Raja's career took an unusual path—ten years in advertising, three years as a bank CMO, and over a decade at Sequoia before becoming an entrepreneur—and he traces his real marketing training to his early years at Ogilvy working on Hindustan Lever brands like Pond's and Vaseline, an experience that still shapes how he works with founders today. He believes brands should come only after a strong product and business are built, judges brand strength by asking what pain a product's disappearance would cause, avoids agency-style pitching, ships work early and improves it along the way, and credits walking, reading, and staying humble as the habits that keep him thinking clearly and learning from the founders he's spent most of his career working alongside.