Gâteaux d’Amour

The work, and my part in it

Gâteaux d’Amour was a consumer business I co-founded in Jaipur. I was in it from February 2019 to March 2022 — three years and two months of product, customers, marketing, and the day-to-day of keeping the place going.

My role was Co-Founder. I owned product strategy, product selection, customer experience, marketing, and day-to-day operations. I also coordinated priorities and service quality. That is the documented shape of the job: not a title parked above the work, and not a later rewrite into systems language.

1. February 2019Co-founded
2. Three years, two monthsOperated the business
3. March 2022Documented chapter ends

Who it was for

The public record does not yet name a specific customer, a market gap, or the demand we first saw in Jaipur. I am not inventing one here.

What is documented is the kind of business it was: a consumer business whose range was shaped by the people who bought from us. Customer feedback, market research, and demand patterns were part of how we decided what the business should sell next. That is a weaker opening than a named customer would be. It is also the honest one until those details are written down.

How it started

The documented chapter begins in February 2019, in Jaipur. I co-founded the business and then operated it.

Why this, why then, and what the first version looked like are not in the public record I can stand behind. The origin is therefore shorter than the years that followed. The story I can tell without filling gaps is the operating one: a growing range, and decisions made against real demand.

What we sold, and how that was decided

Over the life of the business we developed more than 20 offerings. I do not have a public list of those items, or a documented first, favourite, or last. The number is not the point I want to keep.

The point is the rule we used on the range. We did not add offerings to look more complete. We used customer feedback, market research, and demand and trend analysis to decide what to add, keep, or cut.

Add, keep, or cut — decided from what customers actually wanted, not from a fuller-looking catalogue.

How customers changed the work

Product and service feedback loops were part of how the business ran. Demand evidence came before expansion. That is the documented choice, and it is still the one I trust.

I do not yet have a public description of the methods — what we asked, how often, which signal counted, or a specific offering that was kept or cut because of it. Until those details are written, the honest sentence is the rule, not a reconstructed example.

Keeping the work moving

My documented work sat across product strategy, customer experience, marketing, and day-to-day operations, with coordination of priorities and service quality.

I do not have a public breakdown of other roles, reporting lines, or how we divided the week. I am not filling that in from memory on this page.

What we were working inside

Covering product, customers, marketing, and daily operations is already a constrained way to run a consumer business. Coordination was part of the work, not a layer above it.

Specific operating limits — money, hours, suppliers, space, season — are not in the record I can publish. I am not reconstructing them from memory on this page. The constraint I will own in public is the one that is documented: a live range, and customers who could tell us if we were wrong.

What changed

The range grew to more than 20 offerings, chosen against feedback and demand rather than added in the dark. The operating chapter itself runs from February 2019 to March 2022.

Why that chapter ended is not documented here — not whether the business closed, changed hands, or I stepped away. I am not collapsing three years and two months into a neat exit line until that line is one I have written down.

What held

I am not attaching a growth rate to this page. The documented facts are quieter, and they are enough to stand on: we operated for three years and two months, and we grew the range past 20 offerings using customer and demand signals.

What that proves is not a trophy. It proves we stayed in the work long enough for the feedback loop to matter, and that the catalogue was a result of that loop rather than a substitute for it.

What did not

I do not have a public, specific account of what failed, what we would not repeat, or the decision I still regret. A founder story without friction is incomplete. I would rather leave that gap visible than invent a tidy lesson.

What I kept

The documented habit is still the one I use: look at what people actually want, then decide what to add, keep, or cut. That is a product rule, and it is an operating rule. It is also a judgment rule — do not grow the surface of the work just because a fuller surface looks more serious.

How else those years changed my judgment is something I want to write in my own words, with details I am willing to make public. Until then, I will not borrow a later career to explain this one, or borrow this one to decorate the work that came after.