Spark of Ages
In every episode, we interview B2B Marketing leaders, executives, and innovators about their successes and challenges, asking them how they broke through and what spark in their careers took them to the next level.
Spark of Ages
Bootstrapping a Community Wildfire Response/Sandeep Parikh - Altadena, Crowdfund, EffinFunny ~ Spark of Ages Ep 36
Sandeep Parikh shares his journey of resilience after being displaced by the LA wildfires, discussing how the disaster tested his strength as a father, husband, and creator while inspiring new approaches to filmmaking and community building.
• Surviving the devastating LA wildfires that destroyed over 9,000 structures and left countless homes uninhabitable due to toxic contamination
• Co-founding Eaton Fire Residents United to map toxin spread through affected neighborhoods when official support fell short
• Maintaining creativity despite compounding challenges to Hollywood from pandemic, strikes, and now natural disasters
• Pioneering crowdfunding success with culturally authentic projects like DesiQuest and the upcoming film "Vidhya's Guide for the Afterlife"
• Building genuine creative relationships with fellow artists instead of constantly chasing validation from industry gatekeepers
• Leveraging community support to maintain creative independence and ownership of artistic properties
• Transforming personal trauma into art that connects with audiences seeking authentic representation
• Using "all parts of the buffalo" – drawing on diverse experiences from computer science to improv to create unique work
When the LA wildfires tore through Sandeep Parikh's neighborhood, destroying over 9,000 structures and rendering countless homes uninhabitable from toxic contamination, he faced the ultimate test of resilience. But true to his nature as a creator, he found ways to transform disaster into opportunity.
From the ashes of displacement, Sandeep co-founded Eaton Fire Residents United, a grassroots organization mapping the spread of dangerous toxins through affected neighborhoods when institutional support fell short. This community-driven approach mirrors his philosophy as a filmmaker – finding unconventional paths when traditional structures fail.
That spirit of innovation has defined Sandeep's career, from his early days breaking ground with web series like "The Guild" and "Legend of Neil," to his current success crowdfunding culturally authentic projects like "DesiQuest" and "Vidhya's Guide for the Afterlife." He reveals the strategic thinking behind these campaigns, including a brilliant live improv show that served as both entertainment and fundraising event.
Beyond financial success, Sandeep values the creative independence this model provides. After spending ten years fighting to regain rights to earlier work, he cherishes maintaining ownership of his art while building direct connections with passionate audiences. His journey demonstrates how authentic community building can replace traditional gatekeeping in entertainment.
Throughout our conversation, Sandeep shares invaluable wisdom for creators navigating uncertain terrain – the importance of establishing genuine relationships with fellow artists, using "all parts of the buffalo" by drawing on diverse life experiences, and measuring success through depth of audience connection rather than conventional metrics. Even in disaster's wake, he shows how creativity can thrive through resilience, community, and unwavering authenticity.
Join this powerful exploration of creative perseverance in the face of unprecedented challenges, and discover how disaster can become a springboard for your most meaningful work yet.
Check out Vidhya's Guide for the Afterlife on Kickstarter and follow Sandeep's journey through his Patreon where you can join his community of supporters
Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/
Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/
Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/
Email us with any feedback for the show: spark@postion2.com
Welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast. Today we're hanging out with my co-host and brother, sandeep Parikh, and I get to talk about him because he has so much to share. Sandeep is a true renaissance man of the digital age. They in LA or in Hollywood call it a multi-hyphenate who's blazed his own trail as a director, actor and digital showrunner in comedy, gaming and interactive entertainment. Sundeep's worked with a lot of names. You know Comedy Central, sony, fx, nickelodeon, tbs, hasbro. You may recognize him from his breakout role as Zabu in the Guild as I have. I've walked down the road with him and people recognize him which started as an internet series and ended up being bought by geek and sundry and ran for six seasons. Right now he's starring in desi quest, a dungeon and dungeons and dragons series making waves in the ttrpg world, which is tabletop role-playing game world that's about to hit Hasbro's official D&D channel this spring, and recently he just teamed up with Rekha Shankar to raise crowdsourced capital via Kickstarter for his next movie, vidya's Guide for the Afterlife. Behind the camera, sandeep has directed numerous web series of his own called Legend of Neil, which is based on the video game Zelda, wrote for the animated Netflix series Glitch Tech and has directed commercials for brands like Walmart and countless Silicon Valley startups.
Speaker 1:Besides being the co-host of this podcast, sanip is also the co-host of your Mom is, a Podcast with Malana Weintraub, who's also been on the show, as well as the show ABCD, american Born Chatty. This Is podcast, so go check out those after you listen to the show. So Sundeep attended Brown University, where he has a degree in computer science and theater. So, sundeep, welcome back to the show, because I know you've been away for some time. We've really missed you. My triumphant return. We, as in me and your producer, anand, have really missed you, as well as the audience.
Speaker 1:A lot of times they're like where's that guy who makes all this stuff real, um, and where's that guy that sounds a lot like you? Yeah, your voice double, apparently. Apparently we're that close sometimes our parents can't tell us apart. I mean, yeah, they always say sometimes they're like I'm on the phone with them for like 10 minutes and they'll be like well, rajiv, I'm like you know, you've been talking to not rajiv for a while, right, and they're like huh, why are you talking to me about something completely different? Yeah, it's just that rajiv is so multi-textured and of course I get. I get called Sanjeev, I get called my son's name, Arjun, so I get called all kinds of things from our parents. It's this affection that they have for everybody.
Speaker 1:So one of the things I think that's going to be interesting to talk about today is that the reason why you've been away for quite some time, you've gone through this incredible, difficult for many and most heartbreaking experience and maybe a point of resilience experience called the LA Fires. So you are, I guess would you call, would I call you a climate resilience, survivor, I suppose. So that sounds very fancy for how I feel, but you know you said a lot of fancy things in the bio, so I guess I'll chalk that up as well. Experience, uh, since becoming a father and you know, as sort of um, you know, a co-leader of our family, uh, and uh, it's yeah. So we were displaced from the, the la wildfires, the we lived in altadena, um, and we're over 9 000 structures, were there's no better word than decimated and has laid waste to what was once a beautiful, gorgeous neighborhood where we raised our son for all five years of his life, and there's no way of sugarcoating it. It was super challenging. Our house still stands. It was super challenging. Our house still stands, however, it is sort of infiltrated or has been sort of succumbed to massive smoke damage and ash and char and soot, and that we're finding out more and more in the research that it's highly toxic, filled with lead and asbestos, cyanide, a whole bunch of other really damaging neurotoxins. So it's unclear as to whether or not our house will be safe to return to anytime soon. Every week is a new wild challenge that either involves a shouting match with insurance or discovering some new neurotoxin, or trying to figure out where, um a kid's going to go to school and it's. It's been um, an absolute uh wild ride and has certainly tested our resilience as a family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tested me in in, in, uh, in all the ways that I can name, you know, as an artist, as a father, as a husband, as a yeah, so it's been. It's been super, super challenging, but you know, I am heartened by the level of like, outpouring of real support from, of course, family and friends, but even strangers that have sort of stepped up and tried to help in the many ways they can. I'm also a part of I guess I'll mention this that I'm working with an advocacy group that I helped name, using my creative brain. Well, you're a creator and you're a leader and an organizer, right? You started your own business. All your life You've been an entrepreneur, and so those skills serve you well.
Speaker 1:When you're in this situation, there's this like element of uh, I think that I don't know, it's probably some combination of you and mom and dad and and all these influences in my life. Really, sort of when I, when I, when I feel like I'm faced with a challenge like this, I can't help but somehow find a way to step up. I feel like there's always a vacuum in these times of challenge, where people are looking for leadership, they're looking for answers, and so when I feel like I am in it, in the mix of it, and I start finding various answers to things, I feel compelled to want to share those answers. And then, before I know it, I'm a part of an organization that is dedicated to that and trying to just utilize all my skills. So the organization is called the Eaton Fire Residents United, efru, and you can find it at EFRULA, and the sole real mission of that organization is to map. Essentially, we're creating a dynamic map that is taking all of the industrial hygienist testing that's being done on homes that are still standing, have uh, or or insurance is pushing back and not allowing them to. So, uh, we're trying to gather all that data. You know it's all volunteer based. People are just uploading their, their test results. It's all in anonymous, by the way. So, uh, you know we take privacy super seriously. You're not like saying this home, not specifically this home, but the area around the home, so that you can map it and you can literally see oh, here is how the lead has has moved through thanks to the wind patterns, based upon certifiable test results. Or this is how arsenic and so on. We're breaking it down by the toxins as well, so that you can really see how this stuff has moved through the town and through LA.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of folks were forced to move back right, or maybe didn't realize this and they just went back and so, right after, like you guys, as it was happening, left pretty much right away. It was a scary thing to leave your home right away. I mean we were evacuated. I mean technically, we left before we were technically evacuated. I mean technically, we left before we were technically evacuated because we were in some ways warned thanks to this local weatherman. And when I say local weatherman, I don't mean like a guy on TV, I mean a guy that has his own Patreon that does hyper local weather for Altadena. That's cool.
Speaker 1:This unbelievable guy, edgar McGregor, and single-handedly this guy and his Patreon, I think saved countless lives because he warned folks ahead of time that, hey, these winds are going to be unprecedented and if a fire is to break out, that it will be near impossible for it to be stopped. So get ready to get out. He said that a week or so ahead of time. A week ahead of time, yeah, a lot of us were informed of this idea that these Santa Ana winds were going to be huge and that if any fire breaks out, just get ready to bounce. And that's exactly what we did. We just were like you know what? We see? The fire on the mountain, even though it was miles and miles, you know, at least 10 miles away from us. Specifically, we were like let's just get out of here. You know, let's just get out of. These winds are absolutely insane. I've never seen anything like them. Um, that are, you know, once in a hundred years kind of thing Santa Ana winds. And so, yeah, because because of that guy and because of Patreon, we got out of there. It's, it's amazing. It's amazing, glad, glad.
Speaker 1:This person can be so helpful, because I could imagine just what happened with people when people didn't leave. They they just ran into a situation where they're all crowded and trying to get out and they don't get to take all the stuff or they get trapped. Well, that was exactly what I was specifically worried about. I was like you know what, before we even got our evacuation order, I was like let's just get out of here, just in case it gets crazy clogged. Like why even bother? Uh, messing with it? Plus, we had we didn't have power at the time. So you know, we have a five-year-old and we're having like a candlelit taco dinner. We're like why don't we just not be here? Let's do this somewhere else. Yeah, yeah, we didn't know that we were not gonna be able to return. Honestly, at that time that we were leaving, it was like we sat in our home. It felt like our home was so far away. But if it ever got to us are you kidding me? This whole place would have to burn down. And that's literally what transpired. I can't believe it. So I still can't believe it.
Speaker 1:What are some of the key lessons you learned from going through this that we should all think about in terms of being prepared. It's one thing to say for someone to be prepared we talk about it in Northern California more it's like be prepared for the next earthquake, and we sort of have some things tied down. The bigger buildings are forced to renovate themselves or make them seismic ready. Some people have a to-go bag or go bag, but I think most don't other than having, maybe, earthquake insurance. Most people don't do very much. What are some lessons you'd recommend to all of us, learnings that you represent?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, this is such like a lesson in, like you know, uh, assessing your own level of risk, uh, and we've been through this now twice in some ways right with the pandemic and now the la wildfires. So my risk, personal risk assessment is and especially now that I have family, um is, I don't want to take any chances. I don't necessarily want to go so far as to like build a bunker 80 feet down underneath my home or anything like that, or you know, I think there's some, but I think there is. There are measured steps that you can take to prepare yourself that are reasonable and, at the very least, it starts by checking out whatever the you know public health guidelines are in your, in your region. I mean, I think that is like a no-brainer and these go bags are pretty cheap and you can put one in each of your cars and, you know, have one under your bed and they're like 80 bucks each or something like that, and get them on amazon and they'll have water for three days.
Speaker 1:They have, you know, basic food supply. Like there's stuff that you can absolutely do, simple things like hey, don't throw away your sneakers. Um, you know old sneakers like stick, stick those under your bed, so you have sneakers. If you wake up and there's an earthquake and glasses shattered and there's a bunch of glass shattered between you and your kid's room, well then you can slip on your shoes and not, and you know like there's like there's like sort of really simple things that these and there's these websites that have it all.
Speaker 1:And you know, now you have AI, so you can just ask the question. You can have a conversation with Gemini and or or whatever you'd like to use and and go like hey, how should I, I live around here, how should I prepare for the you know, uh, uh, events that I, by the way, I'm utilizing AI so so much to help me in a bunch of different ways, but specifically, I'm using it to go up against when I need to go up against insurance and having it break down my insurance policy for me. I'll write an angry letter and then I'll say, hey, make this less angry and make this sound professional, polite but firm. And it will do it. And, and it's been so wildly helpful, um, in tracking all that stuff. So you know, you've got to use all the tools that are at your disposal when you're talking about your family survival and, um, so I, yeah, so have a, have a go bag, keep sneakers under your bed, yeah, yeah, maybe have that old pair of sneakers in your car. Have a change of clothes in your car, uh, uh, no, shut off stuff like gas and water before you go. Um, I think you did some of that gas, water, electricity, electricity you can't. It's hard, honestly. We did some of that, but the most important thing is to just get the hell out of there, like that's.
Speaker 1:The thing is that I talked, you know, right afterwards I was talking to this fire captain who I happened to run into at a friend's house when we were couch surfing. He's this guy who's working. He was off from the wildfires. He was like on a you know, a shift off and I was like going through a list of things that I thought I totally messed up. On right I was like, oh man, you know, I didn't shut off the gas. Actually, I didn't like there were certain things that we didn't do and he was like none of that matters. He's like you guys got out. Uh, he's like none of that is going to be the reason that your house burns down. Like, yeah, I was like, oh man, I left, like a, you know, I had like an extra gas. Can that? I that I, you know, freaking out about that. I was like, man, I left, I tied it down, but I didn't have time to like I didn't know, I didn't want to dump it out, I didn't know what to do with it, you know. So I just, you know, I forgot about it and I was so freaked out and he was like none of that is going to be the reason your house burns down. He's like these are a hundred miles an hour, winds that are like blow torching homes. He's like there's nothing you could have done that would have stopped your home from burning. So let go of that guilt or that fear that this was somehow your fault or you could have done something. He's like you did. The most important thing you and your family got out All right, let's shift gears a little bit.
Speaker 1:So what's the biggest challenges for you from this this 100 plus year? Eventyear event Wildfire as it relates to the business and entertainment industry. So a lot of news happening about production happening overseas. Yet another challenge to Hollywood after the pandemic and the writer's strike and the actor's strike, yeah. So how do you view this current environment as a result of all this? Or has this been a time where there's a massive creativity? Or maybe both? I think that's to come. Probably the massive creativity in some ways, or at least the evidence of that.
Speaker 1:I'm sure that I think any sort of trauma leads to art in some capacity, because that's the way we process things as human beings. So I'm eager to see. I just watched a movie the other day called Seven Days. That was a beautiful rom-com that was set in the time of COVID and I was like, oh yeah, that's right, cool art comes from our group trauma. So I'm sure that's going to be what will be the result of of this as well. But you know, yeah, the, the it does feel like, in many ways, the sky is falling.
Speaker 1:If you were, you know, like me, set out to LA to become a filmmaker and you see how the studio system is sort of collapsing and and you just listed off all these major events that have that have really curbed our, our ability to, um, at least plug into the the existing infrastructure and systems that were in place for us to effectively, um, make a living, uh, have a middle-class lifestyle, um, and still create art. That that's really what I think Hollywood was, was really able to do, or, or at least the sort of uh negotiations that sprung up between, or or the, the, the sort of ecosystem that sprung up around the studio and and and, um, the various unions, right, like, we sort of created this little ecosystem that was self-sustaining, where people could have a middle-class lifestyle, um, and and be a working actor, not have to take another job, be available for auditions at any time of the day, um, you know, and not be working a full-time job, so, so that all that stuff, we're seeing that infrastructure crumble before our very eyes, and so that's, yeah, that's wildly challenging. So that's happening. I mean we have. I think your friend Matt talked about this. Right, that the reason he can you know, you can have super high quality people be ready at any time is because of the unions. And, right, I'm one of these business school sort of folks I come out of. Oh, we don't like anybody in the way of getting things done. We want a free market, but in a way, basically, the unions enable a super high quality market for people, because if you're not available, you're not going to get access to the highest quality people. If those folks have to just jump from big project to big project, they're going to find things more consistent and stable.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and it's also why, when you do book a job, you get paid really, really well and people say, wow, that's your day rate. That's insane. You make like $2,000 a day or whatever. And it's like, yeah, if we were working 350 days of the year, then I'm sure that would be a crazy rate, crazy. Yeah, you're not working that amount, so you need to get that stuff, you need to get those residuals. Those are the things that allow you to essentially, in the downtimes, be training you when it's your time to, when you book a job and you're actually up at bat, um, so, but yeah, that that kind of infrastructure is, is is sort of falling apart.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, I think, with ai, is that is that because of? Is that because of the rise of streaming, or is that? Is there something about this part of it specific to the wildfires has the wildfires just challenged that? No, I think the wildfires is like, yeah, just just exacerbated it exactly. It's sort of like if, if there was a scab that was starting to come over because of, uh, you know, the strikes and the pandemic and all the other and the nai and and all that, like if there were, if there was, hey, a scab is starting to form. This is okay. This just ripped that scab off again and sort of exacerbated the wound. But yeah, you know that, from from our perspective, this is what I love about working with Anand Shah, who's also the producer of this podcast and and, and my COO at F and funny, my production company is that we really just we constantly just look at ourselves in the mirror and say, hey, what can we do?
Speaker 1:The two of us do to keep our creativity flowing, to keep us afloat, to keep our, you know income coming in, revenue coming in, you know hell or high water. We just have that mentality of like, we are going to be those. We're going to be those weeds that survived the apocalypse. You know, the ones that we're going to be the like, uh, stubborn weed that comes up through the cracks. We're never going to go away. Exactly Our roots are just going to go. So we're going to find that just one little, you know ounce of water that's buried deep to to keep us alive and keep us moving and keep us making stuff. Um, and I think the other thing we do, the other thing we do to become Hardy is is have really sincere, authentic relationships with our, with our community and the people that we've worked with for 20 years, and we care about these people and we, we, we try to bring them aboard. If our ship's not totally sunk, then come on aboard and see how you can grab an oar and we can try to figure out how to, uh, you know, do a cool project with you. Like that's the thing we're doing with reika. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I think this is uh, this is straight out of.
Speaker 1:You had two really interesting innovations. You've done many of them. Right, you were in the web world doing productions before it was cool. You were doing interactive as in choose your own ending or choose your own story world before it was, before it became interesting or became cool or big yet, and now you're playing the. You know, I don't think it's even big yet, but it could be, it will be. I'm still. I'm ahead of the time. You're ahead of the time. Yeah, I'm ahead of the head of the time. Your time will come on that one, and then the, the, that one and then the, the like. You just did a production right, your dc quest right, and, and what was interesting is how you got it funded. And now you're going to do a movie and how you got it funded right through the crowd, through crowdsourcing. Talk about that. That's really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, I don't think um, hollywood was ever um, just handing things out to South Asian directors, necessarily Not to play the race card per se, but it is. People do hire, people tend to hire those or feel connected to stories that reflect their own right. And so, then, the people that are in power they're of a certain demographic or of a certain whatever it is race, culture, whatever you want to call it, are just going to inevitably be attracted to projects or creators of a certain ilk, and I think it's subconscious, and I don't think that anybody's overtly trying to suppress South Asian voices. But my point is that there was no easy paths to it. We didn't, like the Mindy Kalings and the Hassan Minaj of the world grew, came, you know, with us, like we, we are that generation essentially. We didn't have the sort of, you know, the grandfathers and grandmothers before us pulling us up, necessarily in Hollywood specifically. So, like you know, the grandfathers and grandmothers before us pulling us up, necessarily in Hollywood specifically. So like, um, you know we have to carve that out for ourselves.
Speaker 1:Uh, and so all that to say, um, when you have a project that you're passionate about or a creator's voice who you want to uplift and put and put out there, you know a story that you're desperate to tell you, you just do whatever the hell it takes to make it happen. And and part of that for me recently has been recognizing that, hey, in the the 20 years I've been out here and doing stuff for the, you know like, like the guild you mentioned and the legend of neil and things that have a fan base, maybe not like a oh, my show was on hbo fan base, but a show that's really touched people's hearts and and that and I mean people people still follow you, they still buy merchandise, they. They still, when you're at a convention, dress up like you guys do, from there to dress up as your, for whatever reason I mean there's whatever reason, yeah, whatever reason that they really connected, deeply connected, to the stuff that we made. I think they felt represented by it. You know we were making shows about, you know, video people who love video games, people love gaming quote unquote nerds, people who felt like they were the underdogs who's, who were only picked on in media, who are only looked down upon in media as the butt of jokes in media, who were only looked down upon in media as the butt of jokes, and we gave them voices from an authentic point of view, because we are gamers and we are nerds and we were like no, we can be cool. I mean we literally have a guild song called I'm the one. That's cool. That was like a rock song that we put on YouTube that has some millions of views and I think that's because we'd like really touched these people in a way that they felt, hey, I like, I feel like I am beloved in this, um, and I, you know, and they're speaking for my, for my voice and I, and what I've recognized now is that you know these, these are fans in the sense, but there are.
Speaker 1:They're also like uh, uh advocates. They're like, they're like people who just care so much that they want to see your thing get made and they really go to bat for you. You know thousands of people to say yes to our product, uh, or our project, instead of begging for and trying to convince the. You know the suit at the top of paramount or whatever. Those are gatekeepers. They have a job. Their job is to enable the millions of dollars that they have at their disposal and the distribution channels that they have to to get out to market. And now there's this alternative channel that you know before you could do something potentially on youtube and just put it out right, and some people have risen spectacularly through that. But you still have to get high quality productions funded somehow. Right, it's hard to go from. It's hard to go from something kind of chintzy to then getting it funded in a big way, and you've done actually a lot of that too, um, but then in this case you utilize crowdsourcing Right.
Speaker 1:So for Desi Quest, which is a Dungeons Dragons show, which people are like, what's a Dungeons Dragons show? What they're maybe not seeing is that these Dungeons Dragons shows are selling out Madison Square Garden. These are becoming a really valid form of entertainment that again, people feel very seen by them. And so we're like well, we want to do one that's from a South Asian perspective, like let's. You know, we have such a rich mythology. You know our culture is so steeped in incredible stories of, you know, whether it's Hanuman or the Mahabharata or you know, all these like really incredible ancient stories that I feel like are really underrepresented, at least in the Western world for sure. And so we're like oh well, let's do D&D kind of with that influence with a bunch of South Asian. You know improvisers and performers and you know.
Speaker 1:So what better way to see if your idea that you think is cool actually has resonance than to put it out there for a crowdfund, to see if anybody's willing to put their money where their mouth is. And you know, we had 2,608 people do that, to the tune of $150,000, and was able to fund a season of that, and from there the show has grown. We did a mini season, we've done a lot. So you raised, so crowdfunded, you raised, you set out to raise $50,000. Yeah, and like, within hours I think Six, six hours we hit our goal. Yeah, hit your goal, which hit the algorithm and got you listed on the front page of kickstarter. That was brilliant. Yeah, they became a project we love on kickstarter, which is great we love. You want that badge, you want that. And it popped, it popped from there and kept going. Yeah, I think at the time it hit your stretch goal.
Speaker 1:I mean, this was it was pre-Elon Twitter and so really it was like the Twitter sphere was abuzz with it, like all the massive TTRPG players were all retweeting it and supporting it. And from there, I think it just sort of sort of caught, you know, caught steam and caught fire a bit. And then, and then after that, after that, you had, you had the show, you put it out. You, you basically pioneered a, the, the, you know basically the tabletop role player game right, didn't Zandris and dragons, which is very different format than watching a typical show. Right, yeah, built this very loyal audience and then from that, you were able to turn it into something even bigger. Yeah, it's kind of like watching an improvised fantasy novel happen before your very eyes, with a group of storytellers who collectively tell a story together, and then there's this gamified element with dice, that sort of randomize what's going to happen. It's a really cool format. And, yeah, I mean we created the show.
Speaker 1:I measure the success. My metric for success is the uh number of characters per comment. So it's not just, hey, do we get millions of views or we get all this stuff. The fact that people wrote, like you know, a two-page comment of how that show made them feel, feel seen, feel heard, the like we got a lot of like. This is the show I never knew I needed in my life, and especially from second generation immigrants of all, all types, not just South Asians, and you know that to me was okay. We have struck a nerve now. Now the job is to not give up, to keep creating uh, which is not giving up, but uh, and then just getting more attention for the show.
Speaker 1:Let's stop there for a second. Okay, because I want to, because when I first saw that first episode right of this equest I didn't know what to do with it. Okay, because I'm used to produced shows. Right, well, this is a pretty show. It is a produced show and I'm used to something that you know, but there's, this was so. This was like much longer than a typical show. Right, it's a couple hours or longer and it was.
Speaker 1:You know, I've seen you do and seen you and many of your friends who've gone on to do incredible things do improv, and this was like a form of both together and I think what was unique about it. You have to really live and feel that story as something much greater, a greater commitment, and, as a result, when you get those comments that are two pages you're getting someone who is investing in you in that level of depth. They're expressing passion for it, which is what you really want in anything you do. You want people who are maniacally passionate. Yeah, no, I think it's not a. You're right, I see what you mean by produce. Now, you mean like, oh, I'm, when you watch a show, you're very much.
Speaker 1:If you're watching Last of Us, you are watching these characters play out the story in a very visceral way. Is that you're sitting around a table, you're sort of orally telling the story, together as a group, inhabiting characters, playing encounters and these things, but you're kind of voicing them almost like in a podcast style. This is why I liken it to a novelization. It's like when you pick up a fantasy book. Sometimes you need to get to page 200 before you're like holy cow, now I'm into this world and and, and you're right, it does require a little bit of patience or at least an understanding of of what you're sort of getting into. But I also feel like it's probably what people first said when Joe Rogan was like doing a four hour podcast. You know, like, like, why the hell am I going to listen to this jerk talk for four hours? You know, um, and it's like you know it's a different way of of connecting. But you know with, with story, um, and and and I think in some ways, if a deeper, more meaningful way um than you know your your traditional sort of, you know your traditional fair on that you might find on TV and film. Yeah, I think it's fundamentally. I think that's why it's selling out Madison Square Garden. I think it's why it's selling out Madison Square Garden right now.
Speaker 1:These guys that are on Dimension 20 and Critical Role have such gigantic followings and it's because they are again. They're just connecting with people on such a deep level with their storytelling, and you're finding that same effect for the South Asian version, where you've mixed in mythology, hindu mythology. I would assume a lot of this is sourced from that. You're blending into this story, right into this equest story, and then from that it's so it's not just hindu, it's, it's, it's sick, it's islamic, it's like, yeah, it's like, it's like all the it really is. We try to be sort of like non-denominationally south asian about it. Um, so that it could be, you know, just as inclusive as possible. You're borrowing stories and elements and create weapons and characters from all these places and they are they just feel actually, if you come at it from afar, pretty related, because all the stories mix and for sure it's beautiful, yeah. So then you take that and you build a relationship with ricka. Right, that's right.
Speaker 1:And then from there, what happened? Yeah, so Rekha Shankar is a real up-and-coming, incredible comedic talent. She was the head writer at College Humor. So what I did for DesiQuest was I needed to have our own South Asian Avengers. I was like what's every South Asian that's ever been on one of these like sort of hit TTRPG shows and can I meet them and can I get them all to come together, right? So Reiko was one of them. She was on Dimension 20, which is a big show on a network called Dropout, and you know she, she said, she said yes, she'd be into it and from there she was an absolute superstar on the show. She's like one of the funniest people on the show.
Speaker 1:She plays a character called Ludduwanti, which is an auntie that is a barbarian and it makes powerful Ludduws that do all these magical things. She plays a very kind of um, uh, I don't want to say stereotypical, but like an auntie. You know, uh, who is. If you're south asian, you will know what. You will know this auntie. You know auntie, auntie, what does auntie mean? You know, yeah, uncle and auntie and I even say this, I say this to my team sometimes stop being an uncle. You know they're like, okay, I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna be so preachy, what to do? So kind of one-dimensional. But you play, yeah, this is an obvious texture and persona.
Speaker 1:It is, it is, she plays, she, she's, she's a barbarian in all the ways. And you know those aunties that are like, yes, they will shame you for eating too much or not eating enough or whatever it is, but then they also will be the ones that will, if anyone talk, talk shit about you, they're the first ones to be like they're going to throw down, yeah, exactly, their hearts. So for you, it's like you. It's like your mom they got that mom gene. They're going to be like the Tigris and just like that's right, yeah, that's right, they're gonna be like the tigress. I'm just like that's right, yeah, that's right. They'll. They'll tear down mount, they'll, they'll, they'll do what it takes to make sure you're okay, um. And so that's that's who she is for the anyway, she was so hilarious and all that.
Speaker 1:And then and this is the thing, that, how we approach projects with creators that we're interested in working with, we always ask them hey, what's that project that no one is green lighting, that you just can't stop thinking about, what's that, that script that you can't, you just can't put away and you keep coming back to and everybody says you're crazy and you know, like that kind of thing, like what is that project for you, um? And for Rekha, it was this movie that she was working on, um. That was, um had a really cool, fun sci-fi hook. It's essentially it was. It was a movie that she wrote, um, in the wake of her grandfather's passing, um and uh, and and the sort of the challenges like that that she felt during the 13 day Hindu ceremony. For for, uh, we have this like sort of it's kind of like sitting Shiva type thing, but it's like this 13 days ceremony, there's all these like rites and rituals and like pujas and things that happen.
Speaker 1:But she had a difficult as a second generation. She had a difficult time like sort of understanding what was going on. Everyone has a different, every uncle has a different interpretation of what's happening. Is she grieving the right way? And in that angst she felt like, am I a good hindu? Am I just like the worst hindu in the world? Like I don't understand, like I don't know how to grieve my own grandmother or grandfather in this case. Um, that is a proper way, yeah, and so then we. Then she wrote the twist that the sci-fi twist of our story is that, um, uh, in the middle of this, the hindu rapture occurs and every hindu on the face of the planet is taken away except for her, therefore thereby proving that she is the world's worst hindu. Uh, and it's like what? What happens now? Um, and I just I fell in love with the script.
Speaker 1:I was already like sort of in love with with, with Rika's comedic abilities, and I was like, how you know, I just said yes with my full being. Uh, like, how do I help you make this movie in whatever way, shape and form? You know, and I also knew I really wanted to direct the movie. But really my first place of coming from it was like, how do I just help you get this into the world? If my directing is what helps that, then let's do it. If not, I'll help in whatever way I can. And then I pitched myself as director eventually and she was like, yeah, let's do this, let's make this thing.
Speaker 1:And then it became another thing to crowdfund. And then you put it together. Yeah, you put your community together as part of it. She has her community, you have a community, you have some intertwined members of that. And then, with that group, you guys put together another Kickstarter campaign and I thought this one you raised you blew out even faster. You hit over $250,000 very quickly, like almost no time. Right, your initial limit was set at 50 and you blew that out, but there was a way in which you launched the campaign that got you more visibility. Of course, as you know, I'm into go-to-market, so there's ways in which you've launched it that drove it even faster. So maybe you could share some of those tips with us.
Speaker 1:So what we did for this one that was very different than Daisy Quest, is that we decided to have like a launch show. A lot of us are performers. We obviously have relationships with really great performers and we thought, hey, let's see if we can call in that one favor, get a kind of best of the best together and let's do a show that effectively it's a show format that pitches the movie to the audience. So it is an improv show that is about Rekha telling the world this is the movie I want to make and this is why I want to make it, and that's sort of the like through line of the actual show. But then we like gamify various elements of that, uh, in improv games throughout the show and we got to get we brought together a cast that if, again, if you were in like our circles, or if you were in the world of ttrpg or in the world of improv comedy, you would be like this is a super group. We essentially put together like, oh, it was amazing. I like the temple of the dog, yeah, for I kind of fell into it. Yeah, I had this youtube. I had youtube up and you know how youtube suggests things for you. Um, it becomes part of my late at night when I'm just viewing stuff and my wife's not up and we've watched our normal shows, I'll put it on. And then this one came up and I was like, oh, I, I didn't know there was a one hour show about about. Yeah, it was like a one hour, yeah, about about rick has.
Speaker 1:We tried to make the pitch about our movie the most entertaining thing you could possibly watch, and that ended up becoming such a powerful tool for us. So, first of all, we live stream that on the day of our launch. So we had the show live and we had a packed audience at the Dynasty Typewriter, which is this really cool theater in LA that is like one of the main hubs of hip comedy in LA these days. We packed that house out these days. We packed that house out, uh. We then had live stream tickets so that, if you couldn't make the show, uh, it was available to everybody around the world to watch live as well. Um, and, and our kickstarter went live that day.
Speaker 1:So, um, in like during the show we are, it's almost like a telethon. At that point we're like we've raised this much at this point, can we get to this much while we're doing the show? Modernize Jerry Lewis telethon. Yeah, I think we raised something like 15 grand or something like that throughout the course of the actual show itself. But really it was also then having that video as a tool for attention grabbing throughout the entire campaign, because now, that video, which was doing really well in the YouTube algorithm, like you were talking about, and we were also cutting that up into clips, posting that on TikTok, youtube and Instagram and wherever else, and so that was just driving a bunch of awareness. In a way, it was what replaced Twitter for us from the daisy quest, because twitter is a different vibe now, to put it mildly.
Speaker 1:Um, and so we knew we weren't going to get that same level score. A lot of those creators that were supporting us the last time on twitter were left twitter. Um, so that wasn't going to be what. What was going to do it? Um, but yeah, we thought, hey, this is the most fun way that we could tell our like this is what we're good. We, I've been out here for 20 years doing improv. Like this is what we're best at. Let's do an improv show. And then we got you know this just incredible cast brendan, lee mulligan, izzy roland, felicia day, uh, from the guild and, uh, uh like jordan myrick, sam reich, uh, I'm gonna forget people through through sing, who's gonna be in the movie as well. I, I could not stop laughing. All of these people have like, so, like, just so like such masters of improv. Um and uh, we were so lucky to have them together. It was great. Yeah, so it's, it's getting. So.
Speaker 1:It's like around your fundraise, building a vehicle, using your community of super talented improvers to get the message out. Of course, you appeared early on, they came in. It was a super clever way of promoting, turning it into an event, and I think that's part of the momentum. Now we have all these tools that we can get in front of people where we don't need approval from anyone. We can create it ourselves and literally get it all out. But then, when we get it out, we have to make sure that everything's aligned with it. So it's like planned and unplanned and serendipitous feeling all that coming together at once. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. You have to be super responsive, too, right? You can't just like like there's a world in which that that didn't really take off, so there's other ways that we have to drive attention. And so it wasn't.
Speaker 1:We weren't like putting all our eggs in that basket per se, but it was. Hey, let's just try these various things, see what is holding people's attention. And, and you know, cause that's it? Like I was just watching this like Instagram video the other day from this creator that I love, um, and he did a thing on, like you know, just like like a tip tips on how to, how to, how to be a creator these days, and one of them was, um, you can't just create stuff. You know, the creation of the art is 40% of it, the marketing of it is 60%, and so then people are like, well, so what? I got to be an editor, I got to be a cinematographer, I got to do all these things. And he was like, no, you don't have to, you just have to get people's attention.
Speaker 1:And so, whatever the hell way, you want to do that, but you that that is part of the job of being an artist is, how do you get people's attention to your art. If that's what you want to sustain you and sustain the life for your family then that has to be a part, part and parcel of the design of the art for you. So, no, you, you don't have to necessarily be on Instagram or any of these things. If that's not how, if, if, if you can get attention some other way that's more efficient for you or more for that speaks to you, um, then do that. But you, you must design some way to get attention when you are creating your art.
Speaker 1:I think that's brilliant and it's a really helpful way for aspiring creators to understand how to get this together. So, in your case, it's a combination of community people you take care of in a genuine way or take care of you over time, and it all comes together. If you know Sandeep, you'll see many similar people who've been in various roles with him over time, right From whether it's producing or above the line. Below the line kind of work, right, yeah, they're coming with you and they carry with you and they promote with you and all these connections work with you, and that's working together as part of taking advantage of the mediums that are out there. Totally.
Speaker 1:I always say that whenever people who are new or at a panel they always ask what's the advice you give to somebody I always say listen, treat the people that you collaborate with early on, the people that are in your level 101 improv class, the people that you collaborate with early on, the people that are in your level 101 improv class, the people that you meet as junior executives or assistants, or people at the mailroom of CA that is your graduating class. All those guys. You guys are all freshmen together and you guys are going to rise the ranks together, and so, if you create authentic relationships with the most talented people that you find that are in that, instead of striving to get a senior's attention and be like I'm going to date a junior my first day no, no, no, no, no Focus on the people that are around you in your class. Who are the most talented people there that you really jive with? Who are the people that you really connect with? What are their hopes and dreams? How really jive with? Who are the people that you really connect with? Like, what are their hopes and dreams? How can you guys work together and create a cool class project together? And because those people are going to be the ones five years from now that are going to be the executives and that are going to be, you know a series, regular and and you can sort of graduate together If you really have those authentic relationships that you created at the start.
Speaker 1:In a way, as an aside, in a way, you're going against the grain of normal human thinking. A lot of time I wouldn't say we. When I grew up, you'd find who was cool and who's not, who to pick on, who to be friends with, and it goes against that part of what I thought was human nature. Whereas you create these gradations and you pick and choose amongst them and what you're saying is amongst that group, consider everyone to be interesting. Maybe you attach yourself more to certain folks that jive with you the most, but you know you don't need to necessarily put down others in this, in this quest, because all those folks, those folks will be the one you never know what will happen, and those folks will be the one that maybe, out of nowhere, connect you with all sorts of people, all right, and then want to be part of that tribe of yours, or you'll just have a great time with them, and you will, you will like, at the very least, even if you don't shoot to the moon, you will have an authentic relationship with people that you really love working with, which is like, in the end, you know kind of so much.
Speaker 1:It sort of becomes like the like enjoy the process instead of the result kind of thing. Because I think whenever, whenever you're going like hey, who's out there, that's cool. What you're doing is you're setting there's an extrinsic determinant for what is good and then measure yourself up to that versus like intrinsically feeling in your heart of hearts, like who makes me laugh, who makes, who moves me when I see them, who am I always like, like you know, riffing with at a party and we just can't stop coming up with crazy fun ideas or or joking with you know, you know, or who's like, who's reading my writing, um, just because they care about me and want to see me succeed, and then gives me really great notes and really cares about it. That's when you tap into what's intrinsically going on with what your own measurement for cool, which should be as like who's impacting you. I'd say, don't underestimate your own gut feel for the kind of person that could be your great partner or great collaborator with. Go with your own. I would even go so far as to not just don't underestimate it. Nurture that gut feel, connect with that gut feel, have conversations with that, meditate with that gut feel Really conversations with that, meditate with that gut feel really under, go deep within you, understand yourself. What are you trying to do out here? If you're coming out to LA and you just want to be the next X, y, z or you just want to make a bunch of money, like I, I think you're going to have a lot, a lot harder of a road than if you go. Man, I really have this story to tell. I really need to get this, this message out there, this, this thing that happened to me, this thing that's meaningful to me, out into the world. Like, if that is your motivation, then like and, by the way, I say this after 20 years of doing it the other way truly like I don't think I understood this for so long. Really, this is the advice that I'm like giving to myself, or, you know, I think we give ourselves that advice every day. Yeah, I think you realize much later. This is what really works, not necessarily what others' version of great is, it's your own version.
Speaker 1:So, hey, let's go back a little bit. Did, um, you were supposed to be a good, uh, indian son and when you went to brown, you were supposed to work in computer science. That was your. That's what you got your degree in. Yeah, right, that's why, uh, mom, dad, were paying all that money to go to, for you to go to this amazing Ivy League school, indeed. But then you went into the arts, what got you sparked on it? Well, that's honestly their fault for not knowing. That's their fault for not knowing what Brown University was, or all of you, or me even None of us knew.
Speaker 1:I don't think we really understood. We were just like, oh, it is Ivy League school, yeah, of course, don't go there. Go to ivy league school, like there was. No, it was the only ivy league I got into, and so it was just like obvious that I was going there. We I mean, I didn't even visit the school beforehand, like I don't know how. Wait, we're not, hold on now. That's not fair.
Speaker 1:My, our parents talked me into going to a state school so to get a scholarship. So right, you're so funny. I was literally talking with dad about this yesterday and he still like, has this deeply held belief that you should go to the cheapest undergrad and the then go from the most expensive graduate school. So, yeah, you're right. You're right he was. He was like literally just talking about that yesterday. Um, it's hilarious that, uh, no, but my point was is that you know, brown maybe unbeknownst to us was this like is the most liberal of the liberal arts, right? So like they really encourage you to explore. I mean, they encourage. It's like it is. It's so built on like intrinsic motivations like what do you want to explore in in our giant curriculum offering you can take any class, pass, fail, you can drop out right before the final and get an incomplete instead of a failure. They set it up so that it's like we are not going to punish you for trying something out of your wheelhouse and recognizing whenever you do in that time that it's not for you. We want you to try different things. That is built into the dna of it.
Speaker 1:And so I got there. I fell in with these, with this wrong crowd of of this wrong crowd of these very bad people, these very bad improvisers and comedians and writers and artists. And you know these are people that went on to be, you know, writers of the cobalt report writers on fallon writer. You know these are are people that went on to be, you know, writers of the Colbert Report writers on Fallon, right, you know, these are like incredible people. And yeah, I just started start. It's actually kind of it roots back to being your fault, rajiv.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you recognize this, but I went to Harvard Summer School Indian boy, right. And why was I the good Indian boy? Because in fifth grade I was getting Bs. I got like two Bs or something like that. And then you said to me hey, if you get straight A's, you'll get a set of baseball cards, knowing that that was, all I wanted in the world was a set of baseball cards. And so then from that point on, I was Mr Like, I'm getting straight A's, I want baseball cards. And so then, from that point on, I was Mr Like, I'm getting straight A's, I want baseball cards so badly. So I was very extrinsically motivated by baseball cards, anyway. So I only had to keep that incentive for a couple of years, because once you got hooked, yeah, you never got it, that's right, but but still like that's, for whatever reason you went the other way when I went to Harvard summer school and you were like, hey, cause, I was like I'm going to take chemistry and I'm going to take physics, and you're like, don't do that, take something weird, take, take creative writing. And I was like, really Okay. And so I did.
Speaker 1:I took creative writing at Harvard summer school, uh, my, my senior year or junior year or whatever that was. And then, um, I was like it's that, that that sort of started the, the, the artist in me. It sort of like lit the flame, I think. And then so then by the time I got to brown, it was like, yeah, no, of course I'll get like a practical, pragmatic degree. I'm not gonna I'm not crazy, you know, or I'm not gonna, I don't be disowned by my south asian immigrant parents um, like, like so, but I am gonna, you know, try to join this improv troupe and see what that's about.
Speaker 1:And by the time time it got to senior year, I really fell in love. I made my first film over the summer one year and I really fell in love with to me how it lit up both sides of my brain. I felt like, for the first time really in my sort of academic career did I feel like the left side and right side of my brain lit on fire as I produced a film. I felt like my logic side was problem solving, trying to figure out how we're going to get done in this budget and this timeline, and then my creative side was just obviously, how are we going to tell the story? So, yeah, I just fell in love with filmmaking and I told mom and dad that I want to move to LA and give it a go and put my CS degree to the side. And mom cried and make money. Yeah, okay, we support you. I still remember mom saying okay, we support you, she will cheer you on. All right, so that that's.
Speaker 1:That was the origin of the spark that when you never looked back, never went back and learned, uh, python and java, oh, I learned those things definitely. Yeah, I learned python and java. Yeah, yeah, I learned all that in. In retrospect, like I almost wish I didn't. I wish I saw CS as a tool for art earlier on and there are ways in which it has actually like you mentioned earlier the interactive stuff that I did I was writing scripts and pseudocoding as I was creating Choose your Own Adventure live action story. So that was, in a way, it did make use of my.
Speaker 1:I did use my degree at some point, yeah, and I'd say that in general, I think it's really useful to learn, like being mathematic, to understand the mathematical science, structured logic, understand how to write code. I you know, after engineering I went into technology sales instead of actually building technology products, and then later, when I started companies, I always saw it as writing a set of procedures. You design your business as a set of almost code modules and where everything works together. That's cool. These are components that need to flow together. These are components that need to flow together, and so you want to make it so that each organizational unit or functional unit can run on its own while interacting with the others, and you want that code to be extensible to a certain extent. So if you scale, you don't break the basic infrastructure of your basic program. Yeah, so listen, yeah, that makes total sense.
Speaker 1:You know what I find with, with my artistic pursuit and I wonder if you feel the same way, actually, as an entrepreneur is that it sort of uses all parts of the buffalo in the sense of like, all like I have because of my pursuit of being a filmmaker. It has used every experience I've had growing up, and nothing is wasted. At some point, like, oh, I'm on set, people are like, oh, you were a gymnast, can you do a backflip? Yeah, sure, okay, great, let's put that in the music video that we're shooting. Everything that I thought was like why did I do that in my life? Why did I waste my time? No, it actually sort of came back in to the art in some some way shape or form. You sort of you end up mining every little bit of your life experience so that you can, you know, pursue your dream of becoming a filmmaker or, you know, tell this interest story in the most unique way or the most from you point of view way that you can. I don't know if that's that's true of entrepreneurs. I totally feel that way.
Speaker 1:I, um, I'm in growth marketing, digital marketing, with a worldwide team serving primarily technology-centric clients. Even the dental clients or even the more basic businesses are now technology-centered and I find that in getting to those clients all the sales skills I learned when I was at NCR back in the day National cash register when I went for a year of sales training they give you a year of graduate sales training and the most important lessons I learned was not just in. I was in that class and then this amazing guy that I should keep in touch with Rich Lutz, who taught me about major account selling, should keep in touch with rich lutz, who taught me about major account selling and he taught me, he, he. One of the great lessons he taught me was um, I was a salesperson. I was running all over the the new england area talking to all these big companies gte, ge, pepsi trying to sell these computing systems right, pcs and servers. Right there you'll pentium, pentium PCs and multi-unit servers. And he sat down with me one day and he said Rajiv, let me just teach you a little bit about sales. I've been at this for 20 plus years.
Speaker 1:So say, you're successful at Pepsi, you sell a bunch of machines. You're sitting here in Hartford, connecticut. You sell a bunch there, and then you sell a bunch here at ITT Hartford, which at the time was now the Hartford Insurance Company. What's going to happen to you next year? I don't know, rich, I'll just make a bunch of money. Hit my numbers. He's like no, rajiv, they're going to split your territory in half and they're gonna get. You're gonna have to choose which one you want.
Speaker 1:So, like I'm sitting, you're sitting here with the three big insurance companies that are all it driven. Where you can work with me, I'll, I'll do the strategy. You know, he's the senior guy getting a stretch. I'm just 20 old kid selling that hardware and he's like you guy getting the strategy. I'm just 20 year old kid selling the hardware and he's like you can. Basically, we can work together here where you can literally focus on these few places and nail it, or you can run around like a chicken with your head cut off, all over the state, all over the region. What do you want to do? And it was like wow, you know, prioritize, wow, prioritize. Pick a few things, go super deep in them, pick a community of folks. We ended up building an account team together that just went after these insurance companies, each one of us with different competencies, and we made it work. And so those lessons are with me to this day.
Speaker 1:Whenever I think of our folks, us running around, we can take on this client, that client, this client, that thing. Think of our folks, us running around, we can take on this client, that client, this client, that thing. It's like no, no, let's focus on particular areas where we can be really awesome, because you only have so much time and you only have so much energy to focus in a few places and really differentiate yourself, and even then it's hard. Yeah, exactly yeah, that's what I mean. I guess, like you know, you never know what life experience is going to rear its head back into your life later and what sticks with you and like, yeah, everything that you think was, or something that you think was totally a waste of time, ends up being this useful thing. I just feel like it's like, yeah, using all parts of the Buffalo, except that you're the Buffalo. Yeah, no, I agree, I think you is you. No, I agree, I think you need to be able to go back, even if you think something's wasted. You never know when it'll pop up in your life, and you have to be. I think part of it is I dismissed many things that I did and now, as I get older, I'm more open to those things coming back and serving as lessons or good stories that inform where I'm going. Okay, we are.
Speaker 1:In terms of self-improvement, what area of your filmmaking craft are you trying to work on right now? Um, so, I'm I'm trying to study um other independent film that's like roughly in our same budget level to really get a sense of what I find really appealing about them, like what they do really well, you know, with their limited resources. How do they make how does this movie? Let's take Seven Days as an example of the movie that I was just talking about. Let's take Seven Days as an example of the movie that I was just talking about.
Speaker 1:It was a movie where two people were shot in one location the entire time. How did they make it not feel claustrophobic? At a certain point in the movie you kind of lose yourself to the story apartment, I mean, every angle you could possibly imagine and it never felt stale visually and I thought that lent itself to making the movie feel like it had big scope, even though it was literally shot in an apartment. And you know, part of that was actually I watched that movie with my community. So I have this thing where I have a Patreon that if folks can sort of be with me on the journey of making this movie, if they contribute to our Patreon, and then they can watch these movies with me and then we have a little discussion afterwards. And that's been so valuable to have these conversations with the people that are going to that have already. Many of them have also kicked in for the Kickstarter, of course, and so they're just like.
Speaker 1:It's like having constant audience feedback throughout the process and that's been just genuinely so inspiring and helpful, because you're not getting notes and ideas from executives who have like sort of the ulterior motive of keeping their job. You're getting it from the fans that really love and care about film or care about your project too. So they're really like, and I'm telling you that the stuff that I hear from them is so valuable it's more valuable than a Paramount exec who's been or can be just as valuable. You wouldn't sneeze at the Paramount exec that helps you with your next movie no, of course, not your version of the Mahabharata that's coming out in a couple years. In fact, anand would say this too, who worked at Paramount, which is why I keep picking on it. He would say, in some ways, we've all done the 10,000 hours of watching content, you know.
Speaker 1:So we have our own sort of expertise around what matters to us, what moves us. We may not know the technicalities behind how everything's produced per se, but we know what is impactful to us. So I'm constantly surveying that with my community, and these, again, are the people that are going to be the loudest advocates for it and the deepest supporters. So, yeah, I think it's that I'm just trying to really stretch myself, really trying to understand my crutches and my go-tos which tends to be goofy comedy at times, or or sophomore comedy or whatever it is and really try to get to something a little bit deeper emotionally. And so, yeah, just kind of just stretching myself a little bit and and you know, making myself a little uncomfortable, cause I think that's where the, the next sort of iteration of, of of artistry will come for me. I like that. It's in that discomfort.
Speaker 1:I like that that you're using and I think you're doing this even as you are doing the movie right, vidya's Guide for the Afterlife. You've documented for everyone that's supported you, or on your email list, the process you've gone through, what you did to get there, how much the net is after you pay all the different expenses for fundraising. They feel like they're on your journey and because you're transparent like that, they can feed back to you. I feel similarly about the community I'm working with. I think in many ways you're more open than I am and you just throw yourself out there and I think your community lifts you up, and it's one of the things we I need to do better, which is ask for help. It's very Brene Brown of me, you know, just trying to be a vulnerable warrior, a leader through vulnerability. Well, you know what we're going to do now. We're going to go to the game. Okay, great, are we still calling it the Spark Tank? We're calling it the Spark Tank. Welcome to the Spark Tank.
Speaker 1:Today, we're thrilled to have our very own co-host, sandeep Parikh, joining us in the hot seat. Sandeep has not read the script. Sandeep, your mind is a fascinating landscape of creativity, from the cult phenomenon of the Guild to directing web series and even diving deep into the world of tabletop RPGs With AC Quest. You are constantly forging new paths. This is the ultimate word association challenge where every response can unlock a new dimension of your creative process or reveal the colorful chaos when we open our brain of a professional improviser. This is where storytelling meets spontaneous thought, where digital innovation collides with the art of human connection and where a single word will unlock a universe of unexpected ideas.
Speaker 1:So here's how it works. I start with a word and suddenly you respond with the first word that comes to your mind okay, okay, I was like okay, do I have to do a monologue or something? Okay, no, just a word. Okay, it was a monologue, got it to get to word association and we'll go back and forth. So, so, suddenly, are you ready to see where your synopses take us? Yeah, yeah, okay, let's see. Oh, all right, I'm gonna empty my mind. This is gonna be. There is no, there is no. Big, really huge, uh, unique, really huge, unique New York, unique New York. Okay, is that something? I should learn to speak better?
Speaker 1:Okay, here we go, play, improv, acting, emotion, authenticity, vulnerability, vulnerability, depth, richness, richness. Go there. Why did you say richness, richness? Why did I say richness, richness? Well, I guess I was trying to dig deep, and I think that if you dig deep, it's where the, it's where the, the juice, the juju is, it's where the good stuff is right. So you go to the depths of your conscious brain or subconscious brain to dig for story ideas and you'll find a rich, fertile ground of, of unique stuff. That's where play is at its greatest, when it's uncon, when it's unsupervised, unconstructed. On, just play, I think. I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Okay, next one, okay, character Actor Craft Macaroni and cheese Amy's, Amy's, oh, organic Hippie Mushrooms. Colorful hippie, uh, mushrooms, colorful, oh, okay, a spectrum wavy, uh, surfing. Aquamarine, the john jason momoa what? All right, explain that one. Oh, jason momoa, he played aquaman. I like that. Did you really like? Did you like aquaman? Aquaman, that was for me, that was an airplane movie. It was, it was. It's exactly where I watched it and I love jason Jason Momoa. I like the first one a lot. I enjoyed it. That's the only one I've seen. I didn't see the rest of them. Yeah, it was great. I think I'm on longer flights than you are, so that's why it is.
Speaker 1:I did meet Jason Momoa at a convention you did, and we had an incredible conversation. He's such a lovely guy and he was so easy to talk to. We just riffed for forever, um, and. But I was taught he's so tall and so when I was talking to him, I'm literally like, by the end of our conversation, I finally like put my head down for the first time and I'm like this massive crick in my neck. Okay, this triggers something for me.
Speaker 1:You've actually been on a show with robin williams. Actually been on a show with robin williams? I have, who is probably to any improver or comedian, one of the greatest all time. If not, he's great. He's mozart, yeah, he's mozart. How was that experience? I mean, it was transformative. Um, uh, he what. You know I for I worked on the crazy ones, which was the final show Um, uh, right, right before he he passed, and um, I worked on it for four days. I was like the main villain character to his hero, so we were like squared off head to head. It was really really fun episode. I got a bunch of scenes with him, a bunch of scenes with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Um, and it was just, he taught me so much in those four days.
Speaker 1:Was he always riffing the whole time? Well, he was having authentic conversations the whole time. So there was a lot of times that we were standing there getting rehearsing and we'd rehearse our scene and then typically they'd say, okay, second team on, and so that just means after we do our clocking rehearsal, usually our like kind of body doubles like second team. It's like people that are sort of the same height and maybe usually same skin color-ish, because you have to light for us would step on. But Robin was like, no, I'll stay. And I was like, oh, I'll stay. And I was like, oh, robin's gonna stay, I'm gonna stay. Yeah, you're not going anywhere. Yeah, so me and robin were just like start chatting about whatever it is, and he just was he.
Speaker 1:He was so, again, he's just so authentic and you just like talk about he loved comics and you talk he loved zelda. So we talked about, like the legend, neil, all these things, and so we had all these great conversations and he knew everybody's name on set. He was like thanking everybody by name, like catching up with them, and you just notice this, like this real, you know, I don't know how he was earlier in his career, but it felt like to me that you know whether he came to this or whether he was always this way. There was this such level respect for everyone around him, for everything that they do, and this this, this feeling where he just didn't take an ounce of it for granted, like he just he felt like it felt like he was treasuring it the whole way. Um, and he just was so cool, like there's what?
Speaker 1:There's this one moment where we're uh, me and a bunch of the other cast were who were like day players. We're all sitting in a in the room, in like the break room, chatting and talking about like, hey, what were the movies that he was for? And we were like trying to remember all the movies that he was nominated for an Oscar for. And as we were like, we're like, was it this? Was it that we hear from the back? We hear from the back like it was Bicentennial man and it was Robin Williams making fun of himself as if Bicentennial man was the one. So he was listening to the conversation the whole time and he just jumps in and it was just. He was such a delight of a human and, yeah, I think just never taking it for granted was something that I really learned from him. That's amazing. I think our producer will let us do one more, so Okay, gaming, gaming.
Speaker 1:One more, so okay, um, uh, gaming, uh. Last of us, I don't know, that's last of us. It's a video game. Last of us, that's a. That's a tv show on hbo. See, I know so little about gaming. Multiplayer game is it a multiplayer game or it's just a game? Yeah, I was gonna say mario kart, it's okay, mario kart. Tortoise, uh, tortoise. Shell flip uh. Gymnastics. Pommel horse champion. Nadia komenich oh, perfect.
Speaker 1:10. Simone biles um, uh, struggles, okay. Comeback story uh, hoosiers, what are your favorite comeback stories of all time. I should have said, rudy, I was like, comeback. It's like hoosiers was a coosers, a comeback story. Um, what are your favorite comeback stories of all time? I should have said, rudy, I was like, come back. It's like hoosiers was a coosiers, a comeback story. Um, what are your? I mean, if simone biles, what are your? Yeah, simone biles, right, some of us gotta be up there. Absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1:I mean, talk about a chant, talk about how, uh, someone who man led, led through vulnerability, right, like, yeah, she let it out there, she let low, yeah, I mean, and the things that were said about her, uh, after admitting that she was having all these mental health issues and struggling with being in the limelight in that way, and then just come back and winning it all. And winning, I mean like that is to me what, what a triumph, what, what a way to um, to, to, to demonstrate resilience on the largest stage imaginable. That is, that's incredible. Um and so and so inspiring. That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. And so inspiring. That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. All right, I'm going to ask you one more question and then we're going to maybe even act like co-hosts again. We'll see.
Speaker 1:Tell me the second thing that you love, Not the first thing, the second thing you love, not the first thing, the second thing, say. I guess the first thing I would say is being a dad, um, and so then for the second thing that I love, it's performance. Um, specifically, uh, man, do you love being on stage? Is that fun for you? Sweet, sweet taste of the audience laughing at something you riffed up at the top of your head is is the most like, uh, dopamine inducing feeling on the planet, like you just feel you'd, like you said something or you let you that you created something in the moment through improv, or even like as you're in stand-up or whatever, and and then the audience, it rips through the audience. That feeling is is unmatched. I love that feeling. It's incredible compared.
Speaker 1:So you primarily were improv, more recently did stand up. I love sending your clips to people, especially your, your, some of the ones like Swiss thick. I think Indians love that, american, all friends love that. They think it's hilarious. Would you, could you pick one over the other? Or are they just two different sides? Two different kids? They're two different kids. They're there, they're just. They're just two different kids. I two different kids. They're there, they're just, they're just two different kids.
Speaker 1:I mean, I, I, you know, improv is my first love, so it's like I had to choose, I wouldn't give that up. But, um, yeah, there's like improv is like more of the team sport, right, it's like it's more like playing on on, like on a volleyball squad squad or a baseball basketball squad or something like that. That's like when you feel like you're in community as you build this incredible thing and people love it, where stand-up is a little bit more like probably gymnastics or something. You're up there solo, you're like all right, I hope I land this flip perfectly. I've pointed my toes throughout and I hope I don't fart. Oh God, here we go, I'm going to leotard ready, and so it's very vulnerable and then and those highs are very, very different, um, than the, than the team highs, you know, but both wonderful things.
Speaker 1:No, this was great. Um, I know we cooked this one up because we just haven't had a chance to do an episode in a long time, and I think, you know, in many ways yeah, in many ways, I think people or those who listen and I've gotten so much amazing feedback from people, right, and a lot of them were like hey, where's that guy that sounds like you, that, basically, you know, makes all that geeky stuff interesting and comes in from another angle and all that and I was like, well, let's do this one together and get you back. So I'm really glad to have you here. I hope all the budding entrepreneurs who want to really dig deep in a go-to-market cut literally anything out of this episode. Wait a minute, this is not all about go-to-market. This is about innovation yes, yes, and innovation has go-to-market. This is about innovation yes, yes, and innovation has go-to-market in it, and I think there are many, many lessons about how to build yourself up, build up a community, how, when there's established mechanisms for getting something you want funded, funded, and then there's unconventional ones, and the unconventional ones really make you you have to go out there in a way that you probably you're taking even more chances, right, and I think that's what's remarkable. Let me say this about those unconventional ways too, real quick, before we bounce, is that, at least in the way that we did it with crowdfunding, the major difference between that and getting funded by comedy central and my prior shows stuff, is that I get to own it all, we get to own the creators get to own it all and I got to tell you after having to do it, doing a 10 year battle to get back the legend of Neil from comedy central to so that just so I could put it on YouTube.
Speaker 1:That's all I wanted was for people to see it and not have it be buried and lost forever. You're not even using it. It's on the shelf. You're not. You don't even care about this project. Website is dead. The website that they have. I was like I will give you whatever you want. You can have all the revenue, I don't care, I just want people to see it. The website's gone. Like please, let me see, let's split the rep, whatever that I.
Speaker 1:We don't have to do that for desi quest. We don't have to do that for vidya's guy. We get to be the owners of our art and that is man. It may not be, as you know, much money or whatever. I mean, in some ways it's good, seemingly like it might be, but, um, you know it's man, there's. There's nothing like owning, owning your art, that, or owning what you build. I think in a way it is.
Speaker 1:If I were to abstract it to the business world, it is nowadays how a lot of businesses are getting themselves funded. They're out there reaching, they're telling people about who they are and what they're up to. They're not necessarily, they're stealth for a little while, but then they eventually put out their technology and tell people about the journey and people join in based on that. So actually, a lot of the development today is letting the world know about it and letting the world decide upon it. As you go, people who really care will be moved by your product or service that really need it, like if those are the ones that are contributing to it. Oh my God, I mean you see all this stuff on Kickstarter people funding their products and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, by the way, just to close the loop on the, the legend of Neil story took me 10 years to get that back. You know who? You know who was the person that ended up signing the deal from the business affairs on comedy central? It was a guy that because it was 10 years later who was a kid watching the legend of neil. He loved it so much. He then he then he was like oh, I'm talking to the legend, real guy. He goes, I'll get, I'll cut you a deal. That's the only reason why we got a deal. It was a fan that got us a deal in the end. Oh, what a great guy. That's awesome. That's that's a great way to close the loop.
Speaker 1:Love your fans, love your fans, so loved your fans. And you still keep emailing them. So that's still out there and they're still with you and they're still showing up at events. So that's a testament to building great content, great material and a passionate community. So thanks, sandeep, for joining us. So Sandeep usually says the show is oh, I don't have the memorize, but yeah, the show is produced by Anand Shah and me. Yeah, there you go. Production assistance by Taryn Talley and edited by who's editing it these days? Sean Maher and Aiden. Sean Maher and Aiden and Aiden. Sean Maher and Aiden. Great, great. I'm your host, rajiv Parikh from Position Squared, an awesome AI growth marketing company based in Silicon Valley, with all this agentic AI stuff combined with people. Come visit us at position2.com. This has been an effing funny production and we'll catch you next time. And remember folks, be ever curious. Be ever curious, I almost said be the change you want to be. All right, cue the music. Be the change you want to see.