Mindbound Creatives: Specializing in video production and marketing

Human progress is intertwined with the progress of media

The printing press made the written word proliferate ideas of every kind (a boon for the scientific age but a boon for the not so great ideas as well. Technology is a double-edged sword), across the world, spurring conquests and exploration for new markets and cultures, in addition to the rapid progress in developing newer ways of thinking.

The first well-recognised marketing materials used images and text in the print form. And indeed, such is the power of the written word that humans rarely if ever bother to check the veracity of the content, a trait of the times we used to live in where humans did not understand the world around them or their own bodies,  as much as we do now. Now, we do know a lot and have developed a few internal barriers with regards to the quality of content and a general sense of information overload.

As we begin the third decade of the second Millenium we find ourselves firmly ensconced as digital natives surrounded by a mix of video, audio, static visual and textual content of every genre imaginable. Video gets both our eyes and ears involved in moving our emotions. What if technology progresses ahead to include our sense of smell and taste as well? We can already imagine the faces of food and beverage marketers at this juncture.

Today, at Bangalore Insider, we spoke to the co-founder of Mindbound Creatives, a creative agency focused on video production and marketing, a niche segment within the marketing and advertising ecosystem. Below are the excerpts from our interaction.

Give a brief info about your startup?

Mindbound Creatives is a content agency, specializing in video production and marketing. We help startups and enterprises to build a brand, generate leads, get more sales and close funding rounds. We have domain experience of automobile, online application, gaming, IoT, hospitality, oil and gas, mining, healthcare and SaaS.

What made you start your startup and what problem does it solve?

India is turning out to be the startup capital of the world with the birth of numerous startups and businesses every day. We started the company to help others grow and have access to the best in the industry in content creators and marketing. While I was working as a freelance director, I’ve struggled a lot during the learning stage and faced a lot of difficulties. I think a lot of upcoming artists are vulnerable to the same and it’s very important to preserve the vision of a creative. So, my vision to create Mindbound Creatives is to provide them a safe space to work where they can perform the best of their ability and expand their pool of expertise which will ultimately result in business growth of our clients.

Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures? What were you doing before this startup?

Smaranika And I together started Mindbound Creatives 2 years back. I was a freelance filmmaker with experience of 8+ years with more than 5 feature-length films and more than 20 short films. I’ve been associated with many reputed filmmakers in Indian cinema including Tamil filmmaker Mysskin. My co-founder, Smaranika Jena, was working with the IT firm Cognizant. Prior to this, she has completed her fellowship from WEE Foundation IIT Delhi.

Where is your startup based out of? Why do you think that is the best place for you?

Mindbound started in Bhubaneswar and expanded to Bangalore within a year of operation. Bangalore is the hub of startups and brands. At the same time, Bhubaneswar is booming with a lot of potential startups. Our vision is to bridge the gap where growing cities can have access to the best video production quality, facility and talent as developed cities. Keeping that in mind, we have access to the best in the industry both in terms of clients and creatives. We have access to the best infrastructure and technology to serve our clients the best.

As a startup founder, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?

As a startup founder, it’s very important to be a step ahead than others in terms of innovation. Being in a service-based business, making the work of our client easy is always our first priority. Working on innovation within the startup is what keeps me awake at night. In that direction we are also launching an analytics platform with the implementation of AI, which will help business founders gain better insight regarding the performance of their business and help them directly generate leads and sales from their marketing activities.

Who are your competitions and how are you better than them?

In the video production arena, we’ve a good number of competitors. But at the same time, we stand out by our result-driven videos. We believe in the power of collaboration with our client rather than being an order taker. We ensure business benefits by providing our clients with facilities like international commercial rights, unlimited amendments, on-demand deadline, on-budget crew, access to footages and on demand after sales consultancy.

How hard is it to have a work-life balance as a startup founder and how do you manage it?

Personally, as a business owner, my co-founder and I don’t believe in the concept of work-life balance. Because if you love what you’re doing, then it doesn’t matter how hard you are working. We love meeting new business, understanding their business problems which what empowers us to solve complex problems for our clients. Initially we didn’t take any breaks. We worked 7 days a week. But the business operation and the creative work becomes too exhausting at times. Now when we’re stable, we’ve fine-tuned our work process.

But sometimes it is crucial to go on a short vacation and travel. That’s what frees me and keeps me constantly in love with what I’m doing!

Have you raised funding? If yes, then we would like to know the details. If not then please tell us if you are looking to raise.

For Mindbound Creatives, we have not raised funding. We are doing good in terms of business, we’re helping our clients grow, we’re helping our creatives with challenging work to unleash their potential. We’re happy and interested to grow only with the support of our clients and partners.

What’s the biggest misconception people have about you? Why do they have that? What’s the reality?

There’re two. I would not call them misconception but a general mindset. One, people assume us to be a digital marketing agency. There’re many who’re working in multiple arenas of marketing. But we specialize in video marketing, both performance and influencer based content creation, and we want to remain so. It’s very important for us to provide the service we are the best at than working on each field for revenue. Secondly, there is another misconception that video production can be performed by everyone and it’s cheap. Yes, there are creatives who can do it cheaper than others but will they help a business achieve their business goals? Because video production requires extensive work from in-depth research, scripting to production, editing. It’s a lengthy process and only with the help of right creatives one can achieve specific business results.

What gets you excited about this company?

It’s a utopia for me. I’ve worked a lot of years in the South Indian film industry and freelancing. There are persistent issues that creatives face while working people who manage them. The conflicts can vary from creative freedom to compensation. I want to create a world where I can bridge that gap which I’ve faced and I’m very proud to have created that atmosphere in our company. Other than that, creativity and experimentation inspires me. I’m privileged to have been associated with clients who are brave enough to try and be different than their competitors and succeed. Every day is a challenge. Every day there is something to learn. I’m a different person now than when we started the company.

Tell us how a day in your life looks like? Your schedule for a day right from the time you get up till you hit the bed at night.

I’m not a morning person. I wake up around 8 AM every day and after getting fresh the first thing I do is check emails. I like replying to emails as soon as I see them, so that consumes some time before I get to other affairs of the day. My day is divided mostly dealing with the business development team and the creative team. Also, I like to get involved with each project and client myself. Customer satisfaction and success is the soul of our company. I speak to every client of ours, discussing what we can do to make the work even better. During the afternoon, there are always internal team meetings and we have assigned different days for different sets of meetings. In the late afternoon or evening, I like to attend any events where I can meet fellow entrepreneurs or just out for a drive to freshen up. And in the late evening, I schedule my work for the next day before I’m off to home. I love cooking. I at least cook a meal in a day for myself. After reaching home, I watch a film. I watch a film every day and also educate myself with some youtube videos from experts. Before I go to bed by 12, I read a few pages until I’m sleepy. Currently, I’m reading “Anything You Want” by Derek Sivers. Every day is different. Sometimes I like to stay indoors and there are some days I’m travelling throughout. It’s totally dependent on the projects I’m associated with and the clients I’m working with.

Tell us about your team and how did you meet each other?

I’m the co-founder and global business head of the company and Smaranika, my co-founder, is the CEO. We have been friends since school. I studied filmmaking in Chennai and she completed her B.Com and worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions. Other than that, we have a diverse team, who already have served many big business houses as well as worked as creatives in film industries.