Age: 35
Birthday: 18th August
Star sign: Leo
Nationality: British Indian
Chronotype: Wolf
Personality type: ESTP
Nickname: Dee
Relationship status: In a relationship
Pets: A white cat named Jenny
Piercings: 3
Tattoos: 53
Hobbies: Rapping, running & getting tattoos
Biggest fear: Not reaching my potential
Biggest achievement: Completing my 1st Ironman
Fondest memory: My gap year
Favourite food: Jerk chicken
Favourite drink: Diet Coke Zero
Favourite book: 10X rule Grant Cardone
Favourite colour: Black
Favourite song: Work ft Drake
I’m a huge believer in integrity – that we must always do the things we say we will do.
I founded my agency, Pearl Lemon in Oct 2016 – but that’s not where my journey began.
(This was my rap group, Darkside Soldiers – we were 18 at the time. I’m the one in the middle with my keys around my neck haha!)
Growing up was interesting! My folks migrated from India in the 60s in search of a better life. But not before they got married at 11 and 13. But that’s another story!
School was school I guess. I was considered ‘gifted’ by my tutor, Mrs. Proud – she told my mum at age 14 that I should take my exams early. But my mum was more interested in my inability to wash my dishes than anything else 🙂
Despite attending one of the statistically worst schools in the country, (Evelyns) things turned out ok as I managed to get through it all, get some ok grades and come out alive.
Skipping forward a few years, it came as no surprise that I went on to study English Literature at Warwick University.
Before heading off to university, my cousin, Shiva, inspired me to take a gap year – although, as I grew up in a traditional Indian family, my parents weren’t exactly thrilled with this idea.
Despite my parent’s reservations, I worked out a savings plan in order to self-fund my gap year – this resulted in me working 14-hour shifts 3 days a week, whilst working full-time at Natwest bank, and working the weekends at the Odeon cinema.
After 6 months, I’d saved £6000, which I used to start my backpacking adventure.
I set out in the March of 2004 and ventured through India, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and the States.? The trip turned out to be one of self-discovery, tattoos, partying, dating, getting mugged, getting beaten up, getting arrested, meeting new people and much much more.
(Enjoying the sunshine ? )
(Me after the Copenhagen marathon ?? )
From a young age, I felt as though I was born to run.
I’m tall, and thin, with long legs and light bones – which is also referred to as a Nilotic body frame as I discovered. Sounds very attractive right! haha
I started running at the age of 14, with my childhood friend, Tom. We’d frequently do 5 kilometer runs together although at the time he used to always beat me.
My dedication to sport and endurance was something that would truly begin some 9 years later when I decided to run my first marathon in Chicago of all places haha! Some 15 marathons later I then went on to do a 27-hour ultramarathon in Madeira and then on to a 15-hour Ironman in South Africa.
After Uni, I went on to work at MEC – 1 of the world’s leading marketing agencies. I was fortunate enough to be 1 of only 6 hires out of 500+ graduates!
I then went on to work at Deloitte as a tax consultant, but decided to leave during the height of the recession to pursue my own business ventures, and dedicate more time to producing music.
150 rap songs later, having left my 2 studios and ‘movement’ that was known as ‘Deep Impakt Recordings’ behind.
I launched my first funded startup ‘Meet My Tutor’ in (an online marketplace connecting students to tutors) in 2010 with £75k, followed by ‘The CV Guy’ in October 2014 and ultimately Pearl Lemon in 2016.
(Me working from a local Costa coffee!☕ )
(Strawberry and I ?)
Today I run Pearl Lemon from home, local coffee shops and pretty much anywhere in the world (providing there’s an internet connection).
Pearl Lemon is made up of an amazing team of SEO experts, social people and writers – together, we GROW our client’s businesses and have fun whilst doing so.
I now live with my partner, Strawberry in the heart of London, and when I’m not working, I’m typically training or watching an action or horror movie lol.
I started in the world of SEO around 8 years ago while I was running a tutoring agency called Gobsmackers. That’s when I realized that if I put an actual ad on a classified ad site called Gumtree (aka Britain’s Craigslist) that I would literally make more money. I started to get more returns and conversions when I added more keywords to my actual job titles as well as the description for the service rather the tutoring service.
At around the same time, I began looking and running competitor analysis. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was by observing different ads and looking at best practice for pictures, the best practice for the style of content and placement for conversion rate optimisation. That I was once again able to spend maybe 14 pounds per month and generate a 500-pound return.
So, in a nutshell, that’s how I got started in the world of SEO.
I would say it all boils down to users finding your website and getting the most relevant content at the right time. This is of course as part of their education, information or buying journey and that’s really the most critical component of SEO in my view. I would love for all companies to be able to achieve that and that’s what we strive for.
My travels have massively impacted my life in a very positive way and I still continue to travel. I tend to go for weekends to run marathons, I enjoy staying in hostels because I’m typically travelling alone and I’m continually meeting awesome new people from all around the world. Running these marathons also enables me to really get to know a city. I have to navigate the city to go pick up my marathon pack from the exhibition and of course, run the actual race.
The truth is, this has been really helpful in helping me to understand people helping me understand the journey that people are on and forging friendships or relationships that are built around a mutual understanding of the journey and the goals that we’re working towards.
This is a really great question. Honestly, I don’t know what but what I do know is that I definitely want to be more successful than I am today. I definitely want Pearl Lemon to make an impact and I want me to be able to affect more businesses and more lives. What I can say is on a personal note, I’m hoping to have children and be even more settled than I am today.
A normal day for me is jam-packed with good things. Right now I’m walking towards my local cafe to begin work and it’s 8:30 a.m. I’ve been up since 7:00 am and calls start around 11:00 11:30 am and then I’m in calls from 11:30 am typically through 6:00 pm. My calls can range from 10 to 30 minutes. But that’s not all I do. In between these calls, I’m doing my best project management focusing on business development and also speculating about what is it that I can do to grow the company. Every evening I participate in training exercises and I’m an avid runner as I said so I’m often out running or doing something outside.
From Deepak Shukla. 7-Figure Agency Owner. 6-Figure FX Trader. SaaS Founder. Property Investor. Entrepreneur.
