Walking Into Google India (2024)Archived

18 November 2024. Google for Startups, Bangalore.

Two ideas to show. One shot at it.

Kyoto Block

Walking in, the scale of it landed. Founders, investors, Googlers, all moving through the same building.

I handed my invite over at reception and the guard smiled and said "Good luck." A small thing, and it steadied me more than it should have.

The sessions

Aneesha Dhar opened with a keynote on startups shaping the future, and it landed harder than a keynote usually does.

Then the fireside chats. How AI is scaling coding, and zero to one journeys, with Romit Mehta among the people telling them. Listening to how other people got from nothing to something is worth more than most advice.

What I showed

I started with Gain and Shine, the first thing I built.

Then the second idea, which I am not going to write about here.

Then questions, and they were hard ones.

The people

Subramanyam Chowdary came up afterwards and said the idea reminded him of a problem he had hit the previous year. We connected immediately, and ended up getting dinner after the event. Pizza and juice, and a long conversation about what is actually hard about building something.

Later I met Ranjith Marakala, investor and founder of Niyantha.

"This space has immense potential. But how will you scale beyond individuals?"

That question stayed with me longer than any compliment did.

What it was actually for

The event was not about the pitch.

I left with feedback I could use, contacts worth keeping, and a sharper sense of what my own idea could not yet answer.

The friction was the value. The nerves that morning, the hard questions after, the investor asking the thing I had not solved. None of that is comfortable and all of it moved me forward.

Sitting in the cab home I was exhausted and completely awake.