If you want a glimpse inside an Entrepreneur, who has very less fear and hell bent on creating a legacy, then checkout his answers:
Question: You are a founder of 3 startups, out of which 2 are closed. What will you tell to a newbie entrepreneur, based on your success and failure experiences in entrepreneurship?
Rajat: I founded Living Room Canvas in early 2010. This was an art ecommerce setup through which I wanted to connect hobby artists with buyers. Awesome idea, innovative, could’ve worked. I closed it down because, I was alone, my knowledge of art was limited (that time I thought this was a valid reason), I was doing this with a regular 9-9 job and after the first few months of struggling, I lost the drive to continue. Bad idea.
Along with this, I started with a resource website called Interview Elements in late 2010 with 3 of my batch mates. Idea was to earn through Training & Placement exercises in colleges and then through advertisements on the website itself. 2 of the founders quit within the first 3 months and the remaining 2 of us lost the drive. Again.
2 failed start ups, and both could have worked. There was just 1 lesson I learnt from both these experiences. Don’t quit till you’ve given it your everything. I once attended a startup seminar and The Morpheus founder Samir Guglani was there. He quoted someone and said “If you are very lucky, you will see success in business in 5 years. If you are moderately lucky, you will see success in 10 years. If you are extremely unlucky, you will see success in 15 years”. This has stuck with me. When I quit my job in 2011, my initial idea was to revive Living Room Canvas. Get Set Resumes was just started as a subdomain of Interview Elements to make some money, while Living Room Canvas would become a hit. In the next few months, Living Room Canvas hit many roadblocks and Get Set Resumes started getting me customers! I eventually closed LRC and focused on GSR. But this time when I really hit a low with Get Set Resumes (which happened a lot), I just hung on. The first year was very very tough. But I held on and it paid.
They say the more you work, luckier you get. It’s true. I would say any startup idea can work. It’s all about persistence.
Question: What made you start getsetresumes? What is the USP of your startup? Why should a job seeker choose you and not Naukri.com which also provides such service?
Rajat: Get Set Resumes was launched as a sister of our resource website Interview Elements. We wanted to provide free resume writing to students. Eventually, Interview Elements started dying and we figured nobody wants free stuff, so the website for GSR was born.
This is a service based start-up. Nothing innovative in this because the moment you do something new, others will copy. I will give you an example,
In 2011, we were the first company in India to offer Social Media Profile Development (LinkedIn) services. Nobody else was doing it. 6 months later Shine started. Few months ago TimesJobs did. Naukri is yet to. The person who was behind this service in TimesJobs took our services first and openly told me what his intention was. We did not disappoint him – treated him as a proper customer. Still, even today, neither Shine nor TimesJobs have figured Social Media profiling the way we have. And they do it at double our cost. But for the customer, we are as good as a TJ or a Shine or Naukri. They don’t know who started it, or who does it best.
So the only way we differentiate ourselves through the service that we provide & the commitments that we give. That gets us 1) lot of referrals, 2) good testimonials, 3) repeat business (which is very less in this industry). Of course we charge lesser than the other giants but sometimes it backfires as in any other industry. We are also the only firm in this business which offers a committed money back guarantee. Not happy with the first draft – get your money back. And how many refunds have we processed till date – zero.
Question: You are a Writer as well. What is your ultimate dream as a Writer?
Rajat: I used to write a lot. It just stopped when work with GSR (Get Set Resumes) picked up. My personal blog would always be full of nostalgia, life quotes, analysis of daily events and what not. It just stopped eventually.
I don’t consider myself a good writer at all. At times I suck in fact. But I am better at writing than at speaking, so my emails work a lot more than my telephonic conversations 😀 No ultimate dream as a writer. Earlier I thought I would write a small book, but then everybody is writing a book these days, so I’d rather not 🙂
One writer’s tip: Never shoot an email when angry. Never.
Question: Why India does not produce Microsofts and Facebooks and Googles? What makes Indians copy and paste ideas from Western world?
Rajat: Boss, this is the fault of our education. Everyone wants marks. People are just crazy here! Nobody teaches the practical aspect of things. Not in school, not even in engineering. The ones who are the go-getters they shun the society and pursue this knowledge, but it is never encouraged as a part of our education system. This blame is shared by the parents too.
Take assignments for example. In the west, copying can lead you to debarment. In India, copying is a way of life. That is how the roots are planted. What will the entrepreneurs do except copying? We are taught to go the easy way. Take the easy road.
Then, there is the constant fear of failure. Societal pressures are so high that you just cannot afford to fail twice – “What will the neighborhood aunty say?” “How/when will you get married?”!! So people go for the tried & tested ideas, because the chances of failure are comparatively very less!
Question: If there are no constraints of time and money, which startup idea will you work upon and make it big? (any crazy dream idea/concept which you are planning or ever thought)
Rajat: At the moment I have a few innovative ideas I would like to try with my present business only, especially if there is no constraint on time and money as I have no clue if these’ll work 🙂 But no other crazy / dream idea at the moment.
Question: How is your experience of being in The Rodinhoods community? What will you tell to a person, who is ‘considering’ of joining it?
Rajat: It is awesome. The best part is that in the normal world entrepreneurs like us are misfits. But at Rodinhoods, we are a part of the same gang – an entire bunch of crazy misfits who think just like you do!
Having said that, if you join Rodinhoods and don’t participate, then you’re wasting your time.
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Editor’s note: This is interview is part of our series of ‘Meet the Rodinhooders’ – where any Rodinhooder can interview another one! if you’d like to interview another Rodinhooder, or would like to be interviewed, simply send an email to asha@rodinhood.com
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