UrbanAsian.com: Asian website catered to Hollywood and the South Asian Market

If anyone reading this right now is a voracious reader of books, then we would like to recommend you to read the book named’ The Future Is Asian’ written by Mr. Parag Khanna, a whiz of foreign policy. The book talks about how the major economies of the imminent future will be led by the countries hailing from Asia, aided in part by the massive populations of India and China. Quite a read this one and well worth the effort.

The convergence of core industry domains like energy, communication and transportation which fuel the rest of the economic sectors of the globe, with digital technologies aided by software and the internet, have led to the rapid proliferation of their practical applications – from smartphones to high grade sensors, impacting people, communities and culture in general. Technology has given people a voice, a chance to participate in the global economy, by creating and sharing their stories through websites and social networks.

The world is shaped by dreamers, visionaries and risk-takers from every walk of life.

Every talent out there in the world needs a platform supporting and sharing their story with the world. There exists a universe of talent if one merely sought to look beyond the A-listers and celebrities dominating round table conversations. And these talents from Asia will soon shape global culture once they reach a critical mass. It is a question of when rather than if.

We bring to you, UrbanAsian.com.

Give a brief info about your start-up?

We are a south Asian website catered to Hollywood and the South Asian Market. Our goal is to share the best news about unknown talent and known talent. We are different than many gossip sites and we also drive interviews and stories about singers who are not known to the scene. We also have recently started a music label as well under UrbanAsian.com called UrbanAsian Music. We direct and produce talented artists who are known and unknown to the Asian industry. Urban Asian is a south Asian website is a news platform that can help others share their story.

 

What made you start your start-up and what problem does it solve?

Well back in 2010 I had my own little blog which I did for fun and me and my two partners Aman and Amar Syal and John decided to create a platform for news on artists and much more. As technology develops we strive to give as many stories as possible for people who want to be heard or known to our audience. It solves a lot of problems as so much talent is across the globe and not many have a voice for a platform to know about it. We could be discovering a Justin Bieber or a Sonu Nigam in a small town in Thailand and the artist needed a platform to be known.

Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures? What were you doing before this startup?

Well for myself I was working in Health Care and still am – I am based in Florida but we have an office in Mumbai as well. I also worked for South Asian artist handling their social media pages and also create a medium for them to let fans know across the world that a track or a single or even an album was about to release. We worked with several major South Asian singers who are from the U.K and USA and Canada.

 

Where is your start-up based out of? Why do you think that is the best place for you?

Our start-up is based in LA and Mumbai as of now but we want to expand our site to other countries as well. I feel like we have so much south Asian talent in the world that is undiscovered which needs to be shared. Every person has a story to tell – so why not encourage to tell it and share it with others.  The reason this is the best place for me is because I come from the media world as my father was in the Radio sector – he was a radio host for several years and was one of the pioneers of the Indian Radio scene in Florida back in the 80s along with bringing many Bollywood Films on the old reels – (those were the old school reels that you put in your trunk and go from theatre to theatre to show them) it was hard back then because he travelled across many states to show the films in big towns and small towns. Indians in America had no way to connect to home back then besides watching films – so I sort of picked up the genetic traits of film/media from him. 🙂

 

As a start-up founder, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?

Oh gosh, so many things! I wonder if we had cover the story – I wonder if the story gets published on time. News is 24/7 real time mode – no one wants to hear about a real time article a week later – they want to know it soon enough. I love the fact that every morning I get about 50 to 100 messages on my what’s app about breaking news in India or Pakistan or even London.

 

Who are your competitions and how are you better than them?

Well we have competition everywhere – news is not something just for one site there a millions of sites – but what makes us stand out I think is we have the music division in USA where we can share a platform for artist to showcase the music they have done – weather it be a unsigned artist or a signed artist to a big label.

 

How hard is it to have a work-life balance as a start up founder and how do you manage it?

Let’s see – I don’t sleep much – lol! I work two jobs plus this. I guess you can say when you are really driven or passionate about hearing other peoples’ stories then that drives you to even do better and make a difference by sharing the story that they have. How did they get to where they are today? We all struggle no one is perfect – no business model will be perfect but you can change things for the better. That’s what’s so cool about being a digital media website as so many things are changing on a daily basis.

 

Have you raised funding? If yes, then we would like to know the details. If no, then please tell us if you are looking to raise.

We do have two partners one in London and one in UK – they are also part time shareholders but we want to def look into raising more funds for the website. We are always looking to find investors who can help us at the next level.

 

What’s the biggest misconception people have about you? Why do they have that? What’s the reality?

Many people think I do the site 24/7 – I do not hence why I want to really expand this company to another level. I do work a full time job as well as my other three partners – (Aman, Amar and John) and we work endlessly to provide as much information to our audience. Hopefully one day we can do this full time 🙂

 

What gets you excited about this company?

Oh gosh when people message you and say ‘Thank you so much for the article – my parents were so proud to see me in the news’ – I feel like that’s a blessing because that makes someone smile and we need more smiles around the world.

 

Tell us how a day in your life looks like?

My schedule? – well I wake up at 6 am off to my real job while my Mumbai Team is writing, planning executing and so forth. Once I am back from my job at 5 I am back home blogging till wee hours – each day is different but it’s an exciting journey.

 

 

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