The Business Leadership Podcast

Salli: [00:00:00] You're listening to the business leadership podcast with Edwin Frondoso.

Akshay: these technologies are aiding in that ability to get more volume of traffic out there. But then you have to ask the question of quality of content, right? Now as consumers, are you more likely to consume this AI voice track? Are you most likely to consume a piece of content where you can see a creator, hear their voice, see their lips move, and enjoy that connection Always a challenge that we have is saying, Hey, you're gonna start at zero again. But look, in three months, you're gonna start to make money. Trust the process. Believe in the process. Believe in yourself to allow that opportunity to grow.

Edwin: Good morning. Good afternoon. And good evening biz leader. Welcome to another episode of the business leadership podcast. I'm your host Edwin Frondozo. And today we are featuring a special [00:01:00] episode from our future narrative mini series recorded live at the collision conference in Toronto, Canada. In this series. We explore the future of leadership, innovation, and storytelling with visionary leaders who are not just designing products. But our creating entire new worlds and markets.

Joining me is Dr. Paul Newton and together we'll be speaking with Akshay Maharaj. He is the co-founder of Aview international, a company that enables global content monetization for content creators. And enterprises. Having worked with superstar creators like Logan, Paul. Mark robber and yes, Theory Aview who has generated over 1 billion views, making a significant impact in the industry.

In our conversation, Akshay, we'll discuss Aview mission to help content creators, globalize their content and monetize international audiences. We'll delve into the how AVU facilitates translation, dubbing, and. Cultural modifications to [00:02:00] make content resonate globally. You'll hear act she's insights on the use of AI and local towns for accurate. And engaging translations. The importance of feedback loops and quality control.

If you are looking. To grow beyond. Your local borders, you're going to want to listen to this. So without further ado, Here we go

We're now speaking with Akshay Maharaj, co founder of Aview International. How are you doing today?

Akshay: Doing really good. Excited to be here. Thanks so much.

Edwin: I'm super excited. Been looking forward to this conversation. Akshay, just to get started, what problem is Aview solving for content creators?

Akshay: The problem that we're solving currently right now is the inability for content creators to globalize their content and monetize international audiences.

What we realize is a lot of content creators and brands are really centralized on one local market. Whether that be English speaking markets, Spanish speaking markets, Hindi speaking markets. [00:03:00] Our goal is to help them expand globally and monetize every international market that they would like to see.

Edwin: And how are you doing that? Is that through translation, editing, distribution?

Akshay: So there's two sides of what have you asked to offer. The first side is servicing. These are opportunities that you may have seen already of the translations, the transcriptions, the dubbing, which is becoming really popular nowadays.

But we also go above that. What we realized is servicing content only solves one side of the problems, which is getting the content localized. But the second problem is Akshay distributing the content. What we realized and when we talk to our creators, it's one thing to just translate a video, but it's a second thing to make sure that video Akshay resonates into the global audience that it's being featured in.

So as an example, if I translated a Logan Paul video, one of our customers, it's one thing just to have it on his main channel. But if I created a new Logan Paul international channel and culturally modified the lingo, the jargon, so it resonates in that Spanish market, for instance, He can then [00:04:00] resonate with brands, with audience members, build a community, and have his videos trending on the Spanish YouTube page, and that is what we do.

Edwin: That's amazing. And, like, how does that look like to really resonate? Is that leveraging some of the new technologies, like AI, or is that also working with local talent?

Akshay: It's a bit of both. With the rise of AI, we've been able to Help facilitate the servicing component of this a lot easier. At the end of the day, we don't need to reinvent the wheel.

The idea of translations, the idea of dubbing, the technology has always been available, but now it's a matter of using it in a way where we can make it more culturally in tune to the content creators that we're working with. And so we're not looking to recreate the way translations are done, but rather how do we leverage local talents, local agencies, local individuals in those markets to help us distribute that content.

For it to really resonate well in those local markets and we found that to be Truly one of the advantages that we have relative to other companies in the scene.

Edwin: Yes, so you're [00:05:00] working both with the technology local Is there some type of feedback loop When you get a new culture, maybe one that's brand new to you. it's really finding out How does that resonate it like is it test or a be testy?

Akshay: So there was a mentor of ours. His name is Rick Brace, who is the former CEO of CBC and he had worked a lot with the Canadian National Broadcasting Centers. And what he told us was really interesting, resonated really well on this point of culturally modifying content.

Translations are only as good as they are accurate. And so when we were watching Netflix shows, when we're watching. Episodes, whatever language it might be. And there's mistranslations, misdubbing. We noticed that we realized this is inaccurate. I don't want to watch this.

What am I even learning? Or what am I even listening to? And so what we really focus in on that feedback loop is making sure that there's quality control and that the content's truly resonating into that market. How do we even determine that? The best way to determine that is through the audience that's [00:06:00] watching the content.

Comment sections on content creators videos are the most ruthless comment sections you'll ever find, ever. They will say whatever's on their mind, roast on whatever way possible, say whatever they need to say in order for that creator to get that feedback. We use a comment section. We use the feedback from the engagement of the audience to dictate to us, did this culturally settle with that audience, or were there things that were misinterpreted? And we make that as adjustments into our own system.

Edwin: And would you relaunch that video? I'm just curious. Or would you just replace it?

Akshay: We'll typically replace it altogether. If there are significant errors. But again, we have a lot of QA systems in our own end to make sure that those errors don't even slip through. We've had situations in the past where one word was inaudible. So we couldn't even hear it. The creator had no idea what they even said. And there was a slight error. We adjusted the audio, re-uploaded it. It was very simple. But in most cases, we make sure that there's a very rigorous QA check to ensure that it resonates.

Edwin: Yeah, that's amazing. I appreciate you for that. [00:07:00] Aside from the globalization, when it comes to content creation, and you mentioned some new technologies like dubbing, what other major disruptions are shaping the industry now?

Akshay: So we're seeing a lot of movement in the idea of what it is to create brands. From a content creator perspective, what content creators are realizing is a, not only can their audience be globalized, but how do they monetize their audience beyond add sense?

How do they monetize their audience beyond just the YouTube content that they're uploading? And so we're seeing a big rise in merchandise.

We're seeing a big rise in technologies courses, right? You see every creator now creating core, seeing podcasts. We're seeing a lot of creators now entertain new angles, new avenues. And with that, we're seeing a rise of technologies. to help facilitate those opportunities for them. We're even seeing a rise of faceless content creators that are pushing content through a chat GPT, then 11 labs, and then pushing out clips.

And these technologies are aiding in that ability to get more volume of [00:08:00] traffic out there. But then you have to ask the question of quality of content, right? Now as consumers, are you more likely to consume this AI voice track? Are you most likely to consume a piece of content where you can see a creator, hear their voice, see their lips move, and enjoy that connection with them?

So it's interesting from a consumption standpoint and the technologies that are accompanying it to see how long are they really going to last for.

Edwin: Yeah, there's a lot of moving pieces, a lot of different ways to digest content, and I'm sure you could talk a lot more into this in terms of acquiring new customers.

I'm curious, how do you lead your teams, your stakeholders, your clients through, navigating the ever changing landscape of content creation.

Akshay: So being in the creator scene for about eight years now, I, we started this company version one when I was 17 years old and still in high school.

And I had no idea what it was to build a startup. I had no idea what it was to build a company that can scale quickly or even generate a lot of revenue. It wasn't until you started [00:09:00] growing the company. I started to realize I need to learn this myself. There's no mentorship I can get as a high school student to build a multimillion dollar company.

And so what we realized is a lot of the iteration is already being done by big companies out there. And so one thing I tell my design team, tell my engineers, I tell our social media individuals is look at what's trending, what's happening right now and where are they heading to, what's the next steps that they're making and how do we make that before them?

And that mentality, that mindset has kept us on the leading edge at the frontier of a lot of the innovations that we're looking to deploy prior to it being a wide scale item in the market. And something that we've been able to keep as a unfair advantage, that's from a team perspective, from a customer perspective, my co founder Garnett, his entire job every single day is to keep in touch with all of our content creators, phone calls, FaceTimes, text message exchanges, wishing them a happy birthday.

Wishing them the best of luck on an event that they're competing at. Telling them whatever it is, have a great day. [00:10:00] Having that open communication, because what we realize is that companies right now are so fixated on generating new customers that they forget about retaining their current users. And for us, relationships with content creators are the heartstone of what we're building here.

And we need to put so much effort into that to maintain those relationships. And so that's something that we really focus in on.

Edwin: the content creators are the artists and they need to have the trust with you that you're in their Best interest, right? So that's that's amazing in terms of how you and your partner are leading

Akshay: Exactly. It's a lot of learnings this idea of humanizing content creators. It's so important.

Edwin: So you talked about getting ahead of the puck per se in terms of that I'm curious just to pick your brain in terms of what the future of global content creation looks like.

Akshay: I'm so excited about this topic. And I think that as we head into a world where accessibility to global audiences and the ability for audiences to increase their willingness to [00:11:00] pay from a brand deal perspective, we're gonna see a lot of creators making that transition to international audiences.

Already we're seeing an uptake of content globally, but through English speaking markets. So for instance, we're seeing content creators are rising in audience in the Philippines, for instance, without having any Filipino translations or dubbing, but that uptake and rise and that culture we're seeing. And so I think what we're going to be seeing in the future is the more technologies that are accompanying and facilitating this globalization component and the more uptake of creators wanting to globalize their content, realizing that they no longer can focus on just one local market. I can see us transitioning to that world. And then monetize in that world very soon.

Edwin: You know what came to mind and this is really exciting and very inspirationally even for a platform like ours I'm curious, and we work with a lot of business leaders who are also launching their thought leadership brand and doing this as is maybe perhaps depending on [00:12:00] what their business looks like, they should be thinking about this from day one.

Akshay: It is something that they need to think about from day one. I think having a mentality of my content is. worthwhile to be had in every local market across the world is a mentality that can be fixated in day one. However, it's also really important to note that in order to have a successful global transformation of content, there needs to be an anchored, foundational audience in one local market.

I was just talking to an up and coming micro influencer just now, and they're looking at expanding globally. But they still haven't tapped and exhausted the resources in this local market. And until they do that, then the local expansion, the global expansion becomes a lot, makes a lot more sense because the resources should be focused on how do we tap into more brand deals here?

How do we tap into more monetization opportunities here before we start expanding? And in a way, diluting the brand from a global standpoint, we don't want that to happen. We want to fill the brand. So it's [00:13:00] Timing of that needs to be

Edwin: yeah, it's complimenting it and Bringing your initial I would assume audience or fans with you when you go through that globalization

I guess as a business leader or a visionary or things that you're creating. What are your biggest challenges right now?

Akshay: I think the biggest challenge right now is letting the creators know that it is take some time to build a global audience I think right now the expectation is they have a couple million views on their videos and they expect that to be instantaneously happening when they expand globally.

The problem is, though, when you're expanding globally, the first step is you must build a community. The same way you built a community here in North America, as an example, it took time. It took months to up to a year, if not longer. And the expectation that we sometimes have to battle with is their own ego of, They're big, and we get that.

They are big, but it will take some time for them to grow. And that's a conversation, and always a challenge that we have is saying, Hey, you're gonna start [00:14:00] at zero again. But look, in three months, you're gonna start to make money. Trust the process. Believe in the process. Believe in yourself to allow that opportunity to grow.

And it seems to work for all the creators. They seem to get over that hump. But it is a little bit of a barrier initially when we start those international channels. And the idea of building an international community.

Edwin: Yeah. I can't even imagine because if they've built up one market, maximize it, let's say the 80, 90 percent of that they can, that their quote, ego might be like, I can't go back to 10 views or whatnot.

Akshay: Hey, you know what? The first few videos, we launched it for one of our biggest content creators. The first few videos generated 20, 000 views. 30, he hasn't generated 30, 000 views since he was a kid. And so now he's what's going on here? What, why am I only getting this many views? Two months later he's generating a hundred thousand views.

He trusts the process build a community you fast track It's not gonna work Takes some time to grow.

Edwin: It must like really hit home like oh, man I am an influencer. I am a known brand personality in this region, [00:15:00] but no one knows me over there But that's exciting.

Akshay: It's so exciting. The Logan Paul example is what I absolutely love to use You He messages us and asks us to start looking at Arabic translations for him. So we started entertaining that idea. We started pushing out Arabic translations. A few months later, he does one of the biggest content creator meeting greets in Saudi Arabia and YouTube history booked out an entire mall.

It was unbelievable, a spectacle, one of the biggest events ever. And it goes to show that you put in that effort, you build it up for a few months. Logan at the time was also on this huge rise of fame. It worked. And we use that same case study to showcase to a lot of our other creators saying, Hey, you can be just as relevant as you are in those international markets as you are here. Allow us to culturally modify your content to make sure it resonates.

Edwin: Yeah, I love Logan Paul. I love the stuff he's doing. And it's amazing that you get to use, leverage his use case. Because what's special about him, and maybe you probably have a lot [00:16:00] more to talk about, is Logan Paul has that personality as well from some of the initiatives he's doing out there.

Akshay: He really does and I think it goes to show especially with the push up prime and how they're now a global brand fastest selling beverage sports beverage in history, These are individuals. These are creators that started from nothing but they put in The necessary foundation and the resources to help them grow and that's again the message that we provide to our creators saying hey We can get this show on the road for you guys.

Edwin: Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. Thank you for sharing. So we're talking about future narratives. We talked to founders, creators, business leaders, and we want to take a look at the vision of what they're creating. So I'm curious, what is your vision of the future that you're building?

Akshay: I think it's a world where there's no border when it comes to consuming content. I think we're starting to see that already with the rise of Korean shows on Netflix, the rise of Spanish shows on Netflix. But I wanted to be in a world where I don't know what the [00:17:00] origin of that language was. I don't want to know the origin of that, of where that content was consumed or created in. I want to just consume good content, quality content without understanding as to the culture behind that because it's in tune with the culture that I want it to be in tune with. I think that's the future. I think that's where we're headed. I think that's where we're going towards and something that I'm hoping a view can help lead in the direction towards.

Edwin: Yeah. A hundred percent. And I'm just imagining what the world would look like when all these quote borders are done. Like how do the viewers, like what changes in their lives?

Akshay: It's interesting. I think when we look at content and we're looking at content from a lens of consuming content for entertainment or lifestyle. Yeah. But we'll shift gears slightly into the new vertical that we're putting a lot of resources in, which is ed tech. Imagine a world where I can learn from the best professors from an Indian university without a barrier of language, without a barrier of linguistics.

I can now consume that content. Imagine someone in the middle East learning from a [00:18:00] Harvard business school professor, right? I think that is where the true impact of education, let's say, Lesson, and that's something that we're really excited to be entering because we think about content creators first thing comes to mind is entertainment Yes, but there's so much more to unpack underneath this idea of content Yeah, and one of the most interesting ones for us is the ed tech scene.

Edwin: Yeah, that's great Akshay I'd love it to get some final thoughts, Recommendations, advice for the business leaders the content creators, the executives who are listening today

Akshay: for sure I think right now we're seeing a big push and what it is to build your personal brand Something that I'm working on myself, something that we're seeing a lot of individuals working on nowadays, the amount of tools, companies, features, products that are out there in the market.

How do you maintain a true advantage? A lot of the times it's now revolving around the founders, the teams, the people behind the scenes that are pushing these companies out there, build your brand, focus on developing your own media presence in some way, whether that be on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, showcase the people who's behind the scenes to this because To be honest, that's [00:19:00] going to separate yourself from other competitors. That's going to differentiate yourself. That's going to want people to buy into you as a founder and lead that company. Then maybe just your products.

Paul: So what becomes possible with humanity? Like when people are learning, like without those barriers, like what do you see happening?

Akshay: As you said that question, I got like goosebumps all around me because the endless possibility of what we're seeing when it comes to the accessibility of knowledge, the exchange of knowledge gets me very excited about what we can see from a humanitarian perspective.

Right now, the biggest barrier for people working with other people is language. A lot of the times, it's the inability of connecting on a personable level. What if we remove that? What if we remove that barrier? Now we have the opportunity to grow together, build together, develop things that may not have ever been developed in the past.

We see the disputes, we see the challenges that's going on in today's world. We can now communicate with each other in a [00:20:00] way where we can facilitate potential change and have a positive impact on that. Things that would have never happened originally because we just can't communicate. Communication is such a strong piece right there. I think a lot of times overlooked, but now we eliminate any barrier towards that communication That's what's it. That's what gets me excited

Paul: and we've been talking about like decentralization of a lot of different things and when language is no longer a barrier and The regulations and government and all that have kept cultures apart are no longer barriers

Akshay: We're already seeing that exchange from a media entertainment perspective.

So now imagine that from a policymaker perspective, imagine that from an education perspective, imagine that from a lifestyle relationship perspective. This idea of no longer being segmented and set apart from the rest because a language, now people are no longer ashamed of being able to speak one language.

They want to speak. They want to be able to exchange that. They want to be able to share information and now they [00:21:00] can. The opportunity beyond that is, is endless, right? Look at the opportunity of Web Summit and Rio and Hong Kong and Lisbon, right? Now you're able to tap into those markets, Portuguese speaking, right? It's unbelievable the opportunity around that. The exchange of knowledge is what gets me excited.

Paul: Yeah. So did you Akshay realize the bigness of what you were doing when you started?

Akshay: When we started in 2017, I had no idea. I'll be honest. I had absolutely no idea. I was a kid who just wanted to build for content creators. I understood there was a big problem, but as it began to dig a little bit deeper into this work and has began to understand a little bit more about the actual impact around this, that's why a lot of the resources we're allocating now is sure towards the lifestyle. entertaining of content creation, but also the social and educational impact of ed tech.

Me personally, education has been a big part of my life, a big part of my upbringing. And I've wanted to always share education [00:22:00] in some way, whether it's traveling to India and helping children and villages. And I've always been inspired by this idea. In fact, one of my earliest childhood memories is going around in an Indian village and watching kids looking at a iPad video of Mark Rober.

In a village. I didn't even know they had internet. What the heck is going on here? And they're watching inaccurate translations. They're watching inaccurate content. And it breaks my heart when I see that. And that was one of the biggest driving factors of getting this off the ground was this idea of if I can help kids like that, I have more of a social wellness to myself.

That's a win. I can make all the money in the world. But if I can promote that components of it, if I can help more kids like that, more individuals why not?

Paul: Akshay that's really grand. That's huge. So

Akshay: thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Paul: Thank you so much.

Edwin: Thanks for joining us. Akshay. This has been amazing.

Akshay: Absolute pleasure. I really appreciate it. I look forward to keeping the conversation going. Amazing.

Edwin: That's it biz leaders. Thanks for joining me on another episode of the business [00:23:00] leadership podcast. Part of our future narrative mini series recorded at the collision conference. This was an amazing conversation with Akshay. Exploring how Aview international is transforming global content monetization. and breaking down language barriers.

So for links to all the resources we discussed to connect with Akshay. And to learn more about the future narrative project, please check in to the show notes in the app that you're listening to right now.

And if you're interested in reading more. about Akshay and other leaders that we profiled at collision, please join the wait list for upcoming book.

And if you have found value in this episode, please. Subscribe rate and share it with the very first person that comes to mind. Someone who could not only benefit, but we'll also be grateful from hearing from you. Again, your support helps us grow and bring you. more great content. Thanks again for tuning in and being part of our community until next time have a [00:24:00] 100 X day