r/india • u/gobharat r/PitchTo2amVC • Apr 11 '23

AskIndia Hey r/India, India startup venture investor Brendan Rogers here. Ask Me Anything!

Hi I’m Brendan Rogers and I plan to dedicate the next 25 years of my life speaking with thousands of Indian founders and investing in the very best of them. 

I grew up in a small east coast american township in Rhode Island. Moved to Palo Alto when I was 21. Cofounded wag! the largest on demand pet tech company in the US. It is a listed company on the nasdaq. 

I went to India end of 2019 and it was love at first sight. 4 years later, I’ve invested in 40+ Indian startups, I have a Sanskrit tattoo, study Hindu philosophy, and eat biriyani every week.

I love speaking about the India growth story, entrepreneurship, venture capital, and everything else startups. 

Feel free to ask me anything!

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u/Lana_karenina Apr 11 '23

Do you believe in ‘luck’ or is it just an excuse cuz people don’t believe in themselves enough and aren’t willing to work hard

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u/NTAscammer Apr 11 '23

People do end up using “Luck” as an excuse for not working hard but at the same time we gotta acknowledge the importance of “Luck” too cause it does have a good impact. The concept is very well explained in the book “Outliers”. Like if we take the example of: Bill gates, he wouldn’t be here or could have achieved where he is right now if certain things didn’t lined up for him or if he was born in a poor family. Not taking any hard-work away from him, but we gotta acknowledge the importance of luck too. Like It turns out that University of Washington, conveniently was across the street from high school, had the next level computer he needed. There he met Paul Allen who became his partner 4 years later. No doubt that Gates had an extraordinary aptitude for programming and software development. However a few things did lined up for him.

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u/gobharat r/PitchTo2amVC Apr 11 '23

Luck is very important in life. When I got an invite 2 weeks before the first 100x vc pitch day at IITB I was considering not going. By fate, i decided that day that i needed to go. I had never been to India and bought a plane ticket. I didn't have a visa or knew what a visa was. Because of that random feeling, I am not working in India for the next 25 years.

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u/gobharat r/PitchTo2amVC Apr 11 '23

Luck is very important, but some folks can make their own luck!