Shakti Mani Tripathi, a Bengaluru techie, has shared a post on his X account, revealing about the setbacks he faced in his entrepreneurial journey. This post has gone viral on the social media. In the post, he has shared about quitting his high-paying Amazon job in order to become an entrepreneur.
Who is Shakti Mani Tripathi?
Shakti Mani Tripathi is the co-founder and CTO of Reflecc, which is an AI agent to automate business and operational workflows of organisations. He had pursued B. Tech from Motilal Nehru National Institute Of Technology in Allahabad. He holds a Master's degree in Psychology from Indira Gandhi National Open University.
His viral post reads, “2024 has been a WILD year for me. Left my Rs 1 crore job at Amazon without any backup, out of an urge to finally 'start up'. Became International Master on Codeforces from my ex-girlfriend’s handle. Founded my first startup @hoobahoo_ai.”
This Bengaluru techie then shared about the failure of his startup and wrote, “Got rejected by YC. In just 3 weeks, @hoobahoo_ai gained early traction of around 3k users. Pitched to over 30 VCs (including Elevation Capital and IQ) but failed to raise funds. Shut down @hoobahoo_ai due to high CAC and lack of funds.”
Following this, he met his co-founder via YC co-founder matching and then started building B2B SaaS for engineering teams to monitor engineering productivity metrics.
“Pivoted after realising and verifying our thesis that “One cannot RIGHTFULLY measure the productivity of a software engineer,” as there is too much qualitative nuance. (Yes, we do believe all companies in this domain will eventually fail),” he wrote.
Following this, Shakti started building Codermon AI: an AI Agent for developers’ ad-hoc tasks but pivoted due to an overcrowded market. He explored the supply chain industry to develop an AI agent for procurement but pivoted yet again upon realising that prior work experience in this domain is essential, which they lacked.
“Started building @reflecc_ai, an AI agent to automate business and operational workflows of organisations. Built the MVP in 7 days, interviewed over 50 prospects and thought leaders. Cracked 3 LOIs and worked with an agency. Finally made it into YC’s top 10% of applications, but still got rejected. Realised we were going too horizontal with @reflecc_ai and decided to focus on automating a single domain,” he wrote. Now, he is building an AI Digital Marketer.
He concluded his post and wrote, “Tried a lot, failed a lot, but most importantly, learned a lot! I hope 2025 doesn’t force me to quit my entrepreneurial journey and return to being an employee...once again. 2025, please be kind.”
One of his followers encouraged him and wrote, “Best of luck man, I totally get the anxiety, I am on my third stint as an entrepreneur, trying to fight all odds to make it through this time, every failed stint has made me better, and I am confident about this time. Wishing the best for you, you're gonna kill it.”