What it’s like to be 23-year-old founders at Zepto
At Zepto, being young isn’t a barrier—it’s a catalyst for cost excellence and operational depth
By Naini Thaker
Last Updated: Oct 09, 2025, 15:34 IST2 min
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At 23, Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra are among the youngest founders in India’s startup ecosystem. Their journey to building Zepto wasn’t a story of impulsive decisions or youthful bravado. It was one of calculated risk, relentless learning and a lot of convincing.
“People think we dropped out on a whim. It wasn’t the case,” Palicha says. “We built the business, found product-market fit in a dark store in Bandra. Only then did we drop out of college in 2020. It was a thought-out decision, not an impulsive one,” he adds.
They were scheduled to enroll at Stanford in September 2020, but pushed it to 2021. By July that year, Zepto had launched. When Stanford came calling again, the decision was surprisingly easy. “It was a five-minute conversation,” Vohra says. “We asked ourselves: What are we going to regret more? Even if this crashes and burns, the amount of learning we’ve had in the last year was insane.”
“I remember my mom saying, ‘Return the money, and just go to college’,” Vohra laughs. “It took about 12 hours of convincing and pleading.” He eventually visited Stanford two years later. “The campus is beautiful, the weather is great, but there was no regret. It certified that this would’ve been fun—but what I’m doing now is a thousand times more exciting.”
Also Read: As Q-comm heats up, how does Zepto plan to stay ahead?
Execution Over Ego
Palicha never felt the need for formal training or a CEO coach. “I think the best teacher is action,” he says. “We try to do our homework, know what we’re doing, get into details and discuss things rationally.”
Much of Zepto’s growth has come through trial and error: Wrong hires, flawed decisions and mistakes that force introspection and course correction.
Nikhil Mittal, Zepto’s CTO and first employee, says, “Age has never been a factor.” He believes the founders’ lack of experience was an advantage. “People without experience come without baggage. There was a lot of energy—I could see they wanted to build something big.”
Ankit Agarwal, Zepto’s CPO, agrees. “Since my first interaction with them, it’s never been about age. It’s about maturity—both professional and emotional—and IQ.” He adds, “A young person saying, ‘I can disrupt this market’ which even large ecommerce players haven’t cracked successfully in India… that’s bold.”
What stood out most was their collaborative spirit. “There were times when Nikhil and I didn’t agree with Kaivalya and Aadit. But it was never, ‘I’m the founder, do this’. It was always, ‘Let’s discuss’. That’s how you build large companies,” says Agarwal.
Aayush Agarwal, co-founder of Snabbit, and formerly part of Zepto’s leadership team, says: “I was the third youngest in the leadership team—Kaivalya and Aadit were younger than me. For people like me, it was great. No one was questioning your age anymore.”
He credits Zepto’s culture for enabling young leaders to thrive. “The ability to challenge and drive things was something Zepto allowed,” he says. “They understood they got lucky and quickly went deep into execution. At that age, to understand what execution means is rare. You can easily get swayed by everything happening around you.”
Palicha is aware of the intensity that comes with building a company. “It’s a lot, but it’s not crazy. I’ve seen crazier work in life,” he says. The early days, he admits, were different. “The first seven to eight months were unbelievable.”
First Published: Oct 09, 2025, 15:34
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