The Salt Inc Turns Three: A Real, Raw Startup Journey

Mumbai-based content and creative services partner The Salt Inc has completed three years in business, and co-founder Neena Dasgupta marked the milestone with a candid, deeply personal reflection on LinkedIn. Her note offers an unfiltered look at what it really takes to build a consumer-first company in an ever-evolving media and brand ecosystem.

Sharing the post on December 10, 2025, Dasgupta described the journey as far from linear. “Some days it feels like thirty years. Some days it feels like we just sent our first invoice… hoping it would get cleared,” she wrote—perfectly capturing the emotional whiplash of entrepreneurship. At the heart of The Salt Inc’s approach, she reaffirmed, lies a demanding belief: conversations matter more than campaigns, and consumer time deserves respect.

While the philosophy resonated with brands, Dasgupta noted that it often made them uncomfortable. Moving beyond surface-level social metrics into deeper consumer insights and storytelling meant challenging familiar marketing playbooks. The process involved building ideas, unbuilding them, pitching boldly—and sometimes discarding decks quietly at 3 a.m.

Her reflection also dismantled the glamourised startup narrative. “More work. Less sleep. Tight cash flows. And very normal laptops,” she wrote, bluntly reminding readers that startups are pressure cookers, not passion projects. She credited partners and colleagues for being the emotional anchors during tough phases, highlighting how belief and resilience keep young companies alive.

A standout milestone in The Salt Inc’s journey has been the creation of MindLink, its proprietary consumer research and insights platform. Born out of frustration with slow and impersonal research systems, MindLink is designed to make consumer understanding faster, more human, and more actionable. Dasgupta affectionately called it “our baby… still growing up,” while acknowledging its early promise in reshaping how brands approach consumer research.

Three years on, The Salt Inc remains independent, curiosity-led, and rooted in meaning over noise. As Dasgupta concluded, “Same hunger. Fewer illusions,” signalling not a slowdown, but a more self-aware and confident phase of growth for the company.