Every startup story you read online sounds the same: a founder, a laptop, a few late nights, and a launch date. What that story usually leaves out is everything that happens around the code — the friends who show up to celebrate a small win, the family functions you still attend even when a deadline is breathing down your neck, the random mall trip that becomes the one photo that reminds you why you're building in the first place.
We just added a new section to the Arush Labs website called "Moments along the way" — a small, honest photo grid on our About page. No stock photos, no polished founder headshots pretending to be candid. Just a handful of real pictures from the last few months of building Arush Labs and our first product, Arush Automation, launching August 20, 2026.
Here's why we added it, and what each kind of moment actually means to us.
Why bother with a "moments" section at all?
Most company websites are built to look impressive. Ours is built to look real. We're a small team — mostly students and first-time founders — building an AI-powered WhatsApp automation platform for Indian small businesses from Kanpur, not from a funded office in a metro city. There's no VC-backed team page with matching blazers and studio lighting.
So instead of hiding that, we decided to lean into it. The Moments section is our way of saying: this is what building Arush Labs actually looks like day to day — not just commits and deploys, but people.
What's actually in the grid
A few examples of the kind of moments we chose to keep:
A friend-group photo, taken outdoors — the kind of picture that has nothing to do with a startup on the surface, but everything to do with the support system that keeps a founder sane during a 25–35 day MVP sprint.
A recognition/achievement moment — someone on the team receiving a certificate and medal. Small wins outside the product remind the whole team that effort compounds, whether it's in a classroom or a codebase.
A candid solo shot from a college or campus setting — a reminder that most of us are building Arush Labs alongside our regular lives, not instead of them.
We were intentional about what we left out, too. A couple of photos didn't feel right for a company page — more personal than "team," or not representative of the brand — so they came out during review. That's a small thing, but it matters: a "behind the scenes" section should still feel considered, not just a dump of a camera roll.
The bigger point: building in public means showing the boring, human parts too
"Building in public" usually gets reduced to shipping screenshots and revenue graphs. We think it should include the unglamorous, human context too — because that's what actually explains why a team ships an MVP in 20-something days, or why founders keep going after a rough week.
Arush Automation launches August 20, 2026 — AI-powered WhatsApp auto-replies, lead capture, a business knowledge base, and analytics, built for real Indian SMBs. But the "Moments" section isn't marketing for that launch. It's just us, on the record, saying: real people built this, and here's a little bit of what their year looked like while they did.
If you want to follow along or grab early access to Arush Automation, you can reach us at arushlabs12@gmail.com or check out arushlabs.vercel.app.
Arush Labs is an AI-first technology company based in Kanpur, India, building Arush Automation — an AI WhatsApp automation platform for SMBs — launching August 20, 2026.
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