He called us to his office where we could interview him. What welcomed us was an open-air office (we guess creativity breeds in fresh air), painted in red, with the TenTenTen logo embossing it and the armchair thinker seated at his table with his Mac. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting to you the Punwit Mr. Ramesh Srivats. (Read Ramesh Srivats Biography)
He warned us during the interview that this might not be an inspiring interview for our readers. Dear readers, we are warning you to save yourself from too much inspiration.
Education from DAV, Chennai (we know, it’s one of the best schools), IIT-M and IIM. How did you manage all that?
Getting into DAV wasn’t much of a challenge (laughs). My father paid the fees and I was in. JEE needed some serious slogging though. But, I was an efficient worker. As the CBSE exams finish early, I had a month to prepare for my JEE exams. I studied for nearly 18 hours a day during that time. I was always told that getting into IIT would assure my future and all that. So, once I got into IIT, I focused on having a great time. I barely passed out of IIT. I didn’t want to go abroad and there was no way that I could have taken up a job in engineering because I didn’t learn anything there. So, I wrote CAT and got into IIM-A. IIM-A has a great education system, by the way. Like in IIT, In IIM too I hardly went to class. But, in spite of that, I managed to learn something from IIM. Once I passed out, I knew I wanted to be in marketing, but didn’t want to travel like crazy. I preferred armchair marketing, so I joined advertising.
Your take on the advertising world:
When I started, advertising was a much more valued profession than what it has become now. In 1992, when I joined JWT, we used to be part of the strategic process with the client. When I used to handle Kingfisher, every Saturday, we used to have a taste panel comprising of the CEO of the company, the chief brewer and me, although I was a junior advertising guy there. Around the mid-90s however, there was a salary re-adjustment being done in India with the IT companies and multi-national companies coming in. But advertising shot itself in the foot because there was no salary step-up here. The entry-level salary was low, so advertising became a less preferred option, and the quality of entrants into this field started deteriorating. Now those chaps are running agencies. Advertisers are no longer partners in a business; they have become highly replaceable vendors.
What triggered you to start your own company?
I was very passionate about advertising. In spite of earning less than my classmates, I loved being in it. I had always told others, and myself – “I’m in it because I love it. I’ll always do what I love doing. The day I stop enjoying something, I won’t do it.” In Jan 2008, I had to call my own bluff. Sometimes, the pressures of economic commitments makes you hold on to your job. But you have to be damn honest with yourself. I was, and so I quit. I always wanted to start my own venture. The nice thing was that my wife earned more than me, and my salary was more or less my pocket money.
By 2008, the digital world had changed everything and I don’t think the ad agencies had got it figured out. They still haven’t. On the other hand, digital agencies were more into execution and not very strategic in nature. So, I knew I would start something in the digital field and I knew it would be in brand communication but I wasn’t sure what it would be. That’s when I started Hungry & Foolish Creative Products with a friend of mine. We found an investor but this investor himself got broke mid-way. Of course, I can understand that. To be ready to invest in a company like ours, that showed his level of judgment! (We all laugh) Then, I started TenTenTen, which is not really a digital agency but a creative and tech company that creates large properties for brands.
What keeps 101010 going?
We have no clients, only customers. We treat every project we do, not as a service, but as a product. With just one customer. We come up with ideas and then pitch them to companies. We tell the companies to pay us if they like the idea. So far, we’ve done an app for MakeMyTrip called TripAlong, three very successful apps for Nivea and there is a cool app coming out for Kingfisher. We’re also closing out on a project with Airtel.
The digital media has changed the way we live and make friends. It is not new media. It is a culture. In this connected world, people are the media. 10-15 years back, whatever we knew about say, Nike was what it told us about itself in ads, but today it is reviews, social media and friends who influence us what we think about Nike. During your childhood days, the coolest brands were always Coke and Pepsi – colored water with great advertising. But today, Apple and Google are the coolest brands. They are not known through their ads but are known through their actions. So, the key is not what a brand tells people or what people tell brands. It is what people tell other people about a brand. So how can one then build a brand? You build a brand through actions. By doing cool things. Useful things. For me, useful = cool.
Who is @rameshsrivats?
I enjoy being on twitter. I use it as a micro-blogging platform. I don’t really use it to connect with people but I do end up connecting. I enjoy it because I say whatever I feel like, with not much quality-control. But I also don’t “chumma” say something just for the sake of tweeting. Of course, much against my wishes my following and the expectations, at times acts as some kind of pressure, but I try to resist that. I don’t care about getting trolled. I just ignore it.
I just play in social media. It doesn’t earn me my income. The moment you look at social media, as some kind of work, you are gonna screw it up. It is such a new thing. There are no rules. There are no formulae. So, only people who play in it have a chance of getting something out of it. The rest just get stress, I think.
The Ramesh that Google still doesn’t know and will eventually know through KYS:
I am a selfish guy who pursues his own happiness. Dude, it’s just one life! I use a greedy algorithm for life, so I live for the present. It might be sub optimal in the long run, but in my opinion, it’s better than compromising my present for some utopian future that may never come.
Ideas: Ideals: India
I admire the youth of today, especially their risk taking ability. At 20, they’re willing to take that plunge and say, “Dude, that’s my career”. I like the “No one can stop me. I will do what I like.” attitude that they possess.
But, India takes itself far too seriously. Being Indian is not a matter of pride. It’s a political boundary. It’s not something that’s been there forever. We should think, “The world is our playground.” We tend to feel proud about the stuff we have no control over; the country, the family, the religion. That way, we might as well be proud that we are human beings! This nationalism that is creeping in, that I am not very fond of. As a country, we are going to economically progress only if individuals progress. So we should think ‘individual’, we should think ‘world’. The rest is artificial. We can progress only when we begin to unlock our passions and achieve something.
The youth today grab their opportunities. When I see Indian Idol, it’s not the people who win that I look at; it’s the people who lose the auditions. I tend to think, “Machan, how did you have the guts to go out there and sing, man?” They probably think, “What’s the harm in trying? Humiliation? I can take it.” You know, Rakhi Sawant is kind of my role model. She is so brave! She is an epitome of ‘I will beat my circumstances; I will do what I want. I don’t care what people think.’ I admire that.
What comes to your mind when we say:
Ramesh Srivats: Me!
<Unsatisfactory look on our faces>
Oh, you want a better answer? Ok, I am a nice guy!
Twitter: It’s fun.
Indian politics: Even more fun.
Sachin: God.
After all the questioning that we did, he comes up with one.
Which section are you going to put me in, on KYS? A guy who cracks jokes on twitter?
No, entrepreneur.
And he beautifully sums up who an entrepreneur is.
To me, every individual is an entrepreneur. Even a stand-up comedian is an entrepreneur. It doesn’t mean you need to have a private company and employ people. A person whose income is not fixed is an entrepreneur!