I keep my Twitter decently active—follow me there for updates and thoughts. @tvpavan
What I do
- AI/ML Product Leadership: I own vague mission statements and turn them into real deep tech products.
- Org ReDesign & Scale: I've hired many CTOs and built high-performing teams. I specialize in setting up AI-first cultures.
- M&A Integration: I provide technical due diligence for funds, PE firms, and family offices, and have hands-on experience in venture building and post-merger integration. I've also been a mentor in Techstars Bangalore.
- Technology Partnerships & BizDev: I can shape technical proposals and RFP responses, engage C-level stakeholders, and lead executive-level negotiations for growth.
- Wider Industry Exposure: My experience spans startups, telco, fintech, retail, SaaS, and consulting services—across MedTech, EdTech, CPG, insurance, and data/AI product companies.
Work Experience
Blog
The Future of AI Coding: When Your Agent Builds Its Own Tools
Pi ships with 4 tools and builds the rest itself. I created a writing-style skill while writing this post—now every future session has it. Skills spread across sessions, evolve with feedback, even update from the web. Plugin marketplaces feel ancient.
The Polite Version of Pressure
"Any update on this?" "Kindly assist with the below." These aren't management—they're cognitive load transfer disguised as politeness. The most damaging managers aren't aggressive. They're vague, polite, and constant. Here's how to spot the pattern and what actually helps.
The AI Startup Moat: Engineering Depth, Not Ideas
AI is BNPL—buy now, pay reliability tax later. The 80/20 rule becomes 80/500 if you just vibe code. The real moat? Knowing when to use LLM at build time vs static code at runtime. Your InvoiceParseService shouldn't be an LLM wrapper. Here's why.
Why AI Startups' Biggest Moat is "No UI"
Traditional SaaS moats were visible—screenshot the competitor, copy the flows. AI startups flipped this. You can't screenshot prompt engineering. You can't reverse-engineer orchestration. The moat moved from pixels to intelligence. That changes everything about how you compete.
How to build for Logistics
Ops teams live in WhatsApp and Excel. Your beautiful dashboard? Another tab they'll ignore. I've watched founders demo "next-gen visibility platforms" to ops managers who smile, then go back to voice calls. Build AI that works where they already work—not where you wish they worked.
SaaS is Dead. Really?
Garry Tan says non-tech people will vibe-code custom solutions and kill SaaS. He's wrong. That weekend MVP becomes a forever maintenance problem. The hidden developer cost of "custom" dwarfs $30/seat. Vibe-coded apps are the best requirement docs ever—but they're not replacements for SaaS.
AI Coding Tools: The Real Target Isn't Non-Coders, It's Programmer Salaries
10 people, 10 steps → 3 people, 3 steps. Same quality. That's non-lossy compression, and that's what enterprises are actually buying. The "democratizing coding" narrative is marketing. The real play is cutting the biggest fixed cost in tech: programmer salaries.
Beyond the Exam Factory: Rethinking Success for the Next Generation
JEE, Suneung, Gaokao turned education into factory optimization. Millions of students, standardized processes, coaching centers churning out test-takers. Here's a different framework: build one deep skill, don't break the chain, start investing early. What a 16-year-old should actually do.
AI Translation: The Real Power Lies in Human Enhancement
We got AI wrong. It's not about automation—it's about translation. LLMs translate between natural language and code, between vision and implementation, between domain expertise and general knowledge. That's amplification, not replacement. The real question: how do you use AI to extend your capabilities?
The Agentic World: How Coding Has Changed and Why Software Principles Still Matter
We're using AI wrong. We babysit it like a bad intern, micromanaging every step. Treat it like a good intern instead: clear todos, clean repo, let it work. Come back after lunch. The agentic revolution makes software principles more important, not less. Here's why SOLID matters more than ever.
Creating vs Consuming: Why You Should Aim for 50-50
Most of us spend 90% consuming, 10% creating. Scrolling for hours, creating for minutes. But the tools to flip this exist now—you can launch a product, write a blog, share your art in minutes. The cost of trying has never been lower. What would change if you aimed for 50-50?
My Learning Journey – Open Sourcing Our Framework
18 months of tracking how I actually learn. What worked, what didn't, what surprised me. The whole system—now open-sourced for anyone to use.
Illusion of Traditional Education
Coaching methods work by applying pressure × time. That's the problem. System-1 thinking needs time to cache patterns—you can't bulldoze through concepts. I've been teaching my daughter and learned: what's obvious to adults isn't obvious to a developing mind. Here's what actually works.
My Journey with Digital Avatars: Let's Call It Identic AI
What if mentors could scale? I've received help from amazing people but always hit the same walls: time zones, availability, the inability to be there when needed. What if a digital version of you could share knowledge when you're not around? I'm building toward it.
Pokémon Guessing Game
Think of any Pokémon. Answer a few questions. I'll guess which one you're thinking of. Yes, it actually works.
Building AI-First Organizations
Acquired companies with fragmented stacks, zero documentation, completely different engineering cultures. Over time we stitched it together: remodeled services, 1-click dev environments, AI-optimized infrastructure. Here's what actually worked when turning traditional companies into AI-powered organizations.
Building Successful Ventures in a Startup Studio
Studios have made the same mistakes 20 times so you don't have to. I watched a founder spend six months building the wrong product; at the studio, we validate or kill ideas in weeks. Here's the messy reality of systematic venture building—not the theory.
The Fractional CTO Journey: From Advisory to Implementation
Part-time CTO for multiple companies at once. What that actually looks like day-to-day: the context switching, the prioritization, the moments when casual advice turns into building entire tech teams. Insights from years of fractional roles.
Vibe Coding: The Human Side of AI-Assisted Development
Last weekend I added a new feature: describe what I want, AI spits out 80 lines, I scan for architecture mistakes and security holes, push to staging. 15 minutes. Five years ago? Two hours minimum. But here's the catch—and why "accept all" is dangerous.
Team Culture and Leadership
Ownership isn't given. It's built through clarity, trust, and letting people own outcomes—not just tasks. How to build a culture where people actually take responsibility instead of waiting for instructions.
Connect
Feel free to contact me at tvpavan@gmail.com