Story

Startups and spirituality

The only two things I’ve ever really cared about. I’ve been building and selling things since I was fourteen — some of it worked, and the parts that didn’t are the reason a+ exists.

Before any of it

My first job, at fourteen, was finding leads for a stone wholesaler. I scraped Alibaba and Amazon to do it, with no idea that had a name. That is how I found out there was such a thing as code.

After that: costume jewellery out of my father’s shop, construction sites, and a stint as assistant to the chairman of the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Holding a balloon printed with LIVE YOUR DREAM — Unbearable, in hindsightI meant it, though.

2009. Eighteen.

ION Education, the first company. We taught students to invest by sitting with them while they opened their first account.

10,000 students across 50 universities in three years.

Four of us behind a folding-table stall in a shopping mall, holding brochures — Taking it to them2011. A folding table in a mall, four of us, and brochures nobody had asked for.

The ION Education shopfront on Jarimari Road, Bandra, with six of us outside — Our own door2012. ION Education’s office opening — Jarimari Road, Bandra. Most of these people are still my friends.

Standing next to a whiteboard covered in equations, wearing a Santa hat — Learning the hard halfSomebody else’s equations, mostly.

I asked for his time instead

Our first term sheet came from an SVP at Google. I asked for his time rather than his money, and ended up on the top bunk of a San Francisco house called the Hacker Quarters, where my flatmates taught me to code.

I launched OneShop on my twenty-first birthday. Thousands of merchants waiting. Then my visa fell through.

Welding, sparks coming off the bench — Still like making thingsMaker’s Studio, San Francisco.

The second one died differently

London, seed round raised. My co-founder wanted three times the equity, or he would delete the codebase and have my visa cancelled. I said no, and watched him burn it down.

$50 left to my name. Popcorn, fifty-cent bagels, and a hundred borrowed from my brother.

I nearly stopped

In 2015 I decided to get a job. The first company I wrote to was Haptik. I met Aakrit the next day and was running product and growth by the end of that week.

Eighteen months: $16M raised, 20 → 650 people. Reliance bought it for $100M.

On stage with my back to the camera, in front of a full auditorium — A full room

Sitting alone on the edge of the same stage afterwards — And then the room empty

My father and me on a sofa under balloons spelling WELCOME TO IONHUB — Opening dayThat’s my dad. ION Energy’s office opening.

My father wanted to sell his car

I had just watched Elon talk about the Model 3, so I converted it instead. My father thought I had lost it. I took that as a sign.

Mornings and nights at IIT Bombay, welding cells into packs of my own, alongside the job. In 2018 a scooter moved on one of them. That was ION Energy.

The whole team at a Diwali party in the office — The part I’d do againION Energy, 2019. Twenty-five people who didn’t have to be there on a Friday night.

Office selfie with about a dozen of the team — Monday, same people

Thirteen years to the first million

The largest battery-management supplier in India — Hero, and 250,000 units deployed. Endurance bought the business in 2022 for $40M.

Alex and I still run Altergo.

And now — a+

90% of startups die, and the whole ecosystem is built around that number. An investor takes a hundred shots and wins the match with two. The founder is all-in on one.

Three things kill three-quarters of them: no product-market fit, co-founder conflict, no capital. I have lost companies to two of the three. a+ is the infrastructure I wish had existed.

See the studio →

The rest of it The part that isn’t work. Open it if you like.

Black and white photograph of me resting against my grandmother, my dadi ma — Dadi maOne of the biggest influences on my life, and the reason I ended up on a spiritual path at all.

Me with my daughter Abby, who is holding white roses — AbbyMy daughter. Three and a half, and this is our usual daddy-and-daughter coffee date.

Standing under a street of hanging umbrellas in Istanbul — Off duty

Recent photograph of me at a table — These days

Number thirteen

yours, maybe See a+ →