In 2019, I quit a well-paying job as a content strategist to “start a business”.

And I did.

But that business shut shop within the next three months.

Why and how did I go from charting out a plan and investing money to shutting shop within the next few weeks?

Let me tell you.

The “business” idea

I was working with a leading travel platform in India at the time. Before I put in my papers, I spent a few weeks planning the entire concept. It wasn’t a profound idea, nothing that was going to “change the world”.

I wanted to sell jewelry…

When I was in high school, I couldn’t wait to start adulting — to have my own place, go partying with my friends on the weekends and trot around town in fashionable clothes. You guessed it, like Carrie in Sex and The City or like Monica or Rachel in Friends.

Not the best idea of adulting to have as a teen, is it?

I was quickly made aware of this a few years later as I got a job and got my own place. The reality was blaring and not quite as “fabulous” as I had expected.

If you’re an…

As I inch closer towards turning 30, I’ve realized that the one thing I value the most in life is peace of mind. And I believe that all of us are striving to maintain our peace of mind at all times.

If you think about it, every time there’s a disturbance in our happy state, we work towards eliminating that disturbance so that you can go back to it.

Ultimately, every step that we take is to ensure that we maintain this state of peace somehow. What I’ve figured out — and I’m not a genius for doing so —…

Last year, after six years of working as a writer and content strategist with different organizations, I finally decided to quit. Why? Because I had a plan. Or so I thought.

My last job was with a travel-based startup in New Delhi and at this point, I had been with them for two years. I remember putting in the papers on a Friday in September. I had butterflies because I was a step closer to my dream of starting my own business — a dream I had since the beginning of my career.

I had everything ready to go for…

A friend of mine set up his restaurant in Delhi, India, at the beginning of February 2020. Everything was going well but then bam! COVID! Suddenly there was panic and frenzy and navigating the F&B space became extremely difficult. I should know because we had to deal with something similar with our own F&B brand — The Nutty Kitchen, a vegan-beverage startup.

After his place re-opened, he found it difficult to get back customers. The conventional marketing methods could only do so much and he wasn’t well versed with the digital world.

Stories like his dot the current work landscape…

Growing up, one person I was completely fascinated with was Leonardo Da Vinci. I was 13 when I found out that being one of the world’s most famous artists was just one of his many attributes. He was also a mathematician, a scientist, a philosopher, and he made discoveries on everything from anatomy to engineering!

That came as quite a surprise! How could he be following all these different interests? How was he so successful as an artist when that wasn’t the only thing he was doing? Weren’t we always told to stick to one path and one path only?

…

If I had a penny for every time someone asked me, “how to make money on Instagram”, I’d be pretty damn rich right now!

Considering that there’s a lot of ambiguity surrounding the concept of earning money online, this is a befitting question. And I haven’t found a lot of online resources that tackle this question head-on either! So, in this post, I am going to attempt to give you an in-depth insight into the world of Instagram blogging, monetisation on and off the platform and of course, what it takes to actually make the dough!

Whether you’re an aspiring…