Blessing in disguise
Books for Entrepreneurs
Documentary
eChai Wall of Love
How I Met My Co-Founder
In Focus Today
Insight Reports
Movies for Entrepreneurs
Notes from Podcasts
Slice of Startup Life
The First Hire
The First Welcome in Silicon Valley
The Reading Room
Unforgettable Lessons
Worry Is the Signal, Work the Response
Founders worry. All the time. Payroll is due but a client’s payment hasn’t come in. A key customer leaves without warning. A teammate hints at moving on. An investor who seemed excited goes quiet. Sometimes it’s a shipment stuck in transit. Sometimes it’s a competitor launching the same feature you’ve been building for months. Sometimes it’s simpler, you plan a brand event, but registrations are far lower than you expected. Worry sneaks in, and once it does, it loops in your head.
Telling yourself to stay calm rarely works. Worry doesn’t leave just because you want it to. That’s because worry is not useless. It is a signal. It points to the money, the product, the people, or the growth areas that need your attention. And once you see the signal, you need a response.
The best response is action. If you’re worried about payroll, chase down the late payment. If you’re worried about churn, call the customers who left. If you’re worried about the event, reach out and invite more people. If you’re worried about competition, make your product better. The worry won’t vanish overnight, but the act of doing makes it lighter. Work steadies the loop.
Sometimes that action starts with a pause. An evening with friends, a walk, or a meal without your laptop won’t fix the problem, but it clears the head. And often, that space is what lets you return to the work with more energy and focus.
So worry is the signal. Work is the response. One shows you where to look, the other helps you move forward. The question is never whether worry will show up. The question is how you’ll respond when it does.
The Startup Cost of Moving Cities
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When founders shift cities for personal reasons, the business doesn’t always shift with them.
When life asks you to move, the startup doesn’t always move with you. Marriage, family, or something else personal, and suddenly you are in a new city. The change feels personal, but the impact is professional too.
The city you leave behind holds your first customers, your trusted friends, your networks. The new city doesn’t know you yet. You start again, somewhere between scratch and survival.
That’s what happened with Kashish Yadav, founder of On Fleek Marketing. She had built her early journey in Vadodara, Gujarat, before marriage brought her to Jaipur this year. As she told me: “I was born and brought up in Baroda, Gujarat. Earlier this year, due to marriage, I had to shift to Jaipur, Rajasthan. During that time, I remembered a saying: ‘You can take a person out of Gujarat, but you can never take Gujarat out of a person.’ And it’s true, I am still a Gujarati at heart, someone who eagerly waits for Garba and craves conversations in Gujarati.”
Identity always travels with you. But for founders, business doesn’t. You have to rebuild. As Kashish put it: “When you move to a new city with a completely different culture, you’re not always ready to accept it despite making the decision to shift. It takes time. But once you begin to accept it, you slowly start exploring, going to networking events, meeting business people, and making friends.”
That process is rarely smooth. On the personal side, you can feel out of sync. On the business side, it can be even tougher. Kashish shared: “On the business side, things might not be smooth, you may even face your biggest downfall. But that phase teaches you a lot about personal development. You learn about yourself, about others, and about adapting.”
And then comes the hardest call. How long do you keep trying in a city that may not give back? Kashish told me: “All you can do is give your 100%, try everything possible. If it still doesn’t work, set a timeline. Tell yourself: ‘I’ll give this city six months or a year. If things work out, if the city accepts me and gives me what I’m looking for, I’ll stay. Otherwise, I’ll move back or explore another city.’”
That is the startup cost of moving cities. But every founder’s cost is different. Have you ever moved cities for personal reasons? Did the business follow you easily, or did you have to rebuild piece by piece? How do you know when a city has accepted you, through the customers, the friendships, or the feeling of home that finally sets in?
Finding My Place in a Family Business
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After spending time in the US and working at Apple, I came back to India to join our family business. I was full of ideas and wanted to prove myself. Like many second-generation entrepreneurs, I thought fresh energy and questions would be enough to make a difference.
At Sheth Info, we provide refurbished IT hardware like laptops, servers, and even Apple products on sale as well as rent that help businesses cut costs while still getting reliable machines. Schools, hospitals, IT firms, and manufacturers all depend on us to keep their systems running. Many of our team members had been doing this work for more than a decade, and they knew details I had not even begun to learn.
I still remember one meeting where I pitched a bold idea to a client. I thought it was brilliant. The client listened, then turned to one of our senior team members and asked for his view. He explained, calmly, why it would not work in practice. The client agreed with him, not me. That was a humbling moment. It taught me that trust does not come from titles or big ideas. It comes from lived experience and consistency.
My last name gave me authority but not respect. That had to be earned. It meant listening more, working beside the team, and helping with the small but important problems they faced every day. Over time, I began to contribute in ways that mattered to them. Slowly, deal by deal, I started to feel less like an outsider and more like part of the team.
Even now, it feels like running a startup inside a family business. I am still unlearning, still experimenting, still earning trust. Maybe that is what finding your place really means. Not the position you inherit, but the one you are always learning to earn.
When Thoughts Become Things
Sometimes I think about how a single thought, if it refuses to leave you, begins to carve its way into reality.
Journalism was one such thought. At first, it was only an image in my head: the hum of a newsroom, reporters chasing stories, the clatter of keyboards. On paper, it wasn’t meant for me. I cleared the entrance exam of IIMC twice but failed to get through the interview both times.
But I couldn’t let it go. I kept circling back, reading late into the night, taking small assignments, telling anyone who asked that this was what I wanted. That persistence mattered. The thought survived because I kept speaking it, acting on it, however small the steps. And eventually, the door opened. I finally got into the Times School of Journalism, thanks to a push from my childhood friend who saw the ad and urged me to apply.
Not because I was extraordinary, but because the thought refused to be silenced.
The same pattern repeated with organizations like UNICEF and Humane Society International. They felt far away, almost unreachable. Yet I stayed close to their work: following campaigns, building skills around social issues, and talking often about how I wanted to contribute. It wasn’t wishful thinking; it was thought turned into practice, sharpened through learning and preparation.
Over time, those aligned steps created the possibility to step inside.
UrbanVoices, too, began as nothing more than a thought. First, just a Twitter handle. Then other social media channels. And eventually, a website of its own where articles began to pour in, not only from me but also from others who believed in the idea. What started as casual conversations about the city slowly grew into a platform that gave citizens a voice. The thought stayed alive long enough to attract others, and together it became something real.
Looking back, the how feels simple: thoughts become things when they are kept alive through words and small actions. The why is harder, but perhaps it is this, once a thought is spoken often enough and practiced in little ways, the world begins to organize itself around it. Not perfectly, not instantly, but slowly and surely, until it becomes part of your reality.
That’s why I say Thoughts Become Things.
The Small Wins That Keep You Going
The hardest part of building is often not failure. Failure is clear, you know when it happens. What really gets to founders is the silence. The emails that never get a reply. The posts that sink without a reaction. The long days of work that seem to disappear without notice.
In that silence, it is the small wins that matter. The first order from someone outside your circle. A short message from a customer saying, “This helped.” A second order from the same person, proving it wasn’t chance. A bug that finally gets fixed after nights of trying. A teammate telling their family about what is being built. A friend forwarding your update to someone new. Even a like or comment from a person you admire.
There are other kinds too. When a customer comes back with feedback instead of silence. When a vendor gives you credit because they trust you will pay. When someone at an event introduces you by saying, “You should know them, they’re building something interesting.” None of these change your revenue overnight, but they change how you feel about carrying on.
Big wins are rare. Most days are quiet. Then something small happens, an order, a thank-you, a fix, and the silence feels lighter. It makes you think that maybe the real story of startups is not written in the big peaks at all. It lives in the small things that give you just enough reason to keep going.
The eChai Effect - In Their Words
"I have evolved from role of Community Builder to Startup Consultant to Startup Ecosystem Enabler to Angel Investor and now launching a Venture Studio and eChai has been a catalyst in my overall journey as Startup Evangelist since 13 years."
Mehul Shah
Co-Founder at Counselvise & Ivy Growth
"If there’s one phrase that sums up my journey, it’s truly ‘The eChai Effect.’ Six years ago, I simply walked into my first eChai event, not knowing what to expect. The honest conversations, energy, and inspiration from founders and entrepreneurs struck a chord within me. That eChai spark became the catalyst for everything to follow. I proudly say: my entrepreneurship journey started—and keeps evolving—because of eChai. Redicine Medsol’s story is integrally linked to this community. I’ve gained so much, not just as a founder but as a forever volunteer and grateful member of the eChai family. With all my heart, thank you Jatin Bhai and everyone at eChai for shaping, guiding, and supporting my dreams. The eChai Effect will always be a part of my story."
Kush Prajapati
Founder, Redicine Medsol
“You don’t plan to build a company via eChai. You just keep showing up … and one day, you realize you did.” I’ve known Jatin since 2012, when I was still deciding what kind of second innings I wanted to play as an entrepreneur. Over the years, through events, chai breaks, intros, and seemingly small conversations, eChai helped shape not just Upsquare but also refined the lens through which we see collaboration. At Upsquare, we’ve hired talent, met partners, discovered co-investors, and built lifelong friendships. One of our joint ventures exists today only because a casual eChai memory sparked a deeper trust. Now, as we build House of Starts — our venture builder — eChai continues to fuel our mission: co-creating a shared future. eChai isn’t just a startup network. It’s a trust network. And for business builders like me, that makes all the difference."
Utpal Vaishnav
Founder @ Upsquare & House of Starts • Angel Investor + LP
eChai Partner Brands
eChai Ventures partners with select brands as their growth partner - working together to explore new ideas, open doors, and build momentum across the startup ecosystem.
