I met them at a networking event a few weeks ago.
A young couple running a fashion brand. Sharp eye for design. Passionate about their product. The kind of founders who know exactly what they are making and exactly who they are making it for.
We got talking. And somewhere between the second cup of chai and the background noise of the room, they told me something that stopped me mid-sip.
Their sales were growing. Good months, consistently. Customers coming back. Word of mouth picking up. All the signs of a brand finding its feet.
But their ad platform was telling them the opposite.
Declining conversions. Campaigns that looked like they were dying. Numbers that made no sense when they looked at their actual bank account.
So they did what any sensible founder would do. They started cutting ad budgets. Pausing campaigns. Second-guessing every decision.
They were about to slow down a machine that was actually working. Because the dashboard was lying to them.
I asked them one question.
Have you ever heard of server-side tracking?
The blank look told me everything I needed to know.
The Dashboard That Lies
Here is what was actually happening to this couple’s business. And if you run a D2C brand in 2026, there is a real chance it is happening to yours too.
When you run ads on Meta or Google, those platforms track your results using something called a pixel. A small piece of code that sits on your website, watches what your customers do, and reports back to the ad platform.
The problem is that this pixel lives in the customer’s browser. And the customer’s browser in 2026 is a very hostile place for that pixel to live.
Ad blockers kill it. Apple’s privacy settings quietly strangle it. Slow mobile connections cause it to simply not fire at all. And even when it does fire, the cookie it leaves behind often expires within 24 hours. If your customer sees your ad on Monday and buys on Friday, that sale simply disappears from your attribution data. The platform never connects the dots. It thinks the campaign failed. It tells you to stop spending.
Meanwhile your actual business is doing fine.
This is what was happening to my new friends at that networking event. Their sales were real. Their growth was real. But their data was broken. And broken data was about to make them break something that did not need fixing.
The Fix Is Simpler Than It Sounds
Server-side tracking moves the entire conversation away from the customer’s browser. Instead of the pixel trying to survive on the customer’s device, your own server talks directly to Meta or Google. Browser to server. Clean signal. Complete data. Nothing gets blocked. Nothing gets lost.
Every purchase recorded. Every add-to-cart captured. Every customer journey stitched together properly, even if it spans seven days and four devices.
What this does to your business is transformative.
Your ad platform suddenly has accurate data to work with. Its algorithm stops making decisions in the dark. It starts finding the right customers more efficiently. Your cost of acquisition comes down not because you spent less but because the machine finally knows what it is doing.
And that 5:1 LTV to CAC ratio we talked about in the last blog? You cannot even calculate it properly if your tracking is broken. You are essentially flying a plane with a broken altimeter and wondering why you keep nearly crashing.
What I Told Them
I did not give them a technical lecture at that networking event. That would have been the wrong thing to do.
What I told them was simple.
You know your product. You know your customer. You know your numbers. What you do not know is what is happening in the background between your customer and your ad platform. And that gap, that invisible layer between your business and your data, is costing you money and causing you unnecessary panic.
They were relieved more than anything else. The confusion that had been building for months suddenly made sense. The campaigns they had been about to shut down were not failing. They were simply invisible.
We started working together after that conversation.
And the first thing we did was fix the tracking.
Everything else became clearer after that.
The Question To Ask Yourself
If your sales are growing but your ad platform is showing declining conversions, do not panic. And do not cut your budgets.
Ask yourself one question first.
Is my tracking set up to capture the full picture? Or is it leaving half the story on the table?
Because in 2026, the brands that win are not necessarily the ones with the biggest ad budgets. They are the ones with the clearest data. The ones who know exactly what is working, what is not, and why.
The ones who stopped guessing.
This is the second blog in a series I am writing on building a smarter D2C business. If you missed the first one on why your retailer margin is costing you far more than you think, read it here.
If you want to find out whether your tracking is leaking revenue, we can help you audit it.
There is a moment in cricket that stays with you.
Not a six. Not a screaming yorker. Not even a last-ball finish.
It is a golden duck. An over. Three wickets. Gone.
On April 13 in Hyderabad, a 24-year-old fast bowler from Nagpur called Praful Hinge was given the unenviable job of opening the bowling on his IPL debut against Rajasthan Royals’ intimidating pair of Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
SRH bought him for Rs. 30 lakh. Nobody outside hardcore domestic cricket followers knew his name.
He dismissed Suryavanshi on the very first ball. Then Dhruv Jurel. Then Lhuan-dre Pretorius. Three wickets in one over. The first bowler in the history of the IPL to take three wickets in the opening over of an innings. He then dismissed Riyan Parag in his next over to finish with 4 for 18.
His father had pushed him into fast bowling when he initially preferred batting. He fixed an illegal bowling action early in his career. He trained at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai and at a high-performance camp in Brisbane. He idolises Pat Cummins and had actually manifested this moment. He had written it down somewhere that his first IPL match he would take four or five wickets.
Rs. 30 lakh. First ball of his IPL career. Suryavanshi gone for a golden duck.
But Hinge was only half the story that night.
Sakib Hussain is 21 years old. He comes from Gopalganj, Bihar. His father was a farmer and daily-wage labourer. The family lived an “earn today, eat today” existence. Cricket was never the original plan. He wanted to join the Indian Army.
He was picked up by KKR in the 2024 auction for Rs. 20 lakh, was part of their title-winning squad without playing a single game. He went unsold at the 2025 auction. He went back to domestic cricket, trained harder, took a stunning 6 for 41 against Arunachal Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy, and SRH picked him up for Rs. 30 lakh in 2026.
On debut against RR, Sakib took 4 for 24. He dismissed Yashasvi Jaiswal with his first wicket and came back in the 15th over to remove Donovan Ferreira when he was threatening to win the game for RR. The joint-best bowling figures by an Indian on IPL debut.
Two debutants. Rs. 60 lakh between them. Eight wickets shared. RR bowled out for 159 as SRH won by 57 runs.
The boy who had been terrorising every bowling attack in this IPL. The teenager with the 15-ball fifties and the 78 off 26. Out. First ball. Golden duck. To a man earning Rs. 30 lakh on his first day in IPL cricket.
That is not just a cricket story. That is India’s story.
Seven Days. Nine Matches. So Much Happened.
Let me take you through the rest of the week.
Saturday April 12 gave us a double-header and the second match at Wankhede was the one everyone was talking about the next morning.
RCB posted 240 for 4. Phil Salt was breathtaking. Patidar smashed three consecutive sixes to start his innings. Rohit Sharma retired hurt on 19 with a hamstring issue. And then came Sherfane Rutherford in the death overs for MI. The powerful left-hander blasted an unbeaten 71 off just 31 balls, hitting 9 sixes into the Mumbai night sky. Even in defeat, that innings was something to behold. RCB won by 18 runs but Rutherford deserved a standing ovation.
The first match that Saturday, LSG versus GT in Lucknow, was more straightforward. Prasidh Krishna took 4 for 28 to restrict LSG to 164. Shubman Gill and Jos Buttler put on 85 together to chase it down with ease. GT quietly on the move. Nobody talking about them. That is exactly when teams become dangerous.
Then came Monday April 13. Hyderabad. The Hinge and Sakib night I opened this blog with.
Tuesday April 14. Chepauk. CSK versus KKR.
I need a moment here.
I have been a KKR fan since 2008. I have seen bad years. I have lived through the dark seasons where we finished bottom half and I still believed. Next year will be different, I told myself every time.
CSK posted 192. KKR chased and managed only 160. Lost by 32 runs. Noor Ahmad ran through the middle order and KKR lost four wickets for just 14 runs in four overs. Five losses in six games. Still without a win. The only point we have came courtesy of rain.
Wednesday April 15. RCB versus LSG at Chinnaswamy. Young Rasikh Salam Dar took four wickets and Bhuvneshwar Kumar took three as LSG were bowled out for 146. RCB chased it with five overs to spare. Clinical. Ruthless. RCB continue to look like champions defending their title.
Thursday April 16. Wankhede. MI versus PBKS. Rohit missing with that hamstring. Quinton de Kock, promoted up the order, scored an unbeaten 112 off 60 balls to drag MI to 195 from 12 for 2. A magnificent innings. The kind you frame on a wall.
PBKS chased it like they were going for a morning walk. Prabhsimran Singh scored 80 not out off 39 balls. Shreyas Iyer scored 66 off 35. They got there in 16.3 overs with 7 wickets in hand. Against Bumrah. At Wankhede. PBKS simply do not know how to lose.
Friday April 17. Ahmedabad. GT versus KKR.
Cameron Green finally showed his class with 79 off 55 balls. But KKR posted only 180 after losing three wickets in the first four overs. Shubman Gill then scored 86 off 50 and made the chase look like a net session. GT won by five wickets.
Six losses. One rain point. Sitting at the bottom of the table. I do not know how to feel anymore. I truly do not.
Saturday April 18 gave us a double-header to close the week. And David Miller finally buried his ghosts.
Remember that gut-wrenching DC versus GT match a fortnight ago? Where Miller needed 2 off the final ball and missed? Where Buttler ran out his partner and GT won by one run?
Last evening at Chinnaswamy, DC were chasing RCB’s 175 and needed 15 off the final over bowled by Romario Shepherd. Miller walked across and smashed two sixes and a boundary. DC won by 6 wickets with one ball to spare.
KL Rahul scored 57 and Tristan Stubbs made an anchoring 60 to set it up. Miller just finished it.
Cricket gives redemption. Slowly. Painfully. But it gives it.
The second match that evening in Hyderabad, Abhishek Sharma blazed a fifty and SRH beat CSK by 10 runs. CSK’s playoff hopes are now under genuine pressure.
Where Things Stand
PBKS and RCB are the real deal this season. Both have batting depth, bowling options, and genuine belief. The race between them for the top spot will define the second half of the league stage.
RR have had their first stumble. Suryavanshi will bounce back. He is 15. He has nothing to be afraid of. But that Hinge and Sakib night was a reminder that this tournament humbles everyone eventually.
And KKR.
Six games. One point. Bottom of the table.
Today is KKR versus RR at Eden Gardens. A home game. Our ground. Our crowd.
I want to believe. I always do.
But this KKR needs to find something urgently. A win. Any win. Before the season disappears completely.
Tell Me What You Think
What was your moment of this week?
Hinge’s golden duck first ball? Sakib’s 4 for 24 on debut? Rutherford’s 9-six blitz in a losing cause? Or Miller’s redemption at Chinnaswamy?
And fellow KKR fans. Tell me honestly. Are you still believing? Because I am trying very hard to.
Drop it in the comments. I read every single one.
If you missed last week’s blog, read it here.
A few weeks ago I was on a call with a founder.
Smart person. Passionate about the product. Running a niche FMCG business that genuinely deserved to be bigger than it was. Selling through offline retailers and on Amazon and Flipkart. Decent volumes. Growing steadily.
I asked him if he had thought about building his own online store.
There was a pause.
Then he said something that I have been thinking about ever since.
“Sourav, if I go direct, what will my retailers think?”
I understood the fear immediately. Retailers are relationships. They are people you have built trust with over years. You do not want to upset them. You do not want to be seen as going behind their back. In India especially, that relationship feels sacred. You protect it.
But here is what I wanted to tell him. And what I am going to tell you today.
That fear is costing you far more than you realise.
The Margin You See. And The Margin You Don’t.
When you sell through a retailer, you see the margin you give away very clearly. It is right there on the invoice. You know exactly what you charged the retailer and what the product will sell for on the shelf. That gap is visible. Painful sometimes, but visible.
When you sell on Amazon or Flipkart, same thing. The platform fee, the fulfilment cost, the advertising spend to get discovered. All visible. All accounted for.
What you do not see is the invisible cost.
Every time a customer buys your product from a retailer or a marketplace, that customer belongs to the platform. Not to you. Amazon knows who bought your product. Flipkart knows. Your retailer has a relationship with the customer who walks into their shop. You have none of that.
So the next time that customer wants to buy your product again, what happens?
They go back to Amazon. They search. Maybe they find you. Maybe they find your competitor who is spending more on ads that day. Maybe Amazon’s algorithm has changed and you are now on page two. Maybe there is a new brand with a lower price point sitting right above you.
You have to win that customer all over again. Every single time. At full acquisition cost.
That is the invisible tax. And it compounds every month.
The Math That Changes Everything.
There is a concept in the D2C world called the LTV to CAC ratio. LTV is the total revenue a customer generates over their lifetime with your brand. CAC is what it costs you to acquire that customer in the first place.
For years the rule of thumb was 3:1. Spend one rupee acquiring a customer, earn three rupees back over time. That was considered healthy.
In 2026, with platform costs rising, ad costs volatile, and competition for attention more expensive than ever, 3:1 barely keeps the lights on. The brands that are genuinely building something are targeting 5:1 and beyond.
The difference between 3:1 and 5:1 is not just a harder target. It is a completely different way of thinking about your customer.
At 3:1 you are a marketing-led business. You spend to acquire. You hope they come back. You spend again when they don’t.
At 5:1 you own the relationship. You know who your customer is. You know what they bought, when they bought it, and when they are likely to need it again. You talk to them directly. You bring them back at almost zero cost. Your LTV grows without your CAC growing with it.
That is the power of owning your customer.
What I Told The Founder.
I did not tell him to abandon his retailers. That would be naive and frankly bad advice. Retailer relationships have real value, especially in FMCG where shelf presence and local trust matter enormously.
What I told him was this.
Your retailers give you distribution. But they cannot give you data. They cannot give you a direct relationship with the person who uses your product every day. They cannot tell you why someone tried your product once and never came back. They cannot help you build a community around what you are making.
A D2C store does not replace your retailers. It gives you something your retailers cannot. It gives you the customer.
When someone buys directly from your store, you know their name. You have their email. You know what they bought and when. You can send them a personalised message three weeks later. You can tell them about a new variant. You can ask them how they liked it. You can bring them back for a fraction of the cost of finding a new customer.
Over time that relationship is worth multiples of what you earn from a single transaction.
He listened. He asked questions. By the end of the call he was willing to explore.
That was enough for me.
The Real Question.
If you are a founder selling through retailers or marketplaces, I am not asking you to burn those relationships.
I am asking you one question.
Do you know who your customer is?
Not approximately. Not the demographic your retailer serves. The actual person who picks up your product, uses it, and decides whether to come back or not.
If the answer is no, you are building a business on borrowed ground. The platform owns the relationship. You own the product. And every time that customer comes back, you are paying to reach them all over again.
That is not growth. That is a treadmill.
The founders who figure this out early are the ones who build something that lasts. The ones who don’t will keep growing their revenue while wondering why the margins never improve.
Your retailers are not your enemy. But they are not your moat either.
Your customer is your moat. Go own them.
If you are thinking about building your own D2C store, we can help you get started.
Yesterday night I watched Sanju Samson walk out to bat for CSK against Delhi Capitals at Chepauk.
Three games into his CSK career. Scores of 6, 7 and 9. The boos had not started yet but the murmurs had. People were beginning to question the trade. Whether leaving Rajasthan Royals made sense. Whether the pressure of a new franchise had gotten to him.
I have watched Sanju bat for many years now. I know what he looks like when he is troubled. And I know what he looks like when he has made up his mind.
Yesterday, he had made up his mind.
He took Mukesh Kumar for consecutive fours in the first over. He launched Kuldeep Yadav for a six over extra cover. CSK raced to 62 in the powerplay. He never looked back. He finished on an unbeaten 115 off 56 balls.
IPL 2026 had its first centurion. And he chose the perfect night to do it.
CSK won by 23 runs. Jamie Overton took 4 for 18. First points of the season. The relief was written all over Ruturaj Gaikwad’s face at the end.
Never doubt Sanju Samson. He always answers. Eventually.
Seven Days. Nine Matches. Where Do I Even Begin.
April 5 started with a double-header.
The first match in Hyderabad. SRH versus LSG. Mohammed Shami dismantled the SRH top order, removing Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head cheaply to leave them reeling at 26 for 4 after eight overs. From there, Klaasen and Nitish Kumar Reddy rescued SRH with a 116-run fifth-wicket partnership in 63 balls, the highest for SRH in IPL history, to get them to 156.
Still not enough. Rishabh Pant stayed calm through LSG’s middle-order wobble and finished the chase with three boundaries off the last over, winning it with one ball to spare. Classic Pant. Makes it look impossible until the very last moment, then makes it look easy.
The second match that evening at Chinnaswamy. RCB versus CSK. And RCB were simply brutal. Tim David scored 70 not out off 25 balls with 8 sixes. Patidar smashed 48 off 19. RCB posted 250 for 3, the highest ever by any team against CSK in IPL history. CSK were bowled out for 207 and lost by 43 runs, their third consecutive defeat.
CSK looked broken after that evening. They were not. But we did not know that yet.
April 6. Eden Gardens. My team. My city. And the rain.
KKR were 25 for 2 in 3.4 overs when the match was abandoned. Xavier Bartlett had already removed Finn Allen and Cameron Green. Both teams took a point.
So KKR’s first point of the season came courtesy of a Kolkata thunderstorm. SRK appeared on the balcony and waved to the crowd. That was the highlight of the evening. I will say no more.
April 7 in Guwahati. Rain again, this time cutting the match to 11 overs a side. But shorter did not mean quieter.
Suryavanshi and Jaiswal put on an 80-run opening stand. Suryavanshi scored 39. Jaiswal finished unbeaten on 77 off 32 balls. RR posted 150 for 3 and bowled MI out to win by 27 runs. Bumrah bowled. Suryavanshi hit him anyway. Jaiswal said after the game that watching Suryavanshi take on Bumrah in the first over released the pressure for the whole team. That sentence tells you everything about what this 15-year-old is doing to opposition bowlers’ minds.
April 8. Delhi. DC versus GT. The first real last-ball finish of the week.
GT posted 210. KL Rahul scored 92 off 52 for DC. David Miller, facing his former side, brought the equation down to 2 needed off the final ball. He missed. Jos Buttler ran out Kuldeep Yadav attempting a desperate bye. GT won by 1 run.
One run. The cruelty of this game. Rahul deserved a winning side that night. He did not get one.
April 9. Eden Gardens again. KKR versus LSG. And the most painful kind of loss.
KKR posted 181. LSG were 104 for 5. Mukul Choudhary walked in and scored 54 off 27 balls with seven sixes. He and Avesh Khan added 54 for the eighth wicket. With one needed off the final ball, Choudhary swung, missed, ran through. Raghuvanshi’s throw missed the stumps. LSG won by three wickets.
I turned off the television at that point. I could not watch the celebrations.
KKR posted 181 and it should have been enough. But the death bowling fell apart completely in those final four overs. With no Harshit Rana and Pathirana still unavailable, the lack of experienced death bowling options showed badly when it mattered most. When a team has no genuine pace threat at the death, lower-order batters like Choudhary start looking like match-winners. And that is exactly what happened.
The hard truth is this. Without Harshit Rana and Pathirana, KKR have no reliable death bowling identity. Sunil Narine at 37 may genuinely be their best option in those final overs. That is not a plan. That is a prayer.
April 10 in Guwahati. RR versus the defending champions RCB. And Suryavanshi again. This time against the best bowling attack in the tournament.
RCB posted 201. Suryavanshi came out and scored 78 off 26 balls, with 7 sixes and 8 fours, reaching his fifty off just 15 balls. Dhruv Jurel followed with an unbeaten 81 off 43 balls. RR chased 202 with two overs to spare. RCB’s first loss of the season. RR’s fourth consecutive win. Suryavanshi now leads the Orange Cap with 200 runs in four matches at a strike rate of 266.
After the match, Virat Kohli sent him a personal message of appreciation. When Kohli reaches out to you specifically, you know you have done something truly special.
April 11 gave us a double-header to close the week. First, SRH blazed to 105 for 0 in the powerplay, the third-highest powerplay total in IPL history, with Abhishek Sharma smashing 74 off 28 balls. They were looking at 240. Shashank Singh took two wickets in one over and stopped the charge. SRH managed 219. PBKS chased it down with 7 balls to spare, with Shreyas Iyer finishing unbeaten on 69 off 33.
And then the final match of the week. Sanju’s night. The century. The first points for CSK. The feeling that a team has finally found its feet.
Where Things Stand After Two Weeks
Rajasthan Royals are the team of the tournament. Four wins from four. A 15-year-old who produces a match-winning performance every single time he walks in. A captain in Riyan Parag who backs his instincts. The RR bowling has wobbled a couple of times but the batting has always covered for it.
Punjab Kings are quietly doing something special too. Unbeaten in four games. Three wins and an abandonment that felt like a robbery for them at Eden Gardens.
CSK have woken up. One big performance can do that to a team. Watch them from here.
And KKR. Three losses, one rain point. Next up is CSK at Chepauk on Tuesday the 14th. Away game. Desperate for a win.
I want to believe. I always do. But this team needs answers urgently. The bowling combinations, the death overs, the inability to close out tight games. Something needs to change before it is too late.
Tell Me What You Think
What was your moment of Week 2?
Sanju’s 115? Suryavanshi’s 78 off 26 against the champions? GT winning by 1 run in Delhi? Or Mukul Choudhary appearing from nowhere to steal the game at Eden Gardens on the last ball?
Drop it in the comments. I read every single one.
And if you are a KKR fan, you know where I am. Let us hope Tuesday finally brings some good news.
Let me ask you something.
When was the last time you were genuinely surprised by what AI could do?
Not impressed. Not curious. Actually surprised. The kind of surprise that makes you sit back and think: wait, that changes things.
For most people, that moment was sometime in late 2022 or early 2023. ChatGPT arrived. You typed a question and got a brilliant answer. You asked it to write something and it wrote something good. You showed it to a colleague and they were amazed.
That feeling was real. That moment was real.
But that version of AI? It is already old.
AI Version 1.0: The Very Smart Assistant
Think about what that first wave of AI actually was.
It was a tool that waited.
You opened it. You typed something. It responded. You read the response. You decided what to do next. You closed it and went back to your work.
It was extraordinary. But it was still passive. It sat there, quietly, until you needed it. Like a very knowledgeable colleague who only speaks when spoken to.
Search got smarter. Writing got faster. Customer support got cheaper. Code got easier to write. Entire categories of work got compressed into minutes.
All of that is real. All of that matters.
But here is what that version of AI could not do.
It could not watch.
It could not notice.
It could not act on your behalf while you were doing something else entirely.
You always had to be in the loop. You were always the one making the final call. AI made you faster and sharper, but you were still the engine. AI was just the fuel.
That is Version 1.0.
Something Fundamental Just Shifted.
Agentic AI is not an upgrade to the AI you already know.
It is a completely different idea.
The old AI answered your questions. Agentic AI watches your world continuously, reasons about what is happening, makes a decision, and acts. Without waiting for you to ask. Without needing you to be in the room.
Think about what that actually means.
A system that monitors 47 data points simultaneously. That notices a pattern forming. That cross-references it against a rule you set six months ago. That executes a response in the next 60 seconds. And sends you a message telling you what it did and why.
You wake up in the morning and your AI agent has already done three things on your behalf overnight.
That is not a smarter chatbot. That is a different category of technology entirely.
The shift is this: AI moved from being a tool you use to being a system that works for you.
There is a word for what that creates. Autonomy. And autonomy at scale is what every business has been trying to buy for the last hundred years.
Let Me Show You What This Looks Like In The Real World.
There is a problem hiding inside every large jewellery retailer in India.
It is not visible on the balance sheet. It does not show up in the monthly P&L in an obvious way. But it is there, leaking, every single day.
Gold prices move in milliseconds. The MCX ticker updates continuously. The global LBMA benchmark shifts with every dollar move. The USD/INR rate adds another layer of complexity on top of that.
And in the middle of all this movement sits a CFO, looking at three different screens.
Screen one: live commodity prices. Screen two: the ERP system, batch-synced and hours behind reality. Screen three: a global price feed that speaks a different language from the local market data.
Nobody built a bridge between these three screens. So a human being became the bridge. And every time a human being is the bridge between a moving market and a business decision, margin leaks through the gap.
At the scale of a retailer operating 150 plus locations across India, that gap is not small. It is crores. Every year. Silently.
This is exactly the kind of problem that Agentic AI was built for.
What We Are Building At Brainium.
At Brainium, we are in the middle of building something we are calling Project Aurum-i.
It is an agentic middleware. Not a dashboard. Not a report. Not another screen for the CFO to stare at.
A system that ingests three live data streams simultaneously: global gold prices, domestic MCX futures, and real-time USD/INR rates. It normalises all three into a single number: landed cost per gram in INR, updated continuously.
Every time a sale happens anywhere in the retail network, the system registers the unhedged position automatically. It tracks the gap between what has been sold and what has been repurchased. In real time.
And then the agent takes over.
When the unhedged position crosses a threshold and the current price is below the 20-day moving average, the system does not send a report. It does not schedule a meeting. It fires a hedge recommendation directly to the CFO’s phone via WhatsApp. With the reasoning. With the numbers. Ready to act on immediately.
The entire POC runs for under Rs. 3,500 a month.
That is the economics of agentic AI right now. The cost of building it is almost nothing. The value it protects is crores.
We are not talking about AI in the abstract at Brainium. We are building it, right now, for one of the most complex and high-stakes environments in Indian retail.
The Question I Want To Leave You With.
Every business has a version of the three-screen problem.
Three systems that do not talk to each other. A human being acting as the bridge. Margin, time, or opportunity leaking through the gap every single day.
You have probably normalised it. It has been there so long it feels like just the way things work.
Agentic AI exists to replace that human bridge with something that never sleeps, never gets distracted, and never misses the signal.
The question is not whether this technology is ready. It is ready.
The question is: which gap in your business are you going to close first?
If you are thinking about that question seriously, I would love to have that conversation. Drop a comment below or connect with me directly. Let us talk.
Last night, I was barely breathing.
Tushar Deshpande. Final over. Gujarat Titans needing 11 runs. Kagiso Rabada on strike. Rashid Khan at the other end. The entire Narendra Modi Stadium on its feet.
I was sitting at home, and I was still nervous.
That is what IPL does to you. Every single year. It pulls you in. It grabs you by the collar. And it does not let go until the last ball is bowled.
Deshpande bowled six consecutive deliveries on the blockhole and wide yorker length. Rabada and Rashid could only manage 4 runs. RR won by 6. Pure nerve. Pure drama.
Welcome back, IPL. I have missed you.
Eight Days. Nine Matches. One Theme.
It started on March 28 with Virat Kohli doing what Virat Kohli does.
Defending champions RCB were chasing 202 against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Kohli scored 69 not out. Devdutt Padikkal smashed 61. They got there in 15.4 overs. A title defense that began exactly like a champion would want it to.
Then came Rohit Sharma, reminding the world that age is just a number people use when they have run out of better arguments.
MI were chasing 221 against KKR. Rohit smashed 78 off 38 balls with six sixes, helping MI pull off a final-over victory. 38 years old. Absolutely no signs of slowing down. That knock had the whole country talking the next morning.
And then a 15-year-old walked in and made everyone forget about Rohit.
Vaibhav Suryavanshi scored 52 off 17 balls against CSK. His fifty came in just 15 balls. The joint-third fastest fifty in IPL history. Strike rate of 305.88. Think about that for a second. He was not born when the IPL began in 2008. He does not know what nerves look like. He just walks in, clears his front leg, and hits it over the stands.
His post-match reaction? “They just said play your natural game. That’s what I did.”
That calmness is terrifying. In the best possible way.
RR chased down CSK’s 127 in just 12.1 overs. Eight wickets to spare. And CSK had a nightmare of their own. Sanju Samson, making his debut for his new team against his old one, got out for just 2. Cricket really has no sense of occasion.
Then came Cooper Connolly. An Australian nobody had heard of before March 31.
PBKS were 118 for 6 chasing a target of 163. Connolly walked in and scored 72 not out off 44 balls to win the match for his team. Just like that. First IPL game. Biggest moment of the chase. Completely unfazed.
Then Sameer Rizvi of Delhi. DC were in tatters at 26 for 4. Rizvi came in and scored 70 not out off 47 balls, winning the match almost single-handedly.
Unknown players. Big moments. Calm heads.
That is the theme of Week 1. Youth is not waiting for permission anymore.
And then last night, Dhruv Jurel scored a career-best 75 off 42 balls, Ravi Bishnoi ripped through GT’s middle order with 4 for 41, and Deshpande finished it off in the final over in the first real thriller of IPL 2026.
Eight days in. The tournament is already delivering.
Now Let Me Talk About KKR. Because I Have To.
I have supported this team since 2008. The bad years, the rebuilds, the heartbreaks, the three titles. 2024 felt like the start of something really special.
Right now, I am worried.
Harshit Rana is out for the entire season. Knee ligament injury from the T20 World Cup warm-up. Matheesh Pathirana, bought for Rs. 18 crore, is still not cleared by Sri Lanka Cricket. Cameron Green, the most expensive overseas buy in IPL history at Rs. 25.20 crore, is available only as a batter right now due to workload restrictions.
Three pacers. All unavailable or restricted. That is not bad luck. That is a crisis.
And Varun Chakravarthy, who I was counting on to be the difference-maker this season, is struggling for form and confidence after a difficult T20 World Cup where batters figured him out and hit him hard.
Two games played. Two losses. The batting has runs. The bowling has questions.
April 6, KKR host PBKS at Eden Gardens. The crowd will be loud. I will be watching. But honestly, something needs to change in how they are approaching their bowling combinations. This cannot continue.
So Where Does Week 2 Take Us?
CSK have 0 points from 2 games. So do KKR. Both proud franchises. Both under pressure already.
RR, PBKS, and DC are sitting pretty at the top. The Rajasthan Royals in particular look scary. That opening pair of Jaiswal and Suryavanshi has already put on 510 runs in partnership across IPL matches, needing only 246 balls between them. That is not an opening pair. That is a wrecking ball.
Today SRH face LSG. RCB face CSK. Both matches promise a lot.
The season has just started. And it already feels like there is no room to breathe.
That is exactly how IPL should feel.
Tell Me What You Think
Which moment of Week 1 had you on your feet?
Was it Rohit’s 78? Vaibhav’s 15-ball fifty? Connolly appearing from nowhere? Or last night’s final over at Ahmedabad?
And if you are a KKR fan like me, tell me honestly. Worried or not?
Drop your answer in the comments below. I read every single one. Always have.
Creativity needs collaboration.
But Covid-19 has created a massive challenge in this aspect.
Let’s think of the good part.
But amidst all this what’s missed is the sheer camaraderie.
Gone are the days when people used to think that your best friends by default always used to be from school or college days. As the last couple of decades has shown us that best of friends can come from amongst your colleagues too.
But is that camaraderie possible in the remote work environment?
Absolutely not.
Whatever one-to-one you have with your colleagues or have tea-break sessions over Google Meet – it can never replace physical interactions. Relationships grow when you have unabridged discussions over a beer or a cup of coffee.
When relationships evolve, your meetings get more interesting. You get more transparent feedback. You improve the trust factor.
This is distinctly not possible in a remote environment. And this leads to a scenario where collaboration reduces and it takes a toll on your creative output.
What we are increasingly seeing today is that people are spending way too much time on video meetings but the output is lackluster because there’s a fatigue that’s setting in with too many video calls. Not everyone is comfortable talking endlessly or listening endlessly. People lose focus and when you lose focus your creativity reduces. Mistakes creep in and another set of video calls follow. This is a vicious circle.
First and foremost we need to realise that the old normal won’t be back in a jiffy. What the latest strain of Covid-19 shows is that we have to learn to live with the virus forever. You can’t control it. You just try to be safe as much as possible but accept this fact. Denial won’t help you – you can’t just force the old normal back. People want to stay at home and work from home. The biggest problem is travel especially in India where there are endless traffic jams and crowded trains and busses. People want to avoid that and you won’t be able to change this scenario for the foreseeable future.
What we need to do is that the team sizes need to be reduced. Previously every 9-10 members used to have one manager or reporting head. This needs to change to 4-5 member teams. Lesser number of team members would mean lesser video calls and the chance of friendships to grow amongst a very small group of people. The chances of friendship will increase when there is a very small team. Companies need to think about it because till you get genuine friendship happening, your work quality will suffer. Having a small team will help in this aspect.
This will of course mean, the need for better middle managers. India over the last decade has faltered in this aspect. India struggled to develop genuine leaders in the corporate sector. Leaders need to create more leaders and it’s high time companies look into this aspect and develop a good leadership pipeline. Give opportunities to people who have a flair towards leadership – people who have empathy and people who care.
Having offsites once in a quarter is a must-have right now. You need to get your team members out of their homes – go to a different place for a couple of days and allow your team members to mingle and allow them to come up with ideas to help the organisation grow. Your team members will love you for this opportunity. Try it and see the transformation happening.
What do you think about how companies can overcome this creative bottleneck challenge?
What seems cheap is expensive! What’s perceived as expensive actually ends up being cheaper!
We talk long term but think short term!
I bought a flat a few years back and when I was doing the interiors my cousin who is an interior designer himself helped me in settling things for me! Getting an expert on my side was actually very helpful!
When we went to search for curtains, he took me to a showroom at Triangular Park (in Kolkata) and this shop had some awesome collections! But as you can realise it was very costly! I was not very sure of that purchase but my cousin told me to think long-term!
” You are already spending quite a bit in your interiors and this addition not only gives a better look, but it will also last a hell of a long time “! he said.
It’s been 5 years and my curtains are still hanging as if they are new!
My cousin was telling me that one of his customers was not ok to pay for expensive sets of curtains and they went for the curtains from their local shop! What happened was that in the next 3 years they had to change their curtains twice!
I see this happening a lot with people in India while changing their old tyres in four-wheelers! To save costs they sometimes go for refurbished tyres and sometimes they opt to change only two tyres! What happens then is that the two older tyres ensure that these new tyres get old quicker and within a year they have to replace 4 tyres!
In the share market, especially many newbies think buying shares of companies whose share prices are very high is “Expensive” and penny stocks are “Cheap“! The fact is good companies will cost you a premium but in the long run, the results and your wealth will be unimaginable!
What you think is cheap today will make you feel like a fool a few years later!
What you think is expensive today will turn out to be a great ” deal ” when you compare it a few years later!
Just like stock market investments, when you purchase any useful gadget think long-term. When you purchase an electronic gadget don’t settle for the lower-end model because one year later you might have to spend again! Better buy the top-of-the-shelf product which can give you long-lasting pleasure!
Please don’t mistake this post as if I am promoting things to buy on EMI! You should only buy things which you can afford and that could mean postponing your buying plan but don’t settle for stuff which will give pain in the future!
As the saying goes, short-term pain leads to long-term gain!
What’s your recent purchase where you thought long term and made the decision? Let’s share our experiences and learn from each other!
Inadvertently we are all selfish!
It’s because we care for ourselves! Nothing wrong with that! You should love yourself first before loving others!
But there is another side to it! When you start loving yourself you also have this in the back of your mind how do others validate us!
Say, for example, you love buying T-shirts! Now you go to a mall or Amazon to purchase some cool Tshirt s! You feel nice! But the next day when you wear it and no one says, “Wow you look great in that T-shirt ” you feel it was a wrong purchase!
Doing what you want to do should be your primary motivator – others validating or not should not be your criteria!
Recently I was talking to a friend and I was asking him why he was not active on social media! He said I don’t have many followers so what’s the point of being active! Why don’t one have many followers? What’s being active in social media means? You only want to cater to your wants but don’t want to cater to others’ wants?
We all are living and as we live we create stories! Every day some experience is happening in our lives. Be it at home or work or with friends and family! Every incident is a story!
You might think why should anyone be interested in my story! True, initially people won’t but you need to persist because the technique is to not only write for yourself or create content for yourself but also for people two rungs below you!
Say for example you are a manager in a company – you should generate content for juniors in your group who are two rungs below you! If you are new to college – generate content for people who are in class 10. If you are fresher in the IT industry – write content for juniors who will get into this industry couple of years later!
Every story has an audience and every story gets some connection! You need to first generate the content for that niche audience of yours and then distribute it to that target group!
If you are a coder who recently joined a company, write or talk about your experience in that industry! Talk about the challenges you face daily! Talk about the gap from college to a job! This will help your juniors to understand what’s in store for them! You will generate a fan following when you do that!
Social media creates a FOMO concept and you are always looking for validation! You are always expecting the influencers to engage with your content but that won’t happen because your journey and the influencer’s journey are treading separate paths!
Remember at any point in time you are an influencer! If you are the eldest son of the house your siblings look up to you as an influencer! You will find the younger siblings always trying to copy the elder ones! That’s in our genes because as I said we all are influencing someone or the other in our lives!
Don’t hold back in telling your story! I find Indian entrepreneurs talking a lot less about their stories! Very few actually open up on their struggles! Very few actually write about their failures! This is precisely why I have a lot of respect for Mr. Vaitheeswaran because he wrote Failing to Succeed! His ventures Indiaplaza and Fabmart were pioneers in Indian e-commerce but they didn’t reach the level where the current Ecommerce companies reached and he was game enough to write that story! What’s more, he took those learnings and started his new venture again! I guess that’s why he named it AGAIN – though he might not agree!
If we come forward and tell our story it will help the next generation because they will learn in advance the mistakes which they should not commit!
I find digital marketers struggling with story writing! But the fact is if you are a marketer then you should be confident to write! Copywriting is marketing! Copywriting is sales! Copywriting is everything today when it comes to branding and if we are not doing this correctly our brand equity will never rise!
Start building your personal brand! Your personal brand is your story! When you start doing that you will realise how many people will connect with you and open up with you and then together everyone will learn something new!
What’s holding you back? What’s your story?
When I started my career as a salesperson I found prospecting new customers as the hardest part of my role. I was an introvert by nature and talking with strangers was not my strength more so face to face. As days went by I learned the tricks of the trade and got better! But amidst all this, I found managing an account to be my mojo! Once the relationship is built I found it very comfortable to take the relationship to the next level! Being a good listener people got the vibe to talk with me pretty easily.
This made me think that account management is pretty cool. Well, it was cool till things turned awry one day when a customer went irated due to a bad service issue. Being friendly is good – helps you in getting more business easily via reference but it also means you are the man who would be caught first when things go wrong. That’s exactly what happened and unfortunately, it happened on a weekend! Communication in the year 2000 was not as easy as it is today! I didn’t have a mobile phone either. I was on my way to watch a movie with my friends and on the way met the customer and faced his wrath. Thankfully my boss had a landline at home and I called him up and he somehow arranged a serviceman to reach the location and gave him a spare battery! (I was into UPS sales at that time)
This incident made me realise what seems easy is not so easy. You as a salesperson can commit but to keep up to that commitment level is what will take your relationship further! Yes, problems can happen but how you solve those problems by keeping the customer’s interest in mind will enhance your reputation!
I learned two things that evening (I missed my evening movie too)
The problem in the service industry is that you can’t really control what your delivery team is going to serve to the client and hence you as an account manager can be sandwiched between the customer and the production team!
How do you come out of that situation:
Maintain healthy relationships
Be proactive! Be your client’s spokesperson inside your organisation! This might lead you to face awkward stares from your colleagues but your job is to keep your client happy! When your end goal is client satisfaction then nothing should stop you from ensuring that the goal is achieved!
Customers believe you and give you the order and relationships are built on trust! Now you as the account manager can’t destroy that trust! If you love your job then you will do everything in your capacity to ensure that the client is happy! Businesses are built on trust and once you gain that trust it’s on you to ensure that it’s not broken!
Competition is lurking around and the only way you can grow your business is by word of mouth marketing! Word of mouth marketing can only happen when your clients refer more businesses towards you without you prompting for them! Clients become your brand ambassadors when they are very happy with your services! You as an account manager play a vital role in ensuring that it happens and stays that way!
Account management is always a dual-edged sword because you are basically sandwiched between your production team and the client. It can be stressful but if you love your job and if you love servicing clients and if you want to make your clients happy then you have to accept this as part of your career growth! The best CXOs come through the account management route because this group of people takes care of two important pillars of the company’s success: people and clients!
A company thrives via PPC
P = People
P = Process
C = Customers
As account managers, you are directly coordinating with P and C and that makes you the ideal candidate to move into the next stage of career growth! Of course, that’s only possible if you do your job well!
As an account manager what gives you maximum happiness and what gets you stressed?
My email is open to questions and I look forward to interacting with you to understand your pain points and I hope to solve some or all of your queries!
Keep firing!