Aman Goel, founder of Greylabs.ai, joins Avnish on Unstarted for one of the most relatable founder journeys yet — a middle-class kid from Kanpur who was hustling for money from his first year of college and never stopped.
Aman is refreshingly honest that his motivation was simply to make money. He earned his first ₹4,000 solving JEE papers, built a content-writing business with his now-wife and co-founder Harshita, and had saved close to ₹50 lakh before he even graduated.
He went on to build Cogno AI - an AI chatbot and voice company for banks - in 2017, before generative AI existed, bootstrapped it to a million-dollar revenue run rate, and sold it to Exotel at 25.
Now with Greylabs.ai, he's building voice AI for India's banks and financial institutions.
In this episode he breaks down finding customers in an industry you have no network in, the "student not salesperson" playbook that got him into SBI and HDFC, why he and Harshita split the company cleanly into "she builds, I sell," how to part ways with a co-founder without a fight, picking a razor-sharp ICP, and why in a world of weekly AI launches trust is still the only thing that sells.
Chapters
00:00 Intro — a genuinely relatable founder story
01:00 Growing up middle-class in Kanpur
02:50 "My motivation was money" — where ambition came from
04:00 The internet, Silicon Valley, and deciding not to settle in the US
05:50 Earning in college: ₹4,000 to ₹50 lakh before graduating
08:20 How to create your own opportunity in college
11:50 Starting Cogno AI — and the RED vs REL framework
15:40 Building AI in 2017, before ChatGPT
17:20 Getting into banks: the "student, not salesperson" playbook
21:40 Negotiating with SBI as two 20-year-olds
24:40 The first customer, and the referrals that followed
25:30 The co-founder exit: quick decision, generous separation
27:20 Harshita joins: "she builds, I sell"
30:40 The exit to Exotel — doubling the ask in 10 minutes
34:40 Finding the market first: why he stayed in India
37:50 Founder-market fit and picking a razor-sharp ICP
40:40 Can AI disrupt his AI business? Why trust wins
42:50 Eating your own dog food: building internal tools on Replit
44:40 AI adoption in banks — from pilots to 50 lakh calls a month
46:14 The coming pricing pressure, and how service is the moat
49:20 Closing advice: persistence is the one thing that can't be replicated