Tony Tom

Founder/CEO

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@dremnik https://t.co/M58PQBHCpB
Paste app

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

Genuinely inspiring from Kerala!

You ca just do things!! 🥂

[Deedy @deedydas]

This man dropped out of a no-name college in India to be a software engineer and by 33, worked his way up to being CEO of a $100M+ company in New York.

Here's the never-before-shared incredibly inspirational story of Ershad Kunnakkadan:

> be middle class kid in random state school in Kerala, India
> get really into computers
> senior hands you Ubuntu 8.04 CD, whole new world
> starts contributing to SMC (a malayalam computing group)
> gets into blogging cause SMC seniors are into it
> go to no-name small private college in Kerala
> spend more time in terminals than classrooms
> shell scripting contests, Linux admin, security, virus cleaning, bots, paper presentations
> doesnt see a point to college exams
> drops out after 2nd year, promises family "I will earn a degree somehow"
> lands internship at small software co
> grows into being an architect
> found security bugs in Github and Prezi
> reads "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" and the "The Google Story", dreamt of being in the US one day
> does Google Summer of Code
> earns a degree remotely from Bharathiar University
> gets remote job at BigBinary
> moves back to Kochi to be near family
> involved in local free software circles and workshops, events, meetups
> building a quiet dense body of work over loud personal brand
> gets introduced to Gumroad as a consultant first
> joins Gumroad as a senior engineer
> gets married
> moves to Abu Dhabi to be closer to wife's family
> does the boring crucial stuff - scalability, security, payouts, infra
> grows to being a staff software engineer at Gumroad
> support millions of users and $1B+ in creator earnings
> just focusses on self-improvement
> never once thinks about promotion
> moves to New York City on an O-1 visa
> Gumroad looking for a new CEO
> board looks around and its clear who is best fit for the job
> become CEO of a $100M+ gmv business

I just love the story of Ershad. No brands, no pedigree, no MBA, no loudness. When I asked him the quality that got him here, he said "reliability". A truly kind, quiet and generous person. Who loves computers. Dropping out when you're rich is trendy in America, but to see someone Indian drop out and work their way up into the top role is pure inspiration.

Don't worry if you don't have all the accolades and ornaments you see in people who achieve your dreams. Be a good person, and be reliable.

[Garv Malik @malikgarv]

Never been a founder VC gets schooled on why to build a company by someone who has built companies.

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@bryce What’s a meaningful milestone?“it depends” is unacceptable.

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@TheHolyKau You call them craftfully articulated opinions 😅

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Have yet to see a true pre-seed round in over four months. Companies are all raising 4M out of the gate, largely with no product and no revenue. All expecting 30M post. Until the past few weeks, most rounds were getting done. Tide shifting quickly. Finally.

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

I don’t know @thesamparr personally or have a dog in this.

But I trust this. And I’m pretty sure Sam don’t have to lie to build credibility.

Hustle and the MFM are in the top 10 of my consume list!

[Steph Smith @stephsmithio]

When the cofounder of the company that acquired you nearly 5 years ago — which you still work with — still only has positive things to say…

That’s all you need to know.

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@clairevo @chatprd That's awesome. Long due. Look forward to the exciting updates! 🚀🚀

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@soorajchandran_ A todo list is infinite. But a calendar isn’t! Love that ♥️

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@minchoi Saw Manus AI live from a friend. Did an in-depth market research and was mind blown 🤯

The depth is unbelievable. Would love to work with prospect/account research for enterprise use cases!

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@thdxr Tried @CopilotKit? Should get the job done.

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

Reading this sitting in Singapore airport, there’s no match to this marvel.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

He was brilliant

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

He was brilliant

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

X is prolly the only platform where I can get opinions about politics, tech, and food within2 minutes.

I think that’s why this platform is very addictive. Hitting diverse interests to trigger dopamine continuously!

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@hnshah Founder of https://t.co/lKenSlgOPR
Copilot for B2B product teams!

[Sachin Rekhi @sachinrekhi]

I love how the Linear team articulates why the old MVP concept is no longer relevant today:

"Most of us aren’t building for a net-new market. Rather, we’re finding opportunities to improve existing categories.

If you look at successful companies that have IPO'd in the recent years–Zoom, Slack, TikTok, Snowflake, Robinhood–you see examples not of novel ideas, but of these highly-refined ideas.

Since many of us are building in a crowded market, the bar for a competitive, public-ready MVP is much higher than the MVP for a novel idea, since users have options. To get to this high bar, we have to spend more time refining the initial version."

https://t.co/jDQ6hdXiaz

[Suhail @Suhail]

Wave 1: Google using its immense distribution power with LLM integration into the address bar

If this thing matters, it'll get integrated directly in the search bar without a keyword where they have an outsized advantage.

This is the greatest competitive end game threat I could possibly imagine for anyone doing this since most of the use cases are probably for work.

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

Does anyone have a @getairchat invite?

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@fxturevescent @sama A yeti chilling with humans in Miami 🏖️

[Tony Tom @_tonytom]

@bobbyisac I have the same question 🙋
But why?