Ketan Pande

Never compare yourself to others, especially in your tough times. Because this not only makes you feel worthless, but it also makes you follow others without thinking about your capabilities and interest.

 

A millennial entrepreneur, Ketan Pande, is the founder of GoodVitae, a platform for those who dare to dream, where successful entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and keynote speakers share their expertise and life advice. An engineer by background, Ketan Pande loves to solve find opportunities in the problem. He is an avid reader and writer, who is a published author on top publications like Hubspot, Thrive Global, Addicted2Success, and many more. Also, his expertise is featured on blogs of a big organization like G2 crowd, ShareThis, BestCompany etc. And a wildlife enthusiast and experienced birder, he believes in learning from mother nature

Where did the idea for GoodVitae come from?

I always excelled in my academics and got what I wanted. But when my college days were over and after doing a job, I thought of starting my business, and that’s when I faced the first failure of my life, and it was literally heartbreaking. I didn’t know what to do, as there was no one to guide me and this failure made me think about the number of individuals like me, who failed in life while pursuing their dreams. Thus, I started GoodVitae, with a mission to empower people who dare to dream.

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

I start the day early; I wake up at 6 am and follow a Yoga routine to have a positive start with a calm mind. Then after reviewing my schedule of the day, I start working at 9 am, and I work till 5 pm with breaks in between. And let me tell you a secret; during the working hours; you do feel a bit sleepy. Thus I respect my body signals and take a power nap of 20 minutes. This small habit freshens my mind again and keeps me going

How do you bring ideas to life?

If an idea comes to my mind, I first apply it on a pilot scale and seek advice from people who are just like my readers, the group consisting of close friends and relatives. After working on there suggestion, I apply it on a mass scale; then after a week through email outreach campaign, I ask my users to give feedback. Thus, I follow Apply-Feedback-Improve cycle to fresh ideas.

What’s one trend that excites you?

India is the second largest online market worldwide, and it will become a country with 666.6 million internet users by 2023. Thus, the growth rate is exponential, and being a digital entrepreneur, it gives me an opportunity to increase my reader base with each passing day.

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

Spending a few hours of Sunday morning in woodlands adjoining cities without any electronic device. I have also got into the habit of bird watching. Thus I don’t worry about the work and enjoy the pure atmosphere and present; this helps me in avoiding burnout and break the monotony of the routine, which in turn improves my productivity.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Never compare yourself to others, especially in your tough times. Because this not only makes you feel worthless, but it also makes you follow others without thinking about your capabilities and interest.

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

Planning is important, but spending too much time on it is just a waste of time. No plan is future proof, and you can’t make a 100% successful plan. Thus, it’s better to plan minimum, spend more time on execution, learn from real-time failures and mistakes, and make changes.

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

Reading the reason why I have started on a daily basis. Also reading the ultimate business goal on a daily basis. You sometimes drift from the reason behind your company, thus reading it on a daily basis keeps you on track and motivates you in tough times.

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

One strategy that has helped me in growing my business is that I started projecting the reason behind the creation of the platform and not the content inside the platform. For example, in the early stages, I used to market with this sentence, ‘Platform where life advice and entrepreneurial tips are shared.’ This created very less impact; as there are many people doing the same. Thus, I scraped it, and started marketing, ‘Platform for those who dare to dream’, this instantly creates a bond with people who want to follow their passion and seek guidance for it.

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

In the very early stages of my platform; I applied for Google Adsense to open a revenue generation source. But it was not easy my application got rejected for almost 11 times, before getting accepted. How did I overcome it? The answer is simple, I made changes, experimented some new features, again applied for the Adsense. I repeated it 11 times, before getting accepted. Though I felt very bad all the 11 times, after acceptance, I realised that the amount of improvement that I have done through these rejections.

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

Cleaning services. Most people are willing to spend money if someone is available to clean their home or property on a daily basis. Thus, if you are able to start cleaning service with a subscription-based revenue model, then there is a huge scope for you. Also, the capital cost is less, as you can start it with MVP.

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

Though it not uncommon to spend money on the business that you run on a daily basis; the best $100 that I spent recently was on buying water pots for birds to distribute it for free in people in the adjacent area. Summer has come, and heat is scorching. Thus natural water sources are getting scarce. Thus through a friend’s NGO, I distributed water pot, so that no bird die due to heat. You will ask, ‘How does it help your business?’ I will say, when you do good, you generate a positive vibe inside you. And I think there is no doubt that positive vibes are boon for an entrepreneur. Also, it motivates me to work more, so that I can do such good deeds frequently.

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

Egg timer. It’s the best free web service that a person can use to stay productive. On egg-timer, there are various functions of which I use the Pomodoro technique. It’s a productivity technique in which you have to divide your work into sessions, and in each session of 30 minutes, you have to work for 25 minutes and take a break for 5 minutes. Thus, at the start of the day, you can assign each session of the day with a task, plus it avoids monotony in the work and lessens the distraction.

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

I am an avid reader of non-fictional books related to business, management, and personality development. One book which is quite underrated and should be read by every person is Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed. It’s a very amazing book which has given a fresh approach to the cliche phrase, ‘Learn from your failures’. It has shared why Airline Industry has a high success rate and how you can adopt certain habits to be open to learning from failures. Also, it has shared facts and the scientific evidence behind failures.

What is your favorite quote?

“I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and tell me, ‘I love you.’ … There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.” – Maya Angelou

Key Learnings:

• Never compare yourself to others in tough times, you may end up taking wrong decisions
• Take rest, avoid monotony in the work. Improving productivity doesn’t mean you have to work continuously. Listen to your body messages.
• Always tell the people the reason behind your product or service, this creates a bond with them
• When you do good to others, you generate a positive vibe inside you.

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