The Ledger
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Jatin Varma Has an Extreme Distaste for AI Generated Art
“So coming back to the AI art, I have a extreme distaste for it right now”
Varma: Comic Ventures Cannot Sustain on Books Alone Without Expanding IP
“It cannot sustain on books. You have to, unfortunately which kind of kills the fun in it. Look at it. If you're trying to make it into a business, you have to look at it as an IP, and then you try and expand upon it.”
Varma: Not everyone should be a creator or have creation tools
“Everyone is a creator which shouldn't be the case. Everyone should not have their tool, but then that's how technology works, right?”
Varma: Comic Con India Has Never Paid Attendees to Cosplay
“In fact, the biggest thing that people ask me is I do pay people to come desktop. I'm like, I've never paid. And luckily we never have to.”
Varma: Dilli Haat Attempted to Cancel the First Comic Con Day Before
“There was a, the day before the event, the venue was like, no, you can't do it now.”
Varma: Live pop-culture events in India cannot rely on domestic audience travel
“We understood from the first day that people are not going to travel in India for something like this. You'll have to take it to them.”
Varma: Exhibition Space Valuations Blend Revenue Multiples and Profitability
“There isn't a set formula for valuations in this, at least in the exhibition space, it's a multiple of revenue. Profitability a mix between a multiple of the revenue and profitability.”
Varma: The Indian Events Industry Is Inherently Risky and Fragile
“Events business is a very inherently risky business in India. It comes with a lot of people who are flyby operators, they'll come in, go away, bust. The pandemic destroyed a lot of those businesses and individuals financially because it just ruined the entire …”
Varma: Indian Pop Culture Industry Growth Remains Bound to Middle-Class Spending
“In the pop culture space, I think it depends on what you are into. Are you into merchandising? Are you into apparel? Toys or whatever. While it is a extremely massive space when it comes to consumers, I still feel as an industry, it's not like the biggest. I t…”
Varma: Nodwin CEO Akshat Rathee will be India's next pop culture disruptor
“Oh, I'll, let me butter up a friend of mine. I'll call Akshat Radhi the next pop culture disruptor. He's the CEO of Nordwind Gaming. He's the gentleman who acquired our company, but he's also acquired many other IPs and he's trying to build new IPs. So I'm sur…”
Varma: Comic Con India Revenue Is Split Evenly Across Three Streams
“So for us it was, it's a equally sort of split between those three revenue spaces, which is exhibition rental ticketing and sponsorship. Sponsorship ends up being the cherry on the cake.”
Varma: New York Comic Con's parent invested into Comic Con India
“During the fourth year of our business, We had a strategic investor, which was one of the largest exhibition companies in the world. They were also the owners of New York Comic Con Chicago, Australia. I mean, they were doing Comic Cons all around the world at …”
Comic Con India Partnered Strategically Instead of Seeking Traditional VC Funding
“Initially when we got investor, we weren't really looking for one. We were approached by someone and it was a strategic partnership because it was a joint venture of sorts because they were already in the business.”
Varma: The Souled Store Had One of Its First Exhibitions at Comic Con
“The Souled Store in fact, they probably one of their first sort of exhibition outing was at comic con.”
Varma: Comic Con India Drew 250,000 Visitors Annually Across Five Cities
“When we exited the business, this is 20, 24 we were doing five cities. This is full five shows after the pandemic... Cumulatively we would get close to about two and a half lakh visitors.”
Varma: Comic Con India Expanded to 11 Cities Under New Ownership
“Last year under the new ownership of Comic-Con they expanded to eight cities. So that's the footfalls shot up. By default this season, there were 11 cities.”
Comic Con India Gives Free Booth Space to Indian Creators as Guests
“When we reached a certain scale, we decided to invest in spaces in our shows, which you, you're referring to where you go and there's a line of Indian artists, creators, designers all together, and they don't pay to be there. We invite them over and we treat t…”
Past Indian MAD Magazine Licensing Failed Due to Unsustainable Business Models
“I loved mad magazine and I couldn't, I went to the DC office in New York to try and see if I could license it. Someone had done it before. They ran Virgin comics and Gotham comics and all of that, but the math didn't work out for them. They were selling it at …”
Varma: Zakir Khan hosted the Golden Kela Awards before rising to fame
“Even Zakir Khan was a host. He was now such a big comedian. That's how I met him first. You know, this is before he really became a big star.”
Varma: Repetitive recommendation algorithms will drive audiences away
“And also I think there is something these companies will have to eventually do is that we know there's an algorithm, which is controlling what we're watching, but you need to figure out how to break it because we don't want to keep consuming the same thing. We…”
Flipkart Had a Small Booth Next to Jatin Varma in 2008
“And I remember when I first published my magazine, I set up a small booth in world book fair. The small booth next to me was Flipkart.”
Varma: Exiting a business makes starting another harder due to risk aversion
“I learned through the school of very hard knocks to finally hone my business skills, which is why now that I've exited a business, it's so difficult to jump back into something because I'm constantly, you know be like, no, no, it doesn't make sense. It's too r…”