From Boarding Room to Boardroom: EchonLabs' First Board Meeting

A couple of weeks ago I flew from the UK to Sri Lanka for the first board meeting of EchonLabs (Private) Limited, the software company I started as an undergraduate. It was also my first board meeting as a director, and the day Rajendra Theagarajah was appointed the company's chairman. Apparently, one day your little undergraduate startup grows up and starts sending you board papers.

This is what that day was like, who was around the table, and what I took away from it as a founder who still spends most of his week building things. (In the photo at the top, taken after the meeting, I am fourth from the left.)

From a boarding room to a boardroom

EchonLabs began in 2017 in a university boarding room, while I was studying computer science at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. There was no office, no board and certainly no agenda. There were a few undergraduates, a lot of late nights, and a belief that we could build software good enough for serious companies to rely on.

Over the following years it grew into one of Sri Lanka's go-to builders of insurance technology, with a team of more than 60 people. We built the LOLC Life OneClick app, now the leading insurance self-care app in Sri Lanka, and a digital insurance platform for Janashakthi Life that runs across more than 300 branches, many of them rural. I stayed hands-on the whole way, through my PhD in AI at Queen's University Belfast and through the company's acquisition. The whole story is on my journey page.

Since the acquisition, EchonLabs has been scaling into something far bigger than any of us imagined in that boarding room. And this year it held its first formal board meeting.

Board papers, weeks in advance

The first thing that struck me was the preparation. Everything was ready weeks before the meeting. The board papers arrived well ahead of time, the agenda was structured, and it was clear that everyone was expected to arrive having read them.

The discussions were serious and the room was intense, in the best way. Nobody was there to be updated. They were there to decide.

It was very, very different from the early EchonLabs days, when a "board meeting" was a few of us around a laptop deciding what to build next and who would stay up to finish it.

Around the table

Around the table were Prakash Schaffter, Ramesh Schaffter, James Mathews, Kuganathan K V and me.

During the meeting, Rajendra Theagarajah was appointed Chairman of the company. He has had an incredible career in business and banking, and I know I will learn a huge amount from him.

For me, that was the most surreal part of the day. Something I started as an undergraduate startup now has a board made up of some of the most experienced business leaders in the country.

What I learnt in my first board meeting as a director

There was a lot to take in: governance, decision-making, preparation, and how a board actually operates. Four things have stayed with me.

• The preparation is the meeting. Because the papers arrive early, the time in the room goes on judgement rather than on catching up. The real work happens in the weeks before anyone sits down.
• A board looks at a company from a different height. As a builder, I think in systems, releases and customers. Around a board table, the questions are about direction, risk, people and the long term. It is the same company seen from somewhere else entirely.
• Governance is what lets experience move quickly. I used to associate structure with slowing things down. In practice, a clear agenda and good papers are what allow people who have built and led businesses at scale to get to the important decisions fast.
• There is no substitute for learning from people who have done it. Sitting with leaders who have run large organisations taught me more in a day than I could have read in a month.

Those lessons travel. These days I spend most of my time in Belfast, building AI products as co-founder and CTO of Tellme AI, and I think a lot about which ideas deserve a company at all (I wrote about how I evaluate startup ideas earlier this month). Seeing how an established board works has changed how I think about building one from the start.

Thank you

A special thank you to Ramesh Schaffter, for giving me the opportunity to remain part of this journey, to have a seat at that table and, more importantly, to learn from people who have built and led businesses at a completely different scale.

Travelling to Sri Lanka from the UK for one meeting, it was worth every mile.

I still find it slightly surreal to look at that photo and think: yep, this all started with a bunch of undergraduates building a startup.

Onwards.

Frequently asked questions

What is EchonLabs? EchonLabs (Private) Limited is a Sri Lankan software company founded in 2017 by Dr. Dulan Dias while he was an undergraduate. It grew to more than 60 people building insurance technology, including the LOLC Life OneClick app and Janashakthi Life's digital insurance platform, and was later acquired.

Who founded EchonLabs? Dr. Dulan Dias founded EchonLabs in 2017, in a university boarding room, while studying computer science at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. He led it as chief executive until 2025 and now serves on its board as a director.

Who is the chairman of EchonLabs? Rajendra Theagarajah was appointed Chairman of EchonLabs (Private) Limited at the company's first board meeting in September 2026.

Who attended the first EchonLabs board meeting? Prakash Schaffter, Ramesh Schaffter, James Mathews, Kuganathan K V and Dulan Dias, with Rajendra Theagarajah appointed Chairman during the meeting.

What is a first board meeting like for a founder? For Dulan it meant board papers weeks in advance, a structured agenda and serious, decision-focused discussion: a different way of looking at a company than building it day to day, and a crash course in governance and preparation.