From Twinship to Trailblazing: The Journey of a Visionary Founder
Growing Together: Childhood with a Twin
As the daughter of an army officer, Tina Mansukhani Garg was accustomed to moving around the country, switching schools, navigating new localities, learning languages, tasting unfamiliar foods. But hers wasn’t a lonely journey. Rather, as one of two identical twins, she was always accompanied by her lookalike sister. “My whole life was about playing or learning with her, growing up with her, always having a companion and never having to seek out that friend because you always had someone in your corner.”
It was only later, when they had to diverge into distinct adult pathways, that Garg realized forging relationships or making new friends required effort. In new workspaces, for instance, she learned to navigate challenges and build connections on her own. Something she is well known for today. Earlier, Tina & Nina would march into new schools in new uniforms, their nervous fingers intertwined on buses, sharing tears and giggles, mirroring the mirth or terror in each other’s eyes.
One time in kindergarten, when they had been tasked with a math paper, Nina had a stomach ache and fell asleep on hers. Tina finished hers, then scrawled out Nina’s answers, and slid it below her face. That year, the school decided that the twins deserved a double promotion. Tina would joke later that she was solely responsible for both being hoisted to a higher grade. It was a favor that was returned by Nina when the girls were in the 8th grade!
Melding Playfulness with Ambition
As Sindhis who had emerged from an undivided India, her parents espoused progressive values, and a liberal outlook uncommon in army circles. Garg recalls that the way they dressed or conducted themselves was both charming and uncommon.
Their nomadic life came to a halt when Tina was in the 6th Grade, and the family settled in Pune. At school, she typically topped the class, with her sister coming a close second. When they reached high school however, the order flipped. Even as Tina became playful and less studious, her twin started topping the class. One time, when Nina came first and Tina was 13th, she was jolted by the sudden gap. Tina quickly self-corrected this and school life eventually ended with Nina securing 1 mark more than Tina in the ICSE examination!
When it came to the future, their father seemed to have predicted or even partially shaped their choices. He said one daughter would study medicine, while the other would take computer engineering. Tina followed suit, up to a point. But she had always dreamed of being a writer, and if not beset by practical concerns, she might have pursued English Literature, History and Psychology. She was so drawn to these fields, she resolved to top her Engineering degree with a B.A.
From Algorithms to Articles
Instead, during her Engineering college years, she signed up for a Creative Writing course with a college in London. In which she gleaned the mechanics of journalistic writing, fiction and creative nonfiction. While also wrangling with operating systems and compiler designs, in her final years at college, she worked with Just Another Magazine (JAM), co-founded by the bestselling author, Rashmi Bansal.
As the Pune correspondent, Tina’s beat involved college tidbits from Pune colleges, and features on the evolving youth culture. She also met her husband in college, and when he started his own software company, she opted to run the web division, where she could braid her writing and computer engineering know-how. Displaying an early entrepreneurial streak, she and her husband launched a portal (zatang.com) with 350 writers contributing pieces that she curated and edited. Keen to hone her business skills, she also signed up for a MBA with Symbiosis, acquiring another degree and perspective on the working world.
Two or three years into marriage, she had her first child, and planned to return to work soon after. Two months after the birth of her son, when she landed at the office, she found herself exhausted after sleepless nights: “I just couldn’t survive two days.” But she wasn’t willing to pause her career either. So she called all the newspapers in the city – The Hindu, Deccan Herald, The Indian Express – and asked for feature assignments. Over the next three years, she wrote 400 articles. While doing this, she battled an imposter syndrome, familiar to many women. Despite racking up bylines and forging an impressive writing career, she added to her stack of degrees with one more in Mass Communications.
In the meantime, her journalism stint exposed her to both sides of the writerly fence: to reporters and to PR folks. She also broadened the reach of her writing, contributing pieces to national and international publications. Capping this with an experience in social sector communications, she mastered the semantics of different domains. And the art of culling stories with barebone resources.
Transitioning from EY to Solopreneurship
Her professional journey was briefly interrupted by the birth of a second child, but soon after she was roped in by an agency for a part-time copywriter stint. Later handling corporate communications at Ernst and Young, she won a Chairman’s Award merely six months after joining the firm. Working with the global leadership to execute a rebranding initiative with senior leaders and the broader India team felt like a crash course of sorts. One that she pulled off with enviable panache.
Opting to be a freelance communications consultant, she hadn’t planned, at first, to kickstart an enterprise. Assignments literally started falling her way, with each happy customer referring another.
Founding an Enterprise
Juggling multiple projects by hiring contractors, she found herself pondering her future at the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Entrepreneurs Program at the ISB. At the end of the program, imbued with confidence, Garg decided to take the leap. And hired her first employee.
When it came to picking a name for the enterprise, she recalled a Sound of Music scene she had watched with her kids, when her two-year-old and seven-year-old were sipping pink lemonade. On screen, on a patio, the Baroness, Captain Von Trapp and Uncle Max were also sipping – yes! you guessed it – pink lemonade. When going to bed that night, trying to think up agency names, words and images kept swirling inside her head. When she woke up next morning with an Archimedes sort of “Eureka”, she knew what she should call her enterprise. “Pink Lemonade” was catchy and memorable, and by representing a twist on the classic lemonade, symbolized their fresh approach to branding solutions.
She ran it past her creative folks. All three designers who worked for her were so enthused by the idea, they volunteered to design the logo. Suddenly, she had to pick from a deluge of designs.
Moreover, reading books on positive thinking, she realized what really motivated her was helping other people achieve their dreams. Approaching her agency projects with a gusto for assisting clients and fulfilling employee aspirations made it easier to withstand challenges: “Whoever wanted something, I said I’ll go out of my way and get it done for you.” Such an approach kept the phones ringing, as client after client continued to reach out.
Thwarting Early Challenges
In the early days, staffing was a challenge. At that point, Pink Lemonade consisted of an all-women team of four or six employees, who worked out of a penthouse apartment. Folks even brought their own laptops to work. In such a setup, it was tricky to entice talent from larger, swankier agencies. “Did it look like a formal agency? No!” laughs Garg.
Gradually, however, by hiring women searching for breaks after a parenting pause, Garg started building a team with a fierce determination to prove themselves. Many of the women who she trusted and took on, became her strongest and most effective leaders.
She also encouraged recruits keen on changing tracks, like financial analysts from Goldman Sachs who came in, wanting to wield words rather than numbers. Some needed to be taught the semantics of writing, but the agency was willing to train them.
Building a Talent Brand
Tina also realized that she needed to build her own talent brand. To broadcast her singular and thoughtful talent management practices on social media. For instance, every quarter, she awarded employees with performance bonuses. Or granted folks a “pink holiday” – wherein, every month, two employees would get a day off. With a spa coupon. She organized massage sessions in the office, hobby clubs for employees, sponsored any training or educational course they wished to pursue. These practices continue even today, 13 years on! The agency continues to invite inspiring speakers like Barkha Dutt, the iconic journalist, Tarun Mehta, CEO Of Ather Energy, Aiyyo Shraddha, the celebrated comedian, and others to enthuse her team with inspiration and ideas.
The result: She’s often had clients ask her how she motivates her team. “How do you have a lovely bunch of committed people who call us even if the work is going to be an hour late?”
Promoting the Agency
Investing in well-rounded marketing practices ensured that Pink Lemonade became an early choice for companies, small and big. Very early in their journey, United Breweries and United Spirits signed up. Mahindra Aerospace and Oracle started working with Pink Lemonade. Symphony Teleca and Wadhwani Foundation came onboard. Since then, they’ve worked with many of the Who’s Who in the for-profit and social sector spaces. Today, the agency is celebrated as one of Bangalore’s top branding, marketing and digital agencies, working with a number of national and international brands such as Purvaland, Lenovo, MTR Foods, Eastern Condiments, Adarsh Developers, OROH Life, Phone Pe, PayTM, WIPRO, Pasta Street, Polar Bear Icecreams, Motherhood Hospitals, and so on.
Says Tina, “The best part about our work is that, one day we may be branding and selling luxury shoes and on another day, we are giving birth to Bangalore’s largest brewery! The fun never stops. The learning never stops!”
Continuous Innovation and Learning
In an ever evolving digital terrain, Garg is conscious that the company has to keep innovating. She cites Peter Drucker’s stern maxim, “Innovate or die”. Pink Lemonade has been constantly expanding its capabilities and offerings. Earlier, they used to outsource video productions, but now they have an inhouse production studio. As also digital marketing and performance marketing divisions, among others. As Garg puts it, this helps the agency increase its ticket size with each client, since they can service a wide array of needs. Moreover, they can do multiple things for a single brand, like using AR or VR promotions, deploying AI Bots, besides Insta Reels and websites.
They also consciously upskill their employees. Each Monday morning, a leader presents on a new topic that’s hitting the market. Moreover, since her husband Tapan Garg, who’s a Director at the company, has a software background, they leverage technology tools to handle stuff like change management, scope creeping and success metrics. As one of the few agencies to rapidly adopt AI, Tina observes: “Today we use AI very successfully to do everything the agency does.”
Modeling Diversity and Female Empowerment
They currently have about 100 employees. And 65-70% are women. In the leadership team, women comprise about 90%. To support this predominantly female workforce, their policies support bringing children to work, especially on days when the childcare does not turn up or some other crisis erupts. To occupy the little ones, the workplace features swings and game rooms, nap and resting rooms. Even nannies are accommodated for harried times when the Moms need to keep an eye. “I love it when children come to work and see their Moms achieving something and being treated as someone important. That’s how we will empower future generations to honor equality,” says Garg.
Being a Role Model
Tina was chosen as one of three women from India to attend a month-long program conducted by the Fortune-U.S. Department of State Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. The team was mentored by Airbnb’s founders, and as an intensely curious lifelong learner, she gleaned everything she could to enhance her organization: “When you are being talked about as successful, you owe it to yourself and the people who respect and admire you to give them enough reasons to still believe in you.”
Expanding the Venture
While they have had to prune their workforce in the past, to respond to market conditions, Tina is intent on growing the enterprise. She’s also learned that scaling a venture requires putting certain guardrails into place. Especially when it comes to trusting folks with leadership positions, she locks in checks and balances. She uses a formula of TLC or Trust, Learning and Care with her core senior team.
She plans to expand the company’s presence in overseas terrains like Singapore and UAE. And handle more business in other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai. She would also like to bag many more national brands. She has built a strong leadership team to manage operations, while she plays a broader strategic role, focusing on business development and growth.
Advice to Other Women Founders
She suggests women founders and leaders need to confidently project themselves and defend their opinions. She has often been in rooms filled with 10 or 15 men and no women, and she has been the one scrawling ideas on a blackboard, while many listeners’ jaws dropped in awe. She’s sure that other women can do this too. They should be unafraid to stand up to the bro code, “You don’t need to change yourself and do all of that. You need to just be as good or even better at your work, so that they would have to pay attention and listen.”
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