For Students · Starting out in marketing
The marketing career advice I wish I’d had.
For students and early-career marketers — honest guidance on building a career in this field, from someone who started at seventeen.
Marketing is a strange field to break into: the degree matters less than the doing, and nobody tells you that early. This is honest guidance for people starting out — what actually builds a career, and what’s just noise.
The advice for starting out is mostly wrong
Early-career marketers get told to specialise, to chase titles, to collect certifications. Most of it misses the point: what compounds early is range, real work, and learning to think — not a tidy CV. It’s hard to know that when everyone’s telling you otherwise.
Honest perspective from someone who did it
Varun started at seventeen, learned by building, and spent a decade following before leading. The guidance here reflects that: the value of range over early specialisation, doing over credentialing, and patience as a strategy. The insights and career pages go deeper.
Common questions
Do I need a marketing degree?
It helps, but it’s far from everything. Varun studied marketing — after already building brands. The doing taught more than the degree; ideally you get both, in that order of importance.
Should I specialise early?
Usually not. Early range — seeing many kinds of problems — compounds better than narrow specialisation, which you can always add later once you know what you love.
Agency or brand side to start?
Agency side is a fantastic education early on — you see many businesses fast. That breadth is hard to get any other way at the start of a career.
The career view: on careers · the origin story: starting at 17.