Nikhil SharmaWork with me

पाठशालाPathshala · The Founder Library

Three hundred lessons. The numbers you can touch.

Three hundred lessons on building a company, written for India, with the numbers you can touch. Written without a byline, to the standard of the best accelerator libraries, in the order a company actually happens. 300 written so far; the other 0 are named below and arrive in that order.

प्रजासुखे सुखं राज्ञः प्रजानां च हिते हितम्। नात्मप्रियं हितं राज्ञः प्रजानां तु प्रियं हितम्॥

In the happiness of the people lies the happiness of the king, and in their welfare his welfare. What pleases him is not the good; what pleases the people is.

Kautilya · Arthaśāstra 1.19.34 · the Indian treatise on statecraft and economics, two thousand years before the first accelerator

Read “king” as founder and “people” as customers and the whole library is in those two lines. The method is older than the vocabulary.

Start here

Three to read first.

The tools

Nine figures you can move.

Every tool lives inside the lesson that explains it. Change a number and watch the argument change.

Newest

The latest lessons.

Also on the shelf

The words, and the people who wrote them.

The ten tracks

The whole course, in order.

Ten tracks of thirty. Each track runs from start through build to scale. A lesson with a link is written; the rest are named so the shape is visible before the shelf is full.

Track 01 · The idea

विचारThe idea

Problems worth a decade, markets worth entering, timing you can defend.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01How to tell a problem from a complaintEvery customer will complain. Very few have a problem they are already paying to solve. The difference is four questions, and most startup ideas die because nobody asked them.Start · 7 min · one tool
  2. 02Problems worth a decade of your lifeA company takes ten years. Before you give an idea that long, score the problem on three things: how long it will last, how often it hurts, and how much it hurts each time.Start · 8 min · one tool
  3. 03Founder-market fit: the unfair advantage testWrite one sentence that says why you, of all the people who could build this, will win this market. Then check whether an investor would buy the sentence, because a customer is going to be asked to.Start · 10 min
  4. 04Market sizing an investor will believeA market is a count of people who could pay, multiplied by what one pays a year. The rest is a claim about how many you can reach and win, and investors read that claim, not the big number.Start · 9 min · one tool
  5. 05Why now: the timing argument every pitch needsName the technology, regulation or behaviour shift that makes the idea possible this year and not five years ago. If you cannot, the idea has been possible for years, and someone has already tried it.Start · 8 min · one tool
  6. 06Tarpit ideas and why they keep looking goodSome ideas have swallowed a hundred teams and will look fresh to the hundred-and-first. Learn the categories, the mechanism that makes them attractive, and the one condition under which they work.Start · 8 min · one tool
  7. 07India Stack as a market map: UPI, Aadhaar, ONDC, Account AggregatorPublic digital rails make a category of business nearly free and a different category newly possible. Read the four big ones as a map: build where the rail stops, not where it runs.Start · 10 min · one tool
  8. 08India 1, India 2, India 3: choose your hundred millionIndia is three markets sharing a flag. Decide which one you serve before you set a price, choose a channel or size the market, because each one breaks a different assumption.Start · 8 min · one tool
  9. 09Copy to India: when a global playbook transfers and when it breaksA model proven abroad is a head start, not a plan. Run it through three Indian tests, margin, trust and distribution, before you port it, and expect to change at least one of them.Start · 7 min · one tool
  10. 10Walk the idea maze before you walk into itEvery idea is a maze of choices other teams have already walked. Map the branches, who took each one and where they died, in a weekend, and enter with a map rather than a hunch.Start · 7 min · one tool
  11. 11Competitive analysis without the flattering two-by-twoThe two-by-two with your logo alone in the top right persuades nobody. Write a map of who wins each customer today, including spreadsheets, a paid person and doing nothing, and why.Build · 7 min · one tool
  12. 12Moats that matter in year one, and the ones that do not yetA year-one company cannot have most of the moats its deck claims. Learn which defensibility can be started now, which arrives only with growth, and stop claiming the rest.Build · 7 min · one tool
  13. 13Network effects you can actually measureEvery deck claims a network effect and few can show one. Test it: if the product gets better as the local network gets denser, retention will rise with density. If it does not, stop asserting it.Build · 6 min · one tool
  14. 14Positioning: the sentence that decides who buysOne sentence names the customer, the alternative they use today and the difference that makes you better than it. Write it from evidence, then test it in twenty sales calls before it goes on the homepage.Build · 8 min · one tool
  15. 15The pivot decision: evidence, not exhaustionMost pivots are decided late at night by tired founders or never decided at all. Write the metric and the date that would make you change course now, while you can still judge.Build · 7 min · one tool
  16. 16Vitamins, painkillers and what Indian customers actually pay forIndian customers pay fast for a problem that costs them money this week and slowly for one that would make them better someday. Rank your idea on urgency and on who owns the budget before you build the paywall.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17B2B or B2C: the choice that decides your next five yearsSelling to businesses or to consumers is not a label on the deck. It sets your ticket size, your sales cycle, your first hires and the capital you burn before revenue arrives.Build · 7 min · one tool
  18. 18Secrets: what you know that the market does notEvery company worth building rests on a belief most informed people think is wrong. Write yours as one sentence, then gather the evidence that it is true and the evidence that it is unpopular. You need both.Build · 8 min
  19. 19The Bharat opportunity: separating hype from paying demandTier-2 and tier-3 India is real demand and a favourite slide. Size it by the wallets that already pay digitally and the rails that carry the money, not by the population on the census.Build · 7 min · one tool
  20. 20Regulatory arbitrage ideas and their expiry dateSome companies earn their margin from a product and some from a rule. The second kind can be a fine business for a while. Know which one you run and date the rule.Build · 8 min · one tool
  21. 21Pick a wedge small enough to win and large enough to matterChoose the narrow first use case that gets you in the door and the expansion path that justifies it. Two tests, both with numbers: can this team lead the segment, and is leading it worth a company?Build · 7 min · one tool
  22. 22Second-order markets: selling to the winners of the last waveEvery boom creates a market in selling to the companies it created. Find the picks-and-shovels business in D2C, quick commerce and AI, and plan for the shakeout that follows every wave.Build · 7 min · one tool
  23. 23Platform shifts and when to bet the company on oneDecide whether a new platform such as AI, ONDC or voice is a feature, a product line or the whole company, with five questions answered in numbers and a date to answer them again.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24Building from India for the world: the cross-border callJudge whether your product should go global from day one, after product-market fit at home, or never, with the SaaS and D2C evidence and one comparison: payback in each market.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  25. 25Adjacent markets: sequencing the second actRank adjacent markets by shared customer, shared channel and shared capability before you enter any of them, then enter them one at a time.Scale · 6 min · one tool
  26. 26The innovator’s dilemma inside your own roadmapSpot the low-end entrant your best customers tell you to ignore, date the year it becomes good enough for them, and choose an answer before the date arrives.Scale · 8 min · one tool
  27. 27Category creation versus category captureDecide whether to educate a market into existence or take share in one that already pays, with four tests, the evidence on pioneers, and a budget for each route.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  28. 28The strategy memo: writing the thesis your company runs onWrite a two-page strategy memo a new VP could execute from: the diagnosis, the thesis, three bets, the non-bets, and kill criteria set before anything starts.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  29. 29When the market moves under you: rereading the thesisRun an annual thesis review that scores last year’s assumptions against this year’s numbers, names the ones that broke, and turns each into something the company stops doing.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  30. 30The next decade of India: where the big problems sitBuild a personal list of the structural Indian problems large enough to carry a company into the 2030s, each with a public number, a buyer who pays today and a wedge.Scale · 6 min · one tool

Track 02 · The customer

ग्राहकThe customer

Who it is for, how to ask them, and how to hear what they did not say.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01The customer interview, done properlyMost founders have already done twenty customer interviews and learned nothing from them, because they pitched, asked about the future and talked. Here is the protocol that produces evidence instead.Start · 7 min · one tool
  2. 02Finding the first twenty people to talk toThe interview protocol is useless without people to run it on. How to book twenty qualified conversations in fourteen days with no brand and no budget, using warm asks, WhatsApp groups, LinkedIn and the walk-in.Start · 10 min · one tool
  3. 03The Mom Test for Indian politenessRob Fitzpatrick wrote The Mom Test for a world where your mother says your idea is lovely. In India everyone is your mother. The test rebuilt for a culture where no comes with a smile and a delay.Start · 8 min · one tool
  4. 04Jobs to be done: the job your customer is hiring you forNobody wants the drill or the hole. They want the shelf up before Sunday. How to write the job statement, find the hiring and firing moments, and name the alternatives the customer actually compares you to.Start · 9 min · one tool
  5. 05Segmentation that changes what you buildMen aged 25 to 34 in metro cities do not buy protein powder. People who joined a gym in January do. How to split a market by behaviour and buying trigger, and pick the segment to serve first.Start · 8 min · one tool
  6. 06The ideal customer profile on one pageAn ideal customer profile is not a persona with a stock photograph. It is a filter an SDR can run against a list on Monday without calling you: this company yes, that one no, and why.Start · 7 min · one tool
  7. 07Who pays, who uses, who decidesMost stalled deals are not lost on price. They are lost to a person the founder never met. Map the five roles in every deal and write the one message each of them needs.Start · 8 min · one tool
  8. 08Field research: watching customers instead of asking themPeople describe the job they think they do. Sit beside them for two hours and you see the job they actually do, workarounds and all. How to run a shadowing session in a kirana, a clinic or an office.Start · 7 min · one tool
  9. 09From twenty interviews to one decisionTwenty good conversations produce a hundred pages of notes and, left alone, a founder who remembers the last three. Code them, count them and write the one page that decides what to build next.Start · 7 min · one tool
  10. 10Surveys that do not lie to youA survey is the cheapest way to hear what a thousand people think and the easiest way to hear what you hoped. How to measure behaviour and willingness to pay, and spot the questions that produce false comfort.Start · 7 min · one tool
  11. 11The Sean Ellis test and where it misleadsOne question, one threshold: how would you feel if you could no longer use the product? Run it properly, read the 40 percent correctly and segment before you act on it.Build · 7 min · one tool
  12. 12NPS done honestly: the number and the verbatimsNet Promoter Score is the most quoted customer number and the easiest to game. Collect it so nobody can, read it with its margin of error, and mine the comments for the three things to fix this quarter.Build · 7 min · one tool
  13. 13Customer development does not stop at launchThe interviews that found the product usually stop the week it ships. Keep five customer conversations a week and a log the whole team reads, and the company keeps learning as it grows.Build · 7 min · one tool
  14. 14The churn interview: learning from the ones who leftThe cancel form says “too expensive” and is usually wrong. A twenty-minute conversation within a fortnight of leaving finds the real reason, and a monthly review puts it on the roadmap.Build · 7 min · one tool
  15. 15A voice-of-customer system that does not depend on memoryWhat customers tell a company arrives in five places and is remembered in none. Tag it where it lands, route it to an owner and review it monthly by people and by rupees.Build · 6 min · one tool
  16. 16Selling to Indian SMEs: the customer who hates subscriptionsThe owner of a small Indian business buys outcomes, pays the year in cash for a discount, and wants a person to call. Price, onboard and collect for that buyer, not for a Californian one.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17Selling to Indian enterprises: procurement, pilots and patienceA large Indian company buys through a champion, a paid pilot, a procurement desk and ninety-day terms. Map the path, find the person who can sign and size the wait before it sizes you.Build · 6 min · one tool
  18. 18Consumer personas built from data, not stock photosA persona with a stock photo and a hobby changes nothing. Three personas built from what customers bought and how often, checked every quarter, change what a consumer brand makes and spends.Build · 6 min · one tool
  19. 19The Indian household buyer: who decides on the family’s moneyMost Indian consumer purchases above pocket money are family decisions, paid from a shared account and made on a shared phone. Design for the household, not the individual who downloaded the app.Build · 7 min · one tool
  20. 20Research in tier-2 and tier-3 India without flying everywhereThe next hundred million customers live in towns a founder cannot visit every month. Reach them by phone in their language, through partners they trust and a WhatsApp panel, and travel only where a call falls short.Build · 7 min · one tool
  21. 21Willingness to pay: the research that sets your priceCustomers are poor judges of what they would pay and good judges of what they will not. Use a price sensitivity survey to find the band, then a real offer to find the price inside it.Build · 7 min · one tool
  22. 22A customer advisory board that earns its dinnerMost advisory boards are a pleasant evening with friendly customers. Recruit eight who will disagree with you, give each session one decision to make, and write back within a fortnight with what changed.Build · 7 min · one tool
  23. 23Choosing the second segment without losing the firstThe second segment is where many companies that found fit lose it. Price three costs before you expand: acquiring the new customer, closing the product gap, and the margin your first customers take away when they trade down.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24Customer health scores that actually predict churnMost health scores are a traffic light designed in a meeting and never checked. Build one from usage, support and payment signals, then test it against the customers who actually left before anyone acts on it.Scale · 6 min · one tool
  25. 25Account management: growing revenue from the customers you haveExpansion does not happen because someone was assigned the account. It happens when a usage trigger fires, a review proves the value in the customer’s numbers and one named person owns the next order.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  26. 26Customer research at scale: a hundred conversations a quarterAt fifty people the founder can no longer hold every customer call. A research operation with its own panel, honest incentives, plain consent and one synthesis rhythm keeps the whole company close to users.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  27. 27The customer you should fireA few accounts cost more to serve than they pay, take more of the roadmap than they are worth and are likely to leave anyway. Find them with arithmetic, try to reprice them first, and exit the rest cleanly.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  28. 28Community as a listening post, not a marketing channelA customer community run for reach becomes a noticeboard. Run for listening, it tells you what is broken, confusing or missing weeks before the same complaint appears on social media.Scale · 7 min
  29. 29Localisation for India: more than translating the appA translated menu is the smallest part of localising for India. Script, input, numbers, payment habits and support decide whether a user who prefers Tamil or Marathi stays. Choose the order of languages from your own usage data.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  30. 30B2B2C: serving the customer and the customer’s customerIn B2B2C the partner signs and the end user decides whether it works. Give the partner a reason to push, the end user a reason to stay, and write down which wins when they collide.Scale · 7 min · one tool

Track 03 · The product

उत्पादThe product

From the first version to product-market fit, measured rather than felt.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01The MVP that is actually minimumMost first versions are small products. The useful kind is a test: one workflow, built in weeks, that settles the one assumption the company cannot survive being wrong about.Start · 9 min
  2. 02Concierge and Wizard-of-Oz MVPs: selling before you buildDeliver the service by hand to ten paying customers, write down every step you take, and the software specification writes itself. Then watch the founder hours, because the hand-run version has a ceiling and the ceiling is a date.Start · 8 min · one tool
  3. 03No-code and AI-assisted first versions: what to build and what to buyA working first version can now be assembled in a fortnight from bought tools and generated code. The skill is knowing which part you must own, and the point at which the assembled version has to be replaced.Start · 8 min · one tool
  4. 04What product-market fit looks like in the numbersProduct-market fit is not a feeling. It is a retention curve that flattens above zero and a survey in which forty per cent of users would be very disappointed to lose you. Both can be measured this month.Build · 8 min · one tool
  5. 05Retention curves and the flattening testA retention curve is the most honest chart a company owns and the easiest to draw wrong. How to build the grid, the test that says whether it flattens, and what the floor says about your market.Build · 10 min · one tool
  6. 06Activation: the first session that decides everythingMost people who sign up never see the thing the product is for. Define the moment they do, measure the share who reach it and redesign the first session until that share doubles.Build · 8 min · one tool
  7. 07The roadmap as a set of bets, not a list of featuresA list of features promises that every item will work. A set of bets names the metric each one should move, the time it is allowed and the evidence that will stop it.Build · 8 min · one tool
  8. 08Prioritisation: RICE, and the one question that beats itA scoring frame ranks a backlog fairly and hides what is urgent. Score with RICE, then ask which item, shipped this month, lets a named customer pay or keep paying.Build · 7 min · one tool
  9. 09Shipping weekly: the cadence that compoundsA small team that ships every week, tells customers what changed and reads the result runs fifty experiments a year. One that ships quarterly runs four, and cannot tell which of its changes worked.Build · 7 min · one tool
  10. 10Pricing experiments that do not burn your customersPrice is the strongest lever most startups never test. Test it on new cohorts and separate pages, protect existing customers with grandfathering, and stay inside India’s rules on dark patterns and e-mandates.Build · 7 min · one tool
  11. 11Freemium, free trial or neitherThe conversion model is decided by three numbers: what it costs to acquire a customer, how long a user takes to reach a real result, and how much value the product shows in its first week.Build · 7 min · one tool
  12. 12Building for low-end Android and patchy networksThe customer has a cheap Android phone with 2 GB of memory, a connection that drops and a family who share it. Design for that phone first and set budgets that keep the product usable.Build · 7 min · one tool
  13. 13The product spec engineers actually want to readEngineers do not want twenty pages or a one-line ticket. They want one page that names the problem, the user, the number that defines success and what is out of scope, and leaves the how to them.Build · 7 min · one tool
  14. 14Talking to users while you build: the weekly fiveResearch is not a phase that ends when building starts. Five short sessions a week, booked like stand-ups and triaged every Friday, keep the sprint honest without throwing it off course.Build · 7 min · one tool
  15. 15Instrumenting the product: the twelve events that matterEarly analytics is usually nothing or everything. Twelve named, owned and tested events answer the questions that decide a young company, and keep the data trustworthy as it grows.Build · 7 min · one tool
  16. 16Feature requests and the discipline of saying noEvery request is evidence and almost none is an instruction. Log each one with the job behind it and who asked, weigh it by the segment you serve, and say no in a way that keeps the customer.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17Design when you cannot afford a designerA product can look finished without a designer if it is built from a few systems, respects the constraints it cannot avoid and treats its words as design. Then hire the designer when one of five signals appears.Build · 7 min · one tool
  18. 18WhatsApp as a product surface, not just a channelFor many Indian customers the chat is already open and the app is not installed. Put the short, notification-led jobs in WhatsApp, keep the long ones in the app, and design the journeys so the messages are cheap.Build · 7 min · one tool
  19. 19Your first ten paying customers and what they get wrongThe first ten customers are the best signal a company will ever get and the worst product managers it will ever hire. Use what they do; be careful with what they ask for.Build · 7 min · one tool
  20. 20Launch day is not a strategyOne big morning buys attention once, at the product’s weakest moment. Plan the launch as a series of small releases, each to a wider audience, with a loop between them that fixes what the last one showed.Build · 7 min · one tool
  21. 21Product-led growth: the mechanics behind the buzzwordProduct-led growth is three pieces of engineering, not a slogan: a self-serve path to value, a loop through which users bring users, and upgrade triggers tied to usage. Build and measure each one.Scale · 6 min · one tool
  22. 22Platform and API strategy: when to let others build on youAn API, a marketplace or a layer of integrations can make customers stay and partners sell. It can also become a second product with no revenue line. Decide by the retention it buys against the upkeep it costs.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  23. 23Product ops and when to hire the second product managerPast twenty people the product slows not because anyone works less but because every decision waits for the same person. Measure the wait, cut the overhead with product operations, then split ownership.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24The second product: when and how to make the betA second product is a new company inside the old one. Judge it by how close the first is to saturation, whether it sells to the same customer, and whether the team can carry both.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  25. 25Technical debt as a financial decisionDebt in a codebase is a loan with an interest rate. Measure the interest in engineer-months and rupees, then schedule paydown against the growth it is blocking.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  26. 26AI features that earn their place in the productAn AI feature has a running cost traditional software never had. Keep the ones that move retention or revenue by more than they cost, and retire the ones that only move the pitch deck.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  27. 27An experimentation culture with real statistical powerMost product ideas do not work, so a test that cannot detect the effect it hopes for will mostly declare false winners. Size every test before it starts and read it once.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  28. 28Reliability, SLAs and the price of downtimeEvery nine of uptime costs more engineering than the last. Choose targets by customer tier, measure them the way customers feel them, and budget the work that keeps the promise.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  29. 29Sunsetting a feature or a product without losing trustProducts have to be retired for a company to stay focused. Done with a real notice period, a migration path and steady communication, it costs few customers and builds trust.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  30. 30The product strategy document for a hundred-person companyAt a hundred people the founder can no longer be in every product decision. A short strategy document that connects company goals to a few themes lets squads decide well without asking.Scale · 7 min

Track 04 · Unit economics

हिसाबUnit economics

Price, cost, margin, payback. The arithmetic a business has to pass.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01CAC, LTV and payback: the three numbers that decide whether you should growWhat it costs to win a customer, what that customer returns in gross profit, and how many months until the first number is repaid. Get these three honest before you spend a rupee on growth.Build · 9 min · one tool
  2. 02Contribution margin: the first number a founder must knowGross margin says what the product costs to make. Contribution margin says what one more sale actually leaves behind after the courier, the gateway, the discount and the return. Compute it before anything else.Start · 9 min · one tool
  3. 03The unit economics of SaaS, with the benchmarksThree numbers decide whether a software company works: gross margin, CAC payback and net revenue retention. How to compute each, the benchmarks as their authors stated them, and what an Indian SaaS investor expects to see.Start · 9 min · one tool
  4. 04Marketplace unit economics: take rate, GMV and the leaky bucketGMV is the biggest number in the building and the one the platform never owned. How to get from GMV to net revenue to contribution, and the subsidies, incentives and leakage that most decks leave out.Start · 8 min · one tool
  5. 05D2C unit economics: the order that has to make moneyA brand does not sell products. It sells orders, one at a time, and each one either makes money or does not. The per-order P&L with returns, logistics, discounts and marketplace fees, and the lines where the margin disappears.Start · 8 min · one tool
  6. 06Lending unit economics: yield, credit cost and the cost of fundsA lender does not earn the interest rate. It earns what is left after the money, the losses and the people are paid, usually single digits. The spread model, the NPA rules and how little room a startup has.Start · 10 min · one tool
  7. 07Services and agency economics: utilisation, rate and benchA services firm sells hours. Three numbers decide whether those hours make money: how many are billed, what each one actually collects and what the person costs. How to compute them, and when to stop selling hours at all.Start · 8 min · one tool
  8. 08What belongs in COGS: the cost of revenue, drawn correctlyGross margin is only as honest as the line drawn under cost of revenue. Which costs sit above it, which below, and how an investor’s analyst will redraw yours in the first week of diligence.Start · 7 min · one tool
  9. 09Gross margin and why investors fixate on itGross margin decides how much of each rupee of sales becomes profit, how fast a company can afford to grow and what its revenue is worth. How to compute it, and what 20, 50 and 80 per cent allow.Start · 7 min · one tool
  10. 10The one spreadsheet model every founder should buildTen inputs, one row per month, every other number a formula. A driver-based model that predicts revenue and cash twelve months out, tells you whether you are default alive and gets more accurate every month you use it.Start · 7 min · one tool
  11. 11Cohort analysis for founders who are not analystsOne table, built from the payments export in an afternoon, shows whether customers stay, whether they spend more over time and when each month’s customers pay back what they cost.Build · 6 min · one tool
  12. 12Payback period and the cash trap of fast growthAn eighteen-month payback is a good customer and an expensive one. Grow fast at that payback and the cash hole deepens every month. How to see the trap and set the payback ceiling your runway can carry.Build · 6 min · one tool
  13. 13Blended CAC lies: the channel-level truthThe blended number divides all your spend by all your customers, the free ones included. Split it by channel and by cohort and you find the one channel that pays and the two that hide inside the average.Build · 8 min · one tool
  14. 14LTV, computed honestlyThe lifetime value in most decks is a price multiplied by a lifetime nobody has observed. Build it instead from the retention you have actually seen and the margin you actually keep, and stop where the data stops.Build · 7 min · one tool
  15. 15Net revenue retention: the number that makes SaaS compoundNet revenue retention says whether your existing customers are a shrinking pool or a growing one. Measure it by cohort beside gross retention and learn what 100, 110 and 120 per cent do to revenue.Build · 7 min · one tool
  16. 16Discounts, cashbacks and the margin you give awayA discount is taken from contribution, not from price, so a small one costs a large share of what each order leaves. Price every coupon and set the rules that make a discount an investment.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17Logistics, RTO and returns: the Indian e-commerce taxAn order that never reaches the customer still pays the courier twice and the ad that won it once. Measure return-to-origin and returns by pincode and payment method and stop shipping the orders that lose money.Build · 7 min · one tool
  18. 18Pricing in rupees: the psychology of the Indian price pointIndian customers budget by the day, the month and the occasion, and they compare against a number already in their heads. Choose price points, pack sizes and payment cadences that fit how your segment actually spends.Build · 6 min · one tool
  19. 19Usage-based, seat-based and hybrid pricingThe unit you charge for decides how revenue grows inside an account, how well you can forecast it and whether heavy users make you money. Choose it before you choose the price.Build · 7 min · one tool
  20. 20The real cost of free usersA free tier is a channel with a monthly bill. Add up what active free users cost in servers, messages and support, divide by the customers they turn into, and decide what free is buying.Build · 7 min · one tool
  21. 21Break-even and operating leverageBreak-even is fixed cost divided by contribution margin, and it moves every time you hire. Operating leverage is why profit swings harder than revenue near that line, in both directions.Build · 7 min · one tool
  22. 22When the unit economics say stopNegative contribution can be a plan or a slow death, and the difference is a written threshold. Set the numbers at which the company stops buying volume and fixes the unit, before a round decides for you.Build · 7 min · one tool
  23. 23The P&L a founder can read and defendA profit and loss statement is read in the same order by every accountant and investor. Learn the order, find the five places they look first, and fix them before anyone else does.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24Pricing power: raising prices without losing the baseA price rise is a rollout, not an announcement. Decide who moves and when, protect the customers who would leave, and read the retention data that says whether it worked.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  25. 25Gross margin expansion: the five leversGross margin rarely rises on its own. Map cost of revenue line by line, assign each line to one of five levers and plan a ten-point improvement with an owner and a date for each.Scale · 8 min · one tool
  26. 26Unit economics across business lines and geographiesA company with three products or six cities has one P&L and several businesses inside it. How to split cost so each segment’s numbers tell you which to feed, which to fix and which to cut.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  27. 27Working capital: the number that kills profitable companiesA company can show a profit every month and still run out of cash, because growth ties money up in receivables and stock. How to model the days and how fast profit alone can fund growth.Scale · 8 min · one tool
  28. 28The path-to-profitability memoTwo pages that take a company from today’s burn to breakeven: the month, the cash it costs and the three operating assumptions that must hold, with the triggers that show one failing.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  29. 29Benchmarks: what good looks like for Indian startups, by modelThe published ranges for SaaS, D2C, marketplaces and lending, with Indian listed companies as reference points, and how to read your own margins, payback and retention against them without fooling yourself.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  30. 30Scenario planning: the three cases and what breaks eachBase, bear and bull cases earn their place only when built from the same few drivers and tested one at a time. How to find the assumption that moves the outcome most and the combination that breaks the company.Scale · 7 min · one tool

Track 05 · Money

धनMoney

Runway, rounds, dilution, debt, grants. What capital costs and when to take it.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01Runway: how many months you really haveCash divided by burn is the answer to the wrong question. The right one is whether the company is default alive, and the date by which you must know.Start · 5 min · one tool
  2. 02Bootstrapping in India: the honest case for taking no moneyBootstrapping is neither frugality nor failing to raise. It is a decision to buy growth with revenue instead of equity: right for more companies than the funding news suggests, wrong for a few that will not admit it.Start · 10 min · one tool
  3. 03Dilution: a cap table you can touchEvery round sells a share of the company equal to money raised over post-money, and everyone who was already there shrinks by the same factor. That one sentence, and what it does to founders over three rounds.Start · 4 min · one tool
  4. 04Friends, family and the first ₹25 lakhThe first outside money usually comes from people who would lend it to you anyway. Structure it so the relationship survives both outcomes: the company that works and the one that does not.Start · 10 min · one tool
  5. 05Angel investors in India: who they are and how they decideAn angel is an individual who backs a company before a fund will. India has thousands, most organised into networks and platforms with a process. Who they are, what a cheque looks like, what they want back.Start · 10 min · one tool
  6. 06The fundraising process: six weeks, not six monthsA raise that drags is a raise that is failing slowly and taking the company with it. Run it as a project: a list, a narrative, every conversation in parallel, and a date that forces decisions.Start · 9 min · one tool
  7. 07The pitch deck: twelve slides and the one that mattersA seed deck is read in under two minutes by someone deciding whether to spend an hour. Build it on what has happened and what you know that others do not, and put the number where it is found.Start · 9 min · one tool
  8. 08Seed valuation: how the number really gets setA seed valuation is not a verdict on the company. It is a stake the investor needs, divided into a cheque the company needs, adjusted by a pool nobody mentions in the announcement.Start · 9 min · one tool
  9. 09Micro-VCs, seed funds and accelerators in IndiaInstitutional seed money in India comes through four doors: micro-VCs, seed funds, accelerators run by large funds and pre-team residencies. Each wants different evidence, and each is opened most reliably by a founder it already backed.Start · 8 min · one tool
  10. 10Government money: Startup India Seed Fund, SIDBI and grantsThe Indian state funds startups through intermediaries: incubators, research councils, funds of funds and guarantees. None takes equity directly, all of it begins with DPIIT recognition, and it rewards founders who read the rules first.Start · 8 min · one tool
  11. 11CCPS: the instrument Indian VCs actually useAlmost every institutional round in India is paid for in compulsorily convertible preference shares. What the instrument is, why investors insist on it rather than equity shares, and the three terms inside it a founder should read twice.Build · 8 min · one tool
  12. 12iSAFE, SAFE and CCD: choosing the convertible instrumentA convertible lets a company take money now and argue about its value later. In India it comes in four legal forms, each with its own floor, clock and foreign-exchange rule.Build · 8 min · one tool
  13. 13The term sheet, clause by clauseA term sheet is two or three pages that decide who is paid first, who is protected when the price falls and who controls the company. Read the economics, then the control, and spend negotiating capital on three clauses.Build · 7 min · one tool
  14. 14The shareholders’ agreement: what you are actually signingThe term sheet sets the price. The shareholders’ agreement decides who may sell, who may force a sale, what you may not do without consent and what happens to your shares if you leave.Build · 8 min · one tool
  15. 15Due diligence: the data room that closes the roundA signed term sheet is not money in the bank. The weeks between are spent proving the company is what the deck said, and a data room built before anyone asks makes them short.Build · 7 min · one tool
  16. 16Series A: what changes, what investors want and when to goA seed round buys a team and an insight. A Series A buys an engine that has started to work. Know the bar, how long the gap really is, and when to start so the cash outlasts the raise.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17Venture debt in India: cheaper than equity, until it is notA venture loan costs less dilution than equity when the company keeps growing. It has to be repaid whether or not it does. Price it on covenants, warrants and timing, and take it only when you can service it.Build · 7 min · one tool
  18. 18Family offices and strategic investors: a different kind of moneyA family office decides like a person and a strategic decides like a business unit. Both can be patient, useful money. Both bring strings a venture fund does not, and the strings are in the terms.Build · 7 min · one tool
  19. 19Bridge rounds and extensions: the raise nobody wantsA bridge is a loan of time from the investors who know the company best. It works when it reaches a milestone that earns the next round, and it fails when it only postpones the question.Build · 7 min · one tool
  20. 20Investor updates that get you the next roundA monthly update is the cheapest fundraising a founder will ever do. Sent on time, honest about the bad months and specific in its asks, it builds the record the next round is decided on.Build · 6 min · one tool
  21. 21Choosing investors: run the reference call before you signAn investor will spend weeks checking the company. A founder should spend one week checking the partner, starting with the founders the fund did not put on its list.Build · 7 min · one tool
  22. 22Fundraising mistakes founders keep makingMost rounds that fail, or close on bad terms, fail for reasons that were visible months earlier. Fifteen of them recur, in three families: when and in what order founders raise, what they signal, and which terms they accept.Build · 7 min · one tool
  23. 23Down rounds and recaps: surviving the lower numberA down round is a price, not a verdict. Companies survive it when founders test the alternatives, understand anti-dilution and the Indian pricing rules, look after the option holders and tell the team first.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24Secondaries: liquidity for founders and employees before the exitA secondary sale turns some paper into money for founders, early employees and angels years before an exit. In India it works when price, approvals, exchange control and tax are settled before anyone signs.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  25. 25Growth rounds and the crossover investorFrom Series C onward the money is priced against public markets and the question changes from whether the company can grow to whether it can become a public company that compounds.Scale · 6 min · one tool
  26. 26Structured rounds: what a headline valuation can hideA structured term sheet buys a higher number with terms that pay the investor first. Decode multiples, participation and ratchets, and compute the valuation you are really accepting.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  27. 27Revenue-based financing, invoice discounting and working-capital linesMoney that is repaid by the cash it finances costs no equity. Compare revenue-based financing, invoice discounting and bank lines on their real annual cost, their covenants and the cash cycle they fit.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  28. 28Flipping and reverse flipping: where to domicile the companyA foreign parent can open doors to some investors and close the door to an Indian listing. Decide between India, Singapore, Delaware and GIFT City on investors, tax and the cost of coming home.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  29. 29Treasury: making the raised money work without risking itThe money from a round is runway, not an investment portfolio. Put it in three tiers by when you will need it, spread it across banks, and let the board approve the rules.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  30. 30The IPO path in India: SME board, mainboard and the preparationAn Indian listing has two doors, each with its own tests. Learn which one your numbers open, and start the three years of governance, accounts and cap-table work a prospectus demands.Scale · 6 min · one tool

Track 06 · The team

दलThe team

Co-founders, the first ten hires, equity, vesting and the culture nobody wrote down.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01Choosing a co-founder: the forty questions before you commitA co-founder is the largest unpriced decision a founder makes. Forty questions on money, roles, risk and exit, asked in four sittings before anything is signed, replace the hope with a record.Start · 7 min · one tool
  2. 02Vesting and the co-founder cliffVesting is the clause co-founders skip because they trust each other. It exists for the day one of them leaves. The standard schedule, the acceleration terms to refuse, and how Indian ESOP rules actually work.Start · 9 min
  3. 03Splitting founder equity: equal, unequal and how to decideNearly half of two-founder teams now split equally, and a quick equal split costs the stronger founder at the first round. How to decide from contribution, risk and future role, and write it down so it survives success.Start · 8 min · one tool
  4. 04The co-founders’ agreement: what it must containA founder dispute becomes a company-ending event when there is nothing to point to. The agreement is the thing to point to: roles, vesting, IP, decision rights and exit, and the one step that makes it enforceable in India.Start · 8 min · one tool
  5. 05The solo founder: how to make it workMore than a third of new companies now start with one founder, and they raise a small fraction of the money. The four things a co-founder supplies, and the advisory, hiring and decision structures that supply them instead.Start · 8 min
  6. 06Hiring the first engineer when you cannot pay marketThe first engineer is the hire that decides whether the product exists. Where to find them, how to test judgement instead of puzzles, and how to make an offer of cash below market plus options an engineer can check.Start · 10 min · one tool
  7. 07The first ten hires: who, in what order and whyThe first ten hires decide the habits a company keeps. How to order them against the constraint that actually limits growth, the sequences that recur by business model and what the tenth hire changes.Start · 8 min · one tool
  8. 08Interviewing for judgement, not pedigreeCollege names and the friendly hour predict little about how someone will do the job. How to build a scorecard, a structured interview, a paid work sample and reference checks that predict performance better.Start · 8 min · one tool
  9. 09ESOP design: the pool, the grants and the strike priceAn ESOP is worth what its design lets an employee realise. How to size the pool from the hiring plan, set grants by role and stage, choose a strike price and avoid the terms that make options worthless.Start · 8 min · one tool
  10. 10Contractors, interns and employees: who should be whatEvery early role can be an employee, a contractor or an intern, and the labour codes in force since November 2025 changed what each costs. How to choose the form from how the work will be done.Start · 7 min · one tool
  11. 11Culture is what you tolerateA company’s culture is the worst behaviour its leaders see and let pass. How to write the three behaviours you will fire for and the three you will promote for, and act on them within a quarter.Build · 7 min
  12. 12Compensation bands for a startup that cannot pay like GoogleA startup that cannot pay top of market can still pay fairly and predictably. How to build salary bands by level from Indian market data, set the cash and equity mix, and keep the bands honest every year.Build · 7 min · one tool
  13. 13Onboarding: the first thirty days that decide retentionMost early attrition is decided in the first month. How to plan it with a buddy, a first win inside ten working days and a written review on day thirty, and what halving early exits is worth.Build · 8 min · one tool
  14. 14Firing fast and fairly in IndiaFounders fire too late and then badly. How to name the gap and give it a fair chance, what the labour codes require and of whom, what an exit costs and how to hold the conversation.Build · 7 min · one tool
  15. 15One-on-ones and feedback that actually landsMost performance problems that end in a firing were visible months earlier and never said. A weekly one-on-one the report owns, and a feedback method that names behaviour rather than character, fix them while they are small.Build · 7 min · one tool
  16. 16Hiring the first sales leader: too early, too senior, too lateThe first sales leader is the hire founders most often mistime. How to read the signal, choose between a player-coach and a VP, run the search and set the quota and ramp the hire is judged on.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17Remote, hybrid or office: the decision for Indian teamsThe working model is a decision about the work, the cities and the seniority of the team, not about perks. What the evidence shows, the variables that differ in India, and the rituals each model needs to work.Build · 7 min · one tool
  18. 18Building the leadership team: when, who and the first VPThe first leaders a company hires decide how it scales. Which function needs one first, why big-company executives often fail in small companies, and how to hire someone who has done a job you have not.Build · 7 min · one tool
  19. 19Performance reviews that do not waste a monthA review earns its hours when it decides pay, level and growth with evidence people trust. How to run a light twice-yearly cycle tied to goals and bands in two weeks.Build · 7 min · one tool
  20. 20ESOP communication: making equity feel realOptions an employee cannot value are not pay. How to explain a grant, its vesting, its strike and its exit scenarios in rupees, so the people you gave equity to value it.Build · 7 min · one tool
  21. 21Hiring and managing field teams across IndiaA field force is a hiring machine before it is a sales team. How to recruit, train, pay, equip and keep distributed field staff, with the attrition maths built into the plan.Build · 7 min · one tool
  22. 22Diversity that improves decisions, not the deckA team that went to the same colleges and lives in the same three cities makes the same mistakes with confidence. How to find where your hiring funnel narrows, fix it stage by stage and measure the change.Build · 7 min · one tool
  23. 23Co-founder exit: the clean separationA co-founder leaving is common and survivable. It is clean when the vesting, the leaver terms, the buyback price and the handover were written into the agreement before anyone wanted to leave.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24Managers of managers: building the second layerA company runs without its founder only when someone can hire, develop and direct the first-line managers. When that layer arrives, what it does, and how to fill it without promoting your best engineer by default.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  25. 25When to hire a head of people and what they should ownHR becomes a function when the people work outgrows the founders’ spare hours. How to see that moment coming, what the law hands the function first, and the order in which its first leader takes on the work.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  26. 26Layoffs done with careA reduction is the hardest people decision a founder makes. How to size it once, choose roles before names, meet Indian law, pay a package people remember and run the day so those who stay still trust you.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  27. 27Replacing yourself: the roles a founder must give upA company outgrows its founder one job at a time. Which jobs go first, how to write a function down so someone else can run it, and the delegation and numbers that stop the founder taking it back.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  28. 28Equity refreshers and compensation at scaleAt four years every early grant has vested and the people a company most needs have nothing left to stay for. How to design refresh grants, promotion top-ups and retention awards for a hundred-person team.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  29. 29The culture document that survives a hundred peopleAt a hundred people most of the company has never watched a founder make a hard call. Values written as trade-offs with examples and anti-examples let a new manager in Pune make the call the founder would.Scale · 7 min
  30. 30The board and the founder-CEOA board can make a founder-CEO better or make every decision twice. How boards change by round, how to choose the independent who holds the swing vote, and a CEO evaluation that strengthens rather than second-guesses.Scale · 7 min · one tool

Track 07 · Growth

वृद्धिGrowth

Channels, sales, retention and the growth rate that decides everything else.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01Growth rate is the only number that matters earlyAt seed, revenue is small by definition. The rate at which it compounds is the one figure that predicts what the company becomes, and the one figure a founder can manage week by week.Build · 9 min · one tool
  2. 02Do things that do not scale: the India editionPaul Graham’s advice was to recruit the first users by hand. In India the hands are a shop visit, a trade market before it opens and a one-to-one WhatsApp message. The method, and what to write down.Start · 9 min · one tool
  3. 03Finding the first channel that worksMost companies grow through one channel, and nobody knows in advance which. Run six cheap tests in a month, measure the cost of a qualified user from each, and put the next quarter behind the winner.Start · 7 min · one tool
  4. 04Founder-led sales: the first hundred callsThe first salesperson a company hires should be a founder. A list of a hundred, a script with one question, a CRM with five stages and a weekly target, and the three numbers that fall out by call fifty.Start · 8 min · one tool
  5. 05Cold outreach that gets replies in IndiaIndian buyers delete most of what reaches them because most of it deserves deletion. The anatomy of an email, a LinkedIn message and a WhatsApp introduction that earn a reply, and the law on who you may message.Start · 9 min · one tool
  6. 06The sales funnel and the conversion rates to expectA pipeline is a list of hopes until every stage is defined and the rate between stages is measured. The funnel from lead to cash, the rates to expect in India, and how to run it backwards.Start · 8 min · one tool
  7. 07Content marketing that compounds instead of postingPosting earns attention for a day. A library of pages written for what buyers search, and pushed through the channels they already read, keeps producing leads a year after it was written.Start · 8 min · one tool
  8. 08Referral and word of mouth by designWord of mouth is not luck. It is a loop with three rates in it, a reward that suits the product and a moment of ask, and each part can be designed, measured and improved.Start · 7 min · one tool
  9. 09WhatsApp as a distribution channel: groups, broadcasts and the APIWhatsApp is where Indian customers already are, which makes it the cheapest channel to reach them and the fastest to be blocked on. The three tools, the rules, the per-message costs and how to measure what converts.Start · 7 min · one tool
  10. 10The landing page and the first conversion testBefore building, put the offer on one page, send it the right people and ask for something that costs them a little. The result is the first honest number the company will have.Start · 7 min · one tool
  11. 11Paid acquisition: Meta, Google and the ceiling you will hitPaid channels work until they do not, and the dashboard average hides the moment. Track CAC by channel and by cohort, compute what the next rupee buys, and stop where it no longer pays back.Build · 7 min · one tool
  12. 12SEO for Indian startups: the long game done rightSearch is slow, compounding and crowded with aggregators. Win it by choosing queries by intent, writing in the language buyers search in, and building pages an aggregator cannot copy.Build · 7 min · one tool
  13. 13Sales motions: self-serve, inside sales and field, and when each fitsHow a customer is sold is decided by what the customer pays. Match the motion to the deal size and the buyer, and price what each motion costs to run in India before choosing it.Build · 8 min · one tool
  14. 14Building the first sales team: hiring, quota and compHire the first reps in a group, test them on a mock sale, set quota from the close rates you have already earned, and write a comp plan that pays for collected cash rather than signatures.Build · 8 min · one tool
  15. 15Retention is the growth engine nobody budgets forEvery growth plan has a line for acquisition and almost none has one for keeping customers. Measure retention by cohort, find the three places customers leak and fix them before buying more.Build · 7 min · one tool
  16. 16Partnerships and channel sales: distribution through othersPartners sell what pays them best for the least effort. Structure resellers, implementation partners and co-marketing so that selling your product is the most profitable thing on their desk, and count their margin as what each customer cost.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17ONDC and the open network: a channel or a distractionThe Open Network for Digital Commerce lets any buyer app sell any seller’s goods. Read the volumes carefully, price what it costs to join, and decide whether it is a channel for your category or a distraction from one.Build · 7 min · one tool
  18. 18Selling on Amazon, Flipkart and quick commerce without losing marginMarketplaces bring buyers who are already searching and take a share of every order. Decide which earn a place, compute the real fees per order and run their ads to a calculated break-even.Build · 7 min · one tool
  19. 19Growth loops, not funnelsA funnel needs a fresh rupee at the top every month. A loop turns its own output into its next input. Map yours, time its cycle and put the money where the compound rate is highest.Build · 8 min · one tool
  20. 20The growth team and its first fifty experimentsA growth team is four or five people from different functions who own one metric, one backlog and one number of their own: experiments shipped a week. How to set it up, and its first fifty tests.Build · 7 min · one tool
  21. 21Influencer and creator marketing in India: measured, not hopedCreator campaigns can be measured like any other channel: a code, a link and a cohort for every creator, a cost per first order, and a review that decides who is booked again. Regional creators often win it.Build · 6 min · one tool
  22. 22Attribution: what actually drove the saleEvery ad platform marks its own homework. Build attribution that follows the customer across phones, shops and WhatsApp chats, and test what the dashboards claim against a group that never saw the ads.Build · 7 min · one tool
  23. 23The sales playbook: from heroics to repeatabilityWhile the founders sell, the method lives in their heads. A playbook writes down the customer, the pitch, the objections and the process so that a new rep can close a deal inside ninety days.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24Expanding to new cities: the launch playbookA new city is a new small company with your brand on it. Choose the next five from demand you can see and economics you can compute, then launch each with a checklist and a decision date.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  25. 25International expansion for Indian SaaS: US, Middle East, Southeast AsiaChoose the first foreign market by who buys, what they will pay and whether your team is awake when they do. Then set up the entity, the contracts and the tax so the first dollar arrives cleanly.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  26. 26Brand when performance marketing plateausWhen every extra rupee on Meta and Google buys fewer customers than the last, the answer is rarely a better campaign. Decide when to fund brand, how to measure it honestly and the mix that keeps CAC flat.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  27. 27Account-based marketing and the enterprise pipelineEnterprise revenue comes from a few hundred named companies, each bought by a committee. Build the target list, reach several people in every account and work the quarter back to the coverage it needs.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  28. 28Pricing and packaging as a growth leverMost companies past product-market fit leave more revenue in their packaging than in their list price. Redesign tiers, add-ons and upgrade paths so customers pay for the value they use, and ARPU rises without a price rise.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  29. 29Offline distribution: general trade, modern trade and the distributor marginA brand on India’s shelves pays a chain of people to carry it there and lends them money while they do. Work out the margin ladder, the distributor’s return and the working capital before the first truck leaves.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  30. 30Revenue operations: the function that keeps growth honestWhen marketing, sales and customer success each keep their own numbers, nobody can say what the quarter will bring. Revenue operations builds one record, one definition of every stage and a forecast whose errors are measured.Scale · 7 min · one tool

Track 08 · Operations

संचालनOperations

Metrics, boards, cadence, the finance function and the discipline of efficient growth.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01The weekly metrics review: one page, one hourEight numbers on a single page, read in silence, explained by their owners, acted on before the hour ends. The meeting most small companies replace with a status call, and the one that actually runs the business.Start · 8 min · one tool
  2. 02The north star metric and its input treeOne number that measures the value customers actually received this week, and the three or four inputs beneath it that a team of ten can move. How to choose it, break it down and know when to change it.Start · 7 min · one tool
  3. 03Burn multiple and the discipline of efficient growthOne number that says what a crore of burn is buying: net burn divided by net new recurring revenue. Why it caught every kind of waste at once, and why India learned it the hard way after 2022.Scale · 9 min · one tool
  4. 04Bookkeeping from day one: the accounts you cannot skipThe Companies Act requires books from the day the company exists. Investors require them to be believable. Set up the books, the chartered accountant and a five-day monthly close before the first term sheet makes you.Start · 9 min · one tool
  5. 05The founder’s operating cadence: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterlyA ten-person company has no COO. The calendar is the COO. Four rhythms, about six fixed hours a week, and the rule that protects the other thirty-four.Start · 8 min · one tool
  6. 06OKRs for a team of tenThree objectives for the company, three measurable results under each, one owner per result, and a Monday and a Friday that keep them alive. The version of OKRs that works at ten people, before the system becomes the work.Start · 8 min · one tool
  7. 07The tool stack for the first yearFour systems hold a company’s memory: the ledger, the customer record, the conversation and the documents. Choose those four for fifty people. Everything else can be swapped on a Friday afternoon.Start · 7 min · one tool
  8. 08Meetings that earn their timeFive people for an hour is a five-hour meeting. Count the hours, cut the meetings that fail three tests, give the rest an agenda, an owner and a pre-read, and measure what came back.Start · 7 min · one tool
  9. 09A writing culture: decisions in documents, not in chatChat dissolves and writing solidifies. A decision log, one-page decision memos, a wiki with an owner for every page and a Friday written update let a company remember what it decided and why.Start · 7 min · one tool
  10. 10The monthly close and the MIS reportBooks closed by the fifth working day, a seven-page MIS by the tenth, the same definitions every month and a written reason for every line that moved. That is what makes investors and the team believe the numbers.Start · 7 min · one tool
  11. 11The board meeting that worksMost startup board meetings are a deck read aloud. Calls with each director, a pre-read five days ahead, an agenda built on decisions and a next-day debrief make it the quarter’s most useful afternoon.Build · 7 min · one tool
  12. 12The board deck: what goes in and what stays outA board deck is written for people who have already invested. Build it around the financials, the two or three decisions and the risks, keep its shape fixed from quarter to quarter, and leave the sales pitch out.Build · 7 min · one tool
  13. 13The finance function: from CA to finance head to CFOA finance function grows in four stages, and each is defined by the job that has stopped getting done. Hire for that job, in that order, and the CFO arrives when capital becomes a weekly decision.Build · 8 min · one tool
  14. 14Forecasting and the annual operating planBuild the year from drivers a manager can own: revenue from pipeline and conversion, cost from a hiring plan by month, cash from when customers actually pay. Then reforecast each quarter by changing drivers, never by rebuilding.Build · 7 min · one tool
  15. 15Vanity metrics and the numbers that lie to foundersA number that cannot go down cannot warn you. Audit the dashboard with three questions, replace every cumulative and gross figure with one that can fall, and write down what each word on it means.Build · 7 min · one tool
  16. 16The first data warehouse and the single source of truthThree teams report three revenue numbers because three systems count three different things. A warehouse, a semantic layer that defines each metric once and a named owner for every number end the argument.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17Internal controls and the fraud you did not expectMost startups that lose money to fraud lose it through payments one person could make alone, vendors nobody checked and refunds nobody approved. Fifteen controls close those leaks, and they cost little if installed before the leak.Build · 7 min · one tool
  18. 18The first statutory audit and how to make it painlessA company with twelve clean monthly closes finishes its audit in weeks; one without takes months and finds things. Work back from the AGM, hand the auditor a complete file, and know which reports apply to you.Build · 8 min · one tool
  19. 19Vendors, procurement and the contracts you keep renewingMost vendor spend in a young company was approved once and then renewed by default. A register, an approval rule and a renewal calendar turn it back into a decision.Build · 7 min · one tool
  20. 20Customer support as an operation, not a cost centreSupport is the one team that hears from customers every day. Run it with tiers, targets and staffing maths, and wire what it hears back into the product, and it pays for itself.Build · 7 min · one tool
  21. 21Security and infrastructure basics before the first enterprise customerThe first enterprise deal arrives with a security questionnaire of a few hundred rows. Twenty controls, one owner and a two-page incident plan answer most of it honestly.Build · 6 min · one tool
  22. 22The 13-week cash forecastRunway tells you how many months the money lasts on average. The thirteen-week forecast tells you which Friday it runs out. Built from the bank, rolled every Monday, owned by one person.Build · 7 min · one tool
  23. 23Scaling the operating system from 50 to 200 peopleAt fifty people the founder is the operating system. At two hundred that has to be written down: who decides what, when the company plans, how news travels and which meetings carry the load.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24The COO decision: do you need one and what should they ownThere is no single COO job. There are at least three, and the failures come from hiring for one and describing another. Decide which you need, then write down what they own.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  25. 25SOC 2, ISO 27001 and compliance as a sales toolA security report is a sales asset with an expiry date. Choose the one your buyers ask for, start the evidence clock early, and put the report where the deal stalls.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  26. 26Acquiring a company: the small acquisition done rightA tuck-in acquisition is bought for one reason and lost for another. Write the reason down, price what you will actually keep, and integrate the people before the systems.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  27. 27Governance: committees, independent directors and the audit committeeIndian company law switches governance on by threshold. Build it a year before the law or a late-stage investor asks, and choose the first independent director for the audit committee.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  28. 28Crisis management: the first 48 hoursA breach, a regulator’s notice or a complaint that goes viral is judged on the first two days. Declare early, name one commander and one spokesperson, and work to the clocks the law has already started.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  29. 29Resetting the cost structure for profitabilityA cost reset works when the target comes first and the cuts come in order: money doing nothing, money doing too little, money for the future, and only then the team.Scale · 6 min · one tool
  30. 30The annual planning cycle for a company that has a boardPlanning season should take six weeks and end before the year begins. Fix the board’s approval date first, give teams context before asking for plans, and finish with OKRs everyone can read on day one.Scale · 6 min · one tool

Track 09 · Law and compliance

नियमLaw and compliance

Incorporation, contracts, tax and the Indian rulebook, in the order it arrives.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01Incorporating in India: private limited, LLP or OPC, and what DPIIT recognition gets youThe entity you register in week one decides who can invest in year three. The choice is simpler than the forms suggest, and the forms are simpler than they were.Start · 9 min · one tool
  2. 02IP assignment: making sure the company owns what you builtCode written before incorporation, a logo from a freelancer, an algorithm from an engineer who left. Each belongs to the person who made it until a signed document says otherwise. Investors check.Start · 8 min · one tool
  3. 03GST: registration, invoicing and the first filingsWhen registration stops being optional, what an invoice must carry, the two returns that run every month, and the input credit most young companies simply fail to collect.Start · 8 min · one tool
  4. 04TDS: the tax you deduct and why it trips up every startupThe company is the government’s collection agent on its own payroll, rent, contractors and consultants. The rates are small. The penalties for forgetting are not.Start · 8 min · one tool
  5. 05The compliance calendar for a private limited companyFour rulebooks, about thirty dates, and a late fee that runs by the day. A calendar is cheaper than a reminder from the Registrar.Start · 7 min · one tool
  6. 06Contracts: the ten clauses that decide who wins a disputeMost of a contract describes a relationship that will go well. Three or four clauses describe what happens when it does not, and those are the ones a founder signs without reading.Start · 9 min · one tool
  7. 07NDAs and when they are worth the paperA non-disclosure agreement protects information that is already secret and already named. Used for the wrong meeting it protects nothing and costs you the meeting.Start · 8 min · one tool
  8. 08Trademarks: registering the brand you can defendA company name approved by the MCA is not a brand you own. A trademark is, if you search before you fall in love with the name and file before you print it.Start · 7 min · one tool
  9. 09Employment contracts and offer letters that hold upSince November 2025 the four labour codes require an appointment letter for every employee and redefine wages. The offer a founder copied from a friend’s company probably no longer fits.Start · 7 min · one tool
  10. 10Bank accounts, KYC and keeping the company’s money separateThe bank account is the company’s first internal control. Open it properly, decide who can move money and how, and never let a founder’s card stand in for it.Start · 7 min · one tool
  11. 11The DPDP Act: what it requires of your productIndia’s data protection law is in force in stages and its main duties begin on 13 May 2027. Most of what it asks for is product work, and product work takes longer than a policy.Build · 7 min · one tool
  12. 12Terms of service and privacy policy that protect the companyTerms copied from another product describe another business. Terms that protect yours limit liability where the law allows, say how refunds and disputes work, and meet the IT Rules and the DPDP Act.Build · 7 min · one tool
  13. 13Labour law: PF, ESI, gratuity and the thresholds that trigger themLabour law arrives in steps: at the first hire, at ten, at twenty, at fifty and at three hundred. Each step needs a registration that should exist before the hire that crosses it.Build · 7 min · one tool
  14. 14ESOP taxation in India: the two taxing eventsAn Indian employee pays tax on stock options twice: as salary when they exercise and as capital gains when they sell. The first bill arrives before any cash does, unless the company qualifies for the start-up deferral.Build · 7 min · one tool
  15. 15Section 43B(h): paying MSME vendors on time or losing the deductionPay a micro or small supplier later than the law allows and the expense leaves this year’s tax computation. The rule has moved to section 37(2)(g) of the 2025 Act. The forty-five days have not moved.Build · 7 min · one tool
  16. 16Angel tax after its abolition, and the valuation reports still requiredSection 56(2)(viib) no longer taxes a startup on premium above fair value. The valuation reports did not retire with it: FEMA still sets a floor for foreign money and income tax still watches the buyer.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17FEMA for founders: the rules when a foreigner investsForeign money arrives with a clock. Shares within sixty days, the FC-GPR within thirty more, a price no lower than fair value and a return every July. Miss one and the fix is compounding.Build · 7 min · one tool
  18. 18Software exports: SOFTEX, LUT and zero-rated GSTA rupee of software export revenue answers to two rulebooks. The Reserve Bank wants it declared and brought home. GST wants it zero-rated and will refund the tax on your costs, if the papers line up.Build · 6 min · one tool
  19. 19Sector licences: RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, FSSAI and who needs whichSome businesses need a licence before the first customer. Find your regulator from what you actually do with money, advice or food, then plan the capital and the calendar the licence demands.Build · 7 min · one tool
  20. 20Related-party transactions and the founder’s conflicts of interestThe founder’s other company, the co-founder’s spouse on payroll, the office rented from family. All legal, all common, and all invalid if the board and shareholders did not approve them the way the Companies Act asks.Build · 7 min · one tool
  21. 21Board resolutions, minutes and the secretarial recordThe minute book is the company’s memory and its evidence. Keep the meetings, resolutions, registers and filings in order as you go, and diligence takes a week instead of a quarter.Build · 7 min · one tool
  22. 22Contract disputes: arbitration, courts and the Indian realityA dispute clause is a bet on where and how fast you can collect. Write one that will survive a challenge, use the faster tracks the law gives small suppliers, and price the fight before you start it.Build · 6 min · one tool
  23. 23Transfer pricing and the foreign subsidiaryOnce a company has an entity in Delaware or Singapore, every invoice, licence and loan between the two must be priced as if they were strangers. Set the price deliberately and document it every year.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24Selling the company: the legal mechanics of an Indian M&AA sale is a term sheet, a diligence, a share purchase agreement, a list of conditions and a closing day. Know what each stage asks of the founders and how much of the price arrives on the day.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  25. 25IPO readiness: the legal housekeeping SEBI expectsAn offer document describes the company’s past, and SEBI’s rules look back one, two and three years. Clean the cap table, articles, board and related-party history before the draft is filed.Scale · 8 min · one tool
  26. 26Competition law and the CCI: when scale brings scrutinyA startup meets the Competition Commission in three ways: through an agreement, through a position it has won, or through a deal. Learn which conduct, contracts and acquisitions draw scrutiny, and what the 2023 amendments changed.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  27. 27Closing a company: strike-off, fast-track exit and liquidationA company that stops trading still exists until someone closes it. Choose between strike-off, voluntary liquidation and dormancy, and clear the dues and filings each route needs first.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  28. 28Taxes at exit: capital gains, buybacks and what founders keepA share sale, a secondary and a buyback can return the same rupees and leave very different amounts behind. Model the tax on each, the holding period that changes the rate, and the treaty questions that follow.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  29. 29Engaging regulators and policy before they engage youMost rules that will shape your market are published as drafts before they bind anyone. Build the habit of reading them, the evidence to answer them and the relationships that make the answer count.Scale · 6 min · one tool
  30. 30The general counsel: when to hire in-house legalA company hires its first lawyer when routine legal work costs more outside than a person would inside, or when the stakes need someone who knows the business. Decide which work moves in and which stays with firms.Scale · 6 min · one tool

Track 10 · The founder

मनThe founder

Decisions, time, health, failure and the person who has to carry all of it.

30 of 30 written

  1. 01Why start a company: the honest question before the first oneEvery founder can say why they want to start. Few have tested the reason against what the next ten years will ask of them. This is the test, and the reasons that fail it.Start · 10 min
  2. 02The founder’s first ninety daysThe first quarter has one job: a paying customer, or honest proof that there is none to be had. Here is the quarter planned week by week, from leaving the job to the first review.Start · 8 min · one tool
  3. 03Quitting your job: timing, savings and the family conversationResigning is not the brave part. The brave part is deciding the trigger in advance, computing the household’s runway honestly and telling the people whose lives it changes before it changes them.Start · 9 min · one tool
  4. 04Decisions: reversible, irreversible and how fast to make eachMost decisions can be undone and should be made in an afternoon. A few cannot and deserve a memo. The founder’s skill is telling them apart, and most companies get it backwards.Start · 8 min · one tool
  5. 05Should you raise at all?Venture capital is the right fuel for a small number of companies and the wrong one for most. Nine questions decide which you are, and the answer changes with the month.Start · 8 min · one tool
  6. 06Time: the founder’s week, designedA founder’s week is the only budget that cannot be raised. Design it before the week designs you: maker mornings, afternoons for customers, one block for thinking, and an audit of where the hours actually went.Start · 8 min · one tool
  7. 07The founder’s mental health: the risk nobody puts in the deckEvery deck lists market risk and execution risk. The largest point of failure in a company is the person presenting it. Recognise the signs, build the support before it is needed and know where help is in India.Start · 8 min · one tool
  8. 08Health: sleep, exercise and running the ten-year raceA company worth building takes the better part of a decade. Set the floors for sleep, movement and food now, so judgement is still sharp in the fundraise that decides the company.Start · 7 min · one tool
  9. 09The Indian family and the founder’s decisionParents who wanted a stable career, a spouse who carries half the risk, relatives with opinions. Handle them with honesty and a one-page plan they can see, not with conviction they are asked to share.Start · 8 min
  10. 10Imposter syndrome and the first yearMost first-time founders feel like frauds for a while. Some of that doubt is accurate and useful. Learn to tell the two kinds apart and keep the record that quiets both.Start · 7 min · one tool
  11. 11The founder as the company’s bottleneckAt eight people the founder deciding everything is a strength. At fifteen it is a queue. Find the decisions only you are making, keep the few that need you and hand the rest over within a quarter.Build · 7 min · one tool
  12. 12Co-founder conflict before it becomes warFights between founders are common and most could have been settled early. Run the hard conversations on roles, pace and money with a structure that protects the relationship as well as the company.Build · 7 min · one tool
  13. 13Managing your psychology through a fundraiseA raise asks a founder to hear no fifty times and keep deciding well. Treat rejection as arithmetic and put routines around the anxiety and the ego so the company is still run while you raise.Build · 8 min · one tool
  14. 14Saying no: the opportunities that would have killed the companyStartups rarely die of a bad idea taken on purpose. They die of good-looking offers accepted one at a time. A filter for partnerships, pivots and press protects focus without closing the doors you will need.Build · 7 min · one tool
  15. 15From builder to manager: the founder’s identity shiftThe founder who built the first version is rarely the one the company needs at twenty people. Make the move from doing the work to building the people who do it, and keep the habits that make it last.Build · 7 min · one tool
  16. 16Coaches, mentors and peer groups: who to listen toFounders at this stage get more advice than ever and less of it fits. Build a small personal board, weigh advice by who gave it and what being wrong would cost, and discard the rest without guilt.Build · 7 min · one tool
  17. 17Learning to sell when you are not a salespersonMost founders who dread selling picture a performance. Early selling is closer to research done with a deadline. Build a style from curiosity and preparation, and judge it by closed deals rather than by how the call felt.Build · 7 min · one tool
  18. 18Telling the company’s story in publicThe founder’s story recruits engineers, opens doors with customers and frames what investors hear. Craft one narrative that works on a stage, in the press and on LinkedIn, and keep it true enough to survive scrutiny.Build · 7 min · one tool
  19. 19Investors as a relationship, not a transactionThe round closes once. The relationship runs for a decade. Manage board members and investors with a regular update, bad news delivered early and asks clear enough to act on.Build · 8 min · one tool
  20. 20The founder’s personal financesA company can fail without ruining the family that started it. Set a salary on purpose, keep an emergency fund the company cannot touch, and avoid the guarantees that turn a failed company into a personal debt.Build · 7 min · one tool
  21. 21Burnout and the week off that saves the yearBurnout arrives slowly and is easiest to stop early. Learn its first signs, take real recovery time before you need it, and build a company that can run for five days without you.Build · 7 min · one tool
  22. 22Ethics: the shortcuts you will be offeredThe bribe, the fake number and the vendor kickback arrive on a bad day, under pressure, from someone who sounds reasonable. Decide how you will answer them in advance, in writing, while the day is calm.Build · 7 min · one tool
  23. 23Failure: shutting down with dignityMost companies end. The ones that end well pay their people in full, tell their investors the truth early and leave a record the founder is proud to show at the next company.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  24. 24Selling the company: the founder’s decisionAn acquisition offer is three offers in one: for the team, for the mission and for the founder’s next ten years. Judge each on its own, with the real numbers rather than the headline.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  25. 25The acquisition process from the founder’s chairA sale is a process with stages. Leverage lives before exclusivity, the price lives in the structure and the founder’s hardest year usually begins the day after closing.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  26. 26What to do after the exitThe year after liquidity decides more of a founder’s next decade than the sale did. Rest first, decide nothing large for months and give the money a structure before it gives you one.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  27. 27The second-time founder: what to keep and what to unlearnExperience is an advantage only when it is sorted. Some lessons from the first company are principles, some belonged to its market and stage, and some are scars that will mislead.Scale · 7 min
  28. 28Building a company that outlives youA company lasts longer than its founder only if it is designed to: a board that could replace the chief executive, a culture written down and tested by decisions, and a successor for every role that matters.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  29. 29Giving back: angel investing and mentoring done wellA founder’s money and time can change another founder’s odds. Done with portfolio discipline, real diligence and honest advice it helps them; done for status it mostly helps the giver feel useful.Scale · 7 min · one tool
  30. 30The founder’s letter to their future selfWrite down, while it is still clear, why you started, what you promised and what you will not trade away. Then read it every year, and let it argue with the person you have become.Scale · 7 min · one tool

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