Hi, I’m Shikhil. Lucky to be born at a time when I saw the world transition from analog to digital. Learned about the magic of the internet when I saw hundreds of people reading my blog on ‘hacking software & websites’, and eventually earned my first dollar from there.
For more than 6 years, I’ve been running my venture in the cybersecurity space. We bootstrapped the venture for the first 5 years, and recently raised growth capital from some of the top VCs.
Over these years, as a founder I’ve found myself looking for candid advice on a range of topics – how to convince people to join your startup? how do I decide which channel to unlock first for marketing? from where should I get my first 10 users? how do I manage startup’s finances? how much should I pay myself as a founder? how to structure the org? how can we unlock a new geography? how to keep my team engaged? what will be our startup’s culture? how is a sales team setup? what’s a good LTV:CAC? how to raise capital efficiently? and many more.
I found answers to all of these questions eventually, but it took a lot of hit and trial. For some questions, I’m still learning as the cards unfold. Often during the most intense moments of building I craved talking to someone who had been in the exact situation like mine and would give an unbiased advice from real world experience.
On this blog, I document my journey as we scale our venture. Hopefully, fellow founders who find themselves in similar situations or crossroads will get value which will help them navigate better.
Keep building.