Our journey with The Tech Bros began in a remote cabin in Norway with 20 women, two weeks, and a mission to build a unicorn startup from scratch 🦄. To give you some context, The Tech Bros, founded by Milette and Sedie, are trying to increase the number of female founders and support them against the tide of patriarchy. And what better way to kick off an all-female startup accelerator than in a far-away cabin in Norway?
For me, though, it didn’t start quite so smoothly. I’m Indian, which meant I had to first go through the long, annoying process of applying for a Norwegian visa and praying it arrived on time. It didn’t... So, I was fashionably late by a few days, BUT the important thing is that I made it there! And that’s when my 1 week and 5 days hacker house journey truly began: 20 women, one cabin, and multiple big dreams.
I was expecting two weeks of being cramped in a tiny space, working until burnout, and drowning in small talk. But our cabin was gorgeous, deceptively spacious and remote. And by remote, I mean the closest (only?) grocery store in the area was a 30-minute trek up the mountain. But with civilisation so far away, the focus on building Plia was insane.
We arrived in Norway with barely a skeleton of an idea. We left with a name, a website, real customer research, and a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) we built in a single day. Mornings in the cabin were packed with back-to-back customer calls, evenings ended with group check-ins and late-night coding sessions, and somewhere in between, Milette and Sedie somehow kept us fed with the most amazing home-cooked dinners. (Seriously, you’d be shocked at how much 20 people can eat.)
However, university got hard, and we both got placements in 2 different countries:Â I was in the US, playing with EEG headsets and VR, while Pranathi was tinkering with medical imaging ML pipelines in Oxford. We talked almost every week, and thought about building DinoMaze into a bigger venture, but our lack of experience and the presence of competition discouraged us.
The best part, though, was the connection between the girls. No forced networking or surface-level small talk, just real conversations and a genuine interest in helping each other. And somehow, amidst all the intense work, we celebrated three birthdays (what are the chances?), had barbecues, game nights, hikes, a theme park adventure, and SO many photo shoots. Thank you to Milette and Sedie for *trying* to teach us how to not be awkward.
I didn’t want to leave Norway, but thankfully, all good things don’t need to come to an end. It was my birthday the day after we landed, and Aaruni threw a surprise party for me 🎉. And with The Tech Bros setting up a workspace and events in London (and online) for the rest of the accelerator, the hacking, building, and fun isn’t over; it’s just moved to a new city.
Photo spam (we couldn’t pick our favourite photos)!
