Reflections from the Third Agri-Founders' Retreat

Group Pic Post the Retreat. The incredible founders who made it happen.

Entrepreneurship is a lonely journey. You are often not sure whether you are driving upstream or downstream.

And so when you discover a safe space to bare your soul and share your deepest joys and struggles, you find out that you are not alone. You discover the invisible power of kinship that helps you move mountains.

What a blast it has been!! The Third Agri Founders retreat unfolded beyond our wild imagination.

Had you met me a few weeks ago and told me that we would bring together fifty agritech founders across various parts of India and get them to share their journeys - their struggles, their joys and their dreams-with us and seed possibilities for collaboration to address some of the deepest challenges in Indian Agriculture, I wouldn’t have believed you one bit.

Yours truly, breaking the ice with the group at the start of the retreat.

Although this is the third time we are doing this year in the northern part of this country, the previous being in the western parts and southern parts of the country, the energy felt different this time.

It felt incredulous in many ways.

We raised sponsorship from sponsors who agreed on our terms and conditions that since this is a community-led event, we wouldn’t allow unabashed pitching of their companies during the event.

Our focus was on relationships. networking

Balwaan Krishi Co-Founder Shubham Bajaj engaging in a dialogue.

We- the organisers - were a team of 8 founders/entrepreneurs coming together with a few odd whatsapp groups to make this event happen. After the last agri-founders retreat in Bangalore, Amrendra Singh suggested that we could do this in Jaipur and with the incredible support of Vinay, we set the ball rolling. Even when I had doubts, Vinay stood solid!

The Wonderful 8 - Vinay, Dinesh, Amrendra, Yours Truly, Kalyani, Vijay, Renuka, Jasveer, Sanket and Shailendra Singh (not in picture)

The team got together in incredible ways and went out of their way to create an incredible experience for all the founders who had gathered at the retreat.

Navadeep, Rajiv and Vijay during one breakout activity

Given that the vibe of the event is still alive for me, I quickly recorded an 11-minute one-take video on how we approached the event and what we learned about the biggest challenges faced by agripreneurs in this country. Regular programming will commence soon.