- Bootstrapping builds discipline and resilience no investor money can replicate.
- The right co-founder is your ultimate hedge against failure.
- Cash flow is a stream, not a pool — manage it with foresight.
- Culture beats perks: people stay when they feel trusted and valued.
- Failures aren’t fatal — recovery and resilience are what matter.
- Entrepreneurship is lonely; the right partner makes it survivable.
Breaking free from the safety of a paycheck is daunting. Most professionals stay stuck because that monthly salary feels more addictive than coffee, cigarettes, or alcohol. But in this episode of BOSScast 2025, host Keshav Puri speaks with two men who not only broke free but built a thriving empire from scratch.
Meet Maulik Doshi (CEO) and Praveen Lewis (COO), co-founders of Warp Drive. What began as a light-hearted plan to start a vada pav truck in Bangalore evolved into a global tech services company with over 400 employees. Their story is not just about building a business — it’s about resilience, trust, and the power of investing in people.
Podcast Summary
Q1: For those new to Warp Drive, what exactly do you do?
Maulik & Praveen: Warp Drive is a software services company dedicated to solving business problems with technology. Our scope spans across industries — from sales and marketing systems to HR and customer service. Clients come to us not just for code but for clarity: we help them design the right solutions, then build and implement them so that they actually solve the problem, not just create another layer of complexity.
What sets us apart is our obsession with alignment. Many services firms overpromise during sales and underdeliver later. At Warp Drive, what we promise during sales is exactly what we deliver during services. That simple principle has kept clients with us for years, and it’s why many of them now see us less as vendors and more as long-term partners.
Q2: How do you divide roles and responsibilities as co-founders?
Praveen: In our partnership, I take care of sales and delivery. At first, sales wasn’t my natural strength. I came from a technology-heavy background and thought of myself more as an engineer than a salesperson. But as we grew, I had to learn how to pitch, how to negotiate, and how to build client relationships. Delivery, on the other hand, always felt instinctive to me — ensuring projects are delivered smoothly and teams are supported is where I thrive.
Maulik: My foundation was in finance and sales, though I’ve been passionate about technology since childhood. In the early days, I handled sales while Praveen focused on delivery, and over time we blurred those lines through shared trust. What really made the difference was having both sales and delivery under one roof. If one person promises and another executes, gaps form. By keeping those roles connected, we ensured clients always got what they were promised — and that became a huge competitive advantage.
Q3: Tell us about your very first jobs. How did those shape you?
Maulik: My career began in a rather unorthodox way. I once responded to a project proposal with my CV, asking the founder to hire me instead. To my surprise, he agreed, bringing me on as an intern and advising me to focus solely on business development. That shaped my entire approach — I wanted my title to be “Fixer,” because I was willing to solve whatever problem needed solving, from sales and HR to literally fixing air conditioners. That mindset of ownership — of treating a company as my own — stayed with me.
Praveen: My path was more traditional. I worked with large organisations like Mindtree, Infosys, Accenture, and Capgemini. At Capgemini, I had the unique opportunity to help start the Salesforce practice from scratch. We failed multiple times before getting certified and finally built a team of 200 within two and a half years. That experience taught me what it takes to scale — persistence, learning from failure, and building strong systems. Those lessons became invaluable when Maulik and I decided to strike out on our own.
Q4: How did you both meet and decide to work together?
Maulik: We first crossed paths at a previous company. I was introduced as the “hotshot” young leader who needed to be contained, while Praveen was brought in as the seasoned professional who could bring discipline and order. At first, that dynamic felt strange — almost like we were meant to be opposites. But when we worked together on pitches, especially for big opportunities like Reliance Jio, our strengths complemented each other perfectly.
Praveen: I still remember that Jio pitch. It was ambitious, maybe even beyond our reach at the time, but working through it showed me the energy Maulik brought. He had the fire for sales, while I brought the structure and delivery experience. Over time, that mix became the foundation of our partnership. What started as a forced pairing turned into a natural friendship — and eventually, co-founding a company together.
Q5: The Vada Pav story — why a food truck?
Maulik: During my travels to Mumbai, I noticed how the city practically ran on vada pavs. It was cheap, delicious, and everywhere. I thought — why not bring this experience to Bangalore? I was serious enough to map out costs, logistics, and even pitch the idea to Praveen. He agreed to support me as an investor while keeping his corporate career. That food truck never materialized, but the entrepreneurial bug had bitten hard.
Praveen: The vada pav truck was less about food and more about starting something of our own. At the time, it felt like a simple, scalable idea. But as we kept talking, it evolved into a bigger vision. Eventually, what started as a street food dream transformed into Warp Drive, a technology services company. The lesson was clear — entrepreneurship isn’t about the product, it’s about the mindset to build.
Q6: Why did you decide to bootstrap instead of seeking VC funding?
Praveen: For me, it was about trust and confidence. I come from a salaried family background — my mother was a teacher, my uncle was in the Air Force. Business was foreign to me. But I trusted Maulik’s instincts and knew we could bring in clients. Delivering the work would be hard, but we could figure it out together. We didn’t feel the need to bring in outside money to prove ourselves.
Maulik: Bootstrapping gave us discipline. With investor money, there’s often pressure to grow at any cost, sometimes at the expense of culture. For us, building trust with our employees and clients mattered more. Bootstrapping forced us to be frugal, creative, and laser-focused on survival. In hindsight, it was the best decision we could have made, because it gave us full control over our vision.
Q7: What were your biggest early setbacks?
Maulik: When we launched, we had two strong client commitments. Confident, we built a team of 11 highly capable employees. Then, within weeks, both clients pulled out. Suddenly, we had people to pay but no revenue. It was a gut punch — the kind of moment that makes you question everything.
Praveen: To make matters worse, we won a big project worth ₹28 lakh, which seemed like our salvation. We delivered the entire project flawlessly. But the client never paid us a single rupee. That was the lowest moment — I remember messaging Maulik saying I had only ₹450 left in my account while salaries were due in four days. We couldn’t even afford fuel to drive to the client’s office to chase payment. It wasn’t about pride anymore; it was sheer survival.
Q8: How did you recover from that rock-bottom phase?
Maulik: We had to make a hard choice. Instead of giving up, we borrowed the same ₹28 lakh we lost, telling ourselves this would be our last attempt. If it failed, we’d shut down and return to jobs. It was a calculated risk — we were ready to sacrifice two years to repay that debt if it came to it. That clarity gave us the courage to take one more shot.
Praveen: Thankfully, life turned around. A friend introduced us to a Salesforce-related problem their vendor couldn’t solve. Our bench was filled with talented engineers waiting for work. We solved the issue in one week, when the client expected it to take five. That win restored our confidence and gave us our first breakthrough. Soon after, we secured more clients — and that was the turning point.
Q9: What’s your mantra for client relationships?
Praveen: Relationships matter more than transactions. One of our largest deals was closed after a five-hour conversation with a client where we never discussed the project at all. That taught us that people don’t just buy services; they buy trust and confidence. If you can build that, the work follows.
Maulik: We believe in staying invested in people. Work can be managed — but people need to be understood and supported. We see clients not as accounts but as partners. That mindset has helped us navigate tough times, because when trust is strong, even delays and setbacks can be managed.
Q10: How do you view risk-taking as entrepreneurs?
Maulik: Entrepreneurship is really about learning to assess and manage risk. You are paid in proportion to the complexity of problems you solve, but you can’t thrust decisions onto people without grounding them in experience. Some risks will fail, but the key is knowing when to cut losses and move forward.
Praveen: We’ve made mistakes — plenty of them. But the lesson is not to get stuck. The worst thing an entrepreneur can do is dwell endlessly on a setback. The faster you recover, the faster you can seize the next opportunity. In business, resilience often matters more than perfection.
Q11: How do you manage cash flow in a services business?
Maulik: Cash is never static. We learned to see it as a flow — money is always coming in and going out. You can’t treat it as a fixed pool that sits in your account. Instead, you manage it like water, keeping it moving and ensuring the stream doesn’t run dry.
Praveen: This philosophy helped us survive the toughest moments. Even when clients delayed payments or pulled out, we focused on ensuring cash flow, not just cash reserves. It forced us to think creatively, cut unnecessary costs, and always plan ahead for the next cycle.
Q12: How do you keep your teams motivated?
Praveen: For us, culture comes first. Too many companies operate in a climate of mistrust, where employees feel restricted or undervalued. We wanted to build something different — a space where people feel empowered to express themselves, make mistakes, and own their work. That environment creates loyalty and innovation.
Maulik: That’s why our mantra is “Happy Mondays.” We want people to look forward to coming to work, not dread it. When employees love Mondays, productivity, creativity, and retention naturally follow. Our culture isn’t just about perks; it’s about building trust and freedom into the workplace.
Q13: How important is co-founder trust?
Maulik: Choosing Praveen as my co-founder was the best decision I ever made. Beyond skills, he’s someone I trust completely. My test is simple: would I be okay sitting next to this person for 20 years? Would I be okay stuck in an elevator with them for 20 hours? If the answer is yes, that’s your co-founder.
Praveen: The trust goes both ways. When one of us felt weak, the other carried the load. That balance kept us alive during the darkest times. In my view, 90% of a startup’s success is determined by choosing the right partner. With the wrong co-founder, even the best idea can collapse.
Q14: How do you handle mental resilience in tough times?
Praveen: There’s no magic trick. We’ve had sleepless nights, breakdowns, and moments where it felt like everything was falling apart. It’s easy to spiral into negativity when the bills pile up and nothing seems to work.
Maulik: What saved us was having each other. When I couldn’t go on, Praveen pushed forward, and when he was down, I stepped up. Entrepreneurship is lonely if you do it alone. Having a partner to share the burden makes even the darkest days survivable.
Q15: Looking back, what’s the biggest lesson of your journey?
Maulik: For me, the single biggest lesson is to invest in people. Clients may default, projects may fail, but if you build the right team and support them, they’ll stand by you through the toughest times. That investment pays back a hundredfold.
Praveen: My biggest lesson is to cut losses and move on. Don’t dwell too long on mistakes. Failures are inevitable, but recovery is a choice. The faster you accept, adapt, and act, the faster you grow.
Q16: What advice would you give young founders today?
Maulik: Don’t chase trends or shiny objects. Focus on solving real problems. And before you start your own company, practice entrepreneurship within your job — take ownership, take risks, and behave like you already own the place. That prepares you for the real thing.
Praveen: Find the right partner. Entrepreneurship is one of the loneliest journeys you’ll ever take. Having a trusted co-founder can make all the difference between giving up and pushing through. Build trust first — everything else follows.
Important Takeaways
- Bootstrapping builds discipline and resilience no investor money can replicate.
- The right co-founder is your ultimate hedge against failure.
- Cash flow is a stream, not a pool — manage it with foresight.
- Culture beats perks: people stay when they feel trusted and valued.
- Failures aren’t fatal — recovery and resilience are what matter.
- Entrepreneurship is lonely; the right partner makes it survivable.
Conclusion
From a dream of selling vada pavs in Bangalore to running a 400+ strong technology powerhouse, the journey of Maulik Doshi and Praveen Lewis proves that entrepreneurship isn’t about the product — it’s about mindset.They endured unpaid projects, financial wipeouts, and sleepless nights. Yet, through trust, resilience, and a people-first culture, they built Warp Drive into a thriving services company. The BOSScast conversation leaves us with one enduring truth: businesses may fail, clients may default, but partnerships and people will keep you alive.
🚀 Dive deeper into the journey of Maulik & Praveen – Watch the full BOSScast episode here.
