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Insights

Notes on AI, automation, operations & building companies.

Original writing by Darshan R Krishnan on what actually works when technology meets a real business — and on backing the founders building it.

15 Aug 2026

What I Look For in Early-Stage Founders

What actually matters in an early-stage founder — clarity, judgement, a bias toward building, and a real business underneath the technology.

15 Aug 2026

Lessons From Building Across India and Hong Kong

Depth in one market, reach from another — and why building across borders is a stress test for real systems.

14 Aug 2026

How to measure whether an automation actually worked

Most automations get measured on whether they run, not whether they helped. The two are very different, and the gap is where disappointment lives.

13 Aug 2026

Hiring for a company where the technology changes every quarter

When the tools change every few months, hiring for current skills is a trap. What to select for instead, from someone running an AI services company.

11 Aug 2026

What AI automation actually costs (the line items nobody quotes)

The build is the visible cost of an AI automation, and usually the smallest one. A breakdown of the line items that never make it into the proposal.

8 Aug 2026

The delivery problem every services company hits at 30 people

Somewhere around 30 people, a services company stops being able to run on the founder's judgement. The failure is quiet and it's structural, not a hiring problem.

4 Aug 2026

The processes you should not automate

Some processes get worse when you automate them — not because the technology fails, but because of what the manual version was quietly doing. Five categories to leave alone.

28 Jul 2026

Why AI automation projects fail inside otherwise healthy companies

Most failed AI automation projects weren't technical failures. They were correctly built solutions to processes nobody had examined. A view from the delivery side.