The Juggernaut Interviews: Founders – Coming soon!

Sidra has been challenging stereotypes long before she became an entrepreneur. Born and raised in Okara, in Punjab, Pakistan, she grew up in a household and neighborhood where she felt women were only expected to care about marriage. But Sidra never conformed. Since she was a toddler, she questioned the unequal treatment of girls, and one story about bananas will leave you in splits.  The entrepreneur met her business partner and husband, Waqas Ali, because he was her aunt’s student. The two eventually moved to Lahore and launched a company to make the best leather shoes. In 2015, Sidra and Waqas moved to San Francisco for Y Combinator, becoming the first team from Pakistan the accelerator had funded. But they had a rough demo day — no investors bet on them. It would take several years before Sidra and Waqas would reinvent their product to launch Atoms, everyday sneakers that aim to be the most comfortable pair of shoes you have. In this episode, Sidra shared how Atoms not only survived — but thrived – during the pandemic. Sidra, who has become a ‘Humans of New York’ viral sensation, also shared her honest thoughts on the loneliness of being a founder.

It might seem impossible to get a company like Airbnb to invest millions in a startup that offers “flexible ways to rent.” But that’s what Kulveer did with Zeus. After this conversation, you’ll find out exactly how Kulveer pulled it off.  Kulveer’s entrepreneurial journey includes moving to San Francisco from England for Y Combinator. Once accepted into the Silicon Valley accelerator program in its earliest years, he co-founded Auctomatic with his cousin and now Y Combinator partner Harjeet Taggar, and the Stripe brothers Patrick & John Collison. Years later, in 2015, Kulveer would go on to co-found Zeus, a startup that offers furnished housing with flexible lease dates. In this episode, Kulveer shares his entrepreneurial journey and his family’s history, which spans four continents.

Shaan’s founder story is not an obvious one. He started his career in finance, but when he didn’t feel fulfilled, he decided to quit.  Months later, he would launch Flockjay, a platform that helps people find jobs in tech sales. Since then, Shaan has raised over $14 million to scale the company. Even though things were going well with Flockjay, he realized that they could be even better. But to grab that opportunity, Shaan had to change his product. In this episode, Shaan shares how he made the difficult decision to shift gears.

During COVID, many people found themselves drawn to the world of audio — from Clubhouse to Twitter Spaces. Against this backdrop, Naomi was building MeetCute, a media company that makes 15 minute rom-com audio stories, which she launched in February 2020 — right before the entire world shut down.  What makes Naomi’s story unique is that before MeetCute, she was sitting on the other side of the table. She worked in venture capital, on the investment team at Union Square Ventures, where she incubated the earliest version of her company. In this episode, Naomi talks about transitioning from an investor to a founder journey, her favorite rom-coms, and the future of the entertainment industry.

Deepak’s story is a great example of the diversity of the South Asian diaspora. His parents were born in India, but he was born in Kenya, grew up in Ecuador, and speaks fluent Spanish.  Deepak’s experiences in Latin America inspired the creation of NuvoCargo, a software-powered logistics company designed to simplify the challenges of cross-border trade, starting with U.S.-Mexico routes. But NuvoCargo isn’t Deepak’s first company. In this episode, Deepak talks about what a founder goes through when they decide to shut down a company (as he did with his first venture, The Lobby) and how they know when it’s working, and when it isn’t.

In 2013, Lee moved from a small apartment in New York City to a five-bedroom home in Denver. She struggled to furnish her new place, because she couldn’t find an interior designer who fit her budget. That’s when she decided to launch Havenly, a Denver-based company that matches designers and customers of all budgets. Several years later, COVID has changed her business, which has raised over $85 million. More people are working from and spending more time at home, but the company also faced a war for talent: people could now work for any company globally without leaving Denver.  Lee shares the challenges of working with family, what needs to change to create space for more diverse founders, and her lessons from the coronavirus pandemic.

Ankur was only 11 when he accidentally started his first company. A magazine would later call him “the best connected 21-year-old-in the world.” Today, the serial entrepreneur runs Kairos, a startup studio with a portfolio of companies that aim to address people's biggest life expenses, such as housing, healthcare, and student loans. One company, Rhino, gives renters an alternative to locking up thousands of dollars in security deposits. Another company, Bilt, gives customers rewards points for paying their rent with a dedicated credit card; they can even use the points toward homeownership. Ankur dives into what encouraged him to go against the grain, and tackle the problems people face every day instead of the “hot ideas” that percolate in Silicon Valley. And entrepreneurship, at the end of the day, is about solving problems — real problems.

The Stanford graduate and serial entrepreneur has been building companies for over 17 years. During her time as a founder, she’s seen a heck of a lot — both in terms of what has changed in Silicon Valley, and what hasn’t as much. She shares her thoughts on everything from fundraising — and being held to higher standards by VCs — to how to find your target audience to how she was working from home way before it was cool. Her latest company, Hooked, has raised millions of dollars to reimagine how teenagers read fiction on their phones. She is also an artist and bookworm. Spoiler alert, we get to hear her sing.

Host and Juggernaut founder Snigdha Sur interviews South Asian entrepreneurs about the startups they’re building. We’re not speaking about stereotypical founder journeys that involve boy geniuses with crazy technical chops whose startups are instantly successful. Instead, Snigdha talks to people whose diverse talents lead them to build unique businesses that have attracted capital and talent. And because she’s a startup founder herself, she asks the tough questions that reveal insights, not hype.