It’s the end of the year. Time for wins, highlights, year-in-review posts.

I don’t have those.

What I have is three months of silence. A burnout I didn’t see coming. A break I was terrified to take.

And lessons I’m still learning.

We always hear about founders raising money. Hitting milestones. Celebrating wins. We rarely hear about the breaking points. The mess in between. Usually those stories come later, after everything is fixed and polished.

I want to talk about mine now. While I’m still figuring it out.

2025 has been the hardest year of my life.

I left my “dream” job at Microsoft. Got my visa rejected. I have to move from the USA to India after 10 years. Moved back in parents house after 20 years. I stood up against harassment and fought the brutal legal battle. I started building Darzy.

I thought I could handle it all. I’m ambitious. I’ve survived hard things before.

I didn’t realize I was breaking until I was already broken.

We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.

I didn’t just put in time. I put in everything. I thought that’s what it meant to build something that mattered.

The Rush

Coming back to my parents’ house after 20 years wasn’t what I expected. I had changed. The place hadn’t. People kept asking what’s next, why would she leave the every Indian’s American dream. I was the gossip of the town with tag of ex-Microsoft & Kellogg. Impossible expectations from everyone, including myself.

I got caught in a race I didn’t understand I was running.

Build fast. Hire fast. Raise money fast. Ship the product yesterday.

VCs looked at my background, Kellogg, Microsoft, and pushed me toward bigger opportunities. Things that would make more money, faster. My mission kept blurring. I built for the US market first, then moved to India and realized these are two completely different worlds.

I rushed everything.

I hired people quickly. Gave them first chances, the way someone once gave me a first chance. Fresh graduates. Students. People who said they could handle startup pressure. Who promised they’d stay till the end.

Right before launch, when the pressure came, everyone left. All at once. Some destroyed the code on their way out. Some wanted to come back later like nothing happened.

Steve Jobs said, “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

I had the intuition. I just didn’t have the courage to listen.

My gut told me things about each person. Who would stay. Who would leave. Who meant what they said. I ignored every warning because I wanted to believe their words more than I trusted my own knowing.

Except one person. My designer. The hire I didn’t expect much from. She stayed. She believed. She’s still here.

Someone once told me in my dating life: “The right people will find you when you stop chasing the wrong ones.” apparently that’s true in every case.

The Breaking

I wasn’t sleeping. Maybe one or two hours a night. I was sick all the time. Crying for no reason. Arguing with my parents. Snapping at friends.

I left everything, my job, the US, 10 years of life, to build something that would bring me joy and help others grow.

But I wasn’t enjoying any of it.

I recognized the pattern. I’d been here before, seven years ago. Divorce. Job changes. Moving. Burnout that became something darker. That time, COVID forced me to stop. Forced me to slow down.

I was too busy. My body knew what my mind refused to accept.

This time, a small accident put me on bed rest. My body made the decision my mind couldn’t.

I needed to take a break.

The Guilt

The guilt was heavy. What will people think? My customers? Is this failure?

The founder guilt whispered a thousand “what ifs” in my ear.

But my friends, especially other founders, gave me permission. They told me to stop. That everything would still be there when I came back.

I paused everything. Cancelled meetings. Sent the scary emails. I was terrified pressing send on each one.

Every single person supported me. Told me to take care of myself first.

Brené Brown writes, “Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.”

My friends did that for me when I couldn’t do it for myself. They gave me the kindness I’d forgotten I deserved.

That gave me permission to breathe.

The Shift

One night, when I couldn’t sleep due to migraine, I thought, may be I should do Yoga. I signed up what first came in Goa, near the water. I thought I was just going to do some yoga.

I’d never done yoga in my life.

Turned out it was a two-week yoga teacher training.

Yes, I stepped into Ashtanga YTTC without ever doing Yoga before.

Those two weeks taught me what no MBA, MS or anyone ever taught me.

Yoga isn’t just about poses. It’s about being present. Stillness. Breathing. Living now. It’s philosophy that’s thousands of years old but feels more relevant than ever.

I learnt that as per Bhagavad Gita: “You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.”

I was so focused on the outcome : the product, the funding, the launch, the pressure of results of everyone around me, that I forgot the work itself was supposed to mean something. That I was supposed to mean something while doing it.

One thing i observed there was that, 20 of us there from all over the world. Every person was there because they’d burned out. Toxic work relationships. Exhaustion. Jobs that drained them not from the work, but from the people.

A teacher said something I’ll never forget: “We’re not here because we failed. We’re here because we finally succeeded at listening to ourselves.”

Maybe burnout isn’t failure. Maybe it’s your body succeeding at getting your attention.

That gave me permission to stop living on society’s timeline. To build slowly. To bring the right people in, even if it takes time. To travel the world while building a sustainable fashion company, because fashion and creativity are everywhere, and I want to learn from all of it.

If I want to build Darzy for the long term, for the mission, I need to take care of myself first. I need those principles in me before I can bring them into my product, my team, my company.

The People

To my advisers, partners. To the people I cancelled meetings with. To everyone on the wait list. To everyone who spent time talking with me about Darzy, sharing ideas, trusting the vision.

I’m sorry I went quiet.

We’re rebuilding Darzy, but this time, it won’t be just me taking the burnout and making all the decisions alone. This time, we’re coming out in the public. Bringing our customers in. Bringing everyone who trusted us into the process.

We are slow. We have paused. But we’ll be back stronger.

I would be so happy to talk to you again. To build with you. You’ll get all the updates in the future. But until then, we’re continuing our pause through 2025.

Some of you stayed on the wait list for months. Some of you had one conversation with me and believed in something that didn’t exist yet. That means more than I know how to say.

You didn’t get what I promised. But you’re getting my honesty. I hope that counts for something.

The Return

I was scared when I asked my friend: What if I come back and it just feels like I’m starting from scratch?

I understand that now. Yes, we’re rebuilding Darzy. But not from scratch. From a full year of experience. From my own research. From knowing what matters and what doesn’t. From understanding my intuition. From choosing the right people, not the fast people.

But also..

There are so many stories I haven’t told yet. About moving countries. About being a woman in tech. About building something when you’re not sure what you’re building anymore. About unlearning everything society taught you about what success is supposed to look like.

I’ll be writing more. Sharing more. Being more honest about all of it.

N23 Studio — it’s a small space I’m creating for my journey beyond just Darzy. If you want to learn more about my life, my travels, how I’m figuring this all out, subscribe here. It’s where I’ll be most raw. Most real.

The Message

The holidays are here. The year is ending. If you’re exhausted, burned out, running on empty, this is your sign.

In a world where AI is accelerating everything, where we might work four hours a day soon because machines do the rest, we need to remember how to be human. How to connect. How to live.

I spent months running toward a future I thought I had to create. I forgot I was already here. Already whole. Already enough.

The answers aren’t in the latest tech. They’re in ancient philosophies we’ve forgotten.

Take a pause. Be in nature. Learn stillness. You’re allowed to take a break. You’re allowed to be with yourself.

If this resonates with you, let me know. I’m here. And I’m learning to be here, NOW.

To everyone reading this, it’s holiday time. I encourage you to spend more time with your family. Pause. Put everything aside. The AI. The news. The notifications. The endless scroll.

That break will give you clarity. It will help you come back stronger.

I know because I’m living proof that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is stop.

Very happy holidays to everyone.

I’ll see you in 2026.

— Neha

"What was your moment when you thought you would break, came out of your shell, and realized you made it?"

An audience member asked me this question after my first speaking engagement for Darzy.ai, three weeks ago. I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

I'm writing this because that moment - standing on stage at Microsoft Office in Gurgaon, wearing an upcycled outfit created from my first black sari and my first American blazer - was exactly that moment.

My "made it" moment. Not just for me, but for Darzy too.

Three months ago, I thought it was over. Today, I know we're just getting started.

Let me take you back to where this all began - my breaking point.

After a decade in the USA, I had it all planned out.

New York.

My startup.

My future.

I was working on Darzy, had left my comfortable immigration job, and applied for my EB-1A visa. The American dream was within reach.

Then came the rejection letter.

When that EB-1A visa got rejected, I didn't just feel disappointed - I felt broken. Everything I had planned, everything I had worked toward, suddenly felt impossible. Moving back to India wasn't just a change of geography; it felt like admitting defeat.

In my darkest moment, my mentor Tarja, said something that would change my entire perspective:

"Clothes - everyone wears them on planet Earth. So why can't we just do it in India or anywhere in the world?"

Such simple words, but they contained a profound truth. My purpose wasn't tied to a location.

My vision for sustainable fashion, for upcycling, for creating meaningful employment - that was universal.

Tarja has been with me through this entire journey, and she always reminds me to document everything - the strong points, the battles, the small victories. "Document your journey," she says, "because these moments matter more than you realize."

She was right. Here I am, documenting what would become the most transformative day of my entrepreneurial journey.

Coming Home After Twenty Years

Adjusting to life back in India wasn't just about geography - it was about time. I was back in the same home I had left right after high school, twenty years ago. Here I was, in my late thirties, in a small town after living across the world and in metro cities. It was challenging in ways I hadn't anticipated.

The doubts I had about my decision were mirrored in my parents' worried faces. I could see their questions, even when unspoken: Why did she leave everything - her US life, her stable job - to start something uncertain? Now she's stuck in India, and for how long?

In the midst of this emotional adjustment, I found myself doing something therapeutic - going through my old cupboard, my old memories. I asked my mom to help me take out everything we had stored away.

That's when I found them - two pieces that gave me my next story.

First, my black sari. My first black sari, actually. For those unfamiliar, a sari is a traditional Indian outfit that every woman wears, and each one carries memories. This particular sari held twenty years of my journey.

I wore it in my farewell (graduation) of my Undergraduate, in 2011. When I wore it for the first time, I was happy about my graduation, but also questioning the journey ahead.

You see, my first job offer - the one I received through campus placements right before graduation - had been taken away because I was a woman.

That sari reminded me of everything: questioning my place as a woman in tech, struggling to code, fighting to make my own space in technology, and how far I had traveled since then.

Then there was the blazer - my first-ever suit coat, bought when I first entered the US. Another milestone, another memory.

Both pieces had strong emotional connections, but they were now on my "never again" list - clothes I thought I'd never wear again.

But standing there, surrounded by these memory-laden fabrics in a country full of talented tailors, something struck me:

I'm in India. There are skilled artisans everywhere. Can I try Darzy right now?

With my mom as my design inspiration, I used Darzy prototype to create a fusion design - combining the emotional weight of my Indian sari with the professional power of my American blazer. I sent the picture to a woman tailor in a nearby village.

Two hours later, my vision was reality. The upcycled piece was ready.

I had no idea where I would present this piece, but I knew I had to share this story.

The answer came through the most unexpected channel - a random WhatsApp group I had joined but never actively participated in. Someone posted that Women in Product India was looking for a speaker in Gurgaon.

I didn't have a prototype.

I didn't have a polished pitch deck.

But I had this incredible outfit that represented my entire journey, and I had something burning inside me that needed to be shared.

I reached out to the founder, Swati. She said yes.

Suddenly, I had a presentation to give and a prototype to build - in completely reverse order.

What followed was organized chaos.

My team worked tirelessly, pulling everything together until the very last minute. We were building a prototype while I was preparing to present a concept that existed only in vision and in that one powerful upcycled piece.

It was stressful, yes, but it was also exhilarating. Sometimes the best work happens when you're pushed to your absolute limits.

The presentation was scheduled two days after Gurgaon had been flooded with heavy rains. Over 200 people had registered, but would anyone show up in this weather?

Yet on the day itself, something magical happened - there was no traffic. The three-hour journey from Meerut to Gurgaon was smooth, as if the universe was clearing the path.

And the venue? Microsoft Office in Gurgaon.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

I had left Microsoft 2 months ago to pursue my entrepreneurial dreams, and here I was, presenting about my startup inside a Microsoft office in India.

Sometimes life writes the most poetic stories.

Seventy plus engaged people filled that room - a beautiful mix of students and professionals from the tech and product world. The energy was electric.

The first speaker, Swati Dogra (VP of Product at MakeMyTrip), delivered an incredible presentation about AI and data at massive scale.

Everything was working perfectly with the technology setup... until it was my turn.

My laptop wouldn't connect to the projector. We tried everything. Then, after about 10 minutes of troubleshooting in front of 70 people, my laptop died completely. Not just disconnected - dead. Gone.

For a moment, panic set in. Here I was, about to give the most important presentation of my life, and I had no way to show my slides.

But then I paused, processed, and remembered something crucial: my presentation was in Canva, which lives in the cloud. I could log in from any laptop.

A true founder, knows how to figure things out, when world might be ending...

After Swati's technical, data-heavy presentation about handling massive scale, I had a moment of doubt.

My story was the complete opposite - raw, personal, not heavily technical at all.

Would this audience connect with something so different?

During the 10-minute break, I made a decision that would define everything that followed:

I do not care what this audience is expecting. This is my first time presenting about my passion, my project, my purpose. I am going to be 100% myself.

No script. No corporate speak. Just me.

When the audience returned and settled down, I started with an expectation reset.

I told them this would be completely different from the previous session - they should prepare for a different kind of journey.

Then I began telling my story. Not the polished, achievement-heavy version you might expect at a business presentation, but the real story.

The small moments that shaped me.

• I talked about my first job offer being rescinded because I was a woman.

• I shared why Darzy was born,

  • what we'd accomplished so far,

  • our UX progress,

  • the prototype reveal,

  • and my hiring experiences

• I spoke about the journey from visa rejection to this moment,

  • about finding purpose in pivot,

  • about the universal truth that clothes are worn by everyone on planet Earth.

For the first time in my presentation life, I was 100% myself. Raw. Honest. Authentic.

The response was immediate and electric. People were clapping in the middle of my presentation, laughing at the right moments, completely engaged with every word.

What was supposed to be a 40-45 minute session with Q&A turned into 1 hour and 45 minutes because the questions just wouldn't stop. The audience was hungry for more - more story, more details, more connection.

And then, even after the official session ended, people stayed. They approached me with follow-up questions, partnership ideas, collaboration requests. They wanted to work with me and my company.

During that extended Q&A session, one audience member asked the question that would stick with me for weeks:

"What was your moment when you thought you would break, came out of your shell, and realized you made it?"

Standing there, wearing the fusion of my first black sari and my first American blazer - twenty years of struggle, growth, and transformation literally woven together - sharing my authentic story with a room full of engaged strangers who had become instant supporters.

This was it. This was my "made it" moment.

The Power of Wearing Your Story

I want to talk about that upcycled piece for a moment - the fusion of my first black sari and my first American blazer. Walking into that room wearing the physical embodiment of my entire journey was the ultimate confidence booster. It wasn't just a presentation prop; it was living proof of concept.

This wasn't just any outfit - it was twenty years of my story, from a questioning computer science graduate to a woman who had navigated tech industries across continents, now creating something entirely new.

Every time someone complimented the piece or asked about it, I got to say, "This is my first black sari from graduation and my first blazer from entering the US. This is what we do at Darzy- we transform memories into new possibilities."

That upcycled piece became the most powerful slide in my entire presentation. It represented the courage to honor your journey while creating something new.

At the end of the day, someone said something that made everything worthwhile:

"Today, AI is replacing jobs, but your product is actually creating them."

That comment hit me right in the heart. That's the impact I'm trying to build with Darzy.

That's why this company exists - not just to create beautiful upcycled fashion, but to create meaningful employment, to empower artisans like that village woman who created my outfit in two hours, to prove that sustainability and success can go hand in hand.

The Sisterhood That Makes It Possible

I cannot finish this story without acknowledging the woman who made it all possible - Swati Awasthi, the founder of WIP, India who trusted me completely. I couldn't even send her my presentation until the very end, yet she believed in me blindly. She created the space for me to be 100% who I am.

That's what happens when women trust other women. That's how we bring each other forward.

In a world where we often hear about competition between women, this experience reminded me of the power of collaboration, trust, and sisterhood.

What "Made It" Really Means

Everyone kept telling me I was "inspiring," but the truth is, that audience fueled me more than I could ever fuel them. After months of feeling disheartened in my small town, wondering if anyone would ever connect with my vision, their response was everything I needed and more.

That audience didn't just validate my idea - they reminded me why I started this journey in the first place.

But here's what I learned about "made it" moments:

They're not defined by others.

They're defined by you.

They're found in:

• The small moments when you decide not to quit

• When life throws you a curve ball and you choose to adapt instead of abandon

• When you choose purpose over comfort

• When you document your struggles and celebrate your battles

• When you realize that different doesn't mean wrong - it means unique

• When you transform your "never again" items into your greatest strengths

As my mentor Tarja always reminds me, documentation is crucial. Not just for business purposes, but for personal growth. When you document your strong points and your battles, you create a roadmap for others who might be walking a similar path.

This post exists because I want to remember this feeling, this moment, this breakthrough. But more than that, I want others who are at their breaking point to know that their "made it" moment might be just around the corner.

Just Getting Started

We're very early in the Darzy journey, but this first presentation was pure magic. It reminded me that when you speak from your heart about something you truly believe in, people listen. They connect. They want to be part of the story.

This day showed me the power of authentic leadership, genuine storytelling, and the courage to be vulnerable in professional spaces.

Sometimes the most powerful presentations aren't the ones with perfect slides and rehearsed lines. They're the ones where you show up as yourself, share your truth, and trust that it's enough.

It always is.

Your "Made It" Moment

As I finish writing this, I keep thinking about that audience member's question. I wonder about your answer.

What was your moment when you thought you would break, came out of your shell, and realized you made it?

Maybe you're in that moment right now.

Maybe you're at your breaking point, wondering if you should give up on your dream.

Maybe you're back in your childhood home in your late thirties, questioning every decision you've made.

This post is for you: Your "made it" moment might not look like what you originally planned, but it can be even more beautiful than what you imagined.

The curve balls, the rejections, the pivots - they're not detours from your path. They are your path.

Document your journey. Share your struggles alongside your victories. Trust women who trust you. Wear your story with pride. Speak from your heart.

Transform your "never again" moments into your greatest strengths.

Your "made it" moment is waiting.

Thank you for reading my story. If it resonated with you, I'd love to hear about your "made it" moment in the comments below. And if you're still waiting for yours, remember - it's coming.

Thank you to WIP team, for creating this community, and all the amazing photos they clicked.

Follow my journey building Darzy and subscribe for more authentic stories about entrepreneurship, sustainable fashion, and the beautiful messiness of building something meaningful.

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It wasn’t just data. It was personal.

The facts were clear. And hard to swallow.

We like to believe that donation gives our clothes second lives.
A kind ending. A good deed. A clean slate.

But only 20% of donated clothes are ever sold.
The rest?
They disappear into a shadow economy.

Some are shipped in massive bales to places like Ghana, flooding local markets, crushing local industries.
Others are dumped across regions in India, discarded into landfills far from where they were bought.
Mountains of barely worn fabric, hidden in plain sight.

Returns aren’t any better.
We tap "Return" on our phones like a reset button.
But unless something is perfectly resellable, it’s often cheaper for companies to discard it than restock it.

There’s no tracking.
No accountability.
Because fashion, for all its power and influence, is one of the most unregulated industries in the world.

And every single year, we throw away 9 million tons of clothing.
In countries that never signed up to be dumping grounds for global excess.

And then came the fact I couldn’t forget:

If the entire fashion industry stopped producing today,
we’d still have enough clothing on Earth to dress every human being for the next 3 generations.

Around 3 decades.
Think about that.

We are drowning in abundance and starving for meaning.

I kept digging.
And what I found hurt more than the numbers.

It wasn’t just happening; it was designed to happen.

Where trends once shifted with seasons, they now change every week.
Zara, H&M, Shein, they’ve trained us to feel outdated in real-time.
They taught us to look at last month’s shirt and feel embarrassed.
To chase trends that never stop moving.

And when guilt catches up with us?
We’re sold on the comfort of “donation.”
As if passing it along erases our footprint.

But that night, it wasn’t just about them.
It was about me.

I saw myself in every statistic.

The overflowing closet.
The constant scrolling.
The quiet hope that the next outfit might make me feel more like myself.

And the truth hit harder than I expected:
I wasn’t just a passive consumer.
I was an active participant in a system that was hurting the planet and burying culture under convenience.

I never meant to, or either of us.
But because I didn’t know better.

But now I did.

And once you know, you can’t unknow.
It was about the space between knowing and doing.

And then came doubt.

How would I even help?
I wasn’t a designer.
I didn’t sew. I didn’t sketch.
I didn’t know how to transform clothes into trends.

But I knew one thing, with more certainty than anything I’d felt in years:
I couldn’t keep being part of the problem.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough to start.

Maybe I can use my strength in software engineering to solve it.

And learn from my mom.
It was a thread connecting the childhood where clothes were remade out of necessity…
to adulthood, where I consumed without pause…
to a future where maybe, just maybe, we could love what we already have.

And in that, there was a new kind of abundance.
Of meaning & purpose.

Thank you for reading. Subscribe to follow the entire Darzy journal, a story-led archive of reinvention, fashion, identity, and memory. We are not just building tech. We are stitching dignity into every design.

After leaving Solana Beach that evening, I slid into my car expecting my usual ritual of chaotic joy, music blasting, and singing my favorite songs out loud. My twenty minutes of driving therapy.

But that night was different. I turned the key and sat in silence.

Not outside silence. Inside silence.

My mind wasn't racing with beats but with questions. Deep, uncomfortable questions that had been waiting for space to surface.

Questions about myself, my choices, my patterns.

Why had I become a quantity-over-quality person?

Why was my closet bursting while I still felt I had nothing to wear?

And why wasn't this just my struggle, but something I witnessed among so many of my friends?

I thought about our pre-vacation rituals — not packing what we had but frantically ordering midnight Shein deliveries and last-minute Amazon orders. The way we equate newness with worthiness. The subtle belief that the "one more thing" would finally make us feel like ourselves again.

And somewhere in that spiral, we'd lost the essence of why fashion mattered at all.

For me, fashion wasn't always consumption and trends.

Growing up in a middle-class family in a small town in India during the 90s, upcycling wasn't a trendy sustainability practice, it was simply life. Mom’s Old sarees transformed into dresses. My father's shirts became my shirts. A torn hem was just an opportunity to add decorative lace.

My relationship with clothing carried additional complexity.

Being born a fourteen-pound baby in an era before inclusive sizing meant off-the-rack simply wasn't made for bodies like mine. There were no XLs, no celebration of different shapes. My mother faced limited options: custom outfits from the local tailor or reimagining existing garments.

By necessity, not choice, I wore stories stitched from past fabrics. Not because it was fashionable, but because it was the only thing that fit. As a kid, I always wanted more of those ready-to-wear and never appreciated the compliments I got on my outfits.

Years later, with my first salary came modest clothing purchases. But student loans and responsibilities created natural boundaries. There was always a limit, a consideration, a pause before buying.

Then I moved to America, and everything shifted.

My first American shopping experience was Black Friday. And we all know what happens then…

Endless racks of clothing. Towers of shoes. Five-dollar price tags and buy-one-get-three deals promising abundance I'd never known. It felt like discovering a new world, one where I could finally buy without mental calculation, without guilt, without limitation. And for the first time, these clothes came in sizes that fit my body.

That single Black Friday changed everything.

What began with one pair of boots and a perfectly fitting coat expanded into a pattern. Soon, I was there for every sale, Christmas, Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Presidents' Day (why does every American holiday come with discounts?).

With a better salary and newfound access, I could finally purchase branded pieces that had once seemed out of reach. I didn't notice when it stopped being joy and became a habit, a pattern tied not just to consumption but to something deeper.

My changing body complicated everything. Some years, I lost weight; others, I gained it back. Each fluctuation demanded a new wardrobe.

And because I fundamentally despised waste, food waste, financial waste, clothing waste, I never discarded anything.

I kept it all for "someday."

The smaller jeans for when I'd lose weight again. The looser blouses for when I might gain. My closet expanded from guilt, from trying to hold space for all the versions of myself I might become.

That night, after my silent drive home, I did something unusual.

I stood before my overflowing closet to truly see what I had accumulated.

I asked myself: If I had to evacuate this house right now, which ten pieces would I take with me?

The answer revealed everything.

It wasn't the expensive items. It wasn't the trendiest or the newest. It was the authentic pieces, the ones that felt unmistakably like me.

Some were made by tailors who knew my name. Some were gifts carrying stories. Some had been crafted from old sarees; others had traveled with me across countries. But all of them, every single one, were one-of-a-kind and the most comfortable one, in which I can be myself.

None came from mass-market retailers. None were purchased simply because they were trendy. And that's when recognition dawned: out of hundreds of garments, only ten truly mattered.

Was this disconnect between what we accumulate and what we value unique to me?

Or was there something larger happening?

That question launched me into perplexity research. I abandoned sleep for the rabbit hole of consumer psychology and fashion waste.

What I uncovered would change everything…

Next Story in Thread: The Unwearable Truth

Subscribe to follow the entire Darzy journal, a story-led archive of reinvention, fashion, identity, and memory. We are not just building tech. We are stitching dignity into every design.

It was an afternoon in the Solana Design District. My girlfriend Priyanka and I were strolling through the beautiful shops in the Design District. I was admiring the uniqueness, craft, and beauty of the shops and creativity of the business owners.

After completing an MBA from Kellogg, with a full-time Engineer job at Microsoft, I moved to San Diego on a whim, to calm out my burnout of the last 3 years, but also wondering what I was meant to build in this life.

And then, I saw her.

A white denim jacket. Hanging quietly at the back of a shop called “DIY.” Hand-painted waves on the back, block prints below. I wasn’t looking to buy anything that day, but this jacket wasn’t selling itself to me. It was calling me.

I tried it on, and it fit perfectly, as if made just for me.

It fit like a thought I didn’t know I needed.

Not just in size. In the story.

And that story, about how the shop owner painted it herself, how the stretch denim hugged just right, how it cost only $75, sparked the entire foundation of what is now Darzy.

Because for the first time, I realized:

My closet is full of clothes that speak brands and trends.

But this jacket? It speaks to me.

As we left the store, excitement filled me. I turned to my friend and said, "We constantly buy stuff online, but this feeling is different. This jacket feels like me."

From that moment came the questions:

What if AI could help visualize the possibilities of our closets?

What if AI could help uplift & scale handmade artistry like this jacket?

My friend looked at me, serious yet supportive, and said, "If anyone can do it, it's you." Grateful for my girlfriends.

For the rest of the day, we dreamed big, imagining a community space filled with creativity, DIY classes, and vibrant artists turning old clothes into something new and beautiful.

I didn’t know then how deep this would go. But I knew I had found my sleepless-night idea.

Darzy was born that day.

Not as a startup.

But as a truth I could no longer ignore.

Next Story in Thread: The Night I couldn’t sleep

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