Mr. Rahul Narvekar. - He was born in a middle-class family in the Chawl of Mumbai. - He gradually grew in life and today he has become a self-made entrepreneur. - He started his entrepreneurial career with Channel Oxygen. - He follows a trend in his life that whenever he identifies gaps, make a team, provide a solution, raise funds, and then scale-up the business. - He became the co-founder of Fashion and You, an e-commerce company, after Channel Oxygen. - He became the CEO of NDTV Ethnic, an e-commerce venture. They planned to invest Rs. 18 crores, make big teams, and grow at national as well as international level. However, the plan failed when they received only Rs. 84 lakhs to start the venture. But, Mr. Rahul Narvekar didn’t give up and after 3 years, he took an exit at Rs. 560 crores. - He started a venture capital fund, wherein he collaborates with various investors of India, Japan, and other countries. Many entrepreneurs give their business plan to him. - He started the India Network and reaching to the small towns of India and give them business tips which he has received from his experience and studying at Harvard. ### **Learnings** Mr. Rahul Narvekar shares some strategies or tools that you can use at different stages, like the idea stage, MVP, growth stage, and mature stage of a company to make it successful and grow it further. # **#1 Things to be Considered at the Idea Stage** Most of the entrepreneurs think that they have a unique idea and they feel that it is the next unicorn, next Paytm, next OYO, etc. However: **Idea Itself is Worth Zero** **The Execution of Idea is the Key** **For example:** - Mr. Rahul Narvekar shares an experience that a school drop-out comes to him with a business plan, he started the business but get failed. He again started a business and failed again. - After that, he got selected for the Peter Thiel Scholarship and he was the first Asian who received this scholarship. Peter Thiel is a billionaire of Silicon Valley who gives 100,000 dollars, i.e. Rs. 70 lakhs to students for dropping out of school to become an entrepreneur because he believes that the formal education system spoils a child. - When he came back after completing his scholarship, he found his luggage on the street as his landlord has thrown it because the rent was not paid. - He took his luggage and went on the travel of entire India. During his travel, he stayed in low budget hotels and Dharamshala, and from there he got an idea for his next entrepreneurial venture, named OYO and the name of this student is Mr. Ritesh Agarwal. - OYO is an aggregator that has standardized all the low-cost budget properties. - The venture of OYO was successful because Ritesh Agarwal has not only to have the idea but he has also done his homework. - Whenever he went to pitch his idea, he has clear data and numbers with him. For example, he knows the problems faced by a budget property, the number of staff they have, their kitchen issues, etc. His idea was so crisp that he explained his idea in 3 sentences. - When he has given the presentation to his first investor, he told them that he will not show them a presentation but he wanted to take them out to understand the problems. He took them to an area having budgetary hotels, tell them the problem they were facing and tell them how his idea will solve their problems. On this pitch, he got his first round of funding. Thus, at the idea stage, you need to take care of the following things: - Your idea should be crisp and provided in 2-3 lines only. - You should do your homework; i.e. get knowledge and data about the industry you want to enter. # **#2 Points to be Considered at the MVP stage** MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. When you take an idea to the product stage, your family and friends buy it to encourage you. If the idea is validated as it is bought by 10 people whether they are your family and friends, then you think it is a successful idea. But, this is not so. In Minimum Viable Product (MVP), a minimum threshold of buying should be done repeatedly. **For example:** In e-commerce, it is believed that till the same customer does a transaction on your site at least 3 times, he is not your customer. If only your family and friends are buying your product, then it is not MVP. If people who don’t know you buy your product, then it is MVP. # **#3 Things to be Considered at the Growth Stage** After MVP, your business should scale-up. For example: In 2014-15, there were two brands, OYO rooms, and ZO rooms. OYO rooms were started by a school drop-out, Ritesh Agarwal. They had funding of 5 million dollars funding from Light speed, which was not a very popular fund at that time. ZO rooms were started by 5 co-founders from IIT. They had funding of 5 million dollars funding from Tiger, which was the biggest fund in the world at that time. This meant that you will become a unicorn definitely. So, at that time, among OYO rooms and ZO rooms, ZO rooms had more chances to be successful. However, today, as we all know that OYO rooms are more successful than ZO rooms because: - Both of the companies have a business model in which they visit the hotels and take some of the hotel rooms and market their brand by placing their board on the hotel. - Initially, both of the companies wanted to show their spread, so, they took some hotel rooms in different parts of India like 2 hotels in Indore, 2 hotels in Vizag, etc. - However, OYO rooms only marketed with the hotels in Mahipalpur, which is an area near the airport of Delhi. OYO rooms took 2 rooms in each hotel of Mahipalpur for 1 year at an advance payment and they placed the OYO board on each hotel. - As a result, while coming out of the Delhi airport, people see the board of OYO everywhere. Thus, OYO rooms have become more popular. At the growth stage, you need to take care of the following things: - Run your existing business with the help of a team of talented people - Amplify your story and tell it on different platforms repeatedly  For example: Snapdeal got funding of 1 Billion Dollars from Soft Bank and its valuation of Rs. 6.5 Billion Dollars. After 2 months, the biggest investor asked Snapdeal to merge with Flipkart at an exit of 800 Million Dollars. Why does this happen? According to Mr. Rahul Narvekar, when people reach the growth stage and start getting recognition from different channels and media, they become arrogant and this can lead to failure. So, you need to take care of the following points: - Do not trust your PR because once you become arrogant, your downfall will start. - When you are in the idea or MVP stage, you do everything yourself, but after a level, you need to handover the work to somebody else. So, you need to keep on reinventing yourself. - There is a myth that talent is the biggest thing. Talent is important but you should have discipline in your life to be successful. As even after achieving a milestone, you need to work harder to achieve the next milestone. - You should move away from the negative people in your life. - You should put filters on your social media accounts so that you can get only the content that motivates and inspire you. You should also follow people who inspire you as this will help you to grow in life. - You should keep on sharpening your mind as it will do wonders in your life.