Abhijeet Mukherjee - I Learnt That Helping People and Solving Their Tech Problems Is a Big Market (Founder - Guiding Tech)

I never went to college, actually. I did my graduation through correspondence while I was working at call centres, which were a pretty big phenomenon in India then. I’m talking early to mid-2000s. 

That’s where I learnt that helping people and solving their tech problems is a big market.

Tell us about your background and journey.

The company which I run is called Guiding Media, and it comprises of a website which is guid​ingtech​.com, and three channels on YouTube. We make content on personal technology, explain the technology, help people make purchase decisions when it comes to gadgets and tech, and of course, we also solve tech problems. Basically, we are an evergreen tech content site.

People come to us through Google. They search for issues, they search for help, and that is how they land on our site.

I never went to college, actually. I did my graduation through correspondence while I was working at call centres, which were a pretty big phenomenon in India then. I’m talking early to mid-2000s. That’s where I learnt that helping people and solving their tech problems is a big market.

I used to work with companies like Wipro and Dell, and I was solving people’s tech problems over the phone. Blogging was just taking off at that time. There were a few tech blogs, but they were still not mainstream.

I knew how to write, and I really wanted to do something on the internet, and most importantly, I wanted to be self-employed. That’s when I decided to start this. I quit my job around 2008 and started a personal blog — it was called Jeet Blog. I started writing tech content. It picked up from there. I also started freelancing for other sites.

After two years of dabbling around and trying a lot of things on the internet, I decided that I should create a long term asset, because this is what I knew. That’s when I started Guiding Tech in 2010. I worked on the site pretty much alone initially, and after two years started bringing people on board. It’s been going on since then and we’ve been growing slowly and steadily.And what has the journey been like? Where are you today compared to where you started?I was doing everything basically – maintaining the site, worrying about the business, how to make money, and of course during the initial years, I was also doing all of the writing, editing, everything. Eventually I started distancing myself from writing because I had to manage the writers and take care of the business. You wouldn’t find my byline on the content. That was the plan from the get-go, because if I had to expand, I needed help with content creation.

I mainly hired writers as freelancers. The internet doesn’t require you to hire locally. As long as you can get the work done, it doesn’t matter where your staff is. We still have a lot of remote employees, but now I have an office and a few people there, primarily because we’re also doing YouTube, and executing that remotely is impossible.

Over the years, my role has evolved to that of a primarily founder or CEO or publisher — someone who supervises, strategises, shares ideas, gives execution plans, delegates a lot of work, and ensures the work is done. Be it in the writing department, or the video production department. And I still continue to deal with the business part myself, be it sales or admin.


Is it fair to call Guiding Tech a media company?

Yes, it is. Guiding Media is the company name. I’m stressing on this because eventually we might even start non-tech properties. GT is the tech brand of Guiding Media.


What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?

My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs: It's a long journey so take care of yourself, your mind, your health ... don't neglect that.

Who do you consider to be your peers — in India, and internationally?

I think tech is pervasive. Tech content is everywhere. So our peers and competitors are the smallest of tech sites and YouTube channels, as well as the largest media houses. All of them have tech verticals now. Outside the country too, be it a huge site like LifeHacker, or sites like How to Geek or Make Use Of.

I do not consider a specific set of sites as my peers anymore. A YouTuber working out of his home creating tech content, or a huge media house with a tech media team, they are all our peers or competitors, whichever way you want to put it.

Interviewed by - Naveen Meena