Shreyans Salecha

For the last 10-odd months, we've been using soaps we made ourselves, and honestly I don't think we can now ever go back to Dove, Pears, Cinthol or any other commercial soap. In the first batch, we made 40, and in the second one, 60. We gave out samples to friends and family. And everyone unanimously loved them - they asked for more but we just didn't have any. Then winter came and we couldn't make more because coconut oil, which is the base of the soap gets frozen (who would have thought). Anyway, now that it's summer time again, we got back to it. We've created 5 variants this time: 1. Kafi: an exfoliating soap made with coffee grounds, walnut shell, neem and haldi for the Saturday bath which is more a self-care ritual 2. Madhu - a nourishing soap made with coconut milk, honey and oats powder that makes you feel like you're bathing with a moisturiser 3. Sona - a brightening soap made with raw haldi, mulethi powder, rice, and orange zest to uncover the natural glow of your skin 4. Mitti - a cleansing soap made with multani mitti, neem, and aloe vera to clean all the unnecessary oil and dirt that builds up 5. Thanda - a refreshing soap made with peppermint, neem, and aloe vera that makes you feel fresh after an intense workout We use coconut oil and lye (water + caustic soda) as the base of every soap and cure it for 6 weeks. Needless to say, there are no harmful ingredients that you can't even pronounce. If you'd like to try, please let me know :)

A few weeks ago, we had two meetings with portfolio companies on the same day. With the first, we talked about really small things — how the product improved from last month, how many customers they have, why customers are using the product, how users are finding out about them. The second conversation revolved around what drove revenue growth, what the margins look like, what new products they plan to launch, which new market or channel they’ll open next. As pre-seed investors, I think we have an extremely unique vantage point. We clearly see how things change from before to after PMF — because we’re in both conversations simultaneously, often in the same week. With pre-PMF companies, most of our conversations are about reinforcing the same priorities: who are your customers, what are they using you for, how are you building the product for them. Once in a while, we push back when founders want to grow because these things aren’t fully clear. We advise them to be as lean as possible and use capital as a constraint. With post-PMF companies, the conversations are completely different. We’re asking what’s driving growth, what the unit economics look like, which markets or channels they’re expanding into next, why they’re not moving faster. We’re pushing them to elevate their constraints, not operate within them. The interesting part isn’t just that the advice is different. It’s that the energy of the conversation is different. Pre-PMF conversations are about figuring things out. Post-PMF conversations are about just keeping up. It might appear that we're being hypocrites but the tricky part of our work is giving honest inputs to our portfolio founders, which often includes asking difficult questions and challenging their perspective.

when i'm able to do samayik & go to the gym in the morning, the day already feels successful

if you want to order: upaay-soaps.vercel.app

making of madhu - our nourishing soap made with coconut milk, honey & oats powder; you'll feel like you're bathing with cream with this one!

It’s extremely rare for startups to work. When they do, founders should do all they can to scale as fast as they can. Most startups have a limited window before competition or incumbents start to catch up.

@shivambhotika very interesting take

I’m oddly amused watching Indian funds find entry points into global AI startups that have already crossed decacorn territory. As a somewhat former student of venture, it feels like this quietly assumes one thing: these companies are going to be listed soon enough that even late-stage entry can still generate meaningful returns. The acquisition math doesn’t fully make sense to me at those prices. The IPO path does. Which makes this interesting is more philosophical for the Indian ecosystem. Traditionally, local venture has been obsessed with early ownership and price sensitivity. This is almost a different way of thinking altogether: entering extremely late, underwriting public market appetite, and still being comfortable targeting a 2–3x outcome. That’s a fairly novel posture for Indian venture.

The magical and scary thing about PMF is that once you have it, there’s more demand than you can fulfil. From then on, you need to start thinking about how to elevate constraints instead of working inside them.

mad respect for people who write warm intro messages!

The hardest thing about the path to PMF is that it's not visible to outsiders. You’re iterating constantly but it’s hard to tangibly show how far you’ve come. That external pressure pushes some founders to convince themselves they have PMF when they don’t.

getting a claude max plan might be a better investment than SIPs rn

You need 9.6 Crores to become a dollar millionaire in India The same number used to be 6.9 Crores in 2019

workingtheorys has got to be an all-timer blog name

never understood why investors soft-pitch their portfolio companies socially; bloody act like you have real interest

MOIC is perception, DPI is reality

if you don't have five terminals open with claude code running, you are ngmi

@vatsal_sanghvi 😂😂 also those married but not founders

and then there are founders who are not married

there are founders who are married to the problem. there are founders who are married to the solution. there are founders who are married to the market. there are founders who are married to the target user.

The most difficult part of before vs after PMF is psychological. On the path to PMF, you’re constantly iterating but it’s hard to tell how far you’ve come. The progress made internally isn’t visible to outsiders. However, there’s always external pressure — from investors, from the ecosystem, sometimes from within — to make it more tangible. This pushes some founders to convince themselves they have PMF when they don’t. I understand why. PMF is genuinely hard to achieve. When some things start working — some customer pull, some early retention — there’s a temptation to interpret that as PMF and move towards growth. But PMF is three things at once: product, distribution, and unit economics. One or two isn’t enough. It has to be all three, and you'd always feel we're almost there so it's important to be brutally honest. Then PMF arrives. And things flip completely. From having to stay small to needing to grow bigger. From working with limited capital to getting all the resources you can. From doing everything yourself to building teams and functions. The same instincts that helped you achieve PMF — staying lean, being careful, not overcommitting — can become restrictive to growth. The magical and scary part is that there’s so much demand the startup simply doesn’t have resources to fulfil it. Most founders try to grow within those constraints instead of trying to elevate them. They still grow fast — but sometimes not as fast as they potentially could. The only way to navigate the transition is through great self-awareness about what the startup needs from you — and the willingness to adapt accordingly.

We've found ourselves repeatedly telling founders: don't try to grow too quickly, have a tight control over burn. If you get this wrong, you're likely to run out of money before you have PMF.