About

The story so far.

Ratnesh Kumar

I'm Ratnesh Kumar, founder and CEO of Yorker Media, a digital publishing company I run from India.

I wasn't supposed to end up here. I grew up in a village in Bihar — no startup scene, no mentors, no computer science degree. Just curiosity and an internet connection. In 2017, while still in school, I started a tech YouTube channel and a blog. For two years they earned nothing. I kept publishing anyway.

In 2018 I started TechYorker, my first real publication. I learned writing by writing daily, web development by breaking my own sites, and search by watching what survived. The site grew — then one mistake wiped out most of its traffic overnight. Rebuilding it, article by article, taught me more than the growth ever did.

Freelancing funded the business in the early years. I wrote for clients and built websites, and put nearly every rupee back into the company. Along the way I lost money in the stock market, lost accounts I depended on, and burned out badly enough to stop working for months. Each of those taught me the same lesson from a different angle: build things you own, and build them to last.

From there Yorker Media took shape — one publication, one channel, one domain at a time. Assets, not gigs. Writing that answers a real question. Brands that outlast the news cycle.

That's still the work today. It compounds slowly, then suddenly.

The record

  • 2017

    Published my first YouTube video from a village in Bihar, while still in school. No plan, no audience, no money.

  • 2018

    Started TechYorker, the first Yorker Media publication. Learned to write by writing every day.

  • 2019

    First income from publishing — two years after starting. The same year, a shortcut with duplicate content cost the site most of its traffic. Deleted it all and rebuilt, article by article.

  • 2020

    Took up freelancing to fund the business. The first order paid five dollars. Within a month it paid more than anything I had earned before.

  • 2021

    Moved out of the village for the first time. Tried the stock market and lost. Went back to what I knew — the web — and began acquiring expired domains and turning them into publications.

  • 2021

    Worked myself into burnout and stopped taking clients for months. Learned that pace matters more than speed.

  • 2023

    Wrote and published every day for 141 days straight, documenting the whole journey in public.

  • Today

    Building Yorker Media for the long term — publications and channels meant to outlast the news cycle.

Operating principles

  • Own the asset. Rented reach disappears.
  • Evergreen over trending.
  • Learn by doing, teach by documenting.
  • The long term over the short. Always.

I write about what I'm learning here, and I read every email — [email protected].