Urban Company CEO Abhiraj Bhal: the restarters interview
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CEO of Urban Company, Abhiraj Bhal in an interview with Startup India. Here Abhiraj Bhal talks about his journey of becoming the Urbanclap CEO & Founder. After completing his engineering from IIT- Kanpur & post-graduation from IIM– Ahmedabad & a 3-year long consulting stint with BCG he started CinemaBox, a movie streaming startup with his batchmate from IIT-Kanpur, Varun Khaitan. Post-meeting Raghav Chandra an alum of the University of California Berkeley. Abhiraj Bhal along with Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra started Urbanclap, which is now Asia’s largest home services marketplace. Abhiraj Bhal Urbanclap CEO and Co-founders renamed Urbanclap to Urban Company in early 2020. Urban Company now alongside several markets in India also operates in Sydney, Dubai, Singapore and looks to make an even stronger global footprint, etc.
Urban Company, a leading home service platform is like a services marketplace available on desktop and mobile devices which helps bridge the gap between customers and trained service professionals. It helps customers book reliable services from trained services professionals from the comfort of their homes. Urban Company is backed by tiger global, saif partners. Individuals like ratan tata and Kunal Bahl.
Urbanclap/Urban Company offers beauty services, publishing, painting, appliance repair, and a wide range of services. Abhiraj Bhal Urban Company CEO overlooks service partners onboarding as the Urban Company CEO. Urban Company has a network of over 25000 trained service professionals, has already served over 5 million customers operates in 27 cities and 4 different countries.
In this interview, the Abhiraj Bhal Urbanclap CEO talks about how and when did he decide to become an entrepreneur, how did his parents react to his decision. What kept him going after shutting his movie streaming startup called cinema box and then launching Urban Company (formerly Urbanclap).
What his mentors suggest to him while he was about to take the decision. Also a whole lot more on how entrepreneurs can approach investors, and how does he take decisions and maintains their original ideas along with accepting and pivoting according to investor’s directions.
Did you always want to be an entrepreneur?
Urban Company CEO Abhiraj Singh Bhal: in my childhood, I don’t think I had a clear idea of what I wanted to be so I remember there was a phase when I wanted to be a photographer then there was a time when I wanted to be a fighter pilot, so all kinds of notions growing up. But I think by the time I was 15–16, it was clear to me that I want to try to get into IITs so that was I would say the first time I had a goal in my life when I was 15 years old 16 years old and the goal was to try to get into an IIT at that point of time.
I had not thought about what I’m going to do with my life post engineering once at IIT. I think that’s probably the first time when I felt that somewhere down the road in my career, entrepreneurship is worth considering.
I remember one of the alumni events that had happened where I was a volunteer I ended up bumping into and talking to a couple of alumni who had done very well for themselves in the silicon valley working and starting their own business.
I spoke about the challenges and the journey of starting one’s own company with them and at the end of that conversation, you’ve left with encouragement and also this view that regular people start companies it’s not people who are not very different from you so I think there are many nuggets like this through my time at IIT.
Urban Company CEO: I remember one of my professors was the head of the department of electrical engineering he used to mention a couple of times to me that you should start your own company you will do well, you have the knack for entrepreneurship, I don’t know why he said it.
So I think there were some small instances like this a competition I remember having participated in one of them and we stood third in the country amongst many colleges. I think just the nature of IIT and the system is very entrepreneurial students do everything on their own from managing the hostels to managing academics to managing sports health cultural activities.
Urban Company CEO: IIT is a very entrepreneurial university I would say students have a large say in how the universities run probably more than any other university globally. I think it does create an entrepreneurial mindset even then I would say when I was graduating from IIT it wasn’t like I felt that hey I want to be an entrepreneur then I went to IIM-Ahmedabad after IIT Kanpur.
I think that this was the first time I started to seriously think about entrepreneurship. I remember in my interview with the Boston consulting group which was my first employer when I was asked to join BCG I said that I want to be an entrepreneur three years down the road and BCG will give me the right launchpad in terms of just the global exposure the structured thinking problem-solving.
Come 2011 when I graduated from IIM and joined BCG I think that’s when started about two years I would say where I started to talk about ideas and different types of companies that can get created with my now co-founder Varun. He and I had gone to IIT together and we were good friends at IIT we were batch mates wing mates so lots of shared history and shared camaraderie. I started to talk to him about what could we do together and that conversation in its entirety would have lasted about two years before we finally decided to get the wheels moving on starting our own company so from 2011 to 2013.
I would say this was the phase of just conversations warming up to the idea of doing our own thing and then come 2013 is when we started to get the wheels moving started to think about an idea eventually left BCG and got started
Was it difficult to convince your parents about your career choice of pursuing entrepreneurship?
Urban Company CEO Abhiraj Bhal: we should differentiate between convincing them versus them agreeing to the decision so I think my parents did not think it was the right thing to do but they were also mature enough to say that it wasn’t their place to take that decision for me.
Urban Company CEO: So they told me that they felt that I was not being smart and I was not being wise in making this decision. But at the same time, I think they were mature enough to acknowledge that their worldview is limited and my worldview may be broader given my exposure.
And therefore even when they mentioned this to me that they don’t think it’s a great idea to start my own company in the same breath they mentioned that said it’s up to you what you want to do and you should follow your instinct and follow your judgment.
Urban Company CEO: That has pretty much been the way they have been I would say with me for most of their lifeless prescriptive laying down the options telling me what they think is right or wrong but then letting me decide what’s in my best interest. I think that was the case for the choice to go to an engineering school which engineering college whether I should do a job or do an MBA what type of job all of these things have been decisions which in my life at least I have taken and of course, my parents have been there to counsel me.
I always think of their counsel as important but at the same time it’s one data point in many it’s an important data point but it’s not the only data point for most entrepreneurs. If you’re going to take such an important plunge this is not even like if you have to convince your parents and that’s one of the top things amongst many things that need to be done then any way you shouldn’t start you’re not cut off for it. Yes, none of them indeed come from an entrepreneurial background but that’s also India. India is waking up to real entrepreneurship my parents joined the workforce in the 70s and the early 80s so this was the pre-liberalization era and consequently, the number of jobs back then that were available to them were fewer.
Society was structured in a different way government service and government jobs were considered to be safe secure high quality. They went through that as one generation right so that their kids don’t have to necessarily I mean government jobs are still considered for a certain strata society in India as the best thing that could ever happen. But many of us were very fortunate to be born in an India that was beyond the shackles of licensed routes born into liberalized India and we were born in India where our parents gave us wings right they gave us education they gave us imagination and India gave us the opportunity and that education imagination and opportunity like it can come together if you have the wings to create beautiful things. Even if my father had all the education and his father gave him all the imagination India didn’t have the opportunity but he was entering the workforce not at least not as much. It’s not to say that great entrepreneurs do not emerge in that India outliers will create greatness regardless of the environment right but we can’t rely on outliers to build a great country.
Urban Company CEO: We have to you have to create an environment where you don’t have to be an outlier to succeed and that wasn’t necessarily true in my dad’s generation. But it is true for this generation today if you are a graduate or sometimes not even a graduate just 12th pass and you have the right ambition you have the right mindset you have the right thought process you can create. And look at Ritesh Agarwal (CEO of Oyo rooms) and what he’s created with Oyo rooms. It’s the greatest example right of what is possible in India of today so yeah I think although all of that came together.
What kept you going between cinema box and Urban Company?
Abhiraj Bhal Urbanclap founder:
For most entrepreneurs the first idea is generally not going to be a successful idea it’s almost like a rite of passage to be able to get over your first idea so I think some are lucky and some get it right.
We were not so there was an idea in an adjacent space that Varun and I were drawing with for a few months. The specifics on the ideas are not very important I think what is important is that it was visible and evident to us a few months into that company that this was not going to be successful. And it wasn’t the kind of company that we had set out to create it was just a large highly impactful company.
This was going to be at best a small lifestyle company and there’s nothing wrong with building a small business or a lifestyle business.
But every entrepreneur has to be very clear about what is the reason they are starting. Is the reason that they are starting because they want to work for themselves is the reason that they’re starting because want to make a lot of money is the reason that they’re starting because they want to create a very large company with a very large impact and outcome.
All of us have different reasons for the reason was first and foremost large impact large companies large output large being the key operative right global impact very large company creates touches millions of lives.
Eventually becomes a publicly listed publicly traded company becomes an institution not to itself that was the core motivation that was 80% and then, of course, we wanted to in the process to create wealth for all our stakeholders and ourselves. That wasn’t going to happen with the first half that realization was what I think in the few months that we spent on that idea we never questioned this core view that is this going to be a large outcome until we did and when we did it then became clear to us that it was not and there were tell-tale signs around us who have the question but we kept delaying the questioning and anyways it was it’s not 0ossible to not read the writing on the wall after a point so finally we did read it and then it was clear to us that this wasn’t going to be a great outcome, and so we closed the company.
It might seem like it was a tough decision to take and a very difficult decision to bounce back from and make no mistake about it was a difficult decision but it wasn’t very difficult to take because for us the reason we were making that decision was that we thought that we wanted to build something bigger even more impactful so this wasn’t cutting it and consequently the decision seemed straightforward.
The decision was then taken and the bounce-back means there was nothing to bounce back the decision was taken to build something larger so we kind of almost felt liberated that we were no longer tied down by something which even in the best-case scenario would be small.
So I think that was it wasn’t like we spent a lot of time agonizing with that decision happened and then we moved on we took time to decide to pursue our idea that took time after that because now we were right so we almost spent a few months just arriving at the decision.
Probably because we realize the demerits of jumping into something too busy the first time. So we spend at least three to four months looking for different ideas doing pilots in the market.
Talking to suppliers talking, to customers, researching ideas across the world, and being more deliberate, and more thought, through in our second start-up and that’s when we thought at that point time my third co-founder Raghav Chandra also joined us.
Urban Company CEO: He had shut down his company buggy. in and so the three of us started to brainstorm on what we do together and that brainstorming and market research and supplier discussions customers discussions global landscape global internet landscaping all of that led to us finally zeroing in on the idea of Urban Company which as back then was called UrbanClap.
How did you deal with societal pressure after your first venture didn’t work out?
go on nobody’s going to remember your failed startup anyway if it succeeds that’s the only thing that people remember otherwise, nobody’s going to remember so what societal pressures if at all there’s the pressure when you become successful then there’s some societal pressure on how should you behave yourself and what do you represent and your views will be looked at with a magnifying glass like if you’re a small company nobody knows about you nobody except you cares about it so if it’s fair to move on because nobody else cares. I think we tend to overthink what other people will say in India, the reality is nobody cares.
How important is a mentor when you’re building a startup
Abhiraj Bhal Urbanclap CEO:
So this was way back in 2014 we had been agonizing over the idea of Urban Company we finally put it all together on a piece of paper, the PowerPoint presentation as consultants can often do and took it to our mentor and we walked him through all slides he’s like great and then the presentation ended and the only the feedback he was giving us was great so we looked at him almost like he’s going to tell us something he’s like this looks great when are you starting and we were like we don’t know whether this is the right idea and should we start here?
Or we don’t like you’re almost looking for that validation is it enough research like should just get started with it so he’s like what this is like what are you waiting for. So just go for it and that was like the point I think that when we said okay so let’s just go for it sometimes you need that small push.
I don’t even think Rohit may have consciously realized that he was giving us that push but sometimes as a founding group because it’s the first time you’re doing something you’re not very clear on should we look at other ideas should we research this a bit more so that external validation helps. Then it’s just ‘go and start’ remember even when we were looking at starting our own company there was a period when we met a couple of people and we said yeah how should we think about starting our own company and the answer was just to go and start. Great entrepreneurs can marry good business judgment sound business logic analysis intelligence with strong courage cut fearlessness right and I think that’s the essence that’s why all of us are not entrepreneurs because there’s a certain amount of the fearlessness that is needed to go down that uncharted path.
Tell us about your experience approaching investors for the Urban Company
Abhiraj Bhal Urban Company CEO:
Like the first time, we had an investor conversation we were in the second company Urban Company. I think in investor conversations investors are looking to back entrepreneurs who believe in themselves who are pursuing large opportunities and are pursuing it with vision, on conviction and boldness, and who are ready to give multiple years of their life seven eight-ten years of their life at least to building something truly large.
So I think that’s what investors are looking for and many times I get asked this question what should you do to get investors on board?
I think the answer is just to build a good company. Investors don’t need to be convinced if you are building a good company that can become a large truly impactful company then investors and capital will chase you. But if you’re not then you will chase capital and investors think the focus should always be on the fundamentals which are building a good company
Urban Company CEO: For the long haul and then it’s a function of cycles and capital and sometimes in upcycles, it’ll be easy to raise capital and sometimes in down cycles, it may not be as straightforward but at the end of the day it’s the fundamentals that matter after raising funds,
Do you think start-ups should pivot their ideas as per investors’ direction?
Abhiraj Bhal Urban Company CEO:
If you have raised capital for some other idea and you want to pivot that idea to something else it is very important as a founder to carry your investors along.
This is not going to be something that you will never encounter in your company almost every founder will encounter this because every idea pivots and, most good investors also know they’ve been through many companies they know that ideas change ideas pivot some of the best companies did not start the same avatar as they are today.
If you look at slack was a gaming company and the chat tool that gamers used to use on one of their games became so interesting that they morphed it into slack so the investor would invest in the gaming company, needless to say, slack has made a kill so sometimes investors are also very open to pivoting and trying out different things.
But as a founder, it’s your responsibility to explain. It’s your fiduciary responsibility to explain to them and try to take them along and generally, if you are coming from first principles if there are certain trends you’re seeing in the market or you have certain conviction like investors should be ready to back you and in case they don’t then you have to align with them when you have to convince them.
As I said one of your roles as a founder is constant convincing it’s never going to get over so your teams your co-founders your investors can’t shy like I don’t think you can say it’s my way or the highway. I don’t think that works, this goes back to a different topic where some people say I want to be a founder because I don’t work for myself I think that freedom gets taken away from you, you don’t work for yourself you work for a wide array of stakeholders and that’s very important to constantly remember. The founder works for himself right over the period founders work for investors they work for employees they work for other shareholders they work for suppliers they work for customers more than anything else.
So as a founder you work for many people, therefore, your ability to convince many people, sell your vision to them get them onboard is almost I would say critical to your long-term success.
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Urban Company was recently in news announcing its third and largest ESOP sale of USD 5 million $. And not having any job or pay cuts and continued having several job openings even in the covid-19 travel restrictions. It has recently raised 50 million in funding rounds from steadview capital and some other investors.
Watch the entire video interview between Urban Company CEO Abhiraj Bhal and Startup India.
Some frequently asked questions around Urban Company CEO and the organization —
Who is the owner of Urban company?
Abhiraj Bhal is the CEO of Urban Company. Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan & Raghav Chandra started Urban Clap in November 2014, in early 2020 UrbanClap was rebranded to Urban Company.
Is Urban company Indian?
Yes, Urban Company is Indian. Abhiraj Bhal an IIT-K and IIM-A alum along with Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra co-founded Urban Company in November 2014. It is backed by VY capital, Saif Partners, Ratan Tata and many more such investors.
It operates in several Indian cities and some international markets as well.
Is the Urban company profitable?
Urban Company FY20 revenue up 103% with marginal Covid impact; diversifies revenue streams. Source — Financial Express.
“We are not talking about losses as of now. We changed to the new accounting standard and so our auditors want to go through the entire audit process once and be more confident before updating it. It will be completed in the next few months,” Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Co-founder, Urban Company told Financial Express Online.
Is Urban Company A Chinese app?
No Urban Company is not a Chinese app. It was launched by Abhiraj Bhal an IIT-K and IIM-A graduate along with Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra.
