Once Freelancers, This Kolkata Couple Now Clocks Rs 2 Cr From PR Firm

Anirban Bhattacharya’s first salary was just Rs 11,000.

Today, along with Shreya Mukherjee, his offline and digital PR agency generates Rs 2 crore in annual revenues.

In an exclusive interview with Startup Pedia, Anirban says, “I have always believed in one thing very firmly - “you can never fail, if you don't stop trying.”

THE BEGINNING

Hailing from Kolkata, Anirban did his MBA from the Indian School of Business Management. Anirban's story parallels Shreya Mukherjee’s - his long-term friend, business partner, and now wife. 

Shreya earned her PG Diploma in Print Journalism from one of India’s top journalism schools - the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media (IIJNM).

Right after college, Anirban became an Internet Associate for a digital marketing agency in Kolkata. As for Shreya, she was working as a journalist for a media firm. 

It was in 2014 when Anirban decided to jump on the entrepreneurial bandwagon. Shreya, too, decided to quit her job and join him.

“We began by freelancing. We had gathered a lot of experience working with agencies and media firms, and now wanted to test the waters for ourselves,” Anirban mentions. 

After a while, believing that they were ready to scale, Anirban and Shreya launched SEO Bloggers. It was their first startup - and also the first time they stepped foot in the market as founders and business owners. But things didn’t turn out as planned - and the venture wasn’t a hit.

Regardless, Shreya and Anirban continued working on their skills set, figuring out the right strategy for expansion, and looked for spaces they could add value to. 

They launched Limitless Media Agency - but it couldn’t scale either. 

Anirban tells Startup Pedia, “Ever since I started working with Shreya, she has never let me weaken. In everything we have built from scratch, she is the backbone of it all. That is the power of partnership. My low points were met with her high spirits and vice versa.”

He adds happily, “In fact, after Limitless Media Agency failed, we got married in 2018.”

After this, Shreya co-founded another agency with a different party. It was called Google Spider. 

The agency absorbed Anirban Bhattacharjee in an operations and management role, while Shreya worked as a co-founder and made high-level decisions. 

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic - and Google Spider went bankrupt. Shreya took an exit from the agency, and Anirban too had to quit his job.

According to Anirban, this was where Shreya didn’t let anything fall apart. “I’ve never seen someone with so much resilience as her. She placed faith in me, and we bounced back together.”

In 2020, the couple finally launched The Rank Company. For Anirban and Shreya, it turned out that the fourth time was the charm. 

Even though The Rank came into the market at a time when there was a hiring freeze and business development largely was at a standstill, the company thrived.

“Our experience of many trial-and-errors helped us in so many ways that I can't even put it into words. We got clients like Adobe and Apple, hired 200+ freelancers from around the country, and paid them an average of Rs 20,000. We were probably one of the few companies that were aggressively hiring during the pandemic,” Anirban tells Startup Pedia. 

At The Rank Company, Shreya Mukherjee ensured that 85% of the freelancers they hired were women. 

THE MARKET GAP

While running The Rank, Anirban and Shreya saw a very evident gap in the market.

In Anirban's words, “At The Rank, we would help startups with their marketing strategy. But they would often ask for customized solutions that fit their budget, criteria, and marketing goal. Other PR agencies in the country were offering blanket solutions to problems that needed an individual, targeted approach. For instance, if a startup’s goal is to get funded, placing their articles in places that are rarely visited by investors is counter-intuitive. You're just wasting their money and it'll drive negligible returns.”

To solve this gap, Anirban and Shreya recently co-founded Startup10X.

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STARTUP10X - ACCELERATING BUSINESS GROWTH FOR STARTUPS & ENTREPRENEURS

Startup10X helps businesses, companies, and startups develop an omnichannel network on social media and other online and offline spaces like newspapers, magazines, podcasts, TV interviews, and public forums. 

Unlike other agencies that only focus on PR article placement, Startup10X creates a targeted marketing campaign for its clients taking into account their specific objectives for the exercise. 

Once that is in place, efforts begin to meet these objectives in the most result-driven manner. 

Anirban defines Startup10X as, “A platform that helps startups 10x their growth by being present at the right channel and place at the right time. We offer an umbrella of services that send startups on their way to become industry leaders.” 

Apart from placing startups and founders in digital media spaces like social media and online newspapers and publications, Startup10X also helps them build a sustainable presence in print media, podcasts, and TV interviews. 

Anirban and Shreya are mindful of their clients. He mentions, “We very well understand that startups do not have money to burn. They're mostly at a crucial stage in their operations when they come to us. So we have to be double sure that what we're providing them fits their requirements perfectly and converts into a profitable network.”

At Startup10X, Shreya Mukherjee and Anirban Bhattacharya help startup founders and entrepreneurs build their brand reputation, raise funds, attract the right investors, and ultimately become industry leaders. 

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GROWTH

In just a span of 6 months, Startup10X has worked with 250+ clients coming from all kinds of industries. The firm has published 50,000+ articles and helped early-stage startups raise a collective funding of over $250 million. 

“Startup10X has built a global network of 20,000+ journalists, media people, and influencers,” Anirban adds. 

Since its inception, the firm’s focus group has been on international startups, but the founders are now expanding to India as well. 

Anirban Bhattacharjee saye, “Here, awareness is an issue that we'll have to resolve. Businesses are sometimes hesitant about marketing efforts and they worry if such exercises will convert into tangible efforts. But Startup10X is all about driving real results and visibility - so we are very positive.”

According to Anirban, Startup10X has clocked a revenue of $250,000 in six months.

LOOKING AHEAD

In just a few days, Startup10X is opening their first office space in the UAE, after India. Anirban and Shreya now want to add Indian and Eastern markets in their focus area too. In the future, Anirban and Shreya want to build an ecosystem that helps startups grow from scratch. 

Anirban signs off by saying, “We want a place where ideas are celebrated. Implementation remains a key challenge for many new-age businesses. We want to come in there - and help startups founders with ideation, execution, funding, and marketing. A 360-degree ecosystem is on the charts.”

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