She never had an issue being addressed as a star wife. Especially when her spouse is well-known singer Shaan.
Neither did she have any complaints about being a homemaker for the past 13 years. But today she is proud of what she has put together as an entrepreneur. We are talking about Radhika Mukherjee, now the brains behind Happydemic – a live music outfit.
The company turned one recently and, while most would heave a sigh of relief, Mukherjee is preparing for more. She hasn’t walked into the business jungle unarmed. She has brought in a CEO and financial advisor Amar Pandit into her company. The man understands what it takes to run a business, the finances and two together are looking at building the Happydemic empire.
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Shaan’s goodwill has opened many doors, but the lovely lady likes keeping him at bay when it comes to Happydemic. But as partners they are inseparable.
In a candid conversation with Radioandmusic.com, Radhika Mukherjee talks about Happydemic, family and balancing it all. Excerpts:
Your life has changed drastically in the past one year. When did you decide on making this big Happydemic’ move?
To be extremely honest I was sitting at home for 13 years, taking care of the boys. Shaan and I wanted one parent to be around and we could not afford a nanny for the kids. That’s when I decided to stay home to take care of our boys.
I had the privilege of doing that because Shaan started doing very well in his career. For any woman who is staying home, it is actually a privilege because I see so many women working and I use to wonder how they are balancing their work and home life. I have learnt how to balance it now and I salute women who have stepped out to work with kids back home.
Usually, I am asked what was that ‘aha moment’ that made me start Happydemic and I always tell them that it wasn’t an ‘aha moment’ but a very strong need to address a problem that the music industry was facing. The music industry is disorganised. There are no processes in place. There are artists/ clients that are being taken advantage of. Happydemic came out of the need to organise this disorganised industry. Moreover, it was the artist that drew me to do something as successful as Happydemic.
Tell us a bit about Happydemic?
We are an organisation that gives work to new talent. There are multiple reality shows and a lot of artists that come to those reality shows. They are high in popularity during the season but they spiral down the popularity curve soon thereafter. In the meantime they have left jobs, homes and some of them have taken additional responsibility of getting married and they’ve come to Mumbai to break into Bollywood. Very few make it.
So, we are here to support the guys who don’t make it big by giving them honorable work and connecting them with the right audience. So, at no point, we tell our artists that we are going to make you stars. We tell them that we are going to find you the best route or be your companion in your roadmap that you have for yourself because it’s not a hobby, it’s their career.
What is the artist selection process at Happydemic?
We are not a market place like the others. An artist just can’t come and upload their profile. Every artist is vetted. We have a team of experts that gauge the voice quality, range, performance and then they are allowed to go live on the platform.
We do not decide the fees of the artist. The artists themselves decide the fee they want to charge. We take a management fee from the client, not the artist, from 10 – 15 per cent ranging from the volume of work. So, larger the volume lesser is our coordination fees.
We curate the act to match the guidelines given by the clients. So, we are here to balance the need of a client as well as the artist and that is why the management fees.
What if the artist quotes too much?
We guide them in terms of fees they should be demanding. Typically we are a B2B2C (business to business to customer) company. We believe that every event that we curate should have an impact on the business.
We are not a B2C because the customer acquisition cost gets very high with marketing and this is one thing that we do not want to spend on. I think word of mouth is your biggest validation. And that’s what we have done. We have done 376 shows in 365 days. For a start up, it’s phenomenal. We are on the panel of 34 visionary corporates.
Have you managed to make any profit in the first year?
We haven’t broken even yet. I think in another six months we should break even. We have kept our costs very low. If you ask what we spent on, it is building the tech platform and getting the right team in place.
That’s what we have done. We have literally spent nothing on marketing. We are very conscious of cash burn that happens per month. We make sure our targets are met every month.
You’ve got Amar Pandit as the CEO of your company as well as a financial advisor.
Amar Pandit, my partner, is a wizard with numbers. He is also author of four books. Nobody knows numbers as well as he does. So, even before we started, we had a five-year plan in place. We have monthly, quarterly, six month and yearly goals.
We know exactly what position we should take in the company. In the first year, we just called ourselves a live entertainment specialist. And now we have moved that to live music company because we have started developing content. We know the locations we want to operate from and the cost of operation from those places.
If a franchise model is involved how would that bring in the revenue and the structure of that revenue? When you come in with a plan, you have to make changes on the way. Because when the tire hits the road there is a different aspect in place. So, we have three plans, dream plan, conservative and ultra conservative.
Can you elaborate on the expansion plan?
Right now we are in Mumbai. We have a presence pan India. We want to make that presence stronger and we are going to start opening the offices — one in Bengaluru and other in Delhi.
After that, we plan to take it to a destination aboard to give it a global play. Right now we have 34 corporations – but by the end of the year, we want to double that. In five years we will start a systematic program for visionary corporates.
Where we know there is annually an X amount of money coming for sure. Where the platform is concerned we are an e-commerce platform. We want to move into streaming gradually.
How have you been balancing family and work life?
I have automated my house. There is nothing like time management. Time will move whether you like it or not. So, I vision my entire day. I keep the things that are important and take out the ones that are not on priority by end of day. As far as the kids are concerned my older boy (Soham) is in the tenth grade and the younger (Shubh) is in the seventh grade.
So, they are in school till 4:30 or 5 pm and by the time they get back home it’s 6:30 pm and I am home by 7 or 7:30. We work Saturdays too. So, I make sure that Sunday is when I disconnect from work. I make sure that the menu of the week is in place.
The kids and Shaan’s week’s schedule and dietary requirements are taken care of. All the other help at home and other stuff are done. Thrice a week my mom-in-law comes to the office. We tell each other what’s happening. That makes her happy. So, if the elders in the house are happy, it’s a happy house.
You seem to be balancing it all with dexterity.
I don’t think you can balance work and home life. I am being very frank here. There are times when the kids want me more and I can’t pay that much attention to work and there are times when work needs me more. I think my kids are happy that I am not helicoptering around them.
My older boy (Soham) wrote me a note that read – “You’re an exceptional mother and now you’re turning into an inspirational CEO and visionary entrepreneur. If someone says you don’t balance your life, please direct them to our house and they will know how well you do it.”
Does Shaan contribute to Happydemic?
It’s Shaan’s goodwill in the industry that has created the blueprint for my success. A number of doors we have opened up by just saying that I am Shaan’s wife is phenomenal. I feel extremely fortunate.
However, the risky thing about husband and wife working together is that when you get back home you have nothing to talk about. So, he does not come to the office unless a need arises. (Pause) We are an e-commerce business anybody can replicate the nuts and bolts of it, but how do you replicate a soul? I think Shaan is the soul of this business.
In an industry where relationships fizzle out easy, you two have been rock solid. What is the secret?
(Smiles) We’ve been together for 21 years. We have a soulful connection; we are also each others’ friends, where we can be intimate and also say, ‘OMG! that guy is so cute.’
Our relationship is based on trust and our trust on each other is massive. So, the lucky thing about being in love with an artist is that every time they go on stage you fall in love with them again. So, that kind of helps keep us going. The bad part is that because you’re so connected when one person feels low you both feel low. Our moods play on each other.
What’s next for Happydemic?
We are signed up with Saregama, which gives us an access to their library. So, our artists are doing covers and we promote it on Happydemic and Saregama together. I will soon be tying up with Ganna on original content, video- audio or both.
