The trio, Mayank, Aditi, and Avdhesh are the brains behind MotorBabu. Belonging to vast backgrounds, Aditi did her MBA in finance and marketing, Mayank and Avdhesh did their bachelor’s degree in computer science from Rajiv Gandhi Prodyogiki Vishwavidyalaya.
After meeting with an accident, Mayank and Aditi faced problems related to car repair. Teaming along with Avdhesh, who was also facing the similar problems, the trio conceptualized MotorBabu. Before MotorBabu, they also started EngineerBabu, an application and web development company.
What inspired you to build the above product/ service?
Mayank Co-founded a web application development firm called EngineerBabu about two years ago. He and his Co-founder Aditi Chaurasia had a team of developers and engineers. They had built a great startup with great work culture. However, Mayank always lamented for not being able to provide employment to the jobless labor class of his village. He often wondered over ways as to how his startup could employ these differently skilled people.
In the meantime, Mayank and Aditi met a minor vehicle accident and found it hard to get their vehicle repaired and serviced. They had an associate Avdhesh who was also facing several problems in the maintenance of his newly purchased car. He couldn’t find a viable solution for the same. Once, the three discussing their common problem, they stumbled upon a solution – why not provide pick-up and drop facility for vehicle servicing to owners and remove this problem. All of us realized that we all had the same problem – no time to get our vehicles serviced. We also felt that if we delay repair or servicing, it could be dangerous using those vehicles.
Generally, a person has to spend almost 4-5 hours in the service center garage. That’s when we made the decision to start a service that would solve this problem. While still working on the technology aspect, we already began taking and processing orders manually. It’s a totally new field for all of us, so we are also learning various processes involved in vehicle servicing. By now we have visited several service stations, washed cars by ourselves, tested different methods and finally learned how the system would actually work.
What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?
Since we are trying to aggregate an extremely unorganized market, most of the mechanics/service stations are unprofessional and poor at public relations. Yet, they know their field and work well. Our job is to educate them to use a technology platform and to teach them how to deal and behave with the customers. Convincing the garage owners and partnering with them to join hands for a tech-enabled product.
How did you overcome those challenges?
Mayank and Avdhesh have gone from one garage to another talking personally with the owners and demonstrating the advantages of partnering with MotorBabu. In the meantime, Aditi got busy into creating a brand buzz.
Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.
MotorBabu is Indore-based vehicle service booking platform with pick-up your vehicle for the ‘make-over’ (servicing) and drops it back to your place. Apart from the usual repair jobs, washing and oiling, MotorBabu is also your Johnny-on-the-spot, providing assistance during break-downs. People can place orders via MotorBabu app.
We are getting very good response from everywhere.
What is your life mantra?
Our collective life mantra is what Mark Zuckerberg has said – Move fast and break things.
Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.
We are in discussion with investors from Singapore and few others from investors.
How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain?
This may sound cliché but really you must treat your team members like family. Mayank has an inherent quality of treating people with equal attention and he had already practiced this in EngineerBabu. We brought forward the same culture in MotorBabu as well. We also pay a lot of attention to grooming, training them along with making them aware with things happening around. We participate regularly in startup meets. As for our beloved mechanics, washer boy etc – we have provided them with accommodation, they also get training from us. Verbal motivation is coupled with motivation in actions too. Also we delegate tasks based on interests.
Aditi says “We always consider Human Resource, more human than only resource.”
According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?
1) Passion to solve problems
2) Honest intentions
3) Technology drive
Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?
We use Asana and Evernote for email/task management; Hubspot; Live Chat for communication with clients; Locate app for security etc.
Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.
We believe in sharing and caring of team members and productivity follows. We believe mechanical delegation is a myth, people should be assigned tasks based on their interest and this works for us.
Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.
If we wanted to change ourselves, MotorBabu wouldn’t have existed. So nothing, really.
Answer in less than 50 words
Solve real-life problems, businesses are built on problem-solving. Or you can say “Scratch you own itch-Rework”
- One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:
Don’t repeat mistakes.
- One most important lesson that you have learnt till now.
You should do what you have to, don’t depend on people and resources. If your intentions are in the right direction, everything else falls in place.
What are your plans for next 3 years?
In 2016, we wish to take MotorBabu to 10 more cities. By three years, we wish to see this brand shine in the rest of India.
What are your top three getaway destinations?
Local villages in MP; mountains anywhere in the world
If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?
We would have begun MotorBabu before beginning any other startup.
Share a quote that inspires you the most.
“When it comes to business success, it is all about people, people, people. “- Sir Richard Branson.