In 2017, I left Ola for a company building an EV business. Smart people. Clear thinking. A vision that made sense. I asked the wrong question, and it cost me a year.
The Wrong Question
The company wanted to build their own EV, explore battery swapping, and eventually enter ride-sharing. This was before BluSmart existed. The timing felt early. That mattered to me.
I was not evaluating an idea. I was evaluating an opportunity — a career bet that could compound. But instead of asking whether this organisation was actually willing to pay the price of doing this, I asked whether these people knew what they were doing.
That was the mistake.
Why It Looked Real
The signals were convincing. Multiple interview rounds. Sharp people who spoke clearly and thought deeply about the space.
Then came the team they assembled. A former Tesla Roadster launch team member on an 18-month contract to build their own EV. A former Tata Motors Pune plant head who had actually run large automotive operations. A senior battery expert who had worked with BYD and Maruti.
That is where I made my first error. I mistook talent acquisition for commitment. Hiring expensive people felt like proof of seriousness. It was not. It was intent with payroll attached.
The First Signal I Missed
Once inside, I started pushing toward reality. Battery swapping is not a slide-deck problem. It is an operations problem loaded with unknowns: battery utilisation, failure rates, pricing models, partner development, charging logistics, theft, degradation, and downtime.
I knew that building a car would take years, so I proposed a cheap pilot to test the battery swapping model. My plan was 30 e-rickshaw partners, 50 batteries, one city — Gurgaon or Jaipur — and one closed-loop pilot to test swapping, operations, and pricing in real conditions.
I asked for Rs 40L. I was given Rs 4L.
That moment mattered more than I understood at the time.
Rs 4L was not a budget cut. It was a message. It meant: we want learning without exposure. We want the optic of building, not the scar of failing. We are not ready to lose meaningful money on this.
At the same time, I was asked to present to government agencies, speak at seminars, and represent the EV vision publicly. I confused external signalling with internal conviction.
The Real Question I Never Asked
I never once asked: what is the total capital earmarked for this business? Is it ring-fenced? Who owns the P&L? What does failure cost this organisation personally?
I assumed the answers based on senior hires, sharp conversations, and industry momentum. That assumption was fatal. They had not built a business model. They had built a hope structure. Hire smart people. Explore options. See what sticks. That is not an opportunity. It is curiosity funded by cash reserves.
Founder Physics Law 1: Commitment
Here is the law I learned the hard way: opportunity is not intent. Opportunity is committed energy that is already at risk.
Ideas live on slides. Opportunities show up on balance sheets.
If capital is not pre-committed, ring-fenced, and emotionally painful to lose, the opportunity is imaginary. The organisation may be genuine in its interest. They may build something eventually. But you will spend your best months doing the work of conviction they are not yet willing to do themselves.
This Goes Beyond Careers
Founders make the same error constantly. The customer agrees this is important. The management is supportive. The market is excited. None of that matters until someone has put skin in the game — until they are already paying a tax in cash, time, or reputation.
If no one is paying that tax yet, you are orbiting intent, not opportunity.
The Operator Test
Before committing to a role, a startup, a pivot, or a partnership, ask one question: where is the irreversible commitment?
Not promises. Not people. Not decks. Money locked. Budgets ring-fenced. Failure costly.
If you cannot point to that, you are not entering an opportunity. You are entering a story that may or may not find its funding, its conviction, and its courage — after it has used up your time.
Most founders do not fail at execution. They fail before they begin, by stepping into arenas where no real energy exists yet.
That is why this essay comes before Founder’s Gravity. You cannot escape gravity if there was never enough thrust to begin with.