Founders Feud, Ten Stalls, and the Loudest Room in Dehradun

Nearly ninety founders came to a Dehradun workspace for an afternoon of structured networking. What they remember is a game.

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The Unhu Founders Meet at Iksana Workspaces, Doon IT Park.

A note of thanks

None of this happens without a room, and none of it happens well without the people who prepare that room long before anyone arrives. Unhu is deeply thankful to Shantanu and the entire team at Iksana Workspaces.

They gave us one of the most important meetups of our year and treated it as though it were their own. The space at Doon IT Park was ready before a single founder walked through the door. The projector, the extensions, the wires, all tested and in place. Roughly ten exhibition stalls and a full seated audience fit the floor comfortably, because someone had already thought carefully about how ninety people would move through an afternoon.

What we will remember is not the equipment. It is the patience. Every request, however small or last-minute, was met without a sigh. The Iksana team worked alongside ours through setup, solving things before we had finished describing them.

Nothing went wrong on 4 July. That is not luck. It is easy to notice a venue when something breaks, and far harder to notice one when everything simply works.

For their care, their steadiness, and their generosity in opening their space to our community, we are deeply grateful. Thank you, Shantanu. Thank you to everyone at Iksana Workspaces.

Structure before spontaneity

The first hour belonged to the room: check-in, tea, badges, and founders drifting between exhibition stalls. Then Founders Feud. The networking never sat in a slot on the agenda; it ran underneath the whole afternoon, through the stalls, around the game, and long past the formal close. Founders found each other around what they were building, what they needed, and what they could offer.

Then came Founders Feud

The afternoon's turn came with the game. Built on Family Feud, it was designed as an icebreaker, and it worked better than an icebreaker should. Deeksha's team led for most of it. Team Gauraveshwar found their pace in the middle and pulled ahead to win.

The scoreline is not the story. The story is the noise. Founders were leaning forward, calling out answers, arguing with their teammates, including plenty who had spent the first hour comfortably on the edges of the room. Twenty minutes of competition unlocked a room that an hour of scheduled networking had only warmed.

What followed

The Founder's Choice Awards, the founder spotlights, high tea, and the long open networking block all ran as planned. That final stretch, unstructured and unhurried, is where most of an event's real value tends to be created, and this one was no exception. Conversations carried on past the formal close.

Team Gauraveshwar, after finding their pace in the second half.

Key Takeaways

• Preparation is invisible when it works: Iksana's space, equipment, and early readiness meant the day ran without a single scramble.

• Play beats prompts: Founders Feud drew participation that structured networking could not.

• Structure earns spontaneity: intent-based matching gave founders a reason to talk before the game gave them permission.

• The unscheduled hour matters most: open networking, not the agenda, is where relationships actually formed.

Give founders a reason to compete, and they will forget they came to network. ~Editor Shobhit Mehandiratta