📹 Lights, Camera, Lessons!

Today, we will dive into some of our favorite movies for insights into the world of investment, key takeaways, and lessons on success and failure.

Guru

Guru is a 2007 Bollywood movie directed and co-written by Mani Ratnam, starring Abhishek Bachan in the lead role. Interestingly, it is also rumored to be a biopic of Dhirubhai Ambani, India’s famous business tycoon. It is an inspiring story involving Guru’s rise to power as a powerful businessman and going on a rags-to-riches route.

🏆️ Success:

• Sense new opportunities and take calculated risks to pursue them, removing obstacles that don’t align with your vision.

• Recognize and enhance your company’s value, believe in yourself, and dare to persist despite failure.

🤥 Failures:

• Guru’s unethical actions, such as corruption and tax evasion, led to the closure of his factory, and negative media attention had lasting repercussions.

• Guru’s downfall underscores the importance of maintaining ethical integrity in business. Engaging in morally dubious practices may yield short-term gains but can result in significant long-term consequences.

Rocket Singh

Rocket Singh is another hidden Bollywood gem underappreciated for its lessons for new founders and entrepreneurs. Starring Ranbir Kapoor in the lead role, it is the story of a salesman working for a vast corporate company who starts learning the tricks and tips of sales with the help of his colleague and then goes on to launch his own company alongside his day job as a salesman.

🏆️ Success:

• Success in sales relies on customer satisfaction and ethical practices, including honesty, hard work, and avoiding unethical behavior.

• Treat associates as partners to foster growth and contribution while embracing risk-taking and failure as part of strategic growth.

🤥 Failures:

• Harpreet faces ethical dilemmas and loss of trust in the sales firm, struggling to maintain honesty while meeting targets.

• Harpreet’s failure to navigate the pressure to achieve sales targets without compromising his integrity leads to setbacks, including betrayal from colleagues and loss of client trust.

Moneyball

Moneyball is a 2011 Hollywood movie starring Brad Pitt in the primary role. It draws inspiration from the 2003 nonfiction book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair by Michael Lewis. It focuses on the manager using data and analytical practices to make substantial investment decisions. We can learn a lot of investing lessons from this movie; here are some of them:

🏆️ Success:

• Prioritize outcomes over popularity in investments, focusing on strategies that predict Success.

• Successful startups prioritize effective scouting and recruitment, think differently under constraints, and disrupt the status quo to address unfair competition and make positive changes in the world.

🤥 Failures:

• Traditional scouting methods fail to identify undervalued players, leading to missed team opportunities.

• Resistance to innovative approaches, like data-driven player recruitment, hinders progress and limits teams’ potential for Success.

Enron

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room(2005) is a documentary film based on the 2003 book of the same name written by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. It is based on a true story about one of the biggest scandals in America surrounding the fall of the Enron Corporation. The company is associated with several illegal schemes plotted by the executives who walked away with one billion dollars and left investors and employees with nothing. Many vital takeaways can be learned from this documentary that is as follows:

🏆️ Success:

• Conduct thorough due diligence before investing, considering investigative journalism reports. Prioritize long-term ethics over short-term gains to avoid financial ruin and reputation damage.

• Foster a transparent culture with whistleblower protection to empower employees to report wrongdoing without fear, ensuring ethical conduct and maintaining stakeholder trust.

🤥 Failures:

• Enron’s downfall was fueled by the display of inflated share prices in the company’s office, which created a false image of Success and attracted investors based on fraudulent information.

• Enron’s involvement in unethical practices, including accounting fraud and manipulating financial statements to conceal the company’s proper financial health, also contributed to its fall.

In this section of Startup Scoops, we're diving into the latest buzz from the startup scene. So, grab your favorite snack, and let's spill the beans! 🍿 

300 Crore Bootstrap Startup Redefines Student Accommodation Abroad!

So, picture this: Saurabh and Mayank, two dudes, totally lost in a foreign land. And guess what? They’re not just lost; they’re homeless, too! Yep, no place to crash, no cozy beds, nada. Talk about being in a pickle!

After completing their studies, they returned to India in 2015 to set up University Living, a platform for students to ensure that they get their dream accommodation, housing essentials, and education loans.

University Living has properties in all the major education hubs like Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, UAE, USA, and the UK. They’ve got the globe covered! And regarding funding, they’ve raised $1.7 million across five rounds. Their first funding round kicked off in September 2016, and their most recent Series A round in May 2023 brought in a hefty $841K (around 6.29 crore). Now, that’s what you call expanding your horizons!

Reelo Secures $1M Investment from Silicon Valley Powerhouse Gokul Rajaram to Boost Customer Loyalty

In 2021, Parin and Prit launched Reelo with a mission: to revolutionize customer loyalty for restaurants and retail stores. Growing up in a family-owned shop in Ahmedabad, they understood the struggles firsthand. But starting a business is one thing; making it thrive is another.

Parin Sanghvi, Reelo’s CEO, says that their marketing tech makes connecting with customers easy by using data. Their clients see a 32% revenue boost each year and find their platform ten times better than traditional marketing.

Today, Reelo has surpassed their wildest dreams. With over 17,000 brands on board, including heavyweights like Lite Bite Foods, Nandos, and Biggies Burger, the platform facilitates meaningful connections between businesses and customers. Across India, the Middle East, and Africa, Reelo has sparked over 15 million interactions, boosting sales and creating happy experiences.