In a candid reflection on Zepto’s early years, CEO Aadit Palicha opened up about the startup’s near-collapse during the 2022–2023 funding crunch, revealing how hiring missteps and the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crisis nearly brought the company to a standstill.
Palicha admitted that bringing in the wrong talent during those formative stages was the startup’s biggest vulnerability.
“The biggest mistakes I made were wrong hires,” he said, pointing to early failures across finance, operations, marketing, and category management as critical pressure points.
Zepto, like many global startups, was hit hard by the sudden collapse of US-based SVB in March 2023. The bank, which held deposits for thousands of tech firms, folded amid a liquidity crunch—freezing access to funds and triggering widespread panic among founders.
“We almost died,” Palicha said in a conversation with Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan. “Those mistakes were very costly, especially during that 2022–2023 period when it was existential for us.”
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