Shiprocket's Saahil Goel on their IPO, PMF & Building AI for Bharat | Unstarted

Saahil Goel, co-founder and CEO of Shiprocket, joins us for a candid deep-dive into how a self-taught coder from Delhi built the logistics and enablement backbone powering a huge chunk of India's direct-to-consumer commerce.

Sahil takes us all the way back selling his dot matrix printer on Baazee as a kid, teaching himself HTML by hacking "view source," and building websites for cash in college.

Along the way he shares the hard-won lessons behind every pivot: why Indian SMEs won't pay upfront, why you should never fall in love with your product, and how obsession with the merchant's problem kept the company alive through years when every investor said the market didn't exist.

We also get into co-founder dynamics and trust, what actually changed scaling from 25 to 1,500 people, why culture is the "uncodified personality" of a company set by the founder's actions, and being a "microsurgeon, not a micromanager." 

Finally, Saahil lays out his conviction on AI - from writing 70%+ of code with AI, to Shiprocket's in-house voice model built for India's 22 languages, to the "AI for Bharat" mission of reaching the next 58 million merchants.

A rich, practical episode for anyone still unstarted.

What they talk about:

1. From selling a printer on Baazee and self-taught coding to building Shiprocket into India's commerce shipping backbone

2. The real story behind the pivots  KartRocket to Kraftly to Shiprocket and why you stay stubborn with the problem, not the product

3. What PMF actually feels like, plus co-founders, trust, and scaling culture from 25 to 1,500 people

4. His bet on AI: writing most of the code with AI, an in-house voice model for India's 22 languages, and the mission to reach 60M MSMEs

00:00 Intro - Saahil Goel and Shiprocket
02:30 Delhi boy, self-taught coder & selling a printer on Baazee
07:00 Business family & knowing early he'd be a founder
12:00 Meeting Gautam & the start of Bigfoot Retail Solutions
17:00 Co-founders: trust, complementary skills & full commitment
23:00 PMF is a journey, not a destination
29:00 Stubborn with the problem, not the product
35:00 CartRocket to Craftly: the pivots and hard lessons
42:00 Building Shiprocket & why B2B behaved like consumer
48:00 Scaling 25 to 1,500: culture, micro-surgery & builder mindset
55:00 Bias to action vs bias for excellence
60:00 AI at Shiprocket: 70% of code, voice for Bharat & 60M MSMEs
70:00 The IPO ahead & advice for the still-unstarted