Spreading smiles: New Delhi-based Comedy Munch offers a happiness toolbox to positively reframe our daily lives

In the modern world, stress is no longer a stranger to people. Sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy food habits, and repeated exposure to stress have all negatively affected our personal and professional lives. And laughter seems to be the valid solution to all these problems.

In the light of the above mentioned, we are honored to bring you Comedy Munch, a company that aims to transform people’s lives with its stress combating laughter doses along with all the physical and emotional benefits that laughter can deliver in our lives.

Comedy Munch is a video platform and one stop shop for all genres of comedy in regional languages covering Stand-up Comedy, Sketches, Hasya Kavi, Comedy Radio in Punjabi, Haryanavi, Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, etc. It has also partnered with various telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and other established digital media companies with large user base like OLA Play, UC Browser, Alt Balaji, Xploree keyboard, etc for streaming its content which is either curated or originally produced by the company.

As a part of its offline existence, the company does corporate events, ticketed events and exclusive events for co-working spaces.

Anuj Sehgal, Founder of Comedy Munch, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

How successful was your first project roll on? Share the experience.

Our very first step to establishing ourselves in the market was the launch of our Mobile App for both Android and iOS which went quite successful with the kind of response we got and the number of downloads we received. Today, our app holds a total of more than 2 lakhs downloads, 1.3 lakhs YouTube subscribers, 1.2 lakhs Facebook Page Likes with a combined reach of 600M users through our partner networks.

What kind of responses have you received from your consumers over the years? How have they motivated you to shape your offerings and grow the company?

The responses have been literally mixed. From appreciation to criticism, we have got it all for our app and our online videos. While the appreciation motivated us to do better, the criticism helped us to find our loopholes and improve our customer satisfaction level.

We strongly believe that feedback is very important to maintain the two-way communication between the brand and the audience and we’ve always looked up for more feedback, be it good or bad. We strongly consider and evaluate the feedbacks, which has given us the inspiration to diversify and build strong Content Ips as well as evaluate and appreciate other art forms.

Earning trust and respect of consumers all around the world can be done through a consistent focus on delivering high quality in every action. How do you interpret this statement?

Trust and respect come over time. Earning them both from our customers wasn’t easy because of a lot of competition on every platform, online or offline, but what kept us going and growing was the quality of our content delivered. From curating the best content by partnering with renowned YouTube artists to managing offline shows by delivering best of the hospitality with attracting the crowd, it takes a lot by a company to sustain the consistency. We believe that first, we build our brand and then our brand builds us.

We are constantly striving for perfection. With an eagle eye focus on our customer happiness, we work closely with the start-up ecosystem and experienced mentors in India and other markets to evaluate each challenge and opportunity and take a better decision.

What do you feel are the reasons behind your company’s growth?

We have been focused on one product initially i.e., ‘Comedy’. We came into play with a vision to be the largest comedy platform of the nation and Southeast Asia to serve the audience anything and everything they would expect out of the comedy realm. And then eventually with calculated market closure and strategies, we decided to expand our community integrating other art forms like poetry, storytelling, slam poetry, etc. We are currently in the process of launching them full-fledged to make our audience’s experience with our brand better than ever.

Another factor, we believe is our interpersonal communication with our community. Our audiences in the form of feedback or the artists in the terms of relationships and hospitality have what helped us strive towards growth.

Do you have any new products getting ready to be launched?

We have new Ips, ‘मंच’ and ‘बंदीPun’ in the process of launch. ‘बंदीPun’ is an endeavour to provide a women-only platform for female comedians to not just express their talent but also celebrate their womanhood by taking pride in their special set of chromosomes.

Whereas, with our initiative, ‘मंच,’ we extend our platform to artists of all genres from poets to slam poets, musicians to dancers, etc. to be a part of their community and help them reach a wider audience to become viral online.

As a question on sustainability, where do you see your company a couple of years from now?

We look forward to and aim at becoming the largest players in delivering comedy as a niche in the market by building up the largest network of artists and audience. We also aim to be one stop shop for all forms of art ranging from music to slam poetry to dance to shayari.

With whatever will entertain a consumer, in whichever form, Comedy Munch strives to provide it in the best way possible by spreading as many smiles as possible, always.

The founder’s desk

Anuj Sehgal is the founder of Comedy Munch, a Pvt. Ltd. company, registered as Inavit Digital Pvt. Ltd. incubated by NASSCOM 10,000 Startups and approved by Startup India. One evening in 2015, Anuj came up with the idea of this company after being inspired from his first comedy show. Then 37, Anuj had over 15 years of experience in Telecom, Media Entertainment, Video Streaming Monetization and Distribution, Digital Marketing, Strategy, and B2C. His previous stints include as Head India for Timwe (A European Telecom MNC), Head Sales with Digivive Services and National Account Manager with Mahindra Comviva and Apalya Technologies. Later he built a telecom vas company and made a successful exit to the Chinese ad platform.

“Comedy Munch is about ‘Art, Artists, and Audience.’ We value art and our artists who are the creators; their work is what helps us make a stand in the market.”