Part 1 of 2. Most people date Shiprocket to 2017; in truth it was born in 2011, and the road there runs through two companies called KartRocket and Craftly. Saahil Goel walks Rohin through the build: Rs 15 lakh of their own money, nearly not being hired by their own first engineers, the hard lesson that in India you sell outcomes not software, an investor ultimatum to take $4 million or nothing, and by the end, just how much capital it's taken to get from that first office to the edge of a public listing. Part 2 gets into how he actually thinks.

Chapters

0:00  The company that started in 2011, not 2017

4:01  KartRocket: building an agency to learn the market

6:09  Bootstrapped on Rs 15 lakh

9:02  Why Indian SMBs wouldn't pay for software

17:58  “Take $4 million or nothing”

22:38  How Shiprocket was born

27:06  What Shiprocket actually is — and how it makes money

37:58  The IPO, and the state of the business

44:19  Quick commerce without owning a truck

48:42  From Delhi to a US career — and back

55:59  Lessons from failed fundraises

1:04:23  How much they've raised

This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.

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