Dogfooding, or the practice of organisations actually using the products they create, is something we strongly believe in at The Ken. How can we expect our subscribers to buy, use and experience our products if we don’t do it ourselves? This is why every single person at The Ken has their own individual subscription, which they’ve purchased.
It’s also a nice feedback loop for us, connecting us journalists, designers, developers, product managers, and marketers through our products to our thousands of subscribers.
A feedback loop that started leading to an unforeseen but invaluable benefit for us. Because our subscribers haven’t just helped shape our journalism and products, they have also become a source of talent for us as we grew.
Praveen, our head of products and marketing was a subscriber and a guest author before he joined us. Jon, our Southeast Asia editor, was a subscriber for a few years before he decided to come aboard. Manan, our product manager, was a subscriber while he was an MBA student at ISB. And Sameer, our subscriber retention manager was a subscriber for two years before he joined us two years ago.
Hiring from our subscriber base helps us find people who are both uniquely talented and deeply passionate about high-quality subscription journalism. That’s helped us in no small way in building a multidisciplinary team that few others can dream of having.
That brings me to Nithin Sasikumar, who joined us this week in Bengaluru as our first ever Staff Writer for Newsletters.
Nithin has been reading our newsletters and stories since 2018 as a free subscriber. But that’s not why we hired him. Instead, it’s because he is a writer who brings an entirely newer set of skills to The Ken.
Nithin has a masters degree in Investment Management from Cass Business School, London. Then, after doing four years of product research and client communication for a wealth management company, he co-founded his own wealth management company in Bengaluru.
As a co-founder, he had no option but to develop a Swiss Army knife range of skills. From dealing with operations, research, writing regular investment newsletters to clients and even managing social media.
Yes, Nithin, too, wrote a piece for us as a contributor before joining us. Given that he’s done some podcasting earlier and is passionate about personal finance and investing, we may have some new ideas on how to use all of Nithin’s abilities. Say hi to him at firstname at the-ken.com
Lead image credit: Baim Hanif/Unsplash
