Ad land’s young guns: Gayatri Agrawal, Founder, ALTRD

ALTRD, an AI-powered product service company dedicated to transforming design through technology. Founded in 2023 by Gayatri Agrawal, ALTRD combines cutting-edge AI solutions with a deep understanding of design to create innovative products that redefine industry standards. Their expertise spans from AR furniture design to immersive 3D experiences, delivering impactful solutions to clients across diverse sectors.

One of their standout projects includes boAt’s IPL campaign featuring Virat Kohli, showcasing our ability to seamlessly blend creative storytelling with advanced AI tools. This campaign reflects ALTRD's commitment to pushing the envelope in digital content and AI-driven design, helping brands create meaningful connections with their audience.

At the core of ALTRD’s success is the leadership of Gayatri Agrawal, whose expertise ranges from architecture at NMIMS University to studying data and machine learning in design in Barcelona.During in 2021, here she developed tool for the City Council of Barcelona, earning significant acclaim. This project not only highlighted her ability to innovate at an international level but also set the foundation for ALTRD's focus on delivering AI-driven, data-centric solutions.

Today, ALTRD leverages this international experienceto offer clients strategic insights and transformative digital experiences, positioning us as a leader in the ever-evolving tech landscape. We believe ALTRD’s story and our commitment to AI-driven design innovation would be a great fit for your audience. We’d love for you to explore more about how ALTRD is shaping the future of design.

In conversation with Adgully, Gayatri Agrawal, Founder of ALTRD, discusses her journey in building a sustainable fashion brand, the growing demand for eco-conscious clothing, and how ALTRD is transforming the industry through upcycling and circular fashion practices. She sheds light on the challenges of changing consumer mindsets, the brand’s innovative approach to reducing textile waste, and her vision for a more sustainable future in fashion. Agrawal also shares insights into the key trends driving the sustainability movement and offers advice for young entrepreneurs aiming to make a positive environmental impact through their businesses.

How do you effectively balance your various roles as the Founder of ALTRD and other responsibilities? What challenges do you face in managing them all?

I think rather than talking about all the roles, I would like to highlight just mainly two. As a founder, you have to think about the entire company also from the perspective of revenue, profit, finances, P&L, all of that. However, as a leader, you’re supposed to think about what your team members want. Are they happy or not? So, a lot of times, I think the problem that we, as founders, face is that, sometimes we’re thinking about the company and we might take up the project, which, maybe the team is not very happy to do or the other way around. Wherein the team wants to do something, but we feel like this is not bringing any revenue to the company.

So, I feel that becomes a very challenging decision to make when you’re like, you need to keep a smiling face in front of all your team members just so that they are always motivated, because if your motivation goes down, your team members’ motivation will go down and they’ll also not work. Everyone says the CEO is actually ‘Chief Everything Officer’. Yes, you’re doing that. But mainly, you’re stuck between this, where a lot of times you’re in a position where you have to choose between the team and then you have to choose between the company’s P&L. Now something that we clearly follow is that we will take the project basis the 3 Cs, which is, Client, Creativity, and Cost.

So, if we feel like the client is great and the creativity is great, the team’s will be happy because they’re having a great experience. And even if the cost is less, it is okay. So, whenever two out of the three Cs that I just mentioned get ticked, we take up the project, and that’s how I have solved that problem.

Apart from this, of course, there’s one more issue – as a founder, you’re also invited to so many talks and events. As great as it may sound for you to be in front of everyone because that’s how you build credibility and also get clients, doing a lot of that becomes very difficult as a founder because you also need to be there for the team.

But that is something we’re trying to solve for the future, wherein we are trying to build systems where I can actually be out for so many days and events and other things, and the team is empowered to be able to work without me.

Please tell us more about your venture, ALTRD?

I noticed a lot of AI product companies that were going for VC funding, but very few were profitable. The market gap that we found was that while these products are being built, everybody wants it tailored to their own company’s data. Also, something that was clearly missing was that people were not comfortable in sharing their data. So, in order to fill that gap in the market ALTRD was launched, where instead of building one product, we want to build multiple micro products for each company to solve their problem statement. And while we’re doing that, we are focusing on two things – making something which is safe and secure, and making sure that there’s no hallucination whatsoever.

Could you walk us through a typical day in your life? What are the top 5-7 activities that you prioritise daily?

It’s a bit funny, but when I wake up, I don’t indulge in some peaceful activity like meditation. Instead, the first thing that I do after waking up is play loud music! This energises me and gets me excited about the day ahead. And once I’m all energised and freshened up, I sit and reply to emails first, which also involves sending a lot of outreaches.

My work day starts with a team meeting, where I find out about the ongoing projects. A lot of times not all team members are working on all the projects, but I want them to be excited about every project and I want them to know the briefs that we’re getting. So, the BD team or the team receiving the briefs informs everyone about what we are receiving and all of us brainstorm on the upcoming projects as well as take stock of the ongoing projects and also projects that have recently been completed.

This is followed by problem-solving of fire-fighting on the issues that the team might be facing.

New client meetings also form a major part of my day.

I wrap up my day with some fitness activity like dance or cardio or play pickleball with some founder in Bangalore.

That’s how a typical work day looks like for me. Before I call it a day, I take stock of the tasks completed for the day, and also draw up a schedule with a list of tasks for the team for the following day.

What initially inspired you to pursue a career in your field? How did you prepare for this role alongside your other pursuits?

If you look at my journey, I didn’t start as an engineering student or a science student. I come from a business family, so, naturally I wanted to be in the business world, but I wasn’t sure about what exactly I would do.

I started in the construction industry first. But there are a lot of challenges that women in the construction industry face. First of all, it is a male-dominated industry – be it the contractors, developers, labourers. There is a mindset among certain set of people that women might not be able to successfully lead construction projects due to family issues. It is tough to get the workers to listen to a woman boss. Of course, there are quite a few women who are successfully leading construction companies.

But I decided to opt out as I saw a greater potential in digital. The future is becoming more and more data-centric, and robotics and AI related. I wanted to use my understanding of design and all the other skills such as software and coding that I’d learnt in architecture and enhance them using AI and data.

Especially during the COVID period, when I got to research extensively, I could see that the future is data, machine learning, AI, robotics. Thus, if you look at my career graph, I’ve actually pivoted quite a bit, but I feel that all my previous career options have enriched my learning process and prepared me for my current role, provided me with the insights to identify where people are going wrong, and in the process has made me a good leader.

Today, I can find the right people to do the best job. If someone tells me that something can’t be done, I can tell them that this can be done because I have done it before. And lastly, if ever there comes a point where suddenly at 2 am we need to fix something and the team is not available, I can do it myself. So, I feel that has really helped me in my career, just knowing 10 things. I don’t need to be a master of one. I just need to know how to put it all together, become a good leader just so that you can manage people in all the sectors.

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