Read on Twitter
(1/n) TapChief turns 5 today: How it started, how it’s going. A thread on the journey 
(2/n) In 2015, we were a bunch of 6 pointers in the final year of college trying to build something we thought was cool. Building, late-night meetings, and discussing the product in the mess was fun. The fun ended when it was time for job-placements.
(3/n) Our college seniors advised us to get some corporate experience before jumping in to start up. Despite this, we all made the decision to skip placements and the time had come to explain it to our parents.
(4/n) Since all three of our parents worked in government jobs, we had a hard time explaining we are going to graduate college without a job and start a business with no money.
(5/n) Slowly, things began to come together, we had @thebavedave @khumaanm @abhijithmannath and @paranoidhydroid join us and we launched on Feb 18 2016, still three months away from graduation.
(6/n) Akhil and Abhijith tapped into alumni networks from Almaconnect and this helped us get us our first set of users. Our belief got stronger.
(7/n) We graduated and moved to Bangalore, with barely any money. We had a couple of more folks joining us too.
(8/n) We found two floors in a dingy spot in Kadiranapalya, right next to a big sewer. The road wasn’t on Google Maps, and all we had was a few dining tables and chairs along with one semi-working toilet among 8 of us. We worked on one floor and slept on the other.
(9/n) We needed to hire a bigger team. So we did what every early stage startup founder does when they need people and have no money - put out a post to hire interns.
(10/n) It was a nightmare to interview in our ‘office’. All the interviews were shifted to CCD.
(11/n) We kept at it. We talked to our users, gained further insights and then after several presentations by @shankmurali , this happened. https://inc42.com/flash-feed/tapchief-2-paytm/
(12/n) We moved to an office where we could finally interview! We were making a few lakhs monthly, things began to look up and before we knew it, we were off trying to raise funds again. However, one conversation changed it all.
(13/n) When we met the partners at @Primevp_in , the conversation revolved around the math behind the market our product intended to create. That’s when it hit us.
(14/n) The math showed that our company wouldn’t scale big. How did we miss this? We started a company without doing market research. Oh god!
(15/n) On top of it all, I had just convinced my batchmate @maurya1_0 to leave his job at Amazon and join us for peanuts.
(16/n) We decided to bear the cost of our stupidity and pursue our dream. Our angel investors were super helpful at this juncture and helped us with much-needed capital while we figured things out.
(17/n) We observed a lot of calls between clients and experts, especially in niche & new categories, for a gig. Some of our ed-tech clients began using us to find experts for their courses and requested us to handle the logistics of the gig with the expert. This was interesting.
(18/n) While exploring the gig market and doing market research (the Step 1 we’d skipped), we realised there was a gap. Binay brought in his amazing thoughts on Supply Chain Economics and Financial-modelling and product that can help fix the gaps he found during research.
(19/n) We started from scratch again. Aligned by the new insights, we began enabling professionals to network and find gigs.
(20/n) All this while the team developed, found mentors and brought in their own insights to the table.
(21/n) This gave us all an incredible opportunity to learn from each other, especially given how we all had no biases in how things were done. Everyone started this as their first job.
(22/n) I learnt a ton about design and UX from @anoopsethu . Also, amassed a wealth of knowledge on System Design, Frontend and most importantly how sprint meetings are run from @abhijithmannath & @maurya1_0 .
(23/n) I learned more about Social Media and Growth Hacking from Neil, Process Design and operational efficiency from @khumaan and Ojas and the Importance of perception & branding from @shankmurali .
(24/n) Things started to look better again. We fund-raised again and continued our journey. https://inc42.com/startups/gigs-marketplace-tapchief-gets-funding-from-50-angel-investors/
(25/n) We had a lot of firsts along the way - first proper office, first HR, the first engineer we lost to salary negotiations, the first engineer we lost the day before joining, first firing, first hiring spree, and the first enterprise client.
(26/n) Then we had folks from @BlumeVentures come and help us out with our journey. @sanjaynath https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/blume-ventures-puts-1-5-million-in-tapchief/articleshow/72484088.cms?from=mdr
(27/n)The team went from 20+ to 60+ and revenue grew from a few lakhs a month to a few crores every month. Finally, we were getting there!
(28/n) Then the pandemic hit. Everyone cut the spending for gig workers, which meant we had to reimagine our distribution channels and implement pay cuts to survive.
(29/n) With sales dropping, we had to change our tactics and continue. It felt like we were back at square one. However, we kept at it.
(30/n) We were able to keep at it because of Parinitha, @kukhapprabu , @jagadeshbabut , @Ashuparmarjain , @Prashant_Yadav7 , the founding team members and many others(too long to name them all) who stuck around and helped us despite the pay cuts.
(31/n) Things got better again. We had a clear path of execution and numbers began moving in the right direction. In the meantime, we had an amazing acquisition offer come our way and while things were picking up, it happened. We actually got acquired.
(32/n) Then finally when I saw this
(33/n) I remembered a moniker I had heard before joining college - You should be proud of your college five years from graduation but post that your college should be proud of you. That’s when I first thought, we really had made it.
Thanks a ton to the no attendance policy @bitspilaniindia we were able to spend so much time on it for a year. I would've crashed and burned at many points had it not been for the emotional support from my parents and friends. Thank you all for helping me asking this journey!
