From Selling Marbles as a Kid to Outsourcing IT to UK; Ketan Raval's Journey with LetsNurture

Thursday October 11, 2012 , 4 min Read

“My entrepreneurial journey started in childhood. I had some good friends and we used to play marbles, photos & all other collectives (as everyone does) but as we were sharing our all stake with each other we had almost 10K plus collection of these things. At that time we thought lets start reselling it. So we started selling marbles and photos at very cheap rate. We used to go and sit at places where kids used to play this. And we had our own playing schedule. So we used to sell and then we used to gain back same thing from other people. Our stake never went down until my father burned everything at the start of my 10^th board exams,” says Ketan Raval, Founder, LetsNurture.

Entrepreneurs always have inspiring stories to tell. The sun was at it's peak when I met Ketan for an interview in Ahmedabad and being the die hard daredevils, we decided to sip on some piping hot tea before we settle into a conversation. Ketan's flair and passion for his work is infectious and I was drawn into the story. He went onto share his journey, “I worked for a couple of years, and then started up with the only computer I had. I rented one apartment with a bunch of friends. I still remember a week where I had not come out of my room, and wasn’t aware of the day people call Sunday.”

Today, Ketan runs a successful venture called LetsNurture in the hub of the city of Ahmedabad. LetsNurture is a digital marketing cum IT outsourcing firm, with additional services such as social media for branding, mobile applications, online store development & management, and 3D modeling & rendering. They have an office in the United Kingdom from where they provide services such as IT outsourcing, IT consulting, cloud consulting, & IT support services.

Ketan worked a lot towards attracting the best talent that the local market could offer and set up a great team. The team includes Kalpesh as their leading web developer, Viral, Jignesh, Jayesh & Yashpal who manage SEO, social media & content marketing. Pratik nurtures their Android team while Nihil is the head of their UK Operations.

Ketan goes on and shares his International experience, “It is still a learning curve. The important thing is that each and every country has different culture & need, so before approaching them you need to learn this thing. We are not into bulk marketing. We aim for few customers and convince them to stay with us for a longer time.”

The Ahmedabad heat becoming unbearable, we move towards his office. He goes on to talk about building a path for a sustainable source of revenue, “Knowledge is a great sustainable source of revenue, and one should always keep a tab on the latest developments in one’s domain. Also, on a factual note, we have a pool of customers that is with us over the past 3 years and we don’t see them moving anywhere else.”

At his office, we are joined by Ritesh Ambastha, Founder, IWillStudy. Ritesh joins our talk, and Ketan shares some of the achievements that they have achieved till date, “Our biggest achievement as an organization has been employing 5 people in the past year. The interesting part is, these people didn’t even know anything about the computer. Now they are expert in Web Design, SEO and operations.” This appears as an interesting case of CSR adopted by a startup. No wonder the recent changes introduced by the Companies Act 2011 won’t have much of an effect such organizations.

Ketan goes on to talk about the UK Operations, “We have registered our company in UK, and have opened a branch office as well. We have our own 30 People in the IT Development Center in Ahmedabad to support the operations there; all this, without taking a penny from bank or anywhere else. I believe we have achieved a satisfactory growth.”

Ketan shares some of the challenges that he, as an Ahmedabad entrepreneur, faces, “Building a proper eco-system is the most important thing. If we need to build a proper IT Industry in Ahmedabad, we need a sustainable human infrastructure as well. Still our community is not having confidence on people who are starting up. That is a shame.” Ritesh has already shared some of the challenges Ahmedabad entrepreneurs face.

On a concluding note Ketan shares with us a really good initiative that he has taken up: distributing stationery items among the under-privileged children. Any one interested in contributing to the same can contact him.

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