A startup is a dream, not just a money source. For an entrepreneur, it is an immense satisfaction to see their ideas taking shape and growing into the real world.
Today at NxtDecade, we have Ambuj Singh Tomar, co-founder of Qikown, to share his startup story. We are thankful to him for his time.
Qikown is an amazing concept, and it’s potential is unquestionable. Let’s directly hear form Ambuj, about their entrepreneurial journey.
Ambuj Singh Tomar –
Supervise the team and handle clients.
Interview
Q1. Why do you choose Startup?
Independence. It’s the first word that strikes my mind. We could have prepared for placements and it would have surely taken less efforts but this feeling of watching your idea coming to life and the idea of being your own boss is something you can’t get in any well placed job or firm.
q2. Qikown allows anyone to rent their things at a reasonable price, so instead of buying, people can take it on rent, use it and give it back after decided time. But, let us know how you best describe the Qikown Idea? And, why named it “Qikown”?
You got it right! Qikown is like a wish that strikes every individual whenever they see their old stuff or want something for a short amount of time. We wanted people to “Quickly own” anything’ that is why it’s QIKOWN.
Q3. What is your biggest resource? I mean, what is the thing you needed the most to take the first step in building Qikown?
The biggest resource in my opinion is a ‘team‘. Because startups or entrepreneurship is a long journey. You need someone to be with, to divide your workload and mental load, so as to work on multiple aspects.
To build Qikown as a company, our team will play a crucial role. As you must have heard, “None of us is as smart as all of us“. If we are in a team we will surely invest time and influence the investor.
Q4. What are the present scenarios of your startup?
Presently we are focused on improving our website functionality, and making the interface more friendly. And, so far we have no employees. We are handling everything by our own.
Since, our startup started in this COVID scenario so for now we are doing work-from-home and are planning to set up our office soon. For now, we have traction, we have our customers and are planning to gain more.
Q5. Suppose I need something on rent? How can I use your platform “Qikown” and get it on rent?
If you or anyone needs something on rent. The process is very easy. Suppose we take an example of a book. The person will visit the website and look for the desired product. All the details available there are verified. If that person is interested in renting that product he/she will just need to register on our website which is free and only then the contact details of that person who is offering that product is revealed. So he/she can talk on a call or can have a text message to that person on their personalized dashboard and can have the deal done.
Q6. Suppose I have a bunch of things that I don’t want to sell, but I can give it on rent in return of some money? How can I get started with Qikown?
If you have anything to give on rent, WELCOME to Qikown family. The first thing you have to do is to register yourself, after that you can post your item on Qikown by clicking on ‘POST AN AD’. Once your advertisement is posted, you can easily maintain your account and chat with customers.
Q7. I have a bit of caution! Suppose I have a music system which is open for rent at a fixed rate through Qikown platform. But, how do I guarantee that my music system is peacefully returned to me? How do I ensure that the person is fully authentic? And will not run away with my costly music system?
Ok this is a problem that can arise in the minds of many customers. If a person wants to take a thing on rent so the first step of it is that he/she has to register on our website without that the person cannot get the contact details of the other person. When they do that their contact details will be saved by our system and can be retrieved anytime.
The second things we do is when anyone registers we call them and check the authenticity of that person. On a personal level we advise our customers to make a safe deal and always ask for an identity proof whenever they are giving their things on rent to other person.
Q8. What is the biggest challenge that you see in making Qikown successful company? And what steps are you taking to resolve it?
There are many challenges in a startup or starting new things as you know. But the biggest challenge according to us right now is to increase the reach of our website and to acquire traction.
Without this, our startup is just a hypothetical case. Traction would be proof to our customers and the investors that we have achieved and have the potential to achieve more. We have customers and are working to connect to more and build trust.
We are working on different social media platforms to publicize our product and to increase our reach. Continuously working on the website to make it simpler and according to our customer requirements. Planning to add book reviews blog section for our reading enthusiast individuals. And in future we will take all the necessary steps to make things more simpler.
Q9. Qikown is an online startup. And, the website (and App) is the most valuable resource for proper implementation of the idea. Tell us how you have managed to carry our website development part? Which hosting you preferred and why? And, How much has the website developed cost so far? What portion of investment goes in this?
We have made our site using WordPress as it’s easy to add features and requires less maintenance. We are using cloud hosting for now because it is good for growing businesses. In the future, we’ll be shifting to dedicated hosting.
One thing I realized with Qikown is, it’s not only about the amount of money you are willing to invest but it’s more about investing it the right way.
So far, we have cost around 5000 Rs. We are trying to keep our expenses minimal as for startups it’s quite challenging to get funding easily.
Q10. How have you planned to grow your website? Which marketing technique are you using?
We are planning to grow our website based on geographical area, covering material from each part.
We are using, digital marketing methods such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing, Content marketing, and others.
Q11. Many of the Young entrepreneurs make mistakes by thinking that startup is easy. What would you like to say to them?
A startup can be easy if you have a good team, great investors and most importantly a good idea that fills the void in society, otherwise, a startup can be formidable.
People say smart work overrides hard work or vice versa but that’s a theoretical statement. In real life, you need a perfect mixture of both!
If you think your idea is worth existing in society then don’t wait, find people who understand your vision and start, rest will follow.
Q12. We are trying to help startups to grow, as well as setting up motivation for young budding entrepreneurs to live on their dreams. What would you like to say to our readers?
That’s a great thing that NxtDecade is helping budding entrepreneurs in their startup mission. As our society doesn’t believes and support these things. They think its useless and waste of time and money. But this is not the case. To all those budding entrepreneurs I just want to say that never listen to negative minded people and never tell anyone about your plan, just show them your result.
You should have a clear meaning of what entrepreneurship meant to you; as that will decide what you want with your entrepreneurship journey. To all the readers I want to say that everyone has their own ambitions and aim, start working on them now don’t wait for the right time it may never come and time will bring experience.
Q13. How do you manage your health, relationship, time for family and friends, and self fulfilment in the midst of the hectic workload of your startup?
If you do what you love, you will never get tired. For us, it’s an essential part of our routines to rest so everything falls together eventually.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
― Barack Obama
It really great talking to the co-founder Qikown — an online platform to keep your products on renting base and welcome customers. A good way to save money as well as earn money.
If you have anymore questions, ask in the comments. In case you have your own startup story to share, connect with us.
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Brilliant minds together. Godspeed
This content is quite informative. Got to learn about lot of this.
💥💥great going fellas!
A very good initiative by these young minds.