Sunday morning Founders Walk at Sabarmati Riverfront!

What a great way to start the New Year by meeting builders, developers and startup enthusiasts in Ahmedabad.

As they say, "community is currency". Super nice to be a part of eChai Ventures community so well curated by Jatin Chaudhary. Thank you Jatin and Balkrishna Agarwal for the invite.

very rarely, I meet a founder

who has so much clarity and conviction.

meet Soumya Kalluri, founder of "Dwij" Products.

"Dwij" means second life in Sanskrit and that's exactly what she's doing by creating lifestyle products upcycling post consumer jeans and post industrial fabrics giving it a second life.

being a mechanical engineer herself, she has taken a journey from working in a stable profession to building a brand that is purposeful, sustainable as well as profitable.

we spoke about the first product she built, which, at the time seemed obvious but turned out to be not so obvious.

later, she shared how she researched, took real time feedback, understood what the consumers wanted and designed the products that her target audience would buy.

we also deep dived into building SOP's, operations, GTM strategies talking about how she's able to build quality products while upcycling jeans and other fabrics.

I asked her one specific question, what was harder?

- building the product
- building the demand
- or building the trust

her reply was simple: "building trust"

because you want your customers to come back and for that you have to focus on quality.

we concluded the event with her two cent advice for founders starting their journey in entrepreneurship and one question that every founder should reflect on.

it was a pleasure to host Soumya Kalluri at today's eChai Ventures Mumbai Start-up meet and learn so much from her.

thanks to Jatin Chaudhary & Harsha Bhurani for organising this meet-up and also everyone who joined us in this conversation by showing up and asking thoughtful questions.

This weekend, Jatin Chaudhary invited me to speak on a panel of women founders for one of his eChai Ventures startup meet ups. I found myself speaking about lessons from my last 2 years, which honestly felt like 4!

Amid a roomful of aspiring and hustling entrepreneurs, Radhika Mohta was asking some very thoughtful questions about the hard pivots, the difficult exits, and the moments when a founder has to choose between staying and completion.

A few reflections and opinions I shared (and these are applicable to jobs/workplaces/clients also):

𝐎𝐧 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞: There's a difference between quitting and completion. Quitting is running from hard things. Completion is honoring that your chapter has ended even if the book continues.

𝐎𝐧 𝐜𝐨-𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐲𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐬: You can respect someone's skills deeply and still recognize you can't build together long-term. Both things can be true. The hard part is distinguishing between disagreement about tactics (healthy) and disagreement about values (terminal). The former you debate. The latter you exit. 

𝐎𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐚 "𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐥" 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐭: Exits come in many forms - acquisition, IPO, shutdown, and also...walking away. The only bad exit is the one where you abandon your values to stay. This also applies to jobs we work every day.

𝐓𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐨-𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐈 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫: thank you for trusting me with your stories. If my exits taught me anything, it's that the companies that didn't work out the way I planned forced me to ask the questions that are shaping who I am today.

What kind of founder do I want to be? 
What's non-negotiable for me?

I wouldn't have asked those questions if everything had gone perfectly. 

P.S - I was 15 minutes late to my own panel because Bangalore traffic had other plans. Some exits you can control. Some you just survive. But hey! I made it.

So will you.

Last night's Women in Tech event was a powerful reminder of the strength of our community.

What struck me most was witnessing women leaders who, despite navigating their own professional challenges, showed up with generosity and openness to mentor and support others. Their willingness to share both their struggles and their journeys demonstrated the kind of authentic leadership that creates real change.

The conversations were honest, the connections meaningful, and the energy in the room was a testament to how far we've come and how much further we can go together.

Next week, I'm heading to India visiting Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Jaipur, and I'm excited to connect with more women leaders in India's vibrant tech ecosystem. If you're in the area, I'd love to meet up.

The momentum around Women in Tech is building, and I'm particularly looking forward to the eChai Ventures Women in Tech Conference happening in Feb’26. I'll share more details as we get closer, but it is going to be an incredible gathering of leaders, innovators, and changemakers.

To every woman forging her path in tech: your journey matters, your voice matters, and you're not alone in this. Let's continue lifting each other up.

Happy Holidays…! ❤️

There is something special about having a soundboard, especially when it grows naturally over time and isn’t something you consciously build, but slowly becomes part of your life as you keep meeting the same few people, talking often enough that conversations stop being guarded and start becoming honest.

With this kind of circle, you don’t need to arrive with clarity or confidence, you can speak while still figuring things out, repeat yourself, pause midway, go back to a thought later, and no one makes you feel like you’re wasting their time, they simply listen and stay with you until you’re done saying what you needed to say.

Most of the conversations do involve work because building something takes up so much mental space, but it never stays only about work, it naturally brings in everything else like how tired you’ve been feeling, how personal things affect decisions, and how sometimes the weight you’re carrying doesn’t come from one place but from many small ones.

What makes this space important is knowing that there is no judgment in this set up, no one is quietly comparing where you are or how fast you are moving, there’s no pressure to sound sorted or strong, and because of that, you are able to speak more honestly than you usually do.

I notice how these friends remember things over time, they remember what you were worried about weeks ago, they ask how that situation turned out, and sometimes they don’t even ask directly, they just check in gently, which makes you feel seen without having to explain yourself again.

Most days, I don’t necessarily walk away from these conversations with answers or plans, but I do walk away lighter, like saying things out loud with the right people has helped put them back in place, even if nothing on the outside has changed yet.

I am slowly realising that this kind of soundboard is not a small thing, especially for founders who are always thinking, deciding, and carrying a lot quietly, it helps you stay grounded, think clearly, and reminds you that you don’t have to figure everything out on your own.