Act 1: London (c. Dec 2021)
My first boss, Diksha (I interned with her back in 2018), was in town for some meetings, and I was planning to catch up with her and her sister for dinner. She mentioned that a friend of hers might tag along. I was excited to show her around town and tell her how happy I was with my new life here.
We went for dinner, and she introduced her friend to me:
āThis is Shantanu, Founder of Bombay Shaving Company,ā she said, joking that heād convince me to move back to India and that heās a super mentor.
We laughed, we drank, we barely talked about work - and we left. I tried to stay in touch with Shantanu (I found out after dinner how successful he is), but life moved on.
Act 2: Prague (c. Apr 2023)
I had completed 2 years in Banking in London (and 4 years including my stint in India - thatās a long time in Analyst years). We were on a family holiday in Prague, and my quarterly existential crisis hit: Am I doing enough? Is what I do giving me energy?
I had always planned to build a business, but I wasnāt moving anywhere toward it.
āDiksha, how are you doing? I wanted to discuss my next steps with you.ā
I called Diksha, my go-to person when I needed career advice. She suggested I speak to Rahul, an ex-founder turned VC and her friend, about the paths I could explore.
I set up a call. He patiently listened, understood my goals, gave great clarity, and two very important things came out of that conversation:
a) He suggested that at this stage, the best thing I could do to move toward entrepreneurship was to become an āapprentice to a great founderā
b) He used Shantanu as an example of a founder he highly recommended working with
I immediately texted Shantanu asking for a call - no reply for a month.
Act 3: London Again (c. May 2023)
I had made up my mind to move back to India and find a founder I could rely on to teach me. I reached out to a bunch of names, and also to several VCs (turns out, VCs are way more likely to reply to you - in case anyone reading this is planning to apply for such roles).
Another great piece of advice Rahul gave me:
There are no openings for these roles: figure out how you can be useful, put together a one-pager, and reach out to founders. If they like you, theyāll hire you.
Things were moving, but not as fast as I wanted them to.
And then? Shantanu replied.
āSorry I missed your messageā¦ can we get on a call?ā
[Continued in next post..]
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