Success is never just about where you reach.
It is about who you become with along the way.
Over the years, some of our TiE Charter Members have built a wonderful tradition of traveling together – across TiECons, TGS editions, and TiE Retreats – and in the process, what began as professional association has quietly grown into deep friendships. Geeta Modi, Hetal Soni, Rohan Desai, Mr.Dimple Shah and I, in particular, have shared countless journeys and today we enjoy an effortless personal rapport.
This TGS was especially memorable for our tech entrepreneur friends – Nachiket Patel, Latika Singh, Ashish Agrawal, Alpesh Vaghasiya, Sandip Kathiriya, Naman Sarawagi and Jatin Dudhaat – for whom this was the first Global Summit. Several others added their own quiet presence to the experience – Sanjay Punjabi, Jignesh Shah, Hemant Desai, Hemendra Singh, Kinjal Gajera and Ashish Patel – while Mehul Shah, Ashfaq Calcuttawala, Amanat Kagzi, Surbhi Saxena Madhwani and Saurabh Pacheriwal were in full networking mode. We were also accompanied by our potential Charter Members, Shital Agrawal Desai and Dr Nikita Vadsaria. And of course, the moments felt just a little incomplete without Vipul Kapoor, CA Abhishek Mittal, Shail Raval and Punit Singhal, who had to cancel at the last minute and were truly missed.
As the TiE Surat Charter Members travelled together to Jaipur for the TiE Global Summit, something quietly powerful happened. Between sessions and strategy, pitches and panel discussions, we wandered through the city, shared meals, cracked jokes, argued over breakfast, laughed over chai, clicked countless photos and in doing so, we stopped being just colleagues.
We became companions on a journey.
That is the invisible magic of bonding.
It does not happen inside conference halls.
It happens in hotel lobbies at midnight, in long car rides and over impromptu sightseeing detours where life sneaks in between agendas.
This wasn’t new for us.
Every time we travelled together something fundamental shifted.
The formal walls came down.
Conversations deepened.
Trust strengthened.
The professional relationship had transformed – not because of meetings, but because of moments.
Bonding does that.
When people bond, they listen better.
They disagree without ego.
They support without being asked.
They carry each other’s weight when one is tired.
And suddenly, collaboration stops being a transaction and becomes a commitment.
But the biggest gift of bonding is not productivity.
It is belonging.
In a world obsessed with achievements, milestones and outcomes, we forget that the human heart measures success very differently.
It remembers laughter.
It remembers late-night conversations.
It remembers people.
Because in the end, life is not a race to destinations.
It is a collection of journeys and the people you walk them with are what make them worthwhile.