In this episode, Arjun Vaidya (Venture Lead India, Verlinvest; Ex-CEO, Dr. Vaidya’s), joins our host Digjay, to talk about his path leading up to entrepreneurship & venture capital, his inspiration behind starting an Ayurveda brand, initial challenges, pivots & overcoming self-doubt as a founder, brand positioning & differentiation, learnings from the fundraising process & how should founders think through an exit transaction. Dr. Vaidya’s is India’s largest D2C Ayurveda brand that offers ayurvedic products to treat illnesses and maintain wellness. Arjun & his co-founder Trisha, successfully exited the business to RPSG in 2021. Post the exit Arjun has now joined Verlinvest as their Venture Lead for India. Verlinvest is a leading family owned evergreen investment group with over €1bn in AUM & investments in companies like BYJU’S, Epigamia and Wakefit among others. Prior to starting Dr. Vaidya’s, Arjun worked at a PE firm called L-Capital. A Brown university alum, Arjun is also an active angel investor (25+ investments) & a mentor to many young DTC founders in the ecosystem. You can connect with him here on Linkedin. ---- Show notes – (01:41) Arjun’s background & path leading up to entrepreneurship & venture capital (02:53) Genesis & inspiration behind starting an Ayurveda brand (09:29) Brand differentiation & identifying what your brand stands for (12:47) Initial challenges, pivoting the business & overcoming self-doubt as a founder (20:11) Fundraising & scaling up - When to raise funding & whom to raise from? (26:18) How to think through an exit decision? (33:01) Rapid fire and closing remarks ---- If you liked our episode, you can subscribe to our podcast on any podcast platforms of your choice (like Spotify & Apple iTunes). We would appreciate if you could leave us a review on Apple iTunes. This helps others discover the podcast organically. You can visit thevcpreneur.com and follow us on Twitter @thevcpreneur_ & Instagram @thevcpreneur for more episodes and interesting insights on the startup ecosystem. You can also follow our host Digjay here on Linkedin & Twitter