The Cigar Butt Strategy
Ashish no doubts the Warren Buffet of Bollywood for me.” I have a very unique strategy to make web and film content. I will target yesteryears star kids to act in my web series. Actors who have been forgotten for some time. Like Ranjeet, Jeevan and Kiran Kumar, and Chunky Pandey. The kids of these actors who are still remembered fondly but maybe do not command that much of a market price.” I was all ears as Ashish narrated his strategy to make value-based content, which gives more bang for the buck.” It’s simply the top stars and actors are very expensive and there is no money to be made for the producer as the money goes in paying the actors, the production value is reduced due to the budget of the expensive actors and stars. The rest of the actors are at the bottom rung and will give you little eyeballs. Since we are targeting web content which itself is a game-changer as now live content can be streamed directly on your mobile. This is a new way of watching content and thus deserves a new strategy. This is the Cigar Butt approach that Warren Buffet used when he made his first million.” Ashish Parasher went on to explain.”
You see Warren Buffet identified sick and loss-making mills that we’re close to being shut down or had some labor or cash flow issues. He then tracked their market value on the stock market and realized that with minimum cash infusion he could revive them and then sell them at a minuscule profit as they still had some value as companies. This strategy he narrated as the cigar butt approach was when you pick up old cigar butts from ashtrays that still have two or three puffs in them. These sick and loss-making mills he identified had some puffs or hidden value in them still and he started buying them to be sold later at marginal profits.” I took a deep breath and agreed with Ashish that this could work as a unique value proposition and money could be made through this strategy.“ Who knows the parents of these stars and old actors would even pay to launch their kids in a new web-series. That way they would come for free if the story idea was sold to them .”I gave my two-bit to Ashish.