Businesses and Non-Profits - Sandeep Parikh '02

New Hampshire native, Sandeep Parikh, was awarded the Capstone Honors in Creative Writing at Brown and graduated with a degree in Computer Science. Sandeep lives in Los Angeles and is the founder of Effinfunny.com at which he works alongside several Brown graduates and the director/creator of Comedy Central's most successful web series "The Legend of Neil." Sandeep loves to make his friends laugh and his parents wince, which seem to go hand in hand.

As an improviser and a writer myself, it's always been a struggle to get my material out there and prove that I’m qualified to play the Hollywood game. I wanted to create a mechanism for myself and other talented people to get their voices heard, and provide them opportunities to get them in the game. Streaming video content seemed like the way to go and I figured if we focused on quality rather than quantity we'd be able to differentiate ourselves with the many user generated video sites out there. So I started Effinfunny.com.

Effinfunny.com is a stand up comedy content site that produces and features video clips of top comedians as well as the hottest up and comers. We also produce hit original webseries with our talented group of comedians with various production partners including Comedy Central and Machinima.com. Our first series, "The Legend of Neil," was a viral sensation with views numbering in the millions, a TV debut on Comedy Central, and a mention in the Hollywood Reporter as a top 10 web series to watch. Basically we find stand up talent, show them off online, and produce series with the best of the best.

My inner circle out in LA is 90 percent Brown Alums and they provide tremendous support. Leah Mann '03.5, Mat Greenleaf '02, Elaine Loh '02 are all Brown grads that I've worked with in various capacities on this project. Also without Brown I'd likely not be in the entertainment biz at all. After graduating from high school, I was pretty much dead set on doing something in the hard sciences or computer science but then I created a short film with Sarovar Banka '02, Mat Greenleaf and Ben Finkel '03, the summer of my junior year. I absolutely fell in love with the filmmaking process and never looked back. Thanks to the Brown I am able to apply my sciency/logical brain in a creative endeavors. I'm like a Terminator who can paint landscapes or sculpt (see, that's a web series right there).