How did I find my Co-Founder?

In 2020, I decided to relaunch an IT company with a focus on a specialized field as opposed to continuing our 2014-founded freelance business. Even though since 2014 we have completed over 300 fixed-cost jobs and about 100,000 hours of freelancing, I was not happy. It's so simple to be a so-called "CEO" in the IT business these days—all you need is a laptop and various accounts on freelance platforms, which you may even open under family names 😂.

But, I've always wanted to start an IT company rather than a freelancing agency. To get knowledge and explore more from other like-minded entrepreneurs across various sectors, I joined BNI Global Surat Region.

There I met Dhaval Vansadia at a chapter meeting a few weeks later. He had a technical background, came from the textile industry, and had expertise in D2C brand consulting.

He is very enthusiastic about networking and enjoys building new connections. We met at our office and after an hour-long discussion, he hired us for a project, and we created an ERP system for his business. that's how he became our first client out of a freelancing portal.

After a year of collaboration, he made the difficult decision to leave his company, which he had invested both money and heart in for eight years. Despite this, we remained close friends and nurtured our relationship.

He spoke to me over the phone one day, "Jatin, what are you doing? This Friday, if you have time, let's get together at your workplace. I miss having coffee from you."

Well, then, why not?

We had coffee together on Friday and during a conversation, he asked "Jatin, Why do most IT companies in Surat fail to become multimillion-dollar companies?"

After an hour-long conversation, I asked him, "If you think you are ready again, let's build Sarvadhi a multimillion-dollar company that would run for years and years, with or without us!"

And he responded, "YES!"

That's how I met my co-founder Dhaval, who serves as Director of Sales and has been in charge of sales since January 2024.

It proved that huge dreams, trust, and a cooperative mindset of mutual growth can all lead to the creation of a great company.

Dhaval Vansadia, welcome to the team. I'm looking forward to working with you after working for you.

If someone asks me if BNI has been helpful, my response is: Indeed, it's worth exploring if you're willing to be flexible and know how to make the most of your network—both for business and for making new friends in different fields.

I met my co-founder, Deepak Bhuvneshwari Uniyal, in the year 2019. They had been working on this idea for more than a year and after testing waters and solving a few cases operationally they were looking for someone who could build the technology for this. After meeting more than 35 candidates from the network and job portals, they got my reference through a common connection. 

I had failed in my first start-up but once an entrepreneur always remain an entrepreneur. The conversation happened and we sort of clicked and the rest is history.
 
The discussion was very simple. My CEO just explained to me the concept and what they were looking for from the candidate. The idea looked challenging and I just bought into it. 

As my role (CTO) was the only one for which they were looking for an individual so it was pretty clear from day one.

Let me tell you a story that seems almost too good to be true. My name is Bhavesh, and this journey starts with a simple meeting that felt like fate. In 2019, in Ahmedabad, at a networking event by Patel Business Network, I met another Bhavesh -

Bhavesh Korat

. We both believed in doing good for others, and that’s what brought us together.

We quickly realized we shared more than just a name; we had a common dream. So, in 2020, with a small team of six, we started Brands.live. Our goal was pretty straightforward: help small businesses in India make a name for themselves without breaking the bank.

The idea was to make branding simple and accessible. We wanted every small business owner to have the chance to tell their story, to stand out, and to grow. It felt like everything just clicked into place as we worked on this.

Now, looking back, it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. We’ve faced challenges, sure, but our belief in our mission has kept us going. We're not just building a company; we're hoping to inspire a whole community of entrepreneurs.

Our roles also complement as

Bhavesh Korat

  manages the Tech, Finance, and sales, I manage Content and Marketing.

My co-founder Phani and I met while we were working together in our erstwhile employer, HDFC Bank, we were a part of the same team managing strategic accounts for the bank.

In Dec'2020, when the bank's servers had an prolonged issue and merchants started asking us to route transactions to other payment gateways, Phani and I had long discussions on while we can not do this as bank employees, we can certainly do this as a Fintech TSP for businesses. Thus, PayAid was founded.

While both of us bring in completely different mindsets and skill sets to the business, we decided early on what the roles and responsibilities of both of us would be. Phani manages Tech and finance, and I manage sales and alliances with payment gateways and banks.

Pranav and I, co-founders of Global Vistar, are childhood friends and partners. Fast forward to 2020, fresh out of college, we stepped into the start-up world with a bunch of friends. After facing the uncertainties in the ideation stage, our friends chose conventional careers. But Pranav and I were gritty enough to stay. 

In 2021, we started with an e-commerce platform for good foods. However, the real struggle of the food manufacturers was distribution rather than e-commerce exposure. That realization pivoted our course, and Global Vistar was born.

Our roles naturally unfolded as we faced challenges - Pranav, has a keen eye for execution, and I, have a strategic approach. This creates a harmony of action and vision at Global Vistar. 

We have been starting up for four years. Today, Global Vistar is at its early stage looking for early traction for its MVP. 

From thick and thin, our perspectives, patience, camaraderie, and resilience as co-founders have only grown stronger.

Let me take you back to where it all began - how I crossed paths with my co-founders, Bharat and Vipul. We were buddies who embarked on our entrepreneurial journey in 2011 with our SAAS venture, "Depasser Infotech," where we dabbled in tech services. Fast forward to 2016, the eCommerce scene picked up pace, and we decided to dive into that realm alongside our existing venture. However, navigating the eCommerce landscape proved challenging, especially with the logistical hurdles we encountered. During this time, Vipul reached out to his friend Paresh, who had a wealth of experience in logistics, seeking advice on our predicament. The more we delved into it, the more apparent it became that many others in the eCommerce sphere faced similar issues.

That's when Paresh brought Nikul into the fold, leveraging his expertise in logistics and finance. In 2017, the five of us came together to launch iThink Logistics. We each brought something unique - Vipul's strategic acumen, my knack for communication, Bharat's tech savviness, Paresh's operational prowess, and Nikul's financial wizardry. With a shared vision to transform eCommerce logistics, iThink Logistics was born.

Today, we proudly stand with over 10,000+ eCommerce brands, providing them with a one-stop solution for all their logistics needs.

So, back in 2019, I just tagged along with a buddy of mine because he had this meeting about some Women 4.0 ML workshops happening across India. Honestly, I wasn't all that into it; just wanted a quick way to hitch a ride to LD BRTS and head home. But then, things took a turn.

We met this guy who was all pumped about organizing the event. They were chatting away about plans and execution, and there I was, just hanging. I had a bunch of ideas popping into my head, but I kept quiet. Then they shifted gears to talking about growing their community, and I couldn't help myself—I just blurted out my two cents on how design and branding could really make a difference. That's all I really knew back then.

Turns out, this sparked a whole new conversation, and before I knew it, I was deep in discussion with Tirth, who was running this Instagram community with over 18K followers. We met again the next day, and bam, we were on the same wavelength, dreaming big about starting our own thing in the ed-tech space, which was pretty fresh at the time. We quickly cooked up MAD—short for Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Science. Fast forward six months, we were teaching over 300 students and had made some good cash. But then, COVID hit, and everything just fell apart. We had our share of clashes and decided to call it quits.

Fast forward again, two years later, I hit Tirth up out of the blue, thinking we should give it another shot. This time we launched HYPR, aiming to shake up the ed-tech scene. But turns out, the timing was off; the market wasn't looking for another ed-tech player. So, we had to pivot from that too.

Now, we're onto something new called YOMO. 

YOMO is a user insights platform that enables product teams to build better customer-centric products by going beyond basic analytics. It's been quite the ride, from a random meetup to launching not one, but two startups, facing setbacks and still pushing forward. If you told me back in 2019 that tagging along for a ride would lead to all this, I'd have laughed. But here we are, proof that sometimes the smallest decisions can lead you to places you never imagined.

 My co-founder is my mother and has been an inspiration for me always, we started this business in covid as we did not have any source of income.

We were having tea in our flat balcony and decided that to run our house we will have to start something from home.

Each co founder should do what they love and where their interest lies and give their 100% in it. With division a fluid structure is always important to learn what happens in the other departments.

Taniya Biswas

and I are sisters – we met when she was born (since she is younger to me)! But the decision to become co-founders was made roughly a decade ago. We toyed with a few ideas before finally founding Suta in 2016.

Before co-founding Suta, Taniya (Ta) and I were both passionate about creating a venture of our own, which would serve the greater good. We both let go of lucrative corporate jobs, driven by this vision and our passion for meaningful change. Suta was born of our own nostalgic love for cotton sarees – those worn by the womenfolk in our homes. 

We wanted to bring back sarees into the mainstream as versatile garments for everyday wear, instead of being relegated to pujas and festivities alone. That’s how Suta came to be. 

Today, we’re focused on reviving heirloom Indian crafts through our products and finding them audiences across India and even internationally. Our motto is to ensure that the weavers and artisans we work with (17,000+) have a regular source of income, the means and motivation to pursue their crafts, and do not have to migrate from their ancestral homes to larger cities in search of work.

As co-founders, we follow a very fluid process and both of us jointly undertake our responsibilities. We believe that we work best when we work together, and that our two minds are better than either by itself. That said, I am better with more analytical processes and decisions, while Ta is a creative minefield. 

I met my co-founder, Tuhin in 2008 at The National Institute of Design. At NID we teamed up for projects, eventually falling in love, our relationship sparked a realisation to Tuhin about the lack of menstrual education and the stigma surrounding it. My personal experiences and Tuhin's newfound understanding inspired us to address this gap. Leveraging our skills in communication and user experience design, we sought to provide trustworthy and accessible information on menstruation, recognizing its potential impact not only in India but also in other countries facing similar challenges.

In India, every year 1.2 core girls reach puberty. Since periods are a taboo, 85% of these girls would follow one or more restrictive customs.

1 in every 4 girls start to miss out on her school as she starts getting her periods . When a girl misses out on her education, she goes through systematic gender discrimination throughout her life. 

Also in schools, the chapter on periods comes much after the girls have started getting their periods. And in most of the cases teachers skip the topic. As they don’t know how to go about teaching about periods and puberty to their students,

Periods are a taboo in India. Tuhin and I saw it more like a communication design problem.

Menstrupedia Comics are now available in 17 languages and are being used by more than 25,500 schools as a part of their curriculum across India. Apart from India, the books are locally printed and published in 11 countries in their local language.

Tuhin and I are fundamentally different people with distinct skill sets, but when we work together, something magical happens. It's like we're yin and yang, complementing each other perfectly. Tuhin excels in product development, being very diligent in his approach. On the other hand, I bring strong research and people skills to the table. This is how we define our roles: Tuhin takes charge of all decisions related to product development and content creation, while I handle decisions regarding marketing and sales strategies for the book.

⁠I was associated with iBall Brand since 2001 and Vikalp joined in 2008 and we did lot of projects together for 11 years.

When I discussed about the idea of making a business intelligence software with Vikalp, he immediately came to Ahmedabad from Delhi to discuss about the next steps.

Our approach to defining co-founder roles was intuitive rather than structured. Vikalp naturally gravitated towards product management due to his deep tech background and passion. Our mutual understanding was that, regardless of our individual expertise areas, we would maintain an open dialogue, challenging and questioning each other's decisions. 

This dynamic allows us to progress collectively, guided by the strong conviction of the decision-maker in any given situation.

Haripriya Bhagat

  and I met first-time as co-workers at part-time roles at the post office while studying in the UK. 

We became friends and then got married eventually. She worked in finance, and I worked in business growth roles in the UK.

We decided to launch www.indiabizforsale.com to solve issues of Indian businesses and investors during M&A to start with and then investments and more.

She looks into product/analytics/HR/Finance, and I look after business growth, investments, marketing, and more.