As part of our ongoing quest to get you meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur – Hardik Dave for an exclusive interview with BrilliantRead Media. He is a CA, Business Leader, Youtuber, Mentor, Business Consultant and Entrepreneur. He is the Founder and CEO of BLFT Advisors. Let’s read more about his incredible journey and his advice for our growing community through our exclusive interview!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Hardik:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur, please;
I am a Chartered Accountant by profession with specialisation in Startup Consulting and Tax & Foreign exchange laws. I was always passionate for entrepreneurship and to work closely with the startup entrepreneurs in co-creating their startup.
So, almost a year back, I decided to quit my job with one of the Big 4 Consulting firm – Ernst & Young (EY) and founded my own consulting firm – BLFT Advisors which is an Advisory firm providing consulting in the field of business, law, finance and tax.”
We often describe our firm as “The Startup for Startups” as we are a firm that aims to nurture entrepreneurship in India and help the entrepreneurs with all aspects of entrepreneurship, including the legal & professional services support.
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
Every entrepreneur has an inspiring journey of failures and success. In fact, I believe that journey as an entrepreneur would always be incomplete without these setbacks or failures.
However, the most amazing thing in my profession is the opportunity to work with the passionate entrepreneurs who have the ineffable zeal in their eyes to build something on their own and to succeed at any cost. Being surrounded by such people is a constant source of positivity and motivation for me.
Having said that, I do accept that everybody, including me, would definitely have some days when you do not feel up to your regular energy level and that is completely fine as a normal individual. Important is, how soon you overcome such downtime and get back to work.”
What attracts you towards entrepreneurship instead of a corporate career?
Flexibility in terms of the approach of how I work and contribute back to the society was the most important factor in my case which motivated me towards entrepreneurship.
The day I decided to quit my job to pursue the passion, I was very much sure that the Impact that I would be making through my work as a startup consultant would definitely be much more satisfying to me as compared to the work that I was doing back then.”
You are the CEO and Principle consultant of ‘BLFT Advisors’ which seems to be a unique name. What does that name mean?
Well! Thanks for the compliment!
The word – ‘BLFT’ is an acronym for Business, Law, Finance and Tax (Taking the first alphabet of all the 4 words) and that simply represents the service areas that we operate in. I.e. Business, Legal, Financial and Tax consulting services.
Tell us more about your firm and the problem that you are solving?
A large no. of startup founders comes from non-legal/ non-financial background (most of them are usually from tech or medical background) and therefore, do not have a good understanding of the legal & financial aspects of startups. Therefore, they need the support of a consultant who would not just do work for them but also make them understand the basic aspects that they should be knowing as a founder.
That is what we exactly do. We partner with the startup founders and help them built their startups from scratch. Affordability is the other aspects that needs to be taken care while working with such entrepreneurs and that is why we have kept our professional fees very concessional for first-time entrepreneurs who have not yet raised funds.
Talking more about the firm, BLFT Advisors presently has 8 partners with presence in 4 cities in India and serving clients all over India as well as the international clients. All the partners specialise in different service areas (such as startup consulting, financial services, legal services, international tax and transfer pricing as well as GST services. So, as a firm, we provide complete end to end consulting solution to our client.
However, our core focus area, for now, is startup consulting services where we help the startup clients to set up their business, obtain legal registrations, trademark registration, CFO services, assisting in fund raising as well as legal & tax compliance services. We partner with our startup founders in such a way that they can simply outsource their entire legal & financial functions to us so that they just need to take care of their core business operations.
You have been working very closely with entrepreneurs and founders; tell us what is the most common mistake that startups usually make that you might have observed?
There are two different categories of startup founders:
First – Who do not care about legal aspects of the business at all and such a thing could be dangerous. I have seen entrepreneurs who would have done detailed market research, developed the product and done all other planning to go into the market, without evaluating the legal framework for their business. Such things are horrible as it delays the launch of the products at a crucial time.
Also, I could say this with a great degree of confidence that majority of founders in India would not be having a cofounder agreement among their founding team and do not know that their startup could potentially enjoy 3 years of tax holiday after getting startup recognition.
Therefore, I would advise the entrepreneurs to do good research about the legal aspects of the business while writing the business plan for the startup. Good resources are now easily available online and you can always approach legal mentors for understanding such things.
Second category of entrepreneurs – Who get so much involved in everything on the legal side that they could hardly devote any time to the core operations. That is also not good for the startup. As a founder, it is important to have an overall understanding of all the matters, including legal matters. But after a point, you should let the best man do the job.
In your opinion what is more important: Idea or a good team for a successful startup?
Business ideas are abstract. It is the team that turns them into reality. Therefore, I believe that a good team consisting of good strategists as well as people good at execution can definitely make any startup successful.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
There would never be a right – completely risk-free time to start. You would need to give yourself a timeline by when you would be executing your career plans.
Before you decide to quit your job etc. and start your entrepreneurship journey, make sure that you have made sufficient provision for the financial needs for next Min 6-8 months – both your personal financial needs as well as the investment into the startup.
Once started, do not let the setbacks affect your morale. If you could decide to do it, you can do it. Just keep moving!
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
