Ep 13 - Women redefining the Industry. ft. Shaveta Bhardwaj

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of The Do Big Podcast. And today we have with us a lady who has

[00:00:17] marriage research with technology and I'm super excited given that I come from the world

[00:00:22] of research to have this conversation with her. We have with us with Abhardh Vaj, co-founder

[00:00:28] and CEO, Sprint Studio AI. And Shweta, welcome to this show. It's an absolute pleasure having

[00:00:34] you here. Very excited, Shaitar, and pleasure to be here. Shweta, I'm going to jump straight into

[00:00:40] the conversation and you know you are Sprint Studio AI and you are a part of the Google Accelerator

[00:00:45] Program, which I think all of us women very often look forward to being a part of. Can you share

[00:00:52] some key insights from your experience in the program and how it has influenced your journey

[00:00:59] as an entrepreneur? Shaitar, it's always a pleasure to talk about it. So let me start by first

[00:01:06] talking about widespread studio.air happened and how we landed that Google for startup Accelerator.

[00:01:13] Right? Yeah, I come from the knowledge industry and one of the most important part of our job is

[00:01:20] to connect organizations and companies to their customers and consumers. Right? Now the systems that

[00:01:27] have been built around us are to digitize the entire experience, just about touches the upper

[00:01:34] strata of the consumers. Right? 6% 10% of the consumers who we reach digitally today. Right? And

[00:01:42] you know often the question is asked, key what next? Okay? And what was the rest of the consumers?

[00:01:49] So COVID happened in each industry. It took multiple industries, right? And I thought it was wow

[00:01:56] a big opportunity and a big moment where industries were transformed many did but unfortunately for

[00:02:03] the research one it just slipped through the cracks. The transformation just didn't happen. Right

[00:02:08] for me. Yeah. And that's where you know, I sat up and said I don't want to be part of this

[00:02:15] conveyor belt at all. Okay? And when I don't want to be part of this conveyor belt, it really

[00:02:21] meant that I wanted to reimagine the way research is done, the way research is experienced by

[00:02:29] clients, people who are looking for insights etc and that's where the birth of Sprint Studio.air

[00:02:36] really happened. Each of the words have a meaning. Sprint for speech, studio for creativity and AI

[00:02:42] is really embedding tech. And like you said, right? It's a marrying of research which is a service

[00:02:49] industry with technology and that's where the birth really happened. Idea is not breakthrough,

[00:02:55] right? It is very intuitive. So when we were applying for Google for startup accelerator,

[00:03:02] one of the things that did happen was the response that we caught from the teams who were interviewing us.

[00:03:11] So Google for startup accelerator actually goes to like four rounds of intensive screening

[00:03:17] of startups. Right? This was the first cohort of women founders that they were putting together

[00:03:24] in India. So to be part of this cohort, the top 20 startups coming from research industry which

[00:03:30] is not you know, seem to be the biggest breakthrough in the world, right? Was validation for us.

[00:03:39] Okay, it was it was a huge recognition for us to really call out the fact that what we were doing

[00:03:47] was right. We were on a right path. There was a great market and product fit that was validated

[00:03:56] through their entire process and our journey at GFSA. Right? What did GFSA do for us? Right? I mean,

[00:04:05] why was it so important in every person that I meet? I often advise them to go apply for an

[00:04:12] accelerator and no don't wait for your perfect solution, apply as early as possible because it

[00:04:18] truly accelerates your journey. Right? And when I say that it truly accelerates your journey,

[00:04:26] it comes from a fact that you know, in a service industry that I'm sitting in,

[00:04:30] I started to think about productization. Okay? And what productization does is it gives you scale,

[00:04:38] it gives you a very different platform to play on a very different business model thinking that

[00:04:44] comes in. Right? So some of the pivotal points that happened was right after, you know we made it

[00:04:52] Google for start-up accelerator. We got visibility to we got recognition, three we got respect. Okay?

[00:05:01] On that platform that was offered by Google themselves, we actually ended up getting access to

[00:05:11] you know mentors from across fields okay, whether they were you know helping us in the tech discovery

[00:05:21] whether they were helping us in UI UX designing or simply challenging our business models. Okay?

[00:05:28] And they weren't at the bootcamp, I was challenged on my business model right and I sat back and

[00:05:35] thought through what I need to do next. So a journey that I would have covered say in four years or

[00:05:41] maybe five years, you know in a normal course I think I covered in five months and that put me

[00:05:51] on a very different path. And today I don't call myself just a research agency, I call myself as

[00:05:57] a representative of RESTEC which is about you know democratizing say customer's entity right not

[00:06:07] just for large organizations but anybody who needs it today. Everybody needs to listen to their

[00:06:13] customers and they need to know what to do next and that's where what we are building is going to

[00:06:21] touch whenever in Shalah. Shweta you know as typically I remember a couple of years back till Jenny

[00:06:31] I happened and even before that every time when there was a talk about AI people would talk about

[00:06:36] saying things like oh you know creativity is not going to get impacted or research for example

[00:06:43] was not supposed to get impacted and things like that. And I just want to understand where do you see

[00:06:49] the landscape changing for consumer research with you? Oh there is a massive shift sheath which

[00:06:56] is happening in research. Correct. So let's let me start by saying you know you don't adapt

[00:07:03] technology to survive but you should adapt technology to thrive now. Okay and that holds so

[00:07:11] true for research right absolutely. And I will break it down into three parts for you okay and where

[00:07:18] the development is happening and I have a whole lot of favorite a set of startups who are doing

[00:07:24] massive massive upbringing, massive change in this area. This tech, this AI and this Jenny AI right?

[00:07:32] Now when you look at tech today what can it solve for? What are a real life problems when it comes

[00:07:39] to research right. It can solve for speed, it can solve for quality and it can solve for cost

[00:07:46] right. Something that didn't come together at any point in time only technology can enable that

[00:07:53] today. Now for example product or the app that we have built to solve for this brings together

[00:08:02] concept of micro communities. It's a my communities is not a new concept right? Correct. But bringing it

[00:08:08] together on a platform to deliver a seamless journey to the consumer on the other side was very

[00:08:18] very critical for us in what we were building okay till today yeah the consumer had a very transactional

[00:08:28] relationship with research. They came in they did you know an interaction for two hours they

[00:08:34] went away they didn't know what was really going to happen with their feedback etc. What we are

[00:08:39] creating for example through tech and many others who are operating in a very similar space

[00:08:46] is creating a two way interaction with consumers which means better engagement or you can bring in

[00:08:54] design thinking which means you can do iterative research. You can have asynchronous always on

[00:09:02] platform which means nobody is knocking at a consumer door or interrupting them at their busiest

[00:09:08] time and they can come and answer at any given point in time during the day when they have the 15

[00:09:14] minutes to release it down and think through what they want to share. So stories and consumer

[00:09:20] stories and conversations have been enabled by research in a very very different manner through

[00:09:27] technology and it is delightful because you now can collaborate with consumers unlike saying

[00:09:32] you are moving away from it. I'll go back to some of the triggers that happened along the time

[00:09:42] is I remember a client from Shadi.com called me up and said that he the research form or the

[00:09:49] survey form that my customers are getting from you are dated it's taking them back by 10 years

[00:09:57] look at my UI and always felt the research was in the space of catch up with technology and there's

[00:10:04] so much more that's happened and we're just not keeping pace with that right today that's

[00:10:09] possible to do with so much available you know with us. So that's the first part of it right which is

[00:10:17] technology has us connect technology helps us deliver a far better experiential you know a space

[00:10:26] to consumers clients and assess researchers. Now coming to AI once you know you've collected the data

[00:10:35] which means that you know tech is kicked in AI helps you fuel automation and gives you real time

[00:10:45] access to data which is what a whole lot of clients or organization in this hyper innovation space

[00:10:55] are aiming to do can I get insights faster again going back to an example where you know my client

[00:11:03] that book my show once told me that ideas get generated in a week and research gets delivered in

[00:11:10] how can you collapse it down it's not fair and that's where automation real-time reporting

[00:11:18] makes a whole lot of difference in terms of guiding decisions and helping clients stay ahead.

[00:11:25] There is a lot of innovation that is happening in this particular space and you will see a lot

[00:11:30] of platforms that are getting developed to solve for this particular problem. The third leg which

[00:11:36] is coming in through you know Gen AI okay there's a lot of progress that has happened

[00:11:44] you know in the last one year or so it's been shabby right. One it has made you know startups like

[00:11:53] us which would have taken say a few years to you know wait and get the automation in place

[00:12:01] with open AI with you know open source you're able to build text tags and solve for things in

[00:12:09] months so for example you know we are creating a query system along with automation it's just

[00:12:17] been six months and we are almost ready with a beta version 2 roller now that is an experience that

[00:12:25] none of us had in the past and that I think is is a space that is extremely delightful

[00:12:33] and helps us you know literally keep imagining and now it is like the speed of imagination by which

[00:12:42] you can bring in technology. That's really interesting because you know we're doing some research

[00:12:48] right now and we are using platforms exactly to do what you've said right we connected with consumers

[00:12:53] and we asked them to do things over five days at a time that is convenient to them all of that

[00:12:58] so you're absolutely right it really really does help the two-way process and then you can have

[00:13:03] conversations on that and you know a lot of the involvement comes in. When you think about

[00:13:10] just AI as a buzz you know currently it's still while a lot of people are using it etc but

[00:13:17] it still has what I call buzzword status not necessarily in research but first say

[00:13:23] do you think a lot of Vietnamese still think that it is jargonistic and find it difficult to wrap

[00:13:30] their heads around AI so it's very interesting right the word that comes to my mind when I think about

[00:13:38] how ever SMAs or decode AI at this particular point in time is curiosity okay

[00:13:46] the storm call LM literally touched everybody you know everybody is talking about it and

[00:13:54] you know it's not restricted to you know you can't even say it's restricted to one sector versus

[00:13:59] the other it's touched everyone okay now it has in my view resulted in one or two things okay

[00:14:07] one is I want to know more okay two is I don't want to be left behind so I want to do something with

[00:14:15] and that I think is a very big trigger to get people started there are of course barriers that come

[00:14:22] down the line but what I want to do is talk about some of these cohorts of MSMEs that have met

[00:14:28] what thinking very very actively about AI in their lives and AI to create business use cases right now

[00:14:40] an MSME that you may not think about will think about AI is for example a guy into nuts and

[00:14:46] bold space okay and I'm talking to him spontaneously you know the first thing when I asked you what

[00:14:52] chance he talks about AI okay and I was like wow I mean how is this guy thinking and imagining

[00:14:59] about AI application within his own business he has an office in ex you know in Mumbai and then

[00:15:06] somewhere a manufacturing unit and how is he really thinking about right his idea of AI was to

[00:15:14] actually solve a real life problem she did you know so imagine what he told me was that I have a

[00:15:21] raw material which is where I you know my capital input really goes it right can AI looking at the

[00:15:29] design of the product tell me if I can save on raw material that I need to invest on upfront

[00:15:37] now that's a huge application for him in terms of efficiency cost saving and finally profits

[00:15:44] now that's what you know blew me away right saying that you know when it comes to you know

[00:15:49] deciding on capital investment, inventing management or even taking order bookings right small

[00:15:57] retail spaces right we're talking about automated auto bookings coming into them these are very

[00:16:04] specific applications of AI but I see them as nuggets of building tech application in many many

[00:16:14] different ways so there is a very active cohort which is at this point in time or thinking about

[00:16:21] but is it at a surface level or a level below that my sense is it's at a level below that

[00:16:29] not at a level where they've gotten into exploration and are ready to you know apply that in their

[00:16:36] businesses right away so the challenge really is how do you get them to a space where they can start

[00:16:44] thinking about technology and AI very very actively in terms of application into their businesses

[00:16:51] and when we talk about them embracing rights of one is this whole fear of missing out and that

[00:16:56] has happened across board I think a lot of organizations where MSME and otherwise have gotten into

[00:17:02] this whole space thing I have to bring an AI into the organization how can we do it etc but

[00:17:09] from your experience if you had to kind of talk about where how where to begin what should they

[00:17:16] consider when they are embracing AI to stay competitive I think it's not easy okay this part

[00:17:23] is definitely not easy for any organization to get started with I mean you know when we really

[00:17:30] look at digital transformation right for any organization I think there are two big issues that

[00:17:39] come in forefront one is discoverability of the right solution and the application I feel that

[00:17:48] a business owner or an organization does know where the gaps really exist in terms of

[00:17:56] solve that is required right but where they get stuck up and the time taken to solve for that

[00:18:02] is around discovering what should I apply so you know when you spoke about the fact that there are

[00:18:10] a lot of them they have interest in it but there is a lot of them got onto this whole bandwagon

[00:18:15] because of four more because you couldn't be seen as being left behind but if you really had to

[00:18:20] adopt you know AI or digital into the system then where what are the strategies what should they

[00:18:28] be doing what are the first steps that's very interesting yeah in terms of adopting technology and AI

[00:18:38] for your organization I think the first hurdle that comes by is the issue of discoverability right

[00:18:48] for the right solution an application to solve your problem the next one that kicks in is efforts

[00:18:55] that it takes to implement it right at both places what you need is a technical guidance for example

[00:19:05] us right we had to solve for a lot of ML issues we had to solve for a lot of you know applications in

[00:19:13] this or the app that we had built and the other platform for automation had very different problems

[00:19:20] so we were tapping into Google specialist calling out specific use cases for example digitizing for

[00:19:27] the rural so we spoke to somebody who gave us her experience and in half an hour you know what you

[00:19:35] should not be doing and the spaces that you should be able to pursue now that is the kind of access

[00:19:43] organizations today do not have and those are the access points that need to be created for them

[00:19:50] and tech partners I think they play a very very important role the second thing that's very important

[00:19:59] in a well I discovered even with you know MSMEs who had a very strong AI based applications themselves

[00:20:10] right for not well worst with the entire landscape that exists today see the tech innovation is

[00:20:19] moving at very high speed how many of us know enough about the solutions now taking the case of this

[00:20:26] particular MSME that I was talking to they had tapped into a local vendor for their cloud services

[00:20:35] because they didn't know a branded and a secure space was available in a similar cost to them

[00:20:43] so that awareness that access to check of what is available to me as MSME is also lacking right

[00:20:54] so socializing for example as an outcome use cases where MSME equally has access to

[00:21:04] tech solutions the solutions have been democratized for them as well is a space which is blank at this

[00:21:13] point in time for many and therefore you know that they want to but they can is not really happening

[00:21:22] and the space is very interesting they can but they don't know they can right which is so true and

[00:21:30] that was going to be my next question that not everybody manages to get access to google startup

[00:21:35] accelerator right if you are an MSME who is not in that space what are the kind of things that they

[00:21:45] should do to be able to educate themselves inform themselves better you know get into understanding

[00:21:54] space better you know what do you think is going to happen or should happen with them what should they

[00:21:59] do I think the first point is they need to be very clear about what they're going to solve for

[00:22:05] and then I've seen many of them you know kind of get access to technology and discover the right

[00:22:14] technology through their own pure groups but what doesn't come in easy as the effort you put

[00:22:23] in terms of informing yourself in terms of what is available and taking the next step to discover

[00:22:29] further because even today you may not have access to accelerators but you have so much available

[00:22:38] through tech partners whether it is started telly google amazon they happy to invite you over and

[00:22:45] tell you what is available and how can you simply even improve your performance improves the

[00:22:51] performance of your app in there is an innovation hub okay if I was to tell you or ask you a question

[00:22:59] she tell how many apps get listed on google play store every year take a guess take a while guess

[00:23:06] couple of thousands eight lakh what yes it is eight lakh and that's exactly what my mentor at google

[00:23:16] asked me that gives you the size of a people who are actively thinking about on tech isn't it right

[00:23:24] and that's where the massiveness really exists so the msma will innovate they will solve

[00:23:31] and the scale will come through the larger organization and that's been the way it is right

[00:23:36] but that is where we need to start looking at the size of this sector is very different what we're

[00:23:45] looking at is just the tip of the iceberg there is so much beneath that I give you a very small

[00:23:50] example or yours back I was part of a jury with Mahendra trucks right there was this lady who had

[00:23:59] built an app to manage the load system two way right no accelerator nothing she was just solving

[00:24:08] problem an app built in Tamil Nadu executed brilliant so people are finding ways to solve for problems

[00:24:16] they just need the right access in terms of where to go forums networks to actually fuel that it's all

[00:24:24] there just that it needs a catalyst given that you come from a research background what trends have

[00:24:32] you noticed in the digital adoption journey of small and micro you know enterprises digital journeys

[00:24:41] are very interesting there is amazing openness to solve for everyday problems okay they will not

[00:24:51] be using the most predictive tool the most fancier of tool available today but this solving them

[00:24:58] through you know tools that they understand right so for example whether it is people management

[00:25:05] right or whether it is audio management whether it is inventory management whether it is client

[00:25:11] meetings across geographies whether it is reminders you know which comes in through RFQs

[00:25:17] whether it is you know invoicing data there is a whole lethura of you know areas where MSMEs

[00:25:28] they have found their jugat tech applications which are rather simplistic if we can you know take

[00:25:35] them into a space where they can solve for it in a very structured manner apply the right technology

[00:25:44] it will be an inflection point in my view they're ready okay they're ready but not yet there

[00:25:51] okay and as we wrap this conversation because I know we can go on forever but as we wrap this

[00:25:58] conversation with you if you had to give one piece of advice okay for our listeners to understand

[00:26:04] their market and gather in sites you know from existing customers to understand new markets etc to

[00:26:11] boost their growth what would that advice this is one of my favorite spaces because you know when

[00:26:18] we talk about products superiority we talk about functional superiority mind you anybody can copy it

[00:26:26] right your competition can come copy it overnight what your competition cannot copy is your

[00:26:34] emotional connect with your consumers and customers and that can come in only if you're obsessed

[00:26:42] and I really mean it when you're obsessed about your consumers and customers so rather than an

[00:26:48] advice I actually want to ask everybody a question are you listening to your customers and feeling

[00:26:55] their problems every day if you're not then start doing it today because that's going to give you

[00:27:01] the long run that's going to give you this sustainability that's going to help you thrive in this

[00:27:07] competitive environment nothing else. Shratham that was a wonderful answer thank you very much I

[00:27:13] think everybody and there are enough large companies and CEOs who keep talking about the fact that

[00:27:20] you need to be obsessed about your customers Amazon what being one of them but it's absolutely

[00:27:26] fantastic to have you on this do big podcast and you know I was such a wonderfully insightful

[00:27:32] conversation with you thank you so much for giving us your time and being with us here today.

[00:27:38] Thank you pleasure was by

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