Best Place To BuildRaw and Real: Tarun Mehta on his IIT Madras days, NOT doing MBA & founding Ather Energy | BP2B S2E18
CHAPTERS
Gaming, comics, and a low-pressure childhood that built strategic instincts
Tarun recalls growing up in Ahmedabad with early access to good computers through his dad’s business, spending most of his time on strategy games and comics rather than sports or coaching. He frames this phase as “doing the bare minimum” academically while getting deeply absorbed in long-horizon, systems-style games.
- •Heavy exposure to computers at home; gaming as the main hobby
- •Strategy games (Age of Empires, SimCity, Rollercoaster Tycoon, etc.) vs. FPS mindset
- •No early tuition/coaching; minimal academic effort but solid performance
- •Comics culture (Indrajal, Phantom, Mandrake) and curiosity-driven learning
- •Early pattern: invest free time into deep interests rather than structured grind
Choosing IIT Madras Engineering Design and adapting to Chennai
He explains how rank constraints and fear of coding/electronics nudged him toward Engineering Design at IIT Madras, which sounded closer to mechanical/automotive. Once in Chennai, he acclimatized quickly and loved the campus, culture, and environment.
- •JEE rank shaped options; Engineering Design looked like “closest to mechanical”
- •Department positioning (automotive/robotics/biotech) influenced choice
- •Counseling-era faculty interactions mattered in decision-making
- •Chennai transition was smooth; little homesickness
- •IITM campus and lifestyle helped him settle comfortably
Early campus projects and the truth about “entrepreneurship” back then
Tarun recounts pitching early campus projects (e.g., hostel beautification/fountain idea) and being involved with C-TIDES/E-Cell. He challenges the neat retrospective narrative: much of that era’s “entrepreneurship” activity was closer to resume-building and MBA preparation than real company-building.
- •Spirit of Engineering/early project culture and experimentation
- •C-TIDES/E-Cell work focused on case studies, events, and management track
- •Belief then: entrepreneurship = MBA + senior corporate job
- •Transparent take: dots didn’t “connect” the way stories suggest later
- •Campus roles often served as resume signals rather than builder training
Stanford week: the mindset shift from management ambition to value creation
A one-week Stanford exposure becomes the pivotal catalyst—seeing students casually building startups and creating value without institutional backing. It filled a mental gap: entrepreneurship is possible for students, not just large organizations with hierarchy and permission.
- •Stanford trip reframed what entrepreneurship means
- •Living around student founders made “starting up” feel normal and achievable
- •Realization: you don’t need an organization/army to create value
- •Post-Stanford disillusionment with purely event-driven E-Cell activities
- •Shift toward “building” (CFI-like mindset) rather than resume signaling
Ather begins as an energy obsession: Stirling engines and going deep, not wide
Tarun and Swapnil adopt the name “Ather Energy” and spend years focused on a single deep technical idea—Stirling engines—rather than chasing many startup concepts. He explains the Stirling engine concept, why it felt promising, and how they tried (and often failed) to attract others to stick with them long-term.
- •Ather name originated with Swapnil; energy as the long-term theme
- •Stirling engine basics: external combustion, efficiency potential, flexible heat sources
- •Weekly deep work in IIT library; learning-first approach
- •Attempted recruiting classmates; few persisted for long
- •Early founder pattern: pick one idea, go deep for years
Final-year reality check: placements, MBA dreams, and the Harvard interview crash
Despite entrepreneurial exposure, Tarun still pursued conventional success: top jobs, consulting, and an MBA path. A disastrous Harvard 2+2 interview and weaker-than-hoped placement outcomes forced a harsh reassessment—value creation felt real, but the bridge to financial security was unclear.
- •Consulting/MBA as the “default” success path for many IIT grads
- •Harvard 2+2 interview trip (parents funded) ended badly; emotional low point
- •McKinsey/ITC expectations vs. placement outcomes and uncertainty
- •Mechanical engineering jobs seen as a career dead end in that era
- •Key lesson: you don’t need “permission” or a brand-name org to create value (but monetization was still fuzzy)
Early jobs, free time, and the first EV: learning by being the customer
After graduating, both founders take engineering jobs, but Tarun uses the free time to explore EVs hands-on. He buys a slow electric scooter, returns to IITM labs on weekends, reads obsessively about batteries, and starts structured customer discovery by contacting EV owners online.
- •Using “free time” intentionally as a recurring theme in his life
- •Bought a cheap electric scooter to experience real user pain firsthand
- •Weekend access to IITM lab via professors; using campus as a thinking bubble
- •Market research by finding EV owners/reviewers online and interviewing them
- •Parallel tracks: build battery packs + talk to customers + ride EV daily
Quitting to build: moving back to IITM labs and formalizing Ather (2013–2014)
Swapnil resigns suddenly and moves to Chennai; Tarun follows after a key moment—being asked to sign permanent employment papers. With limited “golden handcuffs,” they accept the downside and commit full-time, registering Ather in 2013 and sharpening conviction through deep research and industry conversations.
- •Swapnil’s decisive resignation triggered the full-time commitment
- •Professors provided early hosting/support; lab became the company’s base
- •Middle-class risk calculus: limited downside with modest salaries/savings
- •Company registered in Oct 2013; early focus still on battery packs
- •Conviction built via extensive reading + customer interviews + industry meetings
Battery swapping to full scooter: prototyping, architectural truth, and the 2015 pivot
Ather initially bets on swappable battery packs and even raises early funding on that promise. Prototyping vehicles revealed engineering and use-case mismatches, leading to a strategic pivot away from swapping toward a fully integrated EV scooter approach—one of the few major pivots Tarun says they made.
- •Started as a swappable battery pack company; swapping was the early ‘religion’
- •Built vehicle prototypes similar in spirit to later Ather scooters
- •Engineering + use-case realities weakened the swapping thesis
- •Pivot away from swapping around 2015; focus shifts to consumer scooter experience
- •Tarun frames it as an architectural pivot more than constant strategy churn
Ather’s “research + tech DNA”: deep reading, obvious-in-hindsight decisions, and Tesla study
Tarun argues many Ather decisions weren’t “bold bets” internally—they felt obvious because of heavy homework. He describes studying Tesla’s technical choices, battery economics, and business-unit economics, and how this shaped Ather’s conviction in cost curves, margins, and software-first architecture.
- •Founder habit: read deeply before committing; force conviction
- •Studied Tesla architecture (cells, connected vehicle choices, charging)
- •Economic reasoning: material costs + scale drive battery price declines
- •Belief in EV unit economics and margin potential vs. ICE comparables
- •Company culture shaped around depth of thinking and technical rigor
Community-led go-to-market: open houses, forums, and the Chennai store story
Ather cultivated a nerdy early adopter community through open houses inspired by how Uber built grassroots momentum. The Chennai expansion became a defining moment: dozens of Bangalore customers traveled (with their scooters) to support the launch, reinforcing a culture of transparency, feedback loops, and customer closeness.
- •Open houses as both marketing and real-time feedback mechanism
- •Forum-first community building; low fear of being copied
- •Chennai launch: ~50 customers traveled from Bangalore; multiple events over two days
- •Customers showcased as ambassadors; brand trust built via authenticity
- •This episode ‘rewired’ team DNA around communication and customer love
Building everything: supply chain, software, dashboard, standards, and manufacturing from scratch
Tarun explains why Ather built so much in-house: many components, standards, and testing protocols didn’t exist in India at the time. This clarity—if it doesn’t exist, build it—kept teams aligned, reduced early attrition, and sustained a builder culture through the pre-launch years.
- •In-house tablet/dashboard, software stack, and vehicle connectivity
- •Designed battery pack lines, charging approaches, and testing protocols without local templates
- •Little “off-the-shelf” ecosystem; forced vertical integration by necessity
- •Clear daily purpose: if you can’t buy it, build it
- •Strong focus reduced management overhead and early employee churn
Competition pressure: losing ground, clarifying strategy, and the software feature sprint
Rather than changing Ather’s identity, competition forced sharper clarity on what they truly believed. Tarun describes resisting premature low-cost products due to cost structure realities, while also admitting they accelerated software feature development when competitors (notably Ola) pushed the market narrative.
- •Competitive intensity stripped away internal ‘should we/shouldn’t we’ debates
- •Decision to not chase unsustainable 90K scooters without capital and cost readiness
- •Roadmap pragmatism: align pricing moves with battery/electronics cost curves
- •Software pivot (2022–2023): expand feature set aggressively to match market expectations
- •Post-sprint correction: return focus to retention, usage, and quality of experience
Fundraising near-miss and the Sachin Bansal check that saved Ather (plus IPO reflections)
Tarun recounts a desperate 2014 fundraising period when Ather was weeks from running out of money. A last-minute meeting with Sachin Bansal led to an offer to anchor the entire round, quickly followed by a second investor split—creating a lifeline he credits with saving the company; he also notes the IPO was modestly subscribed but execution improved afterward.
- •Cold-emailing founders for feedback during tough fundraising
- •UB City rejection moment; immediate outreach to Sachin led to same-day meeting
- •Sachin’s condition: invest only if allowed to do the whole round
- •The ‘25 lakhs ask’ turning into a much larger anchored round (with Vineet joining)
- •IPO nuance: low subscription vs. post-IPO performance improvements
Co-founder dynamics, independent thinking, and what makes a good builder
He describes his partnership with Swapnil as complementary rather than similar—shared vision, different approaches. Tarun advises founders to form independent convictions in a ‘cocoon’ before consuming too much startup advice, and he distinguishes between builders who build for joy vs. builders who build toward a specific outcome.
- •Swapnil + Tarun: complements, not clones; healthy disagreement with shared vision
- •Early ‘cocoon’ in IITM: philosophizing to build original frameworks
- •Warning: don’t outsource your thinking to essays/podcasts too early
- •Two builder archetypes: build-for-building vs. build-for-purpose/vision
- •Startup fit: vision-driven builders should start up; pure builders may thrive better in uninterrupted build environments
Closing reflections: parenting traits from startups and final thoughts
In a personal close, Tarun says entrepreneurship is intertwined with his identity but credits startups for strengthening patience, humility, and optimism. He frames optimism as especially valuable for parenting and ends with brief closing remarks and gratitude.
- •Startup impact: patience, humility, optimism
- •Optimism as a core founder trait that helps in parenting
- •Hard to separate personal DNA from startup DNA due to early start
- •Invitation to return to IIT Madras and reconnect with campus
- •Podcast wrap-up and closing thanks
