Reboot
Moving on from a company that has meant everything to me
A little over two years ago, I was in a pretty bad place in my life. Things sucked in many different ways, but most importantly, trying to get Twocents off the ground was consuming me. Ultimately (as I’ve mentioned before) I decided that it’s time to shut shop and refocus my energies on what, ultimately, is the thing that mattered the most to me: building something cool.
As fate would have it, Aakrit and Swapan were just starting Haptik and I came on board as the first employee, initially tasked with building out the Android app but ultimately being involved in almost all aspects. Haptik proved to be everything that I needed (again, as I’ve mentioned before). We’ve achieved some amazing things and I’m extremely proud of the impact we’ve had, both in terms of our product and our culture. The team has grown rapidly as well, from being four guys in four different cities of the World working on the first prototype, to over 30 people based in Mumbai on the core product side alone.
Unfortunately for me, being pretty much the only remote employee with everyone else in office meant that I started feeling a significant disconnect. I couldn’t be as collaborative as I’d like, since everyone else could do so without having to resort to Slack. This disconnect began to trouble me some time ago, with a tinge of unfulfillment creeping in.
After attempting few different ways to tackle this issue, I realized that the only solution was the one I simply didn’t want to accept: moving on. It’s been the hardest decision of my life (including the decision to fold up Twocents) and not a day has gone by when I haven’t thought about reconsidering this decision.
But, in my heart, I know this is the right thing to do. I’ll be leaving my role by the end of November, without going too far away — this team is on to some really big things, and I can’t deny that every now and then I’d be involved in some small capacity as they continue to innovate. The lack of day to day involvement gives me the best of both worlds: the opportunity to contribute to what Haptik achieves, as well as the freedom to get a fresh start.
What would I be doing next?
I’m going to take some time off to relax and do a lot of things I simply didn’t take out time for: get back to playing sports, re-learn the piano, pick up some new tricks.
To get my creative juices flowing, I’ll pick on a few smaller design projects, some of them my own, while some from people around. I might even formally start advising a few startups in a disciplined manner, having not had the time despite offers before. There’s so much I’ve learnt in the past couple of years, and I feel a responsibility to share this with as many people as I can.
A full time role in any capacity is probably going to take a while, since I want to ensure that I only take on something that I am extremely passionate about. Ultimately, it’s all about building something cool.
