Killed not by lack of talent.
Killed by the system.
18% GST on digital education while offline tuitions pay zero. We had 40,000 students and a balance sheet that died on a spreadsheet.
"We were taxed for being online. That was the entire crime."
Needed 11 different licences across 3 ministries. We ran out of money getting approvals before we ever moved a parcel.
"We built a company. The state built a maze."
Bank froze our account for 4 months citing 'suspicious activity'. We were paying therapists. Therapists need to eat too.
"The compliance team needed therapy more than our users."
Policy changed three times in 18 months. Subsidies appeared, vanished, returned, were taxed. We couldn't build a business plan on quicksand.
APMC regulations made our model illegal in 6 states overnight. The mandi lobby is older than our country and richer than our pitch deck.
"We thought we were disrupting middlemen. The middlemen disrupted us."
Four years of investor meetings asking when we'd pivot to fantasy cricket. We didn't. They didn't. The runway didn't.
Fire department, municipal corporation, GST, labour, MSME registrations — each contradicting the other. The warehouse was ready in 4 months. The paperwork took 22.
Handicraft GST slabs reclassified twice. Artisans started owing us money on their own work. We absorbed it until we couldn't.
"We were not a startup. We were a death certificate for 600 weavers."
Advertisers wanted English readers. Investors wanted English readers. Our readers wanted us.
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