Himanshu’s Newsletter

I was barely a month away from graduating as a software engineer. The stress of the major project was high. I got placed in September of 2017 and had an easy final semester. (Engineering students will know how getting placed early makes your life easier on campus for rest of the time) Honestly, I spent most of those six months scaling Stories Worth Sharing. We had started with SWS Meetups in March of 2017. By March 2018, we were doing at least two sessions in different Indian cities.

I was still in late teens when a senior in college recommended me a book. Well, no. I think it was some creator. or maybe some public figure. I don’t remember exactly but I am glad I took this recommendation and purchased the book: TO SELL IS HUMAN Till the time I read it, I saw sales as a sin. A sin that I did not want to commit. Yeah, this is what I learnt from this book. A new concept of Non Sales Selling In non sales selling, you do not indulge in a transaction of finances.

I was running out of ideas for this week’s Substack when I opened my Google Photos App. Suddenly, one memory popped up from March 17, 2019. 4 years ago, it said, I was sitting outside Janpath Metro Station Gate Number 02 on violet line in New Delhi. For those who are well versed with this part of New Delhi, this is the gate just opposite McD at the signal. Exactly 4 years ago, I wrote to many like Suhavi.

In 2019, a video went viral. In that video, this woman allegedly passed a comment on dressing sense of 4 girls. As per the claim, this woman found the dress of one of these to be extremely short and casually said “you shall be raped for wearing this!” In those days, I posted on Instagram story of @storiesws addressing the male followers with a comment “This girl could have been your sister, girlfriend or friend” and urged people to not to be like the woman seen in the video.

In the last 2 months, I have interacted with 10s of educators, digital creators and entrepreneurs who are not able to either scale their digital business or not getting RoI on their time. Most of these are working for someone else and want to jump from an 'employee' to 'self owned' status (in digital space) If you are in the same zone, here are some practical tips Know that it won't happen overnight. Start small: Maybe a Twitter account, a Telegram or a YouTube.

Earlier this week I was in a conversation with a YouTuber who has 150k+ subscribers and doing a high end 7 figure business. This also pushes their ‘valuation’ in 9 figures although they are not currently looking to raise. They started from scratch with 0 social credibility before this but do come from a strong engineering background.

As time decided, I was invited to shoot the show with them at their premium studios in Noida. It was on Sunday, 12th Feb when I found myself hanging out with some of the key executives just before (and after) the shoot. PhysicsWallah has one of the best infrastructure in the industry. Their shooting studios are all laced with cutting edge technology and the office comes with an incredible vibe.

One of the execs from UA said this on a video call. I was 21 years old second year student at Engineering school. Stories Worth Sharing was a mere FB page. We had hosted just one session in Delhi and spent most of our time ‘curating’ stories for SWS FB page. FB pages was still the best medium to reach out to masses. Algorithm supported great content served with right images. In our opinion, we were growing fast. A few months before this, I came up with idea of ‘continuity’ on our page.

It was a regular evening in December when my sister was home and we were fighting over something. Not a fight really but we were just having fun throwing insults at each other. Just before I was to leave her room, I opened up my e-mail to close the day and go to sleep. The mail read this and I laughed hysterically. Why? In 2014, before going to pursue engineering, I made it to Government Law College in Mumbai.

Last week, I shared an image and promise to share the story of that image in next edition. In this week, I am here to narrate the story! First, the image, again👇🏻 If you are active on ed-tech internet, you’d know that this is the picture from PhysicsWallah office. The background has all the major silver and golden play buttons that the work of Mr Alakh Pandey has earned in last few years.