A Day in the Life of a Startup Founder

The startup world is often characterised with rigour, unlearning, uncertainty, hustle, and a lot of long, long hours. In an essay Paul Graham, an investor and entrepreneur, outlined the qualities that Y Combinator looks for in its founders - and determination, flexibility, and imagination - were key, among others. 

A lot of founders find these entrepreneurial qualities innate in them, often due to  growing up in areas that inevitably foster this culture. Yet this leap of faith is a hard one for those whose families are not abreast with this unconventional route of success. 

Roshan Patel, CEO & founder of Arrow Payments, shared on X how despite making strides in his fundraise journey, his parents implored him for keeping his backup options open, like medicine. In another thread, he also shared his morning routine, and though it was an ironic take on a founder’s life, it struck a chord among many.  

In a viral post on X, CC Gong, an AI investor, shared a tongue-in-cheek picture of her boyfriend swamped with work on a Friday night wearing mismatched socks. 

She later followed it up with another post featuring him all cleaned up. “Hair cut, socks matched, but you should still invest, and he’s launched,” she titled it. In the weeks leading up to Y Combinator’s famous Demo Day, founders are toiling long hours, and embroiled in the race to get the perfect pitch for their final presentation in front of scores of investors. 

Not just the bay area and YC, Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India, has always been the hub for tech startups. Step into any cafe or a bar, and you are likely to overhear either a startup founder pitching his idea to a potential investor or people discussing their products with each other.

Someone correctly pointed out: If LinkedIn was a city, it would definitely be Bengaluru. The city is filled with startup founders pitching ideas to each other and doing all the work all by themselves.

Marcos Rico Peng, another CEO of a YC backed AI startup, shared a day in his life as a founder on YouTube. “Some things never change. This is my morning routine, which starts with Gym. Even though I am taking a break, I want to stay in shape.” A former athlete, Peng prioritises fitness, and tries to get in at least two sessions of work outs in his day, despite a tight schedule of work. 

Earlier this week, Karthik Sridharan, founder of Flexiple, took to X to share how in quintessential Bangalore fashion, an intern quit his job because his AI startup venture got funded. The uncertainty and surprise around a founder’s life is also a growing trend, especially when seeking investments that could completely change the course of their life.

The passion to build something bigger and better fuels this obsession for most founders.  Aadit Palicha, the 22 year old founder of Zepto - India’s leading quick commerce app - was recently named on the 2024 Hurun India Rich List. 

In a recent interview, commenting on his work-life balance, he said "I am married to Zepto. Will place a bed in our new office in Bengaluru.” Palicha, along with his co-founder Kaivalya Vohra, dropped out of Stanford University to build their dream company, Zepto. 

On work-life balance, a lot of founders concur that this line is non-existent, at least not in the early days - and that it is an all consuming passion. 

Lauren Rothwell, co-founder of a BlazeAI, talks about how the reality of being a founder is both better or worse than the general public would imagine, and there is still hope and promise in pursuing this gruelling dream. 

Yet, the story of failure is not uncommon in the startup world. In an article, Tom Eisenmann, a Harvard professor, talked about how most startups don't succeed, and more than two thirds of them don't even deliver a positive response to the investors. 

“Startups are so hard. If you’re a first time founder you’ll go through periods, sometimes spanning years, where you’ll make every rookie mistake in the book and repeatedly feel like you’re getting punched in the gut,” said Katelyn, founder & CEO, Eligible. 

She added that startup founders end up hiring the wrong people and sometimes bring on the wrong investors, or get distracted by the wrong primary customer focus and go to market strategies. “But if you can somehow just hang on through all of the disappointments. If you can learn from them and grow from them — the value a successful company creates is astonishing. Almost worth the struggle. Arguably worth more.”

There has never been a better time than now to build a startup in India. With increasing fund sizes, growing number of M&As, and the support from the government for deep tech, it is now time for every techie to put on the ‘founder mode’ hat and start building.