CEO and co-founder of Monk Entertainment is eager to embark on public relations initiatives and intends to do good work in that area
Viraj Sheth is the CEO and co-founder of Monk Entertainment, a company he started alongside Ranveer Allahbadia, who is also known as BeerBiceps in the online world. Viraj has established two teams with distinct roles within his organisation. One team focuses solely on client servicing and client engagement, while the other team focuses on strategy creation. He firmly believes that achieving balance necessitates a division of roles: individuals who diligently execute tasks on a daily basis, keeping their feet firmly planted on the ground, and brilliant masterminds who meticulously strategise and plan.
In an exclusive interview with ET Edge Insights, Viraj talks about the upcoming frontiers in the communications industry, ChatGPT, and his future plans.
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Edited Excerpts
How can organisations foster a culture of innovation? And what is your role as a leader to ensure that it is driven across the organisation?
In an organisation like ours, what we are actively trying to enable is a lot more free time, because free time fosters more thinking time. If were constantly executing and if we’re constantly in operational mode, there are not many long-term opportunities we get to think of. We think microscopically from a bird’s-eye view. I try to ensure that the core team members that I have in my organisation can spend as much time as possible doing nothing, because that gives them a lot more time to think.
How can organisations balance the need to innovate with maintaining customer trust and brand consistency? a
What we are doing at our organisation is having two separate teams. One focuses purely on client servicing, client engagement, ensuring that whoever we are working with is served well, is happy at the end of the day, and gets their ROIs and metrics in place since we are a B2B business. Some of the other folks that are well trusted within my network focus a lot more on the next steps that we need to engage with. If there is a pivot that we need in the company, then that is a new kind of business model that we need to incorporate within our organisation.
I feel like that’s the only way for us to balance it out, because there has to be some people who have their feet on the ground, who are executing things day in and day out for you, and then some people who are just masterminds, planning things. They don’t need to be on the field and fighting the battle for you; they just need to ensure that the strategy is in place.
When we talk about excellence in innovation, can you talk about any example that has had a positive impact in your line of work?
In terms of innovation, right now what we are doing a lot of is playing and toying with AI. Most of us are just trying to understand it, especially in the content business. We have a lot of editors who are kind of worried that their jobs are at risk, but that’s not really the case. In fact, it’s like that story when calculators were invented, and a lot of mathematicians went on strike because they thought that their jobs were going to be taken away. Quite the opposite—it is actually a tool to help you use your skill set and make things faster and more efficient for you. So, I feel like that’s what’s going to happen with AI. Humans are going to use AI along with their existing skills in order to expedite things for themselves and become more efficient. At this moment, that’s what we’re going around with, too.
You have talked about AI. What’s your view on ChatGPT?
Personally, I was going to hire an EA for myself. But I don’t need to have one now. I just need to write prompts on ChatGPT, and I will have a much quicker answer immediately. I feel like everyone should use it if they’re not already. I tried using really specific prompts, and I was mind-boggled by the kind of accurate responses it generated. And I just thought to myself, – I need to keep training this AI to know me better so that it can actually act like my friend.
It is indeed helping me in many ways. It’s helping a lot of our employees in many ways, in terms of moving things faster. If I need something done, now I know that half the time they’re using AI or ChatGPT to help them out. There are so many different kinds of AI that have now popped up. I got to know that you can write a prompt and get a whole PowerPoint made for you with just a prompt, which is incredible. So, I’m quite excited to see how AI moves forward.
Do you have any new ventures or initiatives in mind for this year?
We are trying to figure out how we can, not revolutionise, but shake up the PR industry a little bit. In a lot of ways, PR has changed. It’s not just the press releases. It’s also a lot more about the video and audio content that people consume. I see a lot of mainstream media also moving in that direction. Many prominent media organisations now have YouTube channels or produce their own podcasts, indicating the direction in which the industry is heading. Personally, I believe that this is the future of the industry. This current generation has shown a preference for consuming audio and video content rather than reading long texts. I am excited to see where that goes and if we can do some solid work on that front.
