Celebrating one year of togetherness!

Our marketing manager's journey with Crafty Counter

Usha Rao works from India, and shares her story!

Last year this time, I was going through a whole lot of emotions. Happiness, excitement, nervousness are just a few words, basically, I was scared to death but in a good way. It was the time I decided to join the world where there isn’t much sleep or money, but there is a pile of stuff to get done, and knowing myself I definitely was eager to jump onto that pile, commando! Taking off your mind from that not so pleasant imagery, I tell you that it’s no other world but the world of startup. I was looking forward to working with my sister's food startup, Crafty Counter! She created these delicious little chicken and vegan nuggets that just blew my mind away, not because she is family but because genuinely they were freaking delicious! I was hogging on those since the day I landed in the US for our family get together.

Having worked in marketing agencies for more than 4 years, my job was to take care of all the marketing initiatives. Now if you have worked in a startup, you would know there is no such thing as a fixed role. You need to switch hats and do whatever comes your way to grow the business. There are so many stories I added to my list of firsts- my first production run, first demo, first event, etc and every story is worth sharing!

In my first week, I was working in the manufacturing facility where we made more than 70k nuggets in 4 days! luckily, we were a team of enthusiastic people, two of us had no clue what's going to happen for the next 15 hours. Trust me guys, it was tough, strenuous, and draining! By the end of it, I knew the ingredients that go into each SKU, and the overall manufacturing process of how the final product is made available in the stores. Now that's how the onboarding should be done, right on to the field! Those four days taught me something that no book would have ever been able to teach. I became friends with other colleagues, bonded over the pain and even though we gave up every minute, yet we laughed away our stress and danced away our fatigue!  

From that day until today, I have loved working with this company, doing demos, events, brainstorming ideas, researching about CPG trends, and so many other things!

Even though I work from a remote location or rather country, India, which is just 13.5 hours ahead in time, I still feel connected and on top of the world knowing all the baby steps we are taking towards success. 

There is no job as rewarding as working in a growing business where each and every dollar/hour/second counts. Coming from a corporate world that is more stable with fewer risks, I personally see the learning curve that comes with this responsibility is huge and even if we don't hit the jackpot every time, but every small milestone achieved gives us the feeling of accomplishment like no other!

It's been exactly a year now, and I still have all those emotions with even more butterflies in my stomach that make me realize that I am lucky to have this opportunity to make a difference, no matter small or big, and that will keep me going now and forever! 

Thank you Crafty Counter for a great year!