Arav Krishnan came to Mesa School of Business as a metal musician who already wrote, recorded and released his own work. “I wanted to run my music like a business,” he says, explaining why he chose Mesa over music schools such as Berklee. For him, that meant learning how to reach listeners, earn from the work and keep a creative project going.
A music career already underway
When Arav spoke to us, he had been playing guitar for eight and a half years and working as a professional musician for around six. His music career began before Mesa. Rolling Stone India covered his single “To Take The Fall” in 2021 and his album The Fallen System in 2023, which was released through Latvian label Sliptrick Records.
Mesa offered a setting in which he could continue making music while studying how to manage a venture. Arav brought the craft and the released work; he wanted to become more capable at running the career around them.
Taking Vara from releases to the stage
Arav’s modern metal project is Vara. Its five-track release, The Realm of Vara, came out on 26 August 2026 and features Jayant Bhadula, the vocalist of Bloodywood. The release credits Arav on guitar, composition, co-production and lyrics, showing the range of work he contributes to the music.
Performing is another part of that career. Arav names Vara’s first show and festival debut at Outrage Festival in Delhi among the highlights of his first year at Mesa. He also reports playing in three cities during the year. A release and a live show put the same music in different settings; both give him opportunities to build an audience for the project he wants to grow.
A product lesson that became Reign
Alongside his music, Arav explored fitness technology through our Build Your Own Product project. He and Rishi Meesala built HyroFit, an AI workout planner, and pitched it to Sajith Pai at Blume Ventures Villa. Arav recalls feedback that retention was the biggest problem in fitness. That observation helped him move from making a workout plan to asking what would keep a person coming back to move.
He then co-founded Reign, a fitness game previously called CONQR. In his student account, he describes players building territory through movement in the real world and battling one another. He reported 720 users at the time and planned a first paid feature at around 1,100 users. The user count and launch plan reflect the time of that account.
Learning to build around what he creates
Arav describes support from Mesa’s mentors on product decisions, go-to-market strategy, interface design and code reviews. He also identifies learning to build with AI as his biggest personal learning: he moved from a basic understanding to feeling confident enough to make products and tools that improve his own workflow.
Arav wants to keep developing Vara while exploring new technology and business ideas. Reign has given him a place to test a product with users; Vara remains the creative project he wants to grow. Our UG program gives him opportunities to build both, receive feedback and make the next decision for himself.
