Real talk from someone who’s been through the startup grinder and lived to tell about it
You know what nobody tells you about starting a tech company? It’s messy. Really messy.
I’m sitting here at 2 AM (again), looking back at the last few years of building Noukha Technologies, and honestly? Some days I still can’t believe we made it this far. When people ask me to meet the founder of Noukha Technologies, I laugh because half the time I feel like I’m still figuring it out as I go.
But maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s what separates the companies that make it from the ones that don’t – the ability to keep moving forward even when you have no clue what you’re doing.
How It All Started (Spoiler: It Wasn’t Pretty)
Let me be honest about something: I didn’t start Noukha because I was broke or desperate. I started it because I was frustrated – really, deeply frustrated.
Picture this: I’m sitting in the VP of Engineering office at a foodtech company where I’d worked my way up over the years. Before that, I’d spent over a decade climbing the corporate ladder – Associate Software Engineer at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Project Engineer at Wipro, Senior Consultant at PayPal. Good companies, good roles, steady paychecks.
But somewhere between managing engineering teams and sitting in endless strategy meetings, I realized I was further away from actually solving problems than I’d ever been.
The breaking point came during a meeting. This restaurant chain was struggling with their digital ecosystem – they had a mobile app that didn’t sync with their POS system, AI tools for demand forecasting that worked in isolation, and a web platform that looked pretty but couldn’t handle their actual operational needs.
After the meeting, I walked back to the office thinking: “I have over 10 years of experience building systems that work. I’ve seen this problem at every company I’ve worked for. Why am I sitting in meetings talking about solutions instead of building them?”
Reminded myself about my freelancing days from 2018 to 2021 – those three years when I was juggling corporate life with side projects, building custom solutions for small businesses. “Remember how much you loved that direct impact?”. “Remember how frustrated you got when you had to stop those projects to focus on corporate politics?”
Those freelance years taught me something important: the best solutions come from understanding real business problems, not from boardroom theories.
I said to myself, “Yeah, and now I have the experience and network to do it properly.”
The Reality Check Nobody Warns You About
Here’s what they don’t tell you about leaving a VP role to start your own company: the identity crisis is real.
One day you’re the VP of Engineering at a funded foodtech company, managing teams, setting technical strategy, getting invited to industry conferences. The next day, you’re explaining to your family why you’re giving up a “perfectly good job” to start over.
My parents were… let’s call it “concerned.” After watching me work my way up from Associate Software Engineer at Thermo Fisher to Project Engineer at Wipro, then Senior Consultant at PayPal, and finally VP at Cookr, they couldn’t understand why I’d throw it all away.
“Beta, you have a stable career,” my mom said. “Why take such a big risk?”
But that’s the thing about corporate experience – it teaches you what works and what doesn’t. At PayPal, I learned about scalable systems. At Wipro, I understood project management at scale. At Thermo Fisher, I got my first taste of how technology could solve real scientific problems. At Cookr, I saw how foodtech could transform entire industries.
All of that experience wasn’t wasted – it was preparation.
Still, starting Noukha meant going from having a team of 20 engineers to being a team. From having enterprise budgets to bootstrapping everything. From having established processes to figuring it out as we went.
When India-based SaaS founders tell you it’s tough, they’re not just talking about funding or market access. They’re talking about the psychological shift from being the person who approves budgets to being the person who counts every rupee.
But here’s what I learned from those freelancing years (2018-2021): constraints force innovation. When you can’t throw enterprise budgets at problems, you get creative about solving them smartly.
The First Real Client (And How We Almost Blew It)
Our first paying client was a small manufacturing company that needed everything – a website, mobile app for their field team, and some basic AI to help with inventory management. The budget was tiny, but we were desperate.
I quoted them what I thought was a fair price. They said yes immediately. That should have been my first red flag – when clients say yes too quickly, you’ve probably quoted too low.
Three months later, we’d delivered everything they asked for, but I’d learned a brutal lesson about scope creep. “Can you just add this one small feature?” turned into rebuilding half the system. “Just a quick modification” became weeks of additional work.
We barely broke even on that project, but it taught me something crucial: it’s not about building what clients think they want – it’s about understanding what they actually need and being brave enough to guide them there.
That client is still with us today, by the way. Their “small” project has grown into a comprehensive digital transformation that’s helped them double their revenue. But back then, I was just trying not to lose my shirt.
Building a Team (Or: How Corporate Experience Actually Helps)
The leadership team at Noukha didn’t happen overnight, but my corporate background definitely helped me avoid some classic startup mistakes.
At PayPal, I’d learned the hard way that hiring for skills alone doesn’t work. You need people who can adapt, collaborate, and grow with the company. At Cookr, I’d seen how quickly teams could scale when everyone understood the vision.
But startups are different from corporate environments. At Cookr, I could offer competitive salaries, stock options in a funded company, and clear career paths. At Noukha, I was asking people to bet on something that barely existed.
Our first hire was actually someone I’d worked with during my freelancing days – a junior developer who’d impressed me with his curiosity and problem-solving approach. He took a pay cut to join us because he believed in what we were building.
“I learned more in six months at my corporate job than I did in two years at my previous company,” he told me later. “But I learned more in six weeks here than I did in those six months.”
That’s when I realized our advantage: we could offer something big companies couldn’t – direct impact and rapid growth. Every person who joined Noukha became a co-creator, not just an employee. They didn’t just write code – they talked to clients, influenced product decisions, and built their expertise alongside ours.
My experience managing engineering teams at the VP level helped me structure this growth properly. I knew which processes to implement early and which ones to delay. I understood how to balance autonomy with accountability.
Now, when I interview people, I don’t just ask about their technical skills. I ask: “What do you want to build that doesn’t exist yet?” The best hires always have an answer – and the corporate experience taught me how to spot them.
The Breakthrough Moment (It Wasn’t What I Expected)
I thought our breakthrough would be landing some huge client or getting featured in TechCrunch. Instead, it happened on a random Tuesday when a client called with what should have been bad news.
“Your AI system caught something our human auditors missed,” they said. “It flagged a pattern in our data that saved us from a major supply chain disaster.”
That’s when it hit me: we weren’t just building software anymore. We were building intelligence. Our custom AI agents weren’t just automating tasks – they were actually making businesses smarter.
Word spread. Other companies started asking not just for mobile apps or websites, but for AI-powered applications that could think alongside their teams. We went from being order-takers to being strategic partners.
What Actually Works (The Stuff Nobody Talks About)
After three years and dozens of projects across different industries, here’s what I’ve learned actually matters:
Listen more than you talk. When clients call wanting “AI integration,” they usually mean “help us work smarter.” When they ask for a mobile app, they often need to solve a communication problem. The technology is just the tool.
Build relationships, not just software. Our best clients don’t just buy our services – they trust us to solve problems they haven’t even identified yet. That trust is worth more than any contract.
Perfect is the enemy of shipped. We used to spend months polishing features nobody asked for while core functionality sat unfinished. Now we ship early, get feedback, and iterate. Clients would rather have something good today than something perfect next year.
Culture beats strategy every time. You can have the best business plan in the world, but if your team doesn’t believe in what you’re building, it won’t matter. We spend as much time on team dynamics as we do on code architecture.
Where We Are Now (And Where We’re Going)
Today, Noukha serves clients across three continents. We’ve built everything from AI-powered inventory systems that predict supply chain disruptions to mobile apps that help field teams coordinate in real-time. Our websites and web apps don’t just look good – they drive business results. Our SaaS products grow with our clients’ ambitions.
But honestly? The numbers matter less than the stories. Like the manufacturing client whose efficiency improved by 40% after we integrated their mobile and web platforms. Or the startup whose AI agent helped them identify their most profitable customer segments. Or the established company whose digital transformation helped them survive the pandemic when their competitors struggled.
Those stories keep me up at night – not with worry, but with excitement about what we can build next.
The Real Lessons (For Anyone Crazy Enough to Try This)
If you’re thinking about starting a tech company, especially as one of the many India-based SaaS founders trying to make it in a global market, here’s my honest advice:
Start with a problem that genuinely bothers you. If you’re not losing sleep over the problem, you won’t have the persistence to solve it when things get tough (and they will get tough).
Don’t try to compete with the big guys on their terms. Find your own game and play it better than anyone else. We can’t out-spend Google or Microsoft, but we can out-care them. We can know our clients’ businesses better than they know themselves.
Hire for attitude, train for skill. Technical expertise can be learned. Curiosity, resilience, and the ability to work well with others – that’s harder to teach.
Build something people actually want to pay for. It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many companies build solutions in search of problems. Start with the customer, work backward to the technology.
Take care of your team. In a talent-driven industry, your people are everything. If they’re not growing, you’re not growing.
Looking Forward
We’re not done. Not even close. The technology landscape changes every day, and businesses need partners who can help them navigate that change without getting lost in the hype.
Whether it’s custom AI agents that understand business context, mobile apps that seamlessly integrate with existing systems, AI-powered applications that actually solve real problems, or SaaS products that scale with ambition – we’re building toward a future where technology serves business goals instead of creating new complications.
The journey from freelancer to founder to whatever comes next has been nothing like I expected. It’s been harder, messier, and more rewarding than I could have imagined.
And honestly? I wouldn’t change a thing.
Want to know more about building tech solutions that actually work? We’re always up for a conversation about turning ambitious ideas into practical reality.