A: I joined a very tiny company which is maybe little big by today’s standard but there were 80 people in that company called Sybase. That was first test of my entrepreneurship success, because I saw that company grow from 80 to 6,000 people, it went public. It was a dramatic growth and I was part of that growth.

Then, I wanted to take something that was very ground. So I ended up joining a small team with a company called Versata and there were eight people at that time. I would call it my PhD in entrepreneurship, because that was where I saw the ups and downs of a typical start up. We started at a time where everything was driven by the Windows platform in 1995 and couple of years later we saw that internet was transforming the world. Thus, we had to layoff half the company and rebuild the company in an internet direction. But fortunately we went to that process and we were able to grow that company. Finally, the company ended up going public again in 2000.

My next company was a smaller one, there were four people and I joined as a third person in that team. However, within six months we had an exit; we ended up selling to a small public company in 2002 andI felt fortunate, as it was sort of the nuclear winter of tech entrepreneurship in 2002-2003. Then after that I was there for a couple of years and that’s where lot of the ideas around Kaboodle started and Kaboodle started as a single person me and then I recruited the co-founder. I went from 10,000 to 80 to 8 to 3 to down to 1, so its gradual progression down.

Q: The idea behind Kaboodle was you were trying to design and remodel your house. But you didn’t find the online services as useful as you would like them to be, they weren’t user-friendly and so that’s what started Kaboodle for you? Didn’t it?

A: My wife and I were remodeling our house and one of the challenges we had was – firstly, finding great products because when you are doing your house you want to discover unique products. Secondly, I was trying to find other people who could give similar recommendations because not everyone’s tastes matches with yours. Lastly, when you find something good, remembering it and being able to share it and reuse it and none of those things were available on the web too.

Q: Were u saving different links from all over the place?

A: Yes saving different links from all over the place being able to share it also being able to look at links that other people have saved, so you can discover new things and that is the essence of Kaboodle.

Connecting people who love to shop is what Kaboodle is all about. Since its inception in 2006, Kaboodle has crossed 7 million visitors monthly and today has around 6,00,000 registered users and 4 million products on the site. It’s been a stunner of a start with Kaboodle clocking a 500% growth rate in 2007-2008.

Q: But where did the initial funding come from?                           

A: I was lucky enough to be able to not only pursue a couple of co-founders, but also some of the early advisers who came from the Silicon Valley network, the TiE network and from my IIT network.

Q: There are impressive names on your board?

A: Prof. Rajeev Motwani who is both an IIT Kanpur person as well as affiliated to TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), Ashish Gupta who is with Helion Ventures in India - was also one of my early adviser and board members. Kanwal Rekhi the anchor for the company in many ways and when I first met him he said, “Manish this is a great idea. I have known you for a while and I am going to write you a cheque.” I knew that that was one cheque, I could take to the bank for sure and that became the anchor for pulling together the financing pieces.

One of the interesting stories is, Kanwal sent me to see Ed Shea, down in southern California and initially the idea was that maybe he will put about USD 1,00,000 dollars in the company. So, I went and met with Ed is the 70 year old guy who has done Silicon Valley investing for a long time, but he is a builder by training. He comes in, looks at me, understands the thing, starts to ask me good question around Google and monetization, he then invites his 12 year old granddaughter to come and sit and they a look. Towards the end of the meeting he said “I think we are going to make a move but I am not sure what we want to do in terms of size.” Thus, I thought he is going to go down from USD 1,00,000 down to USD 25,000. Walking through the airport, I got a call from Kanwal saying, “Manish did you see the email.” I said no I m just checking-in. I haven’t seen the email. He goes, “Well Ed has not only decided to invest, he has decided to put USD 6,00,000.”

So after the capital was arranged, the website launched people began to get up and take notice. In 2008, three years into the business Kaboodle was fully acquired by one of the world’s largest publishing houses - Hearst Corporation.

Q: So what’s next for a man who likes to scale up and then move on?