Sep 2019 – Present · 6 yrs 6 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Jan 2019 – Jul 2020 · 1 yr 6 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

• Betterplace is designing a suite of products to directly & indirectly impact the lives of billion+ under-privileged people in India. Media calls us LinkedIn for next billion users and so much more.
• I joined the company in Jan 2019 and now setting up a great team together of designers, developers and product managers. This is a great opportunity for all of us to design for a new class of people with completely different needs and expectations than what we have seen so far and at the same time to significantly impact the billion+ lives positively.
• If you’d like to design or build for real India?
• Write to pravin@betterplace.co.in.

Nov 2015 – May 2018 · 2 yrs 6 mos · India

• This part of my life is called ‘thriving’. We had just experienced an accidental collaboration where there were three participants & there were also three winners. Win-Win-Win. We curiously questioned ourselves if this arrangement can work with us - maybe, it can work with hundreds of design agencies & thousands of freelancers as well? And, this time we will be in center running the show.
• There were lots of questions. The first year we pretty much ran like an agency. Looked deeper into the real world analogies like Uber & Airbnb & later, stumbled upon Gigster who is uber-ising the way software development works. There were our answers.
• We were going to build a fully-automated & intelligent design platform of the future, which combines AI & Top Design Talent. One which simplifies End-to-End process of Hiring > Collaboration > Delivery. One which allows designers to work from anywhere, earn well & deliver quality. One which allows companies to hire designers from anywhere, save well with guaranteed quality. One which could redesign the way people are going to work in the future.
• By 2018, we had delivered over 50+ products via a network of 100+ top designers from India & Outside helping companies like PayTM, UAE-Xchange, Tata, RBL Bank, WeddingWire & many many more.
• While I am gone, everyone at 1thing is working very hard towards their vision of redesigning the future of work.
• Its here:
• https://www.onething.design/

Nov 2013 – Oct 2015 · 1 yr 11 mos · India

• This part of my life is called ‘surviving’. We were left with no money but some experience, learnings & skills. In order to survive, we started a services company as an experiment. The first few months were slow but we stood by each other.
• Out first big account Jabong gave us hope & then many small accounts followed. We were loved by our customers for one key reason. 'We worked on their products as if they are ours'. The belonging came natural to us.
• Our passion for the products, our quality of designs & our need to grow gave us one big collaboration which changed everything. We were designing products for big companies like Micromax, Disney, Matrix, ABP news, Askme & fast growing startups like Travel Triangle (MakeMyTrip's competition) & Zoto (PayTM of Nigeria).
• It gave us exposure, money & insights with which we were going to build the kind of model never tried by anyone in the agency business before.
• Rejecting the acquihire offer & discontinuing our collaboration - we went ahead to cofound 1thing.

Dec 2012 – Dec 2014 · 2 yrs · India

• Imagine a world where you can gather things you are reading, watching & learning from on the internet at one place, topic-wise, as you are doing it, into books. Books which can also be followed & read by others. Likewise, you can follow & read other people’s books.
• We wanted the whole internet to organize itself for you the way you want. A combination of Medium as a beautiful place to create & curate, Pinterest to discover & organize & Udemy for the business model.
• We were doing good. We had raised good money, we had a solid technology team & a great product. Just that we had no real business direction. We rather had a constant pressure on the product & tech team for new features. We were building to prove ourselves instead of getting somewhere.
• I could see it heading the Placesso’s fate. First the tech team left & then I. I had worked very hard for last 3 years on both Placesso & Thirstt. Maybe, it’s one bad deal. Maybe, I could’ve done better. Whatever be the reason - I had failed & big.

Aug 2012 – Sep 2013 · 1 yr 1 mo · India

• Next 1-2 months, we’d work in double shifts, sleep for 4-5 hours day. We’d sketch out multiple versions of what our product would work like.
• Being the sufferers ourselves & carrying an empathy for the sufferers of daily commute of 2-4 hours back & forth office in scorching sun, heavy rains or chilly winters of Delhi not forgetting the traffic jams - we wanted to take the commuting experience to a whole new level with convenience, cost-saving & in the company of one another.
• It was our first attempt at building a company. Didn’t seem like one. We user-tested our sketches & arrived at the final version. Hired a designer, a bunch of developers & after many failed attempts - we also managed to raise a small angel round. There was one catch though. I’d have to barter a part of my time on our investor’s product.
• This part of my life is called ‘failing’ for the deal we just made. We ran short on time & later on, we ran short on money.