We are 10. Phew.

It’s our tenth anniversary. MxMIndia was born on September 9, 2011.

When we started, we were very idealistic. We think we still are that. We believe that it’s possible to rise and shine in B2B journalism without compromising on integrity.

We phewed earlier because these have been tough years. Very, very tough. The last year saw our revenues dramatically. The lockdown in fact gave us reason to not rue too much about the state we were in, as if we were down to 25% of our receivables, some bigger ones saw revenues shaved to lesser.

This last decade has seen Indian media change its face, and the pandemic period has seen even more changes. We’ve often cheered the players, but we’ve also sighed and got very angry. Often we’ve even regretted that we cheered some.

Our 10-year journey has seen us re-engineer ourselves. We’ve outsourced all non-core functions. Technology, accounts, payroll and even editing. So we are a small team, we aren’t a publication of record, but we record every significant thing that matters.

We started with video interviews aggressively last year, but slowed down when all and sundry were doing it. Unless the content was arresting, there weren’t enough takers. But the low patronage didn’t hold us from taking up issues that we believe deserve coverage and scrutiny. Like gender sensitivity. Media literacy. Disability. Ethics.

It’s difficult to thrive in the mess that prevails in the media. Especially when we dismiss all attempts to curry favour, write favourable content so that it can generate revenues. We are happy to embrace advertisers to sell our advertising inventory. Not our editorial…

MxM wasn’t the first in the business. Perhaps the tenth. Or the fifteenth. We are decidedly not meant for the media professional looking for the routine news, though we do feature them. We don’t the quickie ask-five-people-for-their-views analyses. We offer commentary from top professionals in the business. And top-grade young and emerging professionals as well.

On our tenth anniversary, a big thank you to all those associated with us through this last decade. Thanks to our staffers, columnists, writers, the industries and professionals we track, friends in the media, our technology, accounting partners and of course our advertisers, our benefactors. The families of all those working with us. And mine.

Our primary allegiance has always been and will always be to our readers. They come first. Now, and in the next five, 10, whatever.

Thanks much,

Pradyuman Maheshwari

Founder, Editor-in-Chief and CEO

MxMIndia

Mumbai, September 9, 2021