E90: Srikanth Iyer (Co-founder & CEO, HomeLane)

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Srikanth Iyer is the Co-founder & CEO of HomeLane, India's largest startup in the home decor space. HomeLane has raised $116M in venture funding from Sequoia, Accel, Stride Ventures, IIFL Asset Management, Aarin Capital, Baring Private Equity Partners, RB Investments, BCCL among others investors.

Srikanth is a serial entrepreneur and industry leader, having started his entrepreneurial journey as the co-founder of Edurite Technologies, which eventually was acquired by Pearson India, where he spent the next few years as the CEO and responsible for bringing technology enabled education to millions of schools in India and making Pearson a leading player in Indian education. He is also a Venture partner with Unitus Ventures, an impact fund focused on India.

Episode notes:

1. Where does Srikanth find the courage to enter and dominate industries in which he has no or little prior experience? (3:56)

2. Framework to excel as a generalist in business (8:33)

3. Developing stronger leaders within an organization (14:48)

4. How to the best people at various stages of company development (20:50)

5. Mantra for building successful businesses (29:00)

6. Keeping it simple in business (39:39)

7. Values, culture and teams at the early-stage vs later-stage (51:07)

8. Advice to younger self (1:05:53)