14 years ago, I was just another college kid trying to figure things out.
I didn’t know how to code or build apps; I didn’t even know where to start. The only skill I had back then was writing, so I took up freelance content gigs to earn a bit of extra cash. Articles, blogs, product descriptions, basically anything that paid.
I wasn’t chasing some grand plan. I just wanted to be useful, learn something, and maybe not go broke in the process. But somewhere between writing for YourStory and watching tech founders share their stories, a quiet curiosity began to grow.
Then one lazy evening I stumbled onto The Social Network. Watching Mark Zuckerberg hammer out “let’s drop the the ‘just Facebook’” flipped a switch. I was hooked. I also wanted to build something like that. That movie was so fascinating and yet inspiring. 🤓
But wanting to code and actually coding are two very different plotlines.
But i was determined to learn. And I knew I would find a way around, I always do.
And that’s how my coding journey began in 2012. At first I was clueless, I didn’t know where to start. But surfing the web, I found a few resources.
In early 2013, I joined an IRC channel called #dgplug. (Know more about it here) and then their summer training program of 2013.
Picture blinking green text, the distant click-clack of keyboards, and me typing “how do I exit vim?” before realising I wasn’t even in vim. Vim was so tough, it took me days to get used to it. 😂
Kushal Das, our mentor, gently guided us toward the basics: Git commits, Python tutorials, tiny scripts that did little more than greet the world.
The early days felt like reading a mystery novel upside-down. Git threw detached-HEAD warnings, Python indentation errors were a pain, and every Stack Overflow thread ended in a jargon avalanche. I considered quitting more than once. Content writing was safe; code was chaos.
But somehow I battled everything, it was tough but I was determined to learn.
Folks at #dgplug were so helpful and supportive. They helped me learn the basics of coding. I am so grateful to them. I even managed to make few friends there. I am in touch with few of them even today.
Me in 2013
Post training, in winter 2013: I managed to get an internship at a tiny Bangalore startup. The internship was another battleground for me. I had to push myself to learn but this internship made me realize that I can do it.
The code I wrote actually shipped. People used it. That quiet confidence I’d been missing finally started to show up. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was real, and it pushed me one step closer to the dream I had started chasing. By the time the internship ended, I had picked up more than just technical skills: I had a glimpse of what it felt like to build something.
Me coding in 2014, along with my friend Rohaan Goswami
By late 2014 I managed to convert that internship into a full-time offer. Suddenly the clueless kid from #dgplug was committing production code. (Yes, some of it broke production but let’s call that “accelerated learning”)
Fast-forward through a montage of late-night bugs, weekend hackathons, and a closet full of tech-conference T-shirts, and you’ll find me in 2025 running Pillexis Labs a portfolio of indie products like Productlogz and Quotesmatic. The dream I scribbled in a ratty notebook a decade ago is now my nine-to-five (and sometimes nine-to-nine).
Looking back, the hardest stretch wasn’t scaling servers or chasing users; it was those first shaky miles when nothing felt natural. But every WTF? moment carried a lesson: confusion is temporary, curiosity is compounding, and community is the ultimate debug tool.
If you’re at chapter one of your own coding saga, here’s my spoiler-free advice: keep turning the page.
Ask the “dumb” questions. Ship the ugly prototypes. Celebrate the tiniest Task added! victories. One day you’ll realise the code that once terrified you is now your creative playground and you’ll have a story worth telling, too.
