Hello Everyone!!

I would like to introduce a good friend of ours, Anand! He is a stutterer and the founder of StutterFreely. He has set out to start a community for people who stutter, where people can find others just like them and practice acceptance in a judgement-free space. Anand is a super motivated individual who is passionate about bringing people together.

Hi Everyone, my name is Anand - here’s my story:

I began my stuttering journey as a child, and despite being an extrovert in my early years, I quickly became introverted due to many negative experiences early in my life. People made jokes about my repetitions, blocks, and other speech disfluencies, which tainted my overall perception of stuttering. Additionally, I never received any formal speech therapy and constantly tried hiding it from the world, hoping that it would eventually fix itself.

Despite not having a social presence in high school, I maintained strong grades and received the opportunity to attend UC Berkeley. One of my goals when attending college was to join clubs and become part of a more tight-knit community. I applied to all of the business, engineering, and South Asian clubs I could. To my surprise, each of these clubs required an interview process, which I quickly realized was a significant challenge for me. Ultimately, I was not accepted into a single club, including the South Asian club, which I ethnically qualified for. Although this was deeply saddening, I excelled academically; I studied computer science and economics, and graduated with a 3.7 GPA in 2017. Granted, I am not saying this to brag, but rather, to serve as context for my professional challenges thereafter. Everyone had always told me that once you graduate from a top university such as UC Berkeley, there would be an abundance of job offers. This was far from the truth for someone struggling with their speech. 

I endured hundreds of interviews and received only one full-time offer. I was grateful for the opportunity, but struggled deeply in the communication-focused role. Stuttering is often misunderstood, especially in the workplace, and the beliefs that employers hold regarding stuttering can have a significant impact on our self-confidence. I was even told once by a manager that my stuttering limited my ability to succeed in a client-facing role, and that there was a significant gap between my technical and communication skills. This made me feel quite self-conscious about myself in the role and broader job market, and resulted in me feeling lonely and trapped. 

Today, I have figured out where my passions lie and am in a role that allows me to explore this further. I am currently an associate at a venture capital fund investing in and supporting early-stage startups and entrepreneurs. My role involves a significant amount of communication and public speaking, and I have spent the last three years rounding out my profile to break into this space. Fully aware of my disfluencies and how they could undermine my intelligence, I have had to go above and beyond other candidates to showcase my talents in interviews, including creating a blog that I grew to 13,000 followers. It is not that I did not know what to say in interviews. In fact, I knew exactly what to say—I was reading every blog, following every thought leader, listening to every podcast, and genuinely immersing myself in the space. In the end, however, the struggle was attempting to execute what was in my mind. Ultimately, I am grateful to be in a role that I have strived to be in, but the day-to-day battle with my speech has never been greater. 

Since starting this new job six months ago, I have received speech therapy on a weekly basis from an incredible speech therapist from Expressable (s/o Heather), which has helped increase my confidence. I have loved our interactions and developed a greater awareness of my stuttering. I have started to practice acceptance and have developed a more positive outlook regarding my disfluencies because, at the end of the day, stuttering is just my accent. I have learned the importance of thoughtfulness over fluency and have developed many new positive mental frameworks. 

Although I have come a long way, being someone who stutters in a demanding corporate environment that judges performance based on communication skills was still difficult. The most important thing was the toll this took on my mind. Despite my speech therapy, I was still lacking the confidence to stutter “freely,” constantly avoiding conversations and shortening sentences to avoid negative judgment towards my disfluencies. To reverse this, my speech therapist and I agreed that I needed to build more positive speaking experiences while stuttering. These positive experiences would help rewire my brain to reduce stuttering anxiety in each conversation. With this, I could truly stutter freely and speak confidently.

As I looked for ways to practice my speech, I came across platforms such as Toastmasters and other public speaking groups that allow you to practice your speech remotely in small, group settings. The idea sounded great, and I joined sessions for two months every week, but none felt relatable. People within these groups had already developed seemingly “perfect” speech and were cleaning up minor things such as usage of “um” and “like.” As an individual who had more foundational challenges with their speech, it was difficult for me to find the confidence to practice my speech freely in these environments and build the acceptance I needed in my disfluencies.

At this point, I started searching for other stuttering-focused communities, and did not come across any that I had in mind, so I decided to build it myself.

My goal was to integrate my background as a startup operator and investor and my firsthand experiences as a person who stutters, to create a technology-driven, modern community that fosters acceptance regarding stuttering. It is important to note that this community is not a substitute for speech therapy and is not meant to “fix” or “cure” your stuttering. Rather, it is simply a reinforcement mechanism that helps us build upon the techniques learned during therapy. Combined, I am confident that we will be able to unlock our full potential.

I welcome all feedback and aim for this to become be a tight-knit stuttering community for those looking to build more confidence in their speech, including myself. Even if you do not sign up for the community today, I would love to connect with you and learn more about your journey. Feel free to email me or DM me on Twitter. My mission is to help all of us unlock our inner confidence and spread awareness as a community. 

To the stars! 🚀