Saket BagdaCo-founder & Director of KnoDues Published On: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 Views 2457

“If you hear a voice within you saying ‘you are not a painter’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”

From being a president of entrepreneurship cell of IBS Hyderabad, to becoming an entrepreneur himself, Saket has traversed several verticals throughout his career. Having pursued his graduation degree in commerce from Christ University, Bangalore, he earned his MBA in the field of Finance from IBS Hyderabad. After which, he worked with Ernst & Young (India) in the Risk Advisory practice.

But entrepreneur bug had already bit him, which is when he decided to take a plunge in the startup arena. After careful analysis, he launched Knodues, a smartphone app that lets you record your shared expenses, split them easily, keep a track of all your dues and share them with your friends. Although the company is just few months old, Saket has huge plans for the future. He is also the Director at Simpler Everyday Concepts Private Limited.

Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.

KnoDues is a smart phone app designed to ease out the complications faced in tracking & splitting of shared expenses with friends. Essentially, KnoDues is your Shared Expenses Buddy! KnoDues, as the name suggests, helps you to know all your dues at any point in time and also encourages you to settle them in a timely fashion.

With KnoDues, it gets very easy to avoid awkward situations of reminding friends for their dues. Users just need a simple click on the app to remind their friends for their dues. Users can also inform their friends as to how many days they intend to clear the outstanding dues. Such clever features can certainly help save some misunderstandings!

What inspired you to build the above product/ service?

The idea of creating KnoDues germinated in my mind when I was sharing an apartment with Sahil (other co-founder) while working in Gurgaon. Constant hassles faced while tracking shared expenses for their apartment led to a conviction that this was an actual pain. And so, KnoDues has been built by people who faced the problem of managing shared expenses and truly understood it! Formal work on KnoDues began in the month of March 2015.

What is your life mantra?

Enjoy everything in the life as it comes! In the end, everything happens for good!

What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?

Sahil Sethi and I are both MBAs with specialization in Finance and our graduation is in the field of commerce. The best solution we had in mind for the problem we wanted to solve, was a simple to use and yet effective mobile app. However, there was a major challenge ahead – becoming Tech Entrepreneurs with absolutely zero knowledge of the Tech side of things.

How did you overcome those challenges?

Here is a list of specific pointers that helped us take the plunge into an ocean of the unknown:

Idea Validation
Getting to Know the Right People
Self-Belief
Perseverance
Optimum utilization of resources
Continuous Learning

Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.

We have not raised any external funds till date. Our organization is bootstrapped and currently running through personal savings of both the co-founders and through financial support from our families. Currently we are in the process of stabilizing the product and may start to seek funds in the near future to implement further product improvements as well as to achieve higher growth & scale.

How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain?

The Company currently has only two employees (the co-founders). There are separate teams working on Marketing & the application development (not on company’s payroll).

According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?

1. Perseverance & Focus

2. Hard work

3. Devotion to your work

Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?

1. Google Keep

2. WhatsApp

Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.

Taking Breaks – When your productivity goes down – Take a (short) break, look at all the beautiful & motivating things around you and get back to work!

Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.

I multi-task a lot!

Answer in less than 50 words

• One tip to success:

Rome wasn’t built in a day! Be devoted (and not just dedicated) to what you do and be perseverant while doing it. Success will be yours!

• One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Not being able to adapt and learn continuously. This can be life threatening for the business!

• One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

Non-techies can be tech-preneurs too! Have the will to do it and you can do it!

What are your plans for next 3 years?

This is a bit confidential to be revealed at such an early stage. I can answer the short term plans instead – Introducing a lot more exciting features on the app (They are in the pipeline) and launching the iOS and Windows version of the app.

If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?

It’ll be something to do with music or creativity.

What are your top three getaway destinations?

1. Kashmir

2. Maldives

3. Imphal (That’s my hometown and where my family lives)

Share a quote that inspires you the most.

“If you hear a voice within you saying ‘you are not a painter’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh

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