Gaurav Kapoor On Raising Millions And Creating A ‘Risk Management’ SaaS Market Leader To Help Organizations Manage Their Risk

In a recent interview, Gaurav Kapoor, the co-CEO and Co-Founder of MetricStream, shared his captivating journey from growing up in India to becoming a successful entrepreneur and leader in Silicon Valley. The conversation unveils the evolution of Gaurav’s career, the birth of MetricStream, and the invaluable lessons learned along the way.

MetricStream has several top-ranking global companies as its clients, including large-scale and mid-market organizations.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Gaurav Kapoor reflects on growing up in India, navigating its evolving economic landscape, and the promising journey from a middle-class upbringing to becoming an entrepreneur.
• Kapoor’s early career at Citibank exposed him to the entrepreneurial spirit, witnessing the launch of groundbreaking financial products and laying the foundation for his future ventures.
• Moving to Silicon Valley with Citibank, Gaurav played a pivotal role in the early days of fintech, gaining exposure to global developments and setting the stage for MetricStream’s inception.
• Inspired by disruptive technologies and the 2008 financial crisis, Gaurav co-founded MetricStream to address the challenges of integrated Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) in a rapidly changing market.
• MetricStream’s evolution from on-premises to cloud solutions underscores the company’s adaptability, which is driven by customer feedback and a commitment to staying ahead of market trends.
• Kapoor’s transition from CFO to COO and CEO highlights the importance of extreme ownership, emphasizing responsibility for customers, employees, and shareholders as key stakeholders.
• Gaurav envisions a future where risk management is ingrained in every employee’s role, serving as a facilitator for sustainable growth, with technology playing a pervasive role in enabling strategic decision-making.

SUBSCRIBE ON:

For a winning deck, see the commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400M (see it here). 

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.

About Gaurav Kapoor:

As the Co-Chief Executive Officer, Gaurav Kapoor is responsible for the continued growth of MetricStream as a Global GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) market leader providing value to its customers, shareholders, employees, and partners.

Over the last decade, Gaurav has led Strategy, Go-to-Market, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Service Delivery, and Support at different stages of its growth.

Since the inception of the company, he served as the founding CFO until 2010. During this time, MetricStream has grown into a global GRC leader with a customer presence in 30+ countries and over a thousand employees globally.

Gaurav also launched ComplianceOnline.com, a MetricStream business unit that has grown to become a leading online GRC community and content property.

Prior to MetricStream, he was at OpenGrowth, an incubation and venture firm where he helped build and grow several companies, including ArcadiaOne and Regalix.

Prior to that, Gaurav spent several years in high-growth business roles at Citi in Asia and the U.S., including consumer digital payments and derivative financial products.

Gaurav has a Bachelor’s degree in Technology (with Honors) from the Indian Institute of Technology, a degree in Business from FMS, Delhi, and an MBA from the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated as a Palmer Scholar.

He has served on the board of Regalix, a digital innovation and marketing company, for a decade and is an investor/advisor to other technology companies.

In the GRC space, Guarav is a thought leader and a regular speaker on Risk, Cyber, and Compliance topics, including at the GRC Summit, IIA, Ops Risk, PRIMIA, OCEG, and Federal Enterprise Risk, among others.

Connect with Gaurav Kapoor:

• • TheOrg
  • LinkedIn
  • Crunchbase
  • Forbes Councils

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmakerr show. So today. We have a really fantastic guest joining us I have to say you know out of all the episodes that that I’ve done this guest has to be 1 of the longest standing founders on his business I mean he’s been there adapting you know like. Rearranging product market fit like really incredible for 2 decades I mean think about this 21 years I mean in in in dock years. You know if you were to compare that to corporate I mean that’s like hundreds of years I mean a lot of good stuff that we’ going to be uncovering Today. We’re going to be talking about. Different stages of companies. How to think about growth and survival and how that really transitions if you as you go from one life cycle to the next really the resilience to ah being an entrepreneur and how to think about that adaptability of at at the speed in which you go.

Gaurav Kapoor: But oh.

Alejandro Cremades: Really staying true as well to the vision as well as creating a very strong culture and how culture always prevails in any case, you know, be ready for a very inspiring conversation today. Ah without Farther. Do Let’s welcome Our guest. Garravkaor Welcome to the show.

Gaurav Kapoor: Thank you and always a pleasure and thank you for the introduction as well.

Alejandro Cremades: So born in Delhi India give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up.

Gaurav Kapoor: Oh it was. It was a different India that time elandro so you know it really is a different India today that you see but it’s always been a very um you know an extremely interesting journey growing up in India you know fighting the battles there. And you know the the economic um, ah entity that India is today. It was different at that time but it was still extremely promising. So my personal journey has been one. You know where I was born into a middle class family education was primary and then as we went through the process I was lucky enough to. Get into a really good. You know, engineering school and then did my masters as well. You know and then one of the you know, very very interesting jobs at that time I joined a bank Citibank which was ah you know one of the really inspiring entrepreneurial companies. It was a very small entity at that time but was. Fortunate to see the first grade card the first car you know the car loans the first mutual fund getting launched in the country. Basically so you know a lot of the entrepreneurial spirit came from that environment and and then you know decided to move to the us with city I apologize.

Alejandro Cremades: So hold on so we’ll we’ll we’ll we’ll let it this piece. We’ll let it this piece So obviously obviously city. Um, you know tremendous tremendous company Tremendous experience too for you I mean it was. It was very much an entrepreneurial you know type of approach you know, even though shotscha.

Gaurav Kapoor: Yeah, yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: Ah, successful company in the in the financial service base. But for you as you were saying in India it was a first time for everything and the way that the you know the company at that point was doing the first you know time you know like all types of things I guess how do you think that they. That that sparked that the hunger and that ambition towards becoming you know later on an entrepreneur.

Gaurav Kapoor: Yeah, so alander. Good good question see the entrepreneur big bug was there. You know right? even before I joined city but you know what happens in India or what used to happen India at that time it was not easy to break away because of you know the lifestyle you wanted to have etc. But city actually spurred a lot of things because things were created from scratch in a you know growing market and we were actually the first company interestingly 95 in India along with Unilever to be the company to go on to the internet. Okay, so that actually gave us a lost plot of exposure what was happening globally. And as you know the internet really kind of spot off in the ninety four ninety five timeframe that was when Yahoo was created etc. It quickly moved to other countries and we were fortunate to be among the first companies to get exposure to that the first you know bank to have an internet presence or even a company to have internet presence. So all of this put together. You know created a spot that okay, you know, take not just take but everything that was happening in financial services or technology or other industries as well. There was an opportunity to go and create and see where disruption could be created and then along the journey I was again fortunate enough to. You know for city to have you know transport me over to the us to start, you know what used to be called what is now called fintech but at that time it was really about consumer internet remittance you know that was the first kind of launch that city was doing in the international markets so fortunate to be part of that and start that and then you know.

Gaurav Kapoor: And then the rest is history if you will yeah in terms of being in Silicon Valley getting exposed to a number of people you know and finding what one wanted to do really and that’s how metrics team came about. Ah.

Alejandro Cremades: Yeah, yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: How how was that experience too of um, coming to the us you know going being in the in the bay area too and seeing the incredible innovation happening around you I mean how much of a culture shock was that because you already were experiencing that. Innovative approach. You know, given what you had seen in in India with city but now coming into the us especially to San Francisco everything was very much accelerated. So how was that for you.

Gaurav Kapoor: Oh it was a great question. So first you know I’d say that because I was working for an american company and there was some exposure already the landing was not as shocking but what I’ll tell you is the scale of what was happening was you know, kind of my mind boggling. So that was a transition from you know what? what? I would say thinking about you know thing going from 1 to 10 versus going from one to a thousand that exposure there’s a whole number of companies and remember this was almost like that huge internet boom time ninety 107 2000 if you will. But everything is going through the roof so it was indeed you know, kind of in 1 in one say way very exciting but very soon I also saw you know the the balancing act happening where a lot of things broke basically in the market and that created that time of you know? Yes There’s huge value in disruption. But there’s also value in governance. Because everything you know cannot just keep going up here so that whole disruption concept was very very important that exposure that is actually interestingly what helped me create metric stream along with my cofounder. Okay, but you know because on one side you could create a huge amount of value through disruption and innovation. But you could lose a lot of value I’ve seen companies go from Multibillion Dollar market cap to ascent. Okay in in in their share price within a matter of like a year you know that created that whole environment that you need to risk is as important part of your growth as growth is if you will right.

Alejandro Cremades: So in your case I mean at 1 point you know you decided that it was interesting. You know basically to start a Vc fund and the Vc fund ultimately was what was the um. The the immediate step that needed to happen for you to bring metric stream to life. So what? an interesting sequence of events like jumping right? you know into the Vc thing and and then all of a sudden you find yourself being more of an operator instead of an investor so walk us through what happened there.

Gaurav Kapoor: Yes I this is ah it’s a great question because you know these transitions you know you have to think through I came from a very large company I still remember I think in that year city was Forbes ranked 1 okay in terms of ranking things have changed quite dramatically but you know I came from there. Start a really a boutique fund with you know with my cofounder actually gunjin who had had his own entrepreneur journey if you will and then you know as we were going through that. What I realized is that I have been an operator. Okay so the Vc skill set of managing you know, looking at investments. You know, being in rasary or boards etc I realized quickly and then we spotted metric stream and we realized that this is what we want to do essentially so we wanted to create an entity that actually you know could scale could be large so it was ah a transition within a couple of years from you know from city to the the venture you know boutique venture fund to what I call the true entrepreneur journey of creating a company starting it and and running with it if you will.

Gaurav Kapoor: So you know as I said city you know once I was doing city I chanced upon you know, a couple of people who I joined and started a bootique venturenc fund. You know it was called open growth and then during that process. There were 2 things that are happening 1 obviously there was a lot of visibility into a number of. You know, very exciting opportunities that one was seeing and second I also personally realized that I’m more an operator. Okay, and while I had all the finance background, etc, etc. But you know I really wanted to be you know core in the operations of the of a company and. And at that time we chanced upon this huge opportunity Nine Eleven in ro mccii all that stuff was happening and I’d come from the growth side of the equation having started businesses for city or launching new products for city and what we realized is that growth and risk are you know, 2 size the same coin and we saw this huge opportunity to actually. You know, thought process of creating something that could bring multiple themes of risk and governance under one umbrella and decided to actually you know ah give you know the whole stream and weather to the concept of Grc. It wasn’t called Gsc at that time it was more related to compliance. But we started that it was early years if you will you know in that journey in the market as well. The market was too early for creating what we call an integrated grc. Okay, but as I’ve mentioned to you earlier lot of inspiration came from companies like scp that had created yeah errp and sbel and crm that created siebel and.

Gaurav Kapoor: Salesforce that were creating crm. Um, at that time you know and had had taken a very strong position in how to integrate different facets of customer lifecycle into one umbrella so that is a quick kind of Genesis. Um, you know ah of of how we started and came about that but really on a personal level tell you ah you know to the point you were asking probably. Aandro It is about working in a large company. Okay transitioning to you know, very boutique fund with a few people and then really getting that you know, kind of you know search to say that How do I create value or how do we create value in something that is going to hit them hit this. You know world quite hard overtime. Because of the innovations that were happening and disruptions that were happening how to kind of create a governance umbrella around that.

Alejandro Cremades: And at what point did you guys realize because you got started on 2003 with the business but at what point do you realize that you guys had hit product market fit and that you were really into something.

Gaurav Kapoor: So I think ah you know the it’s been an evolution So when we started I think we had a fairly clear vision that because there were so many Silos in risk right? There is an opportunity to synthesize and bring it together. The clear thing was that we were Fortunate. We. Had the right Backing. You know you need capital to create software company. There are very few that can boosttrap their way to you know to glory if I may or creating huge value so we are fortunate that we had the investment to actually create a platform with a distinctive vision that multiple use cases will come on top of that. It was really when the financial services Market hit the you know 2008 2009 that we realized that not realized that you know the momentum of the vision played out prior to that companies would say like it. But you know, not really because we want to handle our audit separately our sock separately our risk separately. But the banking crisis one of the primary reasons for the banking crisis was that different elements data systems. People were not talking to each other. So What was discoverable in one part of the of the organization did not ever make its way to the other part of the organization that caused failures. Basically so that was really the acceleration point if you will. You know, a lot of companies that that time you know Techck companies went through a reverse cycle. But for us it was really the genesis of growth you know and really you know the acceleration started from their elandro.

Alejandro Cremades: Now Now you are alluding to ah earlier um in terms of capital. How much capital have you guys raised to date.

Gaurav Kapoor: So we have raised a couple of $100000000 if you will over the over the period of the company essentially at different phases you know over growth and over the last couple of years we have been you know, solidly profitable. We’ve converted the company. We obviously keep requiring capital. Have required capital in the past to you know both accelerate the markets. But also our product development innovation, etc. Okay, but about two and a half years ago we took the call that we needed to you know balance our growth and profitability which is very very important so all the investments that we’ve made over the last many years. Okay, have actually come quite fruitful because the platform the ability to create products at pace and with agility in the market. All that all those investments have come to fruit and quite well if you will right? and I may have mentioned earlier our customers we have a very strong focus on what we call. Enterprise and major customers. So these are typically companies with 3000000000 in revenue plus and all our mid-market. We do typically through channels basically so that was a very distinct strategy. So when you’re serving the customers or the class of customers we have in terms of financial services. Some of the largest oil and gas companies healthcare. You know retail companies. Okay, they do require multiple facets of innovation. So it’s not you know, just 1 product. You know, accelerate that but you have to innovate across the platform and multiple products.

Gaurav Kapoor: Have I lost you.

Gaurav Kapoor: Okay, great. So so you know as as I may have mentioned earlier at andra we have been very very particular about the fact that we serve global large companies and that has been our you know core focus our genesis our product development has been indexed on that we do serve a pretty swass swathe of midmarket as well. But we do mostly through the channels. And for that you know, especially serving large global organizations across a spectrum of risk you have to ensure that we are not ah only ahead of the market in terms of old technologies but also use case understanding du domainin understanding. So all the investments that we have made over the last you know ten plus years okay have come to fruition in terms of creating. Agility in terms of product launches. You know, also delivering services to our our customers and staying ahead of the curve.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Gaurav Kapoor: Well.

Gaurav Kapoor: Are.

Gaurav Kapoor: Okay, I’ll stay. Yeah I Just yeah, okay.

Gaurav Kapoor: Um.

Gaurav Kapoor: All right? So So as I mentioned earlier a lot of our focus has been really large global customers because they’re the pain points are the largest and therefore you know to innovate in that segment if you will. A lot of the elements whether it’s your platform or the use case products or its content all of these things have to come together. So All the investments that have’ve made over the last 10 years plus on R and D and on a product development etc has actually come to be quite fruitful as the markets have become more agile in terms of adoption.

Gaurav Kapoor: Ah.

Alejandro Cremades: Yeah, we’re still recording keep going.

Gaurav Kapoor: Yep I’m Back. Can you hear me? Okay, So yeah, so I think that’s the quick kind of summary if you will in terms of you know how we’ve looked at our customer segmentation etc and how the investments have really helped us become. Ah, platform where you can actually create use cases at speed and deploy to customers where you know you created option at speed.

Gaurav Kapoor: Are we stuck again.

Gaurav Kapoor: Yeah, so on the you know on the customer front like I said earlier as well. Our focus really has been a lot more on last global enterprise customers and to ensure that we can serve them with innovation that they need all the investments that we’ve made you know over the last ten plus years okay has really come to fruition especially in a market that needs more agile innovation you know focus on data versus just workflows you know and essentially leveraging Ai for grc if you will.

Alejandro Cremades: So then. So then now you know as you’re thinking about the business tool and and adapting you know there has been many different cycles that you have to do you know because you’ve been at it now for over two decades. You know with the business. But how have you guys been able to stay true to the vision you know over you know this incredible long period of time.

Gaurav Kapoor: So I think alanra you picked a good point staying true to the vision right? So you know, just like it was 15 Plus years ago is the same thing today. The companies need what we call integrated risk management governance compliance the stages of maturity of a customer has. Has has changed over the last many years and how they go about It has also changed so give you an example, we started as a company on-prem like many others you know we transitioned to the cloud because the market demands are very heavy in the initial years in the world of risk many customers did not want to. Put their data on the cloud because this is highly sensitive information regarding their you know possible losses risk events. You know that they didn’t want to give exposure to to regulators easily initially all of that stuff the the second big thing you know that that was happening is making sure that as as the theme. Evolved like cyber was not that critical. It was not that prevalent you know in the mid 2000 s or early 2010 s it’s really accelerated so to make sure that we keep pace with the market. We always have been very very close to our customers. So if somebody asked me like what has been probably the single thing that has kept us. You know erupting we have really intensely focused on listening very carefully to what’s coming okay with our with the you know huge advantage of our customer base. So. It’s really about sometimes our customers do not know the problems they are going through the pain they’re going through.

Gaurav Kapoor: You’ve got to decifer that and make sure you have a solution that actually helps them with that. Ah, and that keeps changing last example I’ll give you on that adaptability is that risk management governance compliance has been a very workflow driven world for the last ten years means you’ve got thousands of people who are. You know, getting approvals, routings, etc in the last couple of years because of the explosion of data. Okay explosion of internal and external internal and external data companies cannot do workflow-based risk management alone. So the whole advent of AiMl you know robotics all of that stuff. Ensuring that it’s more continuous. You know risk is not about 1 annual audit or quarterly risk assessment or assessment of a third party you know once a week it is really about continuous monitoring and that has helped us kind of make sure that our customers are also going on the journey of more automation. Escentric use cases that are very relevant to grc as an example. Ah so this evolution and adapttability has been because of 2 primary reasons 1 we’ve stayed really close to our customers and second we’ve built a culture from day. 1 of the company that while you have to. Process you’ve got to be centric on how evolution and and innovation happens. You also have a culture of making sure that move quickly move fast. You know and and and do whatever you have to do you know with a speed with speed so you can call us. Ah you know a 15 plus year old startup. Okay, but at the end of the day.

Gaurav Kapoor: The is the is the intellectual curiosity that keeps driving the company forward and staying ahead of the curve.

Alejandro Cremades: I Know have you got have you? How have you been able to because also as you were saying culture has been a really critical piece. How have you guys gone about really building that culture and making sure that everything binds together you know with it.

Gaurav Kapoor: So I think like everything elandthro sometimes it’s really you know the continuity of the top that has helped we’ve had people come in In fact, we’ve had a couple of ceos as well in in in the interim but the the founding culture of making sure that customer you know we have obsessed about the customers. Unk re ah obsessed about speed. Okay, and third thing is really about teamwork. That’s the 3 key drivers that we’ve believed in. Okay, if you will and we’ve not tolerated. You know there are people who come in and they’re divas and they’re various talented but if it doesn’t fit the fabric of the company. We’ve been quite kind of in. So. You know, institutionally ah focus on making sure that it works together very well so I would say that you know the tone from the top is supremely important, but you also have to ensure that you know actions speak louder than words. Yeah, the kind of people we bring in the way we interview people. Okay, the people who’ve been here. They also have to adapt. It’s not like people who’ve been here for a long time. Okay can still be the same so they have to evolve to make sure there they are also you know, kind of raising the bar throughout the company because things are changing so on one side not to get stuck on the other side making sure that the tone of the top and you know how we are integrating. People it has been very important.

Alejandro Cremades: Ah, and on that note as Well. The company now that you guys you know you you guys have been running this for quite a bit Obviously things have been changing have you have been adapting to the Market. How would you say that? what? What would you say that you’ve learned Around. Product Market fit because you’ve had to kind of like reinvent yourselves over and over again as well. Okay.

Gaurav Kapoor: See and Heland there so I would not say reinvent. Okay I’ll tell you it’s an evolution in the market that you have to stay ahead of yeah so on I would say maybe not day one but all it whatever day 10 okay, from that time we were very clear that we were developing a platform. We’re developing use cases on top of that now how customers consume is constantly changing earlier. They used to consume you know all that information or consume the application. The product. Okay, differently similarly you know in the last few years cyber has become. The top risk for most organizations so we’ve had to accelerate the innovation of cyber versus Savans Oxley that is more steady state if you will if you look at any curve thematic curve in the evolution of a company that these hype cycles and you have to be at the hype cycle in each of the vectors. At the right time and the right spot so adaptability has been key and like I said I’ll come back to the same thing we’ve been very true to our vision. But we’ve been very agile. Okay, we’ve been steadfast on the vision that integrated risk management means this okay but we’ve been very agile in terms of you know getting market imports. Leveraging horizontal technology for our use cases. Okay and st very very close to our customer my customer advisory boards are ved to us here. Okay I can’t again name the customers but you will if you hear the kind of customers and the kind of roles we are dealing with chief risk officers and chief.

Gaurav Kapoor: Auditors and Chief Compliance officers and the cios you know at ah at a personal level because this risk matters to them. You know it can destroy value very quickly. Okay, if they don’t have the right framework and the right you know tools and applications to run that.

Alejandro Cremades: So you’ve experienced also all types of um talking about adaptability. You know you’ve experienced all types of adaptability when it comes to your role I mean you started as the cfo then that gradated into the Co o.

Gaurav Kapoor: Not what.

Alejandro Cremades: And most recently you stepped up to the Ceo role. So how has it been. You know that changed to as a co-founder of this company and going from 1 role to the next.

Gaurav Kapoor: Know that’s that’s ah you know I think it it may sound a big change but at the core foundational element alandro the grounding principles are the so still the same. Ah when I started the founding Cfo. You know cfos. There are 2 kinds here right? You have the accounting cfos who are very very good with with the books in okay I was always ah what I call a facilitator cfo where you know the strategy the company because we early on at that time. Okay, we were very very closely involved with that. You know when your neck is on the line to make sure that. You know you’re running sales and marketing and corporate development and allows you’ve got to be very close to the market and ensure that the value proposition that were paring to the market. Okay is super critical and and then you bring all of these facets in as a Ceo in know where you are serving the customer. Serving the employees and you’re serving the shareholders. Ah the biggest change. Obviously I’ve been in every board meeting in this company. You know since the inception even though I was not on the board you know until I became Ceo but you see the evolution you know investors are extremely talented, very seasoned. You know the kind of investors we have. So you’ve got to look at and keep learning in the process as well and but the foundational elements have also go back. You know the foundational elements that city gave me on kind of the whole span of spectrum from a finance to marketing to sales along with you know as you grow as a founder you really the single word that comes to mind and.

Gaurav Kapoor: You know I’m sure other other founders have talked about it is really about extreme ownership even when you’re the ceofo. You know you’re kind of running sales in. Okay, when you’re Ceo you’re looking at financials and okay, the chief operating officer right? Even though functionally there might be somebody else. Yeah and in a Ceo function. You’ve got to expand your spectrum.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Gaurav Kapoor: From customers. You know to employees as well as to shareholders. That’s the biggest 3 stakeholders that you’re serving essentially.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing extreme ownership I Love that now in your case extreme ownership when it comes to vision and obviously you know that vision that everyone is getting contagious with let’s say you were to go to sleep tonight. And you wake up in a world where the vision of Metric stream is fully realized what does that world look like rough.

Gaurav Kapoor: Salandro that’s a very interesting question and you know at any point of time first thing is that it’ll never be realized because something will be changing quite dramatically at that moment. Okay, with that caveat. Okay I see you know the world of risk management compliance something where. Every employee every extended employee of an organization is participating in it risk traditionally has been very centered on a few people in an organization. Okay risk is not about a few people is the frontline is the extended enterprise. It’s your suppliers your distributors. Everybody’s. Party participating in the risk process that’s number 1 the second thing I’ll I’ll tell you is people look at risk as a mitigator risk is actually a facilitator. What I mean by that is you have to take risk to be able to grow. But you’ve got to take measured risk and so in our journey. If you look at answering a question directly organizations have come from the world of okay I’ve got this silo to solve then they move to a more automated way. Ultimately risk has to become absolutely key to your strategy their chief risk officer has to be equally important as a chief revenue and a chief strategy officer. And that is the evolution in which we are headed in. So for that technology will help because it’s pervasive is you know you can look at data a hundred different ways. But really I look at a world where you can grow with comfort and with sustainability and we can if we can enable that.

Gaurav Kapoor: For our customers for the world. Okay, that’s what our vision is yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: Now we’re talking about 22 years in the making almost for metric stream since you guys got started I see you decided to leave city start the Vc and they get started back in 2003 so let’s say I put you into a time machine here graph.

Gaurav Kapoor: 5

Alejandro Cremades: And I bring you back in time to that moment where you decided to make that switch. You know at that moment where you were like thinking. Oh you know? Maybe we’re going to give it a shot here with the company. Let’s say you’re able to sit down that younger self and give that younger self one piece of advice before launching you know what ended up becoming Metric stream And. You’re able to give that younger So one piece of a device before launching a business. What would that be and why given what you know now.

Gaurav Kapoor: Great questions. So you know I think the advice I would give myself is very very interestingly take more risk and take faster decisions. Okay at there were times when we lingered you asked the why you Know. We lingered for long longer than we should have on certain things. Okay, we should. We could have taken a little more risk basically in certain areas in terms of the speed in terms of you know where we wanted to go to in fact, what we didn’t want to do you know in the sense that we we had such a wide spectrum. It was more about indigestion at times. So you want to narrow and say that I want to go much deeper and narrower in these areas but make the decisions Faster. We ultimately through the evolution have come there. Okay and we are very proud of what we have Built. We are one of the best branded companies out there in the space. The kind of customers like I mentioned we are very proud of but if you asked me we could have. Made decisions faster. Okay, and taken a little more risk in certain areas which is kind of interesting to say for a company that actually is preaching you know strategic risk Management. Ah.

Alejandro Cremades: So for the people that are listening graph that will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Gaurav Kapoor: So I am publicly available. My you know email is goraatmetricstream.com is simple. My first name at metricxstream.com and I’m on Linkedin and you know and and we’ll be very happy to connect with people. You know, generally social. All of us are short of time but beyond that. You know we’re out there. You know to help each other.

Alejandro Cremades: I Made so wogar off. Thank you so much for being on the deal maker show. It has been an honor to have you with us. So.

Gaurav Kapoor: Now. Thank you Alandro and you know you’ve been an author program yourself. So it’s been nice to know your journey as well. But thank you for having me on the show.

*****

If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at [email protected]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More