● The theme of the summit was ‘Scaling through tough times,’ with the objective of discussing how to stay resilient and scale both during good times and challenging times
● The event saw over 200 entrepreneurs and business leaders of the startup community attend and exchange notes
● Please view the whole event recorded here – https://youtu.be/ZZmYDEVyir8
Bengaluru, NFAPost: xto10x, a scaling platform for growth-stage startups, (cofounded by Binny Bansal, Saikiran Krishnamurthy and Neeraj Aggarwal) successfully concluded the inaugural edition of their flagship event – The Startup Summit.
The summit is an initiative by xto10x to bring founders in the startup ecosystem on a common platform to have deep conversations on scaling and building resilient companies that can sail through the test of time.
Starting this year, the company will host this summit annually. Nandan Nilekani (Co-founder and Non-Executive Chairman – Infosys) delivered the keynote address.
The Summit also hosted a power-packed panel discussion moderated by Saikiran Krishnamurthy (Cofounder & CEO – xto10x). The panel saw Binny Bansal (Coffounder – Flipkart and xto10x), Harsh Mariwala (Founder and Chairman – Marico), Nandan Nilekani (Coffounder and Non-Executive Chairman – Infosys) and Sriharsha Majety (Co-founder and CEO of Swiggy) share insights on how to build resilient companies.
In his keynote address, Nandan Nilekani spoke about building a company from scratch, and navigating a scaling journey that can withstand the test of changing economies as well as changing times. He stressed on the need for startups to focus on growth as well as profitability. He shared his journey of building Infosys Limited at a time when the concept of funding did not exist.
“We started Infosys completely bootstrapped in the 80’s. Without the internet, we had to build our company and its network manually. But we always went ahead with a strategy in mind of how to grow our company from x to 5x to 10x and further,” said Nandan Nilekani.
He also stressed on the need for startups to focus on lowering customer acquisition costs and said the key to success in businesses was to invest in its people and hire rightly.
“Those companies that do a great job in attracting, motivating and retaining people — in the long term — are going to do much better than those who don’t,” said Nandan Nilekani.
The panel discussion featuring Binny Bansal, Harsh Mariwala, Nandan Nilekani, and Sriharsha Majety was a dialogue focused on how to build resilient companies. The discussion covered various aspects from the journey of these founders, the challenges faced, followed by how each company’s strategy was created keeping in mind how the founders wanted the companies to scale.
Harsh Mariwala shared that his journey and vision evolved over a period of time. “My belief is that on day one, entrepreneurs do not have a strong vision. The environment constantly changes, throwing up many opportunities. I believe that entrepreneurs should look at a 3-5 years span and plan. These days, it could also be shorter as the future is so unpredictable,” said Harsh Mariwala.
Exhorting constantly study and reinvent to stay relevant with the times, within these shorter spans as well, Harsh Mariwala said entrepreneurs should understand that the business environment is dynamic, throwing up opportunities, as well as threats.
“One must study how everything can be converted into opportunities. We had never thought Marico’s business would be disrupted by the players in the D2C segment. All of a sudden, the entry barriers in the FMCG business are low. Barriers like high advertising budgets, distribution, infrastructure to cater to the Indian masses, all of them vanished with the emergence of e-commerce players but we saw this as an opportunity for our business,” said Harsh Mariwala.
Speaking at the panel discussion, Binny Bansal shared that the first 4-5 years of the Flipkart journey was always focused on moving ahead – we were at ‘x’ and how could we move this to 2x-3x within the next year.
“As we scaled, we understood that we will need to set forward looking ambitions and then work backwards on making plans to reach the goals. We set an ambitious target of USD 1bn and people went crazy as to how we plan to achieve this. But we planned this out, focused on how we need to grow and scale, and ended up reaching our target almost a year ahead of the targeted date,” said Binny Bansal.
Swiggy Cofounder Sriharsha Majety shared founders and entrepreneurs tend to set audacious goals (of growing 3x-4x, becoming more efficient etc.), and they focus all their efforts in reaching there.
“However, at some point in the journey the audacious goals stand at crossroads with the predictability expected of you. And when things do not go as planned, we go back to the drawing board and relook at how we can preserve our ambitions of meeting these audacious goals. We are also now taking a step back to plan where we want to be in the next 5 years,” said Swiggy Cofounder Sriharsha Majety.
He also added Harsh Mariwala shared a very useful perspective during one of our meetings. He said that people have a fear of failure, and this perception needs to change. “Celebration of failure is important to move ahead and scale,” said Swiggy Cofounder Sriharsha Majety.
At the culmination of the event, Saikiran Krishnamurthy (Co-Founder & CEO – xto10x) said xto10x is dedicated to helping companies scale the right way, and building enduring businesses that stand the test of time.
“We’re looking forward to our next Startup Summit and meeting many more founders whom we can support in their scaling journey,” said Saikiran Krishnamurthy.
xto10x also announced winners of the “Startups Employees Love” awards, recognising Indian startups for their efforts to create a positive and employee-first culture. Awards were given in four categories:
1. People Excellence – organisations that rank high on overall employee Net Promoter Score® (eNPS). The winners:
● For companies with 0-50 Employees – Anar (B2B social networking platform that enables businesses to connect with each other online)
● For companies with 50-200 Employees – Leegality (a digital documentation infrastructure platform)
● For companies with 200-500 Employees – SpringWorks (HR software solutions for growing businesses) and Bizongo (A tech-enabled B2B E-commerce & supply chain platform for packaging, apparels & other customised goods)
● For companies with 500+ Employees -REA India (full-stack real estate technology platform)
2. Best/Most Innovative People Practices – Organizations that have built a strong business culture by implementing creative people practices. The winners:
● For companies with 0-50 Employees – Vani.Coach (platform for large business organisations to upskill their workforce)
● For companies with 50-200 Employees – Leegality (a digital documentation infrastructure platform)
● For companies with 200-500 Employees – SpringWorks (HR software solutions for growing businesses)
● For companies with 500+ Employees -REA India (full-stack real estate technology platform)
3. Best for Women – Startups with the highest eNPS score among women. The winners:
● For companies with 0-50 Employees – Vani.Coach (platform for large business organisations to upskill their workforce)
● For companies with 50-200 Employees – Leegality (a digital documentation infrastructure platform)
● For companies with 200-500 Employees – Airmeet (Platform for virtual summits, meetups, and workshops) and entri.app (All-in-one app to learn and prepare for Govt. exams and spoken English classes)
● For companies with 500+ Employees – Groww (investing platform where users can find and invest in mutual funds)
Best Managers – 150 managers across the ecosystem with the perfect Manager Recommendation Index score (MRX) were recognised for their people management skills.
xto10x Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs scaling platform xto10x Technologies, has raised a series A funding of $25 million.
About xto10x
xto10x was founded by Binny Bansal, Saikiran Krishnamurthy, and Neeraj Aggarwal in 2018 with a vision to help startups scale the right way. In addition to working with startups across all important verticals of their organizations, xto10x also provides a range of proprietary product solutions. It is currently the only company of its kind that caters to the burgeoning startup ecosystem.
