An Entrepreneur's journey from a Small-town boy to a multi-millionaire

An online marketplace that empowers everyone in the country to connect with buyers and sellers independently. Somewhere along the way, the solution to such problems brimmed in the minds of those seeking more comfortable solutions - innovators and entrepreneurs.

A brand that empowers every person in the country to independently connect with buyers and sellers online. The process of evolution does play its part in every field and somewhere along the way the remedy to such problems brimmed in the minds of those looking for more comfortable solutions – Innovators and entrepreneurs.

As a result, Quikr was born with a vision of providing a platform for sellers and buyers to meet virtually and transact offline, with the tag India’s no. 1 online classifieds platform and over 5 million listings. 

The success behind Quikr is its Founder and CEO Pranay Chulet. He was born in a small town in Rajasthan, in a middle-class family where his father was a government official working in mines as a general manager and his mother was a homemaker. 

He worked in many big companies, i. PricewaterhouseCoopers (Associate Partner) and then Booz Allen Hamilton (Principal) in 2002 & 2005, respectively.

After working for five years in MNCs, he started another company called – Excellere in 2007, which is all about developing web-based educational products. The greatest accomplishment in the field of digital media was the formation of Craigslist, a California-based Media Company, which very soon became a roaring success in the United States. 

But it was not like that one day Pranay woke up and made a decision that he is going to build India’s leading classified platform “Craigslist. ”

In India, people love to verify 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 offline feature makes 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 stage, Quikr was a subsidiary of eBay. Their brand name “Kijiji” was “A Swahili” word which means “community”.

Hence, Pranay Chulet & his partner Jiby Thomas (Earlier founders) both decided to create a new subsidiary and officially renamed it Quikr.

However, Jiby decided to quit Quikr in 2012 and started his startup. Coming on Quikr was born as a simple and unique idea. A place where people can trade things with each other but if you see, with the concept of classified also crossed paths with many players, from multiple avenues.

Anyone can start a website, but it’s not everyone builds a classified business. Just like his brand name- offered a quicker way for people to transact as compared to other marketplaces. All things were going fine, but the high point of Quikr was that: It had a definite revenue model in place.

Apart from so many things; one of the unique tactics was- every city had a different Quikr. In respect of India, Pranay came up with such a unique model along with innovative strategies in all aspects.

In the coming year’s company has grown with the speed of a rocket but also transformed into a generic brand regarding classifieds. In 2014, the company tripled its consumers and touched a revenue of around Rs. 200 Cr. Shortage of space had also led to the invention of an innovative idea.

Quikr also started a one-of-its-kind – ‘missed center. ’ In 2015, Quikr with a strength of 1200-1300 people, reported 15 lakh (1. 5 million roughly) transactions every month, which is valued somewhere around $5 billion. Author’s perspective on the success of Quikr. com:

Started with fewer resources and an innovative idea, Pranay made it a multi-millionaire company through his continuous hard work and determination.

This was possible because Pranay was working from starting to solve a problem many businesses used to face and he had confidence that his idea would be able to solve that problem. If you also have some problem-solving ideas, do start working on them and the rest will come to you.

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