Besides the other awards he has won, Vishwas Mudagal could easily win the ‘Most Accessible CEO’ award. His phone number comes up when you Google his name. He is known to always answer phone calls. And he is ready to meet up any day, provided it is at his office in Whitefield.
Serial entrepreneur, motivational speaker, angel investor, and as he claims, “#1 bestselling author,” Mudagal was eager to talk about his newly launched second book, The Last Avatar - Age of Kalki, which is also the first of a planned trilogy. “The last avatar of Vishnu is Kalki who is said to appear in the future but I created a superhero Kalki avatar relevant to today’s world,” Mudagal revealed, thrilled about his creation. His Kalki battles terrorists, dictators, an apocalyptic wars and combats a relatable dystopia of crumbling democracies, the en-masse assassinations of the Prime Minister and the Union cabinet ministers (a scenario resembling the ABC show Designated Survivor) while creating weapons of destruction to be used against evil forces. “My Kalki has been trained by a secret society which is guarding the Rudras,” that, he explained, is a set of nine books of scriptures which were written 10,000 years ago on futuristic science, time travel and immortality. He is so convincing that it has to be cla
rified. Fictional? “Yes, of course,” he laughed, “Everything in the book is fictional, even the Vanaroids.” This book comes four years after his first book, Losing my Religion, which sold over 25,000 copies and was translated into Hindi and Kannada. That’s a respectable showing for a debut book. “But I started writing this book four years before,” he said.
An engineer by training, Mudagal has been busy creating companies since college. Some were utter failures and at the age of 27, after yet another failed company, he was looking at bankruptcy. He had then received a phone call with an offer to be a CEO for a MNC. “One day I was penniless and the next day a CEO,” he likes to tell his audiences whenever he gets a chance. Currently, he is the CEO of GoodWorkLabs.
He has another firm that offers co-working spaces at ITPL. He also runs a web series, Ask Vishwas, which has “about 60 million views” wherein he offers advice to viewers on entrepreneurship, career, team spirit, boss woes and more.
Earlier Mudagal had noted how the (first) book almost never happened because his wife had dissed- the initial chapters. He persevered, finished the book and his wife was bowled over. In case of The Last Avatar, Mudagal is way more assured. Not only is he a ‘successful’ author, his six-year-old company has been growing at a rate of 500 per cent. After honing his writing skills through a trial and error process, he says he is finally writing for himself. “I aim to please no one else,” he adds. After eight years, the book and the fate of Kalki is finally in the hands of his readers. The blurb on the book postulates about Kalki: Will he become the living God prophesied as the last avatar of Lord Vishnu, or will he fade away as an outlaw? The second book of the trilogy is half done. “But I am waiting for the readers’ opinions on this one.” His accessibility is such that anyone could probably call him and let him know.
When: December 16 , Sunday
time: at 6pm,
Where: Atta Galata, Koramangala.
