Tag: Culture

I’ve failed.

So I’ve failed. 

Lemme elaborate on this clickbaity headline. And this is about C4E – one of my life’s works.

Here’s some context.

I started C4E sometime in 2015 or 2016. Thanks to the generosity of Rajesh Sir at VISCOMM, I got off to a great start. But I couldn’t keep up the momentum. Things went along like you would expect them to at a startup. Just that we weren’t a startup per se – we were more of a regular business.

And then in COVID, I had to sort of pause. And with the help of Parijat and Pooja, C4E took rebirth in 2020. Both Ps continue to be well-wishers and tethered to us. In Poo’s case, she continues to have the option of being the founder alongside me. As I say often, her chappals occupy the highest throne at C4E.

So, with time, I have grown up and my thinking has evolved. And the world around us changed. And I have seen people change. And from wanting to be the richest man in the world, I’ve started to think a lot more about delivering insane impact, while being the richest man in the world. And from wanting to build a well-oiled machinery, I have pivoted to the want of building an org that is more human than anything else.

Human in my book means – empathetic, soft-spoken, polite, fair, “nice” and all that. Plus, at C4E, each human must (in the order I’ve written below)…

  1. have the respect (as a human) of everyone in the ecosystem. We are ok to let go of clients, people, things if we don’t spot respect. And respect goes beyond general niceness and politeness. And respect needs to be earned and not commanded or demanded.
  2. offer this respect to everyone else. And respect is in action (and not in words). And it’s in tiny things. For example, every email unanswered reeks of disrespect. Every time we leave someone on “seen” and not respond, it’s disrespect. Even if they are wrong. Each time we promise we’ll do something and we don’t that’s disrespect. Not showing up 2 minutes before the appointed time is disrespectful. I can go on for hours on this but I am sure you get the gist.
  3. have the freedom of their time to a reasonable extent (if not 100%).
  4. get fair and timely compensation for the time and energy they put in. Please note I am not indexed on competitive, world-class, market rates etc. I am indexed on fair and timely.
  5. have the opportunity to find a balance (of work and play) in their lives. It’s only them who get to decide what is work or what is play. And C4E must enable that. I’d go a layer deeper and say that their work at C4E must give them a sense of identity and pride. In my case, all of it is work. In the case of some of my colleagues, work is not even a part of their identity.
  6. come with the intent to put in honest, hard work that enables them to “earn” money, respect, the freedom of time and the opportunity to find the balance harmony in their lives. We are a smart bunch and we spot when people try to fool us. And we assume that the world out there is smart as well and they can spot when we try to fool them.
  7. have the drive to grow by doing more and the willingness to contribute to the growth of others. If not of the entire world, then of C4E Village. If not that, then at least the colleagues at C4E. If we don’t grow, we are dead.

PS: I am sure there would be more things that I want people at C4E to have, but these come to my mind as I write this. I will continue to update this.

PPS: I know that people don’t have an inherent awareness of many of the above. As the leader of the pack (I still get uncomfortable calling myself a leader), thus, it’s my job to train, educate, upskill, push, nudge, support, and encourage my people to become the best version of themselves.

And yes, even though I want my people to get all the things in the list above, we must acknowledge and know that we are a business at the end of the day. And as a business, we need to make money. And a lot of that hopefully. Money keeps the machinery running well. I need to pay people fairly and on time. I need money to enable a lot of things that we do at C4E. I need money to pay for my Starbucks!

Of course, we owe it to our shareholders (largely Pooja, myself and some others), mentors, clients, villagers, friends and others. In that order.

But we owe the most to our people. More than shareholders or mentors. It’s our people that make us who we are. The very foundation of C4E is people and the list that I shared above is a non-negotiable. I am lucky and grateful that people at C4E have chosen to invest their most important asset in C4E – time!

And if I am unable to offer my people all the things that I’ve listed above, I would consider myself a failure.

And this brings me to the clickbaity headline.

I’ve failed.

No, I will not go into details of why I’ve failed and what was the point of fault that triggered these thoughts. That stuff goes on my echoChamber. What goes here is acknowledgement that I’ve failed to offer the things that I’ve listed above.

In my head, I have failed to the point that while showering today a few days ago, I decided that I would shut the business on 31 Mar 2025. I thought that I would give my team, my clients and everyone a 7-month notice. I thought of scenarios after that and decided that I would do nothing for a while (may be a year) and drift around. May be reset life at the fabled age of 42!

But then I told myself the following…

It’s my raita. It’s my village. And I can’t take the easy way out. I can’t quit till I’ve reached where I want to reach (please don’t ask me what is this ‘where I want to reach’ – I have a fuzzy picture of me floating in gold like Uncle Scrooge would). And, most important, if not me, who? Reminds of this quote I read yesterday…

It says,

“Look at your habits: Are they the product of innumerable little cowardices and lazinesses…or of your courage and inventive reason?”

And poof! All doubt was gone. All the lingering feeling was gone. I had failed. But I shall rise. At least I will try to. And thus, ladies and gents, we continue to march on. And do whatever it takes to bring my house to order.

Watch me.

PS: While editing this, I realised, I could’ve very well titled this post The C4E Manifesto. Or the C4E values. Or even the C4E promise.

What the heck is C4E?

A braindump on how I think about life and work and what I am building at C4E.

Here’s a brain dump on how I think about C4E and who we are and what we do and where we want to be.

Disclaimers. 

  • This is a brain dump. 
  • This is how I think today. Now. 22 Mar. 19:51 PM.
  • Could change / evolve with time.
  • Not seen by anyone else yet. 

So, among other things, I want to establish C4E as [1] a great business to [2] do great business with.

And a [3] collective of businesses, each with the same ethos, each a part of the cult, each tapping into the same resource pool. Each with an intent to be larger than C4E!

So three things. 

  • [1] Great business – C4E has the greatest people.
  • [2] Do great business with – C4E does great work, if not the greatest.
  • [3] A collective. 

Lemme talk about each of these.

Wait. 

Before I take up these things, have to repeat what Naval Ravikant says: “Play long-term games with long-term people.”

We MUST be long-term people for each other at C4E. And for our clients. And we MUST play long-term games.

Coming back…

[1] Great business – is one that is made of great PEOPLE.

Where people trust, value, and respect each other. Where each person is treated like a person. And not like an object / a thing / OHR ID. The #culture must speak for itself.

At C4E each person MUST chase their respective bliss. Each with an opportunity to do great work in a safe space. Each paid as much as they’d like to be. Or enough to afford the lifestyle of the top 1%. Each with the freedom to work how they want, when they want, on what they want.

Each is a part owner. Each with their skin in the game. Each with ability to live their life the way they want to. Or as we call this in our culture book, each with the ability to choose their own adventure.

At C4E, each person must tap-dance to “work” each day. Each person must “want” to work harder than anyone else. Not because they are expected to. But because they want to. And of course, work smart. More importantly, each has a lot of fun while they work.

So, people first. ALWAYS. 

If people at C4E are engaged, they are in the zone, they are inspired to do great things, we as a business would do well. Even if the times are hard and projects are tough. 

You know #c4eCult 

[2] Do great business with. 

This is simple. We at C4E HAVE to a great business to work with (if not the greatest). While this great / greatness is tough to measure, I believe that a good metric could be…

  • repeat clients
  • referrals 
  • number of heated conversations

While we may not be good / best / brilliant at what we do, HAVE to be the MOST relentless, resourceful, flexible, polite, honest, straightforward, hardworking, smart-working, jugaadu team. 

PS: EACH word here has been used after a LOT of thought (which is unlike me).

And while we do all of the above, we HAVE to be the team that stands by clients through thick or thin. You know, like, friends in need. We want to be around our clients come hell or high water. Our clients often find us standing two steps behind. If not next to them.

We are your wartime consigliere. We are the ones that you can lean on. We will hold your flag high. We will give it all we have. In the words of Will Smith, we are not afraid to die on the treadmill. We will NOT be outworked. Especially when you need us.

PS: we are VERY VERY selective about whom we work with. Even though we are small and it’s tough to survive on a day-to-day basis, we are sure about not saying yes to anyone whom we dont get the right vibes from!

So that. 
Happy people. 
Better work.
It’s that simple.

[3] A collective. 

I am VERY very sure about this. C4E may look like a marketing / communications agency right now, we are MUCH MUCH more than that. We are like a group of superheroes. A collective of people with the grandest brains, unbridled ambition and keeda to do more.

Always buzzing with energy, ideas and all that. Always willing to fire before we take aim. Always wanting to do more. 

Each person at C4E HAS to be special. Each has to build a thriving business with C4E as its incubator. Each must use C4E as a sandbox. Each must take energy from each other and catapult each other higher than what each could individually do!

Right now, some of these that I can talk about are Purple Pencil Project, The Red Sparrow, The Podium, Decoding Draupadi, Titan CS, LHV and others. Right now, C4E is bigger than the sum of these. Some day, each of these HAS to be bigger than the whole of C4E. See this tweet by Elon Musk.

So that.

Recapping… 

C4E has to be a great business to do great business with. And we are a group of tightly-knit, exceptional people, giving our best shot at solving tough problems. And while we do that, we are trying to chase our respective bliss!

If you think you want to be a part of this, come join us! We are really good people to work with!

Really.