Often there are circumstances when people face certain issues while getting things done. The startup ecosystem in India has been driven mostly by service-based venture, but there are many who entered this arena trying to create a new business model. Varun Bagga is one of those entrepreneurs who have made a name for themselves at a very young age.
After completing his B.Tech in computer sciences, he started his career as software quality engineer. His first stint at entrepreneurship came in the form of 38Candies. However, he showed his true ingenuity with his second startup StartupYar. It is a curated list of tools & apps required to build/run a startup in a smooth manner.
Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.
StartupYar is a platform for start-up enthusiastic/entrepreneurs that constitute the best-handpicked tools in different categories required to build/run a startup. Categories we’re talking about selecting a name for start-up, getting a hosting solution, designing wireframes, getting early users, marketing apps, analytics and much more. We have categorized our listings into free, paid and freemium model so that it becomes easy to choose tools to fit their budget.
What inspired you to build the above product/ service?
After stepping out of the college, me (Varun Bagga) and and my childhood friend Varinder Singh decided to create some cool stuff. After a lot of brainstorming, we launched a mathematical fun game for children called MadVsMath. However, the game did not gain much traction and after a year of operation we had to shut it down. We learned from this failure and decided to create a product which would be better than the previous one.
Our brainstorming led us to many ideas and we tried our hand at number of them. However, every time we worked, we faced the same set of challenges where to get domain, how to get early adopters, what design to use, what to name our new product, how to market it and so. One day, while discussing these things, we thought that similar problems may be faced by many other nerds like us, and this was when the idea of StartupYar was born.
What is your life mantra?
Don’t re-invent the wheel, it’s already invented- just realign it. Be persistent, fast & focus more on design than functionality.
What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?
Biggest challenge we face while developing StartupYar was to collect quality resources that offers value to our users. There are plenty of tools available in market for any task but for a startup, it is very crucial to find the right tool to get stuff done quickly and easily.
How did you overcome those challenges?
“It doesn’t matter if I failed. At least I passed the concept on to others. Even if I don’t succeed, someone will succeed.” When you plan to startup, every step bring new challenges but giving up on quality due to those challenges is not a good idea. We spent nights using multiple tools and pick them by hand considering multiple factors. We know, that takes up much of our time but persistent pays.
Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.
We love bootstrapping and have invested not more than Rs. 5000 for domain & hosting.
How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain?
All of the hustlers working with StartupYar are our close friends & mostly students and they are working for passion. So, we are away from attrition.
According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?
Self-confidence Curiosity Perseverance
Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?
It is a much interesting question for me as we are in the space of providing tools/apps that offer value to other startups. For best tools I recommend, please follow StartupYar
Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.
Don’t add a task to to-do list if it’s too small and complete that task now.
Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.
I often create bigger to-dos which get snoozed over the next day or week. I am practicing to manage my time in such a way that all the day tasks should be completed on same day.
Answer in less than 50 words
• One tip to success:
Appreciate yesterday, but look for a better tomorrow.
• One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:
Don’t chase money. When we have money, we start making mistakes.
• One most important lesson that you have learned till now:
For validating your idea, you even need not to ‘build MVP’, just ‘put it together’ different components.
What are your plans for next 3 years?
3 years are very far for us. For now, we are looking to create engaging content to retain our users and provide as much information & transparency to our users so that user should not have second thought to using any product after coming through our platform StartupYar.
If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?
I’ll experiment & fail early.
What are your top three getaway destinations?
Not specific. We list only those tools that have its offerings globally.
Share a quote that inspires you the most.
“If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat ten of them.” – Jack Ma