At Basil, startup chaos is just another Tuesday. One morning, Projjwal Dutta found himself juggling compliance calls with the legal team, fixing investor dashboards that had gone stale, and plugging a sudden revenue leak, all before lunch.
“Every day is a fire drill and a learning curve,” he says. “One day you’re coordinating with legal, the next you’re managing dashboards or fixing something that directly hits revenue.”
Projjwal works in the Founder’s Office, a role that’s in parts strategy, operations, execution, and survival instinct. For ambitious young professionals looking to break into the startup ecosystem, it has quietly become one of the most coveted career springboards. The job puts you close to power, chaos, and vision supporting founders directly as they scale, pivot, and build under pressure.
CEO’s Proxy
Zubin Sethi, Strategy Associate at Kadam Mobility, echoes the sentiment. After interning at Zypp Electric, he transitioned into his current role, working directly with the founder on new initiatives. “I talk to our city head every morning to arrange a pilot project. I had to validate the opportunity by speaking to over a hundred people on the street myself,” he says, describing how strategy and ground-level execution often blur in such roles.
According to a 2024 NurtureBox advisory, the Founder’s Office typically covers strategic planning, fundraising, product coordination, team building, culture shaping, and investor relations.
“The founder is not a monolithic entity that is omnipotent in the company. They need a support system that can help execute the founder’s vision and coordinate amongst the various stakeholders,” says Siddarth Pai, Founding Partner at 3one4 Capital.
He compares it to one of the most powerful administrative arms in Indian governance, saying,
“The best analogy for this is the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), which works with the PM and helps to coordinate amongst other ministries. The empowerment of the PMO and the Founder’s Office is critical to their proper functioning.”
What defines the role isn’t a rigid job description, but outcomes. Individuals in these positions are often tasked with high-impact, cross-functional projects that demand versatility and intuition. It’s not uncommon to shift between investor relations, marketing strategy, P&L oversight, and people operations, all in a single week.
“You become the bridge between vision and execution. It’s intense but thrilling,” says Projjwal. Being exposed to how key decisions are made especially when capital, team dynamics, and timelines are at stake teaches you how to think like a founder without being one (yet).
For Zubin, who previously worked in the non-profit sector and pursued an MBA in finance to transition into venture capital, the Founder’s Office offered a unique alternative. “Initially, I thought this was the VC route. But now, I think it’s more of a live MBA. You do real things with real people and real money. There’s no simulation here.”
However, that viewpoint isn’t uncommon. Increasingly, those who take on Founder’s Office roles are treating it as a bootcamp for future leadership. Whether their next move is building a startup, joining a VC firm, or stepping into C-suite roles, the exposure they gain is often unmatched.
“It’s like getting an X-ray vision into how a company functions, from decisions that drive product pivots to how you raise money in a downturn,” says Projjwal.
The Bootcamp Advantage
However, it’s not just strategic flair that gets tested. The daily grind includes everything from drafting internal memos to setting up meetings, running pilots, and negotiating on behalf of the company. “You might be adding someone to 50 WhatsApp groups one hour and negotiating with a vendor the next,” laughs Zubin.
While the role is high-visibility, it also comes with high ambiguity. “You make judgment calls often. Some work, some don’t. But you fail fast and iterate even faster,” Zubin says.
Both he and Projjwal stress that proximity to leadership is real. With Zubin literally sitting outside his founder’s cabin, the value of the role lies in its autonomy and fluidity. “You’re expected to challenge ideas and course-correct. You’re trusted, but that trust is earned daily,” says Projjwal.
Although, for many, the Founder’s Office isn’t the destination, it’s the prep for the next big leap.
Raghav Jindal, now an Investment Associate at DeltaCap Ventures, spent two years as Strategy Lead in the Founder’s Office at TaskLayer, a SaaS startup. “Before this, I knew how to read a pitch deck. After two years in the Founder’s Office, I knew how to write one,” he says. “That changes your lens as an investor. You start spotting patterns not just in product, but in founders’ decision-making under pressure.”
The exposure to capital flows, decision frameworks, and operational trade-offs often gives FO alumni a head start in roles that require strong business instinct whether in VC, product, or even entrepreneurship.
The Misconceptions & Mental Load
Despite its rising popularity, the role is still widely misunderstood.
“Sometimes people think it’s just a glorified executive assistant role. Other times, they assume you’re shadowing the founder at all times. It’s neither. It’s a real job with real stakes,” says Projjwal.
That same high-trust, high-stakes dynamic can also become draining. One biotech Chief of Staff described the role as “fun, but exhausting. You’re tied to your principal.” Experts note that Founder’s Office roles thrive on psychological safety, transparent communication, and alignment with the founder without which burnout is a real risk.
While the Founder’s Office isn’t for everyone, for those willing to embrace uncertainty and wear multiple hats, it offers one of the most accelerated learning experiences in the startup world. As more companies formalise the role and its responsibilities, the Founder’s Office is quietly emerging as a modern-day finishing school for future founders, investors, and operators alike.
