Work
The claim behind every essay here is that I have sat on both sides of the commissioning decision. This is the record, written the way I write post-mortems: what I believed, what the evidence was, what happened, and where the data ended.
Built the content function
aha
aha: a content function from zero
Built the content function from scratch: the team, the four sourcing pillars and their standard operating procedures, the greenlight process, and the analytics pipeline that fed it. The platform crossed a million paid subscribers within a year of launch; 13 fiction originals were commissioned in a single year with one team. The growth is now taught as an ISB / Harvard Business Publishing case study, "aha Entertainment: Disrupting the Disruptor."
What the evidence was: Commission ten titles, and seven or eight of them will not return what they cost; one or two will carry the rest, and one of those may carry everything. In my experience of commissioning, and in every catalogue I have seen the inside of, it holds.
Where the data ended: The log records the event. It does not record the cause. You can instrument the platform perfectly and this part stays outside the instrument.
Developed and greenlit
aha, released 16 July 2021
Kudi Yedamaithe
The first show I developed and greenlit at aha, directed by Pawan Kumar. Greenlit on conviction with nothing to show. Released with almost no marketing and found its audience on word of mouth.
What I believed: I pushed for it hard, and I want to be accurate about why: not because I could show anyone evidence, but because I was convinced.
What the evidence was: A time-loop thriller in Telugu — no comparable, no precedent on the platform, nothing to point at. The people above me were not persuaded. They backed it anyway, on the reasoning that the person who had to make it believed in it, and with nothing on the table that was a defensible way to decide. I’ve never forgotten that they did.
What happened: It went out with very little behind it, because marketing money goes where confidence is and confidence follows evidence — and there was no evidence. That wasn’t anybody’s mistake. It found its audience anyway, on word of mouth, without the machinery that is supposed to create one. The marketing followed the result rather than producing it.
Where the data ended: Nothing in any dataset explained that at the time. The only reason I can tell you about it is that I was in the building while it happened.
Arabia Kadali
Developed and delivered to a national platform. Created by Krish Jagarlamudi; released on Amazon Prime Video in five languages.
Since 2022 I have developed and delivered originals to national platforms, most recently Arabia Kadali, released on Amazon Prime Video in five languages.
Director of Product Engineering, last role before content
Before content
Twelve years in software, data and product
Twelve years in software, data and product leadership, ending as Director of Product Engineering building an NLP-driven business intelligence product. I can run a writers' room and I can specify the data infrastructure that tells you which room to open.
Independent research
2025 to date
Audience research: film, television and streaming
Empirical work on how audiences behave across film, television and streaming, regular OTT and micro-drama alike, in every language and market where data exists. It started with the vertical micro-drama market for Telugu: demand patterns, completion behaviour, unit economics. I write about what I find: data does not tell you what to make; it tells you how to make it and how to be less wrong.