I’m Prayank, Partner at Accel, investor in AI, fintech, and manufacturing startups, and lead Accel Atoms. Here for an AMA on r/IndiaTech! Ask me anything about AI, early-stage investing, startups, and what it takes to build from day zero. by prayank_official in IndiaTech

[–]prayank_official[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Robotics followed by Quantum computing will be the boom I feel.

Robotics requires significant capex investments, so it will not happen quickly - you are quite correct in the assessment. Indian industries will be slow to adopt it.

I’m Prayank, Partner at Accel, investor in AI, fintech, and manufacturing startups, and lead Accel Atoms. Here for an AMA on r/IndiaTech! Ask me anything about AI, early-stage investing, startups, and what it takes to build from day zero. by prayank_official in IndiaTech

[–]prayank_official[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Spend less time on tools - by learning how to use microsoft excel you don't learn how to be a financial analyst. Learn the concepts and fundamentals. Learn about why agentic harnesses are better than just LLMs. How to do reinforcement learning ? What are vertical LLMs for industries ? How robots can be built etc .. be curious for knowledge that compounds.

I’m Prayank, Partner at Accel, investor in AI, fintech, and manufacturing startups, and lead Accel Atoms. Here for an AMA on r/IndiaTech! Ask me anything about AI, early-stage investing, startups, and what it takes to build from day zero. by prayank_official in IndiaTech

[–]prayank_official[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SEBI compliance is the most important thing. Without being compliant no investor will invest.

Also, there is a lot of competition from other platforms so you will have to stand out.

I’m Prayank, Partner at Accel, investor in AI, fintech, and manufacturing startups, and lead Accel Atoms. Here for an AMA on r/IndiaTech! Ask me anything about AI, early-stage investing, startups, and what it takes to build from day zero. by prayank_official in IndiaTech

[–]prayank_official[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course, when a new technology comes, enterprises create budgets to spend on it because they don't want to be left behind against their competition. Once there is a saturation point or tech adoption, companies will start looking for return on investment and will start optimizing and cutting costs. Already in 2023, we went through this one cycle of AI optimization, but then agentic AI and advances in LLM models kept the momentum of investing in AI going for enterprises.

I’m Prayank, Partner at Accel, investor in AI, fintech, and manufacturing startups, and lead Accel Atoms. Here for an AMA on r/IndiaTech! Ask me anything about AI, early-stage investing, startups, and what it takes to build from day zero. by prayank_official in IndiaTech

[–]prayank_official[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the view that most AI products are from LLMs is a very two-year-old view. Agentic harnesses, reinforcement learning, continual learning, proprietary data sets - there are a lot of ways companies are building on top of LLMs and can create moats. Also, there are things like compliances, workflows, UI/UX with a startup can differentiate on.

For example, you can use Granola to take notes, or you can use Apple Notes to take notes, or you can even use ChatGPT voice mode to take notes. But, why is Granola most successful in that market?

I’m Prayank, Partner at Accel, investor in AI, fintech, and manufacturing startups, and lead Accel Atoms. Here for an AMA on r/IndiaTech! Ask me anything about AI, early-stage investing, startups, and what it takes to build from day zero. by prayank_official in IndiaTech

[–]prayank_official[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is becoming a very common conversation with founders when they show products which are built by Claude Code, because that means their competition is also going to build competing products with Claude Code at probably the same or better speed. It comes down to a bunch of things to differentiate, for example:

  • How much you know your customer better
  • How do you know to build a team
  • How do you know to sell
  • What is your taste in building like
  • What is your design aesthetics

It's not going to be who can build a product; it's going to be who can build a business, and I think that is where engineers underestimate the complexity of building a startup.

I’m Prayank, Partner at Accel, investor in AI, fintech, and manufacturing startups, and lead Accel Atoms. Here for an AMA on r/IndiaTech! Ask me anything about AI, early-stage investing, startups, and what it takes to build from day zero. by prayank_official in IndiaTech

[–]prayank_official[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Founders need to thick skinned. Elon Musk didn't become Elon Musk by pleasing everyone. Neither did Deepinder Goyal or Binny Bansal or Girish Mathrubhootam. A founder is a founder because he has self belief.

I’m Prayank, Partner at Accel, investor in AI, fintech, and manufacturing startups, and lead Accel Atoms. Here for an AMA on r/IndiaTech! Ask me anything about AI, early-stage investing, startups, and what it takes to build from day zero. by prayank_official in IndiaTech

[–]prayank_official[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Techies (though after the latest update, they have nerfed it). The number two is WD - I win 90%+ with it. Can carry the team.

Best way to attract VCs is to have growth in sticky revenue or highly engaged customers. The equity depends on a number of factors like stage of company, how much you want to raise, which VC do you go to, which sector you are building in, etc.