From being an inspiration for wannabe entrepreneurs,
to becoming an enfant terrible of the Indian start-up ecosystem, he has
earned many badges. The apt term by which many describe him is the ‘Bad boy of
Indian start-ups’. Being an IIT Bombay dropout, and getting ousted from his own
multi-million-dollar venture, it still earns him invitations as a change maker
across engineering institutes. By now you must have guessed, he is none other
than Rahul Yadav, who has been in limelight for quite some time. PaGaLGuY had a
brief walk the talk session with Yadav, when he spoke at the Veermata Jijabai
Technological Institute in Mumbai last week. Excerpts:
Given the chance, from where would you want to graduate?
I would certainly want to go to an IIT, just because of the fact that it
has got the diversity of awesome people, who are selected from the best in
the world. Having said that, the only reason I would not want to be in an IIT
is the bad infrastructural capabilities. And I also feel the professors at IIT
are not good enough.
How was your experience with Housing.com?
We needed ten things to do, and we were great at all ten. We had a very
strong tech team, we were very strong at designing, and we were good at
operations. I feel that It was the right time to enter the sector. I feel that
India is like an elephant, and it was the time when the elephant was running.
What are your learnings from your time at Housing.com?
The most important lesson I learned over the period of time is to ‘crack
the template’. I feel we made a mistake by launching Housing.com on an all
India level, rather it should had been on just the Powai level. Hence I feel
the focus should be on the local level and then one can expand. I feel one has
to be tough and straightforward in any venture. The media has projected me as a
badass, but I feel I was very soft from inside and less diplomatic. And I have
learned to be nice to Venture Capital firms, otherwise funding is an issue.
What are your future plans?
I am starting up a firm called Intelligent Interfaces, which will be a
data analysis firm. My target is to cater to the e-commerce industry. I feel that
the data required by the industry is already collected but efficient
consumption of this data is not prevalent now. I would want to execute
efficient use of this data in order to improve consumer targeting.
What is your advice to the future generations of engineers?
I feel that the need of engineers in India is going to increase manifold
in today’s comparison. I advise them to be open to the atmosphere around them.
Look out for small problems and then find solutions. Don’t go to establish a
company like Google, work on miniature problems, earn profits, and then expand.
One should not go to the extent of borrowing money for food. So plan and
execute well.