We invited Rohit Kumar Birla, Founder of Book Keeper for an interview with Most Popular Stories to know more about his entrepreneurial journey.
Book Keeper is a GST compatible accounting, billing & inventory app for small and medium businesses. Its simple user interface allows you to send invoices, bills & estimates, track expenses & receipts, manage inventory, view daily transaction book, view & send various financial reports, and much more. It also supports seamless syncing of data syncs across all your devices.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an entrepreneur.
Hi, I am Rohit, I did MCA from Bharati Vidyapeeth (Delhi).
We just made one small accounting app and pushed it on Play Store. Android was a newly launched mobile platform in 2012-13, and we received tons of responses from users. People were actually looking for something like that. We were receiving hundreds of emails every day with suggestions for improvements, some complaints, and so many “thank you” messages for this app.
We were literally wondering, is it real? and then we started digging about accounting systems across the world and there were already hundreds of them available over the internet. Then we searched, what do users/businessmen really need and the result was shocking!!!
There are so many accounting systems but most of them fail to fulfill simple promises. Half of them need internet to operate but in India, in 2013, the internet was usually 3G that too in major cities. Even now, internet connections are not stable in tier2 and tier3 cities. Some of the users still use mobile as a modem for connectivity on the system.
Few of the applications are so complex, you really need to go to school again to learn how to operate the software.
Being a businessman, you don’t even have time to breathe, forget about going for some course.
Another option is to hire some accounting officer to do all your accounting stuff. Really?
I am a small businessman, I can’t afford to hire another manager to do just the accounting part. Instead, I will manage on paper. I wanted to have a look at balances anytime, rather than calling my accountant.
And the Most important point, pricing. Most of these softwares are too costly, Shelling out 15000-20000 in one go, and especially when you are starting a new business, so either user will download pirated copy or will manage the business of paper. As Steve Jobs said, “illegal music downloading is bad karma”, the same way, using pirated copy is bad karma too.
So, we figured out the midway to make it most simple yet affordable and today Book Keeper is solving problems over lakhs users.
2. Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
That’s quite interesting, first thing, we are not like Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs to quit the job and start working here full time. We started working part-time in 2011-12 and then there was a moment that, we have finally decided to take it full time.
And even when I was about to quit my job, my parents were like, “don’t quit the job, you won’t get the girl for marriage, nobody will respect you, you won’t get the time for yourself, etc etc”
But I always say, before taking any decision, talk to your family, talk to your friends, just to test yourself, whether you have convinced yourself or not.
I was fully convinced, and even my manager offered me an Onsite opportunity, but I was so convinced to quit my job and finally made that tough decision.
3. What was the vision behind it?
We started getting responses from our users, now it was time to make it big. Our idea was always to make it as simple as possible so that anyone can use it and getting close to our users to listen to their feedback and implement it.
Steve Jobs once said, “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” and that’s what we did. We talked to our customers on a regular basis, started understanding their businesses, and solve their problems and that’s what we are doing today as well.
4. Describe the services that you offer to your customers and in what the way they are unique?
Book Keeper is an accounting solution, available on Android, iOS, and Windows. We are providing the complete solution, from Invoicing to GST filing to recording expenses and making payments via Cheque Printing, Generating barcodes to managing inventory in different warehouses to making faster bills via POS and taking print on small Bluetooth printers to laser printers and managing payroll for their employees. Everything that a businessman needs for his business. We are trying to cover every possible thing to solve their business problems.
All these are traditional accounting features, but we are bringing them under one umbrella so that our users don’t have to go anywhere else.
Another uniqueness is, we are mixing technology, A.I. into these features.
Let me give you an example, as soon as your items are about to finish, it will remind you. You can have a look at best selling items, take better decisions, which items are giving you more profit.
5. What difficulties which you have faced or you are facing?
We all were newbies so, in the initial phase, there were guidance required and funding issue, so we got one angel investor and he is CA by profession, so that solved ours both the issues.
Now, another issue we are facing is: we are getting so many suggestions from our users, whoever uses Book Keeper, they just love it and they want to customize it for their business. That’s the biggest issue we are facing. To date, we have got almost 18000+ suggestions.
First challenge is, how to implement them, we cannot implement all the suggestions, there is technical limitation, there are resource limitations and many more.
But there is one more challenge, which I am scared of, If we implement all of these suggestions, we’ll end up with same old traditional accounting softwares, because there will be so many settings, so many options, people will get confused and they have to call us or ask for help or hire some experts, but that’s not something we wanted.
Our idea/vision was to make it simple for every businessman, but if we add 18000+ suggestions, even we will need a help book or manual to find some option.
6. What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person/startup?
As everyone says, Do what you love, but that’s the half-line and here is the other half, Love what you do. Just give your 100%, do it passionately, do it with full efforts, don’t leave any stone unturned and that’s it. “Journey itself is the reward”
7. In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Getting close to your customers, listening to them, solving their actual business problems.
8. What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
If you have some idea, try it out.
Don’t discuss with your friends, they are not your customers.
Make a prototype, discuss with your customers/clients.
If you can make first 100 customers, you can make 1000 and even 10000 or lakhs.
and always always give it 100%
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