Inside Vijay Rayapati’s Playbook to win over Bay Area VCs

A group of people working together to assemble office furniture—a simple enough task, but when the group is the newly-forged team of a newly-launched startup, something as simple as putting together furniture gets infused with profound meaning. In fact, it can be the freshly sowed seeds of organisational culture—getting things done and not waiting around […]

“You know what, you should speak to Suren?” she said. I hadn’t yet met Surendran Balchandran (or Suren, as everyone knows him). But when Prukalpa vouches for someone, you don’t question it. Almost the same day, I pinged her asking for an introduction. What followed was one of the most surprising experiences of my life. He was quiet in early meetings—attending, taking notes, nodding along. But then came event day, and it was like watching a submarine surface. Suren was on top of everything, executing flawlessly, spotting failure points, and quietly putting processes in place to avoid them.