My amazing journey till now ..
My journey at UrbanClap commenced in August 2015. My humble abode was a small office with the capacity of 4 people, where the city GM Alok, along with the 3 of us convened- our voices creating a perfect euphony. I dare say, the bustling streets of Kalina made my journey even more dramatic.
As we launched in yet another city, we had a sense of thrill- stemming from our single digit requests turning into double digit requests on an average day. Needless to say we indulged in incessant brainstorming that included demand, supply and operations. We thought of a range of ideas which worked well with the other cities. These were a mix of some relevantly novel ideas and those that were exploited by folks from similar or other industries. Throughout this process, each and every employee was personally responsible for marketing ideas for their categories as well as for the city as a whole.
The office got larger (yay!), the number of employees increased and things got a bit more organized than before. As a whole, things just kept looking brighter with our biweekly reviews with the founders. Honestly for the greater part, it felt like a Roadies audition every Thursday. With every stride we were perfecting ourselves. Of course, we had a share of appeasement that we religiously worked on. This is how we matured in our universe of UrbanClap knowledge. Roles got defined, work got organized and efforts got focused. It is a perfect metaphor of starting your business, and slowly growing it.
Being a part of the city team , gives you the 1980s feel of a desi going to the Head Office(HO) in a foreign country; Where all you know about the HO, is what you have heard from other people- the free coffee, mess, huge office(What a luxury!) and the list goes on. But on a more serious note, the accessibility to the different teams like product for app issues, CX for customer escalation and so on makes a lot difference. The challenge is to work under this constraint, seek information, coordinate with all the teams to the benefit of your category.
I have learnt endlessly from my peers, seniors, providers and the founders. My role includes a range of functions, typically calling the pros to come online, checking no responses, calling pros to accept leads, talking to the booking ops guys. Furthermore, talking to customers, handling escalations, calling pros for on boarding, resolving their queries for credit recharges, to provide training across different aspects like behavioral skills, technical skills and app usage.
Apart from handling our core activity related to the category, we also went beyond our designated roles to, take care of the office maintenance and handle the category of a colleague during his absence. Well, sitting in the city office is like running a small start-up in its own self. That’s the beauty of it. With the passage of time, one becomes more skillful with respect to an assortment of things like people management, time management, hustling ability, etc. This empowers an individual to polish his skills, thus paving the road of one’s career and growth within oneself.
Krunal Solanki
