VEGA AI
2024 – presentCo-Founder
Vertical AI SaaS with agent-powered workflows. Onboarded 150+ organizations globally, scaled to $1.5M ARR. Funded.
Founder Mentorship for Students
Learn how to build a startup — from someone who's actually built them.
Not a course. Not generic startup advice. 1:1 and cohort mentorship from a founder who has built, scaled, and sold — across consumer and SaaS, tech and non-tech, success and failure.
130+
Countries Reached
$1.5M
ARR Scaled (VEGA AI)
100K+
Global Users Served
15 Years
In The Arena
"Mentorship from someone who's been in the room where it actually happens — not someone teaching from a textbook."
15 Years in the Arena,
Not on the Sidelines
Piyush started his first venture, Sai Home Tuitions, in 2010 — while still in college. Since then, he's founded and co-founded multiple startups: UrTutors/Shifoo (3,000+ paid customers), LearnQ.ai (130+ countries, 100,000+ users), and now VEGA AI — a SaaS startup that has onboarded 150+ organizations globally and scaled to $1.5M ARR. Both LearnQ.ai and VEGA AI have raised funding.
Along the way, he's built consumer products and SaaS platforms, led go-to-market from scratch, built and managed teams, and lived through both sides of the founder journey — the scale-ups and the shutdowns.
This isn't theoretical mentorship. It's built on 15 years of actually doing the work — brainstorming ideas, building products, running out of money, pivoting, scaling, and doing it again.
🚀Founder since 2010 — started his first venture in college
🏢4 startups founded or co-founded: Sai Home Tuitions, UrTutors/Shifoo, LearnQ.ai, VEGA AI
🌍LearnQ.ai scaled to 130+ countries and 100,000+ users
💼VEGA AI onboarded 150+ organizations globally, scaled to $1.5M ARR
💰Raised funding for both LearnQ.ai and VEGA AI
📈Scaled UrTutors/Shifoo to 3,000+ paid customers
⚖️Seen both success and failure — and learned from both
The Program
Student Founder Program — Idea to Execution
A mentorship program that takes students from a raw idea to a real, working MVP — and teaches them how to think like a founder along the way.
01Brainstorming and identifying problems worth solving
02Validating ideas before building
03Founder mindset and independent thinking
04Experimentation and structured problem-solving
05Building and launching an MVP (tech or non-tech)
06GTM basics — getting your first users
07Navigating uncertainty with composure
08Learning from failure, iterating fast
09Building systems and processes, not just relying on hustle
10Cohort or 1:1 support
Founders aren't made by frameworks alone. This program builds the mindset — comfort with ambiguity, resilience after failure, and the discipline to build systems — alongside the practical skills of shipping something real.
Apply for the Founder ProgramThe Founder Mindset
What This Program Actually Builds
01
Uncertainty is the job, not a bug in it
02
Calm decision-making beats reactive decision-making
03
Every failure is a data point, not a dead end
04
Systems > motivation — build the process, not just the willpower
This isn't abstract. Piyush scaled one of his own startups to near-seven-figure revenue — only to learn the hard way that gross margins matter more than growth. That lesson now shapes how he teaches students to pressure-test their ideas from day one.
Why This Is Different
Not a course. Not a framework download. A mentor who's done it.
Most "startup programs" for students are taught by people who've never actually built a company — just packaged frameworks and buzzwords. This is different: real mentorship from someone who has built multiple startups, scaled products globally, raised money, and failed enough times to know what actually matters.
The focus isn't on sounding like a founder. It's on becoming one — through real problem-solving, real building, and real feedback.
Generic Startup Course
This Program
Taught by instructors, not founders
Mentored by an actual founder — multiple startups, 130+ countries
Frameworks and templates
Frameworks + real execution support
One-size-fits-all curriculum
Built around the student's specific idea and stage
Motivational content
Composure, resilience, and systems thinking under real pressure
Track Record
Built. Scaled. Learned. Repeat.
LearnQ.ai
2020 – presentCo-Founder
AI-powered personalized learning platform. Scaled to 130+ countries and 100,000+ users. Funded by investors.
UrTutors / Shifoo
2016 – 2020Founder
Scaled from zero to 3,000+ paid customers as an online-offline tutoring marketplace, with GTM, sales, and team built from the ground up.
Sai Home Tuitions
2010Founder
First venture, started while still in college — the same starting point many students in this program are at today.
Space reserved for student outcomes once the program has alumni — MVPs launched, ideas validated, etc.
The Honest Lesson — UrTutors / Shifoo
Scale is the enemy of unprofitable growth.
UrTutors/Shifoo was self-funded from Piyush's own savings and scaled to near-seven-figure revenue as an online-offline tutoring marketplace — an Uber-style model connecting students and tutors. But the majority of every rupee earned went straight to the tutors delivering the service, leaving thin gross margins once marketing and operating costs were added.
When gross margins are poor, every new customer quietly costs you money. You start burning your own seed capital — or capital raised from investors — just to keep the lights on.
Without timely, honest course-correction, that burn compounds. Runway shrinks, the next round gets harder, and a growing business walks itself into a dead end.
It's a lesson Piyush now builds directly into how he mentors students — pressure-testing the math behind an idea early, not after it's already scaled.
The Burn Cycle
- 01Poor gross marginCost to serve eats most of revenue
- 02Growth = more lossEvery new customer widens the hole
- 03Capital burnsSavings, then investor money, drain fast
- 04Dead endNo runway, no round, no exit
"Revenue hides the problem. Margin exposes it. I teach founders to look at margin on day one."
Have an Idea? Let's See If It's Worth Building.
Whether you have a fully-formed idea or just a feeling that you want to build something — the first step is a conversation.
Limited Cohort Space Available