One of the most common questions I get asked is, what the heck do you do.
I find it tough to explain and here’s an attempt to do so.
PS: This is as of 25 Nov 2024. Any may change as early as tomorrow.
For context, I am a regular Indian 42-year-old male who’s privileged, opinionated, secretly introverted, loudly private (and yet building in public), non-techie tech-bro hoping to make a ding in the universe.
And I am a very self-aware man; especially of my privilege.
Currently, I work on four things.
- The C4E Collective
- C4E Labs
- A startup in the elder-tech / age-tech space
- SoG
Apart from this, I have a million personal projects on the side.
100 likes to this and I will make a list 😀
Lemme deep dive into each.
1/ C4E
I started this 10+ years ago and we’ve gone thru various iterations and shapes.
In the current version, along with a hand-picked team of great people, am working to make C4E a leading marketing, branding, and communication services agency. In the words of my co-founder Pooja, we want to “help build brands that become verbs.”
We are small by design, selective with who we work with and on the premium end of the mass-market agencies.
We rarely hire someone to work with us on a full-time basis. We work with collaborators and believe in being transparent with how we work – both with our clients and with our collaborators. We love to sleep well at night. See this 😀
PS: This iteration of C4E happened because I was lucky to have Pooja next to me when I was building this. Along the way came friends and we are what we are INSPITE of me 😀
PPS: Sometime this year, I passed the C4E baton to Chandni Menda. She started as an intern. Now she’s the one driving it.
In terms of work, we do the following…
A/ Brand Strategy and Management.
We work with large companies and startups to manage their brands. This includes creating / fixing / rebuilding brand identity (and thus brand books), nomenclature (naming your business), brand assets, packaging design, website design and all that.
Our most visible work is what we did for GFF.
There are many many more pieces but I don’t like to tote them around. I know I should be advertising more but I don’t like the idea at the fundamental level. I rather want to be recommended by my clients.
Oh, we have recently started to see that our work spills over into business and product strategy as well. For at least three startups in the health-tech space, our work has straddled between brand, business and product strategy. In one of the startups, we even were part of the team that contributed to the pivot to a new business altogether. And they did raise substantial money post that. No, can’t reveal names 😀
B/ Content. Everything around is content and we <3 it!
We do content for all screens, all formats, sizes, and all occasions.
From a WhatsApp update to emailer to podcasts to TVCs to everything in between. A large piece of work we did was for Incredible India when they were revamping their website. We’ve made ad films (as a production house) and we’ve created I don’t know how many assets for one of the largest insurance companies in the country. There’s lot more that I can talk about – we’ve been at it for 10+ years now. But, no I don’t want to.
C/ Creative Services.
Anything that you still don’t consider content. Think print ads, hoardings, event collaterals and all that.
D/ Social Media Marketing.
Of course. The bread and butter. We manage this for a large healthcare giant and for Mumbai’s favorite bakery chain and for THE largest player in a segment of the construction industry and for a couple of businesses in Africa and Dubai and many many more. This gives us the stability we need for all the experiments that I keep doing!
E/ Misc.
We started as an events company and we’ve done events in some 30 countries for gatherings as intimate as 5 people and as large as 15000. We no longer pitch for this but in case someone asks for it, we are very very happy. Once an event manager, always an event manager.
In terms of play, we keep cooking and supporting numerous ideas.
More than ideas, we give our shoulder to people. Some of these in the past have been TRS, PPP, Podium / Founder Thesis, DD. We run a Grant. I am sure there will be more such things. But from now on, the decision is Chandni’s. And not mine.
We also create opportunities for friends and family to hang out and meet each other. One such example is CSS. See here.
2/ C4E Labs
I am building this with Krishna and KP into a venture studio of sorts and we are creating information products, micro-SAAS tools, and other such experimental things.
The ambition is to get free.
More on this freedom some other day.
3/ ElderTech Startup
Along with a mentor, am working on a startup to solve for challenges that our elders face. Early days but we’ve raised a tiny round from FnF. Heads down working behind the scenes right now. More on this in few weeks.
PS: If this space excites you, I would love to talk!
4/ SoG
This is my life’s work.
The idea is to become a finishing school for young people. To become the shoulder that they can stand on top and see afar. To enable their daring, audacious, stupid, unrealistic goals.
To do so,
I want to work closely with them.
And learn from them.
And show them my mistakes.
And give them launchpads.
Ofc, I need to be worthy enough to earn their patronage.
If I had all the money in the world, I would just do this.
And play poker.
So far (over the last ~8 years), I’ve spent time with ~50 people, from the ages of 13 to 22. And it’s been one of the most rewarding, enriching, humbling learning experiences ever.
At some point in time, I also want to become a talent scout. But that’s for a different day. Right now, I want to talk about all the things I spend my time on right now.
PS: A lot of this has been inspired by Theil and lately by Samwal.
So that was that.
To summarise, currently, I work on four things.
- The C4E Collective
- C4E Labs
- A startup in the elder-tech / age-tech space
- SoG
And numerous side projects.
I will make a similar list of side projects at some point.
Oh, while I work on all these things, I am indexed highly on freedom, movement, people, long-term thinking and culture. I have a long list of values that I hold dear. Some of those are in the attached image.
And while I do all this, I want to make a lot of money. No, money for me is not the end that I chase. Rather, it’s my ticket to do what I want to do.
I take a lot of inspiration from poems and all.
For example…
लगाकर आग शहर को,
बादशाह ने ये कहा
उठा है दिल में आज
तमाशे का शौक़ बहुत
झुकाके सर
शाहपरस्त सब बोल उठे
हुज़ूर का शौक सलामत रहे
शहर हैं और बहुत
Another example…
साईं इतना दीजिए, जामे कुटुंब समाए
मैं भी भूखा न रहूं, साधु न भूखा जाए
PS: Much to the disdain of a lot of friends, I am inspired by the likes of PG, Steve, Elon and other such loud, obnoxious tech-bros. I believe in separating the art and the artist. I also like NRN’s 70-hour thing. No, this is not ragebait.
I mean it.
So that!
PPS: Credits for this post…
- This idea came to me when I saw this thread by South Park Commons (a rare VC firm that I look up to).
- The now movement by ever so brilliant Sivers.