2020 - mid 21: I’d picked up a decent reading / writing momentum. That continued for many months. That’s how these newsletters happened. Especially during Covid, when traveling was limited.
But soon, the world started opening, my travels resumed and eventually I just couldn’t read / write enough. That’s the short story of the long gap. In case you wondered. Did you? Anyway, have a news to share.
I started a new company
It’s called CoreVoice. My co-founder is Amrut - a batchmate from IIT Madras, a good friend and a long time collaborator / client. We started in October last year and it has been some journey! We already have about half a dozen folks working at CoreVoice - from different parts of India. What do we do?
We use the power of storytelling to help (mostly) startups with growth strategy, brand strategy and marketing strategy + of course we create and deliver content - as needed (and in whatever form needed). A sweet mix of consulting and creativity. So me, I know! :)
Talking about starting up, stumbled upon this blog today (from 2008) where the author - Noam Wasserman (also the writer of a famous book - The Founder’s Dilemmas) shares something very interesting:
…a founder who gives up more equity to attract cofounders, nonfounding hires, and investors builds a more valuable company than one who parts with less equity. The founder ends up with a more valuable slice, too. On the other hand, in order to attract investors and executives, entrepreneurs have to give up control over most decision making.
…“rich” versus “king” trade-offs. The “rich” options enable the company to become more valuable but sideline the founder by taking away the CEO position and control over major decisions. The “king” choices allow the founder to retain control of decision making by staying CEO and maintaining control over the board—but often only by building a less valuable company.
Talking about insights, as part of CoreVoice’ founder-led marketing, we are doing this thing called CoreInsights, where some of us from CoreVoice share some interesting marketing / brand / behavioural science insights on video.
So far, only I have done it - but hopefully you will see more faces soon. Below is the first episode - you will learn something new if you watch it!
Should brands be consistent in their advertising? Yes and no.
Episode 2: would writing “ugly” on a box help sell more?
Ok, will keep this one short. See you next weekend. Have fun. And if this newsletter caught you by surprise, email back a Vatsap? or something?
-Amrit