Ad land’s Young Guns: Raja Chakraborty, Streamlyn

Raja Chakraborty, Co- Founder, Streamlyn, is a computer graduate who has been working in this industry since 2009. In the course of his career, he has worked with several companies such as Infosys, Ozone Media, HCL Technologies, Vdopia and Adadyn, and has handled operations like MIS, Sales & Account Management. Currently, Chakraborty is heading Streamlyn to make it a billion-dollar company. 

The company started on July 2015 with revenues for that year being $170K. By 2016, they saw tremendous growth in numbers which stood at $1.2 million. In the present time, they are seeing a growth trend of 20 per cent per month. Started with just 5 clients, the company now is working closely with more than 110 partners across the globe. The company is looking for an additional investment of $3 million within this financial year to complete this. 

What does it takes to climb up the ladder in advertising? Here’s Raja Chakraborty in his own words... 

How did you get into the role you are serving?
My co-founder, Naveen Kumar, and I used to work for the same company, and during our small and long talks we always used to discuss about how the media is diversifying and the publishers a.k.a. content owners who put so much hard work and time to create content, just get a pie from the actual share that they should get. The idea is the by-product of our desire to help online publishers grow in terms of revenue and user base. Our primary focus from day one has been to help small and medium scale publishers from ground zero and make them realise the value of their digital assets. 

There is a saying which goes like “Do whatever you do best and make it your profession”. 

We have been working in this industry from the beginning of our career and during this course, we realised we have a deep passion towards this field and we are very good at what we do. 

What particular skill sets do you think you bring to the table?
I have around four years of experience in companies such as Google, Ozone, etc., in the field of online advertising and marketing before starting Streamlyn in 2015. 

One campaign that you have worked on that you are particularly proud of? Please take us through the making of the campaign.
We worked for a South East Asian hair care brand campaign, where they wanted to reach users from Singapore and Malaysia to get more in-store traffic and increase product sales. We started the campaign from the creative phase to execution. We reached the audience through email, social media and online channels and helped increased in-store traffic to 200 per cent and sales to 50 per cent from the existing revenue. We were also able to reduce cost per acquisition by 30 per cent. 

While working on the creatives how do you prepare yourself? What goes on in your mind?
We have a product studies team who study competitor analysis, product study, audience prediction and demographic studies. After the detailed study, our creative team gets a report and then our creative designing phase starts from there. We put ourselves in the shoes of the client and design innovative creatives. 

Icons in advertising you look up to and how they have influenced you and your work?
No one. 

What are the five most productive things that you do in your everyday routine?

• Read newspaper articles on online advertising and market changes.
• Speak to different people in the industry to discuss the recent affairs in the online advertising industry.
• Meet with everybody across teams to figure out any issues. I try getting involved in all aspects of the business.
• Look for relevant talent across industry.
• Do my job.

Do you think a career in advertising is a viable one in the long term?
Online advertising is a fast-paced industry, which may be sustainable in the long-term only if one does their job extremely well. We can say that online ad spend is likely to grow by leaps and bounds in times to come. Various facets of online advertising and emerging technologies will have to work in tandem to get the best mileage for new age businesses. 

What does it take to succeed in a career like advertising?
It is a combination of certain factors such as vision, discipline, budget-control, speed and determination. 

Due to its highly efficient methods and proven ability to grow the bottom line, Streamlyn has contributed to the growth of numerous online publishers in terms of revenue and user base. They understand the value of content, and try to give it maximum worth during monetising and short, successful start-ups are always looking for opportunities to do something better than the competition by conceptualising out of the box and constantly questioning the status quo. They commit mistakes and learn from them as they continue their long, challenging yet fruitful journey. 

What would be your advice to youngsters planning to enter this industry?
Youngsters can consider some of the below points: 

Get Comfortable with pitching - The ability to lucidly communicate can be critical in bagging visibility, inspiring competition, and pitching to raise capital. In fact, pitching turns out to be a sore point and many entrepreneurs harbour baseless fear around it.

Never say never to Networking - Networking is a valuable tool as it can help you land a new investor, a great employee, a new customer, or even a great mentor. It is, therefore, essential to attend industry and start-up events, to scope out new talents and opportunities.

Always be eager to Learn and Unlearn - This is perhaps the most important tip that has proved to be worth its weight in gold, time and again. Rigidity is a deadly move against profit and the mark of a valuable entrepreneur is his/her ability to learn. Always be on your toes in keeping up with new developments, but don’t mindlessly implement it.

Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
Streamlyn plans to further expand into the APAC market, including Japan and Australia. The primary goal of Streamlyn in the APAC region has always been to become an added revenue proportion for publishers and enlighten them about the optimistic ways of increasing revenues. 

Is there any agency/ organisation that you would like to work with in the future?
Ogilvy and Mather.