We invited Joydeep Ray, For an interview with Most Popular Stories to know more about his entrepreneurial journey. Let’s hear from him straightaway:
Background & journey
I belong from a middle class also from a tier-4 city. My father was also an insurance agent.
So being from a middle class family i always knew the value of an opportunity.
So getting an admission in a Pvt. engineering college & spending a lakh rupees for the same is a big opportunity for me.
As I said a single opportunity is damn important & a big thing for me. So I proved myself on that and secured a campus placement job and landed in Mumbai with a new opportunity once again.
However, the job was not that high paid job & 2out of 15people who selected in the job joined and I was one of them. This was the first time from a small town I came to a metro city and it was a new life for me all the new people around me a city with a new language. With the salary of 7500, I survived in Mumbai until a decently paid job after 1.5Yrs.
I remember a lot of people said and laughed and said in this salary one can not even survive by eating “vada pav” and You are taking this job. Still, I accepted this job and struggled for 1.5years to prove myself and others that there is nothing bigger than your will power, not even your problem.
After1.5Year a got a new job, It was a start-up and within 6months I proved myself to be in the core team & within a Year I become the CEO of the Company.
From my childhood I always wanted to be the Leader & winning a task or proving on any task was kind of I always fond of. This attitude always provoked me to take new challenges & throwing myself in an uncomfortable situation becomes a new normal habit for me.
This same attitude pushed me to quit the job start from a scratch as a result I Started “OnEnergy” with a new challenge 1.5Years back.
1. Why did you choose entrepreneurship?
It all started with a habit rather I call it a problem .
I love to throw myself in an uncomfortable situation. I always knew one can only learn better when she/he is not in a comfortable situation.
“ I remember in class XII, I used to go for maths tuition. Everything has pros & cons. Pro was, The teacher was famous for is teaching and cons was he used to insult students in a full batch if the student fails to solve the problem.
So in the fear of getting insulted & obviously it’s a very uncomfortable situation I used to rework the sums & chapter twice. so that was the source of the thought process.
Meanwhile while in the job mid of 2018, I have started one Startup which was in Mental health in the name of “talk to buddy”. I stared this once I found one of my close friends who recently shifted to Mumbai and joined one startup due to some personal & professional life problems he becomes very depressed and become helpless.
He was so depressed he thought of making suicide a few times, that scenario pushed me to think that how difficult it would be for someone when he becomes depressed, how badly he needs support at this time. However, after 6moths of giving effortless try, I have to shut it due to some technical problems.
So basically I always wanted to solve a real life problem from beginning and starting by my own..
As I worked in a start-up & knew the consequences I picked entrepreneurship as a new challenge, a new journey & a new Learning session.
2. Describe the services that you offer to your customers and in what way they are unique?
As a person I always believed, we should always start with “WHY”. So our focus or goal is to solve a real-life problem. So our solutions are always customer-centric.
With the moto to solve a real-world problem, we jumped into the facility management industry to solve a real problem of high electricity bills and managing facilities in an easy and hassle-free manner.
We help clients to maintain their assets like AC, lift etc at optimum efficiency which reduces unwanted machine breakdown & stop energy losses as a result less electricity bill stress.
We believe that “technology should be there to the betterment of life, it should work for us”. We have recently developed a technology-based solution, an energy analytics dashboard where one can have their daily energy consumption & usage pattern visualized.
Based on the daily pattern, they can understand where excess consumption is happening and can take necessary action to reduce the electricity bills.
We are also working to develop a solution based on AI,ML that can predict machine failure & energy loss.
3. Challenge found in your Journey?
Actually I bring challenges & difficulties on my own. More of it it’s all about the vision or how to see the challenges or problems. For someone, it may be an excuse for not doing a job but for me, it’s a new opportunity. I convert every problem into a new opportunity.
4. What is your business mantra ? money or emotions?
I know nowadays it has become a very common statement but, I never started my venture to do business. My whole journey is a full roller coaster with lots of ups & downs. Even I haven’t started my journey (JOB) with the focus of earning money. I always saw money as a by-product of what you are doing.
So basically it played an emotional factor for me. I believed selling is not about what product or service you are selling. Sell happens when u succeed to target the emotional factor to convert the deal. Whatever sells happens there is always an emotional factor present & it has to be.
5. How do you handle the pressure & manage stress?
I remember while in job, whenever I had to work post my working hours I feel like there is so much stress, work load, Pressure in job.
But since I have started my own venture, hardly there is any working hours, I had to work late nights. Had to travel till late nights post meeting. But never felt like work load types.
It all stars with what you choose to do, what you love to do that’s all.
So if you are in job a late night work is out of no choice then it will be burden & stress. and if you are in job but still love what you are doing it won’t be pressure or stress.
“ there is a difference between Inspiration & motivation..”
6. What has worked well so far?
Every success which looks like overnight success is actually sum of lot of sacrifices, efforts and good works.
So there is no specific one thing that worked well but sum of all my efforts I took and somehow all the efforts turn out well in each place.
It reminds me the famous line of Steve jobs
“ You cannot connect the dots by looking forward”
So when I look back I found that whatever I have done right or wrong , today I’m here..
7. Success of Keys?
There is no key of success of for me.
I define success with as a process with a sum of milestones.
People say you have to be focused, hardworking, and so on to be successful but to me, it’s all are the by-product of the process itself. It automatically brings all my attention to my work & and I become so engaged that I can think of any other things.
8. Advice to entrepreneurs?
I’m not that big person or business tycoon to give advice. But i can share my learnings I got throughout my journey till date.
First, Remember u can learn from every single person it may be a street vendor or from any business tycoon but u have to have the enthusiasm or vision. At least I think in that way and it helped me a lot.
Whenever I meet a new person, I consider it as a new learning session, from his journey I can learn something new, a new chapter of the book called “life”.
Second, Never ever miss an opportunity. If you don’t know how to do it, take it then think how to do it, believe me, it’s a great learning experience.
And last but not least always believe in yourself, if you can’t believe in yourself or in your vision anyone in the world will not do then.
9. How your company is helping India to grow?
We want to make every individual building facility to be energy sustainable, for that awareness is important.
So we are increasing the awareness from the ground technician to senior management at respective levels why an energy audit is important, what are the benefits of such benefit, what are the effects of energy losses, and how we can stop this by the audit and motivating to go for sustainable energy solution.
Even we consult with the on-going projects to install energy-efficient solutions to reduce consumptions and sustainable energy sources.
You can connect with him at:
Company website: www.onenergy.in
Linkedin- https://www.linkedin.com/in/joydeep-ray-48131b6b
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/joydeep.ray.14
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