From a small town in India to the Bay Area — built from zero.

The Girl from a Small City
Where Everything Began

I grew up in a small, unhurried city in India — the kind of place where six degrees of separation shrinks to two, where everyone knows your family, and where ambition is quietly celebrated but rarely expected to take you very far. It was a Tier-3 city, about six hours from Delhi. And for 22 years, it was my whole world.

I did my schooling there. I completed my engineering there. I built friendships, found my voice, and learned the meaning of hard work the way only a small city can teach you — with no shortcuts, no connections to lean on, just effort and results. When I left at 22 to join IBM in Gurgaon, I carried the values of that city with me like a second passport.

The next seven years in Gurgaon were everything a young professional could hope for. I rose steadily through the ranks, eventually landing a coveted role at Bharti Airtel — one of India's largest telecom giants — and was promoted to Tech Lead. I was 29. My career was flourishing. My identity was tied to what I was building.

"I had spent my whole life building something brick by brick. I had no idea I was about to put it all down — and start again with empty hands."

Then I met someone on an online dating platform. He was in the Bay Area. I was in India. We talked for weeks. Things just clicked — the way they rarely do, the way you can't explain. A few months later, I left behind a flourishing career, a familiar world, and everything I had worked for.

I chose love. And I chose the unknown.

Landing in America
With Empty Hands

I arrived in the Bay Area in 2017 knowing exactly one person — my husband, whom I was still getting to know. We had spoken on the phone for weeks, exchanged letters of the soul, and signed the papers. I had never met him in person before our wedding day.

I had no friends here. No relatives. No college network. No colleagues. Not a single familiar face in this entire vast country. Back in India, I had always been surrounded by people — colleagues, childhood friends, family a phone call away. Here, there was only silence and the unfamiliar rhythm of a new life.

I came on a dependent visa, and under the immigration landscape of 2017, what I expected to be a six-month wait for a work permit became a five-year wait. Five years. The years between 30 and 35 — the years when your hard work in your career begins to bear real fruit, when you're climbing and the view is finally getting better — were years I spent in uncertainty, waiting.

"I was watching the clock on my career tick while the world outside kept moving. I had a degree, two decades of ambition, and no way to use either."

I won't pretend it wasn't hard. There were days heavy with anxiety, with the particular grief of feeling invisible when you've always been someone who showed up fully. But I refused to be idle. While waiting, I earned my PMP certification. I completed programs through Stanford and Acumen. I studied. I prepared. I filled those years with quiet, determined readiness — for a door that hadn't opened yet.

Learning to Build Again
From Scratch

In 2021, two things happened at once: I received my work permit, and I became a mother. My son was eight months old. I held my permit in one hand and a baby in the other, and I had to figure out what came next.

My husband — a startup founder who thinks in first principles — gave me advice I didn't expect. He said: don't go back to 9-to-5. Build something of your own. If it doesn't work, the gap on your resume won't be six years — it will be seven. It doesn't matter. Start from zero either way. But start on your own terms.

So I did. I tried UX/UI freelancing first. The work was fine. My heart wasn't in it. Then I built an e-commerce business from scratch — Olive Melon — importing handcrafted artisan goods from India and selling on Wayfair and Walmart. I got the LLC. The licenses. The insurance. The logistics. I built it into something real: dozens of products selling every day.

And still, something was missing. I was sitting at home printing shipping labels, disconnected from people, disconnected from community. For someone whose greatest strength is human connection, it felt like working in the wrong language.

A friend finally said it plainly: "Sanna, you're good with numbers and you're good with people. You should become a realtor."

I was naive enough to listen. And I am so grateful I was.

Becoming a Realtor
In One of the World's Hardest Markets

In September 2022, I sat for the California real estate exam. Ten days of studying. One attempt. I passed.

I had absolutely no idea what I had gotten myself into. I didn't know what sales was. I didn't know what marketing was. I had never done either. The Bay Area real estate market is one of the most competitive, oversaturated, high-stakes markets in the world. If I had known, I might never have dared. My naivety was my greatest asset.

By February 2023, when my toddler finally started daycare, I walked into a brokerage and got to work. I did open houses every single weekend. I knocked on doors in Fremont. I distributed flyers apartment by apartment. I showed up, every day, to a market that showed nothing back.

For six months — nothing. No deals, no leads, no clients. Just work and silence and faith.

"I kept going not because I was confident it would work — but because I didn't know how to stop showing up."

Then, at an open house in Richmond, I met a couple who had worked with five realtors before me. None had helped them find a home in two years of searching. They chose to work with me because I listened. I arranged the showings. I read every disclosure. I did the work. In under three weeks, they had their home.

That closing changed everything inside me. It wasn't just a deal. It was proof.

Built Organic
Built Real

When I became a realtor, I had no social media presence. Not even a LinkedIn. Just a Facebook account I checked every few weeks. The idea of building a brand online felt foreign, even intimidating.

But I knew that to reach people, I had to be visible. So I started — from zero, by myself, with a toddler on my hip and my husband building his startup across the room. I learned every platform. I created every piece of content. I built every relationship organically — no paid ads, no sponsored posts, no collaborations, no print campaigns, no radio shows, no events.

Everything you see today was grown from seed, not purchased.

Late 2023 brought three back-to-back deals — all strangers, all met at open houses or through a WhatsApp community group I had built to help people navigate the Bay Area housing market. People found me because they felt I was real. Because I told the truth even when the truth was hard. Because I showed up as a person, not a salesperson.

Today, my weekends look completely different from those first quiet years in America. I have to choose between clients who want to meet, families who want my time, and the life I've built at home. That problem — the beautiful, full problem of too much connection — is one I never take for granted.

I went from knowing one person in this country to being trusted with the most important financial decision of over 25 families' lives. That is not a small thing. I hold it carefully.

What I Believe
Why Any of This Matters

People sometimes assume I've been doing this for decades. That I had a platform, a network, money to invest. I didn't. I had none of it.

What I had was this: I was raised in a small city where your word is everything. I was trained as an engineer who solves problems. I was a tech professional who learned to listen before she spoke. And I am a mother and an immigrant who knows what it means to start over with nothing but determination and love.

My clients don't choose me because of a flashy marketing campaign. They choose me because they feel — in the first conversation — that I will tell them the truth. That I will work harder than they expect. That when I say I'm on their side, I mean it completely.

"Empathy is my superpower. Honesty is my strategy. And I built this — all of it — with my own hands."

The Bay Area is one of the most complex, high-stakes real estate markets in the world. Buying or selling a home here is not a small decision — it is often the largest financial decision of a person's life. I don't take that lightly. Not even for a moment.

I know what it is to leave everything behind and start again. I know what it is to wait, to be uncertain, to keep going anyway. And when I work with a client — whether they're a first-time buyer overwhelmed by the process, or a family making a strategic move — I bring all of that into the room with me.

This is not just my job. It is the thing I was always becoming.