Rahul Yadav speaks about what went wrong at Housing and why he doesn’t respect VCs

From left: Ex-CEO of Housing Rahul Yadav, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal, and Abha Bakaya of Bloomberg TV, the moderator. Photo credit: Furlenco

It was a packed hall with a mile long queue outside IIT-Bombay’s convocation hall just to hear the former CEO of Housing Rahul Yadav chat with his new investor, Flipkart’s co-founder and chairman Sachin Bansal.

The institute is Rahul’s alma mater although he never graduated and dropped out to start Housing with about 12 co-founders. He is now building an analytics startup with Sachin as investor. Here are a few excerpts from an interesting talk between them as an audience of 2,000 people listened.

The excerpts have been edited for grammar.

What went wrong at Housing

Rahul Yadav: Almost all of our CXOs were straight out of college. We were geeks and very good at technology. I used to think that people in roles such as HR, finance, and marketing are useless. Later we realized we really lacked skills in marketing, rates of ad media, and many other things.

Rahul Yadav. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

The whole thought process changed as we grew to more than 1,500 people and the support functions became really important. A lot of it has been a learning experience which means doing things for the first time. People who are able to change are able to get ahead. Change is the only constant.

We also failed to crack the template in the model. We expanded to over 10 cities at once whereas we should have gone to one city level at a time.

‘I don’t have much respect for VCs’

Rahul Yadav: There was no pressure to grow fast at Housing. Investors at first wanted us to grow really slow.

VCs, I think, are confused. First they tell us to scale and build. Suddenly they change, and tell us to focus on revenues and profits. I don’t have much respect for fund managers!

One lesson was that I would rather take individual money than VC money. I got much more support from individual investors in the board. They were always there [for me].

‘IITs means free movies and a lot of great minds’

Rahul Yadav: I did not get a degree at the stage. And I tried hard to get into Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT-Bombay [which is organizing this event]. They did not let me in. I decided to do something that they will invite me someday. [He gets an applause…]

Sachin Bansal: The institute helps push the boundaries until you’re really good at something. Perseverance is what is indirectly taught at IIT.

Has it become easier to start a business in India?

Think big and prioritize

How to choose the right investors

Daily motivation

“I’ll shift to US if can’t change India”.

Building culture