Interview with Namit Nangia of Lifemojo.com

This is our first interview in this section of SutraBlog.com.We will try to keep these interviews as short and concise as possible, in order to give you a quick read into the thoughts/views of Entrepreneurs, Managers, and HR professionals from India.

In the hot seat: Namit Nangia, CEO LifeMojo.com

“Namit did his BE Computer Science from NSIT Delhi, graduated in 2004 and joined Trilogy. Worked there for 2.5 years and then moved on to start his first venture DigitalStrait  (now known as MyDuniya). He tried his luck for 4 months and joined FlightRaja (now known as Via) to learn the ropes of the startup world. Left FlightRaja in May 2008 and started LifeMojo.”

Here is the interview below, happy reading.

1. Give us a quick pitch about your Startup and the problem you’re trying to solve.
LifeMojo is a wellness company helping individuals and companies live a healthier life. Indians are health conscious now and in today’s busy life people find is difficult to keep their lifestyles healthy. LifeMojo helps people to eat right, slip workouts in their busy lives and achieve their wellness goals.

2. What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced while starting up, so far? How did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge that we faced was to design an offering (the right mix and frequency of healthcare professionals’ interactions). We hired the best healthcare experts around and formulated the mix. We kept asking our customers what they want and implemented their advice at every step of our growth.

3. Do you have a defined Organizational Culture? If yes, how would you define it?
For us, Organizational Culture (rather home grown cult) is centred on the thought “How do I help the customer live better”.

4. As a startup without an “HR” department, how do you manage HR? If possible, give example(s) of situations, to help us understand better.
The scale we are at (17 people) we do not have many issues. We keep a friendly environment in the office (which is common for tech companies but unheard of in healthcare companies), we try to ensure that we do not hire misfits and if there are any issues we resolve them by talking in public (not private). This helps us ensure that everyone know and the issue never gets raised again.

5. What do you prefer – Experience and/or Talent? Why?
I prefer passion for “helping others” and knowledge which could be because of prior experience or your talent. For our service, unless you have that, you cannot keep up with the quality of service standards LifeMojo has set.

6. When hiring, what strategies do you use to attract, train and retain talent?
We prefer to hire through referrals. It sets the expectation right for the new guys coming in. We did the mistake of “painting larger than what we are” picture in front of a couple of new employees, but soon realized, setting the expectation right is the key to retaining talent. To train, we have brilliant experienced healthcare professionals who ensure that before new hires starts working, they are well equipped to handle the job.

7. Tell us about a funny, memorable or learning experience you had while dealing with an HR matter or hiring.
We used to meet potential hires at coffee shops because we didn’t have a nice office. This backfired cause when they joined us, they didn’t like the setup that we had and we ended up wasting some money and time. It was seriously bad for us to hire, wait for a month and then let go within a month. But now when we think about it, it puts a smile on our face (What the hell were we thinking)

8. Can you share some of the biggest lessons you have learned personally and as a founder?
You run an amazing start-up and I am sure you would agree that while doing a start-up, one learns a lot every day. So it is hard to pin point one thing, but I would say, it has been an accelerated learning and exposure to things I never imagined I would ever get in a job.

9. Please share your suggestions, advice or gyan for fellow entrepreneurs.
Listen to your customers. (Despite the common excuse that people use) They DO know what they want! You have to approach them to understand what it is.

Thank you, Namit. All of us from SutraBlog wish you a lot of success ahead, and are sure that you’ll make millions of people healthier, and live longer.