How Arushi Sana rose above her “9-5” to create a global News Company

Arushi Sana

In the age of biased media today, the world needs unbiased, informative, educational and interactive journalism to appeal to newsreaders around the globe. At 23, Arushi Sana perceived this need and started her own news company called NYK Daily in 2019 with her partner Nikhil Chandwani.

With her news portal NYK Daily, she aims to tackle biased news and bring something refreshing for newsreaders, especially young ones who are still shaping opinions and questioning ideas. Being an avid reader, she had begun to observe over the last few years that what started out as informational Journalism earlier was becoming a tool to lure readers in the form of sensationalism today.

In her childhood, Arushi's grandfather would read the news to her every day and give her inspirational cuttings to keep, thereby turning her into a news junkie and imbibing the thirst to read/learn. In 2018, she graduated from Vellore Institute of Technology, India with a B.Tech in Computer Science Engineering and has previously worked for Ernst and Young as a Forensic Analyst, and for Deloitte too. She is also a Mentor for Mental Health under the Writers Rescue Centre Foundation, for women struggling with mental health, and helps them channelise their trauma into content writing. Previously, she has also taught Maths and Science to underprivileged children in shelter homes.

During her Corporate tenure, Arushi was hospitalised with a kidney infection in June, 2019 and that's when she realised how unhappy she was with her job. The days in the hospital came as a blessing, they fuelled her to leave her job to work on her dreams of finally making a difference.

After several brainstorming sessions with her partner, they started gathering the resources and allocating verticals to each other - be it tech and website development, team building, content creation, revenue modelling or search engine optimisation. Finally, NYK Daily was launched in July, 2019 as "Now You Know".

Initially Arushi wanted NYK Daily to be an online global platform where untold stories of people from every corner of the world could be shared, where knowledge about the most remote places, historical tribes and wildlife would be freely available to those in need, and where an entire intellectual community of seekers could be built. However, as NYK Daily progressed, she noticed the millions of people flocking to the website in a short span of just six months from when it had been established. Soon, a team of journalists and content writers was formed and work was in full flow. Arushi was juggling 2 jobs together, her full time corporate role and building NYK Daily as well - both Nikhil and her were working 18 hours at the time.

Today, NYK Daily is India's first global platform specifically for op-eds and World News, along with content on History, Science, Environment, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Politics, Business, Travel, Creativity, Technology, Lifestyle, Food, Real Estate, Law, Sports, Fashion among many more - thereby becoming a one-stop place for millennials and harbouring a platform that caters to empowering society with knowledge. This truly allows the team to enrich people who are looking for information in every field, positive stories, ideas and fulfilment. Along with being an official Google News Partner, they have a website traffic of 2.5 Million every month from 190 countries, 1,00,000+ App Downloads on PlayStore and iOS - all of which has been made possible by their able team of 40 journalists and content writers worldwide.

Arushi Sana enjoys creativity, the process of building something from scratch and watching it flourish. She also looks forward to financial and mental independence - something she personally didn't experience in Corporate. Having been involved in multiple social work initiatives since childhood, she really wanted to see how she could impact society in a bigger way than just donating money to social causes. She feels there are people who enjoy Corporate and there are those who find it binding, both Entrepreneurship and a job have their own perks and their own set of people that they cater to. Arushi did enjoy her brief career in Analytics but making unbiased news and educational content accessible to millions of readers for free of cost felt more invigorating, especially because she could see the impact it was having. The fact that NYK Daily amassed a huge readership in a short span of time meant that people were enjoying their content. She says it's a thrilling experience to cover the geopolitics of today's turbulent world and write on softer issues like travelling to Norway at the same time. Arushi resigned from EY as soon as NYK Daily started generating revenue that was double her salary, and took over the company full time with Nikhil Chandwani.

Currently, Arushi leads a zero waste life to help build a sustainable planet, and is also working on her next business, which is to set up a skill development centre for men/women and manufacture eco-friendly products. She hopes to inspire aware millennials to take steps to preserve the Earth, which she chronicles via articles and Instagram. She has cut off plastic completely, made greener switches, learnt recycling, growing her own food and more. After tons of research, she realised it's not just about the "organic" tag, it's also about reducing carbon footprint, generating little to no waste, not using or recycling plastic, lots of reusing, growing one's own food and motivating others to do the same.

Arushi's creativity and her skill of forming a bond with the masses have helped her in ensuring that a chord is struck with even middle-aged women sitting in remote African countries. Her knack for identifying untapped countries and content has allowed NYK Daily to be read by 190 countries today. Her tryst with Indian History lets her educate the world about India both politically and in the form of story-telling. She enjoys bringing out the truth of India's political present and sharing mesmerising stories of India's fascinating past involving Hinduism, Spirituality and Nature.