I think perseverance to whatever is being done is one of the critical qualities that is missing and that’s done with various things happening around us - our upbringing, opportunities around us, distractions around us. As long as one can focus on what one is supposed to do and strive for it as long as possible, the chances are results will be favorable.
Tell us about your background, journey, and upbringing.
I come from a middle-class family with no past experience in entrepreneurship and hence the entire childhood the focus was towards ensuring a reasonable education and a good job. After working with Infosys for a few years, I did my management education from Great Lakes, Chennai, and joined CSC in the UK as part of their financial services sales team.
While I spent 3 years there, my heart was in entrepreneurship and hence came back to start Jade Magnet with another Great Lakes classmate. Jade Magnet was a digital crowdsourcing platform with a focus on delivering marketing requirements for SMEs across the world. We did well scaling it up in India, Middle East, the US, UK, and Singapore with over 15000+ creative crowdsourced consultants on the platform delivering over 500 projects every day.
It was selected as one of the top 10 hottest startups by Business World in 2010, TiE EAP startup, and NASSCOM Emerge as well. While I came out of Jade Magnet in 2014, the platform is now a case study in Harvard Business Review.
When and how did you get clarity on what you wanted to do?
By 2014 having worked with real estate clients on their marketing needs, I had started evaluating the various options in prop-tech space, and sales & marketing distribution platform was something that seemed interesting. That’s how Pin Click started.
The real estate market was always one of the largest industries in India and hence macros were always in favor of doing anything in real estate, however, the maturity of the industry was questionable.
When and how did you get clarity on what you wanted to do?
By 2014 having worked with real estate clients on their marketing needs, I had started evaluating the various options in prop-tech space, and sales & marketing distribution platform was something that seemed interesting. That’s how Pin Click started.
The real estate market was always one of the largest industries in India and hence macros were always in favor of doing anything in real estate, however, the maturity of the industry was questionable.
With the advent of Institutional Players from outside India like JLL, Cushman, etc, and the growth of startups in India trying to solve different issues in the real estate market, the vertical has grown significantly since we started in 2014.
Government support through policies, frameworks, and initiatives like RERA has further helped to make it a more attractive option.
Government support through policies, frameworks, and initiatives like RERA has further helped to make it a more attractive option.
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What does your typical workday look like?
Pin Click is a sales and distribution platform and hence people become critical. A large portion of the day goes into interacting with different people, stakeholders, teams in the current set up right from meeting the sales and branch heads to reviews around marketing, hiring, and finance.
Also because the quality of people defines the end outcome, a lot of time is spent on hiring the right talent and helping them settle in. Unlike large companies where hiring & retention becomes easier through the infrastructure, brand, and processes that come with it, at our scale a lot of that is driven by interacting and building relationships with colleagues.
I also believe in driving sales like a process flow and hence some time of the day goes in ensuring the key metrics across different functions are tracked on daily basis and any alerts are handled, discussed, solved at the earliest.
Several global companies have come out and thrown their support behind not needing a formal education. What is your opinion about this?
To me, formal education helps build a perspective for an individual more than the direct usage of the subject and hence I feel it's critical to have education but not critical to have specific subject-based understanding. For example, we hire MBA graduates who don't have any real estate experience and we take them through our training program to learn the need of the role.
I also believe that education allows us to build an analytical mind, which is learning, unlearning, and solving problems. It is this analytical mind which I believe is critical to help grow as an individual or an organization through one’s ability to find a solution.
To me, formal education helps build a perspective for an individual more than the direct usage of the subject and hence I feel it's critical to have education but not critical to have specific subject-based understanding. For example, we hire MBA graduates who don't have any real estate experience and we take them through our training program to learn the need of the role.
I also believe that education allows us to build an analytical mind, which is learning, unlearning, and solving problems. It is this analytical mind which I believe is critical to help grow as an individual or an organization through one’s ability to find a solution.
Now all of this can be acquired through formal or informal learning and the process isn't important, the end goal is.
As John Dewey says - Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
How do you handle someone who has lied on their resume?
I generally interview around 3-4 candidates every day across different roles, experience and because you are selected a candidate based on a 30-60 mins interview, trust in whatever is being represented becomes very critical.
As John Dewey says - Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
How do you handle someone who has lied on their resume?
I generally interview around 3-4 candidates every day across different roles, experience and because you are selected a candidate based on a 30-60 mins interview, trust in whatever is being represented becomes very critical.
If one is lying on his resume, background at the time of the interview itself, I don't find myself trusting that individual to be able to represent himself or selves in Pin Click in the correct manner and hence would leave it at that stage itself.
What are some of your typical challenges and how have they evolved over time?
As an entrepreneur, you find different challenges at different times and stages. When you are just starting up - finding an office, hiring a team, finding clients, and investments are challenges. The same largely continues when you scale only the magnitude changes.
Besides the more strategic ones, there are transactional challenges also through the journey. For example - Marketing the right product, building a cost-effective engine, controlling the cost, and at the same time scaling.
And then there are more challenges like the introduction of new policies which can impact the business or things like pandemics (Covid).
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs or those eyeing the top job?
The last man standing generally comes out as a winner.
I think perseverance to whatever is being done is one of the critical qualities that is missing and that’s done with various things happening around us - our upbringing, opportunities around us, distractions around us. As long as one can focus on what one is supposed to do and strive for it as long as possible, the chances are results will be favorable.
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up - Thomas Edison.
The last man standing generally comes out as a winner.
I think perseverance to whatever is being done is one of the critical qualities that is missing and that’s done with various things happening around us - our upbringing, opportunities around us, distractions around us. As long as one can focus on what one is supposed to do and strive for it as long as possible, the chances are results will be favorable.
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up - Thomas Edison.
Which is your favorite book and why?
I don't have a favorite book but I have been reading quite a bit and generally find myself glued to autobiographies more than any other genre. I recently read about Azim Premji and am thoroughly impressed by his ability to build a large business and then go all out with his philanthropic efforts.
I don't have a favorite book but I have been reading quite a bit and generally find myself glued to autobiographies more than any other genre. I recently read about Azim Premji and am thoroughly impressed by his ability to build a large business and then go all out with his philanthropic efforts.
I have read Unstoppable by Sonu Bhasin - The book is a peek into the life of Kuldeep Singh Dhingra of Berger Paints and the journey has no much to learn. I like the book on Alibaba, Elon Musk and so many others.
All of them have few things in common:
All of them have few things in common:
- None of them got lucky without the hard work, dedication, and perseverance
- Everyone had challenges through their journeys - personal and professional but they all kept their nerves and fought them rather thane folding under the pressure.
- Each one of them had a different persona, style, and business they created and hence allows one to learn some measures to course correct
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