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The operator’s decision desk for early-stage India.
The twelve highest-leverage decisions of your first year — each one a fork most founders take by accident. Free, evergreen, and written to be argued with.
Is this problem worth twelve months of your life — and how would you know before you spend them?
Conviction is cheap; evidence is not. Before you commit a year, find the smallest test that could prove you wrong this week.
Write the sentence: “We’ll abandon this if —.” If you can’t, you’re not ready to commit; you’re ready to test.
How do two or three people divide a company they haven’t built yet — fairly enough to survive the first hard year?
The number is a symptom; the missing conversation is the cause. Answer the hard questions separately, then compare.
The four questions: who decides, what happens if one leaves at month nine, what each commits, what triggers a renegotiation.
What do you put in writing before the money and the stress arrive?
Roles, decision rights, vesting, and exits — set down while everyone still likes each other. Paper is kindness.
One page: domains of final authority, a four-year vest with a one-year cliff, and a buyback on departure.
How do you learn whether anyone wants this — without building it?
Sell it before you build it, where Indian buyers already are: a broadcast group, a manual concierge, a pre-order.
The one-week test: write the offer, put it to 50 real buyers, take money, tally rupees — not likes.
What do you charge, in a market that is a different currency — not a smaller one?
Anchor to the budget line you replace and the outcome you change — never a dollar figure divided by eighty.
Three tiers, value-aligned units, and a number tested in a real sale before it touches the site.
Who is the first person you pay — and have you earned the right to hire them yet?
Regret tracks clarity, not calibre. The role that survives is tied to demand you can already see.
Write the bet: “We’re hiring X so Y happens by Z; we’ll know we were wrong if W.” No W, no hire — decide instead.
On what instrument do you take your first cheque — and how much do you give away?
At pre-seed the priced round is now the exception; capped SAFEs let you close on a rolling basis and defer the valuation fight.
Raise to a milestone, not a number of months; model the dilution before you sign, not after.
When you’re raising “a bit more,” is it a bridge — or a slower down round?
A bridge needs a far bank: a named, fundable milestone. “More runway” is a deadline you pay interest on.
Name the metric the money buys and the likely lead of the next round, in writing, before you sign.
What does the law actually require of a two-person team collecting phone numbers?
DPDP applies from your first sign-up. The core is short and doable in an afternoon — if you do it early.
Five items: readable consent, a stated purpose, a deletion path, a named owner, a one-page breach plan.
Who owns what — and will it still make sense to the investor who diligences it in two years?
Clean beats clever. Every off-market grant and handshake becomes a question in a data room later.
Keep an ESOP pool sized to your next 18 months of hires, and no equity without vesting — advisors included.
What single number tells you whether the company is working — without lying to you?
Pick one that captures real value delivered, not activity. Vanity metrics are facts about you, not reasons for your customer.
One north star tied to a customer outcome; everything else is an input you can name, not a headline you chase.
How do you tell a pivot worth making from a sunk cost worth defending?
The hardest discipline is killing the product that technically works because the customer keeps using a different screen.
Return to the question the product was answering; if the evidence moved, move with it — fast, in public, without shame.
One pattern, one framework, one founder story. 800 words. No noise.