Year in Review 2021 - Perfunktory and Beyond 📼

Where we were? Where we are? Where we want to be?

Ravdeep Anand

Dec 29, 2021

As we reach the end of 2021, I wanted to take a look back on this year, the progress of Perfunktory and where we are at today!

First, I would like to thank you all for being a part of this new endeavour that I ventured into this year. Starting a newsletter and podcast has been one of the best decisions I’ve taken although I have missed out on the consistency a bit due to personal commitments this past month.

So, THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart. ❤️

Now, let’s get down to my year in review and what I’ve come to learn and understand in 2021 (This was originally written on Twitter so the sentences might look shorter than usual):

Over the past year, I have stuck to a saying, loosely inspired by Edison's '1000 ways not to make a lightbulb' quote, that has helped me keep moving forward: I've learned more about what not to do than what to do in life.

I'll tell you how this mindset works. No two situations that occur in life are the same. They might be similar in nature but the details always vary. By focusing on the 'what to do' aspect, we tend to create playbook which we apply to situations hoping it'll solve it. But that does not happen in most cases, which leads to frustration, stress, things seeming out of hand etc. By focusing on the 'what not to do' mindset, you can take out all those strategies that did not work away from the situation first and then only focus on the ones that are left. This is an ongoing process that allows you to try new things and just keep adding to the list of 'what not to do' for various situations that arise. Ok, enough of this 'KnOwLeDgE', I just wanted to focus on how this has helped me throughout the year and also kept me on my toes.

Now, I know you can poke holes in the way this mindset works but I am not suggesting that it'll work for you. Please stick to whatever works the best for you, there are already too many people out there living a life that is other than their own, do not make yourself one of them too.

This year, I primarily worked on three things:

Personal wellbeing
Building meaningful relations
My work

Although, I never realised it before but by year 3 of my entrepreneurship stint, I believe this is what life is all about, broadly and in that order.

Personal Wellbeing

When I started my agency in 2018, I was a very different person altogether, had different goals because I understood life very differently. By the end of 2021, I won't say that I've understood life and I know all about it, but I'm sure it is way more than what it was 3 years ago. What seemed like months of feeling like it's not going to work have now been shortened to an evening of feeling like nothing is going to work. I believe that is a huge leap in terms of my mental health and strength. I tried to be more active though I still need more work in that area.

Also, this year has been about being grateful. Grateful for everything I have and for every opportunity I've got. We cannot look away from the fact that this was one of the toughest years in human history and not everyone was as lucky as we were, so do take a moment out for them.

Building Meaningful Relations

I've always been a private person, I don't like talking about what I'm up to or post on Social Media too much (I know this is the total opposite but gotta start somewhere). But this year, I took a step forward and started reaching out to more people. From connecting to VCs for scouting in the US, to meeting people building amazing things in India and China, all the way to Africa. But most importantly, I am glad to work with a brilliant cofounder, an amazing team and all our well-wishers out there. I will continue building upon this going into the next year with an aim at building a community around me, my brands and also aim at helping at least one person a day, in any capacity.

My Work

So this year saw me working on three things majorly:

The tech product I'm building
My newsletter + podcast
My agency (which has been a little neglected but we're bringing it back to it's full potential in 2022!)

Whenever I heard the quote "Choose a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life”, I always thought that's stupid, it does not work like that. But I realise that there is some semblance to this. I would say you still have to work, a LOT, but it's not as tiring/taxing. Work becomes a natural extension of your life which you can easily switch on or off, definitely not easy to do this every day but it helps. In short, find something you like to do, try everything in that space, find the gaps, start eliminating the gaps & pick the gap you want to work on.

It's not easy, definitely not easy if you're passionate about it because I somehow believe the universe makes it really difficult for you to pursue something that interests you, more because it wants to see how much you're willing to work for it. Definitely my coping mechanism!

I will be writing more about what I am working on in individual issues that I will be sending over the next few months.

Coming back to Perfunktory, what’s the plan, man? 🗞

As we reach the 20th issue of the newsletter (22 actually if we count the 2-part ones but who’s counting!), you must’ve noticed something different about the headings of the previous issues on the website. YES, we’ve got rid of those pesky issue numbers which means I might be writing more (or less) as I’m not going to follow the 1-a-week model. It’s going to be ‘at least’ 1-a-week from now on. Whether be it a 1500 word piece or just 10 words, you’re going to hear more from me in the new year.

For the podcast, consistency is key because I’ve noticed the number going WAY up and WAY down depending on the frequency of my uploads. So first, we will try to be consistent and then start reaching out to guests for the episodes. Probably from Ep. 10.

Some stats (till mid December) 💯

Newsletter: We crossed 3500+ reads with 2000+ opens of the emails that I have sent out. Average open rate is somewhere around 40% which I am told is good.

Podcast: We have 270+ plays across the 6 episodes that I have taken out.

I’m not too sure about the legitimacy of these charts here but I do have a good listenership in Cameroon & Denmark according to my stats. Go Cameroon, Denmark and India!

Where we are headed? 🧐

I want to take a deeper dive into briefings about new startups, technology etc. just like we have been doing with various topics in this year. Also, I would want to start sending a second email on Thursdays that would include quick reads, tweets, podcasts recs etc. Do let me know what you think about this?

I also want to start collaborating with other writers in various fields to get fresh perspectives on the topics that we cover. Please do get in touch if you would like to pitch in or would know someone who would be great for this!

If you've made it this far, thank you for sticking around and reading about a random guy on the internet writing about his year. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter and share it with your friends as well. Thank you once again for your support if you’ve already subscribed!