This week on the Thrifty Titans. Podcast, we're diving into the world of media SaaS products!
We're thrilled to welcome the founder of one of the original Indian media SaaS companies, Animaker. Raghav co-founded Animaker with his college classmate in the early 2010s, and since then, the company has become one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies in India within the visual content creation space. Today, Animaker empowers tens of millions of users worldwide to produce stunning visual content.
Join us as we sit down with Raghav to explore significant opportunities for new products in the media SaaS space, discuss strategies for marketing and monetizing a newly established SaaS tool, and learn about potential pitfalls to avoid during this journey.
This episode is a goldmine for SaaS founders across the world. So dig in.
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Saikat Pyne: Hi, I'm Sekar Marketer, creative and media nerd. Welcome to
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Saikat Pyne: the you incorporated podcast On this show, I catch up
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Saikat Pyne: with some of the most bad ass founders, business leaders
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Saikat Pyne: and content creators in the whole wide world. Whether you're
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Saikat Pyne: a marketer, creative or a budding founder, if you want
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Saikat Pyne: to build your brand your voice your way, you are
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Saikat Pyne: in the right place.
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Saikat Pyne: Join me on the you incorporated podcast and start building
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Saikat Pyne: your empire. Here we go.
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Saikat Pyne: Please join me in welcoming Raghav, the founder and CEO
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Saikat Pyne: of Ani Maker, one of the world's fastest growing SAS
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Saikat Pyne: companies in the visual content creation space Anni maker has
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Saikat Pyne: helped tens of millions of users around the world create
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Saikat Pyne: visual content such as video presentations, explainer videos, infographics, et cetera,
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Saikat Pyne: with easy T i Y tools. Welcome to the show, Raghav.
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RS Raghavan: Oh, thank you. I'm pretty excited. What
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Saikat Pyne: any maker brought to the table in terms of visual
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Saikat Pyne: content or just content Creation was a fundamentally different proposition.
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Saikat Pyne: As an entrepreneur, how did you conceive the idea of
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Saikat Pyne: Andy Maker? Because it was pulse apart from anything that
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Saikat Pyne: was out there. At that point,
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RS Raghavan: I'd say it was more accidental self realisation and definitely
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RS Raghavan: a personal frustration but a personal frustration as well.
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RS Raghavan: When I was young, I want to become a scientist.
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RS Raghavan: I used to do a lot of visual presentation videos
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RS Raghavan: for my project.
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RS Raghavan: People started appreciating my designs and videos more than my
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RS Raghavan: project that they weren't exactly understood. I was actually good
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RS Raghavan: at presentation videos.
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RS Raghavan: I'm not smart enough to be in science, so I
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RS Raghavan: think that self realisation is definitely leads me into video
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RS Raghavan: production helping our companies in these worlds. I started my
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RS Raghavan: own video production house with my CO-FOUNDER. Logan, and I'm
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RS Raghavan: a tech guy. On the other hand, it was frustrating, right?
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RS Raghavan: You need to train and learn and work with professional tools,
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RS Raghavan: even years of training. You'll end up not knowing about
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RS Raghavan: the button is and things like that.
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RS Raghavan: So, especially if you wanna create designs and animation.
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RS Raghavan: So the idea was born out of observ frustration. Why
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RS Raghavan: not use a symbol to like Power Point Power Point
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RS Raghavan: was so inspiration for me to help high quality animation
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RS Raghavan: and videos. I can't be create the the Power Point.
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RS Raghavan: Video creation and animation was the fundamental idea behind getting
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RS Raghavan: into it.
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Saikat Pyne: How Did you really see this product evolve? Because I'm
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Saikat Pyne: sure what you perceived any maker to be on day
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Saikat Pyne: one when you created the M V P and what
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Saikat Pyne: it's become today is a lot different. So did you
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Saikat Pyne: perceive it to evolve in
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Saikat Pyne: the way that it has? Or did you just simply
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Saikat Pyne: create iterations as you mentioned? That's that's
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RS Raghavan: again, a very good question, to be precise. The vision
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RS Raghavan: was quite common from day one until now, I think,
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RS Raghavan: helping individuals and small to medium scale companies. Now we
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RS Raghavan: are helping for companies to create videos the easiest way possible.
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RS Raghavan: So if you really see the last project what we did.
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RS Raghavan: So for example, steve dot a I where you can
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RS Raghavan: just feed text and create animation videos. Seven years before
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RS Raghavan: it was,
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RS Raghavan: I mean, it was not there. No, it was. We
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RS Raghavan: have two patterns around that topic and things like that, Yeah,
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RS Raghavan: the one liner was there, but we want to really
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RS Raghavan: democratise the idea of video creation. But the way we're
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RS Raghavan: gonna do all of that is just an exploration just
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RS Raghavan: like science experiments. We did a lot of things to
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RS Raghavan: really be there, but the one line idea is always
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RS Raghavan: stay the same.
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Saikat Pyne: How did you want to position this tool back in
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Saikat Pyne: the days? And how did you go about marketing the
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Saikat Pyne: tool in the initial days of launch?
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RS Raghavan: One good thing we did, I think, which is stay
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RS Raghavan: that way for quite long. Even now is a premium model.
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RS Raghavan: We tried to create value. First, we try to give
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RS Raghavan: a lot of free trials premium.
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RS Raghavan: I think, literally you can create the whole video with
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RS Raghavan: a free tool that that is definitely put us in
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RS Raghavan: a huge advantage because just like exactly students and first
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RS Raghavan: time creators, they use the tool and get the benefit
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RS Raghavan: first before even thinking of whether it's the right tool
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RS Raghavan: for them. Whether we need to pay for this tool
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RS Raghavan: or not, I think they see a huge hull of
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RS Raghavan: value first.
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RS Raghavan: I think the premium model helped a lot and especially,
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RS Raghavan: people know, brag about good tools, right, especially if you
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RS Raghavan: work with social media, people or even students. They Oh,
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RS Raghavan: I found this great tool out there, so that really
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RS Raghavan: helped during the initial days, creating a
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RS Raghavan: huge value, and that could be a big driver for
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RS Raghavan: us to be successful
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Saikat Pyne: if you've been in the media industry longer than most
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Saikat Pyne: of the people that I've known. Because media SAS, at
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Saikat Pyne: least in India, is a relatively new industry,
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Saikat Pyne: right, because the presumption in emerging economies was, why do
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Saikat Pyne: we pay for software paying for software? So to say,
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Saikat Pyne: CO and Co. Is a very new phenomenon in emerging countries.
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Saikat Pyne: So while software was there, but Media SA in its
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Saikat Pyne: after that we see right now was probably not around
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Saikat Pyne: for too long. When you look at the media industry today,
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Saikat Pyne: what are some of the bigger opportunities for new product
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Saikat Pyne: and new category creation? A lot of
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RS Raghavan: opportunities for sure.
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RS Raghavan: Instead of just telling what products we should consider, I
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RS Raghavan: tell you a lot of challenges and problems which are
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RS Raghavan: available in the media market decade before. If you see,
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RS Raghavan: we have this huge media company. But in 2022 every
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RS Raghavan: company is a media company. This is a new opportunity
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RS Raghavan: for a lot of startups, right, and that thing is
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RS Raghavan: exactly happening right now. Now every company want to have
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RS Raghavan: their own channels, want to create their own content,
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RS Raghavan: and we have to think of, like, how can we
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RS Raghavan: really help these folks say one example? Obviously any maker
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RS Raghavan: and our suite of tools helping people to create content.
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RS Raghavan: But there is a lot of opportunity in talent, SC
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RS Raghavan: scouting or curation of content or the distribution set of
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RS Raghavan: content and also on the other end this extreme. Now
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RS Raghavan: there are something called vertical right. If you have these
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RS Raghavan: huge video production houses like Disney, Sony
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RS Raghavan: with big budgets, big time problems yeah, they do have
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RS Raghavan: big budgets. But the challenge in the SARS is we
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RS Raghavan: need to really understand their pain points in detail. And
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RS Raghavan: if you create any vertical opportunities like oh, OK, building
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RS Raghavan: payroll only for media.
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RS Raghavan: Just like we have started seeing this vertical size really
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RS Raghavan: taking over the market, I think the media is definitely
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RS Raghavan: in need of because the building is very different in media.
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RS Raghavan: Payroll is yeah, they are trying to adopt the general
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RS Raghavan: payroll tool. They're trying to adopt the general supply chain software.
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RS Raghavan: But if you really get it to the media side
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RS Raghavan: of it, or if you really get to the Hollywood
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RS Raghavan: side of it, you really know there are a lot
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RS Raghavan: of room for vertical.
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Saikat Pyne: The challenge that I've seen with founders in the media
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Saikat Pyne: is that some of them are creatives, right? They are
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Saikat Pyne: non techies,
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Saikat Pyne: and they have incredible domain expertise in their respective creative fields.
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Saikat Pyne: But in the absence of a technical co-founder, they often
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Saikat Pyne: struggle to launch a a company. What is your advice
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Saikat Pyne: to them? It
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RS Raghavan: will be super difficult when you start, especially if you
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RS Raghavan: are getting into a or any tech based business difficult
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RS Raghavan: when you start. But over time, for especially all these
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RS Raghavan: creative people, over time, the field will become quite flat.
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RS Raghavan: People who understand the market who understand the product will
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RS Raghavan: have a better leverage than those who are just good
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RS Raghavan: and technical.
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Saikat Pyne: Monetizing a media tool, especially if you're targeting niches, seems
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Saikat Pyne: to be a challenge. What is a good way to
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Saikat Pyne: scale your marketing efforts from Day one? If you're planning
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Saikat Pyne: to launch a media tool,
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RS Raghavan: OK, so for a media says by defaulted people, it
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RS Raghavan: will catch the ball compared with people. You get the
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RS Raghavan: conversation going, so use it to your advantage. So what
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RS Raghavan: I mean is first, if you're a media says, I
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RS Raghavan: think you need to act as a media company, your CEO,
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RS Raghavan: your social media team. Your campaign should generate content. A
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RS Raghavan: lot of very good content.
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RS Raghavan: Yeah, you can be super bad. You'll be judged. But wait,
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RS Raghavan: hold on. You'll start getting results. I have seen that
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RS Raghavan: past few of my videos are highly good and slowly
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RS Raghavan: I started seeing like the same thing. Our team got
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RS Raghavan: improved and things fall in place. So creating a good
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RS Raghavan: quality content on specific channels. But other than that,
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RS Raghavan: the channels are the same. So if you are a
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RS Raghavan: media sales or a general sales, you're gonna end up
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RS Raghavan: creating stuff, YouTube or creating content for your landing pages.
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RS Raghavan: Those channels are paid ads and these channels doesn't change.
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RS Raghavan: But the one big change you can bring in which
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RS Raghavan: I think not just media says any sales company is
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RS Raghavan: missing is you can create a lot of quality content.
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RS Raghavan: I think the quality comes from two things. One, if
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RS Raghavan: you have a huge budget, you can.
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RS Raghavan: But as a startup, we will not have right on
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RS Raghavan: the other end. You have a lot of time when
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RS Raghavan: I work with all these fortune foreign companies. They are
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RS Raghavan: running out of time every month. They have a lot
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RS Raghavan: of campaigns, but you can spend that to your advantage, right?
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RS Raghavan: You can really come up with some really good content
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RS Raghavan: every month or every week to really, you know, build
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RS Raghavan: a community around it. Those are the things I think
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RS Raghavan: right now is working really well for general sales or
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RS Raghavan: media as well.
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RS Raghavan: Community building content creation.
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Saikat Pyne: If somebody is unsure about how to price the product
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Saikat Pyne: to not lose initial traction, what are some of the
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Saikat Pyne: things that they can go about?
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RS Raghavan: Very good. Question one. You need to start thinking of
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RS Raghavan: modernization from day one, right? Some of our tool, especially
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RS Raghavan: in media, says we think of uh Oh, let's push
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RS Raghavan: this as a free tool. I said carefully. Premium not free,
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RS Raghavan: because you which means that the moment you attach freemium
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RS Raghavan: the word premium, which means that you only need to
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RS Raghavan: figure out your monetization model from day one. You can
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RS Raghavan: change the monetization model later. But, uh, now getting revenue,
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RS Raghavan: getting your numbers right should be in your plan from
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RS Raghavan: day one, I think. And the second problem I see
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RS Raghavan: in media is we're trying to imitate or be like, uh,
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RS Raghavan: other SAS companies. Sometimes we are not because they
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RS Raghavan: hugely consumer centric product, especially products like ours, which means
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RS Raghavan: that the modernization angles are very different. But the challenge
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RS Raghavan: is both founders and I spoke to a lot of these.
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RS Raghavan: They try to fit this media size into a typical, uh,
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RS Raghavan: support tool, or because this all comes out of. So
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RS Raghavan: if you are a bit more creative Oh, OK, why
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RS Raghavan: can't I put ads and make money? So, for example,
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RS Raghavan: line app in right, They just sold stickers.
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RS Raghavan: Yeah, more than a billion yen, which is $1.4 million
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RS Raghavan: in just three months.
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RS Raghavan: It is. It's just a one time purchase. It doesn't
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RS Raghavan: come under the category of subscription revenue, but still, it's
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RS Raghavan: a huge money, Right? So, like this genius, Yeah, you
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RS Raghavan: have to be a bit more creative instead of just
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RS Raghavan: staying with the same playbook of I think if you
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RS Raghavan: be a bit more creative in monetization,
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RS Raghavan: like running ads or sponsoring content, just any consumer products
00:11:39
RS Raghavan: or products, it could be an ad. You can always
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RS Raghavan: have a subscription revenue. I'm saying these are the other
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RS Raghavan: avenues which you should explore with the free users.
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Saikat Pyne: Could you tell me, Let's say a couple of mistakes
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Saikat Pyne: that you made
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Saikat Pyne: while we are on the topic that you would want
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Saikat Pyne: budding media as founders to steer clear of. Because I
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Saikat Pyne: think that hit a very raw now there with pricing.
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Saikat Pyne: But I'm sure there's more to it, right, But I
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Saikat Pyne: can
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RS Raghavan: think of 23 mistakes. Lack of knowledge is one big
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RS Raghavan: problem in this industry.
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RS Raghavan: Yeah, you watch a movie, which doesn't mean that you
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RS Raghavan: are qualified to create a movie, right? And one more
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RS Raghavan: broader observation is SARS in general 10 years before before
00:12:19
RS Raghavan: is very different because most of the success story what
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RS Raghavan: we are seeing is 10 years before is very different
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RS Raghavan: from now. Imitation could be a killer. Um earlier SARS
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RS Raghavan: companies do have a price difference. But nowadays even sales
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RS Raghavan: force comes with low tag price
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RS Raghavan: for sales company, which means that those opportunities are gone
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RS Raghavan: for India Company India says any Asian companies, so that
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RS Raghavan: opportunity is gone. I mean, that worked 10 years before
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RS Raghavan: or not now, which means that you have to really
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RS Raghavan: come up with the idea.
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RS Raghavan: 10 better product or a different idea, then I think
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RS Raghavan: you'll be successful right now. I think even a simple
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RS Raghavan: feature imitation could be a killer. The only price difference
00:12:58
RS Raghavan: could be a killer is a big problem. And you
00:13:01
RS Raghavan: don't need to win Olympic gold medal right now. No,
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RS Raghavan: Sometimes it's more like a science experiment are going and
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RS Raghavan: and explore the trial. I would say, you know, to
00:13:11
RS Raghavan: change your goals and destination more, to be successful.
00:13:14
RS Raghavan: That's what I learned personally.
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Saikat Pyne: Circling back to Anni Maker. What's the future like for
00:13:19
Saikat Pyne: a maker?
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RS Raghavan: One is definitely. We were slowly getting into this whole
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RS Raghavan: visual creation tool. We started supporting graphic design we started supporting.
00:13:29
RS Raghavan: If you want to create a product videos, demo videos,
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RS Raghavan: those are the areas. We are slowly helping our people
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RS Raghavan: in different side, but slowly. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty exciting
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RS Raghavan: Time and we started using a lot, probably this project
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RS Raghavan: called steve dot a A. Which is really doing well.
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RS Raghavan: People just just feed text and generate videos. A couple
00:13:47
RS Raghavan: of years before, it was not like a dream. We
00:13:49
RS Raghavan: really want to make it a product which is even
00:13:51
RS Raghavan: more easier than any maker that's
00:13:54
Saikat Pyne: great to hear. It was lovely having you on the podcast.
00:14:00
Saikat Pyne: And with that, it's a wrap. Please do tune in
00:14:03
Saikat Pyne: next week for the next episode of the U Incorporated podcast.
00:14:08
Saikat Pyne: See ya.
00:14:17
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