How a Rejected Invoice Turned Aditya Vemuganti into a Founder for Founders?

Sometimes the best startups don’t start with ambition. They begin with determination, grit, and doing the next right thing.

It all started with a 10-minute scolding!

Aditya Vemuganti still remembers the sting. A potential client had just rejected their software proposal, not because of the technology, but because of the invoice. An unpolished quotation made in Excel, lacking basic GST calculations, was enough to spark a lengthy lecture on professionalism. It was upsetting. But for Aditya and his co-founders, Abhijit and Sri Teja, it was also a wake-up call.

“We didn’t even know the rules around GST back then,” Aditya admits. That moment triggered a chain of events: scrambling for GST registration, receiving penalty notices, and realizing how lost many founders like them were in the accounting maze.

That moment cracked something open. And what spilled out eventually became Swipe.

A Founder’s Problem, Solved for Founders

Swipe didn’t start in a conference room or a co-working space. It started from the dining table they worked on, between calls to government helplines and figuring out GST norms.

The goal wasn’t to disrupt accounting. It was simple to create something they could’ve used themselves.

Unlike traditional accounting software built by and for accountants, Swipe was designed from a business owner’s lens. “We were building it for people like us—non-finance founders who just needed to make professional invoices, share them quickly on WhatsApp, and get paid faster,” Aditya explains.

That focus shaped every decision. The website talks only about invoicing. The product team resisted feature bloat. And they said no, many times, to users demanding full-fledged inventory or HR tools.

“Indian users don’t want a thousand features. They want stability, and once they adopt, they stick,” he says. That insight helped Swipe carve its niche in the crowded SaaS market.

Ground Game: Onboarding One Customer at a Time

Swipe’s first 100 customers didn’t come through ads or events. They came through grit.

Aditya and his co-founders went door to door, visiting sports godowns, setting up inventories, and demoing the product in person. “We gave our personal WhatsApp numbers to early users. Even today, some of them call me directly,” he says with a smile.

That close proximity to real users gave the team insight that no market research report could. It also solidified a culture that remains intact even today: talk to users, ship fast, repeat.

The People Behind the Product

Swipe wasn’t built alone. Aditya is quick to credit his co-founders—Abhijit, who shaped the product with a sharp eye for UX, and Sri Teja, who brought order to the chaos with calm execution. 

“We did everything together—coding, support, even figuring out how to pay rent,” Aditya recalls. The strength of their partnership wasn’t loud—it was built on trust, shared failures, and the ability to move fast without losing focus. “We didn’t need big meetings. We just got things done.”

From Rock Bottom to Rocket Fuel

The early days came with intense challenges. COVID disrupted client projects and dried up income streams. With only 2–3 months of runway left, the team chose to forgo salaries and manage operations under tight constraints until a GST penalty for six months of unfiled returns added to the pressure.

“It was a tough phase,” Aditya recalls. But that moment brought a powerful realisation: this wasn’t an isolated issue. It was a nationwide hurdle for small businesses. Technically skilled founders across India were consistently facing friction with accounting.

That clarity sparked a new direction. The team began building an invoicing app to solve the problem at scale, and eventually, that product took shape as Swipe. Not long after, they raised their $2 million seed round.

Culture by Design, Not by Chance

Funding changed the runway, not the DNA.

Swipe remains customer-obsessed and product-first. Everyone, including founders, takes customer support calls. The team thrives on momentum, continually seeking new ways to grow and evolve. “If something’s not working, we address it immediately; there’s no waiting,” Aditya says.

This mindset—of building, listening, and iterating—is rooted in their experience with Y Combinator. “The biggest thing we took from YC was: talk to users and build. That loop is sacred.”

Going Global, One Invoicing Need at a Time

Swipe has already launched in the UAE. The Middle East remains its primary international focus, with Southeast Asia close behind.

Unlike global expansions driven by vanity metrics, Swipe’s move is rooted in pull, not push. “We’re not forcing growth. We’re following where the pain points are similar,” Aditya says.

Lessons in Grit for First-Time Founders

Before building Swipe, the team had already dipped its toes into entrepreneurship, and like many early founders, faced its fair share of failures. But those experiences became stepping stones. “We’ve lost personal savings in earlier startups,” Aditya shares, “but we’ve learned to treat failure as feedback, not something to fear. It’s part of the journey.”

That mindset now drives the entire team. Instead of chasing rigid long-term plans, they focus on staying agile. Aditya’s advice to young founders is simple: “The world changes too fast. Don’t worry about having everything figured out. Just take the first step, talk to your users, and keep moving forward.”

-By Muskan Dengra