Google created the intent graph. Facebook created the social graph. We are creating the emotional graph.
Naveen Tewari
I don't consider my competition to be companies but entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is the freedom to take your own decisions, and that's what we offer.
I come from a middle-class family, where you grow up thinking about government service. But when I went to Harvard, I saw that entrepreneurs and business leaders were just like me. It gave me a feeling that I could also do such things.
I realized that the journey of entrepreneurship can often be a lonely one. Not everyone wants to believe in or support your vision, and every entrepreneur faces this moment of truth. It's hard to walk away but harder to persevere.
Just do what you love.
Of the three largest Internet markets - the U.S., India, and China - you will increasingly see Indian and Chinese companies partner.
The most important lesson to remember is that failure is inevitable, but so is success, so rebound.
Anything edgy won't see instant success. That's why one will have to learn to wait. You're going to see a lot of failures.
One of the challenges of having exceptionally high quality talent is that they're constantly restless, and they're constantly on the lookout for opportunities.
I always believe in backing up a team that is super passionate and loves to work with each other.
After multiple failures, when I tasted success, I was at my creative best - the 'jugaadu'-best.
When we failed and pivoted our business from mKhoj to InMobi or when we did not get any trained people with the required skillsets, as we were the first in the industry, and on many such instances in our journey, we would think of giving up every other day.
The world has many very smart people who are doing interesting and different things, and there is no better way to learn than to interact with them.
Bengaluru's traffic does not allow scope for cycling regularly, but I brave the roads occasionally and take the cycle out to work.
In 2007, I was living in San Francisco. I came out of business school, and I was very keen on doing something with a small company. I felt that the market, in general, in mobile phones was just going to explode.
InMobi will play a critical role in shaping the future.
Advertising has to be contextual, as the potential in 'push' marketing is fairly limited and is largely viewed as spam. Thus there is a need to get into 'permission' marketing and 'pull' marketing to deliver value to marketers.
Capital will follow where great talents go.
I realized that if I had to work with others, I had to align with their vision.
We were told that building a product company in India is impossible, as there wasn't enough talent available. But we survived, thrived, and grew despite a whole lot of frowns and thumbs down.
InMobi is passionate about pushing the limits of business and mobile technology.
Our business is strong and enjoys high margins.
In tough times, one has to see if the fundamentals of the business are good or not.
Amobee has an enviable track record of success supporting the world's leading brands with their cutting edge, end-to-end mobile advertising solution.
In combining forces, InMobi will now be able to offer Amobee's clients greater ROI and reach.
Advertising has always been about creating awareness. We started to question that logic. Discovery-led consumption is where we are headed. We are bringing window shopping to the mobile platform.
We have the capital, the resources, and the technology that we need to build a mobile advertising platform across the planet.
One of the biggest motivation for me and my co-founder was to learn and see what is happening in the market, see what next generation of entrepreneurs are doing. This has been the biggest motivation to investing in start-ups.
Capital never builds great products.
Frankly, as an entrepreneur, you can do only one thing and be a part of it, but through investing in different ventures, you can be a part of something new and what others are trying to build.
I am not a big fan of investors asking for revenues upfront. Investors seeking numbers are being too myopic. However, I personally believe in creating a product with clarity in mind on how one thinks revenues can trickle in.
If you look at the direction that the world is taking from an advertising and marketing point of view, it is significantly becoming a world that's all about video and all about doing things programmatically. Now what AerServ has is best in-class technology in the form of video programmatic... our acquisition of them gives us that capability.
I eventually think its going to be the consumer who controls his own data.
However hard you might try, you can never understand a market like a local person would.
A lot of coordinated approaches are required to make a global operation work.
Our offices across the globe may not be very similar in terms of the way they look, but they are very similar culturally.
You get to learn so much while working in another country.
The Internet eco-system should be such that users should not pay for Internet connection, content, or anything that is basic.
Access to Internet and content should be free for users which can get accommodated by advertisements.
Drying up of capital has different consequences in different environments.
When I started InMobi, I was on the road raising funds. I faced 20 rejections. But when I got the funds, they came from best venture capitalists.
I know, it sounds generic and is a cliche, but coming from a middle class family in Kanpur, it was always the neighbourhood opinions which mattered.
In my viewpoint, experience is grossly overrated.
The primary motivation for me is to learn.
For a company to be successful, it's not just about ideas. It's also about luck. And everything else coming together.
As an Indian company, to go outside India and motivate people, have them align to our vision, and get them excited about what an Indian company can do was a hard thing to pull off.
We knew we had to think global and think big. Most companies that are emerging don't do that.
NestAway is a disruptive product creating a win-win opportunity, not just for direct stakeholders like owners and tenants but for the society at large by making cities safer, especially for young women.
For me, whether I have money or not, it is far more important that there is an intent behind a cause that's pure and can change the lives of certain people. If that's there, then you will be able to get all the resources required.
Nasscom has a big mandate - a lot of things come under their umbrella.
