"Vision without execution is hallucination"

Lesson #2 from the Mountain and a Startup series

This is the second blog from the "Mountain and a Startup” series. Where I’m sharing the stories of climbing Mount Kazbegi and building Kernel

This lesson is about the importance of grand vision and every small step I took toward it

The Vision Inspires

The summit is mesmerizing, especially at sunrise when its frozen peak ignites with a warm pink glow.

I stood there every morning during the four days I spent in the camps, gazing at it, imagining myself conquering it. The cold, fresh air carried the sweetness of victory, and I could almost feel the view from the top of the world. It was energizing—a source of hope and determination that fueled my desire to reach the summit.

But the closer you get, the higher it seems. What once felt achievable begins to look impossibly distant. The summit was so near when we reached the base camp that I thought I could touch it. Yet, the task ahead seemed monumental—daunting, even.

“Execution is Everything”

Every great achievement is the sum of countless small efforts. Every step forward matters—more than the distance left to cover or the road already traveled. Execution is everything.

But don’t get me wrong—there are moments when the summit disappears. Sometimes, it’s shrouded by clouds. Other times, your perspective obscures it entirely. In those moments, you lose sight of your goal, and with it, your hope. All you see is the endless, exhausting road ahead.

In those moments, pause. Take a breath. Look back and appreciate how far your small steps have taken you. You can’t cling to past progress, but you can acknowledge it and let it remind you of what’s possible. Progress is often too incremental to notice, but every tiny step moves you forward.

Your Vision is Your Compass

Building a startup is no different. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere random. And that’s exactly what happened to us at Kernel.

In the beginning, I only had a vague goal: I wanted to empower the growth of small businesses. That was it. I didn’t have the clarity to articulate a grand vision, let alone the confidence to rally people and resources around it.

Take a look at the first slide of our pitch deck from 500 Global Demo Day in 2021:

Now, here are our actual customers:

We’ve been fortunate to find ourselves in unique, untapped spaces. But the journey was riddled with mistakes. We entered the wrong markets, built the wrong products, partnered with the wrong investors, hired the wrong people, tracked the wrong metrics, and set the wrong goals.

Not having a clear vision is dangerous—it can even be fatal for a company. The only thing that saved us was relentless execution. Day by day, step by step, we moved forward into the unknown.

From Chaos to Clarity

Before we crystallized our vision, imposter syndrome hit hard. I constantly felt like a fraud.

But everything changed when we defined a clear, ambitious vision: "Empowering India to ascend as the world’s third-largest economy through enabling $500 billion in annual micro-business lending."

This vision became our North Star—visible, tangible, and deeply inspiring. It gave us the strength to push forward, no matter how tough things got. Our team, investors, and partners felt it too. Whenever we were exhausted, we’d remind ourselves of that goal—something far greater than ourselves—and find the energy to take the next step.

Vision vs. Execution

They say all great companies start with a great vision.

Yes, vision is essential, eventually. But execution is everything.

The most important step? The next one. Make sure it’s in the right direction, but if you don’t have a compass, just take a step.