OF MIDNIGHT QUIZZES AND FRESH PERSPECTIVE

Sonam Shah, Founder & CEO, Treize Communications writes about how midnight quizzes on Instagram have provided her with fresh ideas and perspective in her entrepreneurial journey

No one ever said that the entrepreneurial road was going to be easy, right? Well, that has definitely been the case with me. It’s been three and a half years since I started my journey, a journey of living my dreams (which for some reason was quite late, considering I always wanted to run a business of my own).

While I have been in Public Relations for nearly a decade now, my entrepreneurial stint is fairly new. Setting up a company singlehandedly is quite draining and can take up a large chunk of your time and energy.

There are times when things are hazy, and you need different views, outlooks and perspectives in order to take decisions. There are times when you feel you are right, but there is a good chance you may not be. There are times when one is confused and perturbed about not moving in the direction planned, but in reality is definitely moving in the right direction.

It was these thoughts that gave me an idea. One night, I started framing these thoughts as questions and posted them on Instagram stories as quizzes around midnight. These were random thoughts and doubts that were in my mind. The idea was that during the night people are more vocal, open and therefore more vulnerable, so they would be honest in selecting the options, which could also help them in some way.

The whole idea of putting across questions to people on Instagram was also born from the cruel fact that I am nocturnal and at times cannot even sleep until the wee hours of the morning.

After 24 hours, I would post the result of the Instagram story followed by the next question. And this is how I ended up starting a ‘midnight quiz’ on the platform, with the hashtag #MQWSS, because we entrepreneurs love ourselves too much, right? This has been going on for more than a year now. The success of it all made me reinvent it as a seasons format recently! Over a period of time, I have put across more than 300 questions, the topics of which range from the philosophical and motivational to current affairs and of course, even Bollywood! I keep them all in the highlights space on my Instagram profile too, in order to avoid asking similar questions later. This whole process has helped me build an outlet for my thoughts and gain perspective from what others think. It either strengthens a recurring thought in my mind or makes me re-look at it, thus helping me in several different ways.

Some of the results of the quizzes are pretty interesting! About 90% of my followers for instance believe that over-thinking affects trust, while 56% people find the daily challenges of life more difficult then solving larger issues. What also makes this exciting is that people who actively participate look forward to the quiz and send direct messages if there is a delay in posting questions at times. Sometimes, these questions lead to stimulating conversations and midnight tête-à-têtes are always the best!

It’s this approach which helps me gather different outlooks and viewpoints, thus helping me take decisions to move ahead. It provides me with motivation of sorts which has aided me in setting up my firm, thus making every day a new day, with new learnings, unlearning, and then some relearning. PR requires a lot of strategic thinking and planning and this whole quizzing game of putting forward one random question every night is making a difference in my entrepreneurial journey. While everyone is busy with #MidnightBinge on either food or Netflix, I enjoy this and I guess it also keeps my brain from being rusted. #AdditionalBonusMaybe :)