Saurabh Gupta, Founder and Managing Director of Garage Group

Interview with Saurabh Gupta, Founder and Managing Director of Garage Group

Saurabh Gupta, Founder and Managing Director of Garage Group was never motivated to start an agency, it was a random thought to do it as he was bored of agency life working almost 18 hours every day, 7 days a week, and sometimes even on holidays.

Thus he wanted to create a system where he can work as per his choice and he kind of achieved that on certain measures. And he is still making a lot of clients understand that it works well this way also.

Garage Group is a full-service, digitally creative agency with a reputation for disruptive creative ideas. In this ever-evolving sea of white noise, Garage Group is on a mission to save the world from boring advertising, the type that’s always on repeat and never paid attention to.

Garage Group already has offices in 3 states; U.P., Gujarat and Maharastra. Also, recently acquired another agency based out of Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Garage Group is looking at expanding to the east and south markets and probably to the Amea markets in the coming year. 

Tell us a little about yourself  

Saurabh Gupta: I come from a town referred as business hub of east, Kanpur. I started my career at a very early age and in a span of 12 years, I have worked with various MNCs and big brands on leadership roles like Reliance Entertainment Digital and Percept Media as a Business Head Innovations and new initiatives.

In 2015 I started Garage Productions which was primarily a film production house focussing on short format & new age content, however with increasing demand this got evolved into a full service digital creative agency having inhouse production facility, first of its kind in India.

Today Garage Group (Garage Productions, Garage Media, Garage Music) is a full-service creative agency with a 360-degree approach to promoting a brand digitally and various offerings in the field of creative digital media, Social Media, Video Production, OOH, DOOH, ITES, and related fields.

Please tell us a little about your entrepreneurial journey

Saurabh Gupta: I was always designed to do business however after failing in my first attempt I returned to corporate world and decided to learn few more tricks before I restart. So in 2015 I realised the time is right to reimagine my second stint and hence Garage productions was born, and honestly it was a split-second decision which changed my entire life.

I totally disagree with the hustle culture and what the new age entrepreneurs preach on social media, a true business for me is something which generates employment, security for people and Net profits, for me “Valuations are bullshit”, some of the recent acquisitions in last 3-4 years in media industry are just non sensical as Its almost baseless for such valuations for companies having negative EBIDTA and still getting valued at 10X or even 20X of their PNL.

So my journey from year 1 was to stay profitable whatever the turn over may be and we have kind of successfully achieved it.

Kindly brief us about Garage Group, its specialization, and the services that it offers.

Saurabh Gupta: Garage Productions is a full-service digitally creative agency known for its disruptive creative ideas. In this ever-evolving sea of white noise, Garage Media is on a mission to save the world from boring advertising, the type that’s always on repeat and never paid attention to.

We believe that smart, sharp creative outperforms costly media buys every time. Forget about first impressions; we create direct hits that connect with your audience on a human level.

Challenger brands come to us to fly, and big brands come to soar. We offer services in the fields of Creative, Digital Media, Social Media, Video Production, OOH, DOOH, ITES, and others.

What is your biggest USP?

Saurabh Gupta: Fastest execution makes us stand out in the crowd. We don’t take long for any idea to convert into an expression, and we made this possible by deploying majority of stuff in house.

We have a tech division; we have production division (which usually are not part of most agencies, and they rely heavily of third party vendors) and today we even a complete music studio where we not only produce our own music but also for brands and other artists.

What was your mission and vision at the outset?

Saurabh Gupta: We envision ourselves as renowned global leaders in the digital marketing and video production industries, exceeding customer expectations.

Our Vision is to be an accredited, preferred, and recognized long-term partner for any and every client, while also ensuring employee growth and satisfaction.

What made you choose this type of business?

Saurabh Gupta: I was a sportsman in my early days and even played 3 Basketball national tournaments during my school and college, so exactly like sports where you have limited time to achieve your goal and create strategy on the fly to achieve them exactly same is advertising, there is no set pattern that can be defined or ensure that what will work for which category or brand, so it’s a constant push for tweaks and twists that makes a brand stand out among its audience and that made me chose this as profession.

As I call it, advertising is like climbing Mount Everest, every day is a good day until there is an avalanche 

What are your company’s goals?

Saurabh Gupta: We want to see some incredible brands emerge from India as a result of our efforts.

What is your Leadership Mantra?

Saurabh Gupta: If it is to be, It is up to me!

Your success tips for young and aspiring entrepreneurs

Saurabh Gupta: Mentors are not the only source of knowledge and inspiration. Learning from other entrepreneurs in the same stage of business as you are is one of the most effective ways to obtain useful information.

Young and aspiring entrepreneurs try to avoid competitors and exchange their own information and knowledge for theirs. This will make networking mutually beneficial, possibly leading to future opportunities.

Website: https://www.garagemedia.net

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