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This Entrepreneurial Story is about Annkur Agarwal & Tirthesh Ganatra who Founded ‘Pricebaba’ located in Mumbai.
About –
Annkur Agarwal, C2C & Co-founder – Retailer since 2002, Founder OnlyGizmos, Leads Startup Saturday at HeadStart Network Foundation
Tirthesh Ganatra, Co-founder – Computer Engineer. Startup Weekend Mumbai Winner, Advices startups like SwitchMe and Project Heena on technology.
When Started: May 2012.
(Below answers by Annkur Agarwal )
What motivated you to start your Business?
My friends. They asked me for so much advice on buying mobile phones, I made a product to help them.
Tell us about your Business
Pricebaba is a location based search engine, helping the real world shoppers to search prices in their vicinity.
What is a Day in a life of you like?
Given we usually work late, the day usually starts a bit late in the morning. If I can resist opening the laptop at home, I would reach office within an hour of waking up. Else the journey would start after the traffic has settled a bit and pending emails are looked after.
I prefer having lunch with the team that allows for discussions that would otherwise not occur during a busy day. Most meetings and calls are scheduled post 4 PM, so that the most urgent and operational part of the day goes smooth. I would usually walk across to everyone at office and check if there is something stopping them, my primary job is to be a catalyst for them.
Brainstorming sessions / Marketing or Product reviews are generally scheduled for late evenings. I prefer meeting up with friends post dinner, usually that’s the most peaceful time of the day.
One particular skill you got right and gave you best results.
To identify good people. While I believe that people are generally good, it is difficult to find the right cultural match when hiring people. I think we do that well at PriceBaba.
What have been your biggest challenges in running your Business so far?
Growing myself. To convince myself that there are people who can do a particular task better than me and I should trust them with it. Stopping to micro manage things took a while.
How did you overcome these challenges?
By hiring people who I really believe are better than me 🙂
What have you found the most effective way to get new clients?
Identify their pain points and address them. Not trying to fit our solutions to their problems.
What advice do you give to other business owners?
Prepare for a success. If your mind is busy preparing for failure, you won’t succeed. So while you are at it, please keep the fear of failure at bay, it is real and in all probability you will fail. But the only way to succeed is to not have failure as an option. It is difficult and I know exactly what you feel. Please feel free to reach me anytime, I would make time for you.
How did you keep motivated through difficult times?
I speak to my mentors and life coaches. I have been blessed with some great friends and angel investors.
What are your Marketing, Funding and Team Building Strategy?
Marketing for us means intense consumer focus. We keep making dozen of changes that go unnoticed to most people, but it eases small consumer problems. I think the best we can do is build a product that sells itself.
When team building we look for the following:
– A strong cultural match. Do they laugh at our jokes?
– Hard working.
– Ability to learn and communication skills
Funding is pretty much the same. We have refused investment several times, we only accept money from people we believe in. Even if that means a lot of hardships.
Your Achievements?
Nothing bigger than my team. Each one of them has a challenging life, I am so proud to have such tough ones with me.
What’s your favorite quote?
If what you are = what you have & what you have is lost. Then who are you?
Who inspires you?
Dhirubhai Ambani. There is so much respect for someone who made everything out of nothing. The thing I learn from him is simple ‘You are responsible for what you have and what you don’t have’.
Do you have a Business Philosophy?
Yes. In one world my life philosophy is Integrity. Do what you say and say what you do. There is nothing else that I value more in people around me and I work very hard to keep my own integrity intact.
Contact links
More Info
https://www.startupfreak.com/pricebaba/
Startup Freak wishes Annkur &Tirthesh, All the Best!
