5+1 tricks that transformed an impossible idea! | Shrishti Jain | TEDxBESC
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jb5xMrnBsY Video ID: 8jb5xMrnBsY ============================================================ [Music] when I was a kid I hated reading newspapers like I just couldn't stand the idea of reading newspapers my Dad read 7 to eight just business newspapers on a daily basis my mom lose two to three vernacular ones and even my brother clocked up about five newspapers a day and as for me I was totally sure I was adopted either way not like I had much of a choice there wait I don't mean in terms of my family I love my family I mean in terms of reading newspapers like I just had to had to read newspapers and there was no coping out of that but who could say then that I would go on to start my own organization that literally educates people using newspapers I mean now if you were to ask me I would obviously tell you I don't hate newspapers I mean all that much but you see the money compensates a little bit either way when I started working on this concept what really got me hooked on to the idea was the fact that almost every single person I approached with the idea of newspapers all they had to tell me was newspapers are incredibly important and they have to be read but despite that nobody took to it I mean most of them them they did not the very few ones who did they would just browse over it now saying that it's boring or time crunch is an issue it's not a credible reason right it's such a flimsy reason to justify the importance of something which you're saying can change your life so I thought possibly they haven't realized what a lifechanger newspapers can be and how much they can stir their lives to transform into something way way better than what they had even comprehended so I was sure that this is what I'm going to do I'm going to get people to understand the importance of newspapers and leverage it so that they can transform their lives for better but obviously to get there I had to start somewhere a lot more basic so I decided I'm going to educate people using newspapers now during my growing years what I realized was newspapers is not an easy thing to read because there's so many complicated terms jargons spread across different topics there's business economics politics Etc so obviously one needs to First understand these appreciate before you can go on to use this to leverage your life right so that's why I was sure I'm going to start an organization called reading right now the objective of this organization as I already pointed out was to make sure that people understand newspapers first I was obviously very nervous It's A New Concept and I don't know how people are going to react to it but the D-Day arrives the day when I actually launch my concept and idea so I shout out to the world and tell them that look this is what we're doing in case you feel that you if you need some help with reading newspapers we're here to help you understand that guess what happens every single person loves the idea people wanted to sign up for it almost immediately some said this is the next big thing so unique I mean how did you come up with something so fantastic now I don't know how many of yall actually bought that but I just said it to feel like a rock star none of all that happened in fact quite the opposite happened people hated my idea they thought this is the most non-necessary idea some even went on to R ridicule my idea left right and Center here's presenting my topic for today 5 + one tricks that transformed an impossible idea now impossible or not I was pretty sure I'm going to stick by this idea in a country like India where world-class education is not just a privilege but that which is available to a prized few and they too have to compete it out it becomes increasingly important to bridge this Gap this gap of education and only newspapers can do the magic so I was sure that till this is done I'm going to be at it and I'm going to be by the side of this concept over one coffee conversation with my friend she tells me that so basically you help people read newspapers right I was like yeah why no I mean can't they do this on their own like I can read newspapers on my own why do I need your services for it now I felt so redundant hearing that and so non necessary but at the end of the day this was how people perceived my idea this was their opinion of my idea so I was sure that there has to be some change if this continues and people are not going to sign up for my concept so the next thing I do is look at it in a larger picture what did I want to really do I wanted to make people think like never before so I started working towards that I introduced uced modules I introduced something called stakeholder analysis which basically made sure that people were thinking from different perspectives in every article and those perspectives belong to the stakeholders of the article now this was just one example there was several other thinking modules we incorporated all in all trying to do just one thing getting people to think like never before my organization Mantra went on to say that we're here to help you think using newspapers and that ladies and gentlemen made me see my first positive change my learning number one solve the problem and not the solution if I were to stick to the solution that I want to just teach people how to read newspapers I possibly would not have seen the light of the day it's very important to make sure that we're solving the problem and keep a track of why we initially started on this journey just selling your solution does not help often we get so lost in selling our solution that we forget what the real problem is so don't let that happen to you now a couple of years later I was meeting The Honorable Secretary of the skill development Ministry they wanted to float this Innovative project a project which they said that if it meets the criteria of our semiskilled workers we would obviously hand it over to you I was obviously very excited because working with the government means working with the masses it was a very big deal and so much of learning value but in the meeting The Honorable secretary tells me that your idea seems to be very good but there is one condition I must put out and I was like what is that condition he said look the semi-skilled workers at the end of the day depend on their jobs for their livelihood and unless you can actually give us a guarantee that these jobs are going to be bagged using your program we cannot give you the project this was not a very over ambitious demand in fact it was a very basic demand for anybody who's meeting out a project you need a definite deliverable and this was what the ministry needed from me obviously we hadn't thought of it like that and we had no idea how we would incorporate this so we didn't get the project and we came back but this left me thinking that is it even possible to make sure that people B jobs just using newspapers alone now what actually went in my mind was something like this I started wondering what do jobs really do what is it that is common across all jobs be it marketing HR Finance Etc it is this one thing which we call problem solving problem solving is there across any and every job because all jobs just put out problems that need to be solved now let us look at what newspapers offer newspapers offer various details details that you can incorporate into these problems and understand the bigger picture now when you look at newspapers there are so many topics and there's so many instances now if we were to actually get into the details of each and every instance we would identify which topic aligns with what and factor in so many more possibilities while solving problems which we wouldn't have otherwise to even reinstate this fit between newspapers and jobs I was remembering one interview of mine which I had given at the Indian School of Business that interview had one pivotal question in my 10-minute interview 5 minutes revolved around this question where they asked me to predict the recent State elections obviously nobody knew the answer because the results were not out but all they wanted to see was my Approach so I got down to starting the entire problem factor in as many political Realms from across various newspapers anything and everything that would impact the state elections and whatever my knowledge took me believe it or not I would manag to even predict the results as it was when it came out later but that is not the idea the more important thing was I topped the interview and I got myself a merit full scholarship now this time I'm not just saying it like that huh this is for real my learning number two Define the goal in terms of what your customer wants it's very important to align what your customer wants in your end goal and Define it crisply and clearly unless you cannot do this you will not know where you're leading so it's very crucial that you define the end goal in terms of your customer once see customer is King and so much more importance given to it another very important stakeholder whom we give a lot of importance to is our investor I would say a prospect investor in one such meeting of mine with a prospect investor my investor told me that all said and done we are not very convinced about your levels of commitment now saying that to me I mean this is my startup my organization why will I not be committed to it he went on to say that do one thing in a couple of years get in touch with me if you're still sticking around this idea now that basically went on want to say that given the fact that this idea is so unique and impossible and the certainty of it cannot be justified just yet it is very very natural for any person to believe this way that this idea may or may not click so it's important to gauge the level of commitment of the founder or the team that's working behind it so I thought maybe because of the impossibility of idea he wants this but more than anything else he wanted me to quantify this of course it was the impossibility of the idea but also he wanted me to make sure sure that I'm measuring it in terms of definite terms and telling him that yes I'm available more for commitment and in order to measure that we use this a very very simple metric what is that metric it's called marriage now cross corporates marriage is considered to be that one factor that shouts out and says that hey I am available for long-term commitment because that is what I have done in my personal life now whenever people get married as you all know at least in the beginning they think that they're going to stay around for the rest of their lives so similarly marriage is that thing that Flags out that you're available for a long-term commitment moreover in a country like India girls are those people who are expected to relocate to their husbands as compared to the male counterparts so as a result of which their lives are considered to be a lot more nonsorted or uncertain as compared to somebody who's married because believing that the fact that you're already married you're settled your life is sorted you're not going to relocate anywhere people know that okay you're a lot more certain person to have your bets on this was what was required of my investor and my learning number three do not absolutely do not discuss such things with your parents just kidding my learning number three filter not every concern needs to be tackled especially if it's not coming from your customer a lot of times your investor or your promoter will tell you that this is good for your startup this should be done for your business model your product can be done better this way but you at the end of the day knows your product best so listen to what you have to say first you know something strange was happening in the industry at that time we as an organization have always tried to promote print media we believe that newspapers as opposed to digital apps or online is a much better medium to study from and a learning pedagogy just aligns best with that because obviously the distractions are a lot less people cannot filter what they want to read and everything comes as a comprehensive hold to them online nowadays people filter out so much so we've always encouraged our students to read from newspapers now at the same time we've all been seeing that the print media has been on a decline and all those people reading from newspapers are shifting slowly to the online movement so all these print media companies when they heard about me they thought this is amazing that there is this organization who's probably going to bail us out to a certain extent if not completely they wanted to partner with me and as for us we had the choice because there wasn't many more organizations like us at that point in time so we had the choice to choose an organization a print media company in terms of the quality of content and partner with them why would we partner we had too many benefits for our customer subsidized rates and a lot of support system in place so we thought this was a very ideal partnership and more than anyone our customers benefited the most but guess what we did not go ahead with a partnership why not because that one stakeholder in the entire realm of things was not happy our customer our customers thought this is some sort of a paid partnership they couldn't trust Our advice with the newspapers we were attaching ourselves to now on a normal day if you would tell them that you know read from this newspaper they would have totally trusted us but this Arrangement got them a little dubious and obviously given the commercial aspects of this it is very likely that someone will not trust this upfront what we decided to do was prioritize my fourth learning prioritize your customer over everyone even if you or your partner thinks that the partnership is 100% ideal do not go ahead with it unless and until your customer approves of it because it's very important to factor your customer needs before everyone else's a lot of time we as startups want to grow and for that Partnerships is the key but very very important to always make sure that your customer is on board for every partnership that you undertake one very common question that we get as an organization is how do we build this habit of newspaper reading of course one thing to say that okay you can do this and do that but what's even more surprising is when people come up to us and tell us that can you build a habit for us like can that be something we pay you for and that is astounding right but trust me a lot of people have come to us saying that and even as we think that it's a very impossible thing to do it has always been my organization's goal to try and Achieve that as much as possible because if people go back not reading and not you know applying these tools and techniques back in their uh homes there's no point of having had them do all of these courses of us so we always strive to make sure that they take back a habit that lasts as long as can be now obviously it's not very easy so we've still been working at it but how did we actually get to doing this is very interesting once my intern was telling me that why don't we do something like this why don't we put your customers in your role I was like what do you mean she said you are the one who loves reading newspapers now because you are attached to this you want to spread this into many lives and you believe that you can transform many lives using this what if your customers are held responsible for doing this I was like that'll be brilliant I mean if the customers are made to go and Empower other people then they will be locked in this forever they will have a habit that will stay forever my fifth learning ladies and gentlemen is Empower your customers to empower others if this happens your customer loyalty is going to be absolutely high and they will be locked into something that you had never imagined this also gives a 100% approval to the product or service that you've made because not that your customer is eming it into their lives but they're using this to transform various other lives around them this will leave an everlasting impact in a manner that we call creating magic is and before I go on to my plus one learning I'll tell you why I call it so you know the deal with plus ones they always come attached no matter what you do or where you go so that's why I call this my plus one learning moreover I wasn't very sure how long you're going to stay awake so I thought it's totally worth a try to create some level of curiosity isn't it it my plus one learning ladies and gentlemen finding infinite solutions every day of Our Lives we're solving problems sometimes the same old ones sometimes new ones sometimes we're just redefining our very own Solutions because we always have to strive towards Improvement and this is something we have to be at throughout our lives throughout the Journey of our business concept so years later when you and me swap places and you're at a TED Talk and I'm an audience to one I'm pretty pretty sure that your five learnings could be very different from the ones that I had to put forth but this particular one is going to be pretty much similar because finding in finite Solutions is an ongoing Journey that is here to stay ladies and gentlemen here is presenting my five plus one tricks that transformed an impossible idea I hope it transforms yours too and trust me this is 100% 100% customer authentic approved thank you