I was born and brought up in Surat, in a middle class business family. My father moved to the city just before I was born and my family was trying to establish a footprint in the city. We belonged to humble backgrounds and had our fair share of struggles growing up, but my parents took care of a proper education and learning journey for both me and my sister. Inclination and importance of studies and discipline in life was taught by our parents early on and that has been the foundation of our journey, since ever.
I studied in an Adventist school, it was a great learning experience. I remember being one of the most liked students of the class. Somehow, the memory of trying to ace it all remains till date and one of my driving principles comes from the motto of our school, Knowledge is Power. I have believed in the power of knowledge since then, and I always make knowledge of any subject the foundation of anything I get into.
School is where I met Anushree first, in the year 2004. The meeting was deadly - I mean it when I say it. She joined my class in the 8th grade, and the very first day, ensured that my class teacher, who used to think highly of me, started questioning my sincerity. He scoleded me and punished me for practically nothing, just because Anushree had complained about me to him. This was the beginning of our 'world war' which still continues!
During my undergrad at the LD Engineering College, Ahmedabad, in the year 2009, I realised the importance of building relationships and networks. Being a Government college, there was little pressure to spend all the time in studies or to score well, I used to be a topper, but there was no push or pressure. I used to spend my time meeting people, networking, participating in different things, and that is also when Anushree & I decided to start our first formal project together, Samajhdar Sintu, which eventually became India's first comic on envrionmental education, and we hold a National Record with the Limca Book of Records, 2011, for the same.
Right after Sintu got recognised, it laid a foundation stone for our journey of being into the profession of branding services. Formally, we formed Gemius in 2014, but before that, we have had a few informal stints, working with brands, offering creative services, working on their campaigns. This gave us insights into the problems faced by brands and we consciously positioned Gemius to be an integrated solutions agency - focusing on strategy development, consultations, and also effective implementation of strategies to lead to brand growth.
Working with people always drew out a lot of passion in us, and we soon started believing in the deep rooted potential of people around us. Hailing from Surat, we believed it was time to give something back to the city, and in the year 2015, we started organising TEDxSurat, with an aim to build a community of people who would collectively shape the future of the city.
Over the years, Gemius found a specialised niche in the space of content marketing, in order to have effective solutions for the brands. In 2017, this made us put together Gemius Productions - an integrated content production house - to cater to the requirements of photoshoots and videoshoots for our brands. We have been storytellers since inception, this new exploration enabled us to take our stories to the world.
Right before the pandemic in 2020, an idea came across our minds, to build a creator marketing platform - and this idea further solidified during the pandemic, thanks to the growing digital content demand. This led to the birth of Nicoya - an integrated influencer marketing service platform - which is now serving clients individually and scaling up brand campaigns with creators across the Globe.
In 2023, our desire to venture into a product based industry finally got fulfilled with the introduction of Tiramisu - an artisanal jewelry brand, focused towards making jewelry for those travel and wedding requirements, which was completely getting ignored so far. Tiramisu has been able to make a mark in the industry and is delivering beautiful jewelry pieces to all so pretty women across the globe.
Amidst all of this expansion, one of the most beautiful expansions happend to us in 2022 when Kaveer entered our lives. Our son, the super active and energetic baby, brought in with a new found love and charm in our lives, and we have been ever grateful for this expansion in our lives. We started learning about parenting and have been able to have a greatly enjoyable journey so far.
The parenting journey has been one of the best teachers of our lives, and we are exploring new things, everyday. One of the strongest philosophies we have worked on is focusing on 'Equity' over 'Equality' in parenting. This has led us to build a book on parenting by the name of parenquity - which will soon be launched in 2024. We wish to strike a conversation among the parents out there and shift their focus towards equity building - both while handling their kids, and while they share duties among each other.
The journey continues, our explorations, our discoveries, continues. I have personally been an explorer and we are experimenting with new things and ventures, and will keep doing that. If you think you would like to connect and work on some opportunities together, feel free to reach out, we are always open to ideas! Let's build something together!
I was born and brought up in Surat, in a middle class business family. My father moved to the city just before I was born and my family was trying to establish a footprint in the city. We belonged to humble backgrounds and had our fair share of struggles growing up, but my parents took care of a proper education and learning journey for both me and my sister. Inclination and importance of studies and discipline in life was taught by our parents early on and that has been the foundation of our journey, since ever.
I studied in an Adventist school, it was a great learning experience. I remember being one of the most liked students of the class. Somehow, the memory of trying to ace it all remains till date and one of my driving principles comes from the motto of our school, Knowledge is Power. I have believed in the power of knowledge since then, and I always make knowledge of any subject the foundation of anything I get into.
School is where I met Anushree first, in the year 2004. The meeting was deadly - I mean it when I say it. She joined my class in the 8th grade, and the very first day, ensured that my class teacher, who used to think highly of me, started questioning my sincerity. He scoleded me and punished me for practically nothing, just because Anushree had complained about me to him. This was the beginning of our 'world war' which still continues!
During my undergrad at the LD Engineering College, Ahmedabad, in the year 2009, I realised the importance of building relationships and networks. Being a Government college, there was little pressure to spend all the time in studies or to score well, I used to be a topper, but there was no push or pressure. I used to spend my time meeting people, networking, participating in different things, and that is also when Anushree & I decided to start our first formal project together, Samajhdar Sintu, which eventually became India's first comic on envrionmental education, and we hold a National Record with the Limca Book of Records, 2011, for the same.
Right after Sintu got recognised, it laid a foundation stone for our journey of being into the profession of branding services. Formally, we formed Gemius in 2014, but before that, we have had a few informal stints, working with brands, offering creative services, working on their campaigns. This gave us insights into the problems faced by brands and we consciously positioned Gemius to be an integrated solutions agency - focusing on strategy development, consultations, and also effective implementation of strategies to lead to brand growth.
Working with people always drew out a lot of passion in us, and we soon started believing in the deep rooted potential of people around us. Hailing from Surat, we believed it was time to give something back to the city, and in the year 2015, we started organising TEDxSurat, with an aim to build a community of people who would collectively shape the future of the city.
Over the years, Gemius found a specialised niche in the space of content marketing, in order to have effective solutions for the brands. In 2017, this made us put together Gemius Productions - an integrated content production house - to cater to the requirements of photoshoots and videoshoots for our brands. We have been storytellers since inception, this new exploration enabled us to take our stories to the world.
Right before the pandemic in 2020, an idea came across our minds, to build a creator marketing platform - and this idea further solidified during the pandemic, thanks to the growing digital content demand. This led to the birth of Nicoya - an integrated influencer marketing service platform - which is now serving clients individually and scaling up brand campaigns with creators across the Globe.
In 2023, our desire to venture into a product based industry finally got fulfilled with the introduction of Tiramisu - an artisanal jewelry brand, focused towards making jewelry for those travel and wedding requirements, which was completely getting ignored so far. Tiramisu has been able to make a mark in the industry and is delivering beautiful jewelry pieces to all so pretty women across the globe.
Amidst all of this expansion, one of the most beautiful expansions happend to us in 2022 when Kaveer entered our lives. Our son, the super active and energetic baby, brought in with a new found love and charm in our lives, and we have been ever grateful for this expansion in our lives. We started learning about parenting and have been able to have a greatly enjoyable journey so far.
The parenting journey has been one of the best teachers of our lives, and we are exploring new things, everyday. One of the strongest philosophies we have worked on is focusing on 'Equity' over 'Equality' in parenting. This has led us to build a book on parenting by the name of parenquity - which will soon be launched in 2024. We wish to strike a conversation among the parents out there and shift their focus towards equity building - both while handling their kids, and while they share duties among each other.
The journey continues, our explorations, our discoveries, continues. I have personally been an explorer and we are experimenting with new things and ventures, and will keep doing that. If you think you would like to connect and work on some opportunities together, feel free to reach out, we are always open to ideas! Let's build something together!