Ecosystem
I've spent the last decade-plus trying to make India's startup ecosystem better. Sometimes by running programs. Sometimes by showing up and volunteering. Sometimes by just refusing to shut up about product-market fit.
The thread through all of it: help founders build real businesses, not just raise rounds.
Upekkha ↗
India's B2B AI accelerator. Deep Vertical AI, from India to the world. Named after the Buddhist concept of equanimity — which you need a lot of when founders pivot.
AIBoomi ↗
India's largest AI/SaaS founder community. Started life as SaaSBooMi. Before that, it was SaaSx — India's first SaaS conference, which I helped start. From a 50-person unconference to thousands of founders. The ecosystem grew up.
Previously: SaaSBooMi → SaaSx (founding volunteer)
The Vibe Summit ↗
Where enterprise problems meet AI builders. Not another conference — a collision event.
Microsoft Accelerator
Helped funded and bootstrapped startups compress 24 months of growth into 4. SaaS pipelines going from $130K to $1.1M. Enterprise sales cycles from 12+ months to 18 weeks. That kind of thing.
iKen
Pre-entrepreneur program under iSPIRT. Helped 200+ early-stage founders get the personal and business skills for the startup rollercoaster. Peer support before "founder mental health" was a thing people talked about.
Part of iSPIRT Foundation (Fellow, 2015–2018)
Amazon
Product management. Brief stint. Learned a lot about working backwards.
The earlier chapters
Before all this, I was an engineer. Tejas Networks (optical networking, Linux, ASICs). UT Dallas (MS Telecom, PhD candidate in optical networking, published papers on Optical Burst Switching, Best TA award). College of Engineering Guindy (BE, ECE).
Two patents (content tagging, multivariate testing attribution). One book (Value SaaS Basecamp Guide). A tsunami relief volunteer stint with AID India.
Engineer → product person → founder coach → accelerator operator → whatever I am now. The ADHD career path, basically.