Code, Courage, and Conviction: Rimjhim Ray's Path to Purpose

When Rimjhim Ray speaks about building, she chooses her words with the precision of someone who has learned that not everything worth saying needs to be said quickly.
“Build something that changes lives,” she tells, “and do not get caught up in the noise of what is trending.” The line lands with the weight of lived experience, the kind of clarity that comes from both the exhilaration and the exhaustion of starting from zero.

In a startup landscape fuelled by headlines about billion-dollar valuations and sudden scale, her approach feels almost contrarian. Rimjhim is not chasing the next big thing for the sake of it. She is building slowly, making space for reflection, and focusing on the kind of progress that often happens outside the public eye. Her career, from engineer to advertising strategist to founder, is not just a sequence of moves but the foundation for the principles she now holds as non-negotiable.

She has been the twenty-one-year-old engineer flown to Europe to replace someone twice her age on a consulting project because she could code and communicate. She has been the advertising professional navigating a culture shock after years in tech, learning to understand the unspoken drivers of consumer behaviour. And she has been the founder who launched a digital agency weeks before becoming a mother, knowing full well that neither role came with a handbook. Each phase added a layer to her thinking, shaping the philosophy she now brings to every venture.

Innovation That Serves, Not Distracts

Rimjhim draws a sharp distinction between innovation that is meaningful and ideas that are simply fashionable. True innovation, she says, must address a real problem for a significant group of people, and do it in a way they are willing to pay for.

“We have seen entire waves of startups come and go,” she says, thinking back to the era of “Uber for X” clones. “Most failed because they were chasing a model, not solving a problem.”

That thinking shaped Spotle AI, the platform she co-founded in 2017 to connect students to career opportunities based on their skills rather than the prestige of their institution. The numbers, half a million users, 3,000 campuses, are impressive, but she lights up when she tells the story of a student from a small-town college in Assam landing an internship with a global tech firm.

“That,” she says, “was the win. When you change one person’s life in a way that changes their family’s trajectory, that is where the value is.”

For her, innovation is not measured by novelty or speed but by staying power, whether the solution still matters years later, not just the quarter after launch.

Conviction Without Rigidity

In her view, conviction is not about refusing to change course. It is about holding your purpose steady while being willing to adjust the path to get there. “Letting go of your original vision does not mean you have failed,” she says. “It means you are growing.”

The pandemic tested that belief when Spotle AI’s B2C model became unsustainable. The pivot to B2B licensing was not just a business decision but an exercise in humility. “Markets will push you,” she says, “and the pressure, from PR, from investors, from the fear of missing out, can make you forget why you started. That is where the discipline comes in.”

She credits much of her balance to having co-founders who value long-term resilience over short-term optics. “When you work with people who are not afraid to call you out, you make better decisions,” she says. “They help you remember that hype is fleeting, but capacity building is what sustains you.”

Design for the Margins, Deliver to the Masses

After Spotle AI, Rimjhim co-founded Heyo, a conversational platform built for micro and small businesses, the ones often ignored by larger tech companies.

“We designed Heyo for the local corner store, the boutique salon, and the neighborhood coaching center. Businesses that don’t have a tech team but still need technology.”

Heyo now serves over 50,000 customers across India and Southeast Asia. Its value comes from automating tasks for people who aren’t digital experts without overwhelming them.

“One shop owner in Nagpur told us Heyo helped him double his customer base without hiring more staff. That’s what technology should do: empower, not replace.”

Rimjhim believes that solving problems for real India, beyond the major cities, isn't just a social mission, it's smart business. Because that's where the real scale, diversity, and complexity exist.

“Why should we copy Silicon Valley? Our problems are different. Our users, our languages, our infrastructure, they are all unique. If we build for that, we’re not just solving for India. We’re solving for half the world.”

From skills-based bots in rural India to multilingual support for small businesses, Rimjhim champions the idea that global relevance comes from solving locally specific problems.

“A clothing store in Jakarta and a boutique in Kolkata might need the same tool. But only if that tool truly understands their reality.”

She sees similar needs in Southeast Asia, where Heyo has expanded, and believes that global relevance will increasingly come from solutions born in the Global South. “If you can solve for the complexity of rural India,” she adds, “you can solve for a lot of other places. The challenges are similar, even if the languages and cultures differ.”

Fuel the Firepower of Small-Town India

Ray knows this terrain well. Growing up in Asansol, she saw the hunger and adaptability that come from leaving home at sixteen or seventeen to study or work. That resourcefulness, she believes, is a competitive edge, but one often overlooked by investors and the media.

“People in smaller towns have immense drive. They’ve had to adapt from a young age, often leaving home at 16 or 17. That builds resilience.”

She has seen extraordinary businesses emerge from smaller towns, like a fabrication company in Durgapur that supplied for the London Olympics. The challenge, she says, is not talent but access: to capital, to networks, to visible role models.

Part of her own work now involves returning to these places, mentoring students, and encouraging other successful founders to do the same.

“Go back. Give back. Role models change communities,” she says.

She is also exploring a mentorship network for women founders outside major cities, believing it could accelerate innovation where it is most needed.

Practice Engaged Detachment

Ray often returns to a principle she calls “engaged detachment,” borrowed from the Gita. It is the practice of committing fully to your work while not letting the outcome define you.

“It is not about caring less,” she explains. “It is about caring without being consumed.”

For founders, she says, this mindset is what allows you to survive the emotional extremes of the job. It keeps you grounded enough to make good decisions when things are hard, and present enough to enjoy them when they are going well.

“You have to protect your energy,” she adds, “because if you burn out, you cannot lead.”

She practises this through digital detoxes, long-term goal setting, and consciously separating her work identity from her personal one.

“Founders forget they are human,” she says. “We think the company is us. But it is not, and if you can remember that, you last longer.”

Consistency Is the Competitive Edge

If there is one trait she values above all, it is consistency.

“Being a founder is mostly unglamorous,” she says. “It is the quiet work: fixing bugs, solving user problems, making sure the business is still standing tomorrow.”

She points to companies that have lasted decades, noting that their staying power comes less from constant reinvention and more from the discipline of showing up, day after day.

“Patience is not passive,” she says. “It is choosing to keep building even when no one is watching.”

Consistency, she adds, is often underrated in a world obsessed with charisma and speed. “People think success is about brilliance,” she says. “But brilliance without consistency fades. Consistency, even without brilliance, builds something that lasts.”

Ethics at the Core of AI

On AI, Ray’s lens is unambiguously human. She believes its role should be to expand capability and grow the economy broadly, not concentrate benefits among a few. That requires rethinking workplace norms, including openness to employees moonlighting.

“With AI, companies will get leaner, and people will have multiple income streams,” she says. “We have to adapt to that reality.” She warns against using automation purely as a cost-cutting tool, framing it instead as a way to create bigger outcomes with the same resources.

For her, leadership in this new era is not just about technical literacy but about moral agency, safeguarding trust, psychological safety, and dignity as much as profits or growth. “It is easy to measure output,” she says. “It is harder, but more important, to measure whether people feel valued and safe.”

Build Better: Insights for Changemakers

For founders, Ray’s advice is to decide early what success means to you, rather than letting the market’s mood swings write your story for you. She urges them to practise “engaged detachment” so they can stay committed without being consumed, to put as much energy into building their own capacity as they do into chasing speed, and to take pride in the quiet, steady progress that rarely makes headlines but always outlasts hype.

To investors, she offers a simple challenge: look beyond the obvious. There is rich talent outside the startup circles of major cities, often in places that rarely make it into pitch events. Learn to recognise grit beneath a less polished pitch, to fund patience and integrity alongside growth, and to accept that success might not always fit the template you expect.

For educators and policymakers, she calls for a shift in both mindset and material. Bring Indian case studies into the classroom so young people see themselves in the examples they learn from. Seek out and mentor talent from smaller towns. Encourage an entrepreneurial way of thinking over rote memorisation, and remember that the ability to tell a story is as vital as technical skill when it comes to shaping leaders.

A Measured View on Legacy

When the conversation turns to legacy, she pauses. “It’s not something you declare,” she says. “It’s something that appears when you’ve shown up with care, clarity, and conviction, every single day.”

It’s a modest answer in a culture that celebrates speed. But it fits her approach: keep the focus on the work, make sure it matters, and build in a way that lasts, for yourself, your team, and the people you’re building for.