Today, we are officially moving to our new office — a brand new IT park in OMR (IT hub).. And, we are the first entrant in this building..
Starting off with 3, we became 6 and in no time we hit 50 staff. And here we are — From a small Apartment to a separate building in Adyar to An IT park :)
Last week, we had a small inauguration ceremony. No prizes for guessing the Chief guest. Our mentor Girish did the ribbon cutting to start off our journey in the new place..
After different poojas and rituals, Girish gave a yet another thoughtful and an inspirational speech and how one should look to take things forward — As usual, we all were listening to his words with intense concentration… not just us, even my kid — Anjana was hooked on to every single word — And the pic says it all :D
After the speaking and cake cutting, we did our trademark dance (aka kuthu dance).. No matter what the occasion is, it isn’t complete without our kuthu dance :)
What’s work without having fun — we are strong believers of that.. whatever we do reflects that.. We wanted our new office to reflect that too.. When someone enters our office, they will see some of the quotes that reflect our mind.. the dialogues that we use frequently (very very frequently) even when there are heated discussions :D
Here are some that I’m most fond of and use,
Ethu pannalum Plan panni pannanum — Plan, plan and plan
My sole responsibility is to make sure that we plan and prioritize everything.. Everything will not work according to the plan — But, establishing the short term and long term goals and setting up the right priorities will make sure that team is running in the right direction. And this how we prioritize stuff at Zarget.
Keep calm and say Aahan —
Being a Product manager, you have to develop a thick skin You’ll get feedback from various corners. Listen to everyone, but make sure that you follow your conviction. When we started Zarget, our USP was making the optimization process a simpler one.. We built the first-of a kind Chrome Extension to make it simpler.. Santa and I believed it that it is going to revolutionize the CRO space and convinced Arvind. BKannan gave the idea, life.. Though, we got a lot of questions from others, we believed in our idea and executed.. Now, biggies like Optimizely, ABTasty and even Google Optimize came up with a Chrome extension for their A/B Testing..
That’s a huge win when big players follow your footsteps.. So when someone makes fun of your ideas, keep calm and say Aahan :)
Information is wealth —
You can’t manage what cannot be measured.. Being a CRO company, we religiously measure everything — “Let the metrics talk”
Super bhaa 5000 increment —
If we release a new feature — we celebrate, If sales are going good, we celebrate! If we hire someone we celebrate! If we move to a new office, we celebrate! Happyness and joy is good.
There are quite a lot of such quotes —
But, instead of covering everything, let me say one final karuthu (quote) — “Team is everything” —
When I left Zoho, the most worrying factor was not about how we were going to build the product, but how were we going to put together a team, like the one we had in Zoho.. I’m a strong believer of people.. I have been fortunate enough to work with smart engineers and great individuals. What is even more heartening is that we are building an awesome team.
Every single person believes in the team and everyone has a special sparkle — A vera-level team (you’ll understand why I’m saying vera-level when you come and interact with folks at Zarget ). This post wouldn’t have been possible without them :)
The new office setup is absolutely stunning.. thanks to Arun(our COO), Arun (JArun) and Arun (Aero) for all the hard work, the art work and making sure that we have an easy transition. If you thought we had one too many Aruns, we have more of them at our office ;) And if your name is Arun and you are as crazy as us, send an email to becrazy+Arun@zarget.com :D
Moving away from Adyar is not easy.. It has been just 1.5 yrs but quite a lot of interesting things have happened.. Deciding on the name Zarget, the Beta release , the first customer, TechCrunch coverage, the beach meetings, short walks, night-outs, one-pitch cricket, kuthu dance, Tea kadai mokkais, More thaathaa.. I can go on and on…Adyar is very close to our heart
To celebrate our office movement and as a tribute to Adyar, we relived everything that gave happiness to us, one last time -one-pitch cricket — beach walks — night-outs — pizza party and a lot more as a team :)
Adyar aah kalakkiyaachu — With our awesome team, the new office and the new Zarget logo, we are ready to rock OMR — evalavo panttom, ithae panna maattomaaah :)
And this video says how exciting our journey has been so far —
