The method — 3D
Learning from life as it happens
Most programmes hand you a framework and ask you to apply it. We start from the opposite end: everything you need to learn is already happening to you. The work is seeing it clearly.
01 — LIFE
It is already happening
Your studies, work, relationships, successes, failures, challenges and the unexpected moments in between.
This is not preparation for life. It is life.
02 — ATTENTION
Seeing what actually happened
What really took place? What did I assume? What did I feel in that moment? What did I overlook?
Attention pauses the rush and lets experience be seen as it is, rather than as we expected it to be.
03 — DISCOVERY
What becomes visible
I thought this would work, and it didn't. I see how quickly I reacted. I understand this more deeply now.
Discovery is not added from outside. It is what emerges when life is seen directly.
Live life fully, pay attention to it, and let it teach you.
Where this stops being philosophy
In week six, every founder talks to twenty real customers and writes down what they actually said — not what they hoped to hear. That is Attention, with a notebook. The moment a founder realises the thing they were certain about is wrong, that is Discovery, and it usually arrives around week eight.
The method has teeth because it ends in a question a feeling cannot answer: did somebody pay?
The programme
Ninety days, and the six weeks that matter
Thirteen weeks from open applications to demo day. The middle six are the programme; everything else exists to protect them.
WEEKS 1–5
Finding you
Applications open across four centres. A published scoring rubric — you can read the rules before you apply. Then a proper 45-minute conversation with the shortlist.
WEEKS 6–11
The six weeks
Twenty customer conversations. A look at your rivals. A real price, tested. Something rough, built. The money maths. And who owns what, settled before anyone becomes a shareholder.
WEEKS 11–13
Making it real
For those with evidence someone will pay: incorporation, founders' agreement, clean ownership of everything the company is built on, and a compliance calendar that starts on day one.
WEEK 13
Demo day
One shared day in Delhi with sponsors and both campuses present, plus a showcase at each centre. Then we publish what happened — including the parts that didn't work.
The filter
We would rather run it with seven
Most programmes tell you how many founders they accepted. Here is what happens to everyone who applies to ours.
Roughly one application in fifty makes the cohort, and about half of those finish with a registered company. We publish these numbers every cohort, failures included, because a programme that only reports its winners is telling you almost nothing.
Two places we stop and are honest
End of week five. If only seven applicants are good enough, we run it with seven. A weak founder eats the same six weeks a strong one would have had. Seven real ones beat ten with three passengers.
End of week eleven. Has a real customer agreed to pay a real price? A signed order, money up front, or a paid trial. "That sounds great" does not count. No evidence, no incorporation — an empty company costs money every year and makes a mess later.
Founders who do not pass are not thrown out. We tell them what has to change and what would bring them back.
Get involved
Which of these is you?
Five ways into Sumac. Pick the one that fits and we will tell you exactly what we want from you and what you get back.
Founders
You do not need a finished idea, a co-founder, a deck or a prototype. You need something you have noticed and cannot stop thinking about.
- What you get
- A desk at one of four centres. Six weeks of structured testing with mentors who have built and lost things. Help with incorporation, founders' agreements and IP if you get that far. A demo day in front of sponsors and both campuses.
- What it costs
- Nothing to apply, nothing to be tested. If you clear week eleven and want us to register your company, the incorporation pack is ₹85,000 — and you only reach that point if a customer has already paid you something.
- What we ask
- Twenty real customer conversations, logged. Turning up. And a genuine willingness to find out you were wrong — which is the part most people say yes to and then resist.
- Who we are looking for
- Not only app ideas. We deliberately want regional businesses, small manufacturing, farming, tourism, B2B services and deep science alongside software. The profitable, unglamorous ones often travel furthest.
Be warned: about one application in fifty makes the cohort. If yours doesn't, we will tell you why and what would change our answer.
Campus partners
We are in conversation with IISc Bangalore and IIT Roorkee, and open to more. Here is the deal, stated plainly.
- What we bring
- A programme that already runs, with a published rubric and a real filter. Mentors from outside your faculty. Incorporation and legal support your innovation cell probably does not have. And a demo day that puts your founders in front of paying sponsors.
- What we ask
- A room. A channel to reach students and faculty. And your intellectual-property policy in writing, before we accept a single founder from your campus.
- Why the IP question comes first
- If a student built something using campus labs, time or money, your institution may own part of it. We cannot cleanly register a company that does not own what it is built on — and that problem surfaces years later, during investor diligence, when it is expensive. We would rather solve it in week two.
- We start small on purpose
- Two or three places in the first cohort, not ten. We would rather prove we run something good and earn more places than arrive making promises.
Sponsors
This is a commercial arrangement, not a donation and not CSR. You get an invoice, and you get something specific for the money.
- What you get
- Your name on the cohort. First look at every founder before demo day. A seat at demo day itself. And the full outcome report with the real numbers in it, which is more useful intelligence than most innovation scouting produces.
- What it costs
- ₹2.5 lakh for a cohort. We take three sponsors, no more, so the access stays worth something.
- Why sponsor this one
- Two of India's strongest technical campuses feed our pipeline. You see filtered founders from IISc and IIT Roorkee alongside regional businesses from Delhi and Dehradun — a mix most corporate innovation programmes never assemble.
- What we will not do
- Promise you equity, exclusivity over founders, or a say in who gets selected. The filter is the product. Selling influence over it would destroy the thing you are paying for.
Because Sumac is a private limited company, this cannot be paid from a CSR budget — that money can only go to a Section 8 company, trust or society. Sponsorship comes from marketing, innovation or hiring budgets instead.
Mentors
Sumac is deliberately intergenerational. That is not a nicety — it is how the method works.
- Why both generations
- People who have run things for thirty years notice friction that students have never thought to question. People two years out of college notice friction that everyone older has quietly adapted to. Neither group sees the whole picture alone. Put them in a room with a founder and the real problem surfaces faster.
- What we ask
- A few hours a month. Honest feedback rather than encouragement. And the discipline to ask what actually happened before offering what you would have done.
- What you get
- No salary — we are straight about that. You get early sight of founders, a network of people doing the same thing, and in specific cases a small advisory stake in a venture you materially help.
- The hardest part
- For experienced mentors, the trap is pattern recognition. "I have seen this before" is the direct enemy of attention, and it is the most common way good advice ruins a young venture. We will say so out loud, often.
Well-wishers
People who believe in this and want to put something behind it. Money is only one of the useful things, and it is the one with rules attached.
- If you want to contribute money
- Sumac is a private limited company, not a charity, so we cannot accept donations. Money has to arrive as one of three things: you buy shares, you lend it as a director or shareholder, or you pay for something as a sponsor. We will tell you honestly which one fits before you write anything.
- What a contribution does
- Sumac puts in the first money itself — roughly half of what a cohort costs. Well-wisher contributions cover the gap between that and what sponsors bring, which is what lets us keep the programme free for founders until the very last stage.
- Help that is not money
- An introduction to a company that might sponsor. An hour with a founder who is stuck on exactly the thing you know. A customer conversation for someone testing a price. A room in a city we are not in yet. These are frequently worth more than a cheque.
- What we promise in return
- The outcome report, with the failures in it, every cohort. You will always know what your contribution actually produced — including when the answer is disappointing.
Where we are
Four centres, one programme
Two we own, which gives us control. Two we are joining, which gives us founders. We need both, and they do different jobs.
Delhi
OursHead office, and closest to corporate sponsors and to customers. Runs the programme for all four centres and hosts the shared demo day.
First cohort — 3 places
Dehradun
OursMuch cheaper to run, and the right home for regional business ideas — farming, tourism, small manufacturing. The sort that turn profitable early.
First cohort — 2 places
IISc Bangalore
In talksDeep science and research ideas, with faculty who can mentor properly. A name that opens doors with sponsors and investors before we have earned our own.
First cohort — 3 places
IIT Roorkee
In talksEngineering student founders, and a short drive from Dehradun — so the two centres share staff, mentors and events rather than duplicating them.
First cohort — 2 places
Where we stand
Things we will not do
Stated publicly so you can hold us to them.
Fill the cohort to look full
If seven founders are worth six weeks, we take seven. Ten places is a ceiling, not a target — and never a favour to a partner campus.
Register a company with no customer
An unvalidated company is a shell with annual compliance costs and a cap table that gets messy. We would rather send you back than register you early.
Publish only our winners
Every cohort report carries the attrition at each stage and the ventures that failed. It is the only way the numbers above mean anything.
Take money we cannot legally take
No donations into a private company, no CSR funds we are not eligible for. Every rupee arrives as shares, a loan or an invoice.
Sell influence over selection
Sponsors get access and information. They do not get a vote on who is admitted, and no founder is ever required to work with them.
Promise anyone a listing
Some ventures will grow into public companies years from now. Most will not, and a profitable private business is a success, not a consolation.