Since 2015 I have worked on one question:
I build Flow, a recruiter’s judgement in software for anyone applying to a job, fellowship, accelerator or PhD. Before that I was a headhunter, a community builder, and a researcher of what guidance is worth.
Since 2015, one question
Be known for my skills, not my college’s name.
I cleared IIT JEE and had an IISER offer. The SAT cost more than I had, so I studied the profiles of people who got in, and chose Panjab University for its AI subjects. Either you are known by your college or your college is known by you.
Learn machine learning, not competitive coding.
A senior told me to take Andrew Ng’s Machine Learning and Balaji Srinivasan’s Startup Engineering. In 2014 I did machine-learning research on intelligent transport systems at IIT Bombay’s Computer Science department, under Prof. Bhaskaran Raman.
Design for people, not for the tools.
The MIT Media Lab’s Design Innovation Workshop in Gandhinagar, in January. I wrote it up later ↗
Share opportunities in the open, and how people got in.
Flow starts in August as a Facebook group, in my last year of college. A friend said to share an opportunity only once I had won it; I did not. In 2016 Flow passes 1,500 members, and I am one of 10 fellows at the MIT Global Startup Workshop.
Stay with Flow.
Draper University accepted me in May, without a scholarship, and the MIT Entrepreneurship Bootcamp in Seoul selected me. I went to neither.
Move to the selector’s side: headhunting, through Flow.
At YC Startup School, my mentor Dharmesh Malam (YC 2012) tells me recruiting is one of the biggest unorganised industries. In 2018 I hire for Playment (YC W17) as they grow by almost a person a week.
Three months as a product manager at Digital Product School, Munich.
Since then, 40+ Flow members have joined DPS after finding its call on Flow.
Put every opportunity on one site, each read and checked by a person.
withflow.co, the first Flow site, still live: 900+ opportunities so far. By 2020 the community had passed 8,000 members in 100+ countries.
Open a path between India and Germany.
The Indo-German Young Leaders Forum in 2023, then NEXT MANNHEIM’s International Onboarding Programme in April 2024.
Take the question on stage.
In August, the U.S. State Department’s Indo-Pacific FinTech Forum in Bali; a panel in Phuket; in Kolkata, “Placement Fellowships for Dark Talent”.
Measure what guidance is worth, and rebuild Flow.
“The ROI of Guidance” at the Cedefop–Eurostat conference, Thessaloniki, 28–29 May. Flow rebuilt as the fit check and plan; my own YC application run through it.
Things I believe, from the selector’s side
Writing, research, talks · all essays on Medium ↗
Poem · in a book made in Hasselt, Belgium, 2024Turbulence →Written on a train to Hasselt, on Easter Day. Read it here.
Kind words
He consulted Playment for our hiring when we were scaling up our team by almost a person a week and helped us hire a number of very important employees.
I get to know about Outreachy program through a group in Facebook: Flow.