Hey, I'm Teja

Entrepreneur. Writer.
Explorer.

I solve difficult problems, and write stories inspired by people, emotions, and everything I explore along the way.

Teja

Hey, I'm from
Hyderabad

About

A little about me.

I'm Teja — an entrepreneur, author, and someone who has learned most things by trying, failing, and trying again. From creating 200+ YouTube videos to building multiple startups and writing stories, curiosity has taken me places I never planned to go.

Know what I do today

Build

I build companies and figure out how to make difficult things work.

Write

I write stories inspired by people, emotions, and the situations that reveal who we really are.

Learn

Failures have taught me more than success ever could. I’m always learning along the way.

Explore

New ideas, difficult challenges, unfamiliar places — and everything life has to offer.

My story

My life is a story about exploration.

I never planned to become an entrepreneur. I was just curious — and every exploration kept leading somewhere I didn't expect.

2020

A camera and no audience

On 19 March 2020 I started a YouTube channel. Two years and 200+ videos later it still had barely any traction, and I moved on. It left me one thing worth more than views: I stopped being afraid of talking to people. That skill is what pulled me into rooms full of ideas.

2021

Paying my own way

Somewhere in the middle of engineering I became financially independent from my family — my own fees, my own dues, my own mistakes. It was the hardest stretch of my life so far, and the first time I learned that surviving a situation is a skill of its own.

2021 — 2023

Three ventures, three endings

Truscript started in a park near my house as ten-minute medicine delivery, pivoted for a year, and closed because we did not understand the domain deeply enough. Designity, a video agency, made real money and paid our bills — I left because it stopped being interesting. Echo actually paid students for gig work, but the unit economics never worked.

2023

Build3

Echo failed, and failing at it is what got me into Build3 — five rounds of selection, nineteen people from across India, and a few months in Goa that rearranged my life. I met a co-founder, walked into an ecosystem I had only read about, and left with funding.

Today

18startup

We started on 19 October 2023. It is my fourth venture, and the first where the hard part is not survival but scale. I run operations and marketing, and I spend most of my time on problems that do not have obvious answers.

I kept exploring, and every exploration led me somewhere unexpected.

What I do today

I make things work.

I'm the Co-Founder and COO of 18startup, where we help early-stage founders — mostly first-time founders — become better executors and get themselves investor-ready.

Most early founders don't lack ambition. They lack execution: how to move fast, avoid expensive mistakes, and spend limited resources wisely. That's the part I work on.

My strength was never coming up with ideas. It's taking something complicated, uncertain and messy and figuring out how to keep it moving — operations, marketing, execution, resourcing, and some technology.

“Startups don't survive because they have the best ideas. They survive because someone figures out how to keep going when things get difficult.”

₹10 Cr

company built with my co-founders

100+

founders funded or incubated across India

Pan-India

one of the country’s growing startup communities

Things that didn't work

Truscript

A year of pivots, and everything I did not know about a domain.

Designity Services

Profitable enough to survive. Not interesting enough to continue.

Echo

Real revenue, real payouts, unit economics that never worked.

The other side

I also write. And I go looking for things.

The author

My first book, Aksharala Nuvve, is a Telugu love story about two people, the sacrifices between them, and where those sacrifices lead. I wrote it as a gift. Somewhere in the middle of writing it, I realised I'd found another world I wanted to explore.

Since then: short stories, and a slow drift from love stories toward suspense and thrillers. Entrepreneurship taught me how people behave when things get difficult. Writing taught me to pay attention to those moments. I'm working on the next book now.

The explorer

Outside work: music, writing, travel, riding, treks, beaches, mountains, and a fairly persistent habit of going somewhere I haven't been. Adventure isn't a weekend hobby for me — it's most of how I'm built.

It shows up at work too. The problems I want are the ones that are genuinely hard, genuinely urgent, and that most people quietly avoid.

What I believe

Five things I keep coming back to.

01

Keep trying.

Stopping guarantees failure. Trying again only creates another possibility.

02

Take the risk.

I don’t calculate every risk. Uncertainty is usually where the interesting things begin.

03

Stay curious.

I rarely know where I’m going. Exploring has taken me further than having it figured out ever did.

04

Feel deeply.

Five years ago I would have picked practicality over emotion. I think emotion has made me a better person.

05

Build a life, not only a career.

Success should give you a better life — not take your life away from you.

Let's connect

Have an idea, opportunity or just want to say hi?

Get in touch