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Unmana Datta, co-founder of Markitty, takes us through a regular workday. Markitty helps small businesses and entrepreneurs use online marketing more effectively.
It’s 9 a.m. on Monday. I start my workday, as I always do, by checking email. The most urgent item on my list always is replying to support emails. This morning, one user has written in positive feedback and asked what the cost of the service is. Free for now, I reply, and thank her for the feedback.
After responding to urgent emails, I look at social media for any new comments or messages, and feel good about the new likes we got on Facebook over the weekend. I go to this post that mentioned me and respond to new comments.
Next, I write out my to-do list for the day on my little memo pad. It only holds ten items at the most, and I usually start by writing down four or five. Today, I have four (though I add on more during the day).
I create my regular Monday post. (The choice of topic is easy this time, because something important happened – other weeks I look through Twitter to see what articles I liked enough to share and see if I can get a theme together.)
It’s 12 p.m. and a client is arriving at 2.30 for a meeting, so I rush on to the other urgent item: the weekly newsletter. I’ve already thought out what the topic is going to be, and it takes me less than an hour to write it out. I ask my partner, Nilesh, to review it – a different pair of eyes always helps.
Then I review the application – another thing I try to do daily, to make sure all the stats and recommendations are appearing for me as they should. (Markitty is an online tool that offers marketing tips and stats to help small businesses improve their marketing.) I see that a graph is missing the last few days of data, so I alert Nilesh and ask him to look into it.
I take a break for lunch and give myself ten extra minutes to relax before I get back to work. I update the newsletter list with the latest sign-ups, review the email, get the go-ahead from my partner as well, and send it out.
I still have half an hour before the meeting, so I start putting together tomorrow’s blog post. I’ve already got a draft, so it’s a matter of formatting and editing it and adding a stock photo. The client emails to say he’s running late. No problem – we’re meeting in my office so I don’t mind, I can just continue working until he comes.
He’s here before 3, just as I’m finishing up the post. It’s the first session, though we’ve known each other for a while and he’s a friend now, and we talk about the target audience and the product and try to get the USP down. We brainstorm and write things down on the whiteboard and on paper and argue politely and finally seem to be arriving somewhere.
I love these sessions, but they are tiring. By the time we are done, it’s past six and I’m exhausted. We make plans to meet in a couple of days to continue.
We join my partner in the other room, and sit and chat over tea for a while. The client leaves, I take half an hour off to recover, and then get back to work. A user has sent in an interesting question about Google Analytics, and I discuss it with Nilesh and write a long email in response.
It’s 8.30 p.m. now, and I’m finishing up this post for Women’s Web. Next, I’ll do some reading on Feedly, and check everywhere for messages again (email, Facebook, Twitter, personal email) before I shut down for the day.
Are you a woman running a business in India? Would you like your story to appear in our Day In The Life Of An Entrepreneur series? Email us at admin AT womensweb DOT in with an interesting account of a day running your business, and we may publish it! (For example, what was the one interesting thing you did that day? Did you meet someone new/had a conversation with a customer? What thrills you at work? What are some business challenges you’re currently grappling with?) Also send us a few pictures of you at work – with your team, at your desk, at the factory, meeting a customer….
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