Stoa Digest #36: All the small things

New faces, new places, new things & new cases.

Feb 21, 2022

Hey folks, what we aim for with the Digest is that, our fellows aka Our Community, the reason we write this Digest - find it worth their time spend reading.

Going to switch out the layout in this one for a bit, and if you adore, dont care, despise or can live with it - we’d love to know - you know where to find us!

Your emotions dont even have to be limited to those 4 - tell us what you want to see & how we can make this worth your while every Monday evening!

📣Event Announcements 📣

If you missed our Friday night jam session with Pranav Manie & Vikrant Mehra Friday night, you missed out on quite the vibe!

This next one will be a bit of a mood switch-over, but it’s a mass appreciation band, ‘cause up next we have Apoorva Kanotra & Raja Ramamoorthy hosting the next one with the one of the world’s most legendary bands - Linkin Park.

Catch us on the Stoa Radio on Friday night at 9pm!

Tomorrow we have Sameer, Sriram & Parth talking to us about building your brand identity out as a Youtube creator, and then
On Thursday we have a Fireside Chat with the co-founder of Markk App - Shachin Bharadwaj

🥳 🎂Birthday Parttaaayy! 🥳 🎂

22nd Feb - Anand Krishna

23rd Feb - Aayush Mittal

24th Feb - Jainam Shah, Pavan Gaikwad

25th Feb - Praneet Bhave

26th Feb - Prashansha Kumari, Akshit Gakhar

🔦Fellow Spotlight 🔦

Is what you do now what you’ve always wanted to do since school?

“Yeah, kind of. So I realized I had this interest in Marketing in school in about 11th-12th, but it probably happened because I was in boarding school in Chennai. And how I got introduced to it was because it was the equivalent to a religion there - watching the IPL.
Now I have absolutely no interest in cricket, but I remember that I found the ads more interesting than even the match.
So that’s what I discovered then, and I remember thinking, ‘I'd like to be the person that comes up with these - cause the ads were so interesting’. “

What was the decision-making process that landed you in Marketing?

“Hmmm, So I was a pretty good student in school, like I was good at both studies & extra curriculars, which is why when I picked Commerce people were like, ‘Oh, but you’re smart - why pick Commerce?’
And honestly, it was obviously not an independent decision of course, like the first set of people you talk to is your family.
Something they introduced me to was how our family business worked, and while it was an interesting industry(Energy), it just didn’t excite me. But I did know that Commerce could potentially be helpful to know, and that’s I guess how I made that decision”.

Did you like going to boarding school?

“I mean obviously when in 8th standard my father decided I should go to boarding school, all he was met with was tantrums.
After all the initial tantrums though, he gave me a good deal which was: ‘Okay, so you go first and try it out for a year, if you like it you can stay, but if you dont, you can come back after that year’.
So that seemed like a decent enough bargain, and of course I took it. Little did I know, I would love boarding school.”

What was college like for you?

“It was completely different from boarding school. I was quite the extrovert in boarding school, if we were walking down a corridor during break - I'd meet 15 friends on the way, but then when I came back to college, I just didnt vibe with anything about college at all? So that was completely different.”

Do you have a landmark memory from boarding school?

“This was quite the experience, so back in 2016, Chennai flooded, no? And we were in school at that point, like the school was also flooded, and we were stuck there for about 36 hours. There was no electricity, food wasn’t with us, it was a pretty dystopian experience. Nobody knew what was going to happen, we used to live on the first floor, but we couldn’t get out cause the ground floor was completely flooded, like the National Disaster Relief Fund had to come in on boats to take us out, and then we stayed in apartments of residents close-by until everything calmed down.
Before this we all complained about our ‘Mess Ka Khaana’ but then while we were stuck because there was nothing to eat, one of our Annas from the mess, literally took out dry food he could find, and swam to us to give it to us so we wouldn’t starve.
I don’t think anyone who was in school that year who went through that ordeal was ever caught complaining about our mess ever again.”

What was being stuck in a situation like this even like?

“I mean you realise very quickly that we live extremely privileged lives, and very luxuriously too. I think we all started appreciating the small things - electricity, water, food, comfort, especially after those 36 hours of not having them at all.”

What do you think is odd, quirky or special about you?

“Oh boy, so I have this tendency. Where I always end up getting into the most absurd situations. The flood was one, this one other time I was stuck in an airport for 48 hours. Another time I was stopped by immigration because they thought I was running away. And my family always tells me to write about these episodes(let’s call them that), but I’ve never got around to it, I guess”

Tell me about a topic of interest you’ve found recently?

“Ooooo, so this ties into the writing bit also. I’ve always had an eye for marketing, and companies doing good marketing.
And recently I decided I have to write a breakdown on Cred’s marketing - because whoever’s working on it - they’re geniuses, like there’s nobody else out there that’s doing marketing like them, cause everyone knows about them.”

What made you get interested in FinTech?

“I think the Careers Team should read this one bit - so when I was finishing up college, but my family had wanted me to come back & help with marketing for our business.
I didnt know it then, but I do now and Manoj saying ‘Proof of Work’ - is a golden rule.
So anyway, I came back & helped my family, and I realised I just didnt like working in that industry, like I liked the work, but the industry was nothing exciting.

Then I decided to start creating content, and this is also around the same time I started realising the importance of just managing your money and general things about personal finance, so I started spreading the knowledge I found out about & making reels on it & stuff, and that’s how I even landed my current job.
But this was also why I found other interests also, and realised that being a “creator” in just one field wasn’t fun, I wanted to experiment with other fields too, but then once you get associated - people expect that that’s the only interest you have. So yeah, I didnt want to be pigeonholed like that.”

What’s something you thoroughly enjoy doing?

“Travel, for sure. 100% travel.
I've travelled to a bunch of countries and now even states within our country - and I love it.
The joy of walking a city on foot & discovering it is unparalleled. You’ll find me make itineraries & do my research on the city before hand only.
And then the second top most one of these is cooking, if I end up getting off of work early, and just having a bit of time, then I’ll offer to make dinner - but the con of this is, because we’re a joint family, no one dish is never going to make everyone happy. ”

What’s a hobby you started recently?

“Oh, so I’m actually looking for hobbies right now - but when I started Stoa, and we got those notebooks, I loved that they were half white-half brown, so I thought they’d be perfect for an art journal, and so that’s what I started doing in the brown half of the book. Art journalling - that was super fun, cause it also let me recount my memories of my travels.” (Check the “Show me your notebooks” thread on Discord & feel free to show us yours too!)