20 INSPIRATION
another company of his own called – Excellere in 2007 . Excellere was all about developing web-based educational products . Although , for unknown reasons this venture of his didn ’ t function for more than a year , but during that phase what he saw back in India , changed his life forever . He founded – Quikr . com !
THE IDEA OF QUIKR
The story dates back to 2007 ! Pranay was living in New York and had turned into an experimental film-maker . He required a team for a film called ‘ Latent Lava ’— a video game made in the style of a feature film ; basically , it used technology that allowed the viewer to play a game on live action footage , creating multiple film scenarios . Anyway , he was able to recruit almost 60 actors , one producer and 30 crew members through Craigslist and that is when he realised that , Craigslist was a fullproof business model and didn ’ t have an existence in his home country .
As he got deep into ideation , Pranay saw that there were barely any solutions for the individuals to get a just price for anything they wanted , whether it was a used phone , furniture or a flat . He wanted to solve this problem for the masses . Additionally , this was a business model that had proved its success across the world ; be it , the U . S . or any other European country , or for that matter South
America or China too . And even though print classifieds still had a stronger hold in the Indian market , online classifieds had the potential to out beat it , over the period of time . This boosted his confidence even more ! And while connecting the dots , he found the last piece of the puzzle . India is a country that still loves to touch and feel the product before buying it and a platform that he had in mind , would get the buyer and seller in touch , and would let them continue their transaction offline . This would not online make his idea different from e-commerce sites like Amazon or Flipkart , but would also put it on the lines of classifieds . Hence , in July 2008 ; Pranay officially launched Quikr . com , but as Kijiji . in ! In the initial phase Quikr was a subsidiary of eBay and Kijiji ( which meant community ). Soon after the launch of the brand he realized that , the name was very difficult to pronounce and wasn ’ t adding to the brand too . Then he renamed it as Quikr .
Moving on ! Quikr was born out of a simple yet unique idea – to craft a place where people in India can trade things from each other . But according to him Quikr was very different ; the portal is designed very strategically , depending on the target audience . They had a very simple yet innovative technique to track their P2P ( People-2-People ) sales as well . All they used to and still do is that ; when people used to come to delete their ads , that time they used to ask them if they were able to sell their product . With such a unique model ( in respect to India ), along with such innovative strategies , in all aspects , the growth and rise of the company was eminent ! Today , Quikr receives over 30 million users every month . In fact , almost every Indian has used Quikr at least once to buy something , or even post an ad .
WINSPIRE : Empowering youth | February , 2017
Advice to Young Generation
What you are looking in next generation ?
There should be clarity of thought , ability to inspire .