At the anniversary of Agni, I had a chance to reflect upon the purpose of Agni, and why I started this agency.
A few years ago, I was looking for a top-notch agency to bring on for a client role, and I couldn’t find a single one in India that specialized in personal branding.
That gap is the real reason Agni exists. If the agency I needed didn’t exist yet, I figured I’d have to build it myself.
In the last two years, I’ve actively tried to close this gap. And this journey, with all the wins, has also been a real learning experience.
Sharing 3 of them with you:
#1 On the people I’ve hired and trusted
Bad talent isn’t neutral, it’s actively worse than an empty seat, because now you’re managing a problem instead of just missing a person.
I hired someone once who interviewed like a dream. They did not work like a dream. That one hire taught me more than any hiring course could have. Now, I don’t hire people who impress me in an hour and hire those who’d actually hold up under real deadlines and real pressure.
The flip side of that lesson is trusting the people you hire. I’ll always have a reason to be a little skeptical of someone on my team, that’s just how founder brains work. But a good culture doesn’t survive on suspicion.
I made a call early on to trust my team until they gave me a real reason not to, not a hypothetical one. That single shift changed how my whole team operates. People do better work when they’re not being watched like they’re about to mess up.
#2 On the way I treat myself
People tell me I’m a good boss. I believed them, until I noticed I was setting deadlines for myself that I’d never dream of putting on anyone else. Six months of that. Six months of being the harshest person in my own company, aimed at myself.
Founder loneliness is real, and it sneaks up faster than you’d think. You’re the one everyone brings problems to, and there’s rarely someone bringing you the same care back. I started blocking real time for friends, family, workouts, anything that wasn’t the business.
Not as a reward for hitting goals. As a non-negotiable part of staying sane enough to keep going.
This isn’t a soft, nice-to-have lesson. It’s structural. A founder who runs themselves into the ground eventually runs the business into the ground too.
#3 On protecting my peace and staying ready to leap again
I’ve had to say no to revenue that would have made a great line in a pitch deck and a miserable few months for everyone involved.
Because good money plus a bad client equals chaos, every time.
A contract can look great on paper and still wreck your team’s morale and your own peace of mind.
I’ve also had to stay open to how the work itself is changing. My whole team is learning to work alongside AI, not around it. Human creativity paired with AI tools is genuinely one of the most exciting shifts happening in our industry right now, and I wasn’t going to sit that one out just because it’s new.
And taking the leap doesn’t stop once you’ve started the business. You have to keep taking it to actually grow. This year that means going to Cannes Lions, something I’d have talked myself out of a year ago. Now my answer is simpler: what’s the worst that happens?
Where I’m at now
Hiring right, trusting my people, being kind to myself, protecting my peace, staying current, and taking leaps again and again, none of it has been glamorous. All of it is what got Agni here.
The first two years of any business are about survival, and survival makes you scrappy in ways that don’t always look pretty from the outside.
That season is over now. I’m not in survival mode anymore, I’m in build mode, and I’m genuinely excited about what scaling looks like from here. If you’re still in your own survival season, that’s not a sign you’re doing it wrong. It’s just the season. Keep going.