Kajol Bheda is the Mumbai-born entrepreneur behind Scribbld, an independent marketing agency with offices in India and the UAE. She started Scribbld in 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic, and has since built it into a 50-member team that has worked with leading brands like Amazon Prime and Nykaa.
Her journey began after studying media production in the UK, where she explored different creative roles including fashion styling and marketing internships. Early stints with Love Gen, Harrods, and a leading OTT platform gave her valuable experience in social media, consumer engagement, and content strategy. When the pandemic disrupted her career path, she turned the challenge into an opportunity and launched Scribbld as a bootstrapped venture built on collaboration and trust.
What sets her apart is her strategy-first approach and inclusive leadership style. Under her guidance, Scribbld has grown into a predominantly female team, reflecting her commitment to diversity and breaking barriers in a male-dominated industry. With the agency’s recent expansion into the UAE, she is focussed on scaling globally while staying true to her vision of empowering teams, crafting innovative strategies, and delivering results that matter.
Medianews4u.com caught up with Kajol Bheda founder Scribbld
Q. What was the gap in the marketing landscape that led to the creation of Scribbld?
When Scribbld was founded in 2020, most agencies were either too process heavy or too trend light. Brands wanted partners who could move fast without losing strategic depth. That gap – agility with accountability – was clear. Scribbld was created to blend culture with commerce: to capture moments that trend today while delivering results that compound tomorrow.
We realised that brands don’t just want campaigns, they want cultural relevance tied to measurable ROI. That philosophy became the foundation of Scribbld and still defines how we operate across India and the UAE.
Q. It was launched in 2020 right in the middle of the pandemic. What were the learnings from that which helped the company even today?
The biggest learning was resilience. Starting in the pandemic meant we had to win trust remotely, build processes virtually, and prove value every single day.
It taught us to operate lean, listen harder, and create systems where creativity wasn’t tied to a physical space. Those instincts remain – agility, adaptability, and clarity of communication. Even today, when we run cross border teams between India and the UAE, the discipline and grit of 2020 keep us sharp. We don’t wait for stability, we create it.
Q. Scribbld is a bootstrapped venture built on collaboration and trust. Is a single minded focus and discipline key in succeeding without taking external funds?
Absolutely. Bootstrapping requires more than discipline – it requires conviction in your culture. We’ve grown Scribbld without external capital, profitable from day one. That’s not just numbers, it’s proof that focus scales. Every rupee we spend has to create value.
Bootstrapping forces you to be creative in business models too – for example, we’re now in conversations with select brands to take equity in exchange for services. That shifts us from being a vendor to a long term growth partner.
Q. The company is predominantly female. How challenging has it been to break barriers in a male dominated industry?
The challenge wasn’t just being female, it was being young and female in an industry dominated by legacy agencies and male leadership. The stereotype was that you needed external funding, decades of experience, or a network to be taken seriously.
We broke that. Today over 60% of Scribbld’s leadership is female, across strategy, BD, and creative. More importantly, we’ve built an environment where culture beats hierarchy – talent thrives on merit, not gender. The result is that Scribbld doesn’t just break barriers, we reset them.
Q. Companies today expect marketing to drive an actual ROI. Is Scribbld’s business model shifting towards tying remuneration to clients’ business outcomes?
Yes, and in many ways we’re ahead of that shift. Scribbld’s model has always been rooted in outcomes – not just likes or shares, but sales, retention, and profitability.
We’re building frameworks where remuneration is tied to performance markers, from CAC reduction to community growth. The equity for services conversations are a natural extension of this: we’re so confident in our ability to create growth that we’re willing to share in the upside. That’s the future of agencies – moving from service providers to vested growth partners.
Q. Could you offer examples of work done with brands like Amazon Prime and Nykaa which are fast paced organisations and therefore often work on very tight deadlines?
Amazon Prime’s My Fault London campaign in India was a perfect example – we turned around highly engaging, social native content in record time to capture the OTT audience wave. With Nykaa Beauty, we helped create NBIB, a fragrance campaign that positioned perfume as an everyday indulgence and resonated strongly with Gen Z and millennial audiences.
Both brands operate at breakneck speed, and our ability to combine strategy with agility allowed us to deliver not just on time, but ahead of cultural moments.
Q. Scribbld’s philosophy is ‘You ask us for one, you’ll always receive two’. How has this helped it build long term relationships?
That philosophy is not about over delivery, it’s about foresight. When a client asks for one route, we deliver the route and the alternative that challenges it. It shows clients that we’re invested beyond the brief. Over time, this builds trust – Scribbld isn’t just executing, we’re thinking on behalf of the brand.
That consistency has led to long term relationships where clients see us less as an agency and more as an extension of their leadership team.
Q. How is the festive season looking like for Scribbld?
It’s one of the busiest seasons we’ve ever had – multiple campaigns launching simultaneously across India and the UAE. From FMCG to luxury, almost every client wants to make a festive splash. The pace is hectic, but it’s also incredibly exciting.
Festive campaigns are where culture, creativity, and commerce collide – and for Scribbld, they’re an opportunity to show how strategy and speed can coexist. We’re running flat out, but that’s the adrenaline that agencies live for.
Q. How is AI being leveraged by the agency to quicken the work process through automation and offer better work through things like ChatGPT? Is it a priority for the agency that all employees be fluent in AI?
AI isn’t a side tool at Scribbld – it’s a core capability. We leverage AI for everything from content ideation and copy refinement to campaign simulations and consumer insighting. We have a list of 35 AI tools that have helped us cut turnaround time by 40% on certain deliverables while raising quality benchmarks.
Every employee is trained to use AI, not as a crutch, but as an amplifier of creativity. For us, AI fluency is as essential as Excel was in the 2000s – you simply can’t build a future ready agency without it.
Q. The creative agency landscape is seeing consolidation. Is this being driven by Martech?
Yes, Martech is a key driver. As data, automation, and personalisation demand rise, agencies without a tech backbone struggle to stay relevant. Larger networks are consolidating to pool resources, but independents like us have an edge – we’re agile, we can adopt tech faster, and we can plug into Martech ecosystems without bureaucracy.
AI has levelled the field even further, allowing independents to compete with scale players. The real differentiator isn’t size, it’s how smartly you integrate tech into storytelling.
Q. Is this situation making things difficult for independent agencies like Scribbld and would the agency at some point be open to a JV or an acquisition?
I see it as an opportunity, not a threat. Consolidation validates that the market is hungry for integrated solutions. Independent agencies like Scribbld are proving that you don’t need massive networks to deliver impact – you need agility, creativity, and the right use of technology. As for JVs or acquisitions, we’re very open to the right partnership.
If it helps us scale faster, enter new geographies, or co build IPs, we would absolutely explore it. The goal is not independence for the sake of it, but growth with the right values.
Q. Could you talk about the expansion plans into the U.A.E.?
The UAE expansion is both a market entry and a statement of intent. We recognised the demand for agencies that understand both global standards and local culture.
Scribbld is building exactly that – delivering India level agility with a deep understanding of Middle Eastern nuances. The UAE is also a launchpad to the wider GCC, and our long term vision is to make Scribbld the go to creative partner for brands scaling across Asia and the Middle East. For us, this expansion is not just geography, it’s the beginning of Scribbld as a global from India story.
