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Hi, I’m Karan Bajaj! You may have run into my work as CEO and Founder of WhiteHat Jr, now Byju’s FutureSchool. Or my novels, Keep off the Grass(2008), Johnny Gone Down(2010), The Seeker(2015), and The Yoga of Max’s Discontent(2016), published by Harper Collins and Penguin Random House.
I’ve spent my last decade building stuff, novels, TV Channels, startups. Some projects have worked, some haven’t. But I’ve grown tremendously with each of them. I think creating things in this world is among the best things you can do with your life. You touch many while transforming yourself through the ups, downs, failures and rejections that are inherent in the creator’s path.
Make sure you’re always in the know and that you never miss a new release.
I wrote my first novel at age 28. I wish I’d done it earlier. Writing changed my life. Post writing my first novel, I realized I’d poured everything I knew into writing the book. I had to live more to write more. So I traveled, experimented, and gradually came more and more into living a life which was authentic to me. Since then, I’ve written multiple novels, been rejected sixty-one times, published a few times, and come out with a strong theses on how to write a good book.
I was 39 when I left my job as Discovery CEO to start WhiteHat Jr. I was full of doubt. Would I be able to succeed at a tech startup as a non-tech founder? Would I be able to raise funding as a middle-aged entrepreneur? Lots of questions. For good reason! Building a start-up is the hardest thing I’ve done. And the ups and downs didn’t end even post the successful acquisition with Byju’s.
I’d been pulled to Eastern philosophy from college. But my mother’s slow, painful decline from cancer made this quest very personal and urgent. I took a year off to live in an ashram and learnt yoga and meditation as a beginner.
In 2008, I quit my job to travel for six months and landed back in the US on the day Lehman Brothers collapsed. My savings evaporated. A seven year old relationship ended. I was sleeping on my sister’s couch. At 30, I was broke, single, and unemployed, not the outcome I expected from life a decade post graduation from a top B-School.
I eventually bounced back. And later, that first major failure liberated me to come more and more into myself. Since then, I’ve taken many sabbaticals, detours and U-Turns, and haven’t regretted too many of them!
Make sure you’re always in the know and that you never miss a new release.
Why You Should Hike the 800-Kilometer Camino De Santiago
I was pulled to the Camino De Santiago,... read more
I was pulled to the Camino De Santiago, the 800-kilometer walking pilgrimage from the Pyrenees mountains in France to the town of Santiago De Compostela in Spain, the moment I’d ... read more
How to Raise StartUp Funding with No Product
My 3rd novel, The Seeker, was rejected sixty-one... read more
My 3rd novel, The Seeker, was rejected sixty-one times in the US. Eventually, Penguin Random House, published it worldwide after 42 months of nearly daily revisions. Four years of ... read more
How to Always Think Independently
I had a sinking feeling in my gut... read more
I had a sinking feeling in my gut when I told my boss at P&G that I was leaving to travel and write a novel more than a decade ago in 2008. The timing felt wrong. I was 29. M... read more
How to Determine Founder Salary in a StartUp: StartUp Salary Guide
How do you determine a founder’s salary at... read more
How do you determine a founder’s salary at a startup, especially if you’re a mid-career founder who’s likely at 10x typical early-stage startup market salary? I took a 90%... read more
How to meditate in 2022: A complete guide
Note: This is a long post, almost e-book... read more
Note: This is a long post, almost e-book length, but if you decide to read it through, you’ll get all tips on how to meditate properly you need to establish a long-term meditatio... read more
Karan Bajaj
Writer, Entrepreneur
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