The INDUStry Show with Adris Chakraborty

Hey everyone. Welcome to the industry show. I'm your host, Nitin Bajaj and joining me today is Adrish Chakraborty. Adrish, welcome on the show.

Thank you so much, Nitin. And thank you very much for inviting me in the show. I feel privileged and honored.

Pleasure is all ours. So let's get started with who is Adrish?

Hi. Just to introduce myself, I'm Adrish Chakraborty. As Nitin mentioned, I'm an entrepreneur, an immigrant. I live in New York and I'm a parent. I have two children. I came to this country 20 years back and I actually landed up into entrepreneurship not by choice but by default. And it's been a great journey. Initially there were some pain, but you know, some way or the other I got survived like most of the entrepreneurs who have actually landed here with nothing and then made their fortune and made so great for themselves and also created, contributed so much to the economy. I'm not like them but you know, whatever small way I could contribute, you know, try to, try to build it up like that. But yes, you know, I feel privileged, I feel blessed. You know, the journey initially was not that, you know, interesting, but slowly it started getting interesting and I enjoy it to the fullest extent.

Well, Adrish, you are very humble and I know you've achieved a lot despite the initial challenges you faced. So thanks for sharing that with humility. Let's talk about as we get to know you. Tell us about your new venture. What is the like app and why are you so excited with this new venture of yours?

You know, my first venture was setting up an advertising business in a very focused, in a very niche area which is targeting multicultural ethnic audience and that I co founded along with my wife and that actually created the foundation for me to get into the next venture. So basically what I have been toying for some time is that based on my experience in media and advertising, I have been following the way the distribution of content is evolving over time and I feel convinced that user generated content platforms are going to be, you know, get more and more popular and you know, it would be a part of a daily habit of our media consumption habits actually for people. And that's one of the reasons I, you know, wanted to get into that space because it was a natural continuation of my interest in the media business and advertising business which I, you know, which I started and we continued running it and it evolved in, in a very interesting way. So what I realized is that, you know, the content sharing business, this platforms, you know, day to day they don't create more opportunities for the creators to monetize and they don't, don't also recognize the time and the viewers spend on watching those content. Because. I would say that leveraging the viewership, these platforms actually monetize for themselves. But I feel that there is a need and the experience can be much more better. If we can create an ecosystem whereby we can bring more opportunities for creators to monetize and also be able to recognize the viewers time they spend while watching content. It actually can create more audience eyeballs and it can actually drive advertising much more, much bigger way. That's basically why I wanted to get into this space and I truly believe that this space is going to evolve much more and people today or tomorrow are going to ask themselves that with so many social platforms and content sharing platforms around us, they would like to question that. Which place should I spend time with and why do I spend time, you know, and what do I get in spending time? Yes, I keep watching good content and every platform is trying to lure me with better content. But you know, how my time is getting rewarded, how my time gets recognized. And I think that that's something would definitely trigger people's mind today or tomorrow. And I think that it could be a very humble contribution from my end to be able to create that trigger and create that awareness in people's mind. And I feel that if I'm able to create the momentum, you know, that's basically going to make, you know, situation this entire industry evolve in a different way. And I would feel myself that I've been able to contribute to a very limited extent and I've been able to touch a lot of people's life.

Again, that humility, you know, I'm. I'm curious to ask you. This is something where the industry is moving towards. Just like in the past, you've been an early mover, you've understood where the trends are going to be and you've been able to go in and create something that has been able to leverage the upcoming trends. What's the biggest challenge you're facing as a business? As you're looking at rolling this out and, and getting it in the hands of more audiences and viewers, what's the number one challenge for you?

It's basically the ability to scale up while bootstrapping this venture. In order to be able to scale up this venture, we need to create a more bigger awareness. We need to reach out to people in a mass scale. And even before you are reaching people in a mass scale, you can Create a very micro network also. But given the noise around you is so much and the clutter is so much today, it is not how startups could actually create their micro network. They could have done 15, 20 years back today. Every day new startups are coming up. Every day new ideas are coming into place. The content business is evolving rapidly. Every day people's attention span has gone down drastically. And in that kind of a clutter, for you to be able to create a bigger noise and create a reach, you need a lot of, I would say, financial bandwidth. You need the right kind of team, right kind of people. Again, that's possible when you have a larger financial chest to be able to figure out whom you can get on board and experiment with better people. So I think that the challenge is how to take this venture to the next level. When you are in a bootstrapped situation and to find somebody who would believe in what you are doing and who would be ready to back you up, that's the biggest challenge to find. It's basically to find a pin from the haystack.

True. But then what I like about this is you have you, the app has you. Who has done this before and who's gone into a newer domain and found the right fit, found the right people, found the right team to grow the business and take it to multiple countries and impact more multiple lives, millions of lives. So I feel pretty good about your position as far as that challenge is concerned. Yes, you need to get the right kind of strategic investors. It's not about getting the money, it's getting the right people on board that'll help you realize the vision you have for this. Now, on the flip side of challenges come opportunities. What's the one most exciting opportunity that you're targeting?

I think that the most exciting opportunity is basically creating that awareness among creators that this is a place where they can actually maximize their earnings for showcasing their content, which is a very big thing. And if we are able to touch the, that if we create some touch point on that front, you know, it would be basically touching many, many millions of creators lives. You know, today everyone wants to showcase, if you see the social media platforms, every, every individual want to actually showcase their creativity in some way or the form they try to, you know, in the social platforms. And if we can create an ecosystem where some way or the other, these creators can feel recognized and they feel that, yes, you know, this is a place which can actually not only allow me to showcase my creation, but also get, get the creation recognized by able to monetize for me, you know, I think that's the biggest opportunity for us because in that way more and more people would love to join this platform and we can become one of the major players in this space. And more than that, when the viewers, for them, when they are spending time to watch the content, they would find this as a very unique opportunity, unique ecosystem to be able to spend more and more time. And I think that the monetary opportunity and the opportunity to touch millions of creators life, you know, is going to be, you know, would open up, would unlock with this venture if it can take off.

So true. And you know, as we talk about opportunities and looking forward, I want to pause here and take a look back in time and ask you to share one success story that you're really proud of. And that may have also exceeded your own expectations.

You know, that was basically my transition from being an employee and coming here in a country when I had no, I didn't know anyone. And then from there transforming to an entrepreneur is something which I feel that has changed my entire, I would say destiny and the, the fact that today I have been able to do that successfully, you know, I would not take the credit to myself or, you know, I would take the credit to my partner. And I think I thank God for creating that opportunity. For me to be able to execute this successfully. That's definitely. I feel an accomplishment because from nothing we are able to build a business and today we run a $10 million revenue, you know, which, which I feel is something very, I feel accomplished to that. But yes, that doesn't take away my drive for creating my new venture. But I feel that I, I was fortunate and I, I really feel great.

About it again, very humble, very down to earth. I think you should, of course your wife and your partner should get the credit. So should you tell us about a point in time when things did not work out as you had expected and it became a lesson learned.

You know, there was a time when I started my technology, I felt that we need to get into the technology space based on the advertising business, what we are doing. And I came up with an idea and that's when I dived into the product development, you know, I would say aspect of this business. But it so happened that, you know, after two years of working hard and trying to build a product, you know, I had to completely change the track and I had to, I figured it out that what we did for these two years, it's not going to take off, you know. You know, so we had to change our plan. We had to completely dismantle what we actually did, unlearn, and then start again, you know, to learn. But it was a great learning for me. And, you know, I figured out that we need to be much more meticulous. We need to be much more focused in terms of figuring out what, how the market is moving and basically dismantling something you have done for two years. And again, starting from scratch is a painful exercise, you know, and. And that was a time in the middle of my entrepreneurship. You know, things were going fine, and I was pretty confident that it's going to work. And the confidence really came to the lowest point. But. But I didn't want to stop myself. I always felt motivated. I always felt that something good is going to happen. That's why this is. I need to learn from this. And there is always a positive side for even when things don't go in the right direction. And that really was a very low point for me.

I think I want to acknowledge two things here. One, the transparency. It's not easy to share our failures or things that don't work out. So I really appreciate you being so transparent about it. And the other thing I really want to acknowledge is the effort that goes into doing something for a couple years and then recognizing that it's not working, and then picking up all of our efforts and continuing to move forward in a different direction. That's the true entrepreneurial mindset. It's not about how many times we fall, but how many times we get up. And once you have mastered that cycle, you can never fail as an entrepreneur because you keep getting up and you keep finding new ways to be successful. So really, kudos to you on having that positive mindset and being able to steer the ship in the right direction time and again. This also brings us to my favorite part of the show, which we call the one line life lessons. We would love to hear some of your life lessons, so please go ahead and share a few nuggets of wisdom with us.

See, what I realized in, in my journey is that attitude is something which can actually make or break your success. You know, attitude is something which actually can make and break relationships. In a journey, in an entrepreneurship journey, it's very important that every small, small component actually add up to your success, which sometimes you ignore and you don't realize. But, but, but it actually has lot of implications. Every action you do, whether it in terms of building relationships with your team members, in terms of taking the right decision, in terms of managing relationships with your peers, with your vendors, with your partners, you don't know where the help is going to come from. So it's very important that you have the right attitude and you actually impart a very positive attitude with everyone you try to work with. And that can actually help you so much going forward that you won't be able to anticipate that unless and until you actually realize that experience. So I think that, you know, doesn't matter where you are, you know, it doesn't take time for you to, you know, falter and things can go haywire without you even knowing about it. And where it can come from, you have no idea. So that's, that's something you learn in an entrepreneurship journey, you know, because you need to look at each and every corner of a business when you are into. So it's very important that you have the right attitude and you should actually get people on board with the right attitude. You know, they can actually change the entire ecosystem which you are building. So I, to me, it doesn't matter how smart you are, how intelligent you are. Yes, you need to be smart. You need to be intelligent. But the first, the most important thing which you need to have is the right attitude. You know that you, you, you, you should not, you should not have the attitude to say no as an entrepreneur. I don't, I feel that I can't say no to anything. You know, I, I have to figure out a way how I can do it. The crisis is going to come, Cris. I may not know what crisis might come, but I cannot just, you know, just put my hands up and say to myself that I can't do that.

So true. Extremely important. Madresh, thank you for sharing your story, your journey, and your life lessons with us. We really appreciate it and we also wish you continued success with the like app and we would love to bring you on and share more of your successes and your continued journey. Thank you again for being with us and thanks again for sharing those stories and lessons. Really appreciate it.

Deeply appreciate. Nitin, Pleasure is all mine and thank you very much for your time and inviting me for this show again. Once again, thanks.