People enter the affiliate world in curious ways – most often by accident.
It’s a relatively fresh form of marketing, and it isn’t taught in universities. Many times, it is stumbled upon.
Recently, I spoke with Awin’s CEO Adam Ross, who came upon the industry after studying to be a dentist – and subsequently devoted his career to it.
Even more recently, I caught up with Sri Sharma, an industry heavyweight who has founded, exited, and invested in multiple game-changing companies across the space.
Originally, Sharma was studying chemical engineering and first started to dabble with affiliate experiments by way of side hustles and sly student loan investments.
But as it happens for many others, these tryouts quickly blossomed into a bountiful, rewarding career.
In light of his most recent exit, I spoke to Sharma to learn more about his early days in affiliate marketing, what attracts him to a project, exciting new technologies, managing burnout as a founder, the future of robotics, and more. I hope you enjoy this candid and expansive conversation.
Sol Wilkinson: Hey, Sri. Great to speak with you today.
Sri Sharma: You too. Glad to be here.
SW: I noticed you have a background in engineering. I was curious how that led to startups in affiliate.
SS: I studied chemical engineering, but I also became a chartered software engineer. I started doing software during uni and kept it going afterwards. That naturally exposed me to the world of tech.
I first got into starting ventures when I was at school and university, investing part of my student loan in some side hustles. Risky, but made a tidy profit.
When I was at Accenture, I was part of what was then called the Internet Technology division, so I was seeing what was happening in that space.
I also experimented with affiliate marketing in its early days. My first site was a dating site. It didn't work out, but it was a good experiment.
At that time, there wasn’t really a big startup culture here. It was more about knowing people in the sector and opportunities coming up.
