Karishma Mehta is a writer and photographer best known for being the founder and CEO of Humans of Bombay, India’s largest storytelling platform that aspires to tell intriguing stories about inspiring people around us.
“No dream is too big,” she says, inspiring millions around her to keep pushing toward their dreams, no matter how overwhelming and unattainable they might seem.
The beginning of her journey
Karishma is someone who’s always felt the need to do more and more with life. In her second year of college, she started formulating business strategies and eventually ended up launching one of her ideas; which failed. No way was this going to stop her.
After graduating with a double major in Business and Economics from the University of Nottingham, she went on a six-month sabbatical and this was when she had the time to reflect upon her life. That’s when the Humans of Bombay happened.
Startup Story of Humans of Bombay
Humans of Bombay is heavily inspired by the famous Humans of New York. She remembers looking up a similar platform about India, but it didn’t pop up and this made her wonder why. This was when she got influenced to do something about it, leading her to create Humans Of Bombay in January 2014.
It began with the intention of simply telling stories about humans that go unnoticed. As humans beings, we are too blinded by our own cares that we fail to notice that others have a voice too.
Karishma provides a platform for this voice to shine. We know nothing about that passerby in the corner who’s desperately waiting for his story to be heard. Exploring the alluring stories that lie behind the innocent eyes of this very stranger became her purpose.
Each person has a unique story that deserves to be heard. To this day, Humans Of Bombay has put out more than 6,000 personal, funny and insightful stories about love, friendship, and deeper subjects like drug abuse and social challenges through posts on Facebook, Instagram, and their website.
Humans Of Bombay also has a YouTube channel with over 400,000 subscribers where you can watch her newest talk show called ‘How The Hell Did I Do It’ which has featured Aamir Khan, Harsha Bhogle, MBA Chaiwala, Harsh Mariwala, and Anupam Mittal among many others.
Today, she’s built a passionate community of more than 3 million people who believe in the power that stories hold. She’s also written two books named ‘Humans of Bombay’ and ‘Ordinary People Extraordinary Stories.’
Success Story of Karishma Mehta
Karishma is big on manifestation and is a huge believer in the law of attraction. During a TEDx Talk, she shared an amazing anecdote about her first-hand experience with manifestation. The law of attraction revolves around the basic theory that everything you talk or think about, you are attracting into your life.
In 2014 when she started Humans of Bombay, she was obsessed with the idea of being featured on Forbes and started attracting it into her life to the point where all of her social media passwords were set to something along the lines of ‘Forbes 2016’.
She picked the year 2016 out of spontaneity. In April 2016, a massive 3-page article dedicated to her was featured in Forbes Asia! Sounds like something straight out of an unrealistic movie?
Well, it’s just the power of manifestation. “If you think that your biggest dream is a possibility, then it is,” she says. “Whatever you feel passionate about is something that you should ardently pursue.”
“The world is limitless and you can be and do whatever it is that you want.” She urges people to do something that makes them love Mondays and something that makes them jump out of their beds out of excitement and passion.
In this day and age where humans fail to deeply care about each other and their stories, her ability to sympathize with people is truly commendable. She eases people’s annoyances by making them feel heard; as there is no greater feeling than feeling heard.
Karishma clearly does a phenomenal job of shining a light on every unheard story. It is heartwarming the way she strives to bring inconspicuous stories into the limelight; because stories, they have the ability to change hearts.
