Hey LLA,
Remember? This past Monday when we turned the spotlight on Sahil Vaidya, the co-founder of The Minimalist and the genius behind Learning Machine.
Well, we've got another gem for you that you surely don't want to overlook.
🌟 This Edition: Sahil's Entrepreneurial Insights
Building on the fascinating journey we highlighted, we're going even deeper! Sahil has crafted a special piece for us, sharing the pivotal moments and ideas that propelled him from a self-described lazy IIT student to the helm of a creative powerhouse. This isn't just a story; it's a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone looking to make their mark as an entrepreneur. Sahil breaks down the crucial insights and unexpected lessons that guided him in building a creative agency from the ground up – one that now stands tall with about 200 employees and a roster of top-tier clients.
🚀 Why You Should Pay Attention
This isn't merely another newsletter. It's a window into the mind of someone who has navigated the choppy waters of entrepreneurship and come out on top. If you've ever been curious about the real, unvarnished truths of starting and scaling a company, Sahil's candid share is bound to enlighten and motivate.
| Subscribe NOW! |
Hello there,
In 2015, I was a lazy IIT student who didn’t know what the heck he’d do with his life.
Then I randomly started a Facebook page called The Minimalist with a friend, and it soon turned into a company. Good things happened, and fortunately, we’ve been able to build a creative agency of ~200 people that has worked with some of the biggest brands in the country.
What are some of the crucial ideas that helped me in starting a company? Moreover, what are the lessons that any aspiring entrepreneur can derive from this story? There are 6 intriguing ideas, and I promise you they’re nothing like the usual “Believe in yourself” and “Dream Big” crap that gets passed around as great advice.
Enough talk. Here’s the meat:
-
Playing the right game: Perhaps the most important part of starting up is to know what game to play. To do that, you have to identify something you enjoy doing and are deeply interested in. Conventionally people would replace the latter with “what you’re better at”, but I’ve learned that having intrinsic motivation to work on something often trumps talent/intelligence. By entering the creative space, I think I chose to play the right game- most of my time in college went into writing blogs, one-liners on Facebook (sorry if you vomited), Quora articles, and spicy memes on IIT life. I used the same inclination & capability in building a creative solutions company, and that’s why even the initial 70-hour backbreaking weeks never felt like work.
-
Proof Of Work: Instead of starting a creative agency from our hostel rooms (which would’ve shut down on Day 1 because what kind of company would trust 2 unbathed IITians with their marketing mandate?), we did something different. We started a Facebook page where we started posting simple, witty content that started going viral with some growth hacking. In a year or so we’d built a cult following of over 100k people. Brands saw this as proof of work- which led them to approach us and see if we could help them. In a way, by building a large community and achieving organic virality, we had publicly demonstrated our capabilities and created a funnel of inbound leads that grew every year.
-
Unconventional entry: In an industry dominated by creative folks, we were 2 engineers from IIT trying to build something unusual. In an industry where people gain experience and then start an agency, we decided to build a social media following first and use the traction to acquire clients. When people act conventionally, turning the script upside down and doing something different always catches everyone’s attention.
-
Tribe of mentors: I’d never worked anywhere before starting the company, and had suddenly gone from a lazy YouTube scroller who slept at 5 AM to a person trying to build a venture. I didn’t know jackshit about how businesses are run- not even what a profit & loss statement meant or how to create a leave policy. At that point, learning from people who’d built services companies was a game-changer because it allowed us to learn quickly instead of learning via some painful & avoidable mistakes that’d set our asses on fire. Learn from people who’ve built similar stuff- they know which problems will kick you in the balls so you can build without having to experience them firsthand.
-
Strategic Ignorance: If you ask me “What are the chances of 2 inexperienced students building a company in the world’s most competitive/commoditized industry” I’d say “Zero”. And that means taking the plunge back then was probably a foolish decision. That’s where ignorance helps. Because when you know a lot, you are too aware of your limitations, the shitty things about the market, the invincibility of your competition. In other words, you know so much that you can’t dream. You can’t convince yourself to take risks like an ignorant beginner would. And that’s why I feel that our ignorance was a big asset. Because if we knew how much we didn’t know, we’d never have started the company.
-
Right place, right time: We started owning the minimalism space at a point when it was becoming increasingly cool. We also entered the market at a point when the Indian digital space was exploding, and startups had started raising crazy money. Most importantly, we were able to build a large following because getting organic traction in 2015 was still not as difficult as it is today. Riding the right wave at the right time is probably the most important determinant of success that few talk about- because it often boils down to dumb luck...show more
Uncover the full scope of Learning Machine's blueprint for your intellect growth and transformation by subscribing now! 👇
| Subscribe |
Ready to see the bigger picture? The path to change starts with a click.
With more power 💪
The Success Circle X Learning Machine ✨