When Dhruva Mukherjee transferred ₹50,000 for a two-day retreat, he had no clue what he was signing up for, not the location, the agenda, or even the guest list. All he knew: it promised community, conversations with startup founders, and maybe some clarity.

Startup Founders Retreat: The Journey Club’s Unique Concpet

The retreat, hosted at a hush-hush villa somewhere in Goa, turned out to be a low-key gathering of 20 online entrepreneurs, curated by a group calling itself The Journey Club. The hosts? Two agency founders with a knack for building tight-knit networks among India’s new-age digital entrepreneurs.

“There was zero information going in. It was like a founder blind date,” Dhruva recalls. But beneath the ambiguity was a deliberate attempt to break routine, and more importantly, break away from the social inertia of old-school friendships.

“Your childhood friends are great, but they were formed out of proximity, not purpose,” he reflects. “I realized I needed to surround myself with people who think like I do now—not who I was 10 years ago.”

What followed was an unexpected immersion: sunrise pilates, cold plunges, poolside chats, and spontaneous masterclasses on digital sales, scaling teams, and overcoming creative blocks. In between were real numbers, raw business talk, and vulnerable honesty about burnout, revenue gaps, and the pressure to keep moving.

“Honestly, I was blown away. Some of the founders I met were younger than me and doing 10x more in revenue. It shook me, in the best way possible.”

By the end of the retreat, three participants (who’d never met before) extended their stay in Goa just to hang out longer. Bonds had been formed not through games or icebreakers, but shared ambition.

“There’s something about stepping out of your algorithm, both social and mental that resets how you think,” says Dhruva

Though The Journey Club remains relatively underground, word seems to be spreading fast. For Dhruva, the return on investment wasn’t just in business hacks, it was in accessing a new frequency of peers.

“If your current circle doesn’t challenge you, you owe it to yourself to look elsewhere,” he says.

Or if that is flying blind into a ₹50K villa stay or just agreeing to new conversations, Dhruva’s tale is a testament that at times growth begins by leaving comfort behind.

Also Read: Blinkit’s 10-Minute Ambulances Quietly Expand Across Gurugram