this was written in march 2023 when i started qalakaar with my friend shubhayu. the company is no longer active, but the experience taught me a lot about building products and working with a co-founder.
i was hunting for software engineering jobs and internships, but nothing felt right. having dropped out of university, i was feeling a bit lost about what to do next.
my friend shubhayu and i had always talked about starting something together. we’d throw around ideas constantly, imagining what it would be like to build our own thing instead of looking for someone else’s company to join.
the idea
after brainstorming a bunch of concepts, we landed on qalakaar—a marketplace connecting event planners with artists for live events. we had both organized events and knew how tedious it was to find the right entertainment. booking artists usually meant scrolling through instagram, cold dming, negotiating through whatsapp, and hoping they’d show up.
we thought we could make that process cleaner.
month one
we made an embarrassingly earnest youtube video explaining the concept. watching it now is… an experience. but that’s what month one looks like when you’re figuring things out.
click the image to watch our embarrassing first video
we set up a landing page, started reaching out to artists and event planners, and built a waitlist. the goal was simple: validate demand before writing too much code.
what we learned
qalakaar didn’t work out long-term, but the process was valuable. i learned how to think about marketplaces, two-sided networks, and the gap between “this sounds like a good idea” and “people will actually pay for this.”
working with shubhayu taught me what co-founder dynamics feel like—how to divide work, make decisions when you disagree, and stay motivated when progress is slow.
reflection
starting a company is hard. not in the “i worked 80 hours this week” way (though sometimes that too), but in the “am i building something anyone actually wants?” way.
if you’re thinking about starting something, my advice: talk to users early, build small, and find a co-founder you trust. the idea will change, but the relationship has to hold.
if you want to chat about building stuff or early-stage product work, reach out at hi@sattwyk.com.