A Better Way to Build / A Memoir
I was never interested in following what everyone else followed. When a whole classroom moved in one direction, I always questioned it and redesigned something else in my head. That instinct never left me.
Appa Amma got our first computer in my fourth grade. Windows 98. It was a huge screen (just 15" CRT monitor, but looked huge), and three boxes. Amma taught us how to switch it on and open applications. I was pulled into drawing software- Paint, crude 3D tool-Bryce, early game engine- FPSCreator, anything that let me create-we didn't have anything to consume those days. By the time Windows XP arrived, I was already certain of one thing. I would never shine academically, and I was fine with that.
School thought I was a menace, but a delight. Too talkative. Sarcastic. Brutally honest. I was labelled naughty, mischievous, rude. By teachers knew I was curious. I used to say I'd open a company like Microsoft (the only company I knew-our PC had it on the screen) and become a big person. I was building systems in my head. When I launched my first website, I became the school superstar overnight.
Around that time, my parents gave me You Can Win by Shiv Khera for my tenth birthday- yeah, we used to get books as gifts-I own around 10,000 books. I did not understand all of it, but it triggered something fundamental. The cover page read- Winners don't do different things, they do things differently. Oh yeah, like me! uh!
My parents always backed me fully. That belief became my safety net. My father mentored me quietly. Spirituality, books, cinema, technology, humour. My mother became the immovable support system. When I fell, she absorbed the impact.
In seventh grade, we built for fun. I designed and developed. Avinash wrote content. We learned everything from the internet. Then XP became 7. I designed and developed an FPS game called Extremists, where you played an Indian freedom fighter. I was already imagining myself as the next Bill Gates.
I did not chase jobs. I wanted to build spaces. The Studio is our first space I am proud of. We made a documentary for the Airport Authority of India. Independent films. Music videos. Endless photo shoots. It was chaotic but fun. We worked, drank, argued, watched films, took breaks.
Then, Shutter Episodes was born from a different instinct. Events and weddings are rare moments where people gather with positive intent. Moments become memories. I wanted to design that as a system. We treated events like films. We named them episodes. Some projects paid the bills. Some had soul. Not all work need to be art.
I found my ladylove. We found our scars and decided to heal it together. I moved to the UK; studied film and business- yeah two things that never go well together. It's either an iPhone or a Zune!
Though I loved the UK and it's entirety, I still missed my love and Amma.
Filmster Network came later, from frustration. We could make films in five days. But nobody watched them. That's still a real problem. Making films is easy. Making them sellable- no. I quit a high-paying job to build Filmster. The next morning felt like relief. What followed was fear.
The lowest point was brutal. Waiting for a visa decision. Moving out of a luxury home into a shared, broken house. Two pounds in my bank account. Hungry. One night without a home. Pride sometimes stopped me from asking for help, but Amma stepped in anyway.
Filmster's my first time leading a team like a company. Leadership humbled me. I learned that being jovial costs authority.
I still believe success means doing what you actually want to do. That belief has not changed. What changed is my understanding of cost. Investors taught me what ignorance looks like in expensive rooms. The film industry taught me that glamour rarely protects workers. Entrepreneurship taught me autonomy, ethical leadership, and how dangerous impulsive decisions can be.
All my passions are now my businesses. I want children to see entrepreneurship as creation. I want to build cathedrals where people learn, build, fail, and try again-not companies that impress investors, but systems that outlast founders.
Something good always happens. That belief kept me alive. Trusting good people was the belief I had to unlearn.
If a fourteen-year-old reads this, I want them to know one thing. You do not need permission to build. If you can dream it, you can make it real. You will pay for it, but it will be worth.
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
janainaart
vaporwave
discoholicmusic
gummygunk
theartofmadeline
jacobvanloon