New Delhi: Apart from being revered as the `guru of advertising', Alyque Padamsee is also known for his indefatigable energy: ``If you love something you'll find the time and the energy to do it. I find I work best when the adrenaline of the deadline starts working!'' And, as the deadline for the Original Ideas Man's latest love-bigideasunlimited.com, a unique portal is being launched by Padamsee along with Sam Mathews on Tuesday-comes closer, you can see he means what he says.Says Padamsee, ``I had this idea about 10 years ago, long before I had heard about the Internet. I always thought what makes the world go round is ideas and not money. But now we have found a vehicle, a medium where great ideas can be dished out to 70 million people.'' The duo-the brainchild behind the portal-aims at providing creative solutions to marketing problems, building and reviving brands, bringing hidden talent to the fore from various arts, finding answers in public service. Simply put, the two will sell `ideas' for money. ``Big idea equals big money. The best example is Sabeer Bhatia who within two years made $316 million and we're saying that we can help you to do the same,'' says Padamsee. The portal will offer both `free' and `fee' ideas: for the ideas that are marketable-say, for instance, designing a better seat for an aircraft or a refrigerator-cum-hot box, bigideasunlimited.com will charge a certain fee while personal and public service ideas will be free of cost. Interestingly,bigideasunlimited.com's role will be limited to offering just `ideas'. Execution of the ideas will be the other party's job. ``We're mothers who are in the business of giving birth to ideas, we're not baby sitters,'' says Padamsee.
Padamsee is targeting basically anyone who wants marketeable ideas be they business people or venture capitalists. The portal hasn't got any venture capital funding, so far. ``We're not looking at venture capital funding at the moment. We'd, first, like to show what our site can do.'' The site expects to get at least 14,000 hits a day initially. The portal is also open to alliances, but at a later stage provided they are `new, unique and unusual'. ``The last thing we want is a boring, deja vu, we don't want old stuff. We want people to be stimulated."
Padamsee plans to use the Net to advertise the portal. ``We'll not be using big media because I think that's wasteful. Sure, you get some of the car drivers but I think the best way to advertise is on the Net itself because the only people who're Net-enabled can use our site.''
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.