Blessing in disguise
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How I Met My Co-Founder
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Slice of Startup Life
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Unforgettable Lessons
The Power of a Single Insight
Some companies do not begin with a big plan. They begin with a sentence that refuses to leave you.
Ashit Chandaria remembers the exact line. He and his co-founder at Belgrey Waters came across a statistic in a magazine: every minute, people buy about a million plastic bottles, and 91 percent of them are never recycled, reported in Forbes (2017). Most readers would move on. For them, it was impossible to ignore. They kept circling back to it. If almost every bottle was destined for waste, what would it take to make the beverage industry more sustainable?
That single fact became the seed for Belgrey. Today, the company works on creating sustainable alternatives in packaged water and beverages, building products that rethink how bottled water can be delivered and consumed. The one statistic did not give them a finished company. What it gave them was a starting point strong enough to build around. From there came the harder part: pilots that failed, customers who needed convincing, and partners who had to be won over. Over time, the story that began with a single fact gathered its own momentum.
Other founders have described similar beginnings in their own words. Drew Houston told Y Combinator that Dropbox started when he kept forgetting his thumb drive and imagined “a folder that just syncs everywhere.” Joe Gebbia explained on NPR’s How I Built This how he and Brian Chesky rented out three airbeds during a design conference when hotels were sold out, a weekend experiment that became Airbnb. Melanie Perkins told Wired that while teaching design in Perth she saw how hard it was for students to learn Photoshop, and thought design should be as simple as drag-and-drop, the insight that grew into Canva.
Ashit’s line was about PET bottles. Theirs came from frustrations and small observations. In each case, one clear thought was enough to begin. The building, the setbacks, and the persistence come later.
What it feels like to take up a job after starting your business
We often celebrate the leap. Leaving a job to start something of your own. But there is another story that doesn’t get told as much. What it feels like to take up a job after you’ve already begun.
In my Slice of Startup Life conversations, Nadeem Jafri of Hearty Mart shared one such phase. When his business wasn’t yet strong enough to support his family, he went back to a job while someone he trusted looked after the business. “This return changed everything,” he said. “I was back in the grind, but my mindset was no longer the same. Deep inside, I still felt like an entrepreneur… this tug-of-war made things difficult both at work and in business.” Today, Hearty Mart is thriving. That chapter was part of the journey, not the end.
For some founders, taking a job feels like closing a chapter. Locking the office one last time, and the next week walking into another with a new badge and a new desk. At first there is relief. Later, a kind of restlessness.
For others, it feels like carrying two lives at once. The job in the day, the startup at night. Emails at midnight, supplier calls in the gaps, weekends that blur into work. Tiring, but also a way of keeping the dream alive.
Some take a job as a way forward. A chance to learn, to meet people, to prepare for whatever comes next.
And then there are founders whose startups get acquired or acquihired. They continue with their teams and products, now inside a larger company. It brings pride in what has been built, but also a shift, learning to fit into new structures while carrying the same founder spirit.
Sometimes it feels like closure. Sometimes like juggling. Sometimes like progress. A founder trying to honor the responsibilities of today while keeping alive the possibility of tomorrow. All of it is part of what it feels like to take up a job after starting your business.
The Hidden Curriculum of Entrepreneurship
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I have been catching up with founder friends for eChai’s Slice of Startup Life series. These are the little moments and side notes that don’t always get written down, but they stay with us.
The other day, I was catching up with Anuj Dalal, founder of Zestard, and he said something that stayed with me:
“According to me, the business is not just sales and operations; it’s beyond that. When a founder is coming from a job background, they are either from the sales team or the operations team. But when we start a business, we need to talk about HR, finance, account, legal, admin, liaisoning… and you usually pick that up only through co-curricular or other activities.”
It reminded me how startups stretch you into rooms you didn’t imagine yourself in. You walk in with one strength, maybe sales, maybe ops, and suddenly you’re dealing with contracts, bank officers, team disputes, compliance deadlines. Nobody really prepares you for that part.
Anuj connected it back to the side things he kept doing, robotics contests and cultural events in college, free city seminars at Ahmedabad Management Association on finance, trade, IP rights. At the time, they were just things he was curious about. Years later, they turned out to be the experiences that gave him the range to step into all the “beyond sales and ops” parts of running Zestard.
I keep thinking about that. Maybe it’s not just the main track that makes us founders. Maybe it’s also the side roads we take, the random events we show up at, the projects that don’t look like “career moves,” the moments of curiosity that add up quietly in the background.
Maybe that’s what we should pay more attention to. Not only the formal training or the job experience, but the parts of our lives that quietly prepare us for responsibilities we can’t yet see.
When Experience Isn’t Enough to Build the Next Business
I was talking to my friend Pankaj Bhimani, who has built B2B companies in corporate apparel and cloud telephony. Now he is building 58Miles, a D2C travel accessories brand. And he reminded me of something every founder eventually learns: experience is not enough when you start a new business.
The first curve was product. He wanted to design his own bags but had never worked with materials, ergonomics, or manufacturing. Every mistake meant months of correction. What he thought would take a season stretched into three years.
The second curve was distribution. Moving from B2B contracts to online sales meant learning an entirely new language: funnels, conversions, digital marketing. As Pankaj put it: “That’s a steep learning curve I’m still on.”
At one point, he wondered if it would have been easier to be an expert in either bags or consumer branding. But then he smiled and said: “If I were from the bag industry, I would have followed the traditional way. Not knowing the rules gave me the freedom to imagine differently.”
That is the founder’s dilemma. Experience gives you the courage to start, but inexperience gives you the imagination to see what insiders miss.
And in the end, that is the founder’s path. The curve is steep. The mistakes are costly. But that is the fun of it. You take what you know, learn what you do not, and keep going until the story bends your way.
The Hidden Cost of Good Opportunities
As a founder, your day often starts with opportunities that sound exciting. A coffee with someone you admire. A partnership that could unlock a new audience. Warm intros to people who look important. An invite to launch in a new city. A big pilot with a logo you’d love on your site. A speaker invite, sometimes the kind we do at eChai, that may feel good in the moment, but being part of it quietly takes more time than you thought. A feature that rides today’s trend. A side project that makes you feel alive. A business partnership that sounds promising but pulls you into an area that isn’t what you’re building right now.
Each of these feels right on its own. Together, they chip away at the one thing that powers your company: focus. The cost is never obvious on day one. It sneaks in slowly. A sprint slips. A customer request waits longer than it should. A roadmap bends a little, then a little more. Momentum leaks quietly.
And none of these are mistakes. Coffee builds trust. Partnerships open doors. Intros can help later. A pilot teaches. Talks build brand. Trends can work. Side projects spark ideas. The real skill is knowing sequence. What belongs now, and what belongs later.
That is the founder’s everyday dilemma. Not whether an opportunity is good or bad, but whether it is good for you, at this stage, in the game you are playing.
When I asked a few founder friends about this, Utpal, founder of Upsquare, shared a story from The Guardian. Google’s AI Overviews looked like an extra source of visibility, yet the hidden cost was steep. Clicks plummeted, and publishers saw traffic fall.
If even the biggest opportunities come with hidden costs, how do you decide which ones are truly yours to take?
The eChai Effect - In Their Words
“When we launched LegalWiz.in back in 2016, concept of procuring legal and compliance services through a digital commerce platform wasn't as prominent in India. eChai played a significant role in providing the early adopters, and building significant positioning in the startup fraternity. Overtime, eChai grew to be a massive network of like-minded entrepreneurs and extended that benefit to all the members in a true "co-rise" spirit. I personally love to attend eChai events, learn from subject matter experts who share relatable and actionable insights and experiences. For startup journeys, it is so important to be surrounded by people who can add relevance, perspective, and push you to do better. Most importantly a group of people where you aren't being judged about things going right or wrong, but be a motivational force that keeps you going, yet keeping you in check. eChai is that place for me!”
Shrijay Sheth
Founder at LegalWiz.in and Hire4Higher Consulting
"eChai has been a game changer in my journey. It connected me with real people, real support and real opportunities. From building HMMBiz to launching Mindalcove, eChai has played a key role at every step. Grateful to be part of a community that truly believes in growing together."
Hardik Manwani
CTO, Mind Alcove
"For me, eChai is a second home. I've been associated with it since the early days, when it was already setting a different tone for how startup communities could work. As a traditional business owner entering the new-age D2C space, eChai supported me in every direction. Over the years, it became my window to the startup world — and also gave me lifelong friends who continue to show up, for business and beyond."
Pankaj Bhimani
Founder, 58miles
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.
