A list of my professional failures
I have failed a lot in my life. I some of them down
2007 - didn’t get into law school I wanted
2011 - got fired from first job at my university - asking alumni for donations
2015 - went back to Canada after the ashram. Started looking for jobs at 7 am the day after I landed. Looked for jobs full time for 8 months - with many, many rejections.
Finally got a job in November, after starting to look in February. My mental health really suffered during this period.
2015 - Loads of internal rejection at Accenture. Eventually quit.
2016 - Failed to get a job in BC, periods of homelessness, just gave up on life a bit. Lowest mental health point of my life.
2017 - Got rejected from UBC, UWaterloo, petitioned both, got rejected again.
2017 - Applied for software engineering jobs full time for 6 months in Vancouver - June to November. Working 12 hours a day, networking events 4 days a week.
Rejection and rejection and rejection. Finally got a contract position for a few hours a week in November.
2018 - Received more rejections applying for software engineer roles. Finally got a role in April.
2019 - In Feb I received a below satisfactory evaluation. No prospects of promotion or raise.
2019 - Got banned for angelist for life because in a moment of frustration, I mass applied for jobs
2019 - failed on multiple projects in my new product role, was eventually put a performance improvement plan - a precursor to a firing
2020 - 2021 - Got rejected from onDeck 3 times. Got in on attempt #4.
2020 - 2021 - Spent 18 moths applying for product roles, got no offers. 100’s of interviews. Red hot market. No offers were made to Devansh.
Some were truly heartbreaking. There was one at a US company I was interviewing for from India. I really liked the team and the culture. They told me they weren’t moving forward during a 3:30 am call in India .
There was another pricing PM one at a really well known company I thought I killed the interview of. I got a rejection email the next day. I couldn’t believe it - I was certain there was some mistake. There wasn’t.
Though I did have a job, however unsatisfactory, during this whole period.
2021 - After getting only no’s, decided to quit the one job I did have, to try entrepreneurship. It was the only option to get out of the dead end job I was stuck in.
2021 - Abandoned multiple startups, 2 cofounder breaks ups.
2021 - Went door to door trying to sell to restaurants. Got almost universal no’s. One person said yes. I couldn’t muster the courage to ask them for money.
2022 - Attempted move to US aborted. Couldn’t get a job or visa. Complete heartbreak. I had just gotten an apartment. Still love the Bay Area as no other.
2022 - Attempted move to India - which began with insane enthusiasm and belief - aborted. Couldn’t get my startup off the ground. Couldn’t close any consulting revenue. Totally burned out.
Gave up on founder life, decided to go back to North America and look for a job.
2023 - Got fired from my product job. No last meeting with my boss, access just revoked. I had kinda quiet quit, but still.
2024 - 2025 - Only handfuls of consulting revenue at a time. No consistent revenue from main product. Burned much time and money.
As of July 2025, still no steady revenue.
It occurs to me these are only the professional failures.
There have been plenty besides.
Not shown - successes. They’re there too. Should make I list of those?
That’s all for today folks.
😘❤️