Simanta Raj Sarma

Founder, Prakity Technologies
Building web & mobile products for startups & creators.

[Simanta Raj Sarma @simantarsarma]

learning is far more important than earning in our 20's.

[Simanta Raj Sarma @simantarsarma]

Today Restudy has 60k+ downloads 🎉 and mostly runs on its own.

Since then I’ve built 12+ mobile apps. Each one taught me something different, and I’m still learning.

If you have an app idea and want a team that has already been through the hard parts, message me 🙂

[Simanta Raj Sarma @simantarsarma]

I once stopped on the side of a road to fix a bug in an app I had built 🙂

Let me go back.

I was learning React Native when a friend called. Someone he knew wanted a mobile app. I said “okay, let’s meet” without a second thought, even though I had no..

[Simanta Raj Sarma @simantarsarma]

a lot of stress, not going to lie 😄

We also made mistakes that cost real money. That’s how I learned a production app is a different game from a website. You think carefully about every update and every change on the server, because someone is using it right now.

[Simanta Raj Sarma @simantarsarma]

clients outside India, so that’s what we’re doing.

I’ll write here as it happens: what we build, what goes wrong, what I get wrong, and what I learn about selling and delivering across time zones.

If you’re building something and need a team, I’d like to hear from you.

[Simanta Raj Sarma @simantarsarma]

I’m 20. I run a software agency called Prakity in Guwahati, Assam.

There are five of us. We’ve shipped more than 65+ products: web apps, mobile apps, APIs and e-commerce platforms.

It started in class 11, when I got into hacking. I broke into my college’s website :)

[Simanta Raj Sarma @simantarsarma]

students across the North East.

After that came freelance work for small businesses, and referrals.

Until now, almost all of our clients have been local. That was a good place to learn: real businesses, real deadlines, real mistakes. We now think we’re ready to work with

[Simanta Raj Sarma @simantarsarma]

Agree. In the few developer interviews I’ve done, watching someone work told me more than any answer did.

[Kevin Naughton Jr. @KevinNaughtonJr]

tech interviews should just become watching someone code for an hour

doesn't even matter what they build just pay attention to:
1. what tools they use
2. how they develop
3. how they validate correctness

i guarantee you you'll know within the hour if that person's a value add to your company or not

[Kevin Naughton Jr. @KevinNaughtonJr]

engineers today don't get to experience:
-human code review
-pair programming
-handwriting code
-merge conflicts
-design review
-reading code
-debugging
-thinking
-typing
-joy

[Simanta Raj Sarma @simantarsarma]

@larsencc @KevinNaughtonJr the end is near I guess

[Harkirat Singh @kirat_tw]

learning to adapt might have been the biggest skill altogether.

[Arpit Bhayani @arpit_bhayani]

AI can write the code.
AI can write the docs.
AI can write the tests.
AI can even write the PR description explaining why the code is definitely correct.

What it cannot reliably do is decide what should be built, ask the uncomfortable question in the room, convince people to change direction, or notice that everyone is solving the wrong problem.

As the cost of producing output keeps dropping, the value shifts to judgment, communication, taste, context, and knowing what not to do.

So yes, soft skills matter. They are just becoming increasingly hard requirements.

Soft skills are not really "soft" anymore.

[Priyansh Agarwal @Priyansh_31Dec]

You need to know how to code and have strong CS fundamentals to be able to review the code generated by AI, most of which is slop unless you're building a small project that nobody uses.

You need to have enough experiences to be able to work with AI tools to design new systems (or even more difficult, redesign existing systems which requires deeply understanding the current design).

Just being able to talk to an AI tool or spawn an army of AI agents is a very stupid skill actually. It is your judgement which is the actual skill, and that judgement comes from strong fundamentals and enough experiences, it does not come from using AI more.

[Striver | Building takeUforward @striver_79]

The hardest part of growth is losing the identity that once got applause.

[Naval @naval]

When you truly work for yourself, you won’t have hobbies, you won’t have weekends, and you won’t have vacations, but you won’t have work either.

[Ritesh @riteshpatel1884]

The power of repetition in tech is crazy.

1. Write code once → you understand it.
2. Write it 20 times → you remember it.
3. Build 10 projects → you start seeing patterns.
4. Debug 100 errors → you stop panicking when something breaks.

Repetition changes:
• Syntax → muscle memory
• Bugs → debugging skills
• Projects → problem-solving
• Docs → faster learning
• DSA → pattern recognition
• APIs → better system understanding
• Deployments → confidence
• Failures → better engineering decisions

Build → Break → Debug → Fix → Repeat.