2024 is 50% complete

As we bid farewell to the challenges of the past, let's delve into why 2024 is poised to be a game-changer for the Indian Startups! 🚀 In 2020, the world weathered the storm of COVID, followed by unprecedented quantitative easing. We then saw that in 2021 the bull run came soaring. Investors, fueled by the appetite for riskier assets led to a funding boom for startups as salaries soared. Fast forward to 2022, and the music is about to stop. The realization that the Fed would hike rates to curb inflation means that funding is about to dry up as big money will be invested away into debt/T-Bills. Though demand remained robust, the stock market felt the impact as JPow raised the interest rates. Late 2022 and 2023 saw the tech landscape experiencing layoffs, and startups facing significant headwinds. It’s a wonder if anyone raised this year. But here's the twist—2024 looks brighter. The stock markets have rebounded to all-time highs, signaling that things may be on the rise. Despite geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and Iraq, the macro outlook for India shines bright. For Indian Startups? VC Funding is still here to stay. So keep your heads down and keep building. From what I am hearing, it is set to make a roaring comeback. There is now significant rationality in the funding ecosystem leading to realistic valuations. However, this revival will come with a plot twist. Newer companies, fueled by fresh funding, are set to rise, while most of the lofty valuations of those who raised in 2021 are about to crash and burn. So buckle up folks. Let’s see where it takes us. What do you think? 🤔

We're in the second half of 2024, so how are you doing with your goals and resolutions? - I've been journaling since 31st dec and only missed four days, so that's a W. - I've also cut my screen time from 7.5 hours to 4 hours, which I'm pretty happy about. - Saving money? Not so great—still a WIP. How about you?

Sharing frustrations with starting up a business. In my career I have raised over $30m over multiple rounds. Co-founders in non-business roles get pushed out by politics. Sharing control with co-founders is messy, inconvenient, time consuming. Money lets you hire people who have to answer to you. If you are not the main ‘Business person’ in a startup high chance you are disposable, no matter what skills you have. And it sucks to spend so much effort only to get bullied out and left with nothing. Some investors will follow you on social media, if your business is not growing QoQ don’t post anything on social media that implies you are not working every weekend. They will ask why you are not working. If you are CEO, be ready for every random person to tell you how to run your business. Not in a ‘friendly advice’ kind of way, if you are the CEO you have a target on your back. Investors don’t know about your industry or have very dated knowledge. Some will just say random tips like ‘try web3’ or ‘try SaaS’ and blame you for following their advice when it fails. Your progress is measured against fraud companies who fake numbers, or the 1 in thousands who succeed. Get made to feel like you are failing to live up to super high expectations constantly. Employees work half your hours, off sick usuall one day a week, deliver next to nothing and expect 20% hikes every year because that’s what their friends make, or they read some dumb startup hires freshers at 20LPA. Smooth talking people with the same idea as you, no traction, never shipped a product in life, will raise a huge seed round due to 'pedigree' and spend it all on self promotion. You will always be compared to these clowns who find ways to lecture others while building nothing of value.

How do i convince my manager to give release from current project if it is giving me too much mental pressure?

What's the one thing you had wanted to change / start / stop doing this year - call it resolution at the beginning of the year? How are you doing on that? I wanted to get into a better rhythm on fitness and sustain the good eating habits from last year. Where am I? After a wasted JFM quarter, did somewhat okay in Apr, May and June. July has been not too bad. Baby steps: trying to get 3-4 hours in a week for fitness. I have realised habit formation is a function of stacking. When I workout on Saturday, I want to go to the gym on Sunday too and then on Monday and Tuesday and so on.. When I miss 2 days in a row, then I degrade to saying okay, let's start on Sunday - as a fresh week. Trying to break out of that and convincing myself today is as good as Sunday. :P Definitely improved, but a long way to go. Would love to know about others here on and hope to get more inspiration. As they say, one day at a time. So do you want to wait till Jan'24? :)

How do you guys sophisticatedly explain to team and and your manager in standup that yesterday you did nothing ?

Hey guys, I am looking for people or teams that are really interested in deep diving into blockchain space (I am talking about consensus, networking, finality etc). I am planning to attend a lot of hackathons where we can build stuff and present it. If anybody knows someone who is interested or any groups that are already there, please connect me to them or share link of groups. You might be wondering why I am asking this here, honestly I didn't find any place to ask this especially in India, also I really wanted to see if people are really there who are genuinely interested in building and learning not just doing it for the sake of resume.

I take side hustle projects through friends and upwork while working my current job since the past 8 months. Work from my org barely lasts 4 hours a day if done judiciously. I’ve been making almost 1L extra per month this way and been having great performance appraisals in my org which is helping me save a ton of money. I do feel scare while doing it but intend to do it till mid of next year at the least.

People in tech are in over their heads. There’s been an unsustainable inflation in salaries and somehow 20 somethings have actually started believing their skills are worth what they’re making I speak to so many engineers who just with two years of experience are making 30-40 LPA packages. They actually believe they are better than people in say banking who make the same salary after 15 years of grinding it out. It’s all supply-demand. Supply will soon catch up to the demand. Salary normalization will happen. Your salaries may not grow for years if you don’t personally grow as well in skill set and become more valuable overall. At the least, don’t have an attitude about how much you make. Stay humble. Enjoy the good times while they are still here

My final year is starting next week. I have decided to start DSA and Dev, I am planning to build 4-6 projects and land an internship before my 8th semester ends. Do you think it is possible or is it late to do all that?