My mission is to create magic between a business and its customers.
That line has been on my LinkedIn since before I wrote a line of code. It still describes the job — the tools just got more technical.
I lead technology, CRM and catalogue at Mokobara, a design-led travel brand in Bengaluru. I joined in 2022 to build its CRM. The remit widened into the storefront, payments, omnichannel commerce, a custom POS, a physical tracker, and a growing set of internal tools I build myself.
Before Mokobara I spent five years on GAP in India — retail marketing, then launching and running its loyalty programme — and led CRM for Sephora India. Before that, Max Fashion. Before that, a commerce degree in Odisha and business school in Bengaluru.
I am not a traditional software engineer. I am someone who understands customers and business well enough to know exactly what the software should do, and who now builds it — with Claude Code as a daily partner — instead of waiting.
“Every time we optimise our site based on customer behaviour, conversion rates go up. That's the beauty of Shopify — we can do it all in-house, fast.”
Senior Manager, Growth — Mokobara · Shopify case study on Mokobara“If you want to treat every customer differently and offer a premium journey, Shopify's Plus plan makes that possible at speed.”
Senior Manager, Growth — Mokobara · Shopify case study on Mokobara“As a brand, we've always focused on building great customer experience — from product to retail to post-purchase.”
Manager II – CRM — Mokobara · Epsilon case study on Mokobara
- PGPM, International BusinessNational School of Business, Bangalore · 2013 – 2015
- MBA, MarketingUniversity of Mysore · 2013 – 2015
- B.Com, AccountingGovernment Autonomous College, Bhawanipatna · 2010 – 2013
Nikhil, for short.
Nikhil is the conversational version of Nikhilendra Pratap Singh Deo. He is quiet in rooms and specific in writing, would rather show a working prototype than a deck, and treats a customer complaint as a bug report. Bengaluru since 2013.
- CityBengaluru
Arrived for business school in 2013 and stayed. Still the city where he first saw a Mokobara bag, at the airport, before he worked there.
- Long drivesRoad trips, documented
Long car trips are the hobby. Documenting them became an app — Falcon Trip — with GPS routes, fuel stops, a lifetime map and a Wrapped-style story at the end.
- GadgetsEvery platform, on purpose
Runs a Mac, an Android phone and an iPhone, and builds for all three. Partly curiosity, partly because the team does too.
- AIBuild partner
Uses Claude Code the way a previous generation used Stack Overflow, except it ships. Most of the tools on this site were written in that loop.
- MoviesTerminator lore
Deep enough that a Shopify app's placeholder URL became a sarcastic SKYNET terminal with T-1000 trivia. It is still live.
- Customer experienceEven as a customer
Notices when service breaks and says so. The same instinct, pointed inward, is why the post-purchase experience gets as much attention as the checkout.
- Fan firstMokobara, before the job
Posted about the Diljit Dosanjh campaign "as a fan and not as someone who works at Mokobara". Still the best qualification for the job.
- LanguagesEnglish · Hindi
Plus TypeScript, Kotlin, Swift and Liquid, at varying levels of fluency.
Six rules, learned by shipping.
Not quotes. Working principles — the ones that decide what gets built and what does not.
- P-01
Build before buy
When an off-the-shelf tool almost solves the problem, the gap is the problem. Understand it properly, then build exactly what is needed — usually smaller and faster than the thing you would have bought.
- P-02
Technology starts with the customer
Every system worth building traces back to a customer moment: a faster page, a more relevant message, a bag that can be found. If it does not change an experience, it is overhead.
- P-03
Systems over features
A feature solves today's ticket. A system solves the category of tickets. Think in flows, data and interfaces, and the features fall out of it.
- P-04
Automate the repetitive
If a person does the same thing on the same schedule, it is a cron job waiting to happen. Software and AI should absorb the boring so people can do the judgement.
- P-05
Data should do something
A dashboard nobody acts on is decoration. Data earns its place when it drives a decision, triggers an action, or shapes an experience — preferably without a human in the loop.
- P-06
Ship, then sharpen
Version 1 on a phone this week beats a perfect spec next quarter. Real usage is the only reliable roadmap.