Aditya Ketkar

Co-founder @telematica_so | YC Alum | BITS Pilani '20

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

@abhishekjain25 If you don’t start enjoying hard days in life, you’ll have considerably less joy but exactly the same amount of hard days.

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

@abhishekjain25 If you don’t start enjoying hard days in life, you’ll have considerably less joy but exactly the same amount of hard days.

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

@nishith_rastogi TIL Ajinomoto is Xerox of condiments 😂

[Somil Gupta @nomadic_bug]

📝 I've recently started writing on Medium. Be sure to check it out and share your thoughts! Feedback is much appreciated. 🖊️

https://t.co/hWe4wu03FX

#Medium #WritingCommunity #FeedbackWelcome

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

For first time founders like us, doing YC drops you ahead of the curve in all dimensions:
fundraise, company building, personal growth, peer group and mentorship.

Absolute no brainer to apply to YC, you’ll know yourself and your company better after doing application itself 😄

[AJ Jain @abhishekjain25]

YC was the best thing that ever happened to us, and the deadline to apply for the next batch is today! The batch is currently in person in SF, and I can't emphasise enough why you should apply without regard for the outcome. @adityaketkar @gustaf @ycombinator

[Gustaf Alströmer @gustaf]

Today is the deadline to apply for Y Combinator. https://t.co/SFm21y2MMN.

17 years ago, I was sitting with my co-founders Marie and Pelle (and later Michael) in our freezing New York apartment crafting our YC application. The first sentence of our application still makes sense today. But it was as revolutionary then, and it seems obvious today:

“We are creating a mobile social networking application that enables free interoperable mobile instant messaging on your mobile handset.”

Marie sent the email, and in that moment, we had no idea what life-changing decision we had just made. Our startup Heysan didn’t become Whatsapp (Whatsapp became Whatsapp), but joining the winter 2007 batch would shape our lives in almost every aspect. Two of us became US citizens and decided to stay here. We all still work on startups in one way or another. For me personally, the most valuable thing was understanding that taking risks isn’t that risky, and if you want to do something, you just do it - don't wait. And it all started with an email that we sent to [email protected].

Today, we don’t accept applications over email anymore, but you can apply https://t.co/SFm21y2MMN. And if you read this after the deadline - you can still apply!

Here is something I wrote for my group in the last batch. I think it applies to founders who are just about to apply just as well:

“One of the best parts of working at YC is that sometimes I get to watch a startup go from nothing to becoming a large company that changes society around us, and something mundane in life suddenly gets infinitely better.

That only happens because founders like yourself are willing to take some risks and get that journey started. Soon, we will do demo day practice, and I vividly remember when Retool practiced their pitch until 3am, and we told David, “You are done - time to go home!“. It was a similar feeling watching Alex and Shuo at Deel - they pivoted literally a few weeks before demo day into what today is Deel and a $12B company. So many of the best YC companies had almost nothing at this point in the batch - it’s easy to forget. And from the outside, it’s easy to imagine investors / other people thinking, “How can THIS company be worth this much or feel so confident when they have almost nothing”.

The trick I’ve learned about being a founder is that it starts with you. If you truly believe in what you are building and how that will change the world, all you have to do is tell the investors with the same level of confidence you feel about this change. And I can tell that a lot of you felt that conviction this week. Becoming good at communicating that conviction will help you hire, sell, fundraise, and convince the rest of the world to believe in what you are building, even though it might not feel like much right now to you.

Good luck, everyone, next week. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever got is when you are walking into a meeting you feel nervous about - pretend like you have known them your entire life. Don’t get attached to the outcome - just tell your story.”

Good luck!

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

@kanoj_vora I can make a case for myself and @abhishekjain25
1. Education: BITS Goa, a tier 1 Indian university but not something YC partners would have known.
2. Work: Abhishek worked for Adobe (4 months), I did for Microsoft (~1.5yr). No substantial experience in any technology or business

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

@goviupadhyay @abhishekjain25 @telematica_so Not yet, Was trying out bikes on test track 😄

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

⁦@telematica_so⁩ at #MOVEAmerica2023!

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

@ycombinator alumni reunion exceeded all expectations!
Amazing series of talks and networking events.
Grateful to be part of this inspirational cohort.

Until next time💯

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

@GurpriyaSidhu https://t.co/gcXaUXGLYw

Though nothing beats 30 min full versions of him vibing with his crew, this is the best remix I've heard of his work in recent times.

[kitze 🛠️ tinkerer.club @thekitze]

2 spoons. add hot water. bye

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

me after installing copilot 🤖

[AJ Jain @abhishekjain25]

Finally met the OG Bitsian! Thank you for helping us out over the last 2 years across multiple ideas 🙏

[Michael Seibel @mwseibel]

Remember, we need people to actually work hard to invent the world of the future. If we punish that hard work - we won’t innovate. Humanity as a whole is much better off because collectively we’ve worked hard to create new useful technologies.

[Awais Ahmed @awaisahmedna]

I really do appreciate how convenient delivery and e-commerce startups make my life. No doubt. But we need more people working on atoms vs bits. It’s time to build more electric aircraft, carbon capture machines, spacecraft, solar farms et al. We need more real world progress 🚀

[Aditya Ketkar @adityaketkar]

@chinchang457 https://t.co/lISsi0z8UJ
Some well known thinking tools for common scenarios

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

Why Beauty Matters

(and how it has been destroyed by "usability")

A short thread...

[Gustaf Alströmer @gustaf]

There are over 30 climate startups in the current @ycombinator W22 batch. You can learn about some of them here: https://t.co/ms7G3BUa9n

[AJ Jain @abhishekjain25]

Let's go!!!⚡️@adityaketkar @telematica_so