illusion of progress

The pattern I see in every student cohort, and it’s worse in the best colleges: partners, partners, partners. Incubators. Programs. Government schemes. VCs who “want to stay in touch”. A 200 person waitlist. None of it results in money.

A tier two college kid knows he’s got nothing, so he goes and sells. An IIT kid has forty things that look like progress and none of them are. If the numbers aren’t going up fast, every one of those logos is a medal. Nobody in the business world counts medals.

For every inbound: is there something concrete here? A college wants your edtech “grounded in pedagogy”? Fine, how much will they pay, or will they put it in front of their students. An edtech “partner”? Are they paying? A VC who’s “too early”? Ask them what number would make it interesting. 10 crores? 50 crores? If they can’t name a number they’re fishing, and most of them are fishing. They have a quota of founders to talk to each week.

MOUs aren’t valid. An MOU with a dollar amount is slightly better. A contract that pays on delivery is the only thing that’s real. Design partners, in India and everywhere, will love you until you ask them to pay. Then your competitor is suddenly better and they need one more feature.

Advisors don’t count either, unless the person is one of five people on earth who can do the thing. Signing up advisors because VCs will like it was a 2021 move and it didn’t work then.

And social impact is a negative signal. When I hear it I think these guys aren’t going to make it. Protocol Labs, Gitcoin, public goods funding. Zero things came out of it. Explaining a vision without credibility reduces your chances. A very micro story about one warehousing company in Texas that pays you is worth more than any macro story.

the call where i said it best

A founder had 14,000 construction workers onboarded in Faridabad and called it a social venture because she was at a social venture competition. I told her don’t hang out with those people. The business is for-profit and that’s what makes it durable. Then I asked why this wasn’t in every newspaper in India. 14,000 workers and no PR. Tell Claude to find 5,000 journalists and email them. That PR turns a 2 million seed into a 4 million seed.

do this this week

List everything you’d call “progress” from the last month. Next to each item, write the rupee amount it produced. Delete the zeros from your deck.

the line to remember

partners, partners, incubators, programs, vcs. nothing is resulting in money. it’s just illusion of progress.