Deep Kalra on building the right Team and Product-Market-Fit
With a growing ecosystem and favourable regulations, starting-up was never easier, but getting the right team and the product-market-fit still remains one of the most daunting and uphill tasks for an entrepreneur.
It is true that behind every successful product exists a great amount of research, trial-and-error, and even failed attempts. Even the most iconic startups began with concepts that were new to the industry and the product that had few or no takers. But even before getting to all these trials and errors, there comes an exceptional tech team to build the product and then perfect it through the learning curve.
So, how do you build this team and get the right product-market fit? Especially if you are a founder with no technical background.
Why do so many startups fail to get this right?
In one of the episodes of our award-winning Podcast — Building It Up with Bertelsmann, we delved deep into some of these tough questions with Deep Kalra, Founder & CEO of MakeMyTrip — one of the most successful travel websites in the country. He talked about how he achieved PMF and also shared insights on how to build a great tech team, why customer service is of paramount importance in a B2C company, and much more!
Here are a few interesting excerpts from his episode:
Achieving Product-Market-Fit is Hard
“The first five years were tough. We were just floundering and trying to figure out product-market fit”
According to a recent survey, almost 90 % of startups in India fail within the first five years. Another survey shows that almost 42% of the startups fail because they don’t have a product-market-fit. There could be various other reasons behind these failures, but what’s very clear is that the product-market-fit dramatically increases the odds of success for a startup. However, for most startups, the problems don’t really end at getting the right product.
The other big problem is the unpredictability of how deep the real market is. Because, usually, it turns out that only a small segment of that market really wanted that product in the first place. In fact, even if we look at guys like Mark Zuckerberg or Brian Chesky (Airbnb), they couldn’t really predict it right either as the real market exceeded way above their expectations. Moreover, as Deep says, what’s even more tricky for startups besides all this, is that most of them don’t even know their own capabilities as an organization that well. Thus, getting the right product that not only works well, but works well for millions becomes a daunting task for most of the startups.
Building the Product-Market-Fit
“Back then the customer in India had never made a choice, it was always the travel agent”
In fact, MMT (MakeMyTrip) learned the hard way as well and just as any other startup went through multiple trials and tribulations on their product. Back in those days, Deep and his team created a product when no-one really bought online as most people were still wary of dropping their credit cards online. Even though, the Indian website completely bombed, Deep continued to keep the site as there were tons of viewers who used the site to research for best fares.
But it was only about time when the product started defining itself better in the year 2005 when India finally started buying online, all thanks to the IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation). This turned out to be a watershed year for Deep and his company, as they also became the first OT (online travel) platform in the world to build a direct connect with a low-cost carrier, Air Deccan. With this, Deep and his team not only managed to let the customers make the final choice while offering real-time rates, but also perfected the product-market-fit for the company.
Clearly, Deep got it right eventually with a solid value prop and market need, as until then, it was only the travel agents who made the choice for the customers.
Building an exceptional tech team
“If I had to do this all over again, I would start with one co-founder with complementary skills”
There is no rule that a founder has to be a techie to come up with a good product, but if we look around, some of the most successful guys do understand tech deeply. Bhavish (Aggarwal) from OLA, Binny (Bansal) and Sachin (Bansal) from Flipkart or Vijay (Sharma) from PayTM, the list goes on. Even today, if Deep had to do it all over again, he says he would also prefer having a techie as a co-founder. However, his lack of technical background didn’t stop him from building a great tech team.
For hiring, Deep had a mental checklist and was very clear from day one that he wanted his team to be very puritan in their approach. He believed that the product guys should never pollute their minds with anything but with the holy grail of funnel and of conversion. The only thing in their mind should be the customer. In fact, he even institutionalized something called the GoToMarket Day, where his team would spend one whole day in the market just talking to the customers.
Indeed, it is quite evident that Deep was very consistent in building this customer-focused culture, where he not only wanted his team to get inspiration from the people, but also wanted them to have the originality of thoughts with a strong conviction to defend their opinions and ideas. After all, to build a great team, we all need people who can add new dimensions with a different point of view!
Tune in to the podcast here to catch the full episode of Deep Kalra as he shares more insights on building the right team and PMF.
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Tickle your brain cells with these interesting reads
https://medium.com/swlh/why-is-product-market-fit-so-freaking-hard-a9255abe47c
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