Tag: Manas Ayare

Wk 12-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes and thoughts from Week 12, 2025

Here are notes from week 12 of 2025.

I am in Delhi. And unlike other Delhi trips, I was mostly homebound. I didn’t step out as much as I do on other trips. I did meet a few people. I went for a walk with Kunal. And then some. But more or less I was home.

Oh, and I took easy this week. I didnt invest too much time or effort in trying to meet people. I have this new found policy – I will match the effort you make to be around me. In case I REALLY need you, want you etc, I will make extra effort. But more often than not I’ve realised that I don’t need to go out of my way. For example, this person – I call her THE ABSOLUTE BEST hire for C4E that we will never be able to hire – I’ve been trying to meet her for 6 months. And each time I am in Delhi, she’s one of the first people I text. And each time, something or the other happens at her end and we dont meet. This time, I decided to not bother. I know my loss but ek nahi to koi aur sahi. I can’t spend my life waiting for one person to show up. And thus I am gonna choose people who choose me. Simple.

PS: Am I wrong? PLEASE do let me know.

And with that rant, moving onto the review.

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by? And the next week!

I was to work on the 2025 plan and Book 2.

I didnt make any progress on either. No, I didnt not think about them – just that the laziness of being in Delhi and lot of action on the work front had the better of me.

And no, I am not giving up on either. I will revisit these at some time. Book 2 is easy. Thanks to Bri and Claude, I am ok on that. I spend enough time talking about it, thinking about it that I am confident that it would happen this year. I wanted to push the first draft by end of Mar. That may still happen if I can find time once I am back in Bom. If not that, then by 15th April for sure.

On the 2025 plan, I am not so confident. But I will make it happen eventually.

Moving on…

☑️ What did I get done this week?

I will give a one-line report on things I got done on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health – I was home for the large part of the week. And that means I ate home cooked food. I still feel bloated and I get sleepy right after I eat but at least my sleep is better. Once I am back in Mumbai (on Monday), I will work towards building my kitchen. I am also gonna invest in health (gym etc). I wrote about it last week. I just need to action it. So yay!
I will give myself a 0 on this.

Meru – Regular work. Some products are close to seeing the MVP ready stage. We are moving with hiring. And some more action.
I will give myself a 0 on this.

C4E – Nothing much. Actually -1 on this. Reasons beyond this blog.
So -1

Brand SG – Nothing on this either.
Again, -1.

People – I loved the people I met while I was in Delhi. Plus thanks to Meru, I am meeting more people.
So, +1 on this.

Book 2 – Didnt write as much but I did move the needle.
However, I will give myself a 0.

Shauk – Nothing on this. The list of open projects is long – Madhushala, Aakanksha, Network School (:(), Poker, Optimist Manifesto and many many more.
Another -1

So the overall score is -3 for this week.
Trends from the pevious weeks: -2, -1

The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.
Added this to my tracker too.

📊 The tracker from the last weeks

Here’s the tracker.

I love all the green on sleep hours and recovery.

I think the two of these things are good because I am eating better. Even though I am walking less than average, I am still ok. Guess its the food.

The other highlight is that I am unable to track money when I am home. Even though, this Delhi trip I stepped out far less than I would normally do, I did spend money and yet I didnt track it.

My emotions have been suprisingly in check. For all the hatred that I give to delhi, I am amazed that the things I track are actually, on track!

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from the week gone by.
Not too many. I told ya that whne I am in Delhi, my productivity goes for a toss.

Do lemme know which one you thought was the best.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

Not too many. Just one. Even though I have nothing, I dont want to remove this section.

  1. The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. Here.
  2. Self promotion – Wrote this. Also, updated the contact page.

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the week.

Here are some from this week.

A/ Ayush (from Notice)
Met Ayush. He’s the founder of Notice. He’s 24 and WHAT A GUY! I wish I had his brains and talent at that age. I want to do something with him. I dont know what. But parking it here.

B/ SoG 2025
I met a few bright people while I was in Delhi. I plan to bind them in a group or something. And I want to call it SoG 2025.

Unlike other SoG cohorts, I am trying this one to have “older” folks (people who are ~25) and push each of those to make 10X than what they make right now. For example, if I could help Ayush scale Notice 10X? Assuming, he’d want to work with me.

To be honest, I am little out of my depth here but what’s the point of life if we don’t try?

This is in continuation to what I wrote last week about how I want to spend my time and money here.

Coming back.

I made a post on twitter / linkedin asking people to nominate themselves. I’ve got a few replies. Let’s see what I do with it.

Oh, and if you are reading this and you have folks to recommend, please lemme know. I really can make a LOT of difference to lives of people.

C/ What did you get done in last week?
Since the Elon tweet and now with Meru, I am learning an incredible lesson. That things need to move week on week. And they need to be tangible. And we need to be high-agency AF.

And thus I am implementing this across my life. And I will implement this across all the things I do. If you are not high-agency, I dont want you around me. Simple.

D/ Ek Aur Panna
I decided to write off one more friend from my life. I wont talk more about it here but I am unable to operate when I am not treated with kindness. And this is when I’ve invested time, energy and effort into helping you build you life. Pavithra taught my recently that I shouldnt look at things in terms of a transaction but I dont want to be in rooms where I am not respected.

I will choose to be kind, polite, supportive and all that but if you cant treat me well, you could be whoever, I am out.

Also, I need to think – if I am the one who’s writing off people at this speed, will I ever have friends and family left when I am old?

Also, if you are reading this, is this my Ego at play? Help please!

E/ Home
I have made a decision that each month I will come home for a week.

It will mess with work and health and money and all that but I will. In fact, I will book tickets in advance (I cant book them right now – haath thoda tang hai) but I will book these. Till I have enough money to get my parents to move to Mumbai.

F/ Founder Brand
Met this young founder who thinks that building a founder brand will sell his products. I had to tell him to not ape others blindly. While founder brand is an important thing, it can’t be THE only thing! May be I will record a podcast on this. CC AK. Idea for the next episode.

G/ The head in the ass behaviour of someone I respect
Again, related to D above, yet another gent seems to have gotten so big that he’s got his head up his backside. This one is from MDI and is a self-appointed leader of a random group. I dont know what happens to people when they grow big!

Also, my decision on D above, is it because I have my head in my ass?

H/ SG Helps on Marketing
Thanks to this tweet, a couple of people filled in the form. And I spoke to one of those. And again, I was blown by the talent of that person. I think I have stumbled on to something interesting with it. Must find a way to scale it.

I / Dubai
I seem to have trained the algo on Insta on Dubai.

And I know that at least for the foreseeable future, Dubai is not happening. So I need to retrain my algo. Having said that, I want C to continue to focus on building C4E to be a borderless business (even though the world we live in seems to closing with each passing day). Dunno what she wants. I will not push her and let things take their course.

J/ C4E…
…is closing the year with a flat line compared to last year (no growth, no degrowth) in terms of topline and profits.

Not a good news. I was supposed to do 40 crores of topline this year. TBH, we would have been 2X last year if not for the bad last few months.

Again, on this, I want Chandni to write an annual report for all our stakeholders. Again, her wish if she wants to.

K/ Workshop on Taste.
Manas would’ve taken the workshop on Saturday. I was unable to attend (cos am in Delhi). Hope people would have had fun!

To be honest, I am not sure if I like that I am missing all these bombs that we are planting at C4E. I do these becuase I like to do things but if I am not there, then what? But I jknow that I need to focus on buliding Meru to be able to have more.

Sigh!

L/ Other things that I want to capture but I may not spill too many words…

  1. Lesson on tipping from HT. I will ensure that I will tip EACH place I am at. I know I dont have enough but I will ensure that whatever I have gets distributed well.
  2. Wall of Portfolios is an incredible idea that I wish I had built! I will reach out to each person on that wall and try to make friends.
  3. Booked a wrong flight. I typically don’t make mistakes with these things but I did. And thus this needs to be captured. 
  4. Worked from a McD for three days last week. My soul is crying. 😀 
  5. Had Wai Wai Sadako at Yeti. Loved it. Been in love with it since I went to EBC.
  6. Met friends from childhood – Monu, Kunal. I wish I could live around them. But life has happened. I was reading something that says more than 95% people still live in / around the same pincode where they were born! 

🧠 Reminders from last week

I am adding this section. To capture things that I want to not forget. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates.

Here are things from the past weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.

  1. Health
    • Kitchen setup
    • Gym membership
  2. C4E
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency / Upwork
  3. Shauk / Personal
    • Poker
    • Better dressed SG
    • Use of money / time
    • Love
    • Demand more from life

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Survive.

No large, deep thoughts. Just plain old being.

In the previous weeks, it’s been Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.

—

Ok!
This is it for the week gone by. Late by a day. But it’s here. Yay!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

PPS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (missed), 10, 11

Wk 08-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes from the 8th week of 2025.

This one comes from Bangalore.
And I am listening to this as I write this.

So, I had decided that I will not take flights this year. But I took one. I have talked about why I did that. And oh boy, am I glad I took it! I missed that entire grind of cheap yet comfortable travel, seeing new things, meeting new people, and observing things. The curious cat old man in me is thrilled!

Must reconsider the decision to not take flights. The largest reason for not taking flights is that it fucks with the routine but at least I’ve been consistent with my daily tracker. And if I can be ok with that, I think I can add other things (food, yoga etc). Just that I will not be able to travel light. And that’s ok.

Ok moving on. Here’s my update.

What I was supposed to do in the week gone by. And my report on the same.

A/ 2025 plan.
This remains open. I will work on this someday 😀

Vivek often calls it the State of the Union. Lol!

B/ Health
I took my weight before I left for Bangalore (I was 89 KGs). I will measure it again once I am back. While I am here, I am being mindful about what I eat and how I eat and all that. I am also walking a lot more. It helps that I picked a guest house near the client’s office.

I am yet to fully assume the identity of a healthy person but it’s WIP. Last night I was craving for a pizza. But I replaced that with chips etc. Lol!

Like I said last week, my health will be my north star.

What did I get done this week?

I am adding this here from this week on.

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. C4E
  3. Brand SG
  4. Startup (this may take up C4E’s place in the list)
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

I will give a one-line report on things I got done. Done. Shipped. Not WIP. As I go along, I will add more to this but today, one line update.

Health – Walked an average of 9K steps this week. Meditated twice this week. At some point, will add yoga and muscle-building things.

C4E – In Bangalore to meet a client. Put in the process for the team to work without me. So far, we seem to be ok with it. However, we’ve not been stress tested yet. C and F seem to be doing well with it. On the Labs piece, the website is live. AK is leading the team of BK, SJ, KA and others and shipping things. So that’s cool.

Brand SG – I am a lot more visible on the internet. Thanks to AK in large. I also kickstarted the Cockroach podcast. We call it The Optimists Manifesto. Read more about it here. The idea is to talk to people who’ve survived despite everything around them!

Startup – Helped team get ready for launch. There’ve been hiccups (new team and all that) but learning!

People – Did nothing.

Book 2 – “Wrote” a few chapters with the help of Claude. Shared some of those with the beat readers group (in case you want to help me, join this).

Shauk – Nothing on this.

I will also make a tracker on this.
Oh my love for forms and trackers ;P

The tracker from the week that went by.

Here’s the tracker from the week gone by.


Look at the averages column. Highlights…

I am incredibly stoked that I averaged 10K steps. Subendhu averaged almost 12K steps in the last year. On the YTD, I am at 8900 steps. I need to be able to beat him. Let’s see how it goes.

I also added meditation. I haven’t added for the 23rd (today).

Finally, sleep seems to be at a 6-hour average mark. I’ve tried everything but I am unable to get more than 6 on average, unless I am tired. Once I start with the workouts, this will probably go down. Let’s see.

Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos.

This one is a mix of app screenshots and photos that I took.
Nothing special to be honest.
If you see something interesting, please let me know.

Interesting Reads

Here’s a list of things that I read / saw / consumed that left an impact on it. In some cases, I went and stirred up debate in my network.

Here’s a list. In no particular order.

  1. This video on Instagram – link. Hits you in the gut about how you let go of your life.
  2. Blume’s Annual Report – link – yet to read it. I typically take a print and read this. Yet to do so.
  3. Buffett’s annual letter is here. Again, yet to read.
  4. This tweet. I want to grow my account as well! Only for this reason (access)
  5. This thread on Reddit about how people in Nepal are building a video editing agency. Must replicate this in India for C4E.
  6. This post by Ankush Datar on legacy. And why it’s overrated.
  7. Ian Chappell retires from writing. Love such writing!

Highlights, reflections and notes from the week.

In no order…

A/ People Business
It became evident that at C4E, we are not an agency. We are in the people business! Over the week, met multiple people and held multiple conversations where this was reaffirmed. What we do at C4E is communication but we are in the people business. As Pradeep San often said about Gravity – we are in the business of saving jobs. That’s a separate story for another day. But at this time, we are in people business and we need to reorient ourselves to that.

B/ Hemant and Gokul
The two of them are different as chalk and cheese. And yet both of them are very very intriguing and inspiring. Each time I spend time with either, I am amazed at the capacity of a human mind to think that much. The other thing that is common to both, is, that their ideas are dense and the depth of their thoughts makes it tough for an average Aman (like me) to comprehend their ideas. I wish I could find a way to make their thoughts more accessible to the world!

Wait.
Who’s permission do I need? A lot of their inputs are in the public domain. Why can’t I start repurposing and talk about that in my words, on my blogs. What say? And, any volunteers?

C/ Sur
This dawned onto on Saturday. I am seeing C now run the business. I have played a tiny part in her life and now I need to find a way to not get into her way. More on this on my roam. But had to be captured.

Why Sur? Well, read this to find out.

D/ Poker + Writing + Teaching
One of my lifegoals is to be on the road, meet people and never worry about money. Sometime in the past I had imagined that I would be able to become a professional poker player (touring the world, playing in tourneys), teach at various colleges (while I am on the road) and write about my experiences while I do first two.

It’s great on paper. Except that I don’t have poker skills. And I have tried to learn and yet I am not good. Something in the week gone by reminded me of this goal. May be I will put a deadline on my life experiments and pick this up. May be when my parents are gone, I will become a full-time hippie traveller. A bald hippie.

And no, it’s not easy to imagine a life where my parents are not around.

E/ Ego in action
I saw my Ego in action. On at least two occasions. One with an old client. One with a potential client.

Must prevent this.

I don’t want to get into too many details (clients or whatever) but what I did was wrong and I shouldn’t have been told by my team to not do this. I know that some time this will come and bite me in the back but I must check this.

PS: I also saw my humility in action 😀
I will not talk about this.

F/ Manas Ayare (linkedin)
Met this boy at a Starbucks. Spotted some crazy stickers on his laptop. Got talking. And then from there on, one thing led to another. Now, his company and C4E are offering a workshop!

AK is leading this from C4E. Here are the details.

G/ Nakul Kumar (Cashify)
Met Nakul for dinner. And it was incredible. Each time I meet him, its incredible. Got so many lessons. The biggest one is that I need to build a process-first company. So far we are not. There’s more. On my Roam.

Oh while I was there, I bumped into a classmate from MDI. Each time I meet him, its at a lounge, a restaurant etc. Love these serendipitous meetings.

H/ Other things that I want to capture but I may not spill too many words on those.

  1. Must build media! The new podcast may be helpful.
  2. Must invest more in young people.
  3. Gave a 10K INR grant to a 16-year-old. SoG in action!
  4. Saw this news about Tyreplex. Reminded me of xTyres.
  5. This one by Bri is nice. I wish I had this clarity at the age of 19. Or whatever her age is.
  6. Talked to Dr Malpani. Inspired to do more. Especially his idea of building an ecosystem of startups in India.
  7. Got access to NeoSapien. Playing with it. Let’s see where we get with it.
  8. I love eggs!
  9. I cleaned by followers / following list on X, Insta and other places. I am getting more mindful about how I curate my conversations.
  10. Removed the cover from the new phone. TBH, I don’t like it much. But now that I have bought it, I am with it for a year at least. And then we shall see what to do with it.

Guess this is it.

So, one large takeaway from the week?

In one word?
Taste.

I’ve read, thought, and talked about it so much that it’s funny. In fact it has spilled from various conversations over the last week as well. But taste it is.

The close second is community. But at this time, I will stick with taste. I even recorded a podcast on it. Here.

For context, last week, it was Respect. And it was Money and People before that.

—

Ok!
This is it!
Lemme know what you think.
Gotta go.
See you around.

Oh, here are the previous editions: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes.