People ask me how to start. What they usually mean is: how do you get from nothing to something that works? I have done that three times since 2019. The first company closed. The second I still run. The third is MedMate, and I am building it in public.
I do not have a formula. I have seven rules, and I can point to the chapter of my own life that taught each one. I have put the chapter next to the rule so you can judge it for yourself.
1. Leave for something, not from something
I studied medicine abroad and left before the degree, around 2019. I did not leave because it was hard. I left because what failed patients was rarely the medicine. It was everything around it, and I wanted to build those parts. The longer version is in Why I left medical school.
If you are about to quit a degree or a job, finish this sentence first: "I am leaving for…". If you cannot finish it, you are leaving from something. The world outside has its own exams. They are harder, and nobody grades on a curve.
2. Start where you have an unfair advantage
I grew up in a family that runs a pharmacy, a drug-distribution business and a diagnostic centre. Before I had founded anything, I knew how a chemist buys on credit, stocks against expiry and prices against the next shop. That knowledge is the most valuable thing I own, and I did not pay for it. I was raised in it.
Everyone has a room they grew up in that an outsider would need years to understand. A trade, a town, a family business, a community. Look there before you go looking for an idea. Mine is in An entrepreneur from Assam, building for India.
3. Treat your first company as tuition
My first company was a hospitality business, launched as Covid arrived. It grew fast in its first year. Then the second wave took the whole industry apart, and the company closed.
I could tell that story as bad luck. I prefer to tell it as fees. A company can fail without the founder failing, as long as you walk out knowing things you did not know when you walked in. The company closed. The lessons stayed, and they were the capital for the next one.
4. Take a job on purpose
After that I moved to Bengaluru and joined a healthcare startup as Chief Operating Officer, working with hospitals and as a partner in the business. I took the role to learn one thing: how technology companies actually ship, hire and earn trust.
Founders talk about jobs as if they were a retreat. A job chosen for what it teaches is paid training. Name the skill your next company needs that you do not have, then go and work where it is practised every day.
5. Learn to tell the story
My second company is a media and film agency. I built it from scratch and I still run it. It taught me the half of the craft most builders skip: how to tell a story people act on.
A good product nobody has heard of does not exist. If you cannot explain what you do in one sentence that a shopkeeper would repeat to the next customer, you are not ready to sell it.
Building is half the job. Being understood is the other half.
6. Listen before you build
MedMate is my third company and the business I grew up inside. I still spent its first months sitting behind counters in Bengaluru. Not pitching. Watching which jobs took the longest and which ones were done twice.
A customer will tell you he needs better software. He will not tell you he needs a register that fills itself in, because he has never seen one. You have to be standing there when he misses the entry. Sit behind the counter for a morning before you write a feature.
7. Show the work every day
Since 17 July 2026 I have posted one Reel a day about building MedMate. The plan is 730 days. It is called the ₹200 Crore Challenge.
It takes ten minutes, and it is the most useful management tool I have found, because it forces the day to have had a point. You do not need an audience to begin. You need one true sentence about today's work, and the nerve to post another one tomorrow.
The seven rules, in one place
| Rule | The chapter that taught it |
|---|---|
| Leave for something, not from something | Leaving medical school, around 2019 |
| Start where you have an unfair advantage | A childhood behind the family pharmacy counter in Assam |
| Treat your first company as tuition | A hospitality business launched into Covid, which closed |
| Take a job on purpose | Chief Operating Officer at a Bengaluru healthcare startup |
| Learn to tell the story | A media agency, built from scratch and still running |
| Listen before you build | The first months of MedMate, spent behind chemists' counters |
| Show the work every day | The ₹200 Crore Challenge: a Reel a day for 730 days |
Who this is for
Students deciding between the safe path and their own. First-time founders. Founders starting again after a company that closed. I speak about this at colleges and founder events, and if you want it in your room, invite me to speak.
Growing from scratch is not one brave decision. It is a run of ordinary ones, made in the right order. Mine took seven years. I hope these make yours shorter.