CAT 2023: YouTube, Instagram food blogger with over 7 lakh followers scores 99.14%

NEW DELHI: Pulkit Daga, 24, is a food vlogger with nearly seven lakh subscribers combined on YouTube and Instagram. On December 21, when Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow announced the Common Admission Test (CAT 2023) results, Daga became one of the top scorers in the country with a result in the 99.14 percentile.

A Class 12 commerce student who went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in management studies (BMS) from Delhi University, Daga always had plans to do an MBA. How his love for food snowballed into food vlogging and content creation is what he struggles to explain. Covid-19 and the resultant lockdown certainly played a part.

“I used to go out a lot and used to take a lot of pictures for Snapchat stories. Then I got really into it and started posting them, particularly on Instagram. A lot of people liked it and it grew very well. On Instagram, initially, I used to cover cafes and restaurants, but during the lockdown, I started doing recipes with my mother because I couldn’t go out. We made a dessert recipe for caramel custard pudding. It got almost 3 lakh views,which was huge at the time because I had only about 10,000 followers. That was the breakthrough video for me,” he said.

IIM Lucknow declared the CAT 2023 result on Thursday, November 21. Around 2.88 lakh candidates wrote the exam for admission to premier business schools on November 26. As many as 14 of them, all men, scored in the 100 percentile.

CAT exam, work, food vlogging

Daga, who went by the handle “Worthytale”, started posting more regularly on Instagram. He eventually started a YouTube channel in May, 2020. It was an instant hit. He amassed 1 lakh subscribers within the first 12 months.

However, his pursuit of an MBA degree was less smooth. He attempted the CAT exam first in 2019 but failed to get into an institution of his choice. Following this, he opted for a job in the financial services industry in November 2020. All the while, he was juggling with work on his growing content creation platforms. He initially worked remotely from Delhi but later, shifted to Mumbai.

IIM CAT Result 2023: Pulkit Daga in a restaurant for a video. He scored 99.14. (Image: Pulkit Daga)

“It was really tricky. In Delhi, I was working remotely and so, was able to manage. I’d go out on the weekends and edit at night. When I moved to Mumbai, I had to go to the office and so, managing the hours was really difficult. In Mumbai, I used to do mostly commercial stuff only because I had to plan shoots for the weekends. I couldn’t go out on weekdays at all. Mumbai was a little tricky phase for me to be that consistent,” explained Daga.

Daga would shoot videos on the weekends and edit during weeknights. His office work began at 9 am and continued till late at night; editing videos came after that. According to Daga, it was the online community he built that kept him going during those days.

“I was really passionate about this from the beginning itself. I think the beginning is the most difficult part. Eventually, people started appreciating, strangers reached out, and a couple of friends from coaching institutes reached out to me afterwards, messaged me saying I was doing well,etc. That sort of kept me going,” said Daga.

CAT 2023 without coaching

In May 2023, he quit his job to pursue content creation full-time. From June, he started preparing for CAT 2023.

“It was self preparation. I would typically wake up at 9 am, hit the gym, freshen up and get to study by 10 am. Around 11, I would shoot a recipe [video]; that takes around two hours. Then, I rested a bit, studying again from 4 pm to 7 pm. After dinner, I used to study till midnight and edit the video before going to bed,” said Daga.

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Having scored 99.14%, Daga hopes to get into either IIM Ahmedabad or Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) Delhi. He also hopes to get into the food business eventually.

“It is not in motion but I eventually want to start a business in food, not necessarily a cafe or a restaurant, but I do want to enter the food space. Maybe a D2C brand or even a cafe. I really want to start a cafe but it’s a very competitive market,” said Daga.