The Road Ahead

This picture just demanded a post. It's tough to go off the beaten path and decide to do your own thing. Like, really tough. Tougher still to drown out the noise and stay focused on what you want to build. So what happens when you feel you're going the wrong way? Keep going or backtrack and re-route?

The Mental Health Economy...Say Again?

I've had the joy and privilege of working on two initiatives broadly aligned around social impact. We've built out The Health Collective for many years, focused on mental health and story-telling, stories of lived experience, books, comics, art, reviews; I've taken part in multi-stakeholder groups, panels, talk shows, and hosted events, circles, fostering connections and community. We may / not have hit a fork in the road but there's no question that this mission is more relevant than ever.

Mental health has become more than a buzz word, as many of you will have seen, with some estimates suggesting that in India alone mental health startups received 40+Million USD of funding (till Jan 2024). By end-2024, Mental health startups in India had reportedly raised 8.52M USD last year itself.

The same report in Outlook Business cited above says:

A report by venture capital firm Blume has pegged India’s mental health economy a $3bn opportunity.

That's 3 billion USD.

Also: There's a mental health economy, in case you missed it.

So maybe it's no surprise that things have gotten more complicated, as for-profits and not-for-profits, companies and individuals and collectives, influencers and (less and less?) journalists all play in the same pool now.

Just keep swimming: Fwiw I and a few friends who've in this space for years (story-telling/ community-building) have been very open to collaborate in general, but remain super-concerned about privacy and data collection (not to mention ads and marketers targeting vulnerable communities). I don't think that will change. And do remember to keep an eye out on how any services/ companies/ apps say they'll use your data.

Of course, being human, one is not entirely immune to shiny pitches (or even following that healthy declared profit motive), but the challenge is staying true to a mission and vision, and not getting pulled in too many directions. So to that extent, I think the lesson to be learned is how to say no...when you see a red flag.

... And maybe when to say yes if you see a green one.

Btw: what is our new vision/ mission statement?! We're actively working on this, so feel free to weigh in below, dear subscribers and community members. 🌻

Pivot: Lessons Learned

90% of startups fail...

I heard this from entrepreneur and founder of unicorns, Mukesh Bansal, who's written a new book called The Start-Up Code, which we just unveiled at the wondrous Jaipur Literature Festival... (That's me below, moderating an incredible panel of stalwarts and taking notes too, while slipping in questions on mental health and such-like.)

Lesson learned: We need to 'normalise' failure when talking entrepreneurship was the general consensus. You can't be risk-averse while trying to innovate, clearly. But lesson two is the advice we heard on perseverance! You'd want to look at, on average, giving your startup 10 years – it's 5 years if you're lucky and 15 if you're not.

This is time, your lifeblood you're investing, let's not forget. Not a small decision to make, no matter how shiny Shark Tank looks from the outside!

#SayAgain Podcast S2 is back soon

Season 2 of my podcast is back! We had so much fun on S1, learned a lot, reached a bunch of people in different cities, that it was a matter of when, not if. More very soon, but I'll leave you with a just-released newsy clip featuring senior foreign policy expert Dr Tanvi Madan at Brookings talking to me about what we can expect from PM Modi's forthcoming visit to the US! (The clip right before that has more on the 'undocumented illegal migrants' and dunki/donkey route)

📚 Books on my List that I Recommend:

1. Hurda by Atharva Pandit
   A story based on a true crime that will leave you pensive, possibly disheartened by societal hypocrisy, but definitely moved. This is a 'cracker' of a debut novel.
2. The Other Side of Diplomacy: Essays curated by Jayshree Misra Tripathi
   Bias declared! Even if this wasn't a book of essays curated by my mother, I think I'd recco this book featuring 15 essays by members of the Indian Foreign Service family (spouses and children) talking about various interesting postings. We're doing the launch in Delhi later this month, so do swing by and look us up if you're around.

What are you reading? Likes/ dislikes? Bouquets/ brickbats? More coming in the next newsletter! See you soon. 💙