5 Years of Codegres: From a Garage Dream to 1M+ App Downloads

I failed Machine Learning OOP and AI in college

Now I run a software company

Life is weird sometimes

Back in 2015 I joined BITS Pilani Hyderabad to study Physics I had scored really well in Physics during PUC so I thought I had my life figured out

I absolutely did not

By 2018 my CGPA had dropped to 5.65 I was struggling badly I was not interested in most of what I was studying and honestly felt lost for a while

Somewhere around that time one of my friends told me

You are good at Chess Try coding seriously

That random suggestion probably changed my life

I started spending all my time on competitive coding HackerEarth HackerRank random contests DSA problems anything I could get my hands on

I became obsessed with problem solving

The funny part is I still ended up failing CS courses too

At one point I was hospitalized after an accident and missed exams entirely My marksheet was full of NCs

If someone had told me then that I would someday run a software company I would have laughed

In 2019 I got an internship at IFB working on AR apps

Then I applied to HackerEarth the same website where I used to practice coding

Failed the first test

Got another chance

Cleared it

Joined as an intern in 2020 and eventually became Team Lead

Around 2021 I quietly started my own company on the side Codegres

No big vision deck

No startup knowledge

No investors

Just me trying to figure things out after work hours

For almost 3 years my routine was

Office during the day

Startup work at night

Weekends meant more work

The first few years financially were honestly pretty underwhelming

Year 1 revenue 1.44L

Year 2 revenue 2.92L

Year 3 revenue 3.42L

There were many points where shutting it down would have been the logical decision

Then 2024 happened

I got into GSF Accelerator

And almost around the same time I got laid off

Weirdly enough getting laid off felt like relief

For the first time there was no backup plan left So I went full time into Codegres

That ended up being the turning point

Year 4 revenue crossed 10.5L

Year 5 is now around 18L

Today we have built

45 plus mobile apps

75 plus websites

1M plus cumulative app downloads

Still feels unreal typing that

The biggest thing I have realized over the last 10 years is that failure usually looks permanent only when you are inside it

A failed exam feels permanent

Getting rejected feels permanent

Getting laid off feels permanent

Most of the time it is just life pushing you somewhere else

I used to think successful people had everything planned

Now I think most people are just figuring things out one year at a time and pretending to be calm

Anyway that is the story

If you are currently in the phase where nothing seems to be working give it time

10 years can change a lot