The year 2017-18 was passing. For about 5 years, we were running a company of text content that is read on a website. The annual turnover was more than Rs 40 crore. Apart from India, there were offices in Singapore and Times Square of America. The valuation of the company was Rs 200 crore. 12 crore users were from America only.
Everything was going well. I used to feel proud that after passing out from college, I had established a company worth crores in such a short time. More than 125 people were working in the team. Every month Rs 3 crore was being spent only on the salaries of the staff.
Then… suddenly everything stopped overnight. The company itself disappeared. Facebook removed us from its platform citing some legal aspects. If the company is no more, then what about us? It seemed that yes, we will manage everything. The company would come back again, but after a few days we had to accept that now we are on the road. There is nothing left….’
Right now I am in Sector 142 of Noida, adjacent to Delhi. Vinay Singhal, co-founder of OTT platform ‘STAGE’, which makes web series in Haryanvi and Rajasthani dialect, is telling an incident before his startup journey. Vinay says, ‘You might think that all this is like a script of a film, But this is my real story. Everything had become void. But just as the boatman broke the mountain and made a path, similarly we have come out of that period and reached here. This is my second company, whose valuation is more than Rs 300 crore. Two more co-founders are Praveen and Shashank.
Vinay says that ‘STAGE’ is the country’s first native dialect OTT platform. They also call it the first ‘Netflix’ of Haryana.
Just opposite the cabin in which I am talking to Vinay, some content creators are having a meeting in a big meeting hall. On the other hand, a team of about 50 people is writing content and editing videos.
Vinay says, ‘This is our second income. It can be said that I have stood up after falling. A new web series is coming, a meeting is going on regarding the same. Work pressure has increased. We have a similar schedule every day. With great difficulty I have been able to find time for you. ,
While the conversation is about to begin, Vinay’s father arrives. It’s about to be lunch time, maybe they have brought food. Vinay says- Let me first introduce you to my father.
I sit near Vinay’s father for some time. I ask him about his early days
Vinay’s father laughs and says, ‘He has come here from extreme poverty. We are residents of Bhiwani district of Haryana. Earlier I used to sell sarees by roaming around on a bicycle. You can call a hawker.
Then after some time when the family’s expenses increased. It became difficult to make a living, so I opened a grocery shop at my home. I never thought that my son would be the owner of a company worth crores. I get scared even hearing ‘crore’.
Vinay’s father laughs while saying this.
Listening to his father, Vinay says, ‘A boy has come from a village where there is no environment for studies. After 10th, 12th, people start preparing to join the army. I had not even heard the name Startup.
Studied from government school. Since childhood, seeing the situation at home, I used to think that in future I should do something good, become something. At that time, the richest person in the world was Bill Gates. To be honest, I was inspired by these people.
After 12th, initially I wanted to become a doctor. Preparations for this had also started. This continued for about two years, meanwhile one day father came and said that he did not want to become a doctor. Let’s go home. Actually, a doctor was shot dead in the village. Papa was scared because of this.’ Hearing Vinay’s words, his father starts laughing. Vinay says, ‘After that I thought that first I wanted to study about software. I do engineering. Therefore, he took admission in a private university in Chennai.
My family also wanted me to do engineering and get a job in a company, so that the situation at home becomes a little better. Papa had taken a loan and sent me to study engineering.
Vinay is showing me some pictures of his college days. He says, ‘I started web developing and creating websites from the first year itself. In the beginning, he used to make some people like this for free. When my college professor came to know about this, he said why don’t I start my own work.
This is around 2010. I had started an NGO in which I used to connect the youth, so that they could work for the country instead of going abroad. After some time, it was understood that patriotism is also done with money, nothing is for free.
His family had taken a loan and sent him to study engineering. He was able to pay the fees with great difficulty. If he had asked for money from home for extra expenses, he would have been beaten.
At that time the concept of website and web developing had just started in India. I started doing this work. When the family members came to know about these things, they had to listen to a lot. He was afraid that he might leave engineering midway or might not be able to complete it.
After completing engineering, I started my own web developing company. When I sat for college placement, I was offered Rs 20-25 thousand per month. Till then I was paying this much money to 10 people only as salary.
Vinay says laughingly – I directly told my family that now you tell me whether I should become the owner of my own company or work at this salary. Whatever salary a company is offering me, I am paying that much salary to one staff.
This company later became WittyFeed in 2014, the story of whose demise I told you in the beginning. We were working in Indore. Vinay tells the story behind this in detail. Says, ‘For almost 4 years we were bringing different content from all over the world through our platform. Actually, shocking incidents happen every day, but something good is also happening on this earth.
We used to deliver such things to our readers. I had the highest number of users in America. There was more than 12 crore traffic. One day Facebook removed us from its platform. We used to promote the website only through Facebook.
So the whole business came to an end. I was not able to understand what to do? There was also a debt of crores on his head. If the family had come to know, father might have had a heart attack.
Then how did the new beginning happen?
Vinay says smilingly, ‘I have stood up after falling. When the company came to an end, we paid everyone’s salary for a few months, but how long would this continue? There was no work left.
One day we called a meeting. Told our team that we would have to close the company, but a question kept rising in our mind whether this was the end of our story. Actually, being an entrepreneur you cannot give up easily.
I was continuously going into depression. All this continued for about 4 months. When I put an option before my team that if everyone becomes investors in the company, then maybe we can do something. More than 50 people agreed. These were people whose monthly salary was Rs 30 thousand, Rs 50 thousand. We gave them double the money after two years.
Only after two-three months we came up with the idea of STAGE. Actually, more than 22 languages are spoken in the country, but the dialects are countless. Someone is speaking Haryanvi, someone Marwari.
It is about 2019. The era of OTT had started. When I searched OTT platform in Haryanvi, I could not find it. STAGE started from here. We started making web series in local dialects.” Engineering background and film work?
Vinay says, ‘Just as you are shocked, everyone was shocked in the same way. When we used to go with our team to meet the artists of Haryana, everyone used to say the same – now there is money, there is a new idea, it will roam around for a few months, then it will return back to where it came from. These are city people,
Creating Haryana’s own Netflix.
Big actors and actresses did not want to work with us. Then I started contacting those artists who were not getting work. Now not everyone can make their career by going to Mumbai. We started making films together with them. The concept was theirs, the budget was ours.
Initially about Rs 4 crores had to be invested. Gradually, when people started joining, the audience started watching our show through the STAGE platform, then big actors also started working with me. Now we have been working on paid model for the last two years. Today STAGE has around 5 lakh paid subscribers. This year we have also started making web series in Rajasthani dialects. Now we are working on making films in different local dialects including Maithili, Bhojpuri.
Vinay explains his business model to me. It is said, ‘The actor who wants to work in Haryanvi or Rajasthani dialects and the people of these states want to see it in their dialects. This is what we work on.
Creators and producers who have ideas related to the film come to us. Our production team looks at it, then if we like the content, we fix the budget. Our entire annual content budget is Rs 10 crore.
We give 30% of the total budget in advance to the film producer, so that he can produce the content. When the film is made, we release it on our platform. We make most of the films on topics related to social issues, that too in our own dialect. That’s why I say – we are not a company, we are a revolution.’ Read in the positive story next Monday, October 2 –
The one who used to work as an office boy is now the owner of two companies.
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