How my startup journey began
Startup Zero: The Biotech Idea
I was in my final year at IIT Delhi, totally lost. There was this thesis I was supposed to write on the work I was doing in the biotech lab. However, it was impossible for me to find the motivation to do that work, and I had kind of given up on completing my degree as a result.
However, one day, my lab supervisor told me that the work I was doing was commercially relevant, and if I created the tech we were trying to develop, we could get paid millions per year in licensing fees from biotech companies.
And suddenly, the motivation I was missing was found. II went after this idea with everything I had.
Our idea was → Cutting down the analysis time for “Peptide Mass Fingerprinting”, by finding a way to use single-pass mass spectrometry to generate results with similar accuracy as tandom mass spectrometry.
After a couple of months, our work hit a dead-end, and the most we could do was publish a paper for it.
However the seed was sown. I now knew what I needed to do.
I told myself — “I just need to find a cutting-edge technology, make it commerically meaningful, and I can change the world.”
This was July 2017.
The Darkest 14 days of my Life
At this point i graduated, and I was supposed to join this analytics company in Mumbai. But I really wanted to startup right away. However, so far in my life, I had developed this habit of starting projects, abandoning them, and then regretting later. And I was really scared to repeat it. So I thought, “let’s me at least join the company and do something useful for them, before jumping into the startup blackhole.” Besides, the company was in Mumbai, where I wanted to go for starting-up anyways….
So I joined.
Up until this point in my life, I had thoughts in my head regarding technology, science and changing the world, but I could never find anyone to discuss them with. Joining this company was kind of my last hope of finding like minded people, and upon meeting people in the company, that was shattered too.
I was really desperate to discuss those thoughts with someone, and I could not find anyone. So I turned towards internet, trying to type out my thoughts on google and maybe something shows up? After 10 mins of search, I came across this random book by a guy I had never heard of → Peter Thiel, and I just thought I would give it a read. I found an online pdf version and start reading….
After reading the first paragraph, I was like — “Holy shit! This guy is talking about everything that’s in my head!” It took me 2 hours to process this, after which I began reading more…
Upon reaching the end of the page, I was barely able to breath, and i sort of froze up, and i could not hear anything anymore…
I still very vividly remember the exact place I was sitting on. It was in the middle of a training session by the company.
I managed to read till the first paragraph on the second page, after which it was very clear to me → “I either resign and startup right now, or I don’t think about starting up ever again.” I was worried that I might get insitituionzed if I spend too much time in that office….
After this, I snuck out of the office somehow, and started calling up everyone I knew → friends, dad and relatives. Everyone said the same thing — “Are you crazy?”.
In the evening I ended up meeting with a friend at Marine drive, a very famous road in Mumbai along the sealine. It was evening, high tide, and the sea was hitting the seawall quite aggresively, upon which we were sitting.
I told my friend → “I wanna startup”. He was like — “Yeah, obviously. I didn’t really understand why you joined a company in the first place. You are a startup kind of guy…”
I resigned the very next day.
After resigning, i was in the office for a couple of hours, and everyone told me the exact same thing — “congratulations”. I could not understand why they all said so, so I asked, and they told me — “everyone wants to startup, but you are actually doing it.” Lol, then I knew I had taken the right decision.