| | OCTOBER 201919We went back, started making meticulous plans, and decided that we are all set to launch in September 2017, and we did!, soon to realise that macro-economic factor like DeMo will hit us, followed by GST imple-mentation that will keep clients we were banking on in a wait & watch mode. But we didn't lose faith; we used this downtime to meet every client we knew and started fine-tuning our offering and a niche, which made us a formidable force! We struck gold with Ko-tak Mutual Fund, who believed our conviction and got us on board, followed by Delhi Police for their social media in the same month.Once we found our secret recipe, we just went steadily after clients and added Tata Sky Broadband, Club Mahindra, two A listed consulting companies for their communications needs, and a client in Sin-gapore. As we continue to spread our wings, we have collaborated with a US based Analytics company to of-fer more upstream strategic services and expand our footprints in America and South East Asia.How would you define Hyper Connect Communications as unique in the in-dustry, and what were the challenges faced to make the company what it has grown to be today?Apart from the jolts of demonetization and GST, the biggest challenge for us was finding talent, as we were a startup and no one was willing to join us. Moreover, as strategic planning in digital marketing requires brand-new thinking, building that thinking culture was not easy. This thinking space was then dominated by large network tycoons and we had to struggle to keep pace with the industry demands, which took a lot of time. Even now as the future lies, we will continue to remain in the thinking space, as we are confident that there are takers. When it comes to our company's uniqueness, it's our background, because while Kiran holds a mainline advertising background, I come from the digital front, and merging these only came as a boon to start-off. An instance of our efforts ­ we worked with the department of tourism of Maharashtra who want-ed to create a coffee-table book. We instead suggested a mobile travel portal that can reach-out to masses and also integrated it with Airbnb & Zoomcar, so one in search of information can also book a homestay and also utilize Zoomcar facilities. This brought-in a lot of attention and was a grand success. When it comes to your personal life, how do you ensure to bring about a balance? Also, tell us about the support you received throughout your journey.It is always important to give credit to those be-hind the success of the journey. My family has been very supportive of my ambitions, especially my wife and both set of parents. Aside this, my business part-ner has also played a crucial role. We call each oth-er work-wife as we end-up having so many common problems and we balance our emotions. But I wouldn't say there is a balance, as there is a very strong skew towards me spending 14-15 hours a day at work, and it has been this way for the last three years. But now that we have crossed certain phases, I am trying to balance-out some self-time and time for family & friends who have been very important to me. Tell us about funding throughout your business journey, and how do you en-sure keeping yourself updated with the latest trends in an industry that is run constantly on change? We started with an angel investor and that brought us a lot of business acumen and business experience. We knew advertising, but what the investor taught us was the business of advertising. Today, we are self-funded and well equipped for growth, and we will continue to collaborate to amplify ambitions, just like we have with Kvantum Inc. from the US. To keep myself updated I read; but most of my inspiration is drawn by talking to people from dif-ferent industries and majorly from my clients who are consumers with perspective; that's where I get on-ground information about consumer behaviour, choices and other important information to enhance offerings further. ?!?!?!FOR THE BUDDING ENTREPRENEURS:"Take the leap of faith, don't be afraid to fail or change your masterplan without losing the vision. It's a tough ride but it's worth it".25YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS2019TOP
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