The Simplicity of Entrepreneurship with Alok Kejriwal
Less is more
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” This famous quote by US merchant John Wannamaker hasn’t lost its significance even a century later. Today, companies are struggling to attract the customer’s attention by rolling out ever new campaigns, trying to stand out in a completely overmarketed world while forgetting that sometimes a simplistic and value focussed approach might just be the right way to engage.
We had Alok Kejriwal, CEO and Co-founder of the globally successful games publisher Games2win, as our guest on Building it Up with Bertelsmann Podcast. Being one of India’s most inspiring entrepreneurs, a hand-on mentor and a respected author, Alok candidly spoke about how he built a company with 170 million downloads without spending a penny on advertisement.
Some excerpts we found super useful are:
Adaption beats Anticipation
Most of the times, successful entrepreneurs are perceived as demi-gods who can predict trends from far future and then wait for the right time to make the move. Well, Alok believes that “you don’t have to see the train far before, you have to hear it coming”, and it is all about catching on as fast as possible once it has arrived.
Having started with producing web-based games, Alok realised when iPhone was released that mobile gaming will be the future of his company. In order to turnaround and adapt to the trend, Alok knew that it will be critical to be agile enough to pivot at any time reacting to fast-changing market opportunities.
Engagement should be a product feature than just a marketing outcome
For Alok business is all about engagement, creating meaningful, long-term interactions with your customers. The easiest way of driving this connection is by observing “what they already have been engaging with” and transforming this for your platform, “taking slices of life and wrapping games around it”. His most successful games are all games mimicking real life activities that people are used to, like dressing games inspired by Barbie Dolls.
The most certain path to success is creating products or services that sell themselves, according to him all great ideas on the internet marketed themselves like Airbnb or WhatsApp, “if it is great it will sell itself”. Saving on the marketing efforts, one can invest in mastering a product category by leveraging loyalty towards existing products.
Continue building skills
For Alok, whilst a lot of start-up founders are contemplating to have no tech background and are missing essential knowledge, he rather focusses on using his knowledge to the fullest. He believes that “it is easy to find deficiencies in life and not celebrate what you are endowed with however, only full awareness of your own skills will give you a competitive edge”.
For more on internationalisation, the Indian market and brands, listen to the complete conversation with Alok Kejriwal, by clicking here.
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