Thank God I Failed
9.
PRAYAAG KASUNDRA
Prayaag Kasundra's father, a
business man who has had several trysts with failure, wanted his son to play
safe and opt for a job. So when the software engineer from Dharmsinh Desai
University in Nadiad, Gujarat, decided to start his own venture, his parents
were duly horrified and he was subject to jibes galore. “Let him fall, then he
will know,“ was one of them.
The 27-year-old who started
BookAdSpace in January 2012 was in no mood to hold back. “Family will try to
stop you from taking risks. But one has to listen to one's heart.“ A technology
platform for outdoor advertising, BookAdSpace's idea was to organise the
process of buying and selling media space. The business was funded by India's
first startup accelerator, The Morpheus, and angel investors Aakrit Vaish and
Miten Sampat.
Just funding, however, wasn't
enough.Since BookAdSpace was trying to bring transparency into outdoor media
transactions, it was an extremely difficult task to get industry to adopt it,
says Kasundra. Profits were elusive, and the venture was shut down in May 2013.
Kasundra looks back and acknowledges
that he hadn't put enough effort into market validation. He also says that when
the plan isn't panning out, one must be open to radical change.
Four months after shuttering
BookAdSpace, Kasundra was back, this time with Decora Systems, a startup
providing software solutions for decorative material and the interior design
industry. Apart from selling decorative material, product visualisation
software to companies, Decora also helps brands to publish catalog apps.
Decora counts brands such as
Kajaria, AGL India and Simpolo among its customers. Now Kasundra is in talks
with venture capitalists for funding his next stage of growth.
Can he be sure of success this time;
after all, his first venture was funded but failed?
“Entrepreneurship is not meant for the faint-hearted,“ is Kasundra's answer. “One has to be a shameless optimist.“
“Entrepreneurship is not meant for the faint-hearted,“ is Kasundra's answer. “One has to be a shameless optimist.“
ETM26JUL15
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