ultimately in the tech business, what are entrepreneurs doing? They are saying this is an existing world order and it should not work like this There's a better way to do it. It's called disruption who gets up in the morning at a young age and says I want to take on the world I have no salary at the outset. Leave my cushy job Be highly qualified have no salary at the outset And I want to take on giants and I want to change the world Who in the right mind chooses this? You have to have deep passion and desire to change things, right? I jokingly say no one normal created anything special I don't know you know the I mean staying on the exceptional entrepreneurs bit longer people often talk about Steve Jobs and Apple and and I pick this example not because it's the most convenient but also because So far the way I understand it you have backed largely consumer focused on spinners um and and I'll get that part as well in a bit um on the potential enterprise opportunity. But you know, so people often say that they were able to create products and services that people did not even know that they wanted. But then once those products and services came out, very large numbers of consumers embraced those products and services. So the question I'm driving at is in India, do you see some entrepreneurs who have that level of potential? Yeah, so look again, I'll say this at a very simple level, you should read, you should post on Independence Day, on LinkedIn. It's very inspiring. It talks about why effectively he's trying to create an Apple, Apple, Amazon and India, global top 100 company. Why can India have a leading tech brand? That serves the world. That's what Lens Carties. Then there are companies that are serving Indian consumers in different ways. I mean, among Vedian, Viru Gupta are focused on providing local language, news content, short form videos to the local language population in India, which is the large part of the diaspora in India at Daily Hunt. So look, I think there are very large opportunities in India is going to be more and more significant. By the way, we are 75% B2C and 25% B2B so far. So if you say, are we consumer enterprise? India is consumer leading? We are consumer leaning. We have a better appreciation for the domestic market. We are underpin on first investors. B2C, B2B is a secondary consideration. Okay, that's something I didn't really spot. Give us one example of an enterprise on front of that you're back to doing very well. Here's a good plug. I will send you that name in all of one week. We are about to close a very exciting investment. So I'll tell you a few things about it. They've grown from you know less than 10 million to over 200 million in the last three years in revenue. It's you know profitable cash flow positive business. Phenomenal entrepreneur. Obviously with B2B software global in nature. Those are the types of characteristics we look for. I mean they are high anti-v2 cat business, high revenue retention business. Lots of other great things. Okay, looking forward to this in a week's time then. Hopefully I'll get a chance to have them on this podcast as well. Absolutely, we'll be happy to make the introduction. All right, today if you look at the tech and tech enabled start-ups in India to your mind. What are the, I guess you've mentioned the strengths. What are still missing? Yeah, look, I think we are on our way. We have all the elements at this point. We have the entrepreneurs, we have the venture capitalists, we have the market. What is missing to have really, really large companies? Right? I think you need the next level of market size. It's coming. India is three trillion. It will be six trillion in seven to eight years. Of the six trillion, you know, tech share of GDP, which is 10-ish percent. Today we'll go to 35-40 percent. So tech will become more and more significant. A lot of values going to be concentrated in these tech companies, right? And so, main thing I would say is two things. One is market size. Just needs to get bigger. And second is, as the ecosystem matures, you'll be able to build deeper and deeper management teams across functions. And that helps with rapid scaling and scaling in general. It's just experience. Just look at where India is as an entrepreneurial ecosystem today in 2023 versus 10 years. I mean, it's unbelievable to see the change. Does it make a difference that our entrepreneurs, no matter how exceptional they are, are basically going to be dependent on the underlying infrastructure technology that's built by an Amazon, a Google, a Microsoft, a Salesforce. Is that an important question or is it not important? I think it stages of development. I think see, today India is an application market. Ultimately, the end-to-end India is different. To build a large company, you have to serve a very large base of customers because per capita income is not very large. So it then becomes much more about application, right, product for the market, business model innovation, getting the unit economics right. Those are the things that managing costs correctly. Those are the things that create the very large company at this base. That will change. When we have $6 trillion economy, you'll see much more innovation coming. Teap tech is already on the way, but I'm saying a lot of things will change as time goes on. But as we stand today to build large companies, you need a large user base and you need to tap a people with smaller per capita income and therefore you need to have lots of them. Therefore, your product value proposition needs to be very compelling. Your business model needs to be very strong. Those are the offshoots of where we are today. It's all stages in the process. And I just, I asked this question in the sense that historically, there are areas where we have done really, really well in space, for example, or nuclear power, or even today if you look at our missile defense, the way it's evolving. Some of these examples where we seem to have done really well. But on the other hand, if you look at our consumer facing entrepreneurs, if they use a smartphone, they have to give away 30% of anything that they sell through an app, which is controlled, either by Google or by Apple. And governments have had to make, you know, step in and make rules in South Korea, for example, where, you know, they've had to try and resolve it by making rules. That's not the case in China, where they built their own underlying fundamental infrastructure. That's what I'm driving at. Do you see that happening in India? Do you see entrepreneurs coming to the forewho will build us that kind of infrastructure? I think over time, I mean, look, again, I say, first, I'll tell you, Hari, I'm not sure I'm the best forecaster for, you know, which markets will take off or which platforms will take off. I'm an entrepreneur first investor. So I'll start with my limitations. But we have UPI and world leading financial infrastructure in India. Last I checked it was in Indian innovation. So again, in some areas we leap from and you just need to give it time. I think fundamentally, I believe in the talent of the Indian entrepreneur. Two of the four largest big tech companies in the world are run by Indian CEOs, Microsoft and Google. What other evidence are you seeking? The talent is there. The question has always been when will the market evolve? And ultimately, we have to recognize the US is a 20 plus trillion dollar market. China is a 15 plus trillion dollar market. We are three three and a half trillion. So obviously, the opportunities will come at different times. We have to have fundamental underlying economic growth first. Yeah, I mean, fair enough. I mean, your answer makes sense that it will take time for the market to get to a point where we will see that, you know, where someone does not need to go to the US to become the CEO of a global company. And eventually that will happen in India as well. And I guess that's that's the hope. And since you mentioned deep tech coming on, is that an area that you've taken an interest in? And alongside, I would also want to tack on, you know, sustainability and climate change. And are these areas that interest you? Yeah. So, Hari, again, I'm going to give a boring answer. We are entrepreneur first investors. We don't claim to be smart enough to predict what is coming next. That we learn from the entrepreneurs. I mean, I'll refer to my question. I mean, have you come across entrepreneurs who you see are doing really interesting things in these areas? Of course. Of course. Of course. I mean, look, as a function of our vocation, we see entrepreneurs doing all kinds of things, even their multiple space tech startups in India at this point. Right. So there are no boundaries. There are boundaries to someone, you know, starts a company there. Right. But I would say I believe in the talent and desire of the Indian entrepreneur. We needed a market. The market has arrived. It will keep scaling. Different opportunities will emerge at different levels. stages in that evolution. Okay let's look at a few questions related more to takeaways from your own personal journey. If you look back 25 years so far of the 27 that you mentioned now looking back what are some of the top takeaways which you feel really matter and what are some of the things that might have originally thought you thought were important but you realize that they were not really so important. Yeah no so great question I'll answer it to three different ways. The first is you know we invest in the top less than 1% of talent when the great companies are built by truly exceptional people. I think the part that no one talks enough about is the behaviors of these people are fundamentally different than everyone else. Your results in life are a function of your behaviors. If you want to make change or anything you need to change your daily behavior otherwise there's no result coming at the end of it. The very high quality entrepreneurs have different behaviors. Some of you it has odd it's odd because a very small percentage of people have them so that's one. I'll also add more than anything else the defining characteristic I've seen in the most successful people is very high clarity of thinking. The higher it is probably the higher is the ceiling or there is no ceiling. From a personal standpoint and looking at investing and in being the investing business in general I would say long term orientation. I mean I could have been extremely frustrated with India having been doing this for 25 years right there's another side to this. Long term orientation, serious focus and passion and consistent hard work. The difference between good and great is consistency. Can you do it every day? You're seeing your conference rule. It's Roger Federer. He's a big hero. Roger Federer entered 24 grand slam semi-finals in a row over six years. He was not sick one day he didn't have a bad match in the first five rounds. He was just that much better but that's ultimately consistency of preparation and consistency of action right. The truly defining characteristic of great is consistency. Everyone I shouldn't say everyone. Many people can do it for a period of time. Now coming with the investing business look I'm a tech venture capitalist. It's about being in very large companies. They define the ecosystem. They define your fund. A lot of venture capitalists I don't believe as much in value addition. I think value addition a deep desire for value addition results in adverse selection. Not investing people I can't help. I think people spend a lot of time fixing companies. You're much better off finding great companies. This business is about big winners so your entire time and energy has to be spent on that process. Surprisingly a very best company takes very little over time. Last thing as a professional in this business for younger people in this business I think the hardest thing is we are looking for a needle in a haystack. 99 days of out of 100 you don't know what you're doing. Why you're doing it because there's no result. If I have a customer service agent at a call center for eight hours I pick up the four I answer calls and I feel like I did something at the end of the day. What am I doing in the investing business for 99 days? I didn't find a single good company for 99 days but I need to have the same level of enthusiasm because the good one is coming on the hundred day. It takes 10 plus years from founding for a company to have a successful IPO in exit. It is not a straight smooth line. Long term persistence hard work I would say more than anything else. The ability to stay enthusiastic every day despite 99 days not being giving you any reward. I think that's a really hard part of this business. That requires a lot of mental toughness. Excellent very nice lot of clarity there. One quick data point I wanted to capture earlier you're currently going to raise or in the process of raising your third fund is it? No we have epic one and two and three hundred million dollars of capital. I think third fund no we are not raising at this point because very much investing out of epic capital. Okay okay all right okay sounds good. Kind of a standard question to wrap up I mean over the next 12 18 months and based on everything that you said that's probably a very short period of time but I just want to get a sense of you know if there are top priorities in your mind you know in that time. Hari the answer was always always the same. We invest in exceptional entrepreneurs. Great companies are built at good and bad times. We are always searching for the next great exceptional entrepreneur. That's the job. Excellent thank you again Lishi making time for me very generously. Really enjoy the conversation definitely hope to keep it going. Hari my pleasure really enjoyed the quality of conversation and your questions. It's a it's a real pleasure to interact with you and look forward to future interactions. Thank you for having me. That's it for this conversation. I'll be back soon with another episode of Startup Fridays. Until then I hope you have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend. I'm Hari Arakli. Thank you for listening.