Wrapping up another year, I’m continuing a tradition I’ve tried to keep for the last three years. I admit I’m often restless, rarely satisfied with where I am, which can be both a driving force and a source of impatience. That's why I really look forward to these because it allows me to reflect: celebrate what's been going well, thank those who have supported me, and plan for what’s next. And this year, I am ahead of schedule. I have started writing this before the year ends.

So, here it goes.

It's been a crazy year, in a good way. In short:

• I had a great consulting gig and helped a growing business move forward.
• We relocated to London.
• I took a full time role at an early-stage startup as their Head of Engineering.
• Been doing a lot of uncomfortable things that are helping me grow.
• I read a lot more than I have managed to in the past. It was hard but felt really good.

Work Work Work

A lot changed on the work front this year.

A New Consulting Gig

As 2023 ended, my work at Three Ways Consulting took a new turn with a project that needed more time and energy than I expected. I started working with an amazing startup in online streaming, focused on helping people in India feel closer to their roots by creating great content in local languages and celebrating local cultures. At first, it’s easy to compare them to platforms like Netflix or Amazon Prime, but they’re different. Their work is more than just entertainment—it’s about helping people feel connected to their culture and making local languages and traditions a bigger part of everyday life.

I started by helping the team with organizational and cultural challenges, then moved on to improving how they worked on engineering projects and sped up their release cycles (guess what was the biggest leverage here). Along the way, I learned Flutter for the first time while working hands-on with the team, transitioned to web engineering, and eventually refocused on building the organization before wrapping up my time with them. After six months, I had to step away to focus on the next big chapter in my life (more on that soon). The outcomes at the end are worth celebrating:

• A more cohesive team that is now more outcome focussed and works well together, playing several roles to ship things faster, and continuously learning as a team to improve their processes.
• A bigger engineering team more suited for the business needs - helped fill key roles in engineering to increase their execution bandwidth.
• A much faster and efficient release process which helped the team release continuously across all their major mobile platforms (iOS app and multiple Android apps built in Flutter). Their iOS app was behind a year as compared to their main Android app when I joined. The other two Android apps were usually a couple of months behind. All their mobile apps for all the platforms are now tested using automated tests fully, are not lagging behind each other in terms of feature parity and are released together several times a week with little to no manual work.
• A better sense of build-vs-buy strategy - the team used to build a lot more software than they could manage and spent a lot of time focussing on problems not core or strategic to the business. They now buy non-essential software and integrate instead, essentially moving faster towards what matters to their customers and the business.
• A more confident engineering leadership that was struggling to marry the team, their culture and processes with the needs of the business. They now move with a lot of confidence in terms of taking decisions, managing the team, managing their roadmap, investing in tech, overall execution and engineering craftsmanship.
• And to my surprise, some of my coaching around hiring and building a team unintentionally spread to other functions in the business. I didn’t plan for this, but it was amazing to see!

Hello, Gaia!

Consulting after Blinkit was a lot of fun. I got a chance to meet some amazing founders and teams, learned a lot from them, challenged myself to learn new business domains (B2B SaaS, DevTools, gaming, social e-commerce, online streaming and influencer marketing), and learned some new tech. It was so much fun. But I had been feeling the itch to go back to committing and building something more dedicatedly. Consulting did not really give me the space for that. It's a great lifestyle business or a way to retire but I am far from done.

Sonam and I had been thinking about moving to London for a while. We really wanted to make it happen, but I needed to find the right opportunity—and consulting wasn’t the answer.

Last year, I received my UK Global Talent Visa, which opened up avenues for me to work at startups. I love startups. Startups are where I feel most at home. So, I began searching for roles in London. It was a long and exhausting journey, especially during a tough time for tech. After months of searching and facing many rejections, I finally found the right team.

I joined Gaia as their Head of Engineering. At Gaia, we are trying to make IVF work for families across the world. IVF is an incredibly stressful journey for families - mentally, emotionally, biologically, and financially. We try to take away a lot of their financial and emotional stress today. But that's just the beginning. The healthcare industry at large is broken across the US and the UK. We are trying to fix a part of it to make IVF more approachable to families who want to have a baby.

Why Gaia?

Why not? I had a lot of fun working in consumer tech and B2B SaaS. But work has always been about selling something. Gaia felt different—a chance to genuinely help families who need support and make a real difference. It’s also a huge opportunity.

The team is incredibly talented and mission driven. Everyone at Gaia is truly connected to the mission. During my interview process, I had the chance to meet the leadership team several times, and they impressed me with their talent and kindness. The turning point for me was a lunch with Nader and Alexia, followed by a weekend chat with Nader at Gail’s in Paddington. We talked openly about work and life, and I really appreciated his honesty and clarity. It was clear that we were on the same page about building a startup and a team.

Joining a startup is always a gamble—you sign up for one thing and often end up doing something entirely different (that’s certainly been my experience, like at Blinkit). So it doesn't matter what the team is doing in that very moment. It is always about the team and the founders. After that candid conversation at Gails with Nader, it was clear that he is a founder that I can play this gamble with. The rest is hardly in anyone's control.

The tech side of Gaia is also a fresh challenge for me. It's a unique business—not about high traffic or volumes of transactions. On a good day, we get a few hundred visitors. But each sale results into a sizeable amount of revenue for the business (for context, a treatment cycle of IVF in the US costs $20,000). So each visitor and lead if incredible valuable. Gaia also operates at the intersection of niche healthcare, financing, and insurance, in a heavily regulated space. That makes it a complex but fascinating domain to navigate and innovate in. There’s so much to learn here, and that’s what excites me.

What an incredible ride it has been!

I just completed my first 6 months at Gaia and it has been such a humbling experience. A lot of it has been uncomfortable. But there is growth in discomfort. Here is what the last 6 months have been about:

• I’ve been learning a lot about IVF, healthcare, financing (loans), insurance, and regulations. I wouldn’t call myself an expert in any of these areas—they’re incredibly complex, and there’s always so much more to understand.
• Since I joined, we launched in the US, which has been a huge learning experience. I’ve been diving deep into the US healthcare system and figuring out how to bring Gaia to the US market.
• It hasn’t been all smooth sailing. I inherited a small team that became even smaller after I joined, but we’ve since rebuilt and grown stronger. I am incredibly proud of the team we have now and everything we have achieved in such a short span of time. It’s been a mix of hard work and a lot of fun.
  • We inherited a lot of technical debt and we have been paying it down aggressively.
  • We encountered a really interesting framework called Frappe (built by a team in India!) and used it to rebuild our core platform that manages the healthcare and financial journey of IVF patients. We rebuilt it from scratch in record time (6 weeks) and better (well... time will tell).
  • We rebuild a part of our data platform to increase trust and reliability of data, and make it more accessible for reporting and analysis to internal users.
  • On the public-facing side, we revamped our tech stack with better tools, enabling our growth teams—marketing, sales, product, and design—to experiment and iterate much faster in the US market.
• Building a team in London has been a new challenge. I’ve been able to draw on my experience of building teams in India, but it’s been a learning curve to adapt to hiring here—everything from sourcing to pitching to evaluating candidates.
• I’ve also been thinking a lot about how we can use AI to transform the IVF experience for patients and their families, as well as the industry as a whole.
• And through it all, I’ve been writing a ton of code and staying hands-on with building the business. It’s been an incredible journey so far!

I couldn’t have asked for more—it’s all in my hands now. It’s time to put into practice the same advice I used to give while consulting, returning to the way I worked at Blinkit but applying it to Gaia. Looking forward to an exciting 2025!

What about Three Ways?

A full-time engineering leadership role takes a lot of mental and physical energy. Trying to focus on two major things at once wasn’t fair to either. So, I made the decision to step away from Three Ways. I’ve wrapped up my consulting work and no longer take on new projects. I still occasionally support my previous clients when they need advice, and I’m grateful that they continue to reach out to me. I’ve learned a lot during this time, met some fantastic teams, and I’m glad I gave consulting a try to figure out what I’d want to do in the long run.

Moving to London

London is a beautiful city and has been really welcoming to us. The move has been so much better than how we imagined it be. People are really nice, too nice perhaps. As one of my friends recently said, people in the UK are so nice that one gets compelled to be nice to them in return. Not that I am complaining but it is definitely something I am not used to.

We have some friends in London so that has been incredibly helpful in the sense that we are not alone here. And we have been stepping out of our comfort zone and been making new friends here, which has been a good experience.

There are so many things that we love about London and the UK:

• Clean air: For those who haven’t lived in Delhi or Gurgaon, it’s hard to understand how refreshing it is to breathe fresh air.
• Endless things to do: The city truly has something for everyone—from amazing food and lively pubs to beautiful parks and cultural experiences like theatres and concerts. We’ve barely scratched the surface.
• Public transport: Being able to commute via public transport has been a pleasant change.
• Sonam's work: Sonam is still working remotely with Watsi, and moving to this part of the world has made a big difference time-zone-wise, especially since most of her team is in the US.
• Django’s happiness: The weather here is perfect for Django. He loves going for walks and spending time in the parks, which are plentiful near where we live and all over the city. In India, we had to specifically look for pet-friendly places, but in London, most restaurants, pubs, and cafes assume pets are welcome. People here are always showing him love, and he enjoys the attention. Public transport is also super convenient for him—he loves traveling on the bus.
• Traveling with Django: We’ve been taking Django on trips. While we used to travel with him by car in India, here we take the train. So far, we’ve visited Cambridge, Rye, and York, with Django along for the ride every time.
• A great place for Indians: We already have some friends in London, which has been a huge help. Plus, with so many people visiting London for work or just passing through, it never feels too far from home.
• Christmas magic: London becomes truly magical during Christmas. The festive atmosphere is something special to experience.

Things that have not been as nice:

• Finding an apartment: It’s genuinely tough, especially if you're looking for a pet-friendly one. There aren’t many available. If you need help, we’ve become experts at it—feel free to reach out for advice.
• Indian food: It’s been disappointing. Given how many Indians live here, we expected the food to be much better.
• Food and grocery delivery: It’s really expensive. I do miss Zomato and Blinkit sometimes, but we’ve managed without them.
• Adjustment period: While not exactly a problem, settling into life here has had its challenges—things like navigating the NHS, pet care, and other everyday details. But this is just part of moving to a new country, and it’s our first time doing so.
• Schengen visa: Getting a Schengen visa from London is unnecessarily complicated.

Learning

I wanted to pick up a few new things to getter a better perspective on tech, business and life in general. Some have worked well, while others didn’t quite land the way I hoped:

• Rust - has been on my radar for a while. I finally picked up rustlings (which is great) and got midway. I eventually lost focus because of existing work and personal commitments. It was an interesting experience. But I also realised that it's much harder for me to learn something unless there is a clear goal/value attached. That's still not clear enough to me about Rust yet or how it will be useful to me in what I do. Not saying that Rust is not useful - I get it's value. I am just not clear about how I will benefit from learning it. Need to be clear about it or should have a ton of time to get through it.
• Flutter for mobile development - played around with Flutter in my consulting gig. It was also the first time I got into mobile development. Interestingly, my entry point was to help the team building mobile apps write tests to fully automate their release process. It never ceases to amaze me how valuable quality processes can be on different dimensions, even learning a new business domain or a new tech stack. Also, played with Tramline for automating mobile apps release processes.
• Frappe - has been a new addition in my toolbox. And I am so happy about this encounter. For people who know me well, they know that I really don't like work that is undifferentiated and I also care about quality at the same time. I have worked on internal tooling at several occasions in my previous roles but usually struggled with providing the tech stack and the products the focus they deserve to build good internal systems. Every piece of work (such as building backend APIs, a React frontend, etc.) in the process of building good internal products/platforms means nothing if the sum of all the parts is not good. I really don't care about building APIs or frontend components. I want a working product that is reliable and usable. Interestingly, Frappe allows exactly that. It is a vertical framework that comes with an opinionated backend and frontend that works really well in tandem. In our rewrite of an internal platform at Gaia, we hardly built any REST APIs or frontend components. It allowed us to focus on what matters the most - the core business logic. It was super fun and I can't recommend Frappe enough to teams who are working on similar projects.
• Beyond "Hello, World!" with LLMs - its criminal to not be exploring LLMs for what we do today. I have been playing around with LLM models by OpenAI and Claude, and with frameworks like Langchain, LlamaIndex and Chainlit to do POCs around consumer experience and internal process automation at Gaia. A long way to go that I need to cover faster in 2025.

Reading

This is a new section in my year end review because it has been my ongoing struggle for many years. I finally made progress, and I’m genuinely proud of how far I’ve come.

I finished several books and really read them properly:

• A Philosophy of Software Design
• Our Iceberg is Melting
• Clear Thinking
• The Culture Map
• Read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team again
• Partly finished Trillion Dollar Coach, and The New Leaders 100 Day Action Plan

What worked this year? I think I got a lot more serious about learning, largely thanks to Farnam Street. I’ve known for a while that I need to learn much more, and voracious reading is a key part of that. This year, I kept reminding and pushing myself, almost as if my life depended on it. I also changed my approach—rather than just reading, I started studying, like an academic. I wanted to read even more, but the move to London made it harder to keep up.

Travel

Another year of travel, though perhaps a bit less than in 2023, as our move to London took up much of our time.

Seychelles

Sonam and I celebrated five wonderful years of marriage in Seychelles—a true hidden gem! The islands boast breathtaking beaches, stunning sunsets, scenic drives, and beautiful walking trails. We explored three islands in the archipelago: Mahé, Praslin, and La Digue.

We visited during the off-season, so it wasn’t too crowded. The beaches had just the right balance—not too quiet, not too busy—and it made me realize that I can really enjoy a beach vacation if it’s the right kind of beach with the right atmosphere. Naturally, we spent a lot of time relaxing on the sand, reading, and sipping drinks.

We also did scuba diving. It was our second time diving. We have probably never experienced anything so beautiful before. It was like watching an underwater sea video on an OLED television, but in real life. It was a 10x better experience as compared to our first dive. We definitely want to do more of it if we get the opportunity.

Food has taken us to places before. So on the way to Seychelles, we found ourselves an opportunity to do a quick detour for food. We had our connecting flight to Seychelles from Mumbai. So we planned it in such a way so that we could take a half-day pitstop in Mumbai. We experienced some amazing stuff in Mumbai - bhajiye, vada paav, bun maska and parsi food. We also got to see a ton of charm and character of Mumbai. This short food trip excited us to plan a longer visit to Mumbai. Hopefully soon.

Kenya and Oxford

Sonam’s work at Watsi took her to incredible places this year. She visited Nairobi to connect with local healthcare partner organizations and meet families whose lives have been transformed by the remarkable work Watsi and their partners are doing. Every time she returns from these trips, she brings back heartfelt stories and unique perspectives about people and their struggles.

After Kenya, she attended the Skoll World Forum in Oxford—a gathering of philanthropists, leading nonprofits, and social entrepreneurs from around the world. It’s an annual event where they tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues, share ideas, learn, and collaborate to drive change.

What stands out to me about Watsi is their unwavering focus on trust and transparency. Seeing it firsthand through Sonam’s work and hearing about the team’s dedication, I’m constantly reminded of just how genuine and impactful they are. They’re so good at what they do—changing lives in the most thoughtful and sustainable way.

Obviously, I donate to Watsi and support their efforts to help people who really need it. Organizations like Watsi need all the support they can get to continue making a difference. With Watsi, you can either contribute directly to the healthcare needs of a patient whose story resonates with you or join their Universal Fund, where your monthly donations support their broader mission. As we enter the new year, I encourage you to take a step toward helping those in need. Donate to Watsi and make a difference.

Road tripping around Inverness

I was visiting London for some work this summer and was crashing with Apoorv. We decided to visit Inverness and do a road trip around it for 2 days, primarily focussing on the amazing landscapes nearby and whiskey!

We did a part of the North Coast 500 route. We started from Inverness, took a pitstop at The Singleton Distillery for trying a whiskey flight, then took another stop for lunch in the beautiful lake town of Ullapool, stopped in the middle of nowhere in rural Scotland for a coffee and then ended up grabbing a few drinks and having a good time with some super friendly locals, stopped in a couple of more towns on the way for food and beer, and finally ended our road trip in Inverness.

Interestingly, we hand't planned to visit Isle of Skye but had enough time on the last day to wander around. Our wandering led us to just touch Skye and make it back on time to catch our flight. The changing of landscapes during the road trip was serene. But this was just a teaser. We gotta plan a proper trip to Skye.

Bhimtal

We did a road trip to the quaint town of Bhimtal in Uttarakhand with Sonam's family. It was a great time for the entire family to get together and spend some quality time before we relocated to London. Also, a fantastic getaway from Gurgaon and its pollution. All you need in a place like Bhimtal is a cosy cottage and your people. We spent days and evenings talking, playing board games, listening to music and walking around scenic trails.

Cambridge

Cambridge was our first trip in the UK since we moved. We travelled with Apoorv and Django. It was also Django's first train ride ever. And Sonam got to visit another university town in the UK.

What a beautiful place. While most people do a day trip to Cambridge, we stayed there for 2 nights. There are tons of pubs and restaurants to visit, beautiful lanes to walk and of course the college campus to see (we couldn't get in, next time perhaps). A trip to Cambridge is incomplete if you haven't done punting in their canals. Another interesting adjacent experience is sitting on this pub on the canal and watch self-punters fall of their punt as they tried to manoeuvre under the bridge.

Sonam's verdict is Cambridge is better with more things to do than Oxford and also prettier.

Rye

A cute little town with one high street that is probably just half a kilometre long, some cute cafes and restaurants and pretty winding streets. There is not much to do in Rye, which is great. You eat good food, drink good beer, shop and just stroll around. It's a great place to slow down and relax, and that's what we did.

Vietnam

Two of my friends from college, Anky and Muddy, are getting married in 2025. So we did a stag trip to Vietnam. There were 12 of us so it was a large group. It was great to be able to pull this trip together given how busy everyone can get adulting. We are lucky that we are still able to do this once every few years.

We visited Da Nang, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh. Highlights of the trip - Hoi An was beautiful, Ho Chi Minh was chaotic and fun, karting in F1 format was exhilarating and tiring, Vietnamese food was amazing, and cheap massage everywhere was relaxing. It was super fun!

York

It is our first Christmas in the UK. So this holiday season, we travelled to York for Christmas and Boxing Day. We stayed there for 3 nights and slowed down quite a bit. Apoorv travelled with us too (our 4th wheel). We found ourselves a cosy Airbnb and stayed in on Christmas but saw a fair bit of York, learned a bit about Vikings and their influence on York. Didn't expect York to be a walled city (to be honest, we didn't do much research). It has character. And of course a lot of significance for Harry Potter fans as you can visit the Diagon Alley (Shambles). And continued on our hot chocolate and beer rampage.

Retrospective on the year

Things that went well this year:

• Moved to London: Started a new life and career. While we do miss our friends back home, we’ve begun building new connections here.
• Reading: Finally overcame my mental block about reading and made significant progress this year.
• Cooking: Cooked much more since moving to London. I can now confidently make chicken biryani and yogurt chicken curry, though I’m excited to expand my repertoire.
• Walking Django: Establishing a regular routine of walking Django has been a grounding ritual, no matter how busy or tired I am.
• Side projects: Made great progress on side projects in the first half of the year. Although I couldn’t keep up after moving, I’m determined to revisit them in 2025.
• Networking: Built a solid tech network in London, starting from scratch.
• Angel investing: Took my first steps into angel investing and am proud to have invested in 3 companies this year.

Things that didn't go so well and could be better in the new year:

• Running: I couldn’t get back to running, partly due to my knee and largely because I lacked the drive. It’s a mental game, and I need to push myself toward a healthier lifestyle.
• Writing: Haven’t been consistent with writing on this blog, which I want to prioritize in the new year.
• Learning: I intended to dive into Finance and Economics but didn’t follow through. This year, I want to make steady progress in learning something new.
• Confidence and imposter syndrome: Starting my new role at Gaia shook my confidence at first. Worried with questions like will I be be able to manage and a build a team in London, will I be able to learn this new domain, will be able to work with people with different cultural backgrounds, will be able to do this at all? Imposter syndrome hit hard. I’m in a much better place now, but I know I still need to figure out how to manage those feelings better in the future.

Gratitude

I come back every year with my gratitude for Sonam. One might think that is obvious because we are partners. But as obvious as it might be, it is easy to overlook all the great things your partner does for you. I am able to do everything today because of her support - if that might be looking after Django while she is working from home and I am in the office or pushing me to be healthy. But most importantly, she is my therapist in moments when I really need one. When I was struggling during my initial time at Gaia and was doubting myself, she told me that I am worrying about it more than I should and even if it doesn't work out, it's fine. Not everything is meant to work out and we can always go back to India if I don't like working in London. She made me feel safe and provided that safety net. Most importantly, she gave me the confidence that while I might be struggling in that moment, I can do this. That helped me operate differently. And I got through it. Thank you so much, my love ❤️

I am lucky and blessed to have a few friends who I can count on. One of them, Apoorv, is in London. He is one of my oldest and closest friend from college. He helped us a ton with our move. We practically turned his apartment into a dormitory when we moved. Living in a home and not an Airbnb made our move feel so easy. And of course, for all the good times we have been having here with him since we moved. Django has a new uncle who can walk him around 😆

Our friends back home have been incredibly helpful as well. In times of need, I can just pick up the phone and call Akshat, Ankur, Jacob and Konark. We don't talk frequently but I know that they are around whenever I need them. They are always there to hear me out, counsel and offer valuable advice.

Looking forward to 2025

• Continue my reading habit. In fact, double down on it. I am not going to put a number to it though.
• Get fit - start gym again.
• Build build build. Excited about being in a full time role at a startup again. Get to the deep end of applied AI and solve consumer problems with it.
• Learning - I didn't get much done around the things I planned to do in 2024. I want to do those and probably more.
  • Finance and economics - from last year.
  • Getting into maths has been on my mind for a while. I would like to start something, probably Category Theory.
• Probably take on a hobby. Thinking about whiskey tasting and rowing.
• Travel to mainland Europe often.
• Blog more frequently. I have been terrible in 2024.

That's all, folks. Can't wait for 2025 and what we make of it in London 🎄