PE Chapter 0 — Audacious | Spiritual | Inventive.
The youtube playlist S2 below is for you to enter into Nishchal’s world while doing your daily chores over the next 1 week. This essay also features how I described Preseed to a friend in 2011, as a startup incubator.
To directly go to our products , click on these links.— TODOED, CHATTODO, AND MATH TABLE.
Chattodo
Turn any chat into a delegated todo with just a touch.
A productivity app for mobiles clothed as a chat app. It makes communication more actionable and accountable.
The journey started with a chrome extension.
Todoed
Turn any selected text, into a delegated todo, with just one right click.
Most of the internet age working world works on google chrome browser. We set out to build the finest tool for increasing productivity of a google chrome browser user. That is x million people. A 20th of that may be made more productive because of this extension. That is just a start. Our next step would be to be the simplest and most seemless todo listing app for all internet devices. We hope, if you are reading this, this changes your life. We are determined to make your life more productive. We are building todoed because we are determined to make our life more productive.
To know our depths philosophically — Go to www.preseed.in.
Lessons from our words will help you onboard your teams on equity commitments instead of salaries. This is how we have started Preseed ourselves — replaced money with, inspiration. Our apps will also enable you to achieve exactly that, my dear entrepreneurs.
About us — We are storytellers about the present and future of India, in grand volumes. Leaving the past for the current political parties to debate over
Our mission is — To empower those with a will to do something out of the ordinary.
Our favourite story — How will we change social networking?
Enter the volumes of this story with silence. Enter only if you can imagine yourself entering a chapterless book described across step 1 — step 7.
In which,
Step 0 — Step 2 — forms part 1 of our favourite story. Its not just a story. Its our founders attempt to bring your awareness to actual power of our social network to bring about a positive change. This page is useful for those who would really really like to build a more conscientious social network with us. (www.preseed.in)
Step 2 — Step 6 — forms part 2 of our favourite story — democracy. (Preseeded.preseed.in)
Our homegrown social network, Chattodo, is key.
EXTRA INFORMATION:
Section 1 —
It was 2006. I was 20 then, preparing to drop out of college. I had wished to build a status quo-changing business in India. A business that could be spoken about in the same breath as Facebook, Twitter, Google, or Apple. I had the idea, the plan, the undying will, the passion, plenty in funding too, yet I could not build it.
This essay is a glimpse into the origin of Preseed. This essay was written sometime in 2011 on a blogging platform called Posterous’s, created by my friend Sachin, which was later bought by Twitter and shut. A lot has changed since then in the scope of my work and words. However, our core is still what it was in 2011 when we were just a thought — To empower entrepreneurs:
Actually, there is nothing new about this story, it may have happened to a lot of us in India and elsewhere. I couldn’t build my idea, my social networking platform (2007), for 5 reasons -
1. Culture (2008)- : Delayed funding — I got funded 2 years after I originally had the idea and the UI design on chart papers. 2 years because there was barely any culture of funding an Idea, its thinker/doer and its design so that it could be made into a business. India rarely thought businesses could be built straight out of ideas, designs and plans listed on some sheet of papers by some weirdo.
2. Culture (2009) -: Team — Most of the people I found on this journey were actually not ready for a startup as their ideas about life beyond college was something else. For most of them it was a job that paid a handsome salary. Great startups never lay their foundation with such teams. My team was a team of great people in a misplaced job, for I was the misplaced captain. Probably, that is why my startup could never be great. I blew up over Rs. 20,00,000/- in salaries in the first 5 months of my first company. It was bound to fail.
Added in 2020 — Especially given, that I was not 1/10 of a leader then, as I am today. Today, if something doesn’t work out, I am responsible. Not culture.
3. Culture (2000–2006) — My teenhood — All the people who called the shots for me (my parents and their peers) did not have the ability to understand what such whims are made of. They did not have the ability to understand my levels of energy. They only understood good scores in schools which I got, then beautifully celebrated educational degrees, which I never got. And that meant, domestic rebellion. That’s never easy.
4. Culture (2009) -: Hence, no one to go to to talk about whims. It kind of made me a bit lonely but at the same time it revealed me to myself, or at least I had hoped so.
5. Culture (2010–11) -: And it’s true that even if I had managed to build the prototype for my social network in 2006, I would have not been able to scale it up like the way they scale up companies in Silicon Valley. I would have failed anyway in not being able to compete or collaborate with Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google like companies. The reason for that would also have been the CULTURE in India.
I finally found a problem I truly want to attempt to solve in India for many — The culture in India (2011) through my startup incubator. For a startup incubator can raise the innovation of a country.
It was this problem of not having such an institution around me, that was obstructing me from pandering to my whim even when I had the right idea and the right design at the right time, to build a status quo changing business in India. Although in this context what I had is not as important as what I didn’t have. I didn’t have the right team of vendors, nobody to advise and not the right team of colleagues either for the given idea in case. The problem was that these are not the resources you could find in India with the kind of ease you could find them in at Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley, you could find your first co-founder or investor in the same coffee shop across another table where you were casually discussing your idea with a friend. They just overheard you and liked what you said. In India that could take sometimes years. In most cases what you will find in India will lead you to mediocrity. Why? Because people here are satisfied with it. Their cart is still moving. And that is not the cart I want to be on.
Having said that, I’d like to admit that India is changing. I have been very actively observing the new wave of startup ecosystem development through out the world and NOW India seems to be playing a key role from within its geographical boundaries. In 2006 when I started I was getting to read only about Silicon Valley California because that was all there was to read about on startups. Today I am reading as much about Silicon Valley as I am reading about India. I know India is changing anyway, I just want to help catalyse that change leading to a smarter culture and hence, smarter actions.
The last 3 years I have spent about the Indian equivalent of $120,000 in doing all that it could take me to position myself right with the right set of imagination, ideas, ideologies, knowledge, experience and finally people, to be able to start my journey of impacting the culture in India to enable great creations right from bedrooms, bathrooms, dorms and garages so that one day we could also innovate like they do. And, while on that journey I hope I could collaborate with these teams of extraordinary doers to realise my dream of giving India its very own company with anyone such group of doers, a company that could be spoken in the same breath as Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Google. This was leading me to position myself as a startup incubator.
Or at least I hope so. Only time will tell. Whether that happens or not, what has already happened is that I am convinced I could not have seeded a better idea for an environment where my own ideas can be put into such an inspired mechanism that it may translate the idea into a company. A startup incubator will be the right environment for my own ideas infact.
That has been my key inspiration for building Preseed; because I have too many ideas that are worth an effort, the root of each has been a problem I have experienced and the solution to it has the potential to improve at least my own life if not the whole world’s. Each such idea has ‘simplicity’ at their heart giving them a fair chance to scale up fast, from the day of its launch, making a relatively larger impact felt. Simplicity in terms of its entire experience; from its value proposition, visuals to its complete model of operation on ideas from web-enabled products to rural supply chains. There can be no better system for me than preseed to preserve those ideas. It’s in these ideas that feed my soul. And it is in this ‘’organized mechanism’ that I find people to work with me on what feeds my soul.
I call this organized mechanism — Preseed.
In short — WITH PRESEED I STARTED ASKING THE QUESTION:
What can I do to create better leaders?
And, So we spun off Preseed Ed K12 Pvt. Ltd. too.
For the answer to the question mentioned, often was — Correcting the education system right from k12 will help to create better leaders. But it’s easier said than done. So, I decided to dedicate my life to finding the best ed k12 team to foray into the ed k12 category, when not addressing the answer through
In the beginning on the first yellow button on www.preseed.in I said,
“I journeyed into Preseed to empower those with a will to do something out of the ordinary — by often encouraging them to drop out of their colleges or jobs to pursue their lofty ideas, if I felt I could raise their intensity to face what may be coming. Why? Long ago, I asked myself the question about what is the one thing I must do with my capabilities — the answer I got was — I must do everything I can, to give our world, better leaders. As I progressed I was able to marry in vision, my previous failed social networking startup of 2009 to become now, a more conscious social network vision, to produce the goal of producing better leaders”.
And so
Preseed Ventures Pvt. Ltd. went outside of the scene of wanting to become a startup incubator — Basically, we instead decided to be the company that is the creator of a web product which in turn nurtures the entrepreneur and not merely as an incubator, but as a tool of communication for the entrepreneurial start. That company is Chattodo. It will be built in India. India needs to improve in Math, from primary school days. So, one more venture — Math Ed Labs, our ed k12 venture.
but this part of my dream was still held dear and true, articulated now, as — For we build upon our own startups from scratch as we have already corroborated by building the software mentioned on www.preseeed.in. We think the precise product idea ourselves and then, we inspire our fellow beings to join us as fellow entrepreneurs on our product idea. We give you our own mind made up of years of conscious research and imagination. We don’t invest money, design or code. We, however, put in the maximum hustle on connecting the dots of money, tech and design. That which I did for my own crazy idea.
In short — They say ideas are dime a dozen. Good ideas are rare. Good ideas are ideas that truly have the potential to drive people towards freedom, every other idea is not a good idea. We decided to stick to the best idea. My own idea for a social network. So, we didn’t channel our energy into becoming an incubator before becoming a product. But, that didn’t mean the incubator dream was dead. It was the language of an incubator that we got entrepreneurs for my social networking idea to manifest. Now that language will produce its result as a fund/incubator too through our startup fund — The Simple Fund.
My grand vision of education is made up of Yoga:
- Of communication and collaboration between people chasing a common goal (as indicated inside the + button in step 4 in Preseeded, ‘+ towards actual harmonious freedom’)
- And, our other slow company exclusively for the objective language of the universe, Mathematics — our shippable math products. (Preseed Ed K12 Pvt Ltd — This is how mathematics must be taught even in primary schools. More so, for as we head towards AI. Just programming skills may not be enough). This is better expressed in Preseed Yoga, our incubator.
- With a culture of tech entrepreneurship. (through our future programe Preseed Ecell). This represents our culture through Preseed that can enable you to understand your own business from a new and deeper stand point. Our modern ashram for entrepreneurs. (Coming soon)
- Backed by our own future fund — The Simple Fund. Suitable for startups seeking investments and investors seeking startups. We dream of becoming a startup fund too one day. So far, we have managed to be on the first page of google search for a related search by innovators across India, ‘Preseed Funding’. So, from the deal flow side of things, we are ready. Interested investors can reach out to Nishchal@preseed.in for their enquiries.
This is the answer to how we are putting our forces into heading towards the overhauling of the education system across its length and breadth, across the world someday.
If our work is also the rhythm of the universe or the other way o saying it, if our work comes true or manifests, we will have a business that works on its quest to understand and recreate the science of the Vedas and Upanishads.
FREEDOM: Unwavering Equality of opportunity, and ending mindless consumerism.
Stop mindlessly consuming news. Do your own research. It all starts from here, Media, freedom of speech, and censorship.
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is that they are ruled by evil men” — Plato
