My time at Sequoia was a lucid dream.
Every day, I’d see these founders, these rebels who would constantly question the world order and run towards building a world that didn’t exist yet, and I would always think how incredible it must be to believe in something so much that you’d do it regardless of what anyone thought, or how impossible it may feel to the crowd.
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” — Steve Jobs, 1997
When Ankita and I left to build Infinyte about a year ago, we picked up a problem that was close to both of our hearts.
One would think that being a part of one of the world’s top VC firms would make you rich beyond your imagination, and they wouldn’t be wrong. Most of my bosses did make the kind of money that I can still only dream of.
Which brings me to the problem we chose to solve for: a future where wealth creation opportunities are democratised and the builders of the modern tech-age, the early believers who work as hard as anyone else get the piece of the pie they rightfully own.
Much like who watches the watchmen, the question was, who builds for the builders?
As a team, we at Infinyte, have had front-row seats to the world of startups.
Equity that is fairly given and widely distributed is how a successful entrepreneur becomes the breeding ground for a hundred others like her.
And while we are quick to celebrate (as we must!) the flagbearers of this phenomenon, we often tend to overlook many of our colleagues - who have for years worked alongside founders in the trenches - who never quite have the rewards on the horizon.
I believe the time has come for us to be compensated for this risk we take on this journey.
Why now?
Apart from the fact that if not now then when, there are macro factors at play that makes this a solve that needs solving not today but now.
There’s already a strong undercurrent in emerging economies across India and Southeast Asia that now is our time, and many large companies with global footprints are starting to emerge, and that’s exactly where we see both an opportunity and a gap.
Case in point: despite it being a year hit by recession: Indian startups had buyback programmes worth over $196 million in 2022!
As new opportunities for wealth creation emerge, the disconnect between the traditional gatekeepers of wealth and how new money thinks will continue to widen. If the builders of today are the wealthy of tomorrow, something’s got to give and someone’s got to help get to this future faster.
With Infinyte, you the Builder, will finally be able to tap into the wealth you’ve created while shaping the startup ecosystem into what it is and unlock performance on that wealth with access to opportunities hitherto unavailable. It's about time all of us, the Craftspersons of the Modern Age, partake in what we’ve created.
Ergo, some questions that keep us awake at night:
- How do we help fast-growing teams visualize the wealth embedded in their ESOPs?
- Once we unlock liquidity for the builders, what are the opportunities to further compound their wealth?
- When would we create a million millionaires?
Finding joy
A year on since we began, it’s safe to say that what they say is true: starting up is incredibly hard.
It’s like planting a seed in your garden, nurturing it with love, care, and patience, hoping to see it grow into a mighty tree that would bear fruit for years to come. It has been a delicate balance between creativity and pragmatism, between dreaming big and staying grounded, between going crazy and maintaining some semblance of sanity.
It helps that we have slowly been able to build a team that is as crazy as we are to believe in the mission we are on.
It’s a team I am incredibly proud of and can’t wait to show the world everything we have been building up to.
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