Centre Sage Marvin Diaz

"We have reached a point where we are unable to solve a problem if it isn't defined as a term." 



In the span of a few short years, Abhishek Patil has quickly become an authority on growth marketing in India's Silicone Valley - Bangalore.  On this episode of Centre Sage, I catch up with Abhishek - who now works on everything Product and Growth at CRED to cover a diverse range of topics around Entrepreneurship, Growth Marketing and Product Management. Abhishek takes us through the career he has built thus far from choosing to start out as an entrepreneur in the advertisement space instead of choosing to do an MBA 🎓 and shares his technique of accelerated learning from his workplaces. Moving to Bangalore, Abhishek spent a year and a half at Dunzo where he applied his marketing skills to building Dunzo into the company it is today before starting GrowthX along with other ambitious growth experts from the city. 

Startup over MBA?: 06:50

When do you know that its time to shut down your business?: 11:40

How to accelerate learning at your workplace: 14:00 🤷

Why we should stop using the term "Growth Hacking": 24:15

Dunzo's secret loyalty program: 32:55

How should startups look at investment: 35:15

What is GrowthX about?: 40:00

"Design is the simplest way of getting from Point A to Point B."



Amit Mirchandani is the Creative Director of Lucid - an award winning design studio, the Co-Founder of Chinita and an all round design guru. Having won numerous design awards over the years, on episode 6 of Centre Sage  I sit down with Amit to talk about a diverse range of topics centered around design in India. We take a hard look at the current state at of  affairs in South Asia through the lens of a designer, freelancing for design in the digital age, dispel common misinformation about design being an artistic and not a scientific endeavor 👨‍🔬, talk about Amit's love for Mexcian food and his interesting journey of bringing a taqueria (Mexican dhaba) from the highways of Mexico 🇲🇽 to the streets of Bangalore 🇮🇳.

Marvin's Soy Milk story: 1:45

Difference between art & design: 04:55

Why working for smaller companies early in your career gives you better potential for personal growth: 08:10

Is the design market over saturated with designers?: 14:42

Freelancing in design & it's effects on the industry: 20:55

Could design be the solution to India's "chaos"?: 35:55

The Chinita story: 42:45 🌮

Sage Lowdown (Too Long; Didn't Listen - TL;DL): 55:07 ⏰

Saurav Arya is one of India's first digital nomads, embracing a travel centric way of working and living for over a decade. Apart from being a hardcore traveler - having traveled to 91 countries as of January 2020, Saurav has also mastered the art of setting up a fully automated business, become an award winning hostpreneur and manages multiple passive income channels. 
On this episode of Centre Sage, Saurav and I talk about traveling the world on an Indian Passport 😓, bond over our general sense of immaturity - how having a child like sense of curiosity can help in business, misconceptions about supposedly dangerous countries like Iran, the secret to getting the most out of life and if India has what it takes to be the next big digital nomad destination? 🏖️ 
Travel: 04:55
Setting up passive incomes: 15:40
Want to become a digital nomad yourself?: 25:07

Join me on this episode of Centre Sage where I talk to Lakshman Badami and Vanessa Zwick on their new venture - Be Animal. We attempt to retrace the Be Animal journey from peddling postcards on the beaches of Goa in an effort to raise funds for wildlife conservation to breaking vegan stereotypes, the Tesla Cyber Truck, the livability of Indian cities as compared to Europe and building environmental awareness among Gen Z-ers. If you haven't already realized Be Animal has many amazing ideas but also have the ability of telling their stories in a very zen vocal tone. So crank up the volume, sit back and 🧘

Deena's got an incredible story and I have been asking her to be a sage on the podcast for a while now. 4 weeks and a restraining order later, I finally sit down with Ms Deena Pinto, Bangalore's OG fashion and lifestyle influencer.



Deena narrates the landscape of lifestyle & fashion blogging in the pre Instagram era, she unearths the ancient digitalscapes of HTML blogs, Foursquare, Orkut, the harmfully artificial lives that modern influencers lead and how she overcame incredible odds to setup the highly successful  "skinnygirldiariez" brand from scratch 💪

Shankar "Shunky" Chugani is one of Bangalore city's most well known comics. I catch up with Shunky on his busy schedule, growing up as the class clown in Coonoor, going to open mics for 6 years, Comicstaan, and making a habit of puking before going up on stage.  We also talk about the nascent stand up comedy scene in India and how far it's come in the last 6 years.

Lights, camera, let's roll one! 🚬