Ingudam ManoranjanFounder of Vbooky.com Published On: Thursday, September 03, 2015 Views 3738

"Talk to many people but follow your instinct / guts and learn to believe in them."

Ingudam or more prominently known as Mano among his peer is often cited to be hardworking and a wonderful leader. He does his best to keep his team happy even when they have to stretch longer some days. This is where he gets his excellent leadership skills and a sharp personality, which makes him, best at whatever he chooses to do. After completing his B.E. from RV College of engineering he went on to garner ample experience across various domains in the technology sector.

His ability to track every development item to the details, while giving enough freedom and support to his subordinates to complete the assigned works, gave him much credence as a project manager. However, his real skills came to the forefront when he ventured out to start his own pet project called VBooky.com. It is an internet & mobile app based product in an effort to disrupt beauty & wellness industry focused towards India market. Within a span of over an year, the platform has managed to collaborate with 3500+ merchants.

Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.

VBooky is a online marketplace for beauty and wellness services for a particular location. It provides a easy way for users to discover, read reviews and ratings, check the prices and book an appointment. We deliver this service through web and mobile and currently available in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and some more other cities.

For business owners, it’s a great platform to sell their services online, connect to their customers and understand them.

What inspired you to build the above product/ service?

When we were scanning for a sector which were ripe for disruption & size which was exciting way back in 2013, we found beauty and wellness services industry to be a great place. Personally it was triggered while waiting on a lounge waiting for my haircut. At that time, I asked myself,”Why this haircutting services cannot be booked online?”. To answer this, I did some research and found it to be a great opportunity.

What is your life mantra?

Keep it simple.

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

Most of the challenges initially was to convince partners to come onboard as the concept was new when we started. Once we got few big brands, it became much easier. Being a small team with limited resources, we need to focus our limited energy to effort which would yield better results.

We focus a lot of our energy in building the product for easy scalability. Our challenge is to learn quickly new concepts be it new marketing concepts or new growth hacking techniques & incorporate them quickly to the product. Hiring is also one constant challenge.

How did you overcome those challenges?

For things to do, we have a storyboard which help us in prioritization when there are too many things to do.

Hiring – we have accepted it as a continuous process rather than a event. We continuously talk to potential hire and if we are positive about the person, we take it further.

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

We have raised a small amounts from family and friends through Convertible Note.

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

We are still a small company and we operate like a small family where team members are passionate about work we do. Each role brings in a lot of ownership which help in better retention of the talents.

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

Hard work
Persistence
Luck

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

We use various tools -

Google Analytics
Thought works Mingle
Mixpanel, Zopim etc.

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

Wake up early.

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

Introvert to extrovert.

Answer in less than 50 words

One tip to success:

Talk to many people but follow your instinct / guts and learn to believe in them.

One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Fail fast and recover fast. Mistakes which lead to big fall should be avoided, instead it’s better to make small mistakes and recover. But it’s easier said than done.

One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

Managing complementary skills is important.

What are your plans for next 3 years?

In the next 3 years, our plan is to cover all tier 1 and tier 2 cities of India and another 2 international market.

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

Maybe start earlier