What were you doing 25 years ago when afaqs! was launched in a New Delhi garage?

What were you doing 25 years ago when afaqs! was launched in a New Delhi garage? (It had a blue door, see the cover picture)

If you are 45 today, you were probably at university in 1999.
If you are 35, you were in Class 5...
...and if you are 25 today, you were wearing nappies!

That's how long afaqs! has been around, getting you the latest brand stories.

To be honest, it's a marvel afaqs! is around to celebrate its 25th. Very few businesses flourish for so long, and certainly not online.

Why do most businesses fail?
Simply put, there are internal and external reasons:
Internal: Unviable idea, poor team, weak funding, indifferent leadership and an inability to manage risk.
External: Lack of demand, severe competition, relentless pricing pressure, and shifts in the business environment.

And then there is timing, a factor we often overlook.

When afaqs! was launched, internet connectivity in India was poor and limited primarily to offices. On the other hand, there was so little content online that traffic grew quickly.

We also managed to get VC funding before the dotcom crash of 2000.

I've always been lucky with people. I found a great cofounder in Sandeep Vij, a friend and an adman as opposed to me, a business journalist.

I put together a phenomenal startup team: Swati Roy, Shatrujeet Nath, Prasanna Singh, Anurag D. and Alokananda Chakraborty. I am still not sure why they joined us :)

Looking back, I am especially amazed at how Prasanna and team persuaded brands to advertise online, a niche medium at the time.

As our money was running out by 2001 we tried all kinds of desperate side businesses - until online advertising finally kicked in.

Since then, online publishing has been transformed by many major developments. Just some of them: the rise of Google Search, the domination of Chrome (we lost a big chunk of traffic because our readers could not keep afaqs! as the home page), the coming of social media, the ubiquity of smartphones, the crash in data prices, consolidation in the media business - and then there was Covid. We've had to re-organise our approach at every big turn.

Through all of this, we have run afaqs! using the old-fashioned rules of journalism: editorial and sales don't mix. You will never ever see an article on afaqs! which has been paid for by an advertiser unless it is clearly marked as such. We've lost crores of rupees over the years for our beliefs but our ethics are important to us.

I've always believed that luck generally evens out. After the Covid battering, afaqs! has rediscovered its mojo. We've taken on many new team members, both senior and young and our office is always buzzing with action! (To top it all we've just redone our website). Our online and events businesses are both doing better than ever.

Friends wish me luck for the next 25. I don't know about that but I'm certain that the next five will be afaqs!' most exciting yet. Thank you for everything - and stay with us and our brand stories!S