Dhruv Rastogi
Brand, Content & Growth | Gully Labs
2d ago
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Partnerships Associate@Gully Labs
the most valuable sneakers ever made weren't about foam or silhouette; they carried a story; a collaboration, a moment, a world someone wanted to belong to. travis scott, off-white, jordans; the shoe was the artifact; the story was the product
that's the part of sneaker culture india has barely begun to tell
we're one of the youngest, most culturally dense countries on earth, and our icons are just sitting there. air india. parle-g. hajmola. a whole new generation of musicians the country is finally nurturing. sports we've never built a brand story around; surfing off kovalam, paragliding over bir, fighters nobody's mythologised yet
every one of those is a universe. and almost none have been turned into something you can wear
and underneath it all, a reason this matters more than market share.
we started with a community; the shoes were just how we made it something you could wear. a belief you could put on your feet. brands forget this as they grow. we're choosing not to. every story we chase from here is how we honour why we started in the first place
so this is what i'm building toward. for the next 6 to 12 months, partnerships is my whole focus at gully labs; finding the icons, telling the stories, putting gully into the worlds it should already exist in
and "partnership" here means whatever the story needs it to mean.
sometimes it's content made together. sometimes a show/workshop hosted inside our stores. sometimes a sneaker built shoulder to shoulder. sometimes a single collectible made for one person, that no one else will ever own.
there's no template. the only boundary is how far your imagination is willing to go.
and if the word "partnerships" sounds intimidating; it isn't. someone reaches out, or we do, with real intent and real respect. we start small; a low-stakes first date to feel out the fit. where we both find something real, we double down. where we don't, no harm done. work with fewer people, do more things, go deep instead of wide
nice people to build with are the rarest thing in this business.
so the requirement is short: be proactive, stay culturally tapped in, and mean what you do
that's who i'm looking for. one person, 0 to 1 years in, to build this from zero with me; someone who looks at a brand and instantly imagines the ten collabs it hasn't done yet
you don't need experience. you need this:
taste. you consume culture obsessively; music, sport, nostalgia, the corners of the internet most people miss
a point of view. you walk in with collabs we should already be doing
range. you can win over a heritage house with 200 years of legacy and a 22-year-old rapper in the same afternoon
sell. yourself, an idea, a vision. the hardest part is to position well
follow-through. partnerships die in the gaps. you don't leave gaps
if you read this far and felt something; that's the signal. dm me.
linkedin works, ig works (im @rxstogi) or you can mail me at: dhruv@gullylabs.com
growth
junior
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