Startup World in Shock: A Techie Commits Suicide

Depression is not related to a particular job or human being, it is a disease, a mental illness, which has to be taken seriously, or the end is tragic. The vigour, energy, a passion to reach heights, a dream to turn into reality, are a few positive aspects of startups but there are negative sides too, playing with the minds of people.

 Nowadays, we see many youngsters investing their time into startups, launching their own, or just being an important part of it. Though, they fail to see the probable downcast they could face. Most entrepreneurs tend to forget that the downfall has been a part of startups, that 90% of startups fail and their startup could be amongst the list. 

The passion, optimism, hard work, and hope are all good, but taking ‘realism’ as pessimism is not. The world of startups quivered with shock when the news of Lucky Gupta Agarwal’s suicide, a techie-turned-entrepreneur, surfaced the channels and internet.

 The 33 year old software engineer ended his life by inhaling nitrogen gas, authorities said despair over the failure of his startup business led him to take the extreme step. 

With a dream to beat WhatsApp, he launched his own company. With 5 employees in service, Kqingdom ITES Pvt. Ltd took flight in the last quarter of 2013.

 Way back in 2013, when Lucky quit his job as a project manager at a Mumbai-based software firm to launch his own company, all he was thinking about was developing a social networking tool that would beat WhatsApp. As the work progressed, Lucky registered his company in March 2014 at Hyderabad with himself and his father, Ashok Kumar Agarwal, as directors. 

By January 2015, the team developed a social networking app, named Kqingdom, which allows users to send text, audio and video messages. The app has some additional features such as a gallery where users can keep their favourite items, rank them and share them with friends. Kqingdom also offers users a share in its profits based on their activity.

 In March 2015, Lucky gave interviews to the media about the launch of the Kqingdom app on both android and ios. But the app did not do well in the market. It is currently available for download in Playstore and shows over 1,000 downloads. 

Lucky's colleagues, who worked with him to develop the app in Noida, expressed shock when they heard about his suicide. "He was a cool guy and a very good programmer. I cannot believe that he ended his life this way," said Kumar San, a former colleague. 

California-based Telugu software engineer, Chandan Benjaram, who is a senior enterprise engineer at Apple Inc, also commented on the report of Lucky's suicide. "While it is very common for app makers to attach so much sentiment to the product they are working on, sometimes these ambitions overshoot and turn into obsession. Which is usually not a good thing, neither for the app nor for the idea." 

Chandan confessed how he "managed to escape the trap most recently" after creating an app "to take down FB". "Some of my contacts called it an invention but I started admitting it as a failed product in about 100 days time," he said.

 Meanwhile, on Thursday, a forensic team at Gandhi Hospital performed the autopsy on Lucky and handed over the body to his family . Lucky's uncle Susheel Kumar told TOI that his nephew was a brilliant techie. "He was a genius and always used to develop new software. Unfortunately , none of them were successful in the market," he said. 

It also came to light that Lucky purchased the nitrogen gas cylinder from a store in Balanagar on April 17. "The parents did not notice the cylinder in Lucky's room," SR Nagar SI G Ajay Kumar said.

 In his two-page suicide note, Lucky asked his family members to return the nitrogen cylinder to the store and collect Rs 5,000 security deposit he gave the shopkeeper.