Medium-rare to Medium-well

This is the place for my half-cooked thoughts. I’m Gautam.

Professionally, I was Quora's first international hire. My primary focus was growing product usage, specifically the usage of Quora internationally, with a special focus on India. I was one-man army for Quora outside the US: doing whatever was needed for Quora to grow and succeed internationally. Before Quora, I spent 6 years as the Founder & CEO of AudioCompass. We helped passionate people (our tour creators) show others around their city, virtually. I stopped working on it in early 2017.

Personally, I was voted by my On Deck Fellowship (ODF4) cohort as “most likely to run a Ponzi scheme”, which probably stems from the fact that I figured out a growth loop that allowed me to fly business class between India and the US for the price of coach 2x a year for 8 years - this trait bodes well when thinking about how to be capital efficient and frugal in getting things done.

What to expect from Half Cooked

I spend a lot of time helping people think through things and answer questions they may have. These are things mostly related to financial planning, careers, and starting and growing tech-enabled businesses.

My first series of essays will be for Founders and Product & Growth Leaders of venture-backed companies that (i) are based in the US/EU ecosystems, and (ii) have achieved product-market fit, and (iii) are focused on scaling their business, but are wilfully or unknowingly ignoring India.

Depending on how this goes, I may explore increasing the frequency of my writing and possibly charging for subscriptions, but I’ll always have some content on here that is accessible for free.