Web3
Hackathon wins, a funded first company, and what I learned when the rails underneath it closed.
Synkarnia
The first company I raised money for. At 20 I went from writing weekend code to being responsible for other people's capital in the space of a few months.
It did not fail on product and it did not fail on demand. It failed on rails. Indian policy tightened around anything classified as crypto, payment gateways stopped serving businesses like ours, and no amount of engineering fixes a market you are no longer legally practical in. We pivoted, and eventually I closed it.
I would rather a client hear this from me in my own words than find out later. It is also why I now check the regulatory floor before the product ceiling.
Hackathon wins
| Hackathon | Result | Year |
|---|---|---|
| ETHGlobal Tokyo | Bounty | 2023 |
| EthCC Paris | Bounty | 2023 |
| ETHIndia | Bounty winner | 2023 |
| ETHIndia | Bounty winner | 2022 |
| Trident national hackathon | West region winner | 2023 |
| Five Hacks | First place | 2023 |
| HackerRank AI challenge | Global rank 3 | 2023 |
Hackathons taught me to ship inside 36 hours in a language I sometimes learned on the day. Everything I know about scoping came from there.