Do not index
Do not index
October’22 was my last month at Outplay — Although a short one, this journey was one of the best phases of my career until now 📈 And I wanted to share the journey of ‘What Next?’ with everyone who has been a part of my journey for the last few years ❤️
![My journey so far!](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1400%252F1*bpXSR9jZNDUwWuB93b1azA.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3D7f84f6cd-2ca5-4496-bb95-0d2fd597e149%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
Working in Founders Office, throughout my career.
I had always envisioned building something of my own that could make a difference in the world. Fortunately, I found the right people to guide me to this goal right from my college 🙂 I was also clear, while I’m jumping on to build something — I wanted to closely work with only Founders to understand their mindset of running startups.
You are who you surround yourself with.
Stoned Santa
Right from my 2nd year of college, I started working with Shashank Shekhar for building Stoned Santa, an IIM Bangalore incubated startup. Shashank knew that I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and he made sure that he gave me all the right guidance to be one.
A mentor is someone who allows seeing the hope inside you
Being into Sales, Marketing, Hiring, and Operations right when I was 19 — gave me enough exposure to understand how things work while building a startup from 0–1. I still remember my first ever guest lecture at NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore on digital marketing while I was just 20 and addressing a group of experienced students and founders ❤️
![Here I am talking about how I scaled to 3.5M views on Quora and drove a revenue of 20L to Stoned Santa through Organic Quora Marketing](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1400%252F1*porZtepDFbisA7FcOmW_oA.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3D12b60e1d-e17a-4552-b23b-ba0f11216394%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
Standing in Kormangala on Valentine's Day in front of thousands of people is one of the marketing campaigns that still gives me goosebumps.
![notion image](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1400%252F1*OOwSrICfGALnCxbL3CSCvQ.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3Dfe805f4d-965b-4192-b701-03152825e653%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
A great successful campaign that landed us a lot of brand awareness and new customers.
![notion image](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1204%252F1*cCgclxbyEFblfzy5wohiyw.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3Dd48fb5a3-22bb-430d-9638-4a945831eae8%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
People flocked to us to help us with the campaign
Oh! And, we landed in the Kormangala Police Station for this campaign. Want to know the full story 😉 → Read it on quora
Almabase
I got a LinkedIn message from Kalyan Varma, Founder of Almabase about the role of an SDR. Since I had no idea about the B2B SaaS community and the role of an SDR — I wanted to give this a shot. In hindsight, I think this was the best decision I took of moving into SaaS 😀
![notion image](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1400%252F1*lLwSsP39tg6dc3VKlhQTCA.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3D007583c5-94d0-46c8-88d6-d80fd9af77be%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
Right from being an SDR to becoming an Account Based Marketing Lead, the journey at Almabase taught me things that have helped me grow so much in my professional life.
- SDR's role taught me to constantly face rejections and still hustle to hit my quotas.
- How to build a kickass culture while scaling.
- How to build better processes in companies by putting more emphasis on the right documentation.
How did I apply at Outplay?
When we talk about a few B2B Indian SaaS companies that make a hell lot of noise on LinkedIn — Outplay is the first name that comes into the picture! And that’s how I was introduced to Outplay.
Again, One of the non-negotiables for me was to work closely with the Founder and once Outplay was hiring for the Founders Office, I jumped into the opportunity. I wanted to make sure that I stood out from all the other applications, which is why I made a couple of personalised decks and videos about why I wanted to join the Founders Office.
![A 19-minute video about my journey in Stoned Santa and Almabase](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1400%252F1*rVcQ8apYDWyZW54hP2jZdw.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3Dccf0bea8-1f9b-4981-92ab-82c980f18ea0%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
![A personalised deck about why I wanted to be the Chief of Staff at Outplay eventually 😀](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1400%252F1*C6RfxPRxU6Qj3r1HCmZTPQ.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3D1de76c89-1fc2-44e8-9c59-087df514f5d3%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
I could communicate why I wanted to join the Outplay team and that’s how I got an offer from Outplay within a week 😀
My Journey at Outplay
Whenever I think of Outplayers, all I can think about is hustle 💪 And that’s what I loved about Outplay when I interviewed it. My role in the Founders Office was to execute multiple sales, marketing, and hiring projects — take them from 0 to 1 and then hand them off to the respective teams.
![notion image](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1400%252F1*7-PSo6SuWjBVXEWI24tS9g.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3Da11c8715-2ebd-462b-b3db-efd994ede8e8%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
- Executing 30Under30 SDRs in India — One of the biggest campaigns in India in 2022.
Coming with the background of being an SDR, I wanted to make sure that I do my bit in recognising all the SDRs in India who hustle all their way through to overhit their quotas 😀
![notion image](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1400%252F1*4ijCiIVWk_m3kKLje1ssNw.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3Dd0b8b647-88ac-4df6-90d6-dec42fee408c%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
Executing 30Under30 SDRs in India right from scratch was one of the best experiences for me until now. Got so many learnings in a span of 2–3 months ❤️
- Executing Call of Fame — Spotify for Cold Calls
One of the most interesting projects that I worked on was to build the Call of Fame by Outplay, where sales folks could listen to the best cold calls from people all across the globe
![notion image](https://cdn.feather.blog?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Fimage%2Fhttps%3A%252F%252Fmiro.medium.com%252Fmax%252F1400%252F1*zCxJCce-FTe25BvtSQcWtQ.png%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3Df569177e-02d1-4447-a22d-8e218ae274e3%26cache%3Dv2&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)
Call of Fame — The Spotify for Cold Calls
- Other projects included active involvement in hiring, company-wide documentation and taking strategic decisions on GTM.
Once again, Laxman ( CEO of Outplay ) made sure he supported me all throughout since he knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur right from giving me full ownership of the projects to cheerleading for me when I took the decision to dive into building my startup.
Now what?
I felt right now was the best time for taking the leap of faith of building something of my own — A dream that I always had right from my college.
While this was a big decision for me to leave a full-time job that I loved, that too in uncertain times of a potential recession — I am more than sure that I would want to spend the next 10 years of my life building something that could eventually make a difference ❤️
Curious, what am I building? I’m putting my next 10 years into building a Venture Studio!