'Nikhil Kamath Waved Hi To Me' Mumbai Entrepreneur Shares How He Leveraged A Chance Encounter Into A Startup Pitch

(MENAFN- Live Mint) A casual coffee meeting with a friend at a Bandra cafe turned into a golden opportunity for a young entrepreneur to pitch his startup after he coincidentally stumbled upon Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath.

The incident, narrated by the entrepreneur Yash Gawde on both Reddit and LinkedIn, unfolded at Subko Cafe in Mumbai, where he had gone to meet a venture capital (VC) friend. The meeting began on the first floor, but they later moved upstairs. That shift, he says, changed everything.

Spotting Nikhil Kamath

Gawde shared that while his VC friend was breaking down the nuances of fundraising, such as how VCs think, how to pitch a business , why storytelling matters, and how clarity in a founder's head has to translate into clarity in pitch, he suddenly spotted Kamath among a group of people in a private room nearby.

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“I didn't want to interrupt because the advice I was getting was gold,” he wrote. But the moment his friend paused, he also noticed Kamath, leaving both of them "starstruck."

Seizing the opportunity

Once the founder and his VC friend were certain that Kamath was present in the same premises as them, the latter pushed Gawde to act.

“Do you have any business material on you?” he asked. With no visiting card at hand, Gawde wasted no time and quickly grabbed his diary and scribbled a handwritten note about the startup that he is building – BeHooked.

The handwritten note that entrepreneur Yash Gawde wrote to Nikhil Kamath after he spotted the Zerodha co-founder in Subko cafe in Bandra, Mumbai.

He then proceeded to tear the page, neatly fold the note and then requested a cafe staff member to deliver it to Kamath. "We were lucky our table was right in front of the door to that room. Otherwise, this moment would never have happened," Gawde wrote in his post.

Also Read | Customer love is...: Nithin Kamath shares how word-of-mouth built Zerodha

The Zerodha co-founder then read it carefully, looked up, smiled, and waved at the young founder.“That 2-second wave made the entire day worth it,” Gawde wrote.

The final takeaway

For the young founder, he says, the encounter was less about quick results and more about seizing the opportunity.

“If we hadn't moved to the top floor, this moment would never have happened. Take your shots. You never know which one will land,” he wrote as a final takeaway from the episode.

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Gawde concluded his post by saying,“I really think this could turn into something.”

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