Commit 400% to what you do
Stories of Role Models
I grew up in a village near Agra. I studied in the local government school up to 12th.
I was good at studies. Engineering seemed a natural choice. I got into NIT Warangal. That was one of the best things that happened to me.
When I was still in 1st year, a senior from the 65 batch - Sh. V A Sastry - visited the campus and addressed us.
He said, after you pass out, 2 queues will form. One will be job seekers, the other job creators. The 1st line will be a long one. If you are an intelligent person, which one would you chose?
His words impacted me. Especially so, as his own son, is one founder of Myntra.
In our place, the true measure of your academic worth is making it to the IAS. So, I was still in 2 minds about civil services preparation, while in college.
I came across Rashmi Bansal’s, ‘Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish’. It had 30 stories of founder entrepreneurs. People like me. It became my Bible.
Bangalore seemed like the startup capital of India to me. I landed up here.
I took up a job and continued to look for opportunities. I continued to read books and magazines on entrepreneurship.
Around that time, Ola and Uber had rewritten how people used cabs. I was very impressed by that.
There were several other untapped blue-collar sectors, waiting to be explored similarly. I thought, ‘Paint is branded, Painters are not!’ - So let me do something here.
When I started AapkaPainter - there were 2000+ startups competing for VC funds. Only about a 100 were funded. Raising funds was difficult.
Yet, I thought, there is a huge opportunity here. From the 1st day, ensuring that everyone wins, was a priority for me.
The consumer wanted predictability of prices, quality and timeline.
People worry about letting a stranger into the house. What if the painter has a police record? Dealings can be difficult. Many painters are immigrants or low on formal education.
I found this for myself when I converted the first 100 projects, going out and solving for the happy consumer. It also helped define what we would do for Operations.
The first problem was transparent measurements. Early on, we integrated LIDAR into our app based workflow to rapidly come up with estimates with no hidden surprises for later.
It did wonders for their trust. Today every customer gets daily updates on whatsapp for their project and they can escalate right there, on their smartphone.
Even though we are a blue collar outfit - our NPS score is 80 (PS: I reached to Anupam after I had a stellar personal experience with AapkaPainter. I knew I had to do a story on someone who is doing so much right here, with this - Brij)
Let me tell you about our secret sauce.
An average painter works for 5 days and is then idle for 2 days. He is lucky to land more than 15-18 days of work.
We formed dedicated and vetted teams of painters. We promised them, if your customer is satisfied, if the SOPs are met, we will assure you of 25-26 days of work in a month. You will earn 50% more.
Treating them well became our differentiator. We kept our word and the word of mouth spread.
When a good worker decides to bring in his brother to the job as well, we know we have earned his trust. Again the word of mouth spreads.
Most of our growth has been organic in the last 5 years. We have painted more than 20,000 houses in 11 cities. Our work family is 200+ and growing daily.
My own family also grew. I ended up marrying my co-founder. Not once but 4 times.
Initially our parents were unconvinced. We were an enterprising couple so we let our actions persuade them.
The first marriage was in a Karnataka temple. The 2nd one in court. The 3rd - Tamil style. The 4th - UP rituals.
I guess, I can now safely say, ‘I commit 400%, to what I do!’ :)
My advice to other friends who want to stand in the 2nd line - Queue up early.
Life is a struggle. The more you struggle, the better you will become. Don’t fear. Just take action.
One step at a time - be answerable to your today.