Notes on otherwise

Most of the support architecture for Indian founders is built for a specific kind of founder: the one with the slick deck, the right pedigree, a company already in motion, and a city — usually Bangalore, sometimes Mumbai — that does most of the explaining for them. That founder is well served. We are not building for that founder.

We are building for the founder solving a problem the market hasn’t priced in yet. The founder in a city that isn’t on the map. The founder whose company will take five years to look obvious to a generalist investor and twelve months to look obvious to anyone paying attention. There are, on any given year, twelve of these founders in our orbit who can absorb a real partnership — six at a time, two cohorts a year. That is the number we work with. Not fifty. Not fifteen. Twelve.

Concentration is the product

A 12-week accelerator with sixty companies is a different product from a six-month partnership with six. We are not better at the same thing. We are doing a different thing. The difference is what you can promise. We can promise a partner in the room every week for half a year. A 12-week cohort cannot.

Northeast as vantage point

Northeast India is, on the map of Indian venture capital, a margin. On the map of where the next decade of consumer, climate, and supply-chain ventures will be built, it is closer to the center than people think. We are based here because we are from here, and because we believe the founders who succeed from here over the next ten years will have done it without copying the playbooks that work in Bangalore.

Growth partner — said literally

When we say growth partner we mean it the way you would mean it if you were describing a co-founder. Not an advisor with monthly hours. Not a board seat with a polite agenda. A partner. Someone whose week is shaped by your company.

This is what otherwise looks like.