Prajwal, Co-Founder, Clueso | "Being a dev is like being a wizard who can solve a problem” | Ep. 14

Speaker 0:00 you guys have some clarity on what you're building? So what will you guys do if it doesn't work? Everyone finds, like, that peer group. We kind of felt uncomfortable if we're not doing something productive.

Speaker 0:08 Yeah.

Speaker 0:08 Biggest learning right off the bat, just accepting that you, as entrepreneurs, are not exactly what you're building at that moment. [upbeat music]

Speaker 0:25 Hi, my name is Amrit. We've heard that IIT Madras is the best place to build. [upbeat music] So we've come down to the Sudha and Shankar Innovation Hub. We want to meet some people. These are builders. We want to talk to them about their work, and also ask them what makes IIT Madras the best place to build? [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to the Best Place to Build podcast. Today, we are sitting with Prajwal, probably our youngest guest so far. He's only 24. Uh, he is a co-founder at one of the newer, hotter startups from IIT Madras called Clueso. Uh, Prajwal, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 1:10 Thanks a lot for having me, Amrit. So excited to be back in this space.

Speaker 1:14 Let us start... Oh, yeah, and we are at CFI anyway.

Speaker 1:17 Yeah, out of a CFI club. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1:19 for a long time.

Speaker 1:19 Let us start with what Clueso does.

Speaker 1:22 So Clueso helps product marketing, customer success teams at SaaS companies create high-quality videos and documentation. So how it works is they start with a very rough, raw input. This could be a video recording, it could be, like, some sort of slide deck, and what they want to get done is turn this into a really high-quality video that they can share with their customers, have it be engaging, have it reflect their brand. So what they do with Clueso is they simply upload this raw input, and our product takes care of everything else. So we transform that video into something that looks much more professional by adding all sorts of video effects, things like zooms, blurs, text boxes, rectangles, and, uh, branding. So we add, like, the company logo as an intro slide, outro slides, and perhaps most importantly, we solve the- one of the most challenging aspects of video production, which is audio. So we completely swap out the audio track of the original video and add an AI-generated audio track, where the customer has full control over the script. So the AI rewrites it in a way that already makes it more engaging, but whenever they want to make or tweak or add a point that they missed, they can do that instantly without any issues, and have the audio and video sync up perfectly.

Speaker 2:35 Sure. So this,

Speaker 2:36 this is meant for, say, for example, I had a SaaS platform that, um, helps customers with their help desk or-

Speaker 2:43 Mm-hmm

Speaker 2:43 ... uh, or something like that, and I made a- I made this tool. I'm communicating with a customer. My customer-

Speaker 2:48 Absolutely

Speaker 2:48 ... just tell me how it works.

Speaker 2:50 Exactly.

Speaker 2:50 I, I have to send him some-

Speaker 2:52 Right

Speaker 2:52 ... articles or videos, and then-

Speaker 2:54 Exactly

Speaker 2:54 ... it takes me effort to make those videos, but your tool makes that effort much simpler.

Speaker 2:58 Exactly. So what the use case you described is customer education, where there is someone who's possibly bought your tool and needs to go more in-depth into, "How exactly do I use it? How do I get the most value out of it?" That is one big use case. The other big use case is product marketing, where you want to make really catchy, peppy content that you can use, whether it's an ad, social media post, those kind of things, to drive people to come and even look at your tool or consider, uh, adopting that tool.

Speaker 3:24 And it's interesting because, um, most SaaS companies start with a very small team, like five people, and, uh, then when they grow, they grow their engineering teams first.

Speaker 3:34 Right.

Speaker 3:34 And the marketing team comes much later.

Speaker 3:37 Right.

Speaker 3:37 And so in the period where you're still growing and you're still, like, maybe 200 people, 300 people, engineering team, or even if you're larger, your tool will help me... Help the engineers do it themselves.

Speaker 3:49 Exactly right. That's kind of where we started from, like, from the perspective of a small team, which doesn't have in-house expertise on what should that content even look like? What do we describe? How do we adhere to technical norms and documentation as well? So it was designed originally, primarily for these kind of people, other founders, uh, you know, people who don't have expertise in this domain but really need to get this content out super fast. But then it quickly transitioned into being a tool that also helps experts really well, because they know what they want to do, it's just that their workflow to do it is really painful, takes really long, so-

Speaker 4:22 Got it

Speaker 4:22 ... it has both sides of the coin.

Speaker 4:23 Cool. We didn't mention it ob- but it sounds obvious, it's automatic, like-

Speaker 4:27 Right, right.

Speaker 4:27 It does it all on its own.

Speaker 4:29 So one of the internal mottos that I really love, that we have at Clueso, is, "We're building the world's best video editor, and we're also making sure you never have to use it." So everything we do is customizable, but the aim is that AI creates everything exactly as you want it. So of course, that's, like, the 100% goal, right? But realistically, you'll get there, like, 90%, 95%, so you need that control for the customer to actually be able to go and tweak whatever the AI has produced.

Speaker 4:55 Sure, yeah.

Speaker 4:55 The vision is that, you know, four years from now, you don't even think about making videos. It's just you've got-

Speaker 5:01 Yeah

Speaker 5:02 ... Clueso set up, and it's just happening on autopilot.

Speaker 5:04 And you're also a Y Combinator funded.

Speaker 5:06 Right.

Speaker 5:07 And we'll come to that, but

Speaker 5:08 let's just dial back. You are an alumnus. You came to IIT Madras, uh, from... You studied here from 2018 to '22.

Speaker 5:15 Right.

Speaker 5:15 Right.

Speaker 5:16 Yeah.

Speaker 5:16 You just graduated. [chuckles]

Speaker 5:17 No, very-

Speaker 5:18 You are very fresh.

Speaker 5:18 Absolutely.

Speaker 5:19 So let's go through, uh, your IITM journey.

Speaker 5:22 Uh-

Speaker 5:22 Did you have a nick?

Speaker 5:23 I did. I was called PJ.

Speaker 5:25 PJ?

Speaker 5:25 Yeah.

Speaker 5:26 From Prajwal.

Speaker 5:27 From Prajwal, I think because on my freshie night, I did stand-up, and it was not great.

Speaker 5:31 Okay. [chuckles]

Speaker 5:31 So PJ kind of stuck. Yeah. [chuckles]

Speaker 5:34 Nice. We'll come back to stand-up. Um, and which hostel were you in?

Speaker 5:37 Godavari.

Speaker 5:38 Okay. I, I see that my research team has made it a point to tell me that you were very good at your academics. Is it a 9.3?

Speaker 5:46 Yeah, and you-

Speaker 5:46 ... Young Research Fellow.

Speaker 5:48 Yeah.

Speaker 5:48 Congratulations on that.

Speaker 5:49 Thanks. [chuckles]

Speaker 5:50 Late, but- [chuckles]

Speaker 5:51 Probably, as I don't know, quite a oddity, I think, when people talk to me and they know that I'm a founder, you generally don't think that a CADs was ever a part of my life. But yeah, it was-

Speaker 6:02 ... I'm fair enough. Let's talk about that a bit. Uh, when somebody enters IIT-

Speaker 6:06 Mm.

Speaker 6:06 -obviously, I mean, I, I've heard directors talk about this: you enter IIT to leave. [chuckles]

Speaker 6:11 Yeah. [chuckles]

Speaker 6:12 You don't want to stay here forever. Uh, and, uh, when you enter, you have some idea of the outcomes you want at the end of it. So when you came in in 2018, what did you think you will end up with?

Speaker 6:22 That's a great question. Honestly, I didn't have any solid expectations. I think what really attracted me to IIT, and even going through that whole journey of preparing, was that it's supposed to be a place where there's lots of opportunities. So in my mind, I wasn't even thinking about what happens at the end of fourth year. I was more in- interested in, what can I explore in those four years? What all different things can I actually, like, you know, take a stab at and try to do? So I was excited because I think they did a great job with that orientation as well, where they were like... They basically told us there are, like, 100 different things you can do, and just got me really excited. Like, you can try research, you can work with Prof, there's this startup thing that you can try with Nirmaan. We have, like, these cultural events that are like inter-IITs for every field of life: [chuckles] cultural, tech, and sport.

Speaker 7:05 And you could also go to class if you want.

Speaker 7:07 Yeah, yeah. Uh, that's probably lower up [chuckles] the list, but, yeah, that part right.

Speaker 7:11 Which of, which of these 100 opportunities... Uh, I, I know you're exaggerating, but-

Speaker 7:15 Uh-huh

Speaker 7:15 ... which of these opportunities did you explore?

Speaker 7:17 I think the ones that I explored most seriously from the perspective of doing it after I graduate were research and starting up. So research really fascinated me because I've always been of a, like, technological bent of mind. And even before I came into IIT, I was fascinated by this abstract idea of, like, quantum computing.

Speaker 7:37 Okay.

Speaker 7:37 So being able to actually pursue that, take it from like an abstract concept that you hear about, uh, in like the news and sci-fi, into actually understanding what goes into it and possibly even contributing to it, that was a really exciting proposition. And startups as well were always-

Speaker 7:53 Can we spend some more time on the research?

Speaker 7:54 Yeah.

Speaker 7:55 If you are in IIT, and you're a student, and you want to be involved in research, what are the things you need to do?

Speaker 8:00 I think the first step is you use what's available to you, which is the professors and the research labs that we have. So the good thing is, you don't even have to step out of your hostel room at this point, where you can just, uh, check up online very quickly, figure out what labs we have, and you'll get a clear idea of, okay, we have professors working in... Like, for example, in my case, working in, say, quantum computing. Then you can just go show up at their lab. They're always more than happy to talk to students who are genuinely excited and passionate about doing something, and get started very early. So of course, in your first year, you're probably not going to be in a position where you can, you know, make a massive contribution or get a paper or something-

Speaker 8:36 Yeah

Speaker 8:36 ... but you can start getting exposure extremely early, and professors are more than happy to help out if you're, like, genuinely passionate and you want to get some exposure to that field.

Speaker 8:44 And, uh, you were with Professor Anil Prasad.

Speaker 8:47 Right. Right. So I had, like, cold approached him [chuckles] on mail, that, "I- I'm really fascinated by this field. You've been doing, like, similar work. Can we try to design a project that would work out?"

Speaker 8:56 This, this is... Professor Anil is in EE-

Speaker 8:59 Yeah, yeah

Speaker 8:59 ... is an electric-

Speaker 9:00 In EE

Speaker 9:00 ... who works on quantum computing.

Speaker 9:02 Yeah, you were-

Speaker 9:03 You were CS.

Speaker 9:03 I was in CS. Yeah.

Speaker 9:04 Yeah.

Speaker 9:04 It's like, uh, CS, EE, and physics. Like, it... So quantum computing is a very multidisciplinary field.

Speaker 9:10 Okay.

Speaker 9:11 So-

Speaker 9:11 Sorry, I have to ask you, what is quantum computing?

Speaker 9:13 Yeah, sure, sure. So quantum computing, at its core, is us trying to utilize the natural computation that occurs when any physical phenomenon kind of takes place. So the best example I have to, like, explain it is, let's say you're trying to create a complex structure that involves rings on walls. So if I want to design... Let, let's say it's a classical problem. I want to design a structure that takes the least surface area between three points on a wall. If you do this, like, with classical computation, it's a really hard problem to solve, lots of math optimizations. But in nature, if I just create, like, a soap bubble and attach it to all these things, it will naturally coalesce together because it has to adhere to the principles of surface tension. So that's the base idea. We're trying to utilize the fact that, at its core, quantum mechanics is very complex matrix math. So what we want to do is model problems that we have in our real world as quantum systems, and let nature kind of solve that problem for us by the natural flow of quantum mechanics, which is underlying matrix manipulations and stuff.

Speaker 10:19 Okay.

Speaker 10:20 So that concept to me was extremely fascinating. It's basically just try to model things in this framework that we know of quantum mechanics.

Speaker 10:26 Sure. Um, when you say we are trying to model things, uh, we are talking of a mathematical framework-

Speaker 10:32 Mm

Speaker 10:32 ... algorithmic framework.

Speaker 10:33 Absolutely.

Speaker 10:33 Uh, there's also, uh, the physical realization of a quantum computing.

Speaker 10:37 Mm.

Speaker 10:37 But the... You were not involved in that?

Speaker 10:38 Correct. Correct. I was always attracted to... And the research we were doing was always around the theoretical implementation. The physical implementation, it's like you kind of agree on a contract between the physical implementation and the algorithmic side. Like, you agree that, what they call it is qubits. So you agree that let's say we have a n qubit system, it's up to the f- the physic- the team working on physical research needs to figure out how do we implement an n physical qubit system, and the theoretical team is just trying to figure out what can we do if we have an n qubit physical system.

Speaker 11:07 Yeah, got it. Um, when you were working on- with Professor Anil, you were also YRF fellow, Young Research Fellow, right? This is a scheme that is-

Speaker 11:17 Right

Speaker 11:17 ... available for students. Can you, uh, describe the scheme?

Speaker 11:19 Yeah. So it actually started in my batch. It was a very innovative idea. Basically, it was to try and push more students into research, and the problem that they were trying to solve for was, it's kind of hard to do research outside of academic hours because of, like, competing priorities. So what they basically did was converted research into a creditable activity. So instead of taking up a course, you could take up the YRF program, and they did everything they could to motivate you towards research. So beyond giving you credits for a project that you get to do with a professor, they also taught you what are the other aspects of research. Things like, how do you start writing a paper? How do you think about publishing? How do you handle, like, your poster design? How do you even go about that initial phase of research in terms of, uh, going through papers and, like, combining relevant insights across them? So it was almost like a full-fledged research workshop kind of thing that was going on in parallel with your courses.

Speaker 12:13 Fair enough. And you mentioned this earlier-

Speaker 12:15 ... maybe at a first-year, second-year level, yeah, you're not deeply involved, but you're still getting the hang of it, and so on.

Speaker 12:21 Yeah, so with YRF, you can go a little bit deeper. That YRF was in the third year, where now you're at the point where, like, it's your project, you're contributing to it in a very

Speaker 12:30 meaningful way.

Speaker 12:30 Your third year would have been the pandemic year.

Speaker 12:32 Yeah.

Speaker 12:33 Okay.

Speaker 12:33 Yeah, so [chuckles] yeah.

Speaker 12:35 Quite a-

Speaker 12:35 Talk, talk me through what happened on campus.

Speaker 12:37 See, uh, so when the pandemic hit, it was actually insane 'cause none of us could believe that this is actually happening.

Speaker 12:43 Yeah.

Speaker 12:43 Uh, because we were in college, it was a normal semester. I think it was around quiz two. Quiz two was just about to happen, and then we just got the news that everybody needs to go back home. Everyone was scampering to figure out how to get back and all of that.

Speaker 12:55 Did campus close earlier than the nation?

Speaker 12:57 Campus closed, I think, like, three days earlier than the nation. So we had just a little bit of lead time, but everybody found their way home. And then there was that period of uncertainty for, like, a little bit, but then by April... Like, this happened in, like, mid-March. By April, we were like: "Okay, now how do we resume some semblance of normal college life?" So that's when remote courses started up. We started [chuckles] everybody started installing Teams, and 300 to-

Speaker 13:22 Three, um, three-

Speaker 13:23 Yeah.

Speaker 13:23 Three million new people figured out video conferencing. [chuckles]

Speaker 13:26 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And for us in particular, it was really good because I, uh, that was when we had more bandwidth to spend on, like, seriously starting up and building something from scratch.

Speaker 13:38 Right. So this is your second track. You started by saying that when you, uh, got to campus on your orientation day, when, uh, when the institute tells you, "These are all the things you can do on campus-

Speaker 13:48 Yeah

Speaker 13:48 ... other than going to class." [chuckles]

Speaker 13:49 Yeah.

Speaker 13:50 Uh, you realize that there's a research track and a startup track-

Speaker 13:54 Right

Speaker 13:54 ... many other tracks.

Speaker 13:55 Right.

Speaker 13:55 So,

Speaker 13:56 yeah, walk us through your early startup.

Speaker 13:58 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 13:59 You, you didn't even start with Clueso, right?

Speaker 14:01 Yeah, we did not start with anything close to Clueso. So we actually started with Desklamp, which is also a product that's still live. I can walk you through that journey. So basically, the three or four of us friends, we wanted a way, when the pandemic hit, to, A, stay in better touch, 'cause we were completely out of things [chuckles] to talk about at that point. All of us were, at the very least, intrigued by startups and wanted to experience that whole loop in, like, the safe environment that college provides. That was the thought process at that time. So we tried to find a problem that we could actually relate to, also because we were too naive [chuckles] to look for a problem that has, you know, a big market or something like that. So the one problem that stood out to us was once we had gone remote, the process of studying and collaborating with our friends was not good. Like, what we used to do was go to the library, sit together, someone studies half the course, someone studies the other half the course, and then you try to explain to each other what's going on.

Speaker 14:53 I never did that, but-

Speaker 14:54 [chuckles] Yeah

Speaker 14:55 ... happy to know that you did that.

Speaker 14:57 Yeah, I think we were, like, definitely amongst the nerdier ones.

Speaker 15:00 I would- I'm just thinking that if the four of you or five of you wanted to do something together, in my head, I'm thinking, "Why could they play a game?"

Speaker 15:07 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 15:07 Um, Call of Duty or-

Speaker 15:08 That's what I think everyone finds, like, that peer group. I think we were weird in that aspect, where we, we kind of felt uncomfortable if we're not doing something productive.

Speaker 15:17 Like, "We're together in this conference room, let's build something."

Speaker 15:19 Yeah. Yeah. [chuckles]

Speaker 15:20 Amazing, by the way.

Speaker 15:21 Yeah, that's exactly what it, it used to feel like. Like, if we're not doing something, we started feeling uneasy, like we should be doing something more fun. But yeah, the problem we ended up picking was how do we make that process of collaboration, and what- can we mimic that experience we used to have in the library-

Speaker 15:37 Okay

Speaker 15:38 ... online? So that's what Desklamp started with. At its core, the simplest way to describe it is it's a PDF reader cum Google Docs in the same pro- product. So essentially, when you're reading, especially scientific textbooks and scientific texts, it can get really annoying to scroll through a PDF. Like, when you have a physical book, and it references a diagram, you can easily flip through the pages. But when you're reading a PDF, and you're seeing something that references a diagram that's on some other page, it's, like, just a really broken experience. PDFs were not designed to be read as textbooks. They're just printable files.

Speaker 16:10 Yeah.

Speaker 16:10 So our product aimed to solve that. So from your PDF, you can clip out sections, clip out diagrams, add, like, highlights, and create, like, a notebook. This notebook you can collaborate on with your friends, and all- it all cross-references various PDFs. So if you're reading something in your notes and you're like: "Wait, I don't exactly remember what's going on here," you can go back to that section in the text from right there. It'll pull it up immediately there, and you can check it out. So it was basically super optimized for someone deep-diving into a textbook or deep-diving into some topic, and they want to learn something. Possibly more, uh, on the, like, science side, where you want to clip out diagrams and equations and those kind of things.

Speaker 16:45 Fair enough. And, um, this- you started this in the pandemic era, which w- would, should have been your third year?

Speaker 16:51 Yeah.

Speaker 16:52 So you had a product... You built a product in your third year, and then-

Speaker 16:55 Yeah

Speaker 16:55 ... what I hear from others is that it just exploded on campus.

Speaker 16:58 Yeah, yeah, that's, that's exactly what happened. So I think because that was the first time we were building something, we were also a little slow, just figuring out, what does it even mean to build software? What, what are the tools that you need? How do you go about deploying it? How do you actually distribute it to people? So that took a lot of time. But, uh, one thing that really helped was our customer base was our friends and our professors. So very early on, even before the product was finished, even when it was just, like, one little feature, we started getting our friends to try it out. So we gave it to, like, our friends who weren't working on it, and they gave us feedback. Then we started reaching out to professors, saying, like: "We're building this thing. Do you want to try it out? Maybe it could help you when you're, like, planning courses or doing some sort of research work." And professors were insanely supportive. We didn't expect that. But, like, I remember Professor Rupesh, for example, sent us back, like, an email with a full essay around, "These are the exact things that I don't like about the software. These are the exact things that I like."

Speaker 17:51 Okay. So talking about Professor Rupesh Naste from-

Speaker 17:53 From the CS department.

Speaker 17:54 CSI Auto.

Speaker 17:55 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was doing a course with him at the time, so, yeah, it was just natural. So lots of professors who tried out the product, lots of students who tried out the product, but it was still in, like, kind of that trial phase. I think for us, it started exploding at the start of 2021. Because, because we had this early feedback from people who actually used it, we kind of got better direction for the product. So we always internally were thinking the part that's going to click is clipping out diagrams, but the part that was actually clicking with people was the notes. So that was something that we couldn't have discovered until we actually had a lot of people using it and coming back to us with feedback.... So we kept iterating on it, and then, like by April 2021, things had really started picking up within IITM, like, to the point where if you just, uh, you know, asked one of our friends like, "Hey, like, have you tried Desklamp?" They'd tell us, "We already have," which was really exciting. Then we decided to start spreading it to other colleges and just see if the response is equal.

Speaker 18:47 Now you're going out of your safe zone. How was-

Speaker 18:49 Yeah, yeah. I think it was not so difficult. Like, I would think that it would've been more difficult, but again, I think... I don't know if it's across IT support system or people were just impressed by our story. So what we did to spread it in other colleges was we just asked academic secretaries to send out a mail. So I think that's another place where being remote helped, because because everyone was remote, they had to check their mail, like, uh, very regularly. Uh, so it came in, like, KGP, Kanpur, Bombay, Delhi, so we started getting a lot of sign-ups there. And that's around the time we started having the conversation around: Guys, do we want to do this full time? Because by 2021, uh, I had reached the point where I was going to be the first to graduate. So my two co-founders, Akash and Neil, they were going to graduate in 2023, but I would've-- I was graduating in 2022. So then we had to have that discussion as-

Speaker 19:37 Sure, because the minute you enter your fourth year, you have to decide.

Speaker 19:39 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 19:40 Show those outcomes.

Speaker 19:41 Right. Right. You will start planning ahead, because especially if the other option was research, you have to think aggressively about apping, about, uh, getting-

Speaker 19:49 And it takes about six months at least.

Speaker 19:52 Right. Right. Exactly.

Speaker 19:54 To prepare for a good job or to prepare for-

Speaker 19:56 Yeah

Speaker 19:56 ... grad med.

Speaker 19:57 I think by that point, uh, job was out of the question for me at least.

Speaker 20:01 Okay.

Speaker 20:02 I had a good experience at, uh, Adobe, so I had one internship. So I've only worked at one other company [chuckles] beside-

Speaker 20:08 The one other company you worked with is Adobe?

Speaker 20:10 Yeah.

Speaker 20:10 Okay.

Speaker 20:10 Which was a great experience from a lot of perspectives. Like, they do really good work there, and I, I had a good time.

Speaker 20:16 But when was this internship at Adobe?

Speaker 20:18 It was in the summer of 2021.

Speaker 20:20 Which was a remote internship?

Speaker 20:22 Yeah, it was a remote internship.

Speaker 20:23 And did they offer you a-

Speaker 20:25 They did

Speaker 20:25 ... based offer?

Speaker 20:26 Yeah.

Speaker 20:26 Okay.

Speaker 20:26 Yeah.

Speaker 20:27 So going into your fourth year, you had this product which was... Say, can you give us an idea, 2020, 2021, summer-

Speaker 20:35 Yeah

Speaker 20:35 ... when you entered?

Speaker 20:36 Yeah.

Speaker 20:36 Okay. How many users did you have?

Speaker 20:38 I think then it was not that big. It was probably somewhere in the early thousands, so probably somewhere around 3,000, 4,000, somewhere around that range. Because I think part of it is also we had still not committed full time to it.

Speaker 20:50 Yeah.

Speaker 20:50 We were spending all of our bandwidth on it, but that was more from a product building perspective. We had-

Speaker 20:55 But 3,000, 4,000 stu- uh, people using your product within six months of, I mean-

Speaker 21:00 Yeah, it is [chuckles]

Speaker 21:01 ... It's, A, great, but also, like, it's sufficient enough for you to, uh, ask that question-

Speaker 21:08 Mm-hmm

Speaker 21:08 ... Should I, uh-

Speaker 21:10 Exactly

Speaker 21:10 ... dive deeper or not?

Speaker 21:12 Right. Right.

Speaker 21:12 Uh, because if it was just 500, you would just-

Speaker 21:15 Yeah. That's- it's interesting that you bring this up, because

Speaker 21:18 we always had this struggle, especially when building consumer software, around what numbers are good. So I think until we did YC, we also had a very skewed perspective of what numbers are good. So because of that whole experience, now when we look back, we know, like, the numbers have to be much, much higher in consumer software for you to warrant it turning out to be a good business.

Speaker 21:38 Sure, but we'll come, come to YC later. In your fourth year, you was trying to figure out whether to double down on this radar that you sort of stumbled upon.

Speaker 21:44 Yeah. Uh, so we had, like, spent a lot of our bandwidth on the product building side, but we hadn't really, really pushed it as a company, as a business, in terms of actively trying to increase distribution. Like, we had just basically sent out mails to other colleges, which is very low-effort task. Then we had to have that conversation around: Do we want to do this full time? What will that look like? So I think for me, the deciding factor was my co-founders. So

Speaker 22:09 Akash and Neil are both incredibly motivated, and we all have very complementary skill sets. So I gravitate a lot towards thinking of it from, like, an engineering point of view, and building product is something that really excites me. Uh, Neil is extremely, extremely customer-centric, which is the DNA we have, like, all absorbed now, even at Clueso, where it's like he would obsess over anyone who has a bad experience on Desklamp. He was obsessing over, "Okay, they tried it, and they didn't end up using it the next time. Why?" Those kind of things really resonate with him. Akash is, you know, an all-rounder, super passionate about designing really good products, which is often something that gets ignored, especially from a group that's, uh, technically...

Speaker 22:49 Yeah. So you have an engineering mindset, you have a customer-focused mindset, and a design mindset-

Speaker 22:52 Exactly

Speaker 22:53 ... product design mindset.

Speaker 22:53 Exactly, which I think is, like, deeper a combination for a SaaS company.

Speaker 22:56 Absolutely.

Speaker 22:57 So that was, like, a big deciding factor that I don't know when I'll get that opportunity of meeting equally passionate, equally motivated people, who add so much more to the table, uh, besides, like, what I can bring. Like, everything kind of clicked, so we decided, "Let's give it a shot." I think part of it was also, like, in the heat of the moment, because we could feel that growth. We were like: "Let's just, let's just do this. Let's just go-"

Speaker 23:19 Also, the pandemic was, uh, driving everyone to, like-

Speaker 23:23 Uh

Speaker 23:23 ... sort of take decisions that they wouldn't have normally taken.

Speaker 23:25 Yeah, exactly. I think that was definitely part of it. I think also we could see that our batchmates were not... simply not having as much fun as we were at that point.

Speaker 23:34 Very interesting. Mm.

Speaker 23:35 Everyone was... You know, the pressure of placements, pressure of apping.

Speaker 23:38 Yeah.

Speaker 23:38 And technically speaking, we were working longer hours, we were doing more work, but it didn't feel like it, because we were basically building things that excited us with our friends.

Speaker 23:47 So you were in a state of flow?

Speaker 23:49 Yeah, we were in a, like, hardcore flow state. So by the end of the Adobe internship, I had decided, "Okay, we're going to do this full time." So now I'm going to have to gear up and change whatever we're doing and go much more all in on the product building.

Speaker 24:03 The three of you were nine-pointers. If you are sitting out of placements, if you're not going to, uh, apply to universities abroad, and you're going to run your little startup, uh, which is a PDF++-

Speaker 24:16 Yeah. [chuckles]

Speaker 24:17 I'm sorry. [chuckles]

Speaker 24:18 No, that's a fair assessment.

Speaker 24:20 You have to have this conversation with yourself internally, that, "I'm doing this-

Speaker 24:23 Right

Speaker 24:24 ... and I'm giving up-"

Speaker 24:25 Oh, yeah

Speaker 24:25 "... all that was on the table." Uh, you have to have this conversation with your parents-

Speaker 24:29 Mm

Speaker 24:29 ... um, maybe your friends. How did, how did those conversations go?

Speaker 24:32 Yeah. I think the internal conversation was honestly the hardest, because once you have conviction, generally-... I, I'm very fortunate that I come from a very supportive family. So they were like: "If you, like, really believe in it, go for it." But that internal struggle is always there, especially in my case, because I could see my friends on different very successful paths, which would also could have been open to me because of the GPA and the other interests I had, like quantum computing. It was a little tricky, but, uh, this, this whole idea that this life, right, the life of a founder and an entrepreneur allows you to put in 100% like very few other careers can. Like, I really love building product and love engineering, which is like what I like to do 90% of my day, but there's no other role that allows you to live and breathe your work like, like being a founder does. Like, I get to talk about my company. I, I have to think about things like the user, think about things like, how will we get our next employees? So I get to use a lot more skills beyond the engineering side of me-

Speaker 25:31 Yeah

Speaker 25:31 ... that, that was really, really nice. Like, uh, another thing about my insti journey was I really enjoyed [chuckles] doing, like, cultural events, and I was part of Oratory Club and the Comedy Club.

Speaker 25:39 What club is it?

Speaker 25:40 Oratory.

Speaker 25:41 Oratory.

Speaker 25:41 Yeah, like debate-

Speaker 25:42 Club

Speaker 25:42 ... and speaking and those kind of things. So yeah, I always felt like being just an engineer would kind of be limiting. So this was also a big deciding factor, that you can express yourself in every way that you like. Like, we're also-

Speaker 25:56 Sure

Speaker 25:56 ... all a little creative in our own way, so that like reflects in the name and the logo and all of that. So-

Speaker 26:02 But we haven't come to Clueso yet. We use Desklamp.

Speaker 26:04 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 26:05 Right.

Speaker 26:05 Even Desklamp has a, yeah, quite an interesting story. So Desklamp was originally called Kitaab. Because we were so naive, we didn't know that copyrights and trademarks are a thing, so [chuckles] we just called it Kitaab, and then along the way realized, oh, you, you can't just call things-

Speaker 26:18 Anything you want.

Speaker 26:19 Yeah.

Speaker 26:19 Yeah.

Speaker 26:20 There is a legal process. [chuckles]

Speaker 26:22 Yeah, yeah. So, um, once you

Speaker 26:24 decided, at some point you guys applied to YC-

Speaker 26:27 Mm

Speaker 26:27 ... and you got accepted, which is a big deal.

Speaker 26:30 Yeah.

Speaker 26:30 Congratulations on that. I mean-

Speaker 26:31 Thank you

Speaker 26:32 ... a little late, but-

Speaker 26:32 [chuckles]

Speaker 26:33 um, and a lot of founders across the world, uh, including, of course, India, um, think of that as a very, very, very, uh, difficult step, and, uh, also it's a sort of a sign of approval. Uh, open some doors for you. You learn a lot.

Speaker 26:48 Oh, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 26:49 So walk us through the YC application process.

Speaker 26:51 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 26:52 Uh, and, um, then the interview process, and what you learned.

Speaker 26:55 Right. Right. So deciding to apply was also a very last-minute decision for us because, uh, this was in 2022. So at this point, I had graduated. Both my co-founders, Akash and Neil, were still in college. So we were still working out of IITM, working out of the Nirmaan office, essentially. And we weren't very crystal clear on what we wanted to do if we raised money. Like, we weren't clear on, okay, if tomorrow we have some money in the bank, what will we change? So it was not a very clear decision around applying to YC. But then what pushed us was, hey, it's a very simple process, which is what YC also really advocates for. It should be a simple process. There's just this form which asks you very basic questions about your company, uh, where they ask you: What are you building? How long have you been building it for? What kind of traction do you have? Why are you building this? What, what do you see in the market that competitors don't? So these are all very simple questions, but the process of filling out the form is... I, I would recommend companies to do it even if they're not applying to YC, 'cause it gives you so much internal clarity.

Speaker 27:55 Yeah.

Speaker 27:55 Like, it's a great form.

Speaker 27:56 It's a good reflection of-

Speaker 27:58 Exactly

Speaker 27:58 ... what you gotta do.

Speaker 27:59 Yeah, and you... It forces you to ask yourself hard questions, like, w- why are... What am I seeing in the market that competitors haven't?

Speaker 28:05 Yeah.

Speaker 28:05 What is it about my customer base that will actually allow this to scale as a business?

Speaker 28:08 Yeah, and what happens sometimes is, uh, founders, especially early in their journey, end up, uh... They don't realize it. I've- I would've done the same thing. I have many times done the same thing. They don't realize it, but they sort of take a path which is not really very lucrative or not really right.

Speaker 28:26 Yeah.

Speaker 28:26 Then they build narratives around it, starts-

Speaker 28:29 Yeah

Speaker 28:29 ... believing in their own bullshit-

Speaker 28:31 Yeah, yeah

Speaker 28:31 ... and then go down a path which has-

Speaker 28:33 Yeah

Speaker 28:34 ... uh, no return.

Speaker 28:35 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 28:36 And-

Speaker 28:36 I think to some extent we were possibly in that-

Speaker 28:38 In that route

Speaker 28:39 ... at that point, because there were so many good things going for us. By 2022, we had reached around 30,000 odd users. Uh, we had spread to law colleges, law universities. There were lots of things going well for us. It felt like a product that could scale. People really loved it.

Speaker 28:54 And, and I think from our perspective as, as a student-

Speaker 28:57 Mm

Speaker 28:58 ... 30,000 is a large number.

Speaker 28:59 Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's, it's very humbling to feel like, okay, there are 30,000 people who are using what I've built over the last, uh, year or so. So yeah, we applied to YC. We didn't honestly have very high expectations. That being said, we did fill the form with like, uh, you know, putting in 100% of, of attention to it. So it took us, like, two days odd to actually answer those questions to the best of our ability. That's basically it. There's just this one form, and then you get to know if you're gonna have an interview or not. So we got to know that we have an interview in, like, uh, just under a month, and because they're based out of the US, we had to take the interview in the night. So we actually had to, uh, request Nandini Ma'am at Nirmaan, "Can we just have that office open?" 'Cause we didn't want to take it in a hostel room-

Speaker 29:42 Right

Speaker 29:42 ... because that looks so bad. [chuckles]

Speaker 29:43 Also, you would have to clean your hostel room.

Speaker 29:45 Also, we'd have to clean our hostel room, which was not, uh, [chuckles] you know-

Speaker 29:47 Acceptable

Speaker 29:48 ... timely. Well, yeah. [chuckles] Yeah, so we asked ma'am to keep, like, Nirmaan open. So our call was, I think, at, like, 2:30 a.m. or something like that, so we just stayed in Nirmaan that whole night. There was, like, so much tension that we're gonna actually talk to them. The interview itself, they're very opinionated about how they do their interviews. It's 10 minutes, rapid fire, no nonsense. Like, they don't even bother asking you your name. Like, they've come in, having done a bit of their research and read your form-

Speaker 30:13 Mm

Speaker 30:13 ... so they just dive right into the depths around, like, what you're building, what the major concerns are, and understand your mentality. So in our case, uh, I'd say the interview went fairly well. [chuckles] The one question at the end, where we were a little divided, was at the end, they asked us: "Okay, like, sure, you guys have some clarity on what you're building, but there's a history of a graveyard of products in the productivity space, right? Like, people don't tend to succeed. There's not been one big success story that's lasted for decades and built, like, a long-lasting business. So what will you guys do if it doesn't work?"

Speaker 30:46 ... so that was like a bit of a curveball. Uh, we thought about it for a second, and then we, we just went, "We'll build something else [chuckles] like, if it doesn't work out, the three of us, we'll just- we'll figure it out. We'll build something else, if required." So at the end of that call, then we were reflecting, we were like, "We should have showed them that we had more conviction, that, like, you know, this idea is 100% going to work. What sort of answer was that?" But then, in like a day later, they told us, "Yeah, you're in. We're going to fund this."

Speaker 31:11 Nice.

Speaker 31:12 Yeah, and I think that's, that's kind of what they wanted to hear, and that's now-

Speaker 31:15 Sure

Speaker 31:15 ... in hindsight-

Speaker 31:16 I think very-

Speaker 31:16 Great answer

Speaker 31:16 ... for an entrepreneur, yeah.

Speaker 31:17 I think that, uh, there, there's a lot of conversation around this, that entrepreneurs have to be very gritty. That is, they have to be very focused on their effort-

Speaker 31:24 Absolutely

Speaker 31:25 ... and they have to push through. But also, sometimes you need to be self-aware that maybe like you are done now and go somewhere else.

Speaker 31:31 Absolutely.

Speaker 31:32 So the point where you want to say, uh, "If this doesn't work, I have the humility to say this-"

Speaker 31:37 Exactly.

Speaker 31:38 "- I'm moving on."

Speaker 31:39 Right.

Speaker 31:39 Uh, that's also-

Speaker 31:40 Yeah, and I think YC bets very big on those kind of founders. So essentially, once they accepted us, they told us, like, "Here's why we're taking you in." What they like to see is a team that can build a great product and actually get people to use it. Those are like, at their core, the two elements that help make any kind of company, but especially a software company.

Speaker 32:03 So YC acceptance would've given you a lot of confidence, right? Because-

Speaker 32:06 It would, yeah, something to tell everyone saying that, you know, it was not just-

Speaker 32:09 Yeah

Speaker 32:09 ... logic.

Speaker 32:10 I think it was a bit of both. Like, we were very excited that YC accepted us, but

Speaker 32:15 we were also just beginning to comprehend the idea that we may have to pivot and change what we're doing, which was very daunting for us. Because in my mind, at that time, a lot of the conviction I had around starting up was also partially like the idea we were working on, and that that product had already built up a user base that was really loving it. So I think that was the biggest learning, right off the bat, that we had from YC, which is just accepting that you, as entrepreneurs, are not exactly what you're building at that moment. Your identity is, say, an entrepreneur, or you do want to build something of value, but it's not that particular idea. Like, disconnecting the two was a big learning that, like YC, really. There's so much to think about it because entrepreneurs solve problems.

Speaker 32:54 Mm.

Speaker 32:54 Their businesses, uh, pick some problem, but we get to see them after they have picked it.

Speaker 32:59 Right. Right, exactly.

Speaker 33:00 You talk to entrepreneurs in the very beginning and say: "Why are you doing this?"

Speaker 33:03 Yeah.

Speaker 33:03 There's, like, a whole range of answers from simply, "I was here."

Speaker 33:07 Uh-huh.

Speaker 33:08 "I mean, there's no reason, but I'm here now. I'll find my conviction around this."

Speaker 33:12 Yeah.

Speaker 33:12 "To, uh, I had this problem myself," which is what you are saying, "I wanted to study better, so formed Desklamp or whatever."

Speaker 33:18 Right.

Speaker 33:18 "Two, I made a Excel sheet of 25 problems-

Speaker 33:23 Yeah

Speaker 33:23 ... I, I, I-

Speaker 33:24 And did market research, and the best was the best I ever got, yeah

Speaker 33:27 ... Or for older entrepreneurs, it's sometimes, um, "I've been in this business for a really long time. I know this, uh, problem already exists for a lot of users, so I'm solving it."

Speaker 33:37 Yeah.

Speaker 33:38 And so there's a moment where you're describing that your problem that you have picked may not be something that you can live for, right?

Speaker 33:46 Yeah.

Speaker 33:46 Now you have to pick another problem.

Speaker 33:48 Yeah.

Speaker 33:49 So then how do you-

Speaker 33:50 I think, uh, we first had to genuinely build conviction internally that we want to pivot, because otherwise there's always going to be this voice that says: "You have 50,000 users, go back to it." So knowing... Like, so YC helped us build a framework around-

Speaker 34:05 Yeah

Speaker 34:05 ... let's try to validate or invalidate this idea as fast as we can. So what they told us to do was, "You guys know the company and you know what metrics will make you happy. Define that set of metrics and just race towards, can we- if we time box it in a month, can we hit some metrics that make us happy?" So in our case, the main challenge that we were feeling was the customer base we were targeting was not easily monetizable, because primarily, it was designed for college students and academics who don't have very deep pockets. So what we wanted to validate was, is the situation different in the US? Like, can we hope to charge college students in the US because their fees are naturally much higher? Can we try to achieve that scale? So the experiment we designed for ourselves was-

Speaker 34:45 But it's not just about... I mean, in, in India, I think, uh, college students are also not used to paying for stuff.

Speaker 34:50 Absolutely.

Speaker 34:51 Even if they have the money.

Speaker 34:53 Yeah, it's... There are so many things vying for your money as a college student.

Speaker 34:56 Yeah.

Speaker 34:56 Like, I could buy software, or I could go out for a movie with my friends.

Speaker 35:00 Yeah.

Speaker 35:00 Like, competing with that is what's hard. It's not really competition in, like, your niche of software. You need to-

Speaker 35:05 Sure

Speaker 35:06 ... add so much value that you beat the other things they could do with their money. That's the whole challenge I felt with, like, building for consumers as a segment-

Speaker 35:14 Yeah

Speaker 35:15 ... versus it gets way different with the business, but we can talk about that when we come back to Clueso.

Speaker 35:20 Did you figure out whether American students had any different-

Speaker 35:22 Yeah, so we tried a very nice experiment. We said, "Okay, we're going to talk to 25 students across 25 colleges. If four of them agree to pay $5 per month, that's like a great outcome for us, because it'll be a much more high-touch sale than them discovering the product on their own." So we did that experiment, didn't pan out. They were all not con- Like, they really liked the product. All of them said: "I would love to use it." Moment we asked them to pay, they're like: "Oh, I have to think about it. That's when we realized this is going to be an uphill battle. We're going to spend all of our energy on it, and part of the environment around YC helped us realize, if you're going to be spending, like, almost 100% of your life on something, you should try to aim big, because that ambition was something they really stress on, and they help instill in all the entrepreneurs they fund. And we were ambitious, but we didn't realize, like, there is a grade of ambitious that you can be. So

Speaker 36:14 then we accepted that we had to pivot, and then we entered a phase of what we call pivot hell, which is basically [chuckles] you know you want to do something, you're there to do something, and you have no idea what. So we were just shuffling between ideas. So we were first trying to pursue, like, a code documentation angle, 'cause that felt like something kind of related to Desklamp, where it was around, like, collaborative documentation and making that workflow better. So that's another place where being in YC helped a bit, where we immediately had access to a good network of engineers because of our batch mates, who were mostly like engineers from Google, Meta, who had left their jobs-

Speaker 36:49 Sure

Speaker 36:50 ... trying to start up.... so we could start talking to them, get a better gauge of what are the problems they face on their devices.

Speaker 36:55 You're talking about your V- YC cohort?

Speaker 36:56 Yeah, yeah. This is at the YC cohort. Uh, so again, I said-

Speaker 37:02 Is it common in the YC cohort for founders to want to pivot?

Speaker 37:06 Extremely common.

Speaker 37:07 Is it?

Speaker 37:07 That is part of what makes it easier, because most of the... I would say, like, probably 50 to 60% come in there and end up pivoting.

Speaker 37:14 Okay.

Speaker 37:15 Because that's just the nature of, I think, both the ecosystem in SF and the kind of companies YC funds.

Speaker 37:22 Yeah.

Speaker 37:22 Because they're betting mostly on early-stage founders, and it's kind of rare to have an idea immediately off the bat that works. Like, generally, all companies tend to have some journey of pivoting or figuring out exactly what they're building. So that environment really helped. Everybody's trying to figure out what to do. So once we were, uh, there, and we were trying to talk to other engineers, settle on this problem, again, the advice that actually helped us was, "Pick something you guys actually resonate with." So it's like this thing they call founder-market fit, which is, unless you deeply understand the problem or at least have some wedge to resonate with it, it gets really hard to build fast, iterate fast, and get a good idea of, of where your product is headed.

Speaker 38:06 So then that's how we stumbled on the problem of Clueso. So this was a problem we had at Desklamp, which was we had built this great PDF Plus Plus product, and some people were getting a lot of value out of it, but there were others who had no idea what to do on the product, right? They would come, they would be confused, they wouldn't know what to do. So what some of them would end up doing is dropping us mails. So we'd get a lot of emails around, "Hey, how do I export my PDF? How do I do this? How do I do that on the products?" And we didn't have the bandwidth as a, you know, tiny team with three people trying to do so much, to actually sit and maintain this kind of documentation or, like, knowledge base. Especially because we were iterating so fast on the product that even if we wrote one answer, in three days, it would be out of date. So we felt like this whole thing was a problem, like this- the support side of things. Another big problem was actually creating good launch videos. So we made one launch video. It took us a week and a half. We actually got someone from the music club in Insti to do the voiceover, 'cause at that point, there were no AI voices or anything, so we had to go and persuade her, "Please come spend a day [chuckles] with us and just record this whole video." And that whole process was very time-consuming, but it had really good returns. That video, we got, like, I think twenty-five thousand views, lots of direct sign-ups coming from just that video on YouTube. So these two problems felt very related because what we're talking about in the video is basically how to use Desklamp. So we had to first sit and make articles and spend so much time making a video. Something about that started to feel broken, and we knew we weren't able to do it well.

Speaker 39:33 Sure. In the SaaS world, this is called a product video.

Speaker 39:36 Yeah.

Speaker 39:36 Yeah.

Speaker 39:36 In the SaaS world, this is called a product video. Exactly. So something about product videos, support documentation, help articles, something here started to click in our heads. So then we went about trying to validate, is this a problem other companies face, [chuckles] or is it just, like, a three-person team building while in college that has to go through it? And the good news was we were getting very strong reactions from people when we would bring up this problem. So we tried to talk to, uh, customer success teams, customer support teams, product marketing teams at various companies through the YC network, through the IITM network as well, and all of them were resonating with the problem to some extent. That's when we built conviction, "Let's try to solve this problem in some way," and that's when the Clueso version one came out. So in fact, when we first

Speaker 40:21 released Clueso, again, team of three engineers, so the name we came up with was Gigauser. And the lo-

Speaker 40:27 Gigauser?

Speaker 40:28 Yeah. The idea behind that was whatever we were building would be the best user of your app 'cause it knows everything. Like, because you've used it to make all these support articles and videos, it's like the best user of your app. It's what your ideal user would be.

Speaker 40:41 I mean, don't feel too bad about it. ChatGPT is called Chat-

Speaker 40:43 No, no, no

Speaker 40:44 ... We are not alone in the world.

Speaker 40:45 Exactly. But the, the feedback we got was, it's a very intimidating name, 'cause we sell to product marketing teams and customer success teams. They're like... Our first reaction was, this is like a dev tool because, like, you have, like, pseudo users and super users that are kind of-

Speaker 40:57 Right, right, right

Speaker 40:58 ... in, like, development. So then we wanted to pivot entirely, like, the name part. We wanted to change to something way more friendly, something that-

Speaker 41:05 Mm

Speaker 41:05 ... has, like, a fun, quirky vibe. So that's kind of how we came to Clueso.

Speaker 41:08 Okay. And, and the yellow, you have a very interesting logo.

Speaker 41:11 Yeah.

Speaker 41:12 So can you walk us through?

Speaker 41:13 Yeah. So the idea is it's a essentially a detective kind of theme that we wanted to go for.

Speaker 41:18 Okay.

Speaker 41:18 Because the idea is your users, instead of having to hire a private detective to figure out what's going on [chuckles] in your product, they just come to Clueso. So we went for this whole vibe of a detective, and Clueso is the detective in the Pink Panther movies, if you've ever seen.

Speaker 41:34 Right. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 41:36 And it also has clue in its name, 'cause we, like, give clues about your product, essentially. So, like, a lot of little things click. We liked that it was pink, and we got to stand out from, like, the general blues and all-

Speaker 41:47 Blues

Speaker 41:47 ... you see in SaaS.

Speaker 41:49 Yeah.

Speaker 41:49 So yeah, it kind of fit. Aakash designed the logo. It's like the little, uh, mustache-

Speaker 41:54 Right

Speaker 41:54 ... it's like the detective mustache, the monocle.

Speaker 41:57 I can't even tell, is he looking on, onto the logo, right?

Speaker 42:01 Yeah, he has two eyes. One of them is the magnifying glass.

Speaker 42:04 Yeah. So now we've just made an animation where he winks. I really like that animation. [chuckles]

Speaker 42:08 Yeah.

Speaker 42:08 Damn cool. I, I, I want

Speaker 42:10 to say that, um, even with really good software, like software we all use all the time, most users end up using a few features, uh, maybe, like, 10% of the features. And it's always an issue with the engineering team that I built so much-

Speaker 42:26 But it's not getting adopted.

Speaker 42:26 It's not getting adopted.

Speaker 42:27 Absolutely.

Speaker 42:28 Feature adoption is a-

Speaker 42:29 It's a high-value problem statement.

Speaker 42:31 Yeah. And I guess at the very least, for larger teams, Clueso provides an easy way to build, uh, content for feature adoption.

Speaker 42:39 Exactly. So-

Speaker 42:40 So it's customer education-

Speaker 42:41 Right

Speaker 42:42 ... product marketing, and feature adoption.

Speaker 42:43 Exactly. So the best thing about the whole journey of building Clueso has been that we can own our own, uh, product as well, because we use Clueso-... to prove all these points that Clueso can help you solve. Like, we-- whenever we launch a feature, we, as part of, like, our engineering checklist, we have to make a video using Clueso on that feature and launch it to customers. So that way, I think one of the biggest challenges that customers have in launching features is they don't know how to position that launch. How do you maintain that constant line of contact with your customer and explain what new features are coming out? So what we do is, for example, we have a Slack, Slack channel with every single one of our customers. We go and broadcast a message when-- every time we launch a new feature, like, "Here's a new feature launch, here's how the video is," and all of them look at it. Like, around eighty percent of them actually react to it. They know, like, "Oh, shit, there's a new feature that's-"

Speaker 43:34 I'm, I'm smiling because I have used your product-

Speaker 43:35 Yeah

Speaker 43:36 ... for a client of mine, and-

Speaker 43:37 Uh.

Speaker 43:38 - I have got these messages from-

Speaker 43:39 Yeah, from-

Speaker 43:40 - from the Slack channel.

Speaker 43:41 Yeah.

Speaker 43:42 Uh.

Speaker 43:42 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 43:43 So you pivoted while in YC?

Speaker 43:45 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 43:46 And then, um, um, uh, you built your MVP, it started growing. Uh, did you raise funds?

Speaker 43:53 Yeah, so one of the other advantages of YC is it opens a lot of door, doors in terms of fundraising.

Speaker 43:59 Hmm.

Speaker 43:59 So we kind of took advantage of that and decided, let's go ahead and raise some funds, even though, honestly speaking, five hundred K is a huge amount of money, especially if you're building out of India. This is the YC-

Speaker 44:10 YC, right.

Speaker 44:10 Yeah. Uh, but we did end up, uh, raising after that. We found, like, a great, uh, partner in F7 Ventures. So they're a group of ex- uh, Facebook employees who have started a fund. So they resonated with this problem very strongly, 'cause even at Facebook, they had entire teams of people, uh, devoted to making guides, making, uh, support content for how to use features of Facebook, and they had just discovered another high-value problem statement, which is multilingual translation

Speaker 44:37 of these things. So especially the biggest SaaS companies, one of their challenges is that the product team maybe sits out of the US, can make this content in English, sure, but then they sell to Europe, they sell to South America, so they need that content in Spanish, German, French. And-

Speaker 44:51 In fact, when you are a SaaS company, uh, it's across-- any SaaS company is a cross-border product, like your product.

Speaker 44:58 Exactly.

Speaker 44:58 I remember I was working in Chargebee for a while, and it's like the first hundred customers are from twenty different countries.

Speaker 45:05 Yeah, same story.

Speaker 45:06 You don't realize how quickly it can, uh-

Speaker 45:08 Exactly.

Speaker 45:09 Because you have to worry about taxation, you have to worry about-

Speaker 45:11 Yeah

Speaker 45:11 ... uh, wh- which currency you're getting paid in.

Speaker 45:14 Right. Right.

Speaker 45:15 Uh, plus language, because not everybody's-

Speaker 45:17 Yeah

Speaker 45:17 ... English.

Speaker 45:18 Yeah. There are a lot of challenges with running, like, a global SaaS company. The good thing is there are slowly products solving for every piece of that, like, that are coming out. Like, I think we are solving now for the content piece. There are other products we use that solve for, like, the payment piece, where it just become easier to take in. But you're right, like, that's a big property of SaaS companies, which is, most of them are for a global audience, and that's actually been a lot of good inroads for us in some of these emerging markets. Things like Southeast Asia has been really big for us because, uh, their teams don't feel that comfortable making, like, high-quality content in English, but they do sell to the US, so a lot of SaaS companies there use us. A lot of SaaS companies in India use us. That's something we're very proud of because the general narrative is that SaaS doesn't have an audience in India, you can't really get meaningful revenue from India. But we got it from, like, day one because I think same problem for Indian companies: they want to position themselves to audiences across the globe, but they don't have that skill set here in, like, making that really high-quality content, making it feel like it resonates with that geography. So-

Speaker 46:22 As you're saying this, I think it's obvious to me, and maybe it's obvious to some of our audiences, but, uh, this is a very core AI product. Like, there's a lot of AI gets used.

Speaker 46:30 Absolutely.

Speaker 46:31 So did, did your pivot happen before the ChatGPT moment or?

Speaker 46:34 Yeah, yeah. It's a very good question. So when we pivoted, honestly, we had zero exposure to AI. There was some buzz around it in SF like that, "Hey, this whole AI thing is gonna change the world." But it hadn't hit like, like a truck, the way it's hit now. So when we started, we were not building it as, like, an AI-first product or something. It was never in our heads that: "Hey, let's build an AI company." We wanted to solve that problem for software companies that we resonated with. Somewhere in July 2023, which is after the YC cohort had happened, we had come back, we had pivoted to Clueso, raised funds, had just started building the MVP with a few pilot customers.

Speaker 47:10 In July 2023 is when we were talking to a customer, we started to realize part of their problem was around even storyboarding that piece of content or video in the first place. Like, we were helping them with the workflow of grabbing screenshots and adding effects in the videos, but even just coming up with a script that makes sense was taking them a lot of time. That felt like the first problem AI could kind of solve for us. So it started with that one tiny feature, and then when we opened that and immediately could see the value add to our customers, we realized, "Oh, let's, let's try to think more AI-first moving forward." Like, let's see what are other technologies that can supercharge this workflow that customers won't tell us directly. They'll tell us their problem, it's up to us to figure out, "Oh, is this actually something solvable with this new tool at our disposal?" So since then, we've actually become, like, insanely heavy users of AI. Like, I think pretty much any AI technology is in Clueso at some point. There is speech to text, uh, of course, text to text with LLMs, text to speech, uh, is one of our flagship features. We have, like, pieces of Vision as well in our product. So now our DNA has changed completely, and we, like, are always on the lookout for how can these workflows change astronomically with

Speaker 48:23 AI coming in.

Speaker 48:24 Actually, translation is also an AI product. Like, today-

Speaker 48:26 Yeah.

Speaker 48:27 Because it's ten years old, it...

Speaker 48:28 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 48:30 So-

Speaker 48:30 So interestingly, about translation, right? The way LLMs do translation is so much better than, uh, APIs of, like, older days, like, older technologies. Same thing with, uh, text to speech as well. Like, under the hood, the text to speech models also rely on LLMs. Like, LLMs are actually an insane breakthrough for everyone.

Speaker 48:47 Sure. So, um, this is an incredible

Speaker 48:50 journey. You've joined IIT, um, you have multiple things to pursue on campus.

Speaker 48:55 Yes.

Speaker 48:55 You choose to do research, then move to, uh, building a product.... let me say the pandemic happens, and you could figure out how to, uh, take advantage of that and-

Speaker 49:03 Yeah

Speaker 49:03 - like, build a product. Product scaled a bit, then you got into YC, immediately realized that the product's not going to scale a lot more.

Speaker 49:10 Uh-huh.

Speaker 49:11 Uh, and then you pivoted to Clueso, and in the last one year, you built this. Oh, are you growing it? Like, I think you're growing it, like, some two, three times a year, right?

Speaker 49:20 We're growing at 13x a year.

Speaker 49:21 13x a year.

Speaker 49:22 2024 was amazing for us. So that's been a really incredible journey. Similar to Desklamp in some ways because we've had that explosion of growth. I- I'm really grateful for the fact that we got to experience both selling directly to consumers and businesses, so that now I can appreciate the nuances and differences in between.

Speaker 49:39 I'm reflecting on what you're saying now, and like, in NC, there are a lot of labs, and there's an academic setting. There's a lot of research going on. So what happens is that, uh, uh, the, the startups and the businesses that come out from here are, uh, maybe lab-grown.

Speaker 49:52 Mm.

Speaker 49:52 So they think of the... They think of a, a, "Here's something we are working on. This is our research." And after the research sort of reaches a point, they start worrying about who's going to use it.

Speaker 50:03 Yeah.

Speaker 50:03 Which is fine, because that's how that kind of entrepreneurship works. In your case, you have literally started the other way, like-

Speaker 50:10 Absolutely

Speaker 50:10 ... what is a problem we can solve? And then gone, gone-

Speaker 50:13 Right

Speaker 50:13 - uh, build the product around it.

Speaker 50:15 Yeah.

Speaker 50:17 Um, that's quite cool.

Speaker 50:18 Yeah.

Speaker 50:19 I think, uh, especially if you are looking to build a SaaS company, I think this approach is the better route to take, because the blocker, in a lot of ways, is the tech. Like, that comes at some point, but the real blocker is: who are you building it for? What high-value problem statement can you solve with your software or AI or whatever you're building? 'Cause it's not that tricky to get something up and running. Of course, it does get trickier as you're scaling and as you're trying to, you know, add more features to your product, but that initial iteration is actually incredibly fast. Like, the fact that some kids straight out of college can build something that businesses pay thousands of dollars for is, like, a unique thing about software, and, uh, that's what makes me so passionate about it. So even... There's this one line from YC that I really loved, like what a partner told us, which is, "Being able to write software and build products is honestly like being a wizard in a muggle's world." 'Cause you can actually solve a problem really fast while sitting in your pajamas at home and, uh, just get something out there that actually has value. So I think this approach of really nail your customer, always be customer-obsessed, and then build tech around it that naturally solves their workflow, rather than just go after building tech, is something I really learned in this whole journey of building products.

Speaker 51:35 Nice and cool. What does the next, uh, say, five years look like?

Speaker 51:38 Yeah. Uh, I was kind of touching on this earlier

Speaker 51:41 as well. So right now, Clueso has already transformed their workflow. I'd say something like 5 to 10x, where they've... It's become much faster, the quality has improved, all of that has happened. But I think the real win for us is when we eliminate this function entirely. Like, you as a company, as someone building your product, don't even have to explicitly think about, "Okay, I've built the feature. Now I have to figure out how to market it, and make content for it, and figure out how to distribute it." I think we, we envision a way that Clueso can do all of this for you on autopilot. So it's like you integrate Clueso with your product, and you're done. Every time we deploy a new feature, Clueso has automatically made a video for you, automatically made the launch for you. You just have to, like, approve it, and it goes out to all your customers. I think that's the vision for us, to, like, completely transform the way we think about videos now. Like, for us, a win is if, like, five, six years later, people look back and think, "Oh, people used to, like, record videos manually? Like, that is insane. Why wouldn't you have an AI do it for you?"

Speaker 52:35 Yeah, and call a voice-over artist for you.

Speaker 52:37 Yeah, and, like, actually call some singer in your college to come in and record audio for you. [chuckles] Yeah, I think that's the vision that really excites us. Uh, this- the degree of automation we've already been able to achieve so early in the journey is super exciting, and I think we're just going to take that to 100.

Speaker 52:54 Awesome. This sounds great.

Speaker 52:56 Uh, I want to reflect on a few things that you've touched upon here and there. Um, I think you found your team in Insti, um, and you started doing a project with them. I, I think- I feel like that could have gone either way because a lot of founders start with their friends in college, and it, it doesn't work. It, it's not a big spot.

Speaker 53:18 Right. Yeah.

Speaker 53:18 So what is, what was special about?

Speaker 53:20 There was definitely some serendipity there because, uh, you know, I'm still in touch with juniors, especially those who are trying to start up. And you're right, this is one of the hardest things.

Speaker 53:28 Yeah.

Speaker 53:29 Like... But it's a hard thing in life in general, like finding a good co-founder, finding a-

Speaker 53:32 For sure. I think I read somewhere that 90% of-

Speaker 53:35 Is, uh-

Speaker 53:36 ... fail because of the co-founder wise.

Speaker 53:38 Yeah, 100%. So definitely think, like, grateful, and we got lucky in finding it, but I think the highest odds of finding someone are in an environment like Insti, like IITM. So even when we talk to juniors, we, like, push them that... You know, they'll be like: "Okay, no, I- I'll just do it alone. I had such a bad experience. My friend and I stopped talking. We don't even sit next to each other in the mess now." Uh, but we still try to push them because-

Speaker 54:01 Yeah

Speaker 54:01 ... the odds of finding someone whose wavelengths like you match with are really high in Insti. Like, we've had a couple of other now juniors and some of our seniors who found their co-founders in IITM. Uh, I think it starts early. It starts with being very clear that, uh, at least in our case, we were hardcore friends first and co-founders second. That really helped. Like, we just genuinely enjoy being around each other as people as well. Like, we live together. We have to see each other's face all the time. [chuckles]

Speaker 54:29 Mm, mm.

Speaker 54:30 So I think the best way to put it is, this should be someone you would have wanted to be your roommate anyway. Like, regardless of being a co-founder, you just enjoy being with them so much that you're like, "Yeah, let's just, uh..." You know, even if we were going to move to Bangalore and do a job together, we'd probably get a flat together or something.

Speaker 54:46 Can I-

Speaker 54:47 Yeah

Speaker 54:47 ... can I ask you, the

Speaker 54:48 three of you, and maybe all your early employees also, have signed up for a life which involves a lot of work?

Speaker 54:54 Absolutely. It's, it's-

Speaker 54:56 I won't say 90 hours, but it's actually much more probably.

Speaker 54:58 It is. It honestly is, but I think that's what we've been striving to achieve, even in- with the office and the new set of employees, is to recreate an-... maintain that spirit of it doesn't feel like work if you genuinely enjoy what you're doing, and more importantly, the people you're doing it with. And luckily, we've been able to find people like that, who resonate with the company, have that same feeling that we do, that we're honestly lucky to be on this rocket ship. Like, so many things aligned. We had, like, a great founding team with all complementary skills. We're at this perfect juncture of time where, like, the product we're building today wouldn't have been possible even two years ago. So, like, a lot of stars are kind of aligned, and everyone in the team is aware of that, that this is like almo- I wouldn't put it this way, but yeah, to some extent it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where we're at this juncture where technology is causing a massive disruption. We have all the ingredients for a great team. Great product is already there. We have customers. Yeah, so now it's just put, you know, put your foot on the gas and, like, really accelerate.

Speaker 55:56 It, it's more than that. No, like, you feel like... Like, I remember this line from Hamilton, where, uh, Hamilton sings, "I'm not going to give away my shot."

Speaker 56:03 Ah.

Speaker 56:04 Because it's like, you know, you have the shot.

Speaker 56:06 Exactly.

Speaker 56:06 Whatever stars have aligned or whatever, you're here.

Speaker 56:08 Right.

Speaker 56:09 And then you can't be overwhelmed by it. You have to do it-

Speaker 56:11 Yeah

Speaker 56:11 ... because it's there to take.

Speaker 56:12 Exactly. So interestingly, one thing that we have to get better at is, it gets harder and harder to celebrate the wins as the wins keep coming because you're like, "There is so much more for us to do actually." Whether it's a revenue milestone, number of customers, or just some marquee customer we closed. So one tiny thing we've done to change that is we now have this bell in the office [chuckles] so whenever there's a win, like a feature shipped, a big customer closed, something like that, someone goes and rings the bell.

Speaker 56:37 The win bell.

Speaker 56:38 Yeah.

Speaker 56:39 Hopefully we'll be doing so much that you'll have to stop it. [chuckles]

Speaker 56:40 [chuckles] We'll have to stop it. Yeah, that's the end. Um-

Speaker 56:45 What do you guys do to relax? I mean, now it is a good... By the way, now your office is in HSR.

Speaker 56:51 Yeah.

Speaker 56:51 Which is, like, the, the place where a lot of startups are there, and it's like a lot of them are very well-funded. And it's, it's a space where there's a lot of energy.

Speaker 57:00 Yeah, for sure. It is a space with a lot of energy, and what we've tried to do is, uh, bring a little bit of, like, peace and calm into the office. So we model it as, like, this really forest-y, green vibe. Probably because we spend so much time in Insti, like, we're used to building in an environment where there's, like, trees around you and greenery in general, lots of warm lighting. So yeah, we're very happy with the way the new office has come out. Uh, I think everyone who's come by, even as a visitor, has been like: "Wow! Like, this looks really good." Super proud of that. Uh, HSR in general is also a good ecosystem. Lots of founders we really look up to and can go to for advice, to talk to. Several of them Insti founders as well.

Speaker 57:38 Yeah, Hyperverge is in, uh-

Speaker 57:40 Hyperverge is also in HSR, yeah. Galaxay was in HSR. They just moved out. But yeah, lots of, uh, great people to talk to. Very supportive ecosystem in general, so it's been exciting.

Speaker 57:51 Nice. Damn

Speaker 57:52 cool. Uh, I feel like you have, uh, skirted the question of, what do you do to relax?

Speaker 57:57 [chuckles] I actually forgot that that's what you asked. Oh, my goodness, I have issues. Uh, I think we're still settling into that 'cause we work six days a week. We work, like, really hard. We work from, like, uh, 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 a.m., six days a week, all, all of us. So more often than not, just catching up on, like, being an adult takes up Sunday. Like, groceries [chuckles] and laundry and those kind of things. I happen to stay in the same city as my family, so I go visit my parents and brother as well. A little bit of a social life, whatever we can try to have on Sundays. But one thing that's really helped me, uh, relax a bit, this is the most stereotypical HSR founder thing, is I started playing pickleball.

Speaker 58:36 Yeah.

Speaker 58:36 Yeah. [chuckles] So pickleball is super fun. Slowly getting the rest of the office also into it. So in the mornings before we go to work, we go play a game of pickleball. Extremely easy to pick up. It's a perfect sport for people who don't do sports, [chuckles] so that's been a nice thing.

Speaker 58:52 I read somewhere that, um, you are a comic book fan.

Speaker 58:57 Yeah.

Speaker 58:58 Do you want to tell us more?

Speaker 58:59 Yeah. I have... I'm basically a very stereotypical nerd, so even in, like, high school, I used to love comic books. I was super into the whole MCU movie scene with, like, uh, all these superheroes. So one thing that I like, we... Part of the joy of being a founder is you can inject small bits of personality into what you do. So because we have this whole detective, quirky vibe going on, the way we've modeled our entire blog site is like this old-school '60s comic book, like the ones that I used to read in high school, just so that it's stands out a bit more different from, like, the general corporate vibe that software tends to have.

Speaker 59:34 Can I ask you a bit on that? Um, a SaaS company from India-

Speaker 59:40 Mm-hmm

Speaker 59:40 ... um,

Speaker 59:41 when the world looks at a SaaS company from India, they, uh, maybe SaaS companies, q- in general, any founder, not just SaaS, wants to play it a little safe. That, you know, you don't want to stand out so much that the customer rejects you, especially when you're talking to a larger enterprise kind of client. Uh, if you show too much of personality, they may feel like this is not-

Speaker 59:58 Oh, yeah

Speaker 59:59 ... for us.

Speaker 1:00:00 That's a good point you raise. So I think what we've realized is, uh, it's all about how you position it to specific customers. I think it is possible to coexist as a company or a brand that likes to have fun, and a company or a brand building, like, a phenomenal product, right? And one of the tools we take a lot of inspiration from is something like Canva. Canva has, like, a really fun, quirky brand, but every company from, like, Fortune 500 to the smallest of startups, to the Insti students as well, use Canva for their design.

Speaker 1:00:31 Yeah, and also very young founders.

Speaker 1:00:33 Yeah. [chuckles]

Speaker 1:00:34 Younger than you when you started.

Speaker 1:00:35 Exactly.

Speaker 1:00:36 Yeah.

Speaker 1:00:36 Very similar story. Uh, they also started from, like, an ecosystem, like in Australia, where it wasn't so mature in terms of lots of SaaS successes to look from, you know?

Speaker 1:00:45 I think she wanted to build a photo book.

Speaker 1:00:48 They were building something for, like, school students again, [chuckles] so that also is, like, DNA we share 'cause we also started with college kids.

Speaker 1:00:54 Yeah.

Speaker 1:00:55 But yeah, our goal is, uh... I think you're right, that SaaS founders also tend to play it safe. The history of SaaS in India has, I wouldn't say copycat products, but not... There's not an association of novelty or new products coming out of India.

Speaker 1:01:09 I... No, uh, I mean, maybe. You're right.

Speaker 1:01:11 Yeah.

Speaker 1:01:12 There's Postman and Browser.

Speaker 1:01:13 Yeah, you're right. I think obviously exceptions to the rule.

Speaker 1:01:16 Yeah.

Speaker 1:01:16 And-

Speaker 1:01:16 But I feel like when you are selling to a more mature market like US, you tend to be very self-critical, and you tend to take safe decisions.

Speaker 1:01:24 Exactly, exactly. I think-... being as naive as we are and being [chuckles] literally not knowing better has sometimes been a good thing for us, because we sometimes just make the decisions and run with it. Sometimes we may have to backtrack, but yeah, it's, it's good because I think the best learning happens when you make some mistakes along the way. And so far, it's been working out really well for us. I think people really appreciate that there is something that kind of stands out about us, whether it's the terms, the way we brand, the way we present ourselves on social media. All of those things have worked in our favor so far.

Speaker 1:01:57 I-- The last part, I wanna talk to you about, uh,

Speaker 1:02:01 the ecosystem at IIT Madras. You have, uh, uh, you have been able to sort of benefit from it quite, and now you're saying, "You know," you said, "We, we want to make sure that everybody understands that IIT Madras is a great place to build," best place to build, sorry-

Speaker 1:02:14 100%.

Speaker 1:02:15 Best place to build.

Speaker 1:02:16 Best place to build.

Speaker 1:02:16 Um, can you tell us, in specific, some of the things that maybe wouldn't have happened if you were not here?

Speaker 1:02:23 Very good question. I think one thing for sure is making it clear to us that entrepreneurship is a safe bet very early on, right? Because the general narrative is, is that, like, startups are risky. To an extent they are. That is true. But I think from day one, the messaging insti gave us through institutions like Nirmaan was always, "You can give it a shot. It's not make or break." Like, it's not like your life ends if you decide to spend a few years trying to build something of your own. That narrative building was super helpful, and like all of the benefits Nirmaan has to offer, right? I think the biggest benefit, of course, is the peer group. Like, I found my co-founders and other super motivated, uh, founders building things of their own. That peer group is extremely important, especially early on in, like, keeping yourself motivated and navigating challenges together. That peer group is something we found at Nirmaan. Uh, besides that, professors, like I was saying, Professor Rupesh, uh, other professors in my department, everybody's supportive in their own way, whether it's helping you figure out how do you lessen your load on academics, for example, because you're trying to pursue this thing full-time. So they'd help us in terms of getting like, uh, credits as like, uh, projects basically, where we could just present Desklamp as a project. I did my entire B.Tech project, in fact, as Desklamp and just showed them exactly what we'd built, and they really appreciated it. So in lots of little ways, IITM adds up, whether it's like official processes or even unofficial things like that students run on their own. Everything comes together to create this ecosystem where you can just focus on what's important, basically. Like, there's no distraction, there's no excuse you need to make that, "Hey, this thing is not working out," or, "There's something else I have to do." You can just apply 100% of yourself in building the company or, like, whatever you want to build.

Speaker 1:04:07 Sure. Um, can you tell us a little bit in detail... I mean, uh, we didn't touch upon it earlier, but now you spoke about Nirmaan.

Speaker 1:04:14 So what is Nirmaan? And-

Speaker 1:04:16 Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1:04:16 Uh, yeah, what is it this you're talking about?

Speaker 1:04:19 Yeah, so Nirmaan is IITM's pre-incubation cell.

Speaker 1:04:22 What is a pre-incubation?

Speaker 1:04:22 Pre-incubation cell is, uh, basically to allow students to take ideas or projects and try to turn them into a company with some support from the institution. So the two main ways that support manifests is in giving us a space to work, so which is, in fact, in the building we're working in now, as far as I know. Uh, and the second is some amount of funding so that you're not blocked by the very basics of getting your, uh, you know, setup up and going, right? Whether that's machines for, like, developing software, or if you're building like a more deep tech idea, you need some equipment or some processes to run that you need to pay for, Nirmaan will help you with that to a-

Speaker 1:05:00 Fair enough. I mean, when you are starting up, even in, uh, even a small AWS bill can feel like-

Speaker 1:05:05 Exactly. So partnerships with AWS for credits, like Nirmaan gave us, like, $25,000 of credits, which was super helpful. Just so that, again, you're not worrying about the things that you shouldn't be worrying about. You should just focus on what you actually have to build. And again, because it's like a cohort-based program, you're with other really motivated students who may not even be your batchmates. Like, we had MS scholars, PhD scholars, or junior seniors. So a lot of varied people building varied products, but the one common thread is they're all super motivated and all trying to do this, like, to the best of their abilities. So that environment was really good. It's like this... IITM environment is already really good, and you take a subset of it of, like, people who are super motivated and just trying to build a company, that really helps. 'Cause you can- you have a sounding board to bounce off ideas. It's a very emotional journey, like trying to build a startup, so you have- you make, like, some of your best friends as well at Nirmaan.

Speaker 1:05:55 I wanna just say, reflect here a bit, that, you know, um, I feel like... By the way, coincidentally, [chuckles] I was involved in the, in the setup of CFI many years back.

Speaker 1:06:05 Oh!

Speaker 1:06:05 My final-

Speaker 1:06:06 Nice. I had no idea.

Speaker 1:06:07 And my M.Tech project was, uh, the document, the, the blueprint for CFI.

Speaker 1:06:12 Wow.

Speaker 1:06:13 Yeah.

Speaker 1:06:13 That's really cool.

Speaker 1:06:14 Really long back. It-

Speaker 1:06:15 Yeah

Speaker 1:06:15 ... I didn't get a great grade.

Speaker 1:06:17 Aw. I feel like now insti is so supportive that you would've gotten a great grade.

Speaker 1:06:21 But that doesn't matter. The, the idea that you're saying that I could do that-

Speaker 1:06:24 Right. Yeah

Speaker 1:06:24 ... Spending so much time.

Speaker 1:06:25 Exactly. You were still rewarded for your time. Like, it still made sense.

Speaker 1:06:28 Yeah.

Speaker 1:06:29 Yeah, I didn't have to focus on... Touring, we raised, amongst the three, four of us, we did, like, 150-odd credits-

Speaker 1:06:35 Yeah

Speaker 1:06:35 ... in Desklamp, which is like a quarter of a B.Tech, basically.

Speaker 1:06:38 Yeah.

Speaker 1:06:38 Which is, uh, pretty insane that they were that supportive and helped us through that also.

Speaker 1:06:43 So when, uh, students outside think that, "I will go to a place like IIT, because it's a sounding board, it's a stepping stone for me to go to Microsoft or Adobe or go to Stanford, where there's a great environment," they don't realize that it's already here.

Speaker 1:06:57 Yeah, oh, 100%. It's already here. I think that should be the main draw to come to IITM, that whatever you want to pursue, there is both the opportunity available, and most likely, someone who's also pursuing that, which is great. Like, you're never gonna be alone on that journey.

Speaker 1:07:13 Yeah, and that's, uh... Yeah, that's fantastic. It's a great point for us to stop. It was a great conversation. I'm so happy that I met you. Uh, I think, um,

Speaker 1:07:20 youngest guest on-

Speaker 1:07:22 Yeah, that's a nice little... [chuckles]

Speaker 1:07:24 Yeah. Do you want to, um... Because, I mean, maybe we touched upon it a little bit, but your two co-founders were also very young.

Speaker 1:07:30 Yeah.

Speaker 1:07:30 I think, are they younger than you?

Speaker 1:07:31 They are the same age as me.

Speaker 1:07:33 Yeah.

Speaker 1:07:33 Uh, they graduated one year later because they were in a five-year program. But yeah, they're, like, absolutely amazing. Couldn't have asked for better friends [chuckles] or co-founders.

Speaker 1:07:42 And are they also comic book nerds?

Speaker 1:07:44 Uh, not as much as me, but yeah, they're nerds in their own respective ways.

Speaker 1:07:48 And-

Speaker 1:07:48 Avatash is like a jack of all trades. Like, if you asked him what does he do to relax, he plays the violin, he plays tennis. He's, like, the perfect CEO in terms of he does everything. [chuckles] Like, he's good at everything. Uh, Neil is, uh, he comes from, like, a business background, so I really love that about him. Like, it's like, in his DNA, he negotiates. It's amazing. Like, just... So even when I have to procure software or do anything that involves negotiation with someone, even if it's hiring an employee, I just comfortably offload it to Neil, because I know, like, that's something that he just, like, excels at. Neil and I have a love of watching really bad movies, so sometimes we'll just sit and watch, like, the worst, like-

Speaker 1:08:27 Movies?

Speaker 1:08:28 Yeah. Like, we saw Deshdrohi. I don't know if you've heard.

Speaker 1:08:30 I was going to say Hum Saath Saath Hai.

Speaker 1:08:31 Hum Saath Saath Hai. Oh, no, you can go way lower than that.

Speaker 1:08:34 Oh.

Speaker 1:08:35 Hum Saath Saath Hai is rookie bad. [chuckles] They had way worse movies outside.

Speaker 1:08:39 Thank you.

Speaker 1:08:39 Yeah, that's, like, something we do often to relax. Uh, he's a pretty social guy, too, so he goes out with, like, a lot of his friends, and yeah.

Speaker 1:08:47 Sure. Thank you. Uh, thank you for coming, and thank you for sharing so much. Um-

Speaker 1:08:51 I had a lovely time.

Speaker 1:08:52 Yeah, great. Awesome. That was Prajwal. Thank you for watching The Best Place to Build podcast. Uh, as usual, like, share, subscribe. I say it every time, I'm gonna say it again till you do it: like, share, subscribe. [outro music]