Chai with Shai

Tanmay Yadav is the founder of Crave Nicotine, a consumer health startup building nicotine candies designed to help smokers quit in a cleaner, more approachable way. The idea emerged shortly after his previous startup shut down, when he began exploring new problems to solve and returned to one that felt deeply personal. He is a cancer survivor and wanted to create a product that could help others avoid similar health risks. Within weeks of validating the idea through conversations with nearly 100 smokers about their quitting journeys, he began building what would become a regulated nicotine replacement product positioned very differently from traditional pharmaceutical looking alternatives.
Drawing on earlier experience working with early stage founders and consumer brands like Oziva, Tanmay moved quickly from customer research to formulation and supply chain setup, though navigating licensing and compliance stretched the launch timeline to over a year. Instead of waiting for perfect conditions, he relied heavily on founder outreach, manufacturing relationships from his venture ecosystem experience, and hands on customer conversations to move forward. His biggest lessons came from underestimating timelines, overvaluing early branding, and learning the importance of building operational backups, but his core belief remains simple: most founders wait too long to start, when progress really begins the moment you pick up the phone, talk to users, and solve a real problem.

Chanakya Shah founder of Up & Run started the company after struggling to find an effective electrolyte solution as a long distance runner. Frustrated by products that didn’t replenish sodium adequately and by the high cost of importing better alternatives, he decided to build a cleaner, performance focused hydration formula tailored for endurance athletes. Without overthinking the process or waiting for a perfect plan, he launched the brand with a simple goal: create a zero sugar, low calorie electrolyte mix with optimal sodium, potassium, and magnesium ratios that actually supports recovery and hydration during extended activity.
Bootstrapping the journey while managing everything from product development to social media and operations himself, he built early traction through community engagement on Twitter. One of his biggest early lessons was the importance of building operational backups, from manufacturers to logistics partners, to reduce risk in a young startup. His approach reflects a bias toward action over analysis paralysis, with a strong focus on sales metrics, returning customers, and product reliability as the foundation for scaling a performance nutrition brand from scratch.

Shraddha Sheth is the founder of FitEduCoach, a skills focused education platform working to professionalize India’s fitness coaching industry by making high quality training accessible to aspiring instructors across the country. After spending over two decades in the fitness ecosystem, including leadership roles, driving operations, and growth at Gold's Gym India. She stepped away from a stable corporate career to build a mission led venture aimed at improving both coach livelihoods and fitness outcomes for members nationwide. For Shraddha, the idea was simple but powerful: better trained coaches leads to stronger gyms, healthier communities, and a fitter India.
She bootstrapped FitEduCoach with her own savings, spent months validating market gaps in trainer education, and personally became the face of the brand in its earliest days. She ran webinars, counseled students, and built trust through free learning sessions before scaling paid programs. Known for her hands on leadership style and belief that “sales is oxygen for a business,” Shraddha continues to grow the platform steadily while focusing on community building, affordable skilling pathways, and long term credibility in a highly competitive training market. Her journey reflects the realities of building an education startup from scratch: disciplined spending, deep conviction, and a commitment to solving a real workforce problem at scale.

Krishna Tamaliya Vora is the founder of Mom’s Therapy, an Ayurvedic haircare brand built around traditional black sesame formulations passed down through generations of women in her family. A trained criminal lawyer who stepped away from the courtroom to share the magic o her grandmother’s recipes, she started the company in 2016 with just ₹12,000 and a belief that truly natural products should be honest, handmade, and rooted in Indian ingredients.
What began as home-made hair oil sold at farmers’ markets and in subscription boxes slowly grew into a trusted, full-fledged skincare brand known for its purity first approach and women led handmade production.
She bootstrapped Mom’s Therapy for nearly eight years before raising her first investment in 2025, navigated losing majority shares early in the journey, and rebuilt momentum after a brief five second appearance on Shark Tank India unexpectedly changed the brand’s visibility. What makes Krishna’s story unique is how deeply integrity shaped her decisions, from refusing to make claims she couldn’t prove to choosing slow, sustainable growth over shortcuts. All while building a natural beauty brand without an MBA, external funding, or a traditional business background.