Meet 5 women entrepreneurs who are infusing change in the creative industry
From a writing club to a platform for individuals from different mediums to come together, women entrepreneurs are leaving no stone unturned to explore their creative side.
New beginnings are never easy. It takes guts, determination, sacrifice and more to travel that extra mile.
Although unpredictable, the creative industry has attracted these women entrepreneurs, who have quit cushy, well-paying corporate jobs, and dived into it for passion’s sake.
These risk-takers did not just start something new, but also invested their savings, time and energy into it. And in return, they get paid to do what they love!
(From L to R clockwise) Jayshree Nayak, Founder of The Snug.app; Riya Sinha, Founder of Fuzia; Shilpa Ramesh Ramani, Founder of One Page Spotlight; Shraddha Varma, Founder of Fuzia; Anushka Shetty, Founder of Plopnow
One Page Spotlight by Shilpa Ramesh Ramani
Shilpa Ramesh Ramani, a dentist by profession, took a sabbatical from her career, and started exploring her creative instincts in the film industry in 2011.
As she started producing songs, commercials, short films, and regional films like Dev Son of Muddegowda (2012) and Fair and Lovely (2014), she started being concerned by the fact that many foley artists working behind the scenes do not get due recognition.
“As the credits roll, the names of many people who are involved on the set are nowhere to be found,” she says.
This led her to launch ‘OnePage Spotlight’ in 2020, where the focus is to build a professional network of creative people to connect, engage and collaborate.
The platform already has 12,000 registered users in the short time frame of just six months. including prominent personalities like US-based actress and Grammy award-winning singer, Laura Dickenson, and Senegalese singer Baaba Maal among others.
The platform works by letting individuals sign up and highlight their creative skills – ranging from traditional folk arts to video editing, martial arts, motion graphic design, make-up artistry and other performing arts. This allows creative individuals to develop their professional portfolio on the platform.
OnePage Spotlight comprises Instagram-like features of making posts and following fellow artists. It also has separate tabs to check hiring and project opportunities, showtimes for virtual events, including paid and unpaid live and recorded workshops.
The app has an in-built feature called Blue Store, where one can buy and sell products, along with a wallet to keep track of all their project transactions, payments, rewards, and coins earned through various activities.
Bootstrapped thus far, the platform began monetising through paid online sessions, advertisements, and partnerships. The founder hopes to breakeven in three years.
Speaking of long term goals, the entrepreneur has her eyes set on the global market, whilst also including vernacular and foreign languages on the platform.
Plop by Anushka Shetty
Anushka Shetty had been a voracious reader until academics took over. A chartered accountant by profession, she is an alumnus of IIM-Bangalore and has worked with PWC for almost five years.
One day, while having a conversation with her friend Vineet, they realised they hadn’t read a single book other than academic literature in a long time. The epiphany changed the course of her life, and she decided to dive into entrepreneurship.
This is how Plopnow, a global interactive fiction entertainment platform, was founded. Till now, the platform has more than 100k downloads on Google play store and has a 4.6 rating on App Store.
The platform, also co-founded by Anushka’s friend Vineet, offers space for young writers to publish interactive stories directly on the platform just by using a drag and drop feature.
It started with the motive to entertain and educate millennials and GenZ in the language they understand the best, and immersive and bit-sized fictions presented in an interactive manner. The platform is focused on keeping the app interactive and hence, includes multiple media – text, video, audio, simulations and role-playing.
“We already have some publishers interested in exploring the Plop format. Just like the pandemic has made production houses warm up to OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, publishing houses are warming up to the idea of alternate reading formats.”
The platform generates revenue from in-app purchases, which varies between Rs 30 and Rs 350. Anushka claims its direct competitors are Hooked, and Tap by Wattpad in the US. She says they are setting themselves apart by promoting writers to express and publish their stories on the platform just by a simple drag-and-drop tool.
“Unlike these companies, we are a pure-play platform model. We encourage user-generated content and have created a simple drag-and-drop tool for amateur writers to become masters of interactive fiction and create their own ‘choose your own adventure’ stories,” Anushka says.
The Snug.app by Jayshree Nayak
Meeting their favourite celebrities or influencers is no longer a dream for many now.
The SnugApp is one such platform that is bridging the gap between the creator and the audience. The app allows its users to book a meeting with talented people in their neighbourhood or from around the world for a coffee or video call in a way that the app makers say is “as simple as booking a cab”.
Jayshree says that meeting and sharing perspective with diverse people is important for an individual’s overall development and can help in their career development as well, and it is with that purpose that the app was launched.
Once a user signs up on the app, they can browse through personalities enrolled as talents, with each bio having a minute-long video, with the price also mentioned. The followers can schedule a meeting after the payment is made.
This Mumbai-based startup has set the price for each hour-long meeting at around Rs 1500. The startup earns a commission of 30 percent from the talent fee.
The platform, incorporated in October 2019, has a diverse set of people enrolled as talents including people from backgrounds such as AI experts, drone designers, CEOs, investors, journalists, actors, singers, models, national champion sports personalities, etc.
“There are many people out there who do not pursue their passion fearing it won’t pay the bills, especially in the field of creative talents including acting, music, and painting. They can pick the talented person’s brain and gain insights and perspectives during that meeting,” she says.
Fuzia by Riya Sinha
Fuzia is a writing club formed in 2012, where school girls can share their writings. Today, this platform has transformed into an independent online space for women to connect and create globally.
Founded by Riya Sinha, a school student in Palo Alto, it started as a writing club in 2012 for young schoolgirls to share their writings.
“We have a website and an app. One can simply create a profile and login. When a user signs up with us, we ensure that they are welcomed and given the time to get to know the platform. We have User Relationship Managers who ensure that these users are very comfortable using our platform and are exposed to all the features that we offer and explore,” explains co-founder, Shraddha Varma, on how the platform works.
One of the key feature of the platform is Fuzia lounge which is made for research and encourages folks to share and exchange ideas.
“We also have two very active channels: one for skill learning for photography and the other for learning good writing skills. We also have a counselling section where anyone can share their concerns and discuss with our Fuzia advisers/counsellors,” explains Shraddha. Fuzia also has a shoutbox, a place where people can connect with one another.
The platform is bringing writers across the globe together and is providing them a place to brainstorm together.
Edited by Anju Narayanan