Karthik Kumar Interview : Standup, Comedy as Popular Culture, Startup Hacks, Directorial Movie Debut

How is humour in general and standup comedy in particular impacting Indian popular culture and Indian youth ?

What are the Start-up  Life Hacks that ensure that you develop the right entrepreneur mindset  heart in the right place and keeps you focused on 'what you want to change' ? 

How are customer conversations changing marketing & brand building ?

What is the theme of Karthik's debut directorial venture and what is the  'politics' of being a director ? 

How an art-based intervention can trigger behavioural change in your organisation and ensure that employees bring their 'best selves' to work.

Karthik Kumar, Director at Evam Entertainment & Sideways Training, answers the above questions and shares his experience as entrepreneur, actor, a stand-up comedian, theatre artist and now debuting as a director of a Tamil movie.

Karthik Kumar explores the various emotional challenges an entrepreneur faces and also tells you how to overcome them.  He talks about developing the right mindset about starting up and ensuring that your heart is in the right place. His book Don't Startup is not about giving you the knowledge and the know-hows of starting up. It is about imparting the wisdom that Karthik has gained from his journey and how that wisdom will be the strength in yours.

Karthik talks about his company Sideways Training and how causing behavioural change is such a challenge. He emphasises on the use of  theatre for understanding and causing behavioural change in corporate culture

Karthik then talks about his work as a stand up comedian and his role in supporting the standup culture through the initiative -Evam Stand Up Tamasha, which has played an important role in an entire category of stand-up comedy getting created in South India. He also shares his experience of working as a mentor of  Comicstaan in Tamil - Comicstaan Semma Comedy Pa- the series on Amazon , which is about finding comedy talent in the South. 

He dwells on the short video format and on how Indian youth have taken to comedy and short video formats to voice their opinion, ask difficult questions and assume an active role in society.