Valentine's Day Special: Building Human Connections, one pair at a time; S. Anil Kumar, Jodi365

Can I curse? People are caught up with their own shit. When you're twenty-nine and stressing about, "Oh, I'm going to be thirty, I might be seen as an old maid," I would rather that you are thirty-one and still discerning and single, rather than get hastily hitched at thirty. And in one quadrant you have the Tinders, and then a Bumble trying to be an alternative to the Tinder. Interestingly, Sundar Pichai and I took, um, physics lessons in the same classroom.

Is it? The way you are describing your own journey feels a lot more human-

Yeah

... and it feels like this is a story that's happening all around us.

In, uh, a pitch deck, I don't need a pitch deck anymore because I can tell someone, tell VCs, and say, "Screw you."

Hi, this is Amrut. We are at IIT Madras, my alma mater, and India's top university for people who like to build. We are here to meet some builders, ask them: What are you building? What does it take to build? And what makes IIT Madras the best place to build? [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to The Best Place to Build Podcast. Today, we are sitting with Anil. Anil Kumar is a very different kind of founder. He runs a service called Jodi365. It's a personalized matchmaking service, and he's been running it for fifteen plus years. He was a student here from nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety-four. Uh, yeah, welcome to the podcast, Anil.

Thanks, Amrutash. Yeah, pleasure to be here-

Uh-

... especially here at IITM.

Yes. Um, by the way, today is reunion day, so a lot of alumni are there.

I know this. I know this. Class of two thousand, there are at least a couple of people in my network from there. I meant to check with them, but I might just still do that.

Okay. So Anil, um, tell us about your startup, and what is... Uh, do you call it a startup still?

No, not after all of these years. Uh, I founded this in two thousand and nine in Chicago, in the home stretch of my MBA program at the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business. And, uh, it's for many years now that I've been describing myself as not an entrepreneur, but as a businessman. I say that I run a growing business. Still a small business, a small, growing business. Jodi365 is a matchmaking platform and service. It began as a platform, with personalized service being an option. We pivoted into a fully personalized service, so we spare people the searching, the screening, and the curating. We do the heavy lifting, and we present these pre-screened, curated matches to people on a regular basis. We help people find their life partner at a pace that's right for them. Some people may be ready for marriage in the near term. Some people may be comfortable with the idea of, um, getting married, but not rushing into some- ru- rushing into the formal process. They may prefer to get to know somebody over time. They may be okay with an engagement. Some others may say, "Back off, no pressure. I'd like to get to know someone as friends first." So wherever they are on their readiness, on the readiness spectrum, we help them find the right partner.