SPEAKER_00 0:00

Not many agencies get to say one of their first inbound inquiries was Coca-Cola.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Going viral is not the solution. The idea should be to build the business in a solid way, in a foundational way, instead of chasing those quick viral moments.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

You started The Minimalist in 2015 and you've now become one of the most recognized Indian creative agencies.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

We actually never thought that we'll be building this into an agency. Like one of our early inbounds was from Coca-Cola.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

What was the original problem you were looking to solve?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

The challenge which I saw in the Indian creative ecosystem was there were very few companies which were very design-centered towards marketing. We saw that there is a potential to build something. This entire agency which you were building was just a passion project.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

If you were starting an agency brand today, tactically, what are some platforms that agencies are really overlooking?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

LinkedIn as a platform. We have almost hit like 100,000 followers on LinkedIn organically. Apart from that, the recognition that we have got from Forbes in their Forbes 30 under 30 list.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Working with international brands, do you find that you have to price yourself down when you're being played against Western agencies?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

We are pretty clear that we would not be reducing our price because we are giving you service which is at par with the Western world, with the Western agencies.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

What was the thought process behind giving away your IP as a business?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

That also has been a great marketing tool for us because we get amazing leads because of that book. We've sold around 10,000 copies of that book.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

If you were building your agency again from scratch, what would you do differently now? I think that Jirag, welcome to Agency Giants.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Thank you. Thank you. Really excited for this.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

You started The Minimalist in 2015 while still at college. Yeah. And you've now become one of the most recognized Indian creative agencies.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah. So uh if I look back uh like to 2015, uh the challenge which I saw in the Indian creative ecosystem was there were very few companies which were uh very design-centered or which had a very differentiated digital first approach uh towards marketing. So uh that was one very interesting gap that we saw. And we we thought that we can like in in this entire cluttered world of advertising and the cluttered world of agencies, we saw that there is a potential to build something. So I think that was an interesting gap. Uh but I would like if I have to be honest, I think we identified this gap a few years down the line. Initially, this this entire agency which we were building was just a passion project, which was just happening uh organically. Uh, so I I I would like to take you uh to let's say 2012, 2013, uh, before we started this agency. So I was in the university, I was uh pursuing my chemical engineering, and uh uh there I realized that my passion actually lies in design, creativity, marketing, coming up with very thought-provoking ideas. So uh I started practicing that, and I I completely immersed myself into this particular field, uh, learned design uh on my own, learned all the design softwares on my own uh while in college. And uh then in 2014, I was pretty sure that yeah, I want to build a career in this. And uh minimalism as a concept was something which was uh very fascinating uh at that time for me. And I thought that uh this is something which I would want to build something uh on. And uh so I was doing an internship with an advertising agency, and uh during that time I kind of realized that there is this gap which exists, and and this was like a uh very big one of the group agencies, uh the biggest I would say in India at that time. Uh so I was just an intern there, but I I kind of observed a few of these gaps and then I met the Wright co-founder. Uh, and uh he was also very passionate about the entire creative ecosystem. He was very passionate about writing. So uh both of us came together with our complementary skill sets and uh build this uh brand the minimalist. We actually never thought that we'll be building this into an agency. This was just like a community creative project. So, what we used to do was we used to uh create minimalist, thought-provoking content uh around various social issues which were existing in India at that time. And uh people started liking that kind of work, and then brands started organically reaching out to us that if you're doing this uh for yourself and if you're doing this for fun, why don't you apply similar principles uh uh to us and help us uh build our brand in a very differentiated way? And and these were not very small brands, like I remember like one of our early inbounds was from Coca-Cola. Uh, and because Coca-Cola also kind of believes in uh minimalism and uh very thought-provoking kind of marketing. So uh yeah, I think those I would say uh were the early days in terms of uh building this business.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

What would you say, or how would you define minimalism minimalism back then when you first started? Yeah. And how is your definition of minimalism changed today?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah. So uh I would say when we when we started the company, minimalism uh for us was uh mostly a visual uh design philosophy, because uh uh that that was something which was uh pretty powerful, trending, differentiated at that point in time. But over years, the way we have evolved uh the entire definition of minimalism uh is something uh very different. So today I would say uh the way we approach brands uh is minimalistic more from a strategic point of view. Uh by that I mean like we have uh built a three-step process to approach every brief, every brainstorming session. So we have this framework called Include Exclude Focus. Uh so in Include, what you do is uh you include whatever relevant uh data points you have around any brief, then you kind of look at the drawing board. You in a very sharp way, you exclude things by asking the right questions. And then with the things which are remaining, you kind of focus and narrow down and sharpen the brief and get to the first principle thinking and build the brand. So uh that is that is how uh for us uh minimalism uh has evolved. So uh today for us it is not uh just about the visual style of being minimalistic, it is about creating uh maximum impact uh for the brand uh by deploying the perfect amount of tools or perfect amount of creativity. Yeah. Just enough. Yeah, just enough, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Yeah. How did the early stage service look? So you've you were essentially almost like a media community to start off with, be fair to say. And so when these brands are approaching you like Coca-Cola and you start working with them, what are you tangibly doing for them?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, so so in terms of our journey, uh it has overall evolved from being a very transactional uh services agency. Uh so initially, the kind of work which we were doing was uh mostly around creating visual identities, creating uh uh some social media campaigns and things like that. It was, I would say, very transactional work uh uh because we were just out of college. Then uh the kind of work which we started doing was more uh value added, uh, which was I would say getting into UX strategy and uh brand strategy and a few of those things. And now uh the way I would say we have evolved is uh it's it's a mix of advisory plus value add. Uh so uh like this, this I would say has been the transition which we have seen uh over the last 10 years. So today when we approach brands, uh we work on uh very large-level briefs for them, which actually move the needle for the businesses, uh, move the needle for uh like these uh biggest of the brands in India. So uh that is that has been the evolution of the agency.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Nice. Yeah. Nice. And early stages had all of the clients come inbound, or had you had an outbound strategy as well?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

So uh I would say uh 90 to 95 percent of our clientele uh uh in the early days was inbound. And uh a few uh very interesting things which kind of helped us was uh, and and this is this is one thing which I always advise agency founders is you should have a brand for the agency itself, which kind of gets you a lot of inbound. Yeah. So uh in our case, uh the way we built that the minimalist uh Facebook page. So uh when when I mentioned that we built like a community of creative people, so uh it was around uh building that community on Facebook and Instagram. So uh when when I graduated from college, we uh we already had a decent following on our Facebook page. And over the years, uh in the next couple of years, it grew to 100,000 organic people following that content uh on social media. Uh so that kind of pulled a lot of inbound for us uh because people found that entire concept very refreshing, very interesting. And uh uh another thing which helped was uh in 2015-2016, uh the entire Indian startup ecosystem was booming quite a lot. Uh that was the time when uh funding became normal, right? Uh so in 2009-2010, venture capitalists started uh getting into India, and by 2015, 2016, they were very active. So there were a lot of startups which were uh raising funds, and uh uh whenever they used to raise funds, we were their choice uh to help them with their identity, to help them with their uh brand story, to help them with their social media campaigns. So I think uh we were at the right place at the right time uh in 2015, which kind of gave us this boost of a lot of inbound inquiries. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

You talk about starting an agency brand, and you mentioned to me off camera that agency brand actually being larger than the founder brand, for example. And I think you've got a great balance of both of those, a good founder brand, too.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

If you were starting an agency brand today, like what do you think are the most important principles for that? And then maybe even tactically, like what are some platforms that agencies are really overlooking where they really should be focusing time?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

So uh in terms of building the agency uh brand, uh what what helped us was LinkedIn as a platform. Like I have seen LinkedIn grown quite a lot in the last 10 years, and uh especially in India, uh, the content on LinkedIn was uh very, I would say uh less. Like people have started posting a lot more now, but uh earlier there there wasn't any quality content right now, also it's now going down the rain in terms of uh the kind of content which is there on LinkedIn. But LinkedIn as a platform was pretty good to kind of build the agency brand. We have almost hit like 100,000 followers on LinkedIn organically. Uh and since our business is very visual and it was very visual, uh Instagram also has been a brilliant platform uh for us to build this agency brand. Uh apart from that, uh some some uh PR, uh I think the recognition that we have got from Forbes uh in their Forbes 30 under 30 list, uh the recognition that we got from uh LinkedIn itself, like as one of the top startups in India. Uh, I think those kind of things also uh helped build the agency brand. Uh and another thing with us was that we were kind of carrying this entire torch of minimalism, minimalism in creativity. Uh that in that in itself had a lot of pull, and we just had to keep doing some great work, and the brand was uh being built uh with that good work that we were doing.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah. I saw your 30 or under 30 and Asia Force, which is awesome. How much of an impact did that have? Did you could you observe an impact in the business at that point?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Uh yeah, it it actually had a significant uh impact. Uh it it actually built a lot of uh trust and credibility for our business at that point in time. I would say now it's a pretty old thing. Uh like we got that in 2019, which is like uh six years, five, six years back. Uh at that time that list was also not very common. Uh now I think uh because they they have like uh 300 founders every year uh across different locations. So there are a lot of uh people in that list. But at that time, uh I think that list was pretty new. So uh it had that uh weightage, it had that uh trust. So so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Looks good in the LinkedIn bias. Yeah, it does, it does. It does in a whole lot of way. Yeah, yeah. Was there a moment you I mean you you worked with not many agencies get to say one of their first inbound inquiries was Coca-Cola. That's pretty exceptional. Uh was there a moment in the agency where you really felt like you'd earned credibility in the market, or did that come pretty early from day one?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

So uh uh credibility, I would say, uh came in I would say two, three years. Uh but one thing which was interesting about us was, and and this worked for us in India. Uh so we both me and my co-founder we graduated from uh IIT, which is uh like a which you can you can compare it to like how Harvard is in the US. So uh from day one, uh there was some bit of credibility which was associated with uh what we were doing. So uh and and gradually in a couple of years when people saw the work that we were doing, when our project started going uh live, uh people saw that credibility in our pedigree also being reflected in the work. Uh that kind of uh gave uh a bit more boost, I would say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Is it only large corporate enterprises that you're working with at the moment, or is there a a smaller kind of brand pocket as well?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

So uh right now, uh like most of our clients are uh large corporate enterprises. Uh we handpick a few startups. Uh so uh like we we get a lot of inquiries from startups as well. But what we try to see is like is it the right time for them to utilize our capabilities? And if we feel that there is that mix, and if we feel that they are building something really disruptive, uh and and there can be something long-term which we can do with them. Uh, that's when we we collaborate and handpick a few of them. So uh there are a few startups which we are working with right now. And when we work with these startups, we work with them uh from their zero to one journey. Like there, there are uh there is a startup which is uh which has recently come up in India. Uh and uh you would have heard of Ryelo in uh UK, uh where they're building this entire subscription model for uh electronic gadgets. So there's a company which is uh uh which has come up in India. And uh for them, uh when when they were kind of building this business, they were conceptualizing this business, we help them with uh the right kind of positioning, we help them with building their entire visual identity, their entire uh design system, the the first uh product, like in terms of the UIUX, uh uh like all their digital journeys, then how to launch them on social. Uh so when we work with startups, we kind of help them in a full stack way. Uh and we have been replicating the this kind of engagement with uh startups which we really like in India.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

So uh do you presumably you turn away a huge amount of leads? Do you have a system for that? Do you have a a down sale agency or or a referral network that you use?

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Uh no, no, actually. Like we uh we either work with them, work with those brands ourselves, or uh we we don't work with them. Turn them down. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Make sense.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah. What would you say uh for an agency that may be watching this and who is stuck on at the lower end of the market and thinking, I would I would love to work with the kind of brands that the minimalists work with, what are some of the key things that they need to make sure they have in place to be able to qualify for that kind of a work?

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Uh so you you mean the agencies who are at the lower rank?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah, the uh agencies that may be working with smaller startup brands, uh your you know, maybe local business and so on, and have the aspirations to move into a much higher caliber of clients.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yeah. So so I think uh what what I've seen, like in terms of uh these higher caliber brands, a lot of times uh, especially in India, uh they look for a lot of credibility. They big because in in these corporates, uh, and and this is an interesting thing in a lot of B2B uh businesses that every uh sales that you close or every client that you close, there would be around eight to nine stakeholders uh who would be involved. So it's important for your offering to be very strong for it to go through all those eight to ten stakeholders. It it it should be competitive enough for it to go through the procurement teams because when you kind of uh grow and when you when you are looking for those bigger clients, there are like 10 other companies who are kind of uh fighting for that. So you need to have the right uh kind of case studies and you need to kind of pitch them in the right way, you need to have the right kind of solutions which which can really work for them. So I think it's it has to be a mix of a lot of things. It has to be an orchestra which is being run in front of these corporate clients for for them to be impressed and for them to uh give their account to you.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

How important would you say positioning is in that as well? Because in many cases, many agency services are commoditized. There are thousands of agencies that exist. You guys have a very clear, distinct market position. Would you say that's been an unfair advantage for you guys?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

It has been. It has been. Uh uh because because the entire industry is very cluttered. Uh like there are agencies coming up in every street, every corner of the country, and and it's not just for India, it's for everywhere in the world. So uh having a very clear positioning which which uh people in the boardrooms. So if I imagine like uh people in the boardrooms of these enterprises, when they're thinking of some problem, there's like your agency should be in their consideration. You should have that clear positioning that what kind of problem they are thinking and for what kind of problem they will ring your agency. So I think it's it's very important to have that uh uh very, very clear.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

You obviously have your co-founder who is inside the business from day one as well. How are your roles distinct from each other? What are your unique skill sets in the company?

SPEAKER_01 21:12

So uh like it has it has kind of evolved uh quite a lot. Uh so uh initially uh when when we started, uh I was a lot into design because I had hands-on experience uh in design. And uh he had hands-on uh experience in terms of writing. Uh so we we hired a few designers, we had a few writers. Uh both of us used to uh manage uh these things uh till a point. Uh then uh he took up this role of generating new business, closing uh some inbounds that we were getting, getting a few more uh leads. And I was busy managing the operations because uh once you get those clients on board. You have to kind of retain them. You have to give them what you have promised. And then eventually, over the uh course of our journey, there were a few new skill sets that we were building for this company. So, uh, like I was mentioning, we started with just branding, we started with uh uh design-led projects, then we moved into user experience, user interface related products. So uh I was busy building that capability. Then when we saw in 2020, 2021, uh, if if we have to get into larger enterprises, a lot of time enterprises look for end-to-end solutions. Uh, so if you are their creative agency or marketing agency uh on role, they would want you to help them with their influencer marketing. They would want to uh help them with their uh media, with their uh with their uh ads on Meta, Google, uh so these SEO. So these are some of the things which which also become pretty critical after a point, right? So I took up uh this role of building these new offerings uh for for the agency. So uh though those were some of the things which I was busy doing uh in the last couple of years. So uh yeah, like building some of these ancillary services which can which can help the agency become a lot more holistic in terms of their offerings. And uh while while building these uh these new services, that also requires a zero-to-one kind of a mindset because uh you need to build some of these in a very uh frugal way because agencies are bootstrapped. So you can't have like the most senior people. Uh, you you have to work with talent, which is uh which is good, but needs some guidance, some training. So yeah, like the last few years that I have spent uh have been more on this front, while my found my my co-founder has been managing some part of operations, some part of new business. But I would say that new business uh is something which is a role of uh co-founders at every point in time while building agency. Like you have also built uh agency, so you know that new business is something which comes through the founders' network or uh through referrals. So uh yeah, that that is how we have kind of uh split our roles and we have built this agency so far.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Nice. How do you I mean it sounds like you are you're a full stack agency really now, and that has evolved over time, which is interesting because you know I speak to so many agencies and some will take the mindset of we need to stay in this lane and we focus on this one thing, we do SEO and we do it incredibly well. And there's no real right or wrong answer, it just depends on what kind of agency you're trying to build. Have you found that over time you've built departments that maybe haven't worked in the company and you've had to get rid of those? And and and how are you looking at new complementary services in a way that doesn't become a shiny object and a distraction from the North Star?

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Yeah. So uh like in terms of uh the way we have decided to build some of these offerings, uh, there has been uh some some logic and there has been a lot of debate around if we should build these or if we should not build these. So uh a couple of years back, we kind of uh built a very clear purpose for the company, like why why do we exist and why are we coming to work every day? And uh that purpose statement is helping businesses win through inventive solutions, right? So the fundamental of our business today is how can we help the client win? How can we help the client with their briefs? Now, that solution a lot of times comes from influencer marketing. That solution a lot of time comes from the right kind of media strategy. Uh that that solution comes a lot of time from them ranking better on the search. So that is how we kind of evolved into building some of these departments. So I would say we we don't have like very, very big teams uh for these departments, but we have good enough teams which can help brands with their problem statements uh when they come to us. So like the core of our business still is the creative aspect, but I think a lot of these things have to come together for us to genuinely show some impact to the brands. Uh so that that has been the reason. Uh and we we have seen that influencer marketing today is deeply linked with creative, right? Uh like there are so many amazing ways in which you can use uh influencer marketing in a very creative way for a brand. Like uh, so there's a brand that we are building. Uh uh, I would say uh it exists, it's a very big uh legacy company. They are in the space of uh batteries, uh, and uh uh it's it's a brand which I have known while I was growing up. Uh, but now the problem statement that they have is that uh they want to appeal to Gen Z and they want to make their brand relevant for Gen Z. And for that, like the kind of ideas that we feel would be relevant and are relevant, which we have been executing, would come from like really wacky influencer marketing-led ideas. So that kind of helped us identify that, yeah, this particular offering is important. This needs founder level focus. Uh, media also, by media, I mean uh running ads and helping the brands with the distribution for the creative ideas. Uh, because that's when the brands will actually realize if uh the ideas are working for them or not. So that's when they will be able to iterate, and that's when they will be able to kind of realize the impact. So we realize that uh some bit of capabilities around media is also so those were the questions which we which we solved, and this kind of the purpose that we defined helped us uh identify that, yeah, these are some of the things which are adjacent to the things that we are doing, and we need to do this for us to scale the enterprise clients and for us to go a ladder up when we are talking to the CXOs and these uh enterprises, that we can help them solve these problems through uh these particular skill sets that we have built. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

I always describe it as like having tunnel vision, but then just opening your peripheral and you're able to go like this, but not like a full.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So there were a few things which we decided that we will uh not do uh very deeply. So uh when we were building uh UIUX capabilities where we were uh designing digital journeys, digital products, uh, we decided that we'll not venture into uh tech in a very deep way because that again is a natural extension, I would say, to a business. But there we were pretty clear that we can only take uh these many problems or these many skills at a time. So at that point, we decided that we'll not uh venture deeply into back-end development, we'll not venture uh deep into uh DevOps and all those things.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

So uh was that quite hard from coming from an engineering background to not want to go into that?

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yeah, it was actually hard because we have seen a lot of companies scaling uh quite well when when they have uh design plus development capabilities. Uh but but we felt an inclination towards the creative side of things, towards uh these other things. And we we we were also realizing that uh tech is a different beast altogether. Like if you have to get into it, you have to like just get very, very deep into it. So yeah. So uh it it kind of didn't align with uh both of our skill sets as well. Uh so we we decided that at that point in time, we decided that we'll not be pursuing it in the conventional way. Uh we we still pursue tech in a more interesting way, I would say. Uh like rather than it being in the conventional back-end development or uh that format, we try to implement campaigns with creative tech. Uh so uh we have executed projects in uh augmented reality space. Uh uh so in in those projects, what we do is we think of those ideas, uh, we build the prototype, then we get some experts on board, we have a creative technologist in-house as well. So uh those are some of the ideas that that kind of resonate with our creative positioning as well. So uh like the way we have approached tech is from that lens. And uh we have we have like another thing that we have tried in tech is like we have kept a lean team for front-end development because we feel that uh it is something which is very critical for your designs to uh get into the right implementation format. When uh when a designer is thinking of some amazing uh visual ideas, uh if you if you give it to a developer who does not know how to uh kind of implement that, it will just go south. So for that reason, we have kept like a very lean front-end dev uh team. Uh but yeah, uh I think that that's a very interesting thing that you asked because it's very easy for founders to get completely distracted in the journey. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

You've obviously gone from the two of you to now over 150 team members in having offering such a wide variety of different services. Uh many agencies, of course, when they're really lean, will operate on a pod structure of sorts where you kind of copy and paste the team to increase your capacity. Presumably you're not on that structure and you're more head of departments and so on. Can you talk on team structure and org structure somewhat?

SPEAKER_01 32:30

So uh we have actually gone through that journey where uh we had that pod structure in between where we we kind of built some pods for uh different brands and uh people leading these different pods. But we realized that uh operationally that was not uh very easy uh and that was not very efficient, also. So uh gradually the way we have moved is uh in the head of department kind of a model where we let's say have uh a VP of uh account management, that person would have various account directors, and that account director would have a few set of brands. Then, in terms of creative, also there is a national creative director, that person would have various creative directors, and those creative directors then managing their set of brands. So uh I I honestly felt that uh this structure has worked uh better for us uh compared to the pod structure that we we built earlier. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

How has it been getting talent in the agency space in India obviously been a completely different market to what I'm used to here in the UK and in the US? Yeah. Um, how has talent acquisition and team growth been in general in that space? Is the agency industry a thriving industry in India from day one from when you started the agency, or were you very much at the birth of the industry booming in the space?

SPEAKER_01 34:01

So uh, like when we entered this industry, it was actually in a thriving phase. Uh uh there there was already a lot of uh good talent. Nice. And uh for us, the job was just to kind of build the right kind of agency brand and attract them. And uh uh in our case, we also because because we were trying to do something different, do something new in the market, uh, we also got uh some people in our team who have not worked anywhere uh and who were really good at uh design so that we can kind of look at training them in our philosophy. So we we built a team which was a mix of uh the talent that we developed and the talent which came from uh some places where they have already learned uh the entire art and science of creativity and marketing. So it has been uh that kind of a strategy in terms of talent for us. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

How is how does the market differentiate from India to to the West in the sense that I mean are you working solely taking on Indian department divisions of the brands that you're working with, or if you've got international divisions as well that you're so uh we we actually work with uh global brands uh as well.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Like we have clients uh from the US, we have uh clients, some some some brands uh from the UK, uh we we have uh brands in the Middle East. Uh so uh actually the way we help these brands is because UX design, it's such a such a global thing and minimalism the way we approach design. It's also something which is very widely appreciated in the uh Western world. So I think that kind of gave us uh that leverage to kind of work with these clients very comfortably. So uh like that there are pretty big brands, like that there is this company called Almarai, uh uh, which is a very big brand in the Middle East. So we have helped them uh with their uh user experience projects. There is one brand that we are now onboarding uh from Middle East, it's uh one of the biggest uh retail chains of Middle East. Uh it's like Tesco of Middle East. Actually, uh I think that that would be the right comparison. So uh with them, we would be helping them uh build that brand online. So for that, what we do is we we go to these markets, we send some of our team members to interact with the stakeholders, identify the right kind of problem statements, and help those brands with with the right kind of solutions. So uh then in New York, there are a few brands that we have been working with. Nice. So so it's it's a pretty, I would say, an offering which is a good mix of uh international uh plus uh Indian work.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Do you uh how do you feel generally about like international expansion in the sense of do you think it's important to have a presence in the country in which you're serving? Or are you quite firm on expanding purely inside of India and still taking on those global clients?

SPEAKER_01 37:20

So uh I would say uh for us the focus has been how can we look at expanding majorly in India? Because India has been a pretty booming market right now. The the way things are growing there, the way new brands are being built there, the way advertising has been thriving there is is phenomenal. So uh that has been uh one focus area for us. And in terms of global brands, a lot of these have been inbounds. Like when when when people uh move to uh let's say these brands globally, they refer us, and since they have this working relationship with us, uh they they kind of bring us on board, we we pitch to them, and uh that that's how we we kind of work with uh global brands. And in terms of your question about whether agencies should have full-fledged offices uh in different locations, I think it depends uh uh in terms of scale. So let's say if we get three, four very big brands in the Middle East which can kind of sustain a solid team, a solid local team, then it definitely makes sense to kind of build a team which can serve that market and kind of uh scale things there. So uh, but uh if that's not the case, then I would say uh maybe you can have uh account management uh or sales teams uh in in some of these geographies who can help you close some of these deals. Uh yeah. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

I've seen that you published a book, Think Like the Minimalist. Yes. And in many cases, giving away your blueprint of how you think as a company. Uh what was the thought process behind giving away your IP as a business? What was the original goal of publishing that book?

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah. So uh one one reason why we thought that we should uh publish that book was because uh we felt that we had a very unique process, uh very unique IP that we have kind of developed. And uh that is something uh which very few agencies uh have. And uh uh that's when we thought that we should kind of put it out there and uh let people learn that entire art and science of minimalism. And uh that that also has been a great uh marketing tool for us uh because we get uh some amazing leads because of that book. Uh that like that book has been published with Penguin uh Random House in India, and uh like uh we've sold around 10,000 copies of that book. Uh so like we we see a lot of marketers, CMOs reading that book, and then they kind of reach out to our team that we really loved the entire philosophy. We would like to collaborate with your team, and so it has been a uh great marketing tool. And uh yeah, we we thought that uh it's something which is missing in the Indian ecosystem. Like there are uh very few uh amazing books around uh creativity, design, marketing. So uh we saw that gap and we we kind of filled it.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Nice. What do you think is the number one most important lesson in the book?

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Uh so uh actually the the book is around uh looking at things differently. Yeah. So uh when when when you are in that entire creative process, the book if if I have to give you a summary of that book, it's about how do you kind of apply your brain in a very creative way to look at things in a very unique or a lateral way. Uh so it that that entire book trains you with various tools. Uh it it gives you that entire uh kit of looking at things in a different way. So that that is that is the entire crux.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Quickly before we get back into the podcast, if you want to grab yourself a copy of The Minimalist, uh Chirac, how can people get themselves one?

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Uh you can grab it on Amazon. Uh and search for things like The Minimalist, and uh you will find us there.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Nice, awesome. We'll put some links in the description.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

I'm interested in your opinion, especially coming from uh an engineering background as well, on the impact of AI with creativity and and the potential loss of a lot of human creativity over the next decade or so.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yeah. So uh I I feel that uh like right now, uh AI, the way it has been developing uh in in our business in the last uh one or two years, I haven't seen a direct negative impact uh uh because like brands now have a lot more requirements than than what what they had earlier. So uh because with with AI uh it opens up so many opportunities also now. Like earlier there were a few limited things which you could do. Uh now I think you can do much more. So uh if I have to talk about uh creatives, now with AI you can build personalized creatives for everyone, right? So uh I I feel that in in some ways it will increase a lot of demand, uh, but the agencies will have to adapt quite a lot in terms of their thinking uh around how to leverage that demand and how to train their workforce in the right way uh to kind of capture uh that interest from the market.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

Yeah. Are there any specific systems that you've built with AI that have made a big impact in the business?

SPEAKER_01 43:19

So uh in terms of uh AI, the things that we have been trying is uh in terms of video production, uh we have been uh like a lot of films uh which which are I would say where not a very high quality production is needed. We have started doing that with uh AI, and uh I think that has saved quite a lot of human power, uh human potential. Uh and uh now uh with with with respect to uh the entire tools, the the way a lot of these tools are developing, uh Uh, Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, I think all of them have amazing AI extensions. So our tree, our teams are now trained in terms of how to put the right kind of prompts. Uh, what are the tools where you will get the right kind of solutions for a particular problem? So we have been kind of conducting a lot of training around uh those those tools internally uh for people to actually understand these things. So uh that is that is the way we have been uh kind of integrating AI in terms of our workflows.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Do you think that we're at danger of losing our ability to think creatively over a period of time?

SPEAKER_01 44:40

I think it's it's something which which is very hard to answer right now because we don't know how AI in the long term shapes up. Like when when people are talking about AGI, Doomsday, I think those are the days uh in those kind of scenarios, uh there's very limited which uh people will be able to do. But uh uh I feel with with the way AI is shaping right now, uh I feel it's more of a tool. Uh it's it's more of a tool which is which is kind of uh giving more opportunities for human creativity to thrive, uh, which is giving more uh opportunities to do a lot more uh quality work if they know how to. Uh because I see a lot of campaigns which are very uh illustration heavy or very visual heavy, which would have taken like months to execute without AI. And and now those can be done like in a couple of days, uh if if done with AI in the right way. So I think that is uh another side uh which I see.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Yeah. We can operate a lot leaner and produce a lot more work. Exactly. Sometimes at the cost of clients' perceived value of the service, at least, but that's only something we can adapt to. Do you think that on a global stage, working with international brands, has do you find, and I'm interested, we we we spoke off camera about company revenue levels and so on. Do you find that you have to price yourself down on a global stage with larger companies when you're being played against Western agencies? Is that ever something you get you that impacts you?

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Uh so uh that that is an expectation which Western uh clients uh usually have when they when they work with uh Indian companies. But in our case, we are we are pretty clear that we would not be uh reducing our price uh because we are giving you service which is at par with uh with the Western world, with the Western agencies. So uh a lot of times we kind of lose clients because of that. But but we are like, no, I think if we are working with you, we'll be working with you uh on our rate card. Uh not because we'll not be reducing cost because we are based in India.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Of course. Yeah. Where are you going as a business, as an entity? What is the long-term vision? Is it just continue expansion and can you see yourself staying with the minimalist forever? Or are you building towards an exit or a roll-up of any sort?

SPEAKER_01 47:17

So so, in terms of uh the the focus for us right now, uh the the way we have been building this agency is that uh how can we look at solving even bigger problems uh for brands, like like how I was mentioning earlier, we were more on the transactional side, then we moved into the value added. Uh, then now we are moving towards uh even even bigger briefs where where brands are uh giving us very interesting uh problem statements. So the idea right now is to see how we can uh create uh much more impact for these brands and kind of increase our LTV with these brands. Like uh and and I I feel there is still a lot of opportunity to kind of uh build uh a very big agency brand in India. So the way we have been approaching it right now is we are building the right kind of leadership team for this for this agency also to kind of uh keep growing. And uh in terms of opportunities and all, if if there are some really great opportunities where we see like there is a solid strategic uh collaboration possible with someone which can unlock uh like the next level of growth for us. We have always been open, yeah. Nice, but but I think I I still see a lot of organic growth potential in this business, uh, even right now, with the kind of team and the leadership that we have built. Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 48:54

I don't want to to backtrack, but but as you were speaking, I just had a thought, and I think this will be really valuable to lots of people to watch this podcast. I have a huge segment of our audience in India, and lots of, and I'm always so it's great to see there's such an entrepreneur culture in India. And many people, lots of the people I help start agencies are from India. Time and time again I come across this conversation where people want to start in India, but they don't want to work with Indian clients. And they say, I want to work with the US clients, I want to work with the UK clients. And my advice is always start local, get your credibility, leverage where you're at. And if you want to expand internationally, then fine, do that later. But you very much are, you know, you've you've not followed that rule at all. You've gone completely against that. You're testament to what can be built in the Indian market. What would you say to one of those like smaller, aspirational, uh new start entrepreneurs who maybe want to get involved in the agency space, um, who doesn't see the value of being in the Indian market when very clearly there's an exceptional market there?

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Yeah. So I think so. If you have to uh build an agency in India, yeah, you will have to have like patience, you will have to kind of go through that drill. Uh, because when you are in that journey where you are doing a lot of transactional work initially, when you are building that agency, uh, there will be a lot of disappointment which you will feel every day that it's very hard to deal with Indian clients and uh all that. So I think one needs to have that patience, one one needs to have that uh that clear positioning. And India actually has a lot of potential for big agencies, uh, like uh people to build really solid, creative, differentiated, or not just creative in in different areas like in performance marketing, in uh generative engine optimization, uh in influencer marketing. There are very thriving agencies uh which have been growing in India. So uh I think it it will need a lot of patience. And once you reach the enterprise clients, that's when it's a lot of fun uh seeing the impact which you can create.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

Yeah. So the goal is to move up market and exactly. Yeah. Do you think there is opportunity within the mid and lower market?

SPEAKER_01 51:13

I would say there is, but the offering will have to be a bit tailored and bit different for them.

SPEAKER_00 51:21

Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

Yeah. There are a lot of uh like 10 million, 20 million dollar uh businesses in India, uh and they don't have any in-house teams, uh, they don't know much about marketing. Uh they have been building their businesses by just being focusing on their business, not focusing on marketing. So I think if if if agencies, if there are agencies who can build selected offerings for those businesses, there is definitely a potential, a booming potential.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Are there any services in the Indian market specifically that stand out beyond the obvious of Meta ads, SEO, and so on? Are there any specific services in India that are favored over others? I'm thinking purely from the from the sp perspective of that same audience I'm I'm thinking about right now.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Uh so uh services which are favored uh I think it's it's pretty same as how it is across the globe. Uh uh one one thing which which is uh uh different about India is people clients they they want quick results. Uh that is yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh I think from from that point of view, uh like with with perf ads and all, uh a lot of times you can you can show quick results because uh there is, let's say if there is already some level of awareness about the brand, you can you can show some impact. Uh but but it's it's hard to sustain those relationships because a brand is usually built with a solid level of brand awareness and mix of perf. So uh yeah, like I would say there there isn't any specific uh favorable service that I have seen.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Uh but yeah, uh if you were building your agency again from scratch today and you were going back, what would you do differently now?

SPEAKER_01 53:41

So if I'm building the agency back, uh I think I would I would still like to build it the way I have done it so far. Uh what I would do differently is I think uh in our case, there were a few years in between uh where we were still focusing on uh a lot of uh low impact work, uh and and that was because of the nature of the business and all that. I would like how it can be high impact from from the beginning, like a lot more high impact work. Uh so I think that impact would be one thing that I would want to change if I have to build it again.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

And by that do we mean social impact or impact as far as being close to revenue with the service?

SPEAKER_01 54:40

Yeah, impact being close to uh moving the needle for these clients uh where you feel that kick that yeah, yeah, you are you are helping that client move their product off the shelf. Like I I think that kind of thrill uh I would want from day one.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Makes sense. Yeah. Just moving into something a little bit tactical for a moment. You guys have got to build an exceptional brand across all platforms from founder to your agency brand. Uh if someone's looking at this and they've taken a lot of inspiration from everything that you've said, and they want to start a brand, but don't want to waste time on you know trying a thousand different things, like if you were to start a brand again, where would you be looking to spend your time and and and how often would you be looking to post?

SPEAKER_01 55:29

Uh so building brand for the agency, you mean?

SPEAKER_00 55:33

Yeah, sure. But then also founder, I think it'd be really important to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Yeah, yeah. So uh I would say uh if if I'm a uh new founder trying to build the agency, or even an established founder today that just doesn't have a good brand. So I I feel that uh they should focus on some solid work which can do the talking. Uh and uh that is the best way to build the brand today uh on on social media because uh if you don't do good work, then it's easy for people to see through the uh bullshit. So I think I think your work should do the talking and build the brand. Uh that that's what I feel.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Nice. Yeah. Work your way up to some big case studies. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

And and those case studies should uh be shareable uh not just by your team, but people in the industry. They should talk about it. The media should talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

I always say that the the the the the point in which you really gain full momentum in an agency is when your prospective clients want to be your existing clients because they want to be that company, regardless of the agency. The agency is just the vehicle to get them to that point.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

Totally, totally.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

Yeah, it stops becoming that point. Was there was there is there a pivotal client then when you think of when I say that? Is there a client that comes to mind that unlocked uh a lot for the agency?

SPEAKER_01 57:04

Yeah, actually, so uh there is one client which is in the insurance space, uh uh Tata uh AIG. Have you heard of Tata Group? It's a it's a pretty global brand, like from India.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Uh and uh they they own uh Jaguar and like like yeah, so they're the parent company. Uh and uh so uh they have uh this insurance vertical in India. So we built the entire uh UIUX and digital journey for uh online insurance for them. Uh we made the entire uh insurance buying process two to three clicks uh long for them, and that case study uh was widely appreciated uh in India, like in the entire design community. Like there were there were awards which we won for that, and that got us a lot of insurance brands. Uh apart from that, uh there have been a lot of uh other case studies for brands that we have built for Tata. So we have built like we have worked with Tata for around five to six of their brands, and uh those have been uh pretty phenomenal, uh, which which which were pivotal in terms of our journey.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

And then when you get that new case study in the company and you're like, wow, we've got something here, let's squeeze this juice. What are you doing? Are you sending that to press? You're posting it on social? Do you have a framework for that as such, or is it just let's get this thing out to as many people as possible?

SPEAKER_01 58:40

Uh yeah, so what what we do is we kind of uh uh build that case study. Uh we also send it to press uh because that's that's the best way to kind of reach the right kind of uh stakeholders. Uh we put it on social. Uh in some cases we promote those case studies also. Uh we also send it in our newsletters, uh, which which we like we we have monthly newsletters, so uh that is another avenue. So we try to see how we can uh like send this to as many people as we can. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

I've got some quick fire questions for you. Yeah. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

SPEAKER_01 59:21

Uh best piece of advice I have ever received. Uh I think while building the journey, why while building this business, it was uh around being uh being focused to uh what we are doing and not getting distracted with building products or uh big because it's very easy for uh services businesses to get distracted that why don't you build this product, why don't you build this software? So I feel in in the journey so far, uh, the way we have been able to come to where we are, I'm pretty happy that yeah, we we could build a really solid foundational services business without any distraction. And this was the advice which we got from a lot of people while we were on this journey. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

Contrasting now, what's the worst business advice that you hear often?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

Uh worst business advice. That's a pretty interesting and thought-provoking question. Uh yeah, I think one uh thing which people always and and this is this is for brands which reach out to agencies and even agency founders who are trying to build brands. Like a lot of times people chase virality, and and this is a piece of advice which people keep talking about that you have to go viral, you have to go viral. I feel that going viral is not uh the solution. Uh and and that is a thing, that is an advice which keeps on circulating uh in in the entire business ecosystems. I think the the idea should be to build the business in a solid way, in a foundational way, uh, instead of chasing those quick viral moments. Uh yeah, I think that that is that is one worst advice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

It's interesting you say that. I we spoke of camera that I'll have a YouTube channel, and and very often the content team will optimize for getting some viral content. And time and time again I remind the team when we have another piece of viral content, I'm like, look at how little business impact this had. Exactly. It made you feel good, but it didn't do anything tangibly. These are the numbers behind that. Yeah. So that's interesting. One skill that every agency owner must master.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

Facing rejection. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

Because like you you face rejection so many times a day.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

Can you think to a time where you lost a tender or a pitch and it forced you to change the way that you approach that?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:07

Yeah, actually there have been quite quite a lot of those instances. Uh every pitch, every rejection kind of gives that learning opportunity of like going back and improving the foundations and yeah. So I would say almost all of the rejections have kind of led to some sunset meetings where we have identified what didn't work and what needs to change.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Always a book that's changed the way that you think.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:46

A book that changed the way I think. Actually, I don't read a lot of books. Yeah. Uh and uh How do you learn? So I I learn through experiences. Uh like I'm a very experience-oriented learner. Uh I learn from uh interacting with people. Uh I I read blogs. I uh like when when I I learn by doing things, I'm a very experiential learner. Uh that and I love traveling. Uh so I wherever I go, I try to learn more about how businesses are uh being built in those geographies. Uh when when clients are kind of talking about their problem statements, I learn from them. When I'm interviewing candidates, I try to learn from them. So I try to learn from uh a lot of these sources. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Nice from people. Is there maybe a podcast or a blog, rather?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

Uh so earlier in in terms of our uh journey, I used to uh follow a lot of uh these websites like ads of the world, and uh I don't know if they're pretty popular now uh or not. Uh but yeah, uh though those were some of the uh things that I used to follow uh quite uh vividly earlier.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:20

And finally one tool or software that you couldn't live without in your agency.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:24

One tool we we couldn't live without. Uh I think it would be the Adobe suite. Uh I think that that runs our company. Fine. Uh like like we we use Illustrator, Photoshop, Firefly, uh After Effects.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

So What's the CRM, uh the CRM of choice in India?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

Uh it's Zoho.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

Zoho. Yeah. Interesting. Zoho for project management as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:53

Yeah. Zoho is pretty big there.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:55

Interesting. Zoho is a big company here, but mainly for domain registration rather than for project management. That's it. Everyone is notion and click up obsessed. Awesome. Trag, it's been an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:07

Oh, I didn't even realize how long it has been. It was it was incredible. It was uh lovely talking to you. You too, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:16

Yeah, yeah.