the seed wasn't a startup dream. it was 6000 rupees.

friend asked me: what’s the turning point to build a company? what’s the seed in your mind that you’re going to build a company?

yeah, that’s a good question.

looking back, the seed might have been around 2012, when i was actively blogging.

it started as a philosophy in my head:

nammude agrahangal onnum nammudeth alle, mattullavar agrahichkondum nediyeduthathukondum aanu nammalkum aa agraham thoniyath

your wish isn’t original. you got it because someone else wished and achieved it, and you saw that. that’s how you got the wish.

the newspaper moment in the hut

back then i was staying in a hut [#TODO: more on another story]. a tiny place. two rooms and a kitchen.

it had a leaf roof. i embrace that past.

one day i was sitting inside that hut, reading a mathrubhumi newspaper from sundaran kochichan’s (uncle) home.

i saw a story about someone building a blog that earned 6000 rupees a month.

wow, eye wide open! at that age, make money online was a big deal, now it’s changed [TODO: more on another story].

that was enough to switch something on.

1. i want to make money.
2. that guy was doing it, so i thought i should too.

and after that, curiosity kicked in.

curiosity + confidence is the real engine

there’s a line i keep repeating to the team even now:

curiosity + confidence = unstoppable.

that exact engine took me from not knowing what tools to build (react or mongodb), to building apps

today, the apps we build at helixo have generated over 1200+ crores of revenue for e-commerce merchants.

but the seed of that wasn’t some startup dream.

it was that moment in the hut where i saw someone making money online, and my brain said: okay, figure this out.

the computer in the hall

i started researching what i could do.

my kochichan (sundaran uncle), who’s forward-thinking, bought a computer for everyone. not just his daughter.

that computer was placed in the hall of kochichan’s home. you must be productive when everybody is around, you can’t do your fun things there (you can’t open those 3gp files hidden in c:/program files/system/core/virus/danger/games/gta vice city/do_not_open/sunny_leo_in_party.3gp :D)

the feeling of working while others were living normally.

and i used it to the max.

that hall is where a lot of intensive experiments happened.

also a lot of silent burnouts, without me knowing it’s burnout.

valiyamaman’s home and valiyamaman’s credit

the first computer i truly “got” was at the valiyamaman’s home.

valiyamaman (my mother’s brother) always took credit for everything.

i even got high marks in plus two. i lost only two marks out of 300 in the practical exam. i got 298.

valiyamaman would say, “i bought the computer for you for this.”

i knew the character, so i just laughed in my mind and told my mother about it later.

and yeah, i used maaman’s computer a lot. it really helped.

also, valiyamaman gave me the first amount to join a computer class at infopark back in the 5th standard holidays [#TODO: more on another story].

another story for the next series.

content first, then the truth about money

i figured out how to make blogs and stuff.

i created blogs, but there was no money.

later i learned something important: the best way to earn was to teach others how to blog.

even if i didn’t know everything, teaching was the best route.

it’s like dropshipping gurus on youtube. many aren’t profitable. they’re loss-making. but they still sell courses on how to succeed.

so i used the same strategy.

i created content and wrote blog articles on how to do stuff on a blogger site.

back then, blogspot was google’s own service. you could create free blogs at no cost.

even i remember i had lot more profile views than sundar pichai (google ceo), yeah i was that popular, and was real :)

i was using the .blogspot.com subdomain. i hadn’t bought any domain yet.

tiny plugins were the invisible seed

even though the market wasn’t that noisy, i could stand out because i learned how to write small scripts with javascript.

that was the invisible seed for the company.

today at helixo we build apps for shopify. small scripts that extend shopify’s capabilities.

…and back then i was making tiny blogger plugins. small javascript pieces.

i learned javascript first, then jquery.

jquery was a huge milestone because it let us add animations easily.

i created little scripts, posted them on my blog, and others could tweak settings, generate a script, and install the plugin on their blogger site.

here are a few i still remember:

• Facebook jQuery POP OUT likebox widget generator
• Awesome Rainbow animation Link Widget for Blogger
• Awesome CSS3 animated Menu for blogger Blog
• 15+ Smooth Jquery Scroll to Top widget generator for Blogger v.1

people started noticing.

i got traffic because i was unique.

everyone else was just copying text.

back then it was blogger plugins. now it’s shopify apps. same instinct.

the referral loop and first internet money

i also figured out how to make money from referral.

i would wake up on my uncle’s computer and work late into the evening.

i didn’t realize it was burnout at the time, but i hit it multiple times.

then i learned about referral systems.

if you refer someone to install an app, you earn money.

i set it up on our blog.

i wrote posts like “10 best recharging apps” and added referral links.

it was huge. freecharge was a game changer.

there was a limit of 1000 rupees per account, so i kept creating new recharge accounts and swapping referral codes.

sometimes a 1000-rupee referral would hit and i wouldn’t know until i checked the account.

this was my primary income then.

i earned around 10-15k rupees.

my first internet money.

that was the seed of everything.

friend said: you haven’t said this story, so i’m writing it now. …and i think you forgot about it, right? yeah, right.

thanks for asking that question.

it makes me think about the good old days.

key takeaways

• the turning point wasn’t a grand plan. it was seeing someone earn 6000 rupees online and believing i could learn the path.
• the real leverage came from doing what others weren’t doing: building tiny javascript and jquery plugins, not just writing text.
• teaching what i learned created momentum even before i felt “ready.”
• referral systems became my first real internet income, and that feeling changed my identity.

see you tomorrow! :)