It started with a pen his parents wouldn't buy.
When Harsh was nine, his parents wouldn't buy him a thirty-five-rupee Trimax Gold, let alone a hundred-rupee Parker. So he started trading pens, and got good at it: he walked into school with ten Trimaxes lined up inside his blazer, ready to move.
Then he went a step further and designed a pen of his own, with a pitch deck and a prototype, both made by hand. He never sent either, and he still has both. In the back of his school files he sketched merchandise for employees who didn't exist yet.
They became real. At midnight on 1 January 2020 he left a New Year's party early to start 98 Entertainment, and the nightclub hosting that party, Esquire, became its first client. Without outside funding, the agency went on to build ₹15 Cr+ in revenue and a team of eighteen across three cities, and signed cricketer Ishant Sharma when Harsh was 21.
That arc, from a blazer full of pens to a payroll of eighteen, is what the talk is built on.
…used to walk into school with ten Trimaxes lined up in the inside pocket of my blazer, ready to move, like a dealer's arms.
Harsh, on his home page