Today’s guest is Nandini Meka, Head of Operations at Simply Wall Street, which is an online platform that empowers investors to make great decisions, with analysis on over 100 thousand stocks.

Nandini studied Finance and Economics at UTS before starting her career in corporate development roles at News Corp and Aristocrat. She then jumped into the world of startups, heading up biz ops at AbhiBus in India for four years before moving back to Australia and joining Simply Wall Street. I chatted with Nandini about what’s involved in an operations role at a startup, what to look for when investing in companies and the importance of taking risks in your career.

Timestamps:
[1:10]-  Organising for her mother to meet the Dalai Lama
[3:13]- How roles in finance/corporate development prepared Nandini for the world of startups
[7:30]- Moving to India to work for AbhiBus
[12:05]- Was there ever a sense of fear moving to a new job in India?
[14:14]- Moving back to Australia and joining Simply Wall Street
[16:50] - What does Simply Wall Street do?
[20:32]- What does an operations function at a startup involve?
[23:10]- What skillset does a good ops person need?
[25:36]- Has the role gotten easier over time?
[26:30]- Challenges in scaling rapidly
[29:18]- Nandini's motivations for exploring angel investing/VC
[31:02]- What makes a great founder?
[32:47]- How to assess companies that are tackling a brand new space
[34:28]- How immigrating and travelling has helped Nandini when analysing businesses
[35:32] - Nandini's perspective in failure
[37:30]- Nandini's advice for uni students



References:
AbhiBus
Simply Wall Street
Michael Batko- Luck as a System
Sequoia Investment Memo for YouTube