About Me
Hi, I'm Tarak Ram. I come from a small village called Jonnalagadda — and yeah, I love my village.
I'm curious, I experiment, and I tinker with ideas and people around me. Online, you see one side of me; serious and hardworking but in person, I'm funnier, a little weird, and always exploring & thinking.
When I'm not working, you'll find me writing, reading or having deep conversations with people about life, philosophy, and purpose. I love traveling, seeing new perspectives, and connecting with people who enjoy thoughtful chats.
A while back I made myself a promise — until 25, I'd try everything I possibly can. Not to collect things to put on a résumé, but to find out what I'm actually good at and what I'd still enjoy doing years from now. So far it's led to a lot of building, a fair amount of failing, and a much better sense of who I am.
If you want the long version of that story, I wrote it all down here. This page is the shorter one.
How I Got Here
Not a list of achievements — more the moments that actually changed how I think.
I was the quiet kid in a small village.
Jonnalagadda. I'd watch Art Attack and then disappear for the whole evening making something with my hands. Often weird, often a little different from everyone else. Nobody around me worked in tech, so none of this was ever the plan.
I thought I'd be a musician.
I bought a guitar, learned a little, and played at a few college programs. Then it slowly became obvious that I'm too introverted for a stage and I overthink everything. I still love music. It just wasn't mine to do.
I had no idea what I was doing.
Final year of an arts degree. No mentor, no plan, and everyone around me seemed to know their next step. I didn't have one. All I had was curiosity, which felt like very little at the time.
A stranger changed my life with a laptop.
I couldn't afford one, and someone travelling from the US brought it for me. Nobody in my hostel block knew coding, so I acted like some hacker guy — copy-pasting things I didn't understand and feeling like a genius when they worked. I still think about how much of my life turned on one person being kind.
I found out I could learn hard things.
Machine learning turned out to be mostly math, the subject I'd been bad at my whole life. I did it anyway. That's when I stopped thinking of confidence as something you're born with — it's just evidence you slowly collect about yourself.
I stopped building alone.
Most of the people I worked with that year were strangers on the internet, spread across four countries. We were too slow and lost to people who moved faster. I also learned to sell, which mostly meant getting ignored and learning to ask better questions.
I built something people actually used, then watched it break.
Seeing my own app on someone else's phone is still one of the best feelings I've had. Then the business behind it didn't hold up and we had to take the whole thing apart. Proud and humbled in the same year. I wouldn't trade it.
23, and still figuring it out.
I write, I ship small things, and I follow ideas that won't leave me alone. Maybe I've done all of it the wrong way. Maybe the right way. I honestly don't know yet, and I've mostly made peace with that.
My life has been full of "I never thought I'd…" moments.
I never thought I'd build a tech company. I never thought I'd manage a team. I never thought I'd read this many books. But here I am, doing the things I actually love.
I'm still experimenting — with ideas, with work, with the people around me — even when it makes sense to nobody but me. That's how I learn, and it's the only way I've found to keep the curiosity alive.
Right Now
I'm building small products, writing whenever a thought won't leave me alone, and reading more than is probably reasonable.
I'm not chasing a title or a specific outcome right now. I just want to keep making things, keep meeting people who think carefully, and stay curious enough to be surprised.
Maybe someday, before 25 or after it, I'll come back here and say out loud that I finally found the thing I love doing.
Quick Facts
- I read a lot of books and think a lot.
- I self reflect on almost everything that I do and think.
- Most nights, I'm awake until 2 AM, tinkering with something or lost in thoughts.
- I overthink a lot, both negatively and positively.
- I'm good at controlling my emotions.
- I talk to myself a lot because most of the time, I don't find anyone to listen.
- I visit temples, but I don't believe in God.
- I love exploring new places alone and trying new things.
- You'll rarely find me in crowds; I love peaceful and quiet places.
- I'm very cautious about trusting people, but once I trust someone, I give them everything.
- I'm single 🙃.
"The one who landed on this earth must know how to pass time."— Tarak Ram