The Nonconformist
Hi, I'm Soham. From time to time, I blog here.
Featured Posts
Writing cleaner code in Laravel
I recently came across this Twitter thread, where @samuelstancl listed tips for writing cleaner code in Laravel, as well as some general Laravel coding advice. These are a great starting point to develop a sense for what’s good code and what’s bad code - so I collated them below (with...
Running a startup in the times of Covid-19
Dear fellow startup founder, The worst part of the Covid-19 crisis isn’t just that previously-profitable businesses have touched zero revenues - it is that there is no visibility on a timeline for a return to normalcy or even an end in sight. This isn’t the first time we have seen...
Death of a Unicorn, Part 2
This article is an in-spirit continuation of the previous one. India is a growing market for food consumption. Uber Eats has significantly ramped up, with engaging ad campaigns having leading celebrities. Uber Eats does 1/3rd of Swiggy orders, yet the company is being sold for 1/10th of Swiggy’s valuation. Why...
Death of a Unicorn
In today’s world, one would be hard-pressed indeed to come across someone who has not heard of Uber in any way. From a ride-sharing startup on the streets of San Francisco to a global transportation behemoth valued at a mind-boggling $70 billion, the startup, as they say, has apparently seen...
Thoughts on site speed, or why do sites slow down
We so often face the scenario when we wanted to look up something on our mobile phones, but gave up halfway when the site was too slow to load. In a world where more traffic is moving to mobile from traditional desktop browsers, loading speed has become a major factor...
Inspiration
We spend our life in search of inspiration. But inspiration is not something that adheres to a schedule, or a deadline, or a timeframe. Inspiration is that idea gnawing at the back of your head at three am in the morning, which makes you push back the sheets, climb out...
All Posts
Writing cleaner code in Laravel
I recently came across this Twitter thread, where @samuelstancl listed tips for writing cleaner code in Laravel, as well as some general Laravel coding advice. These are a great starting point to develop a sense for what’s good code and what’s bad code - so I collated them below (with...
Running a startup in the times of Covid-19
Dear fellow startup founder, the worst part of the Covid-19 crisis isn't just that previously-profitable businesses have touched zero revenues - it is that there is no visibility on a timeline for a return to normalcy or even an end in sight. This isn’t the first time we have seen...
Death of a Unicorn, Part 2
India is a growing market for food consumption. Uber Eats has significantly ramped up, with engaging ad campaigns having leading celebrities. Uber Eats does 1/3rd of Swiggy orders, yet the company is being sold for 1/10th of Swiggy's valuation. Why would Uber sell Eats cheaply after a significant long-term investment...
Of love and timing
When Love finds you, it's seldom at your best. Rather, it happens upon you at your worst - when you've lost all faith in yourself and your confidence lies tattered in a thousand scraps. It finds you to patiently put those pieces back, one after the other, painstakingly. It finds...
Of new year resolutions (and lack thereof)
Come the last few weeks of December every year and we are faced with a deluge of “new year resolutions” - promises to keep and targets to attain in the upcoming three hundred and sixty five days or so. The utility or veracity of such resolutions is often questioned, especially...