‘Sit close to the founder’: Snapdeal's Rohit Bansal shares candid advice for entrepreneurs

When a 21-year-old recently asked what it takes to build a startup, the response from Rohit Bansal was not the usual Silicon Valley-style rallying cry to “just start.” 

Instead, the co-founder and COO of Snapdeal offered something more measured: get close to a founder before becoming one. 

In a LinkedIn post, Bansal said he has heard the question — “I’ve just completed my degree. I want to build my own startup. What should I do?” — many times. While he and Kunal Bahl launched Snapdeal in their early 20s and learned by making mistakes, he acknowledged that many of those errors were avoidable. 

His advice to aspiring founders who don’t yet feel ready: join a young startup. Not for the brand name, but for “proximity.” 

Learning from the inside 

“Sit as close to the founder as you can,” Bansal wrote. Watch how decisions get made when data is incomplete. See how priorities shift when 20 things demand attention but only two really matter. Observe hiring, firefighting, culture and the chaos no one posts about. 

In an ecosystem often dominated by motivational threads and overnight success narratives, the message stands out for its pragmatism. Bansal’s argument is not anti-entrepreneurship. It is anti-myth. 

A startup, he suggests, stops being mystical once you see it from the inside. And once it feels human rather than heroic, the leap into entrepreneurship becomes psychologically easier. 

Apprenticeship over hype 

The post reflects a broader shift in India’s startup conversation. After a decade of hypergrowth, funding booms and headline valuations, founders and investors alike are increasingly emphasising operational discipline and sound judgment over pure ambition. 

Joining an early-stage company can compress learning cycles dramatically. Young employees are often exposed to product, hiring, fundraising and customer acquisition simultaneously — experiences that might take years to accumulate in larger organisations. For aspiring founders, that exposure can serve as an informal apprenticeship. 

Bansal’s own journey lends weight to the argument. Snapdeal, once among India’s most prominent e-commerce platforms, navigated intense competition, capital cycles and business pivots. The lessons from that period — especially around decision-making under uncertainty — appear to shape his advice today. 

Reducing the fear factor 

There is also a psychological dimension to Bansal’s counsel. From the outside, startups can appear larger than life, fuelled by founder mythology and curated social media narratives. From the inside, they are a series of trade-offs, imperfect calls and constant prioritisation. 

“When it feels more human than mythical, the leap feels possible,” he wrote.