I was born in Virar, which is 45 km away from Mumbai by road. Virar is a type of town. I lived in a society where people are close to each other, we eat, chat, and do everything together. The only problem with this society used to be during the rainy season. Continuous rain would cause waterlogging at neck level. My parents and I used to struggle to go to work and school.
I used to swim in that water go to a nearby shop which opens at 5 am, change my clothes, and then leave for school. Even my parents did that only thing was I had to change my entire dress and they had to change the bottoms. I lived in this society till 8th STD. I was very close with some people, and when I left during my 9th STD I cried a lot. I have never met friends like those in my life again. I have been to 4 different schools from nursery to 10. The first 3 instances were good considering I upgraded from state board to CBSE. The 3rd school was very close to my and my parent's heart.
I could say the school is what it is all because of my parents and my grandmother's wishes. We saw the school get built In front of our eyes. We had put all our efforts into building it and helping the sisters (convent school) run it. Everything was going well for me. The sisters had become a part of my family, they used to join us for celebrations at my house.
Unfortunately, when I was in my 9th class due to constant clashes between the sisters and my family for reasons still unknown, the sisters who were also principal and teachers in my school started giving me lower marks in exams. I used to be the topper from STD 1 to 8 and now from STD 9 because of this I was always demotivated and disappointed. My parents tried talking to the teachers but things were even worse.
Finally, I and my family had enough and I moved to another school. I would have never imagined that the school and kids I hated the most would be my home for one year and most importantly the savior during tough times.
During my school days, I was interested in cricket. In my previous society, we used to have competitions similar to IPL, the craze was too much for cricket and I thought I would be a cricketer in the future. In fact, I represented my new school in class 10th at the district-level Cricket tournament. We did not win anything but I was the batsman who used to finish things off just like Yuvraj Singh (finisher role).
I was also crazy about volleyball and represented both my schools in district-level tournaments, even winning 3rd place in the tournament. Coming from a place where there are migrants and descendants of Portuguese origin volleyball was very popular in Virar along with football. 2010 I first saw a match between Germany and Argentina in the World Cup.
I had never watched a football match before. Even though Argentina lost the match badly there was one player whom the commentators kept talking about. Yes, it was Lionel Messi. My idol inspired me to watch and play football. This guy changed me from a Dhoni lover (and CSK fan) to FC Barcelona lover in 1 and a half years. I started playing football and in fact, I was the first to make my school classmates play football instead of the regular cricket (although everyone knew how much I loved cricket and how I played, they were shocked).
I usually played as a striker, in 2016 Barcelona India organized a camp in Juhu in which they tried to reciprocate the exact way they teach at their famous La Masia in Barcelona. I had seen so many videos of La Masia that I wanted to go over them, but my parents wouldn't allow me. I felt like I would never be able to visit la Masia and become a footballer like Messi. I attended the la Masia camp and I was selected for their program. The chief selector was from Barcelona and he loved the way I did feints like Messi. Unfortunately due to parental pressure and the dream of my parents wanting to see me go into IIT spoiled everything for me.
La Masia just became a dream for me like many kids in India who are passionate about football. In 2018 after my boards, I asked my parents to take me to Barcelona, which they did. I visited Spain and Portugal but throughout the trip, my only concern was when would I see Camp Nou. Finally, the day I saw Messi's Ballon d'Or I thought I had seen everything.
I continued my craze for football, cricket, volleyball, and table tennis (used to play in school, and was one of the best) in my college days and represented my college in all these games and even won.
Other than sports travel was one thing I was really fond of. It started with local trips around Maharashtra and then shifted to traveling to other states like Kerala, Goa, and Sikkim. Finally, in 2016 I had my first international trip to Singapore Malaysia Thailand (the places were nice but I was too young to understand the culture).
In 2018 I visited Spain and Portugal (of course cause I wanted to see Camp Nou). In 2019 I visited Hong Kong which I was supposed to visit in 2016 but due to China and HK having constant clashes at that time, we avoided it. Before every trip, I used to make sure I watched videos, and read blogs of what to do and not to do in these countries. This is a big mistake people don't do when they visit. They assume every country has the same rules as India.
But some to-dos and blogs really think that every person visiting a foreign country is a professional in traveling. I have barely seen blogs for first-time visitors highlighting one of the biggest challenges immigration People fret before the officer and some get so confused that they sweat.
Some blogs haven't even mentioned basic rules and regulations that apply to all countries. This is where my blogging journey began. I started writing blogs in a simple, informal manner so that people can relate or imagine. And these blogs are even for people who unfortunately can't go abroad due to financial constraints.
I started posting pics and shared reviews of places, and restaurants on Google reviews so that new visitors don't commit the same mistake that I did, or visitors can get a feel of the place without actually being there.
The major focus (theme) has been
1. Indian cities, states and places
2. Foreign countries
3. Best places to visit
4. Places to avoid
5. Restaurant
6. Street food
7. Incorrect location
8. New places without location
9. Scams to avoid if any
One of the other major challenges abroad and in India is finding the right restaurant. I started posting reviews of food and restaurants to keep people away from restaurants that wouldn't be right for them. I have witnessed restaurants serving non-veg food to pure vegetarians when confronted they just say they have no idea how. I knew I could not let restaurants do that again.
COVID was a tough time for everyone, but I tried my best to be productive. Sep 2022 I joined Butterfly Learnings. I had prepared a lot for the interview considering this was a completely different sector and I had never worked here before. The funny thing is the interview with the CEO was more of an awareness session for me and lasted just 20 minutes with him explaining about butterfly learnings and the initiatives they do.
Butterfly Learnings is a Phygital pediatric development and behavioral health platform that solves behavioral concerns of kids through USA board-certified therapy called Applied Behavior Analysis therapy. Initial days were challenging cause just like many I did not have much idea about the various concerns that parents face with their kids including hyperactivity, aggression, ADHD, ASD, and autism.
In fact, before COVID parents really did not bother much as either they were busy or felt that this was not a major concern. It was only during COVID that parents started noticing changes in their kids, and since they used to spend most of their time with kids at home the changes really concerned them. Fact 1 in 8 children suffer from major neurodevelopment concerns. I initially was supposed to join as a community manager, but when I joined I realized the work that was pending. I was one of the first managers to join. The company was fairly new and most of the employees were from the clinical department. There were hardly 5 employees from the admin end including 1 hr, 1 sales rep, 1 graphic designer, and 1 content writer.
I took over and had the responsibility of laying the foundation stone. I initially worked as an HR, marketing person, sales rep, content writer, website wireframe designer, and even as a graphic designer. This continued for around 3-4 months and by this time I had my team setup, a team of 4 members and 3 agencies who helped me with performance marketing.
During my work I realized one thing about my target audience, most of them were working parents and most of them were not from a well-to-do background.
I literally saw many of them struggle to pay for their kid's therapy. It was distributed for me to see them beg for discounts. One day I received a parent's call who asked me if I could help them pay for their kid's therapy. Unfortunately due to restrictions and limitations, I could not pay for anyone's therapy. The moment I got a call from 3 more parents was the time I understood something needed to be done. That is when my dream of starting my own NGO pooped up in my mind.
I had 3 rounds of discussion with people who have worked closely with an NGO or have run their own NGO. Initially, the plan was to start an NGO, run it for a few months, raise funds, collaborate with my company, and help some parents pay for their kids' therapy.
The initial days were tough as I had no idea how to register a Ngo and didn't want to make any mistakes with the laws. After intense research on Google for 4 days I finally came across an organization that helps register NGOs. Meanwhile, I also got a call from someone who wanted to sell his Ngo trademark and name. I compared both of these and found that it would be easy to register rather than buy from him as he was charging me more.
In July 2023 ngo was incorporated. Now came the challenging task of setting up a nice vision and mission. Meanwhile, I had to look for volunteers too. I don't know if I should say I am lucky or if I worked too hard earlier, I crossed these challenges easily. With a Google search, I came across an organization that helps NGOs with volunteers. I onboarded 4 volunteers.
Now came another task, which was to convince these volunteers to work for an NGO that had not worked on any event. If I were in their place I would take up the challenge to learn. But most of them were like spoon-feeding things to me or giving me tasks which is not challenging. I was completely liberal with these guys and never micro-managed them. I used to share the task on Saturday and post one week to reach out for updates. Till that time I never asked for any update nor did I scold for not completing tasks on time.
I literally had a volunteer who used this privilege so badly. She barely completed her tasks and always had excuses ready. After 2 months of constant talks, I asked her to leave as it was very difficult for me to manage Ngo and the office.
Luckily, I did get good volunteers and it was the start of a wonderful mission, a mission which would help me give back to my community. As of today, we have organized around 12 events in and around Maharashtra. 30-plus volunteers have worked and around 700 families have benefited.
Thanks to continuous brainstorming with a volunteer for 4 days I was able to decide on the mission for the NGO.
The first six months were a smooth sail. Almost everything that I did was easy peasy for me, which is why I started doing tasks that were not even in my KRA. I even helped HR autogenerate a payslip. (I still smile when I see my payslip, not for the salary but for the template).
One of my toughest and most important challenges was within 6 months of my tenure in the organization. We had just raised seed funding 3 months ago and now we're planning for a move that could have actually brought a major change in Indian medical history. The project MCHAT in association with British investment (they granted us 50 lakh) would have been a superb move for kids with neurodevelopment disorders and of course, made life easy for parents.
I was made the lead for the project. (Used to get a lot of praise from my CEO for the 6 months' efforts). Fun fact I was and am still the youngest manager in the company and my team is the youngest in terms of average age.
I was excited as well as nervous. The project started smoothly. I had everything planned beforehand. From UI/UX for the website to graphic collaterals, everything was ready and my team helped me get this done smoothly. Now here comes the worst part. The project MCHAT (modified checklist for autism in toddlers) was a table talker (which has a QR, and parent needs to scan it and answer 20 questions, once they answer they get a score that indicates if their kid is autistic (mild/high) or not).
It was to be placed at a pediatrician's desk or a preschool desk. Now since these table talkers were to be given to expert pediatricians we had to create a beautiful box so that they could carry it. Each table talker had a unique QR for each pediatrician or preschool. The importance of the box, (mainly used for presentation purposes) was high as pediatricians usually don't keep anything they don't like on the table however important it is.
The box measurement was taken in front of me, I thought everything was going well and was happy. We had planned a grand presentation/ opening where top pediatricians from a location would be invited and an MCHAT demo would be given by me.
The boxes were supposed to come one day before the event, which was okay for me as long as there was no issue. Unfortunately what happened was a terrible mistake/night for me. The boxes came at 9 pm on Friday. The event was at 5 pm on Saturday. We had ordered 100 boxes for 100 MCHAT(only 100 as it was pivot, testing was on).
My colleague was there to pick up the boxes. At 9:15 I got a video call from him, I was excited but it didn't last too long. The boxes turned out to be smaller than the table talker. The table talker would not fit in correctly. A loss of approx 25 to 40k. A small mistake cost me and a company a lot.
The next morning I had to show the product to my CEO. I knew what was coming. As soon as he saw it, the way he stared at me (felt like a death stare). He had hardly spoken a word for 5 minutes and then for 1 minute kept shouting at me. I could barely think of anything. My mind was completely blank.
No thoughts, no sound. He asked me to fix it before 5 pm and honestly, it was next to impossible. I learned one lesson, 99 good tasks, and still, that one bad task takes all the credit from you. All the 6 months' efforts are in the drain.
Then I along with my colleagues tried something. We literally were doing arts and crafts just to impress the CEO. At this point, I had given up. We tied some ribbons, and put some stickers (similar to the mobile box stickers). But I knew this was useless.
I showed it to the CEO after some time, and he was calm. He asked me to come and present the product in the evening. The evening session was not so great, not too bad. But luckily for me, no doctor cared or even looked at the box mess. All they cared about was if MCHAT was worth it. I was really happy. I ate more food than I was going to. At the end of the event, the CEO thanked me, and the day was saved.
I thought this would be the last time I would struggle, but here comes part 2 within 2 months of this incident. We had just returned from a great annual party where everything was good and I received praise too from my colleague.
Immediately after the annual increment period, there was another disaster that was waiting for me. I had a major task of controlling spending for our marketing (all types). Out of this performance marketing was our biggest headache but at the same time the biggest saviour.
From the time I joined to 8 months after I joined the marketing spend was not too much. It barely touched 1-2 lac a month. But in May 2023, as we clocked in more revenue we increased our ad spend to 5 lac a month. May went well, and since there were so many ads running my biggest mistake was depending on the agency to send me a report and not tracking them on my own. Blink of an eye and at June end we had spent almost 10 lac but the revenue was not that high. Boom, another meeting with the CEO, another blasting not just for me but also for the CFO.
I was scared, can say I was sweating profusely. Went to meet him and throughout the time he scolded/abused I did not look at him at all. I looked down or somewhere else.
After that, he asked me to work with the CFO and ensure this was my last mistake. 11 months after the incident and with our marketing spend touching more than 10 lac, I can say my CEO is very happy cause I ensure we save at least 2 lac every month from the budget, and clock in more revenue than ever thanks to help from my sales team. I learned one thing that day. Financial budget planning is really important, tracking your finances is absolutely necessary be it small spend or huge spend.
I have in fact applied this to my personal finance and now I track my daily spending using an Excel sheet.
