As part of our quest to get you meaningful stories and insights from the startup ecosystem, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur – Rajat Dasgupta for an exclusive interview with BrilliantRead Media. He is the Founder of SEMDart and Co-founder of TrendiByte. He is also incubating KhelGuru.in a gamified version of eCommerce start up in India. Rajat has successfully built many startups in his entrepreneurial journey. Let’s learn more about it!
Excerpts from our exclusive conversation with him:
Talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur, please;
My journey began in this world on 30th April 1971 in a small city named Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, which also known as “SANSKARDHANI”. My entire childhood was in Jabalpur, wherein I completed my schooling from Model High School.
Just after school I was lucky to be chosen as an apprentice at TATA Motors. In my stint of three years at TATA Motors I learnt a lot about professional life and how to conduct oneself in a corporate world.
After my TATA Motors training I completed my Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical stream from Nagpur University. After my graduation I got my first professional break as a Marketing Manager at HMP Engineers Ltd., which was previously known as Rallis India Ltd.
While I was still working I got selected for a six months course in IBM ADC which helped me in honing my skills in various computer languages. After the course with IBM I got the opportunity in ACC Cement as an Astt. Manager which incidentally was a part of the TATA Group of companies. ACC Cement taught me People skills and handle challenges related to manpower management. Being an ISO certified company, Audits was part of my job profile, the experience of which came handy to me in the latter part of my career.
In 2002 I decided to start something of my own and I founded my own company AA Vortex Technologies. While still setting up my own company I also became a part of a startup as a co-founder which went by the name of RSR Software Services Pvt. Ltd. In RSR I worked as a Director for Revenue producing applications. My main responsibility as a Director was to do requirement assessment of internal and external customers, application design, development, quality assurance, user support and product infrastructure needs and additionally doing Business Development which including acquiring new clients for the company.
In 2005 I got my first International exposure with a US Based firm MarketRaise Corp, which was head quartered in New York. My primary responsibility was to lead the entire Development activity for MarketRaise Corp. Working with a US Based company gave me an international experience which added both to my experience and my resume. It made me aware of the global market and how it operates.
After the success at MarketRaise Corp. and building US Client relationship, I decided to have my own development arm and registered a company MarketRaise India Pvt. Ltd in 2006, wherein I was the Managing Director. Being an MD gave me the experience of building a Pvt. ltd company.
Since then it has been quite a journey and today MarketRaise India Pvt. Ltd. has two offices, one in Nagpur and Indore and many more to come.
In 2018, I also took the responsibility as a mentor for RSR Ventures Pvt. Ltd. with a vision of starting various brands under one venture company. The brands which were started TrendiByte An IT Brand, Bookyourtour A Travel Brand, DailyDelight A Blogging Brand and SEMDart An AI based SEO Tool.
Currently also incubating KhelGuru.in a gamified version of eCommerce start up in India and specialized in process development and implementation, digital marketing strategy, administration of strategy execution, traffic generation through SMO
Why entrepreneurship over a corporate career?
My core experience lies in digital marketing mainly with US clients, we came across various tools which we need to use to analyze the data to set up the strategy, but even after buying various tools for almost $500, we still were not able to analyze the right data, as the tools were giving inaccurate results or they were interpreted wrongly.
Being into digital marketing for more than 10 years, I came to a decision, of making a low budget tool which can make sense to the users who use it and get proper data representation. This was the founding stone to design and develop SEMDart.com which is an AI based tool and launched recently after a development period of 6+ months.
While developing the tool, I got associated with another start up called KhelGuru in 2018. In KhelGuru we are providing one gaming platformto make a gaming community, where they can get various deals at discounted prices. With a vision to Make a gamified e-commerce which can allow gamers & shoppers to have a better lifestyle, the target market of which is huge in India.
How is your product different from traditional products? Tell us more about your product and your startup’s journey this far?
The core experience as digital marketing with US, we realized that there are many tools which we need to use to analyze the data to set up the strategy, but after buying various tools for almost $500 still we were not able to analyze the right data as the tools we’re giving inaccurate results or they were interpreted wrongly.
Being into digital marketing for more than 10 years, came to a decision, of making a low budget tool which can make sense to the users who use it and get proper data representation. This was a founding stone to design and develop SEMDart.com which is an AI-based tool and launched recently after a development period of 6+ months.
During this tenure got associated with another start up called KhelGuru in 2018. In KhelGuru we are providing one gaming platform to make a gaming community, where they can get various deals at discounted prices. With a vision to Make gamified e-commerce which can allow gamers & shoppers to have a better lifestyle and that can give us a larger target market.
The major challenge that we faced, was convincing people with new ideas and thinking out of box, as they thought that I was way ahead of time and it needed too much of convincing. Recruiting right people is another challenge which we face, I think it is getting tougher by the day, young people want success in short period of time without putting efforts.
As per my experience I think success comes with hard and smart work and you need to put time and dedication to achieve it.
What is your Business Mantra: Money or Emotions?
Definitely emotion but in business money plays an equally important role. You need to create the right balance to get things rolling. We need both discipline and ethics to reach our goals, both are equally important for success.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
Patience is the key. You need to keep your head down and keep workingtowards your goal and with self motivation and positive outlook plays a very important to handle both pressure and stress.
If we see the current situation, nobody expected a lockdown for almost 2 months but we are facing it and we need to face that with patience. There must be a positive approach to bounce back as and when the time comes and utilize that time to its fullest.
What has worked well for you so far?
Till now the journey has been good. It has been a learning experience on a daily basis. KhelGuru’s traffic generation has worked really well. Keeping right ethics and honesty has helped me so far in my career. We need to enjoy the journey and keep the learning curve open.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Factors for Key to success
- Honesty
- Never say die approach
- Self Motivation
- Craving for success
- Keeping things simple
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
It looks easy but it’s tough to walk on a road of entrepreneurship. You need to set your own targets and self motivate yourself to achieve those targets. If you feel that it is easy to start a company and things will fall in place and you can be a boss, then it doesn’t work like that. It needs lot of courage, hardship and team building to get things done your way.
Keep things simple and be honest and if you like challenges and roller coaster rides then you should opt for it, else it is not your cup of tea.
Given the rapid pace at which the world is changing, what are the leadership traits that are necessary for success?
- Thinking out of the box
- Hurdles will always come but you need to work out a solution
- Delegate power and responsibilities
- Create people around you with positive vibes and nurture them with entrepreneur skills
What are the business mantras you have embraced as you sought to establish your success story?
- Be innovative
- Be flexible
- Be adaptable
- Keep it SIMPLE
- Deliver quality
Follow Rajat Dasgupta at:
Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajat-dasgupta/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/RajatDasgupta71
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/rajat.dasgupta.50
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/dasgupta.rajat/
Follow his Brands
TrendiByte- https://www.trendibyte.com/
SEMDart – https://semdart.com/
KhelGuru – https://khelguru.in/
Bookyourtour – https://bookyourtour.co.in/
DailyDelight – https://www.dailydelight.in/
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