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Name: Rachna Ghiya
Business: CrispTalks
Industry: Media & Publishing
Location: Jaipur, India
Reason for starting: I left my job with no clue about what to do next. But what I was sure was that I didn’t want to do a monotonous job. I was feeling fixated in a particular kind of life style that I was not enjoying. Though my job gave me liberty to do anything related to marketing, I somehow felt that the 9 to 5 lifestyle wasn’t something that I would enjoy for lifetime.
I left my job after thinking about it for the last 6 months. Let me tell you that it takes a lot of courage to leave a settled job and foray into the world of the unknown. I believed in myself and took a leap of faith. I remember the first project I got was just 5 dollars but later on that client ordered 1,600 dollars’ worth of services.
I started working with start-ups as a branding and marketing consultant after leaving my job. While working with international and domestic clients, I analyzed the growth of visual marketing and the need of affordable animated videos by start-ups. I love exploring new things and just for fun I started working on a few DIY animation tools to make videos for my existing clients. They loved it and I thought if their start-up needs affordable videos then so do other start-ups. And that’s how the idea of starting my own venture with the vision of delivering affordable animated videos came about.
I initially started with the name of PowtoonPRO.com as Powtoon was one of the tools that we were working on but later on I changed it to CrispTalks.com. Now we are working on many DIY tools and also adding new tools to offer varied types of videos to clients.
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How do you define success? Success can have different forms for different people. For some, it can be fame, title, power or money but for me it is a life that is balanced and well-lived. It’s not just about creating a billion dollar company but also about living every moment of your life the way you want it to be. The entrepreneurial life let you set your own deadlines while giving you an opportunity to learn at your own pace and define success according to things that matters to you. Along with this, for me it is also about creating a positive difference to the society we are living in.
Biggest success: Bootstrapping a start-up that is lean and organically growing. We are serving both domestic and international clients with a remote team that help us in saving cost and makes our services affordable. Until now, we haven’t spent anything on outbound marketing. All the leads that we are currently receiving are via organic methods and word-of-mouth marketing. I personally work on strategies that can help in organic and sustainable growth.
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What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it? I feel the biggest challenge is to find like-minded team members who can relate to your vision. It’s the team that actually help CEOs in executing their vision. Imagine a scenario where you are doing everything that can take your start-up to the next level. You can be a part of everything but you can’t do everything by yourself. And you need team members to make things work. I feel that if you have the right mix of people who can strategically work along with you then your success rate increases by a good percentage.
Who is your most important role model? I keep reading inspiring stories but I haven’t stick to the ideology of one person yet. A small kid can inspire me by the liveliness he/she lives and teaches me something that is worth remembering for a lifetime.
[box_light]Website www.crisptalks.
Twitter @Crisp_Talks
Facebook facebook.com/CrispTalks[/box_light]
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Edited by The Story Exchange