Comedy has been working as elixir since the days of monarchy, as old as the court of Emperor Akbar. In today’s time comedy got a rebirth in the form of stand up shows across the world. A homegrown brand – ‘Comic Munch’ – has emerged as one of the biggest comedy platforms of India and has successfully crafted a niche for itself. To know more about this endeavor, The Optimist News spoke to the captain of the ship, Anuj Sehgal, who shared some nuggets of his deep insights.
Anuj is a business expert armed with 12 years experience. He incubates start-ups and helps them scale up. A believer in “ideas can change life” he kick started his journey of Comedy Munch in 2015, while working in a company making entertainment videos.
“One evening as I was watching a comedy show in Gurgaon, my love for performing arts, which has always been close to my heart, got rejuvenated. During my growing years, comedy as a performing art was not so popular, but the phenomenal emergence of comedy in recent years triggered my zeal to start the journey of Comedy Munch,” shares Anuj.
With a team of experienced professionals who are committed to promoting happiness in the workplace Anuj looks happy with the progress of Comedy Munch. “Initially I started a start-up as B2B model Company and along with a telecom operator used to play content based on a subscription model. Later, in 2018, we started looking at diverse avenues as we realized the journey of artists and how the struggling performers are always in dire need of support to shape their careers. From 2018, we tried and successfully launched a platform for the budding artists. We started with working on original content for the artists and also started doing live shows on new age OTT Platforms like Hotstar, MX Player, JioTv, Ola Play etc, because primarily, taking it beyond YouTube.”
“Typically, in corporate, entertainment or employment engagement was limited to music historically. The novelty of comedy shows was an instant hit with them, where a person with just a microphone can start off,” adds Sehgal.
With a focused intent, Comic Munch has successes in realizing not only its own but also the dreams of many struggling artists. “I always believe that artists must get a platform to showcase their art, making this a delightful reality with a network of 400 artists is a heartwarming experience,” disclosed Anuj.
Comic Munch curates shows and customizes them for creating better experience. “If the show is on behalf of a marketing agency, we check on the artists’ portfolio and decide on one who has experience in marketing or knows about it. This helps in making the show more engaging by helping the audience relate to the jokes cracked,” informs the youngpreneur.
Aspiring comics can register on the website of Comic Munch by sharing their content details. The Comic Munch team always prefers content and gives priority to the script and material rather than the quality of videos and other technology cogs. The team selects performers and initially offers them open mic shows, then educates them and provides them an opportunity to share stage with senior comedians for a bigger reach.
With the current scenario of global pandemic where the world has gone substantially online, most comedians today are doing online shows – which give them opportunity to go beyond geographical boundaries and showcase talent to a global audience.
Comedy Munch’s association with the Xploree AI keyboard is a positive shift towards real-time curated content discoveries. Speaking on this, the entrepreneur adds, “We have been able to create content from smaller cities and towns which was otherwise not possible, we have signed up with many newcomers through this medium.”
From now on, Anuj plans to focus on the consumer side of the business and is attempting to work on creating a technology for search paradigm to find the artist. A true blue evangelist of performing arts, particularly comedy, Anuj has a message for wannabe comedian –
‘Do not ever doubt your talent if you don’t get the desired exposure in the beginning. For most, it’s a long journey, and nothing will happen overnight. The key is to have patience and believe in self.’
