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Burnout, Purpose, and Permanent Beta: The Reality Behind the Rise of Gen Z Builders
Gen Z entrepreneur Sarthak shares a raw, honest journey of rejecting convention, embracing purpose, and building meaningful ventures—one messy, mission-driven step at a time.
Burnout, Purpose, and Permanent Beta: The Reality Behind the Rise of Gen Z Builders
Not Here to Rebel. Here to Rebuild
In a world where ambition used to mean climbing corporate ladders and cracking entrance exams, a new generation is quietly choosing a different route. We’re not rejecting systems just to be edgy. We’re rejecting irrelevance.
We’re not chasing IIT ranks. We’re chasing clarity.
For people like me, this isn’t rebellion.
It’s responsibility, reimagined.
Stepping Out of the Script
I didn’t drop out in the way you think.
I stepped out of a script that never felt written for me.
While my classmates were sitting in tuitions, solving mock tests, and revising equations, I was cold-emailing researchers, tinkering with AI, and building projects I had no manual for.
I failed the JEE—the exam that, they say, forges India’s finest minds.
I barely scraped through Class 12.
And at 17, I walked away from a $1 million soft funding offer. Not because I had a better one lined up, but because I couldn’t fake alignment anymore. Pretending to be passionate about something I wasn’t felt heavier risk than any I was taking.
Building Without Blueprints
At 16, I built my first startup to solve a real-world mess: the chaos of school communication buried in WhatsApp groups.
I bootstrapped it. Built a working MVP. Conducted over 50 user interviews. Onboarded 10+ early adopters.
It didn’t scale. But it gave me something more valuable than a growth chart—an unfiltered education. It taught me how to build from scratch, how to speak to real users, and how to fail without flinching.
Later, I developed an AI model to detect early signs of Down Syndrome in toddlers using facial and handwriting patterns. The project placed in the top 200 out of 22,000 entries in the YUV AI Innovation Challenge by MeitY and Intel.
But what stayed with me wasn’t the ranking. It was the proof that life-saving tech doesn’t need venture capital or flashy labs. It just needs empathy, clarity, and a relentless sense of purpose.
Choosing Alignment Over Applause
Most people celebrate the million-dollar cheque.
I said no to mine.
It wasn’t heroic. It was terrifying.
But I wasn’t willing to trade long-term clarity for short-term hype.
That choice became a recurring theme in my journey.
Instead of jumping into college like everyone else, I took an unpaid internship at a startup founder’s office right after Class 12.
No stipend. No glamour. Just a front-row seat to how hiring, fundraising, and decision-making actually happen.
That experience taught me more than a decade of textbooks ever could.
Since then, I’ve delivered 20+ guest lectures and podcast appearances across academic and professional circles not to deliver packaged solutions, but to ask the questions no one else seemed to be asking.
And today, I help manage a ₹2.5 crore youth-led impact investment fund. We empower first-time HNIs to invest in socially driven startups. We strip away the jargon and rebuild venture capital around clarity and care.
That’s what Gen Z entrepreneurship looks like when driven by conviction—not vanity metrics.
Permanent Beta Is the Only Path That Felt Real
My journey hasn’t been a highlight reel.
It’s been silent months, panic spirals, burnout, and deep personal doubt.
I’ve been told I was wasting potential. That I was making irrational choices. Gambling with my future.
And honestly, I believed it too, at times.
I chased quick wins. Built things no one needed. Thought money would validate the chaos I was living in. It didn’t.
What kept me going was meaning. The feeling that I was solving something I couldn’t unsee. That mattered more than metrics ever could.
Like Reid Hoffman says, I operated with ABZ thinking. Test Plan A. Pivot with Plan B. And always have a messy, unsexy Plan Z to fall back on.
My career wasn’t planned. It unfolded through a constant tug-of-war between what existed and what I felt should exist.
A Brand Without a Label
If I had to define what I’m building, I’d say it’s not a startup. It’s not a personal brand. It’s a practice.
A way of staying curious. Staying honest. Staying aligned.
There’s no polished deck. No grand launch on the calendar. Just an ongoing attempt to explore ideas that feel too urgent to ignore.
That, to me, is the essence of a Founder mindset. It’s not about chasing perfection. It’s about staying with the problem long enough to build something useful.
I didn’t find my path.
I built it while being told I was ruining my future.
That’s what sets Sarthak apart.
The Mission: Redesign the Narrative
The future I want is one where choosing the harder path when it’s the right one is normalized. Where young creators don’t obsess over going viral or scaling fast.
Instead, they solve slow, stubborn problems with patience and depth.
Where “building” isn’t about being seen. It’s about being useful.
And as AI begins automating comfort, I want to use it to do the hard things better.
Not to escape discomfort but to amplify courage.
Like Seth Godin asks: “How can I use this to do something really hard?” That’s the question I live by.
Final Word: This Is Not a Hero Story
I’m not here to be admired. I’m here to be understood by those who never fit the mold either.
The students were labeled distracted. The builders were dismissed as naive. The creators are working quietly in beta mode, figuring it out one messy step at a time.
If I inspire anyone, I hope it’s the person who’s too scared to say their idea out loud.
I hope my story gives them permission to begin even messily.
I’m not the smartest. I’m not the most funded.
But I’m still building. Because I can’t not.
The author of this article is Sarthak Gandhi, founder of Permanent Beta.
