Lower TAM, super early stage ideas, focus on unit economics from day 1 and team check!

As I recently got a chance to attend fireside chat with Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, I captured their key investment mantras

🎯 Lower TAM (Total Addressable Market): Instead of chasing big categories, they prefer smaller, niche categories at their stage of investment. Their capital infusion can't single-handedly turn around a startup. Mamaearth is a prime example, where they invested when the company was producing mosquito repellents for kids, showcasing their unique foresight

🌱 Super Early Stage Ideas : They're open to startups at the earliest stages, even if it's the team's first fundraising effort. They're willing to bet on untested ideas, hypotheses, and POCs

💰 Focus on Unit Economics from Day 1: Jeet V. emphasized how in past the focus had shifted from value creation to valuation which is now correcting as he beautifully mentions COVID was not new normal (it was anomaly) and now is the original normal. And in the original normal the focus is back to profitability and positive unit economics (atleast at contribution level!)

👥 Team Check: Due diligence can be limited in the early stages, so the entrepreneur turned investor duo stress the significance of understanding the team and their passion for their product or category. The right team can make all the difference

🚀 Results speak for themselves: Multiple sources report that they achieved a remarkable 100X return on their investments in Mamaearth, Ola, UC and others. However, as KB wisely pointed out, an investor is only as good as their last investment