Abhinav Das

My Obsessive Journey to Enterprenuership...

If excelling in one's field gives an opportunity to be a leader, I am happy to take it in my stride. At a time when people, especially youths of my age, are taking to big metros as destinations of technological advancement and Internet solutions, I always believed a small city like Patna could be a much better choice to excel in this field and also reach out to people of my own state and provide them the same quality at much cheaper rates than IT geeks based in big metros can provide. Sense of being a successful entrepreneur is a constant guiding principle. It gives immense satisfaction to wear cap of being one of leaders in my field. Anyways, leading always gives pleasure and leading well a sense of responsibility. Though I do not believe in comparisons, which often cause digressions and give a sense of fake superiority, I do believe Bihar has come a long way from days of Remington's typewriters. Patna's growth in last 10 years has been phenomenal, not just in field of real estate but also towards switchover to technology and computers for compatibility and growth. Right from E-office File tracking system of government which my company pioneered to implement paperless work culture in Bihar Government offices to free access of valuable data on government sites, it has been a nice upward journey for the state. The leaders, who used to say "ये आईटी वाईटी क्या होता हैं,"now have devoted IT cells at their offices to manage their social networking sites. The 2015 and 2020 assembly elections showed high-pitched IT-induced advertisement wars between political parties. People like us have now become hidden war room heroes. Bihar is thinking IT big and we are the techno drivers of the thought process.

Game Changer

If I have to single out, it has to be SMS Patna. Sending group SMS has become the best way to reach out to one's clients. When I started it in March 2014 there were hardly any such service provider in Patna with a sound database. Whether it is politicians, insurance companies or big business showrooms, group SMS has become part and parcel of current business model. It has been now reaching out to district and block towns. Moving beyond towns and getting clients from small towns and even villages gives real satisfaction. Though I got an opportunity to lead a team when I got promoted to post of director in Delhi-based IT consulting firm, I-Metier Consulting Pvt.Ltd in December 2012, the firm where I had started my career as Marketing Executive in September 2011. My growth with the company filled me with a sense of self-belief. I decided to take a brave decision that had risks. I started my own company, Intenext Solutions Pvt. in October 2013. I started with a set of four-five people, who were full of energy. There were moments of desperation when I had to knock doors of offices for clientele and several people not willing to believe that I can produce good results at such a young age and and not much experience. But it was a matter of a first few assignments. My company lived up to clients' expectations. Good words and good will started spreading and I am happy to share that I work with a team of more than 50 now and have best names of Bihar as well as established big national players as my clients. This said, challenges and expectations only grow and I wish prize of good work should be more works.

Results I have shown, business model and clients' trust my company and its devoted team have earned. That I backed my decision to an entrepreneur in challenging Bihar ahead of choice of a white collar job should be encouraged.

Journey from DATA to AATA...

At a time India’s agriculture sector, which employs more than half of India’s overall population, has been facing a crisis on many fronts, more so because of Pandemic, farmers and rural entrepreneurs needed a boost, a motivation from somewhere. While growing up I saw farmers in my locality are struggling to sell their produce in the market. Apart from this, there were other challenges troubling farmers like arranging logistics, finding buyers, and getting the right prices. The urge became my motivation to look for solutions. I also realized that there were many services delivering products to the doorstep of customers in metros, but there was no such service for farmers in Bihar. With an aim to bridge this gap and get farmers a fair price for their produce by eliminating middlemen, I started PatnaKart during Covid 19 Pandemic in May 2020. The startup has developed a tech-driven solution to build a sustainable supply chain for fruits, vegetables and other agro based produce. PatnaKart has established technology-driven procurement centre at Karai villages near Bihta from where it collects the produce. The farmers have to register with PatnaKart through Kisan connect programme and give informations about their produce to PatnaKart executive. PatnKart later does a customised sorting, grading, and packaging to maintain the quality. The startup then uses its tech-enabled logistics and delivers the produce to customers for free of cost. PatnaKart basically buys the produce directly from farmers and sells it to small mandis and businesses such as hotels, retailers, restaurants, caterers, canteens, PGs, and even individual customers. Patnakart has onboarded more than 10000+ users and 100+ farmers from across Patna. The company is currently working towards scaling its procurement centre in more villages and is also building a price prediction model at the supply side for the farmers, for which the company will expand its technology team. We are building farm to business supply chain through an integrated network of mobile App. We are focused to build strong technology to create more efficient supply chain.