Conversations with Harsh Baid & Shriti Chhajed, Co-Founders, Bookeventz
Tell us about your best and worst days at work
Harsh & Shriti: Being an entrepreneur, you start loving your job. We call it our baby and look forward to seeing our baby grow each and every moment. Days when we are starting some new development, product or initiative are the best days. During this journey, we go through highs and lows. Some of the bad days are when we want to do a lot of things but have to work within the constraints of available capital.
What do you do when you’re not at work?
Harsh & Shriti: We love travelling and partying when off from work. Also spending time with our little one and reliving childhood with him gives us a lot of fresh energy.
What is unique about your business?
Harsh & Shriti: There is no business across the globe which is standardizing banquets and running them under a brand. While there are lots for restaurants and hotels, banquets are an unexplored segment.
If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
Harsh & Shriti: Couple of things you should think when you are starting out
1. Identify if your business is going to be a Lifestyle business whose aim is being profitable or aim for a Hockey stick growth trajectory business which requires a fair amount of capital... and then stick to it.
2. Work on getting the core team right, if you get this right, other things will follow.
How do you define success?
Harsh & Shriti: As an entrepreneur, you have a lot of hopes and expectations from yourself and when we meet them and feel content is what I would call success.
What is your favourite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Harsh & Shriti: Building something from scratch is my favorite. Apart from that I also enjoy the variety of things and verticals you can work on as an entrepreneur which gets challenging as well as gets exciting.
What is your favourite book?
Harsh & Shriti:
Zero to One by Blake Masters and Peter Theil
The Power of Subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy
Where do you see yourself and your business in the next 5-10 years?
Harsh & Shriti: We want to make Bookeventz.com the world's largest go to platform for all event requirements. Bookeventz becoming synonymous to Booking Events for all People. Hosting events should become simpler and smarter. It will not just be a platform but a company which provides all services for an event under its brand umbrella.
How has COVID impacted your business? How did you deal with it?
Harsh & Shriti: The events industry is one of the most COVID-impacted industries and has almost come to a complete standstill. We used this time to increase our presence digitally across the globe. We were present only in India as an aggregator. We increased listing on our website to over 19 countries and 200 cities. As the core team we explored a lot more initiatives on what we can work on and build in this available free time. We did extensive work in building training modules, documenting HR processes, thinking better ways of doing our current business.
Share a story/experience about the impact of your company that brought a smile on your face.
Harsh & Shriti: Two aspects of running BookEventz get us happy from the heart. The first one is making someone’s event memorable and the second is seeing a big team working with us in our dream mission. I remember, in our very early days, I was personally involved in one of the weddings and the satisfaction I got seeing everything go smooth.