It was important for Sahil to understand why he had a goal of building a billion dollar company to begin with, what lead to his failure, and how he's been able to redefine success in order to work on a meaningful company instead.

When Sahil was ready to write, he was not sure what exactly to cover in this essay, so he reached out to friends and asked them for questions. People wanted to know about every little part, from raising money to failing. Starting by answering each individual question, he'd composed a long list of segments, and eventually restructured them into a long-form article.

The title of "Reflecting on my failure to build a billion dollar company" was a deliberate to choice to create something that could be shared without a stance on the subject. Sahil wanted to tell an entertaining story, without necessarily teaching anything.