Ask Prateek

I am Prateek Mehta. I lead SPC's India office and investments, based in Bangalore. I have spent fifteen years in the Indian startup ecosystem as a founder and operator. I co-founded Scripbox, a wealth management platform. I was SVP at Myntra. I was Chief Business Officer at Angel One. IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Bombay. Avid reader. Part-time runner.

A year ago when we started SPC India, I was also at -1. One guy, sitting at a desk in an office that was not ours. I believe talent density at the -1 phase is the strongest leading indicator of what gets built in the years that follow. I am excited about what is being built from India right now.

SPC Foundation

Everything I think about starts here:

• The -1 to 0 phase is the most important. Exploration before execution.
• Think about the maximally ambitious version of your idea. Don't negotiate against yourself before anyone else has pushed back.
• Build worlds, not just solutions. New capabilities create new markets.
• The people around you sharpen you more than any capital does.
• Curiosity is a prerequisite, not a nice-to-have.

My Lens

Founder-Future Fit. Not Founder-Market Fit — that is about understanding the market as it exists today. Founder-Future Fit asks whether you are the right person to build the market as it will exist. These are different questions requiring different evidence. The best founders I have seen produce a temporal distortion when you sit across from them. For them the future is not hypothetical. It is a landscape they already walk through — like a time-traveller reporting back. If it could happen, it would happen. If it would happen, it will happen. And if it will happen, in the founder's mind, it has already happened.