Amit Kumar Agarwal - Hire Better People than Yourself (Founder and CEO - Nobroker.com, Series D Company)

Handling setbacks is always difficult but over years, I have realized that the sooner you are able to leave emotions aside and look at the problem purely from an analytical and rational point of view, the faster you move towards the solution.

Tell us about your background, upbringing, and journey.

I was born in a small town called Gonda in India. I shifted schools and cities every couple of years due to my father's civil servant job. I was able to crack the toughest Indian examinations for engineering and management. 

Hence I studied engineering from IIT Kanpur and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. After that, I worked for more than a decade in management consulting in PricewaterhouseCoopers and led a strategy role in ANZ bank.


When & how did you get clarity on what you wanted to do and how did this idea come to you?

This was an idea thought of by my cofounder Saurabh. All three of us co-founders realized that paying high brokerage in return for poor customer service is unfair. Unlike western countries, Indian brokers are not bound by any regulations, which has resulted in a lot of fly-by-night operators fleecing customers. 

We felt that Indian classifieds have ended up enabling brokers, so why should we not create a transactional C2C marketplace. This is how NoBroker.com was founded. Today we have 12 million cumulative customers spread across 6 major Indian cities. We add 400,000 new customers and post 250,000 properties per month.


What have been your biggest challenges as a Founder CEO & what advice would you give to others to avoid them?

Challenges keep on changing as the company becomes bigger. Ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction, seeding new business verticals, attracting investors, and creating future leaders in the team have remained my biggest priority. My advice to others would be to continuously hire better people than yourself and then giving them a high level of freedom and accountability.

                                

What is your advice to an early-stage founder looking to build an ESOP program today?

ESOP program should have substantial weightage. My advice would be to not go overboard in terms of allocating options to initial employees. As a company becomes bigger, the need to have outstanding people increases, and there should be sufficient options left in the pool to attract and award them


What is your view on implementing ESOP buybacks and liquidity programs in startups?

I am a strong proponent of ensuring liquidity programs in ESOPs. We have done it and the employee response has been amazing. Earlier, no one truly understood the power of ESOPs but once you start with liquidity events, people understand that this is the path of wealth creation.

Qapita helps founders, CFOs and CHROs to organize their equity ownership record at one place making it the single source of truth. You can use Qapita to run scenarios, issue ESOPs and communicate their value to employees, run buyback or liquidity programs and engage with your employees effectively. Do click here for a demo. 

When should one consider raising funds, according to you is the right time?

I think it depends on the type of industry in which you are operating. If you can afford to not dilute, then it is better to wait. More often than not, it makes sense to create MVP ( minimum viable product) and accelerate business by raising funds. 

Nowadays, in many tech-based segments, capital acts as an entry barrier. So it makes sense to raise funds for the next 24 to 36 months and attempt to raise funds in such a way that runway seldom reduces to less than 12 months.

                  

What does your typical day look like and how do you handle setbacks?

My typical days are spent looking at our previous day and monthly numbers and attending review sessions for one of the business verticals. I keep time vacant for many impromptu conversations with sales and servicing guys, to foster innovation and creative brainstorming. 

Handling setbacks is always difficult but over years, I have realized that the sooner you are able to leave emotions aside and look at the problem purely from an analytical and rational point of view, the faster you move towards the solution.


Which is your favorite book and why?

My favorite book is " The reluctant billionaire". This is based on the life of Dileep Sanghvi who was a non-science graduate with little money. He then became the owner of one of the world's largest pharma companies based on his intellect and perseverance. His journey has a huge amount of learnings for entrepreneurs like me.