Hi Reader,
Six months ago, when I announced that I would publicly build Brain Box Gurukul (BBG), I knew it wouldn’t be a straight-line journey. This is my fourth venture, and while prior experience gives you pattern recognition, the terrain is always different. More importantly, what worked even in 2022, may not necessarily work today.
And that’s precisely why I chose to build BBG in public. When we built Arpita's YouTube channel from 1-10,000 subscribers in 95 days, we knew that it's not just a way to keep ourselves accountable, but it also allows us to invite our community into the messiness, the learnings, and the breakthroughs of building something from scratch. (Thank You!)
Why Brain Box Gurukul?
For those newer to my journey, BBG is not a random experiment. It’s the natural culmination of everything I’ve done in the last two decades:
• My corporate life (2005 - 17): 14 years in B2B sales at Wipro, SAP, IBM and GBM in Dubai. Closing $75Mn as an individual contributor, I understood the mechanics of outreach, building relationships and deal-making. Since I was into the Data Warehousing & Business Intelligence space - essentially AI for B2Bs - that gave me a head start into integrating AI into our systems.
• My first two startups (2017 - 21): Building 17 franchises across two industries taught me about scaling brick-and-mortar models, the discipline of systems, and the power of brands.
• Brain Box Catalysts (2021 onwards): Our PR and personal branding agency gave me a front-row seat to how visibility translates into authority, how authority drives inbound opportunities, and how digital credibility compounds over time.
So, this is the academy layer I always wanted to create. Think of it as the “training engine” that sits alongside the “brand engine” of Brain Box Catalysts.
The First Six Months: The Groundwork
Month 6 is a milestone because it signals we’re moving past the honeymoon period of “ideas and plans” into the messy reality of “execution and feedback.” Here are the critical pieces we’ve done so far:
1. Positioning the Academy: Instead of spreading too thin, we decided BBG’s first focus would be on leveraging AI for branding and productivity. Since we leverage 18 AI tools each week in our Agency, we not only have expertise but also immediate demand signals from our audience. With our 40+ thought leader clients, personal branding was a done-deal too.
2. Building Lead Magnets: While we launched a free 9-step LinkedIn Optimization Guide (on YouTube & a Notion website) and even conducted a free 1-hour GenAI webinar, one of the biggest challenges with freebies is that people don't value it. So we were very mindful to put them all out only for a specific time period (1-2 weeks) & then remove access. The logic is simple - if you aren't going to do it in this time, you won't do it later either.
And we want people in our community who actually "DO" things. Why?
We aren't 'just another course-seller'. Our projections are that BBG revenues won't even be 20% of our 360° PR & Personal Branding Agency by Dec 2026. This vertical is for people who actually want to DIY (Do It Yourself) it! So if you miss the deadline, you can then join our Brain Box Gurukul platform, with a paid membership (MRP: ₹36,000 or $360 annually).
3. AI Focus: Interestingly, we had a cap of 75 for the AI course & we hit it within 2 days. So we closed registrations a whole week before the event! The feedback from the event included doing 1-1 sessions where we can add our business expertise and be very specific on how they can leverage it better. So we did. In 3 days flat.
I conceptualized the whole program with ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity & Claude; used GPTs, Comet & Lovable to make the website live in a couple of hours & then announced it in my community through this newsletter. Of course it helped that the price point of just ₹9,999 ($100) was a steal for the value we are delivering)!
The biggest advantage AI gives you is speed of execution. Since I'm a non technical person, this was impossible just a couple of years ago!
4. Community Building: The value we offer in the community is massive. All our offerings are launched exclusively in our emails (like offering 10 Perplexity Pro licenses in January!) But why focus on the newsletter? With all social media channels being interest-based, there's no way that we could leverage a 250,000+ community effectively on other social media platforms. Even if someone among my 10,000+ LinkedIn followers wanted to catch every post of mine, they wouldn't be able to do that unless they specifically "ring the bell" on my profile!
But now that our newsletter community is steadily growing, it made us realize that most creators (or brand builders) don't see it from the consumer's perspective. Since we're into so many things (podcasting, PR, entrepreneurship, sales, AI, branding), you should only see the content that's relevant to you. This is the same "interest-based" algorithm, but we're now using it for our advantage.. and yours too, of course!
Strategic Shifts Going Forward
After six months of experimenting, here’s how we’re recalibrating:
• Less one-off, more structured journeys: Instead of multiple random webinars, we’ll build learning pathways or “starter kits” that lead into deeper programs.
• Community-first model: Rather than chasing strangers with ads, I want to double down on nurturing our Kit newsletter, LinkedIn ecosystem, and podcast audience. Trust > Transactions.
• Corporate AI Trainings: We've already had 3 of these in the past month. Best of all, 2 of them became our PR clients as well! So one business feeds the other.
Reflections:
Building BBG has reminded me that leadership is about curation as much as creation. In a noisy digital world, leaders are not the ones shouting the loudest, but the ones filtering signal from noise for their tribe. That’s the role I see BBG playing.
Equally important, building a company is a marathon, not a sprint. People are surprised to know that we have 1-1/2 day weekends & our phones switch off by 9.30 pm. Wellness in leadership is a very interesting intersection, with massive potential and very few players.
Six months into Brain Box Gurukul, I feel the same mix of excitement and nerves that I felt with my first startup back in 2017. The difference now is clarity. Clarity that visibility is the oxygen for any founder. Clarity that AI is not a threat but a catalyst. Clarity that wellness is not optional - it’s the bedrock.
Thank you for being part of this journey. Every time you read, respond, or even silently nod along, you remind me why building in public is worth it.
MY TWO MOST INTERESTING LINKEDIN POSTS THIS WEEK:
A reflection after completing 8 years of our Pvt. Ltd company on Aug 15th.
|
|
|
|
|
Kaushik Bose
4x Founder | Podcast Host voted 9th pan-India by Spotify in 2022 | 360° PR & Personal Branding Agency voted Global Top 10 in 2024
|