Maharashtra
|
Member Since:Mar 03, 2003
0 MS Points
I have 25 years of marketing and advertising experience, of which 14 are in online marketing.
After dropping out of college, I sold vacuum cleaners from door to door, worked with Grey in India and Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where I won notoriety and awards as a creative director on HP, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV - for whom I wrote and directed a spot voted “Asia’s best commercial of the decade”.
I then moved to a Silicon Valley firm, CKS Partners (later, USWeb/CKS) as Creative Director, General Manager and Partner – where I helped launch the first commercial version of Yahoo in 1995 and the Earth’s Biggest Bookstore campaign for Amazon.com in 1997. After I moved to head marketing at iCat, an e-commerce firm in Seattle subsequently acquired by Intel.
I then returned to India to run Channel V, a rival to MTV, till its sale to Newscorp in 2000 and then founded Passionfund to invest in startups. Some of my investees include Geodesic, Compassbox – acquired by Careerlauncher, Cypherix, Indiaproperties, EBS and Webdunia. I have also penned columns in Business Today and Businessworld, and played the Donald Trump-equivalent role in Business Baazigar, a game show similar to The Apprentice, involving entrepreneurs and business plans.
While running search marketing campaigns for his favourite charity in 2003, I believed there was a need for a pay-for-performance online marketing company - and set up Pinstorm in Bombay. With over 120 people across 7 offices in India, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Europe and the US, Pinstorm is today among the world's leading digital marketing firms.
I have a passion for early-stage investing and teamed up with Pravin Gandhi and Bharati Jacob (ex-Infinity) in 2006 to set up Seedfund, today a leading early-stage venture capital fund in India. Seedfund already has 10 investments, including Carwale, Printo, RedBus, AFAQs and Vaatsalya.
. Entrepreneurs, startups, ideas that can change the world, music, travel, reading, writing