Origins of The Podium
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This is where Akshay and I decided on the company structure, our vision (which continues to evolve).
Can you guess where's this? |
Hi!
Lemme tell you a story.
The origin
Akshay (AD) is a senior from college and while in college, our paths never crossed - he is that old. But like any business school of repute (MDI Gurgaon), we have this really active alumni group and that's where AD and I became "friends". We would often chat on inane things, bounce off ideas against each other, and help each other wherever we could.
He and I are as different as chalk and cheese - he runs an HR business, I run a marketing agency; he is a data-first person, I am a lot more gut person; he believes in structures and processes, I am lot more fluid. But we do have a common passion for experimenting, creating new things and top of them all, people! These three shared-interests were enough for us to continue our aimless, goalless chats.
Life was cool till one day while talking one of us (can't recall who) proposed that we ought to start a podcast if we have to accelerate our learning. Both of us agreed and decided that next time I was in Delhi, we'd catch up and record a few conversations. Thankfully, we had access to some entrepreneurs (thanks, Ankit, Dr. Annurag, Nakul, and Tamanna), who readily agreed to be the "guinea pigs" and help us record some test conversations with them.
From there on, one thing led to another and here we are. With The Podium. Our attempt at creating a content destination for lifelong learners!
The Journey
When we started on this, we wanted to do a podcast to learn from the success and failures of other entrepreneurs. A podcast felt like a solid enough reason to knock on the doors and get them to talk to us. And boy, were we right!
Before we started, AD being AD, he wanted to do a research to understand how things work. As luck would have it, he was in Mumbai around the new year (of 2019) and we met people like Amit Varma (probably the biggest podcaster in India) and picked their brains about the business.
This is when AD came up with the idea of doing a deep dive in the business of podcasting and writing it like a news piece. I was reluctant but gave in.
AD wrote a pitch for The Ken and they accepted! With their approval in the tow, we started meeting and talking to podcasters, podcasting companies, radio jockeys, listeners and whoever had any opinion on audio as a medium.
We were surprised by the kindness, warmth and help extended by every person we met. Every "company" we went to however, we were shown the door. Of course, these were exceptions like IVM and Storytel that were very very very open and candid.
Anyhow. To cut long story short.
We wrote this piece on podcasting for The Ken. And in the process, we learned so much about the business, people, dynamics, and more that it was but natural to start a podcasting business! Talk of lucky accidents!
Plus we took around two months to write it and while working on it, we realized podcasting could be a lot more than a mere hobby! We could create a sustainable business that allows us to scratch our itch, deliver great content, and make money along the way. Picture Perfect. No?
Well, almost! Just that podcasting as a business is not viable, not in India. Some flavours (of consulting, training, coaching, production etc do make money but that's not really scalable). Individual podcasters, of course, make enough money to not pick up a full-time job. It is at best, a lifestyle bet! And that is NOT why AD and I jumped in!
Hello, The Founder Thesis
Once we had this thesis about podcasting as a business and the fire in the belly and the ambition to meet more founders and keenness to learn, we set out to meet people!
Almost everyone we approached agreed to speak with us and they gave us all the time that we needed to chat with them. In some cases, we recorded with them multiple times before we got the format and questions right! Again, we were amazed by the openness, acceptance, and kindness of people, most of these were strangers!
Kahaniyon Ka Guccha and India Booked
Along the way, I realized that apart from just the startup founders, I want to talk to marketers as well - after all, marketing is my first love! AD agreed to support and while we were jamming on the marketing podcast (Marketing Connect - another story about it on another day), it dawned on us that between the two of us, we have wide interest areas and we can create podcasts for more than one niches. Just that it would require FAR more effort than we had originally envisaged. And that was ok. AD doesn't shy away from hard work.
We also realised that apart from just the two of us, we can enable others to hold conversations with the kind of people they want to meet! If we could create a platform, we could reach far more people that benefit kar sakte hain from the audio medium!
We got lucky and got Mudit (and Anamika) to agree to do Kahaniyon Ka Guccha (a podcast on stories from some of the literary legends from India). They started by reciting stories by Manto. We met Ayushi and team at Purple Pencil Project* and co-created India Booked. We also seeded Beyond Campus, Podium Spotlight, and a few more. And before we knew it, bit by bit, we were on our way! Except the money ;P
So, what's next?
Each day we get to talk to a host of people - guests, listeners, our team, and more. And each day we realize that we have this big opportunity that we need to capitalize on!
Of course, podcasting is still nascent in India. We suspect it would always be like that - after all video offers a far more immersive experience and with things like AR / VR that have been coming soon for almost a decade, you never know. Plus the COVID the lockdown has spruced up innovations and investments in other immersive mediums. Audio only may get left behind for all we know!
Radio, on the other hand, has been around for decades and will not go anywhere. In fact, for all those 800-900 million people that do not speak English as their first language, radio still is the first port of access for content (although, thanks to Jio, that is changing fast!).
And thus we continue to remain bullish on audio as a medium. Distribution can take shape of podcasts or radio - that's step 2. But we intend to remain an audio-first business.
We just need to find the money. Like all other podcasting companies that have India as their market.
So here we are! And over the next few days, I will share more updates on our thesis, our approach, what we are trying to build and how we plan (and hope) to make money. I invite you to join us on the journey! Welcome aboard!
Should you have any inputs, ideas, questions, thoughts, Akshay and I are all ears :)
That's about it for the time being.
Thanks for reading! More as we go along.
Regards,
SG (on behalf of AD and the entire The Podium team)
Footnotes
Lemme tell you a story.
The origin
Akshay (AD) is a senior from college and while in college, our paths never crossed - he is that old. But like any business school of repute (MDI Gurgaon), we have this really active alumni group and that's where AD and I became "friends". We would often chat on inane things, bounce off ideas against each other, and help each other wherever we could.
He and I are as different as chalk and cheese - he runs an HR business, I run a marketing agency; he is a data-first person, I am a lot more gut person; he believes in structures and processes, I am lot more fluid. But we do have a common passion for experimenting, creating new things and top of them all, people! These three shared-interests were enough for us to continue our aimless, goalless chats.
Life was cool till one day while talking one of us (can't recall who) proposed that we ought to start a podcast if we have to accelerate our learning. Both of us agreed and decided that next time I was in Delhi, we'd catch up and record a few conversations. Thankfully, we had access to some entrepreneurs (thanks, Ankit, Dr. Annurag, Nakul, and Tamanna), who readily agreed to be the "guinea pigs" and help us record some test conversations with them.
From there on, one thing led to another and here we are. With The Podium. Our attempt at creating a content destination for lifelong learners!
The Journey
When we started on this, we wanted to do a podcast to learn from the success and failures of other entrepreneurs. A podcast felt like a solid enough reason to knock on the doors and get them to talk to us. And boy, were we right!
Before we started, AD being AD, he wanted to do a research to understand how things work. As luck would have it, he was in Mumbai around the new year (of 2019) and we met people like Amit Varma (probably the biggest podcaster in India) and picked their brains about the business.
This is when AD came up with the idea of doing a deep dive in the business of podcasting and writing it like a news piece. I was reluctant but gave in.
AD wrote a pitch for The Ken and they accepted! With their approval in the tow, we started meeting and talking to podcasters, podcasting companies, radio jockeys, listeners and whoever had any opinion on audio as a medium.
We were surprised by the kindness, warmth and help extended by every person we met. Every "company" we went to however, we were shown the door. Of course, these were exceptions like IVM and Storytel that were very very very open and candid.
Anyhow. To cut long story short.
We wrote this piece on podcasting for The Ken. And in the process, we learned so much about the business, people, dynamics, and more that it was but natural to start a podcasting business! Talk of lucky accidents!
Plus we took around two months to write it and while working on it, we realized podcasting could be a lot more than a mere hobby! We could create a sustainable business that allows us to scratch our itch, deliver great content, and make money along the way. Picture Perfect. No?
Well, almost! Just that podcasting as a business is not viable, not in India. Some flavours (of consulting, training, coaching, production etc do make money but that's not really scalable). Individual podcasters, of course, make enough money to not pick up a full-time job. It is at best, a lifestyle bet! And that is NOT why AD and I jumped in!
Hello, The Founder Thesis
Once we had this thesis about podcasting as a business and the fire in the belly and the ambition to meet more founders and keenness to learn, we set out to meet people!
Almost everyone we approached agreed to speak with us and they gave us all the time that we needed to chat with them. In some cases, we recorded with them multiple times before we got the format and questions right! Again, we were amazed by the openness, acceptance, and kindness of people, most of these were strangers!
Kahaniyon Ka Guccha and India Booked
Along the way, I realized that apart from just the startup founders, I want to talk to marketers as well - after all, marketing is my first love! AD agreed to support and while we were jamming on the marketing podcast (Marketing Connect - another story about it on another day), it dawned on us that between the two of us, we have wide interest areas and we can create podcasts for more than one niches. Just that it would require FAR more effort than we had originally envisaged. And that was ok. AD doesn't shy away from hard work.
We also realised that apart from just the two of us, we can enable others to hold conversations with the kind of people they want to meet! If we could create a platform, we could reach far more people that benefit kar sakte hain from the audio medium!
We got lucky and got Mudit (and Anamika) to agree to do Kahaniyon Ka Guccha (a podcast on stories from some of the literary legends from India). They started by reciting stories by Manto. We met Ayushi and team at Purple Pencil Project* and co-created India Booked. We also seeded Beyond Campus, Podium Spotlight, and a few more. And before we knew it, bit by bit, we were on our way! Except the money ;P
So, what's next?
Each day we get to talk to a host of people - guests, listeners, our team, and more. And each day we realize that we have this big opportunity that we need to capitalize on!
Of course, podcasting is still nascent in India. We suspect it would always be like that - after all video offers a far more immersive experience and with things like AR / VR that have been coming soon for almost a decade, you never know. Plus the COVID the lockdown has spruced up innovations and investments in other immersive mediums. Audio only may get left behind for all we know!
Radio, on the other hand, has been around for decades and will not go anywhere. In fact, for all those 800-900 million people that do not speak English as their first language, radio still is the first port of access for content (although, thanks to Jio, that is changing fast!).
And thus we continue to remain bullish on audio as a medium. Distribution can take shape of podcasts or radio - that's step 2. But we intend to remain an audio-first business.
We just need to find the money. Like all other podcasting companies that have India as their market.
So here we are! And over the next few days, I will share more updates on our thesis, our approach, what we are trying to build and how we plan (and hope) to make money. I invite you to join us on the journey! Welcome aboard!
Should you have any inputs, ideas, questions, thoughts, Akshay and I are all ears :)
That's about it for the time being.
Thanks for reading! More as we go along.
Regards,
SG (on behalf of AD and the entire The Podium team)
Footnotes
* - SG is an investor in Purple Pencil Project in his personal capacity.
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