The story
Artist first. Engineer by curiosity.
I didn't become an engineer because I loved programming. I became one because I loved creating things. Long before JavaScript, I drew, designed, built brands, and studied the invisible psychology of good design. Every step since — frontend, backend, architecture, cloud, mobile, AI — has been another tool for building experiences people genuinely love.
“Create with curiosity. Build with empathy. Lead with integrity. Leave things better than you found them.”
Who I am
A builder, not a specialist
Unlike many engineers who live in a single layer of the stack, I move across disciplines. On any given day I might design a product in Figma, architect a backend, build a React Native app, integrate an LLM, and shape a brand identity — and to me those aren't separate jobs. They're different expressions of the same craft: building products people genuinely love using.
The best products are never built by engineering alone, or design alone, or business alone. They emerge when technology, psychology, creativity, and empathy work together. So I never start with code. I start with people — who this is for, what they're really trying to do, and how the experience should make them feel.
The arc
From art to AI
Creative roots
The artist before the engineer
My first creative language wasn't JavaScript — it was visual storytelling. Years of drawing, painting, and composition taught me that every element influences emotion: whitespace creates room to breathe, contrast guides attention, balance builds trust.
Those lessons are still exactly how I think about software today.
Design
Design is communication
Design isn't decoration — it's communication. Every pixel says something; every interaction either builds trust or slowly erodes it.
Logos are where that discipline is most concentrated: an entire personality compressed into a single mark.
Brand
A brand is a promise
A brand is far more than a logo. It's voice, tone, typography, color, motion, and the emotional memory people carry after using something.
These identities — the food brand Cooked and the café brand Gather — were built end to end: mark, palette, packaging, apparel, and the story that ties them together.
The story
How I got here
2020
A dream, and the timing no one could predict
Before BetterSpace, I chased a very different dream. I founded Instinct School of Visual Arts — an institute built around something I believed in deeply: creativity, design, and helping people learn skills that could change their lives. To make it real, I took on roughly ₹45 lakhs in loans. It opened its doors on 24 February 2020.
Less than a month later, the world stopped. India entered a nationwide COVID lockdown. Classes, admissions, momentum — everything I had spent months building simply ceased to exist. Eventually, Instinct had to close. It wasn't poor planning, and it wasn't a lack of belief. It was timing no one could have predicted, and it was one of the hardest experiences of my life.
What the loss taught me
At the time it felt like failure. Looking back, I see it differently. Instinct taught me that timing matters, that resilience isn't about refusing to change but about continuing forward after everything changes, and that a founder's identity can't rest on any single company. Ideas may fail. People keep growing.
Moments from Instinct School of Visual Arts
Rebranding deck2020
A conversation that changed everything
Life has a way of opening new paths as old ones close. In the middle of that uncertainty, I met Dr. Shivli Shrivastava. She brought expertise in psychology and mental health; I brought design, engineering, and product. Our conversations moved quickly past introductions into much bigger questions — why is quality mental healthcare so hard to access, and could thoughtful technology quietly remove some of those barriers?
Building BetterSpace, together
Our skills complemented each other rather than competed. Shivli understood people — their emotions, their struggles, their healing. I understood systems, products, and technology. Instead of approaching mental health from only a clinical or only a technological angle, we combined both: human expertise supported by thoughtful technology, never replaced by it. That balance still defines BetterSpace today.
13 December 2021
Partners in work and in life
Somewhere along the way, our partnership became something more. We fell in love, and on 13 December 2021 we got married. Our relationship and our company grew together — both demanding, both built on trust, patience, and a willingness to navigate uncertainty side by side.
Someone believed
BetterSpace secured pre-seed funding. For a startup, funding is more than capital — it's belief. It meant others could see the future we were working toward. It also raised the stakes: we were no longer building only for ourselves, but for users, a team, and investors who shared the mission.
Becoming a father
Then we became parents. Welcoming our daughter, Raagavi, changed my perspective in ways I never expected. Now, when I build, I catch myself asking a different question: would I be proud if she someday used something I helped create? That single question quietly raises the standard on everything I do.
The products that grew out of all this — BetterSpace, Pie Matrix, and the rest — live in the work, each with its own story, screens, and a live demo.
How I think
Curiosity is my operating system
Whenever I meet a domain I know nothing about, my first instinct isn't fear — it's excitement. That curiosity is why I've moved through art, design, psychology, engineering, and AI, and why I become productive quickly in unfamiliar industries.
I think in systems and from first principles. Instead of fixing the visible symptom, I ask what system produced it. Instead of following convention, I ask whether the assumption underneath is actually true. And I optimize for the long game — decisions a future version of myself will thank me for.
My real strength isn't design or engineering. It's integration — sitting with psychologists, then designers, then architecting systems, then shipping mobile and AI — so decisions optimize the whole product, not a single component.
What I believe
Principles
Shaped by success and, just as often, by failure. None are absolute — they're ideas that keep proving useful.
Build things that matter
Technology should improve someone's life. Making one person's day easier is already meaningful. Always begin with people.
Curiosity compounds
Psychology made me a better designer, design a better engineer, engineering a better founder. Every discipline strengthens the others.
Design is empathy made visible
Not decoration — empathy translated into interfaces. If users feel confused or anxious, the design has more work to do.
Technology should disappear
The best software never calls attention to itself. Users shouldn't admire the implementation; they should accomplish their goals effortlessly.
Simplicity is expensive
Simple products require difficult decisions. Simplicity is not the absence of effort — it is the result of thoughtful effort.
Solve the real problem
People request solutions but usually describe symptoms. Keep asking why; the first problem is rarely the real one.
Failure is tuition
Failure reveals assumptions and builds judgment. The goal is failing thoughtfully, learning quickly, and carrying the lessons forward.
Taste matters
As AI automates execution, judgment becomes the edge — knowing what to include, what to remove, and when something feels complete.
Build with tomorrow in mind
Every decision becomes someone else’s starting point. Write code for future engineers; design for future users.
The creative thread
Everything is connected
I don't see an artist who became an engineer, or a designer who became a CTO. I see a creator. The tools have changed; the mission hasn't — creating experiences that make people's lives a little better than they were before.