A Bengaluru-based tech entrepreneur, Shakti Mani Tripathi, has shared his journey of facing multiple setbacks after leaving his lucrative Rs.1 crore job at Amazon to pursue his startup dreams. Tripathi, the co-founder and CTO of Reflecc, an AI-driven platform aimed at automating business workflows, reflected on the challenges he encountered in a now-viral post on X (formerly Twitter).
Tripathi’s career took a significant turn in 2024 when he quit his job as a software engineer at Amazon, where he had worked on developing Amazon Pay Later. Driven by a desire to create something of his own, he ventured into the world of startups, beginning with his first project, Hoobahoo AI. However, his entrepreneurial journey quickly hit hurdles: his startup idea was rejected by Y Combinator, and despite pitching to over 30 venture capitalists, he was unable to secure funding. Faced with high customer acquisition costs and a lack of resources, Tripathi was forced to shut down Hoobahoo AI.
Undeterred, he and his co-founder, Kunal Ranjan, shifted focus to a new project—a B2B SaaS tool for engineering teams to monitor productivity. However, they soon realized that the concept of measuring productivity in software engineering was too complex and nuanced to be quantifiable. The duo pivoted again, this time attempting to develop Codermon AI, an AI agent for developers’ ad-hoc tasks. Unfortunately, the market was already oversaturated with similar solutions, and they abandoned the project.
Next, Tripathi explored the supply chain industry, attempting to create an AI tool for procurement. However, the lack of prior experience in this domain led to another dead end.
Despite these challenges, Tripathi and Ranjan pressed on and launched Reflecc AI, an AI platform to automate business processes. Within just seven days, they developed a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and interviewed over 50 industry professionals to validate their idea. Their persistence paid off with three Letters of Intent (LOIs) from potential clients, and they even made it into Y Combinator’s top 10%. Unfortunately, they were still rejected.
In his post, Tripathi acknowledged the numerous failures but also emphasized the valuable lessons he learned along the way. As he looks to the future, he expressed hope that 2025 would bring better luck and not force him to give up his entrepreneurial journey and return to the corporate world. His post has resonated with many, reaching over 40,000 people on X, with countless comments from others sharing their own experiences of failure and offering support.
Despite the setbacks, Tripathi’s resilience and willingness to learn from his mistakes continue to fuel his passion for innovation.
