 So very good afternoon everyone and what a joy it is to have Siddharth here with us at the startup summit here in Mumbai. So you know if you're doing something or a gathering in Mumbai it's never complete till you actually talk about the entertainment industry. So Siddharth of course here has been a marvel of the entertainment industry and he's sort of done it all and seen it all in this industry And how it has really got built up to this multi billion dollar industry and of course going bigger by the day. So today we're going to talk to Siddharth about what the industry is looking like and how he actually chose to become an entrepreneur in the entertainment industry. You know what sort of got him going, what moved his cheese to move from a professional to an entrepreneur. And how is it that we see this industry growing bigger and better and you know how do we really become the Hollywood of the world. The Bollywood of the world, that's the Bollywood of India. So let me start with, oh incidentally I also want to show you a picture. You know entrepreneur is a global magazine and it's only with global icons like him when we have them on our digital covers that we're able to bring the global Indian picture to the world. So thank you for actually donning the entrepreneur digital cover for the month of December 2022. What a better note we could have finished this year with so thank you for being there. So you know as we start talking about the entertainment industry you know I would first like to know and I'm sure you talk about this a lot internally but for the rest of us who are not so close to the industry. What has changed for the industry post the COVID? You know what was it there? What sort of came in and what went out for the industry altogether? To start with thanks so much for having me here. It's a pleasure to be here and to see this wonderful event that you've organized. You know it's a very large question you've asked in a very relevant one and one that we are actually stretching our heads about right now. But what seems to be pretty clear is that audience tastes and preferences have broadened in the course of the last two years. They've been exposed to so much more content because that's pretty much all they could be doing. They were cooked up at home. They had no choice but to look for ways to entertain themselves and in the course of that they're now been exposed to content from all across India as well as around the world. So their aesthetics have changed their openness to new genres has has increased and therefore you're dealing with a much more evolved audience today and that acceleration has happened very very fast in the last two years. The second thing is I think the we were talking about the digitalization of content for many many years now that penny has dropped completely where the habits and practices in the consumption have changed. The fact that they are now so used to the convenience of being able to sample content in the confines of their home and have control over the experience. They can pause they can go forward they can stop wherever they want to come back to it. These are all obvious things but a lot of people were not exposed to this in the past and now they are so that linear one to many without the ability to actually have control over your entertainment experience has changed. And that's made it much more difficult for say the theatrical experience to be something that draws audiences in unless it's supremely compelling. The other thing is that durations of content also I think now entertainment can't just be used to categorize it as movies and television and that's pretty much it. But today a reel on Instagram is entertainment. You've got so many influencers putting out such amazing content that is 10 seconds long. That's also entertainment. So you're now competing with you might make a high quality hundred million dollar film but you could be competing with a reel or a bunch of reels that some some influencer has made as at home. Or your own reel or your own movie reel for that matter. Exactly. So I think the perception of what constitutes your competition has also changed. And therefore I think it's a period of flux. It's a period where everyone is wondering now what to do next. And it's it's exciting and interesting but also terrifying. You know you didn't mention the radio so I was actually going to come to podcast. Do you not look at podcast also as an extension. You're right. It is it is. And that's another thing that takes people's captive time away from you. I think us in the audio visual business tend to be a little bit myopic and look at only our audio visual segment as competition. But you're absolutely right. When you say podcast when you say radio when you say even leisure activities now because now people have been cooped up for more than two years. They want to be able to go out and actually experience interpersonal connection and therefore anything that's giving them that ability life shows life performances. And when you look at an exhibition like this for for a couple of years I'm sure you weren't able to organize something of this nature and now look at the number of people here. So people are yearning for that. Yeah that's right. Absolutely. And do you know so I also would love to know you know you there's a whole family of actors your own brothers are actors and you know. So were you never sort of enchanted by actually being on the screen rather than behind the camera. So to say well you know as a producer you are acting all the time. I'm sure my colleagues here who do production will agree with me because you've got to be many things to many people and you've got to don many hats and you have to play many roles. But I mean that's on the lighter note. But otherwise I have done theater all through school and college so it's definitely something that I enjoyed. But I think what I enjoyed even more was being behind the scenes and putting it all together and having a bit of a bird's eye view on the larger scheme of things. I've always enjoyed that aspect of leadership and having you know multiple things happen simultaneously. I think as an actor you've got to have tunnel vision and be doing one thing at one time. I've never been very good at that. I've always had to be doing multiple things simultaneously. I think that's that's the typical entrepreneurs back but you know you've got such an illustrious career yourself. You've been the managing director of Disney and then of course also you TV studios. So when of course the merger also happened. So you know what was it that you said when was it that you said that no I'm not going to work for anybody I'm going to be my own boss. When do you sort of mentally are able to tell that you know the time has come and I need to do my own thing. So what was the trigger for you. You know unlike many born entrepreneurs I was not a born entrepreneur. I really don't think I think that's in the book only. No no I think it's true because you know a lot of people coming straight out the gate of their education can't even fathom a job. They need to be their own boss right from the start and they will do one thing or the other but they will find their way. For me being within an organization was never a problem and I've always enjoyed that. I think I've had the right mentors have had the right bosses as well who've given me the latitude and the freedom to do my own thing. My desire to branch out and start my own company never came from wanting to be my own boss really it came from wanting to do my own thing. And I think when you're part of a large conglomerate which is a media conglomerate a company like Disney which is one of the best companies that you can work for within media. There comes a point when you are never going to be able to be focused on one particular stream of things right. I was as the MD of Disney I was doing consumer products I was doing movies I was doing television live entertainment interactive. And I think in that time while I enjoyed it I think I pretty much realized that audio visual content creation was where my heart lay. And therefore the logical next step was for me to branch out on my own. And now that you've actually plunged in so you know I realize that you said about college you leave college and you actually become an entrepreneur. But I can also tell you that most of those guys five years down the line think that you know I was better off had another job first before I become because you know you do realize that there are a lot of pitfalls. So you know for you what what is it that you've learned in your journey of entrepreneurship you know. As you said that as a producer you have to act all the time so that's a real you know that's a gold mine of information and it says so much in a line. But honestly I mean you know what what is it that you've learned as you've embarked this journey so maybe like three pieces of advice you can give to our audience. I'll try to start with I think you need to always be optimistic. You need to be cautiously optimistic but always optimistic because there can be many ups and downs in the journey of an entrepreneur. And in our business especially there are many knows that you have to hear before you hear a yes when it comes to actors when it comes to studios when it comes to crew when it comes to all kinds of things. But you need to have that self belief and that belief in the team that you've created that it's finally going to get there. You will finally find that the door will open and you will be able to go through. Because without that it's very easy to get disheartened and to and this any business is all about finally the emotion that you're able to put into it and the amount of positivity that you're able to bring to whatever it is that you do. So I'd say always be optimistic but be clear headedly and cautiously optimistic that I think is very important. The second thing I think is to focus on at least for me and this is something that I truly believe in focus on revenue rather than on valuation right and focus on revenue and profit. Because very often we can get caught up into eyeballs into clicks into you know values based on based on perceived worth and based on someone else's perception of what we are worth. But it's very important that the core of your business is actually real and is actually profitable. And we see this time and time again where you have boom and bust cycles where the boom happens because it is a bit of a bubble that is created by valuations and by presumptions and assumptions about a future that you haven't built on a solid foundation. So that is really important have real clients have real revenue be profitable and the valuation will come is what I sincerely believe. And I think the third thing for any starting out entrepreneur I think is to be is to pick your team correctly because your team can be actually the most thing that can make you or that can break you. So loyalty and commitment is super important number one and number two don't create large hierarchies to start with because you might be coming out of an organization where you're used to that. But create a flat structure to start out with and really have everyone feel a sense of ownership. I think that's that's genuinely gold mine of an advice that you're given. It's you know it sounds so simple but when it really comes down to the nitty gritty of doing that in business is you know where the whole challenge lies and that's where you know the more you're able to do it nicely the more sort of you grow in your venture. So Roy Kapoor studios you know your own venture. So you know I've seen that what I've realized about when I look at entertainment industry abroad is that how they've come to India and gone to so many other countries whether it's a Disney or a Marvel you see them all over the place. But we yet to see Hollywood becoming the Hollywood of the world. So you know do you do you want to or do you have a dream of taking Roy Kapoor films overseas and sort of seed in various countries. I mean Indian diaspora is everywhere. So even if you know you don't have an international audience is always Indians to watch Indian movies and Indian content. So what do you think it will take for Bollywood to really become more established outside of India. It's a great question and the short answer to my mother the ambition of Roy Kapoor films is absolutely yes. We our idea is to move global and to be able to tell stories for a global audience to be able to take our stories to the world. What I think the Indian film industry not just the Hindi film industry but generally has managed to do pretty well as to cater to the South Asian diaspora overseas. Right. Because it's a captive audience. It loves the content that comes out of the homeland. It's waiting for it and we've been able to cater to them. We're able to distribute to them. We figured out the catchment areas where they live in pretty much every country around the world. We've been able to be targeted and to to address them. What we haven't done a good job of is moving beyond that and crossing over to even an art house works in our audience globally. I'm definitely not to a mainstream audience. That is the next thing that we have to do. Now how will that happen? I think by telling stories that are as local as possible. So so a film like Dungal right about a wrestler and Haryana and his two daughters. Their journey sounds as local as it could possibly be. And honestly we never thought that it would reach out to much beyond the South Asian diaspora overseas and the Indian audience. But it went and did two hundred million dollars in China. Right. Now what resonated. I think what resonated is the awe and wonder of the Chinese audience that a film coming out of India about rural India could actually feel so much like their story. Because they are also patriarchal society. They also are a society in which the girl child probably is not given the opportunities that the male child is where fathers want to live their dreams through their sons and not their daughters. Only to realize one more that they can live their dreams through their daughters. But what resonated about it was not that we were trying to pander to that audience but that we were as local as authentic as possible. And that they then felt like wow humanity is so homogeneous actually. This story about a small town in India can resonate with me so emotionally and I can be moved by it and that word of mouth spread. I mean a film like Parasite right. Parasite is so local and Korean as a story. But we all were able to relate to it and it went and won the best picture Oscars. Right. So the more we try to be global the less authentic I think we will be and the less we'll be able to to crossover. I think we need to identify the stories we're telling that can have this ability to travel and then really back them the best way possible. So a film like last film show which again you know is with thankful that it's India selection to the Academy Awards. I believe is a really good pick and I know I'm slightly biased. But I think it's a great pick for the Academy because it's a story about a boy in a small town in Gujarat who had a dream to be a filmmaker. And that could be the dream of anyone from any small town from around the world. But because it's set in this really quaint unique setting that's what will be interesting for people to see and then say it's so different but it's so similar. And you know of course we've anyway seen a lot of globalization of content during the last two years whether it's Turkish or Korean or you name it. I mean you know we're seeing Polish movies dubbed in Indian English or English subtitles. So do you think the way forward is really subtitling or actually creating content in that language with Indian actors or maybe even foreign actors. You know it all depends on the subject. I think subtitling and dubbing should happen depending on whichever market reacts better to subtitling or dubbing. There are some markets that prefer movies that are dubbed like in China. There are some that are quite used to reading subtitles. But I think it boils down to the content itself. If it lends itself to being told in a non Indian language show. But my guess is that what they want from India is really Indian stories told in Indian languages that they are able to relate to. Sure and I think it's really going to be interesting seeing Indian content doing that all over the places. So you know we've always loved your movies. They're always so brilliant. So tell us a little more about the new movie that is coming out. So we've got quite a few lined up. We've got a friend called Pippa that will be coming out early next year. That's based around the 71 Bangladesh war. And it's a story of a family on the front lines. It stars Ishaan Khattar, Rinal Thakur and Priyanshu Penuly is directed by Raja Menon. And it's a tank battle that we never knew happened. So it's really about a family on the front lines of the war. Then we've got a film called Wooladki hai kaha. Starring Tapsee Pannu and Prati Gandhi directed by Arshad Syed which is a great comedy. We've got a film called Bhaskar O aunty that comes on Disney Hotstar. Starring Ishwag Singh who was in Rocket Boys and Patal Lok. That's a story about all the aunties in your life who are constantly telling you what you should be doing in life rather than what you really want to be doing. So in a way ties into entrepreneurship in a sense because here someone who does not want to have a cookie cutter life and he's got to drown out the aunties in his mother's ear who are constantly talking to her about what he should be doing. So those are the three films that are in the immediate future. And we don't give credit to the aunties as such great content material, no? That is true. So you know I know we're coming at the end of this conversation but maybe you want to give us some social buster for everybody all of us to put outside there on our social handles if we heard it first. Maybe some dialogue or some little jingle out of some song. You got the wrong brother. But I will tell you that Rocket Boys Season 2 is coming out in Jan. So if that's a reveal then so be it. Well, applause to Siddharth. Such wonderful work and such global work that he's doing. So you're really putting us out there in the global map Siddharth. Thank you very much for joining us today.