Ishraq KhanEssays
On building, founding young, and the psychology of creating technical systems.
- Building for Engineers Who Never Say Thank YouWhy the best developer tools go unnoticed, and why I’m fine when engineers never thank me for Kodezi.
- What It Actually Means to Be EarlyWhat it felt like to start Kodezi before AI meant what it means today, and why I’m grateful for it.
- Prompt Fatigue Is ComingWhy I think prompt-based AI coding tools will hit a ceiling, and why Kodezi was built to remove them.
- How We Built Kodezi’s Debugging Engine from ScratchHow Kodezi’s debugging engine grew from a small prototype into part of a larger system, and what I learned.
- Shipping Without CertaintyWhy I ship before I feel certain, and what launching early taught me about learning in public.
- What 4 Years of Building Taught MeFive lessons from four years of building Kodezi, from starting before I felt ready to staying consistent.
- The Hidden Costs of Founding YoungStarting a company in high school gave me a lot, but it also cost me things people don’t usually see.
- The UX of FearHow riding the world’s fastest roller coaster changed the way I think about fear and shipping products.
- The Day I Took a VC Call During ClassAt 17 I was taking investor calls from classrooms and stairwells, and it changed how I saw myself.
- Risk Doesn’t Mean RecklessWhy the biggest risks I’ve taken with Kodezi were deliberate bets and not reckless ones.
- Debugging Myself While Debugging CodeBuilding Kodezi taught me to debug my own habits the same way I debug code.
- Raising Venture Capital in High SchoolRaising Kodezi’s pre-seed round in high school, and deciding between college and building the company.
- How Bangladesh Shaped How I BuildGrowing up in Dhaka taught me to build inside limits, and that still shapes how I code and run Kodezi.
- What I Learned From Not Going to CollegeWhy I turned down college after doing everything to earn it, and what building Kodezi taught me instead.
- Why I Applied to 60 CollegesI applied to over 60 colleges out of curiosity about how the system worked, then chose to keep building.
- The First Time My Code WorkedHow a YouTube video I found while learning English led to my first working program, and later to Kodezi.
- The Startup I Built in Sixth GradeHow TeachMeCode, a peer-to-peer coding site I built as a kid, shaped the way I think about products.