Happydemic : A Platform to Connect Performance Artists and Customers
Happydemic which literally translates to “An epidemic of happiness”, was conceptualized in 2015 by Radhika Mukherji, Wife of popular singer Shaan and Amar Pandit, an entrepreneur & leader with 20+ years of experience in IT & Financial Services. It started with a thought of encouraging live entertainment and making people appreciate the beauty of a live performance over recorded music. The founders have developed the platform and have already created a bank of 150 plus curated artists, each one checked and verified.
The startup helps talent globally to be discovered and more importantly create happy experiences for customers (by booking the talent). Happydemic will bridge the gap between a customer and an artist. The company mission is to create happy experiences for its customers and artists.
How does it work?
The way Happydemic works is that as a customer, you sign up which takes you about a couple of minutes. Once you sign up, you can then login and checkout its artists based on the category (Musician, DJ, Emcee, Standup Comedian and Motivational Speakers (to be launched soon)). Then you send a Request to book your chosen artist by filling a small form (in less than a minute). Once this is done, the artist will respond to you within 48 hours confirming his acceptance. Once the artist confirms, you will be directed to a payment button and you have 48 hours to make the payment online.
The key features of the startup
1. Ease of booking an artist and completing the end to end process conveniently (including making the payment).
2. Complete Transparency of your booking experience as the fees are displayed upfront (There is no quote which is a common practice in the industry).
3. A Team in place to vet the artists for their quality. All the artists have been vetted for their performance skills by an internal team. There is a lot of focus in terms of quality as the startup strongly believe in creating happy experiences for its customers and artists.
4. Backed by experienced professionals from the industry including Shaan who has been a versatile , talented and a phenomenal musician and performer himself.
Funding status
The startup has raised around Rs. 75 lakh of capital from investors till date. The company claims that it has been approached by many people for investing in Happydemic including some of the venture capital funds, family offices, and high networth families.
Monetization model
There are several revenue/fee models for Happydemic
a. Customer booking an artist online
b. Artist Value added services
c. Special Experiences for Corporate Customers
d. Select Events for families and corporates as well creation of certain IPs
Traction details
Around 180 artists have already signed up on the platform. The startup claims that it has got solid opportunities from individuals as well as corporates. It got close to 60 performance requirements in a short period of time. There are many organizations who have approached Happydemic to partner and tie-up with it. These are not just well established corporates but also high potential startups.
“In the next 12 months, we like to sign up sizeable number of individuals and families, have around 40 Corporates on board for our Happydemic Experiences and solid meaningful partnerships in place,” mentioned Radhika.
Market opportunity
Talking about the market opportunity, Radhika added, “The size of the market is not very well defined as we cut across different categories from artist performances to advise on creating experiences to creation of intellectual properties. The market opportunity for this is not just in India but also global in nature and it is billions of dollars.”
Advice for new entrants
Radhika said that Discipline, Hardwork and Perseverance are absolute keys to success in any endeavour. However Happydemic has an acronym by the name - LFIT (which is key for any startup today) - that stands for Continuous Learning, Focus, Innovation and Team.
