Pranay Chulet: The inspiring journey of the founder and CEO of Quikr
1. www.csrajivbajaj.com
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THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“We are all born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be
to give wings to this fire and fill the world with the glow of its
goodness...”
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Date: 08th
December, 2016
2. www.csrajivbajaj.com
Pranay Chulet
Co-founder & CEO, Quikr
An IIT Delhi and an IIM Calcutta alumni, Pranay Chulet founded the Kijiji
portal which was later re-christened as Quikr – and has now become the
largest online and mobile classifieds portal of India. Quikr is supported by
Matrix Partners India, Omidyar Network, Norwest Venture Partners and eBay
Inc.
Success did not come easy to Chulet. He resided in Dariba in Rajasthan. He has
been a pioneer in several fields right from the beginning – for instance, he
studied in a Kendriya Vidyalaya and was the first one from his school to ever appear and clear the IIT
entrance examination. After having studied chemical engineering at IIT, Chulet then proceeded to IIM for
an MBA.
Career
He began his career, soon after he completed his graduation from IIM-C! Very few are aware that Procter & Gamble
was his first job. He had joined in as a brand management executive. But this stint didn’t go on for long and he quit in
1997 itself. In the same year, Pranay started working for Mitchell Madison Group as a Management Consultant /
Engagement Manager. His basic job profile was to advice his clients in financial services and media industries.He
worked with the group for almost 3 years, after which in 2000, looking at the Dot Com boom in the environment, he
started his first venture called – Reference Check. Interestingly, it was pretty much similar to his current venture
Quikr. Reference Check was an online medium between Service Providers (Eg: Plumbers, Electrician, etc) and
Consumers. The company eventually got merged with another bigger incubator called Walker Digital! He went on to
work with Walker for a brief period to built and stabilize the company, before he joined PricewaterhouseCoopers
(Associate Partner) and then Booz Allen Hamilton (Principal) in 2002 & 2005, respectively. His primary roles at both
the companies were more or less, advising or consulting their clients from industries like Investment Banking, Media,
etc.
After giving almost 5 years of his life, he even started 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!
Achieving this marvellous feat was not exactly a cake walk for Chulet – initially, his ideas were rejected and he had to
face immense difficulty in finding investors. But he did not give up, even in the face of naysayers. He held on tightly to
his dream and worked his way up step by step.
Achievements
The only classifieds platform to be featured in top ten ‘Best E-commerce Brands in India Amongst Youth’, in
BAV (a Brand Asset Valuator) by Rediffusion-Y&R (2013)
Received the ‘Best Classifieds website of the Year 2012’ award at the WAT Awards (2011 – 2012)
Recognized as ‘one of India’s hottest internet companies for 2012’ by Young Turks Awards (2010 – 2011)
Awarded as selected ‘AlwaysOn Global 250 Winner’ by AlwaysOn (2009 – 2010)
Listed as Red Herring Asia 2010 & Global 2011 Top 100 finalist (2010 – 2011)
Received the Certificate of Appreciation by Harvard Business School (2011 – 2012)
Motivational Source
His story motivates us because he fought against the most dire circumstances and came out bright like a
diamond. The faint hearted would have merely given up or thought such a task to be unachievable. But Chulet
stuck to the task at hand. He did not for a moment let go of his strong vision of creating a start-up which would
target the local community and its needs of buying, selling, renting across several categories – such as mobile
phones, property, employment opportunities and so on.
After having achieved this spectacular success, Chulet did not let it get to his head. He is a humble and down-
to-earth man who has not forgotten his roots – he remembers the hard-work that his father put in, by working in
the mining industry and all the efforts that he, as a student, also made – he studied day and night, despite all
odds. An average person might have discarded such an enterprise, but not Chulet.
One must utilise an opportunity as soon as it appears on the horizon. If one keeps waiting for the ‘right’
circumstances to set in, one is doomed to fail. Chulet acted at the right moment and reaped the fruits of his
labour.