How I got into marketing
When I was in college, I had no idea what to do with my life. I got into an engineering college because I liked science and my Dad said it's the safest path that'd keep all other career options open, shall I decide to pursue something else later.
In college, I understood pretty quickly that the game is to pass exams and get the highest paying job out of campus. But I was least interested in playing that game.
To me, it was foolish to chase money without knowing myself. I actually did not think it was possible to make a lot of money without self-awareness. And even if it was, I didn't want to lose my soul while doing so.
So, all my college life went into trying different experiences and learning what i'm capable of. One such experience was me being invited to become one of the directors of a national non-profit. It was run by a VP at one of the Big Fours.
So I go to his office in Gurgaon, and see all these huge buildings. Also got a chance to see them from the inside – the cubicles. I remember staring at his eyes and asking him, "hey man, what happened to your eyes?" they were super red. and I mean, super
he said, "I've been working 14 hrs a day"
I asked myself: Is this what all the campus students are working hard towards? are we all going to meet with the same fate?
It was clear to me that I did not want that life. So in that very instant, I decided to never work for an MNC.
Back then, in 2016, startups were all the rage. I got placed in the very first startup that came to our campus for placements (now valued at $13b), as an Operations Manager.
Did Ops for about ~3 years, only to realise that it wasn't the thing that I could be great at. I wanted to move towards a more people-centric role. The 3 paths that I had in mind -
- UX
- Sales
- Marketing
Tried them all – in that order.
ux - loved it intellectually, but too much hierarchy. also requires a decent visual taste (something I lacked)
sales - too much chasing, for my taste. also becomes repetitive after a certain point.
marketing - felt like the best fit — the idea that we can influence people indirectly, without chasing them — really attracted me
Lucky enough, I met this guy in a carpool ride. We were having beer together and he casually asked me what i'm up to. I told him about my marketing bootcamp. Upon hearing, he asked me if I could visit his office to have a look at one of the marketing problem statements they were juggling with.
I went. The problem statement looked interesting. I decided to take accountability for solving the problem, without worrying too much about what they'd pay me. In short, they were making a bunch of youtube videos every week, but no one was watching, let alone subscribing to their channel.
I worked with them for around ~18 months, and helped grow their channel to over 1 million subscribers – starting from 2k.
That was my first break in Marketing.
Since then, I never looked back. Kept taking up different projects – literally took up any problem statement that interested (and challenged) me, and succeeded in all of them.