Podcast Episode: Marketing for Chartered Accountants – A conversation with Sarthak Ahuja
Summary
Join host Priyom Sarkar, Co-Founder and CEO of Asanify, as he engages in a dynamic conversation with Sarthak Ahuja.
- Sarthak Ahuja: Chartered Accountant, Investment Banking M&A expert, Virtual CFO, Author, and ISB Gold Medalist
- Priyom Sarkar: Seasoned entrepreneur and host of the show
In this captivating episode, they explore key topics such as:
- Finance and Consulting
- Marketing for Chartered Accountant firms
- Start-up Tips
- Deal Advisory
- Start-up Funding
Discover how CA and other professional services firms can leverage technology to transform their operations and boost their market presence. Learn valuable insights on:
- How Chartered Accountants can Adopt technology to enhance client servicing and marketing
- Market positioning and effective branding
- Automating processes with Asanify’s HR and Payroll software
- Opening new revenue streams through streamlined operations
- How the book publishing industry works
Be inspired as Sarthak shares his expertise and actionable strategies to succeed in the digital age. Gain insights from his book, “Daily Coffee & Startup Fundraising”, a comprehensive guide to starting up and raising funds in India.
Don’t miss this enlightening conversation that combines the insights of Sarthak Ahuja and the expertise of Priyom Sarkar, as they navigate the intersection of technology, finance, and business growth.
Video
Full transcript of the conversation
Hi, everyone. This is Priyom here today. I’m I have a privilege of introducing you to
Sarthak who has been a longtime friend,
is the partner at Sandeep Ahuja & Co.
one of India’s youngest CA
also I S B gold medalist and a lot of other three letter and multi
letter acronyms attached to his name that he
can talk about more without further ado.
Welcome to Simplify with Asanify podcast,
your journey. How it has been so far. How do you feel today? Thanks so much
for having me.
I’m equally excited and so happy because we do
have a history of working together on multiple things
at Asanify And I’ve always looked at the brand
very positively as an enabler for a chartered accountant.
So I’m very happy to be a part of this podcast today.
So much.
Very interestingly, you also, I understand written a fantastic new book from,
I’ve read a little bit from the excerpts and I continue to read it now.
It’s called a profitable and Startup Funding
mistaken.
It’s called Daily Coffee and Startup Fundraising,
Daily Coffee and start up funding.
So those who are in need of urgent coffee and also might need funding as a
to read that book
that you want to just maybe there was a quick
brief background about yourself and what got you here.
Sure. So I’ve always been in Delhi. I was born here.
I grew up in Delhi, so I’m a thoroughbred deli guy.
And after my schooling I signed up for an undergrad in finance at Delhi University.
It was at the Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies.
I simultaneously signed up for C A C S C M A.
So those were the four courses I was trying to juggle. I
don’t know what, what.
So, so Company Secretaries, Chartered Accountancy,
which is the main area of focus is taxation and audit.
CS is company secretary, which is more corporate law
and the CMA is costing management, accounting.
So it’s about management, accounting, management, decision making
those kind of decisions. All of these subjects are kind of related in some way.
It’s just that you get to specialize in a particular subject in
the overall body of knowledge that you’re studying of different subjects.
So CS has a focus on corporate law, cost and management,
accounting has a focus on management decision making.
You know, they all beautifully kind of came together.
I was lucky enough to be one of the youngest back then
um in India to have completed 4° by the age of 23.
It was reported by um you know, the financial express, the business standard,
a bunch of newspapers back at that time wasn’t planned.
It just so happened. Um
I
did you have typically compared to the rest of us, was it?
No, I think, I think what I like to say is
so for those of us who are just listening to the podcast, something as,
as you can imagine, I, I’m sure a lifestyle choice
but it does appear extremely presentable despite.
Yes.
So, so that was that both my parents had started in accounting firm,
a CPA firm back in 1986.
You know, so 86, my father started it as a sole proprietor as one person here in 89.
My mother joined him soon after they got married.
So since then in 2011,
I joined them after my undergrad to do my see article ship as soon as I was done.
So that kind of
ever consider any other field, you know. So if you know, like do you have a dog, like
you have a dog
or a pet? Okay.
So you would have seen like when, when, you know,
dogs are probably just six months old, people tend to do a great deal of, you know,
doggy training.
So it’s like you, you give them a treat, you ask them to extend their home and be like,
okay, let’s shake hands.
Correct. Correct.
So, ever since I was in kindergarten, my parents would keep asking me okay,
what do you want to be
when you grow up?
And I would say astronaut and I want, I want to be police and I want to be
an actor. But then they just say okay. And then when I said
I go to chocolate.
So I was like, wow, okay, this, this gets you a chocolate.
So I was doggy trained into condition into this. Correct? Yeah, but
then why
should
I understand? You
know, so I think
that training kind of gave me a lot of exposure and audit and tax advisory.
But somehow I felt that I wanted to be
more a business consultant than just a tax advisor.
Um purely because of that,
I recognized the importance of understanding how operations function,
how marketing functions,
how it functions and what is a more holistic view towards
building businesses than just being an advisor in 11 capacity.
So I always had this in mind ever since 10th grade
that I wanted to do a great MB after school.
So as soon as the CIA course got over,
I realized that the CIA article ship of three period does not really count
towards work X for an M B A program even at I S P.
So I had to work for another two years after my article ship only with
the sole focus that the month I complete two years I have to apply.
And it so happened the month I complete completed 24 months, I was eligible,
I applied, I got through was lucky enough.
I think that year,
I did my specialization in marketing and leadership because I
wanted to expose myself to those subjects that is talking,
why not finance?
Because anyway, studied so much of it in the past, like I told you,
the objective was to get a more holistic view.
And I think the toughest decision that year was to opt out of placements
because
they’re only
correct. I mean, SB is known as a consulting school.
So everyone is looking forward to joining, you know, mckinsey,
bcg Bain Connie and I thought these big consulting firms mostly cater to, you know,
the big corporate.
So for the actual need of business consulting
is actually a great deal in startups and smes
of the country who actually just go on and
discuss business problems with their own charter accountant.
And a lot of times your c is not equipped or
qualified to answer questions related to other aspects of business.
So which is why I felt that that was a big market where there was an actual need,
which was not being catered to.
So I thought that why not come back, start my own outfit,
which focuses on just serving business consulting, you know, requirements.
Um When I came back while the entity remained my parents firm,
I set up a separate office altogether in
hired my team,
a fresh decided not to take on assignments of audit taxation and
solely focus on a starting point as a go to market,
I picked up CFO services
but gradually extended to like bigger aspects and
you know, just geared towards investment banking for startups.
So it so happened that now the vertical that I take care of
and we’ve set up another entity where my wife is also a partner,
she is a marketing expert, know.
So she’s, she’s worked with Sony Music in marketing,
then she was in Facebook in global marketing.
So I felt that to have a holistic consulting firm,
you need finance, you need a marketing expert.
And which is how both of us together take on more holistic assignments on, you know,
building market sizing, go to markets, pricing, positioning, branding,
um financing.
So all of that kind of comes together and now together in the same family,
you have complete complimentary.
Absolutely.
So I think, you know,
many begins at home as they say charity begins at home and many begins at home.
So wonderful. Yeah. And so now as of now what differentiates
out there.
So I think we,
I mean, I would say early on, we realized the importance of content marketing
and this is because we were advising startups. Um
and we realized how content is is
much more cost efficient to get customers acquired, to build engagement,
to build a community.
And of course, with the other team, my wife’s experience in in the media space,
you know,
first working with Sony Music where she was marketing movies and music for
movies to the country then moving on to Facebook where she was,
you know, she had insights on how social media networks work.
So I think she was the one who came in with a lot of
push that we need to build this as a vertical and do this.
So I mean,
the whole overarching strategy I would definitely attribute to
her right from social media influences is his wife.
So I think a great deal of exactly like what,
how the frame should look to, what should be the branding,
what kind of clothes to wear in the video, what kind of topics to cover?
Like everything that strategy comes from
100% 100%. I think so on.
Anything related to marketing and content like she has the veto.
So I’ll just say that, you know, whatever you say is the final decision,
like no questions asked, you’re the expert.
I
thank her for enabling and allowing you to
join this 100% 100% 100% because she decides on
what we’re doing and what is going to be the presence.
So I think just adopting that early on because what really stops
a lot of professional firms such as Chartered Accountants from marketing themselves is we’re always conditioned.
It’s with lawyers, it’s with marketing for chartered accountants as they are conditioned with the code
of ethics.
So you’re not allowed to advertise,
you’re not allowed to ask for work from
anyone other than people from your own community.
Which our fellow CS of fellow lawyers, you know, if that’s the case,
the only kind of marketing they’ve been doing all through the years
is just you don’t going to seminars which are for chartered accountant.
So essentially, it’s just a lot of
correct. It’s word of mouth.
And I feel with content it’s not really marketing because
at no point are you really asking people to,
you know, come in its thought leadership?
Absolutely. So it doesn’t go against the code of ethics in any way.
And you are educating people and giving out like advice
for free for the benefit of the bigger community.
And as a byproduct, this definitely kind of brings in business, which is,
which is the plus plus on it.
So you’re saying there is a way to measure
activity even for professional services for 100% we measure
everything even within our firm in terms of metrics.
And we’ve seen a drastic difference. Like it’s
just just for example, you know, if, if in tech products or in any kind of business,
they have a marketing funnel.
So the first end of the funnel is just
leader generation after which your conversion at each point,
you know, gets better.
So what happens with brand expenses that your
conversions get better because people recognize your brand.
What happens with content marketing and thought leadership I’ve realized is that
even for qualified, like you can qualify your leads with a monetary figure sooner,
you can say even to get on just an introduction called,
there would be a fee attached to it because the lead funnel is that big, right?
So I feel it really helps you establish that trust in the minds of the consumers
and then know that if we ask a certain price or a fee,
it’s because we can deliver that kind of value.
So I feel that’s really changed the business from any other form
of
discoveries.
Absolute., 100%. And then you’re not geographically limited also to one location.
So, so we do have clients internationally and in all parts of the country.
So it also exposes you to a business problems to solve
which are not geographically centered to the industries around your area.
Like for example,
um I live in Gurgaon and traditionally our firm is catered
to a lot of manufacturing companies in and around Gorgon,
a great deal of which are also related to the auto industry,
you know,
because of Maruti entered here and it’s set up like
an entire infrastructure and this ecosystem of people supplying,
correct that the township.
So now what happens is with clients in Bangalore in, in Bengal,
in Chennai and Dubai in Switzerland in the U S, you’re suddenly exposed to, you know,
problems of varied varieties,
which also expands your horizon to be able to advise better in business.
Mhm. Understood. Understood.
And what led you as an extension of your thought leadership.
What led you to think about writing a book because I understand it’s a lot of effort.
I’m sure I would love to know what inspired you to think about that.
So I think it came from a consumer gap in a consumer ask. So
two of the most commonly asked questions on my D M s on social media are the
first one being that can you recommend a
book for business that whatever you’re talking about,
where can we learn this?
And I have recommended over 50 books on my social media.
They’re all on my highlights so people can see it. But then how do you recommend?
I want to read 50 books. Like you need to give someone a starting point
and something that holistically covers everything which is important.
And the second question was, can you help me with raising funds for my startup?
So I felt these two questions,
there is a gap where every day there are questions coming in.
So it’s a consumer need. Let’s just put it together and push it out.
So in May, we started the process and the idea was to ship it out as soon as possible.
So we set up a process where every alternate day we would have
to our calls where the publisher had given me a young girl,
a writer who was actually she’s done her undergrad in, in liberal arts,
you know, to explain all concepts to her so that she could transcribe and you know,
put it down
was great because she had no background in finance.
That means I had to explain it in a way,
right?
So we were talking about your book and you were saying that, you know,
if you ordered your publisher would enable you or
a lot of free flow and exchange of ideas.
What kind of time investment
if someone wants to write about something that
a lot. So typically, what kind of investment even rewriting?
Is there some days before launching a business, we always
tell you about the publishing industry per se.
So it’s known that, you know, this is a start,
I’d read somewhere that Penguin annually publishes about
60,000 titles.
So in those 60,000 titles, half cent less than a dozen copies.
And Penguin is one of the most.
Yeah, Penguin is one of the most, you know, selectivity picking,
picking authors and
98% of the books
sell less than 5000 copies.
So which means the publishing industry is also like the
industry.
So if, which is why in the business book segment,
if you cross the 5000 copies threshold,
you know, it qualifies as a best seller
by certain benchmarks. This is, this is not written anywhere because this is like a
best seller also has different definitions, but this is one accepted metric.
Correct.
Correct, correct,
correct,
correct.
So now imagine your typical royalty to an
author is between 7.5% to about 12.5% depending on
how superstar and author you really are.
But most first time authors get a 7.5% royalty.
Now imagine you’re selling 5000 books. You’ve written a bestseller
and the book, the price is about ₹300. So I’m doing the man. That’s 15 lakh. Okay.
And on this, you make 7.5%. That’s one lock 12,500 royalty.
If you’ve written a bestseller, you’re in the top 2% of the books as an author.
And typically the average time, correct.
And the average time to write a book is nothing less than 12 months, 12 to 18 months,
because a person would write, say,
You know,
300 pages or so.
And then the entire process of pitching to a lot
of publishers going through agents which may take six months,
nine months, someone picks up the book, then they’ll spend their own time editing,
reading, doing revisions.
So the entire process is easily upwards of 12 months.
So thankfully, um we had people kind of
Publishing houses reaching out saying that we want you
to kind of do a book on this subject.
And because correct, correct.
And because there were already 500 videos on different topics,
I felt for us to put together a table of contents and you know,
organize it in a relevant order was not very difficult.
So the table of contents could be ready in just about a couple of hours.
The visor who is my publisher reached out and the value had,
he promised this was going to be his first book.
He promised that I’m gonna help you start a founder, correct?
So he said, I promise you, we’ll push it out in four months
and I will give you all the support needed to push this out,
which I think was a great value add.
So then we built a process that every alternate day let’s get onto our calls.
I will explain to Ankita who was the
girl transcribing everything that I was talking about.
I will take her through all the topics, explain it to her so that she understands,
then she would transcribe, editing, send it to me.
I would add my import, send it back and stuff.
But within a period of three months,
we could write the entire manuscript and simultaneously we worked on the cover.
Um
and then 4th, 5th month, the book was out and we just pushed it out.
So the idea was to launch it as soon as possible,
take customer feedback and then go in for a second edition.
So now that the first batch is almost sold out,
we’re thinking for the second edition which we can launch in another month.
Should we try changing the cover?
Should we try getting like one more forward, you know,
some edits based on customer feedback that we’ve already got in the past month.
Can we just incorporate that and you know, ship out a second edition?
So I think the whole startup mentality of understanding consumer feedback,
speed and execution, iterating fast.
So all the principles we’ve used in the book as a product. Now, the idea
and then,
you know, improving it over time. Correct. Correct. Wonderful, wonderful.
And anything that surprised you about any customer feedback that you didn’t
or wasn’t a moment when you know you got any customer feedback,
anything you’d like to share?
Mm I think there are moments apart from just understanding about the industry
was pricing. I think pricing was very tricky.
Uh So we were constantly thinking that what is
going to be the best price for the consumer.
Now, the ways to think through this was one we wanted to add
value.
So now to add
value, we thought that if an entrepreneur spends an hour or two with a professional,
just getting insights on a lot of basic questions around fundraising,
around term sheet negotiation, legal valuation, all of that,
they will easily end up spending nothing less than 8
to 10,000 and just getting clarity on all of us,
if we could package all of those
issues in a structure that they understand
At 1/10, the cost
by that logic, even a price of 799
Was adding the next value. That was one.
But the reference that the book industry,
you know the price reference that it sets is like a 499.
So when someone is comparing it to other books,
they may still think this is expensive.
So then
we, we were like researching about, you know, how pricing works.
And again, some of our pricing frameworks that we’ve used for clients,
but essentially how concerts ticket prices get,
You know, uh decided.
So for concerts, if,
if you were to decide what is the willingness to pay for customers,
it will form a bell curve.
And you will say, for example, most customers want to pay,
say ₹2000 to attend this concert.
But there will be one extreme
which is even happy to pay one lac because they are such super fans
and real money is actually made again by Power
Law by catering to that extreme to such a degree
that all your profits come from there
like a fat tail end.
So we realized that we had to position it in such a way that
there is going to be a limited edition hardcover which will be author signed
so that even people are ready to pay ₹3000 for it, but it will be sold at 7 99.
So we just changed the reference point and the quality
To getting like a real author signed with a
message book for a 799 and added value there.
So we thought we’re not going to sell at any discount.
It is going to be at that price and it did sell out in no time.
It’s been a little over a month that we launched.
The book in the hardcovers was oversold like an in
pre orders and the paperback is just about getting over.
Is there an online digital version or audio
version that you’ve done or you’re planning?
So the audio version is being planned, so that will be released.
The kindle we’re probably not doing at this point. That’s a conscious decision.
So it’s only going to be paperback and hardcover, I think for the second edition,
we only release hardcovers.
We’ve listed about curiosity.
It’s about justifying the price point.
We wanted to be something that even the brief to the designer was
that it has to signal an entrepreneur as smart if he’s carrying it.
So this signaling that I’m smart, I’m an entrepreneur.
I want to raise funds for my startup.
So he should feel the need to carry it and the cover has to be Instagram a ble.
So that was the brief which is why we feel that hard
cover is necessary for this as a product at this point,
as an asset.
Um And as the second edition, we don’t want to do paperbacks,
we want to make it like an item.
You want to keep on yourself.
Like the bunch of books I’ve read in red in digital versions and I’ve liked them
so much that I’ve just ordered the hardcover because I want it in my collection.
So I think that’s what we’re aiming at with this book and
we definitely feel that this is like physical hardcover copy worthy.
So what next for?
And
what kind of new media, new ways and new innovations are you planning now?
I think so, what we’ve done with the book,
we’re thinking that we reduce the timeline with a
bunch of manual effort with some tech tools,
the ideas.
Now, how can we product ize this for a larger audience, for more creators using AI
like using the open source tools to convert their
existing video content being transcribed and converted into text,
being structured in the form of books so that a product can be
Made out of their existing thought leadership content in in less than
a couple of months where otherwise the timeline is is 18 months.
So again, that’s 10 x value. So that’s the product that we’re trying to work on
and fantastic and anything that you’d like to share from the book,
any specific chapter or any any interesting insights that people can get a teaser,
think of it like a teaser for your book, for anyone listening who you know,
want to read more about, you know, double click on that.
Who do you want me to read something from it? So this is what it looks like.
So for those of us who are not able to see or do you just short, I think
was just showing the cover of the book in his hand,
any excerpts or anything that you want to share?
Uh Okay. So I think I’ll just have randomly opened a page. Let me, let me see if this
is
cool. I’ll read a paragraph and let’s see if this makes sense to the audience here.
So,
should you search for the river first and build a dam on it or
should you build the dam and then hope for the river to flow through?
Interestingly,
many founders fail because they build the dams where the river is yet to arrive.
And when it does, they realize the dam wasn’t really needed.
The ganges has 9:40 dams and barrages built on it
and it still flows through to the Bay of Bengal
serving and overcoming the needs of all those obstructions.
Similarly, Godavari navigates through approximately 350 large and small dams,
smaller tributaries to have these constructed on them,
but they have limited ability to support or survive beyond the point.
Markets are like these rivers and startups are like dams,
large rivers support a large number of dams
adequately while smaller ones support only a limited few
similarly large markets can support a large number of
startups without letting any of them go thirsty.
In fact, it’s believed that a large market can even support average ideas and teams
just on the account of the total market size.
Many investors give the highest weighted to the size of the market,
the startup serves while evaluating it
and sometimes
seemingly average executions get handsomely funded because the
market size alone guarantees returns to some extent.
So that was just a small paragraph.
It’s a fantastic concept aboard, you know, whether to
work on something,
even if there’s competition and this tributaries and so on
or work on something which has a huge market size.
These are we going after something niche but maybe completely blue ocean.
And I think I, I love the analogy.
I’m sure, you know, more and more we will,
we read the book will come across some amazing i openness and uh you know,
uh innovative concepts that were introduced.
So it’s very interesting.
I I I can’t wait to, you know, start reading the rest of the book
for myself and
just, you know, maybe moving on from your current journey and you know,
as you mentioned
about something new and different that is happening.
So I mean, post the pandemic, etcetera.
Now, you know, we are more tech friendly,
we need more taking our life because to cope with, you know,
the new changes in labor market that has been
brought in anything specific that has been your experience,
any tools that, you know,
you love top 3 to 5 tools that you use for yourself to make yourself more productive?
Yeah, I think this is a cross industry is a lot of times new technology as we all know,
is seen as you know, a competition to what you do.
But I think it should be looked at that, you know, certain tools, like, for example,
there was a tool called compute tax.
Then there’s a reptile which, and, and say now it’s clear tax,
which is really made tax filing much easier than what it used to be earlier.
So a bunch of CS may feel that now the price of their services have gone down, you know,
it’s become a commodity, it’s so much more difficult to make money.
But if they look at it from the point of view that
now all of this has probably increased efficiency by 10 times,
you know, they can serve more people or they can get into other specialized fields,
which earlier, they did not have the band of it to get into.
So I think
what
some of the new revenue sources for.
So, so for example, I think, you know,
payroll is something that even enough while we don’t do a lot of payroll for,
for companies traditionally.
But we’ve seen that for whatever limited view that we
would take on those assignments as part of the,
you know,
bigger portfolio of services that we were offering them payroll used to end up
taking a great chunk of resources and time towards the end of the month
they would send in the data and it would take a lot of
manual effort of running checks on those Excel sheets and stuff like that.
So to like Asanify has really speeding up the process
and also removed a lot of, you know,
transitional problems of data between versions being sent by hr to
the chartered accountant and then the version changes and some leave changes,
you know,
that way it integrates all of that in one place
now with all the time saved through this tech,
I think the new age places are, it’s to think of that.
What is a higher ticket size to go forward? I feel
investment banking
bail advisory
is definitely something that a lot of smaller uh CIA firms
can now look at because earlier these services were reserved for
the big four or the big firms because anyone going for
a merger acquisition or any such deal would be bigger companies.
Everyone else was doing like, you know,
private small businesses which were very privately held.
Now, almost any person who comes up with an idea, you know,
within 6 to 9 months needs this service and needs
to raise funds and needs to bring in external,
you know, investors or stakeholders.
So if it so happens that, you know, you’re not equipped with that right knowledge,
you will not really be able to make that margin.
God and more and more.
I think the whole entrepreneurship bug that, you know,
many of us have been bitten by, led us to start our own businesses.
I think for CS also have seen that, that that is quite true.
That many people who have been working in
a senior uh professionals in the finance field,
starting their own practices.
And they also want to, you know, be an entrepreneur and do their own thing is that,
has that been your experience
100%?
I think, you know, at some point,
people to realize that there is some kind of a glass ceiling
that you cannot
Pass in employment.
And a lot of times when people see that, you know, I’ve spent 15 years in this company.
And the next amount is what I’m learning,
which is great from an industry standpoint.
But any colleague who started with their own business and
has spent 15 years doing it would be earning multi food
where initially in their journey, of course, they would have,
they would have made much lesser.
So that’s a trade off you really make.
And a lot of times people realize that okay, better late than never.
So I think that has definitely added a great deal to the ecosystem. Plus no code,
I feel, you know, no code tools have enabled CS
to solve for smaller finance related problems
or data reporting related problems for,
for businesses, which helps them become
better, more efficient problem solvers for businesses saying that OK,
you’re facing this data related problem, why not set up like a glide app or,
or you know, a notion page to collect this data, pass it on to someone else and why not?
Set up an air table,
you know, to, to products like product, is it?
So do you think that there’s a need to retake some for, you know,
some of these c firms and professionals working there or you feel they’re already,
you know, enough knowledge with, you know, what,
what people study during the exams or do you think there’s
a need for ongoing re education and re learning for something?
How I look at it, the half life for any career
now is less than five years.
So whatever you’re studying and learning today,
whatever you’re killing on in five years,
all of that will be irrelevant because either AI or tech will be doing it.
So at any point, I mean, for me,
content is a system for me to ensure I’m learning every day because
I have to come up with a new insight daily related to business,
which means with to create one
Unit of output,
you need to do at least 20 units of input to come up with that one inside.
So that means that if I’m making a one minute video in the background every day,
it takes me at least two hours of just
studying about business and it’s not been conscious,
it’s just automatically happened because I create content.
So I feel for me the metric for content creation
or my journey as a content creator to which I
spend not more than 20 minutes a day in shooting
a video and publishing it the rest of the day.
I’m just working on my business,
but what it is automatically ensured there’s every day, two hours,
I’m just studying about new trends, new industry is up skilling myself.
So I think that for me is a much bigger takeaway than
any amount of following or size of community because that’s a byproduct.
So you’re saying in order to teach,
I need to learn for us and that helps everyone be at that, you know, on their tools,
correct?
So with so many varied interests, what is a typical day in your life like?
So uh are there any typical days?
I do try to follow like a routine.
So the routine you can share, I’m sure many of us would learn a lot. Yeah.
So I rise up like really late. I wake up at about eight o’clock.
So it’s not, not part of the five a.m. club or anything.
So you’re saying it’s really late in your Yeah, if you were to ask my parents,
it’s horrible.
They didn’t raise me. Wake up at eight.
Oh my God, you should talk to some of the tickets that work with them. 10 AM is early.
But yeah, I think each person has their own biological clock. But okay.
So you wake up so I wake up at 88 30.
I recovered 80 30. I get ready for work
while breakfast is getting ready.
Uh I will quickly read through like a few of
the important newsletters that I’m subscribed to quickly have breakfast.
Get to my desk,
my daily schedule in terms of the calls and everything is already on the calendar.
Certain tasks that I need to do.
So, while the to do list is really long,
I will try and break it down to three things that I need to get done today at any cost.
So those three things I’ll start working on all
my calls are typically scheduled for the second half
Because the first half of the day, I just want to get done with, you know,
all the tasks that I’ve planned for the day.
Second half is a lot of calls.
I prefer to do those calls on audio only so that I can go behind my house.
There’s a, there’s a small park which is very exclusive.
It’s kind of silent and no one comes there.
So I do about two hours of brisk walking while I’m doing those
calls so that I can hit my 12,000 steps for the day.
After that, I get back to my desk.
I get back to doing those tasks following up with people.
A lot of other random stuff that just comes through the day, which is unplanned,
managing all of that.
My team leaves at about seven o’clock so 7 to 8 30 or so, I’m doing my own desk,
work in silence.
Um, 8 39 I come up what’s great is my office is in the same building.
So my daily commute time is like, correct. So seven seconds is my commute time
at the risk of yeah, at the risk of falling down a flight of stairs and broken,
breaking my kneecaps like seven seconds is the fastest I can do it. And
then yeah, so in the ninth, I I spent some time with my wife.
She’s also like we discussed, okay.
She does a lot of the negotiations and the deals
and like a great deal of the marketing effort.
So we discussed like work over tea and stuff.
Um in the night we’ll watch some TV. Then she is an early sleeper.
So she goes to bed early, which early is about 11,3012, which is really late for her,
but it’s early for me.
So between 12 to 1 30 I alternate if I have
not gotten a great deal of reading done through the day,
I do that reading in the night.
So about 1.5, 2 hours of studying, I pick up a book.
So I’m either reading a book on my ipad because I
can’t have the lights on because she’s a light sleeper.
So I’m reading a book on my ipad or I am. If I’m done with my insights for the day,
I’m done with like whatever I wanted to read,
then I’m just like doing a bit of social media is looking at what are the trends,
what’s working?
Who do you follow on social media?
Are there some influencers or are there some books,
you know that you would like to recommend anything?
I follow very few people on social media?
But the kind of content I like is I really enjoy podcasts like this. I enjoy.
My favorite podcast is um you know, the Matrix partners, Matrix Moments podcast.
And I was heartbroken to see that their youtube channel has just 5000 subscribers
where the value why that they give on their podcast,
I have not seen on any other business podcast so that I think is, is amazing.
Um Even the barbershop by, you know,
recently was great. I thought those were great conversations.
Um The Moon Short Podcast, I listen to,
I listened to the Indian Silicon Valley podcast. I’m a great watch fanatic.
So at times I listened to Holding Key, which is a watch related podcast in magazine.
So that
right. Thanks
so much for your time. Anything else?
So where can our,
what is the best way to reach you for our audience if someone wants to reach out to you?
So on Instagram, I might CSRC
to um mostly when people write to me and I read every message, whatever doesn’t ask,
I make sure I reply if it deserves qualifies for a longer
chat. I asked for a brief that goes to my email. I’m not going to give that email.
So that goes to my email and that qualifies.
Secondly, LinkedIn, correct. So start
these two will be sufficient.
I mostly go through all my messages maybe two days late in responding, but I do
of course. Fantastic. Thanks so much
for your time. I hope you enjoyed uh you know, a little chat.
I learned a lot and I hope and a shout out to everyone who’s listening to,
check out the book that
I just mentioned something.
You want to just hold the book one more time for anyone who’s watching this.
There you go. You saw it here till this coffee and started fundraising by.
Thanks everyone. Have a wonderful day ahead. Bye bye. Thank you.
Right. Thanks
so much for your time. Anything else?
So where can our,
what is the best way to reach you for our audience if someone wants to reach out to you?
So on Instagram, I might CSR thank Ahuja.
Um Mostly when people write to me and I read every message, whatever doesn’t ask.
I make sure I reply if it deserves, qualifies for a longer
chat. I asked for a brief that goes to my email. I’m not going to give that email here
that goes to my email and that
secondly, Lincoln Correct. So
these two will be sufficient.
I mostly go through all my messages maybe two days late in responding, but I do,
of course. Fantastic. Thanks so much
for your time. I hope you enjoyed uh you know, a little chat.
I learned a lot and I hope and a shout out to everyone who’s listening to,
check out the book that
just mentioned something.
You want to just hold the book one more time for anyone who’s watching this.
There you go. You saw it here till is coffee and start up fundraising by.
Thanks, everyone. Have a wonderful day ahead. Bye bye. Thank you.
Right. Thanks
so much for your time. Anything else?
So where can our,
what is the best way to reach you for our audience if someone wants to reach out to you?
So, on Instagram, I might mostly reply when people write to me and I read every message,
whatever doesn’t ask.
I make sure I reply if it deserves or qualifies for a longer chat. I asked for a brief
that goes to my email. I’m not going to give that email here.
So that goes to my email and that qualifies.
Secondly, Lincoln Correct. So this article whose only
these two will be sufficient.
I mostly go through all my messages maybe two days late in responding, but I do,
of course. Fantastic. Thanks so much
for your time. I hope you enjoyed uh you know, a little chat.
I learned a lot and I hope and a shout
out to everyone who’s listening to check out the book that
I just mentioned something.
You want to just hold the book one more time for anyone who’s watching this
There you go. You saw it here till this coffee and started fundraising by.
Thanks everyone. Have a wonderful day ahead. Bye bye. Thank you.
Right. Thanks
so much for your time. Anything else?
So where can our,
what is the best way to reach you for our audience if someone wants to reach out to you?
Um mostly when people write to me and I read every message, whatever doesn’t ask,
I make sure I reply if it deserves or qualifies for a longer chat.
I asked for a brief
that goes to my email. I’m not gonna give that email here.
So that goes to my email and that qualifies.
Secondly, Lincoln Correct. So start
these two will be sufficient.
I mostly go through all my messages maybe two days late in responding. But what I do,
of course, fantastic. Thanks so much
for your time. I hope you enjoyed uh you know, a little chat.
I learned a lot and I hope and a shout out to everyone who’s listening to,
check out the book that
just mentioned something you want to just hold the
book one more time for anyone who’s watching this.
There you go. You saw it here till this coffee and started fundraising by.
Thanks everyone. Have a wonderful day ahead. Bye bye. Thank you.
Right. Thanks
so much for your time. Anything else?
So where can our, what is the best way to reach you?
For our audience if someone wants to reach out to you.
So on Instagram, I might see S Arthur Ahuja.
Um mostly when people write to me and I read every message, whatever doesn’t ask.
I make sure I reply if it deserves qualifies for a longer chat. I asked for a brief
that goes to my email. I’m not going to give that email here.
So that goes to my email and that qualifies
Instagram. Secondly, Lincoln Correct.
These two will be sufficient.
I mostly go through all my messages maybe two days late in responding. But what I do,
of course. Fantastic. Thanks so much
for your time. I hope you enjoyed uh you know, a little chat.
I learned a lot and I hope and a shout
out to everyone who’s listening to check out the book that
I just mentioned uh something you want to just hold
the book one more time for anyone who’s watching this.
There you go. You saw it here till this coffee and started fundraising by.
Thanks everyone. Have a wonderful day.
Thank you.
Check out Sarthak’s book here: Daily Coffee and Startup Fundraising
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