From Volunteer to Chief of Staff: My Journey through Hackathons, Hustle & Heart

Aniket Raj -

Back then, I was co-running The SCRIPT Group, a tech club with friends in college — I loved writing code, but what really pulled me in was the community angle. I applied to Devfolio for a Frontend + Community role, but got slotted into Community. Funny how things work out.

Fast forward to today: I’m the Chief of Staff at Devfolio, working across everything from community and operations to marketing, product, and people ops. Here’s how that happened.

🧩 How I Accidentally Started a Career

In November 2020, I volunteered at InOut 7.0.

A Snap I had sent midway my early existential crisis

While everyone else was grinding LeetCode, I was chasing speakers, figuring out Discord bots, and soaking in the energy of people building things they truly cared about.

In December, I was offered an internship under Community & Ops. By July 2021, I was full-time for the same role. The "just trying it out" phase quickly turned into something much bigger.

🛠️ Tried Everything, Became Something

When I joined, I wasn’t a master of anything. But Devfolio had other plans. I was thrown into the deep end — onboarding University Hackathons onto our platform, maintaining our schwag stock and shipping them, emceeing at hackathons, writing tweets and hacker emails, reporting bugs, and handling support requests.

Hacker Check-ins, Venue ops, giving talks, I was encouraged to do it all

It was a lot to take in, but like clay on a potter’s wheel, I kept adapting, reshaping, and figuring things out as I went.

In Feb 2022, I became Community Lead. My tech background — though I wasn’t actively coding — became a superpower. My initial tasks at Devfolio involved automating a lot of the manual work that came with being a small team. I built systems for generating MoUs, printing shipment labels, and even Discord bots for online hackathon ops.

These eventually evolved into productised features within our platform — working proofs of concept that turned into real tools.

🌍 From Hacker House to Global Stage

OldCRC memories
2586Labs HQ

When I joined, the team had just moved from the OG 2586 space into OldCRC — a bungalow that felt like home the moment I stepped into it. Total hacker house vibes. We later moved to our current 2586Labs HQ, and I’ve watched the company evolve with each wall we outgrew.

That sense of momentum wasn’t limited to our spaces. Our events started growing too. ETHIndia 2022 and 2023 became the world’s largest Ethereum hackathons. We also started helping other ecosystem builders run theirs — and that took me to Denver, San Francisco, Vietnam, and Kuala Lumpur.

🎯 The Time We Said 'Yes' to Everything (And Pulled It Off Like Pros)

Second half of 2024 was... intense.

All of these were happening in parallel — with a 12-member company. While one initiative is under execution, we're already charting out the plan for the next one.

Was it hard? Absolutely. But it was a calculated stretch — and we planned for it. Loads of coordination, deep ownership, and a shared drive to make it happen.

Startups are wild like that. You sign up to build something cool and end up running four nationwide and global initiatives at one go.

👥 Chief of Staff: A Role Shaped by Context

This wasn’t an overnight change — over time, I naturally took on the onus of working across teams and stepping in wherever needed.

With 4.5 years of context, I’d built enough familiarity with how we operate that I could jump in and move things forward without second-guessing every step. I’m working towards becoming everyone’s +1 — the person they can rely on when they’re blocked, stuck, or just need a quick reality check. While I’ve only recently stepped into the role officially, my aim is to be that safety net for the team and support the CEO in keeping things moving.

That trust wasn’t handed out — it was built slowly, and I’m grateful that Devfolio sees me as someone who can hold that responsibility.

🕊️ Remembering Shakti

As Nash — our Co-founder and Head of Design at Fold — put it beautifully during the ETHIndia 2022 opening ceremony:
"Not only is it important that we keep the people we're building for in mind, but it's also important that we keep in mind the people who built for us."

That line stuck with me. It made me think of Shakti Goap (1992–2021), Devfolio’s Founder & CEO, and the first person who truly took a bet on me. I only worked with him for six months, but those months laid the groundwork for how I show up every day.

There’s a Slack message he once sent me to celebrate a tiny win — I’ve held on to it since. A small moment that reminds me to honour progress, however minor it seems.

"Never Stop Building" wasn’t just a motto for Shakti. It was how he moved through the world. That energy continues to guide everything we do.

🤝 The People Who Made This Journey Worth It

Denver — who was Community Lead when I joined and is now our CEO — his growth has mirrored mine, and he’s been a major force in shaping how I work.

Akash, the Co-Founder and CEO of Fold, is the calm in the chaos — the person I go to when I need perspective.

And the rest of the Devfolio team? Chaotic, passionate, talented, meme-fueled, high-output machines. Wouldn’t trade this crew for anything.

🚀 Why Startups Hit Different

There’s no better playground than a startup if you want to learn, build, and break stuff (in a good way).

I’ve written copy, made platform changes, built Notion dashboards, managed projects — sometimes all in one day. No red tape. No "that’s not your job."

Even a single Telegram reply can spark something meaningful. Every little action counts. That’s what I love most about startup energy.

🔮 We're Just Getting Started

Devfolio’s mission is to redefine economic opportunities for builders — and we’re only just getting warmed up.

Everything we’ve built so far has been the foundation. There’s so much more we want to do — better tools, wider access, deeper impact. And the same hustle that got us here is going to take us further.

This isn’t a look back. It’s a gear-up-for-what’s-next.

🔚 Closing

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading my story. It’s been a wild 4.5 years — and we’re nowhere close to done.

Whether you're a student, a builder, or someone still figuring it out — I hope this gave you a glimpse of what’s possible when you just keep showing up.

Never Stop Building 🛠️
Say hi: @AniketRaj314 | aniketraj.me