Sarthak is 17. He just spent two months in San Francisco doing growth at Terac, a $9M VC-backed seed startup, where there was no other growth team. As part of his role, he hosted community events, ran the campus ambassador programme, and ran a hackathon on autonomous companies with Lovable, Stripe and Whop as sponsors. Before this, he founded Klinn with his co-founder Andrew and scaled it to 25,000 users at 16, after pivoting it fifteen times. At 15, he started organizing CrabHacks, an annual hackathon for high schoolers, which he raised over $20,000 for. In middle school, he sold soccer jerseys to his classmates. He thought he was going to be an investment banker, because he liked finance and it made sense to him. He is still in high school. The day after we recorded this, he flew back to Maryland to start his senior year. Today we sit together in Berkeley, the day before he flies home, to talk about his journey and all things building. Watch on YouTube, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Two months in SF, a growth team of one, and still in high school (00:01:57) - A few thousand cold emails, and the job he got by texting a founder instead (00:06:54) - The soccer app he had no idea how to build, and learning to code backwards (00:13:29) - His first 50 cold emails sucked, and the Ramp template he reads out (00:16:47) - Milking his age for free advice, and not knowing if the work is good on its own (00:20:27) - Being too transactional in SF, and why the dumbest conversations go furthest (00:29:44) - Living alone at 17, and the sublease his parents had to co-sign (00:33:57) - Watching founders with money up close, and asking whether they are happy (00:38:18) - Running his first hackathon at 15, and 3 months to raise $5,000 (00:44:26) - Lovable, then Stripe, then Whop, and asking for credits before cash (00:48:42) - 1,500 posts in a year, and the selfie that got 120,000 views We need more stories. If you are under 21 and building cool things in whatever discipline (or know someone who does) I would love to tell your story; reach out to brando@illegible.world. Find Sarthak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarthak-pal-mahajan/ CrabHacks: https://www.crabhacks.org/ Klinn: https://students.klinn.works/ Find Brando X / Twitter: https://x.com/Lucabrando_ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucabrandosanfilippo/ Substack: https://notsureifobvious.substack.com/ Not Sure If Obvious YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NotSureIfObvious Personal YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@finallybrando/videos Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/finallybrando/ Find Illegible Website: https://www.illegible.world/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/illegibleworld/ X / Twitter: https://x.com/illegibleHQ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit illegibleworld.substack.com
