Young Guns

Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, is a city that gives birth to a many entrepreneurs and successful businessmen. The spirit of entrepreneurship in Mumbai is definitely stronger than any other city in this country; even young graduates from the city dream of and work towards creating successful businesses and companies. The youth of this city is driven by the attitude of creating jobs rather than doing jobs. This is what sets Mumbaikar’s apart from the rest of the country. Today we feature two young Mumbaikar’s who are carrying forward this tradition of entrepreneurship. Supratim Dam and Ria Chauhan, the founders of a creative and innovative media company by the name APWIG.

APWIG – A Place Where Ideas Grow is an end to end media house doing Corporate Films, Design, Digital Media etc. Supratim and Ria came together as a team when they were in college. While working together on several college projects they realized that they made a great team. However, the two come from very different backgrounds. Supratim is from Guwahati whereas Ria is a true Mumbaikar. Supratim is into documentary films and parallel cinema, he is the one who comes up with an idea and also devises the strategies and execution. Ria on the other hand is a painter and visual aesthetics are her prime focus area. Together the two make up a great team, their diverse backgrounds helps in bringing out a lot of different ideas to the table.

APWIG was born out of the need for a job that would justify their skill sets. Both Supratim and Ria have interned at media houses but it was difficult finding a good job after graduation. They felt that they were over-qualified and underpaid for the work that they were doing. The spark that ignited the fire was a call by Supratim, when Ria told him that she wanted a job where she could put all her skills to work, Supratim replied to her with “Create one”. “Our country has the second largest population in the world. There are so many people competing with each other for that one opportunity. The solution we saw was not in wining this competition but in creating more opportunities for ourselves as well as others”, says Ria. Thus was sowed the seed of entrepreneurship which germinated and grew into a full-fledged start-up – APWIG.

Having an idea and even will is one thing, but going out and executing the same requires a lot of hard work and courage. And these guys have had their fair share of challenges like every other start-up. Right from looking for an office, bringing people on board to arranging for logistics, everything was a monumental task. Their biggest challenge, however, was the issue that given their age no one considered them seriously. From CA’s to attorney’s and the initial clients that they approached, all smirked at their age. But the guys kept on working with perseverance, their faith in their abilities and work never dented. They would regularly seek advice from friends and families; every bit of criticism was invited. Professional guidance was avoided as they believe that creativity should not be confined in a set business model.

On the marketing front the team decided to let their work do all the talking. They presented their unique ideas of personalized comic book and videos to a few people, some turned down their ideas; some on the other hand felt that these were the best gifting option ever! They made some videos and put them up on YouTube and there was no looking back afterwards! They use social media diligently for the purpose of visibility, “After all you need people to know that there is a company called APWIG”.

The products which make APWIG unique are ‘personalized comic books’ and ‘gift a video’. For these personalized products they conduct interviews with their clients and try to capture every bit of detail possible. These two products have been receiving great response from customers. People love the idea of having their lives imprinted in a comic book. The videos too are doing well. The personalized touch is the heart of these gifts. A video is a great way to convey your feelings for someone. The good part about these gifting options is that they have a long shelf life. Even after a few years you can pull out that DVD or comic and go through those good old memories. These gifts are eternal and filled with memories which hold a special place in your life. This is what makes these gifts so unique.

There are a lot of plans in the pipeline, but for the time being Supratim and Ria want to take one step at a time. However, they did admit that they visualize themselves making some great documentary films, winning film festivals and having their films aired on BBC. The duo doesn’t let the tag of ‘Entrepreneur’ get to their heads. They know that it’s a big word with a fancy meaning. For them entrepreneurship is much more, it is a path to future leadership. These young entrepreneurs are a motivation for other young graduates to start off their own businesses without worrying about age and experience. “Everyone who tells you it is impossible, or you are too young and in-experienced, prove them wrong. Even 10 years of doing a job does not give you any experience at being an entrepreneur. It’s never too early.” We definitely agree with them! So what the two think about Mumbai – the city that has given them the opportunity to put their ideas into action; “Mumbai is the city of blinding lights, sleepless nights and space crunch fights”.

You can follow APWIG on their Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/smapwig

or their Tumblr page - http://apwig.tumblr.com/

You can also check out their website for the full range of services that APWIG offers - www.apwig.com

Rocking the Radio Waves

The vast, lush green expanse of IIT Bombay campus is definitely a place where you can expect to run into great minds. The campus brimming with young minds, best and sharpest of the nation, churns out lots of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial talent is nurtured here and allowed to bloom. The result is students who leave the campus not looking for jobs but for creating jobs. The IIT’s have given India some great minds, leaders and personalities. Keeping this torch burning bright are four students who have recently launched an online radio ‘BC Radio’ or ‘Be the Change Radio’. BC Radio is platform whose vision is to promote Independent music and bands. As of now the radio has an outreach of 750 awesome Indian bands! Discovering Mumbai proudly presents the boys from IIT Bombay who are doing commendable work to popularize Indie music.

Team BC Radio

BC Radio is the creation of a rebel group of musicians from IIT Bombay. These rebels are spread across the country. Music is the common string that binds these creative souls. Having been part of music bands themselves they clearly understand the problems faced by their clientele – the bands; and thus are poised to guide them in a better way. The aim of this group is to bring about a paradigm shift in the way things work in the Indian music scene as of now. Music comes first for these guys, “All of us here at BC Radio are Musicians first, and then engineers”. The guys found each other in college by playing together in various bands. Over the course of time they realized that to listen to good music one need not obsess over the West.  The entrepreneurial culture of the campus, that teaches to ‘create jobs’ rather than ‘getting a job’, ensured that the guys would make a career out of their passion for music.

Having composed their own songs, playing at many gigs and having won at many events the guys began contemplating about their future - "Were we going to live our lives being thinkers, or do something (through what we're good at - technology) that brings the plethora of Indian music to the masses". The answer to this question was a no-brainer. BC Radio was initially unstructured, but it was an idea the team held very close to their hearts, and as more people joined, the idea became more concrete and thus was born BC Radio. “There is so much good music out there in the country and we're just doing what should be done, to give it the platform it has deserved all along”.

The vision of BC Radio is to become a pioneering change agent in the Indian music scene. The independent music scene is very successful, if one looks at it musically. However it suffers at the hands of contracts, as bands have very little knowledge of existing laws and even the nature of these laws is not very conducive for the growth of Indie music. There are very few avenues online to put up your music for sale and if you want to go in for offline distribution then again you have to go through exclusive contracts. The guys at BC Radio believe that the independent music scene needs access to multi-distribution channels and this can be achieved through non-exclusivity. BC radio is not fighting for exclusivity over artists like labels, channels and studios do. They do not stop artists associated with them, to search for other avenues for promoting their music or even earn from them. BC Radio has no exclusivity contracts, no hidden clauses and no ‘terms and conditions applied’. Everything at BC radio is upfront and honest; this is what makes it so fun to work with for bands. The primary objective at BC radio is to provide listeners with a no-nonsense stellar audio visual experience around band’s music; everything else comes later.

Setting up BC Radio was a tough task and the guys went around planning everything meticulously. The team defined their roles based on what they saw as their core strengths, took up time bound responsibilities and steered them to completion. The work done by BC Radio can be summarized into following – Artist Relations, Brand Management, Social Media Engagement, Publicity, Marketing, Tie-ups, Band Affiliations, Parties, Live Shows and Artist Provision. The group didn’t want to limit themselves to online media for promoting their platform and thus ensuring regular features in popular print media was one of the big tasks for the team. So far, BC Radio has been featured in The Hindustan Times, Forbes magazine and Rolling Stones India; with many other prominent publications like The Indian Express and The Tribune in the pipeline

BC Radio’s core team has a vast experience of handing big events and this strength came to their help in the initial days of setting up the radio. The team has organized many concerts like Porcupine Tree, Parikrama, Karnivool, Katatonia, Zero, Thermal and Quarter. They have also handled the very popular Livewire at Mood Indigo and Desh Raag, a unique original patriotic song competition organized by US based NGO ‘Rakshak Foundation’. Their journey took them across the country in search of bands that were just breaking onto the scene. They are very excited about what they came across; the country has many amazing bands and they hope they can have all them on BC Radio! One more important lesson the team learnt was to focus on your goals both in long term and short term.

BC Radio is still in beta phase and the team is looking to roll out some major technical releases this year. The plan is to make BC Radio a cool, no non-sense music discovery platform. Social media integration is another major work in the pipeline; so is the feature to create your own playlists. One of the most popular shows on the radio is the ‘The Pirate Mixtape’ which is a collaboration with the Delhi based BoomBox project. The show airs every Sunday from 3 to 5 PM. Someday down the line they also plan to conduct live events and parties where bands will get an opportunity to perform live.

Team BC Radio is on a high right now. People have found the platform unique and are appreciating the quality of music featured. Biggies of Indian music scene like Parikrama, Demonic Resurrection, Cactus, Theme Clones, Something Relevant and many others have loved the concept and have contributed their material free of cost. The team envisions BC Radio to be a pioneering music – tech platform for independent bands to get featured alongside established names, while maintain their legal rights and non-exclusivity. “Creating and showcasing music should be free of hassles to the musicians and we will make sure it is as smooth as possible”, say the team at BC Radio. Future holds a lot for BC Radio and we will see them featuring into actual radio broadcasting phase and live events. Thanks to BC Radio many good bands will be able to reach out to a larger audience; the audience in turn will be able to discover more independent music; a win-win situation for both. We wish team BC Radio all the best in their endeavours. For now it’s time to listen to some cool music, see you on BC Radio!

The Trabblr!

Ever heard the story of the man who gave up a well earning job at a global corporate to go roaming around the world! Crazy? No! The man is on a journey of self-discovery. Away from the machinations of the modern life that person is trying to find the reason for his existence, the answer that will make the purpose of their life clear. And when they find that answer, it changes their life forever! Discovering-Mumbai (DM) met one such interesting individual who travelled across the world in search of his true calling! Did he find it? Yes, he did! His name – Hersh Kumbhani and he is the co-founder of Trabblr a truly innovative company that lets you explore your city in a unique social way!

Trabblr co-founder Hersh at the Koli Seafood Festival in Versova

Hersh moved to India at the age of 13 after having lived in USA and Dubai. He went to Mahindra United World College of India (MUWCI) post which he went to Cornell University for a degree in Applied Economics and Management. With a keen interest in finance, he thought that a career in Investment banking was the best choice for him. He worked as an I-banker for almost four years before he finally decided to hang up his boots and go travel the world! Ashish, his business partner and co-founder grew up in Mumbai. The two met at MUWCI. Ashish has done his MSc in Advanced Computing from King’s College, London. Having worked for over a year as a software engineer for a financial analysis company he soon realized that entrepreneurship was his destiny. He started a bill and expense sharing web-app called WeSplit, post which he helped Hersh set up Trabblr.

Trabblr co-founder Ashish

“Trabblr was created with one goal in mind, to help people discover unique experiences around the world while building new relationships with real people”, says Hersh. Both the guys believe that even though we live in a world defined by online social networks, all the ‘likes’ and ‘tweets’ cannot replace the fun of tangible things like meeting new people and sharing some good moments. Trabblr is for people who are bored of going to the same place with the same people. It offers them an opportunity to try out new things, discover their city in an entirely new way and with new people. It makes the idea of trying out new things a little less intimidating. For travellers it offers a means to make their trips more meaningful and immersive. They can meet other travellers or engage with locals which will give them an altogether different experience, helping them understand the local culture better. We think this is a revolutionary idea! All you have to do is log on to Trabblr create an event or just join those created by other users to go meet new people and try out things you’ve never done before.

Trabblr was born out of the experiences Hersh had during his days of globe-trotting. While travelling around the Balkans in 2010, Hersh, who had by then travelled extensively through South East Asia and Western Europe, realized that visiting the main sites and dining in famous restaurants simply did not excite him anymore. He wanted a deeper experience, he wanted to explore the places in a different and more engaging manner; and that he knew could not be done through any guide book. The only way to get such an experience was to interact with locals. But how does one find such people who are ready to meet strangers and show them their city and culture? Hours of internet search resulted in futility. He could not find any existing platform which fit the bill perfectly. “That’s why Ashish and I built Trabblr - to help bring people together to explore cities around the world in a way that is transparent, safe and fun”, says Hersh.

Armed with the idea Hersh went about setting up Trabblr. His biggest challenge – he didn’t have the necessary skill sets to design a platform like Trabblr. This is where Ashish with his software engineering skills helped out Hersh. The fact that Ashish was as excited about Trabblr as Hersh went a long way in helping to bring Trabblr up and running! The guys were equally excited and nervous the first day when Trabblr went live. How would people react to it? Will they even use it? These and many more questions haunted both of them as they eagerly waited for the first feedbacks. The first event on Trabblr was when a large group, including Hersh, went to the Koli Seafood Festival in Versova in January. Initially the guys used their friends to generate some traction but soon Trabblr started receiving a lot of users who were seeking new experiences and looking to meet new people. Today Trabblr is a growing community with lot of requests coming in for starting Trabblr in other cities too. “We’ve been lucky to have users who continually give us feedback.  That means that we’re doing something right because it shows that people care enough to take time out of their day to contact us to share their ideas and suggestions” says Hersh.

Pics from Trabblr events

For Hersh, the journey has all been about following his passion. Giving up a well-paid job in an investment bank is certainly not an easy decision. “I didn’t really have a plan for what I wanted to do next.  All I knew was that I wanted to get out and see the world”. For Hersh the logic was clear and simple, he was sure that travelling around the globe will give him more clarity about what he wanted out of life both personally and professionally. He travelled to some well-known tourist trails like Spain and France; he also went on the less travelled path to countries like Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cambodia. All of these places have had a significant impact on his life. The best part was that his notion that travel would give him more clarity in life turned out to be true and his backpacking finally led him to setup Trabblr! That journey came to an end with Trabblr, but now a new journey has begun for Hersh. His sight is set on achieving great heights with Trabblr and we would like to wish him all the best for all his future endeavours!

You can check out their website and all the events that are available for you to join at - Trabblr.com