Kautilya · Mumbai

Marketing & Content associate

Own the content engine across YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Reddit.

Location: In-Office (Prabhadevi, Mumbai), Hybrid or Remote Commitment: Full-Time (40 hrs/week)

WHO WE ARE

Kautilya is a buy-side M&A advisory firm. Pocket Fund is a micro private equity firm. Together, we buy, advise on, and operate off-market, lower middle-market deals across US, UK, ANZ and India.

Our work lives in the gap between great companies and the capital that wants to buy them. That means our problems don’t fit into neat departments. On any given week we’re sourcing off-market deals, building intelligence dossiers, negotiating with founders, fixing a portfolio company’s churn problem, shipping internal tools, and writing content that brings the next deal in the door while creating content to show what the teams upto.

Most of our content ships under Dev’s founder brand and Pocket Fund. The formal end of the spectrum runs under Kautilya.

We’re looking for someone to build, grow and add their own unique touch to the content, brand and marketing engine.

THE ROLE

We’re hiring a Marketing & Content Associate to own content and distribution across YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Reddit, the four platforms where our audience actually lives.

You’ll work across multiple internal profiles on each platform. That means one video shoot might produce a talking-head YouTube long-form, five Instagram Reels for different accounts, three LinkedIn posts written in three different voices, and a Reddit comment that quietly does more for one of our brands than any of them.

You’ll also work across what we call the spectrum, the full range from informal to formal content. The same core idea might show up as a scrappy iPhone selfie video on one profile, a polished YouTube documentary on another, a founder-voice LinkedIn essay on a third, and a technical Reddit teardown on a fourth. Knowing which register belongs where, on which profile, and why, is the whole job.

This is a hands-on, high-ownership role. You will:

Come up with ideas and develop content formats.
Shoot content in the office and out of it.
Manage the calendar, publishing and distribution.
Design and implement content pipelines, the systems that turn one shoot, one interview, or one insight into 10 pieces across 4 platforms and 6 profiles, without the quality collapsing.
Own re-distribution, the discipline of making a single asset earn its keep three, five, ten times over.
Analyse performance, spot patterns, and use them to make the next round better.
Build collaborations, find guests, and open new marketing channels.

We’re looking for someone who thinks like a marketer and creator, not a social media manager.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Content & Social Media (across the spectrum)

Own content across YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Reddit, across multiple internal profiles per platform.
Develop ideas, formats and recurring series that map across the informal to formal spectrum.
Research trends and competitors. Know what’s working, what’s tired, what’s next.
Create Reels, Shorts, YouTube videos, LinkedIn posts, Reddit contributions, and everything in between, around digital businesses, acquisitions, investing and entrepreneurship.
Own the calendar, publishing and distribution.
Track performance and use insights to improve.

Content Pipelines & Re-Distribution

Design pipelines that turn one piece of source material (a shoot, an interview, a memo, a live event) into multiple assets across platforms and profiles.
Build re-distribution systems: clip, cut, translate across register, re-format for each platform’s native shape.
Document pipelines so they run without you in the room.
Use automation, AI and templating to compound the team’s output.

Content Production

Shoot in and out of the office: cameras, phones, lighting, audio.
Handle basic framing, lighting and sound.
Cover interviews, talking-head videos, and behind-the-scenes.
Assist with scripting, directing and basic editing.
Plan shoots to feed the pipeline for weeks, not days.

You don’t need to be a professional filmmaker, but you should be comfortable picking up a camera and getting the shot.

Collaborations & Outreach

Identify founders, investors, operators, creators and industry experts for collaborations and guest slots.
Run outreach and follow-ups end to end.
Spot relevant podcasts, newsletters, events and media opportunities.

Colleges & Communities

Identify relevant colleges, E-cells, finance clubs and student communities.
Build relationships and open opportunities for talks, panels, podcasts, workshops and events.
Find communities and networks (including Reddit-native ones) relevant to us.

Broader Marketing

Identify new channels, campaigns and opportunities to grow our brand, audience and network.

ARE YOU THE PERSON FOR THIS?

Ask yourself:

Do you actually understand why the same idea has to be dressed differently on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Reddit? (We’re looking for platform-native thinking, not one hook re-posted four ways.)
Can you hold multiple voices in your head at once? (We run multiple profiles per platform.)
Do you follow the creator ecosystem the way most people follow sports? (Who’s popping off, why, and what’s about to be over-used.)
Are you comfortable picking up a camera, hitting record, and shipping? (Taste and speed beat gear.)
Can you write in registers from meme-fluent to founder-formal? (The spectrum, top to bottom.)
Are you comfortable cold-reaching people you don’t know? (Outreach is half the job.)
Do you use data to make creative calls, not just to report on them after? (Analytics as a decision tool, not a scorecard.)
Can you take an idea from concept to execution to measurement to re-distribution without being managed? (Ownership is the whole culture here.)
Are you genuinely interested in business, investing, entrepreneurship and digital businesses? (You’ll be talking about them all day.)

Good to have

Have you worked on any of these? (Not required. Helpful.) Video production and editing. Multi-platform content strategy. Creator/influencer marketing. SEO or performance. PR and partnerships. Event or community building. Growing a YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit or newsletter presence. Building content pipelines or repurposing systems.

We value demonstrated ability and initiative over a checklist of qualifications.

WHAT YOU’LL GAIN

Ownership. Help build Pocket Fund’s marketing and content engine from the ground up.

Business exposure. Firsthand access to digital business acquisitions, operations, and investing.

Marketing range. Practical skills across content, video, partnerships, PR, growth, SEO, and analytics, on four platforms and across the full spectrum.

A portfolio. Tangible, public work across campaigns, collaborations, and experiments.

Learning by doing. Small team, direct feedback, real responsibility from week one.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

If we’re both doing this right, what does 6 to 12 months from now look like to you?

In our head, some version of:

A consistent, growing presence across YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Reddit, across multiple profiles per platform.
Content formats that consistently perform, at the right register for each profile.
In-house pipelines that turn every shoot and every memo into a distributed set of assets across the spectrum.
A live pipeline of collaborators and guests.
Real relationships with relevant colleges and communities.
Marketing ideas turned into measurable results.

But we’re genuinely curious what your version looks like. Tell us in your application.

THE APPLICATION

Alongside your CV and work samples, answer the questions below. Say what needs saying and stop, there are no length requirements.

We use AI heavily here and expect you to. Use it on this application if it helps. We’ll interview on specifics, so vague AI-assisted answers will be obvious.

1. Your details2. Questions & assignment

Your details

Full name *

Email *

Phone *

Age *

LinkedIn profile URL *

Resume *PDF or DOC, up to 25 MB.

Where did you hear about this role? *

A few more questions

Pick one recent Pocket Fund–adjacent topic (a deal, a business acquisition story, a micro PE idea, an entrepreneurship take). Show us how you’d take that single idea and turn it into: One YouTube piece (format + rough hook) One Instagram piece (format + rough hook) One LinkedIn post (opening line only) One Reddit contribution (which subreddit + your opening line, no self-promo) We’re reading for whether you understand that these are four different languages, not four copies of the same asset. *

Give us three examples of content, anyone’s, not necessarily yours, that sit at very different points on the informal-to-formal spectrum. For each, tell us in one line what makes the register work for that piece. Then tell us one topic you’d only ever put out at the informal end, and one you’d only ever put out at the formal end, and why. *

Design a content pipeline that takes one 90-minute podcast episode shot in our office and turns it into a distributed set of assets across YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Reddit, across multiple profiles, over the following 30 days. Show us: The output list (what gets made, for which platform, on roughly which day) The rough register for each (where on the spectrum) Who does what (assume you + one editor + AI tools) The one output you’d cut first if we lost half the week Diagrams, tables, doc, deck, Notion, whatever’s clearest. We care about the thinking, not the tool. *

Show us the closest thing you’ve built to any of the above, a piece of content, a channel you grew, a pipeline you designed, a shoot you ran, a Reddit comment that landed, a personal brand you’ve moved. Recent and scrappy beats old and polished. If your closest proof-of-work isn’t recent enough, make a small version this week and submit that. *

Write the exact DM you’d send to a founder we’d love as a podcast guest, someone with ~40K LinkedIn followers who’s never done our podcast, doesn’t know us, and gets pitched constantly. Max 100 words. We’re reading for empathy, restraint, and whether you sound like a human. *

Describe a time you were confidently wrong about a piece of content, a channel bet, or a campaign. What did the data say later, and what did you change afterward? We’re not grading the mistake. We’re grading how you found out and what you did next. *

A senior person on the team hates a piece you know will perform. You have 15 minutes to convince them, or drop it. Tell us what you’d actually say. Bonus if you tell us the version where you’re wrong and they’re right, too. *

You’re two months in. Your YouTube channel is flatlining. Your Instagram is growing but not converting to anything Pocket Fund cares about. LinkedIn is your best channel but you personally find it boring. Write the exact Slack message you send Dev on a Monday morning about it, no sugarcoating, no over-selling. *

What’s the most useful negative feedback you’ve ever received on your creative work? Why did it sting, and what’s different about you now because of it? “Nothing comes to mind” is an acceptable answer only if you can tell us honestly what you think that means. *

A Reel you shot is on track to hit 2M views. Sometime around 200K views, you realise the framing subtly misrepresents a fact about one of our portfolio companies. Nothing legally dangerous. Nothing anyone will call out. But you know. What do you do, and walk us through the reasoning, including the part of you that wants to leave it up. *

LinkedIn is objectively the highest-ROI channel for Pocket Fund and you personally find LinkedIn draining. YouTube is where your heart is, and it’s underperforming. It’s Q2 planning. Write the two-line honest version of what you’d say to yourself in your own review, and the one-line professional version of what you’d bring to the team. *

An idea you pitched in a group chat, that got no reaction, shows up three weeks later as someone else’s launched piece. It’s now performing. What, if anything, do you do? Walk us through the reasoning. *

What’s the single most likely reason we reject you? Not the polite reason. The real one. *

Assignment

Read the full brief

Do this alongside the application. It’s not a case study. It’s the actual work.

Task 1: Ship something (this week)

Pick any one:

Option A: The Reel. Shoot and edit one Instagram Reel or one YouTube Short on a Pocket Fund–adjacent topic (a business acquisition idea, a digital-business insight, a micro PE take). Yours, on your account, publicly posted, before you submit. Include the link. If it flops, it flops, we’re evaluating your judgment, execution, and taste, not the algorithm’s mood that day.

Option B: The LinkedIn post. Write and publish one LinkedIn post in a voice appropriate for a founder in the digital business / micro PE space. Publish under your own name, on your own profile. Include the link and the numbers after 24 hours.

Option C: The Reddit thread. Find a live thread on r/Entrepreneur, r/SmallBusiness, r/SideProject, r/SaaS, r/EntrepreneurRideAlong, or similar. Write a genuinely useful, non-promotional top-level comment or reply. Include the link and screenshot of any traction.

Whichever you pick, tell us in 3–5 lines: why this topic, why this platform, why this register on the spectrum.

Task 2: Break something down

Find one piece of content from any brand or creator (not Pocket Fund) that you think is quietly brilliant, the kind of piece most people would scroll past but that’s actually doing something smart underneath.

In one page or less, tell us:

What it is (link)
What most people miss about it
The specific mechanism that makes it work
How you’d steal the mechanism (not the topic) for a Pocket Fund profile

We’re reading for taste and for whether you can reverse-engineer.

Task 3: The 4-week plan

In one page (or a light deck, your call), give us your first four weeks at Pocket Fund. Week by week. What you’d learn, what you’d ship, what you’d measure. Assume you land Monday and nothing exists.

We’re reading for prioritisation and for whether you understand that Week 1 is not “audit everything.”

Task 1: Ship something (Rename the file with the option you’ve chosen) *

Task 2: Break something down *

The 4-week plan *

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