In this episode of Berkeley Startups, host Aish interviews Chirag Mahapatra, founder of Blaze, a Y Combinator-backed startup that built AI-powered marketing agents on emerging platforms like Discord and Telegram. Chirag shares how he transitioned from working at leading tech companies to co-founding Blaze, which went on to raise over $5 million in funding and was recently acquired.
He opens up about the intense experimentation process at Y Combinator, where he and his co-founder tested new product ideas weekly until they found product-market fit. We dive deep into the pivotal moment that validated their directionâwhen inbound customer interest sparked demand before a single line of code was polished.
Chirag also breaks down how his team harnessed AI tools like GitHub Copilot to increase product development speed, enabling a small, globally distributed team to launch multiple products in a single summer. He shares the behind-the-scenes strategies they used to scale efficiently, the challenges of building cross-functional teams in the US and India, and why open-source contributions became a key hiring signal.
As the conversation moves toward acquisition, Chirag reveals how they navigated the processâfrom recognizing their growth plateau to leveraging investor networks and exploring acquisition pathways with customers and strategic partners.
The episode wraps with valuable advice for aspiring founders on navigating uncertainty, embracing experimentation, and building enduring skill setsâplus a sneak peek into Chirag’s next chapter at Merko, a startup using AI to improve hiring outcomes.
Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, a product builder, or someone fascinated by the future of AI in startups, this episode is packed with practical insights, real-world lessons, and inspiration.
Episode Quotes:
On exploring different paths to acquisition
There are a number of ways you can get acquired. Typically, people get acquired by their customers, or people get acquired by, you know, strategics, et cetera. And the third one is through investors. We were actually recommended to explore all of them and then see what works out, right?
I think thatâs actually the best way to go about it so that you create the maximum optionality for yourself, and for your investors as well. As founders, I think itâs actuallyâyou knowâyouâre doing the right thing by exploring as many avenues as possible.
I can share that with examples. A customer would be, of course, the simplest oneâif someone is already using your software, spending a lot on it, they have a reason to acquire it. The second is strategicâthere might be bigger players in the industry who want to, letâs say, add additional functionality and features. Theyâre definitely not a customer of yours, but they might be interested in acquiring you to hire the talent as well as acquire the product.
And the third one is, of course, some of your investors who already know other companies who might see you as a fit in their portfolio.
Thatâs kind of how we approached it as well. We looked at all avenues and ended up seeing what worked best for all stakeholders.
On taking the leap into entrepreneurship
I thinkâjust do it. Thatâs probably the only way to kind of understand the nuances and the processes of building a company. And I think, at least from my experience and that of many of my friends, whether it turns out to be a great outcome or not, the experience itself is very relevantâeven if you end up working as an operator in a big company.
Of course, as everyone knows, the stats show that very few startups actually make it in the way we typically define success. That said, the skill sets you build along the way definitely go a long way in helping you understand the business end-to-end.
At least from my personal perspective, it helped me improve technically, from a product point of view, and also helped me become much more business-minded in how I think through things.
So, if thereâs any takeaway from this podcast, itâs this: just go and do itâand see how things shape up.
Show Links:
- Y Combinator
- Blaze
- Mercor
- Open Source Contributions (as a hiring signal)
- NFX