Mental models for choosing your next role, doubling down on your strengths, and the art of creating viral campaigns | Rohit Srivastav (Head of Marketing, FleetPanda, CMO in Residence, Arali Ventures)

This transcript has been lightly edited for brevity.

Mita Mandawker (00:02):

Hello and welcome to Ctrl + Alt + Marketing. I am your host, Mita Mandawker. My guest today is Rohit Srivastav, Head of Marketing at FleetPanda, founder of s11s community, and a well-known figure in the SaaS circles. Rohit's journey is fascinating. He has created serendipity in his career by putting himself online and he uses unique mental models when he's looking at new roles. And there's so much more that he does. And these strategies have not only helped him stand apart but have also built an unfair advantage in his marketing career. This episode, guys, is 24-carat gold. You don't want to miss it. So let's meet Rohit Srivastav. Thank you, Rohit, for coming on the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. I was waiting for this episode very eagerly to have this chat with you. 

Rohit Srivastav (00:57):

Thank you so much. It's my privilege to be here and happy to share whatever you need me. 

Mita Mandawker (01:05):

Great. So let's first start by digging into your background. What was it like growing up? Are there any particular interests or hobbies that have shaped you to become what you are today? 

Rohit Srivastav (01:19):

I was born in Patna and I belong to a purely middle-class Bihari family. My mom and dad had a very interesting ambition. So in Bihar, I think, in all over India and that at that time there was an obsession with people, their kids speak in English and converse in English, especially in the lower middle-class strata because I think that was assumed to be a ticket out of that spiral. So because of that, my dad made me go to the best school in Patna. It was called the International School. It is still one of the best schools in Patna. And in fact, that shaped me a lot because my peer group changed, the kind of conversations changed. 

Rohit Srivastav (02:10):

So, in fact, fun fact, I did not really have to study for my English paper in CAT exam because of how those 15 years of rigorous English speaking schooling changed me. And I'm not kidding, but there was a fine that was levied if any of the teachers caught you speaking in any other language than English. So that helped me get the confidence and that was the important factor that shaped my childhood. And then later on, and I, in fact, right now, when I got into content and it always helped me just write better, just give me that head start in the career. So that was one aspect other than that, because of, again, my family and the schooling both combined. My mother read a lot. 

Rohit Srivastav (03:03):

So I would steal the magazines and the books that she would buy for herself. During her afternoon nap, and I would read them. And that made me sort of have a generation gap with my own generation, because I would be reading really mature stories of marriages, separation, and all of those. That sort of hit me in the wrong places in my head. And that made me like an old soul much earlier in my life. And I have been that person still and honestly, looking back, and thankful that I was exposed to such art and such good literature early on in my career. In fact, that is one reason why I always had a burning desire of becoming a writer in some manner or form. And honestly, content marketing was one of those outlets. 

Rohit Srivastav (03:54):

Obviously, I'm not comparing both those crafts, but I think the similarity and just being able to create gave me a lot of satisfaction throughout. So I think these two things have been the shaping factors of my personality. 

Mita Mandawker (04:11):

There are so many points in this that I can so identify with. My parents also had a very similar ambition. I think it's a very middle-class thing, especially for that generation, especially the kind our parents are from. They wanted the best for their kids, which was not available with them, and they tried to do the same thing with us. But it's so interesting to know that all these early influences play such a huge role when you grow up. And it's the benefit of hindsight, I believe, that you can see that connection happening between your early interests and also the kind of work that you're doing. 

Mita Mandawker (04:46):

There were influences, but I like the fact that your parents ended up sending you to the best school and it had such a great impact on your career. And the CAT anecdote is just wonderful. 

Rohit Srivastav (05:00):

Yeah, I was lucky there. 

Mita Mandawker (05:01):

The next thing that I would want to unpack is you went on to do your MBA at IMT Nagpur. So what was the decision behind doing your MBA? That's one. And I've also read about this very interesting story about you having a very nice side hustle during your MBA, which was running back a semi-viral meme page, which also had its own story. So would love to dig into it. 

Rohit Srivastav (05:30):

It was on all luck and chance. Honestly, like, as you said, in hindsight, it all makes sense, but when you are playing the game first-person shooter, you don't really know which map to follow. And in fact, when I was in my MBA, I got into my MBA in 2011, which, like, the limited exposure of Internet and just the amount of information available on the available options, there was so less that I chose MBA. But the backtracking of that decision is till now I say this and it's not something that I'm proud of, but the personality that I have is I might not always know where I want to be, but I for sure know where I don't want to be. So when I stepped into my engineering college because it was just that was the only option. 

Rohit Srivastav (06:22):

I got into my engineering college. First semester I was a really good student. I put in all my effort and everything and I scored decently well as well. But then through that process, I understood that this was not for me. I'll be a dead rat if I continue doing this. And massive respect for people who actually did it well and are really very well placed, my friends in their careers. But I figured that this is not for me. So I started figuring out what is that interests me and what is that is also achievable given the financial situation, the academic, like my entire talent, cumulative talent, what I can achieve with that. 

Rohit Srivastav (07:02):

So somehow or the other, obviously MBA was the natural progression because from those MBA institutes advertisements, and all you get to know is what is MBA all about. And you have certain ideas and then you sort of start flipping through the pages of the preparation book and you figure out accha yeh toh kar sakte hain (okay, we can do this). This is doable. So I started there. And then I obviously messed up my CAT exam big time and I could not get into any of the IIMs, obviously. So I got into this college called IMT Nagpur, which is the sister concern of IMT Ghaziabad and a decent college or it felt like back then. So I was there and I was having a lot of fun. And then a lot of people started observing my comic timing and just like how generally I was funny. 

Rohit Srivastav (07:58):

And I started seeing a lot of these Facebook pages cropping up for certain multiple memes, like the first generation of memes back then. So I thought I can also do this. And I started a meme page called B School Tips. And it was not called meme back then, it was just a funny page and it would just pick up random observations that I would find during my campus walks and I would put it in there and we got like good amount of likes. And it reached by some fateful means, my friend Siddharth Deswal, he was a fresh graduate out of his college, his MBA back in 2012. And he had joined a company called Wingify back then, which is now called VWO. 

Rohit Srivastav (08:47):

So he sort of gave me the first introduction to the world of SaaS, that there is a startup thing happening. And obviously, I used to read the newspaper a lot, so I knew that there are these things called startups cropping up, but I did not know what and how and what goes behind the scenes. So this was the first guy who told me that there was something going on. And that sort of got me interested. And then obviously, there's a larger part that happened. I got placed in a company called Bajaj Allianz, it’s an insurance company. And that thought of actually getting paid to write never left my head. And I would train myself on weekends and late nights to break into this world of SaaS. There were other people involved.

Rohit Srivastav (09:36):

One of the very important factors in that journey was a guy called Hiren, who is also a friend still. He was building a startup out of Baroda, and I was posted in Ahmedabad with this company. So we met. He trained me in content marketing. He taught me how to write a blog and how to do SaaS marketing himself. And that is how I finally cracked a role in WebEngage. And then I think from there on, my SaaS journey has been very fulfilling, overwhelming. Like, I have all gratitude towards it. 

Mita Mandawker (10:14):

There were so many interesting things to unpack over here. I think one of the first things that I noted was, right from the time that you were studying, doing your MBA, you have been putting yourself out there online in different formats. 

Rohit Srivastav (10:28):

I love validation. 

Mita Mandawker (10:30):

Yeah. And that's a great way. I mean, you ended up discovering and meeting Siddharth, Deswal that way through that meme page, whatever it used to be called, back then. 

Rohit Srivastav (10:45):

Let's call it meme page for general purposes. 

Mita Mandawker (10:47):

Yeah. You met Hiren also that way. So I think one takeaway I get from this is, when you're trying to build connections, when you're trying to build in public, or when you're just trying to put yourself out there, you end up meeting people, you end up making connections. And that definitely. 

Rohit Srivastav (11:08):

One small detail there, how I met Hiren, was I would just to break free and practice my writing honestly. So that lunch break, during that. During the insurance job, I would sit on Quora and write answers, like, just random answers on relationships, marketing, brand, politics, anything. Anything that piqued my interest that I could write 300 words on. I would just go so that my fingers would work on keyboard so that I am in the writing habit. And a few answers went super viral on Quora. And that is how Hiren discovered me. That, okay, this guy can write. The first thing that he told me is, dude, you know how to write. I will teach you what to write. 

Rohit Srivastav (11:48):

Like, if I would not have written those Quora answers, most probably I would still be selling insurance or something like that. 

Mita Mandawker (11:55):

So definitely putting yourself out there has rewards. 

Rohit Srivastav (11:59):

Absolutely. It's the biggest leverage. Like, even today, I think the reason why we are talking is because of my LinkedIn presence. And I have been fortunate enough to meet incredible people who have discovered me through my writings, which is much beyond my physical network or people who I have known beyond LinkedIn. These are the people who have figured me out so they can find me out. I've had great discussions, worked with a couple of them actually in my jobs and so on. So unfair advantage you can build through putting yourself out there.

Mita Mandawker (12:37):

I think it's about also helps you amplify your connections, your surface area of visibility. Like when you're working, you basically are just connected to the organization or you're connected to your immediate family and friends. This helps more people discover you, find you, you end up finding more people. And when you start interacting with people, like magic happens, as it did in your case as well. Like your entry into SaaS is also very dependent on that. Like your entry into SaaS and your entry into content marketing. 

Rohit Srivastav (13:09):

Yes. And my success in SaaS, like, whatever little success that I have had a lot of that is through me just putting myself out there. And one, I'm not really ashamed to ask for help for any, like the smallest of things. So people know that this is me. Like, I will be this guy on a podcast, on a phone call, on WhatsApp everywhere. So that has helped me. And second thing is, yes, honestly, sharing everything that I have done has really helped me a lot. 

Mita Mandawker (13:40):

Fair enough. Right now, let's jump into the next part of your journey. So you had your role at Bajaj Allianz, you were in sales then, you were crushing your targets. You actually ended up moving on from Bajaj Allianz, taking like a big enough pay cut and actually moving into a startup. And that's how the whole journey began for you. So let's get into your SaaS part of the journey. You worked at multiple organizations. How has it been? What's influenced your entire trajectory with each role?

Rohit Srivastav (14:18):

This, again, is the power of hindsight, obviously, but if I backtrack this for the early years of my career, I honestly didn't know better. The only thing, again, was the broken mental model of I don't want to be here, I want to be somewhere else. Where I don't know. And that's where one of the worst influences that something has had on my career switches or any decision that I have taken is - I read the autobiography of Richard Branson very early, and there's this one line that just stuck with me, and it has been with me for the past decade. It is - when you don't know a job, take it and run it. So if somebody is giving you a job and you are nervous about it, just trust yourself and you'll figure it out. 

Rohit Srivastav (15:08):

That is how he built his entire empire. I am not even 0.001% or as many zeros that you want to put in before that, but that gutsy mental model or framework has helped me take those jobs that sometimes I was very successful at, sometimes I failed miserably at. I don't remember the poet, but I love this line, kuch nahi toh tajurba hoga (if nothing else, you’ll have gained the experience), which has been the summary of it all, that every place I have been, I have either flourished or learned. So when I started out I was doing content for a couple of years at WebEngage. I learned that. And then I wanted to do the demand gen. So I went to like, Hiren, that guy from Baroda. He came back, he wanted to hire me. 

Rohit Srivastav (16:05):

Like, he wanted to work together again on multiple things. I took like a six-month break, went to work with him. We couldn't figure out a PMF, so he again closed shop. He went back to his thing. I was searching for a job again. Then I was at CleverTap, because CleverTap was asking me to not do content. I'm like, okay, this is good because I have been doing content and this is not content. So I'll do this. That turned into what we call demand gen today. It was not called demand gen back then. I did not know it is going to be called demand gen. So I made a lot of mistakes at CleverTap because it was the first time that I was doing it. But Amit Roy was very kind to teach me. The team was very supportive, so I learned a lot. 

Rohit Srivastav (16:47):

Then I figured, okay, demand gen is good, but I think I'm not built for it because this is not writing, this is not content. Thiss not something that I really enjoy. Then again, this re- entry of a old friend, which is Siddharth Deswal. He was joining a company in Pune, and he wanted me to work alongside him. So I joined a small company in Pune alongside him and started doing product marketing. Because I have done content marketing, I have done demand gen, and now I was doing product marketing which is not A, not B, so I’ll do C. So after I did that, I understood zindagi aise nahi chalti (this is not the right way to live your life). Now I need to figure out what do I really want to do. 

Rohit Srivastav (17:30):

And in that one year, there was obviously a lot of discussion with Siddharth and other people and reading a lot. In fact, I started reading around that time and going back to books because sort of this entire learning content marketing and learning this, like SaaS marketing, all of this made me believe that blogs and Internet reading is reading, but it is not. You need to go back to the classics. So I picked up that book called Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker that changed my life a lot. That impacted a lot. One framework that I would maybe share for people who are listening is, and this is not verbatim, this is my understanding of the framework we humans, especially formally educated humans, we always focus on the things that we are bad at. 

Rohit Srivastav (18:20):

So if there is a skill which we are A+ at, and there is a skill we are C- at, we will focus on the C- skill a lot to bring it to B+ level. But to actually be supremely good, in the top 1% of your career, you need to only focus on the A+ skill and make it A++. Just become so good in that one particular niche that, nobody can replace you. And that is where I figured that running away from content and messaging and all of these things that I'm really good at is the worst thing that I'm doing to my career. And that is where I figured that I need to go back to this stronghold. 

Rohit Srivastav (19:04):

And I can always hire people, I can always bring people in who are good at the other parts of the job. And that is, that has helped me in the past. That has been my mental model for the past, I think three, four jobs, because one was an acquisition, I don't know how to count that. But for the past three jobs, that has been my framework. And in fact, I wrote something about the entire mental model of switching jobs. And honestly, that is not just for writing sake. I actually run every new offer through those mental models. So, yeah, that has been like my learning through multiple companies. 

Mita Mandawker (19:45):

I love this particular part of conversation because there is so much food for thought for me as well. See, for instance the few things that I've taken away from this are, firstly, it's okay to take a chance, even if you don't know how to go about and do things. Just go ahead, do it and see what you learn out of it. The second part is like just leaning into your strengths. A lot of us don't do it. We tend to focus on things that we are not as good at. And that has really helped you move back into your original stronghold, which is always the content marketing side of things. And honestly, I think that's a great takeaway. 

Mita Mandawker (20:28):

I would like to dig a little deeper into right now into the mental models that you've spoken about, because a lot of people don't really think that way when they're approaching their work, their job first. The way in which we approach the work that we do as marketers for our companies, for the places that we work at, if you're able to bring a similar rigor to our careers, it will make such a huge difference. And I think what you've written is actually an attempt to do exactly that, try to bring that sort of clarity and strategic insight into our own careers. 

Mita Mandawker (21:12):

So for the audience, for the people listening to this podcast, I would love for you to just dig into that particular aspect of, the conversation, the mental models, with the examples of how you have also used it. 

Rohit Srivastav (21:26):

So I have tried to demystify this entire decision-making process a lot, many times earlier. It was comparatively a juvenile effort. I used to call it the three-legged stool. So it was when I was deciding my job, like which are the jobs that I would apply for during my MBA or helping my friends take that decision. The easier version of that, the framework was there are three winners of the job, the money, the brand, and the actual job that you do. And if you are not from tier one college, you will only get two things out of that. So it's your choice which two things that you want to pull together. I always compromised on the brand part because I always, like whenever I now CleverTap and WebEngage are brands, when I joined, they were not. 

Rohit Srivastav (22:20):

So I always prioritize the money and the kind of work that I'm going to do above brands. A lot of people prioritize brands over the kind of work or the money and it basically, two out of three, pick two out of three and you'll figure out. Which two matters most to you? Just do that. But later on, I figured now there are more things at stake and now I have more choices. So this needs to be more strategic and more structural as a decision-making process. So during those years, I read a lot about mental models in itself because I figured that there is a science of decision making and as higher you climb in your career, you're not actually paid for the work that you do, but the decisions you take.

Rohit Srivastav (23:08):

So the smarter decision that you will take, the more money you'll be paid. So I wanted to be really good at that. So during that process, I derived from the things that I was reading and sort of put it together for my job-changing, job switching scenario. So the first thing was speed versus velocity. I love this. I, again, I forget whoever is attributed to the quote, but the quote remains with me, a lot of people have ten years experience with just one year of work, so they keep doing the same thing over and over again. And I hate that. So I, my version of that quote is - 

Rohit Srivastav (23:54):

It doesn’t matter if you're in a bus and that is going somewhere, and it is the most comfortable bus ever, the AC draft is really great. There's a great sight out of the window and you're really enjoying yourself, but you need to ask the question, is the bus going where you want to go? So if it is not, then all of this doesn't really matter. And this is a very simple framework, but people always get lost in the details. Ki mera boss bahut accha hai (my boss is very nice). Or, the office is near to my place, or I think the appraisal is going to be very nice this year. All of this doesn't matter in the long run. Is the bus going where you want to go? And for that, obviously, you need to know where you want to go. If you don't know, then any bus will take you. 

Rohit Srivastav (24:47):

But, so that was part one. The second part was, and this is again attributed to my friend, (Siddharth) Deswal, which is think like a VC. So my derivation of that statement is in most cases, we are not investing money in the startups that we're going to join, but what we are doing is, assuming that your CTC is ten lakh rupees. So one way to think about this is you are actually investing ten lakh rupees into a company,if you are working there for one year, right? So if you had ten lakh rupees cash right now, would you invest in this company or not? Now the unpacking of this question is, does it have a big enough TAM? Is the PMF there? Are the founders really good? 

Rohit Srivastav (25:47):

Is the culture good? Is the second-level leadership really good? Is the GTM figured out or whatever those factors are there, you can find multiple factors that you want to evaluate the research of this is through by listening to interviews, reading articles, doing back-channel reviews, and all of that. But the information that you need to gather is what a VC would gather in the due diligence process. So it helps you think like that. The third thing is I write like a decision post mortem for my role is if I fail in the next 18 months miserably, that is, fail at everything in this job, what are those reasons I would fail? And if those reasons are all in my control, good enough. 

Rohit Srivastav (26:31):

If those reasons will highlight a few dark areas which I don't have information about, then I know what is there to be asked to the interviewer. And if there are things that are just staring me and like writing on the wall, then obviously you should not take that job. So these are like the three pillars of my decision-making process. 

Mita Mandawker (26:56):

This has been one of the most invaluable ways of looking at your career. And thank you so much for sharing that. I'm sure listeners are going to have a ball listening, understanding and using this for themselves. I'm going to make sure that I link the mental model post that you've written on your blog, in the show notes and whenever every place that this episode gets released. I think it's too invaluable. More people need to think like this when it comes to their careers, especially marketers. We are so impacted by all the turmoil that's happening in the market, we are the first ones on the chopping block. It makes more sense that we are a little more careful with our career decisions too.

Rohit Srivastav (27:41):

Yeah, I think that and I hope that is helpful to people listening and using it. 

Mita Mandawker (27:49):

Yep, absolutely. So we have so far dug into your SaaS journey. You were one of the early entrants into the SaaS industry when it started off. Your experience working across multiple sub-domains of marketing when they were not exactly called those like demand gen, product marketing. They've all come in way later. And then finally, you have a very strong background in content and brand, so to speak. Now, the next thing that I would love to understand here is you worked on some extremely successful and unconventional marketing campaigns. I've seen glimpses of those on LinkedIn and in your newsletter and every other place. Let's talk about those campaigns that you've been a part of. It would be great to hear about that. 

Rohit Srivastav (28:37):

So I think, let me just start by saying this, that a lot of times, I think all the marketers that I know have had similar ideas or better ideas at certain point, but they need a lot of confidence coming in from the management and the founders to actually execute it. I was able to execute it mostly because of the founders trusting the idea and trusting me to actually execute it. So the ideas might not be like, out of this world at times, but I think getting that stakeholder alignment and actually getting that executed is the real need. So I'm not trying to position myself as like a mad genius or something, it's just that there is a method to this execution. So that is part one. 

Rohit Srivastav (29:24):

Now, the campaigns, I think it all started at Netcore which is very unassuming, like very counterintuitive, because Netcore is, the the oldest company in terms of the existence in years that I have worked at. And people usually take the age of the company as their momentum against changing. Which was not the case, actually. So I was given all the independence to run program. In fact, one of the earliest confidence-boosting campaigns was we were able to launch our AI engine back in 2019 with Rahul Subramanian as the brand ambassador, which was unheard of in the SaaS ecosystem. So we actually got the comedian in, we co-wrote the script with him, all the jokes and punches. 

Rohit Srivastav (30:24):

We actually got it shot with the video and everything, and it went live. Nobody could believe it that Netcore was doing something like this. Obviously, I got a lot of accolades for it from the peer group, from the entire community. But to be honest, that idea was not mine. The idea was crowdsourced, mostly from my manager at that time, but the entire team coming together and breaking through all of this was the real deal. So again, coming back to the execution part, the second thing that we did was to figure out, the baseline of these campaigns were really this line from David Cancel, the founder of Drift, that product-based differentiation is going out.

Rohit Srivastav (31:15):

And the only differentiation that will be is the stories that you tell and the brand that you build. So based on that, I tried to figure out what is that unfair edge that I have over other people? So when we launched another huge campaign at Netcore was when we acquired a company called Box.ai. So that word had to be let out. Now, obviously you can do the PR and everything, but that's all right. But what we did there are two things - LinkedIn video is new, the algorithm is favoring it. And then I have a strength of 500 people inside the company who have a living, breathing LinkedIn profile. 

Rohit Srivastav (32:04):

So when you match both of these things, what I did was I created multiple versions of the script where you can just hold your phone and record that video and send it to me. I will edit, I will look at it from is it good to go perspective or not. And then, so we ran this entire thing and we collected over 125 videos of people and teams recording selfie videos. And then we orchestrated the release of the video through the entire day. All across the SaaS ecosystem, it was just Netcore, that entire day, Netcore acquired Box.ai. So the videos are coming. So all the tech people, all the support guys, all the success, sales, marketing, and everything. So 125 videos, 150,000+ views and more than 25 enterprise MQLs in 24 hours without spending a dime. 

Rohit Srivastav (33:01):

So that was one of the proudest campaigns. Again, the meat was in the execution. So I'll give you a framework. Creativity happens when two very different, unrelated, radical streams of thoughts collide. And I'll give you a very random example. There are celebrities, you don't know about their private life. What if we put ten celebrities in a house and they are not allowed to do celebrity things? That's Big Boss. So that is how creativity happens when you relate two very unlikely, unrelated thought streams. So, those were the two very good campaigns. And Kula was my reign, like free reign. I was allowed to do everything. Achoo was a great founder. He just gave me the budget and the support that I needed. And he was like just go crazy. So Kula, we did like a lot of things. 

Rohit Srivastav (34:03):

I think the Nasdaq campaign followed up by PR takeover, a lot of things went wrong in that campaign. And because we had press commitments that didn't go live, so we had to take the narrative in our own hands and just own the distribution. Then the second time, when we raised a round of $12 million, we knew how to orchestrate that better. So now the assets that we had was there had to be a TechCrunch coverage. There was a Forbes coverage. There was our own coverage on our own LinkedIn and blog and so on. And then there was a Nasdaq takeover. So all of that combined. So rather than a one day campaign, we turned that into a three-day campaign. So that is exactly how the execution playbook works. 

Rohit Srivastav (34:51):

You figure out what are the things that you can do, when and where, what will go, and that is how you figure out. Then one of the proudest campaigns was the Uber ride campaign. So we were supposed to go to SaaStr, but we could not. There were some investor meetings and board meetings scheduled at that time. So we just could not travel to SaaStr. But we saw that a lot of like SaaSBoomi caravan was going there and they were going to be at SaaStr. So what we did was we basically calculated the cost of us going to SaaStr, converted that into Uber coupons, and named the Uber coupons just Kula. And we distributed it across the SaaSBoomi group. 

Rohit Srivastav (35:38):

So that helped us get us like a brain space and people remembered us. People used a lot of those coupons and we like all the SaaS founders in India now, knew Kula and what it does. So it got back to us like we generated around 75 founder leads in three days. That was a non salesy campaign, but essentially just getting that space in their minds that Kula helps with your recruiting and Kula is the software that you can use for team expansion and recruiting. I think that is a win in itself. So those are the campaigns. 

Mita Mandawker (36:18):

That's certainly true. I think my personal favorite among all of this has been, actually, I would say the Box.ai one. Very interesting. I think it's so difficult to pull off campaigns organically and to use a network effect on social media and to pull it off. I think that's just fantastic. It's every marketer's dream, spending less pennies or no pennies and getting the best bang for buck out of it.