A full life involves reading - lots of it. I lived a full life in July while backpacking southeast Asia: A Little Life (720 pages!!) - the internet is deeply divided on this one. Everyone on Reddit hates it. If you love it, the Redditors hate you. Most old-school book reviewers generally appreciate it - … Continue reading A full life – July
Author: Ipshita Agarwal
Should I vote on interests or principles?
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, I became a single-issue voter overnight. How could anything matter more than my right of choice over my own body? But, I soon realized that, in California, my right to abortion was still the same - legal and protected. In fact, in November, the Constitution of … Continue reading Should I vote on interests or principles?
Impact
My definition of impact has evolved over time. In college, I believed impact meant social impact, driven by my social entrepreneurship work with Enactus, and my inner quest for equality. In investment banking after college, this definition of impact strengthened - as I helped mining conglomerates get bigger and richer, I felt the urge to … Continue reading Impact
Unbundling Consumer Social = Entertainment + Connection + Community
As an ex-consumer social founder, I’m always thinking about how people meet, connect, and communicate. I think about how people create, consume, discover, and share information. The desire for connection is at an all-time high, propelled by remote work, smaller families, and rising mental health issues. GenZ and GenA grew up on the internet, and crave … Continue reading Unbundling Consumer Social = Entertainment + Connection + Community
Writing I revisit often :)
As of 08/22, will aim to update quarterly If by Rudyard Kipling (poem)Vienna by Billy Joel (song)1984 by George Orwell (book)Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas (poem)The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (book)The categories were made for man, not man for the categories by Scott Alexander (article)This is water by David … Continue reading Writing I revisit often 🙂
Distribution is web3 consumer’s #1 problem
Nearly every web3 startup founder I talk to, talks about distribution/ go-to market/ BD being their biggest challenge. We agree on problems but do consumers care enough, to actually buy the solutions? For e.g. do web3 projects/ devs really care about on-chain databases? Do consumers really care enough about protecting their data and identity? Specifically … Continue reading Distribution is web3 consumer’s #1 problem
Why I got into crypto
I didn't get into crypto, I got into blockchain - as a means to an end. The end is building a better media future. Blockchain as a technology enables a different incentive structure and systems design, empowering different business models, ultimately helping build this better media future. A future where a handful of companies don't … Continue reading Why I got into crypto
Learnings from a (failed) social media startup – part 2.0
So, I tried to start up. It failed. I wrote about it all in my last post here. (If you read only of these posts, read that one). I’ve often been asked the questions “Why? Why do you think it failed?” and “What did you learn?” I don’t think our failure or learnings were extraordinary or … Continue reading Learnings from a (failed) social media startup – part 2.0
Musings from a (failed) social media startup – part 1.0
In 2020, I co-founded Comet. I was a first-time founder - pretty sure I was building the next big social media company because I was ‘solving my own problem’ and ‘doing things that don’t scale’. I was convinced that I was ‘building a 10x better product than existing solutions’, and that I just needed to … Continue reading Musings from a (failed) social media startup – part 1.0
Content roundup (Feb + Mar + Apr 2021)
Books: If Beale Street could talk - Love, loss and hard-hitting everyday reality of what it means to be black in America. I've read many books centred on this theme of late - what stood out here was the simple, raw and matter-of-fact reality of the average black person's life. The simplicity of the everyday … Continue reading Content roundup (Feb + Mar + Apr 2021)
Ipshita Agarwal 