41: Where do ideas come from? With Sidharth Rao.
Audiogyan is DesignUp’s podcast partner. It’s one of a kind Design-in-Tech conference happening on 15th and 16th Nov 2019 in Bangalore. Visit https://designup.io/blr2019/ for more details. Today I have Sidharth Rao with us on Audiogyan. Other than being an agency CEO, he's an angel investor and serial entrepreneur. You can find a lot about how to be an entrepreneur and what mistakes big CEOs made and more in his recently launched a book called “How I almost blew it”. We will be speaking about that in the later part of the episode but more importantly we will also try and explore where do award winning ideas come from and how critical it is for the founder to be creatively minded than just a business man? Questions You have been creating award winning campaigns ideas since 2003 with Chidiya Udi which you did for MakeMyTrip. What according to you is an “idea"? How has that definition evolved in last 20 years? Is it just a kick to do something out of the box or genuinely looking for a gap and mitigate with not-so-traditional fixes? It is said that ideas are cheap. We also find that lot of entrepreneurs say, idea is 1%, execution is 99%. What is your take on that? Winning Abbys, afaqs and other Indian advertising awards is one and winning Cannes is something else. What new got added or updated in your creative thinking to make it to the international level advertising awards? How have your ideas and ways to communicate changed due to digital penetration in India? From making Viral videos for MMT and Rediff to Swiggy's, Voice of Hunger? What is transpiring across through this evolution? When Webchutney was young and rebellious, I remember you carried a tag line “did it!” Where you openly declared that we just did it. What will this Sid say now? I am pointing to the young but relatively mature Webchutney? Is it always necessary to be young in the advertising world? Only young people get ideas? How critical is for a founder / CEO / entrepreneur to be creative than just being a business man and spotting growth opportunities? Is it an inherent quality or one has to keep him or herself re-inventing for growth? This stems from your chapter with Kunal Shah. Sometimes it’s best to get a CEO than force fitting the founder to be the CEO. You also often said that I am more of a founder than CEO. Has that opinion changed? Can you share any examples which you stumbled upon while doing research for your book, where the company stood out differently than just doing pure business or service, since the founders were creative and had more to offer? Of course in the Indian context What made you publish this book? I am sure it’s not sharing experience. There is something more to it like answering back few unanswered or stupid questions which were thrown at you or may be more… What say?