Inked Stories | A Platform For Budding Artists


“Follow your passion and whatever you want to achieve in life. Don’t pay head to any kind of negative comments, keep going with the faith in yourself and the initiative that you are willing and passionate to establish”- Nishtha Agarwal & Taran Malhotra, Co-founders of Inked Stories in an exclusive and engaging interview with Startup Story Media.

Nishtha Agarwal and Taran Malhotra, co-founders of Inked Stories, never believed in bookish knowledge and both of their inclination towards gaining practical knowledge has always set them apart from others of their age which ultimately motivated them to start something of their own. Though both of them didn’t know each other initially but with similar thought processes regarding creativity and a platform for the same, made them start a page of their own last year during lockdown.

“We didn’t have anything concrete in our mind. I am a writer who used to write even before Inked Stories started. So, I had an open mic on Instagram and after the performance I wasn’t satisfied and received many feedbacks to improve my performance. That was the time I was talking with Taran and told him that as a writer I am not that established and recognized even though I write”- Nishtha Agarwal

While having a discussion on these, an idea ignited in them where they thought it’s not only them but there are many artists like them who don’t get a platform to showcase their talent, and that initiated their joint venture, Inked Stories.

They further enlightened Startup Story Media about the idea behind naming their page as Inked Stories.

“It is about sharing stories by the people who don’t get a platform”- Inked Stories

Inked stories book

Inked Stories: A focus on collaborations and campaigns

“We are not revenue oriented, we focus on collaborations and campaigns” – Inked Stories

With a team of 20 to 25 writers where they hire new interns every month, Nishtha mentioned that their page primarily focuses on collaborations and campaigns. Regarding collaborations they told Startup Story Media that through collaboration they try to create awareness in the society.

“We have had few collaborations with few NGOs and few collaborations with Robin Hood Army and Zomato Feeding India”- Inked Stories

As a platform Inked Stories opens its doors for budding artists and promotes their talents to the audience. Along with this through their campaigns they promote positivity. In one of their recent campaigns ‘Drops Of Joy’ they put 2 to 3 liners every morning to give their audience a positive view and motivation among all the negativities and pressure they go through everyday. In their another campaign named ‘A Millennial Story’ which is a podcast series running live on their Instagram page, where they choose artists from various genres and have a one to one conversation and let people know their journey and get inspiration.

According to both of them, what sets them apart from other pages is that they don’t hunt for experience and promote every talent that is otherwise ignored.

“We hired interns who have even started writing yesterday. We look for passion and craze for writing among people and not for experience.”- Inked Stories added during the interview session with Startup Story Media

Inked Stories down the line is planning to expand their roots by reaching out to almost every social networking site and to add more collaborations around India and start their own merchandise.

Challenges Faced

Upon asking about the challenges that they faced in their journey, in an exclusive interview by Startup Story Media, they said one of the major challenges was facing criticism from their competitors.

“Inked Stories is a budding platform and there are many like us and one problem was people tend to copy things, like the ideas we develop are copied and put up by other pages.”- Taran Malhotra

Along with this they also faced insufficient manpower where convincing people for their personal development was a challenge for Nishtha and Taran. As they have a global team where people from different parts of the world are connecting for the same cause one obstacle faced by them was time management. But slowly and gradually with their understanding into this field they are overcoming all the prior impediments and getting themselves ready for the upcoming challenges as well.

Being responsible and creating a healthy environment

According to Nishtha & Taran, to start or run something of one’s own requires some leadership qualities and the most important one is responsibility.

“When you are taking up any particular task you need ensure that you are completing it”- Nishtha Agarwal

Along with this they added that it’s a duty of any leader to create an healthy environment for others to work and think freely irrespective of any kind of competitive mindset and to know and understand the plan and the team members.

“There was a time when our team was also very frustrated and irritated because of the copying of ideas and that time a leader needs to make them understand and motivate them for the future.”- Inked Stories tells Startup Story Media

Founders

Message from the Co-founders

“We always think we have time, but that’s not the reality. We need to change this and we believe working on yourself, trying new things, exploring yourself and the surroundings is never a waste of time. To today’s youth – follow your passion and whatever you want to achieve in life. Focus on yourself now and see the difference tomorrow. Keep going and have faith in yourself and the initiative that you are willing and passionate to establish” – Nishtha Agarwal & Taran Malhotra.

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