(Note: I solemnly swear this letter was not generated by AI.)
Dear Friend of Without,
Dr Lok, our Head of Science, said to me, “We’ll all be doing night shifts to support Midhun get this over the line, hope that’s okay?”
I am not sure if he texted this to me or said this out loud, but I remember pausing, unsure how to react.
“Uhh, sure?” I responded.
And then got worried that the Science team was pushing too hard.
“Can we leverage and train Ram Kaka (the night-time security guard) to observe this reaction so that y’all don’t have to camp?”
“Sure, sure, we’ll see,” is what I got back.
Not sure what actually happened, but all the necessary 28-hour synthesis reactions did.
I don’t know whether to feel guilty or proud, but these days, I’m constantly amazed at how hard the team is pushing themselves.
The Science team is about to publish 5 more patents (with a bunch more in the pipeline). They have cracked something really exciting in the world of computational chemistry, where we can potentially test hundreds of catalysts virtually before we test them in our wet lab.
The Product team is designing things for brands that they almost have no right to, and are doing a God-damn amazing job at it too. They also just ended up making these insane outdoor patio tiles from the worst of the worst waste that are almost indistinguishable from the conventional ones. And they also helped launch Without Badboo, an eco-friendly petcare shampoo packaged in the world’s first 100% recycled bottle made from shampoo sachets (and other MLP).
The Growth team is growing and hustling. A potential client-founder told me the other day, “Anish, Harshit from your team called me 5 minutes after I filled out the form on your website. I wish I had someone like that on my team.” They also turned into “signage-installers” as they went and installed signs made from chip packets at a new WeWork in Pune.
The Manufacturing team was struggling to find their rhythm, but yesterday, they proved that they could actually push our demo plant to produce 1.5x its supposed “max” capacity. We are tightening the screws as we gear up to (hopefully, Inshallah, maybe, tal vez) ramp up production, and the team’s saying, bring it on.
While all of this is blossoming, I am getting edgier.
We have about 8 months of runway. The team is massive. We are in control of our fate, but I don’t want to wait for disaster to streamline our survival. I don’t want to lay off folks because we don’t have “enough money”, so I’m extra amped up to ensure we safeguard ourselves this year.
My poor Founder’s Team is getting the brunt of it. But they are handling it like champs. Every time I feel like I’ve pushed it too far, they reset, acknowledge and refocus.
And I feel so fortunate.
I’m not sure if we’ve figured everything out at Without, but I’m pretty sure that the team we have is amazing.
So amazing that it puts even more pressure on me to ensure that we steer the ship in the right direction, even in the mistiest of fogs, hoping that there isn’t an iceberg waiting to Titanic us.
As the team gets more independent, I am starting to realise that my primary role is to find holes in the ship – i.e. be the bad guy, and it sometimes sucks. Because uhh, I don’t want to be the bad guy.
The other day, I found myself getting defensive and telling the manufacturing team ladies, “Look, I am sorry we are getting stricter and stricter, but we need to ensure that we are lean, mean, manufacturing machine so that we don’t suffer afterwards if a big order comes our way.”
Jayshree Tai, our first-ever formalised informal worker, responded, “Don’t worry sir, let the orders come, and you watch.”
“No ‘sir’ Jayashree,” I said as the other ladies laughed, and I wilted away with a weird, warm melancholy that seemed worth the while.
2025 was wild.
2026 is going to be wilder. We need to validate whether the demand for what we sell is real. We need to raise a (hefty) round of funds to ensure we keep going, and so that we can start building our first commercial plant.
It’s the year where all the goodness of the last 5 years is going to be tested: is the Without Anecdote just another nice, heart-warming story that isn’t going to last, or are we going to be able to make this into a financially independent, competitive organisation that can stand the test of time?
I honestly don’t know.
Because there’s an economic cost to doing the right thing.
Forget fair wages, we need to pay extra to get certifications to prove we’re paying fairly and being ethical. So essentially, it’s easier and cheaper to exploit. It’s easier to work with the easy-to-recycle waste.
There’s a painful irony there somewhere, but that’s exactly why we do what we do.
And you know what, there is an upside to this.
If all goes well, in the long run, all of this matters – being fair, ethical, working on real problems is what’s going to drive real change, real value creation.
That fairness is what has gotten many folks to go out of their way to give us their time, energy and money, and it instils that soft mushy unquantifiable thing in us that makes it all worthwhile.
And if you’ve read till here, you probably care, so thank you. If you want to support us, we are looking to work with brands in the beauty, eyewear and auto space who want to use our material – please send them here. We are looking for the right investors to join us in our Pre-Series A, so don’t hesitate to make an intro. We are also happy to just take donations, both from India through our non-profit and from the US (yes, through a 501(c)3 donation, so you get a tax exemption).
Okay enough, lots to do.
Happy 2026!
Anish
*****
