She sat in the corner of a large lawn. The open, green space felt too large for her. There was noise, close to 40 people bumping into each other, laughing at inside jokes, and a lot of back-slapping. If you had no context, you would think you were looking at a scene from a family reunion, and that woman the camera lingered on was probably a friend of a cousin who had been invited to the party at the last minute.
But this was not a family reunion, though it tends to look like one, nor was the woman, Aastha Sharma, anyone’s plus one. Aastha had parked herself at the back of the room at an SGX graduation party. She sat quietly with her co-founders and refused to look at her phone. I’ve observed that people, including me, often try to find refuge in their phones, especially when they’re not at ease in social situations. But not Aastha; she was attentive and observant. She wasn’t afraid of unease; she welcomed it.
This one moment we established our connection.
I remember walking up to her and introducing myself. She and her founders were from Jaipur and had moved to Delhi to help their company find its feet. Founders from emerging cities have a ferocity to them. They are aware that the odds are not in their favour, but their strength of character drives them to do better. One conversation in, and I knew Aastha was building all of those muscles.
A few weeks later, I had to show up when Aastha and her co-founders invited me to their office for a brainstorming and strategy meeting. They wanted my opinion on a few business decisions. While I sat through their discussion, I saw how Aastha worked. She was methodical but empathetic, direct but polite. She is the embodiment of the perfect leader.
Some leaders often grab the oxygen from a room, but not her. In her leadership qualities, I saw someone who could shrink the room when she spoke and grow it when others did. When you meet these leaders, you need to empower them, and that’s what I did. I asked Aastha to chair the SaaSBoomi’s NCR council.
It was one of the best decisions I made. Aastha showed up at the first lunch meeting with her laptop glued to her. While the rest of us joked around, she was making notes. I was impressed to see her eat, work, and engage with people all at the same time. I never saw her lose track of a conversation or her food.
A few hours later, when she made her presentation, I was assured she would add fresh momentum to SaaSBoomi. And she did. In months, NCR became the highest-performing region for SaaSBoomi across India. She opened her playbook and encouraged others to spin off from her success. Her deep research also helped us open up West Asia as a possible destination for Indian founders to find new types of customers and investors. But Aastha isn’t someone who stops when they achieve a goal set for them; she defines new ones for herself. Her relentless execution and thought are what led to the birth of Qafila.
To understand Aastha, the entrepreneur, you need to understand Aastha, the person. She tries hard to empathize with people around her and works to empower them. She understands that it is not just words but also actions that win people over. Several times, when we hosted an event, and Aastha anchored it, she would bring gifts unprompted. It could be something as nominal as a box of chocolates or as breathtaking as caricatures of founders so they could take a keepsake back with them. It is Aastha’s generosity that wins people over. Her generosity gives people space, help, direction, or sometimes just a laugh.
Her insight into human behavior is second to none. Her feedback has helped me nurture my relationships with the volunteers, staff members, and family. She is unfazed and brave when she dislikes how people speak or behave. This self-confidence, coupled with her generosity, makes her the most unique volunteer in our community.
I hope to absorb this spirit myself, if not through osmosis, then through learning, so I make it a point to meet her once every quarter.
Whenever a volunteer asks me who they could model themselves on to contribute to SaaSBoomi truly, I point them in Aastha’s direction.
There are very few like you, Aastha. Thank you for your quiet leadership.
From the Author:
SaaSBoomi began in 2015 as a small gathering of ~50 founders, and today, with over 500 events across three countries and countless lives touched, we’ve only just scratched the surface.
None of this would have been possible without the unrelenting passion of our 125+ volunteers — the lifeblood of SaaSBoomi.
Their contributions go beyond effort; they’ve built a community bound by camaraderie, empathy, and a shared vision for a Product Nation.
Pay it FWD is my tribute to every pay-it-forward champion I’ve encountered on this incredible journey.
Their contributions to SaaSBoomi and the broader ecosystem have been immeasurable, yet there remains a story left to be told — one that echoes the impact they continue to create.
