On 23rd August, I got to be the youngest panelist and judge at Eureka Road to Enterprise 2026, organized by E-Cell IIT Bombay, held at Cooch Behar Government Engineering College.
Cooch Behar is my hometown. The same city where my first ever client was a momo(Dumpling) shop that paid me in a hundred rupees and a free plate of momo.
I have spent the last four plus years building and improving businesses and teams, alongside working as a developer. Pitching, cold calling, constantly refining the business model, and pushing myself to grow, I know that side well. Judging is a little different.
why little? Because you are not trying to convince anyone. You are listening and trying to spot the gaps before the market finds them for the founder and that is what I have been doing for my whole life for my own businesses and teams.
Multiple students pitched their ideas to us, and honestly a lot of them were well thought out and planned. As panelists, we pushed their ideas further and gave them a bit of a reality check from what we have actually seen on the ground.
Near the end, I shared my own experience of building in tier-1 cities versus tier-2 and 3 cities, and how different the game actually is. Bangalore gives you easy access to mentors, investors, and a talent pool that assumes ambition by default. Building in a smaller city means bigger unsolved problems, but less capital, fewer people willing to stay and fight for it, and less spending power in the market in general.
Loved every bit of it. Grateful to E-Cell IIT Bombay and Cooch Behar Government Engineering College for the opportunity.
Moments like this remind me why I started building in the first place.