02/06/2026
In 2003, my furniture showroom in Pune had zero sales. I pivoted to packaged home furniture via Kanchan's Design Studio β selling a complete home furniture package at a fixed price β years before it was in fashion. My own employees ran off with the clients and the tools. The business ended. The insight didn't.
In 2013, my transport business was failing. I'd bought two trucks and driven chemical shipments across around Pune myself, just to understand the industry. That's how I saw the real problem: brokers skimming both sides, adding nothing. So I built TruckRaja.com to connect drivers directly to companies β Uber for trucks, before that was even a phrase. One crore in funding was almost in hand. Then my co-founder got cold feet, and it was over. The model went on to reshape Indian logistics. I just wasn't the one who built it.
In 2019, technology had finally killed my transcription business. A college dropout, 17 years as an "overpaid typist" β 13 years a single-digits golfer; unemployable on paper. So I sold dry fruits, store to store, by hand. One evening my wife Kanchan ate rancid banana chips and said, "When I want banana chips, I need banana chips." The demand was screaming. The supply was missing. I built a Kerala banana chip supply chain from Kochi to Pune from scratch. The pandemic nearly killed it β I lost my house and my car keeping it on the shelves.
This time, I didn't walk away.
Today Jaambu is the most successful Kerala snack brand in Pune, outselling the national players on every shelf, shipping across India.
Three pivots. Three decades. One pattern: I keep seeing markets before they arrive. Twice I was stopped. The third time, I built it to stay.
Now I want to find the next founder doing the same β the one whose shop has no sales yet, who bet everything before it was fashionable, who's going door to door right now. I'll give you my mentorship, my network, and if the idea is right, my own capital. For free.
If that's you, I'd like to find you.
β thenextamit.com