● Sunset '26 · GMC Platform → eida.ai · case file 06
Google-backed, built, and shut down on purpose
Co-founded and led product on a creative-operations platform — the tooling we built to run our own agency, productised for other studios to use.
Overview
Co-founded and led product on a creative-operations platform — the tooling we built to run our own agency, productised for other studios to use.
My role
Co-founder · Product
Team
- GA
- NV
Ganesh A · Nikith Vijay
Built with
Figma · Notion
Timeline
2025 — 2026 · closed
Sunset '26
● Impact overview
- Google for Startups said yes$25,000 in cloud credits and structured mentorship, on tooling we had built to run our own agency — credits, not capital, so no equity was sold.
- Proven on our own client work firstThe platform ran the agency's own creative operations before it was productised for other studios to use.
- Closed on purposeInfrastructure cost outran what the product could carry, so it was shut down deliberately in 2026 rather than run on credits. The lesson went straight into ELTH.
01
What it was
Every agency runs on a mess of spreadsheets, chat threads and half-remembered approvals. We had built our own tooling to survive that inside GetMyCreative, and the platform was the attempt to turn it into a product other studios could use. I owned the product side: what it did, what it did not do, and the order it got built in.
02
The backing
It was accepted into the Google for Startups programme, which awarded us $25,000 USD in cloud credits to build and test, together with structured mentorship. That was the first outside backing of any kind in nine years, and it was credits and counsel rather than cash — no equity was sold and no capital was raised, so the ₹0 on the ledger still stands.
03
Why it closed
The architecture was infrastructure-heavy, and the running cost outran what the product could carry. We closed it in 2026 rather than keep it alive on credits and hope.
I would rather have this entry on here than not. Deciding to stop is the part of product work nobody puts on a portfolio, and it is the part that separates people who ship from people who cannot let go. We built it, an outside programme with a real bar backed it, the economics did not work, and we called it — cleanly, while we still could.
04
Results & what it taught me
Infrastructure cost is a product decision, not an engineering detail. I now ask what a feature costs to run before I ask what it costs to build — which is exactly why ELTH is architected the way it is.
What it taught me