‘Croaking’ it up with Protik Roychowdhury- A Day in The Life of An Entrepreneur

This article is a part of our series of articles about “A Day in the Life of An Entrepreneur“

Entrepreneurship is getting cooler by the day and we couldn’t be happier. Colleges are becoming more encouraging and young entrepreneurs are coming up by the numbers. Protik Roychowdhury and Srinivasa Teja co-founded Croak.it, a product that allows a user to use his voice over the internet- All one needs to do is to click a button, speak and share the generated link (Read more on that).

Graduating from IIT Kharagpur in 2011, Protik joined a consultancy which he left within a year to join hands with Srinivasa Teja who had sown the seed for Croak.it. “I guess both of us had that start up bug, the desire to do something on our own, rather than be in a 9 to 5 job. Croak.it, in its present avatar, was founded in January 2012,” says Protik. Croak.it has also raised an angel round of funding which enabled them to on-board a third member on their core team, Kushagra Singh Parmar.

Males are usually not very adroit with cataloging pictures and hence we had to go back and forth while looking for a picture but we finally managed one, here’s how the team looks (yes, we’re making entrepreneurship cool)

Talking about working hours in entrepreneurship is almost meaningless, as someone rightly said, “Entrepreneurship is something you do 100 hours a week so that you don’t have to do a regular job for 50 hours a week.” Protik is not averse to this and says, “Well, it’s pretty much a 24 hour gig! Sundays are a bit freer compared to other days, but we are always working remotely.”

People at 23 shouldn’t be worrying about work life balance but we anyways ask the question, “I've heard a lot of people say that a start-up messes up your work life balance, but I believe that if you really love doing something, you'll find time for that as well. Of course it's not as frequent as earlier, but our team does find time to blow off steam, each in our own way. All three of us believe that it is absolutely important to have some ‘me time’, especially when in a start up,” says Protik.

Talking about the support from his family, Protik says, “Well, there was some trepidation at the outset but they were generally supportive with the caveat, ‘As long as you know what you are doing and are sure about it.’ I guess it's still a bit iffy in India for people to quit well paying jobs and head into the uncertainty of a start up. But the great thing is that there are so many start ups that are coming up now that I feel that the whole scene can change in the next decade.”

Social Media will be at the core for Croak.it because of the nature of their product. Multiple streams for revenue can be opened up down the road but for generating the user traction, social media would most likely be their ladder to success. Protik is not insanely active on social media, giving himself a modest 4 on 10. Talking business, he says, “We’re keeping the Croak.it handles very active and have been doing some ‘innovative’ stuff to keep it going.”

Favourite Book: “The Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy series is definitely up there with Lord of the Rings and anything by P.G. Wodehouse.”

Movie: “Andaaz Apna Apna, is an all time favorite, I think I've watched it over 15 times with friends. Yes, even above those foreign movies!”

Cuisine: “Sushi and Pasta (any) in white sauce, not together though!” :)

Time line

Before 9am – This time mostly goes in figuring out things that need to be done, both from a product point of view and other business/financial/legal aspects. “Basically structuring what needs to be done and what has been done,” says Protik.

After 9am- This is what one would call, ‘Random’. “Everything under the sun! Literally. From legal to financial, talking to people, potential team members, investors, clients, the whole day is a whirlwind of activity. And this is just the non product side. The product side is a whole different mountain of work to scale altogether! It's hectic and fun at the same time. Afternoon naps are something that got left behind at college unfortunately!”

After 8pm- This is the time when Protik gets down to answering mails, doing work that needs undivided attention, getting ideas down pat. “Later on in the night, we brainstorm; go through the product testing cycles ourselves and the results that we've got throughout the day and work on those results. This goes on till about 1-2 am, and then it's back to the same cycle the next day,” concludes Protik.

- edited by Jubin Mehta

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