Kavya@kavyanarukurti
“Do things that don’t scale early on” - @paulg (Founder, Y Combinator). When I first heard this, it felt counterintuitive.
Coming from an FMCG sales background, where distribution is everything, this goes against almost everything I’ve learnt.
I didn’t fully get it until I started building @fonduecommunity
In the beginning, our events were larger.
We focused on balance, gender ratios, age groups, making sure the room “worked.”
It looked right. But it didn’t always lead to meaningful connections.
So we changed the approach.
As Likin Park would say, From Zero.
We made the events smaller. And I started getting on 1:1 calls with every single person who signed up for dating more intentionally.
Understanding:
- how they date
- what they’re looking for
- what hasn’t worked
- what actually matters (beyond surface-level answers)
Then curating tighter groups where people are far more likely to get along.
Our first curated circle in March:
6 people. 1 match.
Not bad.
But the real value wasn’t the match. It was the learning.
You start noticing patterns:
What people say vs how they show up.
What they think they want vs what actually works.
This part doesn’t scale. And it’s not supposed to.
Because the goal isn’t to stay manual.
It’s to figure out what’s worth scaling.
And that’s where this leads from manual curation to building an intelligence layer that learns from every conversation, every interaction, and helps place people into the right cohorts, getting sharper over time.
Right now, we’re building that understanding, one conversation at a time!
It’s gonna be a fun ride.
To hop on: tally.so/r/wdVRyN
P.S
Picture taken during @sanctuaryparc’s Parc your thoughts session. Love it!
@SumedhaUppal, you were right. This is indeed a dreamy picture.
