At Brilliant Read Media, we always strive to bring meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our growing community. This week we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur Rajan Sharma for an interview with us. He is a Product Leader, Entrepreneur, Coach, Mentor and Consultant. Let’s read more about his incredible journey so far and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Rajan:
We are aware of your contributions to the startup ecosystem; talk us through your background, your journey and the struggles you faced in detail, please.
I am a digital product leader, consultant and coach with more than 14 years of experience in the Product Management Domain.
I have worked both in start-ups and fortune 500 companies in multiple domains – Health, Wealth, Industrials, Insurance, SaaS, Education, Online business directories, Real Estate, and IT Services sectors. I have worked in 4 start-ups to date, including one of my own start-ups in the Real Estate Domain.
My professional journey started as a software engineer after I got a campus placement with Infosys – an IT services company focused on delivering projects for clients. In Infosys, the work/culture was project-oriented than product-focused, and the scope of innovation was limited. Whenever I used to ask – Why are we developing a feature? I often got an answer – “The client has instructed us to do it this way”.
Although, I was getting Awards of excellence and multiple appreciation emails from clients, but still, I could not curb my aspiration to innovate products to solve the pain points of the users. I soon started missing the purpose – the “WHY”. I realized that I wanted to work with a product-focused company rather than a service-oriented company.”
With that realization, I resigned and moved from a huge organization of 80000 employees at that time to a much smaller product-focused organization – naukri.com (No. 1 Job portal in India) with just 72 employees.
In naukri.com, I loved the product-focused environment and innovation happening across different teams; but I still felt a void. I wanted to be more closely involved in the conceptualization of the products, but being an engineer, it was still limited. It was not expected for engineers to ask questions like what pain point, we are trying to solve? what impact will it have on the users? or what commercial benefits are we trying to achieve?
The challenge was to carve out a niche in my software engineering profile, but It was not possible as I was majorly instructed to develop software – to build products conceptualized by product managers.
The only solution was to transition into Product Management Domain.
It was a huge challenge as no one in the company had ever transitioned from software engineering to product management. Considering my product-focused initiatives and performance in a strenuous interview, the company gave me an opportunity to be the product manager for their education platform – shiksha.com.” That’s how I achieved the first milestone in my product management journey.
To expand my horizon further, I moved to Australia in 2010. I was excited to start a new journey and explore new opportunities.
But the excitement didn’t last long.
The responses in relation to securing a job were negative and demotivating from “You don’t have any local experience” to “No one gets a job here in their domain and be prepared to work in a departmental store.”
I took those responses as a challenge. I still remember, I only slept for 3 to 4 hours every day consistently working hard to land a job in product management domain. As a result, I got 3 jobs in 16 days and I joined Reed/Cirrus Media as a product manager.
In my tenure of 6 years with Reed/Cirrus Media, I got multiple promotions.
The most significant achievement was – just in 3 years, I was promoted to a Product Director.
In 2016, due to a major divestment in Cirrus Media, I had to wind down my team and finally, I was also made redundant.
I took my redundancy as an opportunity and my entrepreneurial instinct led me to build a startup in the real estate domain. Along with my own start-up, I joined another startup in Insurance Domain, as a Head of Product and helped them set up their platform.
Although the InsurTech start-up was getting active paying customers and had a lot of strategic partnerships in place, but due to lack of funds, after 2 years, the company decided to wind down and both product and technology team members were made redundant.
After that redundancy, in March 2019, I joined OneSaas as a Head of Product. From a stability perspective, it was well thought through the decision as OneSaas was a well-established company for 10 years.
But my challenges were still not over. Due to some unexpected commercial impacts, I was made redundant again in Nov 2019 along with few other team members. That highly unexpected 2nd redundancy in the same year really shook me up.
I promised myself that I will create so much abundance and avenues that it will remove the dependency on a job. I started exploring new avenues with a razor focus on my goal and doubling down on execution.”
As a part of exploring multiple businesses/avenues, I joined the 2020 cohort of Antler Australia – a global startup generator and early-stage VC.
Our idea to disrupt the immigration industry was in the top 8 tracked start-ups in the cohort and was selected in the pre-IC round to be pitched to the Investment Committee for seed funding. But due to Covid’s impact on immigration, we could not secure the funding.
After that, I did contracting/consulting for the Australian Doctor Group helping them pivot to a new business model.
Right now, in just 1.5 years, I am involved in multiple businesses/start-ups – a SaaS product in HealthTech, a SaaS product in EdTech, Real Estate, Product Management Consulting and Coaching, and a full-time job with an Insurance platform in the Product Domain.
The one which is closest to my heart is Coaching as it helps me impact lives!”
Please share with us a unique challenge you faced in your career?
A unique challenge that I faced very early on in my journey, even before I started my professional career was when I got stuck in an engineering college that had no future prospects.
I decided to start all over again! It meant taking the risk of spending another year preparing for a highly competitive entrance exam that had a very low success rate. It was a bold, uncommon and risky decision to prepare for a better engineering college while I was already in one. Everyone told me, “It’s not possible and it was not the correct decision”. There were constant criticism and sarcasm from my peers. I still didn’t lose my focus and continued trudging towards my goal.”
Finally, I decided to “burn all the boats”. I took the bold step of not writing a single exam in my existing college to not leave any option to stay.
That’s when it became even tougher as I was almost shunned by my peers as if I had committed a sin. I was told, “I was a failure, and I am wasting money. Next year, I will still be there in the same college as their junior”.
That criticism acted as a fuel that pushed me even harder every day towards my goal.
Finally, I got into a good engineering college that provided me with a head start in my career as I got a campus placement in Infosys.
That decision and struggle gave me the confidence to be what I am today.
How did you discover your passion?
After becoming a Product Director in 2013, I got a chance to mentor product managers, transitioning from various domains like engineering, marketing, and even journalism. A lot of professionals were transitioning into product management from unrelated domains with no prior product experience – AND They needed guidance!
While mentoring them and seeing them achieve success, I got a different level of fulfilment and I started mentoring product managers externally as well.
I soon discovered my passion for coaching professionals to transition into and build a successful career in the product management domain.
When I started coaching professionals, I didn’t know that it would become as big as it is today. I am currently coaching and have mentored professionals in multiple countries – Australia, Ireland, Dubai, UK California, India etc. The professionals come from diverse backgrounds including top B schools and fortune 500 companies.
To sum it up – Product Management is truly my passion and coaching is what helps me – take it to another level. The satisfaction and fulfilment to see my mentees succeed, achieve accelerated growth and become the best versions of themselves is beyond comparison.”
Coaching for me is my path to fulfilment since it’s about positively impacting lives. It’s about giving someone that helping hand when they need it the most. It is about impacting their entire career trajectory which is so important to them both commercially and from a job satisfaction perspective.
With so much going on, how do you start the day to keep your passion alive?
I start my day by meditating which increases my self-awareness throughout the day and helps me focus especially in midst of all the chaos due to multiple start-ups, I am involved in. Beginning the day in a calm, relaxed state while meditating fills me with peace of mind, clears my head and helps me rejuvenate.
I am truly driven by my sense of purpose which helps keep my passion for making a difference in the lives of others alive.
I am insanely passionate about the kind of work I do and I sincerely believe when your work is aligned with your purpose in life, you don’t have to push yourselves to work towards it. It is more like a self-perpetuating machine, that just keeps on chugging and moving towards that bigger goal of life.
If you are passionate about something, then it will be a “Pull” effect than a “Push” effect. To elaborate, you will be pulled/driven towards your goal, and day and night will not matter to you. You would not need to push yourself to get the work done.
Rajan Sharma | Founder and CEO – Nova Orbis, Australia
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
In my opinion, Execution is the Key! It’s one of the most important aspects of success.
A combination of my own experience and talking to hundreds of professionals, one thing which comes out to the surface, again and again, is – most of them are not able to achieve results because they are sitting on the fence contemplating the “what ifs”. They are only planning, planning for all the scenarios, aiming for perfection and not getting anywhere.
In my Trust Calls, one of the most jarring answers I get when I ask – “so for how long this desire to achieve success and the frustration of doing something lower than your capability is creeping up?” the answer I get is shocking! In a lot of cases, it is as long as 5 years, 7 years, and in some cases more than 10 years. It’s hard to believe but it’s a fact.
Planning is important but it’s often very easy to get caught in analysis paralysis so if you really want to do something? Execute! Another important key is to “Never Give Up.”
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of Enthusiasm. Finally, to sum up:
Whenever, in our path to achieve success, resistance comes in the form of Issues, Hurdles, Failures, or Discouragement. We often stop and start making excuses, the timing is not right or it’s too complicated or maybe I am not made for this. Whilst the key is to keep pushing, keep executing and keep taking that next small step.
So, however strong the resistance is, do not stop. Just try one more time. You will definitely achieve success!
I always say to all my mentees, everything in life happens for a reason, if I wouldn’t have faced challenges in my life like being stuck in that engineering college or redundancies or rejections, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve so much. Even if we ignore the achievements, I wouldn’t have had such amazing experiences and opportunities – not even close! So, whenever you face any failure or challenge, remember there is something bigger, something better in the making!!!
The best example I always give in my mindset coaching sessions is – In 2010, after giving 11 interviews with Yahoo(India), including the final round interview, I got a rejection email the next morning, I was taken aback and felt really sad but on the same day after 3 hours, I received a Permanent Residency Grant email for Australia.
If I would have been selected in Yahoo, the stakes and risk of leaving that opportunity and coming to Australia without a job would have been really high. Maybe I would have never come to Australia!
So, everything happens for a reason. There was something bigger, something better in making even though it was a rejection from Yahoo!!
We know that you are continuously engaged in helping others achieve their goals. Why do you do that?
I do that because – It’s my path to fulfilment! I get humbled with the feedback I receive, on how my experiences have inspired or helped people.
Sharing my experience on how I overcame challenges? what I went through? becomes someone else’s survival guide!!
This is the only reason I go all out and share my experiences, mentor, and coach professionals so that it can help someone somewhere going through a similar situation.
In almost all my coaching trust calls, professionals talk about the bigger challenges/issues they are facing than just the technical skills holding them back from achieving that accelerated growth.
When I ask about those challenges to identify the missing skills, the challenges quickly transition from technical skills to personal, emotional, environmental, and mindset issues like, a major setback they have received when they were let go of a project or a product they built- in which they put in their heart and soul! or that fire is extinguished due to repeated lack of acknowledgement for their hard work leading to lack of motivation.
It’s really humbling when they trust me and open up with the hope that I will understand and help them achieve their aspirations and dreams. It’s really fulfilling when I see them winning and taking those steps to achieve their aspirations.
Although, I was doubtful when I started this journey but now when I look back, I am filled with gratitude and thank the almighty that I took this path – The Path to fulfilment!!
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
I want to advise the students and young professionals to:
1 – Focus on acquiring knowledge and skills.
In this time and era, it’s easy to get distracted by short-term opportunities which can earn quick money – especially for students. There is a huge risk of losing their precious time. My advice would be to focus on gaining skills and acquiring knowledge that will stay with them forever.
2 – Create Value
To the young professionals, always focus on creating value for the business you are working for rather than being instructional. That is the only way to achieve an accelerated GROWTH.
3 – Follow your passion and don’t be afraid to take risks
You have the time and energy to take risks with no dependencies. It’s one of the best times in your life to take the risk to build something great!
4 – Humility
Be humble, it will take you far in life.
There is so much to be shared, but this conversation limits how much I can communicate on this platform. Students and young professionals regularly reach out to me on LinkedIn, Facebook and my trust call with their specific queries.
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.
