Interview with Pratik Bhuyan | TheLister Inc.
I hope this can inspire you to become a successful entrepreneur too! Why is it important to hear the story of a successful entrepreneur?
Having the vision to become an entrepreneur is great. Making it happen is another story!
In that frame, I had the pleasure to interview Pratik Bhuyan, the founder of TheLister Inc. TheLister was born out of the sheer vision of streamlining businesses of all verticals with their sales by connecting with the right customer audience. TheLister, which started off as a B2B2C platform today hosts a plethora of features which has connected over 10,000+ businesses with 100K users in year average.
1. What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e what’s your source of motivation?
In initial days, the desks were our beds and laptop our pillow. Day & night were just the same and the only motivation which kept us working was to build the platform as better as possible; as soon as possible. Now that we are operational for the past 12 months, the main kick lies in checking the number of new businesses joining in, with few sips of coffee in the morning.
2. Why should people choose your product/services?
In any given industry, there are two primary entities in the market. A service provider and a service user. Both co-exist and are relevant to one another. Our product-platform connects & simplifies the process for both of them. A vendor (service provider) gets qualified customers interested in their service, and users get verified vendors to work with. And thus, our platform is used by both businesses and end-customers.
3. What’s your competitive advantage and why can’t it be copied?
Quite a few.
i. Verified Vendors:
Physically visiting a vendors office/store, verifying their past work, user testimonials, MCA registration, GST License and then we get them on board. Zero-Bargain for Customers
ii. Zero-Bargain:
Customers do not have to go through the complete bargaining ordeal. Prices remain fixed suiting both the customer and the vendor.
iii. Zero-Fraud System:
Every transaction takes place via TheLister platform which acts as an Escrow between the two parties. Monetary settlements are done only after a successful business between the two parties.
iv. Fair Play:
Our proprietary algorithm sets uniform chances to all vendors to connect with the customer. Thus, preventing any favouritism or partiality.
And coming to being copied, we won’t mind a strong competition!
4. What risks are you facing?
Not risks, but a few challenges if I can put it that way. With the unprecedented number of businesses joining us on a daily average, we need to constantly keep scaling our cloud & server infrastructure.
5. Have you considered any alliance/partnership?
Our complete B-model is based on the foundation of a strong alliance and robust partnerships.
6. What are your cash flow projections? When will you break even? How much will you need in investments?
On a day-average, we are generating 1,000 unique business transactions on the platform and look to increase it to 5 digits in the coming 6 months.
Since the startup is currently bootstrapped and with one pre-seed fund (no constraints attached), there’s not much in the line to break-even for.
As per investment, we are looking for seed-level funding at baseline projections.
7. What comes first for you money or emotions?
It’s always emotions. Everything in this whole wide world works on emotions. Money just acts like fuel to drive those emotions.
8. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Strengths: Enjoying our work, every moment of it. The biggest weapon in our arsenal.
Weakness: As humans, we have many. But none which comes in the line of work & life.
9. Tell me about an accomplishment you are most proud of.
10,000 businesses joined our platform in just 28 days of operation. These 10K businesses came in organic – no paid promotions, no sponsorships, and no referral system.
10. How do you handle the pressure?
Talking to mom and dad, if it bottlenecks. They might not aid you in getting things sorted. But they wish only the best for you, endlessly. That’s the best way you can handle peak pressure points.
11. If you sold your company today, what would be the tone of the conversation? What would you want to gain? What would you want to avoid losing?
The tone will be humble yet emphatic. The only gain I look forward to is keeping the future of employees, product and core vision to grow pragmatically.
Every company survives on its core ethos. That shouldn’t be obliterated, no matter what. That’s something I would certainly avoid losing.
12. What advice would you give to someone starting out?
There are a saying, dream and dream big. Sadly, not all big dreams are achieved. BUT, in the process of dreaming big, you achieve things which you had never thought of. Today you might dream of buying a Ferrari, and eventually, you may not get one. But you will definitely be able to buy a Mercedes – I bet you that.
So dream.
13. What’s the one question you were expecting most and I haven’t asked you?
In India, its quite mainstream to ask your qualifications, background & profile. Glad you didn’t! I was Chetan bhagat’s true 5 point someone.
