Movie producers are entrepreneurs. They take an idea (story), gather a start-up team (director, actors, editors, writers, production crew), launch their start-up (the movie production), go through all the ups and downs and uncertainties while trying to complete their product (making the movie) and finally once their product is ready, do a lot of direct marketing before finally launching their product (the movie) to their customers (the viewing public). After that, its up to the customer (audience) to accept or reject the product (movie) which is amply visible in the product sale numbers (movie revenue collections).
This is an all or nothing high stakes gamble for the entrepreneur producer as they don’t get a second chance. There is no opportunity to receive customer feedback, modify the product and reintroduce it in the market. Just like with other start-ups, there is a high failure rate and many lose their entire investment if the product (in this case the movie) fails at the box office. The brave ones, in true entrepreneurial spirit, pick themselves up, learn from their failures and try again as the payout for success is huge and worth it in the end. One big hit is all it takes to reach the dizzy heights of success, so near yet so far for most who dare enough to try, and keep trying.
Once such daring entrepreneur and movie producer is Aamir Khan, who presents great lessons in entrepreneurship with his approach to making movies. Once he settles on an idea (the movie story), he does meticulous research and background checks to ensure their authenticity. He then carefully picks his team (some of them are newcomers), goes deep into the subject matter, story and characters to present them as honestly as possible. At every stage, he and his team work hard to ensure that the product is top class and he always leads by example like a true leader and visionary. It’s no surprise that his last two ideas – PK and Dangal are the top two grossing Hindi movies of all times. PK collections stand at Rs 731 crore worldwide and Dangal is currently at 703 crore worldwide and is soon expected to cross PK as the highest grossing Hindi movie of all time.
If you are an entrepreneur or aspiring to be one, I would suggest going and watching Dangal, again! That is assuming you have not already watched the movie once. There are many reasons to like Dangal (which means “a wrestling match in an arena”) and one of them is for the simple way it demonstrates the entrepreneurial spirit in it’s true form. Let’s look at some of situations in the movie and how they demonstrate entrepreneurial thinking and success.
1. Having a dream and pursuing it to the end – Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan) gives up on his dream to win a gold in wrestling for his country but vows that one day his son will fulfil that dream. Despite his wife giving birth to four girls and him almost giving up on his dream, as soon as he realises that his daughters have equal potential, he focuses all his energies on making them world class wrestlers and his daughter Geeta does fulfil his dream by becoming the first Indian female wrestler to win gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
2. Sacrificing everything in pursuit of your goal – The young sisters Geeta and Babita were made to give up their sleep, their favourite food, they had to wake up at 5 am and run for kilometers, they had to give up being vegetarian and ultimately had to cut their hair short as it was getting in the way of their training.
3. Overcoming your fears – The minute Geeta steps in the Dangal for the first time to fight a male wrestler, she overcome the fear of a male opponent. She also breaks the stereotype that only males can fight males. From that point on, she goes from strength to strength, wins the state and national championship and goes on to win the commonwealth gold.
4. It’s important to stay focused – On winning the national championship and entering the national sports academy, Geeta gets distracted by material things and loses her focus and her winning edge. This situation gets worse when she ignores her father’s training lessons and discipline and trying to follow her coach’s new methods which take away from her natural instincts as a winner. The wrong training from her new coach take her off her success path and it’s only when she comes back on track and regains her focus, does she go to win the Gold Medal.
Entrepreneurs wake up every morning and enter their own Dangal and it’s only those that relentlessly pursue their dreams, put in the hard work, make the everyday sacrifices, overcome their darkest fears and stay focused that eventually get their own Gold Medal.
