Shubhi
Agarwal, Co-Founder & COO of Locobuzz, Dives into Entrepreneurship,
Funding, and Innovative GenAI Applications.
The
journey of a startup founder is filled with good times and bad times, successes
and failures. Being a female founder in a male-dominated tech industry can be
uniquely demanding. As a startup founder, they are not only breaking barriers
and shattering stereotypes but are awe-inspiring entrepreneurs.
The "Crafting Bharat - A Startup Podcast Series"
powered by AWS, and an initiative by NewsReach, in association with VCCircle, unlocks the secrets behind these
successful entrepreneurs’ journeys aiming to equip aspiring entrepreneurs and
business enthusiasts with invaluable insights. The podcast series is hosted by
Gautam Srinivasan, famed for hosting a diverse range of TV and digital
programs, currently consulting editor at CNBC (India), CNN-News18, Forbes
India, and The Economic Times.
The
Indian startup ecosystem has grown rapidly and evolved over the past decade.
Shubhi Agarwal, Co-Founder and COO of Locobuzz is creating a buzz with their
unified CXM platform. In the Crafting Bharat Podcast series, Shubhi Agarwal
shares about her entrepreneurial journey leading to the incorporation of
Locobuzz. She also talks about the lows and highs of being bootstrapped and how
they are innovatively using GenAI.
Through the
Crafting Bharat Podcast Series, let’s discover the stories of Indian startup
founders’ journey of turning dreams into reality and turning challenges into
opportunities.
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pkgZEn7P-g
Segment 1: The
Incubator
What
are your thoughts on taking a strategic time-out? Any benefits that you see
especially for startup founders?
While
this whole presumption may look very counterintuitive, I completely agree with
your observation of this, because 8 hours of sleep is sacrosanct. I recently
read a book by Matthew Walker named ‘ Why We Sleep’. The book talks about why
sleep is required like any good fitness regime needs a day of rest and
recovery, an individual also needs rest and recovery to induce ideas and
creativity. It helps to be in sync with the innovation happening around you.
So, a strategic timeout is very important, the best ideas happen when you are
with yourself.
Locobuzz
started as a tool for monitoring and analyzing social engagement and is now an
end-to-end customer experience platform. What were the highs and lows of that
transformation and the lessons that it taught you in growing a business?
Being
a bootstrapped company we have to be very cognizant of the inflows and outflows
which have been happening. One thing that we have been very careful about is to
maintain unit economics. I think every journey is full of highs and lows and ours
has been the same. I remember this very fondly when we started Locobuzz, every
single win got us so much joy whether it was a new customer acquisition that
gave us maybe $200 or $300,000, where we knew that most of that money would go
back into the business where we would invest into technology or build the team.
From
the largest telecom player to the largest hospitality chain, your customer base
of around 300+ is diverse. Any insights on how the CX needs of your large
customers differ from the smaller startups that work with you?
Be
it a small startup or a big enterprise, their reputation is of utmost
importance to them and they trust us to maintain that and that is the common
factor which brings it all together. Big enterprises require the platform to work
along with their existing system and startups require a platform that is
self-sufficient and can be managed by a lean team. The platform that we have
created can address both spectrums of clients easily.
Segment 2: The
Accelerator
Someone
wrote on social media that women in tech are over-mentored and under-sponsored.
What’s a professional tactic you could suggest to overcome this problem –
especially type casting for roles?
I
have done a TEDx talk on this topic. At Locobuzz, we have a very meritocratic
society, where your capability is your capability, and you will be hired based
on that and not based on gender or where you come from. I would say that one
needs to show that they have a result-oriented mindset, take initiative and get
them to their logical end. That solves most of the under-sponsored part.
Sometimes
startup founders can get enamored by an idea and end up not keeping the
consumer pain point that is supposed to be addressed in focus. How should one
avoid this?
It’s
honestly very tricky. It happens with us also. What we do is create focus
groups within the organization and if all the focus groups unanimously agree on
building a certain kind of concept we go ahead with that, however, if we are
not taking that approach we do what we did at the start of our journey which is
we go to our clients.
Entrepreneurs
who embark on the journey of making an impact in the world, often face unique
challenges. Their undying motivation and dedication to building something
exclusive and leaving a mark on India’s startup landscape is what drives them
through the challenges.
Stay tuned to
the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series as we bring you these inspirational
entrepreneurs for insightful and candid discussions with Gautam Srinivasan.
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