Sourav BanerjeeFounder of LifKart Published On: Wednesday, June 01, 2016 Views 8681

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."

Sourav Banerjee did his Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) in Electronics Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur. Later, he went on to pursue Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta but dropped out.

He has accumulated vast experience in the filed of information technology and business strategy by working for companies like Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd, Ardent Softwares, Cadabam’s Group, and more.Sourav went through a lot of problems during the constructions of his house, which is why he conceptualized LifKart – A one stop solution for construction, renovation and interior designing for budget households.

Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.

We are the only branded player to construct, renovate or to do interiors for individual(budget) households

What inspired you to build the above product/ service?

I wanted to construct my small house in a 40X60 plot in Bangalore. I had to go through terrible challenges in every bit of this process. Land registration, Khata document transfer, approvals, plan, design, identification of a reliable contractor, pricing and many more things. All appeared to be nightmares separately. I gave 40,000/- to a guy to get my plans sanctioned and he stopped receiving my calls from then on. It was then I decided that scalable or not, I must solve this mess.

What is your life mantra?

Honest hard work and perseverance. Normally I do not look for any made easy or short-cuts.

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

To standardize the pricing part

How did you overcome those challenges?

Struggle. Do everything yourself and do things hard way.

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

Investments was never a contingency for my business. I had to do this with or without investment.

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

I strongly believe that no one will ever work for my success. Everyone works for the betterment of their respective lives. Hence, if I recruit employees(or at times suppliers), they might leave me for various reasons, so I prefer creating stakeholders.

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

Clarity of, though, ability to stay low key (digest humiliation), ability to jump back as soon as one touches the rock bottom.

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

All common tools.Nothing secret.

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

Normally I never surrender to problems I prefer solving them

Answer in less than 50 words

One tip to success

Avoid a plan B. Stick to plan A and evolve it.

One mistake you believe every individual must avoid

Stop learning new things

One most important lesson that you have learnt till now

People are way more important than an idea

What are your plans for next 3 years?

To solve the challenges of housing for common men on a relatively large scale

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

Avoid my B. Tech course and would wish to learn something more meaningful like Physics or Economics

What are your top three getaway destinations?

I enjoy the journey more than the destination. I like driving on the Nilgiris, Wild Western Ghats and Garo-Kahsi ranges. Love rain and mist of the wild.

Share a quote that inspires you the most.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

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