Some connections are written in sand, others are etched in stone. I often believe that it is our effort to nurture those connections that takes them from sand to stone.
I’ll explain.
Srikrishnan Ganeshan from Rocketlane asked me to speak with this young man who was “tinkering with building a startup” in the Valley. Those were Srikrishnan’s exact words. The startup: Affinity. Always up to meet young founders, I signed up. Eventually, I got on a call with Shubham Goel.
What followed was a free-flowing conversation. Shubham said he was building in the CRM space. I nodded along. He spoke clearly, softly, and before we knew it, our time was up. We promised to stay in touch, and the virtual call ended. The conversation was polite; Shubham was humble and smiled a lot. I liked what he represented and bookmarked him in my brain to come back to later.
After I hung up the phone, I was amazed at the humility.
“Did I speak to Shubham Goel of Affinity?” I asked myself. Shubham did not mention it once.
I used Affinity during my time at Accel, loved the product, and, in my last weeks at Together, attended training seminars for the same product.
Shubham and I eventually spoke some more, and I found something remarkably endearing about him: an Indianness that grounded him, even as the Bay Area’s influence was strong in his reasoning. You see it in how he dresses too: sandals, a T-shirt, shorts, understated in a way that has nothing to prove.
It is a rare quality, and AIBoomi needs those qualities. We discussed him hosting a few sessions for us to help founders get actionable input in their journeys. He agreed and hosted a session in Bangalore for scaled founders. The session was fun and engrossing, and everyone who attended wanted more.
His involvement deepened, and he soon became a mentor at SGX. Again, his advice was practical and to the point. Somewhere along the way, without any of us quite noticing, he had become one of the threads holding AIBoomi together.
I remember speaking to a founder who had worked with Shubham during SGX, and he explained to me how deep his impact has been. Shubham, he described, was extremely patient, building an understanding of their business one step at a time. He was humble enough to know when to say, “I don’t know, could you please explain this to me?” And during the entire conversation with the founder, not once did he try to ascertain that he had built a company the size of Affinity. And through the entire programme, he was described by all founders as “chill”.
But this is not just about work; personally as well. I’ve leaned on him for advice for AIBoomi and for decisions I’ve had to make in my own life. What I’ve appreciated most is that he doesn’t give you ideas; he works with you to clarify your thinking. He helps you find the answers yourself. His childlike curiosity about most subjects makes him a very unique human, but my favourite part of talking to him is when he laughs. An infectious laughter that makes you smile as well. He’ll find humour in the smallest of things and will hold that with him for a long time.
Shubham has started a new journey, and watching him use all his advice for himself is very exciting. Watching him mature, adapt and re-adapt his playbook in real time is stunning. Even in this process, he maintains the calmness and serenity that he is now known for. I am waiting for him to share his new playbook with our founders once again.
There are truly very few like Shubham.
Shubham, that call could have stayed sand. You made it stone.
