# reflections on selling my company

> lessons on money, culture, & doing great work.

- author: ritvik varghese (https://ritvik.io/)
- type: essay
- published: 20th september, 2025 (2025-09-20)
- updated: 2026-10-01
- url: https://ritvik.io/essays/reflections-on-selling-my-company

---

![imagined cover](https://ritvik.io/m/q3MNbBeuKPCpiTHEnYvIFQ.webp)

In june 2025, we [sold](https://inc42.com/buzz/wldd-acquires-creative-studio-imagined/) our company, Imagined, to WLDD after one of the most perplexing years of my life: 

1. shutting down Ripen & returning money to investors
2. incorporating my 3rd company, Imagined
3. co-founder leaves in Aug 2024
4. ≈$400k revenue in 14 months
5. business gets acquired

I've never written publicly about Imagined, and many were confused about what we did. so here’s an effort to explain some of it.

## why we started?

Imagined was never intended to be a business. we started it on the back of shutting down our previous company, ripen. one thing you’ll experience if you ever start a company is the deepest trenches of being broke. we worked on ripen for 2 years & earned nothing. 

reason 1 was money. we realized that having your own inception capital helps you make better decisions as founders. it gives you more time to choose what to work on.

reason 2 was the search for a problem to solve. the goal was still to build a scalable, product-first company, but we had no ideas.

we concluded that a service company would be the best move to solve both problems. monetization is fast, and working with clients helps you identify gaps. we were clear that the goal was to make money in 6 months, identify a problem & then build a product.

**so now the question was, what service?** 

to answer this, we called every founder in our contacts and asked them what they needed help with. *highly recommend this exercise to anyone looking to start a b2b business.*

## what did we work on?

![about imagined](https://ritvik.io/m/-q2XdnGBHXLR_8lNMkxANA.webp)

one of the best decisions we made was retaining our core tech/design team from ripen. we could now help companies with almost any service. so for the first few months, we did everything people were willing to pay good money for.

the aha moment for me was closing a $6,000 sale on my first call. what helped was the reputation we had within our close network. losing a customer or a sale is fine, but always protect your social capital.

in 3 months, we scaled to $14,000/month. we worked on projects with Zerodha (past investor), WLDD (same investors), and Commenda (same founder circle). the projects ranged from growth and branding to website development.

> the lesson here was to just help people around you without expecting anything in return. they will always remember and open doors for you.

soon we figured out what was working, people admired the products we had designed at ripen and that's what they wanted our help with. so doubled on that, here's how we pitched Imagined early on: 

> [Imagined](https://imagined.studio/) is your 0-1 product team to design & develop new tech initiatives. we're trusted by brands like Zerodha, WLDD, and Commenda.

we operated like a startup within larger companies to help them build new apps and brands. these companies would pay us a monthly retainer. occasionally, we worked on one-time projects, mainly websites. 

few things we learnt during this phase: 

1. *bootstrapping teaches you the fundamentals of business.*
2. *service is a great business model for 1st time founders.*
3. *Indian companies pay as much as their US counterparts for quality service*.
4. *teams perform best in life or death situations.*
5. *you die if you can't sell.*

by august 2024, we were an 8-member team doing between $20,000-25,000/month.

## co-founder breakups

at this point, my co-founder and I started brainstorming problems to solve. to set some context, we were also co-founders at ripen for 2 years. few ideas we explored:

1. ai x investing app for India
2. vibe coding for mobile apps
3. referral-based hiring platform (built oddjobs)
4. ai-powered professional services

there were many more but we didn't align on anything. I wanted to double down on b2b revenue, while he wanted to work on consumer apps, something more status-driven. 

for the 1st time in 3 years, we weren't seeing eye to eye on anything. after a long, emotional conversation we decided, we had to find a way to move forward. he had lost interest in the business, and fairly so, but it was a tough pill to swallow.

the entire episode turned ugly, and we sacrificed our relationship in the process. I bought his shares back to continue running the business. 

It was a tough time for me, I had to single-handedly run sales, back office and client servicing while motivating the team. but there was also excitement because I believe the best companies are [dictatorships](https://x.com/nikunj/status/1951402960430452998).

## $83,333

after a turbulent october 2024, our entire focus turned to one thing - $83,333.

![83333](https://ritvik.io/m/wnIuIvgDuzJXy5bmao7xbg.webp)

$83,333/month is the holy grail for bootstrapping. the focus on this one goal would help stabilize the ship. it sounds daunting, but it’s feasible when you break it down to the simplest units. in october 2024, we were doing about $20,000.

monthly revenue deficit: $65,000  
average contract value: $5,000

to get to $83,333 by march 2025, we had to close 3.16 sales per month, assuming 1 customer churned every month. in total, 19 deals had to be closed to hit the target.

> for revenue, the most important metric is number of sales calls booked.

your sales is directly proportional to the no. of sales calls booked with qualified leads - possess qualities of your ideal customer profile. this has to be defined by you based on:

1. industry
2. company stage, size and structure
3. funding, revenue, and budgets
4. urgency of need
5. authority of point of contact

> at imagined, 1 in 5 sales calls would convert. for 3.16 sales, we had to take 16 qualified calls per month or 4 per week. 

## what I learnt about sales

**your job is qualification, not sales**
great sales starts with qualification. you need to identify not only the right type of company, but also the decision maker within. study your best clients, identify common traits and set your filters. this was ours for reference: 

> founders/marketing leads at companies that have $2+ million in funding/revenue with 3+ member marketing teams. 

**optimize for sales calls booked not revenue**
monthly recurring revenue is vague metric, it's the result of focusing on a better input metric - *no. of sales calls booked with qualified leads*. take a revenue target and reverse engineer the number of calls required to hit that target. 

**mutual intros**
in my opinion, warm intros have the highest conversion for selling services. you can easily built a system around this with linkedin search & the mutual connections feature.

> warm intros is a sales technique where you create a list of prospects and find the best person in your network to reach them. 

**be original online**
write on twitter & linkedin. write for originality, not for engagement. people usually cross check your profile before making intros or taking sales calls. 

**stay quiet on sales calls**  
sales is fundamentally about listening, not about talking. sales is about matching somebody with a certain pain point to the right solution. 

> to figure out if somebody has this pain point and needs your product, you need them to tell you about their business and how they currently solve this problem.

**few questions to ask:** 

1. I start all calls with: "why did you decide to talk to me today?"
2. how are you currently solving for the problem and whats wrong with it?
3. what kind of solution would solve the problem?
4. what's the most important thing you're looking for in the solution?
5. how urgently does this problem need to be solved?

## the work we did

when we started working towards $83,333, we changed our pitch again. we realized that design sells well and everything else is a value add: 

> 30+ product & marketing teams use Imagined to fulfill design needs. clients include Xiaomi, Cred, Zerodha, Simpl.
>
>
>
> brands access any service from 3D to app design with one, monthly subscription. pivot the service as needed.

we helped brands fulfill any design requirement through a monthly retainer. this way, they didn’t have to hire someone for every new creative need. software development was now a value add. I’m going to highlight the types of projects we worked on with actual examples:

**full-stack creative for Cred**
we were connected to Cred's marketing team by friend who used to work at Cred. we worked as their creative extension for static and motion ad creatives.  

view all [work](https://imagined-priv.vercel.app/case/cred)
about [cred](https://cred.club/)

![cred ritvik](https://ritvik.io/m/9IkBT-qmscPAIjY_HVn6gg.webp)
**0-1 product team for WLDD**
we met the wldd founders while pitching nikhil kamath at the Zerodha office. we worked as their design and engineering team to build solo.

![solo](https://ritvik.io/m/mUjZQfbdavxZtPMSLlH69w.webp)

**one-time project for Mooncapital**
we were connected to Mooncapital through a past team member at ripen. we worked on website, motion, and brand for their website. 

[website](https://mooncapital.world/)
[all work](https://imagined-priv.vercel.app/case/mooncapital)

![mooncap](https://ritvik.io/m/iCJTksfxDozD4XT1tGp2eA.mp4)

## notes on culture

**exciting work over money**
building a company is tough, and if you're doing it for the money alone you'll lose interest pretty quickly. so if you choose to build a something, ensure that you're excited and curious about the work. 

**hiring for service is hard**
it's hard to both hire and retain talent in service. the best talent choose mission or money and service businesses have limitations on both. 

**choke them with gold**
overpay for high-caliber talent because greatness is the agency of others. top talent is only motivated by hard missions and getting rich, nothing else matters. in service, profit-share is your super power. at imagined we created a 35% profit pool to be distributed to the core team every year. 

**service to product transitions are hard**
every service founder eventually wants to build a product. the problem is that the team's bandwidth gets consumed in servicing clients. there are only 2 ways to do this: 

1. cut services entirely to focus on product
2. or productize your service and sell software

**move on fast**
if the work is no longer exciting to you, it's okay to let go and move on from the idea, the business model, or even the company itself. just make sure you do it quickly and find a solution for all the parties involved. don't burn bridges.

## money deceives great work

by feb 2025, we were closing in on $40,000 monthly revenue with a 15-member team. but the question was what next? on paper, things were good but mentally I was at war. 

the money was good, I was building with my best friends but it never felt like great work. in the words of paul graham, [great work](https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html) has 3 qualities:

1. you have a natural aptitude for it
2. it deeply interests you
3. there is scope to achieve greatness

on further reflection, it felt like I had none of it in my work. I was neither designing nor coding, just selling people's time and It was deeply unsatisfying. 

when you start a service company purely to make money, you soon realize the purposelessness of it. but it's hard to give it up when you're making "good enough" money.

## pivot hell

from feb to may 2025, I spent most of my time in what we call "pivot hell". it's a phase where your team jumps from idea to idea to figure out what sticks. 

these two months were probably the lowest I felt in the entire journey. balancing between ideation and sales was lonely and confusing. we worked on a few things but nothing exciting enough to commit for 5-10 years: 

1. palantir for mid market companies
2. video ai solutions
3. coding ai agents with plain english
4. ai personas for simulated ux research

## why and how we sold

around april 2025, it felt like I had hit a local maxima. the work hadn’t taught me anything new in a long time. I wasn’t obsessed with anything.

a local maximum is the highest possible value in a defined area (Imagined), while a global maximum is the actual highest possible value. we tend to overvalue local maxima because they’re comfortable, but they create subpar outcomes for everyone involved.

> escaping the local maximum requires agency, the willingness to disrupt what works to reach what’s possible.

it was clear that I had overstayed my time at Imagined. I was still conflicted because 18 people's lives depended on imagined, the projects were good, and so was the money.

![ritvik local maxima](https://ritvik.io/m/bRSHTPGvbITwpz5xnnskNw.webp)

**the trigger point**
our monthly expenses had reached around $20,000 (mostly payroll) and our margins were reducing. around the same time, our biggest client - [WLDD](https://wldd.in/) informed us that they were looking for a full-time product team. this meant we lose our contract with them.

this was bad, but I saw the opportunity. we understood their business, team, and software. what if they just acquired our team and business?

so that’s exactly what we proposed, but it wasn’t that easy. we negotiated through April but couldn’t arrive at a figure that worked for both parties. the deal was dead.

in may, we tried to launch an ai company, closed pilots and even applied to YC. but I realized that my tank was empty, I had no excitement for work anymore. 

just when it seemed like a dead end, arihant (founder, WLDD) called me—they still wanted the acquisition to work. after another week of trying to structure the deal, we finally came to an agreement in early june 2025.

they would absorb our team, business, software, and IP. imagined would operate as a separate entity within WLDD, offering design & IT services.

what I felt most content about was securing the team's future and also sharing the financial outcome with them. we were able to find a deal that allowed imagined to function as is. read more [here](https://inc42.com/buzz/wldd-acquires-creative-studio-imagined/). 

## afterlife

as part of the deal, I negotiated stepping down from imagined and not joining WLDD. through june 2025, I helped the team with the transition. 

I've consciously taken some time off to rest and think about what work to focus on. we don't spent enough time on this question. I spent july in Sri Lanka with friends and London with girlfriend.

If you're building something interesting, i'd love to chat about it. i'm at [ritvikvarghese@gmail.com](mailto:ritvikvarghese@gmail.com) & [whatsapp](https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=919971493982). 

I'm going to write more, so if you're interested sign up for [mail updates.](https://ritvikvarghese.substack.com/welcome)