From having the first mover advantage to losing market share from more than 45% to 6%. It didn't lose to better competitors. It lost to itself. Here's what went wrong with India's Most Hyped EV Startup:

India imported $137B worth of crude oil last year. This year, import dependence already hit 88.6%. And this bill ultimately trickles down to the common people. Meanwhile, a solar 3 wheeler power imports Rs 0 of fuel. That's exactly the math that keeps me building. 💪🏻

The most expensive line in a hardware startup’s budget isn’t salaries or materials. It’s waiting. Waiting for a supplier. Waiting for a test result. Waiting for a permit. Time is the tax nobody warns you about!

Building a hardware startup in India: "This will change the world" "This will take longer than I thought" "Why is this bolt unavailable in India" "Found the bolt" "The bolt doesn't fit"

The president of the most powerful country on earth just said, “A whole civilization will die tonight,” so casually. Are we literally in an era where wars are announced like product launches on social media platforms? 🥲

Hot take: 'Ship fast, fail fast' is a software philosophy. A failure as a hardware founder in India might cost you $30–50 lakh in tooling and prototyping. We don't fail fast, we fail in 3 installments with 18% GST on top. 🥲

Western founders: We iterated on the product. Indian hardware founders: We jugaad'd it at 2 AM with a soldering iron and a YouTube tutorial.

Battery swapping stations are the biggest infrastructure flaw in India's EV story right now. Yes, near-zero downtime and lower costs sound like a dream. But every swapping station is grid-dependent at its core. And this is the same grid where 85% of Indian households report

What I learnt so far about hardware businesses: 0→1 is a design problem. 1→100 is a manufacturing problem. 100→10,000 is a supply chain problem. Each stage needs a different skill set. The founder who built the prototype is rarely the one who should run the factory.

Every answer to the "after getting rich, what next?" question on my TL: - Angel invest - Start a fund - Write a book - Go on a podcast - Post about it on Twitter

Unpopular opinion: 'Your network is your net worth' is a Silicon Valley philosophy. In India, the first person who believes in your startup also believes they deserve 40% for it.

I genuinely think, most founders don't need a co-founder. They need a therapist, a good CA, and one person who tells them the truth without worrying about their feelings. The co-founder search is just loneliness with an equity component.

Chinese manufacturers aren't your competition. Your real competition is the Indian customer who doesn't believe Indian hardware is good enough yet. That's the harder wall to break.

Which is harder? Starting something new or quitting something that's not working?

Things nobody tells you about sustaining a hardware business in India: 1. Your working capital will always be tighter than your P&L suggests. 2. Build 3-4 vendors for every component. 3. Your first distributor will underperform. 4. Customer returns will tell you more about

Everyone building EVs in India is fighting for Mumbai and Bangalore. My 3-wheeler is designed for that guy in Patna, Nagpur, Jodhpur, who drives 60km a day, can't afford CNG anymore, and has sunlight for 9 hours. Still feels unreal sometimes ngl.

Bangalore has convinced itself it's India's Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley was built on hardware, semiconductors, and deep engineering. Bangalore is mostly SaaS and delivery apps. Respect the city. Just don't confuse the comparison.

Me: I am building electric 3-wheelers that can literally run for free with solar power VC: Kya fuk ke aaya hai be? Random SaaS dude: We are building an app, using GPT API, which can plan trips for you VC: AMAZING! here's your $50 Million for 0.01% equity and my property papers

The most valuable Indian market is living in Tier 2 & Tier 3 towns. They don't speak English fluently, they don't use UPI religiously, and they don't care about your app's UI. The business that figures out how to serve them, will own the largest untapped market in the world.

The guy driving 60km a day in some village shouldn't have to worry about fuel or finding a charging point. This factory is making sure he doesn't. 🤌🏻 Should I drop some more glimpse of my solar powered three wheelers?