In our latest interview, we spoke to yet another passionate entrepreneur Pranjay Yadav to understand more about his interesting journey as an entrepreneur so far. He is the Founder of PEPSPOT which is a hospitality startup brand under DFlash Tech Pvt. Ltd. It is a tech enabled platform that lets you book a space for house parties and other events, along with all the prerequisites for parties like food, drinks, music & much more. Let’s find out more about his exciting journey and the way forward!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with him:
Talk us through your background, your journey an entrepreneur and how did you get the idea to start something like this;
I started my career as a process developer at Genpact, India. After a few years of novelty, monotony struck me and I quit the job in 2017. Like any other Indian engineer, I also thought that an MBA degree would be the next step towards climbing the career ladder, So I prepared for GMAT and got admitted to 15 months MBA program at Porto Business School, Portugal. There I got a chance to represent my school in John Molson MBA Case Competition, 2018. This case competition was an event that sparked my inclination towards entrepreneurship. I came back to India in November 2018 and started applying for jobs in various domains. Meanwhile, I was enjoying my time here as I was back, started partying again after an intense MBA program.
One of my friends invited me to his birthday party and he booked a few rooms in a hotel where we planned to party and stayover after that. That was the day when the inception of the idea about PEPSPOT happened.”
I thought this is something that people like us need, a platform where people can book party venues and all the other things to throw an awesome party. I pitched this idea to my friend Deepesh who is now a co-founder at PEPSPOT.
How has your startup journey been so far and what challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey?
Its been almost one year since we started, the main challenge that we faced was market validation. As there are not a lot of companies that are doing what we do, it was initially challenging for us to convince the property owners/managers to sign up on our platform. But gradually, people started accepting the product and signing up on the platform, and everything started working like clockwork. I am sure with the other obstacle all the early-stage startup founders can relate, that was financial constraints. Being a bootstrapped business, it was very challenging to allocate our financial resources because everything seemed very important.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
The longing for doing better today than I did yesterday keeps me moving and motivated. There are days when I have the blues and feel very down but the growth mindset keeps the fire ignited.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
I try to maintain the work-life balance, to manage pressure and stress everyone should take some time and do something that they love or something relaxes. For me it is working out, I like working out (cycling, running, weight training); it relaxes me and works like meditative sessions for me.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
We can’t be successful overnight because success is not a destination, it’s a journey. It’s an ongoing process, your definition of being successful changes every time your mind expands during the journey.
The key to having a successful journey is – Stay Curious and Never Settle.”
What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person/startup?
I always focus on the value-added approach rather than the tasks-completed approach. Every relationship, except the platonic ones, be it your business relationships or personal ones only thrives if some value is added from both of the sides.
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