About Doors & Dreams
Why This Exists
Every week, I face decisions I've never made before.
How do I price an AI product for the Indian market? Should I pivot this feature or push through? When do I hire our first engineer versus outsource? What's the right way to structure equity with a technical co-founder?
I can Google these questions. I'll find 47 blog posts, each claiming to have THE answer. But they're generic. Written for Silicon Valley. Or Southeast Asia. Or written by someone who's never actually done it.
What I actually need is simpler: I need to hear how 5 different people approached the same decision. What they chose. Why they chose it. What their context was. What worked. What they'd do differently now.
Then I can find the pattern. See what applies to my situation. Make my own call.
But getting those perspectives? Nearly impossible.
The Infrastructure Gap
There are thousands of people in India who've built real companies. Raised funding. Scaled teams from 5 to 50. Navigated regulations. Built products. Made hard calls.
And most of them want to help. They remember what it was like to be stuck on problems with no one to ask. They take coffee chats. They answer DMs. They do intro calls.
But it's scattered. You need to know someone who knows someone. You wait two weeks for an intro. You feel weird asking. They want to help but have no systematic way to do it.
Meanwhile, first-time builders waste weeks alone on problems that someone 10 kilometers away has already solved.
Not because they're incapable. Not because the knowledge doesn't exist. But because there's no infrastructure connecting the two.
What I Built
Doors & Dreams is that infrastructure.
It's simple: people who've built companies set their rates and availability. Builders who need their perspective book time directly. 30-minute call. Question gets answered. Everyone moves forward.
No intros needed. No waiting. No feeling like you're asking for a favor. Just: here's what I need help with, here's someone who's done it, let me pay for their time.
For people offering calls, it's what you're already doing - just systematic instead of scattered. You control everything: your rates, your schedule, who you talk to. You get paid fairly. Your knowledge reaches beyond your immediate network.
For builders, it's access to people who've actually made the decisions you're facing. Not theory. Not blog posts. Real experience, real context, real answers.
Why It's Not Free
Because time is valuable.
When you pay for someone's time, three things happen:
You take it seriously.
You prepare. You ask better questions. You don't waste 20 minutes on small talk.
They take it seriously.
They show up. They think about your problem. They give you their actual answer, not some vague encouragement.
It becomes sustainable.
They can help 20 people a month instead of 5. They can say yes more often. Knowledge actually flows.
Free advice is random. Paid consultation is systematic. We need systematic.
Different Ways to Use This
Some people book calls because they need a specific answer. "How did you structure your first sales team?" Perfect. Ask. Get the answer. Move on.
Some people book 3-4 calls with different people who've solved the same problem. They're looking for patterns. What's consistent across everyone's approach? What's contextual? Then they make their own decision.
Some people book calls just to hear someone say "yes, that approach makes sense" or "here's the thing you're not seeing." Sometimes you just need external validation or a blind spot pointed out.
All of these are fine. Use it however helps you move forward.
Who This Is For
If you're building:
You're making decisions you've never made before. Pricing, hiring, tech stack, fundraising, whatever. You could spend three weeks researching and still not know. Or you could talk to someone who's actually done it.
You're not looking for a mentor. You're not looking for a cofounder. You just need someone to tell you how they approached this specific problem so you can make a better decision.
If you've built:
You've scaled a company. You've made high-stakes decisions. You've learned things the hard way.
You already help people - coffee chats, DMs, intro calls. But it's reactive. It's scattered. You wish there was a systematic way to help more people without it taking over your life.
You want your time valued. You want to control your schedule. You want your knowledge to reach people who need it, not just people who happen to know someone who knows you.
Starting Small
We're launching in January 2025 with a small group of people who've built real companies in India.
Not "advisors." Not "consultants." People who've actually done the thing. Founders who've raised funding. Operators who've scaled teams. People who've made the decisions and lived with the consequences.
Why "Doors & Dreams"
Because doors open when you talk to the right people.
And dreams don't die from hard problems. They die from being stuck alone on solvable problems.
This is the infrastructure that should exist. So I built it.
— Sangeeth