It’s difficult to pin exact dates to things like this.
When did Blogworks really get seeded?
In June 2006, when I decided to move on from my previous job, I was toying with the idea of doing something in the blog/ social media space (the other being moving to Mumbai to finally be a part of the movie business – relax, to market movies, not to act in them! 
Even though I had been intuitively following the space for a bit, it wasn’t until I attended Kishore’s talk, more than two and half years ago (?), that I formally started to pursue the idea.
I first shared the Blogworks concept with my friendAlok, then a client, as I served my last week at work and then with my former team on the last day.
At a talk on Blogs that FMCC invited to me speak at in October 2006, I first shared the Blogworks logo with participants. But it was really THAT walk – November 2006 – at Lodhi Garden, with the writing that followed right there, which allowed me to pen the objectives and business note.
Sunil, became my sounding board before I was able to share the story with Namita and Bidisha – both had some time available for the new project and became my colleagues at Blogworks, again, having been colleagues earlier too. I was looking at 100% heart capital, even if not 100% time capital, so it worked for all. New participants too have, of course, come in since…
Guru worked all night on 23 December last year, to have the site design ready by the next day. We HAD to be live by 26 December as IMPACT was carrying text from our first “Blog the Talk” series.
We went live 26 December, 2006 and complete a year today!
It has been an interesting year…
Many milestones we had set, were achieved early on, but the ‘business’ milestones took somewhat longer. Entrepreneurs turn philosophers sometimes and it was somewhere around then that I crafted this:
“Sometimes a seed doesn’t need more water to become a sapling, it needs more time!
Not only was a new business being seeded, but a new concept of conversational marketing, delivered through blogs and social media was being introduced. We were attempting a new kind of consultancy.
Many myths needed to dispelled; many questions needed to be answered – credibility of blogs, blogs being casual diaries, ROI of social media, fear of losing control on the message, fear of negative comments. All the questions were (and stay) relevant, for brand and corporate reputation needs years of nurturing and we can’t be careful enough.
Some of these have been answered. However, the space is too dynamic – new developments are taking place each day. Users are writing new rules; marketers are making new mistakes; there are new learnings, each day.
Workshops, seminars, writings and some client work kept us busy for the initial part of the year. Client work, workshops, seminars and writing has us very busy for the last few months .
None of this would have been possible without the affection, help and support (and yes, the loans ) that Blogworks received from all directions – many times without asking, mostly with no expectations of anything in return.
There’s no way I could mention all the people (including all those who visit this site every day) who have helped us on the way. Thank you all – grateful.
Here, though, are just a few Blogworks regulars, friends, family, business partners, clients and colleagues who contributed in their special way.
No links; going alphabetically:
- Aanchal Chachra
- Aditya Burman
- Ajay Jain
- Alok Mittal
- Aishwarya Rao
- Amit Pasricha
- Amit Ranjan
- Amita Malhotra
- Anuradha Agnihotri
- Anita Vasudeva
- Anurag Batra
- Arindam Basu
- Aseem Sood
- Ash Nallawalla
- Ashwani Singla
- Atul Sharma
- Bidisha Dey
- Charlie Moran
- Chhavi Sachdev
- Daksh Sharma
- Dan Sandhu
- David Jensen
- Deepa Dey
- Deepak Thakkar
- Deepti Dang
- Devdutt Pattanaik
- Dina Mehta
- G Rajaraman
- Gaurav Mishra
- Geoff Livingston
- Gokul Krishnanmurti
- Govindraj Ethiraj
- Gurunandan Bhat
- Gurpreet Wasi
- Guy Kawasaki
- Harish Bhat
- Harish Jagtiani
- Hemal Panchamia
- Janani Gopalakrishnan
- Jinal Shah
- John Lynch
- Kalyan Kar
- Kapil Ohri
- Kapil Gupta
- Kirti Joshi
- Kishore Bhargava
- Kris Nair
- Larissa Fair
- Mahesh L
- Mangesh L
- Manish Vij
- Moksh Juneja
- N Madhavan
- Namita Arora
- Namita Unnikrishnan
- Narender Bhambhani
- Neeta Shenoy
- Nidhi Dewan
- Nikhil Pahwa
- Niloufer Wadia
- Nirmala Balakrishnan
- Palin Ningthoujam
- Phanindra K Chauhary
- Piya Kochhar
- Prasun Peter
- Prema Sagar
- Prerna Gupta
- Ramanujam Sridhar
- Ramesh Jude Thomas
- Rajesh Mehta
- Rajesh Barnwal
- Rajesh Sheshadri
- Rajiv Malhotra
- Rekha I Nambiar
- Richa Dubey
- Rohini Chopra
- Rohinton Maloo
- Rohit Bhargava
- Rohit Sardana
- Rahul Nanda
- Rakesh Mahajan
- Rajeev Malhotra
- Saajal Mukherjee
- Sairee Chahal
- Sandeep Sridhar
- Sangeeta L
- Santosh L
- Satyabrata Dam
- Saumya Meattle
- Shefali Mahadevia
- Shamit Khemka
- Shalini Gupta
- Shuchi Sarkar
- Sidharth Rao
- Simeran Bhasin
- Soumya Dev
- Sunil Malhotra
- Suparna Mitra
- Surabhi Philip
- Suresh Vinayak
- Tina Mahajan
- Tod Andrlik
- Toby Bloomberg
- Vandana Sandhir
- Vidhya Srinivasan
- Vijay Nair
- Vikas Malhotra
- Vipender Mann
- Vivaan Gideon
Milestones are in place for this year. We will attempt to grow quickly and consolidate our position – Team Blogworks is all excited.
If there anything called the 1st mover advantage? Real life situations may suggest otherwise. That the social media space is so dynamic and many who are attempting to enter are struggling somewhat, is a consolation. It will, however, be constant innovation coupled with our collaborative but disciplined approach that will hopefully allow us to reach our goals.
The market is growing and there are new opportunities abound. Also there is The News Alliance that remains to be done.
Here’s to year two of this exciting journey together. Cheers!
Update: You guessed it right – L = Lalwani and yes my dearest father is one of them. He is indeed my strongest pillar .
