“Position your creative business more like a tech business and you will become more viable for investors”

Meet the mentors: Rishi Kapoor, Reframe and Foundations mentor 

Rishi Kapoor brings his energetic, entrepreneurial spirit and a unique background in audience behaviour forecasting, AI, technology and business management to our Reframe and Foundations programmes. After working in sales, distribution and strategy for the likes of Sony Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney and BBC Worldwide, Rishi founded and successfully exited VC-backed Paus.tv, a global media startup that reshaped digital distribution.  

Rishi now leads a new VC-backed venture, North AI, that combines cognitive science and AI to predict video engagement and optimise creative content. Behind his deep knowledge of tech, AI and start up operations lies a great love of film and TV. Rishi is passionate about combining artistic vision with technology and finance knowledge to empower screen founders to achieve their goals. 

What motivated you to become a mentor with Creative Enterprise, and what keeps you coming back? 

The opportunity came at a good time. I’d just sold my company and I wanted to do some mentorship to see if I could help other companies avoid the pitfalls that I went down. It was also my opportunity to work with creative businesses – deep down, that's what I had always wanted to do.  

When you’re in your business, it's always nice to have a moment where you can come out of it and focus on someone else's business for a little bit. That’s what keeps me coming back. Every day in any business is a school day and whatever I learn, I share with the businesses that I'm mentoring. 

For those who don’t know, can you explain what Reframe does? 

It’s not news that the industry is shifting and screen businesses are struggling. Since the invention of the MP4, it has gone through significant changes, from piracy to streaming and now AI and distribution models.  

 Through this programme, we are seeking to support and guide creative businesses that are going through this change, weathering a significant drop in investment on the independent side and the struggles with profitability that we’re seeing even with huge streamers like Netflix and Disney. Programmes like Reframe are important to support this sector that is a huge contributor to the economy and that creates such cultural value by giving clarity and new strategies for a sustainable future. 

 In your experience, what are the biggest challenges screen-based founders face when trying to create and grow sustainable businesses – and how does mentoring help navigate these? 

Probably the biggest challenge they all face is funding. By helping them to position their creative businesses like a tech business, I help them become more viable for investment.  

The failure rate for tech businesses is about 75 to 80%; it’s about the same for creative businesses. Yet in terms of the VC market, billions are poured into tech companies while the creative industries don’t get enough. Most of the work I do helps companies to take the lessons from tech and build them into a screen business. It helps them raise funding, hire people, land clients, generate revenue, and develop. 

How would you describe your approach to mentoring  and what do you think makes it effective for screen/creative businesses? 

My style is very direct: I have a granular and singular focus and I have strong opinions about how I think screen businesses should be positioned. The best way to understand how I work is to come to one of my talks. I try to be as direct and cut-throat as I can in my presentations to say: this is the reality of your business and the struggles you're going to face and this is how I would approach it. People who pick me as a mentor tend to be the ones who are ready for me to rip their business plan apart and then start from scratch.  

What’s one thing you’ve learned from the founders you’ve mentored that’s influenced your own work or perspective? 

A big thing I’ve learned is that niche can be powerful. A lot of companies in the screen  industries have a hyper focus on a niche area that I would ordinarily consider to be very, very small. But if you can make that work, you can take a large part of that small market. When you look at the numbers, if you concentrate on that one area, it makes sense. I’ve found that really inspirational.  

 There’s a hustle culture in technology where things move very fast, and I try to instill that in a lot of these companies. I’ve noticed that some of them are more methodical and take their time. They don't have that kind of Silicon Valley approach where it's just like, just work, make it very fast, and burn out very, very quickly. It’s a good reminder to me that it's not really a sustainable way of operating a business.  

If you could give one piece of advice to any creative entrepreneur starting out today, what would it be?  

Aim to be good enough at lots of different things; don’t just focus on being an expert in one area and ignore all the others. You have to assume multiple roles when you’re starting out – not just being a founder, but also having some knowledge of accounting, tax, HR, legal and marketing too. You have to be prepared to know a little bit about everything.