Quit his US job to begin his own start-up

Sripad Nandiraj, 28 year old, who has an experience in the business industry as a senior Business Analyst, Chubb Insurance, New Jersey, USA, Sabre Hospitality Solutions, Southlake Texas, USA, began his own start-up in the late 2017. Sripad shares his journey from his US job to begin his own start-up.

Sripad says, "Don't let others convince you that the idea is bad when your gut tells you it's good. That's one thing I have always believed. This ideology of mine has brought me a long way. Studying and working as a Business Analyst in the United States has given me great insights into businesses and how they work."

He adds, "Over a period of time, I have learnt how to look at a problem in different aspects and find solutions for the same. As we say network is net worth, We had landed our first project of hocomoco from my close network and that enabled me to prove the startup's calibre. I always believe in grow, let grow startegy and being a leader I am responsible for motivating all the stakeholders even during hard times which has made me much stronger."

Please tell about your start-up and when did you start it?

Hocomoco – Home Construction & Monitoring Company is an end to end E-commerce Design & Construction Services platform.

Our goal is to create the largest construction network across the country. We offer wide range of services to land/Plot owners (Independent Homes, Apartments, and Commercial Buildings & Others) . If you own a plot/Land then Hocomoco (Brand) shall be your go to place for Permissions, Designing (Arch & Structure), Construction Execution, Interiors & smart homes, Property Leasing and other ancillary services.

Our Customers shall be able to track their work progress from anywhere in the world with our E-Monitoring tool. We also provide very flexible pricing models to suit our customer's comfort. For the first time, we have also introduced Engineering & Monitoring Services (EMS) only Model for Independent Home owners. We started our operations in late 2017. We would like to create a 'Brand' that our customers can rely upon.

What inspired you to begin the start-up?

I came across a friend who happened to have a Renovation work at home in 2013. It was a month long renovation and I could clearly see the problems and Hardships that followed. I imagined my father being an Advocate constructing an own home, it seemed to be very chaotic journey with no promising 'brand' around that I could Approach. So, I always thought of creating a Brand that could serve these customers. It gives us immense joy to think that we are in fact delivering dreams. Our Journey for the last few years proved to be true. We have scaled up to 3,50,000 sft in such a short span. Most of our customers are working professionals and NRI's. Our Target is to reach 25,00,000 Sft by 2021 and touch more lives.

What were the challenges that you faced in the beginning of the start-up?

I cannot describe the problems that we faced in words. Again, I guess that's how the start up journeys are, The Biggest challenge was to convince our first customer. Since, we had no previous projects. Other challenges that we faced are finding vendors/ workers that can deliver Quality as per our guidelines, and then followed by building trust with our Suppliers. We are also planning to address these problems on a long run with a robust Database structure with all these information under our shelter.

One problem that we never thought off is definitely finding the team (Employees). I always thought we could definitely find and hire team members but it is/was not that simple. It really took a lot of effort and time to put together our first team, before that our operations definitely was a huge task because we had to rely on third parties for basic tasks. A lot of youngsters opt for bigger/fortune companies and that is a huge problem for our startup eco system. But the exposure that startups like Hocomoco can provide will definitely have a life changing impact.

How was your business effected during the COVID-19-19-19

COVID-19-19 has affected everyone and we are not an exception. There has been an effect on our growth in general due to market slow down. We have now Re-engineered our Strategy to fit in to Post COVID-19 Scenario. One of the major impacts is the migrant workforce that left the state. There is a severe shortage of workers across the state. We have looked after the well being of all the workers in our Project sites during the lockdown which is why we were able to resume works post lockdown. Even the Material Supply is affected due to interstate travel restrictions. However Govt. has been pro actively working to clear hindrances of such supply.

Hocomoco will continue to stand by its team and clients. We are confident of surviving this pandemic and also we have no intentions of laying off our workforce. They have been our strength and we will continue to support them.