1. Tell us about your journey

In my IIMB days (2005-07), I felt that there was a need for a structured intervention for placement preparation. While we had access to resources, it was quite overwhelming to figure out what is it that needs to be done to put your best foot forward. Of course, we were all had high IQ and very smart, but there was a general lack of direction. I felt that the whole batch would do so much better if there was a structured approach to the placement preparation problem. This was the genesis of this idea.

My journey with CareerCarve has been long and arduous. My friends actually call me and Manish, my co-founder the original gangsters of this space. With all humility, we have done this for the last 12 years. In these 12 years, we have seen many players come and go, but we have hung on. We have pushed the attraction to diversify into a hundred different things we can possibly do in this space and kept our focus on MBA campus placement preparation.

Today, I think we are well poised. We have the process, people, and technology to offer a very consistent training experience for B-School students preparing for campus placements. We are well known and well regarded in this space and we are eagerly looking to increase our footprint.

2. What are the key ingredients to achieve success?

There are 2 key ingredients:

• Listen to your consumers – if you build what they want, your business will do well. This has been one of the most humbling lessons, especially since we are in the area of “expertise”. Unless what you say is useful, it doesn’t matter what your expertise is. This drives the way we work – the goal is to ensure that every student-mentor interaction results in the intended outcome. For this, if we have to push the team internally, push our mentors, push the college administration, we do it.
• Keep focus – everything is a distraction. Even more so, when you are a boot-strapped company and an additional revenue stream looks very attractive. Manish and I are very proud of what we have done – we have very few competitors who can claim this – sole focus on B-school campus placement prep. What this focus has done is that we have gone very deep into this problem, anything that clients ask us, we are already covering. Just that we draw the line at academics – we trust the institutes to manage this very well.

3. How do you handle failures?

Failure is just a state of the system. Some things work, some things don’t work. So long as you change what is needed to flip that state, I think it is quite easy to handle failures. Often small tweaks can change this system state very easily. So what we do is build solid processes. Once these are built, intended outcomes happen.

4. What’s the one word or phrase that defines your identity?

For us as founders – Original Gangsters

For CareerCarve – Placement Preparedness Perfected

5. Is the search for excellence utopian or is it for real?

I think so long as the strive is for excellence, we make progress every day. Perfection is utopian since the definition keeps changing. So long as you get better at what you do, I think we are well poised for excellence. We tell our clients this, we are not perfect – this is a human-driven offering and things will never be perfect. But we have solid feedback loops and we have our ears to the ground, so excellence is something that you can expect from us.

6. How would you mentor / advise people struggling in their lives?

I think I have a long way to go to be in shape to do this. But for me personally, I think being grounded in the reality of your business is very important. Wish-washy hair-brained ideas are ok, but unless the path to implementation is not clear, nothing matters. So be real.

Second, be sorted personally. Entrepreneurship is a very personal journey. Professional and personal merge without the proverbial very thin line. To succeed in the business, you must be peaceful personally. If you can do that, the only risks to success will be external.

7. What’s the one quote that defines your approach to life?

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We are not that old, the best is yet to come – but you get what we are saying”