Rajesh Jain on selling IndiaWorld to Sify for $115M in the country’s first dotcom acquisition, founding Netcore Cloud, and his learnings over the last three decades
Description
Do you know about the most interesting headline of all Indian business newspapers on 30 November 1999?
It was India's most prominent Internet deal at the time - a $115Mn acquisition of IndiaWorld, founded by our guest Rajesh Jain.
After this successful acquisition; Rajesh started Netcore. Yes, the same company is responsible for 75% of India's email traffic and 50% of Asia's email traffic through its Cloud network.
During the episode, Rajesh explains how they've been one of the Proficorns at Netcore, all his learnings and experiences over the last two decades, and much more.
Notes -
03:17 - Early career and failures
09:42 - Learning entrepreneurship from his father
11:32 - Starting and scaling IndiaWorld
22:04 - "More important than knowing when to enter a business, is to know when to exit a business."
24:26 - His perspective about businesses in India
31:46 - "StarTech: Great Golden Era of Indian Entrepreneurship."
34:33 - Building Netcore after the previous acquisition
38:45 - Pivots and growth of Netcore
43:45 - What is Proficorn, and why has Rajesh strongly advocated for it?
51:48 - 25% ownership by employees