Ruchi GargCo-Founder & CEO at VenueLook.com Published On: Tuesday, April 12, 2016 Views 3826

"Don't stop learning and challenging the status-quo for improvement."

Ruchi Garg is passionate about building great products and businesses. She is an avid learner and believes in team effort. Over the years, Ruchi has accumulated vast experience in the field of IT by working for companies like STMicroelectronics, Acuvate Software Pvt. Ltd and EventEve.com.

Ruchi has always been planning events since her school days. However, as a mom, she never liked the same venue options for her kids’ birthdays. Before choosing a new venue, Ruchi had to visit the venue in person every time to book. To solve this problem, she founded VenueLook.com, which is the leading online event venue discovery and booking platform of India.

Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.

VenueLook.com is the leading online event venue discovery and booking platform of India. It helps by assisting event hosts find and book the perfect venue for their events – weddings, birthday parties, engagements, receptions, anniversaries, baby showers, cocktail dinners and more.

What inspired you to build the above product/ service?

Events Vertical is generally associated with celebrating happy moments. And ‘making happy moments happier’ is what I’ve always been best at. I’ve been planning events since school days. From Teachers’ Day, Sports Day, Annual Day at school [as head girl] to Weddings in the family, Corporate parties and then Birthday parties of my 2 kids, I’ve done it all and enjoyed every single aspect of planning events and seeing through their successful execution. This is my reason for choosing the space. As a mom, I never liked the same 1 or 2 venue options I had for my kids’ birthdays every year and then the fact that I had to visit them in person every time to book! Since venue discovery and booking is the first step of planning every event and there were problems to be fixed from consumer and venue perspectives, I was convinced I’ll be able to solve for the pains and be excited doing the same.

What is your life mantra?

Solve problems using technology and contribute towards making my country clean, technically advanced, happier and rich.

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

Disrupting the space – making venue managers and owners understand the power of technology and consumer engagement over the traditional ways they were used to following for years.

How did you overcome those challenges?

By listening closely to the concerns of venues, building a very easy-to-use technology for them and by demonstrating its usage and benefits. Good, timely communication, positive word of mouth and references from existing partners have helped us big time.

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

We are currently angel-funded.

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

Thank God, this hasn’t been a concern area for us – our work is pretty exciting. We have a healthy, positive, enthusiastic environment with clear set of roles and responsibilities defined for each one of us. Every function operates with full ownership, exchanging notes with other functions. Frequent achievements and new challenges to solve while moving towards a common vision helps.

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

Passion towards problem-solving, Hard work and Persistence

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

I am a fan of Google – Gmail, Sheets, Analytics, Adsense, Adwords, Maps. Others include – Whatsapp, FB Adverts, FB Pages Manager, Twitter, TrueCaller, OlaCabs and Total Call Recorder.

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

An ongoing list of things to do – prioritized daily.

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

Want to start eating healthy some day… soon!

Answer in less than 50 words

One tip to success:

Don’t stop learning and challenging the status-quo for improvement.

One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Becoming overconfident and getting comfortable.

One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

Surround yourself with positive people (believers) – team, mentors and friends.

What are your plans for next 3 years?

Building a great business – taking VenueLook.com to newer heights.

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

Nothing different. Have had wonderful learning experiences – wouldn’t like to miss any of those.

What are your top three getaway destinations?

Paris, Orlando, Goa.

Share a quote that inspires you the most.

Entrepreneurship is not a job, it’s a lifestyle. This lifestyle is very demanding and requires you to be passionate about your product. Given that 90% of the start-ups fail, it is passion and drive that separates the winners from the rest.

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