Harsha Kumar

Energizer
DISC Type : I

AVP, Product at Olacabs.com

Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Overview

Harsha Kumar is a Partner at Lightspeed, focusing on early-stage investments in India and Southeast Asia. She leverages her extensive operational experience from leading product teams at high-growth companies like Ola, where she scaled the service from 3, 000 to over a million daily rides. She holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Harsha has been passionate about technology since her early teens, starting her career as a coder and describing the process of debugging code as the "ultimate high". She invests in people more than companies, looking for founders who are adventurous, fearless, and ambitious.

She transitioned from being a hands-on product leader who built a 40-person product organization to a venture capitalist shaping the next wave of startups.

Personality Overview

Informal

Imaginative

Relationship Oriented

They are not always early adopters but can be pursuaded by leveraging strong relationships.  Unlike C or D types, they are vocal with their opinions but not so much with their questions. They are really good at seeing what the long-term impacts of their decisions could be.

Topics They Care About

Startup Investing
As a Partner at Lightspeed, she invests in early-stage technology companies across India and Southeast Asia, with a focus on consumer, fintech, and SaaS.
Product Scaling
She has deep operational experience scaling products, most notably helping grow Ola from 3, 000 to over a million daily bookings.
Founder Mentorship
Believes venture capital is about empathy and uses her operator background to support and guide founders through their growth journey.

Media Appearances

Harsha has no verified media appearances

Work History

9-2014
AVP, Product at Olacabs.com
4-2014 - 9-2014
Senior Product Manager - Mobile at Olacabs.com
6-2013 - 3-2014
Lead Product Manager at AdNear
6-2012 - 6-2013
Product Manager at Zynga
6-2011 - 8-2011
Summer Intern - Strategy for SMB (Cloud Practice) at Dell

Education

2011 - 2011
MBA from INSEAD
2001 - 2005
B.E from Cummins College of Engineering, Pune

More Information

Social Presence :

Prographics :

Exp : 19 Location : Bengaluru, Karnataka, India Job Level : N/A Designation : AVP, Product at Olacabs.com
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Insights For Selling To Harsha

During A Call Or A Meeting

DO's

  • Speak enthusiastically with energy, maintain a clear and confident tone
  • Use adjectives like ‘amazing’, ‘coolest’, ‘unbelievable’ etc.
  • Use phrases like ‘people will love’, ‘massive impact’ etc.

DONT's

  • Avoid ifs and buts, don’t talk too much about the risks etc.
  • Don’t push them to make a decision too fast, let them get comfortable first
  • Don’t be excessively objective, be a storyteller

When Cold Calling

When Writing An Email

While Negotiating & Closing

    The secret to closing fast with Harsha is

  • Relationship and rapport can play an important role, sometimes more than the other factors.
  • Will you ever get a clear answer from Harsha

  • They will probably never say no directly, you have to make that decision yourself.

Insights For Deal Planning

    How fast (or slow) will Harsha move?

  • They are not the quickest decision makers, their friendly attitude could be misleading.
  • Can Harsha take some risk or not?

  • They can accept limited risks, ones that they think will not impact them personally.

You And Harsha

Personality Compatibility


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