How two founders sold to a billion-dollar company with no factory | Wootz Work | Unstarted

Our first-ever episode with co-founders. Karan and Himanshu of WootzWork join Avnish to talk about building a hardware and manufacturing exports company out of India — and why they leaned into a market everyone told them wouldn't work.

From an investment banking and Stanford GSB background (Karan) and IIT Kharagpur mechanical engineering (Himanshu), the two met at a previous company where one interviewed the other as head of engineering a one-hour conversation that ran three hours. In this episode they unpack how a single insult ("we don't talk to Indian engineers, we work with Germans") lit the fire, how they closed their first order from India with no factory of their own, and why the naysayers became their strongest signal to go ahead.

What you'll learn in this episode:

1. Why starting in a market everyone doubts can be an advantage — and how to tell real naysaying from noise
2. How to win your first customer with no factory, no brand, and no track record
3. The co-founder decision that actually matters: why the answer is never "the middle"
4. How to choose a co-founder — honesty and complementary skills over everything else
5. Why customer obsession beats worrying about network or capital early on
6. Manufacturing as a system: how fragmentation held India back and how to fix it
7. Scaling global sales by hiring domain experts in their 40s–50s who are local to the market

Chapters

00:00 Intro 
02:00 Karan's path: banking, AirAsia India, Stanford GSB
04:30 Himanshu's path: IIT Kharagpur, ITC, and the machines
05:15 "We don't talk to Indian engineers" — the moment that lit the fire
06:30 The China vs India buying experience: what's actually broken
08:00 Why the market was ripe — and betting on exports
11:45 Customer obsession: getting the first customer in
13:15 The co-founder dynamic: why the answer is never in the middle
20:25 Turning the naysaying into conviction
22:30 The first order: won with no factory
23:12 Why the customer still needs them: engineering vs manufacturing
28:30 Managing people with 40–50 years of experience
30:30 AI and robotics in the manufacturing story
33:40 Closing: why 2.3 is the right number of co-founders