Founder Playbook · The Bootstrapped Founder
8 tactics from Sharath Kuruganty
Sharath Kuruganty — Letting Go Isn't Quitting
Watch the full episode“it's better to like let go don't give up that's two those are two different things people lot many people confus about letting go versus giving up I didn't give up letting go is yeah making room for the next thing right exactly you're you're intentional you're kind of opening up to another opportunity or another idea”
Letting go ≠ giving up — name the reallocation, keep the identity
Sharath sharply separates letting go from giving up. Giving up means refusing to act again; letting go means clearing space for the next opportunity. When a side project stops being fun, name the decision as 'letting go' (sunset, sell, hand off) rather than 'quitting' — the label is psychological scaffolding that keeps founder identity intact through the transition.
“I thought I would use it and I'm not using it the the solution or the problem I have and that's where I generally I would ask people to start as well are you solving your own problem are you being your own first customer or first user if you are not then even like you know don't even pursue”
If you're not the first user, don't even pursue it
Sharath retired Bluey when he realized he wasn't using it himself. The validation filter: if the builder isn't the first customer of the solution, the project shouldn't be pursued. Two weeks after shipping v1, check the usage log — if you aren't a weekly user without willpower, treat it as a kill candidate, not a marketing problem.
“you have to be perfect to learn that Perfection is a not the right way I used to be like very very very minic about like let's do this in the right way and spend a lot of time tinkering not shipping so I learned the hard way by failing and taking the shot hitting the rock bottom”
Pursue perfection once so you can permanently abandon it
Counterintuitive: try being a perfectionist long enough to hit rock bottom from it. Sharath spent years tinkering instead of shipping, and only after failing that way did he internalize that putting incomplete work out — typos, grammar mistakes, amateur tweets — is the actual path. The rules come first; the jazz comes after step 10.
“many people they realize because they view you know the Danny mirandas of the world thinking about hey these this guy shipped 400 plus episodes let me actually do another podcast and I'm I okay I can't do that because it's not matching so you you should not compare Your Step Zero to someone else's step 10 that's ridiculous”
Don't compare your step zero to someone else's step ten
When launching anything new, don't benchmark the first attempt against a veteran's polished output. Sharath's own podcast started as single-take recordings with no intro; the jazz (intros, editing, producers) got added incrementally. Write your own rules for v1 so shipping stays possible.
“if you do things in public and assume that everybody wants to love you you're going to fail people like you find you and people like exactly in your mindset in your wavelength are going to embrace you”
Aim for resonance with a tight niche, not universal approval
Calibrate the public-facing voice to a specific archetype (solo founder, bootstrapper, indie maker). Stop optimizing for broad appeal — track whether the right-fit subset is engaging, and treat indifference from outsiders as a feature, not a bug. The audience that finds you on your wavelength is the one that converts.
“it's all muscle building that's it it's all like you know if I'm doing podcast that means I'm building a muscle of asking great questions I started terribly if you listen to the first episode”
Every project trains a muscle — track that, not the KPI
Sharath frames podcasts, side projects, communities, and SaaS attempts as the same underlying activity: building specific muscles — asking questions, writing, designing, public speaking. No single project has to win. For each active project, name the muscle it trains; track the muscle, not just the KPIs. When projects die, the muscles persist.
“when I feel like it's not fun anymore it's like becoming like a burden it feels like an obligation that's where you have to like stop that that that self-awareness it should be part of your DNA”
When fun becomes obligation, that's the kill signal
Sharath's shutdown framework is emotional, not metric-driven. Building Bluey was fun until it wasn't — the moment it started feeling like a burden, that was the signal to wind it down. Run a quarterly check: is this still fun, or has it become obligation? If yes, schedule the sunset within 30 days rather than letting the project rot.
“the building in public is sometimes very congested to what you do professionally try to actually be authentically sharing expressing what you're going through internally in your mind people will find very interesting about someone expressing and they get the courage to do the same thing”
Live in public, not just build in public
Most build-in-public advice focuses on ship logs and MRR screenshots. Sharath pushes further: share what's happening inside the head. Add one short, honest post per week about an internal state — a doubt, a stuck moment, an emotion behind a decision. Audience trust compounds on the human layer, not the feature layer.