The true story of Sparks and the last 30 days...

Even though I look alright here, I promise it’s the shower and the makeup ??. Last few weeks have been a bit insane. And the epicenter of these weeks has been this rolled up mattress, as we moved into a new house and didn’t have any furniture (and no time to get any too). I’ve used it in every position possible - as a chair, a desk, a bed, a neck rest, a dining table… damn even as a standing desk ??

I decided to write everything that happened, because I want to build Flamme - The Couples App with you. It is about us, not about me. This is as real a startup journey as it gets guys…

?? A little over a month ago, we got the news that TechCrunch selected us for Startup Battlefield happening at Disrupt, San Francisco. We were selected out of thousands of applicants, by the top of the top in the industry! It took me a while to reconcile with that news, probably still have a red spot where I kept pinching myself. But post this news is where our workload (the Sparks Team) just went into a 100x overdrive. We had to get the product ready, and 10 customer interviews over 10 days suddenly became 10 each day. The tech team was developing the new feature, bug fixing, design editing, chugging coffee, not sleeping, cursing at us… all at the same time ??. Our CTO kept joking that a single request more, and the tech team was going to take one Ankit down (he didn’t specify which Ankit, we are both called Ankits ??). We began preparing our marketing channels, which we were running digitally originally but had to pivot to hybrid to accommodate the in-person conference. I also started reaching out and talking with both investors and founders in the valley to understand the temperament there and whether we should pull our pre-seed raise back from January to October.?

While we were processing this, we got more news (good). NY and these gentlemen (Andrews - Andrew Rea and Andrew Yeung ) were organizing New York Tech Week right before the Disrupt dates, which meant we had a chance to connect with both the coasts in one trip. We decided to do what we do best, say YES. And as a part of the Tech Week, we are now organizing one of the closing events, which is a workout by your dear CurryGainz (that’s my pseudonym on every other social except here. Or maybe Ankit is the pseudonym ??) right in the middle of Central Park with over 100 Founders and Investors signed up! LFG! ??

?? So we added arranging NY in the middle of this beautiful jumble our US visit was becoming. At that point I realized that we were trying to do many things at once and fundraising could not be a part of it. There were two reasons - 1. We had the financial resources to push out two more product builds, get tons of feedback and improve our metrics immensely 2. I did not have the time (nor mental space) to prepare properly and was trying to push a 3-4 month fundraising process in 20 days. So as per the original plan, January it is (Pre-seed consumer investors, keep your ears open. We are disrupting the good old relationship market by using one of the biggest levers for couples in the history of time - their community. It will explode, and not because of pushing third party data down people’s devices, but because we are giving the users a voice and their contribution nurtures the community. “By the people, for the people, of the people” ??)

And then came the last two weeks. As I am sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to NY, I cannot believe the insane storm we all have been through. I would like to truly thank my team here, and say I have mad respect for them. They are all legends in my eyes. We pulled off feat after feat. From running multiple experiments to figure out the optimum channels for marketing in the US and preparing all the logistics for our trip, to pushing a 6 week product sprint in 10 days. Yes, you heard it right - TEN DAYS ??. And with only 2 crashes through the over 200 stress tests we conducted for QA, and no major bug affecting the product’s technical functionality. We custom designed and uploaded over 500 date ideas manually to the platform, as we did not have time to develop or integrate an uploader (and our also CTO said it would also be a good stress test. I don’t know if he meant for the app or my mental state ??). I myself spent the entirely of my last night in Barcelona redesigning the entire website, as we are going to one of the most competitive markets and it had to be done, nothing subpar would work ??

We did it though. As I am waiting for my transatlantic flight, I am very excited. My immediate excitement is for the 8 hours of actual sleep I will get on the flight, which my body has been begging for over the last 30 days ??. But more than that, if for nothing else, this TechCrunch trip has showed me what limits our team is capable of breaking. And coming out of that stronger as a team. Now I know we can achieve A N Y T H I N G. So wait and watch out for us, as we work on making sure relationships will never be the same again. We will spend our sweat and blood (??) making sure your relationships become better, and as you know us by now, we will not stop until they do.

Peace out, going for a nap.

Ankit, CEO of the best team I could have ever asked for - The Founding Sparklers

Ciao?