Designer, founder and host — but underneath all of it, someone who can't help taking things apart to understand how they work, then putting them back together better.
A few versions of me
Cars and boats made of wood and thermocol, held together with wires and little motors — that was how I first learned the way things actually come together. Classrooms never pulled at me the way that workbench did. I followed the traditional path anyway, careful not to wander too far, too young. Looking back, taking things apart on that table was my first real lesson in how foundations are built.
What hooked me was how quietly technology makes people's lives better. I learned every piece of software I could get my hands on, to the point where installing and wiping an operating system felt like a game. Photoshop showed me how far an image could be pushed. A Bachelor of Computer Applications gave me the fundamentals — C, HTML, CSS, JavaScript — and I taught myself the frameworks to ship real, working websites. Freelancing out of a tier-3 city in India, I stumbled onto the idea that has driven me ever since: you can actually make a living by following your curiosity.
I walked into the corporate world as a UI developer, not even realizing "designer" was a role of its own. I learned how products are truly made, and by the time I left front-end I was running the entire front-end of a product on my own. Then I crossed the line into design: I built a case study with nothing but free tools, joined Sensibull as a founding designer, and later Meesho, where I owned a flow inside the transactions charter.
I started an agency to see how far I could go — with a vision of becoming a single, dependable design partner for early- and mid-stage companies. That grew into teem.fit, a product that helps companies discover talent faster and saves designers from retelling their story and work over and over again. And somewhere along the way I started a podcast, Darshan's Diary, where I get to learn from leaders across industries and teams — usually more than they learn from me.