BLOGS
FEATURED
Strategy, Storytelling
It starts like most strategy conversations do, with too much data, too many narratives, and an illusion of clarity. But as each layer is peeled back, what seemed certain begins to fall apart. This “whydunit” follows that unraveling, where assumptions are questioned, signals are separated from noise, and clarity is not presented but revealed. Because in the end, strategy is not about what you add, but what survives when everything unnecessary is stripped away.
QBR, Strategy
QBR, Strategy
Artificial Intelligence
INVESTMENT PITCHES, STORYTELLING
Investment readiness does not begin with numbers or slides. It begins with context. When your narrative makes the market real, clarifies the urgency of now, and makes your role undeniable, capital starts to move. Context turns traction into momentum and vision into conviction. It aligns brand, sales, hiring, and execution around a shared strategic direction. Without it, growth fragments. With it, strategy compounds.
INVESTMENT PITCHES
Investment readiness is a structured journey built on four core components: context, output, preparation, and narrative. Together, they align what founders communicate, what they present, and how they engage with investors. It goes far beyond a well-designed pitch deck. It is a disciplined mix of narrative clarity, numerical rigor, strategic communication, and continuous learning, where style supports substance and substance drives outcomes.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
On the face of it, John Kotter’s Our Iceberg Is Melting is a simple tale of a group of penguins who are scared about losing their home, their iceberg, and yes, even more scared of the changes that could entail. But through that simple story and their struggle to find a new home, it delivers a far more powerful message, one that feels increasingly relevant for companies today as they set strategies that no longer align with changing market and internal realities.
Strategy
A late night “business detective” uncovers an attempted murder of strategy inside packed boardrooms filled with polished, AI-powered decks. As reviews unfold, three suspects emerge: endless nights spent perfecting slides while the real narrative slips away, selective use of data that defends old strategies instead of questioning them, and a lack of ownership where decisions have no clear owners or timelines. The real culprit, however, is not these symptoms but the absence of shared context, leading to the familiar QSQT cycle where one quarter quietly bleeds into the next.
STORYTELLING
The true power of writing lies in words that stay with you long after you finish reading, through narratives that shape your thinking and choices. And that power stems from the writer/storyteller’s original voice. This piece reflects on this duality, drawing on unforgettable lines from my favourite stories, at a time when more people are regurgitating content from the vast pool of words LLMs are trained on.
Impact Investment
This article is about the real narrative of impact investing. It began almost as a quiet revolution that believed that capital could be a force of good, a tool for societal change, not just accumulation. But aligning profit with purpose is no easy ask. Creating impact in a scalable, sustainable way is hard. And supporting impact, through capital and through ecosystem initiatives, is equally hard. Systems resist transformation, incentives do not always align. The gap between intent and action carries friction, ambiguity and the cost of time.
STORYTELLING, STRATEGY
A week ago, I found myself immersed in the buzzing environment of TechSparks. The air was thick with the unmistakable scent of global ambition and the intensity of transformational ideas was enough to make even the fastest Wi-Fi router blush. A lot of conversations inevitably flowed from the dizzying potential and risks of generative AI to the need for cohesive marketing narratives and GTM playbooks. But the most important question on all our minds was: "In this age of relentless innovation, what strategic asset actually makes a company endure?" Over the last week I have realized that this is a question less about features and more about gravity.
PITCH, STORYTELLING
Education Entrepreneurs today are building a story of the “after.” After the pandemic fuelled havoc on institutional learning. After the capital bloat and long winded blow up of one of the most funded companies. After recent AI advancements are begging the question, “can learning really be personalized for the audience of one?” In this age of the “after”, the real stories of Education are again emerging. And here’s how the narrative can be built and pitched right.
STORYTELLING
A background in statistics often fosters a fascination with assessing uncertainty through distribution curves and likelihoods. Yet, there’s a growing challenge in how these concepts are being applied in the world of AI. Within a large language model, every sentence is essentially a chain of probabilities; a calculation of what is most likely to follow next. What is commonly described as a “voice” is, in truth, statistical coherence rather than intent. And that distinction leaves three critical questions open.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Prompt AI can summon words, code, and images, all seemingly at the click of a magical, music-like prompt. There is an outpouring of content in every shape and form, dancing to the tune of this mysterious command. Content that sounds familiar, can be generated endlessly, and yet feels strangely fleeting. However, as AI evolves, prompt fluency will become table stakes. But story fluency will be the true differentiator. Because in a world where every word can be generated, only stories - messy, raw, real, human, and intentional, will be remembered and will move people to act.
DATA STORYTELLING
This one is for all my fellow statisticians and data lovers. Our discipline has seen many an epithet from the humble analytics to data science to the omnipresent and ever evolving AI. Drag But through it all, what has remained unchanged is the underlying language of statistics.
STORYTELLING, STRATEGY
A 2023 HBR article reminds us that strategy needs a story. Storytelling isn’t just marketing—it’s how a company defines its purpose, direction, and choices. As Ben Horowitz said, “Your story is your strategy.” Even in valuation, Aswath Damodaran shows how narratives shape numbers. From startups to global firms, the link between story and strategy drives clarity, alignment, and belief.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The tale of Dorothy and her friends as they journeyed to the Land of Oz; each to find answers to the problems they were facing is one many of us would have loved reading as children. And a few of us would have also read the background story about how this story was actually a satirical monetary allegory with Dorothy representing the everywoman fighting the post-depression issues of the 1890’s. Fast forward 200 years. Visualize Dorothy in the new world of the AI gold rush. Meet the new cast of characters and imagine their story.
PITCH, STORYTELLING
The internet is full of templates that promise to structure your pitch for success—problem, solution, market size, traction, financials. Yet, many founders struggle to capture investor interest with these templates or even with the latest AI-based one click generation of outputs. Why? Because a template gives you structure, but it doesn’t give you a story. And without a compelling story, your pitch remains just another set of slides.
STORYTELLING, REBRANDING
At the outer most layer, we are all telling stories. Some consciously. Some unconsciously. If the story we tell is authentic and real, we have found our story. If not, we need to reach deeper inside to find our story. And finally, storytelling, is not just for us to embellish what we say at work. We are living our story. Every day. The same is true for brands.
BRAND BUILDING, MARKETING
In the world of B2B business, where sales cycles are long and where customers buy for value and outcomes, the role of marketing is often misunderstood. Is marketing even needed? Isn’t sales all that is needed? It needs to be boring, right? These are recurring questions. As we work with high growth B2B firms looking to scale towards new geographies, product expansions and value creation opportunities, here are some of our learnings.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI agents are springing up all around us, becoming an ever-present part of our daily lives. You can call them the tech world’s very own James Bond—slick, mysterious, and armed with gadgets that most barely understand. But, for every true-blue AI “agent” solving real problems, there’s a dozen of its cousins running around with a license to well, just market. Let’s spot the difference. And keep the sanity.
INSIGHT STORYTELLING
Detective Data is on the hunt for a missing Insight. Visualization dazzles with charts, AI strides in with confidence, yet the mystery deepens. Dashboards pile up, models get built, but decisions remain cloudy. The truth? Insight isn’t in the noise, but in the meaning that connects them all.
CONTENT MARKETING
Was Shakespeare clairvoyant when he wrote “As you like it” or did he actually foresee the modern-day power of the word like? The word has its own life today, a life that can be counted, followed, nurtured and finally tracked till it turns into a “lead”. Is push-based outbound content/marketing struggling for its breath in a relentless chase across channels and content types today?
STORYTELLING
More companies die of broken narratives than of broken products. The story—or the absence of it—is the leading indicator of growth. We’ve seen it across the board. Founders with traction. Teams with talent. Products with potential. Stalling, not because they’re building the wrong thing. Because they’re still saying the wrong thing.
Artificial Intelligence
Ancient philosophers, be it in India or Greece or in other places, knew much about life. They raised critical questions and suggested solutions about the purpose of life, work and spirituality that are relevant even today. Imagine these wise philosophers reacting to today's emerging AI. What would have been their observation?
DATA STORYTELLING
The best data strategies are simple. Direction over dashboards. Starting with real questions, using data already available, blending data with narrative and ensuring action before the problems take root. Because when data moves, people follow. And when the social sector leads with vision, it doesn’t just tell a better story, it writes a new one.
STARTUP STRATEGIES
Every human being comes to existence with some pre-configured itches. The itchiest of them is to start something of your own. It can surface at any age under circumstance. Whatever the reason, it surfaces for sure. Some make it their life’s mission, while most bury it under layers of procrastination, fear and societal pressures.
STORYTELLING
We are living in the future. The machines learn. They automate. They optimize. They process vast oceans of data, execute flawless algorithms, and even manage to bring a strange kind of enthusiasm to a spreadsheet. Yet, for all this formidable power, there’s one profound element AI, no matter how complex, cannot truly replicate: YOU.
INVESTMENT PITCHES
Not every founder is building for the next unicorn valuation or chasing a billion-dollar cheque. Dreams differ. What is common is the need for an authentic story. The deck may be one of the outcomes, but it always begins with the story. And while slides can take many shapes, the story must hold.
Investment decks
In the startup world, the pitch is pitched as a gateway to open doors, for investment and more. There are pitch templates that promise to show you how to build the perfect pitch to wow investors. And hence start the endless pitch runs. These templates share the basics that are needed in every deck. All in 10 slides.
Investment pitches
The pitch deck is the story. It’s Damodaran’s philosophy in real time—the clash of narrative and numbers, where only the true story survives. When you step up to pitch, you’re not just running through slides. You’re setting the stage. And if you have found your right story, not a Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V from some other story, you’re creating music. The kind that makes the market take notice.
Strategy, Storytelling
Using the fable of "The Emperor's New Clothes," this article explores why authentic storytelling and truth in business are more critical for building trust and sustainable brands than shiny, hollow narratives.
Strategy, Education Sector, India
Explore how capital and narrative shaped India's EdTech boom. This analysis argues for a renewed focus on foundational learning and mastery-based skilling to transform the future of education.
Strategy
Before the visualization tools, there were the visionaries.
Strategy, Content Marketing
In the old days, it was simple: You built a company and told that story.
