Anand Chandrasekaran – India's product-obsessed Angel with a Doppelganger

Ever since he moved out of Snapdeal, Anand Chandrasekaran has guided a couple of promising young startups. Since 2013, he has invested close to $25,000-50,000 each in about 15 startups based out of India and Silicon Valley. Also, he has met his doppelganger not once, but twice.

Over the next couple of months, Chandrasekaran is looking to help this young crowd with his unique insights into product-building. He is looking to invest in 4-5 more over the next two months.

Business Insider caught up with Anand one Friday afternoon. This chat has been long due.

How did you get into angel investing?
My involvement with startups happened largely because I wanted to learn from them. That happens when you are a part of their journey.

I steer clear of areas I don’t understand and can’t add any value to. Thanks to my work at Airtel and Snapdeal/FreeCharge, I have been familiar with the application of marketplace to various sectors, consumer internet and fintech.

What does it take to be funded by Anand Chandrasekaran?
The two questions I ask is what is that they are trying to do, and if it is a problem worth solving. If the answers to both are yes, I’m very excited. Even if they don’t succeed financially, but try very hard and move the agenda forward in some way, that’s a win.

You have invested in a food tech startup, InnerChef. What are your sanity checks when investing in a troubled sector?
These are typically young companies, and there’s not much data available. One thing that’s important to me is consumer experience. By that, I don’t mean just the app.

Speaking specifically of food-tech, what I like about InnerChef is their focus on the end-to-end consumer experience. People don’t want food spilling over them, so packaging must be great. That kind of obsession with the customer experience caught my attention.

The other interesting part is they figured out what should be driven directly by their kitchen, and what can be done through a marketplace.

That’s a brilliant hybrid model for a food-based market-place. Most importantly, they control the quality of the food. This helps in cutting cost as well, and helps maintain a discipline which keeps each kitchen profitable. When a startup can control the food quality and the unit economics, it’s a great company.

It’s hard to be successful in food-tech without controlling food.

Believe it or not, there’s another Anand Chandrasekaran in India’s startup eco-system. Same name, same spelling and if you ask me, they look oddly similar.

The other Anand Chandrasekaran is the co-founder of Chennai-based Mad Street Den. Founded in 2013, it received a funding of $1.5 million last year and is working with the Tata Group to build its e-commerce platform. The MAD in their firm's name stands for MindAbled Devices. You can reach him here.

What was the moment like, when Anand met Anand?
We keep running into each other when I’m in Bangalore. I remember we were both at the Sequoia Hack event, and Shailendra Singh took a photo of both of us. Most recently, we were speakers at the IndiaHacks event by HackerEarth.

It’s shocking how much we have in common. We have the same name, same spelling and similar up-bringing. We both went to Stanford, both got advanced degrees and have similar mannerisms. It’s spooky!

How is that your and Punit’s exit came at a time when Flipkart and Snapdeal were rumored to be ‘re-structuring’?
I played a small role in Punit coming to India, and to Flipkart. I was working with Bharti Airtel, and shared my experiences about moving from the Valley to India. Since he took that plunge, that conversation was probably helpful.

I believe knowledge is best when shared. He believes the same. Other than that, we weren’t in touch. I had no idea what his plans were, and my decision was not pre-meditated. It’s a bit of a co-incidence that the two of us joined around the same time, and left few months apart. But there’s not much beyond that.

Is there any chance you are going back to the ‘employee life’?
I’m still in the process of figuring this out. I have written on Quora about the same.

Read Anand Chandrasekaran's answer to What is Anand Chandrasekaran plan, post quitting Snapdeal? on Quora

In the last 5-7 years, I’ve realized I enjoy working with people who level the playing field. That’s my sweet spot, and I want to do it in a way that’s entrepreneurial.