We invited Aniruddha Debnath, founder & CEO at 10karma.com for an interview with Most Popular Stories. Let’s get to know about his entrepreneurial journey.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an Entrepreneur.
From a very young age, I was fascinated by the Instrument Tabla, and I thought that this would be the only thing that would help me get out of traditional life.
I may not have chosen Tabla as my profession, but it has helped me to move beyond traditional thinking and choose this entrepreneurial life.
I grew up in a very ordinary middle-class family in Chakdaha, a small town in West Bengal & I started my career at NIIT in 2004 after completing BCOM and then GNIIT. Interestingly, I took the admission for MBA in Symbiosis College, Pune in 2008, but before I could complete it, I started my first venture in 2010 with the help of MSME. But, I did not see the expected success there, so I returned to my working life again under a lot of pressure from my family, after that, I just had to face many ups and downs, even on this journey I lost my father, too.
But none of this stopped me from going back to my entrepreneurial journey, I started my first e-commerce startup, 10karma.com in 2019 and it also took place at the Webel-BCC&i Tech Incubation Center, Kolkata. Basically, this is where my startup journey begins.
2. Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
Every time I tried something new in my long 16-year career, but I got stuck. This one desire eventually forced me to give up all my jobs.
3. What was the vision behind it?
I often went to the market to buy vegetables and saw my schoolmaster or college-going friend selling vegetables, or at home during the puja, the priest never came at the right time. My mother used to suffer a lot when the cooking sister did not come even on a very needy day.
After seeing all this, I felt the need to create a platform from where people can get services at the right time as needed. And it certainly has the potential to give many local people the opportunity to work with dignity.
” Creating a great virtual global market through the appointment of a lot of local people is our vision”
4. Describe the services that you offer to your customers and in what way they are unique?
Currently, we are offering the most flexible way to book a Purohit or Pandit for your entire puja path solutions at home.
The booking process can be done in two ways. One, virtual puja, where you can take service from anywhere in the world, the priest will complete the puja process online, Google-Meet or Zoom-Meet is mainly used here. Two, if you book a puja online, the priest will come to your house and perform the puja. This is happening in India now.
Our slogan, “Your Home We-Care”. To keep a home completely healthy, normal, and safe, we have divided all the services into 10 categories, which are really fancy and unique. All other services will start soon.
5. What difficulties which you have faced or you are facing?
Within a few months of starting my startup initiative, COVID-19 began to spread around the world, so all my plans were scrapped, and raising the right amount of funds for the organization became a big challenge for me.
But in the midst of all this, there is a small hope; we have been able to finish the Bita version of the 10karma web model even in this bizarre situation.
6. How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
I have found a beautiful way to get rid of this pressure and excessive stress. Ever since I realized that stress & pressure is a very common thing in this startup-journey, I have fallen in love with it. 🙂
7. How do you market your business?
Until now, we have been sending any bookings from the customer directly to our experts. But we want to change this model a bit at the moment where there will be job opportunities for many local people.
From the beginning to till now I have relied on word-of-mouth and also promotion in digital media.
However, if we get the appropriate funds, we will also think about widespread social campaigns and various media advertisements.
8. How many hours a day do you work on average & can you Describe/outline your typical day?
Although it is not possible for me to work monotonously every day. But I think it would be great if 24 hours were changed to 48 hours. Even sometimes I can’t finish half my work.
9. In your opinion what are the keys to success?
In my opinion, success is never a specific destination, but every combination of steps taken to reach a specific goal is actually a success. Which I truly believe is getting used to hearing the word ‘NO’ in every case, acknowledging and being able to say ‘NO’ when necessary, is the halfway journey to reach to the success.
10. What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring Entrepreneur?
Although I don’t think I’ve reached any position to give advice, I’m still learning, rather I would say that if you want to do something beyond your daily comfort and secure zone, you can choose an entrepreneurial journey once, you will definitely feel comfortable.
Connect here,
Website: https://10karma.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aniruddha-d-047b83b2/
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