A small village boy — raised in the tribal hinterlands of India without access to electricity, clean water, good school or healthcare — was willing to challenge the status quo and dream for a better future. Walking three miles each way to school was normal to him, until he was 12, when he joined his dad to start a family business to make ends meet. Long hours at work as his father’s protégé meant he could only pursue self-study and that too in the evenings.

“Customer is god,” “truthfulness and honesty in all circumstances,” and “no shortcuts to success” were some of the life lessons he imbibed from his dad. While running the business, he learned the value of humility, empathy, and resolving conflicts between different parties.

The boy eventually got lucky. His hard work and self-learning brought him to the premier engineering college of India, IIT Kanpur, where he also met Dheeraj. He received scholarship money, some of which he used to buy his first bicycle! Here, he made lifelong friends and also found his life partner. The boy learned to speak English more fluently and got his first corporate job. He was ecstatic to take his first flight in life.

Success and happiness notwithstanding, he never forgot his roots — hard work, humility, empathy, and passion for learning — virtues that continued to define, shape, and grow him in life as an adolescent and an adult.

Over the next twenty years of his career — majority of that time building products — the engineering professional in him saw how difficult it was for developers to get a clear view of what really mattered to customers, things that become the proxy for revenue and customer delight for any tech company. The bureaucracy and apathy between makers and consumers brought nothing but agony and disappointment to all involved.

This is my story, that hopeful village boy still brimming with childlike curiosity and fearlessness. The child in me is pursuing a simple yet profound purpose: to build products that establish authentic human connections and bring meaning to work.

In late 2020, I joined hands with Dheeraj — long time friend, mentor, and colleague — to start DevRev, a business software company dedicated to the growth of developers. We are passionate about using the trifecta of design, data engineering, and machine intelligence to establish real connections between core stakeholders — makers and consumers — redefining software development (and consumption) in this new era of product-led businesses!

Manoj Agarwal

Co-founder

Of childlike curiosity and fearlessness