Today marks an important day for us — we complete our company’s transition from CoreVoice 1.0 → CoreVoice 2.0.
The process began in December 2024, after a once-in-a-lifetime event. Within weeks, we started rethinking what CoreVoice stands for: our mission, our values, and our practices. By early February, we had a new sales deck. Then we redid our internal processes — our promises to each other. By summer, we launched our new website, portfolio page, and a new sales video.
One item on our list was to make a new “origin story” video, because the last one had become completely unusable in the CV2 context. This new video would have to establish CV2 as a company reborn — gracefully, without being loud or brash.
Today, we released this video.
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If you’ve already watched the video, then you know that CoreVoice went through a co-founder exit. So, the CV → CV2 transition wasn’t just symbolic — it was an existential requirement.
Allow me to be a bit self-indulgent, to make this about me, and share some additional personal context.
(The “me” here is Amrut — the author of this article and the founder-CEO of CV2.)
The last 18 months or so have been incredibly hard, but rewarding — and full of life in ways I had never imagined possible.
In early 2024, I began working on a non-fiction book project. I had already graduated from writing 1,000-word blogs to 10,000-word essays. Now I wanted to conquer the 100,000-word book. That was the dream. The workload doubled, but in a good way.
In April, Karthika and I adopted four newborn kittens. Within weeks, our house was teeming with life. Our kid’s friends were over all the time — it was a joyful time. Meows and squeals had taken over the house. (photos)
In June, Archana began her journey in the Adolescent Montessori program (classes 6–10) at Pep School v2. As parents, we had to absorb new ideas, practices, and habits. It was equal parts excitement and confusion.
In September, the AskIITM team started shooting for the Best Place to Build podcast. I had to quickly learn about hosting, production, and more. The workload increased significantly, but I didn’t complain.
Then, on November 30, my co-founder decided to quit the business. He said, “I’m done with this.” And that was that.
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To be fair, it wasn’t a sudden narrative cliff. We had been fighting for a while. Three of the four kittens had already been adopted (which was dramatic in itself). I had stopped working on my book a few months earlier. I had been gaining weight and skipping yoga.
My yoga teacher does a mix of yoga and strength training. It costs about 400-500KCal per session. My 2024 resolution was to complete 200 classes in the calendar year, but my monthly run rate was well below par (16), and I would need 25 sessions in December to hit the goal.
And yet, on November 30 and in the weeks that followed, my thoughts were incredibly focused.
The first order of business was to identify and appoint someone who could mediate between us. There had to be a broad exit framework. I would have to make an offer to buy out my ex-co-founder’s stake — and then actually execute it. I had to make that extra cash available. Done.
In parallel, I needed to figure out which contracts should be closed and which would have to be renegotiated. Any negative impact on cash flows would have to be bridged. Done.
Most importantly, I would have to hold morale. How would our twenty odd twenty-something employees take this? Would they stay, or leave? Would I have to cut their salaries to manage cashflows, or increase to retain? Would their roles change?
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I was actually pretty calm. My NVC training was... working. But should I be this calm? Would people think I’m cold? A co-founder exit is like a divorce — is it acceptable to seem normal after such an event? Should I pretend to break down?
I justified my calmness to others: I started my first business in 2009. I’ve been here before. This doesn’t faze me. It’s not a big deal. It’ll be okay. Really.
And yet, this was new territory. I became a solo founder for the first time in my life. The responsibility of holding the ship fell to me. I had to orchestrate everything without a co-founder to bounce decisions off. To compensate, I reached out for help — including hiring a professional coach for company transformation.
On a scale of 1–10, with 10 being the hardest, I’d rate this transformation exercise as a 6.5.
200 yoga classes per year is a 9 — which I achieved. Bathing a cat is a 10, I imagine. I’ve never tried it. I would have liked to — but unfortunately, our last remaining cat ran away (still more feline drama). There’s no cat left to bathe. :-(
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Every single employee navigated this period at CoreVoice with a personal struggle in tow. A few went through downs in their relationships. Others had to shift home, multiple times. Health problems affected them, their families, their pets. Financial troubles. Life threw a kitchen sink at them.
And yet, almost all of them stayed. Bravely. In their place, I might have chosen to leave. Everyone knows most startups die because of co-founder fights. Why stick around to witness the ugly death phase?
Maybe they are stubborn. Or loyal. Or optimists. Or a mix. Or maybe they believed me when I said, “It’s going to be OK.” Whatever the reason, we stuck together. Many stepped up and took on more work.
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Since the separation, there’s been joy — and achievement. We’ve done well for our clients. There’s also been a lot of reflection. This video is about that reflection.
When we recorded it, the theme of anti-fragility kept coming up — the idea that, if a cohort of people stick together, then a system-wide shock only makes them stronger. And that makes for a good aftertaste.
