Interview with Mr. Prasad Ankit, Founder and CEO, Touchtalent.com

An Interview with Mr. Prasad Ankit, Founder and CEO at Touchtalent.com (Talent Unlimited Online Services Pvt. Ltd.) 

• Tell us something about yourself?

I am pursuing Integ. M.Tech. in Mathematics & Computing from IIT Delhi (Currently in my 10^th Semester). I believe myself to be a true entrepreneur at heart. I registered my first business at the age of 15 which is called #RDS, a web application development and hosting company. After making decent bucks, at IIT Delhi I continued playing a significant role in a few early stage startups. A few of them are thewittyshit, voguemagnet, greycells education etc. All of that is before actually starting touchtalent.com. In my free time I prefer attending classes and completing my credits.

• Tell us something about your business?

 The Concept: What is Touchtalent?

Touchtalent is an online platform for creative people.

Touchtalent works on the philosophy that when we create, we have inherent need to share and get appreciation and feedback. Sometimes we can even earn for our creativity which in turn motivates us to create more.

*Touchtalent has been able to successfully address the need of creative people to have a dedicated socially creative platform. A lot more features are going to be rolled out soon.

*Touchtalent.com is having an Alexa rank of approx 4000 in India and 40,000 in the world. This has been achieved within 6 months of website public launch.

*Touchtalent.com has a reach of around 5 million creative people from across the globe. Majority are from South Asian countries and few European countries.

• What is your philosophy towards work?

I do not differentiate work from life. For me working is living and living is working.

• Whom do you admire as your role model? And why?

I do admire a lot of people and organizations from various fields but most of them are not popularly known. To name a few who are popular and have recently won my heart: Arvind Kejriwal for his courage. Aamir Khan for his perfection. Anurag Kashyap for his ‘mastmaula’ attitude. There are many many people around me who inspire me every day.

• “Management is core to every individual, organization & society.” Give your views on it.

I agree with the statement because opposite of management is chaos. The very fact that we are living proves that there exists management everywhere. Management comes from within, the core of everything.

• Name 3 qualities of prime importance that an entrepreneur should possess.

These are my opinions. Some people may not agree with me.

1.      DO AND DIE attitude. An entrepreneur should start to die and die to start again.
2.      An entrepreneur should work for ROJI-ROTI: Return on Junoon invested and return on Time invested.
3.      An entrepreneur should always be willing to learn. Learning has to be kept at the highest priority.

• According to you, what are the challenges for Entrepreneurship today?

Depends on circumstances but in general there could be challenges due to pre-mature entrepreneurial ecosystem, there could be challenges due to societal traditions / beliefs, there could also be financial challenges. An entrepreneur sometimes mistakenly creates a new set of challenges never been heard before, but at the end of the day an entrepreneur should be ready to face any upcoming challenge bravely.

• Can Entrepreneurship be taught in B-Schools/Management Institutes/Colleges?

Ofcourse and that is why they are being taught. Anything can be taught but how much you are ready to take depends only on you.

• Do you think today’s economy is conducive for a new venture to start upon?

Yes. I believe that a new venture can start irrespective of the economy or any other factor because a venture thrives on a market gap. If the underlying gap is big enough for an idea / venture to fit in, a new venture can definitely emerge big from there.

• Is the Name of the Institute from where a student pursues his/her Graduation/Post Graduation or other courses important while setting up your business?

They aren’t important but sometimes they do ease your entrepreneurial journey.

• What qualities you see for apart from the required academic qualification while recruiting a person?

We do not hire employees, we hire entrepreneurs. The only other thing that we look for apart from knowledge of the subject (which is obvious) is compatibility with the existing team.

• “Earning more & more is the motive behind any business.” Is it justifiable?

Creating more and more value for the people who are using your product / services has been the motive behind any successful business.

• Share with us the most enjoyable & most embarrassing moment you had experienced on work. 

The most enjoyable moments are those when a team member comes in with a brilliant idea, and we have rounds of debate on it.

The most embarrassing moments are those when somebody talks about Cricket or Bollywood and I have no clue what’s going on 😀

 At the end I would like to give credits to all my team members who have taken touchtalent to heights that I could have never done it alone.

COMPANY PROFILE

History-

• Nov 1^st: Started with Facebook page (http://facebook.com/touchtalent)
• April 13^th: Company incorporated and launched Private beta website
• June 6^th: Launched public beta website (http://www.touchtalent.com)
• Oct 29^th: Alexa Ranking: 4,498(India),  51,368(world)

Vision/Mission-

Promote creativity.

Products & Service-

The Product: Socially Creative Platform

What:   An interest based social networking platform

Whom: For creative people

Why:

• To share one’s own creativity and have a discussion around it
• Get appreciated/critiqued by likeminded creators
• Monetize creativity

How:     Gamification techniques would be extensively used for product creation, pricing, appreciation and monetization.

Marketing Strategy-

Mostly its viral marketing with the help of social media.

Existing Market Presence-

Market leader in South Asian Countries.

Future Plans-

To develop co-creation tools for creative people.

To merge creative brands in the community.