The start of a beautiful journey

November 1st will always be a special day in my life. I've been with ShareChat for five years, and it's been a fantastic journey. As I think back, I can't help but remember my meeting with the leaders, Ankush and Farid. I was working on my startup then, but they convinced me that ShareChat should be my next stop. And I couldn't be more thankful.

Here's an interesting fact: Ankush and I have a long history and actually met in college. During that time, I won a major inter-hostel competition for our hostel. Ankush most likely remembered this and desired a self-starter. He's played an important role in my growth thus far. He's given me a lot of leeway and has continued to push me rather than cushion my methods.

When it comes to Farid, he has a very high emotional quotient. He's taught me how to design for a large group of people. He assisted me in understanding how minor decisions, such as the placement of an icon, could have a significant impact on the personalization algorithms.

The early challenges

I joined the organisation when we were a team of fewer than 40 people attempting to compete with global behemoths like Facebook, Instagram, and others. It has been rewarding to see ShareChat and Moj grow to become India's largest homegrown social networking platforms and to play a role in this expansion.

My first challenge after joining was designing navigation to scale content categories on the platform. I had the opportunity to conduct a 10-day road trip to deepen our understanding of the rapidly evolving Indian app ecosystem before even drawing a single concept. ShareChat has generously invested in user research since its inception. These trips lifted the veil of doubt and bias, laying the groundwork for ShareChat's design culture.

The lessons learned on the first trip are still fresh in my mind. One of ShareChat's core values is data-driven decision-making. We built a web app to serve as a testing ground for the scale's insights. The same experience was the foundation for a complete redesign of the ShareChat Android app and has helped the platform grow over the last four years. In addition, the web app laid the groundwork for search engine optimization and organic user growth. ShareChat became resilient and sustainable as a result of this multifaceted approach.

In the last few years, we’ve grown briskly, built products that are used by more than 400 million monthly active users, and achieved some very significant milestones. Looking back, one thing that stands out for me is the resilience shown by everyone. We faced tough competition from international brands, but we’ve continued to flourish.

The key factors that helped me thrive

After all these years, we still have managed to stay true to one of our core values of ‘Speed’ and deliver an experience that caters to different geographies of Bharat. A good example is building and launching Moj in just 30 hours. Another aspect of this success has been our intuition and understanding of the Indian market and the Bharat users. We’ve managed to move quickly and in the right direction while adopting a data-driven approach.

Looking back, many moments make me feel proud. For instance, we did the entire design of the office space. From the graphics on the wall to the complete layout, we did it all in-house. We took care of every small little detail.

Then there's the human aspect of ShareChat and Moj. Platforms have provided opportunities to creators who might not have had the same success on other platforms. Despite some economic, societal, and other economic disadvantages, many creators grow on ShareChat and Moj.

I am extremely proud that my efforts have helped create some of the rags-to-riches stories within our teams. We take pride in the culture we've created at ShareChat. We believe in developing future leaders, and I can personally attest that these are not empty words. Because of the culture that encourages growth and freedom, I've climbed the ladder in five years, from individual UX Designer to Design Lead to UX Manager to Associate Director.

ShareChat's culture is based on making long-term bets, and looking back; it gives me a lot of satisfaction that we've formed such a tight-knit design team. The design team's first five members were recruited from operations and marketing.

Let me give you a glimpse of some of the hiring decisions we’ve made and how the associates have made us proud. Senthil Kumar - an accountant from Salem turned illustrator. Or Ishtihar Khan - a creator turned UX researcher. Such hires have been successful because they have the intuition and background to relate to our users. As a leader, it gives me a lot of happiness that we were able to provide them with opportunities and transform their lives. We now have a robust, tight-knit 140-member design team.

For example, one of our designers began to thrive in his role after becoming debt-free. We talked about it for a long time, and now that he doesn't have anything to worry about, he's at his most creative. Having learned from that, we now organise sessions in which experts discuss better financial planning.

I have an innate desire to assist those who have been denied due to a lack of opportunities, education, financial constraints, or other factors. Another thing I've learned is that people's professional careers often have ups and downs, and various factors influence their performance. The associate and the managers' trust and deep connection allow both parties to form a loyal bond that holds the team together. That is what we have created at ShareChat.