Hi, I’m Kunal.

I was in my first year of college when I started Foolstop. No plan, no mentor, no idea what I was doing. I designed pop-culture t-shirts and posters, found someone to print them, and sold them from a stall at the college fest.

The first time a stranger paid for something I’d made, I was hooked. I sold the company before I graduated. I didn’t know it then, but I’d found what I’d be doing for the rest of my life.

I sold Foolstop with some money in my pocket and far too much confidence. I was 21, and I honestly believed I could fix big problems just by wanting to badly enough.

The problem Prudhvi and I picked was real. In India, if a woman is in danger, help can take hours to reach her. We wanted to build a ring and a watch that could call for help in seconds, without her having to reach for her phone. We built a prototype. The Maharashtra State Government signed letters of intent.

And then we couldn’t make it work. The parts we needed were too big, too power-hungry and too expensive. And we were two kids who didn’t know how to build hardware for real. People with real power had said yes to us, and we let them down. It hurt, and it stayed with me for years.

I used to tell myself we were just too early. That’s half true. The technology wasn’t ready, and neither were we. Both of those have changed now, and that’s the only reason I’m willing to try again.

After GEM I couldn’t look at tech for a while. So I went into the family business: food.

We had one restaurant. I wanted four. In Mumbai, where the rent alone can finish you, we got to four. I learned what no startup had taught me: payroll, suppliers, landlords, and what it feels like when sixty people are counting on you at the start of every month.

Then COVID closed every one of them, and I was in debt. From 2022 I worked as a freelance hardware and product consultant to get out, and I paid back every rupee I owed.

Around then, life pulled me home to Nagpur. The years after that were the hardest of my life, and I’ll leave them there. It was a long time before I was ready to build again.

When I was ready, I started small on purpose. Gentrix makes phone accessories: magnetic car mounts, stands, wallets, cables, screen guards. After everything, I didn’t need a big idea. I needed to prove I could still take one thing all the way.

I did every part of it myself: the designs, the factory calls, the brand, the listings, the boxes. On busy nights a few friends came over and we packed orders on the floor.

It isn’t glamorous. But it’s real, it’s on Amazon, and people I’ve never met buy it. That mattered more to me than I expected.

Then, in the middle of 2025, Prudhvi called.