I’ve started building my new side project NextStop — an online learning platform to help people from diverse backgrounds build a career in SaaS.
Did you know about your role when you accepted the offer letter for your first job? Do you know answers to questions like “What your typical day at work would look like? How does your job help you grow?” or “Where will it take you in say five or ten years?”
If your answer is no, NextStop is for people like you. If your answer is yes, then I (along with a million others) am jealous of you.
Why I’m building NextStop?
I was like you in 2013. I just completed my master’s degree in Bioinformatics with an 8.9 CGPA and was looking for…
With COVID-19 and working from home, we lost the small moments of ‘me’ time we used to get when we go out. It could be the short walk around the office building after lunch or the bike ride to and from the office.
It was almost six when I parked my car near the road that faced the iconic French building painted in yellow and white. The one that you see in most Tamil movies. The one that screams Pondicherry.
Why was I there? No reason. This is kinda my routine whenever I visit my in-laws in Pondicherry. I wake up early in the morning, drive to the beach, sit there, and look at the sun coming up over the shores of the Rock beach.
I was doing the same that day. Except it was colder than usual. But nothing stopped the uncles…
How do OTT platforms make money if they release new movies directly on their platforms? And that too without ads!
People of Tamilnadu can’t imagine a Deepavali (we don’t say ‘Diwali’) without movies. A typical Deepavali in Tamilnadu comprises bursting crackers, wearing a new dress, eating sweets, watching pattimandram, and the release of big-budget movies in theatres. People start flocking the theatres for 4 AM shows and will hop between theatres and shows until they’ve seen all the movies or the same movie a couple of times (until they’re satisfied). Going to movies by itself was a major celebration of every Deepavali. But, we missed it this year.
Even though the government ordered the reopening of movie theatres, the spaced…
Whenever Sheldon Cooper said “I’m not crazy, my mother got me tested” in ‘The Big Bang Theory’, I was able to relate to it. Because, I was tricked into meeting a Psychologist when I was thirteen.
It was a Friday evening and my dad said we’re going to going to Anna Nagar to meet his friend. He didn’t spare the details, but he said we’re gonna go in an auto-rickshaw. I should’ve suspected it when the Auto Rickshaw was involved because we never took an auto. We always traveled in government buses or train. …
A couple of months back, I spent an awful lot of time looking for the perfect productivity app to organize my notes, tasks, goals, etc.
Everything I read on Twitter and came across on podcasts and blogs strongly suggested that I need a productivity app to organize my life.
I tried multiple apps and poured through numerous tutorials on how to use tool ‘x’ to be more productive.
But to my surprise, things started becoming more chaotic after I started the quest. When I looked back, I realized it was because I was often tempted by the new productivity tools…
Six months back, I moved to Substack from my self-hosted WordPress blog as I was spending too much time fixing and maintaining things than writing. I even wrote an article about it!
Substack is a great platform for writers. It has helped several amazing writers to focus on their content without worrying about the technical complexities.
Adding to that, Substack started some really amazing initiatives like the writer fellowship, providing writers with financial and legal support, etc.
It has also made writers and journalists generate some amazing revenue numbers as well. …
Bargaining is an art. It involves smart moves, confident bluffs, and crowd-sourced knowledge about products/prices from friends, family, and extended circles.
Bargaining is like playing chess.
You’ll have to predict the next few moves of the shopkeeper before asking for a price.
You’ll have to assume the final price of the product you’re interested in and ask for a price that is 20–30% lower to what the shopkeeper’s final price would be in order make them believe that you have settled for their price.
As a kid, I used to go to the railway station market in Ambattur and I’ve always been amazed by how Indian women bargain.
Many times Indian aunties ask shopkeepers for a price that would make them…
The new email service launched this week tried to re-imagine the email experience. Did they succeed?
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the blog post is purely based on personal experience. It was not influenced by any external factor.
User experience has become one of the hottest commodities in recent times. People are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of user experience and they are willing to pay a small price for apps that offer a kick-ass user experience.
One of the areas that have grown rapidly in terms of UX during the last couple of years is the email service. The market has grown beyond Gmail, Yahoomail, and Outlook. …
The best thing about a great city is it will offer you the best memories which you can cherish for life. Kolkata did that to me during the most difficult time of my life.
The first bite of the Khati roll stuffed with tiny chunks of Tandoori chicken, sautéed onions, ketchup, and green chili sauce justified my twenty-eight-hour train journey to Kolkata. The journey was bumpy as me and my friends had to travel in upper berth the entire time as the other seats were occupied by a zillion people!
It was a couple of days before Christmas when I reached Kolkata. I had five thousand rupees in cash, some clothes, and a huge bag filled with camera gear.
The trip was memorable for three reasons.
First, I made it to Kolkata at a…
Everyone knew him. They spoke to him almost every day. But, nobody knew his actual name. What could it be?
In 1999, we moved to Chennai from Pondicherry. I was 11. My dad was excited as he was back to the house he built during 1979. He was excited to be back at Ambattur after 14 years. As we were settling in, he got a chance to reconnect with old friends and colleagues. It was during this time, he met his long term acquaintance — a thin old man with disheveled white hair. His name was ‘Uppu’, which meant ‘salt’ in Tamil.
He wore shirts that are at least a couple of decades old. The previous generation including my dad…
