I quit my job in March 2023 with 3 months of savings left to start up in the hope that I’ll raise funds in < 6months.
I started raising funds in June 2026. Only Akshay and I were there back then. Because it is obvious, you are tinkering with your idea and product. Not sure what you are upto.
After 300+ cold emails. I got replies from 80+ investors, meetings with 25-35 people, and not even 1 yes. I’ve spoken to almost all VC funds that were there in the country back then. We have been rejected left, right and centre mercilessly.
Not anyone’s fault but mine. Why would anyone want to invest in a company that had no revenue, no users, no product or not even a formal company in the first place? It was just an idea on paper with 2 idiots trying to do something.
After facing all the rejections, with none left to reject us and getting rejected twice from some funds, I decided to stop fundraising in early December 2023. I was clear on 2 things
- Build the product
- Make revenue
Akshay and I spent the next 2 years trying to solve skill based hiring in India. We always wanted to solve something around skills. We got a grant approved in September 2024 and disbursed in February 2025.
Those 18-20 months felt like hell, literally. No money to survive, clueless about the future, no team, pressure from family, time running out, EMIs to pay and debts accumulating. Too much to handle. Panic attacks became the norm, and anxiety became my dear friend. Both of us quit our jobs, not even a far sight.
We can raise funds only with revenue; to make revenue, you need a product that you can market. To market, you need a product for which you need money to build. We were stuck in a vicious loop.
So before we can go to the VCs, we need a small capital using which we can prove something with.
During my freelancing days, I was assigned to a project based out of Coimbatore. I was supposed to write an investor narrative for a large tech company. I closely interacted with their Chairman and their then CEO.
His name was Mr Mahalingam Ramasamy. He built his company from the ground up, had multiple offices throughout India and employed around 350-400 people. Spent a month working closely with them and delivered the project but they didn’t move forward with it for their own internal reasons.
I was doing all this on the side to keep Record and me alive. This was around early 2024. I had a working prototype of our product, so I asked my contractor if he could put me in touch with Mr. Mahalingam. They gave a warm intro. My intention was simple: to show our prototype, talk about our thesis, our idea, what we are up to and get his honest feedback. He was technologist, so he might have different perspectives.
Mr. Mahalingam was kind enough to give me a meeting in his Coimbatore office. On a Sunday, spent some 60 mins in his office, talking about our idea, thesis, showed our product. He gave genuine feedback and put me in touch with some people in his network. All this for a 24 y/o boy whom he had met like a month ago.
He then suggested addressing him by his first name, “Maha”. He connected me to his EA and told I can get time slots through her whenever required. Since then, every couple of months, I’d get a meeting slot with him, meet him in his office, share our progress, the status of our product and what we are up to next. I’d also give an update about how his network responded to my reach outs.
We got along really well. Apparently, we shared the same district for our respective hometowns and had some common connections too (my Appa and him). Maha would also invite me to some important events in Coimbatore where I could meet other technologists, CEOs and different stakeholders. He was generous in opening his network. All this for nothing in return.
Akshay and I were still tinkering and talking with customers mostly. We eventually ran out of money. My credit cards maxed out and all my credit exposure exhausted too. The company could survive only with a small seed capital. That entire week was brutal. I remember vividly. I had also seen companies without users, products and revenue raise a small round to tinker and experiment. So I emailed Maha in the middle of the night, a very long email, fully narrating our situation and, our conviction in what we are doing and the support we need from him.
I didn’t sleep that night. I was simply lying in bed, hoping what he would reply. Because up until then I had never spoken about funding to him, never asked for funds, nor did I know he was an active investor.
I don’t know if he read it through or not, it was that long, but he replied a week later. I was very anxious until I opened and read the email. It was one of the most joyous moments of my adult life. I felt very happy that someone was willing to show interest in investing.
It took me 2 years and 100s of rejections to get my 1st confirmation from an investor.
So now I had to do 2 things
- Create the round dynamics and start the paper work.
- Convince other investors to participate along with Maha.
I spent the next 6 months trying to find angel investors, knocking every door Maha had given access, doors that I had access to. Nothing worked out. Only rejections left, right and center again. This time I was used to it and I had some confidence in raising funds.
Meanwhile, I hired someone to do our CCD paperwork, terms and conditions of the funding round dictated and ready. Since I was not able to find other investors to participate in the round, the paperwork came to a halt.
Then the same loop, company was struggling, no revenue. But the good thing: we were experimenting and evolving fast, very fast. The team were shipping the product in rocket speed, took to market, spoke with as many people as we could. By the end of 2025, we came to a realization: Whatever we had been working on earlier would not work; for many reasons (one mainly: aggressive marketing and sales were needed) and the world for evolving faster than we had anticipated due to AI.
Finally an enterprise customer reached out to us with a requirement which was a core functionality of our product (this is a story for another day).
So, to summarise, it has been almost 8 months since Maha confirmed his investment commitment, no participating investors secured so far, product is being pivoted and still no revenue.
In Jan 2026, I was in an event in blore, after checking out my hotel in blore, I had nowhere to go and hadn’t booked my return bus tickets yet. I was loitering around the streets of Koramangala. I had already (back in cbe) texted Maha, if he was available to meet in Blore. Then, while I was booking my return bus tickets, coincidentally, Maha called me.
He told us we can meet him at Arche’s blore office the next day and another person is interested in our product. The three of us mutually agreed to meet at Arche’s office the next day. That is where I got introduced to Muthu, who serves on Arche’s board. After lunch, I got to pitch Record to both of them.
They were genuinely interested in the pivot and the direction we were taking. I showed them a product demo. They loved the product. We spoke about funding, valuation, and how to scale to the first million dollars. They shared their experience of pitching to enterprise clients, the painfully long sales cycle and how to package and pitch the product. We also found a use case for Arche’s internal teams, which is a very compelling problem to solve for large enterprises. I came back home with more confidence.
Then a couple more phone calls later, Maha and Muthu agreed to invest ₹50L at a $2Mn valuation. While they confirmed, they also told, the investments would take a little longer as they had other commitments to close. But the company desperately needed money, the team had grown to 7 people, we had vendor and infrastructure bills to pay and most importantly salaries.
So until that, both offered ₹10L, as a short term borrowing. Once the paper work and other formalities were done, they will invest the money properly into the company. What a relief it was.
This was one of my big breaks in a very long time. All this may sound like just another event for most people. But for me it is one of my fond memories in our startup journey. I’ll tell you why.
I don’t come from a financially stable family. Neither does Akshay. Both of our household incomes are zero if you subtract our incomes. Neither of our parents, own homes and are debt ridden. I didn’t go to a great school or college, I went to a 2nd or 3rd run college on the outskirts of Coimbatore, the only place my parents could afford, hardly proven anything in life, no network, no connections. Even worse is Akshay, had dropped out of college as they were not able to pay fees.
Someone whom I hardly know for <2 years, met in person 4-5 times maximum, has decided to invest a sum of amount that is more than what my parents have spent on my school and college throughtout my entire life and are valuing a company without any revenue, any traction, some users and a few enterprise pilot at a value more than the combined value of both akshay and my family’s networth put togehter isn’t normal is what I’m saying.
I’m not comparing or putting anyone higher or lower, just giving some perspectives.
Today it is a very proud moment to say Maha and Muthu are our investors. I’m not sure what they saw in me, Akshay and the team. Not sure what they expect out of us. But they have trusted us with their hard earned money. For them this could be like the nth investment, they expect a return out of us or not is an option for them. But for us, this is the one and only chance we have got. This is like the golden ticket to our pot of gold.
All this while, we thought only capital was missing from our journey. I used to say capital is like the 3rd or 4th thing you ever need to start a company. Courage is the 1st thing always.
Today I have no doubt we have access to everything. Resources, Infrastructure, a phenomenally great team, a better product, network and capital.
As you all know, the default outcomes of startups are death within the 1st 2 years. We may live or die tomorrow, I don’t know about the outcome. But what I know is even without capital, without a penny in our bank accounts, we put up a tough fight, had all the reasons to give up but didn’t, no matter what problems in home or work, we woke up and gave more than what we could ever do. Worked hard, really really hard through difficult times.
Tomorrow our customers may love our product, we may grow into a large company, other investors may participate, the team may grow, the valuation may increase, but for all this, the sole reason would be Maha and Muthu deciding to take a bet on Me, Akshay and the team.
For the bet, they have taken on us, I’ve decided not to thank them merely in words that will do no justice to the act. But to work without any distractions and create a 100x share holder wealth for everyone participating in the business.
In my longer pursuit of wealth creation, the quantum of my wealth wil be a by product of how wealthy my team and investors become in the future. Let’s see how this goes.
They have decided a “no one” like Tharun is capable of being “some one”, I’ll not disappoint them.