We just launched the Spark's marketing website: sparktutor.ai

To celebrate, I wanted to pause and share a story about how we got here - through one long, unlikely journey with a classmate, a friend, and eventually, one of Spark's earliest believers.

This is not a product post.
This one is about gratitude.

The dots, before they connected

If you asked any of my engineering college classmates who the three most unpopular guys in class were, I'd probably make it onto most lists.

I'm not proud of those days.

But I'm grateful that the universe still found a way to connect me with one very special person: my classmate, Unni.

An unlikely friendship

To this day, I can't quite explain what he saw in me.

But he showed up - consistently.

When I was down, he'd come over, spend time, and quietly encourage me.

He had a calm, grounding presence, and he seemed to see potential I couldn't yet see myself.

Those were the pre-internet days.

1992-96.

Two paths, quietly diverging

We graduated, went our separate ways, and lost touch.

I had no grand plans when I graduated. No big dreams. No clarity.

As the saying went back then:
"If you don't know what you want, join a software company." 🙂

So I did.

Over the next ten years, I worked at a bunch of places, big and small.

Luckily for me, I loved programming. I solved interesting, difficult problems with code.

But eventually, the pull to do something on my own became irresistible.

In 2008, I started Multunus - a boutique software consulting firm.

How a teacher is born

And then, after almost 2 decades… Unni and I reconnected.

By then, he was (also!) working in a software company by day.

But his real passion had already shifted to something else: teaching.

One day, I asked him how it all started.

He told me this:

So he started reading.
And reading.
And reading some more.

Soon, their house was full of books on trees.

When curiosity turns into purpose

His daughter was just four or five then. So he began inventing stories about trees - to help her connect with them and remember facts.

Word spread.

Before long, more kids (and parents) joined these tree storytelling walks.

That's when he realized something important.

He could teach well.
And he genuinely loved doing it.

Around the same time, he began volunteering at a nearby government school, teaching primary kids on weekends and holidays.

Nothing made him happier than knowing he was making a difference.

Around this time, Unni even came up with a song to help students remember the entire periodic table.

It's simple, joyful - and incredibly effective.

Here's a short 2-minute clip of those kids singing it together:

Choosing the harder, truer path

He also started teaching his daughter more regularly - and slowly, the idea took root.

Maybe this wasn't just a side interest. Maybe this was the thing.

Two years later, he resigned from his day job and started Mathemagic - tutoring high school students who needed more than what school classes could offer.

My classmate was now a fellow entrepreneur.

Naturally, we stayed in touch more.

Sharing ideas. Challenges. Stories.

He would talk passionately about students he'd coached - kids who had gone from disengaged to confident, from struggling to thriving.

When reality forced adaptation

As a parent myself, I wanted him to teach my daughter too.

There was just one problem.

We both live in Bangalore.
Only 35 km apart.

Which, in Bangalore traffic, is… about two hours.
Each way 🙂

So one day I asked him:

Almost instantly, he said:

Fair enough.

A couple of years passed.

Then COVID happened.

Everything changed. For everyone.

Chasing something remarkable

I had moved on from Multunus and was building PracticeNow - a subscription and class-management platform for wellness studios.

COVID forced us to pivot PracticeNow almost overnight to support online classes.

Many wellness teachers shut down. Others adapted fast.

By mid-2020, things stabilized. And one Sunday, Unni and I spoke again.

He said:

The selfish dad in me was thrilled.

But then he added something that changed everything:

Fast forward a week.

Unni was no longer just my classmate, friend, and fellow entrepreneur.

He was now also my customer.

And has remained a happy one since 😀 

I loved building PracticeNow and he loved using it.

However every few months I would get a new idea and give Unni a call excitedly to share it. And almost always, the response would be cricket silence 😀 

But I don't give up easily 😀 

The first quiet yes

In early 2025, I showed Unni a very rough Spark demo.

Spark had broken one of his Zoom recordings into short highlight clips, each with captions.

I then generated a quiz from the transcript.

After using it, he said something understated but important:

If you know Unni, you know how big a statement that was.

By May 2025, we showed him the first usable version of Spark.

Students could now consume 90-minute classes in 5-minute chunks.

Every few weeks, we added one feature at a time:

• Search

• Study notes

• Slides

• Chat

• Quizzes

• Assignments (launching soon)

Once you try it, you can't go back

One feature stood out.

Live quizzes with live reporting.

Unni clicks a button, shares a quiz link during a Zoom class, and watches - in real time - how students are doing.

As Unni put it:

Looking back, with gratitude

I never thought I'd use "Unni" and "excited" in the same sentence.

But these days, when we talk, his enthusiasm for Spark is unmistakable.

Recently, he told me about a conversation with a 12th-grade student who was worried he wouldn't get into a "great" college.

Unni replied:

Here's Steve Jobs' memorable quote once again:

Today, as we launch Spark into the world, I can finally see some of those dots line up.

And I'm deeply grateful. Thank you, Unni.