“No, look. Your stories are great, why don’t you share these stories on Unacademy?”
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. Today, you see an evolved version of this in form of my 100 videos series. I shoot all these 100s on a single day; to ensure ‘continuous’ content for 100 days without fail.
However, the thought is easily five years old.
What was the idea?
That was the time when people like Humans of Bombay were doing random stories. One after other! New one is not associated with the previous and yet, they found their audience.
I did not want to ape this and started thinking of a new format.
I was a student of Russian language (everyone at my uni had to study one foreign language)
The classes for the language were held once a week and only in the evening. Say, your regular class (if) ends around 1230, the eve class is somewhere around 1630. That evening, we were supposed to pick from last class's comprehension about architecture of Moscow.
I was in the college library and suddenly had this eureka moment. We’d make continuous series. Which means, we’d not just post one story but stories in parts under a theme.
For an example
We picked a theme of Financial Journey of India. Here, the prominent finance and economics related decisions of Indian Prime Ministers will be documented under hashtag #PrimeEconomyPrimeMinister. One PM’s ‘story’ everyday with a classic graphic. Here’s the graphic we did on PM Rajiv Gandhi
With these graphics were a full length story. See PM Vajpayee’s story for an instance
How did Unacademy come into the picture?
While we did not get ‘heavy’ engagement, the visibility was comparatively better.
This visibility found space on screen of someone in the team of Unacademy. The quality of the content was appealing and boom! We had a call.
Result?
We created and sold stories. A LOT OF THEM! One example can be found in images below. This was a set of 6 stories about India’s First War of Independence
One random idea of ‘continuity’ while waiting for a Russian class helped me sell my first ever side project to India’s leading unicorn ed-tech startup. It’s funny where your side projects can take you!
Kuch na kuch side me karte rehna chaihye. Mann laga rehta hai!
Note: If you are looking to strategize your personal brand online, I’d help. Write back to this email or drop an e-mail to phimaanshu@gmail.com
Picture of the week
I was at my evening walk when I spotted these kids. The chains of the swing have hooks to adjust its length. Often, the adults accompanying the ‘rich’ kids are the ones who ensure moderate length. However, the kids of laborers at construction site in the society do not have that luxury. I was super amazed seeing how they solved this problem to reach the height.
Fun fact: the kid serving as the ‘table’ crumpled under weight just after the image was taken (Ik Ik I should have helped but these kids were deteriminantly atmanirbhar) *wink*