Honestly, I don’t know what to write. I barely existed. But every year a lot of things happen, change and most importantly unexpected events fall into place.

I decided to document my life since I turned 24. So, 2 pieces in total until now. You can read them here and here.

Note #1: Everyone has problems and everyone has won. Mine is neither bigger nor lesser than yours. They are just mine.

Note #2: Don’t read ahead, this is just me rambling about my life, no value added for you.

1. Professional Life

Record:

We made a couple more pivots to Record while wasting most of our time talking to colleges and universities. We are on a mission to solve skill-based hiring.

Without capital and no hope to raise funds we bootstrapped as long as we can. But we needed capital to build the product at a level that we wanted to be. After wasting a lot of time, efforts and human capital into the product, we needed some more money to keep the company alive. Salary for me and my co-founder is next.

We put all our life’s savings into the company and built the product to some extent. Started applying for grants across the country. After applying to 100s of them, 2 of it seemed to work out.

1. TANSEED by StartupTN
2. WTFund by Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha

Both happened on the same timelines from June to September. Two rounds of both the grants happened parallelly. I and Akshay were already burnt out, on the verge of quitting. Because nothing was working in our favour despite putting all our efforts. Then we got qualified to the finals of WTFund. We belonged to the top 1% of the 1% ideally like the top 10 teams. We gave our final interviews to an external panelist. Both of us were so confident that we will get through and bag the grant because that was the level of effort and dedication we had put through. One fine day results came, we didn’t get through. We lost the grant. They funded 9 companies, we were like in the next 10 in the list.

I was not able to take it. I didn’t sleep and eat for like 7 days. I just spent my time in the bedroom doing nothing trying to hide the fact that we are going to fail. I barely moved.

Then in the next 7 days we got a notification from StartupTN that we are getting the TANSEED 6.0 grant. What a relief. It was a small win in our startup journey. We then hired interns, another tech team to build the product.

We totally launched 4 new products, got few users, a few paying customers, and most importantly validation for whatever we were trying to achieve. In Feb 2024 the money hit our bank accounts.

These interns then eventually became our full-time employees. Some of the smartest people I’ve worked with. Right now again we are in a do or die situation. Because the revenues haven’t flooded in like we anticipated it to be. Mostly a sales and a distribution problem.

I just got off the call from my co-founder asking if we should shut down and quit. I don’t know. We are still hanging. I’m getting punched left, right and center. Rejected on a daily basis from customers, potential hires, investors and partners. Let’s see how long we can delay death.

Adtitude:

Meanwhile Adtitude has taken off really well. We onboarded lots of new clients. Finally we moved in an office space that is close to my home. The only reason we could do it is because of Adtitude.

Both Record and Adtitude works from the same office. We hired the first full-time employee outside of the founding team. We work with some of the big brands like Milky Mist and Sangeetha mobiles. We publicly launched the company and that video went viral. We became one of the most sought after creative agencies in Coimbatore. All credit goes to the team.

We are bootstrapped, profitable and most importantly a friend first then co-founders’ business.

We are growing rapidly fast, 100% YoY, a 12-member team now. We are having so much fun and learnings running this business together.

Managing between Record and Adtitude has been one of my life’s blessings. So much to learn and so much to shape me as a better person. I don’t know where are heading towards. But a lot of people trust us and that we believe is life’s greatest gift.

I’m grateful for all the people around me.

Realizations

1. You can just do things.
2. All you need is some good friends, a few skills and a great network to build something meaningful of value.

Physical and Mental Health

Every year by my birthday my Physical health is in the trenches. I don’t know why. I put on a lot of weight last year then cut it down in the 1st quarter of the year and now added a lot of fat again. But one good thing is that the grunt work I put earlier has retained muscle mass and muscle memory. I can always walk into the gym anytime and lift with 70-80% of muscle memory.

I don’t know what to say about my Mental Health. One personal loss happened, and I had to go through harsh cycles of anxiety. I’ll wake up every single day anxious. Between August and December, I can’t even imagine the tough situations that I put myself into.

I got a buzz cut for the first time in life. I always wanted to get one but never really had the courage to do. But one fine late night when I was going through a lot I simply went and shaved the head myself.

I stopped being happy for a longer period of time reflecting on all the stupid decisions I made. I got one panic attack which my parents or siblings or my friends don’t know of. Then my friends knew it after I confessed to them. I would really ask anyone not to take anything that seriously in life. Because when everything was falling apart both in personal and professional life you would have wanted to scream loudly but barely did that. All those angers, grief, frustration and everything should be shown somewhere, and the best way is the gym.

Gym is the temple where you can go and pray twice.

I sometimes funnily think how come the both the saddest thing and the happiest thing in my life can happen in the same year.

My sister and brother-in-law gave birth to their first child. A BABBY BOYYY. One of the happiest moments for our family. I personally spent 1 month with them prior and after the delivery and experienced all the highs and lows. It was a surreal moment to hold a baby in your hand. That kid is blessed enough to get the coolest uncle ever. I’ll try to be.

Overall, I’m going through insurmountable amount of stress. I don’t know how long I can handle that.

Financial Life

I should start taking my financial life more seriously.

Because to be honest, I’ve ₹0 in savings. Exhausted all my personal funds. Decided to stop freelancing to focus on the 2 companies. All that I earn from Adtitude I spend on rent, utilities and EMIs.

Every year I try to buy something for home on my birthday. So last year I replaced the 13-year scooter in our home with an Ather energy scooter. One of the best values for money.

Then I had to borrow a little money to travel to Dubai to stay with my sister. Actually, my goal was to become Debt free when I turned 25. But ironically it flipped and now I’m in more debt than ever. It haunts me every single day.

This is another pressure on my back. I stopped spending on myself. We didn’t go to any trips. I didn’t buy any clothes or accessories. All I did was thinking what can I do so that my 2 companies stay alive and never runs out of money while I ran out of money.

Because I’m at that age where the people around me are getting married, buying their first home, 2nd car or at least planning and saving up for marriage. Even my close friends. But I’ve never thought about these things. Not even once. I’m very happy that my parents also haven’t spoken about it to me.

All I know is we are one win away at Record to flip my life around.

The last year didn’t turn out to be the way I wanted. Or to even rephrase it better, I’m still at a place where I deserve to be.

Final Thoughts 

1. I did make a lot of new connections in my professional network during this phase. We all mutually respect each other’s work. They all spend time with me, not for any future benefits, but for the person I am and the skills I bring to the table. 
2. Always grateful to my friends, family and the team who have always been by my side no matter what I do. 
3. Every year I try to be a lesser idiot than I was, and this year is one such. Read lots and lots of books, and blogs and watched YouTube videos. 
4. Preparing myself for whatever happens in the future. 

I’ve tried to assemble and surround myself with the smartest people. We are all here for one common vision. I trust the people around me, the process, and the philosophies that have led me here. The hustle never stops. The learning never stops. I’ve let the outcome to the mercy of the hard work we do. 

There is still work to be done. I’ve just tried to accomplish 0.01% of my overall goals. There is a long, long way to go. Let’s see what awaits in the future. 

One last note is that, 

“Until death all defeat is psychological “

To homies who made it till here

With Love 💚
Tharun