Okay. Okay. So, everybody, thank you so much for joining this, the first UBOT session on post COVID-19 opportunities. So, we wanted to have an open discussion with students of Nagaland. Our lead resource person today is Rohan Abraham. He's a chartered accountant, registered with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He has a vast experience in the corporate sector working for firms like Ernest and Young, Arthur, Anderson, and also he's also founded a travel agency based in Koyama, which services the northeast of India called India Trail. So, what we're going to do probably is we're going to probably use 20 minutes of this session where Rohan is going to be giving a presentation and followed by a question and answer session. If you need a presentation in case of any questions, you can use the chat window and you can type in your questions over there and then Rohan can probably tackle it after his presentation. So, again Rohan, the stage is all yours. Okay. Sorry, I'm losing audio on and off. So, if you guys cannot hear me, someone has to let me know. Otherwise, I'm just going to keep talking and I wouldn't know. How do we set that protocol? Kulo, would you be able to let me know if I'm hearing me on the chat? I'd be faster. Yeah. Okay. That's a good idea. Kulo, can you let me know if you can see this? All right. It hasn't appeared yet, but it's coming. Why is the internet suddenly so slow? Can you try presenting a window or tab? All right. It's visible. Okay, guys. So, let's just set some rules here. So, I'm going to be running through maybe about 10 different slides. A couple of them are a little heavy, heavy in the sense that it has a lot of information on it. I don't expect you guys to understand everything immediately, but I can share this with you later. You can go back and read it at your ease. What would be nice is if you have any questions while I'm talking, you can pop them up on the chat. I can't seem to look at the chat and present the screen at the same time. So, Kulo can help me with that. So, what we're going to talk about right now is what is the impact that this virus has had on people and on businesses. And once we understand these two, we'll translate that into what might be an opportunity for you. So, just to re-clarify, because I've got another screen opened up and I can't see the presentation myself. So, can you guys see the presentation? Anyone? Not right now. It's still loading, I think. Because I can just see a black screen. All right. We're good. We can see it. Is that okay? Yeah. All right. I can see the chat now. Okay. So, let's start with the first thing, which is I want you guys to understand one simple thing, which is that Corona has opened up the doors for you guys quite significantly. Because earlier, by living in Nagaland, you had geographical issues. You had boundary issues. You had network issues. Of course, the network issues still continue. But the biggest thing for you is that your geographical borders have been removed because everybody is working online right now. Everybody is trying to do businesses that use technology. And by using technology and by working online, it completely removes the fact that you are two full days away from any other major city in the world. So, let's just start with these three. I think what I would like to point out here is you guys need to focus on three things to start with. The first is and the largest thing is K, which is knowledge. And I think that's why you guys have gone to school. That's why you guys are in college. So I think what you need to understand is K is the biggest, biggest contributor to your future. You need to have knowledge.  The second thing is P, practice. So knowledge is great, but you need to put it into practice. That's how you learn from your mistakes. That's how you become a stronger and a better professional. And the final one is T. T is inherent talent. Each of us has some inherent talent that we utilize. I think an athlete can run well, has a good lung capacity. Someone who's great at talking has great skills at being a marketing professional. These are all inherent talents that you have, but it does not. It is not the major thing for you. It is knowledge, putting that knowledge into practice and utilizing your talent. So I will summarize this one slide with you need to learn more. You need to make yourself relevant. You need to be out in the front of everything in order for someone to hire you for work. You need to put that knowledge into practice so that you can learn from your mistakes. And all of this should bank and utilize the talents that you already have. So move on. So just to set an expectation of what we're going to cover. I think the most important thing for you to know since you're here on this talk is what's in it for you. And I think what's in it for you is for you to understand at the end of this, let's say 30 minutes or so, for you to understand what is happening currently, what is being disrupted, what is it impacting. And therefore, how does that translate into an opportunity for you? I think if we can leave this conversation with you having understood that, I'm not saying that you're going to leave this conversation and then suddenly start a business tomorrow, but you should know where to look and what to do. I think that's what I'm trying to achieve with this talk. There will be questions after this so we can dive into that. So I will start off by showing you what has happened, how it's changed people's behaviors. Therefore, indicating to you what is the problems that have happened and converting that into an opportunity. So let's just quickly move on. I'm waiting for the slide to change, excuse me. All right. So three parts, disruption. What do I mean by disruption? This virus has come in and it has changed the course of everything. It has changed how people behave. It's changed businesses.  It has changed my business life. It has changed Kullo's educational system. Everybody has had to change something and therefore the word is disruption. This virus has disrupted our normal way of life and if there are two ways of looking at this disruption, we can sit back and cry over it or you can sit back, study what the problems are and convert those into opportunities for each one of us. And I think at least as part of Young Indians, we had a call yesterday and it was quite evident that all of us are looking at this disruption as an opportunity and trying to figure out what we can do to make it better for everyone else and ourselves as well. The third part is the details, which is something that is going to take more than this one call. I would like maybe Kullo and Lezo if possible after this to set up a system where we can do something on a fairly regular basis, perhaps pick an industry or pick a line of work and then continue and dive into the details of each of these businesses to understand what has been disrupted and what could the opportunity be. There's no practical way I can do that in one hour. So we'll leave the details for later. So let's move in now. Let's understand what is the disruption? What has happened? What has changed? What has gone wrong? So don't look at the slide right now. Listen to me talk and then we can look at the slide at the end of it. I think two parts, two major changes have happened. One is people have changed, consumers have changed. The person who buys a service or product has changed. The other side is the businesses have also had to change. They've had to change out of necessity. I think there was this whole thing of moving online, moving digital, but this virus has really pushed it forward quite significantly. So let's look at the consumer side of things. The consumer side of things, which is on the left-hand side of your screen, we can think of two situations. One is COVID is here to stay, COVID is going to go. So in both situations, we have a problem that we're going to have to deal with. Let's assume that for the sake of everyone that at some point we will get a vaccine and the virus will go. When the virus goes, it has taught us one big lesson that we are susceptible to such things, which means that whether we get the vaccine or we don't get the vaccine, it is possible at some future point that something similar like this can happen again. So because of that, we now need to change what we now call that normal. We're going to have to change it. We're going to have to change how we behave. We're going to have to change everything because COVID may come and go, but there will be another one else. And everyone is saying it's not a question of if there will be another one. It's a question of when there will be another one. The second part, which is the second table on your left-hand side, which is what I just explained to you, which is that the behavior of people are likely to change for the foreseeable future. So what does that mean? That means that if you're running a business or if you're working for someone else, the way we deal with customers has also got to change. So if you don't change, we're going to be left behind. The other big change that you see in customers is everybody is going to change the way they spend money. And that is very important because they spend money on what is going to be a business for you. So one is it's not going to be cashed as much. It's going to be more digital payments. It doesn't affect the situation too much. But one big change is that people are going to be very risk averse and not take loans. If they don't take loans, they will spend less. If they spend less, it means that you have to fight harder to get that money as compared to somebody else. So let's move on. I wanted to give you an example of an industry that has been affected. Tourism. So let's just look at this slide that's on your screen. A customer lands at the airport, gets into a taxi, comes to a hotel, goes out for a meal, goes on a trek, has a cup of coffee somewhere, goes out and enjoys the evening of wherever he is and then flies out. At a very simple level, what we're looking at over here is that I'll give you an example of how COVID has disrupted everything. When he gets off that plane, everybody at the airport is going to be testing for COVID, check this, check that. So that disrupts that situation there. He gets into the taxi. The cost of traveling now is increased because nobody wants to share a taxi anymore. You're going to have to hire your own taxi, so it's four times the cost. You go to a home stay. It's not necessarily the traveler that's the only one that's worried, but even the host. The host is also worried, am I going to get the disease from this person who's come? It changes everything. It changes the perception of that person at the home stay or the hotel. Everybody is worried. So now when you go for dinner, you can't go to a crowded place. You can't go for a buffet. You're going to have to sit in a corner somewhere, be served, order online. Everything changes over there. When you go for a trek, you can't go and join a group of 15 people going on a trek and meet new people.  Everything has changed in this industry. You can't go out for a night out somewhere because you don't know who you're going to meet, who you're going to get infected from, who you're going to infect. Everything has changed. So just to give you an idea in one simple industry of tourism, how things have changed with this virus. So in every other industry, things have changed. And on the next slide, this is one of the heavy slides that I'm going to run you through. I don't want you to look at the slide all at once. Follow me. Let's just look at the first box on the left-hand side. I'm guessing the slide has come on your screen. Meadow, can you tell me if the slide has reached? Yeah, okay. So you need to look at this information. This is going to be a little heavy slide for me to explain to you. I want you to follow me as I speak. On the top left, the average man who is going to be your customer has changed a lot of things. And if they haven't changed it, they will change it. First, consumption habit. I'll give you an example of how consumption habit is going to change. People today will buy something when they need it. Now after all these lockdowns, people will buy a little bit more than what they need because they're not sure whether tomorrow is going to be a lockdown and next week is going to be a lockdown or whether this product is going to be available. So the habit of consumption is going to change. The spending behavior is going to change. As I told you in the last slide, people are going to use more immediate expenditure rather than take a loan and buy something big. The reason for that is if I take a loan, let's say I buy a washing machine with a loan, I have to pay that loan back with an EMI every month for the next two years. If there's a lockdown for two months and my employer decides not to pay me, where am I going to get the money to pay for that EMI? So the spending behavior is quite significant in terms of its impact on industries. Travel habits. Yesterday, let's say before COVID, people would fly from A to B for a meeting and then come back the same day. Today that's not going to happen. It's all going to be online. Now how does that impact us? It impacts us because the aviation industry is going to take a toss. People would have bought things along the way while they travel. The general demand of things is going to drop. Socializing habits are going to come down. Restaurants will lose revenue, bars will lose revenue everywhere. So contactless. So let's look at this is behavioral change in your consumer and you'll understand why I'm saying this when we reach the next slide. Let's move to the second box on the right-hand side. Retail shops. This is something that even you guys have experienced here in Kohima, which is that shops have had to stay shut. So there's this whole business of home delivery that has come up which has allowed shops to run their businesses yet not stay open. So what's going to happen in the near future? People are going to start moving their businesses online. Already in the last couple of years, a lot of us have started buying from Amazon and Flipkart. We've started moving our entire shopping online. A new trend that you will see and has already started is called augmented reality stores. That is just to put it very simple. You can go onto your phone, you can log into a shop and you can actually walk down the aisles using virtual reality that they have taken. So you can walk down the aisles as if you were actually in that shop order and then they will deliver it to your house. So even something as simple as shops have changed. Payments. The second box on the left-hand side. People will change the way they pay money. Now this is something that is actually really, really good for businesses. Earlier people would take credit and pay later. Everything is digital. If it's digital, it happens immediately. So for businesses, you get cash quicker. Let's move to manufacturing. Manufacturing, this is going to be important because the way people manufacture stuff is going to change. There's going to be lesser jobs for sure, but everything is going to be automated. Logistics is something that is very, very important to manage now because people need to get you the product. They can't have it centrally stored somewhere in Calcutta and then reach the Northeast because of disruptions. You need to have localized hub and spoke models of, these are complicated terms, but you can Google it later, hub and spoke model where manufacturers send smaller stuff out to different locations and use those multiple warehouses. Services. This is an important one for you because Nagaland has a very high scope of service business rather than manufacturing. With everything moving online, the market for you sitting here in Koima or Dimakur is now the world. There's no one to stop you. There's no geographical limit. If you have a skill, if you have knowledge, you put that into practice and you have some sort of talent, you can take that and convert it into a business model and reach the world. You can stay at home. The model is tell your customers, stay at home, we will serve you or stay in your office, we will serve you.  So the fundamental advantage for you right now with this change is that the market scope for you is much, much larger. So let's look at the last box which is opportunity. You can work from anywhere. You can work from anywhere as long as you have a computer and an internet connection. The market is now global. Everything is online. So now it boils down to you. Can you think of an idea? Where are the problems that people are facing and do you have the cuts to start a business? That's this slide. So what this slide tells you is something that can shape your business ideas. For every 100 rupees that a consumer in India spends, where does it go? 26 rupees for every 100 goes on food. 6 rupees goes on clothing. Almost 20 rupees goes on transport. And then you can see the rest. Miscellaneous goods and services, education, so on and so forth. The three boxes that have been circled in red are the ones that have been most affected by COVID. But the rest have not yet been so affected. So when you're thinking of which business line to get into, what you want to do, how you want to do it, have a look at this slide because this is where the money is. This is where the money goes. I don't think corona is going to change too much in terms of the pattern that people spend. The mode of delivery and the mode of receiving it will change, yes. But have a look at this slide and use this as some sort of a tool to figure out if you want to start a business where you can get into. Now, I was asked some questions through email and on the phone. So let me just address those questions before I move on to the next slide, which is the opportunities. So the first question was, corona has made a lot of people lose their jobs. So what is the opportunity for those who have lost their jobs? So my answer to this question is very simple. You need to upskill. Now what does upskill mean? Upskill means you need to make yourself relevant. You need to have skills that you can convince someone to hire you. It's on you, it's not on the employer. Yes, people have lost their jobs, but the entire system has changed. It's all online, your markets have changed, your skill requirements have changed. So if I had a business with 20 people and I let go of all 20 people, when my business restarts, let's say in January, I'm not going to go back and hire the same 20 people because the way I do business has changed. So I think it's up to the employees now to upskill, learn new things and then come back and hit the market again. You may not work in the same industry again, but there are definitely jobs available. In fact, there will be more jobs available now than before because you can be employed by anyone sitting anywhere in the world because the way we do business has changed. The second question was when organizations be hired, will they prefer experienced candidates over fresh graduates? So my answer is very simple. The game has changed and so will the players. It's up to you to figure out whether you can build the skills that are required, but I can tell you from my perspective, I had hired and I'm pretty sure it's the same for a lot of other people, but may not necessarily be the same people I would like to hire again. I will look for new talent, new skill, new skills that are more relevant to what I'm going to do rather than what I was doing. The third question I had was, India Trail is a travel agency that I run and post COVID, what are the opportunities for us? So we've been doing a lot of thinking and I think we're changing the way we do business. So for one, we are getting into virtual tourism, which is essentially going out and recording stuff and then trying to present it to people online rather than them having them come all the way here. We are developing our own standard operating procedures that we will use and we will hope that they will be good and get good feedback so that people will feel more safe and secure with us. We're getting into niche tourism, which is we'll be getting into very specific sort of things that we're going to do so people will come to us specifically for that. We're changing our model from trying to get everyone to come here to high-end clients as in people who will pay more for less and we give them better care. The last one is that we're creating a club of travel agencies across the Northeast where we can all work together and we reach out to more people. The second last question we had was, small businesses that have gone online, how will they keep up after COVID? So this is a very good question. I think the examples are fresh back. They've done really well. They've created this online business. There is online express. There's wide-v deliveries. A lot of small businesses that have come up. There are restaurants that have gone online. A lot of adaptations that people have done in order to stay relevant and to stay alive and I think people will remember that. They have created a brand. They've solved the problem. So even after COVID, I'm sure since they have adapted to meet the current situation, they will adapt to meet the situation after COVID as well. So I'm pretty sure that they will stay relevant. More businesses will come up. One person asked me about digital marketing. What's the scope? So my suggestion there would be, it's very easy to set up a website today.  Learn what it takes to build that website. Use your marketing skills at present to get that website into prominence. Make it important. Make it a physical product that you can talk to people about. Learn the marketing cycle and then you will have all the skills required in order to be a digital marketing expert. Now, let's talk. This is the one slide that I want you guys to look at, which is I spend a lot of time trying to think of where could the opportunities be. So travel and tourism. I already mentioned virtual tourism focus on high end clients. Let's start from the bottom, which is online services because I think this is something that any of you can do. So one is you need to take your business model to an online business model, which therefore allows you to reach more people. The example I will give you is my mother. She's 70 years old. She has some Zumba classes that she does. So she is in Madras and every week, I think three times a week, they would have a one hour class at some gym somewhere and they would all go, some 20 of them. She got stuck in the US for four months because of COVID and what the Zumba class owner has done is recorded the class, put it up online for these same 20 people. This Zumba class owner now continues to get the fees that she was getting earlier. She's got 20 people who sit at home, log into these classes and do it online. I think that's a phenomenal example of staying alive and staying relevant and not losing your customers. Similarly, on the same model, I think if you can start, look at any of these options, first being tutorials, second fitness, all the gyms have had to shut. You can start your own fitness business counseling. So the one thing you need to remember here is you don't necessarily need to be the expert that does this. You can start a business that connects people that on one side require it and the other side offer tutorials, for example. I'm sure you have batch mates who run classes or run tutorials. It's a good idea for you to set up a business where you find people who require classes and you find people on the other side who deliver these classes. Similarly for fitness, you can approach the owners of one or two gyms, tell them, listen, I will take your classes online. You manage the payments in the collections, get the clients back and give them their fees. Counseling, cooking classes, baking classes, music lessons, entertainment, photography classes, physiotherapy. And then the last two, so write this down. There's a website called Upwork. If you go to Upwork.com, I think you will find significant opportunities for you immediately to log in, create a profile and offer your services. Again, I'm going to go back to the KP and D that I started with, knowledge, practice and tools. So talent. You need to figure out what you're good at, what you could be good at and that's what you offer. So go to Upwork. See what people do. So here you have people from across the world that do one or two things really well. They've created a profile and people go to them and pay their money to receive these services. So that's something you can start doing today. Let's look at quickly the other options, fashion, beauty and cosmetics. I think this is another huge thing here, especially in Nagaland. You have all your marketing companies, your Oriflames and so on and so forth. I know a lot of people who have used this lockdown opportunity as an opportunity to set up themselves as suppliers for this and they have done insanely well. I know one person who has started an Instagram channel about fashion and beauty has done insanely well. The amount of money you can make from these things is really good. Of course, your skills should be that you need to do research and you need to find the right products and you need to offer them to the right people. I think this is another big opportunity, especially for any one of you who still has connections with your villages because they will be manufacturing products, they will be growing vegetables, they will be growing or organic stuff which requires the market and that's the biggest problem that people have had so far which is that they have all this organic stuff and they don't know what to do with it and they are throwing it away free or they are throwing it away. So I think if you can find a way to reach out to people in your own village bring the produce to a market which could be Koima, Dimapur, any other big town that's a phenomenal opportunity for anyone. Again, you are just the middle man, you are there is no set up time required you just have to go to the village, pick up the produce, buy it at a good price and then come to the village and sell it over there. I think the rest is pretty much self-explanatory warehousing is something you could look at because people need to bring their produce to different areas closer to the point of consumption so I am not going to bore you with the details but I am going to ask you to do a couple of things now which is I told you in the beginning that you are not going to leave knowing exactly what you are going to do but I want you to use these tools to think about what you think you could get into identifying something that interests you let us know because we are all part of a bigger network and if there is something that we can help you get more information in and I think the kind of information you are going to need right now is how do things happen at present and how are they going to change in the future and therefore what is it that you can do so the purpose of this one slide is not for you to have a eureka moment saying this is exactly what I am going to do but I think it is for you to understand how things have changed, what are the opportunities that are there, sit back understand and think about what you would like to do and then get back to us and say listen I am interested in let us say photography I want to do photography classes online how do I do it then we will help you, we will connect you with people who we think might benefit so what is it that you can do now I think essentially you need to have skills you need to make a plan and you need to execute it I am going to be very disappointed if you guys are going to sit here and wait for the government to come and give you a loan or the government to intervene those are not the people who are going to be entrepreneurs I think what you need to do is you need to realize that this is an opportunity the world is at your doorstep there is nothing that is stopping you now except your own self so what do you have to do now I think what you need to do is you need to do some research you need to understand yourself better you need to identify what are the skills that you can bring to this doorstep you can bring to the market and then lean on other people's advice and support and that is where we come in and I think make a plan reach out to us and we will be happy to help you with whatever we can so my email address is there at the bottom if you have any questions you can shoot them across to me but just remember that I think I can share this PPT with you if you want utilize it to do some research identify opportunities what are the skills you have and what is it that you can bring to the table what help do you need I think that puts me back to you cool alright thank you Rohan that was very refreshing I hope I wasn't rambling away I couldn't hear anything so I just kept talking thanks Rohan I think that was a very interesting perspective from everything we've been hearing we're hearing about the economy crashing and we're hearing about how people are struggling I think for most of the attendees right here it's probably about what the world is going to be you know five years from now when you graduate or three years from now and I think Rohan has done a fantastic job by presenting all these opportunities maybe some of them which you could probably start even now so we haven't received any questions in the chat box actually but if some of you have some questions here right now you can unmute yourself and go ahead and ask really informative nobody has a question or they're too scared yep there's one question from but so what are the small business ideas that students can do right now to gain some work experience without any capital I think right now what you can do is use your downtime to learn how to start a business online so one of the attendees now asked me about digital marketing so I think if you go online you go to WorkPress learn how to build your own website go to YouTube, learn how to start your own channel go to Instagram try a business page out I think these things will teach you the skills that you require in order to have an online business so that would be one thing that you can do it doesn't require any capital at all to any of these things in terms of small business ideas what I would suggest you do is while you're home sit down and make a list of all the difficulties you've had to face because of COVID each of those difficulties is an opportunity for example parents have had their kids inside the house every day for the last four months or three months it's something that they're not used to and it presents new challenges for them how do I keep my children active how do I keep them occupied how do I keep them busy otherwise it's difficult for them the dynamics of everything inside the household household has changed if you can come up with an entertainment idea that you can put online that can be educated educated as well you can utilize that and reach out to every one of these houses and get the parents to put their kids online and pay you 100 rupees per kid for it I think that would be the quickest idea that you can think of I've got another question how do we ensure sanitize products to buyers we're trying to reach out to give good question I think one easy you get a UV light I don't know whether it's available right now but there's an ultraviolet light that you can radiate on the product and it sanitizes it the second is a very simple solution you carry a spray gun like the ones you get the Collins spray with and put a diluted put a diluted what's called sanitizer in it and just spray down the product before you hand it over I think these are the two things that I can think of the first one might be difficult to execute the second one is quite easy to do another thing I could suggest to answer Meadow's question is a lot of us still run our businesses you can reach out to people to intern with them why not I mean Meadow runs a restaurant I'm sure he could have someone intern with you to learn the business learn how it works Lezo starting up business Kuro has his own business I am my business a lot of us with different different businesses if you can offer yourself as interns we'll give you what to do thanks I'm curious also if the majority over here agree with Rohan on there being opportunities right now or where you feel or whether you disagree with him some of you also would like to maybe express your own opinion on what he stated about the current situation you're also welcome to do that Rohan we got one more question here can you please give some ideas about online marketing and how to be good at that so that we can reach the people so I think for online marketing you need to know the tools of the game the tools of the game are how do you bring some how do you convert someone sitting in front of his computer or his phone into a consumer or a customer the way to do that is to go through that entire cycle yourself so I'm going to go back to the point I raised earlier to address Naomi's question which is how do you get into digital marketing you need to know how a website is built what does it take to make a website you need to know how websites are tracked online what are the parameters that are used and this is not difficult to do I can tell you that it's quite simple Google has all tutorials available to explain everything to you you need to know how YouTube reaches out to its people you need to know how Instagram works what are the basic parameters in which if you put up a post do any of you have a business profile on Instagram if you don't convert your private account into a business account your own very Instagram accounts and what it will do is over a period of time you can go and see something called insights and this is very very important if you're going to do marketing take your Instagram account convert it into a business account after a couple of days watch the insights the insight will tell you every post that you have put out how many people have seen it what is the profile of the people who have seen it whether they are male, whether they are female whether they are 15 years old, 25 years old 35 years old, 100 years old whatever it is and that will give you an idea that if you post something at 2pm it reaches this many people and this is the profile if you post something at 6pm it reaches these many people and this is the profile so just examples like this I think is research that you need to do in order to figure out whether you can do online marketing or not these are the basics just remember you are now competing with the rest of the world so the more research you can do the more you learn the better off you're going to be so I just summarized this one point go online learn how to do how to make a website how to set up a youtube channel how to set up an instagram business account study the feedback get on to google analytics and go to google they have all these tutorials so you can study it and learn how to do it according to you are small businesses doing enough marketing well that's a tough one I think right now during the corona time in let's say koima I can't speak for demokul in koima during these times there's more demand than supply so if you have a small business and you're offering abc product it will serve because people need it there's little competition there's very little time out to go and buy stuff so I don't know whether small businesses at the moment need to do marketing at all in the first place if we're talking about post covid 19 I think today with instagram almost every business that I'm aware of in koima and demokul has an instagram page and they're reaching out to people they keep doing these online contests to make themselves popular and the brand is familiar so in short I think they're doing enough marketing for the size of market that exists in Ireland but if a business here is trying to reach out to the rest of the country or the rest of the world then we answer look do you think you could answer that question for demokul thanks for the opportunity well I agree completely with what Rohan said demokul also follows a similar thing I don't I think the businesses that are suffering the most are the ones which have not learned how to adapt but otherwise those businesses which have sort of started using whatsapp to sell things or you know instagram and I think this the demand is quite high you go out anywhere in town you know it's always a rush it is a huge number of people but I think habits are changing and this is happening in the whole country and people are getting more comfortable with digital payments they're getting more comfortable with that and if small businesses are going to survive they're going to have to be able to probably take their business online and also maybe figure out a way maybe to see if they can scale up to some extent to look beyond Nagaland in my opinion because there is a huge market out there which I don't think our businesses or entrepreneurs focus enough on but you have every single country in the world trying to get into the Indian market while for here in Nagaland actually we have that whole market available to us if we just have that product which you know we could maybe brand itself so actually I feel very optimistic about the future and I think there's one thing about marketing I feel that there's a saying that nothing kills a good nothing kills a bad product better than good marketing so if your marketing is so good then you get so many customers who don't like your product then you just destroy your business so yeah small businesses need to be know what they want I guess you know I think I was digressing sorry Ron so I'll give you an example of small businesses able to get into the situation right now the example I can give you is of a guy who started a courier business in Kohima started by picking up letters and dropping letters and that was as recent as maybe a year back to the point where he is the largest delivery service in Kohima right now employs more than 20 people and works in three different districts and all that has happened in the last 12 months and that's all because he saw everything in front of him as an opportunity and took it online express the other example that I can give you is of someone else who's on this call who's figured out that online education is the way to go and which has got everything and gone into that line of business Meadows also changed how he I mean I think the frozen Momo business was a great idea got the market at the right time so there's a lot of examples in front of each of you so I did see a lot of people on the excel sheet say that they wanted to get into accounting and CIM because they were stopping or because you actually do but if you are quite serious about that send me an email the way to do it is in different different steps so I can send you an email and pull this out So I have a question Rohan in your opinion which are you know here in Nagaland which are those businesses which are suffering the most right now That's a very good question I think shops that sell non-essential commodities are the ones that suffer the most because they're completely at the mercy of the administration and all the various organizations that exist to put lockdowns so these guys and inside of that ones who have products that have a shorter shelf life will be the worst affected so I think I mean industry wise apart from education tourism construction rest is only shops so I think these will be the ones who are affected the most Essential commodities get away but non-essential short shelf life stores will have the worst Rohan what's your opinion on how long this COVID-19 crisis So I think March 2021 is when they're planning to make the vaccine commercially viable for everyone so I think the minute people get to know that the vaccine is available and out and about I think that's when things will start getting much much better so I think by December we'll have some idea of when the vaccine is coming out and by March we should have the vaccine so I think hopefully time might be realistic that it's going to be soon and later Hope you're right I hope so Meadow you have a question Hi I haven't actually got a question but I thought I'd just add in something Guys I'm Meadow I run Bambusa as well as I'm the chair of YI Thanks for joining in First of all and thanks Rohan for this amazing session I just thought I'd just add in to the fact that it's really an amazing time for anyone who wants to do business or wants to at least experience some sort of business because right now the whole thing is level playing feel has just leveled out to so to say you could probably just stay home and cook something and start a business that ways or you could procure some vegetables and just say you know we're going to deliver it to your house and you know probably charge them a small delivery fee so you're making a double revenue stream once from the delivery and once from the sale of products so I think it's an amazing time even if you're a student to experience what business is this you can never start a big business I would always say start of small that's how I started also and I would just say that if this is like the perfect time for you I mean because you're home you're not too occupied with college or school and people are more than happy to get things delivered right now so you just need to just be on maybe just go on Instagram or maybe use whatsapp status as a post just say we deliver vegetables call us on this number and you'll definitely get calls and you can just start delivering stuff and making some money start keeping accounts of it understand how what revenue is understand what cost is understand what you know other expenses is understand what profit or loss is and just I mean I just personally think like the amount of in Dimaupur and Kohima the amount of home restaurants that have started is insane like every other person is making foodie beef pizzas different stuff that they're making at home and delivering it so with zero capital you're starting off your business and people are actually ordering people are liking it they're reordering my own like my cousin who started about a week about a month back she's doing Kimbap in Kohima and she does 10,000 rupees sales every day that's like just amazing like during this time so there are so much opportunities guys and not necessarily a restaurant if you don't know how to cook maybe vegetables some essentials some things you know I mean that you could just start doing you could target maybe you know there are older folks who don't want to go out for even small things buy small things you could offer your services to them and in turn make some profits out of them so there's a lot of opportunities so I would definitely say that I mean in connection to this session I think you should reach out and just go out there just put yourself in situations like that if you really want to be an entrepreneur you have to take opportunities as they come and create opportunities rather than anything else so yeah thanks guys thanks what are the businesses booming the most at the moment do you mean in Nagaland or anywhere maybe you can answer both I'll start with anywhere I think the businesses that I can tell you that I know of zoom for one Netflix another Amazon all these online based all these businesses that are based significantly on an online platform are the ones that have done really well Amazon as you can see the guys just making billions right away zoom was at the right place at the right time we were there for a couple of years and no one knew about them but then they suddenly came into prominence because of this and they've done the same Netflix Netflix is done in I'm just starting with the rest Netflix is also done really well to my knowledge in Nagaland I think most of the businesses have suffered except for businesses that sell essentials and restaurants with delivery services I think these are the only two businesses that have done or rather done anything of consequence in Nagaland at the moment everybody else is taking a hit so businesses that produce and supply essential commodities and restaurants that have delivery service for these two things okay so we got five more minutes does anyone have any more questions or would like to make any statements so while you come up with those questions I just wanted to say one more thing which is if you guys are waiting for the government to come up with a solution and offer you something to do on a plate that's not going to happen the government is actually looking to us to come up with solutions for what can be done so you could be one of those the second point is you cannot go through a one hour talk and come out with a great business idea in mind so there's a little bit of homework that you would need to do the point I would like to make over there is that you have access to all of us not only on these calls not only on that WhatsApp group but you have all our details right to us if you have an idea and you need more help right to us if you have an idea and you want to do some more research or you need some more guidance on it so I think what you need to basically take away from this call is there are opportunities if you remember the slide I put up where these opportunities could lie and the last is now it's up to you figure out how you're going to take these opportunities and convert them into a business so utilize the assets at hand yeah I think there's one good question share business ideas for rural areas as well because in Ireland yeah so rural areas you have to see what is look at it from two perspectives what is the rural area required that's something you can supply them which is everything that the cities have and what to rural areas produce so to my knowledge I think the production of rural areas is all agriculture there's a lot of talk going on now about two things one is all these delivery mechanisms of bringing stuff from the rural side to towns and cities so you can get something over there which is either as basic as picking up and delivering it to the from rural to town or second is picking up from rural and delivering it outside of Ireland for which there is a big market coming out I think today they have launched something called yellow chain you can check that out it's a website where I think the government is trying to connect buyers and sellers so have a look at that I think you know you can forget about digital marketing in the rural areas but you have to make your business primarily around agriculture and how you can take that produce which is largely organic and find a better and bigger market for it I think footsero would be a great example for you to study footsero cabbages reach all the way up to I think whispering also here's a good example of short shelf life organic agricultural produce that has grown in large quantities from a rural area and sent all the way to different parts of the country so that's a good example for you to study to figure out how to do it yeah just the last point green caravan is running and you can study their model as well because they are trying to help people in the rural areas supply their material in town so you could be the intermediary go to your rural areas and identify who has what to sell and supply it to green caravan because they can take care of the sale alright alright hey you know there's just we had roughly about 16 people over here we have a few other members who more people in our whatsapp group you know all of you who have logged in today please feel free to be informal and at the same time there are no silly questions everybody is learning from each other there's a once in a lifetime pandemic which we're experiencing right now and nobody really has experience in navigating through a pandemic so if you have questions you have ideas then this is the right time actually to ask and I hope that we can continue this series we would like to have another session and I would love to ask you a chair what we would like is we would also like to have one session where you guys be the panelists and maybe give your opinions on what are the opportunities where we would be the audience and maybe we can have a discussion we would love to make it more interactive I think if we make it more interactive we would be able to learn more from each other so Rohan is there anything else you'd like to add any final statement last comment is this is to you and Meadow if it's possible for us to have a chat this maybe once every couple of weeks so that maybe not necessarily with an agenda but where people who have done their research and come back and require more assistance we can do it maybe five or six steps towards getting people's business ideas firmed up so for you to decide later sure that's why this first we've called it series one all of you who've registered we would like to come back another session and we'd like you to register again while you were talking about this I'm sorry something I just remembered but I had a friend he's based in New York and he wants to import our Raja Mercha there basically he wants the Raja Mercha transported to Taiwan and then from Taiwan package and then sell in New York now the thing is on the ground who can take care of all the regularity the regulations and take care of all the the packaging for that can reach Taiwan but I mean that's a business opportunity where people outside are looking and I think that type of expertise you're going to have to do your research to understand all the requirements for food export and things but I mean there's an opportunity there which might be ideal for the rural areas actually I just remembered that he's still looking for somebody in case you know so I guess with that anybody else any less comments otherwise okay alright and thank you so much we will conduct another session very soon I think next up Lezo might be hosting it so we look forward to seeing all of you again thank you for joining and we welcome your questions please mail Rohan if you need more details thank you very much thanks Rohan thank you everyone


My work here on YouTube is supported by viewers Please take a look at the link in the description below and visit my page at 50th Street where you can become a sponsor So how's this for a book title, huh? I found this at geek girl con last month here in Seattle a local Author by the name of Matt Youngmark had a table set up with all of his books It's about an angry foul mouth 15 year old girl who hates everything and everybody her name is Arabella Grimsbrough She's waiting for a friend of hers to meet her at the mall and the friend never shows so she kills some time by Allowing a mysterious woman at the mall to give her a demonstration of some sort of new virtual reality thing and Arabella ends up getting stuck in the book version of the world of Oz and she's like all the rest of us Well, most of us She's familiar with the movie, but she has no idea what is supposed to happen in the book and it's apparent that she Is going to have to act out the book She's very unhappy about it as you can tell by the painting on the cover great cover painting and She says so Over and over the book includes an introduction in which the author gives you an exact count of how many times the f-word appears To prepare you and the book was just great fun from beginning to end for those of us who have not read the book It's going to be every bit as much fun as for those of us who have and I have read the original book And this book was reminding me about all the bizarre things that I had forgotten over the years And the the original book is really bizarre and Frank Frank Baum wrote a lot of them not just one Enjoyed this so much that I went to another local craft show where the author was going to appear just to buy the sequel And I took a little time to interviewing and here's that interview. All right, everybody You've seen my review of the book and here's the author Hello, I've never done this before by the way. I've never interviewed an author. Nice This is new territory At first I think the question that everyone's gonna have is why Just start from the beginning it's an excellent question so For the for the father-in-law to Wizard of Oz that is that the book we're doing? Yeah, okay Just make it sure Like a couple of years ago. They had a TV show on NBC called Emerald City and it was a retongue of the Wizard of Oz right all right And it was very different it looked I never watched it But the commercials made it look like kind of Game of Thrones and Oz or something anyway commercial came on I thought and I was like that's so dumb who would do Oz Oz is done to death Why would anybody even do it? I remember thinking the same thing and then I thought if I was gonna do it I would do and then I had an idea that I fell in love with and I was like just take that take a new character a Modern-day 15 year old girl with like a foul mouth drop her in instead of Dorothy tell the original story out of the public domain But from her perspective and of course she's from our world so she can call out all the bullshit like me She's seen the movie but hasn't read the book so she's like wait a minute This isn't like the movie what's happening and when it goes off the rails and does something different today break it Yeah, it was so I thought I could write it pretty quickly and have a lot of fun with it And it worked out Arabella is basically She's basically me without an edit button like the first thing that comes into my head when something stupid is just a swearing cousin So it's fucking terrible, but then I think no that's uncharitable. Yeah, I should bring myself in She doesn't think that she does the thing that differentiates you From other people who would have these kind of thoughts is that you follow through and you wrote the book, right? Well, then also like my wife and I had a baby a couple years ago, and I'm a stay-at-home dad now So our kid was about two And I was not getting the time to write that I thought so I was like what's the series that I could write kind of quickly and get to Market quicker and because these books that's a series that's the third one's coming out soon But because they kind of are patterned after the old school public domain books I could skip the plotting stage entirely Righted just writing them so that was appealing as well Yeah, I thought you made a good choice in making them like novellas instead of instead of trying to pad them out Right, right, right, and that the odds book is actually about 5,000 words longer than the original Wizard of Oz This padded a little bit the original Wizard of Oz is for 40,000 and eight words and 40,000 words is the cutoff for a novel So I think he had a contract for a novel. Yeah, I feel like he was just trying to get to his word count Okay, so I've read the original right I read like the first 24 books in the series I read a lot of those yeah, and they were weird they get weirder to they do But I remember thinking that the first book was different even than the other ones that bomb had written It was even simpler. He wrote it like a fairytale, right, right, right like a lot of the charm I just like I was surprised when I was going through because I didn't read it until I wrote it I read it and I played a game with myself and went through it each chapter seeing it from Arabella's eyes So each chapter I would read and then write so I could be fresh like what new horror is this To be surprised with it reading your thing Was was reminding me of the original book because it's been 25 years since I read the original I had totally forgotten how the tin woodman, right? I forgot it was woodman. First of all, I forgot how he had decapitated 40 walls, right? Yeah, yeah, I forgot about how the scarecrow broke the necks of 40 crows I had totally forgotten about giant spider. I somehow I've forgotten about that I did remember that the first witch was not Glinda, right? I did remember that when I try to explain to people first of all I tell them that bomb himself wrote 14 books and they're like what yeah, they're like 14 And then the other people continued it after that. Yeah, and then I tell them that when I first started reading them in the early 90s They were like 80 official books in the series and today there's more than a hundred Wow, and and I tell them about the books that Ruth Plumlee Thompson wrote after After bomb died and how weird those were the reason I was saying that I thought You made the correct choice in making it novella link rather than trying to pad it out is because as enjoyable as it was It might have started to get old. Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, like I want to keep the keep the pace fast Right and kind of get through it because you know some people are reading it They are already familiar with the story and going through it right well Well the real inspiration is because I watched the movie over and over and I was a kid and really affected me, right? Like it was when I was a kid. It was on TV every year Right this was before you know even VHS. I remember watching it every year. It was Easter, wasn't it? They would show it at Easter every year on the networks. Sounds right. Yeah a city in Canada was Toronto or Montreal I don't remember which but every year as soon as the movie ended as soon as the Wizard of Oz ended on TV There would be a massive drop in water pressure all over the city because people would wait to go to the toilet Right, right, right. They wouldn't even leave the TV during the commercials obviously When you wrote the end of the first book you intended to make another one Yeah, where at which point did you decide you needed to make another one? I day one I already knew that the second book was going to be John Carter world Okay, like when I had the idea it was immediately like and I could do more and the second one will be Edgar Asperos and I had never read those books either But my older brother was really into them and I kind of I saw the movie and I knew about him a little bit Right in that book was a whole different experience because it's not for little kids, right? It's more I mean it's an adventure book so it's really for teenage boys.  Yeah, I read that first the first Mars book about three years ago Oh, yeah, and I was astonished at how good it was.  I was expecting words right right because this is a guy who wrote Tarzan Yes, we're the natives are literally gorillas, right and then they're conquered not just by white man But why by white baby, right, right, and and I'm like, you know, this could have been so much worse, right? So I guess I was coming from coming to it from a little bit Yeah, I'm not gonna talk about the third book. I'll let that I'll let that be a surprise It comes out in about a month.  Yes, so she I haven't read that yet The short story comes in between books two and three. Okay, and it's just it's from the shorts from the Speckle band, okay, it's based on and she just yeah in between she thinks she instead of winding up in another novel She winds up in a short story and it's it's free if you go to my willing mailing list at youngmark.com So to sign up for my other mail definitely you can check it out for free I'll definitely tell them about that. Were you familiar with the Sherlock Holmes stories before a little yeah And I had a hard time trying to figure out which one was the perfect story But I fixed the feckle band because a There's like a whole thing with like Sherlock and Watson in a dark room and I like thought it was a perfect opportunity for like makeouts And b I mean Sherlock Holmes kills a guy with a snake at the end. So that's you know, really spoiler spoiler alert Yeah, I haven't I haven't read that one. I've read a number of Sherlock Holmes. I I remember in high school reading The hound of the basketballs we read hound of the basketballs and I remember thinking at the time You know this Sherlock Holmes character. He's really not doing any detective work Right. He's just making stuff up right and and so recently I decided I was going to review some other Sherlock Holmes things So I read some of the others like the sign of four and And the study in scarlet and I was like this is exactly how I remember in high school He's not really doing any detective work Um, so I'm imagining that was your take on it as well Like in the speckle band like they someone comes and says come help me I'm afraid I'm gonna die So he goes out he and Watson got to her home and like hide in her bedroom Like waiting for something to happen that night and just a bunch of stuff happens at the end Sherlock says Well, these are all the things I noticed to solve the mystery, right? Right.  Okay So here's here's my pitch for the Oz book.    But the witch is genuinely awful and she's like, yeah, the minute she finds a bucket of water is bam Yeah, I knew I haven't read the second book, but I'm going to And I'm wondering is does there end up being some explanation about how she's in there? What the second book no no she starts to learn in the third book she's some things so there is so there is An explanation of sorts. Um, she starts to learn more Okay, so there's the third book ends the first the original trilogy and whether there's more after that It totally depends on sales But there's not just fair warning by the end of the trilogy. You're not going to have an explanation for For you know, what's behind all okay when you're reading a book series or watching A movie or television series and you're always saying I want an explanation I want an explanation and then when you get it you're like, oh, I hate that and there's that there's that concern as well So I have the explanation already in my head but like I don't know if it's I don't know if it's ultimately satisfying or not. Yeah, but it is what it is So yeah one day one day we'll find out. Yeah, okay. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure to talk with you Thanks for interviewing me. Yeah, I enjoyed the book. I recommend it to you all as I've said already I hope you buy and enjoy it. Bye. I'm mad. Okay. Bye Thank you for watching Please subscribe to my channel here on youtube and please be sure to press that thumbs up button That's how videos get recommended and seen and please take a look at the link in the description below And go to my 50th street page where you can become a sponsor


Yeah, we on boss talk one-on-one Yeah, we gonna talk I love the interview you guys deal with Bombi to that one got emotional as well I just did the rodeo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we did an intro form the other night. Yeah told us to shoot a little intro form How was that an interview in bun man, man, you know, we've been knowing bond be for the longest That's why I was telling you earlier like sometimes it's just when you when you meet people and you get to know You don't do the interview part right away. You know, you build the relationship.  They sit everywhere You don't get you don't have a real conversation or real connection and you get to get that that inside info Wow, it's different. They you open. Hey, this is my brother. I ain't never told nobody this But you just reminded me of it. Wow, man. It's crazy cuz like I said, I don't know Charlemagne and I mean y'all still in with Charlemagne y'all did y'all do y'all got some type of deal with Charlemagne Charlemagne at the black effect Explain to me what that is. Well, it's it's a network of collective minds and bodies and souls that Kind of black people doing progressive things on podcast platforms and we kind of we kind of like channel all of them into one That's all you can go pull up some You can pull up different different genres of podcast that you may not been able to connect.  So it's pretty much just like a catalog of everything black that you can find in the podcast world So that's what the black effect is Wait, let me on the lighter note He went from they used to be trying to charge him up and tell him give me the drop and all You know, he come from he come a long ways I was just thinking about that like he from him starting, you know with the breakfast club from not before the break But from him starting interviewing people. Yeah to a nail the nigga that moved he's evolved a lot Question. What do I think of Donald Trump? Listen, what do you think up Donald Trump? I think Donald Trump Realized his power. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and a whole lot of people in the power Who has the position of the breakfast club like Charlemagne and he's a great business Oh, he's smart. So we're even with the the hole.  It's like He just took that and kind of used it to the public persona Charlemagne Yeah, they don't know the businessman who'll be writing books and making all these plays having behind the scene the producer The EP the director and shit like that.   I became a big fan just watching and then I you know, I like to say it I'll definitely man since I've been seeing you and the way y'all consistent man This podcast stuff though, what is it doing? Is it is it does it help our people? Most definitely it explained to me like you got so many different people talking, right, right Okay, and our people are watching right right. What is it doing?  Wow You give them yeah, that makes it different point of views different perspectives. Okay, we disagree on this But why okay? We can just agree to disagree. It's like now we can open we can talk about anything Yeah, we gotta get the bullshit out of the way first We're gonna talk about the entertainment in five ten years We might be hosting one of them black summits where they need us to come down right and get the media for the street Hey boss talk. We got uh, Barack Obama won't talk to somebody.    Yeah, I see everybody sheriffs Oh, man, we had we had the sheriff of food and county when he was running on our show And we actually want so do you know what that does for us to know that man? We got a direct connect with the sheriff. We had dr. Fauci called wow from the From the white house, bro We had my boy Doug Lawson down in florida district five He was coming to all the 85 south shows and then like he went from just a black man with a vision and a dream And then he came on the platform and we was in this city and he told everybody. Hey, I'm Doug Lawson I'm doing this. I ain't had the opportunity to speak to my people in this amount of mass Man, Doug been been down there.  Wow. That's it. Um, being a celebrity, right? Oh, he's a celebrity. Yeah, big time celebrity He don't want to say that In today's society especially with social media and the media everything out here Once the pub can make or break a career a lot of times nowadays And um, do you ever have a fear of you know Saying the wrong thing or being caught in the wrong position or something like that Where you show maggot cancelled or something like that or how they're gonna cancel? I got my own app What they're gonna cancel it off of Or i'm talking even maybe your fans is canceling because you say something wrong and they didn't like it I can get some new fans Seven billion people on this earth I guarantee you probably 6.99 A billion of them ain't even heard of the show yet. That's real. I'm about to move to indonesia and start over Because you know how this industry is and that's how they need to imagine me being the nigga that I am That I would say something to make every nigga in america mad not every everyone There's too many niggas that agree with me Because you know what I was just looking at something and I saw where Madonna popped up and she was having her show And you you had a concert right and she's doing her show.   Is it that ain't gonna last long? It's Madonna, bro. She's done way way worse But that's showing you just saying stuff off the top of your head and not realizing You know, especially out when you're out in public like that. You know what I mean No, I don't think I know I hope not I mean we've had people at our shows who Wouldn't wheel chairs and we done rode around the whole arena on them So we got a different type of fan base.