Brick by Brick: Ctrl. Alt. Delete. Repeat
Annu Talreja paved her entrepreneurial track by using bricks of ctrl, alt, delete, and repeat. What, though, helped the second-time founder in building a sustainable path was cement of grittiness. Find out how
Everything was firmly in her control. In 2017, the architectural grad has had enough of corporate life. An MBA from INSEAD, over a decade of experience in real estate, hospitality, M&A and corporate finance, and stints at Marriott, Ernst Young, and AECOM…Annu Talreja had no reasons to embrace chaos, uncertainty, and entrepreneurship. But all along, she was conscious of a cardinal family truth: you can delay it, but you can’t avoid it. Till 2017, Annu delayed it. Successfully.
The young woman, though, was already familiar with the ‘delay’ part. When faced with a choice between a career in art or architecture, she opted for the latter because a five-year under-grad course would have delayed her marriage by two years! After all, women in the Sindhi families usually — read mostly — get married even before completing college. Annu was fortunate to delay what was inevitable. Again, successful.
Now, in 2017, after fifteen years of corporate life, Annu succumbed to the inescapable family itch. She quit her job, and plunged into entrepreneurship by cofounding student housing startup Oxfordcaps with her friend Priyanka Gera. “This is what Sindhi blood does to you,” she smiles. “I was the first in my family to be an employee,” she adds.
In fact, there were many ‘firsts’ to her name. She was the first in the family to graduate; she was probably one of the firsts to have a women cofounder; and her gender made her one of the firsts to dabble into the business of real estate. So far, so good. Everything was still firmly in her control.
A few years later, Annu realised the illusion of control.
By early 2020, Oxfordcaps had scaled the business in Singapore and India, raised about $12 million in venture funding, and clocked an ARR (annual recurring revenue) of Rs 100 crore. The startup signed a Series B term sheet of $50 million, added 50,000 beds, and was set to start operations across Malaysia and Indonesia. Life was in control. Completely.
Who killed my control button?
Then came Covid. The funding remained elusive and everything went for a toss. Scores of startups started folding up as funding vanished, nations went under lockdown, and businesses stared at an unpredictable future.
Oxfordcaps too was sucked into the sea of uncertainty. For over eight months since the lockdown, the startup was embroiled in disputes because of its long property leases. “There was complete chaos,” recounts Annu. Things slipped out of her control. Completely.
But did she ever have control over external factors? Take, for instance, Covid. It didn’t happen because of her and there was little she could have done to either control it, escape it or delete it. She could have only embraced it, though grudgingly. At times, it’s wise to acknowledge what exists but not be stubborn enough to fret over it.
Magic happens when you let wisdom take control of knowledge. There are things you can control, and then there are things you can’t. Quite early in her entrepreneurial journey, Annu realised the wisdom of putting wisdom in the driving seat.
Take, for instance, most of the funding conversations during her first venture. She was aware of the formidable odds. And there were not one, but too many.
A sea of Red flags
Sample these scenarios. Two women cofounders are invariably a red flag for investors. Now, two women cofounders in a patriarchal set up — which real estate is — and that too in north India, are more than a red flag. They are a blustering red flag. And when two women cofounders take audacious bets and talk about the massive upside rather than downside, it’s a RED FLAG in capital letters.
Annu recounts her downcast moments. “Every conversation was defensive in tone,” she underlines. Every query centered around ‘how risky the business model is rather than how big the TAM (total addressable market) is.’ VCs always flaunt the ‘billion-dollar outcome’ lens in terms of backing an entrepreneur or betting on an idea. Right? But in the case of Annu and her cofounder, the funders shunned TAM and embraced TAR (total addressable risk). Downside became the new upside for them.
What this meant for Annu was one simple lesson: control is an illusion. What do you do when you know that you could never be in control of the conversation? How would you react when you know that the person is judging you from a gender perspective? How would you feel when you imagine that the biased people sitting on the other side of the table might find a place on your board?
No, you don’t feel helpless. You feel enlightened. Reason? There are things you can’t control. Accept. The first step in empowering oneself is acceptance. Whatever the situation is. However bad it is. Accept. It’s hard to do so because humans are not wired to accept things that they don’t like. But accept. That’s how you begin to take back control.
And one must learn how to be in control during gloomy situations. Life is a game of cards. You can’t change the cards you are dealt. You never asked for a Covid card. But you got it. Right? As a student, you are never prepared for out-of-syllabus questions. But we did encounter many at some stage in our lives. Didn’t we? As a rookie or a seasoned entrepreneur, you never pray for biased funders. But you do bump into them. Don’t you? So, learn to play the hand you are dealt with. Learn. Focusing on what you can control. “When challenges feel insurmountable, I remind myself of a simple truth: you can’t control everything, but you can always control your response,” says Annu.
Inch by Inch, Brick by Brick
Brick by brick, Annu was learning the hard lessons in entrepreneurship. To sell your maiden venture is not easy, especially when you never built the exit button. But this is what Covid did to Oxfordcaps. As funding dried up, colleges shut down, VCs vanished, and revenue plunged to zero, what options was the founder left with? She did try to salvage the situation but at times the best way out is to press the delete button. “The pandemic was the lowest moment in my life as an entrepreneur,” she reckons.
But there was a silver lining as well. For Annu, the lowest moment came at a point which also happened to be the lowest moment for a lot of founders and businesses. “In a way, it was comforting. I was not alone in this chaos,” she says. The outside environment made the business model questionable and killed the market. “When you know it’s not you, when you know it’s not under your control, it blocks self-doubt from creeping in,” she says. All you want is survival.
And entrepreneurship is all about survival. Right? And at times, you need to kill to survive. This is what Annu did before the start of the second wave of the pandemic. She sold her venture. What helped her in exiting was not having an exaggerated valuation. What was once seen as a boon — hefty funding and fancy valuation — turned out to be a curse during the pandemic. Oxfordcaps was never saddled with the inflated-valuation curse. The venture was sold, the entrepreneur survived the pandemic, and was ready for the next fight.
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This time, she armed herself with a better ‘why’ and a better understanding of herself.
The second venture — Accacia — was born out of a compelling ‘why.’ She explains. In February 2021, Jakarta was slammed by massive floods and the devastating impact of climate change was visible. “That’s why I founded Accacia — to drive a sustainable future for all by reducing GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions,” says Annu.
Started in February 2022, Accacia is an AI-enabled SaaS platform that helps real estate and infrastructure companies (developers, asset managers, financial institutions, operators, and governments) in meeting their net-zero goals. The idea is to promote sustainable development by decarbonising the real estate industry. “We are at a precipice in history,” she reckons, adding that the efforts made towards mitigating the climate crisis will not only define the future of how businesses are conducted but also the future of generations to come.
So, where are the examples?
Ironically, back in 2022, the business of securing the future started with a not-so-secure present.
When Annu pitched Accacia, the investors scrambled for precedent. Sadly, there was none. If Ola was India’s Uber, Flipkart was India’s Amazon, then what was Accacia? Zilch. If absence of precedent was perplexing, lack of understanding of the nuances of real estate business among most of the investors was harrowing.
The ignorance, unfortunately, was not bliss. But pain.
Look at the questions hurled at the second-time founder. How are you different from horizontal platforms? Is the differentiation deep enough? How can you sell abroad by sitting out of India? “If you are not from the industry, it is difficult to appreciate that differentiation as a VC,” she reckons.
Then there was an unexpected and hilarious red flag. In the second stint, Annu had a male cofounder. Despite this, she could not exorcise the ghost of gender, though. The outside perception still remained the same.
Annu rewinds the clock and takes us to one of her funding pitches made to an Investment Committee (IC), a group within a VC firm that takes a final call on investing in a startup. “I went to the IC meet with my cofounder,” she recalls.
It was a balmy Friday afternoon.
Both the cofounders did their homework, covered all grounds, and presented a bunch of compelling slides. The members looked convinced. However, a few moments later, the cofounders were bemused by an unexpected turn of event. Post-presentation, there was a Q&A session and all the questions were guided towards Annu’s cofounder. All eyes were on him. Like pointed missiles, all heads of the investment committee members turned towards his face.
It was an awkward moment for both the cofounders. Gender never shaped or defined the founding team of Accacia. Both were cofounders, both were equal, and both respected who they are. And this is what they expected from the world: respect and an acknowledgement of the relationship of the equals.
Sadly, it was missing.
Fly on the wall!
Annu was stunned. She was very much in the room. She was not a fly on the wall. This is not how conversations should happen. It should always be a conversation of equals. And this is how it was between her and Vani Kola. The founder of Kalaari Capital backed Annu’s first venture Oxfordcaps in its Series A funding round in 2019.
A woman in the room, and a woman across the table, changes the dynamics. It doesn’t give you an edge but definitely levels the playing field. “With Vani, it was always a conversation between equals,” reiterates Annu. But now, it was not.
And the negative change made her rethink and alter her approach. “If this is the level of discomfort in even having a conversation with a woman, I don’t know how they would fit on the board,” she wondered and decided to walk away. “Focus on what you can control,” Annu reminded herself.
There was a grim reality, and bias, and the gritty founder acknowledged it. Only 2.3% of venture capital funding goes to women-led startups. “I know it’s frustrating, but resisting these stats won’t change it,” she adds. What you can control, Annu underlines, is the quality of your pitch, your network, and finding investors who align with your mission. “There’s no point in wasting energy on convincing those who don’t get your mission, vision and you,” she says.
Little over three years into the second innings, Annu has learnt and unlearned a lot. The first thing to discard was the so-called ‘set formula’ for success. In the early days, she thought building a startup meant following a set format:
Come up with a great idea, but keep it a secret.
Raise money, get investors, and scale fast.
Work crazy hours, and sacrifice everything.
Chase hockey stick growth, assuming profitability will follow.
“That’s how I thought success worked. But I was wrong. Reality is quite different,” she says.
It’s Grit, Grit & Grit
The second big learning is something that people talk a lot but seldom practice: perseverance. “You’ll never have everything figured out on day zero,” she says. It’s okay. “We are over three-year old and still figuring things out,” she adds. In fact, there are people who have IPOed but are still figuring it out. She smiles. You can’t blame them, though. “The market, technology, everything is evolving so fast…you will always be figuring things out. Accept it,” she says.
The third learning revolves around moving the needle. Some 10–15 years ago, she explains, the startup ecosystem was nascent and evolving. There was a lot of conversation around the hustle culture. In fact, a disproportionate focus was on hustle and not experience. “Now this conversation needs to shift to the importance of experience as well,” she reckons.
Okay. But if she has to dish out just one piece of advice to women entrepreneurs and students, what would it be? It’s a no-brainer. Accept the reality, control what is under your control, delete negativity, alter what you can, and repeat this cycle of ‘accept, control, alter, and delete.’ “As a woman, you will have to struggle more than your male counterparts. It’s okay. Accept it. Don’t be bitter,” she says. If you accept it and work harder than the rest, it would give you an unfair advantage. “Be gritty. Talent might become obsolete. What will help you survive and thrive is grit,” she signs off.
