How I Built a Brand Without a Plan
Proof that the best strategy is living your life authentically and intentionally.
Oct 24, 2025
I never had a business plan, or a real desire to build a brand for myself, I just wanted to live life so fully, authentically and intentionally that my life became a brand as a result.
In the last four years, I’ve travelled to over twenty countries and lived in four. I started a social media agency when I was 22, which allowed me to build brands whilst travelling the world. I’ve co-founded brands, founded brands. I’ve worked from ski lifts in Japan, airport lounges, yachts in the Caribbean, and chalets in the Alps. I even spent four months in Croatia partying on yachts for a living. It sounds ridiculous even saying that out loud. And if you’d told me a few years earlier that this would be my life, I’d have thought you were completely insane.
And I know how it looks. Chaotic. But this is actually what living hedonistically but tastefully, spontaneously but intentionally can look like. It’s living fully without losing yourself. Because every move has been deliberate, and every single one has led me to building Trendie.
My Trendie Life
In 2021, I left my stable job in London to be a chalet girl. And it is still quite possibly, the best thing I ever did.
When I started backing myself, that’s when I really started to live in my own life. I began saying yes, not because I had a plan, but because I trusted myself to figure it out, to stay true to what felt authentic. This explains why even to this day, I’ll book one-way tickets to places.
It was the first time I stopped trying to control my life and actually started living it.
I realised the worst thing that could happen, or maybe the best, was that I’d learn something. From the people I met, the places I went, the food I tried, the experiences I’d never have otherwise.
It made me feel rich without actually having to be rich.
It taught me that luxury isn’t just about money, it’s about feeling deeply alive and connected to what you’re doing. Which also made me think differently about success, but that’s for another essay.
Of course, I’ve had some shockers along the way. But I’ve also got some pretty good stories. My life became richer because I was spending more time doing than overthinking. And when things felt off, I knew how to realign myself because I’d learned what off actually felt like.
At first, it felt like I was just riding a wave. Getting flown to Japan to go skiing, to South Africa to go on safari, to Antigua to sail the BVI’s. I was living the dream, and a life I didn’t want to escape from. I kept thinking, surely at some point, I’ll come down. But somehow I kept going.
Because somewhere along the way, I found a rhythm. I wasn’t just living a life I didn’t want to escape from, I was also building it, so I didn’t have to. I found a way to enjoy the moment I was in whilst creating the next one. I was wide awake. I wasn’t working hard to maybe play hard later. I was working and playing, living and building at the same time.
That’s when it clicked. My life wasn’t just happening. It was becoming proof that freedom and ambition, pleasure and progress, can all coexist, as long as you live authentically enough to know what actually matters.
But how do you explain that in-between?
For a long time, I really couldn’t. People would ask, “So, you’re an influencer?” or “What do you actually do for work?” And honestly, I didn’t blame them. I didn’t know how to explain it either. I was living in a way that didn’t fit into the usual boxes, and I didn’t have the language for it.
Modern living isn’t made for people who think deeply or move differently. It rewards reaction, not reflection. Fast, not intentional. What’s Trendy, not what’s Trendie. And for someone like me, someone whose brain has always worked in layers, that created friction. My brain doesn’t operate in default. It can’t just go with the flow, it needs to understand it.
For a long time, that depth showed up as overthinking. But when I studied International Media and Communications with Spanish at university, something clicked. For the first time, my way of thinking made sense. It gave structure to how my mind already worked, curious, analytical, always searching for meaning. I learned how people communicate, what shapes our choices, and how culture influences what we chase. It gave me language and the tools for the way I already saw the world, and permission to trust that how I saw things was valid and authentically mine.
And when I applied my mind that way, it worked. I graduated with a first and an academic achievement award, which wasn’t about being the best, it was about being aligned. It showed me that when you use your brain in the right way, you’re rewarded in the right ways. For me, that reward was clarity.
That’s when everything started to click. I stopped seeing my depth as something to manage and started using it as a tool. I began noticing patterns, energy, and meaning in everything. That’s where my creativity and strategy come from, and that’s how I’ve helped to build global brands today.Looking back, I didn’t realise it then, but I was already doing what would become Trendie, living my life while trying to make sense of it. Every experience felt like research, real, messy, authentic research.
So when I started living this way, it wasn’t just lifestyle, it was instinctively strategy.
I needed language for that. Not just for me, but for anyone who wants to enjoy life without losing their ambition. In an ideal world, I’d love to just say, “I’m living the Trendie life,” and people would instantly get it, maybe even say, “Oh yes, I’ve got a friend doing that too.” But we’re not quite there yet.
Trendie grew out of that process, turning the way I was living into something intentional, something that could be built on and shared. Culture just hasn’t caught up yet because most of us are too caught up in trends instead of starting our own. We don’t have “time” to step back and think about what we actually want and need.
And that’s why Tasteful Hedonism matters. It’s not about rejecting the modern world. It’s about learning how to live in it fully, authentically, intentionally, and on your own terms. It’s moving with culture in a way that works for you.
I didn’t set out to build a brand. I just started living the way I wanted, authentically, and somewhere along the way, that life became the brand.
Remember, in a world that will pull you away from living fully, in your own life… stay Trendie ;)
India x
