1. Tell us more about your company and your
journey.
I had an
enriching journey of 11+ years in the corporate world, before starting my own
venture. I worked in diverse industries such as financial services, management
consulting, etc. across the globe including New York, Hong Kong, etc. I am a
Maths (Hons.) graduate from Delhi University (Hansraj College) and hold an MBA
degree from Hong Kong.
After
coming back to India in 2018, I decided to go on my own and started my career
advisory firm (Vikings Career Strategists) at the end of 2018. Our core
expertise lies in career guidance & study abroad consulting. We counsel
students and professionals through our 4-dimensional online + personalized
guidance model, to make the right career choices.
With our experienced mentors
and coaches, we offer guidance on MBA/MIM/MS and Bachelor programs across the
world. The process involves an end-to-end execution, right from college
selection to final admit.
The
entrepreneurship journey has been fulfilling so far as there has been a growth
in the business so far and we are expecting the same trend in the future as
well.
2. How did you come up with this idea and go about executing it?
I come
from a middle-class family, where choosing a career meant either engineering or
medicine in the early 2000s. At each step in my life, right from school until a
few years back, I felt the need for the right guidance. Your success or failure
depends a lot on the direction, apart from the hard work.
I believe hard work
in the right direction will improve your chances of success.
So, with
this thought and with my own failures and experiences, I started the business.
It is important to convert your ideas into a scalable business so that you can
reach millions of people. So, with this thought in mind, I have designed the
business model including the processes to execute the model successfully.
Firstly, I designed the services which we can offer and the revenue streams for
each service, based on our initial market assessment and research. Secondly, we
worked on the marketing plan to reach out to people and simultaneously built
our operating model including customer service.
In the last 2 years, we were in
the exploration phase and made several changes at different intervals based on
our experience related to the execution.
3. What has been your biggest challenge that you faced and how did you overcome that?
The biggest
challenge for us was marketing. Since we are a group of expert professionals,
so the quality of our services was always the best and this has been proved in
the last 2 years from the feedback that we received.
So, the challenge is to
reach out to people and give them our best offerings. Our sales conversion rate
is more than 90%, so marketing is our only challenge.
There are
2 major aspects of marketing – “visibility and value”, so we decided to work on
these areas.
To increase our visibility, we had decided to target several
social media platforms according to our services. The next step was to give
value to the customers. For that, we have curated quality content for each
platform, so that our customers should get the desired value if they connect
with us.
We believe the best marketing strategy is “CARE” and that is what we
do. So, whether we convert a customer (in terms of sales) or not, we still
aspire to provide them with the right guidance.
4. What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful entrepreneur?
Apart
from perseverance and conviction, the most important quality of a successful
entrepreneur is his/her ability to adapt and challenge the status quo. We live
in the most disruptive times and if you will not adapt quickly to the changes,
then somebody else will replace you.
5. What are some of the most important factors for running a successful business?
The most
important factor for me is customer satisfaction. You might think you have an
outstanding product or service, but if your customer is not on the same page,
then it would be difficult to sustain in the long run. All your business
functions are related to customer satisfaction.
So, that is why our focus is
always customer satisfaction and all our business functions such as marketing,
operations, etc. work accordingly, to provide the best support. All our team
members are aligned with this vision.
6. What are your tips for the first time and aspiring entrepreneurs?
The only
tip which I would like to give is “you can’t plan to be an entrepreneur”. There
are 100’s of problems in this world, but you need to see where you feel
connected, because then only you will give your heart and soul to your idea.
After that when you are convinced, then be ready to sacrifice a lot of things
depending on the age and stage of your life.
7. How can one overcome a hurdle of lack of funds when starting up?
Every
entrepreneur has a different mindset when it comes to funding. There are a lot
of start-ups doing well without funding as well. First, you will be sure about your intent and initial plan for a couple of years.
If you want to scale up
fast, then definitely funding would be required. For us, we first want to build
a strong brand, and then maybe in the future, we might want to go for funding.
So, for start-ups with a lack of funds, hiring is the most important element.
You need to hire less and work more, but all your team members should be
aligned with this vision. Additionally, you can offer them remuneration linked
to the company’s performance, so that all of them will be aligned to your
vision before coming onboard.
So, whether you are a founder or co-founder, you
must set the example and effectively communicate with the team on a regular
basis.
Interview by - Mahi
Social