I have met Nithin Kamath just once when he was nice enough to take a three hour flight to spend a leisurely afternoon with me. Getting him a gourmet lunch was hard for my favourite Chef at the rooftop at Lalit Delhi. He came across as a health freak and a disciplined person. He skipped the sinfully delicious gourmet desert and wanted a small plate of fresh fruit instead.
And then just a few days later – he had a stroke with cardiac complications. I was unpleasantly surprised and started following the kid brothers. I make it a point to do a cold call at every startup they fund – mostly without a visiting card (I don’t have one) or prior appointment. It is still the best way to diligence a startup. I don’t look like I am hawking current accounts for HdFc or wealth management services for 360one and in 95% cases I am able to walk to the promoters desk and strike a conversation. It is something I learned from the HCL leadership when I was on the board of one of the group companies in the late eighties (ages ago).
The Kamath brothers are quite an interesting pair. I like their social media posts and podcasts. And to be fair, they come across as really smart and articulate – not weighed down by the absence of a formal pedigreed degree or the usual McKinsey Harvard donkey dance that one is accustomed to in the VC world.
They make a lot of bets in the startup space. Something akin to shooting darts in the sky hoping some will stick. It is the best of the approaches if the money is your own. Which is true in their case. The other approach is walking the road, spending years knowing an entrepreneur, starting small, driving hard – things that old world fund managers like me still do. In the end we come to conclusions that flipkart wont make profits or blue smart will blow. But it doesn’t matter if you are correct. What matters is how hard you can shout and numbers help. They will have a 90% failure rate and I may get to 9%. But what matters is not how many fail but how big that one success fares. And that is where throwing darts is useful. Using an astrologer is even better.
One thing that getting a merchant banking license will do is to make them give a merchant bankers and a fund managers exam at NISM which can be quite humbling for most. Esp if you are as old as I am or as unqualified as the kids are. Merchant banking is a clerks delight. Not something like smart genZ kids like the Kamath’s should be wasting their time at.
