Adventurous Builder of Side Projects and Hackathons: Debabrata Mondal

About two months ago, we put up a notice looking for adventurous builders to join our mission:

To replace all custom internal tools and messy ops spreadsheets in businesses.

We want to work with people who enjoy the uncertainty and chaos of a startup and want to solve actual problems for businesses. As a tiny, new startup, we were heartened to see more than 10 people (junior to senior, around the world) apply to join us on this journey. Debabrata Mondal (Deb) was one of them.

The moment I read Deb’s email, I was excited about the possibility of working with him. At just 19 years old, he has built and shipped several apps end to end: Fireplace, Commonplace, and Temporal. And last August, he, his brother Debarghya, and his good friend Anish won the Silver Medal for Best Overall Project for Supabase’s first-ever hackathon. We were (and still are) impressed by his drive and bias towards action. Within the first week of joining the team, Deb has already fixed a few bugs and is adding tests to our codebase (while balancing university at the same time!)

Deb has joined us as a part-time engineer, mostly working on the frontend of Dashibase. But he will also be helping out with customer support, user research, design, and more. The full startup experience! We think that is a big value of joining an early-stage startup, especially since Deb plans to start a startup and join YC in the future.

Getting to know Deb

I asked Deb a few questions so that we all can get to know him a little more:

Tell us a little about yourself.

"I’m a first-year university student at Jadavpur University, India. I’m currently studying Information Technology! I got into coding a few years back in school where we had some programming courses. Ever since then I enjoyed learning new stuff and building things.

I am kind of inspired by the 1980s period. It feels amazing to read books and watch TV shows about that time. Reading Steve Jobs and Shoe Dog has had quite an impact on my life! I am drawn to building things that have a positive impact, and I hope to be able to do just that. Building a startup is one way to achieve that and it also seems very fulfilling.

I am extremely happy to join Dashibase, and I hope to help build something great here! It’s a very exciting opportunity since I can get the full startup experience firsthand while working with some great people!"

What is your favorite app, and why?

"My favorite app right now is Obsidian (followed by Notion). The combination of these two apps has been very helpful in university. Obsidian is my go-to place to store and collect information. All my notes and other resources live there. I like how straightforward it is, which in turn helps me get everything done faster."

What do you do for fun?

"I recently got interested in film photography (or analog photography). I had the chance to take my dad’s old camera on a trip, along with two rolls of film. That experience was quite nice even though the photos didn’t turn out great. It has been fun learning about all the intricacies related to taking photos on film, and I already got a few more rolls to play with!

Other than this, I sometimes play football and table tennis with my friends. I also enjoy reading and am currently engrossed in Dune!"

What is your motto?

The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.

Can you share any cool or silly photos that tell us more about you?

You can find Deb on Twitter and GitHub.

Welcome to the team!

Deb told us he is grateful for this opportunity. At the same time, we are grateful to him for taking a bet on us too. I’m excited about what we will do together.

Welcome onboard, Deb. And onwards!

P.S. We are always looking to chat with builders who are excited about making a difference. Let's chat if that's you!