Everything a founder can learn from a Hyderabad entrepreneur’s run on The Traitors Telugu, from winning trust to how losing it works too, and how to make strategy as easy as breathing.
Pitch-ure This:
Twenty players. A prize of up to ₹1 crore. And a secret: three of them are lying to everyone else.
Rahat Achanta, 33, entrepreneur, was one of the three. Host Teja Sajja named him an original Traitor alongside Ashika Padukone and Vidyullekha Raman.
Of course it was him. Look at the résumé. Co-founder of Fruitoholic, the Hyderabad fresh-fruit brand that Inc42 Datalabs puts at ₹24.4 crore+ in FY25 revenue. Founder of the Deccan Padel League, which pulled 5,000+ people through the gates in six weeks. A career spent persuading strangers to believe in something they can’t see yet.
That is also the Traitor job description.
Here’s the game. By night, the Traitors quietly remove Faithfuls. By day, everyone gathers at the Ring of Doubt and votes in the open, and whoever collects the most votes is banished and must reveal their side. Survive the vote, keep the secret, stay alive.
Sound familiar? A Traitor has the same daily job as an early-stage founder: sell a story to people who are professionally suspicious.
So WTF is the Traitors Telugu?
The Traitors Telugu is the Telugu edition of a global format that began as the Dutch series De Verraders and now runs in 30+ countries. Teja Sajja hosts. Twenty contestants, ten episodes, new drops every Thursday at noon on Prime Video, from October 15 to a finale on November 5. The cast mixes actors, singers and digital creators with a handful of professionals from outside entertainment. Rahat was one of them.
The rules, fast:
- Two teams. Most players are Faithfuls. A few are secret Traitors.
- Nights belong to the Traitors. They pick a Faithful to murder, and sometimes the game twists the rules, like the round with four names on the hit list instead of one.
- Days belong to everyone. Missions can win shields that protect players from the Traitors. Then comes the Ring of Doubt, where everyone votes, and the player with the most votes is banished and must reveal their side.
- If the Traitors are down to two, they can recruit a Faithful instead of murdering one.
- The pot. If the Faithfuls banish every Traitor, they share the prize. If even one Traitor survives to the end, the Traitors take it all.
Five of Rahat’s Moves you should Study as an Entrepreneur
Rahat Achanta ran the palace like a startup, and the playbook is hiding in plain sight. Here are his five moves, and what each one means for your own company.
1. He collected allies like investors
Early on, Rahat worked the room. Varsha D’Souza. Pranav Chaganti. Phalguni Bangera. Warm, present, and most importantly, useful. He built a network of allies while nudging suspicion toward other people. 123telugu’s verdict: he “plays a careful game.” Pranav, the same review notes, kept believing he was innocent.
2. He cut his own partner loose – And it was the smartest move he made!
Episode 3. The house wanted Vidyullekha Raman gone, and she was a fellow Traitor. Why? Because she was about to blow all three fo their covers. Betraying Ashika, acting that a child could see through, and lies that just couldn’t be justified – Rahat knew one of his own had to be sacrificed to win. According to the season’s voting table, Rahat’s vote landed right alongside everyone else’s. She was banished. His cover stayed spotless. And he gave us all a lesson in not thinking twice before cutting dead weight.
Call it the pivot you make before the pivot makes you.
3. He hired the wildcard, and it took suspicion completely off of him.
Episode 4. Dhanunjaya had just returned to the house after an early exit, and many contestants assumed he’d be recruited. Instead, Teja Sajja and the Traitors, Ashika and Rahat, picked Vishnu Oi. Never hire the candidate the whole room is watching. Everyone assumed there was one mastermind among the selected Traitors, and Rahat effortlessly recruited Vishnu and ensured that his name was the one on the tip of everyone’s tongue that night. His elimination only threw more suspicion off of Rahat.
4. He rescued a target from his own hit list
Midnight. The Traitors had to put four names on a hit list instead of one, and the rest of the house had a shot at saving them. Only Mouneesha Chowdary was saved, with Rahat playing a key role. Peak cover-building.
The irony: she later suspected him anyway.
5. He stayed forgettable
Episodes 1 to 3: Rahat was notably friendly, fashionable, and a definite attractive ally. His game however? “relatively inconspicuous,”. No fireworks also meant No target on his back. Like the social butterfly Rahat is, he fluttered in and out of groups, listened more than he spoke, and when he did speak? He made sure it made an impact.
Steal This: Rahat’s Tactics in Real Life (Minus the Lying)
- Collect allies like seed investors. Give before you ask. Make the intro, share the lead, show up to the launch, so that by the time you need a favour you’ve already made the deposits. Trust is a loan against your future. Don’t borrow more than you’ve built.
- Cut the partner. Kill the failing product, the draining vendor, the stalled partnership while it’s still a decision and not yet a disaster. Do it cleanly and early. Everyone watches what you do to your allies, though. Do it more than twice in a close timespan and you’ll have none.
- Hire the wildcard. Skip the obvious name everyone’s already watching. Build around complementary strengths, not whoever is loudest on LinkedIn.
- Rescue visibly. Fix a problem in public: solve the client’s crisis, back a teammate in the meeting, ship the fix. Reputation is built on receipts, and it has to be real. Mouneesha’s later suspicion shows that one good deed doesn’t erase a doubt.
- Make your moments travel beyond your achievements: One breakfast-table exchange over a shiny hair clip became a social media event with Rahat in the middle of it. Founders get the same gift when something real happens: a launch glitch, a customer story, a funny meeting. Capture it, tell it well and let it travel. People follow stories long before they follow spreadsheets.
- Keep your story straight. One slip, “me to recruit,” said at the Ring of Doubt undid six episodes of work. Rehearse the pitch, use the same numbers everywhere, and make sure the story is true, so there’s nothing to slip on.
The Verdict
Was he a good Traitor? On the evidence, yes, with one caveat.
- Social capital. He built real bonds fast, and they bought him time.
- Cold decisions. Cutting a fellow Traitor in Episode 3 protected the cover when it mattered.
- Low visibility. He kept the heat off until Week 2.
The caveat: under pressure, one phrase unravelled it. Founders know the feeling. The pitch holds right up until someone asks the one question you didn’t rehearse.
Rahat didn’t win the game. He did run it like a founder: build trust, make the hard call, hire sideways, learn in public.
Founders, Your Move!
The Traitors Telugu finale lands on Prime Video on November 5, with six players left still playing the exact game we just dissected. Watch it with a founder’s eyes, keep score on who builds trust and who spends it, then pick the Rahat move you’re stealing first. And send this to the founder in your life who needs it.
Follow Rahat at https://www.instagram.com/rahatachanta/ on Instagram to see more of his moves off the show. We know we’re watching!
