Sanchit Thakur is the founder and CEO of Illuminz, a web design and development agency, which has experienced remarkable year over year growth and progresses to attract the interest of worldwide brands who enlist them to help produce websites and applications.
Growing up, he would spend most of his free time reading and daydreaming.
When he started programming, he liked the idea that he could design and program his own world. He would see how wonderful it is to be an Entrepreneur. With an ambitious childhood, he remembers that his first program was finding poems from different authors and was recognised as a perfect design by friends.
He studied further deeply and liked creating User Interfaces. Then, web technologies started getting exciting and on exploring them further, he loved creating websites. The idea about starting a company came when a friend approached him for bidding in a Govt. contract. He researched well and presented his ideas to a Govt. agency and got the contract. That gave a great boost to the confidence.
Presently, Illuminz is a team of 50 web experts who work on global design and development projects on a daily basis.
Where did the idea for company name come from?
One day while reading a book: Da Vinci Code By Robert Langdon, I found the word Illuminati, which was the inspiration for the company’s name. I wanted to show that we are a team of illuminated people. That’s how Illuminz was born and started as a successful company/venture.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
To make anything productive, organising things is the key, along with practising your art daily. My day starts by getting up early, checking emails, responding to most important ones and going to play badminton for fitness. It charges me up for the day!
I get the most productivity out of each day. It is about staying focused, actively engage with clients and teammates. I love short-meetings as I feel closer to everyone by socialising with them. Playing a game of cards (mostly Sweep), or a few minutes on Xbox is a routine. After taking up new challenges every day in office, I leave for home to be with my lovely wife.
How do you bring ideas to life?
In my Experience Ideas come to life when you are well learnt and have the desire to do what is best for your plans. With the extremely talented team I have, I have been successful in bringing many ideas alive. Current affairs or reading news is not in my daily list, but reading technology blogs keep me updated with my world.
I am a dreamer, having dreams bring you closer to your destination. It’s a must to have a great bunch of colleagues who have same dreams as you have.
What’s one trend that really excites you?
It’s not a trend, but emerging technologies with unlimited possibilities. A new programming language or when someone comes up with a great design idea for Mobile and Web. We’re really excited about the application of these new technologies on our projects to further improve the human experience is something that excites us very much.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
Hmm. I think it is my focus on attention to details when it comes to work. It keeps me set standards on our work.
What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?
I don’t think I ever had a bad job. We enjoy our work and love what we do here at Illuminz.
If you were to start again, what would you do differently?
Hiring the best people from the start, which we now have! If we had it from the start, we would have achieved a lot more by now. So taking the time to step back and considering how you can make improvements, surely helps.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Embracing the highest level of ethics – This has enabled us to gain an extreme amount of trust with our clients. I would recommend Practise daily. Practice patience, practise your art and practise to be a winner.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business? Please explain how.
I have put a lot of focus on quality and speed. Our core business philosophy revolves around the ideas of increased efficiency and a better customer experience. We have created high standards of our work in design and programming, that helped us win many clients over the years and major thing is our ability to communicate well and managed expectations on projects with team and clients, both.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
I wouldn’t call it a failure, but certainly some challenges. When I started the company, in about 3 months, we had a difficult time like every startup goes through. It was recession worldwide and projects were less. But, I love taking challenges and overcame this extreme challenge by handling sales aggressively and single-handedly and got us a great number of projects which cheered the team and helped us be highly successfully thereafter. I’m lucky to have such an amazing team. All the experiences have led me to this point, and I’m proud of where Illuminz is headed!
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
I have a great business idea for fellow readers. Many ideas for successful businesses come out of great problems, and the major problem right now for many App development companies and clients is that they don’t have a great testing platform for iOS apps. Yes, Apple has test flight and there are a few more like HockeyApp, but none of them is perfect and easy to maintain. Also, versioning is a pain. So, if someone can build a smart platform for iOS testing they would do great benefit for a worldwide community. All the best!
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
I subscribed to great Udemy courses for a few technologies and strategies. I think if you spend on learning in forms of books, podcasts or books they do a great deal for you.
What software and web services do you use? What do you love about them?
Invision App:
Must have for a design team to collaborate on their ideas.
Asana:
A good Project management system.
Flipboard and Pinterest:
Keep you up to date with what’s new and let you bookmark it for inspiration.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
One book that I recommend is Creativity Inc.! This book gives insight into how to deal with challenges practically. An amazing read!
What people have influenced your thinking and might be of interest to others?
Steve Jobs,
Warren Buffet,
Steve Wozniak,
Bill Gates,
Ashoka,
Leonardo DiCaprio.
Gautam Buddha.
Connect:
ILLUMINZ on Facebook:
ILLUMINZ on Twitter: @illuminz
ILLUMINZ on Google+:
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.