234: Raising $7 Million for your AI startup | Utkrishta Kumar | Unstarted Ep 5

Most people know what they want. The problem is they keep waiting for certainty that never comes.

Oolka founder, Utkrishta Kumar built India's first just-in-time fulfilment network at 27, helped scale Meesho through one of India's biggest social commerce pivots and then left before the IPO. Not because he had to, but because the regret of not starting felt heavier than the risk of failing.

In this episode, Avnish and Utkrishta work through the questions early founders actually get stuck on:

1. How do I know I'm ready to start up?
2. How do you find PMF and is tracking PMF enough?
3. How do I build an AI product that ChatGPT can't just replace tomorrow?
4. If I've already made money, why does failure still terrify me?
5. The conversation lands somewhere honest: you won't see the whole road. 6. You just need to be okay with the fog

A new episode of Unstarted - every Thursday

00:00  Leaving before the IPO
00:56  Introduction: the one question every aspiring founder is asking 
01:55  Growing up risk-averse 
04:54 Q1: How do you know if starting up is the right move? 
07:12 How to build a founder's operating system without an MBA 
11:43 Q2: How do I know if I've reached PMF? 
13:47 What Oolka does — and why every credit problem is individual 
16:51 Why he left Meesho before the IPO — and the fear money doesn't fix 19:58 Q3: How do you build with AI without being replaced tomorrow? 
26:49 Final advice: more than 70% never fire the bullet