How Anjali Sardana built $100 Million startup 'Pronto'?

0:00 If not Pronto, what would you be doing right now? >> Yeah, so if Pronto shut down today, I would start Pronto again. You had this vision of solving for Indian labors two, three years back, and you've been doing it ever since. What are some cultural shocks that you have witnessed over this period that you did not think of, you know, when you were in the US? I think in the US, like if you're working with a vendor or a partner and they say they're going to get something done by a certain date, like they just do it. In India, when you're dealing with vendors or partners, it's like having to constantly follow up and nag these people in order to get what you need by certain date or otherwise it'll just get like infinitely delayed. But other than the labor market, is there some other problem that excites you?

0:35 >> I think I I talked about this in in another podcast, but water is like very important to me. I think that it's ludicrous that we accept um that water coming out of the tap like extremely dangerous and like to to consume. This is not the case in other countries. It ultimately leads to a lot of health effects in the population. You're 23 years old and you've raised $40 million in funding. Do you think being young helps in fund raise in some ways?

0:58 >> I think with US investors, it does because the US has a long history of companies started by very young founders, which ended up being insanely large outcomes. And therefore, uh there is a mental model for US venture investors um to understand a young founder. I think the same is not necessarily true in India. >> One cultural difference between Indian VCs and US VCs. The way a US investor treats a founder is very different from from the way an Indian investor would pre-treat a founder is is one piece of it. And the second is like US investors buy into power law because they've actually had many, many power law outcomes, right? And therefore, they don't care if 95% of the portfolio goes to zero as long as 5% return becomes, you know, 100 billion dollar companies, right? I don't think the same is true in India because power law the the the ecosystem is less mature and therefore power law has not played out yet, right?

1:50 Like you have um like only a couple companies which have become massive, massive outcomes, right? Flipkart and and Eternal. I want you to tell us one global your favorite entrepreneur and one Indian and why. >> Uh actually I have I have three favorites. Jeff Bezos, Travis from Uber, then Abhinav from from Blinkit. I have different reasons for each. >> What do you think of the term work-life balance? >> Yeah, I have not taken a day off since December 3rd, 2024.

2:13 Anjali, thank you so much for sitting down with us. Thank you for having me. Like I'm so excited for this conversation for multiple reasons. Firstly, because of the unique founder market fit. Right? Because you have uh lived in US, coming to India to solve a problem like this. Second reason is I think because you are building in a sector which is which is completely unorganized till now. Right? Like people were doing house helps, but either through people in the society or friends, but you thought about the sector and thought of like digitizing a such a massive unorganized sector.

2:47 Right? And finally, third reason is because of speed of your execution. Right? You started last year, April 2025? Yeah. And it's a $100 million company now. So, I think there's a lot to unpack there. And I want to start by learning a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up? What did you study and what was your first job? Yeah. So, I grew up in northern Virginia, 10 miles or yes, whatever like a 13-15 km outside DC. Uh and I studied biology at Georgetown, uh which is also in DC, which is like not super intuitive if I was going to go start this company.

3:25 Uh but I think I am very obsessed with very complex systems and I love when you can boil down a very complex system into like a very small or like a handful of of factors which drive it. And so, I think I I I got very obsessed with evolutionary biology, which is uh really the the idea that, you know, every like every exact combination and permutation of alleles or like which are, you know, form factors of a gene uh that exist in the world. So, like basically every single organism exists in the form that it does because of, you know, evolutionary biology. And really it boils down to six like the the quote big six factors. And so, if you think about it, like there's there's six factors, the push and pull of which has produced the entire diversity of life in its exact form, right? And and if you ask yourself, like why is, you know, why is a banana shaped exactly the way it is? Or why is a human esophagus, you know, formed in exactly the the exact form factor that it is? Yeah.

4:25 >> It's because of the push and pull of these six factors. And I got very obsessed with that. And it also tied in with my like interests in in in the markets and also in in terms of like generally in business, when you think about like very complex systems. Like, for example, in every operations business like ours is like a very very complex system of people, right? And and the push and pull of different factors are end up what what drives it at scale.

4:48 So, if you think about like very small scale, the the like factors don't become apparent, but as you scale, you have like a very small number of factors of like, for example, like earnings or something. But like the exact form factor of how you do earnings actually ends up driving a lot in the system. Yeah. So, that's what you learned by studying biology? Yeah, I I actually forgot you know, 95% of what I learned, but but I did take away that. Okay. But from there, how did you land a private equity job? Yeah, so in the US, what you study has like basically nothing to do with what you do after undergrad, unless it's like something like very very specific, like if you studied nursing and want to become a nurse. So, finance in particular in the US, like I guess like high finance job like banking and and private equity, you can study literally anything, like it does not matter.

5:41 So, for Bain Capital, I was interning at Morgan Stanley my junior summer Uh doing banking, hated it. I literally got 3 days in and was like, "I'm going to quit." Um and then I saw the application for Bain Capital online, applied. You take like an IQ test, and then it was like eight rounds of interviews, and then I got the job. Wow. So, that was like summer 2023 Okay. for for the next year. And working at Bain, you got the idea of Pronto, right? No, I actually So, this is this is terrible. I've told I've told every partner at Bain Capital Private Equity that I thought of this after I joined Yeah. and then decided to start it. This is not true. Okay. Um I had the idea So, again, I signed my Bain Capital offer more than a year before I started.

6:23 Like, that's the way it works there. Um and then my entire senior year I had no classes, and I was traveling a lot during that year. Um and that's when I I thought of of of Pronto and got super obsessed with the idea and decided I was going to start it. And then I arrived at Bain Capital already knowing that I was going to leave and start this company. So, uh sorry to Will Girl, if he's watching this.

6:47 No, but like how did you find this problem? Like, did you read a report or something? Did you >> I think it's like the initial starting point was Blinkit. Like >> Okay. Like The success of Blinkit. >> it was a juxtaposition of goods have become ridiculously easy to access, but services are still super difficult and completely offline. Yeah. And it I think if the problem was just on the customer side of like customers are not able to get, you know, the the house help services that they need, I mean, I would not have gotten so obsessed. It was understanding that the supply side is actually equally or even more broken, where workers in the segment are underemployed, Yeah. uh have no income stability, often have long periods of unemployment, and have no dignity, safety, or respect in the workplace.

7:34 Correct. Then I got very interested in this, where like, "Okay, you have a system that's actually broken on both sides." And I'm very be by inefficiencies, and especially inefficient like labor markets because I'm very interested in labor. It's sort of like the the intersection of of human psychology and and the markets. And most inefficient systems have or inefficient markets have one party that benefits from this and then they arbitrage it in order to profit. And thus there's a vested interest in making sure this inefficiency doesn't get resolved. So an example of this would be health care in the US where it's like grossly inefficient spend is 100x 200x what it should be but there is a lot of interest both from insurance companies and pharma and hospital systems, you know, to to make sure that inefficiency continues to exist so that they can profit. But this was an very very inefficient system where no one was benefiting. Neither the consumers nor the workers in this segment. And that's where I got very interested in trying to solve it because I think the previous iterations that attempting to solve this were all Uber style matching platforms but your operating model asserts essentially what the problem is and an Uber style matching platform asserts that the only problem is supply-demand matching but that's not the case, right? And so the actual reality is that, you know, there's massive gaps in quality, safety and reliability for customers. Those are the three things they care about and that requires a different operating model. And if you say, you know, it's not a top of funnel supply constraint problem but it's a high quality supply constraint problem then understanding and solving for the pain points of your workers becomes what you have you have to build that into the system from from day zero because scaling and retaining a high quality supply pool is the challenge.

9:18 And so I got to a point where like I I I was like, okay, I think I know the right way to solve this problem and everyone who previously tried it either didn't understand what the problem is or more likely they they understood but didn't want to do the hard work of like building it this way because it's not it's not super, you know, cool and and sexy the same way that like being Uber for whatever it is is, right? Um and I got to a point where I was like, "Okay, um I know this is a massive opportunity, a really big problem to solve, and I know the right way to solve it, and I need to I need to just go do it, right?

9:49 Like I have to go solve this problem." Um and and that's basically was was the reason I got so obsessed and and end up starting it. Wow. And didn't you think of like solving it in the US first? Or was This is This is a not a market like in in in the US for for many reasons. One is that um One of the like the the problem here in part arises from the informality and like lack of structure in the labor market, but labor markets in the US don't have the same level of informality and and lack of structure. Like there there is actual organization in the labor markets there. Second of all, um from a cultural point of view, um people don't see um home services in the same way there versus here. Like it is a extreme luxury in the US.

10:33 >> Yeah. Nor is there even a need to get your home cleaned every day. Um or like even just like the same the the the need doesn't exist. Um third is that you don't have uh the same operating model um would never work in in the US for several reasons. One is like demand density isn't there. But like simply put, this isn't a problem in the US. Um and the labor markets like the the structure of the labor markets doesn't really support it. Got it.

11:02 Cool. So you found you understood the problem. You finalize the market. Next step is raising funds, right? You >> That is not the next step. That is absolutely not the next step. >> Okay. Tell us how did you approach the problem? Like >> So the I think if you're if you like think of an idea and then you like wait to raise money to do it, like that's the wrong way. Um that's like a a That's the way to move very slow and like I I like I I I thought of the idea and I was like, "This is a problem to solve." And then it was another like Like by the time I So I graduated in in May 2024, and then I started working on it after.

11:41 Um and then it was like 7 months before I raised capital, right? And and that was a lot of A talking to customers and talking to work in the segment. And then it was um first uh we didn't have an app or anything. Um we just like, you know, recruited a couple professionals, and then we made flyers and had a WhatsApp number. Yeah. Um and then that didn't work. And I was like, "Okay, why is it not working?" It's like, "Okay, like customer cares about three things: quality, safety, reliability. And we're not providing any of those. We just have zero value proposition, and we're like no better than the offline world." And so >> finding them um made basically. Yeah, no. We were doing we were doing nothing.

12:18 Like we were doing nothing better than just like texting in your society group. >> Yeah. Um and then end of October 2024, I like vibe coded the first version of our app. Vibe coding wasn't a thing back back then. But I'm not technical, and I was like, "We need a product. Otherwise, there's no like there's no interface for the customer that's that's any better." Um and so I we just fired up cursor, and then I I built an app. Um never written a line of code. So uh but but managed to get it done. Put it on the App Store. And then December January 2025, um ran pilots. Pilots is a very generous word. It was like me and one person who was on our ops team operating from a park in Gurgaon in Sector 56. And like Like Like it was very rough, right? Like we had like three professionals and 150 bookings every day. So it was just ridiculous.

13:06 And I think we learned a lot of hard lessons, and those lessons ultimately shaped the way we operated. But it wasn't that I was like, "Okay, here's my idea. Let me go raise capital." Yeah. Like I just started doing. And then I raised capital in the first our first check in first Feb 2025. Mhm. So how did that conversation with Bain Capital was it? Bain Capital Ventures, yeah, which is separate from the place where I worked. Okay.

13:31 >> so, there was like there there is essentially like separate funds that are within the umbrella, but the two of them are not like connected. So, was it inbound, outbound, you reached out to them? Uh so, my brother's roommate from post grad had introduced me to someone who worked at BCV while I was still in college just as like a friend's thing. Yeah. Um like a social thing. I was supposed to meet him, never actually met him um that time cuz I like got robbed in New York and had to go home. Like it was it was ridiculous. So, I missed that meeting.

14:04 Um and then uh but then I had stayed in touch with him and like we didn't just like chat about random stuff. Um and then when I was raising my first round, I texted him just for advice cuz I was like, "Well, BCV doesn't do India and I just want some like impartial advice about how to raise money." Um and then I met him um Ron from from BCV. And then he was like, "Well, you should talk to uh Ajay and and Sonya on our team who who are doing India." And I was like, "I I I didn't know you guys did India." And they actually had never done India before then.

14:34 Um but then I met them um and then like I met I met them three times in four days and on the fourth day they gave me they gave me a term sheet. Okay. No, I think that entire process, I think it's really important for a lot of viewers to understand. Uh what are those conversations, right? Because pre-seed differs from seed, series A, series B. In pre- seed, like there's no idea, right? It's just on the founder conviction, market, how big that can be. So, what do you think? How is pre-series different from other funding rounds? Yeah, I think funding changes a lot uh based on the stage. And at the early stages, it's really just about the founder. Um it might not even be about the market. They'll just like if they're high conviction enough in you, they're like, "Well, they'll like figure it out.

15:19 They'll like pivot and find a different market. Um, so my conversations with BCB were largely around me as a person, just understanding me and and why I want to do what I was doing and just like why I do the things that I do, you know, more even more generally. Um, and basically that was it, right? Like it it was um, I talked about my idea and and the the quote business, but the the reason they ask about that at all or you you talk about that at all isn't isn't because they're underwriting it as a business. Like there's nothing to underwrite as a business. It doesn't exist. Um, what they're looking for is just clarity of thought, right? And that's it. So I I interned at a venture fund NSF um, and the guy who ran the firm um, I didn't understand this when I worked there, but we'd we'd meet very early stage founders and he'd be like, well, this idea isn't great, but we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll put a check in it anyways because um, they'll figure it out, right? And and I didn't understand why why he did that when I was there, but I understand it now, which is to say like it's it's ludicrous to underwrite a business that doesn't exist. Yeah. What the only thing that's going not going to to change is is the person, the founder. Um, and so that's what they look for. As you progress in the stages, um, like I think series A is relatively similar to seed even like it's it's largely around the person as well, but if you think about like what proportion of it is around um, the founder, what proportion of it is around the market and what proportion of it is around the business, those proportions change over time. So series A is going to be more around the market. Yeah.

16:53 The like the it's like slightly less about the founder, a little bit more about the market and again, nothing on the business. I think when you get to series B, it's it's more emphasis on um, the market and and and the business, though still a heavy emphasis on the founder. And I think it's basically as you as you progress that that changes. And a lot changes in even in the way you approach fund raising, right? Like um, you'd never think about like a data room in your in your first few rounds, but then as as you progress like you know, a great data room ends up being like decently important to to put together.

17:24 Not even as like a they care about clean data rooms, but more like what does it what does it mean about a company to have a clean data room? Yeah. So that was in April 2025, May 2025? So I we raised our first round in Feb 2025. It got announced in like May. And then the second round the General Catalyst Claybrook round we signed the term sheet in May, restructured the company so it like officially closed in in August.

17:51 >> Yeah. And then in Feb you raised Series B of 25 million, right? Yeah, that's we we announced in Feb, yeah. Okay. So till now you have raised 40 million dollars. Yeah. So what do right now is the goal to give you enough war chest to compete with other competitors? Like what's what what do the investors think at this stage? Yeah, we're just focused on building a great business, right? Like nothing to do with with any with anything else, right? I mean we're focused on building a high-quality service for our customers and solving for our professional NPS and retention and just building building, you know, the best possible version of ourselves.

18:31 Yeah. Cool. Yeah, now coming to the market which is very important for this conversation because I think if you see other sectors like e-commerce, quick commerce, right? Ride hailing, you can look at US and take an inspiration from and learn, right? Even investors have a conviction that Uber became this big, Ola can become that big, right? But for house help market, I don't think you can take inspiration from some other geography, right? So how do you see this market in India? Like how big is this market right now? How big do you think this can get in next 10 years? Um I don't see our quote unquote TAM as like the the instant house help. Um I think of our TAM as as like first of all we will be many many categories in the future, but even in in our in in our existing category, the TAM is all, you know, household services, right?

19:20 The idea is like there's three use cases. One is like the ad hoc, my household is missing for the day. Second is like the the supplementary of I have a household, but they don't have time to do everything. So this is a regular top up, and then there's primary of like we are your you know, your only household service. Yeah. And I see our goal as going after you know, we are your primary household service. Reason being that you know, if you're ad hoc, that's going to be like one to three times a month. Like on average, let's say twice a month. And therefore, you're going after like 1/15 of this market, which anyways is going to be like you know, some what percent of spend will ever come online in this market? Like let's say like 10 or 15%.

19:59 So now you're going after like 1/15 of 10 or 15% of the market versus if you're primary, you're going to go after 100% of wallet share. I think secondly, then like how how does someone build for that? It matters a lot as you're scaling your supply. So if you think about there's like two factors that are in tension as you scale your supply, which is availability and quality. You can scale your your supply very very fast and maximize availability, and you'll be able to solve for the my household is missing for the day market, but your ultimate TAM ends up getting limited because scaling supply quality is a one-way door. Like if you decide quality doesn't matter, and you go from 5,000 to 50,000 professionals or even like 10,000 professionals, and then you decide that you know, quality matters, you're a little bit screwed because you're going to have to you know, retrain everyone, churn everyone, and at that point like you you're you're you're in too deep.

20:50 And so it's a conscious choice that has to be made every day to say that quality matters, and solving for that as you're scaling your supply where you say you know what, I'm going to be able to take some sort of trade-off on availability and say I I will like your your drop-off in the funnel will end up becoming Um, like steeper, um, you have it matters because you have to hold the line on quality if you want to solve for the end state TAM. Obviously that it puts an onus on, you know, really building top of funnel for supply and that's the way you can scale supply fast and we went from 1,400 professionals on the platform at the beginning of January to 2,600 at the end of January to 4,500 at the end of February. Okay. And like and that that our demand growth outstripped that supply growth. Um, so we were not like happy with that, but um, it's not that you have to say I won't scale my supply.

21:33 It's just that, you know, that growth could have been maybe to 10,000, um, instead of 4,500 if if we weren't so selective on on quality and and quality for us looks like four days of in-person training. Yeah. Um, so actually before training even starts there's a screening process so that tests for, um, kind of just, you know, like behavioral, uh, kind of characteristics and intent, right? So like does this person have a growth mindset? Do they have coachability? Um, and then you have training which is four days in-person, covers hard skills, soft skills, um, grooming and hygiene, how to use, you know, different apps like Google Maps, um, and then post that there's a heavy performance management function which runs once someone even enters the the the the pool and that keeps quality high on the platform. And the way we think about quality, our internal ethos, is that every quality complaint has to be treated like a plane crash rather than a car crash. So some level of car crashes is okay. Like it's a statistic.

22:30 No level of plane crashes is ever okay, right? There's always some sort of investigation or policy change or or a rule change and that has to be the ethos that you take on on quality complaints else it's going to fester. Yeah. And I think there are two, uh, competitors of yours. One is a public company, big public company, another is Snabbet. How do you see competition? Do you consider them as competition? Do you look over what they are doing? Do you try to learn from them? Or do you not consider them as competition? Well, you're just focused on building the best business, right? Um, ultimately I believe that, you know, the player who's delivering the highest-quality, most-reliable service to customers will win in the end. And that's an intrinsic thing, right? You don't um you don't get to be higher quality or more reliable by looking up elsewhere. You you get it by focusing on yourself and then improving and trying to be the best version of yourself.

23:19 >> Yeah. Got it. You mentioned uh screening process and how do you onboard them. I think that's one was my next question about the business model. How is this different from quick commerce uh business? Because people understand how quick commerce works, right? You have a dark store near a like high resident like high-density society, and from there a delivery person picks up and delivers to you. How is House Help business, your business model, different from that?

23:48 It's extremely different both on the business model and the operating model. Uh I'll talk about each of those separately. If you think about the operating model, um for quick commerce, you have a dark store, um and then riders will arrive at the dark store, pick up something, go to like deliver it, and then come back. And they get paid a fixed amount, let's say 52 rupees for that, which pays for the 10 minutes there and the 10 minutes back, so 20 minutes. Um >> We don't operate the same way. So, we have hubs in everywhere we operate. So, like in in different polygons, but the same structure doesn't exist um because we like a big part of reducing like So, the number one killer of utilization for us is travel time, and therefore supply positioning is very important. And so, while you have this hub that everyone can come back to that's in this polygon, you want to make sure your supply is optimally positioned. And so, your algorithm looks a little bit more like Uber um than like quick commerce straight up. Um And the way you you obviously they get paid differently as well. Um so, it's sort of like a cross between the two where you have like an more Uber-style algorithm in terms of supply positioning combined with we have a physical facility where everyone can come back to, you know, if they need to use the bathroom or they need water or they need first aid or whatever it is or it's raining, right? Or or it's it's too hot, right? So that we have a physical place.

25:09 But there's no need for them to like come back after every single booking or something like that. Also the business model is very different. So if you think about a quick commerce like how quick commerce works, right? You have a dark store which is a massive fixed cost, right? And so for them AOV is king because you have a fixed cost for the delivery and you have the cost of the store. And so you have and you also have a gross margin on the product, right? So if you have a thousand, you know, rupee AOV order for for if you're Blinkit or or any of these quick commerce companies versus a 200 rupee order, it matters a lot because let's say your gross margin is 50% or something on it or or let's say it's let's say you have you have a 20% gross margin. So your thousand rupee order, you're going to be making, you know, 200 rupees in gross profit, you know, if you if you remove the cost of the product, right?

26:01 Versus you know, 40 rupees on that 200 rupee AOV order, right? And then you have a 52 rupee cost whatever it is or 50 rupee cost for the delivery, right? And so if you have 200 rupees in gross profit on a thousand AOV order, you're going to make 150 rupees in terms of essentially like contribution margin before the store cost, right? Versus if you have a 200 rupee AOV order and you have you know, again your your 20% gross margin so you have 40 40 rupees in gross profit and then you have 50 rupees for the delivery cost. Now you're minus 10. And so that's why AOV matters so much for quick commerce purchases. And you have this massive fixed cost of the store where you need a certain amount of throughput in order to stay basically above water. So for hub level I guess like store level EBITDA, you need both high enough AOV that which allows you to generate your gross profit minus your your delivery cost and then you also need a certain number of orders like OPD in order to to pay back the store cost.

26:56 And so there's a lot of leverage in AOV. So if you think about like the P&L of a of a of a quick commerce business, it matters a lot the extra incremental like 10 rupees on on AOV. We have a very different structure. So we are a full on like variable cost business. Like we have very very low fixed cost. Like our hubs are are very low cost and so like a very small number of bookings are needed in order to overcome that cost. And for us also a one hour like the if you think about just in a single category, what does AOV mean? AOV's going to be a driven by longer a longer bookings. Like a one hour booking versus a two hour booking is where most that AOV difference is going to come in. Obviously not including other categories. But your cost for labor also goes up linearly with that. Like a one hour booking is going to have half the the cost of service as a two hour booking. And so AOV is not exactly the right way to think about this business. Um what like there there is there is a very different cost structure and we are lucky to have like a very like a completely variable cost business. So we don't have to worry about, you know, even even throughput and it means that also you can expand the business much faster. So a dark store costs, you know, 70 or 80 lakhs in capex to build. We don't have capex, right? We also have like basically no marginal cost to launching a new area except for, you know, customer acquisition, right?

28:16 And and and category creation. And so we have just a fundamentally different both operating model and business model. Yeah. So in terms of AOV, it's the duration of the booking, right? >> So so as in your AOV is a duration of the booking. So it's like somewhat So I think that the reason people care about AOV in quick commerce is because it determines how much you're going to make after the delivery cost, right? There is no sense in looking like as in there's not a lot of importance on it. What you do have the cost that you do have is going to be around travel time. Where if you think about like your delivery cost, you can think about that as equivalent to our travel time, which is to a booking. Um and this is why a demand density is super important and B supply positioning is super important cuz that's how you can drive down your travel time, right?

29:02 So if you have supply positioned um like you know very very close to bookings, um then your travel time is going to be low and that's the dead time that you have to overcome. Yeah. Got it. And I think another important uh thing for you as a Pronto is striking a balance between building this for workers versus customers, end customers, right? There's always that balance. So for example, in ride-hailing, I think Rapido was the first company which said that we are just building it for our driver partners. We care about them. If they are happy, customers will be happy. So do you try to strike a balance like that, building for house helps or versus building it for customers?

29:41 I think that they go very hand in hand. Um the idea is goes even further than than like the Rapido model where like in ride-hailing, quality doesn't matter too too much like as long as they get you from point A to point B. Um in our business, quality matters a ton, right? Um and and if you think about our role as a platform, like the experience someone has with the platform versus has with when the person is in their home, like much more importance is is paid to like the experience they have when when this this, you know, professionals in their home. And therefore, um building a really high quality and and really like positive experience for your professionals will result in them delivering the highest quality and best experiences to your customers. And they're one in the same.

30:24 Yeah, I think uh along with that, another issue is ensuring safety for these uh workers, house helps, right? A lot of them are women, I think. All women. All women? Yeah, I guess we we have uh we have two uh category pilots in Gurgaon where we use male supply, but so it's 99.7% women. Wow, okay. And yeah, since you're one of the first companies to organize this market, what are the challenges there to ensure safety? Like, can you explain with any example for people to understand? Yeah, I think that um in the offline world safety is a massive issue um for you know, workers in this segment and there's very little protection for them. Yeah. Um and I think it's it's multifold then. One is like the way people view um labor in this category or like workers in this category um has to be changed in order to drive safety, right? So, um you have to make it so that someone believes that like ultimately this person's coming into a someone's home, right? So, like there there is like anything can happen, right? Before you like you you can't like teleport into the home and therefore one of the like most important things is like how can we change the attitude people have so that they understand that you know what, this is actually like a human. They deserve respect. Like every every person deserves dignity and therefore um that becomes like very important in terms of the customer side is like you know, understanding that like you know, um this is a professional, right? And and therefore there's a certain way that like you you treat them as as you would treat any other human, yeah, right? The second piece of this is on the worker side um people in the offline world who work in this category um have no agency because if they leave a if they're if they're getting mistreated and they leave a home, um they lose their income and then they can't make rent, they can't pay their EMIs, all of this, right? So, they can't afford that and no one in the offline world will will will ever take their side. Like if they if they try and get, you know, um you know, like like legal help. Um And one of the most important things we do is drive home that they have agency.

32:31 Yeah. So, if you are being mistreated, um you should absolutely walk out immediately and call us and we will support you, right? And we will help you take legal action if something were to happen and we do, right? And and we will help you get medical care and we will take you to the to to to the hospital if needed. And really driving home that you have agency, you don't need to just sit there and take it. You should absolutely walk out and let us know and and we will we will take your side and we will stand up for you. Um that is the most important thing. And of course there's like we have on ground response teams which which will show up in minutes, right? Yeah. And we have like no professional will ever be left stranded, right? Someone will if they call someone will show up in in within minutes, right? And so um there's that's the part of it and obviously there's like an SOS button. But I think all of this is like are all like after the fact >> Yeah. um solutions like it's it's like ultimately like two people are in like a physical space together and therefore like you can't stop something from happening unless you have like superpowers, right? Um and so what you can do is like the preventative things of changing culture, right? Which is um you know, making sure you know, professionals feel like they have agency and they should walk out before anything gets serious, right? And they should call us for help. Um there's also like kind of the and then there's the the like more cultural thing and in terms of society in terms of how we think about, you know, workers in this segment >> Yeah. and understanding that like, you know, there's a standard with which you treat them. They are a professional like anyone else, whether they're on our platform or not, right? Whether they're in the offline world or or on some other platform or on our platform, they deserve respect and safety and safety and dignity. Yeah. And that is the most important thing.

34:04 Got it. So right now what is it that you're promising these workers? Are you promising them a certain salary that they can make per month? Are you like what is the incentive for them? Yeah, I mean so earnings is like a a very small part of it. I would say rather than it even being like the amount what we are giving them is a lot of transparency and a lot of stability in that, right? Where you know, we can give them a lot of visibility where you say like, "Hey, if you do XYZ things, right? If you're if you're on the platform for a certain number of hours, you know, per day or per month and and and you like follow these like very basic minimum requirements, you can make this amount or like in this like relatively tight range. And there's a lot of visibility they have towards that. Ultimately, if we're solving for their pain points, their pain points are income instability and and underemployment, right? And so therefore, um giving them a sense of stability by giving them, you know, very high visibility into what they're going to make is very important, right? And there's it's goes even bigger than that, right? Which is just on the earnings piece, in the offline world it's like an unfortunate thing, but often like they'll make it to the end of the month and their like person who they're they're working with has decided they don't like they want to fire them and then they just like never don't pay them. They're just like There's and there's no recourse for it, right? Versus they know, okay, if it's on the app, like I see the amount that I'm going to make on the app and that amount will show up in my bank account. And we help you set up a bank account and we we we also generate your your PAN number for you if if you don't have it, right? We do all these things and what that also means is, you know, you you also have access to formal credit for the first time. We did a survey in and in like one of our our Mumbai clusters and 80% of professionals before joining the platform had taken a loan from a chit fund, right? And and a lot of them had very bad experiences with this. And we did a lot of financial literacy workshops and one of the things that that like came out of that is, you know, making sure our professionals understand that like, you know, you have a formal income now so therefore you can access you can access formal credit, right? And if you need to take a loan, you know, you can take it by by like formal means and therefore you you are at a lot less risk. Whereas that's one piece of it.

36:04 The second piece of it is around safety and dignity, right? Which is to say, you are no longer like you're no longer unprotected, right? Like in in in in the offline world there's no one for to protect you something were to go wrong versus, you know, there is a company that is going to stand up for you and help you if something were to go wrong. And and you also have, I think for a lot of our professionals it's it's also a dignity of like I have a uniform. I'm part of a company, right? And and they can go home and and say like here's my badge. Like here's my uniform, right? And and I think there's there's a lot that they get out of the dignity of having, you know, formal, you know, formal, you know, work. And and I think that is super important to us, right? Which is like building a very positive culture for them.

36:45 And a very positive experience for them, which centers around things that, you know, aren't necessarily earnings. >> Yeah. And when you look at the sector as a whole, so right now there was a report last month that this entire industry is burning 7 to 8 million dollars a month, right? Is that number correct to you? I have no idea. I only know my own numbers. Okay. So how like how does this market how will we see in the next 1 to 2 years? For how long players will continue to burn money and what does like profitability look like? Yeah, I think profitability in this business again is a variable cost like structure, right? And therefore, profitability can almost be turned on at any time, right?

37:26 It's the like choice between growth and and profitability. And and I think we make that, you know, we continuously evaluate like when and where it makes sense to to flip that switch or even move the dial, right? Um Ultimately, we are not burdened by like a lot of heavy fixed costs and therefore I can't I I can't say like, okay, it'll take us 5 years to get to profitability. Like if in a year it makes sense for us to be profitable, we can be. If it in 4 years it still doesn't make sense to be profitable, then we won't be. Yeah.

37:56 Makes sense. How do you see Pronto 1 year down the line? Like currently how many customers are you serving per month? Yeah, so we are doing around 20,000 bookings a day now, right? And and so um It's tough to see what 1 year looks like. I think that our our vision around Pronto is not around even home services. It's it's about building really scalable labor organization platform. Our goal is to organize and formalize all unskilled informal labor in India. And I hope in 1 year, you know, and and by the way, that that means like to any customer, whether that end customer is B2C or B2B, right? We're thinking about like every sector of the economy. And I hope in 1 year we've we've made meaningful progress towards that vision. Yeah.

38:37 So, right now you're just into house help, right? Majorly. Correct. >> What is the next big segment you are targeting? So, I think if you have like the two by two matrix of like existing professionals and existing customers, new professionals and new customers, right? I think the initial expansion is largely going to be in like the the top left of that matrix of existing customer and existing professionals or or like various and then you move down the spectrum of like, you know, slightly different set of professionals with existing customers and slightly different set of professionals with slightly different customers. And so, I think we'll start in the top left and then and then kind of of of move along both axes.

39:16 Yeah. So, like pet care is one I think you mentioned somewhere. Yeah, I I think we've we're we're trying trialing a lot of things. So, that that would fall under basically like existing professional, existing customer. Okay. And when you like try to understand the TAM, right? Do you have a TAM in mind in terms of the number of customers? Like for example, quick commerce, they have certain tens of millions of people, right? Do you have that number in mind that 5 years down the line? Because this sector is just started, right? How big this TAM would become and will this expand beyond tier one in India?

39:52 Yeah, that's a great question. I think in terms of number of customers, it will probably be roughly similar to to the, you know, quick commerce TAM, which is like Blinkit serves, you know, 30 million customers. And I think we we largely end up at at roughly that that the same. Um Can it go to tier two? I think absolutely. Um couple things are true. One is that we again have the benefit of being a variable cost business and therefore, um you know, there's no fixed cost or like necessary and you know, kind of throughput needed in order to be profitable in a certain place. Yeah. Uh, and this is very much a need um, for for tier two India as well. And there's definitely pockets of of, you know, demand in in every tier two city. Um, the other piece of this is that there is a lot of work that has to be done in in launching a tier two, which is uh, the same comfort which a tier one city customer has with, you know, getting a service professional off of an app.

40:42 Yeah. Um, that same comfort isn't necessarily there in tier two. And so there's work to be done in terms of getting people to trust you um, and get and building a lot of comfort around um, kind of the entire phenomenon of of someone um, booking you off of an app. Yeah, booking or like booking a professional off of an app. And so I think while it's going to be more difficult, it's not necessarily because it demand isn't there, it's because you have to get customers comfortable with it. Right. Yeah, I think that'll happen with time the way quick commerce slowly moved into tier two. I think similar way, right?

41:12 When you look at how you're changing lives of these workers, right? Income stability is one thing you're promising right now, like stable time, right? What are other problems you're seeing in their life that you're slowly understanding as they're working with you? And yeah, do you have a way to solve them? Are you going to work on yourself or are there some problems that other founders can go after? Yeah, I think that you know, this got I was was touched on a bit earlier, but I think number one problem is obviously safety, right? In the offline world there's zero safety and and there's just like massive like a abuse and and disrespect um, towards towards workers in this segment.

41:46 And changing that is is the number one impact we can have. Second is, you know, um, around earnings, right? It's it's also about the stability of like, okay, whatever's on the app I will get paid, but also it's um, you know, having access to formal credit cuz you know, uh, you know, for the very first time they have a formal income and therefore they don't need to take loans from from chit funds or other like very predatory lenders who then end up, you know, either screwing them over or like they they get stuck in these like terrible debt cycles, right? And so, that's another like, you know, really great to impact. Um the third part of this is also around health, right? Um we did a survey once in in Gurgaon where like some like it was it was like some of like like massive proportion of of our professionals had a child who had disabilities, right? And and also our professionals themselves were not able to access medical care reliably and so therefore like giving medical insurance ends up being very very important. Yeah.

42:38 Um and then obviously the broadly wellness. A lot of workers in this category are migrants from villages in other parts of India. And therefore there's a lot of stress that comes with being very far from home. And and obviously they also live like relatively treacherous lives and therefore there's a lot that can happen to them in terms of mental health and so therefore solving for their wellness, um we like and then kind of figuring out how we can like care for them um as as a whole person ends up being very important. I think one thing that's like super important to me is I went to Georgetown and Georgetown is a a Jesuit and one of the most important Jesuit values is is that at Georgetown is cura personalis, which is the care for the whole person. Yeah.

43:17 And this is something I think about a lot at Pronto, which is how do we care for our professionals as a whole person, which doesn't just mean, you know, okay, they come on our platform and they do jobs and they earn and therefore we're just thinking about earnings. We're thinking about, you know, our professionals as a whole person, which means caring from them for for from every angle. I think there's a lot of white space, you know, across the things that I mentioned um for, you know, other, you know, founders who want to come in, especially around the things that um get further and further away from the actual like, you know, services and and earnings piece, like thinking about even even like wellness, what can you do? And and obviously I think like the the financial access is something that I I believe people have tried very often, which is um trying to like underwrite, you know, more formal credit for these folks. That being said, I think we have the unique position of also like, you know, knowing how much they've they've earned um and how much they will earn and we have that visibility which gives us a better position to do it. That being said, I think any anyone who can do like great things for anyone in this segment is very like I I would support it. Yeah.

44:21 Uh before I move to the rapid fire part, I'm doing that first time by the way. I've seen a lot of people do it with the celebrities and politicians, but it's the first time I'm doing with the founder. But before I move to that, I have this final question. You had this vision of solving for Indian labors 2-3 years back and you've been doing it ever since. What are some cultural shocks that you've witnessed over this period that you did not think of, you know, when you were in the US?

44:50 Yeah, I think that like doing business is like very different um in the US versus India. Like I think in the US like you're working with a vendor or a partner and they say they're going to get something done by a certain date, like they just do it. You don't even need to follow up with them. Like they it's it's done, right? And and it'll be done and like the correctly. Um versus in India when you're dealing with vendors or partners, it's like having to constantly follow up and nag these people um in order to get what you need by a certain date or otherwise it'll just get like infinitely delayed. Yeah. I think a lot of people would agree to that.

45:25 Okay, in the end I just have 10 questions. I just want you to answer in uh 30-40 seconds. I think that'll be great. Do you have a philosophy you live by? For example, Jeff Bezos has this regret minimization thing, right? So whatever decisions he takes, he thinks that whether I'll regret 20-30 years down the line. Do you have something like that? Yeah, I think if you think something is impossible, like you can't do it, uh then you can't do it. Um if you think something that if you think that you can do it, maybe you still can't do it, but there's at least a chance that you can, right? So like if you tell yourself that you you you can't start this company, then you definitely can't. Um but if you tell yourself you can, uh you might still not be able to, but uh you have an infinitely higher chance of actually being able to. You're 23 years old and you've raised $40 million in funding. Do you think being young helps in fund raise in some ways?

46:21 I think with US investors, it does uh because the US has a long history of companies started by very young founders which end up being insanely large outcomes and therefore uh there's a mental model for US like venture venture investors um to understand a young founder. Um uh I think the same is not necessarily true in India. I mean there's obviously some very like a very recent example where where that has worked out, but um largely it's it's not the case uh in India.

46:56 Um I do think that in starting this business it is a huge help because you're doing something that hasn't been done before in like a a completely different market and therefore a different solution is required. And so not having any priors or biases ends up helping a lot. Yeah. If not Pronto, what would you be doing right now? Yeah, so if Pronto shut down today, I would start Pronto again. Like I the the plan B is is the same company. Okay. But other than the labor market, is there some other problem that excites you? Yes.

47:29 I think I I talked about this in in in another podcast, but water is like very important to me. I think that it's ludicrous that we accept um that water coming out of the tap um is like extremely dangerous and like like to to consume, right? Um this is not the case in other countries. And it ultimately leads to a lot of health effects in the population. And I think it's super important that someone takes on this like really large problem. And obviously it's going to require a lot of like multi-stakeholder efforts. Um but if I had infinite money and infinite time, I would solve that problem. Okay.

48:08 One cultural difference between Indian VCs and US VCs. I think they operate extremely differently. Uh I think a lot of Indian investors don't There So So a couple things are true. One is like the the balance of capital and assets is different in India versus the US. The The US has a much higher ratio of capital to assets. And therefore um like in some senses venture dollars have been somewhat commoditized and therefore um like the way a US investor treats a founder is very differently different from from the way an Indian investor would treat treat a founder is is one piece of it. And the second is like um there I think US investors buy into power law because they've actually had many many power law outcomes, right? Um And therefore um they don't care if 95% of the portfolio goes to zero as long as 5% return and becomes, you know, 100 billion-dollar companies, right?

49:10 >> Yeah. And I don't think the same is true in India because power law the the the ecosystem is less mature and therefore power law has not played out yet, right? Like you have um like only a couple companies which have become massive massive outcomes, right? Flipkart and and Eternal. Yeah. >> Right? Um and therefore it's more difficult for these investors to buy into that and therefore they see um you know, they'd rather take less risk and have returns more evenly spread across their portfolio. And And that also kind of buys into uh that that plays into like which type of founders they back. Again, going back to the young founders, right? Um power law uh lends towards backing really young founders because young founders are more likely to have like either zero or like insanely large outcomes. Uh in India, if you're solving for more evenly spread returns across your portfolio, you're going to go after more de-risked businesses and de-risked founders, which means you'll go after someone who's like in their 30s, right? As and and back then. And I think there's just a lot of knock-on effects in both, you know, the way founders are treated and then also the type of founders they get funding um in the US versus India. Yeah. So, it's like an Indian a US fund, they would be okay if 99 bets fail, but one should become a hundred billion-dollar company. On the other hand, India, they want 10 one billion-dollar companies, right?

50:25 Something like that. Yeah. Got it. What do you think of the term work-life balance? Yeah, I have not taken a day off since December 3rd, 2024. Um but it's because I actually like there's nothing I'd rather be doing than doing work, right? Like there's nothing I'd rather be doing than building my company. Uh but, you know, the the moment that I feel I'd rather be doing something else, then I will take a day off. I want you to tell us one global your favorite entrepreneur and one Indian and why. Why do you admire them? Travis from Uber.

50:56 Actually, I have I have three favorites. Jeff Bezos, Travis from Uber, um and then Albin Ther from from Blinggit. Um and I have different reasons for each. I think Jeff Bezos is one of the highest agency like people that has like that just has ever existed, right? Like he had amazon.com, which was healing and like his his business, and then he took a very high agency bet on AWS, which ended up being an infinitely scalable business. Um but it was like a very non-obvious bet for someone, you know, building a consumer uh e-commerce marketplace to then go do data centers, right? But he had the foresight of saying this is going to be massive and infinitely scalable and this is the future, and I'm going to bet the farm on it. And I think he's just like that is um like easily one of the highest agency moves that has ever been made. I think Travis at Uber um has been like my favorite founder for a long time. Uh Um, and reason being, uh, one is like the the culture of just like, you know, getting it done, right? Like he he moved insanely fast. Um, and like nothing he never saw anything as a blocker. Like he he always figured out a way to get it done. And I think that the early team in terms of the operations folks that was at Uber were just insane, right? Like there is, um, my personal hero is the There was There was someone who worked at Uber her name was Diya Bebow, who she was like employee number, I don't know, like 15 or something at Uber globally. And then she was moving back to India and then Travis was like, "Okay, so she's like super insane. Like we should just launch, you know, Uber India." And then she did. And I spoke to her, uh, like a few weeks before we launched, and I learned more from that one like 60-minute conversation than I think I like ever learned. Um, and and like and and in any like class ever. Um, and just like the the level of talent that they had and and kind of the agency of everyone involved, um, in that organization is super high and they were fighting against a lot of things, um, and they never let anything stop them. Like whether it was regulatory or or or like a lot of different pressures, competition, but they fought through all of it and and never lost the same, um, culture and and the spirit of of moving super fast.

53:03 >> Yeah. Um, and I think they they also like set the benchmarks very high, which I I think is incredible. Um, like if you think about, um, like Uber Eats when they were scaling that, right? If you think like it would be easy to benchmark yourself against, you know, other food delivery companies and say like, "Okay, we're growing faster than them." But they were like, "No, look, Uber like ride share scaled at, you know, this growth rate.

53:24 Therefore, we need to be at that growth rate." And they they set excellence as the bar rather than like just looking at at like peers, which I think is is is like incredible. And I think everyone I've met who was very early at Uber is like just extremely talented. One difference you have found in the Gurugram Delhi market versus Bengaluru market? Our customers are very different. Um I mean one thing is obviously the cadence um with which people like live. Um like there there there are like life exists on a cadence and it's different in every city. Like you can actually feel the heartbeat of a city when you see that like when demand like we have a daily demand cycle and a weekly demand cycle and you can tell. Yeah.

54:01 And in in different cities like the way people move in their life. Um I think NCR customers have a very high bar. Um like it's I'm really glad we started there. It's like the probably the toughest market um in terms of customers. Um I think in in Bangalore people are very willing to give you a chance. >> Yeah. Um obviously like you have to deliver in order for them to keep using you, but people are more startup oriented in Bangalore and therefore more willing to give new platforms a try.

54:27 Yeah. They're more of those early adopters in Bangalore. Yes. >> Yeah. You don't use social media at all. Why is that? Yeah, so in 11 or right before 11th grade um I deleted Instagram because I was like I'm spending too much time scrolling and I realized that like I'm someone who's like it's very easy for me to get sucked into the infinite scroll um and I realized that like oh actually like if I spend 2 hours a day scrolling Instagram like that's a lot of time, right? That's like you know, um like if you if you're awake for 18 hours a day that's literally like 1/9 of your waking hours that you're spending scrolling Instagram and I So that at that time it was like I won't have time to for my studies if I like just am on Instagram so I deleted it then. Um but now I would never go back because I think the time that you gain back is is your superpower. Like there is no other finite resource other than uh other than time in your life and like I'm very afraid of even 1 minute going to the wrong uh to the wrong place.

55:29 Cool. Last question. What's a typical day in your life like? Yeah. So I think everyone everyone who who answers this question says there's no such thing as a typical day. Which is also true for me, but I I hate to say it, but I I'm kind of obliged to. Um, but uh I was given this advice six four or five months ago and ended up being very pivotal, which is you as a founder, whatever you are spending your time and energy on is what will see the most progress or move for you see see the most movement in the business and therefore um if you like literally look at your calendar and look look where where are the hours of of the day or where are the hours of the week going?

56:05 Um, like you should allocate those towards the things that need the most focus. So like think about like the one to two things that need the most, you know, intervention or the most important to focus on and like spend your hours on those, you know, one to two things. Yeah, I think that's a great note to end this conversation. Thank you, Anshul. Thank you for having me. Yeah.