Letters of Intent

[Pankaj Raval] (0:00 - 0:11)
Welcome to Letters of Intent, the podcast where risk takers and dealmakers come to unpack the stories behind bold decisions, big deals, and breakthrough moments in business.

[Sahil Chaudry] (0:11 - 0:28)
We dive into the legal, strategic, and human side of dealmaking from founders raising capital to companies scaling through smart partnerships, the ones navigating tough pivots and exits. I'm Pankaj Raval, Managing Partner here at Carbon Law Group. And I'm Sahil Chaudhry, Corporate Attorney here at Carbon Law.

[Pankaj Raval] (0:29 - 0:40)
Today, we're thrilled to welcome Pulkit Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Chameleon. He's a product-driven founder and someone who's helped define what a great user onboarding looks like for SaaS platforms.

[Sahil Chaudry] (0:41 - 1:13)
Pulkit is building something really special with Chameleon. It's a platform that helps SaaS companies drive adoption through in-product guidance, tool tips, and onboarding flows. Whether you're launching a new feature, trying to reduce churn, Chameleon helps you meet users where they are inside the product.

And Pulkit is also just someone we've known for many years. We're all connected to Indicor. Pulkit was actually my first mentor.

He helped onboard me at the Bugger Employment Institute in Rajasthan. And so I'm really excited to see where his journey has taken him since then.

[Pankaj Raval] (1:14 - 1:54)
Yes, I'm really excited to learn more about the genesis of Pulkit from Indicor. That's how we met all the way to these startups and these companies that he's founded today and his travels in between. We'll dive into how Pulkit approached product-market fit, what early-stage go-to-market strategies look like for him, and how he applied them to highly technical SaaS solutions.

And also we'll learn about what you've learned from Pulkit navigating the venture landscape while staying product-obsessed and product-driven. It's not easy in the world of venture capital, and we'd love to learn more about how you've done it.

[Sahil Chaudry] (1:55 - 2:09)
Sounds great. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

So just to kick things off, Pulkit, I want to start with your personal journey. I mean, were you always an entrepreneur? What were the first seeds of entrepreneurship for you growing up?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (2:11 - 3:57)
Yeah, happy to chat about that. So I grew up mostly in the UK, not necessarily known for its recent entrepreneurship. Maybe back in the day, in the 1700s, 1800s, we had some enterprising folks, the English.

But I think often, like I'm sure many people experience this, modern school system teaches you to think in the box and teaches you to follow a path. And even at university, I felt my risk tolerance was pretty low because you're always thinking one year ahead, like, what am I doing next year? And what am I doing after that?

And you're thinking very much in a ladder. And when you're thinking in a ladder and thinking about career progression that way, you're really removing the opportunity for risk and removing the opportunity for any kind of new ideas to change direction. So I would say I kind of grew and I grew up, my parents are professionals.

And they did not, we did not have a business ethos in our family, where I've seen my friends who maybe have business in their family, they are much more comfortable with the ups and downs of business. And that can be financial ups and downs, or you are making bets, making and trying new things. I think for people growing up in professional households, or at least for me, it was very much about, you know, build slowly in a very linear way.

And I think that's that kind of, even though funnily enough, my parents were immigrants, and there's a ton of risk associated with that. And later, when I reflected with my father on his immigration journey, I was astounded at how much risk he took. But after being an immigrant, you kind of maybe change your mindset to be like very much about stability.

So I think coming into it, into my professional life, I was not really a risk taker. I was not an early adopter. I was not super open minded.

I really was following the path that had been set by other people.

[Sahil Chaudry] (3:58 - 4:02)
So prior to entrepreneurship, where did your career start?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (4:03 - 6:30)
So I studied chemical engineering at university. And the natural way, you know, that really had two parts. One was being a chemical engineer, or the other path was going into corporate.

This is back in 2008, where, you know, corporates recruited you on campus, and they gave you snazzy swag. And it was very prestige oriented. And actually, I remember reading an article from Paul Grimm, which was quite seminal, where he said, don't chase prestige.

It's almost like what has gone before. It's the brand that from someone who did something way back, you know, said, do your own thing. So I went into management consulting company called Booz Allen Hamilton, where, again, there's not that much risk in being a management consultant.

You learn from existing best practices, like whenever we did a project, it was always let's look at what someone else did in a similar situation for some other client, and let's tweak it. And so you're still very much in the box. You're not really innovating.

I've learned a ton, for sure. Like, I don't want to complain about that training that I got, you know, all around client delivery, making high standards, service orientation, professionalism. There was a lot in there.

But that's where I began doing kind of projects for corporates to improve things like how do we break into a new market, or price a new product, or think about cost cut, cost cutting or acquisition. So it was very corporate, but within a team, learning from other people. And the next evolution of my journey would have been, again, following the path, MBA.

Going to business school. And I was, you know, went through that process. But that's where really the seams started to come apart, because I did not get into my top two schools.

And so that was my first moment of, like, failure. I'd say that was significant that I've really felt, where it wasn't just like, you know, smooth rolling to the next thing and forced me to introspect. I'm like, hey, what do I want to do?

Do I want to go to my third choice option? Do I want to wait a year and reapply? Do I want to do something different?

And one of, actually, one of my mentors, one of IndieCourse founders, Rupal Shah, had a profound moment when I had a conversation with her. And she really pushed me to create my own business school by actually applying and practicing business and trying to start a business instead of studying in the classroom. So that was probably one of the moments that I remember is that changed my risk appetite trajectory.

[Pankaj Raval] (6:30 - 7:11)
That's amazing. Yeah. Your story resonates with me, because it actually is a lot of what my story was too.

My parents are professionals. My dad's an engineer. My mom's a physician.

And it's interesting, because we've both, we all went into kind of entrepreneurship. And now, we have opened up our own companies and built firms. But you're right.

Our parents took different risks. They emigrated to other countries. I think it's so fascinating to kind of think about what they've done.

And how much do you feel like your ability to take risks, though, is because they've set you up in a certain way, because they give you the background and the foundation to actually launch into something and take maybe a bigger risk?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (7:12 - 8:00)
100%. I mean, choosing to take risk is an incredible privilege. And you can only have that when there's other people that have provided for you such that you can have that choice.

Most people in the world, taking risk is a compulsion. They have to do it. Because to survive, they have to do it.

And so in some ways, we have this privilege. But in some ways, we have this disadvantage. Because innovation comes from constraints and being forced to have to solve something.

So it's an interesting perspective. But 100%, credit and gratitude to the fact that I was, where I was born, who I was born to, the investment, my education, and the safety net that I had to fall back on, which allows us to even consider taking risk.

[Pankaj Raval] (8:00 - 8:37)
Absolutely, absolutely. So you've given us a great background on your story through undergrad and then going to consulting. But you're getting to a point where you said that, okay, something happened in your life where it created an inflection point and caused you to take a big detour, as some would say, from the traditional well-beaten path of school, marriage.

You know, what's everyone we feel expects of us. So what was that? What was that catalyst?

You alluded to a little bit, but I'd love to get a little bit deeper. What was that catalyst? And how did you come to that recognition that, you know what, this is not the path for me, and I want to try something else?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (8:38 - 11:35)
The process of applying to business school, there is a lot of soul-searching in that because they ask you to really go deep into what you want to accomplish in life. And I hadn't really thought about it in that time horizon. I was like, hey, let me write an essay about what I want to accomplish in 15 years.

And so that kind of forceful activity made me question what I had maybe implicitly assumed was my career path. And I realized that actually I don't want to be attached to having to be in a corporate job when I come back after business school. And I felt like going to business school would give me some debt or some obligation to my company that I would be back into it.

And then in my mid-30s, maybe getting close to family, would I be able to take the same risk as I'm able to do now? And I decided I don't think I would. So I didn't actually want to get sucked into that and hooked into that.

So that's when I was like, okay, well, what happens if I don't pursue an MBA? And I basically, after this conversation with Rupal, sent my resignation on the spot. And it was kind of like a little knee jerk and a little reactionary.

And I got called into the senior partner's office being like, hey, what happened? We just staffed you on a project. We just talked about you being a good fit for this.

And I was like, look, I don't know what I would do. I don't want to go to business school. And they was like, okay, look, I get where you're at.

You're having some crisis of confidence. Go take a sabbatical. Take some time off, come back when you're ready.

And I was like, okay, fine. And that was actually nice because it helped sell it to my parents more easily. I was like, okay, I have a job, don't worry.

But the first thing is to create space. So at that moment, I had nothing to do. After I finished the project, I was off.

And so then I gave my time to explore interests. I went to talks. I listened to lectures.

I read books. I learned on the internet. I took courses.

And so I got some of the itch out of the system. And then when you're like, then you're still back to a blank state, then it really pushes you like, okay, now what? What do I do?

Where do I go? And so I think it's really valuable for us, anyone at these changes of lifestyle moments or journey moments where you might be changing your journey, for example, a professional career switch or something has changed. I think it's really important to empty your cup so you can receive tea and give yourself space for that.

A lot of people want to have the next thing lined up before they have the current thing finished. And that really doesn't give you space. So that I think was very valuable to me.

And then it was really by chance because I invited the opportunity for chance that I met somebody that was starting something in the US that was a tech business. And I was like, oh, hey, can I do this? And he was like, yeah.

And so without doing a formal process of evaluating all my opportunities or I was like, let's go for it. And I basically packed a bag and came out on a tourist visa and stayed in this living room, very much the, in some ways, quintessential startup story. And we were working on a product.

And so that was the first kind of, well, I guess the next window into this journey.

[Pankaj Raval] (11:36 - 12:40)
That's so great. And honestly, I feel like all three of us probably have somewhat similar stories. I just think about when you kind of take these jumps into the unknown, right?

Uncertainty where you have this kind of clear path, but yet you have this uncertain path. But something compels you to take that other path. That's happened with me.

For me, I kind of like you, I deferred my admission to law school a year so I could do IndyCore because at least I can sell it to my parents like you. It's funny that we all kind of still want to make sure that we don't lose all confidence for the people around us. So it's a good way to sell it.

So maybe for people who are listening, that's something to think about is when you kind of think about stepping into the unknown, is there something else you can come back to? Is there some way you can say, okay, well, I have this other thing if maybe things don't work out. But I know a lot of my family like, well, why don't you get a job?

You know, why don't people get married? All these things, you know? And I'm like, that was not the path for me.

So yeah, I love that story. It's a double edged sword.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (12:41 - 12:58)
I think having a plan B. I think plan B can be helpful, but it can also hold you back. So I think I'd encourage everyone to think about like, you know, how much do you need a plan B?

Because if you don't need a plan B, then plan A has to work. Or you will find some version of plan A that will work.

[Pankaj Raval] (12:58 - 13:01)
Sahil, did you have a plan B when you applied for IndyCorp?

[Sahil Chaudry] (13:02 - 13:06)
Yeah, I guess I did because I deferred law school for a year to do IndyCorp.

[Pankaj Raval] (13:06 - 13:07)
Okay, same with me, okay.

[Sahil Chaudry] (13:09 - 15:18)
It's really interesting, as Bhokan, you were talking about risk and kind of being a management consultant because what you were describing in terms of finding something that already works and then applying it to something new is exactly what we do as lawyers. It's probably like the most risk averse type of profession in that sense because you actually, as a best practice, you have to use something that's already worked. But one thing I have noticed is we actually don't have a way of avoiding innovation either in our business because with law and now with AI, with the internet, with the number of, you know, probably used to be able to be a local attorney just for the people in your neighborhood and you can make a living off of that.

But today, everybody has every option. I mean, even us doing this podcast as a way for us to connect with a community and reach out and let people know who we are. And that's a form of innovation that I don't think I would have expected we would have needed to use as an attorney.

I don't think I have ever considered myself such a risk-taking type of person. But I do kind of agree with what you said. If you have a plan B, you have this thing in the back of your mind to fall back on.

But I think that's less and less true today. I think that now when we take a leap, we've got to figure out a way to make it work because your plan B might be obsolete by the time you get back to it because everything is moving so quickly now. Everything is moving so fast.

Yeah, I mean, we're starting to explore even AI, Web 3. There are so many layers of law that are being discovered today and created as we speak. So I think we have no choice but to be more open to risk.

But I do have to ask then, how do you think about, I mean, you're in the space of tech. Things are moving very quickly. How do you think about de-risking an idea?

How open are you to the changing iterations of what your original product is?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (15:19 - 17:53)
Yeah, good question. On the latter, I think it's a little easier. I think this is startup advice that's not mine.

So I'm kind of replaying it, but it's to be married to the problem, not to the solution. And so if you get married to the solution, that's a ton of bad news because essentially you get attached to what you've built. There's sunk cost fallacy.

It's harder to innovate and harder to see the true global maximum. So you've got to stay attached to the problem and be able to discard stuff you've built and worked on when you see new data that tells you a different truth. And in some ways, we're experiencing that today.

We are moving away from some of the core of what we started on and offered because the user expectation has changed and what we started with is no longer in vogue. And so we've tried to innovate on that. To your early question, how do you innovate?

I think testing yourself against the market is the best way to validate, but sometimes there's a lead time to get to that test. So then the question is, how can you proxy that true test? Kickstarter is a great way to validate in the market without having to build a product.

You don't need the full lag time of building a product. You just need the lag time of designing the concept and marketing materials. You launch it and then you get market validation before you have to go build it.

But in software development, there's analogies to that, which is prototype testing, building a prototype, which is not the full product, but exhibits some of the same functionality. And that itself has undergone wholesale change in the last six months because of AI. Previously, you might build a prototype that was built on design.

So you'd create a design in Figma, you'd create a prototype, and it would be clickable through screens, basically. You click through on screens and see what it says. Nowadays, people can code applications through vibe coding, using tools like Lovable, Bolt, Repl.it, Cursor, et cetera. And so you can build real products. Now, those tools are not yet sophisticated enough to build product that resembles your design system very well or uses your product architecture super well. So you might still build throwaway prototypes, but those are much more real.

You can actually play with them. So even prototyping is changing. And I recently did a session with some product managers, and everyone's kind of saying the same thing, is that it's improving prototyping, which will eventually or essentially reduces risk because it allows you to validate with the market in a much more effective way.

[Pankaj Raval] (17:54 - 18:12)
That's fascinating. Yeah, I'd love to hear about, talk about the problem and falling in love with the problem versus the solution. Can you give us an example of with some of your companies that you've built, what was the problem that you were trying to solve?

And how did that problem, or how did your solutions change based on the evolving market?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (18:12 - 18:29)
Yeah, okay, great. So there's a really simple example, which is the company Chameleon that I'm working on. So the original premise was, we want to make user onboarding better.

And it came from our personal pain point where I was trying to learn how to use a tool Asana, and it's a project management tool.

[Pankaj Raval] (18:29 - 18:31)
Yeah, we use Asana internally, yeah, yeah.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (18:31 - 21:42)
Great, so you may be familiar, but back then 10 years ago, they had a really extensive help center and really good documentation, lots of videos, but I find myself going back and forth a lot. Like I would be in the tool, I have to go to the help center, read something, search for something, watch something, come back, try it, go back. And we were like, hey, why can't this be more in line?

Why can't this be more contextual? And so that was the problem. The way it manifests was like, oh, let's give product managers who might care about user onboarding or better usage or activation of their users for their product.

Let's give these product managers a tool such that they can build this without requiring engineering, because we found out that actually one of the reasons they weren't doing this was because engineering was backlogged and it had competing priorities and you're trying to ship features and no one really has time to iterate on your onboarding. And so we gave them, we built a product for them and we said, okay, well, a common pattern today is these walkthroughs, like these step-by-step kind of guides. And so that's where we began.

But over recent years, we found that the guides that were built, the walkthroughs that were built have not been always very effective because they are often not designed super well. And by that, I mean like the content is too much or too early when I'm not ready for it or it's too intrusive or interruptive. I'm trying to do something else or it's not relevant.

Like I'm here because someone invited me but it's telling me about all these new features like I don't care. So in that sense, like that pattern, it hasn't always been very successful. In some cases it works very well, but it's hard to get the triggers right, to get the rules, the targeting, the context.

So now one of the things that we invested a bunch of time on is to instead of offering these step-by-step guides that are overlays, we wanna give you little components that you put in the page. So like a banner in the page or a tile in the page. And the reason that that can be more effective is they don't interrupt a user.

So a user has more choice to engage with that when the user is ready. So it's like, oh, hey, there's a little call out for a new feature that Notion has launched. Well, right now I just need to get this doc written.

So I'm gonna ignore that, but I'm not gonna dismiss it because it's not getting in my way. And then once I'm finished, maybe I'll check it out. So ultimately it gives you some more choice user engages better with it.

And that's a change. And that was a technologically hard change as well because we went from being a layer on top to having to sit in the page, work well with everything around it, do it no code, be performant, be look native. And it was hard, but I don't care for product tours necessarily the old school way.

Like even though that's what the product was all about in the first few years. The goal is still, we wanna give ways for products to be more personal, more contextual, more dynamic for the end user and their intention and their state of mind. So that it's easier for them to use the products, discover the products and find value without requiring a ton of engineering effort.

That's still the goal. But the way that we'll solve it, it has changed and it's gonna change. We're doing new things.

[Pankaj Raval] (21:42 - 21:57)
And we still feel like there's a lot of work to be done on that front. Interesting, interesting. I would love to know like, you know, AI is obviously the craze right now.

How has AI disrupted or affected your approach to solving these problems?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (21:58 - 24:38)
I think one of the most fascinating aspects is that it changes user expectations very quickly. The scale of adoption of AI has been faster than any technology ever before. So whether that's physical technology, like telephones, mobile phones, or any other software, whether it's Google for Search or anything that you've come up with, it's faster than anything ever before.

And so what that means is that the pace of change of user expectation is incredible. Now, pretty much everyone expects to have a conversation or have some kind of chat. Everyone expects the responses to know the basics, to know some stuff about me, for me not to have to repeat something, for things to get better quickly, because we're so in tune, or at least our customers in the tech community so in tune with the expectations that chat GPT has set essentially, or some of these AI models.

So now when they come across a different product that has some kind of chat, but that chat is dumb, it's very frustrating. It's much more negative than it would have been two years ago. And so your expectation has changed and the goalposts have changed.

And so if your product doesn't adapt to it, it's at serious risk of disruption. And we've seen the disruption happen with other software products at an incredible scale. I don't know how familiar you are with this world, but Google searches are falling off a cliff as people go away from Google and to other tools like chat GPT or perplexity.

That means SEO or search engine optimization. That's one of the primary go-to-market tactics for software companies of appearing high in search results because of content that they've created and optimizations have done. That is falling off as a channel.

So now you're scrambling to find new ways to get to your audience and get included in AI or have social proof or whatever else you're doing. It also means software that used to be about value of data and sometimes user-generated content, the likes of check for homework answers or stack overflow for engineering topics. They have fallen off a cliff because you can now go to GPT for that.

So there's serious risk of value that you've built up over many years falling off a cliff, which is a very scary prospect. But I think that's the world we're in. Like that's the context is that the AI adoption is incredibly fast and businesses have to react.

And if the ones that don't react, they're gonna get disrupted. It's just, there's no two ways about it.

[Pankaj Raval] (24:38 - 26:52)
No, I mean, it's absolutely fascinating. And I think from a legal perspective too, what's happened with Google, just recently there were two antitrust cases against Google saying that they are engaging in monopolistic competition with regard to search and also it's ads business. So that's also gonna affect what happens to them with AI in the future.

Judges may very well require them to license their search index, which could now open up for competitors like OpenAI and others to come in and now compete with Chrome and other software that they've developed. So I think it's really fascinating times to see what will happen. But of course, not to discuss politics in too much depth, but how close Google is to the current administration may also affect what happens as well.

So that's, there's some uncertainty there. And yes, I also, Sahil, I wanted to also just, because we have this amazing shared experience with IndyCore, I wanted to also take a little deviation from what you were talking about startups. We'll come back to the founder journey and some of the more technical terms when it comes to building a startup, but I'd love to chat a little bit about IndyCore.

And just for listeners who don't know about IndyCore, IndyCore was this amazing organization that what existed for about 15 years, I think, right, or about that time. And so maybe it's still in existence in some iteration. And it was started by three siblings Anand, Rupal, and Sonal.

And it was for bringing the second generation Indians back to India to do volunteer work, to learn about themselves, to make an impact, and probably so much more. I'm sure you guys can add to more about what its ethos was, but it brought together some of the most interesting, fascinating people. You know, the fact that, you know, we're still all in touch today is I think a testament to what is created.

And everyone was there from my perspective, really to make a difference, selflessly give and learn and grow. And I thought it was such an amazing experience. I don't know, Pulkit, maybe you want to talk a little bit about your experience of leaving SiHealth too.

I'd love to hear about yours. What was IndyCore to you guys?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (26:52 - 28:57)
Yeah, we didn't really touch on that in my journey, but I think it was certainly transformational. And I probably feel like I'd learned as much during my IndyCore year as I did through university. And a big part of that was I was taken out of my context and I ended up in a very new context.

And that context was a village in India that spoke Hindi 100%, no English, was relatively traditional in its culture and living there for a long time, trying to build credibility relationships and drive some change in some initiatives. And I think beyond any impact we had on the community, I think the deepest impact or the biggest impact was on me for myself. And I just learned about viewing things from a different perspective and being empathetic and going and seeking to learn and understand instead of judge.

And also like doing things in a new way and being okay with it. And a couple of stories around that is, you know, running water was at a premium. So being able to do a lot with very limited water, like you showed you like how much was possible and how people live that way.

But also I remember meeting people who might have been guilty of some bad practices that we might consider, whether that's domestic violence or infanticide, which is, you know, pretty dark, but realizing that there's a context to them too and there's a story and there's a reason. And so I think just, and I would advocate for every young person to go and live in a new culture for a year, because I think it opens up your worldview in a way that travel and holiday and book research and TV does not. So yeah, I think it was transformational for me, but I'd love to hear how Sahil paraphrases it.

[Sahil Chaudry] (28:58 - 32:08)
It definitely, I agree. And I mean, both and I developed a great friendship he was at my project site before I was. And so he introduced me to the community.

He introduced me to people who became my friends during my year long stay in Bugger, the village that we were at. I think that for me, it was very liberating for the same reason that Polkett mentioned, which is that it takes you out of your context into a new context. I also learned that I wasn't really, we weren't really there.

On the surface level, we were there to help, but really we were there to connect with ourselves and people who were living in a different context than we were. And that was what I came out of it with was the important lesson I learned was that if you're just a part of a community and you're giving of yourself, that is a very fulfilling experience. And nobody asked us to be there.

I think it would almost be condescending for us to say that we were there in this one-sided way to just help other people. I think we were definitely being helped as well. I think something that probably unites all three of us is we do have a desire to get to know ourselves.

And I think that was a big part of what that year was about was we needed to be shaken. We needed to be thrown into a new context with new people, with new problems, new ideas, because I think that each of us, I can just speak for myself, I needed to know myself in a new way and to rip apart kind of the BS or the facade or any kind of illusions I had about myself. I needed to be thrown into a new context.

And the goal was, of course, I was part of Bugger Employment Institute. We were helping people find jobs. We were teaching English.

So yes, I think we did help people. And at the same time, I think I was helped in a profound way where I had the very unique opportunity to get to know myself in a new context. And I think that's what I carry with me is that I don't feel so attached to my external circumstances now because I know if I get plucked from this into a new context, I'm gonna see my old problems in a very new way.

I mean, I do think that we get very attached to our realities, but that year taught me how quickly I could be removed from a context and be introduced to new problems. And all of a sudden, those become the most important thing to solve and the people and the relationships. So I try, I think what IndieCore really gave me was the desire to be present.

Because that seems to be the most fulfilling way to live. But I did see, I have to say, I saw a lot of early seeds of entrepreneurship from Polkett when we were in Bugger. I remember you were part of somebody who's launching a pizza shop.

[Pankaj Raval] (32:08 - 32:09)
Oh, really?

[Sahil Chaudry] (32:09 - 33:54)
Yeah, and Polkett was definitely like a management consultant for Bugger. And I saw him in action, and I really admired that. People trusted him and his analysis, and he was looking at the village we were at as a market.

But it was, how do we introduce micro-enterprises that are going to help people and can be aligned with the profit incentive? So I thought that was interesting, and I saw him in his kind of deal-making flow. So I do want to ask, okay, you have a vision as an entrepreneur.

You have a market that's changing. You have your leadership skills, but then you've got the nuts and bolts of making a deal. So I imagine that as you're in the tech space, you need to raise money.

You need to hire people. You're dealing with third-party vendors. You're dealing with employees.

There are a lot of different contracts on the table, and you're not a lawyer necessarily. Well, you're not a lawyer, but you are a deal-maker, and you're an entrepreneur. So I would love to hear how you see, number one, your early deals that you made.

What were the most important deals that you made in terms of your co-founder, your first design partners, your customers, your investors, your employees? What were the early defining deals? And then as a corollary, as a side question, did you need to self-educate on the law?

Did you work with lawyers? How did you deal with the legal architecture of putting this all together? A funny story about that, which I'll share.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (33:54 - 35:45)
But I think of a deal, you referenced the nuts and bolts of it or the contract of it. I think the contract is, it's like an iceberg. That's the tip of the iceberg that you see.

But there's a whole bunch of stuff before. And I think that's the key thing in doing the deal is that you have to get on the same page so that you can then sign a contract. The contract is just the fruit or the manifestation of all of the stuff that's gone before it.

And I think founders, entrepreneurs, pioneers have to think of themselves as deal makers or salespeople because you're selling all the time. And for example, you might be selling the idea to a potential co-founder and getting them on board. You would be selling the vision or the market opportunity to an investor.

You will be selling the solution to a customer. You'll be selling the mission and the culture to an employee. And in all of these times, you're always selling.

So I think it's key that every founder thinks of themselves and gets comfortable thinking of themselves this way. And it's not sales in a sleazy, kind of underhanded, snake oil kind of way. Like no, having done sales for a startup, they realize it's problem solving.

It's meeting need and opportunity and value. And so that I think means that I have a lot of respect for sales. And I think when it's done well, it is an art as well as a science.

And so I think there's a ton of deals and happy to talk about any of those that you think are interesting. And also happy to talk about where I've had to get lawyers involved. And sometimes lawyers are expensive.

So I've also had to have creative ways to get free legal advice as well.

[Pankaj Raval] (35:46 - 36:00)
Yeah, I would love to hear where are some issues that you've had to bring in lawyers or perhaps had you created an agreement or phrased something differently, you would maybe have avoided lawyers. I think that'd be really interesting to hear for a lot of our listeners.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (36:01 - 38:05)
So I think one just side story, which was when we were first starting this company, we actually had a legal challenge from somebody that was disgruntled and claiming that we were infringing on their copyright and intellectual property. And in the very early stages, any kind of controversy like that can kill the startup because it can create tension and stress amongst the co-founders or it can create bad signal towards any potential early investors because no one wants to touch it. It's unnecessary risk.

There's already all this other risk, like adding an IP risk onto an early stage product doesn't seem worth it. So when we had that threat, I was like, oh my God, what? I don't know anything about this.

And so I didn't know anyone in the Valley or in San Francisco where I was living. And so I literally went to a meetup for IP lawyers and just found one, went along to it, certainly was an imposter, but I made enough of an impression on one person that we became friendly. And then I asked him for help.

I was like, hey, by the way, you know, can I get a quick little input on this thing? I'm using that British charm. Yeah, it really helped.

My accent was stronger, but he basically helped me. He was like, I don't think you have an issue here because by the time anything goes to court, you'll be able to like, you know, how close is it? Not at all.

It's completely different software. So you can probably rewrite it. You can probably show that there's nothing here.

So he just gave me some confidence verbal around the process, which meant like, oh, wow. This meant that I could sidestep this threat of law, law being this thing. I don't know how it's going to work.

I don't know what the court thing's going to be. And lawyers are expensive. And I could really just sidestep that with some useful direction advice and continue on the journey.

So that was like a super helpful legal advice around not needing a lawyer too involved, to be too involved.

[Pankaj Raval] (38:05 - 38:12)
Nice. It's good for you. You never know what could come in handy.

[Sahil Chaudry] (38:12 - 38:37)
How do you think about, you know, initially you're probably, when you've got a startup, there's not a lot of cash available, you're raising money, but you need design partners, you need employees. How do you think about equity? And how do you think about compensation and incentives and creating those kinds of arrangements and agreements and avoiding misunderstandings in that process?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (38:38 - 41:28)
Yeah, I think the first one comes to be like co-founding, you know, when you're co-founding something. I think when you're doing that, there's, I've been around many situations where there is uneven distribution of equity between co-founders. Some of them is because someone started early and then someone else joined later.

Some of them because someone's full-time and someone's part-time in the beginning. Some of them because it's someone's idea. And, you know, there's different reasons.

But it's really important to think of equity as a future asset. It's not a current asset. It's almost like you're committing to a future part.

And most of the work for a startup is in the future. Like, it almost doesn't matter how, where you joined the train, most of the work is still up ahead. And so it's important to reward or give people that, you know, value that instead of valuing the extra one year or six months or idea that I had earlier.

And so, because I think it can be, it can really lead to fictitious relationships later if someone's like, well, okay, well, you started six months before me and now you have 60 and I have 40, but we've been working on this for five years. So that six months is really negligible. And the five years is much more valuable.

And it doesn't make sense to have this split. So I think that's one thing, you know, one aspect of it to think about. I also think like for early stage employees who are considerate, you know, joining a startup and getting equity, you've got to think of it like a potential bonus.

In most cases, it's not going to yield very much. It's only in a very few cases where your equity is going to be material relative to your cash comp. So, you know, yes, optimize, you know, for based on your risk profile, but consider equity as a nice bonus.

So that's probably, you know, second consideration or lesson. And then in terms of like, you know, thinking about expensive vendors in the early days when you're cash poor and time rich, but you have equity. Again, think of it as like, you know, how valuable could this be over time?

And so even though, you know, we've heard the story of the guy that painted Facebook's mural, like earning millions, you know, that's a very rare story. But, you know, there's other ways to solve for it too, including the way that we first worked with our first law firm, which is deferred fees. It's like, okay, we're going to defer our fees until we raise a Series A.

And many law firms will, you know, work with startups, have those kinds of programs in place. And they realize like if you are succeeding, then, you know, it's big, it's a win-win. And so that's another way to manage risk is to defer compensation or defer fees, if you can, instead of giving away equity.

[Pankaj Raval] (41:30 - 41:54)
Great insights, great insights. Yeah, really, I think really helpful for people starting companies to think about and even discuss with service partners, I agree. When starting a company, you know, if you had advice to someone who's looking to start a company for the first time, you know, maybe they're right out of college, they have a great idea.

What's one piece of advice you would give them to help them succeed or be more successful with that journey?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (41:58 - 42:13)
If they're at the idea stage, I would say that in some cases, people are protective of an idea. Like, oh, I'm not sure I want to share this or should I share it with people? It's the really- Or sign an NDA.

[Pankaj Raval] (42:14 - 42:17)
I get NDAs from clients. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From people, I'm like, I'm a lawyer.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (42:17 - 43:09)
Really shred all of that nonsense. Like, you know, no one's copying your idea. Because actually the hard work isn't coming up with the idea.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. The hard work is in the execution and the commitment to that idea. And it's likely, you know, ideally you find an idea that represents you and the thing that you can be committed to because it might be a 10-year journey.

And so it's rare that you're going to be sharing your idea with somebody else who's in this situation where they also are willing to commit 10 years to the same idea and don't already have their own idea that they want to pursue. So don't worry about sharing it. Share it widely.

Get as much feedback and input as you can. But yeah, it's really about like trying to get validation. Like think about how you get validation.

What are the signals of traction? And trying to get them as quickly and as early as possible to help give you confidence that you're pursuing the right path.

[Pankaj Raval] (43:11 - 43:49)
Yeah. And I would say, I guess, maybe taking that one step further because even like what is validation? Because I find like people say, oh, you can send out a survey and people say they're interested.

Is that validation? My argument would be no because people can say a lot of things, right? On a survey.

But maybe is it paying a little bit of money for something? I don't know. There's probably different ways to get validation.

And I'm sure one can argue, yeah, there are different levels of validation. But how do you... So just to ask, you know, take that one step further.

How do you... What is validation to you? And how do you know if an idea actually really does have teeth versus like, hey, my mom said it's a great idea.

I should probably just move forward with this.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (43:49 - 44:56)
I think here's a couple of simple questions that you can ask. You can still do surveys and you can still talk to people. You don't have to have them pay as the only way to validate.

You can ask them, would you pay for this? Or even better, how much would you pay for this? Helping them quantify it will be better because then it's not just a, sure.

It's like, well, I'll have to think about what's the number here. Similarly, you could ask them on a scale of zero to 10, how great is this idea? Or, you know, how much does this meet your need or how much of this is a priority on a scale of zero?

It's a super simple question. You can apply that scale to anything. And the key thing is in that scale, think of it as like an NPS scale, which means only nines and tens are validation.

Seven or eights and passive and everything below a seven is rejection. So if someone says like, oh, I think it's a seven out of 10, which many people will do because they wanna be confrontational with you and tell you it's a shit idea. But a seven out of 10 is like, they're not into it.

Only nines and tens are into it. So you can apply that to any question to get a simple, quick read of the truth behind how much do they really believe in this? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sahil Chaudry] (44:56 - 45:00)
When I need validation, I just type in a chat, GBT, am I okay?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (45:02 - 45:05)
I hope they rolled that back recently. They rolled back the sycophantic attitude.

[Pankaj Raval] (45:07 - 45:09)
That's gonna be a problem for me.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (45:09 - 45:12)
Yeah, you might have a crisis of confidence coming up right now.

[Pankaj Raval] (45:12 - 45:20)
Yeah, I'm using it as my life coach. I need to check in with you though. I need to check in with you more now.

I'll be, I'll make sure you're okay.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (45:20 - 45:25)
There were too many Cyhills getting too much validation from chat, GBT was burning too much.

[Pankaj Raval] (45:26 - 45:35)
They're like, roll it back. It's causing a big strain on their system. The compute cost was just way too high to keep up with your ego.

Please tell me I'm okay.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (45:36 - 46:22)
They're like, this is a bad use of money is to validate Cyhill. Well, Polkit, what's next for you? What's next for Polkit and Chameleon?

On a personal level, we're expecting a child, which is like the big next thing. But from a work perspective, I'm working on a new product, which is also very exciting. And it's given me a chance to go back into like the depths of early validation of assessing risk of assessing whether people really care about this thing or not.

And one thing is like, sometimes you do have to push through. You do have to be hard headed when you believe something. Cause when you're getting validation, a lot of people will say no, you just have to find some people that will say yes.

And so that's kind of a fun journey for me to be back in the trenches on that.

[Pankaj Raval] (46:23 - 46:45)
That's awesome. It's exciting. I need to actually discuss with you and just book some time with you offline because we have a few products we're building in Carbon Law Group and help people speed up filings with Delaware as well as our own lawyer platform.

So we might need some product insight and might have to utilize Chameleon going forward.

[Pulkit Agrawal] (46:45 - 46:51)
Yeah, you can use Chameleon. I'm also available on a per hourly basis or per six minute basis for any advice.

[Pankaj Raval] (46:54 - 47:24)
Beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, no, this has been great. Thank you so much for taking the time to share about your journey.

This is really, this podcast really is about to understand founders, entrepreneurs, deal makers, how you approach risk, how you approach growth. So you've really opened up, I think, a lot of insight on what it means to build. And your journey is so fascinating.

And I think it can resonate with so many people trying to be an entrepreneur and build and see that it is possible. And there's no one path to do it.

[Sahil Chaudry] (47:24 - 47:28)
Pulkit, where can people find you if they want to connect?

[Pulkit Agrawal] (47:28 - 47:40)
People can find me on LinkedIn. That's where I'm active. And I do DM, feel free to connect with me and DM me.

But hopefully you'll, there are many Pulkit Agrawals. So find the one that's co-founder committee.

[Sahil Chaudry] (47:40 - 47:40)
Right.

[Pankaj Raval] (47:40 - 47:47)
This is great. So Salih, any closing thoughts based on kind of what we listened to today? I gave a few of mine, but what about you?

[Sahil Chaudry] (47:48 - 48:09)
So I think the biggest lesson that I've pulled from this conversation with Pulkit is about just being very persistent and pursuing your vision, not having a plan B, but letting your vision evolve with the times, understanding you're in a market, but pushing through and then also make friends with lawyers.

[Pankaj Raval] (48:10 - 49:07)
Yes. And also, I would say to add to that is to, and lean into opportunity when it arises, because for all of us, IndieCore was such a unique opportunity that came up at a unique time. Unfortunately, it's no longer around.

There are other iterations of it. I know we were talking before the podcast started recording about a summer camp for Indian origin people in Philadelphia. No, where is it in Philadelphia?

Yeah, somewhere in the Northeast. So there's still opportunities out there. I would still seek them out.

How I found out about IndieCore was randomly at a dinner party in Arizona. I was at and someone's brother had gone. So it was very random how it all happened, but I would say, keep pursuing your interests and let other people know about what you're interested in, because oftentimes people will be there to help you and make suggestions that could really change your life.

[Sahil Chaudry] (49:08 - 49:12)
Thank you so much for joining us, Pulkit. We look forward to having you back on. Thank you so much.

[Pankaj Raval] (49:12 - 49:20)
It was a fun time to be here. Appreciate it. Thank you.

That was Letters of Intent. Watch out for new episodes dropping every Wednesday. Thanks again.