Thread by @tamanjitbindra

I have always tried to imagine life with a background music. Since memes are the new background music, here i try to put the story of @KaagazS in memes. A Thread

@1992gaurav
@GandhiSnehanshu
@kushalbhagia
@firstcheque
@vaibhavbetter
@farooqadam
@phanindrasama

(1/18)

Jan 2019 – We decided to shutdown @Tapp_Me . It was a tough decision and being heartbroken is an understatement
(2/18)

Being suddenly jobless @GandhiSnehanshu wanted to do another startup, alongwith @1992gaurav. Once bitten, twice shy Gaurav wasn't convinced, he wanted to do MBA.

“Would you kill the Founder for a job? Would you look back at this moment in your life with regret?” ~Gandhi
(3/18)

With @1992gaurav on board and a broad idea of Sorted in mind, @GandhiSnehanshu pitched the idea to me, who too was jobless. He asked to me to be a Co-Founder in the new startup.
(4/18)

June 2019 - And hence @sorted_ai was born, and the hoopla around #startups, fundraising began for me personally. I would already imagine us walking around with loads of money.
(5/18)

With the first cut of Sorted ready, we started pitching to investors (or anyone caring to give us an ear). We had no PMF, a semi-functional product. All we had was a story and a story-teller in Gandhi. BUT, fundraising is a tough nut to crack. The usual vibes we got from VCs was

But we kept our heads down, fought depression and kept on rolling out releases. It was just the 3 of us and a conviction around documents, developed then, stands even now. We were always in a hurry and always had unmet deadlines. Firefighting is tougher when no fire exists
(7/18)

Sept 2019 - But life shows enough glimpses of hope, to keep you afloat. And we had first external validation from our first set of users and @AxilorVentures got us into their accelerator program. We shifted to @peakbengaluru for 3 months. Away from traffic of Delhi to

(8/18)

As founders we bonded as we all stayed in a single flat. I had taken my dog along. So it was kinda like the book

(9/18)

We ideated non-stop. Changed course to make @sorted_ai a more reminders focused app, with documents still being a major part. We started growing and getting more and more users. This is what early glimpses of PMF was, I guess. You know it when you see it
(10/18)

Staying away is tough, especially when you are newly married. In breaks in between work, ideation and drinking binges to get yourself to sleep; you missed home

Feb 2020 - Flew back home
(11/18)

Back in Delhi, exhausted. Wanted to raise capital to survive. Scanner as an extended arm for Sorted was always on our mind. Thanks a lot to @frdahsan for his gyaan sessions. Covid came, lockdown happened. We developed Kaagaz Scanner as a side project. Our startup was dying but...

June 2020 - Enters a border conflict. A govt imposed ban and arrival of @KaagazS. Suddenly we were on top of the game. And this time we were ready for it. We steered the growth dragon to our direction

(13/18)

Jul 2020 - We closed our Angel round soon after, thanks to @kushalbhagia and @firstcheque for the prompt closure. Money in bank in 4 days!

(14/18)

Nov 2020 - Armed with some capital. We were sure we will close our Seed round soon. And well after a few near hits, we finally got our first set of believers in @PravegaVC, @vaibhavbetter, @farooqadam, @phanindrasama . Meanwhile our angels after us closing the round...
(15/18)

The firefighting now existed for real. We made our first few key hires and revamped the app completely. To make it faster and smoother.

(16/18)

In between we had a fall in ratings from users who wanted to use our app, but couldn't because of functional issues. This I guess is what @singh_sequoia means by PMF. We were able to bounce back. Seeing user scorn turn into user love. We are 4.5+ rated on playstore
(17/18)

We have grown our DAU almost 5x, since August and we are going all guns blazing. This is the story so far. As learnings we know that it hasnt gotten any easier. But we also know we love bouncing back and beating the expectation everyone has of for us.

~Fin (18/18)

Special thanks to @NASSCOMStartUps for being our background score since June 2019. Love you guys😍

@debjani_ghosh_