I have always ended up working right next to the decision makers.

At Dazeworks (my first job), I started with the core team. Back then, it was just a handful of us in a small office. We figured things out as we went, running on coffee and big ideas.

By the time I left, we’d expanded into multiple countries, built teams from scratch, and got acquired by iLink Digital. Most of that growth came from driving fresh initiatives straight from the CEO’s office. I spent a lot of time making things up as we grew, sometimes with a plan and sometimes just winging it.

That seems to be my sweet spot.

At Freshworks, I joined a team called ARC (At Risk Customers). Our job was to spot customers who were unhappy even before they knew it themselves. I had to dig into data, read between the lines, and look for small warning signs. My days were part detective, part firefighter. That work taught me that real success comes from catching problems before they blow up, and from having some tough conversations early.

Now at CRMified, I’m still working closely with the founder and the executive team. I help keep things moving, sort out the messy stuff and make sure good ideas actually turn into real action. Maybe I just belong in the founder’s office. I’m not sure, but it’s worked so far.

If there’s a red thread in my career, it’s this: Stay close to where the decisions are made. You’ll learn more, get to build bigger things and collect stories you can’t always share in public.

And yes, you might have to wear every hat in the company. But you’ll never be bored.

Tripped into the Startup Showcase hosted by Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad - Dubai Campus at Dubai Founders HQ.

Loved the energy, the representation and seeing how the startup community is evolving. So many innovative ideas and great products emerging from every corner.


Chara Technologies | The ePlane Company | Oizom | PierSight | Riskcovry | Butterfly Learnings | produktiv.ai | Unbox Robotics | SatLeo Labs | Orbitt Space

Aswin Kumar

Building Lean, Scalable Ops | Director, Operations at CRMified | Salesforce | Ex Freshworks

Meet Jayakrishnan Ashok (JK). 


We’ve known each other since school and till date, he’s my go-to person for anything around crypto or blockchain.

JK’s now exploring his next big role in Dubai or remote, in the Web3 space.

He’s a polyglot programmer, has built out entire projects from smart contracts to infra tooling and has helped founders go from zero to one. In the photo, he is explaining to me about some interesting opportunities in the restaking and zero knowledge proofs domain. Even though I didn't fully get it, I kept nodding.

If you know someone hiring in Web3, or have a lead in the Dubai market/Remote, please tag them in comments or connect with JK directly (Jayakrishnan Ashok) TIA~

The external advice we receive is often contradictory:

"Don't wake up to the screen, it's bad for your health."
"Don't work too many hours, work smarter."

...but the moment you face a setback, the very same voices are quick to say:

"You should have tried harder."
"You need to hustle more."

This constant noise creates analysis paralysis. It drains your energy trying to please everyone while simultaneously taking care of yourself.

The only way to move forward with genuine conviction is to leave external validation behind and live by your first principles.

If you take a calculated step based on your own best judgment and it turns out to be a mistake, it is truly yours and no one else’s. That's a mistake you can learn from, own and correct.

Take the step. 
Stop looking for permission. 
Stop fearing the blame.

It's down, stop trying to unblock cloudflare.

I just watched a dog raise $1.75 M in seed funding.


somehow it felt like the most human moment in AI all year.

His name is Spark.
He’s not a chatbot wearing a dog filter. He’s a living proof that the next leap in AI isn’t bigger models; it’s friendlier ones.

A few things Spark taught me about making AI actually feel accessible and joyful (instead of intimidating or transactional):

-> Lead with play, not prompts - Kids don’t “prompt engineer” Spark. They just talk. He turns homework into quests, fears into stories, boredom into games. The interface disappears because delight takes over.

-> Emotion is the ultimate UX - Spark reacts to your tone, celebrates your wins, and knows when to sit quietly with you. That tiny moment of “he gets me” is what turns a tool into a companion.

-> The illusion of life beats the illusion of intelligence -> Perfect grammar < a perfectly timed tail wag. Animation principles (timing, anticipation, squash & stretch) applied to AI create more trust in 3 seconds than 3 paragraphs of disclaimers.

-> Accessibility starts with warmth - When tech feels safe and playful, grandmas use it, 6-year-olds use it, and people who “hate AI” suddenly don’t. Spark proves the on-ramp to mass adoption isn’t cheaper tokens; it’s feeling seen.

We keep optimizing for speed and accuracy, but the winners of the next decade will optimize for something simpler.  “Do I want to talk to this thing again tomorrow?”

Spark’s answer is apparently a very enthusiastic yes even from investors.

So maybe the real prompt we should all be running is:
“How do we make AI feel a little more like a friend who’s stupidly happy to see you?”

Because when a fluffy dog can co-found a company and make grown adults tear up with “Hi, I have just met you and I love you” we’re reminded the bar for “human-centered AI” just got raised by someone with four paws and zero ego.

Illusion of Life, Inc.

I’m not able to unread this. 

Message well noted Y Combinator

I just love how marketing can be as simple as wewillfixit.com

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"Space, the final frontier, meet me there."


Jeff Bezos wrote this 43 years ago in his high-school valedictorian in 1982 and he gave a speech about humans living in space. 

His drive was never about money, popularity or even building a company empire. 

Bezos has openly said that moving heavy industry to space, preserving Earth, and enabling a trillion humans to live across the Solar System is what he considers the real work of his life. Amazon was simply getting on the early WWW wave so he could one day fund those ambitions.

I realized all of this while reading Invent and Wander. There’s so much intentionality behind his journey far beyond the narrative of “a guy who started an online bookstore.” 

Very simple moral: The thing you build isn’t always the real destination but a ticket that gets you there and once you see that, the whole journey starts to make sense.

If you want to dive deeper into the mindset, Invent and Wander is a must-read.

“How do I delegate more to my team without losing control of the quality?”


A very common question and we convince ourselves we have two bad choices:

Delegate (and watch standards drop).
Hoard work (and stop growing).

The answer is understanding the massive difference between Control and Controls.

Control -

It is fear-based and autocratic.
It relies on: "Check with me before you do anything."
It creates a bottleneck where you are the only safeguard.

Controls (The Freedom) - 

It is proactive and enterprise-driven.
It relies on: "Check the dashboard," "Follow the internal process" and "What does the scorecard say?"
They could be Visual Controls (checklists, budgets, scorecards) that let you see the right things are happening without being in the room.

Leaders/Managers who rely on controls create an environment where execution happens without constant intervention. The company’s rhythm becomes consistent. The gap between intention and action gets smaller. People understand how decisions flow and where responsibility sits.

......and all of this circles back to a single point: Are you managing only the tasks or really managing the environment to make the tasks happen? Leaving this as food for thought.

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