Hi [FORMATTED_SUBSCRIBER_NAME GOES HERE],

Soundarya here, aka thecuriousmaverick :)

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Curious Mavericks newsletter! (Each newsletter will begin with the tag "tcm")

🎁 Every edition will have a surprise gift hidden in the newsletter. For this week, it's hidden inside a word. The first five people who click the link will claim it. Scroll to the end to see who won last week!

With that, let's go.

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This week's maverick: Saurabh Mangrulkar

TL;DR: Read the story of a maverick who built a startup right out of college in Pune, India, and grew it to 60 full-time employees, 5 crores in revenue, and 100 crores in valuation. At the age of 26.

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Imagine being a college student and realizing that the “system” isn’t designed for you.

That your hours of lecture notes and rote assignments are pushing you further from what you really want to learn.

For Saurabh Mangrulkar, this realization came early—during his first year in college.

As he looked around, he saw countless students—brimming with potential—wasting away in a system that rewarded grades over skills. Saurabh didn’t just notice; he decided to do something about it.

Today, as the founder of EventBeep, he’s giving students what the system often overlooks: real-world experiences, mentorship, and opportunities to shine outside of exams.

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Lesson 1: Challenge the status quo—don’t just “do the work”

At college, Saurabh built his first company while his classmates were attending lectures. His parents, like many, pushed him to “just finish college” first. But Saurabh persisted, proving that the classroom wasn’t the only place to learn or build a future.

Since then, EventBeep has connected over 500,000 students to opportunities, internships, and real-world projects, breaking the pattern of “study, memorize, forget” that many students feel trapped in.

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Lesson 2: Building the first 1000 fans was the hardest

There’s a famous article on ‘1000 true fans’ written by Kevin Kelley in 2008. Kevin says that it’s not necessary for you to reach millions of people to get your idea off the ground or even make a living off of it. He says ‘You need only thousands of true fans.’

In Saurabh’s case, they found these 1000 true fans by being on the ground.

They grew to about 60,000 when they went on Shark Tank India—and then exploded to over 500,000 today.

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Lesson 3: Even if you miss breakfast, write your goals every day

Saurabh is a big believer in goal-setting. And I mean big.

Every morning, he writes down the life he’s striving for. Five years ago, those dreams included starting a company, helping students, and standing on a TEDx stage—and today, he’s achieved them all.

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This week's tiny experiment

Experiment: Use a simple habit tracker to keep your core habits in check every day/week.

Reasoning: I’ve been part of this behavioral coaching program for the past 3+ months. The concept is simple: pick 4 core habits that you want to keep track of every day (can’t be more than 4). Track it every day. Reflect on it every week. That’s it. Doing this has actually helped make the following habits part of my daily routine now: meditation, writing, exercise, and eating dinner early. To quote Peter Drucker, “You can’t improve what you can’t measure.”

💡 Bonus tip: I created this ready-made Habit Tracker template on Notion back in 2022. I’ve updated it to show 2024 dates as well just for you! 😉

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This week's question for you

Question: What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to do but have been too afraid to try?

Answer by Gaurav Olkar: I’d say diving deep into the ocean. The ocean is amazing and full of mysteries, but it can also be a bit scary. The ocean is beautiful and full of mysteries, but its vastness and unknown depths create a sense of vulnerability. It’s a mix of wonder and caution that makes exploring so captivating.

🤔 Question for you: If you had to lose all your memories but could keep just one, which would you hold on to?

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How a novel gets created

As you see above, I’ve written 50,000+ words and nine chapters in the book so far. It’s only a first draft, but it’s something better than 0.

Three things helped make this happen in the past few months. I shared the first “ingredient” in the last newsletter: capturing ideas rigorously.

Here’s the second ingredient: learning to swim just enough to actually swim.

There needs to be moderation in theory and practice for any skill. You can’t become a guitarist if you only stick to reading music theory without ever touching a guitar. You also can’t master the guitar by playing it without ever pausing to understand why the strings resonate the way they do. The same applies to writing a book.

I’ve tried to have a healthy balance of theory and practice with writing. I learned “theory” by doing the following:

• Reading a lot of memoirs and novels this year (that are similar to what I’m writing) and taking notes
• Reading books on storytelling and writing fiction
• Reading articles online as and when I need inspiration on a certain concept. E.g. I wanted to learn about “point of view” for a few weeks, so I read a few articles on that.

And I “practice” by pushing myself to write every single day. More on this in the next newsletter.

If you’re picking up a new skill that feels ambitious, ask yourself: do you have a healthy balance of theory vs. practice? Or is it skewed too much toward one side? Hit reply and let me know!

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👑 Winner: Gaurav Olkar 👑

Congrats to Gaurav Olkar who won a free annual subscription to Sudowrite worth $120 :)

🎁 This week we are giving away 5 gifts: a free annual subscription to Eventbeep. This subscription would be incredibly helpful for anyone currently in India. Even if you don't need it, you can pass it along to any of your friends. Start searching! (psst: it’s hidden within a word)

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Quote of the week: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

~ Anaïs Nin