Someone slid into your inbox last week offering Forbes for a thousand bucks. Maybe you almost said yes. 😅

Vaishali Gauba spent years inside CNBC, NBC and CBS newsrooms before starting her own PR agency, and she'll tell you flat out: that yes quietly costs you the exact people you were trying to reach.

Here's the uncomfortable part about how to get into Forbes with a credit card. The crowd doesn't care where you got featured. But the client you actually want? They can smell paid coverage from a mile off (and once they do, your credibility is done).

So we spent an hour on what earned media vs paid media really means when you're a founder with no PR budget and a business to build. Vaishali breaks down how to spot a real article versus a press release in about five seconds. Hint: the "we're thrilled to announce" opener gives it away every time.

We get into why a journalist writing about you beats you writing about yourself, and why that gap is the whole game. Why Forbes might do nothing for your sales while a local paper your actual buyers read does everything. And how to find the story hiding inside your own company (the one you're too close to see because you live it every day).

If you're a founder trying to figure out how to pitch journalists, whether paying for Forbes is worth it, or how to get press without buying it, this is the honest version nobody sells you. Vaishali also explains why any agency promising guaranteed coverage is quietly telling you to run.

Her own path is a story too. She went from the Rutgers student newsroom to CBS, lost her US visa, rebuilt in India and Canada, and now runs earned media for founders who want the real thing. If you're building anything and you need people to trust it, start here.

This one is for anyone thinking about startup PR, personal branding, and how to build credibility as a founder that actually holds up.

Connect with Vaishali:Website: vaishalimedia.comEmail: [email protected]

New episodes weekly. Subscribe on YouTube and Spotify so the next one finds you.

Timestamps:00:00 - Vaishali Gauba08:50 - Building Trust Through Earned Media13:30 - Paid Coverage vs. Real Credibility15:15 - Vaishali's Journalism Roots at Rutgers21:30 - Inside CBS and the Reality of Newsroom Work27:30 - Journalism Degrees, Visas, and Career Pivots32:03 - The Evolution of Journalism and PR33:19 - Understanding PR: The Misconceptions38:40 - Why Local Press Can Matter More Than Forbes40:10 - Crafting Compelling Stories: The Art of PR45:13 - The Role of Relationships in PR52:50 - Why Journalists Remember Great Stories56:00 - Relationships Help, But the Story Still Matters

Saurav is twenty-six and lives in Delhi. For five years he's worked fully remote for companies in Israel and the Czech Republic, and he gets flown out to developer conferences across three continents.

The part that stopped me cold: he's never once clicked "apply" on a job portal. Not once.

So how does a kid from a government school in Delhi end up speaking on stages in Nigeria, Prague, and San Francisco? That's the whole episode.

The job is DevRel — developer relations, or developer advocate if you want the fancier title. Most Indian devs have never heard of it. Meanwhile companies across Europe and the US are scrambling to fill these roles, and plenty of them pay in USD. (Yes, from India. Yes, fully remote.)

Saurav walked me through his actual playbook. How he built public proof through his content and community work until hiring managers came chasing him instead of the other way around. How he got companies to invent a role for him when they weren't even hiring.

We also got into the stuff nobody warns you about. The DevRel interview has a coding round most people don't see coming, and Saurav explains how to walk in ready. He breaks down what this remote tech job looks like on a normal Tuesday, not the conference-stage highlight reel.

Then there's the AI question. Everyone assumes AI is coming for these jobs. Saurav makes the opposite case — demand for good developer advocates is climbing, and he explains why.

If you're an Indian developer staring at LeetCode and wondering whether there's another door in, this one's for you. Saurav started exactly where you are. He learned Python, did the work in public, and built a remote career that pays globally without a single resume submission.

Worth your forty minutes? I think so. 🎧

If real career paths with no fluff are your thing, subscribe and stick around. New episodes every week.

Saurav's links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sauain/Apify: https://apify.com

Podcast Website: readysetdopodcast.com

Timestamps:00:00 The Rise of Remote Work and Developer Advocacy03:09 Building Developer Content at Apify06:09 Saurav's Path From Software Developer to DevRel09:39 Learning Python and Breaking Into Tech13:09 Landing Remote Roles Without Applying17:09 Getting Hired Through Public Work21:09 Making Companies Create Opportunities for You25:09 What DevRel Actually Involves Day to Day29:09 DevRel Interviews, Coding Rounds, and Community Proof33:09 Remote Work, Travel, and Getting Paid Globally37:09 How AI Is Changing DevRel41:09 Advice for Indian Developers Starting Out

Shriya left India for Germany to do a master's in Human-Computer Interaction. Her tuition bill came to zero.

(Read that again. Zero — not "discounted," actually free.)

If you've been stress-googling "masters abroad" at 2am, stuck in the loop most Indian students hit after a B.Tech, this is the conversation you needed. US debt, Canada's wait times, or the rumor that Germany is some kind of cheat code — we sort out which parts hold up.

She walks through why Germany won out over the US and Canada, and how the German public university system actually works. A free masters in Germany isn't a trick. Public universities charge no tuition to international students, full stop.

The real masters in Germany cost is rent, a blocked account for your German student visa, and the slow work of building a life in a town where you might not know a soul.

Shriya also explains what HCI even is. Most people file human computer interaction masters work under UX and move on, but the field is wider — AR, VR, data visualization, research roles that don't sit neatly on a job board. For one project she turned survey data into comics (yes, comics).

Then there's the part nobody markets to you. The German language requirement quietly decides who gets hired after graduation, no matter how sharp your portfolio is. We get into that honestly, plus how she funded independent research as a student and what an HCI degree opens up beyond a standard UX role.

And the human stuff: safety, the loneliness of a small German town, and learning to read a culture that says what it means and little more.

So if you're weighing Germany vs USA masters, sizing up the best country for a master's as an Indian student, or just want a straight answer on a UX masters in Germany before you sign away two years — start here.

Timestamps:

00:00 Shreya's Journey from CS to HCI

04:04 Understanding HCI and Its Curriculum

07:04 Why Germany Made Sense for Grad School

10:49 How HCI Programs Are Structured in Germany

12:57 AR, VR, and Visualization Projects in HCI

16:49 Comicification: Turning Surveys Into Comics

23:41 Career Opportunities After an HCI Degree

27:19 Grants, Research Funding, and Student Opportunities

31:49 German Language Requirements for Jobs

36:34 Navigating Safety, Loneliness, and Social Life in Germany

42:34 German Culture, Communication, and Stereotypes

50:49 Final Reflections and Advice for HCI Students

Find ShriyaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shriy-singh/

Ready Set Do podcast: www.readysetdopodcast.com

Six thousand followers. That's the number that should not work.

Most people would look at Alisha Gupta's Instagram and assume she's stuck. Too small for brand deals. Too niche to get booked. The kind of account you scroll past on your way to someone with a verified checkmark.

She's spoken at Harvard. She books out university stages across the country. Brands pay her to post. And she did all of it while holding down a full-time job in AI.

So how does someone get paid as a creator without a big audience and without ever going viral? That's the whole episode.

Alisha built Beauty and Balance from a single Instagram page into something companies want their name attached to. In this conversation she breaks down why engagement beats follower count every single time, and how brands actually pick who they work with (hint: it's not the number you think).

We get into the post that opened the door to Harvard, and the exact system she used to turn one yes into fifteen more stages. If you've ever wondered how to get sponsorships with a small following or how to get booked to speak, she lays out the mechanics plainly.

Then she flips the script. She runs her Power of And exercise live on me, the same one she teaches at universities, so you can map your own strengths against your passions and actually figure out your next move tonight. (Yes, I'm the guinea pig. It's a little uncomfortable. That's kind of the point.)

If you're a student, a recent grad, or anyone trying to build a real personal brand on the side without quitting your day job, start here. 🎯

Chapters:

00:00:00 Alisha Gupta's 6K-follower playbook

00:03:10 Why your niche has to be obvious fast

00:08:40 The origin of Beauty and Balance

00:12:30 Starting small and listening to the community

00:15:40 First events and proving demand

00:20:00 Fear, cringe, and being judged online

00:25:10 Turning criticism into creative momentum

00:30:05 How Harvard found her

00:34:55 Designing talks for the actual room

00:38:40 What to do when you fall off

00:44:45 Create like the room is full

00:50:00 Turning one yes into many more

00:52:20 The Beauty and Balance curriculum

00:55:00 Naman becomes the live example

01:00:05 Mapping passions and what grounds you

01:05:00 Connecting strengths, passions, and creativity

01:10:05 Self-understanding as the real win

01:13:10 Final advice: give yourself room to explore

01:15:00 Where to find Alisha and Beauty and Balance

Find Alisha: https://www.instagram.com/alisha_g9/

More from Ready Set Do: readysetdopodcast.com

Most people treat LinkedIn like a résumé site. Daniel Greenberg thinks that is exactly why they stay invisible.

Daniel has racked up 8 million impressions on LinkedIn and co-hosts Connection Accepted, a show about communication and online influence. So when he says the feed now behaves more like TikTok than a digital CV, I paid attention.

Here is the part nobody wants to hear: posting on LinkedIn feels awkward at first, and that awkwardness is the price of entry. Daniel walks through how he actually started, what kept him going, and why the first few posts matter less than the hundredth.

We get into AI writing tools too. They make you faster, sure. But faster at producing forgettable content? Daniel and I both agree most AI-generated posts read like they were written by a polite robot trying to win an award (we have all scrolled past that guy).

The bigger idea is that communication beats algorithm hacks. You can chase reach all day, but if your one message does not stick, the impressions do not turn into anything. Daniel breaks down how to make a single point land and how to test new formats without abandoning what you actually care about.

Then there is the podcasting problem. These episodes eat hours. So how do you know the time is worth it? Daniel uses real listener feedback as the scoreboard, not vanity metrics, and he showed me how he turns raw podcast transcripts into LinkedIn content and search-friendly material that gets discovered through ChatGPT.

The last stretch might be my favorite. Daniel explains how consistent content quietly creates warm leads, so opportunities come to you instead of you cold-pitching strangers and hoping. (Imagine that.)

If you want to grow on LinkedIn, build a personal brand, sharpen your communication, or create career and business opportunities without begging for them, this one will shift how you see the platform in 2026. 🎯

Listen to the full episode of Ready Set Do with Naman Pandey.

Guest: Daniel Greenberg, LinkedIn creator and co-host of Ideas.Host: Naman Pandey

Timestamps:

00:00 LinkedIn: The Next TikTok?

04:59 How to Start Posting on LinkedIn

10:37 AI Writing Tools: Productivity vs Quality

15:01 Why Major Creators Are Moving to LinkedIn

20:08 Making One Message Stick

25:10 Experimenting With Formats Without Losing the Mission

30:15 Podcasting's Time-Investment Problem

35:17 Using Real Feedback to Measure Content

40:21 Turning Podcast Episodes Into LinkedIn Content

45:19 How Content Creates Warm Leads

Picture this. You spend a few weekends building a small web app to track garbage piles in your city. You post about it once on LinkedIn. You go to sleep.

You wake up to 250,000 users and your local government quietly using your tool to clean the streets.

That's Jyothish's actual 2025.

The app is Namma Kasa. It does one thing — lets Bangalore residents drop a pin on a map when they spot uncollected trash, then routes it to the people who can actually pick it up. No login walls, no gamification, no pretending it's a "platform." Just a map and a civic problem.

Jyothish is a solo developer and indian product designer who shipped at version 0.1 instead of polishing for six months. The polish came after the users did (and yes, that order matters more than the build-in-public crowd lets on).

The Bangalore garbage app went viral on LinkedIn with a 5-word hook. BBMP marshals started using it without a single pitch meeting. Investors slid into his DMs. He turned them all down.

In this Ready Set Do conversation, Naman pulls apart how it actually went down — the exact LinkedIn post that broke it open, the mindset behind shipping an MVP in india before it feels ready, how civic technology gets adopted when nobody is forcing a partnership deck, and why he's anti-VC on principle for this one.

If you've got a half-built side project sitting on your laptop right now (yes, that one), and you've been told you need a FAANG resume before anyone takes your work seriously — this is the one to play.

Civic tech india doesn't need permission. It needs people who ship.

⏱ Chapters:00:00 The Viral Journey Begins03:30 Designing a Map-First Civic Reporting Journey06:40 The Mechanics of Reporting Garbage09:45 Going Viral, Hitting Limits, and Coming Back Online12:30 Accountability, Visibility, and Reaching Authorities15:01 Scaling and Future Plans18:54 Product Design Lessons for Civic Tech23:45 Shipping Imperfectly and Learning from Feedback28:30 Keeping Nammakasa Citizen-Led32:52 Building Ideas Without Overthinking the Outcome34:52 Final Reflections: Keep Experimenting and Keep Going

Connect with Jyothish:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jyothish-vm/Namma Kasa (Bangalore): nammakasa.in

Subscribe for weekly conversations with people figuring out what careers and building actually look like in the AI era — career advice india 2026, indie hacker india stories, bootstrapped app journeys, and indian developer side projects worth paying attention to.

Two years ago, Anas lost his full-time UK job. He went back to Upwork — the platform he'd already used to make over $80K while studying — and within months landed an 18-month Swedish contract that generated over $5M in client revenue.

His unfair advantage? A 60-second intro video that gets him hired in 24 hours.

In this episode of Ready Set Do, I sit with Anas, a Top Rated Plus Upwork freelancer (roughly the top 3% on the platform), to walk through his exact playbook for freelancing on Upwork in 2026.

We cover how to start freelancing on Upwork with zero reviews, how to write Upwork proposals that actually get opened, how to price freelance work across countries without underselling yourself, and how to escape the "Upwork is saturated" trap that keeps most beginners stuck.

Anas is a Moroccan-born industrial engineer who pivoted into data science, freelanced his way through grad school in the UK, and rebuilt his income on Upwork after a layoff. So he's lived both sides — the broke student grinding for first reviews, and the senior freelancer competing against AI and offshore pricing.

If you're trying to figure out how to get clients on Upwork, build a freelance data science career, or future-proof yourself against AI eating junior work — this is the full breakdown.

A few things we get into:

→ The Upwork proposal mistake 90% of beginners make (and the niche-down fix)→ Why milestones beat hourly contracts on bigger projects→ How to filter bad clients before you ever get on a call→ The LinkedIn + YouTube combo that pre-sells you before the proposal lands→ Where Anas thinks "Chief AI Operator" roles are headed next

Whether you're sending your first Upwork proposal this week or you've been freelancing for years and feel the AI pressure closing in, Anas gives you the tactical playbook and the bigger story behind it.

(Quick heads-up: I learned more about freelance pricing in 25 minutes of this conversation than in any Upwork course I've seen.)

Subscribe to Ready Set Do for more honest career conversations with people who've actually done it — international students, immigrant founders, freelancers, PMs, and engineers building unconventional paths into tech.

🔗 ABOUT ANASLinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/riadanas/YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@UC2L6md1QyYAMRAoar_9ZFaw

Ready Set Do podcast: readysetdopodcast.com

Chapters:

00:00 The Biggest Misconception About Freelancing01:55 From Industrial Engineering to Data Science03:15 Saturation, AI Tools, and the Changing Job Market05:00 Starting on Upwork Before Feeling Fully Ready06:42 Niching Down and Writing Targeted Proposals09:47 Getting First Reviews and Building Social Proof11:01 Filtering Clients and Setting Clear Project Boundaries14:32 Milestones, Hourly Work, and Project Structure19:19 Pricing, Undercharging, and Negotiating Rates24:02 Re-Entering Upwork and Landing a Larger Client28:47 Building Trust with LinkedIn, YouTube, and Video Proof35:28 AI's Impact on Freelance Data Work and Future Roles38:13 AI Agents, Chief AI Operators, and Guardrails

Here's the uncomfortable thing nobody at career services will tell you: "I use Claude every day" stopped being a resume line about six months ago. The people hiring at Amazon, Google, and the frontier AI labs already assume you do. So what actually gets you hired in 2026?

I sat down with Surya Kari, a Senior Generative AI Data Scientist at Amazon, to find out.

Surya works on Amazon's white-glove GenAI team. His days are spent shipping with Fortune 500 customers and the frontier model labs you read about on Twitter. He's in the room when hiring decisions get made. And his honest read on early-career AI hiring is way more specific than the LinkedIn-thinkpiece version.

We start with the thing I keep seeing destroy promising careers: using Claude (or any AI tool) like glorified autocomplete. Surya calls this the fastest way to plateau in your twenties. The fix isn't more tools — it's depth. The kind of moat that doesn't melt the next time a frontier model ships.

Then we get into agents. Surya doesn't think agentic AI is actually production-ready yet (and yes, he works at Amazon, so he's seen the receipts). We talk about what's still broken, what the hype is missing, and what "agents" will probably mean by the time you graduate.

His own story is pretty wild too. He was running a Canadian startup competing against Amazon Go before he ended up running GenAI deals at Amazon itself. The arc from analyst to startup founder to senior AI scientist is full of stuff that won't show up on a tidy career-advice carousel.

The conversation I'm proudest of comes near the end. Surya grew up in India, studied in Canada, works in the US — and he's watched how each region is building AI from the inside. The contrast between how the East and the West think about AI right now is sharper than I expected. His take on India treating AI as public infrastructure is the kind of thing you don't hear in the usual big tech hiring discourse.

If you're a CS student or new grad trying to figure out where to bet your career in the generative AI era, this one's for you. Surya tells you exactly what he'd do today if he were starting over.

Subscribe for weekly conversations with the people figuring out what work actually looks like in the AI era.

Connect with Surya:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suryakari/

⏱ Chapters:00:00 A Day in the Life of a Generative AI Data Scientist01:17 Understanding Customer Personas in Generative AI04:17 Upskilling in a Rapidly Evolving Field06:09 The Contrast of Experience in AI Tools09:33 Navigating Production Code and Testing12:15 The Hype Around AI Agents16:28 The Future of AI Agents and Their Limitations20:56 Surya's Journey: From Analyst to AI Expert23:48 Innovations in Retail Technology24:09 Transitioning to Edge Computing and AI26:36 Upskilling in Data Science and AI31:39 Cultural Differences in AI Development36:10 AI as Public Infrastructure in India

How do you go from running tuberculosis programs in rural Bihar to studying at Oxford and eventually working with WHO Africa? There is no clean answer — and that is sort of the point.

In this episode, I sit down with Dyuti Sen to talk about what a public health career actually looks like when you do not start as a doctor, do not have a linear plan, and refuse to pretend the journey was smooth.

Dyuti studied economics, then entered the development sector through a social leadership fellowship in India. That fellowship dropped her into Dalsinghsarai in Bihar — not a posting you would find on a glossy career brochure. She spent five years there working on tuberculosis, community health delivery, and the enormous gap between what policy says on paper and what happens when a patient in a remote village needs treatment. She calls those years her real master's degree, and after hearing the details, you will understand why.

We get into what public health work looks like day to day — the fieldwork, the project management, the bureaucracy. Why "free medicine" does not automatically mean people can access it. Why community health workers carry deep practical expertise that often gets overlooked. And why the distance between a well-designed health policy and its execution on the ground is where the real work lives.

Then we talk about her Oxford journey. How she shortlisted master's programs, why scholarships were non-negotiable, what shifted after getting into International Health and Tropical Medicine, and how she later navigated the confusing world of WHO and UN applications. If you have ever stared at a UN job portal and thought "how does anyone actually get hired here?" — Dyuti walks through it with real specifics.

This conversation is for anyone interested in global health careers, public health in India, international development pathways, WHO jobs, Oxford scholarships, or what it takes to build a meaningful international career from a non-medical background. No fluff, no fairy tale — just the real version of the path.

Guest: Dyuti SenHost: Naman Pandey

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this conversation are personal and do not represent WHO or any affiliated institution.

Chapters:00:00 Dyuti's journey into public health03:52 Experiences in Bihar: a unique perspective06:39 Adapting to rural life and community dynamics09:14 A day in the life: from fieldwork to project management12:11 Challenges in public health: insights from the ground13:58 The importance of community health workers16:58 Lessons learned: the reality of public health work20:01 Battling tuberculosis in Bihar28:24 Navigating the application process for graduate studies36:09 Navigating scholarship applications and mindset39:19 India vs. the West: contrasting public health perspectives48:48 Journey to WHO: career path and lessons01:01:15 Understanding WHO's role in global health01:06:15 Future aspirations in public health

Twenty apps. Thirteen days. Some already making money.

That's what Avi Pilcer actually shipped while most of us were still picking a domain name. And the wild part? He didn't do it alone. He built an autonomous system called System Zero that does the heavy lifting for him.

If you've been told "AI is making it easier to build" but you still freeze at "what should I build, how do I ship it, who's going to use it?" — this episode unjams the whole pipeline.

Avi's path is not a normal founder origin story. He went from a struggling engineering student to an electric violinist in China (yes, really) to leading AI innovation at Motorola — all before "deep learning" was on most people's vocabulary list.

Now he runs a framework-agnostic orchestration system that ships apps, buys Google Ads, writes SEO blogs, and nurtures email lists. All of it runs 24/7. None of it needs him babysitting.

Host Naman Pandey gets into the parts nobody actually explains:

Why "meta thinking" is the one skill that still matters when AI handles the code and the copy.

How an automated AI process picks which apps to build — so you stop drowning in a Notion doc full of half-baked ideas.

A live demo of Fleet AI launching a business in real time (this part will probably make you close your laptop and rethink your week).

The "prune and purge" method for killing dead apps fast, because shipping is only half the game. The other half is knowing when to walk away.

And why Avi thinks money and traditional jobs are on borrowed time — plus what to actually do about it before that clock runs out.

If you're an indie hacker or a solopreneur who keeps refreshing Twitter looking for permission to start — this is the permission. 🚀

Built for the Peter Levels crowd and the Claude Code curious. Anyone tired of vibe coding their way into half-finished AI apps will find a real playbook here.

Whether you're chasing your first profitable agentic AI workflow or trying to wire up autonomous AI agents that genuinely run without you, Avi hands over the full stack.

This one belongs in the "watch twice, take notes" pile.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – Building 20 Apps in 13 Days13:18 – Navigating AI Tools for Beginners19:19 – Demo of Apps26:45 – System Zero32:07 – Autonomous Operations and Self-Improvement36:11 – Integrating Multiple Projects and Use Cases37:59 – Distribution Strategies for App Success39:03 – Cost Optimization and Business Viability41:03 – The Future of Software Engineering in an AI World51:03 – Exploring System Zero: The Autonomous App Builder

Subscribe to Ready Set Do for more raw conversations with the people building what comes next.