To the moon Read online

  Here’s something I always ask, ‘What is your dream job, what do you ultimately want to be?’ The answer to this question will not only give you a great deal of insight into the person and their level of ambition, but it will help you define a role for them at your company that should eventually pave a way for them to get there. Reason being this: I’m living my dream, but this may not be your dream, so how about I find a job for you at my company that eventually gets you to your dream? That way you will greatly enjoy working here knowing that you’re on your way to your own ultimate destination and I will get the best possible value out of you as an employee. Everybody wins! Besides, EPIC karma points if you help somebody fulfil their life’s dream, right?

  I believe this also solves the problem of the ‘inherently unemployable millennial’, something you hear thrown around a lot these days. In fact, I saw this amazing video of Simon Sinek – a motivational speaker and marketing consultant about millennials in the workplace. (Particularly important because by 2030, millennials – people born in 1984 and after – will represent 75 per cent of the global workforce.) He addresses the question: are millennials unemployable?

  In his interview, he said, ‘Millennials are accused of being entitled and narcissistic, self-interested, unfocused and lazy,’ which as you would imagine makes them unemployable, but then he explains how they got there.

  ‘Parents that told their kids they could have anything they wanted, just because they wanted it.’

  ‘Social media that is all about putting filters on things and pretending your life is amazing even when you’re depressed leading to an entire generation growing up with low self-esteem.’

  ‘They’ve grown up in a world of instant gratification. You want to buy something; you go on Amazon and it arrives the next day. You want to watch a movie, log on and watch. You want to watch a TV show, binge. You want to go on a date? Swipe right. Everything you want – instant gratification. Except, job satisfaction and strength of relationships; they are slow, meandering, uncomfortable, messy processes.’

  ‘So we’re taking this amazing group of young, fantastic kids who were just dealt a bad hand and it’s no fault of their own, and we put them in corporate environments that care more about the numbers than they do about the kids. They care more about the short-term gains than the life of this young human being.’1

  And so, I say, ask them their dreams and they’ll help you make yours come true on the way to theirs.

  Personally, I must say we’ve been very lucky in the millennial department. The millennials of #TeamMissMalini are sharp, enthusiastic, hardworking, motivated and FUN. (Not to mention ‘ridiculously good looking’ – what up Zoolander reference!) I love that they each have such unique and entertaining personalities (I’m looking at you, Priyam).

  When it comes to the pre-millennial management crew (I think they used to call us Gen Y?) I have the most incredible business partners you could ever imagine. MissMalini.com started in 2010 in my apartment in Bandra when ‘the office’ was my sofa and I had one assistant blogger (Sue). Since then Mike Melli has been a founding member of the business and played the role of everything from my business manager to body guard in the years that followed, up until he took on the role of Chief Revenue Officer a few years ago. Nowshad jumped ship from his investment banking job and became the CEO in 2012, and I know for a fact the business would not be where it is today without these two crusaders.

  It is hard to put into words how much I love and respect Mike for all the life he has poured into this dream to make it his own. We always said we would look back one day from a legit office on our pink sofa and see how far we’ve come. Now the dream is much bigger and our rocket ship that much more sparkly. I thought you would like to hear from my favourite Italian–American (who often gets mistaken for a Punjabi) on what the ride has been like for him. Over to you, Mike!

  E= MCBlogged

  For the last eight years, I have called Bombay my home, and I have lived here longer than any single place since childhood. In three more years, I will have lived here longer even than my birth city in Connecticut, USA. I am a Bandra boy through and through, as evidenced by my chappal to shoe ratio. There was no job waiting for me, I didn’t speak Hindi, and I am not ethnically Indian, (a fact that has become harder and harder to convince people of over the years), so it is no surprise that every single person I meet asks me some version of, ‘Why did you move here and how have you stayed for so long?’

  It’s a hard question to answer because there is no solitary reason why this vibrant, frustrating, electrifying, maddening city, is still the only place I want to be eight years on. The complete answer for me, and I’m sure for many Mumbaikars, is a complex, non-binary, mishmash of factors that no matter how you add them all up, you just want to be here. We make it work, and we take pride in that! We work hard, play hard and cling to the hope that today’s frustrations are outweighed by tomorrow’s successes. We take all our personal variables and craft them into a mental formula that makes sense of it all.

  The rent is high…but the nightlife is great.

  The city is safe…but the infrastructure is horrendous.

  Jobs options are great…but, good god, the infrastructure is so bad!

  The pollution is bad…buuut it’s not as bad as Delhi.

  I’ll be a small fish in a big pond…but there are so many interesting creatures swimming about.

  And it’s those interesting people that I think factors most strongly into our calculations. Of all the millions of personal variables that go into all the millions of mental formulas we craft to make sense of our lives; the most important consideration is often the people who surround us.

  Enter, Malini Ex Machina – the marvellous variable that has brought equality to countless, seemingly unsolvable, equations.

  ((Bustling city * Business opportunity) / (Cost of living - friend’s couch to crash)) + Malini’s Mumbai = ‘Mom, I’m moving to India…no I.N.D.I.A., the country.’

  There tends to be one person in every friend group who brings everyone together. That one person who puts in the effort to check all the options, make all the calls and relentlessly insists that you come out, and stay out. Without that person, we would surely spend even more nights at home binge watching TV or Netflix than we do already. We love this person for getting us off our butt and filling our Facebook pages with new memories. It didn’t take me long to realize that Malini was that person in Mumbai. Actually, it only took the first time I hung out with her and her friends. It was on my second visit to India in 2008.

  She had this tiny studio apartment with room enough for only a few people inside, but it opened into a beautiful garden that overlooked the ocean and Haji Ali Dargah. She called everyone over to her place to pregame and since I had not yet been acquainted with IST, I was of course the first person there. We had met only once before through our mutual friend Karan, but it was at a noisy club so she didn’t know me. But that doesn’t matter much with Malini. She talked me up and told me all about Bombay and her life until her other friends started to arrive. There wasn’t a moment of awkwardness in more than 30 minutes of talking to some random friend of a friend visiting from America who showed up at 9:00 p.m. And even after her friends started to trickle in, she kept me engaged with all the conversations and introduced me to every guest, as she did with everyone else who joined. After an hour or so there were at least fifteen people hanging out on the terrace and garden. A few people, like me, were only there visiting and didn’t know anyone else, but with Malini at the helm, everyone was jiving!

  Malini worked at MTV and was an RJ on the side, one person was a theatre actor, a few were producers/directors, a few were PR/Marketing consultants, one had founded a startup tech business, someone else was a dancer/choreographer who had her own studio, a few were singer/musicians, a fashion designer, a stylist, a photographer, and one had her own bakery and brought us all treats. What a mix! And almost everyone was working for themselves, doing their own th
ing. Back in my hometown, a group of fifteen people would typically be comprised of a few teachers, a few accountants, a few in sales/retail, and a few bartenders or waiters. The contrast was stark, and since it was my first time at a Bombay house party meeting real Mumbaikars, I could only assume that this was an average cross section of the city’s inhabitants.

  After a few rounds, and a few classic Malini ice-breaker games, everyone felt like they knew each other, and when we later went out (to the Ghetto in Breach Candy), we all had a blast. That’s when I first knew there was something special about Malini. It was obvious that the thing she cared most about was making sure everyone else was having a good time and being included, and that’s a special quality. A quality that manifests today in the virtual world to millions of people.

  (Malini House Party)/Hodgy Podgy GameGhetto) * Awesome people = Next round is on me!

  With someone like Malini as an exciting new friend, I shed any apprehensions of moving to a new city half-way around the world. Our mutual friend Karan was working on some interesting projects in the entertainment space that I was going to help with (in exchange for helping myself to his guest room), and I thought it would be a nice little adventure. Just a little break from the American corporate grind. Six months, maybe a year, and then I would probably go back to a ‘regular’ job in the U.S…that was the plan.

  In those first few months living in Bombay I observed there are two types of non-NRI expats (fancy terminology for white people) who come to India. The first type realizes early on that they do not want to be in India for any extended period, and many of them aspire of moving somewhere else in Asia with bigger business and luxuries, like Singapore or Hong Kong, after a short stint on the sub-continent. For this group, the problems and challenges of functioning and working in India outweigh the opportunity, and their personal equations don’t add up. The second type of white person non-NRI expat sees India as the final destination. They face the same problems and challenges of the first group, but to them it’s a small price to pay for the experience and the opportunity. Their equations add up. That’s why you don’t meet many foreigners who are here for a ‘middle amount’ of time. They’re either in and out, or you’re stuck with them.

  I knew immediately that I was in the latter group, and I was amazed by what that meant for my life here. I fell in love with India, and I felt that India loved me right back. Due to the sheer volume of how many cool people Malini knew, my circle of friends grew exponentially in that first year. I was welcomed everywhere, and invited to three or four different outings every week. During the day, I would go on meetings looking for new opportunities, and making business contacts, and at night I would cut loose with the gang. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a fancy wardrobe, or a car or a full-time job, or any semblance of dancing skills (although my sangeet game is now on point). No, in Bombay it seemed that the only thing that mattered was if you’re a fun, nice person…even if you didn’t know the words to all the Bollywood songs.

  f (xBollywood Song) * л - Mouthing fake lyrics / Put your hands up [x]! + Malini’s encouraging smile = I think this is my new home

  By 2010, Malini’s passion project – a hobby blog called MissMalini.com – had begun to amass a loyal following. People would organically share and comment on her content because there was no one else bringing a relatable, friendly voice to the world of Bollywood and entertainment, especially not in the digital space. She had social media followers way before it was cool (I remember vividly when we threw a party at Hard Rock Mumbai to celebrate reaching 1,000 Twitter followers, because that was a big accomplishment back then). She was a ‘digital influencer’ before the term was known to most marketers in India, and because of that influence she soon had consumer brands reaching out to her for endorsements.

  Malini never liked having ‘business-y’ conversations, so towards the end of 2010, when there were more brands reaching out to her than she had time to respond, I asked if she would like some help. I remember before I interacted with the first brand as her representative, she laid down one rule – ‘I only want to talk about brands that I like.’ Her guiding principles were to put the reader first and to never compromise on our values. Putting out positive, quality content, with proper grammar, and accurate information was paramount. We would be grateful and positive with any celebrity who gives us their time, and we would work ethically with brands, on our own terms.

  From day one we determined to not publish unsubstantiated rumours, and to not be intentionally mean or negative in covering any celebrities. We knew that certain rumours or false stories could bring us millions of page views and thousands of new followers, but that was not worth journalistic integrity and we did not want to cause any celebrities duress. From day one we clearly alerted our readers whenever a brand was sponsoring content, years before the social media networks started making it compulsory. We knew that the brands would push back because maybe a few less people would read it knowing that it was sponsored, but that was not worth misleading any of our readers.

  We were the first independent publisher in India to offer content marketing, so in a way we invented the market. We were in this for the long haul, and were willing to be patient. We had no problem turning down money from brands if we didn’t like the content, or if they refused to disclose that it was a sponsored post. Malini’s instinct was just always correct. She knew that if something rubbed her the wrong way, it would probably rub her followers the wrong way. We always did what we thought was right and fair, and whichever brands were willing to take our lead, we were happy to have them. We earned a reputation on the business side of being honest and hardworking, and a reputation with our audience of being authentic and engaging.

  (400 ft2 / 5 team members *Σcoconut= Welcome to MM World Headquarters

  It was clear to myself, Malini, and her then-fiancé Nowshad, that there was a real business here, and that was validated by way of an early acquisition offer that Malini wisely turned down on my and Nowshad’s advice in early 2011. Her conditions to turn down the deal were that I come on full time right away, and that Nowshad would help every night after his day job until and join by the end of the year, after hopefully securing some investment money for expansion. By the second half of 2011, we were earning enough revenue to hire a small, full-time staff of bloggers, and open our first office in a little run-down building that was awaiting redevelopment. Later that year, Nowshad joined us as planned, and the three of us haven’t looked back in more than six years.

  In early 2012, we secured our first investment funding with a wonderful group of angel investors, and we were off to the races! No matter how big we would grow, we committed to each other that we would never cast aside our values, never stop working to build a reputable, successful, game-changing business. Over time we could attract amazing young talent, and train them to work in the restless world of content marketing. We even attracted one not-so-young, amazing talent, Sujal Shah, to become our fourth partner and guide us operationally (just kidding, Suj!). He is an industry veteran with a wide network of contacts, and with him on our side, along with the group of young rock stars who had joined the team, the business grew to new heights.

  As an entrepreneur, it can be hard to remember all the old milestones and accomplishments in your business, because new goals and targets are constantly being set. But some stand out. I remember the first time we organized a big event, our first professional photo shoot, the first time we got partnership status at fashion week, each time we moved into a bigger office, the first time we pitched a TV show idea, the first time we watched our own TV show on air, the first time we closed a 1 crore deal, the first time we produced an ad film, the first time we won a major industry award for content marketing, the times we crossed 500K, and 1 million, and 2 million followers on our different social media pages, all the times Sujal drilled ‘process, process, process!’ into our heads to help us mature as managers and leaders. A dozen things out of ten thousand are what stand out after
almost seven years in business, but every step along the way we did what all of us do, we just tried to make it all add up. We made the equation work.

  T + L + C – NDTV ±Zoom / 3 sponsors – Kickass Director friend = MissMalini’s World, Season 1

  If we had to lose a little money to make a great video, we did it. If Malini needed to make an extra appearance so someone else would make an appearance for us, we did it. If we had to creatively figure out a barter arrangement so that our logo would appear somewhere, we did it. We knew we would never compromise on our values, but everything else was on the table as we swam through the ocean that is Bombay (sometimes literally during monsoon season).

  So, for anyone who is an aspiring content creator here’s my advice – be relentless, be passionate, do what you feel is right and fair no matter what, and most importantly, find your Malini Ex Machina. Find people that make you feel better about yourself and who appreciate you, and take their help to solve all your tricky equations. Forty employees, eight years, five business visas, four offices, two rounds of investment funding, one wife, and one adopted puppy later, and it hasn’t failed me yet. I found my home here, I found my career calling here, and I fell in love with my wife Sanskruti, the only woman in my life more instrumental to my happiness than Malini (okay maybe our puppy daughter, Zelda, too).

  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not going to be all peaches and sunshine. If you stick your neck out to do something great, you’re going to be beat up along the way…that much is inevitable. You can plan out your life and your career all you want, but as the inimitable Mike Tyson once said, ‘Everybody has a plan ‘till you get punched in the face.’ It will happen more than once, maybe even when you’re at your lowest point when everything feels like it’s crashing down, but you can get through it. You will come to see that our failures teach us more than our successes, and that nothing can stop the power of positivity + passion + work ethic. With this outlook, you can get yourself to anywhere you want to be, even the moon.