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Serial Entrepreneur | Growth Hacker | Investor
I build companies the way others…
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Ritwik A. posted thisWe pitched a VC without a product. We got through to the second round. Then they said the thing you dread: "Can we see it?" We had an ugly MVP. Barely held together. We showed them anyway. We still got through. What carried us: insane preparation, total conviction, and USPs we could say out loud in one sentence. But here's the real lesson. VCs are professionally pessimistic. They will find every hole and poke every assumption. And they're right to. It's their money. Being critical is the job. Which also means their doubt is not a verdict on your business. We're still bootstrapping Syncupp. No investors. Just conviction and cashflow. If you have a strong gut feeling as a founder, chase it. The people telling you it won't work are paid to say that. You're the only one paid to prove them wrong.
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Ritwik A. reposted thisRitwik A. reposted thisI've seen brands burn $50,000 on Meta ads before realizing they were doing it all wrong. Here's how to save thousands (starting today): Most brands treat Meta ads like a slot machine. Pull the lever. Hope for the best. Blame the algorithm when it fails. But Meta's AI isn't broken. You're just not feeding it what it needs. Here's the fix: 🎯 Volume beats perfection. Stop uploading 2 "perfect" creatives and praying. Upload 20. Meta's AI needs variations to find your winners. 🎯 Authentic beats polished. That $5,000 cinematic ad? It's losing to a raw iPhone video. People scroll past ads. They stop for content. 🎯 Specificity beats "everyone." Speak to one person. One problem. One outcome. The tighter your message, the cheaper your clicks. 🎯 Track every micro-step. Set up custom events for view, add to cart, checkout, purchase. See where people actually drop off, instead of guessing. The brands winning on Meta in 2026 aren't spending more. They're spending smarter. This is exactly what we do SURGE LION MEDIA 😌 Comment "SAVE" to get our full Meta ads playbook.
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Ritwik A. reposted thisRitwik A. reposted thisMeta is lying to you about your winning ads. Not on purpose. But it's happening. That "winning video" pulling in all your sales? It's getting credit for work the other ads did. Here's the ugly truth: Your other ads warm up the audience. Build intent. Create familiarity. Prime the click. Then the "winner" swoops in and takes the sale. Meta hands it the trophy. So you scale the winner. Kill the "losers." And suddenly your account tanks. Sound familiar? What actually works: ❌ Stop trusting Meta's attribution blindly. It's built for Meta's story, not yours. ✅ Test the winning video in a separate campaign. Still wins in isolation? It's the hero. Drops off? The "losers" were doing the heavy lifting. ✅ Use proper attribution software. Hyros. Triple Whale. Tools that show the real customer journey. The brands scaling profitably in 2026 aren't the ones with the best creative. They're the ones who know which creative is actually working. This is what we obsess over at SURGE LION MEDIA Comment "ATTRIBUTION" for get our full playbook.
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Ritwik A. posted thisAt 21 I was living in a sea-facing building on Palm Jumeirah, walking distance from Atlantis. Working for the most intense founder I've ever met. In a niche I knew nothing about — crypto, blockchain, healthcare. On paper I had no business being there. We spent six months trying to crack the funnel. Nothing worked. Then we shipped a new product release and something clicked. Three months later: ₹1 crore in monthly recurring revenue. What those nine months permanently rewired in me: Nothing is impossible. You just haven't found the leak yet. Every funnel has a crack. Your job isn't to be a genius — it's to keep testing until the crack shows itself, and to be ready when it does. Most people quit at month four. The funnel breaks open at month six. I'm three years into building Syncupp now, and I've had that month-four feeling more times than I can count. I've just never forgotten what the inside of that gap feels like.
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Ritwik A. posted thisWe did 750 one-on-one demos before we knew what to build for Syncupp. Not 15-minute calls. One-hour calls. With real business owners, about their real chaos. 750 hours of listening to people explain why their team management was broken. The result: → 2,500 active users in under 6 months → 50% still with us a year later → And those same people upgraded a second time That last number is the only one I care about. Anyone can get a signup. Signups are cheap. Getting someone to pay you twice — after a year of use, after the novelty is gone, after they know exactly what's broken — that's the real scoreboard. We didn't guess Syncupp's roadmap. We were handed it. 750 separate times. Most founders build for six months, then go looking for customers. Build from 750 conversations and you don't have to look. They're already waiting. P.S. Nikhil Ahlawat & I were so overstimulated, I believe on occasions we were blurting out demo lines in our sleep xD
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Ritwik A. posted thisSix months into my agency, a cricketer offered me a job. He was launching a baby care brand. He wanted me to run growth. The salary was more than most CEOs make. I was 21. I said no. Six months later, another offer: growth hacker at a healthcare firm in Dubai, paying more than most IIT and IIM grads were getting. I said yes to that one — and kept building my agency at the same time. People ask how I chose. Here's the actual filter: One offer wanted to replace my business. The other could sit next to it. The baby care brand would have owned my calendar, my energy, my identity. Dubai was a job I could do while still being a founder. I wasn't choosing money. I was choosing optionality. Every real bet I've made since — the agency, and now Syncupp — only existed because I kept that door open. The highest-paying offer of your life arrives exactly when you can least afford to take it. That's not a coincidence. That's the test.
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Ritwik A. posted thisBefore the agency worked, I failed at everything. Dropshipping. Affiliate marketing. Daily trading. I thought I was unlucky BUT I was just...paying tuition. Dropshipping taught me margins. Affiliate taught me traffic and offers. Trading taught me risk. All three taught me the same thing: I didn't know my numbers. No business is difficult. You just don't know your numbers. You don't have a growth problem. You have a CAC you've never calculated. An AOV you've never tried to move. A repeat rate you've never measured. Business stops being confusing the moment it becomes arithmetic. I'm building Syncupp now, and it's the same story in a different costume. Founders don't lose because their team is bad. They lose because they can't see what their team is doing. You can't play a game you refuse to keep score in. Ps- Drop your business and your biggest metric problem below. I'll tell you where the leak is. After 200+ brands, I can usually spot it in 30 seconds.
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Ritwik A. posted thisNot all products are equal in 2026. Some categories quietly die. Others keep printing money. After watching hundreds of stores, only three product types consistently win now: Impulse Problem Identity Here’s the simple breakdown. 1. Impulse products These are bought fast. Low thinking. Low friction. Usually under ₹1,999. They win because creative does most of the selling. A strong hook. A clear visual payoff. An obvious benefit. These aren’t “cool gadgets”. They’re products where the value is understood in 3 seconds. If your product needs a long explanation, it’s not an impulse buy. 2. Problem products These solve a specific, annoying pain. Not a vague inconvenience. A problem people already complain about. Demand already exists. Your job isn’t to create desire. It’s to position yourself as the best solution. Problem products love: → Clear before–after proof → Simple demos → Strong guarantees If your product saves time, reduces effort, or removes pain or stress, you’re in the right zone. 3. Identity products These sell because of who the buyer wants to be. Not just what the product does. Fitness. Fashion. Lifestyle. Status. Here, branding, content, and community matter more than discounts. People buy to belong. To signal something about themselves. That’s why creators and storytelling outperform offers alone in this category. The mistake most beginners make They mix these categories without realising it. They try to sell an identity product like an impulse buy. Or a problem product like a generic gadget. That kills conversion. In 2026, your product type decides everything: → Your creatives → Your offer → Your pricing → Your funnel Before you test anything, ask one question: Is this an impulse, problem, or identity product? Then build everything around that answer. When product type and execution align, ads feel easy. When they don’t, nothing scales no matter how much you spend. The winners in 2026 aren’t selling random products. They’re selling the right type, the right way.
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Ritwik A. posted thisFunnels didn’t disappear in 2026. They evolved. The old “click → product page → buy” flow isn’t enough anymore. This is the funnel that actually converts now: Attention → Trust → Conversion In that order. Step 1: Attention This is where ads, short-form content, creators, and hooks live. Your job here isn’t to sell. It’s to stop the scroll and frame the problem clearly. If your creative is generic, you lose before step two even starts. Step 2: Trust This is the step most stores skip. Someone clicks your ad, then pauses. They check your profile. They scroll your site. They read reviews. They look for signs you’re real. Trust is built through: → Messaging that matches the ad promise → Social proof that feels real, not staged → Content that educates and shows behind the scenes → Policies that are clear and easy to understand If trust is weak, conversion is capped. No amount of targeting fixes that. Step 3: Conversion This is where the offer does the heavy lifting. Bundles. Bonuses. Guarantees. Fast checkout. Low friction. Conversion isn’t persuasion. It’s removing reasons to say no. Most brands try to force conversion without earning trust. That’s why they feel stuck. More spend. Same results.
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Ritwik A. liked thisRitwik A. liked thisIf I'm a CMO right now, I'm stopping everything and installing these 8 skills. The receipts behind them: $2B in funnels, $900K pipeline in 135 days, $20M sold via email.. Quick context: www.gtmskills.com is an open-source library where real operators package their playbooks as skills any AI agent can run. I publish my own skills there, which means I've read what everyone else shipped. These are the 8 I'd steal: 1/ Category-of-one positioning - Luke Shalom Top 3 UK growth marketer, $100M+ client pipeline from LinkedIn. Fix positioning BEFORE you spend a dollar. https://lnkd.in/e5bkZTP6 2/ LinkedIn ads & ABM audit - Emilia Korczynska $900K pipeline in 135 days at a 12:1 ratio. Audits your last 30 days against benchmarks and hands you a prioritized fix list. https://lnkd.in/e47K9KBY 3/ Meta Ads operating system - Ivan Falco The man open-sourced 47 Meta Ads skills. This one is the decision framework: when to pause, when to scale, how much creative. https://lnkd.in/e6MnzY8E 4/ SEO topic research pipeline - Sam Dunning Every keyword gated on ICP fit and pipeline potential. Traffic that can't buy doesn't count. https://lnkd.in/eJaZsG7i 5/ AEO visibility tracking - Yahav Fuchs Measures whether AI answers cite your brand. Your buyers ask ChatGPT before they ask Google. https://lnkd.in/ett-FGuH 6/ Forecast pipeline from creator spend - Thomas Marcelle A 5-input model that turns creator budget into an ARR forecast. The skill that survives the CFO meeting. https://lnkd.in/ep97nf8z 7/ Newsletter welcome sequence - Daniel Bustamante 🥷🏻 His team sold $20M+ via email. Five emails that turn subscribers into buyers. https://lnkd.in/eUFpshwY 8/ Account progression staging - Steve Armenti Built $2B funnels at Google. Deterministic, auditable attribution by account stage movement. The real answer to "what did marketing source." https://lnkd.in/eaY4bchy Years of judgment per operator, installed into your agent in an afternoon. I swear I checked twice that all of this is actually free. Which one runs in your org by Friday?
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Ritwik A. liked thisRitwik A. liked thisLast 25 years: USD lost 93% of its buying power to Gold. But INR lost 51% of its buying power to USD. People often compare USD to Gold. And, that's incorrect. What you need to understand is: > Gold is an "asset". You use your FIAT (USD, Euro, INR) to buy an asset. > This is very similar to using your FIAT to buy any asset like Real Estate, Stocks. > An Asset typically appreciates with time. FIAT typically depreciates with time. > USD or INR should be compared with other FIAT, and not with an asset. > Gold should be compared to other assets. And, not with FIAT currencies. Exercise for you: what do you think happens if you convert all your FIAT (INR, USD) to Gold? Is that a smart investing strategy? Try to answer :) I will write a post on it soon.
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Ritwik A. liked thisRitwik A. liked this"I didn't have any experience in D2C." That's how I started, learning Meta Ads and funnels off YouTube at 1 AM, with no one to ask when something broke. In this conversation with Delhivery, I talk about the exact point we crossed 2,000 orders, why a founder doesn't need to master every domain but does need to be familiar with all of them, and the one piece of advice I'd give anyone starting out right now. No polish, no script, just what actually happened while building WISHLUCK from zero. Watch till the end. 🎥 #WishLuck #FounderDiaries #D2C #StartupIndia #FounderJourney #MakePlaytimeScreenFreeAgain
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Ritwik A. liked thisRitwik A. liked thisSomething I've noticed running a network of 70,000+ clippers is how easy the brief is to read is a big factor in campaign performance By brief, I mean everything the clipper needs. The requirements and the content strategy, laid out clearly. Detailed doesn't mean complicated. A simple, clear brief means clippers post faster, post more, and learn how to clip for you quicker. A vague or hard brief means they hesitate, guess, and quality gets inconsistent. The best briefs give enough direction to nail the vision, simple enough that no clipper has to stop and figure out what you meant.
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Ritwik A. liked thisRitwik A. liked thisMy father started a 10000 rupee SIP 15 years ago & never touched it again! His income grew every year, his lifestyle grew every year, but that SIP amount stayed the same. As a chartered accountant and a finance creator who studies money very seriously, I noticed that this is a pattern that more than 90% of investors make. They easily get motivated after seeing reels of finance on Instagram & they might start, but they do not keep up with the pace of their growing lifestyle. Fun fact: If you start a 5000 rupee SIP at 25, invest it for 30 years at a 12% expected return, and you land at roughly 1.5 crore. Now take that same 5000 and step it up by just 10% every single year. That small, almost painless increase turns your final corpus into nearly 4 crore! The step-up barely pinches because your income is already rising. You are simply redirecting a small portion of your increment to your investment... (which you were going to spend anyway, instead of letting it vanish into a bigger rent or a shinier phone.) Please do not make the mistake that my father and your father probably did, which is not to increase their investment with their growing income. If you have extra money, do increase your investment before increasing your lifestyle.
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Ritwik A. liked thisRitwik A. liked thisI was thinking about something... the only 'legacy' you create (when you're alive) is what you put up on the internet. I know this sucks, but... You could create the finest art and books right now to be known, if at all, 100 years later. We know many authors and artists who fit here. Or write online. Build an audience. Establish your authority. And get opportunities in the present. And the stuff you put up online? It stays online forever. Think about it. Even if you don't want to be famous, this is the closest you get to being of service to others at scale with your knowledge. __ PS: If you want me to help you build your brand, I'm running the last cohort of Authentic Influence for 2026 in September. DM me with GROW to know more. 📝
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Ritwik A. liked thisRitwik A. liked thisAfter 10+ years working as a WordPress developer, one thing has become very clear: Most websites don’t fail because of bad design. They fail because the fundamentals were ignored. I often work on websites that look great on the surface, but behind the scenes they’re: • Slow • Unsecured • Difficult to maintain The common issues? Too many unnecessary plugins. No performance optimization. No regular update or maintenance routine. WordPress performs best when it’s treated as a long-term business asset, not a one-time project. That mindset alone changes everything — from performance to security to scalability. #WordPressDeveloper #WebDevelopment #SmallBusiness #DigitalGrowth
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Ritwik A. liked thisRitwik A. liked thisI’m excited to share that I’ve started working with Scrigno.sk Looking forward to new challenges, great collaborations, and building impactful solutions together.
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Ritwik A. liked thisRitwik A. liked thisAttention Web3 Founders 📢 I’m proud to announce the launch of our very first Free Marketing and Community BootCamp for Projects: Web3 Growth Lab #1: Open Access 🎉 At BitAdvisory for Q2 2025, we are offering our first free-of-cost Bootcamp for promising Web3 Startups with a preference for pre-fundraise stage projects or projects lacking the funds for Marketing Consultancy or Services. Our mission is to empower and uplift promising Web3 projects by providing marketing and community-building advisory at no cost via our Bootcamps regularly. We believe in fostering innovation and driving meaningful change in the Web3 industry by supporting those who need it most 🤗 As part of the Web3 Growth Lab, we will cover a diverse range of marketing and community-building activities. We will actively support projects through engaging activities, interactive discussions, and collaborative meetings, fostering a dynamic and supportive ecosystem for growth where all projects work together in a positive and empowering environment. We are doing it on an FCFS basis and in different tranches. You can submit your application via the Linked form. Please note that the number of available slots is very limited. We are looking to increase the number based on our capacity moving ahead. We are based in UAE and are also happy to connect and network with startups at upcoming Token 2049 events in #Dubai 🪄 if you know any promising projects or founders looking for marketing and community advisory or consultancy, please feel free to tag them or share the post/form with them. https://lnkd.in/d5Q_bXBv #Blockchain #Innovation #Technology #Free #Marketing #Advisory #Consultancy #support #HelpingHand #crypto #web3 #startup #businessBitAdvisory Web3 Growth Lab #1: Open Access ApplicationBitAdvisory Web3 Growth Lab #1: Open Access Application
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ARC - Automate Regulations & Compliance
🚨 Attention D2C & E-commerce Founders in India 🚨 Your best marketing playbooks might now be multi-crore liabilities under the DPDP Act. Here are 4 “normal” practices that are now high-risk violations: 1️⃣ Aggressive Abandoned Cart Emails Consent for a purchase ≠ consent for marketing. Without a clear opt-in, you’re breaking the “purpose limitation” rule. 2️⃣ Saving Cards for ‘Convenience’ Storing credit card details without explicit, affirmative consent is a compliance landmine. 3️⃣ Retargeting from Past Purchases Building lookalike audiences from order history requires consent most checkout flows don’t actually collect. 4️⃣ Vague Data Sharing with Delivery Partners A line in your privacy policy isn’t enough. You need granular, transparent consent on what data is shared and why. ⚠️ One slip in these daily operations = hefty fines + lost customer trust. At Arc, we help e-commerce brands build DPDP-compliant workflows—from checkout to data sharing—so compliance becomes your competitive edge. 👉 Founders: Which of these risks are you fixing first? #DPDPAct #Ecommerce #D2CIndia #Compliance #DataPrivacy
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