We were lucky to catch up with Monica Desai recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Monica thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?
Sometimes, I’m asked if there is a market for South Asian event entertainment across the country. Although certainly a niche business, the demand for South Asian entertainment has steadily grown since the time we started the company 7 years ago. We noticed increased demand for Bollywood dances, group choreography, and live instrumentalists year over year. It’s also really interesting to see more fusion and themed events incorporating Bollywood – we’ve been frequently booked for events like Bollywood-themed Bat Mitzvahs, which I absolutely love!
Also, as more organizations are catering to diversity and inclusion in the workplace, we’ve been seeing big corporate clients hire us to showcase South Asian entertainment while teaching the audience about the origins and history behind different Indian dance forms. It’s been really wonderful to observe the shift and see more large scale companies looking for ways to increase cultural awareness and understanding in the workplace.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Roughly 8 years ago, when I was living in New York City, my childhood friend Sanchi and I started reminiscing about how much we loved dancing and performing in college when we were both on a Gator Garba – a competitive South Asian dance team. We both had the same question, “do you think there’s a demand for South Asian entertainment?” We weren’t sure of the answer but we were definitely curious to find out.
At that moment, we devised a rough plan to start a company offering professional South Asian dance performances for any occasion. With the help of friends and family, we came up with a company name – Bollywood Touch – and with the slogan of “let us add a touch of Bollywood to your next event!”
Our goal was to start our company within 1 week. Luckily, Sanchi and I have backgrounds in business development so here was the time to test our knowledge! We hurried to create and launch our website then posted our company profile on national booking platforms. Within 3 days, to our surprise, we received our FIRST booking for a wedding reception in New York!
So, what happened next? Well, in true entrepreneurial spirit, Sanchi and I choreographed a performance, practiced wherever we could find space, and performed at our very first event. After our performance, the wedding guests joined us on stage and dance their hearts out with us. Watching the guests dance along during our Audience Interaction session inspired us to keep going – we wanted more people to experience the beautiful dance form we’re so proud of.
To date, we’re happy to say we’ve expanded our services from just dance to DJ, dhol, live instrumals, vocalists, henna artists and more. We now operate in most states across the country & Canada and honored to have been ranked as the #1 Bollywood entertainment company by The Bash since 2017 and counting. We’re so fortunate to have worked with some amazing clients including L’oreal, Macy’s, Johnson & Johnson, Time Warner, Rebtel, Genentech, NYX Cosmetics, New York Indian Film Festival, Boys & Girls Club, The Hunger Project & more.
We’re both excited to dance our way through to the next stage of Bollywood Touch!
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
I’m a believer of zero to little overhead when starting a business. In my past ventures, I’ve usually started with under $100 to get going and this was the same case with Bollywood Touch. My business partner, Sanchi, sat down one day and decided we wanted to start the company so within 5 days, we designed a website, ordered business cards, filed for an LLC and hoped for the best. All of this cost us under $100 and we got our first booking request the week after.
In the beginning, Sanchi and I handled every aspect of the business (including choreographing and dancing at events). For practices at the time, we didn’t have a studio space, so we would practice in the common areas and rooftop of our apartment buildings. We made it work with the resources available to us.
In summary, thanks to a few Vistaprint discount codes and taking on most of the startup labor ourselves, we got the business going for little initial capital. While running Bollywood Touch, Sanchi and I started a creative writing company – which took about $50 to get going.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
After we started the company in the tri-state area, we started creating connections with different event planners, DJ’s and we were getting word of mouth referrals from past clients. Since Sanchi and I both have years of dance experience along with having run the company for a little under a decade, our clients love that we can recommend what we think will work best for their event. This fuels our creative direction and ability to provide the type of entertainment that best works for our client.
When we’re organizing entertainment for an event, we’re very hands on and we handle the complete coordination from start to finish, which helps establish our reputation as making things hassle-free for the client. When we can, Sanchi and I also still attend events in person to ensure a smooth process. Clients also love that we are a full-service business so anything relating to entertainment for your event, we can handle. This takes away the stress of working with multiple vendors at a time by letting us handle the overall coordination.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bollywoodtouch.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bollywoodtouch
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BollywoodTouchDance
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxXaaHFwZM2_xQbjuzJyMpA
Image Credits
Castaldo Studio Sona Photography