Driven by ingenuity and a hunger to succeed, the trio behind sociallbox surely has work cut out for them. Soumya has an MBA from IIM Bangalore as well as 4 years of experience working as a management consultant. Vardhan also has an MBA from IIM Kozikhode as well as four years of experience working in sales and marketing. Ankit has a B.Tech from IPU Delhi and is currently looking after the technology platform of sociallbox. In addition to him, Soumya is handling operations and Vardhan is heading marketing work. SociallBox is your ultimate discovery platform for experiences, events and beyond.
Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.
SociallBox aims to create a social environment around events and places where people like me and you can create best of memories through meetups. I get to see which of my friends are interested, I create meetups with my friends and track their responses for a common interest/activity or an event, For event organizers, it is Do It Yourself platform which allows them to publish and promote events on the go. We also provide daily statistics for event organizers on how their event is performing.
What inspired you to build the above product/ service?
We have a lot of friends in the city, but getting them together has always been a hassle. The multiple uncertainties of who would like to tag along, where to go, how to coordinate and who will take up the role of coordinator is in itself mind numbing. This was the spark for the idea and when the three of us friends finally managed to meetup, we traced it back to the basic ingredients for a successful meetup.
What is your life mantra?
We want to improve ourselves as people and professionals every day. Same goes for the products. We want take one day at a time. Nothing is permanent, be flexible to changes and the demand of your stakeholders that define your ecosystem
What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?
The transition from an app to a business model has been the most challenging part of the journey. With many of our working assumptions being challenged during our actual customer interactions, we had to be nimble with the working of our app in line with our findings.
How did you overcome those challenges?
It was not a difficult task for all 3 of us. We know that patience and grit is something that will take us ahead. It has worked out well for us right now and we don’t see it fading anytime in the near future.
Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.
We are currently self funded and have on boarded our first set of Event Managers. The idea is to drive costs as low as possible from Day1 that will help us sustain longer for till the time our product achieves market–fit.
According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?
Grit, patience and humility.
Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?
We are surrounded by tools and technologies. We mostly make use of open source tools as much as we can. Some of our favorites include: Google Analytics, AWS , Unsplash.com , Canva , Spring Tool Suite, Marvel App, TinyPng, Prezi, Streams.io
Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.
Work Discipline/Time Management
Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.
Sometimes, I get too much attached to a technology and my mind resists changes to it.
Answer in less than 50 words
I believe in challenging myself, take small but confident steps and learn from mistakes.
- One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:
Avoid making too many assumptions; base your decisions on facts and hypothesis proven true through short experiments.
- One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:
Think of your customers as humans and not just some fictional entities, these people will define your time ahead
What are your plans for next 3 years?
We aim to make SociallBox one of the best social platforms out there and take events industry to a new level with unified ticketing system.
If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?
With the intent to have an organization of my own I would try to be the “Jack of all trades and master of some”. Though sharpening my functional skills would be the top priority, I would definitely like to delve into a lot more of the working at an organizational level.
What are your top three getaway destinations?
Dalhousie, Port Blair and Kerela.
Share a quote that inspires you the most.
As said by Elon Musk “If something is important enough you should try, even if the probable outcome is failure.”