Foundering 101
It’s a funny thing to say — I founded XYZ.
Etymologically, it means “lay the foundation of”. However, I enjoy the vague association with the word “find” — suggesting that the problem was right there, just waiting to be found.
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The last 4 months as a founder-to-be have been a roller-coaster ride. It’s the kind of all-consuming experience where you have to take a dive to know how cold the water is. It’s been humbling and revealing. I’ve felt restless and ecstatic. I’ve been lost and hopeful.
These months have been tough and they’ve been shaping.
But most importantly, they’ve been my own.
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And while I know that the future ahead holds just as much uncertainty and chaos, I’d like to take a moment to recognize and reflect on my learnings so far.
Here’s my 2 cents — as a founder trying to survive the process of founding.
Pt1: The leap of faith
Making the decision to quit was probably the easiest thing.
Don’t get me wrong — it was a scary decision, just not a hard one. I personally felt confident that if need be, I could always land another job. Having a well-defined runway also helped calm the nerves. In my case, I knew I had ~9 months to figure out my next steps.
The only way to take the leap of faith was to have faith in the leap and take it.
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That’s not to say the leap does not have a fall.
Nuclei was a big part of life, and letting go of that shared identity was tough. It felt like jumping off a running train. And you cannot just stand on the platform either. To start something from scratch you need an unusual force of sheer will and belief in your own ideas and capabilities. Strong enough that it’s infectious.
So you go from being onboard a train to pulling one into motion, all by yourself.
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You become your own boss and are your own employee.
It wasn’t good enough to be just busy — what mattered was if I could get more work flowing my way. Being alone meant being ambitious in your self, without external prompts. You also have to push to make yourself a priority for others. The ability to persistently follow up with people is a basic pre-requisite.
Having the audacity to go after ambitious targets in sight, is the only way to reach goals yet unseen.
Taking the leap was the easy part though. What followed was much more difficult to manage — uncertainty.
Pt2: Directing exploration
A day into the wilderness and uncertainty becomes the default. The question isn’t what option is the best, but what are the fucking options?
Your initial idea is an important starting point — it is a reflection of the founder-market fit within, something you need to hold on to. Whatever stage you are on, you have to pitch your ideas like you mean it. Just as important is to be open to feedback, and let the market response shape your ideas.
As I went on scouring for people to pitch to, I let myself gravitate towards whatever felt most interesting. The pitch was good for context setting, and then I could be curious without an agenda. This landed me in some fascinating situations. The tough thing here was to give every turn an honest chance.
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For a time being I was a community manager at Daybreak — a business-focused discord channel. I also hosted the Keras Community Day as well as an online induction session for 1949, a community of CAs. Parallelly, I was speaking with First.Wav on how they could build a community for indie singers, and with ICA regarding how they could deliver climate best practices to the local community.
It was quite a spread. And not all were great decisions. The fact that I enjoy storytelling didn’t help either — made it difficult to identify a good opportunity from a well-romanticised bad idea.
But the thread weaving through was clear — communities.
As luck would have it, my Ganges Tour pitches fetched me an offer to work with PickYourTrail for a 6–9 month assignment. My instinct was to take it. Because as shiny as it sounds, the uncertainty takes a toll and you start looking for shortcuts for the easy way out.
PYT was a lucrative offer. But it would lead me astray.
As a founder, you are given an empty canvas. The canvas by itself has no edges, and you need to develop that muscle yourself. It’s the constraints that define a business. Defining these constraints meant avoiding desperate decisions. So as I gravitated, I started putting in guardrails. Defined broad domains that I’ll direct my exploration towards.
So I rejected PYT, and also put a hold on Ganges Tour for a while. It felt pretty lost to start at zero. But zero invites the possibility to dream again.
Rejecting PYT made one thing abundantly clear — I wasn’t taking work decisions, I was taking life and lifestyle decisions. And I was taking them all by myself.
Pt3: It’s a lonely journey
The search for a mission statement was a lonely one.
It was the search for an identity I could belong to. And for a long time, I didn’t feel a sense of belonging — to any one, any place, any idea. My exploration landed me in situations where imposter syndrome was valid. Floating around in circles, not strongly associated with anything was alienating.
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It was also all-consuming. The question of “what next” was constantly on my mind. Whether I’m in front of my laptop, on my bike, having lunch, talking to people, or going out for dinner. It was difficult to engage with people since most of my mindspace was already occupied, without really anything to show for it.
Financial considerations made it even tougher.
One very clear advice I received while quitting was to keep my lifestyle in check. Often in this journey, the financial pressure forces you to step down on your lifestyle, which is the most painful thing. Runway management meant keeping a tight grip on expenses. You have to say no to yourself over and over again.
Easier said than done. Because lifestyles inflate — it’s what they do.
As the world around upgrades and steps up, it’s hard not to feel like you’re falling behind. A scroll on Instagram or LinkedIn leaves you looking outward with envy and inward with disappointment. The happiness of others started to feel toxic. Birthdays and Diwali were especially tough to cross.
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I’ve been told, time and again, that my energy is infectious. I considered it to be my greatest asset too. And somewhere along the way I lost it.
It felt like being kicked a couple of levels down in Maslows. I felt restless and stuck, suppressed by my own self, small and pitiful. Smiling took effort, laughing was a far thought. All this was quite evident as well — every next person I met remarked that something was off. I was asked why I seemed sad, if I was depressed. And when that question comes, you can’t help but wonder if it’s true.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can confirm that wasn’t the case. I just had a lot of tough problems where short-term hacks were just no good.
It was legit an emotional rollercoaster of its own. Each day a different feeling, every week a new challenge. Having friends around helped, but sharing an identity is a difficult buy-in to ask for.
So while I 100% stand by all the deviant decisions I took, I realise that I very strongly need a co-founder.
Pt4: If you are going through hell, keep going.
Patience and perseverance are two deceptively similar yet vividly different traits. They are also absolutely necessary.
The only good thing to do while you’re in a downward spiral is to keep going. You have to be okay with fixating on an idea, to keep digging deeper and deeper, and to stick with it for months and years without much to show for it.
You gotta be the one telling yourself an optimistic story. Because optimism isn’t about “being happy” while things are going well. It’s about staying hopeful and believing in the future even when things seem bleak. You have to hold on to the belief, maintain conviction. That it’s worth it. That you’ll figure it out.
You have to believe that this could be the start of something good.
Self-confidence is quite a catch-22.
It’s a difficult quality. Not to sustain, but to generate; without any external prompts. I for one found working out regularly, specifically running, to be a great way to get over the inertia and generate momentum. That momentum and energy then flows into the rest of life as well. If something is draining this hard-earned energy, be brutal with cutting it out.
Another pretty basic thought process that took time to settle in was that it’s not a race. It’s a marathon, an indefinitely long one. You don’t need to compete on speed. Some people find the problem statement in a month, some take years — don’t beat yourself down or take shortcuts if you’re on the fag end of this cycle.
You can take your time but you can’t afford to waste your time.
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As your ideas evolve, you have to keep telling the story as it comes to you. And you have to pitch it like you mean it — every time, over and over again — even if you’re not quite sure yet. You also have to maintain your voice in the loudest of places — can’t be ashamed of what you want.
There was a time when things were going slow, I just visited BCC and asked them to catch up. It’s much tougher to say no to a meeting when you’re standing right in front of them. Led to probably the most productive 2-hour conversation with them.
Similarly, I just barged into Unboxing, spent 3 days in their meeting room without any real work or plan, while they worked from their desks upstairs. No fucking shame.
And well I guess that’s where I got lucky.
Pt5: Luck is where opportunity meets preparation
The timing with Unboxing was god-sent.
Almost 2/3 years into writing the book and aligning broad visions, they were shifting gears into execution mode with the launch and Habba coming soon. They didn’t really have a “role” for me, but could always use a helping hand. I juggled my own agenda and Unboxing for some time, but it felt like a half-assed effort on both. So I decided to do it madly or not at all, and went all in.
I was personally okay to do anything — one day I went out to shop for chillis so that we could make a video. Another day I called up a guest list to confirm their RSVP. Towards the end I became a content creator of sorts — with the bike in full gear, made Bangalore my little playground. Treated no job as too small.
In the process made photostories, which was just a revelation. Have always wanted to tell stories, and this was the medium that just fit my taste. And the fact that I could treat it as work was just delightful.
I still was lost though. What next after Unboxing?
The trick to “founding” for me was to not problem solve, but problem seek. At one point I stopped trying to pitch solutions and just went deeper into the ecosystem. Unknowingly performed user interviews and surveys — not to validate a solution but just to understand the context. With my mouth shut and ears open, the problem statements surfaced on their own.
Ideas create themselves, you just have to give them the right space.
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That is where I’m currently at.
The market understanding in itself has no value. Uncovering problem statements is an important first step, but you also have to be the one painting a picture of the solution.
You cannot keep gravitating forever, at one point you need to manifest. The black hole of uncertainty and exploration is deep. And as a founder, your objective is to convert those uncertainties into risks, that are more digestible for your investors, your teams, your customers.
The last quote I wrote on my whiteboard was — Pursue karne ke liye push karna padta hai. And that is what the next few months are going to be about.
