Building Fast, Scaling Globally

The “Innovation Double-Click” series highlights the best of the super{set} Hive and partner companies, featuring insider tips and strategies from startup executives driving innovation and propelling their companies to new heights.

Harshil Vyas joined the super{set} Hive (i.e., portfolio companies community) in March 2023 as Co-Founder of Kapstan and employee number one in India. We jumped on a Zoom recently to talk about accelerated timelines, globally distributed workforces,? and what is unique about the super{set} model.

Kapstan is among super{set}’s most recent companies, and it was built – like most portfolio companies – to solve a problem the Hive has encountered elsewhere in their work.?

Kapstan exemplifies the symbiotic nature of super{set} companies — among its earliest design partners is Headlamp Health , which found that Kapstan’s no-code solution cut their deployment time and allowed their early-stage startup to run smoothly without a full-time DevSecOps engineer. (Currently, Kapstan is available for free – try it and let the Kapstan team know how they can improve it.)

Harshil has been building cloud, infrastructure, and networking solutions from the ground up in India for decades. With his strong technology leadership and track record of executing complex engineering projects with cross-functional and cross-site teams, he is the right person for the job.

jsd: It’s been a busy six months for you at Kapstan. Before we get to your product, let’s talk about your journey here. How did you come to be a co-founder at super{set}?

Harshil: The opportunity to work within the start-up studio model was something I couldn’t pass up. I've spent my career being the engineering and product guy. I saw this as a chance to go outside my comfort zone while still being supported by people like Vivek Vaidya and Tom Chavez , who have done this before – built businesses, served customers, and developed products.?

I started talking with Vivek in the Spring of 2022, and our conversations lasted about a year. His entrepreneurial spirit struck me immediately, and I knew I could learn a lot from him. After a while, he approached me and said, “Hey, you know what? We're planning to start our first company in India called Kapstan. It's in the DevSecOps space. Are you up for the challenge?" And it only took me a few seconds to say, "Yes, let's do it."?

So here I am. In the last six months, we have expanded to a team of 15, with 13 staffed in India with me and two fresh grads in the super{set} office in San Francisco. We’ve been heads down building and are excited to share our progress with the world.

Watch Harshil Vyas, Co-founder of Kapstan: "What's it like working alongside Vivek Vaidya as co founder?"

jsd: So, what is Kapstan? What problem is it solving, and how has your experience building cloud software informed your approach here?

Harshil: Kapstan is building a platform to help fast-moving engineering teams with their DevSecOps challenges. Since this is my third company where I’ve built a cloud solution from the ground up, the primary learning I gleaned from my previous two companies is that the world has changed. When we deliver software from the cloud (SaaS), we need to deliver software that is both reliable and secure. And all those responsibilities generally fall to an engineering team already focusing on delivering a business application.

This whole suite of tasks – infrastructure provisioning, application provisioning, security of production, and observability of production – is related to the requirement of delivering a reliable and secure service to customers. A typical solution for engineering teams is to build a DevSecOps team. But that team is always underfunded, always overstressed. Kapstan is solving that problem by providing a no-code solution so you don't need to build a DevSecOps team. Your engineering team can use the platform, quickly provision infrastructure and applications, and get going.

Watch Harshil Vyas, Co-founder of Kapstan: "What problem does Kapstan solve for cloud infrastructure?"

jsd: How does Kapstan help companies, and where does it fit into the lifecycle of their growth?

Harshil: When you have a SaaS business, engineering teams, by necessity, change from a developer-centric mindset to a DevSecOps mindset when the product achieves a market fit, and the company accelerates into rapid growth mode. As customers increase, teams grow, needs evolve, and companies scale quickly, their infrastructure becomes more fragile. Kapstan comes into play at this critical juncture. We solve for knowledge gaps, time allocation, scalability, and security.

I’ll take those one at a time. If I’m an application engineer, I understand that DevSecOps is its own discipline with its own complexities – and it’s beyond the scope of my current knowledge. To master it, I’d be required to learn new tools and new cloud providers – but those new skills don’t add value to my work building applications or developing products. Time is a non-renewable resource, as they say, and so we’ve heard from customers they face an opportunity cost when focusing mindshare on deploying and maintaining their infrastructure versus developing applications and customer-facing features. As I noted before, the real test comes when it’s time to scale. It’s one thing to build an application; it’s another thing to run it reliably during a high-growth business period. Lastly, we know our customers are businesses that want SOC 2 compliance out of the gate, and this requires secret storage, a production access audit trail, access control, and a host of other infra-engineering practices they may not be an expert in. Kapstan takes care of security for them, too.

jsd: What are some challenges and opportunities of being based in India while working with a U.S.-based studio?

Harshil: In more than two decades of my career, I've always worked for companies based in North America. For any role, it's important that you are dependable, responsive, take ownership, operate with autonomy, and deliver. But it becomes extremely important to do so when you are a 12-hour time zone away. And so I learned a lot through those early experiences. We are lucky to have so many eager and enthusiastic engineers in India.?

For the past several decades, India has been developing great talent. I’ve found it a very enriching experience to build teams here, deliver projects, build products, and now build a company here.

jsd: As one of the newest co-founders, what would you say to others who might be interested in joining super{set}?

Harshil: Coming from an engineering background, I like to live by the maxim of “strive to learn the craft, enjoy problem-solving, and not worry about becoming famous.” What that means to me is that I do the work I enjoy without being in the limelight. But in the case of Kapstan, I have had to put myself out there more than in past roles, and while it’s somewhat uncomfortable for me, it’s a learning opportunity and time of self-growth. So I would say, first off, you don’t have to be any particular way to be a successful co-founder at super{set}.

Secondly, I feel everyone's dream is to work for themselves. But we often stop ourselves before we can begin because we worry about our ability to do all the different tasks or jobs that are required to build a company. The co-founder model allows people like me to work with supportive people, have experience, and are fun to be around. In that case, it’s not scary at all. Company building can be very fun.

Watch Harshil Vyas, Co-founder of Kapstan: "How do you approach entrepreneurial risks?"