‘I have watched Baahubali 25-30 times’: Vijay Arisetty, Founder of Mygate

In 2016, Bangaloreans entrusted a former Indian Air Force pilot and Shaurya Chakra winner with their safety. Vijay Arisetty was awarded the peace-time gallantry award for his rescue efforts during the 2004 tsunami in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In 2016, Arisetty quit the forces, and then his job as the Vice President at Goldman Sachs, to pursue entrepreneurship and bring a sense of security and safety into gated premises. 

Since then, security at gated apartments and housing societies in Bengaluru and across major Indian cities has become synonymous with MyGate—the end-to-end community management platform—a category-creator in its space. 

As of 2022, Mygate had onboarded 25,000 gated communities, with a capacity to onboard one million. 

“The journey of the last five years in building and scaling this product has given us some deep insights in terms of how to keep the product running round the clock,” Arisetty said in an earlier conversation with YourStory. 

Recently, the startup unveiled its new brand and strategic positioning as a living experience tech company. Besides security, Mygate provides home services, enabling the discovery of local service providers, and functions as a classifieds platform, among others. 

For a conversation for Rapid Fire with YS Life, we caught up with Arisetty to get a peek into his life beyond his business. 

Edited excerpts from the conversation:

YS Life [YSL]: What are the three words that best describe you?

Vijay Arisetty [VA]: Observer, detail-oriented, and hustler. 

YSL: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

VA: The ability to do what you want to do. 

YSL: A living person that you really admire? 

VA: Anna Hazare. 

YSL: On what occasion do you lie? 

VA: Sometimes you have to lie to rally resources and people towards a higher cause and their individual achievements. 

YSL: An overrated quality in a human? 

VA: Associating being vocal on social media with intelligence. 

YSL: Between being a part of the Indian Air Force and an entrepreneur, what would you choose and why?

VA: Entrepreneurship. I enjoy uncertainty. When starting, entrepreneurs have no resources and do everything on their own; it is more challenging. 

YSL: What was the last application you downloaded? 

VA: Journal by Apple. 

YSL: What’s your guilty pleasure? 

VA:  I enjoy watching Telugu movies! I have watched Baahubali some 25-30 times! 

YSL: Two startup founders you don’t mind getting stuck with on an isolated island? 

VA: Mukesh Bansal and Sreedhar Vembu. 

YSL: First thing you do in the morning? 

VA: I am an early riser. I wake up by 5 AM and spend the first one and a half hours of the day on the balcony, reflecting on what I have done differently the previous day and planning my day. 

YSL: The last thing you do before hitting the bed? 

VA: I sleep by 9 PM after answering a few emails and listening to music under warm light. 

YSL: Fame or money? 

VA: Money—for research and development for worldly problems. 

YSL: The one thing you love about your job? 

VA: Challenging the status quo. 

YSL: The one thing you hate about your job? 

VA: Not being able to keep in touch with all the employees at MyGate. 

YSL: If you could change one thing in your journey, what would it be? 

VA: Building slowly and sustainably. 

YSL: The mantra that you live by? 

VA: Again, challenging the status quo.