To the moon Read online

  And my favourite –

  Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first job as a TV anchor for getting ‘too emotionally invested’ in her stories. She went on to become the undisputed queen of television talk shows and built the Harpo media empire. According to Forbes, she is worth $3 billion today.

  Now, I know at this point you’re probably wondering ‘but how will I pay the bills till I take over the world?’

  And here’s my solution: no one said you can only do one job at a time, right? If you’re passionate about something it won’t feel like work anyway. Even two years into having started my blog, I still worked three other jobs. I had a column with the Mid-Day, a radio show on 94.3 Radio One five nights a week and I was the channel head for digital content at Channel [v]. All these jobs paid my bills and then some, even while the blog did not. My husband (now CEO) was also working at Nomura every day and burning the midnight oil on the blog every night. This way we both continued to learn useful skills that would be gold when we dove in full time with Mike Melli.

  Think of it like this: all through school and college you pay someone to teach you things. And then, when you go out into the real world and get a job, someone is paying you to learn! Use that. This way you have financial security while pursuing your dreams until the time comes where you are confident that you can let everything else go and fly! No parachute required.

  Also, sometimes it helps to set a goal or deadline. When I chose to do the blog full time, we decided to give it a year where I’d quit everything else and Nowshad would support us. That year has turned into a decade, and of course the business, now profitable, fully finances itself and there’s been no looking back!

  Footnote: Remember, there will also be passions that aren’t about a fat paycheque or any paycheque at all. And that’s great too. Going back to Ikigai, what does the world need? If you’re pursuing a passion that fills in that circle, you’re still winning. (But in this case, don’t give up your day job!)

  Q. Wait, MissMalini, what was your passion and how did you make it a career?

  A. You’re reading the book, aren’t you? But funny you ask because it’s time to cue in blog #26…

  Blog #26: Blog, What’s A Blog?

  Note: I may be telling you the story of how I built MissMalini Entertainment but remember, a lot of my learning applies to all kinds of enterprise; one girl’s blog could be another boy’s candy shop.

  In 2008, chances are only a handful of people in India even knew what a blog was, and much less considered it a viable career. Even I stumbled upon the idea over a very serendipitous conversation with friends while on a trip to Dubai.

  I remember distinctly standing around my friend Kanu Gupta’s den, talking about random things and the topic of my Mid-Day gossip column came up. I was talking about how I loved doing it but the editors always chopped it down due to space constraints, which often compromised the essence of my writing. At this point, another friend, Karan Wadhera (and clearly the Wizard of Oz in my case) said, ‘You should start a blog!’ to which I replied, ‘What’s a blog?’ He described it as a personal online journal, or as would be in my case a ‘gossip blog’ akin to PerezHilton.com – a notorious international blogger who blogged celebrity gossip all the way to his own personal stardom. Little did I know that this conversation was going to change my life forever.

  Karan is the kind of person who loves coming up with new ideas and is amazing at it. He’s also supremely effective at getting you jazzed about it to the point that you feel like you simply must do it. And I, being an enthu-cutlet was raring to go about 5 minutes into the conversation. The first order of business – what should we call it? Taking a cue from Perez Hilton’s blog, Karan suggested why not something simple, like my own name? Because we all agreed that something like BollywoodItGirl.com or MasalaBollywoodBabe.com would sound cheesy AF. So, something with ‘Malini’ it would be. My column had gone by the name ‘Malini’s Mumbai’, as did my various radio shows: ‘Tiger Time with Malini’ (obviously sponsored by a beer company, not just for the random love of tigers) and ‘Malini till Midnight’. And then it dawned on us – ‘Miss’ Malini was perfect! Not to mention the delightful alliteration. And so, with my brand-new moniker in place, I was all set to step into the World Wide Web with my very own ‘publication’ of one, to tell the stories that were a shade shy of Page 3.

  Here’s the original email from 1 May 2008 when Karan set up my WordPress account almost a decade ago.

  Wow, right? Who knew? I must give mad props and a giant hug to Karan Wadhera for planting the pixel that has turned into my virtual reality.

  KARAN WADHERA

  The only advice I can give MissMalini is to go with your gut. This media empire has been built in large part by your intuition and creating what you felt was compelling content for your audience. I remember, when we got things going in May 2008, you were ready to soak in all the advice, but you also knew what you did and did not want for this ‘project’. Your instincts have served you well so make sure you continue to rely on them. This business is so much bigger than just ‘Malini,’ but at the core are the foundations and principles that you have set. Stay true to these and congratulations!

  I LOVE to write, and now that I had this exciting new place to publish my own writing – and no editor looming over my head – I dove into it and decided I would blog incessantly about everything. I wrote my very first blog on 1 May 2008 at 11:30 a.m. (it’s still up there on missmalini.wordpress.com) and from then on out, blogging became my greatest, and needless-to-say, most satisfying addiction. I just couldn’t get enough of blogging my life away: people, Page 3 parties, a pair of shoes I just bought, a movie that made me cry, songs that were stuck in my head. And then one day the most wonderful thing happened. Somebody left a comment.

  I’ve since migrated the site and thus lost some of the comments (boohoo) but it said something to the effect of ‘Hi Miss, nice blog. I like your shoes. Keep blogging, I like your style.’ I cannot tell you how utterly delightful that was! Someone somewhere out there, across billions of pages on the internet had stopped to read something I had written and found it interesting enough to leave a comment! (I was probably also equally delighted that people still do read, not just can read.)

  The next thing that happened – almost 6 months into blogging – truly cemented my faith in the fact that this is what would bring me happiness and joy for the rest of my life. It was a night at the Ghetto, which clearly plays a large role in the story of my life. It had been a few weeks since I had said goodbye to my decade-long stint at Radio One and left the station for good, and I was truly blue about it. I remember the last song I had played was ‘Woh Challi’ by Bombay Vikings and putting the faders up for the last time it had felt like a large piece of me, that I so enjoyed sharing with the world, was left behind on the airwaves forever. I seriously thought I’d never again find a job that brought me such exquisite joy.

  Cut to, we were standing around near the bar and I got introduced to someone who asked, ‘What do you do?’ and I offhandedly said, ‘Well, now I’m a blogger’ and this girl said, ‘Oh, what’s your name?’ and as I said, ‘Malini’ her face lit up as she said, ‘Oh! You’re THAT Malini! I love your blog.’ My mind went What? How did that happen? And I remember feeling the exact same gush of joy and elation that I felt when someone appreciated or connected with my show on the radio. I knew this was going to be my next great love affair with entertainment.

  When I started my blog, it was all about me and my own experiences, and then later it became an online ‘magazine’ covering Bollywood, fashion and lifestyle. But over the years it has evolved into what we aspire to be – India’s most influential media network for millennials. In fact, MissMalini.com itself has grown into MissMalini Entertainment and is no longer just a blog at all. We have a full-fledged production house (Agent M Creative), a Blogger Network (Ignite), TV shows on networks like TLC (MissMalini’s World), Zoom (Kya Scene Hai) and VH1 (Inside Access – Season 2 on air now
!) and we create digital radio content for apps like Saavn (Bollywood+). Tomorrow who knows, I’m thinking, virtual reality?

  But no matter what form our digital content takes, we have tried to remain true to the essence of the blog. Keep it personal, keep it relatable and err on the side of happy shiny!

  Footnote: For the longest time my mom thought I was a ‘celebrity internet blocker’. The logic being, that she, as a layman, gets a lot of email SPAM; hence it naturally follows that celebrities must get a lot more SPAM and so my job was probably to ‘block’ their SPAM. The logic is sound as much as it is hilarious, don’t you think?

  Now if you’re ready to become an entrepreneur, I’m willing to share some secrets. Make way for MissMalini’s business advice including: whom NOT to hire!

  Blog #27: The Chosen Ones aka #TeamAwesome

  I have always maintained that the secret to my success has been the love and support of an increasing number of incredibly talented people. The team we have today consists of those who believe in building the best product with the most heart and that is the secret sauce to success.

  I’ll be honest with you – my hiring strategy is what some might call fairly ‘unorthodox’. I go completely on the vibe I get in our first interaction and a large part of that has to do with the amount of energy and passion I see in the person. As a result, the running joke in the office is that I take about 5 minutes to interview and offer you a job if I like you, while the rest of management probably does a much more thorough assessment. In my defence, however, I can happily report that every single person I have hired my way has turned out to be an ace employee who gets along famously with everybody else.

  For instance, I hired several of the team’s first bloggers over social media alone.

  My first employee, aka assistant, Sue Castellino tweeted me one day back in 2010.

  I replied to her saying…

  And then, one weekend I ran into her at a nightclub called Trilogy and we hit it off. And there you go. Boom. MissMalini.com’s first-ever hire!

  SUE CASTELLINO

  Even as Malini and I both sat in her Bandra apartment typing away, I don’t think either of us ever doubted the heights that MissMalini would reach. It has been a great privilege to not only be her first employee, but to also be part of her brand and her story.

  In fact, Rashmi Daryanani who has been with me the longest (6+ years!) was basically hired off a tweet, a blog comment and one email. I have always called Rashmi ‘the glue’ at MissMalini because she has the uncanny ability to make new people comfortable and feel included from the get go and I have seen her do this time and time again. I asked her to write a note on her experience at MM for this book just for you. Over to you, @tehrashminator!

  RASHMI DARYANANI

  Executive Scriptwriter/Video Content Strategist

  I remember the first time I met Malini, back in 2011. She was sitting on her sofa at home, a Band-Aid on her forehead from a partying-too-hard incident. This, believe it or not, was my interview for the job as a Bollywood blogger – an interview I secured after an exchange of just two tweets. I walked out of the room 10 minutes later with a then-fancy video recorder and a job.

  It’s been over 6 years since that job interview, and a lot has changed since then. For one, formal cover letters replaced tweets, and conference rooms replaced sofas.

  I’m lucky enough to say that I was with the company since its very early stages. As such, there’s a lot that I’ve seen: not just the growth of the company, but also the growth of digital and social media in India overall, and its influence on Bollywood; an influence that I’m confident to say MissMalini played a part in.

  When I first joined MissMalini, the scene was very different. For one, digital and social media was just becoming an acceptable medium for film promotions and reaching out to fans – there were only a few celebrities who had a digital (read: Twitter) presence, and almost all of them were there thanks to Karan Johar. Blogs were for hobbyists mainly, so film and celebrity PR reps needed to be convinced to let us attend. And once we did manage to attend, it was another battle altogether. Many of my early days were spent in media ‘pits’ battling photographers and cameramen from TV channels, who were very resentful of the girl who invaded their space to take video and photos on her ‘mobile’. (These were the days when social media coverage hadn’t yet become a thing and taking photos on your cell phone was the mark of a fan who had gate-crashed an event – not someone just doing their job.)

  To be fair, a lot of my early days were peppered with fan-girl moments. It was the ultimate dream job and I was kicked to have landed it. It wasn’t all fun and games, though, something that no one seemed to believe at that point. As far as anyone was concerned, I was paid to hang out with celebrities. But back then we had to do everything ourselves. While most entertainment journalists just had to attend events and then file their stories, we had to attend, record our own video, take our own photos, write, format, Photoshop, edit and upload our own videos it was a four-in-one job, and every day was a new challenge. It was stressful, but exciting.

  In a few short years, we’ve changed four offices, and are currently in a super-cool one. We have different teams dedicated to doing the things everyone used to do individually. We play beer pong on Fridays, and sometimes on Wednesdays if it’s a particularly difficult week. For me, personally, I’ve switched about three different designations, and much of the fan-girling has faded over the years, except when I meet Shah Rukh Khan, but I don’t think there’s anything to be done about that.

  But there are so many things that have remained the same: the sense of family, everyone’s willingness to go above-and-beyond their call of duty, celebrating things big and small, Malini’s uncanny instinct and her ability to still hire someone in 10 minutes or less, the overarching motto of ‘to the moon’ – constantly striving for more, no matter how much we’ve achieved. And, of course: the endless supply of cupcakes.

  In some ways, this journey of several years feels like the journey of a lifetime. And as the company, the film industry and social media continue to grow, I can’t wait to see what other journeys it takes us on, maybe even one to the moon.

  In fact, almost the entire Bombay Bollywood team was hired in a similar fashion. Priyam, Swagata, Divya – 5 minutes, 4 questions and shaadi pakki!* My go-to question – what is your ultimate goal? The answers have been fascinating and Shreemi I’m waiting to read your book next! One of my favourite stories is how I found Meriam Ahari, our director of fashion and beauty. I have a friend Puja Chand in New York, who introduced me to Meriam saying via email that she was looking for a potential editorial position in fashion and beauty at a magazine in India. Needless to say, I staged an intervention and lured her over to the digital side.

  The rest as they say is history. Merm is one of the most glittering members of Team MissMalini. She has infectious energy and has – throughout my arduous book-writing journey – chimed in ‘Ooh, you should put that in your book!’ whenever something cool happens at MM or when I tell her a story from my past. Thank you for the encouragement, it has been vital. May you always be this much sunshine and may all your skirts have pockets!

  Side bar: I saw a movie once called The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh in which the coach helps a fledging basketball team by hiring people of zodiac signs that complimented each other. (The fish being Pisces.) Luckily I haven’t gone that far, but being a Southpaw myself, the fact that there are several left-handed people in the office is probably no coincidence!

  The thing about lefties is that we have this unspoken understanding about our own awesomeness, which we communicate silently across the room when in the presence of another left-handed person. Obviously, it sounds too obnoxious to say out loud, so there’s never a ‘right’ time to bring it up, but if you’re a southpaw, you know exactly what I mean. I recently met this awesome makeup artist who is not only a leftie, but an Allahabadi (like me), which meant that we immediately bonded for life. (Thank you Elton Fern
andez for the intro.) Manjari Malik gave up a desk job at a popular TV station to pursue her love of make up a year ago and is finally living her dream. Her next stop will undoubtedly be Bollywood where she’s looking to make her left-handed mark! #GottaLoveLefties

  Funny thing is, I was watching a documentary on Netflix recently about the comedian Seinfeld called Jerry Before Seinfeld and he revealed that the first joke he ever told on stage was about being left-handed.

  ‘I’m left-handed. Left-handed people do not lie that the word “left” is so often associated with negative things: Two left feet, left-handed compliment, what are we having for dinner — leftovers. You go to a party, there’s nobody there, where did everybody go? They left.’

  I thought that was awesome. And now, just to prove my point, I feel compelled to share a list of some of the most awesome left-handed people in the world. Amitabh Bachchan, Barack Obama, Narendra Modi, Laxmi Mittal, Hugh Jackman, Sachin Tendulkar, Karan Johar, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, Prince William, Robert De Niro, Justin Bieber, Julia Roberts, Jim Carrey, Lady Gaga, Lewis Carroll, Kurt Cobain, Michelangelo – yeah like the painter, Kermit the Frog, Marylin Monroe, Ratan Tata, Yuvraj Singh, Bill Gates; do you see my point? #LeftiesRule

  But seriously, it is crucial to build a team that works well and plays even better together. Because teamwork makes the dream work! I have been fortunate enough to find people, who despite being completely unique and different from one another, embrace each other fully without judgement. And that brings me to company culture.

  Over the years I have visited several large companies around the world from H&M to Gillette and been impressed by two things each time. The fact that they have an extremely well-defined set of corporate values, and that every single person in the company (down to the janitor) knows what these are. I would encourage you to define what your values are, write them down even and share them with everyone who joins your enterprise. In fact, H&M conducts an interesting exercise globally where they ask each new prospective employee to share their own personal values to see if they align well with the company’s.