Happydemic's vision is to bring a musical revolution that spreads happiness in the lives of artists and customers

ST Bureau

Mumbai

Happydemic is a world class effort of love and passion (both online and
offline) to bring Live performances to your doorstep at an affordable price.
Happydemic is a company started by Mrs. Radhika Mukherji, wife of singer Shaan
& Amar Pandit, Managing Director of My Financial Advisor & Happiness
Factory. They are live entertainment specialists and cater to all categories
& genres of music. The artists on our platform are extremely talented, most
are contestants, finalists and winners of reality shows like The Voice, The
Stage, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, India Idol etc.

The website was officially launched on April 2016 and has over 400+
artists listed till date. We have done phenomenal work in the last 4 months
with Corporate Clients like Kotak AMC, La Farge, IDFC AMC, Malls like Phoenix
Market City Kurla, Restaurants like Mirabella, some weddings and a lot of happy
customers!

In an exclusive interview with Startup Terminal, Radhika Mukherji, CEO
and Co-Founder, Happydemic shares more insights about the venture and
future goals.

Excerpts:

Singer Shaan with Radhika Mukherji

ST: When did you decide to be an entrepreneur?

Having been
with Shaan for 20 years now, music is a huge part of my life and I wanted to
give back to music because it has given us so much. Everyday I use to get calls from
family and friends asking for a band to play at their parent’s anniversary,
social gathering or some or the other events and that’s when I thought, if you
don’t have the right connect how will you find a good talented performer?

This is what
inspired me for coming up with this portal.

I can’t sing
so I thought why not get involved in the business side of things and bridge a
gap between exceptional talent and honourable audiences.

That’s when
Happydemic came into inception. Being an artist’s wife I also got to understand
an artist’s mindset, the problems that they face and their temperaments. I and my
partner Amar (who was and still is our financial advisor) met over coffee to
discuss our investment portfolio, but we landed up discussing Happydemic more.
We decided there and then to do this together. With the creative edge that I
bring on the table, Amar’s love with numbers and sound advice and Shaan’s
talent; Happydemic found its way. Our vision itself says it all …A
musical revolution that spreads happiness in the lives of artist and customers.

ST: Please tell us about your venture.

Happydemic is
a platform that aims to bridge the gap between an artiste and the audiences.
They position themselves as “live entertainment experts” and strongly believe
that a party is not a party if it’s not live! They want to bring live
entertainment to everyone’s doorsteps and bust the myths around live
entertainment, about it being very elaborate process/ Space consuming/ too
expensive, etc.

Happydemic’s
essence is spreading happiness within the artist community by connecting
them to the right audience, Shaan used to host lot of reality shows initially
and then he moved on to judging them, and there were exceptional talents on
these platforms. All the reality shows have a whole lot of rounds and you have
over hundred exceptional talents coming in but finally there’s one winner. So
the idea behind Happydemic was to actually help the other 99. A lot of these
kids leave their cities, their villages and come to Mumbai to pursue this dream
of music, and like we all know how expensive as a city Mumbai is, they have
talent but nowhere to perform so the spirit of Happydemic came from there, that
Happydemic is an entertainment portal wanted to be that gust of wind beneath
their wings to help them get work and to connect their exceptional talent with
honourable audiences.

An epidemic of
happiness, thus Happydemic.

Happydemic Team

ST: What
business opportunities do you see particularly in your area of
entrepreneurship?

Where
share of market is concerned, the opportunities are huge. Rs 4.5 lakh crore was the
tax paid by corporate Indiawhich means the profits was around Rs 15Lakh Crore.
So, assuming a profit margin of 10% on average, the revenues of corporate India
would be around Rs 150 lakh crores. Of this, Marketing and HR spend 10% on
their team, clients and distributors, which means the spend is Rs 15 lakh crore
which is the addressable market size for us. Even if we have the potential to
do 0.5%. It’s huge! 7500 crores. Even to scale a business like ours, there are so many avenues. From
going Pan India to overseas.

ST: How has
been your entrepreneurship journey so far?

The journey so
far has not been a roller coaster ride, cause Amar and me came into Happydemic
completely prepared. We really studied. We have a 5 year plan in place. We are
in target for that 5 year plan. We should break even in 1
and a half year and I think for a start up, this is brilliant news. I think
being an entrepreneur itself means being an inventor. You have to constantly
invent new concepts and ideas. So the journey is definitely a creative one.
This is something that has not been set out by someone else, so we are paving
our own way and that makes the journey even more adventurous.

ST: As an entrepreneur, what challenges do you face in your day to
day professional life, if any?

The toughest
challenge I’ve faced as a woman entrepreneur was in maintaining a balance
between home and work. I have been fortunate enough not to have major hurdles
where running a business is concerned, because I’ve been from a business
background, I know how a business works. Even staying at home and running the
house was also equally tough because Shaan was travelling, I have two kids, I
have a mother-in-law, and there was a whole balance between Shaan’s hectic
schedule and house schedule. But I think the toughest thing that I’ve probably
ever faced is a dilemma within me, whether I’m doing enough for home or enough
for office. But I think that will constantly happen and I will have to
constantly learn to face it. I’ve had tremendous meltdowns in the past, but
I’ve learned. Shaan’s goodwill actually made it so much easier; he’s actually
made a blueprint for Happydemic’s success. Topped with Amar’s support where the
numbers are concerned, he’s been in the financial stream for over 15 years
himself. We’ve got a foot in the door rather easily than most other
companies have and I can’t deny that.

Radhika Mukherji
and Amar Pandit

ST: How big is
your team? Are you planning to hire more?

Team
Happydemic has grown a lot in the last year. We started with just 6 of us in March
2016 and today my team has grown to 25. Team Happydemic is extremely dynamic,
focussed and time line driven.

ST: What are
your future plans?

Though
Happydemic is launched in Mumbai, but they have done their first few
performances in Delhi and Bangalore as well. Their goal is to start in Delhi
and Bangalore shortly because these 2 places have phenomenal potential. In
early 2018, Happydemic will look at 3 – 5 other cities in India, by that point
of time; they would like to have established a very good presence in Mumbai,
Delhi and Bangalore.

ST: How do you
motivate yourself at work?

The magic that I see at the
gigs, the smile that I see on the audiences faces & the talent that the
artistes demonstrate, Music has a rare synchronizing power that enables people
to be aligned with one another. Watching people on that happy plain is my
biggest motivator.

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