Ankit Singh

Ankit Singh is a skilled entrepreneur, who has crafted a niche for himself at such a young age. He is a COO and Founder of Techugo. Apart from holding expertise in business operations, he has a keen interest in sharing knowledge about mobile app development through his writing skills. Apart from sailing his business to 4 different countries; India, USA, Canada & UAE, he has catered the app development services with his team to Fortune 200, Global 2000 companies, along with some of the most promising startups as well. He started his career at a very young age and decided to move ahead with a platform that can give a voice to talent. He started his journey with 3 employees including him, and today he has expanded his company in 4 global locations. His vision is super-futuristic, and every app solution that his team builds is developed on the lines of personalized user-experience, to give something EXTRA & DIFFERENT compared to the existing app solutions. His constant urge to bring a unique curve to the app market has led different businesses to scale ahead with an engaging app solution. Apart from technology, he has got a knack for writing as well, his writing pieces reflect the most interesting dosage of technology through his unique voice.

Where did the idea for Techugo come from?

I am from Varanasi and brought up in a joint working-class family, where integrity towards the work plays the utmost importance. I too had made up my mind to join a big MNC after completing my Engineering in Electronics, but sooner the campus interviews started to take place, I was appalled to see the reality of the so-called MNCs, where only students who could present themselves well, got selected, and many of my seniors, despite being the toppers, were not given the chance, and they ended up serving in the industries which never served their expertise.

I found it wrong and felt the talent got wasted, but I was told that companies don’t want to compromise their quality of resources, even if something more deserving would lose the game.

This made me made up my mind that someday I would do something for such professionals, who would get the relevant platform to showcase their skills. This was proven to be a CURVE point in my life, where I decided to give a voice to talent and skills. And this is how Techugo came into existence.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

Entrepreneurship comes with unsaid rules, where too many scheduled meetings, and then there are the emails flying into your inbox so fast you barely have time to look at them. But this is where I plan and prioritize my tasks. My idea of being productive is very simple, where I switch from a ‘busy mindset’ to a ‘result-oriented mindset.

I start my day early morning, and after prioritizing my tasks for the day, the next think on my schedule is to make time to encourage my people, do check-ins and make sure they’re aligned with their goals. I ensure they are on the right path to achieve what they aspire for, and ask questions and deep dive into what they dream about in their hearts.

How do you bring ideas to life?

Our clients come up with an idea as basic input. Our Business Analysts listen to that idea, understand the requirement, and based on the same we conduct our researches with the technical feasibility of concept and success ratio of that concept. We prepare a report and share the same with our clients.

As a next step, we design and develop a complete Scope of Work around the basic idea of the client and share the same with him/her for feedback and advice. Once the scope gets finalized we give it a graphic form by developing wireframes of application depicting complete flow and understanding of the project and then starts design and development.

So, our process keeps our clients in complete sync with every bit and byte we are doing a project and they always have the flexibility to come up with their suggestions and feedback at every point.

What’s one trend that excites you?

I am simply astonished to see Artificial Intelligence making its presence in every possible sector around, be it marketing, customer service, penetrative testing, predictive analysis, inventory management, security, data management, and productivity. This technology trend is counting big on the numbers.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

For me, the path to success lies in evolution, whether it is the evolution of ideas, services, and products or technology. Being an entrepreneur I possess an open mind and eagerness to learn new things. I am not headstrong and stubborn when it comes to choosing other options, and always welcome ideas. My company culture is “flat, open and creative,” and we don’t have any communication-mediator or a barrier between staff and management executives.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I would advise my younger self to RESPOND rather than REACT to things. Take a deep breath, think things through, and respond after careful thought and consideration of the options available to you.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

I personally feel failure happens to make us better and improve our life. They let us reach new understandings and epiphanies on life, love, business, and the people all around us.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Learn from your mistakes, reflect and accept the failure, but revisit your passion and keep pursuing your goals no matter what. There are countless successful people in the world today who are only enjoying success because they decided to push past the inevitable bleakness of failure, and am also one of them.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

I work only on one philosophy of “Honesty Infused within the Passion towards the work”. We spree profoundly into our client’s business to comprehend their business segment, their target, and their business threats. We take the client’s idea and apply our experience in order to reach their project’s objectives. We understand financial constraints, so we keep the project on budget and meet the deadlines. Also, we don’t stop at developing the app; we are committed to a fruitful dispatch in the application stores, marketing, and analytics thereafter. Our philosophy for the business is, we never work for the client but we work WITH the client. Once we initiate the project, the client becomes an integral part of our team and can suggest and share his opinions about the ongoing project, without any hassle.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

Well, for me it was more a learning than a solid mistake, as I realized much earlier. During my initial days, I tried to do most of the things by myself, as there was manpower crunch and lack of experience as well. A good entrepreneur must know how to delegate else it becomes a recipe for disaster.

Within a month only, I was doing multiple things which remained incomplete and the consequences were harsh, therefore I learned from my mentors and friends that delegating different tasks to others can help you make better use of your time and put yourself in the best position possible, to do your best work possible.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

My whole-hearted preferred idea is to start investing in education sector, that how students are going to learn in this pandemic…I know there are multiple edutech solutions existing in the market currently, however not all offer everything under the sun, some have notes taking feature, some video feature, some have text messages, I find a very rare of the app solutions being a full-fledged platform. Just for an instance; a better version of zoom call which includes notes as well. Trust me this is where it will make a better platform for the users, as they don’t have to run errands to meet the online learning needs. In near future, Education apps are going to grow out of bounds, hence picking this business idea, where app has features and functionalities of Zoom app, with the notes taking functionality, will certainly change the game.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

It is a personal aspect, wherein I have not purchased but rather made an investment, and that is ‘Dream Diary’. Here, I have started writing my dreams and trying to fulfill each and everything what I have written. It’s my personal goal, which I am achieving to grow.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

Nothing beats the combo of Zoho and Excel for me. I along with my team use these two tools for assigning, tracking, escalating and reporting the project development among the team and as well as with the client, so they don’t have to go to different contacts to get the update, but at one place they can leave their comments and mark the start and end time to estimate the efforts invested in a particular feature or R&D for a new app concept.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

The Greatest Salesman in the World – OGMandino. The reason I chose this book is all due to the fact that this book reflects the philosophy of salesmanship and success. And gives a clear message that Learn from what went wrong the last time around but don’t let it pile up on your mind. Every coming day brings with itself the opportunity to do things better.

What is your favorite quote?

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!

Key Learnings:

• It’s a challenge to locate a service provider who truly meets your business and procurement objectives.
• This can be especially challenging in this competitive era, where anybody calls themselves “experts.”
• That’s the conundrum we try to solve and turn into a bridge between the potential client and their requirement.