In a recent report as per KPMG, “Online gaming industry in India is going to be worth Rs.29,000 crore by FY25.”  

Have you heard about Nazara Technologies?  

Probably Yes, when its IPO came in March 2021, as it was very well highlighted in the News, being one of the portfolio companies of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.  

Nazara’s founder and the guest of our today’s episode, Nitish Mittersain probably saw this coming much early, almost 20 years back.  

With its IPO, Nazara gave 80%+ as listing gains to its IPO applicants, this reflects how well the Indian stock market has reacted to a gaming company, and also highlights the potential of India’s gaming industry in years to come.  

During the podcast, Nitish talks about his journey of building a gaming company in India, when no one believed that gaming as a domain was properly monetizable.   

He also shares how Nazara got listed in NSE & BSE and how it impacts the company’s future growth plans.  

Notes – 

01:14 – Textile business family background; coding games in BASIC

02:33 – Started Nazara in 1999 while he was 1st year in college

04:27 – 2000 Dot-Com Bubble – “I often say, I did an expensive but enriching MBA, sitting here in Bombay.”

06:54 – Focus on Cash Flows; not chasing vanity metrics

07:13 – Raising funds & Friends of Nazara

07:59 – Acquisition since 2015 – NODWIN Gaming & Nextwave Multimedia among others

08:44 – Synergy between the acquirer & the acquiree company

10:14 – “Over a 20+ years journey gaming always looked like a mirage in the desert.”

13:10 – “Just trying to run a profitable business today may not be good enough.”

14:56 – Advantage of being the only listed gaming company

20:09 – Source of Revenue: In-app purchases vs Advertising

20:51 – What convinced Rakesh Jhunjhunwala to invest?

24:53 – Getting listed in Indian markets being a startup  

Read the full transcript here:

  

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  00:00

Hi, this is Siddhartha Ahluwalia, welcome to the 100x entrepreneur podcast. Today I have with me Nitish Mittersain, founder of Nazara. Nazara is one of the largest gaming companies out of India. And recently, what every company aspires to do, it went public. Nitish congratulations on going public. Isn’t every entrepreneur’s dream to take their company public? And we are very fascinated by your journey. It’s been a long marathon. So would love to start by knowing more about you, you know, your background, your journey, your family background where you grew up?

 

Nitish Mittersain  00:43

Yeah, sure. And thank you for having me on this podcast. You know, I came from a textile family background. And since my grandfather’s time, you know, my family has been running our textile cotton mill. But I got into gaming at a young age, my dad bought me a ZX spectrum when I was six, and I was completely hooked to it. By the time I was seven, I was coding basic games. And actually, my life became that, you know, computer technology. Then when I was in school, the internet came and I was fascinated by what it had to offer. So I think I just took a different turn in my life. And then I was studying in college in Mumbai, planning to go abroad for an MBA and then Nazara happened. And three decades later, here I am in front of you.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  01:33

At what age you started Nazara, in your LinkedIn bio, it mentions 2003. But I believe it started much before that.

 

Nitish Mittersain  01:40

1999.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  01:42

And you were still in your final year of college?

 

Nitish Mittersain  01:44

Correct.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  01:47

What was the first Avtar of Nazara?

 

Nitish Mittersain  01:50

We started as online casual games, so flash games at that point of time. So flash games on Nazara.com where people could log in and play. And we would actually have the ads as a revenue model. So yeah, that was at the peak of dotcom in 99-2000.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  02:18

And then dotcom, happened, what happened to the business back then?

 

Nitish Mittersain  02:23

Yeah, I mean, at that time, we were all chasing vanity metrics, our pageviews, and number of users, etc. revenue was a second afterthought and the proper viable revenue models didn’t exist. So I kind of, you know, post dotcom crash, I would say April onwards, right of 2000, there was a lot of luck, I was a young entrepreneur, too time to understand what was happening. So we lost a bit of money. It took me two, three years to kind of recover and pay that back. So really, last, I think, three or four years, and that was a struggle, but a great experience. I often say I did an expensive, but enriching MBA sitting right here in Mumbai.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  03:12

And you have borrowed money for your company, I believe venture capital was not as popular back then.

 

Nitish Mittersain  03:20

First of all, my parents had funded so from friends and family. So putting three, four crores right at the start to get the business started in the years.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  03:32

And what after that period, right, the four years of I would say, you know, grind or hell?

 

Nitish Mittersain  03:40

Yeah, I think it was, of course, an extremely challenging time. But like I said, Now in retrospect, it was a fantastic learning experience, right? And it has so many learnings from there that have held me in good stead over the years. So I think I kind of appreciate now I kind of value that learning rather than recreate that time in that sense. Of course, at that point of time, it was a lot tougher.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  04:13

And gaming was, I believe, not such a popular sector back then. Especially online games. At that point of time. Hardly, I think only 5%( or even less than that) of Indian population didn’t have access to the internet.

 

Nitish Mittersain  04:29

Yeah. Honestly, here now, I think, probably 98-99 when we started. From India gaming perspective, we were maybe a decade too early. You didn’t have proper internet, you didn’t have the devices. You know, those were the challenges which over the years, of course, you know, improved significantly.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  04:56

And can you share your journey with key milestones from 2003, what you built? What are the revenue sources that kept the company floating? How did you repay the depth?

 

Nitish Mittersain  05:08

Yeah, I think so the debt was repaid by 2004 through revenue models that I was able to generate profits. From 2004, we kind of jumped back into gaming in a proper way. We focused on mobile phone gaming, instead of the online gaming that we were doing, started working with many telcos in India expanded that business globally, over the years, so by 2007-08 we were running a fairly profitable, tight lean and mean shop and that sense westbridge capital invested in 2005 and 2007, small amounts of money $1.5 million each, raised a total of $3 million. And by then the company had become profitable. So then we focused very much, because of the only struggle that we had, our focus was a lot on cash flows, not chasing vanity metrics, focus on tangible business. So from 2007, to about 2015, we raised I mean, not raised, we kind of accumulated profits of about 200-250 crores and hadn’t raised any more capital. From 2015 onwards, we kind of started again expanding into different verticals of gaming. And we approached acquisition driven strategy, which we also like to call friends of Nazara ecosystem. And that also worked out very well for us and was an enabler in terms of the IPO that happened, as we were able to dominate multiple verticals within the gaming space, and also scale in terms of revenues and profits. It’s been an evolution.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  06:52

And which was a companies that you acquired from 2015, and what value that you can share you everyone

 

Nitish Mittersain  07:03

We acquired Nodwin gaming, which is a leader in eSports. In India, a majority stake in that company, we acquired nextwave multimedia, which is a producer of world cricket championship. Then later on, we did Paper Boat apps, which have extremely popular kits, Kidopia, which is especially very popular in the US market. We bought a news, sports news media company called sportskeeda.com, which is also part of a portfolio. In recent times, we’ve acquired a company in Turkey, which is a game marketing agency called PublishMe. So I think that the model of friends of Nazara has now been set over the last three, four years, is working well for us. And we find that as a fantastic way to, you know, partner and align with, you know, passionate founders and management teams, with whom we can kind of, you know, approach our common dream and that sense of, you know, doing something big in the gaming space.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  08:05

And I also believe that sends out very warm messages in the ecosystem that entrepreneurs can co-exist with the acquired company that acquires them.

 

Nitish Mittersain  08:18

Yeah, you know, our, we call it friends of nazara, because our philosophy is really to collaborate. And all of us are friends, like I said, pursuing a common dream that we have, and there is no acquiree and acquirer in that sense, right. So I think the structure that we follow in the Friends of Nazara is where we give 100% operational freedom to the investee companies, and their original founders and management teams to run it as if, you know, they own 100% of the company, because they are the experts in that particular vertical. And it makes more sense for them to work that way. What we do, of course, is value add in terms of our network, our experience, synergies between other companies in our network, our own network, globally you know, we’ve been working in 70-80 countries, so many of these companies we have taken into international markets. So there’s a lot of value addition that we bring to the table. But it’s not usually forced, right? The team running their business sees synergies in it, they kind of pick it up. Otherwise they do their thing. What they are doing, and I think that’s working best for us as well.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  09:32

And for you even right, building a business for more than 20 years, was it a tiring journey.

 

Nitish Mittersain  09:39

Yeah, I mean, I think over 20 years, right? I would say gaming always looked like a oasis in the desert, not an oasis, a mirage in the desert, You would think that  next year or the year after gaming is going to take off and then you will get to that point and it will still feel The market is not there, and it will be there in another two years. Also, this industry will go through a lot of hype and pessimism cycles, right, suddenly there would be a lot of excitement, then that would die down. And there would be a lot of pessimism, saying that, you know, money can’t be made in gaming. So I think, you know, it’s been a long journey. And I would be joking to say that at times, you know, there was fatigue. But I think what we did well was be able to pick ourselves up, you know, persevere, and fight, live to fight for another day. I think, because of our conservative nature, we didn’t burn a lot of money. And we were accumulating funds to our profit strategy that allowed us to keep existing and keep sustaining till the opportunities really presented themselves to ourselves and I think that was critical. In our business where you were too early in the market, it’s very easy to get burnt out in that kind of environment.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  11:03

You raised your first venture capital in 2005, then the next one in 2007. Wasn’t it tempting back then to go on and keep on raising more money instead of being profitable? Being profitable is hard, really hard.

 

Nitish Mittersain  11:17

Great. No, I think I started enjoying being profitable. I have a come from marwadi background, we understand profits. So once I tasted that blood, I was hooked to it. So I think I really enjoyed it. And even today, I enjoy it. So I think it was true to our DNA to run profitable businesses. And that’s how we run it. I heard your podcast today, right, I think everything has a time and a place right and today many opportunities exist on a much larger scale than what they presented themselves way back in 2007. Also the ability to raise capital because our investment industry has matured a lot more with VCs, everyday, the kind of money that is flowing. So I think strategies may need to change and just trying to run a profitable business today may not be good enough, if the opportunity to scale and create a massive business exists, right, because you have investors who are willing to back to you and therefore I think what worked for us then, which is a slow accumulation of reserves through profits may not necessarily be the ideal approach today.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  12:41

if you remember going back in time, you know, what would be a rough revenue number back in 2005 and in next 2010-2015 and now you know after IPO

 

Nitish Mittersain  12:54

In 2005 our revenues were 20 lakhs a month. So, annualize 2 crores right 2010 we would be doing about 100 crores, 80-100 crores kind of number. And now in 2021, 460 crores in revenue which was good growth over the previous year as well.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  13:28

460 crores of revenue till now in 2021

 

Nitish Mittersain  13:32

No, this was held for FY 21. 56 crores was our EBITDA for last year, which is March 21.  I think we have, of course, accumulated reserves as well, the company today has close to 480 crores of reserves that we can deploy to invest in companies. And we’re continuing to do that. And we hope to continue to, you know, actively do that after the IPO. Now also one big advantage we have is that we are the only registered gaming company today in our market. And that allows us to also offer our equity which is you know, listed equity to, you know, partners. And that’s a big opportunity, because one, it gives us further leverage. But it also allows us to get our incoming partners, founders , and management teams to hold Nazara stock, which kind of aligns them to the overall growth story.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  14:57

and what would be the current valuation of the company in the public market.

 

Nitish Mittersain  15:02

I mean, that’s very easy to look up. I think we today priced at about 5000 cr.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  15:11

That’s fantastic, right, when we entrepreneurs start, we never imagine the kind of scale that has a potential of what you have built. Right?

 

Nitish Mittersain  15:24

No, absolutely. But I think, for us, you know, what I realize as an entrepreneur is, especially after, you know, the listing, is that whatever we did the last 20 years is really now the past and post listing is a completely new journey. It’s a new beginning. And, you know, our aspirations are also a lot, we have a lot more shareholders. And, you know, we’ve always in the past delivered extremely high returns for our shareholders. And we are very driven to at least make our best effort. And, you know, go with the best intent to do the same for our existing shareholders. Of course, there are a lot of variables that will go into this. Some may be in our control, some may not be in our control, but I think really in the next few years, that’s what we’re looking at, how can we create a lot more value with this platform and with the space. 

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  16:18

Gaming has just started like taking off right if we see what has happened in 20 years, as we sit in India, in 2021, yesterday, we got a good news for the entire gaming sector and the startup ecosystem of India, playsimple got acquired for a cash deal of $316 million, which is huge, right, absolutely no other kind of company previously in the startup ecosystem, which has raised for less amount of venture capital, just 4 million got acquired at such a scale.

 

Nitish Mittersain  16:53

I think the playsimple deal is IndiaWorld kind of moment, during the.com period in 99, you know, when IndiaWorld was sold for 500 crores, it kind of really kick started the whole dot com frenzy towards you know, starting a new venture in this space. Similarly, I think the playsimple deal will show a lot of Indian entrepreneurs, that gaming is coming of age in India, also Indian gaming companies can tackle global opportunities, scale globally, and also create immense value over a fairly short period of time, right? And I think you will see a kickstart of a lot of more a lot more gaming entrepreneurs, gaming companies in India, which is fantastic for the ecosystem. A lot more investors will also you know, take practice.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  17:46

We have now seen for the first time in India, gaming focus funds coming up, whereas earlier, gaming was considered to be a small niche market.

 

Nitish Mittersain  17:59

Yeah, absolutely. I think there are a lot of macro factors which have come together, right. The penetration of mobile devices, lowest data costs, frictionless digital payment ecosystem, which has developed, I think a lot of these opportunities are kind of really, you know, providing a lot of tailwind for the gaming industry in general, in India.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  18:25

And earlier, it was said that, right, that Indians don’t do in-app game purchases. I heard a funny news a few days back that a kid 12 years old purchased an in app, you know, guns or something, you know, in app budget of 2.5 lakhs and the mother didn’t do it. But yeah, just shows that we are there.

 

Nitish Mittersain  18:55

No, I think that news you’re referring to was, I think, a UK NEWS. And obviously, you know, Apple provides the security locks over there. So something must have gone already over there. But I think in app purchases in India are starting to take off. Some global games have shown that they can, you know, generate good in app revenues. I think the important thing is Indians are willing to spend money on an app. But the game design needs to be really right to get there. Without that you will not generate. So I think in the next three to five years, you will see in app being the predominant source of revenues for gaming in India today’s, a lot of games depend on advertising, etc. But I think that will change very rapidly.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  19:45

And you, also raised from Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, sir, right. How did that happen? I’m very interested to know that story.

 

Nitish Mittersain  19:56

Sure I think we had some common connection and I kind of, you know, reached out to him and his team connected with me. And we just had one meeting before he decided to invest in the company. And I think what he liked was two, three things. One was obviously, gaming as a macro trend, which is going to become very large in the years to come is something he really believed in. The second was Nazara had persevered, overall, for a very long time, right when he met us in 2017. We had already existed for 17 years. So he felt that we had the capability to persevere for a long time and energy to persevere for a long time. So even for the next decade, we could actually persevere as the market grows. And third, being a value investor, he appreciated our use of capital, limited use of capital, and high levels of profitability and cash flows that were generated. Unlike a lot of the other businesses he was in, in the tech space burning a lot of money. I think these are the three things that he really liked, and which is why he invested in the company in late 2017.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  21:04

And I think being a value investor, he would not have exited a single share of Nazra in the IPO.

 

Nitish Mittersain  21:14

No, he hasn’t, he hasn’t sold any shares. And at least in my conversations with me he generally says, you know, he’s invested for the long run with a seven to 10 years, you know, because that’s the kind of trend. He really looks at gaming becoming very large. Plus, I think, we’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of support from him, he spent a lot of time with us. And while he doesn’t necessarily know everything about the gaming industry, his rich experience as an investor, right, comes up with a lot of pragmatic thoughts that have been very valuable to us. So I think more than the money, the time that Rakesh has given us has been quite valuable for us

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  22:11

In the last year, the last 20 years as an entrepreneur, was it ever a phase that you relaxed, or was it always a relentless journey?

 

Nitish Mittersain  22:27

I can’t really recollect a time where I would have at least mentally relaxed, you know, you physically Of course, you go for holidays, you take a break, etc. But your mind is, unfortunately, as an entrepreneur, always active, you can’t really switch it off. And I can’t recollect. I think even our honeymoon period of the IPO. Our IPO was very successful, perhaps lasted one day, before it was back to the same grind, right? And what do we do next? And how do we, you know, scale? And how do we move ahead? But I think that’s the definition of an entrepreneur, you will never be able to switch off thinking about your work. I try hard. But it’s tough to do what I have done. Of course, I have some hobbies, like I play the saxophone. I’ve been part of a band. Those times allow me to de stress in a way or take my mind off work for that period of time. And I think that’s a must for all entrepreneurs, they should have some hobby and some passion that they’re pursuing. Because you have to strike the right balance in your life to be most productive.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  23:39

In your journey, how did you figure out whether you were a zero to an entrepreneur, or a scale entrepreneur from 10 to 100 or both.

 

Nitish Mittersain  23:50

I’m still trying to figure out what I am as an entrepreneur. So, I’ll reserve my comment on that. I think if an entrepreneur figures out everything, then he’s going to get bored. So yeah, but I think obviously, Nazara started off as a zero to one right. And today, we are expanding now more aggressively through acquiring companies or investing in companies that are already beyond zero to one, have product market fit. So as a business, you can see we have evolved from zero to one to now scale. And pursuing the scale is really what we’re focused on doing a lot of zero to one activity.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  24:30

But personally, what do you enjoy, doing zero to one again, like inventing new things in the Nazara or building scale processes.

 

Nitish Mittersain  24:40

I’m now actually enjoying more of building of all these friends of Nazara network. I think I’m really enjoying spending time meeting, you know, entrepreneurs within the gaming space in India and outside, seeing how we can come together and seeing what their aspirations are. How we can help them and how they can help us and how one plus one can be more than two, right. And I think I’m enjoying that process of working with a lot more, you know, entrepreneurs, and building out this friends of Nazara ecosystem. So I think I’m in that phase right now, where that’s really what’s exciting me the most.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  25:22

And if you can share your, you know, your, the point you decided to take your company public, right, and some key part of the processes, right, it said that taking your company public in India is very hard because of the regulatory compliances.

 

Nitish Mittersain  25:37

Yeah. So we decided, we took a call to, you know, take the company public in 2017. And we made our first attempt in 2018. It took us almost a year to get to that point. But because of bad markets, we had to kind of pull back the launch at that point of time. But that learning experience for us that one year experience was fantastic. The regulations are fairly strict in India, you know, fairly in depth also. So there’s a lot of work and a lot of partners that come together to make this happen, whether it’s lawyers, whether it’s auditors, right, the merchant bankers, and you have to understand everything. So for us, that first attempt was a fantastic learning experience. The second time we plan to relaunch it was in I think, early 2020. And, by the time we got started was May 2020. So, we listed in March, so it took us about six to nine months, I would say, it was a far more easier process the second time around where we’d already kind of, you know, learn what’s needed. So it was more of the execution work rather than the learning work. And all our partners came out and really worked very well. For us, I think it’s very critical for any company going IPO, to ensure they choose the right partners. Because if you have a weak link in this whole chain, then it is going to break. And I must also commend that I was pleasantly surprised with the way people, let’s say Sebi, for example, responded or at the exchanges responded, very proactive. We are a new business, right and gaming business they’re trying to understand etc. But there was a lot of proactiveness and positivity in terms of wanting to make it happen. Rather than just find ways to, you know, create obstacles. And I think that was fantastic. And I think that mentality or a positive approach is going to lead to a lot more companies going public in the near future.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  27:40

Even today, you know, in India, and that is a sad aspect of being an entrepreneur in India, we see only single digit companies every year, startups, especially going public. Do you think there will be a time in India when we will see hundreds of startups going public in a year?

 

Nitish Mittersain  28:02

Yeah, I’m waiting for the day NSE becomes the NASDAQ of India. I think that day is not very far away. So I think, you know, when we listed we were one of three or four new media, new tech companies listing in Indian market. But you are already seeing this year, right? Many tech companies lined up for listing zomato just got approved, and many more are in the line. And in the next two or three years, you will see that accelerate significantly. So I think bell has been rung, and now you’re going to see a long queue of quality companies. Also a lot of groundwork has happened right? Over the last decade, investors have invested in a lot of companies that have developed, grown. So you have even in India, already a large enough ecosystem that is producing candidates who can go public. So I think, without any doubt that, you know, you’re going to see a large explosion of tech companies going public in India creating immense value. And that’s going to be very exciting.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  29:14

I want to know your views on the last 20 years. Do you think entrepreneurship in Indian because now you have built it globally, right. Nazara ecosystem is global, being an entrepreneur in India is very hard. Raising capital is hard. Hiring is hard user acquisition, and then monetization is hard. When does it become easy for a founder relatively in India in his journey?

 

Nitish Mittersain  29:42

You know, I’ll be very honest, I can’t comment on that because I have only worked in India, and therefore I don’t have a comparative to really look at right. Had I studied in the US or had I worked in the US or had I set up a company in the US then I could say the US is much easier than India or it’s not, the life of an entrepreneur is tough. There’s no two things about that. Or whether it’s because of the nature of being an entrepreneur, that it’s tough, or because of being an entrepreneur in India, it is tough. I really don’t know, but I have not had any. In the last two decades, I have not had any such big issues, per se, that have come in my way. Because I’ve been in India, of course, gaming also, was really not a not a business till now that was regulated or had any interference, etc. And therefore, maybe we were kind of under the radar, I don’t know. But we have not faced any, you know, problems of being an Indian.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  30:48

If you reflect back, what traits you had, you know, as a person that helped you succeed, that help you, we know, fight this long marathon of 20 years.

 

Nitish Mittersain  31:02

I think, the willingness and ability to get knocked down and get up again, and, you know, make another attempt is the one single trait because over two decades, there were many times when things didn’t work out, and we kind of took a step back, and then went back to work and again attempted, you know, having persevered in one industry for 20 years is not easy, especially when the industry didn’t exist. I think that perseverance over a very long period of time has really helped us get to where we are.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  31:52

If any entrepreneur, you know, besides perseverance has to emulate habits of Nitish and emulate habits skills of Nitish. What would that be?

 

Nitish Mittersain  32:07

I think what I like to do is have a very positive approach in whatever we do. And I’ll cite specific examples, for example, Nazara in his two decades journey, has had very little or no litigation, either by us or on us, right. And two decades of journey, there’s a long period of time. And the reason for that has been my thought process that, you know, any time spent fighting with anybody generates a lot of negative energy, which kind of harms our own thinking, our own bandwidth, right. So it’s always better to meet up face to face and sort the problem out, even if you need to leave something on the table, leave it but move on. Use that amount of time you will use to spend on negative energy and convert it into positive energy. it will make a world of a difference. So that’s, I think, one philosophy we have had, which has helped us again, not necessarily this philosophy would work for everybody in every industry. But having a very positive collaborative approach to our partners, to our competitors, to our team, and to life in general, I think is something we are very committed to. And usually we do not do anything that would steal our sleep at night. And, this kind of shows up in very small, small things, right, for example, we rarely enter into contracts that have large future commitments that we have made. Because we know what we can commit today, right in the present moment, we don’t know what we can commit three years later. So that’s kind of a philosophy that we have of avoiding large future commitments down the line, which we may or may not be able to, you know, keep up to small, small things like this, in our DNA, I think has been very helpful to me and the company, and we hope to stay true to them.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  34:08

did ever in your year, 20 years, and you thought that, you know, let me hand over the keys to a professional manager or a CEO. And, you know, I should go on a one or two year break in the mountains, you know, then maybe come back or start something new.

 

Nitish Mittersain  34:26

Sure. So I think from that professional manager or CEO perspective, the best thing we did, or I did was to bring in Manish Agarwal, who is the CEO who joined in 2015. Because, you know, Manish brought in a lot of professional approach to the business, a lot of renewed energy, I would say. And for the last six years, me and Manish worked very closely as twin engines as we call ourselves to propel this pain towards the IPO and beyond. So I think. That was extremely helpful because it was a bandwidth multiplier, I think we can manage together right at one into one or two into two did not become four but became 40. And that really allowed us to propagate a lot. So I think, yeah, but yeah. Did I go away on a holiday? Not really? And did I stop micromanaging? Also? Not really. So that’s another question you should ask Manish another day, and you will get the right answer.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  35:34

How do you find multipliers of yourself, like you mentioned this term quite a lot in our podcast, right? That’s a case which I want to share with our listeners.

 

Nitish Mittersain  35:44

I think the most important thing in life is to keep your passion alive, right? And I try to reinvent myself and try to find new passions as I go along. I mean, gaming has been a passion for me for you know, since I was very young. And I have pursued that. But I’ve also picked up passions along the way. For example, I told you, I played the saxophone, which I picked up when I was 20 years old. I actually started learning Krav Maga, which is the Israeli defense, martial arts three, four years back. And I’m certified level three. So I find that if I find new interests, and I also do, you know, reinvent myself, I kind of keep myself fresh and alive. And that’s really what is a force multiplier. Because if you are mentally there and mentally young, and energetic, you know, that will kind of reflect in everything that you do, right? Whether it’s your work, whether it’s your family, whether it’s your personal life. And I think that’s what’s the multiplier for me.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  36:51

You mentioned, when you found Manish, it was two into 2,  40. Similarly, when you’re looking for friends of Nazara, one into 1 is 11, find those compatible soulmates or multiplier partners, whatever you want to call it.

 

Nitish Mittersain  37:08

I think if any human being with any human being, if their intent is positive, then the multiplier will automatically happen. Right? I think that magic is there within us human beings to create huge value in whatever we do. Only positive intent and positive thought is what is always needed. So I think that’s the only thing I look for. And I also offer to achieve that multiplier you’re talking about.

 

Siddhartha Ahluwalia  37:41

Thank you so much. It has been wonderful, you know, living your journey in the last 40 minutes through your eyes, learning from you. It’s been a fantastic experience for me and I hope for our listeners too.

 

Nitish Mittersain  37:56

Sure. Thank you very much for having me.

 

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