New Year, New Goals: Reflections of the season by founders
As the curtains fall on 2018, most people pause to think about the year that has gone by and reflect on lessons learnt, ideas that blossomed and regrets of things left undone. It is also a time to make New Year resolutions and hope they will keep them this time. Here’s what some of our famous founders have planned for 2019...
SUJAYATH ALI, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, VOONIK
Sujayath Ali
What is your New Year resolution for 2019?
My New Year resolution is to increase my mental stamina to a level where I can keep moving towards my goals without stress and never ever even think of quitting in between. To achieve this, I will be focusing on daily exercises for both mental fitness (through Yoga) and Physical fitness. As for our company, Voonik, the New Year goal is to move out of performance marketing. I think it’s a drug and quality growth can happen only when you come out of it.
What is one life lesson you learned this year?
One key lesson I learned this year is the importance of my happiness. How I feel -- impacts the entire organisation. So it is super important for me to be bright, smiling, happy and enthusiastic. Radiating happiness generates good vibes and gets the entire team upbeat. I changed my working style to not let bad news consume me, to be mentally fit and to celebrate small victories.
SAURABH GARG, CBO & CO-FOUNDER, NOBROKER.COM
Saurabh Garg
What are your New Year resolutions for 2019?
The end of the year is always an interesting time and we keep it to reminisce and consolidate everything that went well and things that we could have done better. We have had a very encouraging customer response in 2018 with 15,000 monthly transactions. We hope to take this number to 50,000 monthly transactions in 2019. We will be expanding to new cities in 2019. Scaling up commercial real estate is also going to be an important objective for 2019.
What is one life lesson you learned this year?
For any business, the most important lesson is that you should see things from eyes of the customer and become more and more relevant to the customer each passing day. I love the way someone once said… “Customers buy for their reasons and not yours”.
When you channel your energy into finding solutions that span the entire lifecycle of the customer, it not only it boosts transactions but your targets and the next steps become that much easier. After launching NoBroker and removing information asymmetry, we helped with the house-hunting needs. Post that, we were guided by what the customer needs next. So we launched services such as packers and movers, house-cleaning, rental and sale agreements, Home Loans and everything that falls under home shifting and settling umbrella. Understanding the customers’ problems was one part of it and we now focus on not just that but on anticipating customer needs as well. It has worked wonders for us.
NIKHIL RANJAN - FOUNDER, WILLIAM PENN
Nikhil Ranjan
What is your New Year resolution for 2019?
My New Year resolution is to start writing a Gratitude journal and spending five minutes a day writing everything that I am grateful for.
What is one life lesson you learned this year?
The end of the year is a time for contemplation of the year gone by. It is also a time to review the status of all the resolutions made at the start of the year and of course, celebration with family and friends. My biggest lesson this year is that life is like a lemon and spoon race, you can’t come first after having dropped the lemon on the way. And here the lemon is the family. Specifically the spouse. It’s absolutely vital to have the spouse on board in what you want to achieve. It’s important that what you want to accomplish means as much to him or her. In my case, the wife.
SARTHAK CHHABRA, CO-FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, ALTF COWORKING
Sarthak Chhabra
What are your New Year resolutions for 2019?
My New Year Resolution is to get AltF on the right launch pad. The business is ready to be replicated across geographies and we are looking to double our business and grow it by 100% by the end of 2019. I don't know if it’s aggressive. But that’s the difference between the year that’s going to come and the year that has gone by.
What is one life lesson you learned this year?
The lesson I have learnt is to stop and analyse what happened over the year, decide what to do next and move ahead. Sometimes, you are watching things so closely, that you tend to ignore what could have been done better and faster. Your vision gets limited when you are in middle of everything and making things work out, but what is more important is to get back, look at the holistic scenario and then dive back into the business and implement what is needed for a holistic vision.
Building a business is like building a machine. Although you need to closely look at each part working correctly, but the machine would only work if all parts are simultaneously working together just perfectly. For that, you look at the bigger picture and take actions.
PRASUK JAIN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CHILIAD PROCONS
Prasuk Jain
What are your New Year resolutions for 2019?
I want to design and deliver the most amazing, entertaining and branded parks in India where every Indian can experience the highest quality of standards, safety, and hospitality. My primary objective is to deliver the safest places in India for kids as well as adults. I want to be a proud owner of properties where kids can feel at home.
What is one life lesson you learnt this year?
There are many lessons life teaches us and especially when you start too young. This has been the case with me throughout my entrepreneurial journey. Over the last few years business has been difficult but we all are coping. I hope that our country emerges as a strong economy and that people like us can contribute to making the economy stronger.
LINA ASHAR, FOUNDER OF KANGAROO KIDS EDUCATION LTD
Lina Ashar
What are your New Year resolutions for 2019?
I don't really have any New Year resolutions. I do know that while I have spent a lot of time pushing to progress my cognitive, creative, social, spiritual and emotional muscles, I have not given my physical muscles enough time and energy. I will divert some energy to that part of my development. I also want a year of 'rest' this year - emotional, physical and mental rest. I am looking forward to a year of some downtime and healing. I also want to spend some time traveling and being with friends and family.
What is one life lesson you learnt this year?
This is not a 'new' life lesson. It is one that keeps getting stronger as it keeps articulating itself stronger every year via reading, training and life experiences. 'Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change'. It is about perspective and how by shifting one's perspective (thought - internal story - internal narrative) the emotion shifts and therefore the outcome shifts as well. It is about changing the way you look at things so the things you look at change. The difference between a stumbling block and a stepping stone is in your perception of it and a shift in the story can enable, power and serve us over a story that can disable and disempower us. In the words of Tony Robbins, 'The meaning you assign to any event, interaction or outcome defines the emotional tone of your experience and the feelings you generate throughout your life. The meaning you give your experiences will always change how you feel - and the emotion you feel always becomes the quality of your life. So basically if you change the meaning and the story, you change the emotion and how you experience it.
KETAN KAPOOR, CEO & CO-FOUNDER OF METTL
Ketan Kapoor
What are your New Year resolutions for 2019?
Last year, seeing Mettl find the best possible home for its next leg of the journey was very satisfying.
We have worked hard and fast to reach this stature in the market - and now with fresher and swifter legs with a larger grip in an international market, we hope to gallop faster and see our hard work come to fruition. I want to try my best to be healthy and happy and spend more time with the family.
What is one life lesson you learnt this year?
“Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs”
ARVIND KADAM - CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, ZAASNA
Arvind Kadam
What are your New Year resolutions?
Instead of making resolutions we believe in setting long term goals and then defining clear paths to reach those goals. Our goal for 2019 is to establish Zaasna as the most preferred place to buy a home amongst first time home buyer.
What is the one life lesson that you learnt this year?
The biggest lesson for me was learning the importance of persistence, planning and people. Building a startup is lot of hard work. There are many roadblocks and low moments, but the key is to keep your focus and persistently pursue what you have set out to do. I also feel planning is very important as you need to defining clearly ‘what’ you want to do and then ‘how’ you will go about it, you can achieve the most audacious goals.
Lastly, but most importantly, to build any company you need to put hire the right set of people and then motivate them to achieve the goals you have set for the company.
