01Beat 01 of 03
Early ambition
I grew up in Bangalore, where it felt like everyone was building something. I wanted something of my own before I really knew what that meant.
I studied computer science because it looked like the shortest path to making things, not because I wanted to be an engineer.
02Beat 02 of 03
What changed
I tried to start a company before I graduated: an “Uber for trucks” for small and mid-size factories. YC rejected it. It made their top 10% of rejections, which I still mention. Mostly it was the first time I thought past the code to the actual problem.
Then I spent a couple of years as a software engineer, most of it at Bewakoof, where the listing, product, and homepage flows I built were used by 50 million people. I led the frontend for a gift-card launch that lifted revenue 65% in a festive spike, and shipped Shopping in Hindi. That taught me the thing I keep relearning: products don't win on engineering. They win on understanding people, design, positioning, trust, and knowing what's worth building.
03Beat 03 of 03
Where I'm going
I moved to Sydney for a master's in AI at UNSW, mostly to see where the technology was heading. I got pulled into the founder world: a Startmate Founder Fellowship, the Peter Farrell Cup pitch competition, late nights at UNSW Founders.
Somewhere in there my ambition quietly changed. I stopped wanting a purely technical role. I spent most of 2025 as a Product Manager at Rekro, leading a six-person engineering team and taking a 0→1 product from discovery to ship. It settled the question. I want to decide what gets built, and then build it. That's the thread now, AI, product, and starting things.