As part of our quest to identify and share some of the compelling startup stories with our community, we interviewed yet another young technology entrepreneur – Muthu Pradeep. Muthu is the Founder and CEO at GROODS. GROODS is an Indian restaurant aggregator and food delivery startup founded in 2018. Let’s read more about his journey and the way forward!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Muthu:
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your startup please:
My name is MUTHU PRADEEP, 23 years old. I belong to TIRUPUR, Tamilnadu. Am graduated from the KPR Institute of Engineering and Technology & my major is B.E EEE. I am the kind of person who does things that I love to do. I love to be a volunteer and thus it makes me an entrepreneur though. Volunteers make themselves to commit to the things they love. Interest, Passion to learn, consistency in things, getting themselves into action without any expectations, Confidence, Inspiration makes me a true volunteer & so entrepreneur itself. After completing my 12th grade I had a lot of choices to pursue a degree and I chose to engineer. It was on 2014 stepping into 1st year of my college and was so excited to meet new people. I don’t wish my college life to be filled with more fun instead to be the platform for my career.
To be the same I felt that we need someone to shape ourselves, let them be a mentor on things we do. Typically am so happy that I have found a professor named DR. JAYASUDHA. She’s such an inspiring person who is so classy, Perfect, Powerful women, Very bold, best at mentoring and she is totally the game-changer in my life. If you find someone like them then you are the best in the world. Soon after completing my 4 years journey of engineering I have started my startup. Meanwhile, during my 4th year, I got recruited by an IT firm for the designation of corporate sales and parallelly I made all the plans from business plan to marketing since am all set to run the business. I went through an internship for 3 months but seriously it was tough & challenging to make sales but learned so many things. Soon after my final semester, I took a 1-month break for hiring the employees for my startup. Finally, it all happened on JUNE 4, 2018 which does my dream come true moment that I successfully launched my startup. My firm name is GROODS meaning great and best. My tagline is DELIVERY TOWARDS DESTINATION. Yes, my firm is all about delivering things ordered by the customer(includes FOOD DELIVERY, GROCERY & MEDICINE DELIVERY, Moving things for one to another location, Courier delivery and more). We operated on offline mode by taking orders through mobile calls, WhatsApp and direct messages. We did online promotions, circulated posters, brochures around the city and displayed some ad banners at some places to showcase ourselves. We after the successful launch became the DELIVERY PARTNER for some local firms on a regular basis. Then all set and went well where we made 6700+ deliveries/orders completed. We’re now 1 year 5 months growing and so made some clear cut user-friendly plans for software to begin our journey as CLOUD-BASED ONLINE PLATFORM to order anything the customer needs. Behind the scenes, the one thing that made me start a business is inspiration from my father. He runs his own firm and being some known people in my city, I feel so proud to be his son & I wish to be the same as him.
Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
Commonly, I had 1 question that blew my mind, how will I be after 10 years later? This question has arisen soon after completing my 12th grade since I felt that my career journey has been started now. As I said earlier where the business motivation comes from I wished to do some part-time jobs. So, immediately after entering the 1st year of my colleagues started to search for part-time jobs. I love to do food delivery so that I joined as a part-time food delivery boy in EATHOT which is an online-based food ordering platform. Worked as full time on Sundays and part-time on weekdays for about 3 ½ years. Nearly I have delivered 4000+ orders and being so learned a lot on how to deliver the food orders, how to handle the customers if I face any issues, how to manage delivery operations and much more and that drives to start a startup. Earned some amount of money from a part-time job and used it as an investment for my startup. I felt that the entrepreneurship journey is like going for a drive to explore the beauty of the world. So, all the way comes my entrepreneurship journey over a 9-5 job.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
I feel that learning from other people is the dosage for me. Learning from people is the motivating factor that made me throw myself to society. Usually, during my college days, I use to speak with at least 1 business person regarding their business or we have a general talk on the market. I followed the same for about 2 years and while entering 3rd year of my college I find some youtube public speaking channels, TED talks and got some interest in reading many articles on entrepreneurship. But after my startup, I make some time and meet some people every week and will discuss something on how to improve business/how to manage the manpower/how things going around in our city/discuss new establishments, etc. I jot down the things which I feel important and this helps to make up the things better around me. I subscribed to many articles and google discover helps me a lot with it by showing the things that I like. I personally feel that inspiration, motivation doesn’t mean the person but actually it meant for the things done by them to society. So, learning things from others and making a practice that will help you grow a better entrepreneur.
What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?
I face some challenges on three things, one is management (since am all alone managing everything) and another is making the right manpower to work for the firm. Management is the structure of the business and cannot be given in all hands. It’s like labelling HANDLE WITH CARE. The final one is being a competitor and competing with corporate firms. In my city, I have SWIGGY, ZOMATO and my past company EATHOT and myself GROODS competing for FOOD DELIVERY. Providing good service to the customers, hospitality in handling the customers is tough since your employees are not like you. Making a perfect team and following the best standard of the system will bring a lot to the firm. I am finding solutions and making the existing team set for all the challenges.
Tell our audience more about your failures? How should one bounce back?
The worst thing happens to an entrepreneur is that monetizing the things they invest in. I am so happy that still now I didn’t face any loss in my firm even though struggling to make profits.
Literally, failure is the stepping stone to success. I failed to hold my part-time employees work for me. Nearly 30+ employees have worked for fewer days and went off since am generating a small volume of orders per day which is not sufficient for them.
Repeatedly I went with excuses on orders and to vendors. Examples like I could not generate more orders until I launch my online platform, the order will be delayed due to lack of manpower, etc.
I read from an article that the single most deadly word that kills all our dreams/achievements are “UNTIL”.
So, don’t let it ruin your future. It’s never too late to begin. NOW is the moment to change your life bcoz starting now has lots of time. If you start now you’ll get a lot of time to think, plan the things accordingly and could able to get into action soon. If you do so those actions lead to results, then results lead to inspiration and back to back it multiplies.
I was attracted by one post on Instagram which is a START BY concept for making things to start by practising the things. But I changed those sentences according to myself that I have listed below,
START BY at least making 1 idea possible
START BY making 1 sale/day
START BY making 1 customer happy
START BY changing your perspective
START BY learning from failure
START BY reading 1 article every day
START BY removing 1 negative thought every day
START BY checking 1 good post on LinkedIn
START BY posting 1 post every day about your firm on social media
START BY working on the things you love
START BY learning something that would help your future
START BY making yourselves ready for everything
The word UNTIL plays the major role behind these START BY concept. So don’t hesitate to throw yourselves to the society. Let we do it. We don’t know the pain until we cherish it. So, start today and repeat tomorrow.
What comes first for you – money or emotions?
Obviously, emotions. Money can be earned rather than emotions.
You can take your employees as examples. They are working for you and you are responsible for their loss, gain, emotions, trust, pain because everyone works under someone for money but rather than that some emotions, feelings are hidden in it.
Respect the emotions & feelings.
But it depends on their own wish. For example, I have a lot of money and one of my employs is hospitalized. The decision I should make is to accept all his expenses than leaving him alone.
Humanity lies in emotions. Instead of earning lots of money, earning some priceless happiness, respect from others makes you a great personality.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
Don’t make things complicated by taking more advice from many of them. Consulting is different from taking advice.
Running a business has more pressure and stress rather than being an employee.
I might put on to pressure when more orders are received but you have fewer employees in a number. Guiding them to process the orders and make them delivered is my talent. I’ll understand the capability of my employees and act according to them.
What advice would you give to someone starting out, particularly to aspiring entrepreneurs?
I wish to say that am an entrepreneur and becoming an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is nothing but learning and practising it.
Yet despite all the hardships, every year, thousands of entrepreneurs embark on this journey determined to bring their vision to fruition and fill a need they see in society.
Frame your own START BY concept; throw yourselves to the society whatever matters.
Life gets harder, will not be easier once when you establish yourself as an entrepreneur.
Believe in yourselves. Think of your journey as a meadow, not a path.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, Stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
