Mukesh Manda

everyone wants to feel “in the know” on ai. few actually touch the tools. but you don’t learn to swim by debating water temp - you jump in. into the deep end. last weekend with Code with AI, 🥃 Agrim Singh and i taught a room full of ppl who never touched code before. folks who usually build skyscrapers 🏢 or theme parks 🎢 suddenly building software. and here's the thing: being “in the know” about ai means accepting that it’s MESSY. you’re going to npm install the wrong thing. you’ll get stuck in infinite loops. you’ll feel like you've been dropped into an alien world 👽 with no language to describe your bug. but that discomfort is necessary if you want to speak from real experience instead of empty speculation. because only builders don't put ai on a pedestal - they know it intimately, flaws and all: - when you pollute your context window and the model hallucinates - when a single missing sentence in a prompt derails your entire chain - when you ask ai to do 10 things at once and it does all 10 badly - when the limits of ai mirror the limits of human cognition - rendered in code and only by building (and breaking, and rebuilding) do you truly live the real power of these tools - not just hear it echoed in panel debates. and yet our students shipped anyway: - an ios app to track stools (yes... 💩 ) - a singapore transit optimizer factoring weather, distance, and price - one person even built 12 apps in 24 hours (shoutout Jelili Odunayo Kazeem!!) this is what “exposure to ai” actually looks like: messy, hard, exhilarating. if you want to dive into the deep end too, waitlist for the next Code with AI class is in the comments.

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A startups journey is defined in these 3 stages: A. 0 to 1 B. 1 to 10 C. 10 to forever. But for the team, the journey is between those stages, not in those stages. When you reach at 1, you have to move from A to B. Moving A to B requires changing gears. It is very very difficult. Lot of failures happen during the gear change. You commit to a higher fuel consumption without immediately seeing any change in revenue. You lose a lot of your team members. You are required to unlearn-relearn a lot of things. But for the outside world you are still at 1. It's even worse when you realise that there is no clear demarcation for when you have arrived at 1. There are just symptoms. The regular growth levers stop working. Fuel efficiency goes down, there is a invisible resistance from all direction. But for the outside world you are still at 1. What helps in this situation? A set of believers, in the team and outside. Be very transparent with them. Albeit small, this set of believers is earned while you are happily running in those stages. When you may not need them at all.

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Managing a bigger team without micromanaging is harder than most founders admit. At Altrd, we ran daily stand-ups through a Google Chat group. Mornings were for “here’s what I plan to do.” Evenings were for “here’s what I did.” It worked beautifully, until the team grew. Then it turned noisy, messy, and impossible to track. I couldn’t read every message. I couldn’t chase every update. And honestly, I shouldn’t have to. So we built our own AI Product which was a dashboard connected directly to Google Chat. It gave us three simple lenses: Overview: Company health at a glance that included active projects, on-hold work, completed tasks, leave schedules. People: A snapshot per person -workload, active tasks, alerts when someone’s stuck too long. Projects: Timelines showing who’s doing what, how long it takes, and where profitability stands. This single tool gave us what endless check-ins couldn’t: visibility without micromanagement. Autonomy for the team. Confidence for me as a founder. If you’ve faced the same challenge, how did you solve it? And if you’re curious, I’d be happy to share what we built.

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Ever watched your startup go from calm to chaos in 48 hours? 48 hours ago, Kartik and I thought we had steady growth figured out. Nothing crazy, just consistent users. Boy, were we wrong. Today? Our servers are literally melting 🔥 Yesterday alone, Omnara processed 30,000+ messages. Our single cloud instance? OBLITERATED. We had to emergency scale to FIVE Render instances just to stay online. The catalyst? One Hacker News post hit #2 and triggered an avalanche. Lessons from our first viral moment: → Always have a scaling plan (we definitely didn't) → Server costs can 10x overnight (painful lesson) → Community-driven growth is incredibly powerful Easily the wildest 48 hours of our startup journey. Want to see what caused all the chaos? Check out our open-source repo: https://lnkd.in/gJjjGtVc

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Yesterday I got asked the most popular question: What’s the fastest way to grow a SaaS startup? Answer, just 3 simple things. 1. Raise millions dollar Before writing a single line of code. 2. Hire a 20-member team Before getting your first customer. 3. Spend on billboards and fancy branding Before revenue. And congraculations, Your startup is selected for “How to go bankrupt faster then expected." With, 1. $00000 in depth 2. 25 employees salary to pay. 3. Great branding which noone like. Just kidding, 😂 Here’s my real answer Building a SaaS startup isn’t about shortcuts. It’s not about speed. And it’s definitely not about the destination. But it’s a journey Between the founder and the market. Which begins with identifying the problem. And ends with delivering the right solution. And everything in between? It’s just market testing the founder - For his vision. - For his purpose. - For his patience to build. So, SaaS founders remember. Don't look forward to destination, Before you have start enjoying The Journey of to be. (Other wise, you will be soon get, welcome to bankruptcy club of SaaS)... 😂 P.S. Would you like to get membership in Bankruptcy club ! If so, comment down to get added.... 😂

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A startup approached us last month. Amazing product, solid team, growing revenue. But every investor they pitched said the same thing: "Come back when you've restructured." Their mistake is they registered as a Partnership Firm instead of a Private Limited Company. This single decision cost them 8 months and multiple funding opportunities. Most founders think registration is just paperwork. It's actually your first strategic funding decision. In India, you have four main options when registering your startup: → Private Limited Company (PLC) → Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) → Partnership Firm → One Person Company/Sole Proprietorship But only three are eligible for Startup India benefits. And among those three, only one gets funded fast. Private Limited Companies dominate funding conversations for good reason: ⤷ Angels and VCs prefer PLCs because equity deals are straightforward ⤷ Share issuance makes ownership transfer clean and legally recognized ⤷ Exit strategies through acquisitions or IPOs become seamless ⤷ DPIIT recognition unlocks government seed funds ⤷ 3-year tax exemption under Section 80IAC ⤷ Access to ₹10,000 crore Fund of Funds scheme LLPs work well for service-based startups. They offer partnership flexibility with limited liability protection. Compliance is easier than PLCs, and tax treatment can be more favorable. But funding becomes complicated ⤷ No share structure means complex profit-sharing agreements ⤷ Most VCs avoid LLPs due to ownership transfer issues ⤷ Due diligence takes longer as investors review partnership structures ⤷ Exit options are limited compared to PLCs Partnership Firms face the biggest funding challenges ⤷ No limited liability protection puts personal assets at risk ⤷ Equity structures confuse institutional investors ⤷ Most angels and VCs simply stay away ⤷ While eligible for Startup India benefits, funding success is rare One Person Companies and Sole Proprietorships aren't even eligible for Startup India benefits. Funding options are extremely limited, making them unsuitable for startups planning to scale. Registration type affects your entire funding journey Smart founders register as PLCs from day one. Even if you're not ready to raise funds immediately, having the right structure saves months later. Converting from Partnership to PLC mid-journey is expensive: ⤷ Legal restructuring costs ⤷ Tax implications during conversion ⤷ Potential valuation complications ⤷ Time delays when funding is urgent Your registration roadmap Building a tech startup with scale plans? → Private Limited Company Running a service business with no immediate funding needs? → LLP initially, but plan conversion Any intention of raising external capital? → Avoid Partnership Firms Remember, your business structure isn't permanent, but changing it later costs time and money. Your registration choice today determines your funding speed tomorrow. #startups #funding #debtfund

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𝐆𝐓𝐌 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐅𝐒𝐈 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 And if you’re building in India, you quickly realize: it’s less about speed and more about understanding how things actually move. 1. There’s no single buyer. Product might love you, but Ops is risk-averse. Compliance wants a legal opinion. Tech wants infra docs. Everyone has veto power, and timelines don’t move till all green lights align. 2. Bottom-up sounds democratic, but is painfully slow. You find a champion, you do a free POC, you show result, and still nothing moves. Because decision-making sits way higher. And often, the folks you start with aren’t even in the room when final calls are made. 3. Top-down works better - if you can get in. Senior leaders care about org-wide impact and risk savings. If your pitch solves a board-level problem, you skip 6 layers of internal selling. Otherwise, you’re just another tool in the pile. 4. Security, infra, and compliance are not “later” conversations. If you’re not enterprise-ready from Day 1, most BFSI players won’t even let you inside the building. 5. Everyone’s overloaded. The risk lead is doing 3 roles. The Ops lead is managing 10 vendors. If your solution isn’t dead simple to understand - and implement - they’ll thank you and never call back. This is a market that tests your GTM clarity more than your tech Get it right, and you build deep moats. Get it wrong, and you waste a year chasing the wrong door. #AI #Founderslife

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We tried to shut down our startup, Lighthouse. But after two months of steady inbound acquisition and takeover interest, we’ve decided to turn the lights back on. The cash acquisition offers we received ranged from $5K–$25K (some within 24 hours of announcing a shutdown). While flattering, they felt too small to execute on. We didn’t want to get distracted from building our new business (Velora), and deep down we knew Lighthouse might still have a bigger opportunity if the business was positioned another way. Now that the new business is in market, we had the time to carefully evaluate the inbound interest. The conclusion: it makes sense to keep Lighthouse alive, but with a completely new setup. Instead of chasing a broad U.S. go-to-market, we’re going small: 1) Start with the south shore of Massachusetts 2) Work with well-known local youth coaches who can onboard the athletes they’re already developing 3) Layer in one or two pros, rather than dozens 4) Build it to be sustainable from day one, operated like a business-builder spinout by a fresh team The interesting part..? All of this - launching, shutting down, relaunching while simultaneously building something else would have been impossible a few years ago. But in this new era, the speed of experimentation is on a whole new level. Such a fun time to build!

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