Life at Masters' Union
Every day is like this. You get used to it around month three.
Before coffee, you check Shopify. Someone in Pune ordered three units at 2am. The flatlay on your desk isn't a mood board — it's yesterday's production run.
Sal's, The Bowl, Lexi's, Woody's, Noon — student brands built in the Food Lab.
The person in front of the room built and ran Bharti Airtel and SoftBank India. No slides — just questions that make your answer fall apart out loud. He tells you your pricing is wrong.
Manoj Kohli — ex MD & CEO, Bharti Airtel; ex Country Head, SoftBank India.
You walk into the Makers Lab for a free 3D printer. Two floors of laser cutters, drones, robotics. A first-year is on her third prototype of a delivery box for the saree brand she's launching. You stay forty-five minutes and leave with three ideas.
Twelve eating options on campus. You eat fast — your pitch deck still has three slides held together by optimism.
Campus food court — quick fuel between meetings.
He joined when it was Foodiebay. He opens with rejection, not theory — door to door, city to city, a job description four words long. Sales, he says, is the only job where your ego gets punctured daily. That's the point. You fix your pitch before dinner.
Employee #12 at Zomato — in the room, taking questions.
Two students are shooting a product unboxing. This is normal. One has 40,000 followers. The other is their editor and roommate. The 46M+ cohort reach is earned.
Content goes live from the corridors.
People Powered Startups just dropped. Saurabh Nigam wrote it; Kunal Bahl is here to argue it. India doesn't need another unicorn chasing a Western playbook — 1.4 billion people with local problems is the product. You leave with a signed copy and a thesis.
Saurabh Nigam and Kunal Bahl at the People Powered Startups launch.
Someone is on a call with a supplier. Someone is editing a reel. Nobody is studying; everyone is working. By 10pm the group chat has three business ideas and one argument about margins. This is what unwinding looks like here.
Calls, edits, P&Ls and Maggi — the work just moves to the couch.
Wednesday has a pitch. Thursday has a corporate challenge. Friday is for recovering. Slightly.