When I look back at my early days, I don’t see a polished entrepreneur.
I see a kid with zero skills, zero experience… but one big thing — a dream.

My first company was called Macrohard.

Yes… Macrohard.
An oxymoron to Microsoft.

At that time, just naming a company felt like building one. My friend and I sat, thought hard, and came up with that name. It sounded powerful to us. We didn’t know if it made sense to the world—but it made perfect sense to us.

We even booked a domain.

Those days, booking a domain itself felt like entering the big league. Platforms like Network Solutions would let you reserve a domain and give you 90 days to pay. No instant payments, no UPI, no frictionless checkout like today.

If you didn’t pay… the domain was gone.
Simple as that.

But for us, just holding that domain for those few days felt like we owned a piece of the internet.

We introduced ourselves as “Founders of Macrohard.”
Not as students. Not as beginners. Founders.

Confidence was never the problem. Reality was.

At the same time, we were part of the Linux User Group Chennai (LUGC) that used to meet in IIT Madras.

Those sessions were something else.

It wasn’t just about technology.
It was about belief.

Open source was not just software—it was an ideology.
We were young, energetic, and completely anti-proprietary. We felt like warriors fighting for a cause, even though we barely understood the depth of what we were defending.

Looking back now, we were crazy.
But it was a good kind of crazy.

We had:

• No clear direction
• No structured learning
• No business model
• Not even real passion yet

But we had curiosity.
And that was enough to start.

Those days didn’t build a company.
They built something more important — the seed of entrepreneurship.

Today, when I think of Macrohard, I don’t laugh at the name.
I respect it.

Because that name was the first time I told myself:
“I am going to build something.”

And sometimes, that’s all it takes.