One Year of Stealth Startup Mode

Navigating through the spaghetti that is -1 to 0

Want to work at a startup? If you're passionate about working in a startup as a founding UI/UX engineer. See post script for more details. No agencies.

For Fellow Founders: If you've worked with amazing designers and brand specialists on contract, please make an introduction.

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Hello everyone! I hope you're all making the most of this beautiful summer weather and enjoying some time outdoors.

☀️☀️☀️

This summer marks one year since I started exploring on my own. I wanted to share a snapshot of some of the ideas I explored over last year. I'm no longer pursuing these and happy to share my learnings if you are venturing in similar direction.

This Past Year's Highlights:

• Idea Exploration: Evaluated over 10 concepts.

• Validation: Formally validated problems and solutions for 6 of these ideas.

• Customer Engagement and Revenue: Successfully engaged customers and generated revenue with 2 projects.

It takes 6-12 months to hone in and lock if you are on this journey.

Journey Through -1 To 0:

The timeline below isn't strictly chronological but encapsulates time spent during the second half of 2023 and early 2024. I found that it was good to be working on two ideas at any point.

Edit: SPC has a good blog post on how to go from -1 to 0.

Fintech:

I dedicated significant time to fintech, focusing on student loans, financial literacy, and the future of work. There's much to learn about up/re-skilling, student loans, income sharing agreements, and fostering financial responsibility in children.

The challenge remains: How can we get out of the student loan and skills gap that is ever increasing. I really like what Copper and Social Finance (.org) is doing in this space.

Social Commerce:

Driven by the challenges faced by creators like my wife at veganricha.com, I built versions of ReelRecall (tells you how to shop for what you see posted on IG) and LinkinChat (DM Automation) in the lively setting of Gearhouse, Seattle. Def check out their vibe. It is a lot of fun to build something out of a cafe with friends.

I also learnt firsthand how hard it is to get Meta approval for these IG apps. Story for another time but it involved hiring someone in PH.

AI Agents:

Based on my decade long experience of building high performing team, I explored building Foster AI. An AI copilot that provided insights and performance tooling to technical teams.

Then, I took a moment to double down on Vaulted AI, an LLM based data analyst for retail businesses. Although commercially interesting, revenue and funding, it needed more usage and momentum for the slope I am seeking.

The ubiquitous yet challenging nature of building useful AI agents is a fun debate.

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CaseGuild: Helping Legal Teams Win

All this led to the what I believe I will be doing for the next 10 years.

It is helping legal teams win w/ our unique large scale inferencing platform. Everything I dabbled in earlier has an impact of how I am building this with my co-founder. We are making bonkers progress on this, unlike I have in previous ones. Problem and high spend already exists, and our solution is 10X better. 🤫

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Building anything net new is a creative process filled with highs and lows, and this past year has been a testament to that. I'm immensely grateful for the support from my network of founders, VCs, and friends—it truly takes a village!

I’ll continue to pay it forward. Reach out if you need a sounding board on your journey.

Litt up! (iykyk).

Vivek

PS: Adding to our team:

We are making great strides with our design partners on our initial version of the product. We are kicking it up a notch and looking to add to our team.

1. UI/UX Engineer: Full time in person in Seattle.

   1. Experience building SaaS/web applications.

   2. +Design and Taste is a must.

   3. ++If we have worked together and I know your work firsthand.

2. Designer: Ongoing contract.

   1. I currently have a designer, but I'm open to new recommendations.

3. Branding/Logo/Storytelling Specialist: One-time contract.

   1. We need someone experienced in creating a modern and crisp brand.