Stimuler :Year in Review — 2023. Firsts are CRAZY!

2023 was special in more ways than one :-)

To begin , it was the first ever full year of Stimuler being live on Playstore. Also, the first time we started working full-time on the product. First time, we brought external people as full-time members and we started making revenue as well. Oh, and we raised a proper VC round led by some of our favourite VCS

Wow, thats already a lot of firsts lol, so before you all get bored off and drop out, I would just put my highlights in a slightly more readable format :)

1. We Started taking the 🚀 stuff seriously — Grew 35x in 12 months!

Okayy, let’s be honest, the 35x is misleading because we barely did anything related to growth in 2022. We were too busy ensuring we ship a minimum lovable product (yes, I love this term) and that we don’t fail in college..

But irrespective of that, super proud of where we are at the moment. 650,000+ users — 0.08% of the World Population installed Stimuler App (and from EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY of the world), and when you put the number in that perspective, somehow you are able to put those long nights to a meaning

What you also realize is that there is so much to do- I genuinely believe that there are only a few products in the world designed to scale for 100Mn users and Stimuler is one of them. So, have to do so much more!!

2. We finally started working together from the same house

Its crazy that it took more than 12 months for this to happen, but in Jan 2023, finally Me, Anesh, Ankit and Akshat started working together in-person. IIIT A had allowed Akshat to spend his last semester in an offline project, and rest of us 3 had a relatively lite final semester at IIT BHU (thanks)

So, we did our 1st major sacrifice- Ditched college hostel and booked a 2 bed house near Hyderabad Gate and finally, all of us could work from 1 room. We still had to attend classes to meet the attendance criteria but atleast, the time after that was all to Stimuler. The 10PM curfew by our flat-owner also helped in a way tbh..

The results were crazy — we shipped much more in the next 6 months than we did in previous 12 months and well, we also knew how badly we wanted this to work

3. We lost the college startup tag and Moved to the startup-capital of India

In May, we passed our final exams and moved from Banaras to Bengaluru (Anesh had a couple of weeks extra though for unknown reasons👀)

Bengaluru was an obvious first choice, so we settled up here and took our 1st office too — after spending a month in an AIRBNB and eating Dosas daily xD(Rishika center was delicious though)!!

I honestly have mixed thoughts about graduating — obviously, it gives us much more time to focus on Stimuler, but having the college network & friends in early days was a huge plus for us

Still fully adapting to the Bengaluru culture honestly, but have a feel we are gonna have fun here for the next few years.

4. We raised a million-dollar round from some big folks

Okayy, we have already talked about this in some posts, and i would probably write a separate post soon — but raising 1Mn$ 3 weeks before graduating would definitely be one of the most surreal stories for me..

Flying from Banaras to BLR to Delhi back to BLR back to Banaras in a 3 days span with @Ankit and @Anesh definitely being the peak. So was doing 100+ VC calls in less than 30 days, and 7–8 calls in one day 👀

Our cap-table is full of folks we deeply respect — top silicon valley, Japan & India VCs along with an angel pool we’re proud to associate with including Unicorn CEOs & folks whose podcasts we binge-listen to if thats a thing :)

5. We got some feel-good and special recognitions

Everyone loves recognitions and our parents even more so, if those recognitions come from Google xD

We had quite a few recognitions this year, but definitely the most special ones were the Google ones being directly linked to our biggest distribution channel- Firstly, being a part of AppScale Academy 2023 and then finally, winning the “Best with AI App -2023” in Singapore recently. Winning the Together 2022 Award was really cool too

Personally, I believe the Number 1 role of recognitions to be a morale booster for the team — and if that’s the case, we would love a few more in 2024 :)

6. We started bringing people in

One of my favorite parts about building a startup is being able to handpick the talent you want to work with and the culture you want to have. And while we have zero previous experience (some, if college clubs count), i think i am super proud of the team we have assembled. Folks who have done awesome things and more importantly, are fun to work with

As already mentioned multiple times, I am a firm believer of the Instagram model where a few superstars take responsibility and have a LOT of freedom!

And yes, we are about to welcome some new superstars to the team as well, so thrilled for that

7. AI has changed the world forever

From starting in 2022 when we could count AI apps in India on a fingertip, the world has changed significantly- personally for us, this new AI wave allowed us to ship our roadmap at an even faster rate — 12 months earlier, having a call with AI teacher who does special things re: English speaking(👀) was a stuff multiple years away, today we can see that being possible in the next few months, so stay tuned

WHAT WERE OUR BIGGEST LEARNINGS

Lot of firsts also mean lots of learnings but if I had to pick 10 of the biggest ones (Sam Altman style), here would these be —

1. If you are starting up, find a way be with your cofounders in the same room. Zoom simply doesn’t suffice when you need a crazy energy env

2. Showing up with energy in meetings and using this as a filter for evaluation — both works

3. AI Tools like Chat-GPT are a super-power for every early stage founder- Using it judiciously would create speed moats

4. The best time to start monetization was yesterday — One of the things we learnt slightly hard way

5. Networking with context >>> Random conference networking (ROI wise)

6. Hiring excellent people is the number 1 challenge in running a startup, and no, HR tools wont solve it completely- you have to do it yourself

7. Dont go with assumptions about marketing channels. Product-channel fit is a thing, and you have to try out each channel for your startup
   (ps: a continous lesson for myself)

8. Investments from right people > Insignificant difference in Investment amount

9. Minimize ops in the product if you really want a large volume of users to use it. Make it simple to use, and have a simple value-statement (another continuous lesson)

10. Global markets are heavily untapped for indian consumer startups

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR 2024

The perk of building a startup is that you kindof have to make the next year crazier than this one and we are so so ready for this!!

We have a lot of goals for the coming year and i am sure new ones will pop up as we move through the year — but the key ideas remain the same.

We want to grow at a unprecedented rate (and globally), build the best product the world has ever seen in this segment and bring new superstars to join us in our mission! Rest of the things will sort out themselves :)

Finally, a hugee thank you to everyone who was with us through this year. College friends, who have helped us at every part and an industry, which has shown way too much unexpected support for a few college folks with a half-baked idea

Thanks again and I look forward to do this again next year- IT WAS FUN!!

Adios

Akshay