Rammohan Sundaram is a man on a mission and he dons many hats while doing so. Having worked with tech giants Yahoo India and communication agencies such as Tribal DDB and Madison Communication, he set up Networkplay. NetworkPlay was an ad network that was incubated at Web Chutney in 2008. The company saw impressive growth over the years and was bought by Bertelsmann AG’s Gruner+Jahr in March 2012. He then went on to set up PlatformPlay Media Ventures; this company devises the “India entry strategy” for digital businesses looking at increasing their presence in India. It is through Platform Play Media Ventures that Ram is bringing TechCrunch to India. We caught up with him to better understand his ideas, philosophies, motivations and the plan ahead.
1. When did you see earliest traits of you wanting to be an entrepreneur?
I think I was always an entrepreneur at heart when I say that it means on how your upbringing has been and mine was always in the lines of being right and making the right decisions at the right time. When this bloomed in my professional career, I started thinking by keeping my clients’ profitability in mind. So whenever I went with a proposition to a client, because I always kept client first, if a client asked me to jump I would ask, how high?
The transition from working for an organisation to starting my own thing didn’t take much of time because for me it was always the sense of belonging to the work I did and so the entrepreneur in me was always alive from as long as I have been alive.
2. What important lessons did you learn in college?
In school, I was a leader in a bunch of activities like I was the school cricket team captain. This continued all the way to college and then even at teams I represented while at work. The spark of being a leader and to think strategically came from my cricket playing days.
Leading from the front and ensuring the spirit of winning was a team effort is something I learnt very early on, which has helped me in most aspects of life. I am therefore a natural leader.
3. How did PlatformPlay Media Ventures happen?
Once I exited from NetworkPlay, I just had one mandate that I had to finish, which was ad:tech and during that period I was soul searching and realised that I had a lot more to offer and maybe NetworkPlay was a premature exit and that’s how PlatformPlay happened.
Manish has been a dear friend for over a decade and we always wanted to do something together. When the time came we just had to agree that we will do something together and honestly it was very similar to how I began with Sidharth of Webchutney and Sarbvir from Capital 18 in my previous endeavor. We had no plan on what we were about to do and things just kept happening; I work at a pretty fast clip and so I was always under pressure from myself since I had a legacy to protect due to my success in the past. Manish and Harish have been of great support and I just kept doing what I believed was the right thing for building a large business in the future.
4. Did you have a mentor? One lesson from your mentor?
I have been lucky to have well-wishers, mentors and friends in the business. I made my own mentors and I don’t even know if they think they are my mentors as in, I call Alok Mittal of Canaan Partners who was my boss from my Jobsahead days and has been a big support in everything I have embarked on. Then there is Pearl Uppal who was my boss at Yahoo and someone I really look up to. She guides me whenever I reach out to her and has been a big influence on everything I do.
The lessons I’ve learnt from them are very different. Alok helped me think out of the box and laterally and Pearl rubbed off her perfection on execution skills on to me.
5. Do you have mentees? What are some important things that they should keep in mind?
Lots of people reach out on various things and my only advice to them always has been to “just do it” because unless you execute your thoughts you will never know whether it is going to fly or stay grounded.
I hear them out and advise them on operational excellence over strategic efforts largely because I believe that strategy only gets perfected when you execute it well and with a few successes under your belt you tend to become a good strategist yourself.
Finally endless meetings without action is not my style so I try to rub that in to most young entrepreneurs – just go and execute every thought you have.
6. How did the idea of bringing TechCrunch to India come about? How long have you been working to make this happen?
Look, India needed a very strong platform of repute to fuel the growth of the start-up eco-system and I knew that India is now going to explode when it comes to digital. The only thing required was a bunch of start-ups becoming large corporations thus by bringing to life the big story of, “From India For The World”.
I worked on this whole proposition for not more than 60 hours and it took 60 days to ink the contract.
7. How will TechCrunch in India work?
TechCrunch in India will be very similar on format to that of “Disrupt” but will be smaller in scale, which is why we are calling it “City Events”.
We will have a Hackathon beginning the previous evening going through the night with the groups then presenting to luminaries from across the world. We hope we can create these groups to eventually form companies if they succeed in building the requisite rapport between them over the next few months. Then we will unleash our marketing efforts which would include pitch presentations of 2 minutes. The winners then get to come to our Delhi show in August 2014 where they will be joined by winners from Mumbai and Delhi.
The final winners from Delhi will get a chance to represent India in the SF and NYC shows of TC along with an all-paid trip and a cash prize that we will soon be announcing.
On the second track we will have several key notes, one on one chats and panel discussions addressing the need gaps, success stories and others that will add value to the eco-system.
We will also have a marketplace through our start-up alleys which will help start-ups in showcasing their product and services.
The Bangalore and Mumbai events will be a one and half day show while the New Delhi show will be a two and a half day event.
8. By when will TechCrunch be operational?
TechCrunch City Events story has already taken off. We just concluded a power house board meeting 2 weeks ago and are getting ready to unleash what is getting shaped.
I am not authorised to speak on their website efforts and do not have any idea on when that will be operational but surely there will be coverage of our efforts on TechCrunch.
9. How do you feel will TechCrunch coming to India affect the Ecosystem here?
I think I have answered this in one of the questions above however TC coming to India will only add tremendous fuel to the growth of the start-up eco-system, which comprises the four pillars VIZ: Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists, Start-ups and Entrepreneurs.
A platform like this, which has brought to life companies like DropBox, is the best possible way to help our eco-system in India.
10. Gawker Media is here (Times Internet), so is Business Insider, TC is also coming in, HuffPO comes in by January next year. Does this say something about India as a market?
Content is king is the mantra that is finally seeing life in India and relevant + vibrant content only adds to the story.
India’s digital market is growing and it is but natural for these brands to be in India through a profitable model, whether Licensing, JV or Revenue share.
11. Any opinions on the VC/Angel funding ecosystem in India?
Look, everyone out there is looking for success and money is not easily available though there is plenty of money available. It sounds like a paradox but lack of ideas, talent and platform are key ingredients for the funding community to also wake up. I mean, today there are not more than a handful investors in Seed Stage funding in India and that is largely because of the certain ingredients that are still at a very nascent stage in India.
But that will change and bigger bets will happen, starting soon.
12. Any message to fellow entrepreneurs who might want to follow in your steps?
Always remember that, “Ships are safe in the harbour but that is not the place they should be in”
Rammohan is a rodinhooder and is following this story. So feel free to pose questions to him here!
You can connect with Rammohan on the other platforms as well.
Follow him on twitter – @Rammohantweets
Connect with him on LinkedIn – Rammohan
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About the author: I am a serial entrepreneur. I started off as a photojournalist and then went on to start an events company, My love for cooking led me to start my own restaurant in 2008.
I am currently enabling ecommerce by helping consumers and enterprises go online and building the social commerce venture SellMojo.
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image source: afaqs.com
Aneja Raj
Rammohan leads the way again! Bringing Tech Crunch to India will be such a good thing for the country. Having lived in the silicon valley area for about a decade, I have seen the impact that Tech Crunch can have on businesses, students and budding entrepreneurs. Way to go Rammohan!
Great interview Nameet.
Vinay Chhoda
Techcrunch coming to India is huge!!!
It will have a massive impact in terms of attracting global angel/vc monies for Indian start ups. Budding entrepreneurs can look forward to international coverage for their start ups.