260: 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 backbone2. The real story behind the pivots  KartRocket to Kraftly to Shiprocket and why you stay stubborn with the problem, not the product3. What PMF actually feels like, plus co-founders, trust, and scaling culture from 25 to 1,500 people4. 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 MSMEs00:00 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