Jun 9 2020
What's next
Just over 6 months ago, in November of 2019, I embarked on a mission to build a new kind of map experience that’s social by design. I began the dance of the oft-repeated philosophy “real artists ship” by picking a starting point — build a socially curated map of places you and your friends want to explore. There was a lot of uncertainty in where I was headed but I had a lot of conviction that this was what people needed in 2020.Nov 20 2019
A Blank Slate
In the first half of this 2010s decade, I built two startups. During this, I shipped almost a dozen web and mobile apps. They were mostly consumer internet products, with the exception of a couple which were enterprise. All in the hope of creating a product loved by 1 million or more monthly active users. However, nothing seemed to ever stick, and despite lots and lots of trying, I failed to hit that milestone.Aug 23 2019
Favorite Picks from Y Combinator Summer 2019
A few months ago, I covered my favorite picks from Y Combinator’s Winter 2019 batch. I got some good feedback on that post, so I decided to do it again for the latest batch. Y Combinator is arguably the world’s most esteemed startup incubator. I’ve always admired their penchant for ideas in spaces that aren’t always “hot”. What’s also respectable is that in recent years, they’ve accepted more and more founding teams from outside the US, especially from India and Latin America.Aug 8 2019
A Retrospective on Structural Shifts in Consumer Internet
I think a lot about the history of the consumer internet industry. The big structural shift of 1990s was the internet. The trick to finding startup ideas and getting funded in this era was to think of something you do on a daily or weekly basis, then prefix it by “online”, and voila, you’ve got a startup idea! What were some consumer ideas that emerged on the internet in the 90s, and the defining companies that leveraged them?Apr 3 2019
My favorite picks from Y Combinator Winter 2019
Recently, TechCrunch covered Y Combinator’s (YC) Winter 2019 Demo Day, giving the world a glimpse into the companies launching from the world’s top incubator for startups. It’s the largest batch of startups ever launching at this Mountain View-based incubator started in 2005. YC-incubated companies include Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, Reddit and Instacart, with a combined valuation of all YC companies hovering over $100B. On reading TechCrunch’s analysis of the most recent batch, I found a vast array of interesting startups around spaces such as healthcare, enterprise SaaS, logistics, developer tools, Africa and Latin America-focused solutions, college hiring in India and cryptocurrency trading.Apr 1 2019
16 Startups of Note
Every week, I stumble upon startups or products with intriguing missions in the areas of my personal interest. Here are 16 of them from the first quarter of 2019.
Names & Faces: “Fast, visual employee directories”
Side: “Best freelancers and independent contractors for your company within hours”
Superhuman: “The fastest email experience ever made”
Movable Ink: “Reinventing Personalization for a Visual World”Mar 13 2019
30 Years of the Web
The world wide web turns 30 today.
It has come a long way. The majority of things you and me take for granted today are possible because of the web, whether it’s writing or reading blogs, sharing a video on Snapchat, reading the news from around the world, trading stocks or buying cryptocurrency, tweeting, looking up restaurant reviews, ordering that Uber, or IM-ing your friend. We owe a lot of the convenience we enjoy today to the invention of the web.Mar 6 2019
Alive
As I write this, at this very instant, across the universe, galaxies move, stars are born and stars cease to exist, supernova explosions occur, more than a thousand suns burn, meteorites accelerate, satellites zoom by, all while the universe itself moves.. an immense amount of cosmic activity just happened since you started reading this post.
Here on this planet, at this very instant, somewhere, multi-million dollar deals are being made and broken, hundreds of billions of dollars move through the financial system, lives enter and exit, giant waves rise and crash, thunder and lightning roar, new ideas and companies hatch, relationships blossom and break, planes land and take off.Mar 6 2019
Don't Let Pain Turn into Hate
Pain, but I won’t let it turn into hateNo, I won’t let it change me
— Youth, by Shawn Mendes ft. KhalidMost, if not all, humans carry pain of some kind. One of the dangerous things about pain is that it is prone to turning into hate. If the feelings of pain over time are not kept in check, they can stealthily transform into hate. Hate is the most negative sort of energy you can possess or give off.Feb 26 2019
Elements of The Complete Man
I’ve been wanting to write this one out for a while, and sitting at LaGuardia Airport in New York City waiting for my delayed flight, I felt an urge to finally put it into words and share it.
Over the last few years, I have often thought about the idea of a “Complete Man”. No, not the classic Raymond TV ad I grew up watching in India, but the idea of a man being complete, in light of his abilities.