Saket Dandotia
Founder
Here is an exclusive interview with Saket about his professional experiences, challenges and approaches.
Tell us about your professional background and experiences. How has been your experience so far with Toch Ai?
In 2009, I completed my B.Tech in engineering and electronics from MIT Indore. Then I worked for a year in an MNC IT company before starting my own venture, which is more of an IT services company situated in Indore. We worked for clients in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan. While effectively running the business, I completed an MBA degree at IIM Indore in leadership and change management. I also completed a management programme from the same. After exiting the initial venture, I established my own startup, Videoverse (later rebranded to Toch.ai), in 2016, and raised $48 million at a valuation of $250 million. We collaborate with many sports industries, OTT platforms and broadcasters to capture key moments.
Could you talk about the learnings
and experience that you had acquired from IIM Indore and how do you apply them in your current role?
I did a program on leadership and change management, where I learned many things as it was pandemic. That programme taught me how to accomplish comprehensive organisational change. Because of COVID, everyone began working remotely from home. IIM taught me how to develop a process, a team, persuade people overcome opposition, employee productivity motivation, team work, and so on in order to create a valuable environment. More emphasis was placed on leadership and change, which supported us in implementing and achieving higher productivity in order to create a win-win situation for both employees and the company.
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have experienced in your journey so far? How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
When you start something, you face a lot of failures down the line. The main challenge was related to finance. We didn't have the market reach we needed to achieve the money we expected because we were so new. In response to this problem, we identified resources, banks, and investors who can assist us in the first few years. Another issue was in developing expertise resources since, in order to establish an industry in Indore and cater to a global market, there was a need to hire people who were well-trained and knowledgeable enough to work on new technologies. To address this, we had to acquire new employees and train them from the scratch to ensure that they were competent of dealing with clients. The most difficult obstacle we faced was skill development. Then, as part of the IT industry, we encounter massive technological transformations every year. We keep ourselves well-prepared for learning and implementing new technology.
Tell us about your leadership approach and your success mantra that has been helping you to arrive at positive outcomes?
I did a program on leadership and change management, where I learned many things as it was pandemic. That programme taught me how to accomplish comprehensive organisational change. Because of COVID, everyone began working remotely from home. IIM taught me how to develop a process, a team, persuade people overcome opposition, employee productivity motivation, team work, and so on in order to create a valuable environment. More emphasis was placed on leadership and change, which supported us in implementing and achieving higher productivity in order to create a win-win situation for both employees and the company.
My responsibility as a leader in the organization is to establish more friendly goals and processes
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have experienced in your journey so far? How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
When you start something, you face a lot of failures down the line. The main challenge was related to finance. We didn't have the market reach we needed to achieve the money we expected because we were so new. In response to this problem, we identified resources, banks, and investors who can assist us in the first few years. Another issue was in developing expertise resources since, in order to establish an industry in Indore and cater to a global market, there was a need to hire people who were well-trained and knowledgeable enough to work on new technologies. To address this, we had to acquire new employees and train them from the scratch to ensure that they were competent of dealing with clients. The most difficult obstacle we faced was skill development. Then, as part of the IT industry, we encounter massive technological transformations every year. We keep ourselves well-prepared for learning and implementing new technology.
Tell us about your leadership approach and your success mantra that has been helping you to arrive at positive outcomes?
It is more about developing thought leadership, setting goals, establishing milestones, inspiring employees, providing value, creating a communication channel, and including everyone in decision making for the betterment of the organization. My responsibility as a leader in the organization is to establish more friendly goals and processes. Being empathetic to diverse cultures and ideals, I believe that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal. This enables us to achieve better levels of productivity.
How do you remain up to date with the ongoing industry trends to steer your organization towards the future?
We built the leadership team in such a way that there is a department under each of them, that is more focused on R&D and understands the industry, technical trends, market updates, and prepares a report on what is to come in the following years. Following that, they hold webinars and seminars for all employees in the organisation to help them adjust.
Going forward, what are your goals that you wish to invest in and how do you plan to take them further?
We are concentrating our efforts in the sports industry, broadcasting, and the software productivity domain. There are two ways of a roadmap. One is about technology, while the other is business. In terms of technology, we are more optimistic about AI, machine learning, deep learning, metaverse, blockchain, and NLP. Then, for business, we'd like to capture entire sporting events, as we currently only cover 24.
Saket Dandotia, Co-Founder , Toch Ai
Saket is a passionate techie guy, who co-founded Toch.ai. With AIML he is aiding in changing the video content production game.
Hobbies: Playing badminton and chess, debates
Favorite Cuisine: Indian & Italian
Favorite book:The monk who sold his Ferrari and Bhagavat Geeta
Favorite Travel Destination:
Switzerland
How do you remain up to date with the ongoing industry trends to steer your organization towards the future?
We built the leadership team in such a way that there is a department under each of them, that is more focused on R&D and understands the industry, technical trends, market updates, and prepares a report on what is to come in the following years. Following that, they hold webinars and seminars for all employees in the organisation to help them adjust.
Going forward, what are your goals that you wish to invest in and how do you plan to take them further?
We are concentrating our efforts in the sports industry, broadcasting, and the software productivity domain. There are two ways of a roadmap. One is about technology, while the other is business. In terms of technology, we are more optimistic about AI, machine learning, deep learning, metaverse, blockchain, and NLP. Then, for business, we'd like to capture entire sporting events, as we currently only cover 24.
Saket Dandotia, Co-Founder , Toch Ai
Saket is a passionate techie guy, who co-founded Toch.ai. With AIML he is aiding in changing the video content production game.
Hobbies: Playing badminton and chess, debates
Favorite Cuisine: Indian & Italian
Favorite book:The monk who sold his Ferrari and Bhagavat Geeta
Favorite Travel Destination:
Switzerland