We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Neha Goyal. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Neha below.

Neha, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

I have always believed that our true mission in life is to be happy and spread happiness. I hope to be remembered as someone who brought smiles to everyone’s face, be it with her jokes, her stories or just by listening to others. I also hope to be remembers for being a Jack of all trades and Master of some! I have spent quite a lot of time delving into different interests of mine and I hope it motivates others to keep trying new things, pursue their interests and also reassure them that it is okay to have multiple interests and different facets to your life.

Neha, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am the co-founder of Masala Comedy Club, an Indian Comedy Club located in Bay area. I am also a stand up comic who performs here.
I grew up in India and completed my engineering from one of the top tier engineering colleges. Moved to US for doing my Masters in Engineering at University of Southern California. Growing up, I loved to be on stage and got many opportunities to act and dance through school and college. I was the Dramatics Secretary and was honored in our Senior year for my contribution towards the club. When I came to LA for grad school, I joined an Indian Improv group at USC. I had no idea about this artform, even though I had watched many episodes of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” growing up. I took a few workshops on Improv and also audited an Acting 101 course besides my engineering courses.
Like all roads for engineers lead to the bay area, I came here for my first job after graduating. Interestingly enough, I had a conversation with my manager about my interests other than coding and he suggested I watch Seinfeld. Twenty years on, I still watch Seinfeld episodes at least a couple of times a week. Meanwhile, I found an Indian theater group and did quite a few plays, Noises Off, Odd Couple, to name a few. Then a failed audition and free time led to creation of Indian Improv group which eventually led to the creation of Masala Comedy Club here in bay area. We have grown tremendously in last 6 years, With 6000 audience each year and more than 25 shows each year, the love and response has been overwhelming.

How’d you meet your business partner?

We both were paired together for an Improv audition. I was trained and kept saying “Yes, and” where as his response was simple “No, but”. After both of us failed, he asked me to conduct an Improv workshop. From Imrpov to Stand up and from an audition to creating the club has a been a long roller coaster journey.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Dedicated folks in the group to manage social media. Their focus is solely social media. Or you could hire folks for social media nanagement.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://masalacomedyclub.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nehagoyal19/

Image Credits

Saurabh Malviya