Aaditya
Singh
One or two sentences: who you are and what you can't stop building. Say it like you'd say it to a friend.
FOUNDERSTATUSBUILDING
COMPANYGlobal Research Fellowship
PUBLICATIONFirst Principles Macro
SCHOOLHigh school, class of 2027
BASEDPrayagraj, India
~$20
Starting capital
~70
Applications, first cohort
$0 paid advertising
5
Seats in the first desk
2 paid · 3 sponsored
$5,000
Revenue to date
$2,000 cohort + $3,000 earlier 1:1 pilot
The problem I kept hitting
Why you started GRF. You were the customer: you wanted serious finance work with real practitioners and found only courses. Tell the actual moment you decided to build it.
Funnel: first cohort
Launched at $500. The first paying student later paid the full $1,000.
What I personally built
List what you did with your own hands: recruiting mentors, finding students, the research process, the website, selling the cohort, the pivot. Be specific. Name the hard parts.
Timeline
- 2025One-to-one mentorship experimentOne customer · $3,000 · tested whether anyone would pay
- Dec 2025GRF launches as a mentor-led research programEight-week 1:1 projects with PhD-level mentors
- Jan 2026First public webinar on global admissionsRun with GRF mentor Dr. PK
- 2026First cohort: ~70 applications for 5 seatsNo paid ads. 2 students paid $1,000 each, 3 sponsored
- Sep 2026Pivot to a career-launch layerFive-student finance "desks" led by practitioners, built for proof of work
- NowRaising a $250K pre-seedGoal: 8 practitioners, 4 finance tracks, concurrent desks
Challenges
What went wrong or was hard. For example: getting the first person to trust a high-schooler with $1,000, convincing senior mentors to join, pricing, why 3 seats ended up sponsored, why you pivoted from admissions research to career proof.
What I learned
2–3 real lessons, each tied to something that happened. Skip generic ones like "persistence matters."
How a GRF desk works
01
Five-student desks around one real finance question
Five-student desks around one real finance question
02
Six weeks of live discussion and critique with practitioners
Six weeks of live discussion and critique with practitioners
03
Each fellow writes a 2,000–2,500 word research project on their own
Each fellow writes a 2,000–2,500 word research project on their own
04
Fellows leave with a presentation and mentor feedback that others can check
Fellows leave with a presentation and mentor feedback that others can check
Mentors I recruited
| Alexander Dryden | Former J.P. Morgan Senior Economist · markets & economics |
| Dr. Patrick Kim | Columbia & Berkeley alumnus, mathematics professor · research quality |
Artifacts
FPM <GO>
First Principles Macro
Founder & writer · biweekly newsletter on LinkedIn190
Newsletter subscribers
1,346
LinkedIn followers
143,708
Top post impressions
Nestlé CEO post · 58,268 reached · 100% out-of-network
LI
Featured by LinkedIn News
Why I write it
What First Principles Macro is and why you started it. Who reads it, and the best reply or conversation it led to.
Issue impressions
Selected issues
| Issue | Thesis | Impr. |
|---|---|---|
| Inside The Private Debt Supercycle | Private debt passed $3T AUM as PE exits stalled. Why credit takes the next decade. | 817 |
| Markets vs. Reality | Why markets feel cut off from jobs, sentiment and the AI cycle. | 784 |
| The bubble that can't burst | Record debt plus AI euphoria, and why no burst may be the bigger risk. | 699 |
| Rate Hikes as Strategy: The Fed in America's Power Play | What happens if the Fed becomes a geopolitical tool. | 593 |
VISA <GO>
VisaShelter
Founder & engineer · Python / SQLWhat it does
US visa screening now looks at applicants' online presence. VisaShelter scans a person's public social media for posts, comments and affiliations that could raise questions, then turns them into a structured risk report they can review before applying or interviewing.
PythonSQLScraping pipelineRisk scoringReport generation
What I built · challenges · results
How the pipeline works, the hardest technical problem, and real usage numbers you can back up (users, reports run). Add a screenshot or demo link if you have one.
NOTES <GO>
Research notes
Independent macro & geoeconomic workSynthetic Sovereign Default
US Treasury rollover risk and liquidity stress. How a confidence shock could hit debt markets without any formal default, and what follows for FX, gold and BRICS reserves.
Private Debt as Geostrategic Capital
How states and financial institutions use private credit for geopolitical influence across Gulf, US and emerging-market corridors.
Banyan Corridor Doctrine
A proposed framework for India–US–Gulf alignment across capital, infrastructure, energy and security.
NOW <GO>
What I'm working on now
Updated Oct 2026This month
2–4 lines on what you're doing right now: GRF's next desk, the raise, a piece you're writing.
Why the Academy
Optional: what you'd build in SF with a year and $50K of compute.
CONTACT <GO>
Reach me
© 2026 Aaditya Singh · hand-built, no templateType HELP in the command line