Shristi Shreya Singh

I think mostly my parents - they have backed me up a lot. As I told you in the beginning, I don't come from a very conventionally good background. I grew up in a very small city in India, and then working everything from there. It was due to my parents - they love me unconditionally and support me for everything that I do, and yeah, really blessed in that way. And mostly, like, friends and everybody. They are very, very supportive. At the end of the day, it's about the people around you.

Just to get started - you don't have to overthink whatever you want to do. Whether you want to go to a good college, work in consulting, work for a top FMCG, create content, or learn about AI, everything is readily available to us. What we do is overburden ourselves with a lot of information. If I have to cook something, I just keep seeing videos and videos and tens of videos, and it's not going to lead me anywhere. Just one or two tutorials or videos are enough, and then rest, everything is just extra bias or extra noise that we are putting on ourselves. So yeah, just to get started with whatever you want to do, and then just refine along the way.

I would say just not to be scared of anything, because when you are out there, when you are publishing content or building a startup, there will be a lot of people to criticize you or to put you down. And especially if you're a woman, the criticism can be a bit harsher compared to a man, because then it comes about how you look, or how you sound, and all of that - things that do not actually matter in the work, but still somehow tend to creep in. At the end of the day, you have to realize that whatever negativity people throw on you, it's not because of you, but it's because of their insecurities. So taking it very seriously and just stopping to put yourself out there, or to try out new things is not going to help you. Don't care about that. Just keep on going. You have to be confident, you have to be honest, confident, and just work your way up. That's the only way. Unfortunately, the world today is a bit on the negative side because of social media and everything. A lot of people are frustrated with their own life, and they tend to throw a lot of dirt on harmless people that are just trying to do something. We don't have to take it seriously, particularly for girls, because we overthink a lot of things.

Honestly, the biggest challenge is definitely a lot of competition. Because with AI coming in, everything is much more easier. Earlier, if you had to build a website or build a business, it used to be a long battle. You had to hire a website designer, a marketing person, a video editor - in any possible task, you had to get someone to do that. And if you came from a good educational background, things used to be a bit easier for you, and that used to be a path for short success. But right now, everybody is capable. That increases the competition a lot. So you have to constantly keep working. If you think just being educated, or just having an audience, or just having a good professional background is going to take you a very long way, that's not how the current time is. It's changing very rapidly, and you have to keep up with the pace.

I think honesty and commitment. If you have committed to something, you have to show up, and you have to be honest with your work. The work quality can't always be 100% - there will be some ups and downs, and that's completely fine. But just to be honest with the fact that this is happening, or this is not going great, or communicating are something I value a lot. So whosoever I hire, even from as far about the work, these are the only qualities that I look for in people. It's not about skills - skills can be learned, is what I believe. And particularly with AI, everything is easy to learn, much more easier than it used to be back then. But if you're honest and if you're communicating, that's enough.