Hetansh Desai

Hetansh Desai was born in Bhavnagar on 2 July 1992. By 3 July, he had realised he hated writing about himself in the third person.

However, here is where we take a leaf out of Imraan Qureshi’s book (erm, diary) — Farhan Akhtar’s character in ZNMD. When Arjun and Kabir sing the evergreen Diamond Biscuit jingle, an irritated Imraan puts on his shades and famously says, “Karna padta hai, kamino.”

So, that’s that.

From an early age, Hetansh fondly recalls going on long drives with his parents because that’s where his dad taught him that, truly, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

He pursued a Master of Science in Entrepreneurial Leadership (which is a very long name for a relatively short course) from Babson College, Boston, in 2015. In 2017, he moved to Mumbai to start his company, which began in the living room of a modest flat in Borivali. He was in Mumbai for three years, and two out of those were spent in the traffic jam at Saki Naka.

In 2020, he shifted base to Ahmedabad, partly due to COVID and partly due to continuous rejections by auto drivers in Mumbai. Currently, his firm, Mediaverse Group, has four verticals: Advertigers for creative recruitment, ChatterPillar for WhatsApp marketing SaaS, Vital20 for creative and digital advertising, and Fantasticals for storytelling. The company has a team of fifty, and the business is jointly managed by him, his wife, Kalgi Desai (Partner), and his friend, Dhruv Sanghvi (CEO).

A seasoned advertising professional, Hetansh has had the fortune of working with national brands such as Vodafone, Indiabulls, Zee Group, State Bank of India, Kellogg’s, Bank of Baroda, One Way Cabs, Adani, and Allen Career Institute, to name a few. He has helmed many national and viral campaigns in his decade-long professional journey.

His company was awarded Startup of the Year 2019 by Silicon India, and he has also been featured in The Economic Times, YourStory, and The Startup Journal. His podcasts have been covered by various advertising and business portals, including Social Samosa, Social Media Dissect, and others.