Documenting a startup journey!
Run by a bestselling author, campaign consultant and data analyst, BehindTheBuild is your inside view into the building and scaling of a startup from scratch. On this website and newsletter, I’m documenting my learning as I build entrepreneurial ventures and interact with successful entrepreneurs and business leaders in the process!
Why follow the journey?
Because it’ll be awesome!
Seriously though, I see several people in the US building in public, sharing insights and encouraging each other to build world changing startups. There just isn’t much of this content from developing nations, and I believe that needs to change.
This blog and newsletter will provide you with weekly updates – the kind that one would usually write for their investors and advisors – on what I’m building, how I’m doing, what strategies are working and what’s not. I’ll share real revenue numbers and costs that I incur while building this business so that you can gain greater insight into just what it takes, and maybe take on the challenge of building a startup yourself!
About Me
I’ve been working in the political and policy space for the last 7 years. I was a Legislative Assistant to Member of Parliament (LAMP) Fellow and worked on providing policy inputs to a Member of the Indian Parliament right out of college. Since then, I’ve worked with India’s largest political consultancy, headed data analytics and designed campaigns for some of India’s largest political parties in state level elections, ran a successful political consultancy firm and authored two bestselling books!
In the process of doing all of that, I’ve picked up some skills that apply to business and startups. Market research, ability to understand what’s resonating and what’s not, designing campaigns, digital marketing, getting things to go viral and more.
I can also code a little, but for this challenge I’m largely going to depend on no-code / low-code tools to create the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to test out the market before raising funds from investors and building a full fledged product. This means early on, I’ll also depend on contractors and freelancers.
My first book, How to Win an Indian Election (Penguin, 2019) became an instant national bestseller and the second book The Art of Conjuring Alternate Realities: How Information Warfare Shapes Your World (HarperCollins, 2021) is endorsed by intelligence officials from the US, UK and India. It covers how information warfare techniques are used in politics, geopolitics and by marketers to shape our lives. I believe this experience and the techniques we’ve studied over the years are also invaluable skills when trying to build a startup.
In essence, now seems to be the time to take all of the knowledge I have of these various disciplines and leverage it into actionable strategies to build a multi-million dollar startup. The reasons I’m doing it in public, disclosing every technique I use and every failure I’ll have is covered in the first blog post linked here (Read More).
Why Subscribe?
Learn The Tools
I’ll discuss what tools I’m using to build and the technologies that can be leveraged, what it costs, how to do it, marketing techniques, sales, hiring and team building, fundraising and more. If you’ve ever wanted to build, market or sell anything, this’ll be invaluable information.
See What It’s Like
If you’ve ever wanted to see in real time just what it takes to build a startup from scratch, what meetings with investors and venture capitalists look like, how teams are managed, how the tax and regulatory regime is navigated, and more, this’ll be like the best reality show you’ve seen!
Be A Part of The Community
The eventual idea here is to form a community that helps each other, shares insights, gives feedback and generally promotes entrepreneurship in the developing world. I see me sharing my journey as just the genesis for this community of creators! Join it, and be inspired to build yourself.
Most of all though, subscribe to the newsletter for inspiration to do more! My hope is that me sharing all of these details leads to at least some of you taking on the challenge of trying to build the life of your own dreams!
Featured Posts
- Moving to Substack
Moving to Substack From this week, the newsletter will look slightly different. That’s because it’ll come to you from a … - Week 7: We’re solving human motivation!
Week 7: We’re solving human motivation! Time to read: 3 mins This has been a super exciting week! As most … - Get better returns than FDs (Fixed Deposits) – RBI Retail Direct
Get better returns than FDs (Fixed Deposits) – RBI Retail Direct Nope, this isn’t a sponsored post or crypto scam …Get better returns than FDs (Fixed Deposits) – RBI Retail Direct Read More »
It’s a weekly newsletter sent out every Friday afternoon. I’m also using it as a tool to keep me accountable and on track. The idea is that since I have to send it to you, I better get things done during the week since I can’t just write I didn’t accomplish anything and send it to all of you! To not miss any of it, do subscribe below!